Understanding the Trinity

The doctrine of the Trinity is explained in the Bible by three statements:

1. God is three persons – Mt 28:19, Mk 1:9ff, Jn 1:1f, Jn 14:26ff
2. Each person is fully God – Jn 1:1ff, Jn 20:28, Acts 5:3f
3. There is one God – Dt 6:4f, Rom 3:30

Unfortunately, there is no easy way of understanding how these three statements fit together. They are paradoxical, but the Bible teaches them and therefore they are true.

The Bible gives us only one analogy to help us understand the Trinity, that of the relationship between a father and a son. Any attempt on our part to explain the Trinity in a simpler way will be incorrect.

Historically, the Church has attempted to simplify this doctrine, and in doing so has made some serious errors in their understanding. The following are the main incorrect attempts that have been made in understanding the Trinity and their repercussions.

• Modalism (ignoring statement 1) is attractive as it easily shows us how God is one and how Father, Son and Spirit can each be fully God. But, apart from being unbiblical, it is unhelpful as there are no relationships within the Godhead. As God is unchanging, if there was no one to love before creation, he can’t love now and therefore can’t love us.

• Arianism (ignoring statement 2) is attractive as it easily explains how God can be both one and three persons. Again it is unbiblical and throws up problems, for example, if Christ is not fully God, he would have been unable to fully bear God’s wrath on the cross, and thus our sins are not atoned for.

• Tritheism (ignoring statement 3) is attractive, because we would then be able to grasp how the three persons can each be fully God. Besides being unbiblical, it throws up several issues. To whom do we worship? And what if the Spirit decided to go against what the Father has decided? There needs to be unity in God for things to exist.

At this stage it would be beneficial to discuss how the Father, Son and Holy Spirit interact with each other.

• The role of the Father is generally to plan and direct, and send the Son and Holy Spirit. For example, in redemption, the Father planned it and sent the Son into the world (Jn 3:16, Gal 4:4, Eph 1:9-10.)

• The role of the Son is to do as the Father instructs, in the same way as a human father and son do. For example, in redemption, the Son obeyed the Father and accomplished redemption (Jn 6:38, Heb 10:5-7)

• The role of the Holy Spirit is to do as the Father and Son instruct. For example, in redemption, the Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son to bring to completion the work planned by the Father and completed by the Son (Jn 14:26ff)

In the Church and a marriage, we have two earthly examples of plurality in unity, and equality and subordination which may be helpful in understanding the Trinity better.

• The Church is one body made up of many people who each retain their own distinctive individualities. Within the Church there are many different roles and people have authority over others, but they are all equally children of God.

• Within a marriage, there are two people who love each other and are one in body, mind and spirit. There are also different roles in a marriage, the husband is in loving authority over the wife and she is in loving obedience to the husband, but at the same time they are both equally made in God’s image.

I finish by reassuring you that whilst we are expected to believe the doctrine of the Trinity, it is something that we will never fully understand and be able to comprehend. But that’s not a cause for frustration – this is not merely an abstract idea which is difficult to get our heads around. The doctrine of the Trinity explains who God is, the same personal, eternal and loving God who we do know has redeemed us.

Whilst it may be an impossible doctrine to grasp, as we meditate on what we are told in the Bible, it should lead us to joy, amazement and worship:

This triune God, who is so infinitely hard to understand, loves us so much that before creation, the Father, with the loving obedience of the Son and the Holy Spirit, decided that even though we would become enemies of God, by his grace he would propitiate himself by sending the Son to earth so that by the power of the Holy Spirit he would live a life of obedience for us and at the cross take onto himself the wrath that we deserve. Then, whilst we were children of wrath, the Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit to convict us of our sin, to open our eyes to the truth of the Gospel and to enable us to put our trust in this saving work of God, so that we might be able to spend eternity in the presence of the triune God, to the glory of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

This is an abridged version of my first study response for Relay.