Doctrine
"...the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one."
1 John 5:7
The doctrine of the Trinity is often called a contradiction, dismissed as confusing, or rejected as unbiblical. Yet it is nothing less than the Bible's own testimony concerning who God is. It does not teach three gods, nor one God wearing three masks, but one God who exists eternally in three distinct Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. This is a mystery too deep for us to fully comprehend — but it is clearly revealed, and it lies at the very heart of the gospel.
We must begin where the Bible begins: there is one, and only one, true and living God. Whatever the Trinity means, it never means three gods. The great confession of Israel stands unshaken.
"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD." (Deuteronomy 6:4)
"I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me." (Isaiah 45:5)
Any teaching that ends in three gods is not the doctrine of the Bible but a form of idolatry. God is one.
And yet, from the very first chapter of the Bible, the one God speaks of Himself in a mysterious plurality. At the creation of man, God said:
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." (Genesis 1:26)
Let us make man in our image — plural words spoken by the one God. Nor is this an accident of language, for the very word the Bible uses for "one" in the confession of Israel is a word that can hold a unity of more than one within it. It is the same word used when a man and his wife, two persons, become "one flesh."
"...and they shall be one flesh." (Genesis 2:24)
So the oneness of God is not a bare, solitary oneness, but a rich and living unity — one God, yet not a mere solitary Person.
This plurality within the one God is no invention of the New Testament; it is woven through the Old. The seraphim before the throne cry the holy name not once but three times.
"...Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory." (Isaiah 6:3)
And in the same vision the one God asks, "Who will go for us?" — the plural again upon the lips of the LORD.
"...Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?..." (Isaiah 6:8)
Elsewhere the prophet records words in which the Speaker, the Lord GOD, and the Spirit are named together, three yet undivided.
"...and now the Lord GOD, and his Spirit, hath sent me." (Isaiah 48:16)
The God of Israel was always the triune God; the New Testament does not change Him, but unveils more fully what the Old had shadowed forth.
That the Father is God, no one disputes. He is called God our Father throughout the Scriptures, the fountain of the Godhead, from whom all things come. We need not labour the point, for it is confessed by all.
The Bible teaches with equal clearness that the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, is fully God. He is the eternal Word who was God.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1)
When Thomas fell before the risen Christ, he called Him God, and the Lord Jesus Christ accepted the worship.
"And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God." (John 20:28)
The Father Himself addresses the Son as God, and the apostle Paul calls Him God over all.
"But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever." (Hebrews 1:8)
"...of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen." (Romans 9:5)
The Holy Ghost, too, is a divine Person — not a mere force or influence, but God Himself. When Ananias lied to the Holy Ghost, the apostle Peter declared that he had lied to God.
"...why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost... thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God." (Acts 5:3-4)
To lie to the Holy Ghost is to lie to God, for the Holy Ghost is God. The Bible plainly identifies Him as the Lord.
"Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." (2 Corinthians 3:17)
Here is the wonder of it. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are not three names for one Person, but three distinct Persons — and yet one God. This appears with striking clearness at the baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ, where all three are present at the same moment: the Son standing in the water, the Holy Ghost descending like a dove, and the Father speaking from heaven.
"...he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." (Matthew 3:16-17)
Three distinct Persons, revealed together in one scene. This is why the Lord Jesus Christ commanded that His people be baptized — not in the names (plural), but in the single name — of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
"...baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." (Matthew 28:19)
One name, shared by three Persons. And the apostolic blessing joins all three as the one source of grace.
"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen." (2 Corinthians 13:14)
Nowhere is the truth stated more plainly than in the words of the apostle John, who gathers the whole doctrine into a single verse.
"For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one." (1 John 5:7)
There are three — the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost — and these three are one. Three Persons; one God. That is the doctrine of the Trinity, stated by the Holy Ghost Himself in the pages of Scripture.
Because this truth is so high, men have stumbled into errors on every side, and it helps to name them. Some have taught three gods — but that we utterly reject, for God is one. Others have taught that God is one single Person who merely appears sometimes as Father, sometimes as Son, sometimes as Spirit, as one man might play three parts — but that cannot be, for at the Jordan all three Persons appeared at once, and the Son throughout His life prayed to the Father, who is another Person than Himself. Still others, like the false teachers of our own day, make the Son and the Spirit into created beings, lesser than the Father — but that too is shut out, for both the Son and the Holy Ghost are called God and share the one divine nature. We must let the Scripture stand as it is: one God, three Persons, co-equal and co-eternal.
Men have reached for illustrations — water in three forms, or the like — but every earthly picture falls short and, pressed too far, leads into one error or another. We do not rest the doctrine upon any illustration, but upon the plain Word of God. If God has revealed it, it is true, though it be higher than our thoughts.
This is no cold, abstract puzzle; our very salvation is the work of the triune God. The Father planned our redemption, the Son accomplished it upon the cross, and the Holy Ghost applies it to the heart that believes.
"Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ..." (1 Peter 1:2)
To deny the deity of the Son is to be left without a Saviour able to save; to deny the Trinity is to worship another god than the God who is. And to the Jewish reader who loves the one God of Israel, and to the Muslim reader who fears to divide the Godhead, we say in love: the Trinity does not add gods to the one God — it unveils more fully the very God of Israel, who is one, and who has now revealed Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. He is the God who made you, and the God who alone can save you.
This God — Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one God for ever — is the God who so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Come to Him through the Lord Jesus Christ, trust the Son whom the Father sent, and be born anew by the Holy Ghost. And then, with all the redeemed, you shall worship the one true God for ever and ever.
"For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one."1 John 5:7