I’m going to be honest, understanding Christian theology would be a lot easier if there were no such concept as “The Trinity”—that is, the idea that God is a singular being and also three beings (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) all at once. In fact, this theology is one of the main reasons why people of Jewish and Islamic faith reject Christianity. Those folks see the Trinity as tantamount to polytheism and idolatry because the Christian person worships interchangeably God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. So, yeah, it’d definitely be more “human-friendly” if we could, intellectually speaking, line through the Trinity and move on to other things.
However, God seems unwilling to dismiss his unfathomable, divine nature in order to accommodate our limited understanding of him. So we’re going to have to do our best with the knowledge we have. With that in mind, what should Christians know about the Trinity? Let’s see if we can answer four key questions about that.
1. What Does it Mean That God Is Three Persons in One?
This was something the early church fathers wrestled with over centuries. Finally, the influential Athanasian Creed set down in writing the accepted Christian belief about the Trinity, and this statement of faith has stood the test of time. Here’s how that creed explains it, as quoted by Justin Holcomb in his book, Know the Creeds (pp. 63, 66):
"We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; Neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Essence.
For there is one Person of the Father; another of the Son; and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one …Such as the Father is, such is the Son; and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father uncreated; the Son uncreated; and the Holy Ghost uncreated. The Father unlimited; the Son unlimited; and the Holy Ghost unlimited. The Father eternal; the Son eternal; and the Holy Ghost eternal. And yet they are not three eternal; but one eternal.
As also there are not three uncreated; nor three infinites, but one uncreated; and one infinite."
There. That clears it all up for you, right? Well, if you’re like me … no so much. But the main takeaway is this: Even though we can’t fully grasp exactly how it works out there in the realms of unbound eternity and limitless divinity, we acknowledge the truth that God is one Person who is also three distinct Persons.
2. Where Is the Trinity in the Bible?
The term “Trinity” never appears in Scripture, but the reality of the term is evident in both the Jewish Old Testament and Christian New Testament. The Old Testament acknowledges the plurality of God while also emphasizing the singleness of his Person. The New Testament affirms the Old Testament view, and also clarifies with names the three “plurals” of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. With the New Testament’s clarifications, reading the plural references to God in the Old Testament becomes clearer and more understandable. For instance:
As early as Genesis 1 we can see the threefold nature of God both explicitly and implicitly in the text. Genesis 1:1 (NIV) states, “In the beginning God created …” The Trinitarian would interpret that as an explicit reference to God the Father. Next, Genesis 1:2 mentions that, “The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters …” This we see, obviously, as an explicit reference to God the Holy Spirit. And Genesis 1:26 reports (italics mine), “Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness …” With Colossians 1:16 in our view, the Trinitarian can see this pluralized pronoun usage as an implicit reference to God the Son, Jesus Christ.
The Hebrew Old Testament makes several other statements of “plural unity” like this in its text (see Genesis 3:22, 11;7; Isaiah 6:8, 48:16; among others). And while our English translations don’t always accommodate the plural aspect of the Hebrew term Elohim (the name used for God in Genesis 1:1), according to BibleHub.com’s Englishman’s Concordance (https://biblehub.com/hebrew/elohim_430.htm) that plural reference to God is used over 600 times in Old Testament Scripture.
In the New Testament, the plurality of God is assumed as a given, and it’s here that we learn that our one God is three distinctly named Persons. This is most obvious at the moment of Jesus baptism, as recorded in Matthew 3:16-17 (NIV) which reports, “As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’” (See also Mark 1:1-11 and Luke 3:21-24.)
This moment at Jesus’ baptism is the only place in the New Testament where all three members of the Trinity are present at the same time: Father speaking from heaven, Son dripping wet after being baptized, and Holy Spirit descending like a dove. Other references to the Trinity in the New Testament include Matthew 28:19, 1 Corinthians 12:4-5, 2 Corinthians 13:14, 1 Peter 1:2, and more.
3. What’s the Origin and History of the Trinity in the Church?
The ancient church fathers at first simply acknowledged the Trinity without feeling the need to explain a theology of that understanding.
For example, The Didache (pronounced DID-uh-kay) is one of the oldest known Christian writings outside of the New Testament. As Maxwell Staniforth and Andrew Louth point out in their book, Early Christian Writings, it’s typically assumed to have been written before 100 AD—perhaps even while some of Jesus’ apostles were still living. An anonymous collection of oral traditions about Christ, it relates a good portion of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount—and also instructs believers to baptize “In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (pp. 189, 194). Notice singular use of “Name” in conjunction with the three Persons of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—indicating that even then, God was understood from a triune perspective.
In his book, The Christian Faith, theologian Michael Horton sheds light on what happened next (pp. 279-282, 287). Roughly 100 years or so after The Didache, a church father named Tertullian is credited with being the first to define God as “one in essence, three in persons.” That pioneered Trinitarian theology in the West. Also in the third century, an Alexandrian priest named Arius struggled to reconcile Jesus with the idea that God was a single being. He began teaching, then, that Jesus was the first created being—but still a created being, and thus not God.
The philosophies of Tertullian and Arius prompted much debate until 325 AD, when a consensus among church leaders emerged at the Council of Nicea that defined a clear doctrine of the Trinity based on the Biblical texts. It was recorded for history in what we know as The Nicene Creed. About 150+ years after that, in the late 400s to early 500s AD, the Athanasian Creed (quoted earlier) expanded and clarified our understanding to (mostly) what it is today.
4. How Can You Explain the Trinity to Others?
Well now, that’s the problem, isn’t it? How do you explain Someone who is, by divine nature, inexplicable within our limited intellectual ways of thinking? Many good people have tried—and made some serious errors attempting to come up with an understandable allegory to explain the Trinity. So first, let’s start with three important ways NOT to explain the Trinity—described with joyous inventiveness in the Lutheran Satire video, “St. Patrick’s Bad Analogies”:
a) Modalism:
This is popular, but dangerously misleading. It basically takes the approach that God is one person who just reveals himself in three different ways. For instance, he’s like water that can be seen as liquid, ice, and mist. Or God is like a man who’s a father, a husband, and an accountant. Modalism does of good job of maintaining the singularity of God, but it fails to account for the clear plurality of Persons that’s revealed in Scripture.
b) Partialism:
This view takes the opposite approach to modalism, but is equally as dangerous. It says that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all parts of God—each basically one-third of deity. For instance, he’s like a boiled egg that has three parts: yolk, white, and shell. Or he’s like a three-leaf clover and each leaf is part-God. Partialism seeks to preserve the “threeness” of God, but it fails to account for the clear singularity of God evident in Scripture.
c) Arianism.
Yep, this is the theory started by ol’ Arius himself. It states that although Christ and the Holy Spirit are exalted above humans, they’re still only created beings (apparently made by the Father because he needed help or something?). For instance, God is like the sun: a star (the Father) that creates light (the Son) and heat (the Spirit) as secondary aspects of its being. This fails to preserve either the independent singularity of God or the plurality of his being—both of which are clearly shown in Scripture.
Now, how can we avoid these kinds of errors and still explain the Trinity to others? It’s tempting to reach for new allegories, new ways to say, “The Trinity is like …” But the best advice I can give is to just admit we don’t have a fully consistent “explanation” for who God is—and he didn’t feel it was necessary to formulate one for us. Thus, we believe what Scripture describes: God is one Person and God is three Persons—all at once. Or as Tertullian taught us centuries ago, our wondrous Creator is indeed, “one in essence, three in persons.”
Do I have to understand the details of how that works in eternity and within divinity? Of course not—there are lots of things I don’t understand and yet still believe (gravity comes to mind, as well as mitochondria, and the unfathomable mystery of why people voluntarily eat okra). With that in mind, then, I want to leave you with some helpful insight about the Trinity and our faith which I gained from the wise Episcopal priest, Justin Holcomb (Know the Creeds, p. 67):
To speak about God, to speak about the Trinity, is different from speaking about any other thing. God is categorically separate from all other subjects. God is God. And nothing else is. So when we discuss the Trinity, we are peering into what theologians call the “aseity” [self-existence] of God … God presents himself fully only to himself. We know about the Trinity only because God lovingly reveals aspects of his being and character to us. But God knows himself very well!
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Mike Nappa is a practical theologian known for writing “coffee-shop theology” and Christian Living books. He’s a bestselling and award-winning author with millions of copies of his works sold worldwide. An Arab-American, Mike is proud to be a person of color (BIPOC) active in Christian publishing. Google Mikey to learn more, or visit MikeNappa.com. Find Mike Nappa’s bestselling book, Reflections for the Grieving Soul wherever books are sold.
