I started a series on the Trinity almost two months ago. I’m going to continue it making use of a concise little book (just under a hundred pages, not counting the indices) I discovered last year called Making Sense of the Trinity: 3 Crucial Questions, by Millard J. Erickson ((I would highly recommend this book to any reader. It lays down a number of compelling biblical, rational, and practical reasons for believing in the Trinity. If you have the time, however, and wish to read something of more substance, the author recommends his own God in Three Persons: A Contemporary Interpretation of the Trinity.)). When I say “make use of” I mean simply that I will follow Erickson’s outline and ask the same three “crucial” questions. I’ll try to provide my own answers to the questions without simply regurgitating Erickson’s responses, though I may throw in a quote here or there.
And so, I turn to the first crucial question: “Is the doctrine of the Trinity biblical?”
A Brief Definition
First off, since I started this series with the premise that Mormons (among other groups) frequently misunderstand and/or misrepresent Trinitarianism, I should explain what the Trinity really is. Short and simple, Trinitarians believe that God is one, yet three.
Getting more specific, we say that God has eternally existed as one being in three persons. Though this definition looks simple, the language used here is very carefully chosen, and gets even more precise if you study the latin and greek words used originally to describe the Trinity. English doesn’t do it justice, but the early church took great pains to define their terms as accurately as possible. I’ll elaborate on this in a later post in this series. For now, the above definition will suffice.
There are three important biblical aspects that combine to form our doctrine of the Trinity. They are:
1. The Unity of God
The most explicit statement in all of scripture regarding God’s oneness is the Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” This statement is considered the central tenet of Judaism. It is followed immediately by the command, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” This reminds Jews and Christians that our allegience is not to be divided between God and anyone/anything else. Dividing God into multiple substances or beings would divide our loyalty and therefore corrupt our worship ((Incidentally, this is also the reason there was only one temple in all of Israel. Other cultures were building multiple temples to their multiple gods, but God said he would put his name in Jerusalem, and that all people should go up to Jerusalem to worship the Lord there (Deut. 12:5; Deut. 12:13-14; Deut. 16:5-6). This was to symbolize for Israel that there was only one God.)).
2. The Deity of the Three
In seeming contrast to the assertion that God is one, the scriptures (mostly the New Testament, but in some places even the Old Testament) identify three distinct persons as being fully God:
- God the Father –To my knowledge no one claims that Heavenly Father is not God. For consistency, however, note that Jesus uses “Heavenly Father” and “God” interchangeably: Matt. 6:26, 30, 32; John 6:45; John 20:17.
- God the Son — Isaiah 9:6 equates the Messiah with “Mighty God”. New Testament examples of Jesus being equated with God include John 1:1-5; Phil. 2:5-11; and Heb. 1:3-14.
- God the Holy Spirit — In Acts 5:1-4, a lie against the Holy Spirit amounts to a lie against God. Paul seems to find “God” and “Holy Spirit” interchangeable in 1 Cor. 3:16-17 and 1 Cor. 6:19-20.
3. The Three-in-oneness of God
There are numerous places in scripture where the three persons in the Trinity are grouped together: Matt. 28:19; 2 Thes. 2:13-14; 1 Cor. 12:4-6; 2 Cor. 13:14. Jesus’ baptism ((In my last post in this series, I mentioned a devotional booklet that used Christ’s baptism as a demonstration of the doctrine of the Trinity. For another example of Christ’s baptism used to defend the Trinity, see the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article for Trinity.)) is another example of a three-in-one passage (Matt. 3:13-17; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22).
These scriptures and many others seem to affirm that where one member of the Trinity is working, the other two are also working. The three persons of the Trinity do not work alone, but each takes part in some aspect of every work God accomplishes.
The three-in-oneness of God also denotes an equality among the persons. They are co-eternal and there exists perfect love and unity between the persons. None of the persons is necessarily subordinate to the others.
Is the Doctrine of the Trinity Biblical?
Is the doctrine of the Trinity biblical? Well, I hope the reader can see that at least the three concepts I’ve listed above are biblical. I believe the doctrine of the Trinity, which proceeds directly from these three points, is therefore transitively biblical.
It’s important to note that the three concepts I’ve demonstrated above can be combined in different ways. Various groups emphasizing one or two of the above aspects over and above the other(s) resulted in a diverse number of heresies which the early church battled as it began to settle in on the creedal definitions of the Trinity. The creeds were merely an official formulation of the doctrine that had existed from the earliest days of the church.
I’m going to deliberately avoid combining the three aspects here and leave that for my next post in this series. I hope to show that the early church made the right choice in how it defined its doctrine of God in the creeds.