For the past couple of weeks we have been looking at
the deity of Christ from both the Old Testament and the New Testament views.
This week I want to look at the Holy Trinity which is God in three persons: God
the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. On occasion you will hear a
person say that the Trinity is just a manmade doctrine and the Bible never uses
the term “Trinity”. While it is true that the Bible never uses the term “Trinity”,
the doctrine of the Trinity is found in
the Bible. A good definition of the term Trinity is “God eternally exists as
three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each person is fully God, and
there is one God.”[1]
In Matthew 28, the passage known as the Great
Commission, Jesus gives His disciples their mandate to go out and change the
world. He instructs them (and us) to go “baptizing … in the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.,” Notice the fact Jesus does not say to baptize
in the names (plural) but in the “name of” ( singular) of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Three persons,
but one name- God. Furthermore, Jesus in
putting the three together under one name is making all equal. If you went to a
baptism and the preacher said “I baptize you in the name of God and myself,” it
would immediately jump out as wrong. Also, in this passage the Holy Spirit is shown
as separate and distinct from the Father and Son, but in scripture is He
clearly designated as God. In Acts 5,
Peter chastises Ananias saying “why has Satan filled your heart
to lie to the Holy Spirit…You have not lied to men but to God.”(Vs. 3-4) The use of the singular and
plural when it comes to God is seen in the Old Testament as well. In Genesis 1it
says “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image,
according to Our likeness.’ ” (vs. 26) Notice the use of God as singular, but then the plural use
of “Let Us” and “Our likeness”.
With all that being said, the Bible clearly and emphatically
does not teach polytheism. There are not three gods, there is One God! Deuteronomy
6 says “Hear,
O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!”(vs. 4) There are not
three gods; there is One God who eternally exists in three Persons. We are tempted to dismiss what the Bible
teaches about the Trinity because we cannot fully understand One God as three
Persons. Though this and many other attributes of God are beyond our human understanding,
I am glad to worship a God that is
beyond my finite understanding!
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