Q5: How do you explain The Trinity?

The Trinity is a difficult concept to understand, let alone articulate. Here is a definition of the Trinity by Wayne Grudem:

God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God, and there is one God. ¹

Basically, there are three truths that must be understood about God.

1) There is one God.

There are not three Gods, or any number, other than one. Scripture is clear on this point.

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one,…” – Deuteronomy 6:4

Jesus affirms this himself.

“Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart…’” – Mark 12:28-30

Paul also states the same.

…one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. – Ephesians 4:5-6

There is one God.

2) God exists in three distinct persons. The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.

From the opening chapter of Genesis we see the plurality of the Trinity.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” – Genesis 1:26

Throughout the Old Testament, the plurality of God is affirmed right alongside his oneness. When we get to the New Testament, we see more exact revelation of the nature of the triune God.

And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” – Matthew 3:16-17

Here we see that each person of God is distinct from the others.

3) Each person of God is fully God.

A) The Father is God.

It is obvious from Scripture that the Father is God. Jesus prays to the Father.

Our Father in heaven, Hallowed by your name. – Matthew 6:9

Scripture calls the Father God.

For on him God the Father has set his seal. – John 6:27

B) The Son is fully God.

Beginning in the Old Testament, Scripture refers to the Son as God.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. – Isaiah 9:6

John, referring to Jesus as the Word, says he existed from the beginning and is God.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. – John 1:1

Doubting Thomas, after seeing the nail scars in the resurrected Jesus’ hands, proclaimed,

“My Lord and my God!” – John 20:28

Writing the believers in Rome, the Apostle Paul agrees.

To them [Israel] belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen. – Romans 9:5

Jesus, the Son, is fully and completely God.

C) The Holy Spirit is fully God.

It is sometimes difficult to think of the Holy Spirit as a person, simply because of His name. With the article “the” at the beginning, it seems to indicate a thing rather than a person. Scripture clearly regards Him as a person, referring to Him as a “Him” rather than “it” and attributing personhood by way of emotions (He can be grieved, etc.). We also see from Scripture that the Spirit is fully God.

In Acts 5 we see the story of Ananias and Sapphira. They sell a piece of property and then bring part of the money as an offering to the church. This would be fine, except that they lie and say they’ve brought the entire sale amount. Peter confronts them on the lie.

“Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? … You have not lied to men but to God.” – Acts 5:3-4

Peter equates the Holy Spirit with God in these verses. And in 2 Corinthians 3, Paul does the same.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. – 2 Corinthians 3:17

One last important point. Each person of the Trinity is distinct from the others, and each is fully God, and each is the fulness of God. What I mean is that God cannot be divided into component pieces. You can’t say “This part of God is Jesus, and this part is the Father, and this part is the Holy Spirit.”

Speaking of Jesus, Paul says this,

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, – Colossians 1:19

They are distinct, but completely unified as one simultaneously. An example from Scripture is the Great Commission. In this passage Jesus is giving his followers instructions for what their mission is be once he has returned to heaven.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, – Matthew 28:19

Notice that the singular “name” is used, but then three distinct names are given. These are not three names applied to the same person (“name of the Father, Son, and Holy Sprit”) but rather three distinct persons said to be unified so that the singular “name” can be used to refer to all three.

We have no natural experience equal to this. This is where every analogy breaks down.

The Egg

The analogy of an egg, for instance. It teaches us that there are three distinct persons (the shell, the white, the yoke). So it affirms truth 2. If the egg is said to be God, then all three parts are God, so it kind of affirms 1 and 3, but not accurately. The yoke is only part of the egg, it could never be said to be “the fullness” of the egg. And each part is different in nature so that the white and the shell are two different things, they are not of the same substance and nature. So this analogy falls short of describing the Trinity accurately.

Triple point of water

The triple point of water is another analogy we discussed. The difficulty with this analogy is the same. Triple point is a condition, brought about by exactly the right temperature and pressure, in which ice, liquid water, and vapor can coexist. Again this affirms truth 2, but not 1 and 3 adequately. While all three states of water are H20, they are not unified in any way. Looking at a triple point situation, you could not correctly say that the ice is “the fullness” of the H20. It isn’t. And while all three are coexisting, and of the same chemical composition, they are not unified. They are separate molecules. So again, this analogy falls short of an accurate description of the Trinity.

Consequences of not affirming all three truths

1. There is one God
2. God exists in three distinct persons. The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.
3. Each person of God is fully God.

What happens if you don’t affirm truth 1? You end up with multiple gods. This is called polytheism.

What happens if you don’t affirm truth 2? You end up with one of multiple errors.

Modalism

Modalism says that God is one person who plays three different “roles” much like an actor playing different characters in a play. This is an ancient heresy that has gained some popularity in recent times. The popular book “The Shack” comes very close to teaching this.

What happens if you don’t affirm truth 3? You end up denying the deity of Christ! This is the error that “Christian” cults such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Mormons fall into.

Jehovah’s Witnesses

Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that only the Father is God. They believe that Jesus, the Son, is a created being. This requires doing some gymnastics with passages such as John 1:1. Here’s their argument.

John 1:1 contains no definite article (Gk. ho, “the”) before theos (“God”). They translate it then as “The Word was a god.” There are two main problems:

In Greek grammar the absence of the definite article indicates that “God” is the predicate rather than the subject of the sentence. Verses 6, 12, 13, and 18 of the same chapter also lack the definite article, and yet to translate any of them in the same way would be ridiculous. They don’t.

Their belief leads them to the incredible statement that Jesus is “a god.” When I asked a Jehovah’s Witness about this, the response was that Jesus was a lesser god than the Father. When I accused her of polytheism, she became adamant that only the Father is God. When I asked then what kind of being Jesus is, I got the same response “a lesser god.” The circle continued with no end.

They go on to deny the deity of the Spirit as well, claiming the Holy Spirit is merely a name given to the power of the Father at work. Passages such as Luke 4:14 and Acts 10:38 become problematic is this is your view.

And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, – Luke 4:14

Jehovah’s Witnesses would have to understand this verse to be saying the following.

And Jesus returned in the power of the power of God to Galilee

Mormon’s make a similar mistake by claiming that Jesus is not eternally co-existent with the Father, but is instead a created being who has been glorified because he earned it. They go on to teach that we (men only, sorry ladies!) can also earn glorification to the status of gods and then be privileged to have our own planets and people to rule over.

They have failed to affirm truths 1 and 3.

The Trinity is not a doctrine that can be simplified for easy comprehension. We have nothing in our human experience that equals the nature of God! I’ll end with this quote from Wayne Grudem.

We should be warned by the errors that have been made in the past. They have all come about through attempts to simplify the doctrine of the Trinity and make it completely understandable, removing all mystery from it. This we can never do. However, it is not correct to say that we cannot understand the doctrine of the Trinity at all. Certainly we can understand and know that God is three persons, and that each person is fully God, and that there is one God. We can know these things because the Bible teaches them. ²

We can know these things, but understanding how these teachings fit together is sometimes difficult. His conclusion,

…it is spiritually healthy for us to acknowledge openly that God’s very being is far greater than we can ever comprehend. This humbles us before God and draws us to worship him without reservation. ²

 

 

¹ Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 226
² Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 256