GOD IN THREE PERSONS: THE TRINITY

The doctrine of the Trinity is one of the most important teachings about God. Careless handling of this
doctrine may bring Christianity into a polytheistic belief or the deity of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit might
be jeopardized. This is fundamental because it talks about who God is and what God is. There are certain
things that one should bear in mind in the study of this doctrine as safety precautions:
1. The basic truth that God is incomprehensible.
2. The term Trinity is not in the Bible but the teaching it embodies is there.
3. The doctrine must be examined exegetically rather than logically.
4. The Trinity has no perfect analogy in this world.
5. The doctrine of Trinity is true even if it cannot be fully explained.

DEFINITION AND EXPLANATION

Trinity can be defined as, “God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and each
person is fully God, and there is one God.” The word “trinity” could not be found in the Bible but its idea is
contained in many portions. The word “trinity’ means “tri-unity” or “three-in-oneness.” It is used to
summarize the teaching of the Scriptures that there are three persons yet one God.

A. The Doctrine of the Trinity is Progressively Revealed in the Scripture

1. Partial Revelation in the Old Testament
Trinity is not explicitly found in the Old Testament but several passages clearly imply more than one
person in the Godhead.

a. Genesis 1:26- God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” To whom do the words
“us” and “our” pertain to?
� It is not just plurals of majesty, a speech a king would use. Example, “We are pleased to grant your
request.” But no instance in the Bible that a king used such plurals of majesty statement.
� It could not be angels because nowhere in the Scripture teaches that they are co-creators of God.
Man was not told to be created in the image of the angels but in the image of God. Instead, it is
clear in the Bible that the Lord Jesus Christ was a direct participant in creation and so with the Holy
Spirit.
� Other passages of the same nature include Genesis 3:22; 11:7; and Isaiah 6:8. Note that in the
passage of Isaiah there is the combination of singular and plural in the same sentence in the
passage.

b. There are passages where one person is called “God” or “the Lord” and is distinguished from another
person who is also said to be God.
� Psalms 45:6-7, two separate persons are called “God” (Heb. Elohim). In the New Testament,
Hebrews quotes this passage and applied it to Christ (Heb. 1:8).
� Psalms 110:1, David’s statement here tells of two persons, LORD (HWHY) and Lord (adonai) and
Jesus affirmed this to be two persons in Matthew 22:41-46. Who is David’s Lord but God who was
asked by the LORD to sit at His right hand which could only be God also. The Pharisees understood
this as a messiahnic passage.
� Isaiah 63:10 says that the people “grieved His Holy Spirit” which is distinct from God Himself. The
Holy Spirit was grieved indicating that He is a person not just the power of God. Isaiah 61:1 also
shows distinction of the Spirit of the LORD God from “the LORD.”
� Malachi 3:1-2, the one speaking (“the LORD of hosts”) distinguishes himself from the “Lord whom
you seek” suggesting two persons, both of whom can be called “Lord.”
 � Hosea 1:7, the Lord speaking, and says of the house of Judah, “I will deliver them by the LORD their
God,” again shows that the Lord is different from the LORD God.
� Isaiah 48:16, here the Spirit of the Lord, like the servant of the Lord, has been sent by the Lord GOD
on a particular mission. “Me” and “his Spirit” show that these are distinct persons. This verse
clearly shows the presence of the three persons, the Lord GOD, me (Jesus Christ), and the Spirit.

c. The passages about “the angel of the LORD” suggests that there is plurality in the persons in God.
� “The angel of the LORD” is called “God” or “the LORD” (Gen. 16:13; Ex. 3:2-6; 23:20-22 (note: “my
name is in him” in v. 21); Num 22:35, 38; Judges 2:1-2; 6:11, 14

d. Proverbs 8:22-31 while the chapter talks about the personification of wisdom, verses 30-31 talks about
wisdom performing in creation. This probably talks of the Son of God before He incarnated. The
disputed verses 22-25 was inappropriately rendered in some translations. If Jesus is the wisdom here,
how come He was said to be “created at the beginning of his work” (v. 22). The word “create” here is
not the common “bara” but “quinah” which occurs 84 times in the Old Testament and almost always
means “to get, acquire.” NASB translates it well as, “The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his
way.” (Compare the use in Gen. 39:1; Ex. 21:2; Prov. 4:5, 7; 23:23; Ecc. 2:7; Isaiah 1:3). This clearly
shows the Son in the work of creation.

2. More Complete Revelation of the Trinity in the New Testament.

There are several passages where all the three persons of the Trinity are named together.
a. Matthew 3:16-17, in the baptism of Jesus, the Holy Spirit descended like a dove and the voice of the
Father was heard from heaven.
b. Matthew 28:19, the baptismal formula mentioned the three persons which are distinct from each
other.
c. 1 Corinthians 12:4-6 the terms “God” (theos), “Lord” (kurios), and Spirit were mentioned in relation to
Christian service. See also Eph. 4:4-6.
d. 2 Corinthians 13:14, the trinitarian concept was clear here, the three persons being distinct from each
other.
e. 1 Peter 1:1, 2 which mentioned also the three persons and the same with Jude 20-21.
f. 1 John 5:7, though speaks about Trinity yet there is a problem with regards to the manuscript where it
was taken. Some early manuscripts do not have this..

B. Three Statements that Summarize the Biblical Teaching

While the word “Trinity” could not be found in the Bible, it fundamental teachings are found in its many
passages. Its basic teachings can be summarized in three statements:
1. God is three persons.
2. Each person is fully God.
3. There is one God.
1. God in Three Persons
In this statement is emphasized that each person is distinct from one another. The Father is neither the Son
nor the Holy Spirit and the Son is not also the Holy Spirit. This distinction is very evident in many passages of
the Scripture.
a. The Distinction of the Father and the Son
� John 1:1-2 - The “Word” here being the Son is distinct from God which is the Father.
� John 17:24 – The Lord Jesus Christ here was talking with the Father.
� 1 John 2:1; Hebrews 7:25 – Christ being the advocate and intercessor to the Father shows that the
two are distinct from each other.
 b. The Distinction of the Father and the Holy Spirit
� John 14:26 – Jesus talking of the Father sending the Holy Spirit.
� Romans 8:27 – The Holy Spirit interceded to the Father.
c. The Distinction of the Son and the Holy Spirit
� Matthew 28:19 – The distinction of the three persons here is clearly stated.
� John 16:7 – Jesus will send the Holy Spirit.
d. The Question on the Personality of the Holy Spirit
To the question if the Holy Spirit is really a distinct person or just a “power” or “force” of God, there are a
lot of passages that affirm the Sprit’s personality.
� There are several passages that put the Holy Spirit in a coordinate relationship with the Father and
the Son. (Matt. 28:19; 1 Cor. 12:4-6; 2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 4:4-6; 1 Pet. 1:2)
� The use of masculine pronoun he (ekeinos) for the Holy Spirit. (John 14:26; 15:26; 16:13-14). “Spirit”
(pnema) is a neuter noun in Greek which normally takes “it” (ekeino) as its pronoun.
� Personal activities are ascribed to the Holy Spirit.
- He comforts. (John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7)
- He teaches. (John 14:26)
- He bears witness. (John 15:26; Rom. 8:16)
- He intercedes or prays. (Rom. 8:26-27)
- He searches the depths of God. (1 Cor. 2:10, 11)
- He gives gifts to believers. (1 Cor. 12:11)
- He forbids or allows certain activities. (Acts 16:6-7)
- He speaks. (Acts 8:29; 13:2, and many time in both the New and Old Testaments)
- He evaluates and approves a wise course of action. (Acts 15:28)
- He can be grieved. (Eph. 4:30)
� There will be verses that will not make sense if the Holy Sprit is just a power.
- Luke 14:14 – If the Holy Spirit is simply a power, then this verse will read, “And Jesus returned in
the power of the power of God into Galilee.”
- Acts 10:38 – This verse will be, “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the power of God and with
power.”
- Also Romans 15:13 and 1 Cor. 2:4 will become absurd.
� The Holy Spirit is also call “Lord” just as the Father and the Son were also called such. (2 Cor. 3:17).

2. Each Person is Fully God.

Equally important truth is the fact that the three persons are said to be fully God by the Scripture. The deity
is in no way divided among the three or that some persons are greater in deity than the others.
a. God the Father is clearly God. This truth is seldom questioned in many discussions unless one is an
atheist or one is a believer of an impersonal God. From the very first verse, the Scripture proclaims the
Father is God.
b. The Son is fully God. This is one truth that some are questioning but seeing the pages of the Scripture,
there are many passages that tell of this particular truth:
� John 1:1-4 – This clearly teaches that the “Word” who is Jesus Christ is God.
� John 20:28 – The statement of Thomas declaring Jesus as Lord and God was accepted by the Lord
Jesus Christ.
� Hebrews 1:8 – Talks of the Father calling the Son as God which was quoted from Psalm.
� Titus 2:13 – Refers to the great God and Savior Jesus Christ.
� Romans 9:5 – Mentions to the Jews Jesus who is God over all.
� 2 Peter 1:1 – Has “the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.
� Isaiah 9:6 – Called the child (Jesus Christ) as the ‘Mighty God.’
 � Isaiah 40:3 cf. Matt. 3:3 – Preparing the way for the LORD (hwhy) was used to refer to Jesus Christ.
� Col. 2:9 – The fullness of deity dwells in Jesus Christ bodily.
c. The Holy Spirit is fully God.
� Trinitarian passages such as Matt. 28:19; 1 Cor 12:4-6; 2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 4:4-6; 1 Peter 1:2; Jude 20-
21 tell of the Holy Spirit place along with the Father and the Son.
� He has clearly been equated with God (Acts 5:3-4; 1 Cor. 3:16; Rom. 8:9).
� He has been ascribed of divine attributes and works like being omniscient in 1 Cor. 2:10-11 and being
the regenerator in John 3:5-7 cf. 1 John 3:9, and His part in creation in Gen. 1:2 and others.

3. There is One God.

The truth that there is only one God means that Trinitarianism is not polytheism. The Bible contains many
verses that tell of this truth.
a. Old Testament Passages
� Deut. 6:4-5 – The LORD is one.
� Exodus 15:11 – God is unique and there is no one like Him.
� 1 Kings 8:60 – There is no other God.
� Isaiah 45:5-6; 21-22; cf. 44:6-8 – There is no other God besides the LORD.
b. New Testament Passages
� I Tim. 2:5 - There is one God and one mediator between God and man…
� Rom. 3:30 – God is one.
� 1 Cor. 8:6 – There is one God…
� James 2:19 – That even the demons believe that God is one.
Each of the three statements must be affirmed as they have been clearly revealed in the Scripture. Denial
or disbelief in one will make everything crumble. As stated earlier in the lesson, some may view the
statements to be seemingly contradicting as far as logic is concerned but we are talking here of God’s
revelation. We have to believe and agree with God in all that He revealed about Himself.
No analogies would fit and sufficiently explain the doctrine of the Trinity. All analogies that are being used
have shortcomings. One must be careful to use any comparison for this deep truth of God.
As God is immutable, “God eternally and necessarily exists as the Trinity.” This is He and this is His being.

C. The Views About Trinity Before the Council of Nicea (Storms)

1. The belief in monotheism and deity of Christ
a. The Post-Apostolic Fathers [Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp, Papias, and the document called The
Shepherd of Hermas]
� The post-apostolic fathers were committed to both monotheism and the deity of Christ, but made no
effort at reconciling the two. As J. N. D. Kelly notes, the post-apostolic fathers appear "as witnesses
to the traditional faith rather than interpreters striving to understand it" (Early Christian Doctrines
[New York: Harper & Row, 1960], 90).
� Generally speaking, these men repeated the biblical assertions concerning both Father and Son but
declined to speculate or theorize on the relation of the two in the Godhead.
� For them, monotheism was viewed as “the dividing line between the Church and paganism”
� Christ’s pre-existence is affirmed but not explained and there are occasional hints of binitarianism in
which the pre-incarnate Christ is identified with the Holy Spirit (see The Shepherd of Hermas,
Similitudes, 9.I.1.).
b. The Apologists [Justin Martyr, Quadratus, Aristides, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus]
� The principal contribution of the apologists was the doctrine called Logos Christology.
- Justin Martyr proposed that the pre-existent Christ was the reason or intelligence of God. This
relationship between Christ and God was not personal, as if Son to Father. Rather, Christ was to
the Father what rational thought is to the mind. Thus, as a thought is expressed verbally, the
 Logos (Word) of God assumed a physical form and became a man in Christ Jesus. In a sense, then,
the Son was “derived” from the Father, yet without a diminishing of the latter. As a single torch
serves to light several fires yet without lessening the light of the original flame, so the Word
issued forth from the Father without depriving the latter of His Word.
- Whereas the apologists did not conceive of God as a Trinity of persons (indeed, the Word was not
truly and personally the “Son” until he was put forth by God for the purpose of creation and
redemption), they did affirm an eternal and essential union of God and Logos.
c. Economic Trinitarianism - Tertullian (d. 225) and Hippolytus (d. 236)
� The Economic Trinitarians, however, insisted that the personal relationships of Father, Son, and Spirit
do not exist until the manifestation of God in creation and redemption. Prior to that time the
distinctions are real, but not personal. Hence God is properly a Father and Christ properly the Son of
this Father, not in the eternal being of God, but when manifested in the economy of God's
redemptive purpose on earth.
� Tertullian even suggested that subsequent to the work of redemption and the creation of the new
heavens and new earth the Son will “recede” into the Divine Being, still distinct in the constitution of
the Godhead but not personally as Son.
� Tertullian was the first to speak of the Godhead as a Trinity (trinitas), and did not hesitate to describe
both Son and Spirit as persons (prosopon). But again, these are characteristics of God only in the
temporal economy (i.e., the earthly outworking of redemption), not in the eternal being of God.
d. Subordinationism - Origen (ca. AD 185-254) advocated a form of this but was also eventually
condemned later at the Council of Nicea.
� This view holds that the Son was eternal (not created) and divine, but still not equal to the Father in
being or attributes- the Son was inferior or “subordinate” in being to God the Father.
� Origen affirmed an eternal trinity of persons in the Godhead. But to avoid tri-theism (three gods) he
insisted that the Father was the fountain-head of deity from whom the Son was in some sense
derived. The Son, argued Origen, is a secondary God (deuteros theos; Contra Celsus, 5.39).
� The Son is God, but not in and of himself. He is God by participation in and derivation from the
foundational deity of the Father.
- The unity of Father and Son corresponds to the unity between light and its brilliance or between
water and the steam that rises from it.
- "Different in form," explains Kelly, "both share the same essential nature; and if, in the strictest
sense, the Father alone is God, that is not because the Son is not also God or does not possess
the Godhead, but because, as Son, he possesses it by participation or derivatively."

D. Errors on the Trinity on the 3rd Century, Shortly before the Council of Nicea
1. Modalism. This believes that there is one person who appears to us in three different forms (or “modes”).
a. The teaching is referred to by other two names:
� Sabellianism, after a teacher named Sabellius (early 3 AD)
� Modalistic Monarchianism, that God is the only supreme ruler (monarch) hence He must only be one
person.
b. The teaching used some Bible passages such as:
� John 10:30 – “I and the Father are one.”
The context of this, however, talks of Jesus saying that He will accomplish all that the father has given
Him to do and save all that the Father has given Him, and together with the Father sustain those who
believe in Him. This, therefore, means that Jesus and the Father are one in work and purpose.
� John 14:9 – “He who has seen me has seen the Father.”
What Jesus was saying here was that He fully reveals the character of the Father and not that He is
the Father.
c. The teaching has several shortcomings:
 � It must deny the personal relationships within the Trinity that appear in so many places in the
Scripture (or it must affirm that these were simply an illusion and not real). Examples of these events
include the account in Jesus’ baptism where the three persons were shown, the transfiguration
where the voice of the Father was heard, even the instances when Jesus was praying.
� It loses the heart of the doctrine of atonement- that is the idea that God sent his Son, as
substitutionary sacrifice, and that the Son bore the wrath of God in our place, and that the Father,
representing the interests of the Trinity, saw the suffering of Christ and was satisfied (Isaiah 53:11).
� It denies the independence of God, for if God is only one person, then He has no ability to love and
communicate without other persons in His creation. God will now become dependent of creation.
d. The present representative of modalistic belief
Today, there are churches that hold to this position which is now popularly known as the Oneness
Theology or others have the Jesus Only doctrine.

2. Arianism. This teaching was from Arius, a Bishop of Alexandria, whose views were condemned at the
Council of Nicea in A.D. 325. He died in the year A.D. 336.
a. The main teachings of Arianism
� The Father is absolute and He will not share His absoluteness to someone.
� The Son is not co-eternal with the Father. Their main statement about Christ is “There was a time
when He was not.”
� He is not co-equal with the Father. He is also a created being who is far greater than any other
creation and exists even before all others.
� He is not co-essential with the Father. They believe that Jesus is “like the Father” (“homoiousious”)
but He is not “of the same nature” as the Father (“homoousious”).
� The Arians argued based on the description to Jesus Christ as the “only begotten” Son (John 1:14;
3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9).
� They interpret this to mean brought into existence (created) as in the other use of the terms in
the genealogies of the Bible.
� “Only begotten Son” does not necessarily mean created for many other verses of the Scripture
tell that Jesus was fully and completely God (Col. 2:9). John 1:1 even tells of His co-existence with
the Father.
� The Arians also used the phrase “first-born of all creation” (Col. 1:15) to mean first to be created
among all creation.
� The context of Colossians would clearly show that being “firstborn” in Paul’s usage does not
mean first in order but first in terms of rights, privileges, and authority like the firstborn in a human
family. The immediate context of the verse strongly supports this since Paul was discussing the
superiority of Christ over everything.
� In Heb. 12:16, Esau was said to have sold his “firstborn status” or “birthright.” Obviously what
he sold was not the order of his birth for that is impossible but his authority in line with his being
the firstborn.
b. The affirmation of the Doctrine
� The Council of Nicea in A.D. 325 condemned Arianism and affirmed the belief embodied in the creed,
“We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, the only-begotten; that is of
the essence of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being
of one substance (homoousion) with the Father…
� The Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381 reaffirmed the same adding the phrase “before all ages”
was added after “begotten of the Father,” to show that this “begetting” was eternal. It never began
to happen, but is something that has been eternally true of relationship between the Father and the
Son. The nature of that “begetting” has never been defined so clearly.
3. Adoptionism. This is the view that Jesus lived as an ordinary man until his baptism, but then God
“adopted” Jesus as his “Son” and conferred on him supernatural powers.
a. Christ was not existing before he was born as a man thus he is not eternal nor would they think of him
as exalted, supernatural being created by God that the Arians held him to be.
b. Christ was just an exalted man whom God called his “Son” in a unique sense.
4. The Filioque Controversy. The word “filioque” is a Latin term than means “and from the Son” which was
added to the Nicene Creed in A.D. 589 at a regional church in Toledo (Spain) so the statement would say
that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son (filioque)” having John 15:26 and 16:7 as the
basis.
a. The controversy led to the split between the west (Roman Catholic Church) and the east (today’s
Orthodox Churches) in A.D. 1054. The schism, of course, has some other issues involved. The west
favored the addition while the east rejected it.
b. The Bible clearly teaches, based on the texts used, that the Holy Spirit proceeded both from the Father
and the Son which also shows the eternal relationship between the persons of the Trinity.

E. The Distinctions Between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
a. The persons of the Trinity have different primary functions in relating to the world.
� This is called the “economy of the Trinity” which means “the different ways the three persons
act as they relate to the world and to each other for all eternity.”
� The Trinity’s functions in the work of creation.
� God the Father spoke the creative words to bring the universe into being.
� God the Son carried out the creative decrees (John 1:3; Col. 1:16; Ps. 33:6,9; 1 Cor. 8:6; Heb.
1:2).
� The Holy Spirit was active (Gen. 1:2), apparently sustaining and manifesting God’s immediate
presence in creation (Ps. 33:6)
� The Trinity’s functions in the work of redemption
� God the Father planned redemption and sent His Son into the world (John 3:16; Gal. 4:4; Eph
1:9-10)
� God the Son obeyed the Father and accomplish the redemption for us (John 6:38; Heb. 10:5-7)
� God the Holy Spirit was sent to by the Father and the Son to apply the work of redemption to us
(John 14:26; John 3:5-8), to sanctify us (Rom. 8:13; 15:16; 1 Peter 1:2), and to empower us for
service (Acts 1:8; 1 Cor. 12:7-11).
� Thought the three persons of the Trinity are equal in being, attributes, and power, and yet
functionally there is subordination and distinction which will remain forever (1 Cor. 15:58). This truth
about the Trinity has sometime been summarized as “ontological equality but economic
subordination.”
b. The persons of the Trinity eternally existed as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
� Their roles are appropriate to every person of the Trinity. The Father’s role of commanding,
directing, and sending is appropriate to the position of the Father after whom all human fatherhood is
patterned (Eph. 3:14-15). The Son has the role of obeying, going as the father sends , and revealing
God to us is appropriate to Him as the Son and the Word (John 1:1-5, 14, 18; 17:4; Phil. 2:5-11). The
Holy Spirit is also the one appropriate to His role.
� Their roles as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were there already even before the world
began and will remain forever.
� This is anchored in the eternity of their relationship.
� This is anchored in the immutability of God.
� This can be seen in their works even before the foundation of the world (see Eph. 1:3-4).
� This is also evident as to how Jesus Christ was Son already even before he became man (John 3:16-
17; Gal. 4:4)
 � This can also be traced in the work of creation when it speaks of the Father creating through the
Son which is prior to the incarnation of the Son and the sending forth of the Holy Spirit. (John 1:3; 1
Cor. 8:6; Heb 1:2; Prov. 8:22-31)
“Therefore the different functions that we see the Father , Son, and Holy Spirit performing are simply
outworkings of an eternal relationship between the three persons, one that has always existed and
will exist for eternity. God has always existed in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These
distinctions are essential to the very nature of God himself, and they could not be otherwise.”
c. The relationship between the three persons and the being of God.
There important truths that must be understood here:
� That each person is completely and fully God. The deity was not divided into three.
� Each of the persons of the Trinity possesses the whole being of God in himself. The father is all
of God’s being. The Son is all of God’s being. The Holy Spirit is all of God’s being.
� Each of the persons of the Trinity has all the attributes of God.
“The only difference between them is the way they relate to each other and to the creation. The unique
quality of the Father is the way he relates as the Father to the Son and Holy Spirit. The unique quality of
the Son is the way he relates as Son. And the unique quality of the Holy Spirit is the way he relates as
Spirit.”
“Christian theology has come to use the word “person” to speak of these differences in relationship, not
because we fully understand what is meant by the word person when referring to the Trinity, but rather
so that we might say something instead of saying nothing at all.”
Christians should accept the fact that Trinity could not be fully explained. There may seem contradiction but
there is none for all its propositions are revelations of one and the same God. Louis Berkhof has this to say
regarding the Trinity as a great mystery of God:

“The Trinity is a mystery…man cannot comprehend it and make it intelligible. It is intelligible in some of
its relations and modes of manifestations, but unintelligible in its essential nature…The real difficulty lies
in the relation in which the persons in the Godhead stand to the divine essence and to one another; and
this is a difficulty which the Church cannot remove, but only try to reduce to its proper proportion by a
proper definition of terms. It has never tried to explain the mystery of the Trinity but only sought to
formulate the doctrine of the Trinity in such a manner that the errors which endangered it were warded
off.”

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF THE DOCTRINE OF TRINITY

1. We must avoid analogical and illustrational explanation of Trinity.
Teaching Trinity must always be focused on how it was revealed in the Scripture rather trying to make it
clear through illustrations that will not also fully answer all the questions related to it but rather will make it
more complicated.
2. We must cultivate Trinitarian stress in preaching and worship.
In our preaching and teaching, we should always strive to teach about the three persons of the Godhead.
Many times people are growing in their knowledge in the Father but not in the Son and the Holy Spirit. In
this case, the Holy Spirit is oftentimes left behind in spite the fact that He is the One who directly works in
our lives today. Same thing with worship where oftentimes there is an imbalance in praising and
worshipping the three persons. We oftentimes sing praising the Father and the Son yet we seldom sing
about the Holy Spirit. The three persons being fully God deserves our worship.
3. We must be conscious of the Trinitarian work and presence in our prayer.
As we address prayers to the Father, let us keep conscious of the mediation and intercession of Jesus
Christ. This is what praying in Jesus’ name means, that we believe that we are at the presence of the Father
only through the merit of Christ and our prayers can come to the Father through our Great High Priest. Also
the Holy Spirit prays for us and He guides us to become more sensitive with the will of the Father that we
may pray according to God’s will. We must acknowledge His ministry rather than praying hastily.
4. We must acknowledge and praise the Trinity for our salvation.
Salvation is the work of the three persons. While the Son is the focal point of salvation, we must not
forget that the Father sent Him to execute the plan laid down by the Trinity even before the foundation of
the world. And in our recognition of Christ, we must be thankful that the Holy Spirit is the one who convicts
of sin and towards righteousness in Christ. He is the one who brought about our regeneration.
Trinity is no doubt, one of the greatest mysteries of our God. It is a truth that a Christian must fully
embrace even if he cannot fully comprehend. Someone has said:
Try to explain it, and you’ll lose your mind;
But try to deny it, and you’ll lose your soul.
Sources:
Berkhof, L. Summary of Christian Doctrines
Grudem, W. Systematic Theology
Espinosa, N. Lectures in Theism (audio)
Erickson, M. Christian Theology
Storms, S. Trinitarian Debate