God in Three Persons - Part 2

It is evident through the Old and New Testaments, where God the Father is clearly viewed as sovereign Lord over all and where Jesus prays to his Father in heaven.

The Son is fully God

John 1:1–4 ESV

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

How can we question the deity of Jesus when we read this? Christ is referred to as “the Word,” and John says both that he was “with God” and that he “was God.” Where else do we see the words “In the beginning” occurring, and what follows it?

Genesis 1:1 ESV

1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

John is talking about something that was true before the world was made. God the Son was always fully God.

Thomas echoes this in John 20:28:

John 20:28 ESV

28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”

Another confirmation of Jesus as God comes in Hebrews 1:3:

Hebrews 1:3 (ESV)

3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

“the exact imprint of his nature”. He…Is…God.

The Holy Spirit is also fully God.

Once we understand God the Father and God the Son to be fully God, then the Trinitarian expressions in verses like Matthew 28:19 (“baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”) assume significance for the doctrine of the Holy Spirit because they show that the Holy Spirit is classified on an equal level with the Father and the Son.

Look at Acts 5:3-4:

Acts 5:3–4 (ESV)

3 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?

4 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.”

Up to this point we have two conclusions, both abundantly taught throughout Scripture:

1. God is three persons.

2. Each person is fully God.

There is One God

How may God’s are there?

Scripture is EXTREMELY clear that there is one and only one God. Not only are the three different persons of the Trinity one in purpose and in agreement on what they think, but they are also one in essence, one in their essential nature. In other words, God is only one being. There are not three Gods. There is only one God.

Deuteronomy 6:4–5 ESV

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

When God speaks, he repeatedly makes it clear that he is the only true God; the idea that there are three Gods to be worshiped rather than one would be unthinkable in the light of these extremely strong statements. God alone is the one true God and there is no one like him. When he speaks, he alone is speaking—he is not speaking as one God among three who are to be worshiped. He says,

Isaiah 45:5–6 (ESV)

5 I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me,

6 that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the Lord, and there is no other.

1 Timothy 2:5 (ESV)

5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

Romans 3:30 (ESV)

30 since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.

1 Corinthians 8:6 (ESV)

6 yet 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.

James 2:19 (ESV)

19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!

So, The Trinity is Like...

How do analogies fall short in explaining the Trinity?

All Analogies Have Shortcomings

Sometimes people have used several analogies drawn from nature or human experience to attempt to explain this doctrine. Although these analogies are helpful at an elementary level of understanding, they all turn out to be inadequate or misleading on further reflection.

To say, for example, that God is like a three-leaf clover, which has three parts yet remains one clover, fails because each leaf is only part of the clover, and any one leaf cannot be said to be the whole clover. But in the Trinity, each of the persons is not just a separate part of God, each person is fully God. Moreover, the leaf of a clover is impersonal and does not have distinct and complex personality in the way each person of the Trinity does.

Others have used the analogy of a tree with three parts: the roots, trunk, and branches all constitute one tree. But a similar problem arises, for these are only parts of a tree, and none of the parts can be said to be the whole tree. Moreover, in this analogy the parts have different properties, unlike the persons of the Trinity, all of whom possess all of the attributes of God in equal measure. And the lack of personality in each part is a deficiency as well.

The analogy of the three forms of water (steam, water, and ice) is also inadequate because (a) no single molecule of water is ever all three of these at the same time,17 (b) they have different properties or characteristics, (c) the analogy has nothing that corresponds to the fact that there is only one God (there is no such thing as “one water” or “all the water in the universe”), and (d) the element of intelligent personality is lacking.

It might be said that the Trinity is something like a man who is both a farmer, the mayor of his town, and an elder in his church. He functions in different roles at different times, but he is one man. However, this analogy is very deficient because there is only one person doing these three activities at different times, and the analogy cannot deal with the personal interaction among the members of the Trinity

Another analogy taken from human life is the union of the intellect, the emotions, and the will in one human person. While these are parts of a personality, however, no one factor constitutes the entire person. And the parts are not identical in characteristics but have different abilities.

So what analogy shall we use to teach the Trinity? Although the Bible uses many analogies from nature and life to teach us various aspects of God’s character (God is like a rock in his faithfulness, he is like a shepherd in his care, etc.), it is interesting that Scripture nowhere uses any analogies to teach the doctrine of the Trinity. The closest we come to an analogy is found in the titles “Father” and “Son” themselves, titles that clearly speak of distinct persons and of the close relationship that exists between them in a human family. But on the human level, of course, we have two entirely separate human beings, not one being comprised of three distinct persons. It is best to conclude that no analogy adequately teaches about the Trinity, and, on deeper reflection, we see that all are ultimately misleading in significant ways.

God Eternally and Necessarily Exists as the Trinity

When the universe was created God the Father spoke the powerful creative words that brought it into being, God the Son was the divine agent who carried out these words, and God the Holy Spirit was active “hovering over the face of the waters”. So it is as we would expect: if all three members of the Trinity are equally and fully divine, then they have all three existed for all eternity, and God has eternally existed as a Trinity.

Errors in Interpreting the Trinity

Do doctrinal errors exist about the Trinity? What are examples?

Throughout the history of the church, there have been some mistakes interpreting the Trinity that we should avoid.

Modalism

At various times people have taught that God is not really three distinct persons but only one person who appears in different “modes” at different times. For example, in the Old Testament God appeared as “Father.” Throughout the Gospels, this same divine person appeared as “the Son” as seen in the human life and ministry of Jesus. After Pentecost, this same person then revealed himself as the “Spirit” active in the church.

Also referred to as Sabellianism (names after Sabellius who lived in Rome during the early third century AD). Another term is “modalistic monarchianism” because it not only teaches God reveals himself in different “modes” but also there is only one supreme ruler (monarch) of the universe - God, who consists of only one person.

Modalism gains its attractiveness from the desire to emphasize clearly the fact that there is only one God. modalism is an attempt to make the Trinity easy to understand. Modalism makes God similar to a human being who plays different roles at different times, such as a man (for example) who sometimes works as a farmer, at other times acts as a mayor of his own town, and at other times serves as an elder in his church. The same person is a farmer, a mayor, and an elder. And if we say God is one person with different roles like that, there is no mystery in the Trinity, nothing difficult to understand.

The fatal shortcoming of modalism is the fact that it must deny that the three persons of the Trinity are distinct individuals, and it must deny the interpersonal relationships within the Trinity that appear frequently in Scripture (or it must affirm that these were simply an illusion and not real). Thus it must deny three separate persons at the baptism of Jesus, when the Father speaks from heaven, the Son is being baptized, and the Spirit descends on Jesus like a dove. Moreover, modalism denies the independence of God, for if God is only one person, then he has no ability to love and to communicate without other persons in his creation. Therefore it was necessary for God to create the world, and God would no longer be independent of creation.

Arianism

The term Arianism is derived from Arius (d. 336), a presbyter (elder) of the church in Alexandria whose views were condemned at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325. Arius taught that God the Son was at one point created by God the Father, and that before that time the Son did not exist, nor did the Holy Spirit, but the Father only. Thus, though the Son is a heavenly being who existed before the rest of creation and who is far greater than all the rest of creation, he is still not equal to the Father in all his attributes—he may even be said to be “like the Father” or “similar to the Father” in his nature, but he cannot be said to be “of the same nature” as the Father, according to Arian teaching. (Take “only begotten” as meaning created after the fact).

The texts that say that Christ was God’s “only begotten Son” were understood by early church leaders to refer to an eternal relationship between the Father and the Son. But the many texts affirming Christ’s deity were so strong that the early church concluded that whatever “only begotten” meant, it did not mean “created.” Therefore, the Nicene Creed in AD 325 affirmed that Christ was “begotten, not made”:

“We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, the only-begotten; that is, of the essence of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance (homoousion) with the Father.” In further repudiation of the teaching of Arius, the Nicene Creed insisted that Christ was “of the same substance (or same nature) as the Father.” The dispute with Arius concerned two words that have become famous in the history of Christian doctrine, homoousios (“of the same nature”) and homoiousios (“of a similar nature”).25 The difference depends on the different meaning of two Greek prefixes, homo-, meaning “same,” and homoi-, meaning “similar.” Arius was happy to say that Christ was a supernatural heavenly being, that he was created by God before the creation of the rest of the universe, and even that he was “similar” to God in his nature. Arius would agree to the word homoiousios.

But the Council of Nicaea in 325 and the Council of Constantinople in 381 realized that this did not go far enough, for if Christ is not of exactly the same nature as the Father, then he is not fully God. So both councils insisted that orthodox Christians confess Jesus to be homoousios, of the same nature as God the Father.

Subordinationism

In affirming that the Son was of the same nature as the Father, the early church also excluded a related false doctrine, subordinationism. While Arianism held that the Son was created and was not divine, subordinationism held that the Son was eternal (not created) and divine but still not equal to the Father in being or attributes—the Son was inferior or “subordinate” in being and attributes to God the Father.26 The early church father Origen (c. 185–c. AD 254) advocated a form of subordinationism by holding that the Son was inferior to the Father in being and that the Son eternally derives his being from the Father. Origen was attempting to protect the distinction of persons and was writing before the doctrine of the Trinity was clearly formulated in the church. The rest of the church did not follow him but clearly rejected his teaching at the Council of Nicaea.

Adoptionism

“Adoptionism” is the view that Jesus lived as an ordinary man until his baptism, but then God “adopted” Jesus as his “Son” and conferred on him supernatural powers. Adoptionists would not hold that Christ existed before he was born as a man; therefore, they would not think of Christ as eternal, nor would they think of him as the exalted, supernatural being created by God that the Arians held him to be. Even after Jesus’ “adoption” as the “Son” of God, they would not think of him as divine in nature, but only as an exalted man whom God called his “Son” in a unique sense.

The Filioque Clause

In connection with the Nicene Creed, one unfortunate chapter in the history of the church should be briefly noted, namely the controversy over the insertion of the filioque clause into the Nicene Creed, an insertion that eventually led to the split between Western (Roman Catholic) Christianity and Eastern Christianity (consisting today of various branches of eastern orthodox Christianity, such as the Greek Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox Church, etc.) in AD 1054.

The word filioque is a Latin term that means “and from the Son.” It was not included in the Nicene Creed in either the first version of AD 325 or the second version of AD 381. Those versions simply said that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father.” But in AD 589, at a regional church council in Toledo (in what is now Spain), the phrase “and the Son” was added, so that the creed then said that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son (filioque).” In the light of John 15:26 and 16:7, where Jesus said that he would send the Holy Spirit into the world, it seems there could be no objection to such a statement if it referred to the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son at a point in time (particularly at Pentecost). But this was a statement about the nature of the Trinity, and the phrase was understood to speak of the eternal relationship between the Holy Spirit and the Son, something Scripture never explicitly discusses.28 The form of the Nicene Creed that had this additional phrase gradually gained in general use and received an official endorsement in AD 1017. The entire controversy was complicated by ecclesiastical politics and struggles for power, and this apparently very insignificant doctrinal point was the main doctrinal issue in the split between Eastern and Western Christianity in AD 1054. (The underlying political issue, however, was the relation of the Eastern church to the authority of the Pope.) The doctrinal controversy and the split between the two branches of Christianity have not been resolved to this day.

Is there a correct position on this question? The weight of evidence (slim though it is) seems clearly to favor the Western church. In spite of the fact that John 15:26 says that the Spirit of truth “proceeds from the Father,” this does not deny that he proceeds also from the Son (just as John 14:26 says that the Father will send the Holy Spirit, but John 16:7 says that the Son will send the Holy Spirit). In fact, in the same sentence in John 15:26 Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit as one “whom I shall send to you from the Father.”

And if the Son together with the Father sends the Spirit into the world, by analogy it would seem appropriate to say that this reflects an eternal ordering of their relationships. This is not something that we can clearly insist on based on any specific verse, but much of our understanding of the eternal relationships among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit comes by analogy from what Scripture tells us about the way they relate to the creation in time.

Moreover, the Eastern formulation (without the addition of filioque) runs the danger of suggesting an unnatural distance between the Son and the Holy Spirit, leading to the possibility that even in personal worship an emphasis on more mystical, Spirit-inspired experience might be pursued to the neglect of an accompanying rationally understandable adoration of Christ as Lord. Nevertheless, the controversy was ultimately over such an obscure point of doctrine (essentially, the relationship between the Son and Spirit before creation) that it certainly did not warrant division in the church. In reality, the controversy was probably due more to underlying differences about church government (especially the power of the Pope), with the filioque clause as more of a pretext for the division than the real reason for it.

Grudem, W. (2020). Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Second Edition, p. 290). Zondervan Academic.

Related Media

Related Sermons