The Trinity
Who is God? What do we know of His Trinitarian nature from the Bible?
God is the Trinity. He is one in essence but three in person. These three distinct persons are one, true, eternal God.[1] This means that we do not believe in three gods but one (Deut 6:4; Mark 12:29). The Trinitarian nature of God is demonstrated implicitly in the Old Testament. The Book of Genesis begins with God as the Creator of the world, yet in the same chapter, God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness…” (Gen 1:1, 26). The use of the first-person plural pronoun “us” and the subsequent possessive pronoun “our” suggests the involvement of more than one person. These persons cannot be other than God because, in the following verse, mankind is told to be created “in the image of God” (Gen 1:27).[2] This sense of persons in the Godhead can also be seen in other parts of the Old Testament (Ps 45:6-7; Ps 110:1; Prov 8:22-36; Isa 9:6).
The Trinitarian reality of God is demonstrated more explicitly in the New Testament. The account of Jesus’ baptism involved a voice from heaven, which was from God, the descending of the Spirit of God and God’s proclamation of Jesus as his Son (Matt 3:16-17; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22). More significantly, in the Great Commission, Jesus called his disciples to baptise in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with the word “name” being kept in singular (Matt 28:19). The intentional use of a singular noun to refer to three persons clarifies the understanding that God is one in essence but three in person—the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In this way, the New Testament sheds light on what was already implicitly revealed about God in the Old Testament.
In the Trinity, there is both equality and order. All persons in the Trinity are equally God (Phi 2:6; Acts 5:3-4), so Jesus and the Holy Spirit are not a lesser God than the Father, as the Jehovah's Witnesses may suggest.[3] Likewise, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are also not a greater God than the Father. However, there is order in the Trinity concerning the authority of the persons (John 8:28-29; 14:28; Matt 24:36). This difference in authority should not be understood as indicating ontological superiority or inferiority of any of the persons in the Trinity but rather as indicating a difference in the role of the persons within the Godhead.[4] The reality of sin has made it difficult to comprehend how equality and order could coexist. In this world, where there is equality, there often is a lack of order; where there is order, there is often a lack of equality. But in the Trinity, equality and order can coexist because God is holy and perfect (Deut 32:4; Matt 5:48).
[1] The Three Forms of Unity, (Left of Brain Books, 2021), "Heidelberg Catechism – The Second Part – Of Man’s Deliverance."
[2] If angels are involved in the “us” as some may suggest, shouldn’t the next verse say that mankind is created “in the image of God and angels”?
[3] See Justin Taylor, “The 11 Beliefs You Should Know about Jehovah’s Witnesses When They Knock at the Door,” The Gospel Coalitions US, 17 August 2017, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/the-11-beliefs-you-should-know-about-jehovahs-witnesses-when-they-knock-at-the-door/.
[4] Thomas R. Schreiner, 1 Corinthians, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2018), ch. 3, "Answers to Contemporary Issues in the Church (7:1-16:4)."