Who is the Trinity?

A Biblical Introduction to the Christian Doctrine of the Trinity

May 11, 2024

Earlier this morning, I came across a few Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW) who were on my street going door to door. I had a great 30-minute conversation with the two gentlemen who spoke with me. Fundamentally, what makes their faith distinct from Christianity is they do not believe in the Trinity—including the divinity of Jesus. I asked their faith backgrounds, and one of the men said that he grew up Christian. I asked what drew him to JW and he said, “when I was a Christian everyone talked about the Trinity but nobody taught me what the Trinity was. But when I became a JW, they taught me what it was and was not.” Think about this.

I wrote this to help Christians understand who the Trinity is. Hope this helps.

If you survey The Bible, you will not find the word “Trinity” in it. But, this should not be alarming. We use language to describe Biblical ideas, even if the terms are not found in the Bible.

The scriptures reveal the identity of God as Trinity: Father (1 Cor. 8:6), Son (Col. 2:9), and Holy Spirit (John 15:26-27), while maintaining His distinct oneness (Deut. 6:4). Hence, the literal meaning on “Trinity” (Tri-three; unity-one).

So, the Trinity, therefore, is not a what but a who.

The worship of a triune God is one element that distinguishes Christianity from other world religions (Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.). The Old Testament presents stark monotheistic (mono-one; theos-God) claims as found in the Shema, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one” (Deut. 6:4).[1]

In the New Testament, Jesus—in continuity with the Old Testament—confesses the Shema’s monotheistic claim when challenged by the scribes concerning the greatest commandment (Mk. 12:29).

God The Father

The three persons of the Trinity are identified in scripture as individual yet distinct from one another. Isaiah identifies God as Father (Isa. 63:16, 64:8). Jesus instructs his disciples to address God as Father when they pray (Lk. 11:2-13). When Mary and Joseph frantically search to find their lost son, they find him in the temple, where Jesus declares to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house” (Lk. 2:49)? Jesus—the Son and second person on the Trinity—distinguishes himself from the Father. Jesus also distinguishes himself from the Father in John, he says, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brother and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (Jn. 20:17). The scriptures identify the first person in the Trinity as God, the Father.

God The Son

Though the New Testament first introduces Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospel accounts, the second person of the Trinity—the Son—existed long before Jesus’ introduction through his incarnation. (Read this slowly, again, a few times!)

John declares in his prologue, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God” (Jn. 1:1-2). John goes on to write one of the most beautiful and moving lines in Scripture: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn. 1:14).

God is no longer far off and distant from His creation, He has drawn near to us in Jesus Christ.

Further, John writes: “No one has seen God at any time; God the only Son, who is in the arms of the Father, He has explained Him” (John 1:14, 18).

Not only has God come near to us in Jesus, in God becoming man, Jesus explains to us who God the Father is like. In other words, if you are unsure who God is like, all you have to do is look at the ministry and life of Jesus.

In the Epistles, Paul declares the preeminence and co-eternality of Jesus with the Father when he writes, “He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Col. 1:15).

Both John and Paul identify Jesus of Nazareth as the incarnate, preexistent Word of God and credit Him in his role in creation (Jn. 1:3, 9-13; Col. 1:16-17). Jesus utters scandalous divine claims about Himself in John, such as, “I and the Father are one” (Jn. 10:30), and states that He does not work independently from the Father (Matt. 26:39).

Jesus angered crowds of people, when he would do things that were strictly reserved for God alone, such as forgiving sin (Mk. 2:5-7; Lk. 7:48-50). He also uses several “I Am” statements throughout the Gospel of John (Jn. 6:35, 8:12, 10:9, 10:11, 11:25-26, 14:6, 15:5), equating Himself with the God who revealed Himself to Moses in the Old Testament (Ex. 3:14).

God The Holy Spirit

Throughout John’s Gospel, the Holy Spirit—the third person of the Trinity—is clearly distinguished from both the Father and the Son.

John depicts the Holy Spirit as one who would be sent to comfort, lead, and indwell in Jesus’ disciples (Jn. 14-15, 20:22; Acts 1:1-8).

Other New Testament writers describe the Holy Spirit as responsible for:

signs and wonders (Rom. 15:19),
active in salvation (1 Pet. 3:18; 1 Thes. 1:5),
participates in sanctification (Rom. 15:16; 1 Pet. 1:2; 2 Thes. 2:13),
and intercedes on people’s behalf (Rom. 8:26-27).

The scriptures present the Holy Spirit as a divine being who is active and involved in the Godhead as well in the life of the Believer.

Challenges in History on the Trinity

In the third century (AD 201-300), there was a Christian priest who later became a heretic, denying one of the cardinal elements of the faith, named Arius. He was born around AD 250 and died in AD 336 in Libya.

Arius was in hot water before the Church Fathers of his day. He declares the infamous motto that came about during the debates regarding the nature of the Son, “There was when He [the Son—the second Person of the Trinity] was not,” proposing that the Son was not coeternal with the Father.[2]

Arius’ conclusions ultimately strip the Son of his divinity, which affects theology significantly, especially the doctrines of Jesus (Christology) and the nature of salvation (soteriology).

Contrary to Arius’s view, the orthodox and appropriate view of the Son of God is to know that there was never a time when the Son—the Second Person of the Trinity—did not exist. He has always existed in fellowship within the Godhead and Trinity.

When thinking about the Second Person of the Trinity, it is central to remember that the Son of God—who has always existed in the Trinity—became the man Jesus of Nazareth.

It is true and orthodox within Church history to say: there was a time when Jesus was not, but there has never been a time when the Son was not.

The Trinity and the Scriptures

Arius’ conclusions are incongruent with scripture. As stated above, both John 1 and Colossians 1 affirm and credit the eternal Son as made incarnate in Jesus, responsible and active in creation (Jn. 1:1-3; Col. 1:16-17). The author of Hebrews also identifies the coeternal Son as active in creation (Heb. 1:1-4).

Centuries before the incarnation of Jesus of Nazareth, the prophet Isaiah announced, “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isa. 7:14). Matthew, quoting this prophecy, parenthetically adds in his gospel account, “Which means, God with us” (Matt. 1:23).

The scriptures attest to Jesus of Nazareth as the incarnate preexistent Word of God in the flesh as the very divine presence of God. Other New Testament writers, as well as the Fathers, find it necessary that the Word become flesh in Jesus of Nazareth to attain and grant salvation and redemption for humanity (Heb. 2:9-10; 1 Cor. 15:53-57).

Sabellius’ articulation of the Trinity takes away the individualities and confuses the persons of the Trinity.[3] Similar to the concept of modalism, this understanding presents the Trinity as different “modes” in which God reveals himself.[4] Though the Trinity is not explicitly stated in scripture, it is evident that the Father, Son, and Spirit are three divine individuals of the Godhead. Sabellius’ theological conclusions are incongruent with central passages such as Jesus’ baptism, where three individual persons of the Trinity are simultaneously at work (Matt. 3:13-17).

As Jesus—the Son of God—is baptized (Matt. 3:16a), the Spirit descends and rests upon him (Matt. 3:16b), as the Father declares his approval and pleasure of his Son (Matt. 3:17). Simultaneously, the Trinity is made known as Father, Son, and Spirit, three individual persons.

This provides the foreground as the Trinitarian formula Jesus commands his followers to baptize in toward the end of his ministry (Matt. 28:19). The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all active in creation (Gen. 1:1; Jn. 1:1-3; Gen. 1:2), salvation (2 Thes. 2:13; Gal. 4:4-5; 1 Pet. 3:18), and sanctification (1 Thess. 5:23; Jn. 17:17; Rom. 15:16).

[1] All scripture references are quoted from the English Standard Version translation unless otherwise noted

[2] Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation, vol. 1. (New York: Harper Collins, 2010), 184.

[3] Summary of the Tome of Constantinople, 381 (In Synodical Letter of the Council of Constantinople, 382).

[4] Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, 92.