The Holy Trinity

God has revealed Himself to us in His Word. According to this Word Christians worship only one God. "There is no God but one" (1 Cor. 8:4). "Listen, Israel: the LORD, our God, the LORD is one" (Deut. 6:4). He is the Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Ghost. There is only one name of God and it is the "name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost" (Matt. 28:19). (God's Name is not the same as a designation!) When Jesus was baptized the Father spoke from heaven and the Holy Ghost descended on the Son in the form of a dove. Each Person acted separately but nevertheless there were not three God's, but only one.

We must believe a profound truth such as this on the basis of the Bible. God is so far above our ability to comprehend that we cannot understand Him in His essence. We can only believe that He is what He is. If we with our mind formulate a conception of God that agrees with our way of thinking, we actually lower God to the level of our ability to comprehend. Attempts have been made to illustrate the triune nature of God. It has been compared to a triangle: Just as in one triangle there are three angles, so too in the Godhead there are three Persons, and just as the angles of a triangle do not become three triangles, so too the three Persons of the Godhead do not become three different Gods. This example illustrates the matter in a way. But it leaves much to be desired. For we would have to imagine that each angle of a triangle is the whole triangle, inasmuch as each Person of the Godhead is the whole God and not just some part of the Godhead. The Bible says that in Christ "all the fulness of the Deity dwells in bodily form" (Col. 2:9). We can only inadequately describe God with illustrations, for God is the only one of His kind, far above this creation of His. We must be content with what the Bible tells us about Him.

The Bible calls each Person God. Of Jesus it says: "This is the true God" (1 John 5:20). Peter told lying Ananias: "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?... You have not lied to men, but to God" (Acts 5:3,4). In addition the Bible ascribes divine attributes and divine works to each Person. Some have wanted to make the Son and the Holy Ghost inferior to the Father in the Godhead. But what has been the result? They have made little gods of the Son and the Holy Ghost and have therefore fallen into polytheism. The doctrine of the Trinity is not meant to be dissected by our reason, but rather to be humbly believed according to the Bible.