God and Jesus
What is the Trinity?
Christians believe in one God who exists eternally as three persons: the Father, the Son (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit. There are not three gods, and it is not one God playing three parts. It is one God in three persons.
Where the idea comes from
The word “Trinity” is not in the Bible. It is a summary of three things the Bible teaches side by side. First, there is only one God.
Hear, Israel: Yahweh is our God. Yahweh is one.
“Yahweh” is God’s personal name in the Hebrew Old Testament. Most English Bibles print it as “the LORD”.
Second, the Father is God, Jesus is God and the Holy Spirit is God. Third, the three are distinct from one another: the Father sends the Son, the Son prays to the Father, and the Father and the Son send the Spirit. At Jesus’ baptism all three appear together.
Jesus, when he was baptized, went up directly from the water: and behold, the heavens were opened to him. He saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming on him. Behold, a voice out of the heavens said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
Jesus told his followers to baptise in the one name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19), and many church services end with a blessing that names all three:
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s love, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen.
Three common misunderstandings
- Three gods. Christians are not polytheists. There is one God, and one only.
- One God wearing three masks. The Father, Son and Spirit are not the same person appearing in different roles at different times. They exist together and relate to one another.
- One God and two lesser beings. The Son and the Spirit are not created, and they are not junior gods. Each is fully God.
Why it is hard to grasp
Nothing else in our experience is quite like this, which is why every comparison people offer, such as water, ice and steam or the three leaves of a shamrock, breaks down somewhere. That shouldn’t surprise us. If God is real, we would expect him to be greater than we can fully picture. Christians hold the doctrine because it is how God has shown himself, and not because they can explain it.
Why it matters
It means that God has always been a God of love, because the Father, the Son and the Spirit have loved one another from eternity. He did not need to create us in order to have someone to love.
It also explains how God rescues us: the Father sent the Son, the Son died and rose for us, and the Holy Spirit comes to live in everyone who trusts him. And it shapes how Christians pray, which is to the Father, through the Son, with the help of the Spirit.