What is the Trinity in the Bible?

Thus we see that there could be no full revelation of God, but through the Son by the Spirit, and thereby of the Father. The full revelation of the one God is only thus - Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. This, this only, is what the one God is, one identity of will and being, so that they are essentially one and one only, yet distinct in willing and acting (and we can distinguish them in willing and acting: hence we commonly speak of persons), yet never willing or acting but in the common will and unity of nature.

So we must be careful in using the terms, first, second and third Persons in the Trinity, not to think there is any difference in importance. The Father is God; the Son is God; the Spirit is God—the Spirit equal in nature and substance to the Father and the Son. If the three Persons of the Godhead are each of them God, it does not follow that there are three Gods. That were impossible. There can be only one God, supreme and unique. Orthodox Christendom believes in three Persons in the Godhead, yet one God, indivisible and unique—the three Persons in the Godhead with one will, one purpose, each sharing to the full every thought and desire and purpose in the minds of the others. We may not, nay cannot, comprehend this. It is a mystery hidden in the Godhead, yet the Godhead is pleased to reveal Itself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Our title at the head of this paper is one such. Yet there is abundance of teaching in the Holy Scriptures that God reveals Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, not three Gods, but a Triune God, though Scripture teaches that the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, yet one God indivisible.

We are speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ as “the Son,” and not of His distinctive glories as “the Son of David,” “the Son of Man” and “the Son of God,” nor even of Him as “the Son of the Father,” but rather of His deity as God the Son. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; yet there are not three Gods, but one God, “God is one” (Gal. 3:20; 1 Tim. 2:5, N.Tr.). Baptism is to the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” we are told in Matthew 28:19. This indicates for us the trinity of Persons in the Godhead, all of whom share in that supreme glory.

Here in this very majestic declaration of the Oneness of the Godhead, care is taken to state it consistently with the truth afterwards revealed concerning the Three Persons of the Godhead—Father, Son and Spirit. These Three Persons, of one Substance, completely united in thought, will, purpose, counsel, are not three Gods, but One God, not a tritheism, but a Holy Trinity. We cannot understand the mystery of all this, but this truth lies at the very foundation of the Christian faith.

The disciples could not fail to realise that He was the Son of the Father. Our Lord spoke much of the Father. “I and My Father are One” (John 10:30), He affirmed, He was ever in communion with the Father. The Father was not the Son. The Son was not the Father. Yet, with the Spirit, they are ONE God, one in purpose, counsel, will, knowledge, movement. It is no wonder that one of the disciples, writing for the rest, could say, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

Whilst it is true that nowhere in Scripture is it asserted in so many words that the Holy Spirit is God, yet the way in which the names of the Father, Son and Spirit are linked together, shows plainly the truth of the Deity of the Spirit with that of the Father and the Son. Believers are baptized “in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost” (Matt. 28:19). Could that formula be employed if it were not that the Spirit is God, as the Father is God and the Son is God? Then there is the charming benediction, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen” (2 Cor. 13:14). One well-known passage we refer to, 1 Corinthians 12:11, where absolute sovereignty, an attribute only proper to Deity, is predicated of the Holy Spirit, “But all these works that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally AS HE WILL.” This is language only proper to God Himself. There is also one very striking passage where the fullest intimation of the Holy Trinity to be found in the Old Testament is given: “Come ye near unto Me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was there am I [a Divine Person] and now the Lord God and His Spirit has sent Me” (Isa. 48:16). (1) The Lord God, (2) His Spirit, (3) Me, three Persons in the Holy Trinity. How often the Lord when on earth spoke of Himself as the SENT One.

When John the Baptist, forerunner of our Lord (Isa. 40:3-5) was baptizing our Lord in the waters of the Jordan, he heard the voice of the Father from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17); and saw the Holy Spirit of God descending like a dove upon Him, the Sent One of the Father. Here we have a most beautiful presentation of the truth of the blessed Trinity—Father, Son and Holy Spirit, ONE GOD.

That there is unity in the Godhead no Christian denies; while he fully believes three Persons in the Godhead, even the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19).

Nor is this truth to be enfeebled in the least degree. He who allows no more in the Godhead than three aspects of one Person is not a Christian, but a deceiver and an antichrist. He does not confess the fully revealed and true God, not the Godhead merely in three characters but in Three Persons; and so distinct that the Father could send the Son (1 John 4:14), and the Holy Ghost descend on that Son in the presence of the Father and in the consciousness of the Son (Mark 1:10-11), as it was even outwardly before man also (John 1:33-34).

2nd. The Lord's words in Matthew speak of the Father as distinct from the Son, thus telling us of plurality of Persons in the Godhead, a truth indicated in the Old Testament (Gen. 19:24; Isaiah 48:16), and fully revealed in the New, wherein we are taught of their number and relative position to each other; viz., the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost (Matt. 28:19). The Son is, and must as Son be, distinct from the Father, as the Lord told the Jews (John 8:16-18), and subsequently stated to His disciples, "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world; again I leave the world, and go to the Father" (16:28). His departure to the Father ought to have been a cause of rejoicing to them, for "My Father," He said, "is greater than I" (14:28). Yet it is also true that He and the Father are one (10:30).