What Is The Trinity? What Does The Bible Teach?

The Trinity is one of the most difficult things to wrap your mind around.  How can you define the undefinable?  How can you describe the indescribable?  What does the Bible teach about the Trinity?

The Trinity Defined

It is very difficult for the finite mind to describe the infinite God.  How can I even imagine eternity?  How hard is it to comprehend that God had no beginning and has always existed?  How can we see God’s eternality with a linear-type brain?  The truth is that we cannot.  We can only give finite explanations of the infinite Being that is God.  How can Three Persons be One?  Are there distinct differences between each Person of the God-Head?  What differences are there since they are all One in essence?

The Weak Attempt to Define the Trinity

It is impossible to fully explain the Trinity since I am only human trying to define what is divine and infinite.  Here is about as close as I can humanly come to try and explain how God can be Three Persons yet at the same time One in essence. I am a Father and my wife and I have a daughter living at home.  She is the last in our nest as the rest of my children and grandchildren live in the next state.  We are three persons but essentially one as far as being one family.  We are all three distinct persons but one family…the Wellman family.  We are three persons but at the same time we are one family.  I know that is a pathetic example but that is about as close to explaining the Trinity as I can humanly come.  I fail to grasp the fullness and the reality of the Trinity, therefore I cannot ever fully explain these Persons, who are at the same time One and yet Three.  As a human being, I cannot fully or really, even partially explain the Trinity not to mention understand Them, any more than I can explain the eternality of God.  I can understand some of what each One does but not really grasp how they are Three but One.

The Bible on the Trinity

The actual word “Trinity” is not found in the Bible but They are found in their different functions when relating to mankind.  The Father calls (John 6:44), Jesus saves (Acts 4:14), and the Spirit sanctifies (1 Cor 6:11; Rom 15:16), convicts (John 16:8-11), and reveals the things of God (1 Cor 2:10-13; John 16:13). The Bible says that God is One in both the Old Testament (Duet 6:4) and the New (1 Cor 8:4) yet in the creation account God said “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen 1:26) so the word “us” necessitates the idea that there are more than One for God said “Let us.”  The word for God in Genesis one is “Elohim” which is a plural form of God.

Maybe the best way to see that God is Three, yet One is in Matthew 3:16-17 “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.” Here is Jesus Who is God (John 1:1, 14; John 20:28; Heb 1:8) when after being baptized “the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove coming to rest on him.”  Jesus actually sees the Spirit descending and the Spirit is distinct from Himself and from the voice that came from heaven. You might also notice that the “Spirit of God” is capitalized, like a proper noun which you would do with a name of a person and being “like a dove” is a reference to the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.  Finally, the “voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” which would be God the Father’s voice.  There are the Three Persons involved in these verses.  They are the Son of God, the [Holy] Spirit of God, and the voice of God [the Father].

Even after the fall of man, God spoke “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:22) and in saying that “the man has become like one of us” there again we see the “us” as being plural. The word “us” in reference to God speaking appears many more times in the Old Testament (Isaiah 6:8; Gen 11:7) and mentions that the Spirit of God can be given because the Lord appointed it so (Isaiah 61:1) with the Lord and the Spirit being separate persons as indicated by the word “and.” This also occurs in Isaiah 48:16 when he wrote “now the Lord God has sent me, and his Spirit.” Notice that it’s the Lord who sent him “and his Spirit,” thus the word “and” essentially means “and also” his Spirit.

Three Distinct Gods

Paul clearly differentiates the Three Persons of the Trinity in 2 Corinthians 13:14 “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”   There are three different “ands” used and so these are three different God’s; the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.  One God but Three Persons and three different purposes; Jesus’ grace, God’s love, and the Spirit’s fellowship, otherwise why wouldn’t Paul just write “Jesus Christ’s grace, His love and His Spirit?”

Just before Jesus died on the cross He said He would “ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14:16-17).  The Helper is “even the Spirit of truth” meaning that He is both the Helper and the Spirit of Truth, describing two different actions for believers.  Here is Jesus, Who is God, asking the Father, Who is God, to send the Helper (capitalized, indicating a proper noun) which is “the Spirit of truth” and is also God.  Once again we see all three Persons of the Trinity in these verses.  Jesus frequently speaks about and even prays to the Father so if God is really One but not Three Persons, then why would Jesus pray to Himself?  In John 6:27 Jesus says to not work for food which perishes but for the food that brings eternal life “which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.”  If God is not Three Persons then why would Jesus mention the Father who would “set his seal” on them and not say that He himself would set his seal upon them?

Finally, when the Pharisees were trying trip up Jesus again on doctrine, He asked them a question in Matthew 22:42-45: “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, “‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”’? If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?”  The Pharisees not only could not answer this question but they ceased from every trying again (Matt 22:26).  Jesus was quoting Psalm 110:1 where David wrote about Jesus and the Lord as being two different Persons because “the Lord said to my Lord.”

Conclusion

Just because we cannot wrap our minds around God and the Trinity does not mean that we cannot understand how we can be saved.  There is only One way to be saved (Acts 4:12) and this is it; “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.  For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Rom 10:9-13).  That is so simple even a child can understand and many have.  Will you believe?

Another Reading on Patheos to Check Out: What Did Jesus Really Look Like: A Look at the Bible Facts

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book  Blind Chance or Intelligent Design available on Amazon