God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity

Over the centuries, the church has always wisely reminded us that theology, at its most fundamental level, is praise. Theology is not chiefly a matter of theory and, we hope, never a matter of speculation. We are everywhere reminded by the great ancient and medieval doctors and especially by the reformers that our minds are, in Calvin’s words, “idol factories” that never cease to rush headlong into mysteries and to probe beyond what Scripture allows. Nowhere is this more dangerous than with the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Perhaps then it is particularly fitting for us to cast our belief in the Trinity simply into the form of a prayer, as Augustine did in his famous Confessions: “Proceed in thy confession, say to the Lord thy God, O my faith, Holy, Holy, Holy, O Lord my God, in Thy Name have we been baptized, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; in Thy Name do we baptize, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

Yet such a simple affirmation of this great Christian mystery is probably inadequate, for there is always resistance to the doctrine of the Trinity, even in supposedly Christian circles. In this issue of Modern Reformation Korey D. Maas chronicles some of this resistance in his article on the struggles that the early church went through to get this doctrine right. This resistance-as well as the church’s struggle to overcome it-continues down to our day. In the last century or so, it has most often taken the form of the accusation that belief in the Trinity is just one more sign of “the acute Hellenization of the church.” These words of Adolf von Harnack (1851-1930), the most articulate representative of old-style Protestant liberalism, maintain that historic Christian doctrines like the Trinity represent the corruption by Greek paganism of the simple “Jesus movement” that began in Palestine. Harnack claimed to find the beginning of this transition from the human “Jesus” to the divine “Christ” even in the New Testament itself. Yet he thought that this “Hellenization” of the church reached its apex when some of its great Councils asserted the dogma of the Trinity, beginning in a.d. 325. This, he realized, marked Christianity’s final, radical break with Jewish monotheism.

Harnack’s heavy-handed thesis has continued to be wielded by Protestant liberals from Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976) through today’s “Jesus Seminar.” Its basic thrust has also been repeated in popular, secondhand forms by apologists for Mormonism, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other non-Christian religions. But is Harnack’s thesis really new? Not when you think of the Socinians, the antitrinitarian sect founded in the sixteenth century who, like the Arians of old, insisted that the dogma of the Trinity is simply not biblical. Yet it is true that the Bible itself never uses the word “Trinity.” So how can we simultaneously claim that our beliefs are based on Scripture and affirm the Trinity not only as true but as centrally true for genuine Christian faith?

I will answer this question by briefly examining three biblical motifs: namely, God as One; God as Three; and, finally, God as One in Three.

God as One

Nothing is more fundamental to the faith of those gathered under the covenant protection of Yahweh than the well-known confession in the Shema:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord, is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. (Deut. 6:4-7)

Older critical scholarship argued that Israel moved from crude polytheism to monotheism, but the emerging consensus is that such monotheism was all along the bedrock of Israel’s faith.

Moses wrote the Pentateuch-that is, the first five books of our Bible-as a running polemic against the idols of the nations. Obviously, he was not present at creation or on a first-name basis with Noah. He received from God a revelation of those earlier times in the context of his own experience of Yahweh’s liberation of Israel from Egypt and Yahweh’s formation of them into one people whose only king was Yahweh himself and whose only constitution was Yahweh’s covenant with them. While Israel’s neighbors had a pantheon of deities-gods of different seasons, gods of war and peace, of vegetation and the elements, of money and sex, each managing his or her corner of the universe-Israel was distinguished by its confession of one God who was creator and therefore Lord over heaven and earth. Israel’s God, Yahweh, was the Sovereign God of nature and history, as well as redemption; and he had no junior apprentices.

So important is Israel’s confession of the one true God that it opens the Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exod. 20:3). Even representations of Yahweh are strictly forbidden (see Exod. 20:4), since they will inevitably lead Israel astray. God commands Israel to watch herself very carefully because it is, after all, not much of a stretch from worshiping God however we like to worshiping another god altogether (see Deut. 4:15-19)-the god of our own projected needs, wants, desires, and acceptable limits. The prophets-and especially Isaiah-are relentless in their denunciations of “other gods”; and idolatry is the chief indictment for Israel’s violation of the covenant, just as it is the chief commandment.

To confess that God is “one” is, among other things, to confess that he is not made up of different parts and conflicting attributes. Many adopt monotheism in theory, but in practice end up making God a bundle of gods-as when one group worships God’s sovereignty and another group his love or when some venerate his wrath and others his mercy and so on. To confess that God is one is not only to say that there are no other gods or divine principles; it is also to affirm that God is at one and the same time all that he is described to be. He never sacrifices one of his attributes to another. He is, at every moment, one and the same God. In theology, this aspect of God’s oneness is called his “simplicity.”

God as Three: Old Testament Foreshadowings

Theological treatises down through the ages find a number of proof texts for the Trinity in the Old Testament. These texts usually fall into two categories: passages that include references to God in the plural and passages where deity is ascribed to several individual persons. Instances of the first kind include, most notably, the divine resolve in Genesis 1:26, “Let us make man in our own image,” and Isaiah 6:3, where praise is ascribed to God with the threefold “Holy, Holy, Holy.” Examples of the second kind include texts referring to different persons who are each assigned divine status, such as Psalm 45:6-7, which says:

Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness;you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.

By inspiration, the writer of Hebrews applies this passage to Christ (see Heb. 1:8-9), thus confirming the case. Related to this second kind of proof texts are the “Christophanies”-that is, the appearances of the preincarnate Son in the Old Testament.

Yet we should be cautious about these attempts to prove the Trinity from the Old Testament. First, no matter how often it has been cited, it seems unlikely that Genesis 1:26 is the Bible’s earliest witness to the Trinity. For instance, some have argued that the “us” in this verse refers to a “plural of majesty,” like Queen Victoria’s famous “We”-referring just to herself-“are not amused.” (It has, however, been shown that such a “royal we” convention, as well-known as it is in Western monarchies, has no parallels in the literature of the ancient Near East.) Others, following Meredith Kline, see in this verse a reference to Yahweh in glorious assembly with his heavenly hosts. Yahweh the King is then calling upon his angels to witness his creative work. In any case, no matter how we take this “us,” it is highly improbable that it implies any developed understanding of the Trinity. For the Bible did not fall from heaven. It is not a catalogue of eternal truths timelessly revealed to sacred penmen who were mere instruments of inscription. Revelation follows redemption-the history of redemption-and therefore occurs in specific contexts for specific reasons with specific intentions and effects. Everything is not revealed at once. In fact, given the human penchant for idolatry, it is easy to imagine that explicit references to the Trinity in Israel’s history might have led to polytheism. It was not until Christ came “in the fullness of time” and the Holy Spirit was sent as his witness and emissary that distinct, concrete, personal identities could emerge in a way that would not encourage idol worship.

With respect to the Old Testament Christophanies (a preincarnate appearance of Jesus Christ), biblical scholars fall out on different sides, but these, it seems, have greater weight. One of the most striking is found in Genesis 18 and 19. In anticipation of judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah, “The Lord appeared to [Abraham] by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him” (Gen. 18:1-2). The more generic “lord” (adonai) could have been used here (as it is in verse 3), but Abraham recognizes this lord as “the Lord”-as Yahweh. (Whenever all of the letters in “Lord” are capitalized, the Hebrew word is “Yahweh,” God’s personal name.) The three visitors ask where Sarah is, and Abraham replies, “She is in the tent” (v. 9). Then the Lord-that is, Yahweh-says, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son” (v. 10). On overhearing this, Sarah laughs, and then the Lord asks Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh …. Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (vv. 12-14). These utterances by “the Lord” are similar to ones uttered by Yahweh in other covenantal conversations in preceding chapters; and so we are clearly meant to identify this speaker as none other than Yahweh himself rather than some mere emissary from him. It is not the angels accompanying Yahweh who speak on his behalf here but Yahweh himself.

This becomes clear as we read on in the text: “Then the men set out from there, and they looked down toward Sodom” and, as Abraham attends them on their way, “The Lord said, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do . . . ?'” So the Lord said to Abraham, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me” (vv. 16-17, 20-21). Now here come some crucial distinctions in our narrative: “So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the Lord” (v. 22). Abraham now famously bargains with God for the lives of the people in Sodom and Gomorrah. By the time he finishes, God has agreed that he will not destroy Sodom if only ten righteous people are found in it. Then, we are told, “the Lord went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham” (v. 33). Finally, at the beginning of chapter 19, we are told, “The two angels came to Sodom in the evening” (v. 1). The story then turns on violence and intrigue until finally judgment is executed. But what is crucial right now for us is this: “three men” came to Abraham at the oaks of Mamre; two of them have now been identified as angels and the third as “the Lord.” It is the angels who go to Sodom, while Abraham and the Lord bargain, and then the Lord departs finally to execute his judgment from heaven (19:23-29). Here, then, it appears we may have a Christophany.

Weightier still are the Old Testament passages where the coming Servant of the Lord is identified with the Lord himself. There are many examples, especially in the Psalms and the Prophets. Take, for instance, the messianic references where Yahweh identifies his anointed One with himself, as in Psalm 2. In the light of how the author of Hebrews interprets verses 6 and 7 of Psalm 45, it is not inappropriate to interpret that psalm as the Authorized Version and the New American Standard Bible do-namely, as a poem celebrating the marriage of the Messiah with the church, his royal bride. There the Lord’s anointed is described as “fairer than the sons of men” (v. 2, NAS) and accorded the divine title of “O Mighty One” (v. 3, nas). Moreover, his royal bride is told, “Because He is your Lord, bow down to”-that is, worship-“Him” (v. 11, NAS). In fact, wherever this messianic King appears, Yahweh the heavenly King identifies him with himself. For the Jews, it would be inconceivable to identify their heavenly King with a merely human figure, since Yahweh is the only suzerain-that is, the only absolute sovereign-of the covenant. Yet the psalmist declares: “The Lord said to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool” (Ps. 110:1). In fact, this declaration climaxes the great litany of Old Testament passages that the writer of Hebrews quotes in his opening paean to Jesus Christ (see Heb. 1:13).

The Messiah’s deity becomes even clearer in the Prophets. For instance, Isaiah prophesies, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isa. 9:6). Jeremiah makes the identification even more explicit:

“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord,”When I will raise up for David a righteous Branch;And He will reign as king and act wiselyAnd do justice and righteousness in the land.In His days Judah will be saved,And Israel will dwell securely;And this is His name by which He will be called,’The Lord our Righteousness'” (Jer. 23:5-6, NAS).

Indeed, late in Isaiah Yahweh is represented as being so disappointed that there was “no man” to save his people that “His own arm brought salvation … and His righteousness upheld Him” (Isa. 59:16, NAS). Of this divine warrior it is promised, “a Redeemer will come to Zion” (v. 20). Here Isaiah anticipates Athanasius’s argument that our redeemer could be no less than God himself, even while being fully human. Similarly, we read in Micah that the Messiah, Israel’s ruler and savior, who will be born in Bethlehem, is he whose “goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity” (Mic. 5:2, NAS).

This messianic figure is also called “the angel of [God’s] presence” (Isa. 63:9). In one of Zechariah’s visions, the high priest Joshua is standing before “the angel of the Lord, and Satan [is] standing at his right hand to accuse him…. Now Joshua,” Zechariah tells us, “was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments.” The angel orders those garments removed. He then tells Joshua, “Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments” (see Zech. 3:1-4). By ordering the removal of Joshua’s sins and promising to clothe him with righteousness, the angel of the Lord-that is, the Messiah-does what only God can do.

True, in the Old Testament, in some cases, some created things-the ark of the covenant or the temple, for example, are in some sense identified with God. Yet when this happens, it is precisely because these artifacts do in fact bear God’s name and God’s presence. Similarly, God’s Word is divine precisely because it is spoken by God. It is altogether different, however, to identify a living being with God. For the Jews, this would have been especially problematic given the Old Testament’s pervasive criticism of other gods-or even of the identification of God with mere signs (see 2 Kings 18:4 on Moses’ bronze snake). And yet we find Old Testament passages where God is both a speaker and someone to whom he speaks as well as passages where two persons in the same revelation event are both identified as God.

Other passages in the Hebrew Bible imply the distinct personality of the Holy Spirit and show God identifying his Spirit with himself (see, e.g., Isa. 63:10; 48:16; Neh. 9:20). The Spirit’s personality and divine presence is conveyed with great narrative force in his creative brooding over the waters at the beginning of creation (see Gen. 1:2 with Deut. 32:10-11), in his “new creation” leading of the Israelites through the waters of baptism in the Red Sea (see Isa. 63:11-14; Hag. 2:4-5), and in his filling of the temple in the land of Canaan (see Exod. 40:34-35; 1 Kings 8:10-11; 2 Chron. 5:13-14). God is spirit, so for him to give his Spirit to his people in situations like these can hardly be regarded as analogous to a human being giving his or her spirit to someone. Like the Servant of the Lord, the Spirit of the Lord is a distinct person who is also Yahweh.

In fact, it is largely through biblical narrative that we are able to identify three divine persons (see Isa. 48:16, where the “me” sent by the Lord God is the Servant of the Lord). It is especially in their actions that we recognize plurality within the Godhead. Even apart from an explicitly christological reading of the Old Testament, some account must be made for these Old Testament narratives where, sometimes even in the same passage, we find reference to three persons acting as three divine persons. Long before the Gospels narrate a speaking Father, descending Dove, and baptized Son we are faced with the same divine actors in Old Testament scenes. (Of course, these Old Testament passages demand exegesis supporting the claim that God is one-and yet not one in the mathematical sense of being a unity that excludes all plurality within it.)

Probably the most compelling Old Testament arguments for the Trinity are those where the actions of the Father, the Son/Servant/ Word/Wisdom, and the Spirit are narrated as God’s actions, the very actions of Yahweh. Thus, it is not just through the Son and the Spirit that God exercises his prerogatives; the Son and the Spirit carry out divine actions, and are worshiped as divine for doing so. These passages, when they are read in the light of the New Testament passages that refer back to them, come as close as any Old Testament revelation can be expected to do toward establishing the divinity of the Son as Servant (see, e.g., Isa. 40:1-5, 9-11 with Matt. 3:1-3, 11, 13-17), Word (see, e.g., Ps. 33:6 with John 1:1-3, 14 and Heb. 1:2-3), and Wisdom (see, e.g., Prov. 8:22-31 with 1 Cor. 1:24, 30), as well as the divinity of the Spirit (see, e.g., Ps. 104:30 [cf. Job 33:4] with 2 Cor. 3:6; Ezek. 36:27 with John 3:5-8).

God as Three: New Testament Proofs

New Testament evidence for the doctrine of the Trinity is on an entirely different level than Old Testament evidence, because it is only in this New Testament era that the grace that has been given to Christians in Christ Jesus from before the beginning of time has now been revealed through his having appeared in time in human flesh (see 2 Tim. 1:9-10; John 1:14). We now know truths about God’s glorious work of salvation that Israel’s Old Testament prophets never knew, glorious things that even angels have longed to see (see 1 Pet. 1:10-12).

New Testament evidence for the Trinity is either direct or indirect. The direct evidence turns on the fact that Jesus was Jewish and thus appeared among a people who knew full well that only Yahweh should be worshiped and served (see Luke 4:5-8; cf. Deut. 6:13-15). In this context, he reiterated Israel’s confession of the one true God by labeling the Shema “the great and first commandment” on which, he said, (along with the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves) “depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 22:38-39). Yet, nevertheless, both before and after his resurrection, he accepted the worship of his disciples (see Matt. 14:33; 28:9, 17; John 9:38; cf. Acts 10:25-26) and then, shortly before his ascension, commanded them to “Go … and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (2 Corinthians 1:21-22). This trinitarian formula is also found in the Epistles, as in Paul’s benediction in 2 Corinthians 13:14: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (see also 1 Cor. 12:3-6; 1 Pet. 1:2; Jude 20-21).

Yet even this direct evidence points to a more fundamental New Testament fact that builds on the Old Testament’s foreshadowings: the fact, namely, that the Father is clearly identified as God (see John 6:27; Gal. 1:3; 2 Pet. 1:17; Jude 1) as is the Son (see John 1:1; 20:28; Rom. 9:5; Tit. 2:13; 2 Pet. 1:1) and the Holy Spirit (see Acts 5:3-4; 1 Cor. 2:10-11; John 3:5-7 with 1 John 3:9). In fact, at Jesus’ baptism this is actually portrayed in an event: while Jesus is being baptized, the Spirit descends in the form of a dove and the Father pronounces his benediction (see Matt. 3:16-17).

In discussions with Mormon friends (and Protestant liberals!), I have not gone first to proof texts for the Trinity in order to make the case. The best exegetical arguments for the Trinity are actually the passages that simply narrate the earliest Christians’ belief in the deity of the Father, Son, and Spirit. It seems, moreover, that this is how the doctrine of the Trinity first emerged in the church’s understanding. In other words, the Trinity was not first of all a doctrine. Neither the apostles nor any post-apostolic church leaders called a special meeting to invent a doctrine of the Trinity. Before anyone had provided a clearly formulated account or doctrine of the Trinity, it was the practice of the church to praise God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. But how could good Jewish people do that? They knew that it was only by calling on the name of the Lord-Yahweh-that they could be saved (see Ps. 116; 124; Joel 2:32; Mic. 4:5); and yet Jewish Christians like Peter and Paul urged their hearers to call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ (see Acts 2:14-41; 9:27-28; Rom. 10:9-13). “Jesus,” Paul rhapsodizes, is “the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:9-11).

This tension between Jewish monotheism and praise of Jesus and the Holy Spirit as God called-and still calls-for reflection. But, just as we discovered in the Old Testament witness, the best way to discern the identity of the Son and the Holy Spirit in relation to the Father is by giving due attention to the New Testament narrative. Then a narrative identity emerges for the Son and the Spirit where it cannot be said that “Son” and “Spirit” are merely alternative names for the Father or where they are merely the Father’s representatives. Slow, thoughtful reading of passages like 2 Corinthians 1:22-23, 2 Corinthians 3:3, and Galatians 4:6 should help to corroborate this.

So although there are no biblical passages that use the technical term “Trinity,” it is only the doctrine of the Trinity that does justice to the obvious teaching of Scripture that God is one and three. Jesus’ disciples had been thoroughly catechized in Jewish monotheism, but they realized that God had done something in their midst-and that the God who had done it was none other than the one with whom they had gone fishing, taken naps, and exchanged childhood stories. He was also the one whom they had seen perform miracles and whom they had heard claim full equality with the Father. They had seen him transfigured, crucified, raised, and ascended. If this man was not also God, then he was not a very good man and the religious leaders had sized him up correctly as a blasphemer. But this evaluation of him was obviously incorrect. It was reflection on such facts-and not some Hellenization of some simple Jesus movement-that gave rise to the church’s confession of God as Trinity.

Jesus’ disciple John knew what he was doing, then, when he patterned the prologue to his Gospel on the prologue to the Bible itself: “In the beginning was the Word”-not a Word-“and the Word”-a distinct person-“was with God, and the Word was God”-one in essence with God. “He was in the beginning with God”-and therefore was not created but eternally generated by the Father. “All things were made through him”-in other words, he was not himself a creature-“and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life”-the origin of creaturely existence-“and the life was the light of men” (John 1:1-4).

God as One in Three

Debates over the Trinity have been inextricably connected with debates over Christology-that is, with debates concerning the proper answer to the question, Who is Jesus? If Jesus is God, then God’s “oneness” has to be redefined. It can no longer be defined as a simple monotheism; and so Christians cannot be said to worship the same deity as Jewish and Muslim monotheists any more than they can be said to be polytheists or pantheists. For us, any God other than the one who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit as the triune God is an idol. The “one God” correctly identified by a careful reading of Israel’s Old Testament witness is the same God of the New Testament witness, but the fullness of the New Testament revelation has now made it impossible to embrace Yahweh in unitarian terms. Christianity is not a type of generic monotheism. Trinitarian monotheism is sui generis, its own genus.

The early church father Irenaeus spoke of the Son and the Spirit as God’s “two hands,” whereas Arius spoke of the Son as the first creature through whom God created the rest of the creatures and Sabellius thought of the Father, Son, and Spirit as merely three “masks” or “modes” of God’s unitary being. With Irenaeus, Athanasius, the Cappadocians, Tertullian, and Augustine, the church challenged these heresies and recognized that whereas there is only one God, there are three persons in the Godhead; hence, the doctrine, “one in essence, three in person.” In our day, contemporary forms of Arianism and Sabellianism still challenge the church. In fact, modern Arians such as Harnack and, more recently, Bishop John Shelby Spong, are alive and well, collecting salaries in churches that officially accept the ecumenical creeds. Some of them even hold high ecclesiastical offices where they gave an oath to teach and defend the Trinity. Contemporary Sabellianism is also apparent in, for example, the feminist liturgies and hymns that replace prayer and praise to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as distinct persons within the Godhead with such “inoffensive” euphemisms as Creator, Gift, and Giver conceived of as distinct roles or modes of one person or force. Indeed, even we, as historic Christians, sometimes err by trying to go beyond the simplicity of the formula “one in essence, three in person” to comprehend the mysterious Trinity in theoretical terms or by the use of analogies that we think will make it more understandable and hence less mysterious. But each analogy has its shortcomings and-as with the analogies of a shamrock, a triangle, water as ice, liquid, and steam, among others-those shortcomings usually tend toward modalism with its denial of the distinct divine persons.

The catholic-that is, universal or historic-Christian faith is actually far less indebted to Greek philosophy than its Arian and Sabellian rivals. They impose a philosophical concept of “oneness” as a kind of mathematical simplicity-a unity that excludes all plurality within it-on the Christian God. But the Christian God really exists; he is not a mere concept. As Alan Torrance has wisely reminded us,

What becomes unambiguously clear from the debates over the homoousion [the Greek word for each of the persons in the Godhead being of the “same essence”], … is that, far from being Hellenizers of the gospel, Athanasius and the Council of Nicea set out to affirm its content precisely over and against Hellenistic disjunctions between the divine and the contingent, between the eternal and the spatiotemporal, between mind and body, and between the intelligible and the sensible realms.

In other words, those who developed and defended the church’s historic doctrine of the Trinity were striving to be more biblical than their opponents, not less.

And so it is perhaps unsurprising that the best thinking about the Trinity is still cast in the form of biblical prayer and praise. Let us, consequently, take Calvin’s caution to heart: “Here, indeed, if anywhere in the secret mysteries of Scripture, we ought to play the philosopher soberly and with great moderation…. Let us then willingly leave to God the knowledge of himself.”