In the beginning God created the heavens.-Genesis 1:1

“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”
1 Timothy 6:10.

 “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of activities but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.”
1 Corinthians 12:4.

 

The Triune God

The God we serve is a triune being.
Three persons of equal eminence.
The Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit,
Sharing a circular allegiance.

The Father is the holy creator.
His plan exists outside of time.
He created a purpose for each of our lives;
Each a different path and paradigm.

Father, will you open up my eyes?
Show me the path you want for me to take?
Will you show me your purpose for my life?
And give me tools to maximize my faith?

The son is our savior, sent to earth by the Father.
His mission was to implement God’s plan.
He lived a perfect life, died for our sins,
Saved the world from the wickedness of man.

Jesus, I am grateful for your sacrifice,
For all that you suffered here on earth.
Thank you for offering a new life
To those who repent and seek rebirth.

The Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts.
First introduced to the saints at Pentecost.
He bears witness to Jesus as the Son
And He guarantees the promise of the cross.

Fill me, Spirit, with your endless holy power.
Give me the courage I need to step out.
Lend me your faith to go forth unafraid;
Walk with me, Spirit, boldly through my doubt.

We are blessed to serve a Triune God.
Three persons who are equally infinite.
It is our privilege to worship them, all three.
The Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit.
©Linda Troxell 04 /19/2019

There are many things in and about the Bible that are confusing. For example, many verses are difficult to understand. Take, for instance, this verse in Genesis, in the beginning God created the heavens.-Genesis 1:1; does that mean there is more than one heaven? Well, evidently, there are at least three because in 2 Corinthians Paul says he knew a man of Christ who… “[w]as caught up to the third heaven…”   2 Corinthians 12:2.

And I’ve been confused many times trying to determine whether or not something attributed to the Bible is actually in the Bible. For example, I’m sure we’ve all heard the quote, “Money is the root of all evil.” And I think many of us have heard it attributed to the Bible. But in reality, it is not in the Bible.

The confusion, I think, is that the Bible has a similar verse that says, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. – 1 Timothy 6:10.  That last part of the verse was probably slowly lost as it was passed from generation to generation.

It is not uncommon for quotes, stories, and even songs to change as they are shared over the years. It’s sort of like that childhood game called telephone. A word or phrase is passed from one kid to the next and by the time the last person says what they heard it usually bears little resemblance to what was originally said.

So, the saying probably became “the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil”.  And then, over more years, the other words were lost as well. Leaving us with the pithy aphorism about the evils of money that we all know. However, it isn’t Biblical; it isn’t even accurate.

Considering all of the confusion the Bible presents, I would still guess the Doctrine of the Trinity is the most confusing. Today the Trinity is well established as a central doctrine of Christianity accepted by virtually all Christians.  But it hasn’t always been that way.

It might surprise you to know that the Trinity was not introduced until the church was well established. An early church father, Tertullian first brought the doctrine of the Trinity to the church in the early 3^rd century defining it explicitly as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Tertullian was aware and open about the fact that many, perhaps the majority, of the believers of his time had issues with this doctrine.

Within the church, Tertullian was vehemently opposed by another early church thinker named Praxaes. Today Praxaes would probably be considered a Unitarian.  For he believed, without room for doubt, in the unity of the Godhead; one God in one deity. He vigorously fought all attempts in the church to divide the personalities or Personages of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

I would dare to say that after all of the ensuing years in which the Trinity has been accepted as doctrine in mainstream Christianity, it has become no less complex or confusing. Tertullian might be frustrated to know that after thousands of years Christians still have a difficult time understanding the trinity. Many Christians, I think, just accept it without understanding; others embrace it for its mystery, And some choose to just not think about it.

I think it’s natural for us as humans to reject things that we cannot wrap our minds around. If it isn’t something we can compare or relate to our three-dimensional world, we tend to just believe it’s not true. But if we really consider this it just doesn’t hold up. If we held tight to that practice we would have never accepted any of the advances in science that inform us about our world today. We would still believe that the earth is flat, the sun rotates around the earth, and disease is best cured through bloodletting.

Although time and time again, new discoveries prove out theories and beliefs that were once thought to be impossible, man still has difficulty believing in things not currently understood. And the Trinity is no different. However, even though our minds cannot understand God’s infinite being, we have made room to believe in God through faith. If we consider the Trinity with open minds there is no reason it should be different. Just because our finite minds want to reject it doesn’t mean we have to let them.

I have just as much difficulty understanding the trinity as anyone. It is something I have no paradigm for as it isn’t similar to anything else I am familiar with. For me, however, it is the mystery of Christianity, the Trinity, the resurrection, justification and sanctification, each of them, unlike anything I know or have ever known, that creates much of its beauty.

Since it seems understanding is the key to accepting, why don’t we try to learn a bit about the trinity in plain words? Perhaps it won’t be a deep dive, but maybe it will give us some new understanding that helps us to accept the doctrine more easily.

We’ve all heard of the trinity and know that in Christianity the term trinity is a name to explain the three different persons called God in the Bible. They are God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, sometimes referred to as the Holy Ghost. The doctrine tells us that all three are equal persons in one God. The doctrine explicitly states that these three parts are not three aspects of one God or three personalities of one God but three distinct separate persons, each with its own personality, dwelling in one God.

As stated above the trinity was brought to the church in the early 3^rd century. However, it wasn’t named the trinity or adopted as a doctrine until 325 AD at the First Council of Nicaea.

The Council of Nicea was a meeting held in Nicaea, Bithynia (present-day Turkey), that brought together Christian Bishops from the entire Christian world to discuss and settle important church issues of the day.

It was called by the emperor Constantine to address significant and controversial issues threatening the unity of the Church. The most significant of these issues, however, was not the Trinity. Rather, it was the controversy of Arianism, a doctrine that said Christ was not divine but a created being.

The council resulted in the church adopting the Nicene Creed. This creed remains as the only statement of faith accepted by all major parts of the Christian faith today. It is accepted as the authority for what the Church teaches on the subject of God and the Trinity. Most noted, that Christ is divine and the Trinity is three distinct beings in one God.

Perhaps the biggest objection to the trinity now, as it was then, is the fact that the Bible never uses the term trinity.  However, while the term is never used, the Trinity is implied in both testaments of the Bible.

In the very first chapter of the very first book in the Old Testament God said, “Let us make man in our image. – Genesis 1:26.  The word “us” implying more than one. And in Deuteronomy 6 the word translated as one could just as well be translated as united. So the verse “The Lord our God is one Lord.”-  Deuteronomy 6:4 could also be read “The Lord our God is [a] united Lord.” 

Likewise, in the New Testament, the term is never used but still implied in many places. Perhaps the clearest of these is the Great Commission in Matthew 28. Right before His ascension, Jesus met His apostles and he commissioned them to go and make believers of all. He said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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 28:17-19.

And in Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth when he is speaking to the saints about Spiritual gifts he says, “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of activities but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.”– 1 Corinthians 12:4.

In the book of 1 Peter, a letter to the elect exiles of the church, Peter opens his letter in this way.  “… [a]ccording to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.”
1 Peter 1:2.

Each of these scriptures clearly indicates a God who is not singular.  And If not all seem to point to a triune God, some clearly do. I think that in considering these examples, and there are many more that we just don’t have room here to discuss,  I think we can agree that there are 3 aspects of God.

So now, while keeping in mind that we know the three persons of God cannot, in reality, be separated, let’s see if we can understand them more clearly by examining each separately.

God the Father
Of the three, understanding God the Father seems to be the least confusing. Everyone seems to understand the Father is a deity, and that deity is God. When He is introduced in the first chapter of Genesis, we meet a God who speaks the world into existence and creates man out of dust. When considered in this role, He is clearly seen as an object of worship.

This introduction to God the creator begins with chapter 1 verse 3 of Genesis: And God said, “Let there be light,”…Genesis 1:3. It continues through the chapter until we come to the creation of man, So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.- Genesis 1:27.

After creating man, we see God giving man dominion over all inhabitants of the earth, God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”-Genesis 1:28. And finally, in verse 31, He pronounces His work good, God saw all that He had made, and it was very good…Genesis 1:31.

In the beginning chapters of Genesis then, it is clearly established that God the Father is God the creator. In turn, knowing God created man and the entire world makes it easy to see Him as an object of worship.

Genesis is the book of the Bible that tells the story of the creation of the world, and the creation of man. However, the entire Old Testament is a story about God’s special relationship with His chosen people, Israel, established through a covenant.

The Old Testament has themes of salvation, redemption, divine judgment, and faith. But for Christians, clearly, the most important theme of the Old Testament is its prophecies that point the way to the coming of the Savior.

Many of the Old Testament prophecies tell of a savior coming to save God’s people and establish an everlasting kingdom. However, we are not introduced to this savior until we get to the New Testament. The first four books of the New Testament, known as the Gospels, chronical the life and death of God the Son.

It is in the Gospels we learn about the birth, life and death of God the Son as well as His relationship to God the Father who sent Him.  For example, in the book of John, we hear in chapter 8 about the relationship between God the Father and His son from words spoken by the Son. In John chapter 8 Jesus is arguing with the Pharisees about their legitimacy as children of God and Jesus says, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but He sent me. – John 8:42.

And later in the book of John, we see clearly, that the Holy Spirit was sent from the Father as well.  In chapter 14 Jesus is speaking with His disciples and explaining to them that He must ascend to be with the Father but that the Father will send them a helper when He goes. “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name…-John 14:26.

From these scriptures, we are shown the Father as the creator who sent the others to earth. And for this, He should be worshipped as God. However, it would be easy to assume that because God the Father sent the Son and the Holy Spirit they are subordinates to Him. Don’t assume it because it is not true. These three are coequal deities.

God the Son
In Genesis the Bible tells us that man is created in God’s image and likeness. This means that we are like God, we have some of the attributes of His and not others. Because the son was sent by the Father it would be easy to think of Him as also being created in God’s image.

But you woul be a mistaken. The three individuals of the Trinity are equal beings. The book of Hebrews tells us this about Jesus, “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature… – Hebrews 1:3. The Greek word that was translated into English as “exact imprint of His nature” in the Greek means exactly identical, three is no attribute one has that the other does not have equally. There is no way in which one does not resemble the other. In other words, God the Father and God the Son are one.

Jesus, Himself reinforces this idea of Him and the Father being one in the book of John when He says to Philip, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?-John 14:9. Jesus is telling us here that He and the Father are one, there is no difference between them. He and the Father are one and the same.

And Paul tells us in Colossians, “In Him, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily”-Colossians 2:9.  Finally, we read the author of the book of Hebrews claim God Himself said this about Jesus, ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever…’-Hebrews 1:8. I must say that knowing God Himself addresses Jesus as God is pretty convincing. But we have more to consider.

John starts his gospel with “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”.-John 1:1. This means that Jesus, unlike we humans, existed before His birth. Not only that, but John tells us that Jesus, who is God himself, is the only one who has seen God and made Him known. “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in the closest relationship with the Father, made Him known.”-John 1:18

There are many more indicators throughout the New Testament that Jesus is God and one and the same as God the Father. However, there simply is no room to discuss all of them here.  Taken together with the resurrection of Jesus, these scriptures are pretty powerful evidence that points to Jesus as God the Son, a coequal being of the Godhead, who chose to become flesh to save us from our sins and be the bridge to our reconciliation with God the Father.

The Holy Spirit as God
Perhaps the most difficult for us to grasp as God is the Holy Spirit. Maybe that’s because we tend to believe that His role in the Bible is small and we don’t hear much about Him throughout. I read once where the Holy Spirit was considered the shy member of the Trinity. His very role is to point away from Himself and to God the Son and God the Father. And He has done this well.

Knowing that the Holy Spirit, when we look for Him, steps back and points to the Father and the Son, tells us that we must look harder if we want to see Him in the Bible and understand His role. Many believe that He is only found in the New Testament. This surprises me because the Holy Spirit is active from Genesis through Revelations.

Due to space, I cannot include the verses in Revelations as I would like, but if you are interested in the Holy Spirit in Revelations, I refer you to the following website: https://adventistbiblicalresearch.org/materials/holy-spirit/holy-spirit-revelation

I find it remarkable when I hear people say that the Holy Spirit is present only in the New Testament and I am going to show you why. God the Holy Spirit is present at the creation of the world at the very beginning of Genesis.

How can we possibly forget what we are told in Genesis 1, that the Spirit of God was hovering over the water? The earth was without form and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.-Genesis 1:2. That’s the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God,

And a little while later, the Holy Spirit is the very breath God breathed into the newly created man that brought him to life. It was the Holy Spirit that God breathed into the man He formed from the dust.  Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.-Genesis 2:7

From there we find the Holy Spirit active throughout the Old Testament. We are told of the Spirit coming upon many of the judges, warriors, and prophets such as Gideon, Samson, Joshua, and Saul.  Sometimes He fills them with temporary but extraordinary power, or sometimes He adds something to the power they already possess to accomplish some task.

For example, in the Book of Judges, “The Spirit of the Lord came on Gideon, and he blew a trumpet, summoning the Abiezrites to follow him. –Judges 6:34. And remember Samson tearing the lion apart with his bare hands? The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him so that he tore the lion apart with bare hands as he might have torn a young goat.-Judges 14:6.

Moreover, the role of the Holy Spirit is active in the Old Testament prophecy. David said, “The Spirit of the Lord spoke through me, and His word was on my tongue.” 2mSamuel 23:2. And Isaiah prophesied, “The Spirit of the Lord will rest upon a descendant of Jesse, and instill him with wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord -Isaiah 11:1-3. Here we see the Holy Spirit giving Isaiah foreknowledge of God the Son’s incarnation.

 Of course, this is not an exhaustive discourse on the role of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. Whole books have been written on the topic so, there surely is not space enough here to do it justice. But I hope at least I’ve shown enough that those of you who have believed that God the Holy Spirit played little or no part in the Old Testament can revise that view.

Even though more believers are familiar with the Holy Spirit in the New Testament than in the Old, as the shy one of the Trinity, the role of the Holy Spirit can be subtle. Many miss the fact that the Holy Spirit was there at the conception of Jesus. “The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on 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.

Perhaps because of His shyness, the Holy Spirit can be both subtle and gentle. I think of that each time I read about the Holy Spirit’s role in the baptism of Jesus. The picture of the Lord breaking through the water to look up and see the sky open and the Spirit descend on Him as a dove, for me is full o of subtly, joy, and gentleness. And at the same time, it is glorious. “Just as Jesus was coming out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.-Mark 1:10.

Arguably, the most famous role of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament is on the day of Pentecost when the Apostles are filled with the Holy Spirit and begin to speak in tongues. This was the fulfillment of a promise Jesus made to them, “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”-John 14:26.

Ten days later, on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples empowering them to fulfill the Great Commission; to go out and spread the Word to all nations.

In this short look at the Trinity, we have traced the three persons of the Trinity through scripture in the Old and New Testament. We have seen that the whole Trinity is active in every part of the Bible. We have been able to dispel a couple of notions I have heard about the Trinity and perhaps you have too.

By looking at the individual equal roles of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit through scripture we have dispelled the notion that, contrary to the stubborn beliefs of some, one entity of the Trinity, for example, the Father, is not more important or higher in rank than the others. And we’ve seen that it’s a myth that the Holy Spirit is not present in the Old Testament. On the contrary, He s active throughout the Bible.

Because we have finite minds it is near impossible for us to understand the Trinity in its wholeness and oneness.  Because it is so complex and difficult to understand, I am under no illusion that I was able to give you a deep understanding of the Doctrine of the Trinity in this brief summary. However, it is my hope that I have afforded you, at least a bit more comfort in thinking about it as well as sparking your curiosity enough that you will do some investigating on your own and learn a bit more.

 

Let’s Pray

Father, we are never more aware of the limits of our finite mind than we are when we struggle to understand the Trinity. We ask you, Lord, to be with us as we read your holy book, the Bible, and give us the insight and understanding of this beautiful mystery. And if we struggle to understand, Lord, help us then, to intuitively grasp what we need to know about The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit separately as well as together as the Trinity. Please remind us that each of you has something to give us as we walk with you through the process of sanctification. Anoint us, Lord, to accept what each of you offers and to use it to glorify God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit individually and together in a way that draws us ever closer to you. We thank You, God, for the Bible that you have given us that we may know you and worship you in the manner which you deserve. We ask you this in the holy name of Jesus Christ,          Amen!

 

 

 

Points for Pondering or Prayer

                      or

Perhaps for Putting Pen to Paper

 

These questions are to stimulate your mind and help you to think about your relationship with God, the process of your sanctification, and the nature of your sin.
As all have fallen short of the glory of God.-Romans 3:23

 Do you feel like you understand the Trinity?   Could you teach it to someone else in a way they would understand it?

 Has anyone actually taught you about the Trinity, what it is and how it works? If so, who taught you and when?

 Did you know that the Holy Spirit’s role in the Bible and in our lives is just as significant as are the roles of God the Father and God the Son?

What do you think the role of the Holy Spirit is in your life?

 Were you aware that the Holy Spirit is active throughout the Old and New Testament?

Write a paragraph about your understanding of the Trinity.