God: Three in One

God is three in one. It is one of the most complex paradigms within theology. It plagued the early Christian church for hundreds of years. They tried to figure out how to best explain what it means that God is three but also one. Eventually, they concluded that God is one in substance but three in subsistence. Which is great, but it doesn’t really help people like you and me! Millard Erickson offers this statement in regard to the Trinity, “If you don’t believe in the Trinity, you will lose your soul, but if you try to understand the Trinity, you will lose your mind.” This is very true, so we must be cautious as we begin this endeavor together.

Scriptural Witness

There are eight statements that must be made when defining the trinity.  

1.     God is One in Substance.

The oneness of God is essential within Christianity. In fact, it is the easiest one to understand. This was a core teaching in the Law in the Old Testament. It was drilled into the Israelite’s heads. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4). This truth is also taught in the New Testament. “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder,” (James 2:19). Even the demons believe that there is one God. This truth is essential to our faith. We believe in one God. In substance, God is one. This is an important distinction. He is one in nature.

2.     God is Three in Person/Subsistence.

This is where it gets harder to understand. While God is one, he is also three. He is comprised of three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Spirit. We see this clearly laid out in a couple of different places in the New Testament. “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you” (John 14:26). We don’t have three different gods, nor do we have three separate people that exist independent of each other that just claim the name of God. We have one God, as stated before, that is three in person.

3.     The Father is God.

The first person of the Trinity is the Father. He is God. We can find this reality in scripture. “who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance,” (1 Peter 1:2).

4.     The Son is God.

The second person of the Trinity is the Son. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him, nothing was made that has been made”(John 1:1-3). The Son, being the Word made flesh, is Christ Jesus. He is God. He is equally God as the other two members of the trinity. There is the complication of how Jesus can be both God and man. However, we will save that discussion for a later date. Jesus is God. He has existed as God since before the beginning of time. He always has been, there has never been a time when the Son was not.

5.     The Spirit is God.

The third person of the Trinity is the Holy Spirit. It is easy to forget that the Spirit is God. In fact, he is as much God as the Father and the Son are. “Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (John 3:5-8). The Spirit is in charge of changing the believer into a child of God. The only way to the Father is through the Spirit, making you a new creation on the basis of Christ’s death and resurrection. “Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.” (Acts 5:3-4). Here, it is seen that Ananias lied to the Spirit, which is God. That was his offense. He lied to God.

6.     The Father is not identical to the Son.

Now, we must make some distinctions between the persons of the Trinity. Father and the Son are not the same. “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14). The Father did not send himself; rather, he sent his Son. The Son is different from the Father. They are distinct in person and have different roles. However, they are the same, being that they are one as God.          

7.     The Father is not identical to the Spirit.

The Father and the Spirit are distinct as well. “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you” (John 14:16-17). Again, the Father cannot send himself; rather, he sent the Spirit. The Spirit is distinct from the other persons of the Trinity. However, we must remember that we need to maintain their oneness.        

8.     The Son is not identical to the Spirit.

The Son and the Spirit are distinct as well. “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” (Matthew 3:16). The Spirit is a separate person from the Son. We see in the New Testament that Jesus promised the Spirit would come after he had left. We see this distinction maintained again.

            Let’s take a moment to process what we have just laid out. I have included a graphic to help us visualize it.[1] All three persons of the trinity are God; however, the three persons of the trinity are not each other. For example, when we see that the Son came to die for our sins, it would be wrong of us to conclude that the Spirit also died. The Spirit does not have anything to do with the atonement. His purpose is to convict of sin and to comfort believers. Each member of the Trinity is equal to the others. You may be wondering why I haven’t broken out one of the classic analogies of the Trinity (e.g., egg, water, etc.). I haven’t included these because I find them unhelpful. In fact, more often than not, they merely explain a heresy. So, I tend to want to steer clear of these analogies.

Historical Trinitarian Heresies

            Now that we have looked at what the Trinity is, I would like to spend some time looking at what it is not. The following will be the common heresies that have come about when trying to explain the Trinity. This section won’t be extensive; its purpose will be merely to make you aware of them so you can be cautious when you come across them.

Arianism/Subordinationism

            This position claims that the Father is the eternal God. They then say that the Son and the Spirit were created at some point. After those two persons were created, then the world was created. They base it off of John 3:16. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (KJV). They point at the word ‘begotten’ and use that as proof that the Son was created and born at some point. However, that word is better translated as ‘one and only.’ Modern translations have adopted this better understanding of the word. This position denies the equality of the persons. It makes the Son and of the Spirit-created beings and thus is subordinate to the Father. This is the position that the Jehovah’s Witnesses take.

Modalism

            This position emphasizes the oneness of God. They say that God is ‘radically one.’ The Father, Son, and Spirit are simply names of the different modes of existence of the one God. This denies the distinction of the persons. They claim that God cannot be both one and three. This leads them to deny the threeness of God and lock onto the oneness of God. This is the position of the Oneness Pentecostals.

Tritheism

            This position goes to the other extreme of Modalism. They deny the oneness of God and emphasize their distinctions. It claims that the Father, Son, and Spirit are all God. However, they say that they are all separate from each other. Tritheism denies the unity of God. This was never a formal heresy, but it always loomed in the background.

Partitionism/Partialism

            This heresy states that the Father, Son, And Spirit are each part of God, who together make up God. In other words, they each are a third of God. This denies the deity of each person. Once again, this was never a formal heresy, but it is common in the trinitarian analogies. For example, the egg analogy. That analogy says that the egg as a whole represents God. The yoke, egg white, and shell represent each person of the Trinity. They are all a part of the whole. This heresy should be discarded as false because it fails to maintain the deity of each person.

Conclusion

            We see hints of the Trinity throughout the bible. We have one God. This is clearly evident throughout scripture. Our God is three persons: Father, Son, and Spirit. We then can say that God is one in substance and three in subsistence. I have included a graphic to help us maintain the correct balance in our understanding of the Trinity. We must not negate the deity of each person nor the unity that they have. All three are fully God. We must stay in the middle, keeping equality, diversity, and unity between each person of the Trinity. If we start to emphasize any of those three elements over the others, we have landed ourselves in heresy. This paradigm that we have with the Trinity will never be able to be fully rectified in our minds. This is the best that we can do in an attempt to understand the Trinity. It is something we must take by faith. However, it is not blind faith because we see the evidence clearly throughout Scripture.

[1] A little disclaimer that these graphics are not original to me. My theology professor, Dr. Lance Saxon, used these in his lectures, and I found them very helpful to help visualize the complex statements that we are making.