The orthodox Christian doctrine of the Trinity has two basic parts: first, there is one God; and second, he exists in three persons. The most confusing part of this doctrine is that second part, and it has caused debate for thousands of years. To this day, average Christians often explain it with simple metaphors that mistakenly spread heresy! This lesson will help you get it straight for your own benefit, and for the benefit of those who are asking. Here’s what you need to know:
The Bible shows God existing in three distinct persons – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The plurality of the one God is anticipated from the beginning of the Bible. In Genesis 1:26, “Then God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us.’” God (singular) says, “Let us (plural) make human beings…” This doesn’t prove or explain the whole concept of the Trinity, but it gives us a powerful hint of the direction the Bible will take us.
The multiple persons of God become more clear in the New Testament. At the baptism of Jesus (Mattew 3:16-17), Jesus is in the river, the Holy Spirit descends as a dove, and the voice of the Father speaks from heaven. All three persons are present in the picture at the same time.
This is why we believe that God encompasses both unity and distinction. To cover both ideas, we talk about the “being” of God versus the “persons” of God. When it comes to being or essence, there is one God. Yet when it comes to the persons of God, there is somehow a distinction. We use the word “persons” to capture the idea that Father, Son and Spirit interact with each other and with the world. It’s not a perfect word for the concept, but it’s the best one Christians have come up with. Remember: God is utterly different from us, and our finite minds struggle to comprehend his nature. When people try to make this easier to understand, they sometimes wander into heresy.
One common error that denies the Trinity is the fallacy of “modalism” – that there is one God who appears in three different forms.
Modalism oversimplifies God and trades the truth of his personhood with an idea that’s off the mark: modes. Modalists explain that God appears sometimes as the Father, sometimes as the Son, and sometimes as the Holy Spirit. Modalists want to uphold the oneness of God, but this view falls short biblically because it can’t account for the times when the three persons (or even just two of them) appear in one scene, as in Jesus’ baptism or various times when Jesus prays to the Father (Luke 6:12; 10:21). The Bible clearly shows the Son in real relationship with the Father. As Jesus suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane, he spoke intimately to the Father and submitted his will to the Father’s will (Mark 14:36). This doesn’t make sense if the Father and the Son are merely forms God takes rather than real persons.
In fact, Modalism overall denies the important idea that relationship exists eternally within the Trinity. The Bible says that “God is love” (1 John 4:8). But in modalism, how can love be an essential quality of God’s nature? Before creation, there was nothing for the modalist God to love! By contrast, the Trinity explains how God is love from eternity past, because the three persons of the one God have always experienced love among themselves. And that leads us to one final point, where this doctrine becomes very personal to us:
We relate personally with each member of the Trinity as we discover their unique roles in creation, salvation, and prayer.
All three divine persons are seen involved in the creation of the world. The Father planned the work of creation (Genesis 1:1), the Son did the work (John 1:3), and the Spirit energized the work (Genesis 1:2). The three persons also have unique roles in salvation. The Father initiated salvation, the Son died on the cross to accomplish it, and the Spirit brings forth the fruit of salvation in people (1 Peter 1:2). And think about prayer. All three persons of the Trinity are present when we pray, because God is one. Yet typically the Bible teaches us to pray to the Father (Matthew 6:9), through the Son (Hebrews 4:16; 10:19), and in the power of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:18). The whole thing comes full circle, because the Holy Spirit brings us into an intimate relationship with God as Father (Romans 8:15-16).
So there is only one God, yet he exists in three persons. Understanding this rightly helps us to worship him in spirit and truth.
