Theological Term of the Week: Trinity

Trinity
The one true God who exists eternally as three distinct persons—the Father, Son and Holy Spirit—and each person is fully God.

• In scripture:

  And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:16-17 ESV)

• From the Athanasian Creed:

We worship one God in trinity and the Trinity in unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the divine being. For the Father is one person, the Son is another, and the Spirit is still another. But the deity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, equal in glory, coeternal in majesty. What the Father is, the Son is, and so is the Holy Spirit. Uncreated is the Father; uncreated is the Son; uncreated is the Spirit. The Father is infinite; the Son is infinite; the Holy Spirit is infinite. Eternal is the Father; eternal is the Son; eternal is the Spirit: And yet there are not three eternal beings, but one who is eternal; as there are not three uncreated and unlimited beings, but one who is uncreated and unlimited. Almighty is the Father; almighty is the Son; almighty is the Spirit: And yet there are not three almighty beings, but one who is almighty. Thus the Father is God; the Son is God; the Holy Spirit is God: And yet there are not three gods, but one God. Thus the Father is Lord; the Son is Lord; the Holy Spirit is Lord: And yet there are not three lords, but one Lord.

As Christian truth compels us to acknowledge each distinct person as God and Lord, so catholic religion forbids us to say that there are three gods or lords. The Father was neither made nor created nor begotten; the Son was neither made nor created, but was alone begotten of the Father; the Spirit was neither made nor created, but is proceeding from the Father and the Son. Thus there is one Father, not three fathers; one Son, not three sons; one Holy Spirit, not three spirits. And in this Trinity, no one is before or after, greater or less than the other; but all three persons are in themselves, coeternal and coequal; and so we must worship the Trinity in unity and the one God in three persons. Whoever wants to be saved should think thus about the Trinity.

• From Concise Theology by J. I. Packer: 

The practical importance of the doctrine of the Trinity is that it requires us to pay equal attention, and give equal honor, to all three persons in the unity of their gracious ministry to us. That ministry is the subject matter of the gospel, which, as Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus shows, cannot be stated without bringing in their distinct roles in God’s plan of grace (John 3:1-15; note especially vv. 3, 5-8, 13-15, and John’s expository comments, which NIV renders as part of the conversation itself, vv. 16-21). All non-Trinitarian formulations of the Christian message are by biblical standards inadequate and indeed fundamentally false, and will naturally tend to pull Christian lives out of shape.

Learn more:

1. James White: A Brief Definition of the Trinity 
2. Tim Challies: Visual Theology - The Trinity
3. Robert Letham: Established Boundaries
4. Fred Sanders: 11 Things to Know About the Doctrine of the Trinity, 10 Things You Should Know About the Doctrine of the Trinity, 5 Myths About the Trinity, Trinity, Fountain of Salvation, Theology of the Trinity (video)
5. Credo Magazine: The Trinity and the Christian Life (pdf)

Related terms: 

• economic Trinity
• ontological Trinity
• hypostatic union
• person
• being or essence

Filed under God’s Nature and His Work

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16 Truths You Should Know: God Is One and God Is Three

When you saw the title to this post, did you immediately think of the Trinity? The Christian God, as you probably already know, is triune. He is one God, but he also exists as Father, Son, and Spirit. 

The title of this post, however, isn’t necessarily Trinitarian. It’s true that the triune God of Christianity is both one and three, but he is one and three in a specific sense. He is not one God who simply appears in three different roles in relation to creation. The Father, Son, and Spirit are not merely three different manifestations of a single divine person, to use the language of some cunning nontrinitarians. A single-personed god with three roles or manifestations is the god of modalism, a heresy Christians condemned a long time ago.

Nor does the Triune God consist of three separate gods who work together in a unified way. Worshiping three gods would be tritheism, a form of polytheism, not Christianity. 

Defining the Trinity

To make the title of this post specifically Trinitarian, I could have written that God is one being and three persons. This is the most common formulation of the Trinity in English. When it comes to understanding this formula, however, the way we use those words in everyday English, especially when it comes to the word person, works against us. We use person to refer to separate individuals, but the persons of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—are not individuals. They exist as one being. The three persons are distinct, but they are never separate.

One What, Three Whos

My favorite way to explain what person means in the doctrine of the Trinity is to say that each person is a who. The triune God, then, is one what (or being) and three whos (or persons). (This formulation of the Trinity as one ‘what’ and three ‘whos’ is also useful for teaching children the doctrine of the Trinity without using eggs, shamrocks, water, or other illustrations that do more to confuse things than clarify them.)

J. I Packer says that each person is an “‘I’ in relation to two who are ‘you’.”1 Each person is himself and not the others. Still, all three persons exist as one being. The three “whos” are always together as one “what.”

Co-Equal and Co-Eternal

There are two other English words used to express the doctrine of the Trinity. Orthodox formulations say that the three persons in the one being of God are co-equal and co-eternal. That they are co-equal means that Father, Son, and Spirit are each fully God. No person is greater than or less than the others.

And each person of the Trinity is eternal, so we say they are co-eternal. Father, Son, and Spirit have always existed together as the one being of God. No person came into being; none had a beginning. 

Safeguarding the Teaching of Scripture

These Trinitarian words—person, being, co-equal, co-eternal, and even Trinity itself—are not used in scripture, but they are thoroughly biblical because they explain the biblical data. For instance, the Bible records the Son praying to the Father and sending the Holy Spirit, so we know that Father, Son, and Spirit are distinct persons, not just different manifestations of one person. And scripture also makes it clear that the three persons are each worthy of worship, so we know they are each fully God. But at the same time, throughout scripture we are taught that there is only one God who must be worshipped exclusively. Drawing from scripture, then, we say that God is triune. He is one being and three persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), and the three persons are coequal and coeternal.  This formula and these terms are used to safeguard the biblical teaching about God.

The Trinity Is Greater

Because the Christian God is triune, he is greater the so-called gods of other religions. He is, for instance, loving by nature, something a single-person god cannot be. Since love flowed between the persons of the Trinity eternally, the Christian God does not need anything outside himself to be loving. He is eternally loving in himself and from himself, or, to put it another way, he is loving by nature. 

A single-person god, on the other hand, cannot love—at least not with love that is not self-focused—unless there is something or someone outside himself to love. No eternal, from himself, by nature love flows from a single-person God. To love, a single-person god needs to create something or someone to love. 

But love flows out eternally and naturally from the Christian God, who can, then, be the source of all love. “Love is from God” (1 John 4:7) can only be true of the Trinity.

And the Triune God can save us completely in a way no other god could. In the work of salvation, the Father chooses a people, and sends the Son to redeem them. The Son comes, redeems his people and then intercedes with the Father for them. The Spirit applies redemption to God’s people, recreates them, and keeps them. Our whole Christian life depends on our three-person God.

1Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs, by J. I. Packer, page 42.

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Previous post in this series:

1. 16 Truths You Should Know: God Has Spoken

Sunday's Hymn: Sometimes a Light Surprises

William Cowper again.

Sometimes a light surprises
The Christian while he sings;
It is the Lord, who rises
With healing in His wings:
When comforts are declining,
He grants the soul again
A season of clear shining,
To cheer it after rain.

In holy contemplation
We sweetly then pursue
The theme of God’s salvation,
And find it ever new.
Set free from present sorrow,
We cheerfully can say,
Let the unknown tomorrow
Bring with it what it may.

It can bring with it nothing
But He will bear us through;
Who gives the lilies clothing
Will clothe His people, too;
Beneath the spreading heavens,
No creature but is fed;
And He who feeds the ravens
Will give His children bread.

Though vine nor fig tree neither
Their wonted fruit should bear,
Though all the field should wither,
Nor flocks nor herds be there;
Yet God the same abiding,
His praise shall tune my voice,
For while in Him confiding,
I cannot but rejoice.

—William Cowper

Other hymns, worship songs, or quotes for this Sunday:

• Jesus Is All the World to Me at The Happy Wonderer
• Where Is Your Mind? at The Outspoken Tulip
• Lord’s Day 14, 2020 at The Thirsty Theologian