Theology Thursday: What is the Trinity (Essential Series)

Just as God speaks to us through His Word, the same Scriptures also describe to us that God is revealed as the Trinity. The definition used by Christians around the globe for the last two thousand years is that the Trinity means God is One Essence existing as Three Persons: Father, Son, and Spirit. Now there are opposers to Christianity, especially the Trinity, that say that the word is not found in the Bible or that it means three gods. Obviously, the Bible doesn’t teach that there are three gods, but to be fair, the literal word ‘Trinity’ is not found in Scripture which we will address later. However, there’s a reason why since the beginning of Christianity, that a basic understanding of the Trinity was essential for the faith.
In this article, we will discuss (1) the Bible verses that lead Christians to believe that the Trinity is the only logical conclusion, (2) the development of the Trinity in the early church, (3) how to apply our understanding of the Trinity today, and we’ll address some objections along the way.

1. The Trinity is the only logical conclusion about God from the Bible.

The wording of this point may seem odd but it has a significant purpose. One of the biggest accusations against the Trinity is that the doctrine was a heresy added to Christianity by outside sources and not developed from the Bible. This couldn’t be further from the truth. In reality, if you read the Bible in its entirety and truly believe that Scripture is the inerrant Word of God, the only logical conclusion is that God is triune and exists as one Essence, three Persons without twisting Scripture to fit a heresy. Let’s see what the Bible clearly teaches and if the logical conclusion ends up being the Trinity.
(a) There is only one God.
Deuteronomy 6:4 (ESV) “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Amen. Hallelujah. Let it be known and not misunderstood: Christians believe that there is only ONE GOD! This is one clear verse out of a plethora of many that prove that there is only one God and that Christians do not serve multiple gods. Just in case there’s any confusion, Exodus 20:2-3(ESV) says, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. ‘You shall have no other gods before me.’” Literally, the first commandment that God gives us is to worship the one true God and no other.



(b) There are three Persons who are called God.
The three Persons who are referred to as God are the Father, Son, and the Spirit. Like before, there are many verses supporting the Deity of each Person but here is one to support each. 1 Cor. 8:6 (ESV, emphasis added), “For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.” Titus 2:13 (ESV, emphasis added), “...waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” Acts 5:3-4 (ESV, emphasis added), “But Peter said, “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? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.” Based on these verses, it’s clear that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all referred to as God.

(c) These three Persons are distinct.
What’s unique about these three Persons is that each one is distinguishable from the other. They are distinct in hierarchy. Now this doesn’t mean hierarchy as in one is ‘greater’ or ‘stronger’ than the other but that there is an order of submission. Luke 22:42 (ESV), “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” John 15:26 (ESV), “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.” I can’t name all of the verses here but the two listed show that the Father holds the highest authority because the Son does the will of the Father (John 6:38, Phil. 2:8, etc). Furthermore, we see from John 15:26 that the Spirit is sent by the Son from the Father. There’s not a verse that says that the Father submits or is sent out by the Son or the Spirit.
Secondly, they are distinct in features mainly that only the Son has human nature (physical body) while both the Father and the Spirit are described as not having a body (John 1:14-18, 4:24). Furthermore, we know that we can see Jesus face to face and live (John 14:9, Gen. 32:30); we can’t see the other 2 Persons of the Trinity and if we could see them, we would not live live (John 6:46, Ex. 33:20, John 14:17). [Note: It’s possible that there’s a difference between not seeing the Father and the Spirit. Exodus 24 and 32 elude that God the Father still does not have a physical body but that He has a spiritual, immaterial, or corporeal bodily form, such as His feet and back but if we see His face we will die. However, the Spirit doesn’t have any features to gaze upon. For instance: we can’t see Area 51 and live, but we physically can’t see soundwaves.] The point is that the Bible shows us that the Father, Son and the Spirit have unique features that are distinguishable from each other.



The reason why this is important is because the Bible tells us in Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” This verse clearly tells us that there was never a point in time when Jesus was not both God and Man. Yes, He became incarnate in the Gospels but He always existed as the God-Man since the beginning of time. This makes a lot of sense when you look at Christophanies when Christ appears in the Old Testament before His incarnation. In the Old Testament, there are many places like Genesis 32 and Judges 13 where God came as a physical Man and the Scripture literally says, ‘We have seen God’s face and lived.”
One of the common objections is that God is omni-present and that He can simply put on all three hats of the Father, Son, and Spirit at the same time. The problem with this theory is that God may be omni-present but He’s not omni-nature. Meaning that there was never a point in time when the Father nor the Holy Spirit became human or any other creature of that sort. Now the Spirit can take on manifestations of things such as coming down as like a dove in Matthew 3, but no one would say that the Holy Spirit is a dove. However, with Jesus, the Scriptures repeatedly say that Jesus is Man meaning that He’s not a manifestation of a man but that His very nature is human. Therefore, the three Persons must be distinct in some way or God will be changing His nature all of the time which is a complete violation of Scripture.

(d) How do the three Persons interact?

Now this is where things get interesting. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (1) interact with each other, (2) talk to each other, and (3) even talk together as a collective. This is where Christians get the idea of the Personhood of God. They speak to/about each other as individuals and they even feel emotions (the emotions part: we won’t get into this article but it’s still fascinating!) Jesus’ baptism in Matthew 3:16-17 (ESV) addresses the first two points of this discussion: “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.’” Here, we see the Son being baptized, the Spirit descending onto the Son, and the Father speaking from heaven about the Son which means they’re all interacting and talking about each other.
What’s incredibly interesting is how the three Persons talk as a collective both in the Old and New Testaments. For the Old Testament, most Christians would (rightly) point to Genesis 1:26. Some translations don’t have the capitalizations for God such as ESV or CSB, so I’m going to quote from the NASB: “Then God said, ‘Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth.’” Now I’ve heard arguments against this verse that God is including the angels in this text. There are so many theological problems with that argument such as, angels cannot create out of nothing like God and that angels are not on the same level as God, but, even if that was somehow true, that argument doesn’t follow the not-so-often referred to verse of Genesis 3:22 “Then the LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out with his hand, and take fruit also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.’”



Let’s take a closer look at this verse. Unlike Genesis 1:26, it doesn’t just say ‘God’, it says ‘LORD God’. Typically in Scripture there are three types of ways to describe God as ‘Lord’. Lord in the normal case comes from either the Hebrew words ‘Adonai’ or ‘Jehovah’; whereas LORD in all caps comes from the word ‘Yahweh’ (from the tetragram YHWH). Yahweh means I AM (just like the famous name I AM WHO I AM in Exodus 3:14) and it is the highest form of describing the nature of God which literally means to be self-existent and omnipotent. This would conclude that essentially no one but God can possibly talk in Genesis 3:22 and yet, even in this verse, it says, ‘the man has become like one of Us:’ God is speaking as a collective unity. Even Jesus, who also describes Himself as the I AM in John 8:58, talks as a collective with the Father in John 17:22 (NASB, emphasis added) “The glory which You(Father) have given Me(Son) I also have given to them, so that they may be one, just as We are one.” Therefore, from these verses we can see that the three Persons interact and talk with each other while talking about themselves as a collective.
(e) What can we conclude from Scripture about God?
First, it’s important to remember that as Christians, we believe that the Bible is the perfect Word of God and that if there’s something that might be confusing or difficult to understand, we must first humbly acknowledge our finite nature and God’s infinite, unique nature. Second, and just as important as the first, it’s important to remember that God is holy (meaning set apart) in nature and that His ways are not our ways nor our thoughts His thoughts. His divine nature is different from human nature (and yes, this includes Jesus because He is both Man and God). Lastly, understanding these first two things, our conclusion about God must be based on the understanding that He is different from us and that the Bible can be paradoxical but not contradictory.
Important Note: A contradiction is ‘a combination of statements, ideas, or features of a situation that are opposed to one another.’ A paradox is ‘a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true.’ (Oxford Dictionary) For example, it’s a paradox that I can be both a father and a son at the same time but it’s absurdly contradictory to say that a dog can be a cat at the same time. This is important because many people (both Christians and non-Christians) believe that the Bible is full of contradictions when in reality it’s full of paradoxes and some of those paradoxes can be quite complex. Matt. 10:39 (ESV) says, “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” Matt: 23:11 (ESV) says, “The greatest among you will be your servant.” These verses are commonly understood to mean that the Christian life is about self-denial and servitude and hardly no one argues that these verses are contradictions but paradoxes. I wanted to take this side note because it is important for our discussion in how we reach the conclusion that the Bible teaches.
Now that my little sidebar is over, let’s attempt to reach a logical conclusion from Scripture about God. First, some may think that there are multiple gods in the Bible; however, this would be a clear contradiction of point (a) that there is only one God. Second, others such as Modalists/Oneness believers will say that there is one God but that He’s not taking three Persons but three forms (like manifestations). I’ll dive more into the Trinity vs. Oneness debate in another article but there are problems with the Oneness argument, namely with points (c) and (d):that the three Persons are distinct and that they interact with each other as a collective.
Once again, if God is simply changing forms or ‘hats’, then God would be changing His very nature, which Scripture tells us that He cannot do. The Father nor the Spirit can NEVER be human like the Son. Furthermore, Hebrews 13:8 (ESV) says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever,” which means that there was never a point in time that Jesus was NOT both God and Man. Yes, he became incarnate during the time of the Gospels but He always had human nature in His pre-incarnate state. Lastly, if God was putting on hats, why would He refer to Himself as ‘We’ or ‘Us’ in both the Old and the New Testament? Why would He talk about Himself in the third person rather than the first person? And why would the Bible be consistent with each Person’s distinct attributes throughout the Bible? (Every verse that describes seeing God face-to-face is when God is a Man such as in Gen. 32 but every verse that says you cannot see the face of God seems to be talking about the Father or the Holy Spirit). If Jesus is turning into the Father or Spirit or vice versa, then Scriptures such as Hebrews 13:8 would be contradictory because clearly Jesus is not the same eternally; thus, neither the polytheistic nor the modalistic argument is viable.
This begs the question: ‘how can there be three and also one?’ Well let’s use Scripture to interpret Scripture. Do we see something similar in the Bible? In fact, we do and it happens in Genesis 2:24 (NASB), “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.” Jesus quotes the same verse in Matt. 19:5, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” In biblical marriage, two people, a man and a woman, become a unified one as an entity. Many Christians would call this unified oneness or a compound unity.
In fact, even the Hebrew language distinguishes between a literal ‘one’ and a compound ‘one’. A literal ‘one’ comes from the Hebrew word yachid but a compound one comes from the Hebrew word echad which means one entity with many components or parts. Both Genesis 2:24 and Deuteronomy 6:4 both use the word echad instead of yachid. Now if Christians can accept that two persons can become one flesh, couldn’t we accept that three Persons exist in the one Essence of God? If that’s the case, then it would satisfy all arguments presented by Scripture. There is still one God and three Persons can still be called God without destroying the first argument, each Person can have their own distinct attributes while being divine in nature, and it would allow for the Persons to interact with each other, talk to or about each other, and even talk together as a collective of the one true God. Thus it seems that there is a three Person unity of God; hence the name to summarize the doctrine: Trinity. On that note, Paul ends 2 Corinthians with a trinitarian conclusion: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” (13:4)

2) How did the Trinity develop throughout church history?
What’s the first thing— the first argument that every opposer of Christianity, the Trinity, and the Bible makes when they want to discredit the faith historically? Ding! Ding! Ding! If you said the Council of Nicea you are correct!

Jesus be a fence. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve talked with people or heard this argument online or on social media that the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the Bible, even the entire Christian faith was ALL ‘mysteriously’ created at the Council of Nicea. People, can we just let this one go already?! *Sorry for the rant. I just had to get that off my chest.*

Anyway, my point is that church history started hundreds of years before the Council of Nicea in 325 AD and that we can find nearly every tenet of the fundamental faith, such as the deity of Christ, biblical canon, and yes, even the Trinity as early as the first and second century, well before this infamous council. Now I’m not going to go through all of the evidence or all of church history (else this would be a history book instead of an article) but I do want to name three major church leaders that are worth noting: Theophilus, Athenagoras, and Tertullian.
Let's start with Theophilus of Antioch (the same Antioch from Acts 11 by the way). Not much is known when he was born but we do know that he died sometime in mid 180 AD which means he lived about 150 years before the Council of Nicea. Though Theophilus didn’t quite nail down the Trinity doctrine, he was a pastor at that time who was wrestling with the idea of the Triune God. He stated, “In like manner also the three days which were before the luminaries, are types of the Trinity(Trias), of God (The Father), and His Word (The Son), and His wisdom (The Holy Spirit).   
During this same time period, there was another prominent Christian named Athenagoras of Athens. He was a powerful apologist and brilliant Christian philosopher in his time. In A Plea for Christians, Athenagoras wrote, “We acknowledge a God, and a Son his Logos (Logos means Word in Greek) and a Holy Spirit, united in essence— the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, because the Son is the Intelligence, Reason, Wisdom of the Father, and the Spirit an effluence as light from fire.” This is an incredibly clear doctrinal statement about the Trinity made by Athenagoras that clearly spelled out what the early Christians believed during his time when he lived between 133-190 AD.
Lastly, both the word and formula of the Trinity(from the Latin word Trinitas) that we use today was established by an early church father named Tertullian of Carthage (modern day Tunisia) who was born in 150 AD and converted to Christianity in 190 AD. Tertullian stated, “All [three] are of One, by unity (that is) of substance… which distributes the Unity into Trinity, placing in their order the three Persons— the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” He condensed it into the phrase: one Substance, three Persons (una Substantia, tres Personae). He wrote this in 213 AD! Over 100 years before the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD!
Just in case you still don’t believe that the earliest of Christians reached the same trinitarian conclusion well before the Nicene Council, consider the words of Ignatius of Antioch, who most likely trained under Apostle Paul, and Polycarp who trained directly under Apostle John!
“(Believers) are like stones of a temple, prepared beforehand for the building of God the Father, hoisted up to the heights by the crane of Jesus Christ, which is the cross, using as a rope the Holy Spirit. Your faith is what lifts you up, while love is the way you ascend to God.” (emphasis mine) — Ignatius of Antioch
I glorify Thee(The Father) through the everlasting and heavenly high Priest, Jesus Christ, Thy beloved Child, through whom be glory to Thee with Him and the Holy Spirit, both now and for the ages that are to come. Amen.” — Polycarp of Smyrna
The point is that you have faithful men and martyrs of the Gospel, some who even trained under the Apostles, on three different continents (Africa, Asia, and Europe), who are all coming to a nearly identical conclusion that God is Triune while having little to no contact with one another… is nothing short of a miracle by the Spirit.  

Now I know this is an oversimplification of the Bible and church history, but the concept of the Trinity is not foreign to the roots of Christianity and, by roots, I mean Judaism. Dr. Benjamin Sommer who is a leading professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary even famously supported in both his lectures and book titled The Bodies of God and The World of Ancient Israel, that the Christian understanding of the Holy Trinity is NOT contradictory to the Jewish (Old Testament) understanding of God. Furthermore, he points out that even in the Talmud, Pharisees and scribes discussed the unique nature of God speaking about Himself in the third person in Exodus 24:1-2 and that the multiple Personhood of God could be argued to be just as Jewish as it is Christian (obviously with the difference being that we believe the Messiah is Jesus Christ).
I’m sure this process of presenting the Trinity is different from most (you can thank my scientific background for it). Like science, and yes theology is a science, you must first run your own calculations and reach a conclusion based on the information provided. Then you cross reference that data to other peers in the field to see if they reach the same results as you do and if your calculations are correct. Here, we first looked at prominent Scriptures and came to the only logical conclusion that God exists as one Essence, three Persons. Then we checked the earliest of church fathers and learned that they have reached identical conclusions without any bias connection to one another. Lastly, we even double-checked with ‘previous scientific calculations’ (Judaism) and discovered that they could reach the same conclusion about God. Therefore, the logical conclusion from the Bible and church history is that God exists as one Essence in three Persons: Father, Son, and Spirit.

3) How the Trinity applies to us today. (Conclusion)
This might seem like an odd thing to ‘apply’ to our lives today which is a reasonable assumption: ‘how does my knowledge about the Trinity help me live as a Christian?’ It goes back to the old saying: right orthodoxy leads to right orthopraxy and doxology.

I know some of you are probably thinking, “I ain’t never heard of that!” Essentially, our right understanding of God(orthodoxy) will ultimately lead to living righteously (orthopraxy) as an expression of worship and praise to God (doxology). But why does the Trinity help us with this? It’s simple: humility and honor.
Let's start with the orthodoxy. If you listen to debates against Christianity, almost every debate, in some way shape or form, attacks the Trinity (and the deity of Christ which is still connected to the Trinity). Is it because the Trinity is paradoxical and difficult to comprehend fully? Partially. The true answer is that the Trinity is utterly, universally, unique: there is not a single thing in this universe— neither in biology, physics, quantum physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, neurology, technology, or any other ‘ology’— that can perfectly relate or grasp the concept of the Trinity. This is what makes God so infinitely more holy (set apart) than anything in the known universe: there’s literally NOTHING like Him! Now we do have enough information to know the Triune God sufficiently but not absolutely which is fine! 99% of people know their car sufficiently and they will never need to know the car absolutely (mechanical/electrical engineering) in order to operate the vehicle. The problem that people have with the Trinity is that it is one of the only few things in this universe that CAN NEVER be explored absolutely. People don’t like that. People don’t like that they have to accept something they can never fully understand… because of pride: a vice that’s stained humanity since the first sin.
Think about it. People can accept every other religion. They can sing kumbaya with other religions from Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and even Atheism. Why? To summarize Jeremiah 10, it’s because they are gods of their own hands that they can comprehend. It’s like every other god of their imagination which is why even Hollywood can glorify the false gods of Norse and Greek mythology because they know that they are false (nothing against my fellow comic book friends by the way). The reason why they do is because it’s comprehensible to believe in multiple gods or in one simple god or in no god at all because they are theologies created by human imagination. As a result, they are willing to join hands in discrediting the one true, Triune God who they cannot comprehend. Why can’t they comprehend Him? Jeremiah 10:6 says, “LORD, there is no one like you. You are great; your name is great in power.” There is no one— no thing like Him.
What’s the point? It requires faithful humility. We must approach our understanding of God with humility that acknowledges that His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. If there’s something that’s difficult to understand or grasp, the problem is not God nor His Word. The problem lies at our feet. We are sinful, finite beings that the Spirit is guiding over this crash course called Life to be more like Christ. When we understand this, it will help us from falling astray in our walk. Many churches have affirmed the sins of homosexuality (LGBTQ+), lust, greed, pride, etc or have affirmed heretical doctrines such as modalism, denying the deity of Christ, or rejecting the Bible entirely because of their sinful pride and that they believe that God should conform to the machinations of their imaginations. The first thing that Christians must do to avoid these pitfalls of sin, heresy, and misinterpretation, is to humbly submit to Jesus as Lord and know that the Triune God is truly HOLY!
This leads to the next point of orthopraxy (practicing what the Bible teaches). Just like there are things that are hard to understand such as the Trinity, there can be things that are difficult to accept because of our sin such as lust, greed, and homosexuality. It’s like receiving nasty medicine from the doctor. The doctor is obviously smarter than we are and understands our condition better than we could comprehend. Once we understand that he knows more than we do and that he has the tools needed for us to get better, even if we don’t understand it (or don’t want to), we have to submit to the medicinal program in order to heal. At first, it’ll be tough to take the medicine— to stop watching pornography, practicing homosexuality, loving our neighbors, etc — but over time, we start to see our lives become healed, healthy, and holy.
As a result, our humility turns to honoring God. Nobody praises a doctor for almost treating them or for giving poison to their patients that slowly kills them. No. When a person is healed from treatment, no matter how difficult it may be, they give praise to the doctor. The same is for The Doctor: God. When we humble ourselves to His holiness, and submit ourselves to His treatment to be holy just as He is holy, the appropriate response is just to praise Him for His work and who He is.
God is holy, righteous, just, and loving. He is the very embodiment of love because the three Persons loved each other eternally before time began. He is so unique that nothing in this universe can compare to Him. Needing nothing, the Triune God chose to create a creature called man in order to pour out His love. Then His creation betrayed Him. Instead of leaving humanity to die to their sin, He chose to die for their sins. Finally, He exchanged the perfect temple in heaven, to lovingly dwell with imperfect people on earth… in order to perfect them with love. Was it merely the Father that chose to create? No. Because He created by speaking the Word, which is His Son, through the Breath, which is His Spirit. The Son created us in His Image in the Old, just as He is conforming us to His Image in the New and the Spirit hovers as the eagle protecting His handiwork, while giving life to all that He’s made. Did only the Son choose to die and save creation? No. For it was the Father that sent the Son to die and it was the Spirit that guided Him to the Cross… while all Three are credited for the resurrection. Is the Spirit the only One that wishes to be with us? No, because the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, who wasn’t satisfied with merely dwelling among the Twelve, sent the Spirit so that His presence may dwell with all of His sheep.

To have One is to have All. To have All is to have One. To have partial is to have none. God is the Holy Trinity: Three in One.

I pray that this was beneficial for you!


Bibliography 
Ignatius of Antioch. Letter to the Ephesians: Translated by Cyril Richardson. Order of Ignatius, n.d. https://www.orderofstignatius.org/files/Letters/Ignatius_to_Ephesians.pdf.
Lake, Kirsopp. The Martyrdom of Polycarp. The Apostolic Fathers. Vol 2. London: Heinemann, 1913. https://archive.org/details/apostolicfathers02lakeuoft/page/n5/mode/2up.
Olson, Roger E. The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition and Reform. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 1999.
Theophilus. To Autolycus, Book II. Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing Co, 1885. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/02042.htm.