Chapter 1
A Trinity of Persons
The Bible reveals that there is one eternal God, with one essence, existing in three persons who are equal yet distinct: God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Note that in the preceding sentence I used the word and, and not a series of commas. The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are not sequential, like the ranks in an army—the Father first, the Spirit last, and Jesus between them— because each one is eternal God, and no one member of the Godhead is greater than another. In the baptismal formula (MATTHEW 28:19), Jesus named the Father first, then the Son, and then the Spirit, and He united them with the word and. In this benediction, Paul put the Son first, but that doesn’t mean He is greater or more important than the Father and the Holy Spirit, because the little word and is still there to connect equals. These are not three gods or different names for one God who reveals Himself in different ways at different times.
The heretics say, “The one God revealed Himself as the Father in the Old Testament, as the Son in the four Gospels, and as the Spirit from the Pentecost to the end of the New Testament.” Anyone who believes that hasn’t read the Bible carefully. The Trinity worked together in the creation of the universe (GENESIS 1:1–2; JOB 38:4; PSALM 104:30; COLOSSIANS 1:16–17). While the fullness of this doctrine wasn’t revealed until centuries later, the persons of the Godhead were there from the beginning. They had been there from eternity. Listen to the angel Gabriel explain to Mary how the miracle of the incarnation would occur: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God” (LUKE 1:35). Each member of the Godhead would play a part—the Spirit, the Father, and the Son. If the Father belonged in the Old Testament and the Spirit in the Acts and Epistles, this miracle could never have happened.
Or visit the Jordan River as John the Baptist is baptizing Jesus of Nazareth: “As soon as Jesus was baptized, He went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on Him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is My Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased’ ” (MATTHEW 3:16–17). Once again, the Trinity is working together: the Son obeys, the Spirit descends, and the Father speaks.
When Jesus began His public ministry at Nazareth, the first words He spoke were from the prophet Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on Me …” (ISAIAH 61:1–2). Here is the Trinity: the Spirit and the Father (Lord) and the Son.
Peter picked up this theme when he gave his message in the home of the Roman centurion Cornelius: “… how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power” (ACTS 10:38). We see the Trinity again as Peter explains the functions of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
When Jesus taught His disciples in the upper room (JOHN 13–16), His doctrine was Trinitarian. “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth” (14:16–17). “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things” (14:26).
“When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, … He will testify about Me” (15:26). There’s no confusion of persons here. In Jesus’ death on the cross, all the persons of the Godhead were involved. “How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences!” (HEBREWS 9:14). Peter announced at Pentecost that the Godhead was also involved in Christ’s resurrection: “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. Exalted to the right hand of God, He has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear” (ACTS 2:32–33).
Every sinner who has ever trusted Jesus Christ has experienced the saving work of the Trinity. Paul’s hymn in Ephesians 1:3–14 extols the triune God: the Father for electing us (vv. 36), the Son for dying for us (vv.7–12), and the Spirit for sealing us (vv.13– 14). Paul condenses the truth of this hymn in 2 Corinthians 1:21–22, Galatians 4:4–6, and Titus 3:4–6. Peter condenses the salvation work of the Trinity into one verse: “God’s elect, … chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by His blood” (1 PETER 1:1–2).
The skeptics and scoffers try to use mathematics to refute the truth of the Trinity: “One God + one God + one God = three Gods.” But the persons of the Godhead exist in a dynamic relationship, so the correct “formula” is 1 x 1 x 1 = 1. “No fact more directly establishes the uniqueness of the Christian view of God than that of the Trinity,” wrote Dr. Carl F. H. Henry (Notes on the Doctrine of God, 1948, p.114). Orthodox Jews believe in one God, as do orthodox Christians, but orthodox Jews do not believe in the deity of Jesus the Son or the personality and deity of the Holy Spirit. They are not Trinitarian.
Obviously, there is much in the doctrine of the Trinity that is beyond human comprehension and explanation. In his magnificent treatise On the Trinity, Augustine wrote, “God is greater and truer in our thoughts than in our words; He is greater and truer in reality than in our thoughts.” In spite of what Thomas Jefferson believed, there are truths known in the heart that cannot easily be defined in the mind or expressed by the lips. Theology often ends in silence and worship. Christians worship the Triune God. Any other kind of worship is not Christian. The late Dr. James S. Stewart of Edinburgh wrote, “What [the critics] are needing most is to stop discussing and get down on their knees. That is the only attitude in which the ultimate truths of religion are ever discerned” (The Strong Name, 1940, p.253).
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