Behold Your Triune God: The Doctrine of the Trinity

The Trinity is one of those doctrines that we don’t fully understand.

And that’s okay.

But what we should not do is think that because we can’t fully understand it, we shouldn’t even spend time trying.

The reason is that God has chosen to reveal himself in Holy Scripture as Triune—therefore it is not only incumbent upon the people of God, but also beneficial for them, to contemplate their God as he has revealed himself.

And the Church has spent much of her time attempting to do just that—contemplating and meditating upon her God as one God in three persons.

But the other unfortunate thing that happens when Christians talk about the Trinity is that we often take this language of one God in three persons for granted. It’s unfortunate because it would be a gross understatement to say that a lot went into coming to that theological grammar.

What I hope to do here is to give a little bit of the debate and confusion surrounding those terms, give a little bit of the biblical reasoning for that terminology, and then show how this should drive us to wonder and awe at how great our God is.

I also want to say at the outset that my number one recommendation as an introduction to the Trinity is Scott Swain’s book: The Trinity: An Introduction.

So how did we get to one God in essence but three in persons?

The Historical Language:

To any trained historians and theologians, I beg your forgiveness for the oversimplification of what is to follow, but when the Council of Nicaea met to debate the Arian denial that the Son is of the same divine essence as the Father, they settled on the term homoousios. Homo: same, ousia: substance/essence.

As the fourth-century debates continue, Greek-speaking theologians settle on a term to distinguish the three persons of the one God: hypostasis. Hypo: under, stasis: standing or position.

But differences between Greek and Latin terminology could cause confusion between the Eastern and Western Churches. This matters because in Latin how they would literally translate hypostasis would be to use substantia, (sub: under, stantia: standing) but in Latin substantia is closer in concept to the word essence. So the Western Church used the term personae. So for us in English, who flow from the Latin tradition, we say God is one in substance or essence, yet three in persons.

There is so much more to this conversation historically but suffice it to say, the Greek and the Latin traditions were attempting to say the same thing and this was widely recognized by the West even as early as Augustine after some initial confusion.

The East and the West agree that the persons of the Trinity are of the same substance/essence—yet they are distinct persons. This is why both Western and Eastern traditions can recite the Nicene Creed in good conscience (minus Filioque).

The Biblical Language:

But that then brings up the question: How do we understand the distinctness of the three persons?

In the unity of the Godhead there be three Persons of one substance, power, and eternity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. The Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.

Westminster Confession of Faith 2.3

This is Westminster’s summary of the Trinitarian faith expressed in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (381 AD), which the Church has now been confessing for over 1600 years. Westminster also affirms the Western teaching that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son; the words “and the Son” were added to the creed later in the Western Church. Of the many things we can say about this statement, there are two I want to focus on: The three persons, and how they relate to each other.

To back up the train just a smidge: WCF 2.1 declares, “There is but one only, living, and true God…”

This statement is rooted in both the Old and New Testaments’ revealing to us about who and what God is:

Deut. 6:4   “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.”
1Cor. 8:4   Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” 5 For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”— 6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

But the Scripture is also clear that God is three persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit who are also THE one God.

Though we cannot fully comprehend this, we must accept it because God has revealed himself this way to his people. But that then means we need to figure out how to talk about this amongst ourselves and to others, without crossing into heresy. Thankfully, the Scripture does give us ways in which we can distinguish between the persons yet without violating the oneness of God. The way theologians talk about this is to use the term: relations.

A simplified way to understand that term is to ask: How do the persons of the Trinity relate? This is where the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed and WCF, using biblical language, will draw attention to the fact that the Son is eternally begotten and the Spirit proceeds. This means the Father is neither begotten nor proceeding. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father, and the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son.¹

But where does the Bible say these things? I cannot possibly exhaust the references but let me just point to one or two key ones:

Father: “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.” (John 5.26)

Son: “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.” (John 3.16 (KJV))²

Spirit: John 15:26  “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.”

The creeds and Reformed confessions draw their cues from the Scriptures. There is one God in three persons, and the persons are distinguished by their relations of origin. The Father is unbegotten, the Son is eternally begotten, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father (and the Son).

The Beauty:

As mentioned at the beginning, this complexity should not drive us to throw up our hands and not even try to understand our God, but rather it should drive us to seek to understand him more! God has revealed himself this way because it is who he is. He has seen fit to give us clues as to his nature so that we might seek him out and grow in our love and awe of his blessed Triune Self. The fact that our God is not like us should actually bring us comfort because that means in all his attributes he is perfect: his love, his justice, his mercy, etc., as they are his Triune Self. Our creaturely imitations of those things, though good, are far less quantitatively and qualitatively. This also means, because our God is not like us, he is not afflicted with the same weaknesses of our nature and character.

There are obviously many other things we could say in relation to these things, but in summary, because our God is Triune, we cannot begin to put him into the same box as creatures. This forces us, if we are to be biblically faithful, to keep a proper distinction between Creator and creature: God and all things in relation to God. The temptation is to think that it is comforting to have a God who understands us and is like us but the wonderful thing is that we as Christians do not have to make a choice between those two because the second person of the Trinity became truly human, suffered in his human nature, and was tempted as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). At the same time, he remained fully God. If our Savior were merely a creature like us, we would have no hope of redemption and salvation.

Christian: Behold your Triune God.

Footnotes