The doctrine of the Trinity is a difficult one! It has been a controversial doctrine for much of church history. It reminds us that God is mysterious beyond our understanding.
The doctrine of the Trinity is also an important one! It’s a study of who God is! It tells of His identity and character, how He works with us and how we might approach Him. There is a reason that this doctrine is #2 in the list of Fundamental Beliefs. After establishing that the Bible is God’s revelation of truth we need to ask what the Bible says about God.
Fundamental Belief #2: The Trinity
There is one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a unity of three coeternal Persons. God is immortal, all-powerful, all-knowing, above all, and ever present. He is infinite and beyond human comprehension, yet known through His self-revelation. God, who is love, is forever worthy of worship, adoration, and service by the whole creation. (Gen. 1:26; Deut. 6:4; Isa. 6:8; Matt. 28:19; John 3:16 2 Cor. 1:21, 22; 13:14; Eph. 4:4-6; 1 Peter 1:2.)
In studying the Trinity we are not seeking to solve the mystery. We are seeking a love relationship with God.
In John 17:3 the Son prays to the Father, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
Eternal life is a relationship. A relationship with the “only” true God “and” Jesus Christ. Two great Biblical truths about God are summarized in these two words, “only” and “and”.
The combination of these two words can produce some inconsistent ideas, “I am an only child, and I have two sisters”, “this is the only cookie I am going to eat, and that one”. Which one is it, “only” or “and”? The Bible teaches that God is both “only” and “and”. And the combination of these two Biblical truths give a basic structure the doctrine of the Trinity.
Why does the truth that God is “only” matter?
(Deuteronomy 4:35, Isaiah 44:6, Isaiah 45:5-6, 1 Timothy 2:5, Romans 3:29, James 2:19)
1. The truth that God is only shows that He is sovereign!
The first verse of the Bible is a monotheistic declaration. There are other ancient creation accounts but they feature warfare of gods, in a contest for supremacy, each having a limited dominion. The Biblical creation account says there was one God and He created heaven and earth. He has dominion over the entire universe.
In these verses about God being the “only God” that there is an emphasis on the fact that He is God everywhere, in heaven and on earth…
Deuteronomy 4:39 The Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.
Isaiah 44:24 Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb: “I am the Lord, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself.
Isaiah 45: 18 For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens (he is God!),
who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited!): “I am the Lord, and there is no other.
The Bible teaches that there is no contest for supremacy, God is God everywhere! Because He is sovereign we can trust Him. He will do what He has promised. No other power will come along and overthrow His power. All our trust in the only God is well placed.
Isaiah 46:8-10 I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, “My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose”.
2. The truth that God is “only” calls us to true worship!
Exodus 20:3-4 You shall have no other gods before me.You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
God has commanded us to worship Him alone. Not because He is better than other God’s but because He is the only God!
When the Israelites received the commandments they had just come out of enslavement in Egypt. It was a polytheistic culture. The Pharaohs were believed to be Gods. Cats and frogs had divinity. And God points them against the culture to true worship. The New Testament believers were surrounded by the influence of the many God’s of the Greeks and the Romans. But Paul writes, “Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that an idol has no real existence, and that there is no God but one. ” (1 Corinthians 8:4).
God is not just the better option, He is the only God. To worship anything else is idolatry.
3. The truth that God is “only” calls us to undivided love for God!
The most familiar passage about God being one is called the Shama, a portion of Scripture that is recited daily by Jews. It declares, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” (Deuteronomy 6:4). The next verse tells us why that is important. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” (Deuteronomy 6:5).
If there were multiple Gods you would give a portion of your hearts, soul and might to God. But the truth that God is the only God calls us to give our full love to God without reservation!
4. The truth that God is “only” exalts oneness as central to the character of God and His intention for man!
If we were made in the image of competing Gods then the purest form of existence would be self-exaltation and individuality. But we were created in the image of a God who is one.
Read John 17:20-26. Not only are the Father and the Son one. Jesus prays that we might be one with each other and with Him! The world does not know the God. But through the oneness of God reflected in the people of God the world will know the one true God.
God is “only”! That would be the end of the study but it is not the end of the sentence that Jesus prayed. John 17:3 “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
How does the truth that God is “and” matter?
1. The truth that God is “and” establishes the divinity of the Father, Son and Spirit!
A main point of the controversy surrounding the Trinity has been over the divinity of Christ. If God is one what do you do with Jesus?
Scripture teaches that Jesus is God (John 17:5; Philippians 2:6; Hebrews 1; John 20:28) and that the Holy Spirit is God (Act’s 5:3-4; Matthew 28:19).
The Trinity matters because it affirms that the Savior who died for us and the Spirit that lives inside us are God.
2. The truth that God is “and” points us to the specific roles of God!
When Bible writers mention the members of the trinity is it random? Did they just decide to call Him “Spirit” here and “Father” there because it sounded nice? No, there is significance in the roles of the Father, Son and Spirit.
Consider 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.” Grace and love and fellowship are part of the character of God and not specific to just one of the members of the Trinity. But grace has been specially extended to humanity through the role of the Son. Love has been show by a Father who so loved the world. Fellowship is experienced by a Spirit who lives in us.
In the words of Jesus’ prayer we see that He was given a work to do. The Father had a role in giving the work and the Son had a role in accomplishing it (John 17:2,4). If we are to ignore the “and” of the Trinity we will miss the significance of the specific ways God is loving us and ministering to us.
Right now God is loving us through the Son as our High Priest and heavenly intercessor. He is guiding us by the Spirit that convicts us and teaches us. God intends for us to experience Him through the specific roles of the Father, Son and Spirit.
3. The truth that God is “and” shows that He is other-centered love!
Self-exaltation is not sin for God. It is right for God to be exalted. But God exalts Himself and displays His glory in a way that is not self-centered. How does that work? Don’t miss this amazing portrayal of God in John 17:1. The Son prays, “glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you”. The Son and Father can glorify themselves. But they choose to glorify one another. I wish I could fully grasp what this says of the love of God! The God of all glory prefers to give and receive glory rather than to take it because love can’t be taken, only given and received.
Imagine a world in which you had no impulse to self-exaltation. Not because you were depressed. But because others loved you so perfectly that they met all your needs to be affirmed and valued. I want to live in that world!
The Trinity gives us another picture of other-centered love in that the Father, Son, and Spirit are not independent but interdependent. Again, this is a choice. It is not as though the Son lacks the resources to be independent but He doesn’t want to be. The Father could have told the Son and Spirit, “You sit back and watch. I will save the world by myself.” But in love the Trinity functions interdependently. When the Son was on earth He did nothing by Himself (independence) but only as the Father directed Him (interdependence)(John 5:19). We see the same interdependence with the Spirit who speaks only the words of Jesus (John 16:13).
4. The truth that God is “and” exalts community as central to the character of God and His intention for man!
There is a belief that God is one and that the Father, Son and Spirit are just different modes of God that He takes on at different times. But if that is true, who is Jesus praying to in John 17? In the very nature of God we see relationship and community.
Scripture refers to God in the plural (Elohim) ten times more often than in the singular (El). We see language like, “Let us make man in our image” (Genesis 1:26), “Come, let us go down there and confuse their language” (Genesis 11:7), and “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us (Isaiah 6:8).
God is one and it is a one of relationship. The same word (echad) translated as “one” in Deuteronomy 6:4 is used in Genesis 2:24 to describe the “one flesh” relationship of a husband and wife. Within the oneness of God is perfect community.
Both “only” and “and”!
Some people prefer to put more emphasis on the truth that God is one or on the truth that God is three. I think we should put more emphasis on both. God as both “only” and “and” tell us of who He is. Both are taught in the Bible. We struggle with the mystery of how to put the two together. But the character of God is displayed in both. For “this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3).