For the past few weeks I’ve been laying a foundation of faith by discussing the truth of God’s existence, the necessity of truth being real and knowable because of God’s existence, and the attributes of God. We know God must exist, because only an infinite Being like God could have created a perfectly ordered universe like ours out of nothing.

Before there was matter and energy, space or even time as we know it, God was. We know that because nothing cannot bring something into existence. That is nonsense. Something outside, and completely Other to, the universe – outside of matter, energy, space, and time as we know it – brought everything we know into existence. Whatever brought this universe into existence is God in relation to us because this Source of power is and must be supernatural, wholly Other, to us. Tragically, too few people think about the implications of the supernatural nature of God. They live as if God is either indifferent to us, or unknowable to us, or is of no consequence to us – as if He doesn’t exist. But our existence, of necessity, depends upon Him.

A supernatural God must exist. Nature, reason, and empirical science too forbid us to conclude that anything less than divine intelligence, will, and power caused our universe to come into existence, expand, and develop as perfectly and beautifully as it has. Astronomers and theoretical physicists throughout the world do their work with wonder and delight at the incomprehensible magnificence and elegant, mathematical, infinitely precise nature of the cosmos. And infinite precision can never result from thoughtless processes. There is infinite wisdom in the design and progress of the cosmos. David, in Psalm 19, said it well, “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.” God delights in His works of creation; and made us to discover and delight in them too.

In my previous messages to you, I’ve taught on the attributes of God. There are two kinds of divine attributes: incommunicable and communicable. Incommunicable attributes are those which only God possesses and can possess; and communicable attributes are those bestowed upon us as His image-bearers. All the great Abrahamic faiths – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – agree about the attributes of God we share, and do not share, with God. We all agree that God is beyond His creation, wholly Other, to us in His essence. And we all agree that the qualities that set us apart from all other animals are divine imprints that reflect God’s divine excellence: God’s invisible spirit nature, wisdom, justice, love, mercy, goodness and so forth. Only humans on earth exhibit and appreciate these communicable attributes.

Our ability to discern God, and God as the Source of His attributes, is itself a divine gift. This awareness rightly evokes within those who discern Him the highest of appreciation, or worship. The word “worship” derives from an old English word, worthship. God is the One Being of the highest possible worth; and God made us to delight in and worship Him.

Now I want to talk about an attribute of God’s nature that is unique to the Christian faith – the Triunity of God. Studying the doctrine of the Trinity gives us rich insight into the heart of any study of theology: understanding what God is like in Himself.

Only the Christian religion is grounded on the assertion that God is, in fact, three divine Persons inseparably bound together in one Being. I say our faith is grounded in the Holy Trinity because no other rational conclusion can result from the final revelation of God Himself in the Person of Jesus the Messiah, and the separate Personhood of the Holy Spirit Whom Jesus clearly identified. Our salvation, in fact, depends on the truths found in the teaching of the Holy Trinity.

The theologian Wayne Grudem says, “We may define the doctrine of the Trinity as follows: God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God, and there is one God.”

The Bible never explicitly says that God is triune, or three-in-one. That is a mystery progressively unveiled in sacred scripture. Beginning with Genesis 1:26, God declares, “Let us make man in our image according to our likeness.” Hebrew scripture uses a plural verb (“let us”) and pronouns (“our”) in God’s declaration. This has been interpreted as a “plural of majesty”, as when a king might say in a speech, “We are pleased to grant your request.” But Grudem counters,

In Old Testament Hebrew there are no other examples of a monarch using plural verbs or plural pronouns of himself in such a “plural of majesty,” so this suggestion has no evidence to support it…. The best explanation is that already in the first chapter of Genesis we have an indication of a plurality of persons in God himself. We are not told how many persons, and we have nothing approaching a complete doctrine of the Trinity, but it is implied that more than one person is involved. The same can be said of Genesis 3:22 (“Behold, the man has become one of us, knowing good and evil”). Genesis 11:7 (“Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language”), and Isaiah 6:8 (“Whom shall I send, and will go for us?”). (Note the combination of singular and plural in the same sentence in the last passage.)

Moreover, we find in the Old Testament scriptures where more than one person is referred to who are both God. Psalm 45:6-7 says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of joy above Your fellows.” In the New Testament, Hebrews 1:8 applies this passage to “the Son”, that is, Jesus Christ. Grudem adds,

Similarly, in Psalm 110:1, David says, “The LORD says to my lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet’” (NIV). Jesus rightly understands that David is referring to two separate persons as “Lord” (Matt, 22:1-46), but who is David’s “Lord” if not God himself? And who could be saying to God, “Sit at my right hand” except someone else who is fully God? From a New Testament perspective, we can paraphrase this verse: “God the Father said to God the Son, ‘Sit at my right hand.’” But even without the New Testament teaching on the Trinity, it seems clear that David was aware of a plurality of persons in one God. Jesus, of course, understood this, but when he asked the Pharisees for an explanation of this passage, “no was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.” Unless they are willing to admit a plurality of persons in one God, Jewish interpreters of Scripture to this day will have no more satisfactory explanation of Psalm 110:1.

In Isaiah 63:10 says that God’s people “rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit”, suggesting that the Holy Spirit is different from Himself. In Hosea 1:7, Yahweh says, “I will have compassion on the house of Judah, and I will deliver them by the LORD their God.” Again, two persons are revealed in this passage.

Isaiah 48:16 reveals three divine Persons in one passage, “Come near to Me, listen to this: From the first I have not spoken in secret, from the time it took place, I was there. And now the Lord God has sent Me, and His Spirit.” We know God is the speaker here because He identifies Himself beforehand, “I am He, I am the first, I am also the last. Surely My hand founded the earth, and My right hand spread out the heavens” (Isa. 48:12-13). This passage reveals that God the Father sent both God the Son and His Spirit.

Another indication of the plurality of persons as God is found in Old Testament passages about “the angel of the LORD”. The Hebrew word for angel means “messenger;” and if he is a messenger of the LORD, then he is distinct from the LORD Himself. In every passage from Genesis through Judges, wherever the “the angel of the LORD” appears, He is also identified as God or Yahweh. Moreover, He always appears as a man, suggesting the angel of the LORD is the preincarnate Messiah, God the Son.

Although God’s triune nature was revealed within Hebrew Scripture, it was Jesus who made it explicit to us. First, He made it evident by revealing that He Himself is divine, and yet distinct from the God He called Father. Second, He made it evident that there is a third Person, the Holy Spirit, who is distinct from Himself and the Father. Therefore, if the Father is God, and Jesus the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, but there is only one God, then God must be tri-personal in nature, and not mono-personal as Judaism and Islam assume.

At the baptism of Jesus, God the Father speaks from heaven, declaring “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased”; and the Spirit descends upon Jesus as a dove. This is the Holy Trinity revealed in one event performing three distinct activities: God the Father is speaking, Jesus the Son is being baptized and the Spirit is descending upon Him. This descent of the Spirit at His baptism literally fulfills Isaiah’s prophecy where Messiah declares, “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to bring good news to the afflicted.”

At the end of His earthly ministry, the resurrected Jesus commands His disciples, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt. 28:19). Grudem observes, “The very names ‘Father’ and ‘Son,’ drawn as they are from the family, the most familiar of human institutions, indicate very strongly the distinct personhood of both the Father and the Son. When ‘the Holy Spirit’ is put in the same expression and on the same level as the other two persons, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Holy Spirit is also viewed as a person and of equal standing with the Father and the Son.”

The New Testament generally refers to God the Father as “God” (Theos in Greek) and to Jesus as “Lord” (kurios in Greek). 2 Corinthians concludes with a trinitarian benediction: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” Ephesians 4:4-6 also has a trinitarian reference: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.” 1 Peter 1:2 says believers are chosen “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace be yours in fullest measure.”

All of these references progressively revealed throughout Scripture make clear that there is more than one Person who is God, and yet there is only one God. Therefore, the doctrine of the Trinity is evident throughout the Bible, even if not explicitly stated in Scripture.

Now let’s look more carefully at the Christian faith’s understanding of the Trinity: “1. God is three persons. 2. Each person is fully God. 3. There is one God.”

1. God is three persons. The Father is not the Son or the Holy Spirit. The Son is not the Holy Spirit either. John’s gospel begins: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” The repeated phrase “with God” shows a distinction between the Word, Jesus Christ, and God the Father. Later in John 17:24, Jesus prays, “Father, I desire that they also… may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” This shows a “distinction of persons, sharing of glory and a relationship of love between the Father and the Son before the world was created.”

Jesus is also portrayed as our Advocate with the Father in 1 John 2:1 and our high priest and intercessor (Hebrews 7:24-25). These are clearly separate roles in relation to the Father before Whom He intercedes for us.

The Father is also not the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” It would be irrational to say that the Father sends Himself. The Holy Spirit also prays for us to the Father (Romans 8:26).

Nor is the Son the Holy Spirit. In John 16:7 Jesus says of the Holy Spirit, “It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you.” Again, in Matthew 12:32, Jesus contrasts Himself with the Holy Spirit, “Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.” We should also note that both verses reveal the Personhood of the Holy Spirit. The title Helper, also called Counselor or Comforter in different versions, are titles analogous to human roles. So does calling the Spirit by the personal pronoun “Him.” And you can only blaspheme a divine Person, not an impersonal force. The Holy Spirit is personal and fully God.

To assert that the Holy Spirit is simply the power of God, as some heretics have said, is to render verses in Scripture nonsensical. Grudem notes, “For example, Luke 4:14, ‘And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee,’ would have to mean, ‘Jesus returned in the power of the power of God into Galilee.’ In Acts 10:38, ‘God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power,’ would mean, ‘God anointed Jesus with the power of God and with power.’ No, these verses clearly imply that the Holy Spirit is omnipotent God.

Second, the abundant testimony of Scripture is that 2. Each person is fully God. First, God the Father is clearly God. The Hebrew God Yahweh must be the same as God the Father. The Father is the One who begot the Son and sent the Holy Spirit; and both the Son and Holy Spirit intercede for us to the Father. Jesus said, “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”

Next, the Son is fully God. John 1:1-14 clearly identifies Jesus as God through whom everything that exists was made, and who became flesh and dwelt among us. These all confirm His divinity. Colossians 1:13-20 lists numerous attributes of the Son that can only be true if He is fully God. The Father gives His kingdom to His Son, and through Him we are redeemed and forgiven. Jesus is the Creator of all things, who is before all things, and who holds all things together and reconciles all things to Himself. Later, Paul says that in Jesus “all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form.” All these attributes could never belong to a created being – only God.

Hebrews 1 and Revelation 1 also merit study for their affirmations of Jesus’ deity. They clearly reveal His incommunicable attributes of aseity or eternal self-existence, infinity, and immutability, which can only belong to the one, true God. Jesus also accepted worship from others, something no created being has the right to do.

We also have the clear testimony of Messianic prophecies. Isaiah 9:6-7 declares that a Jewish son would also be “the mighty God, the everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace” whose government would have no limits or end. Isaiah 7:14 says that a virgin would give birth to a son whose name, or identity, is Immanuel, “God with us.” Micah 5:2 prophesies that a ruler will come from Bethlehem Ephrathah, Jesus’ birthplace, but also from eternity. Only the incarnate, eternal God in Jesus could fulfill that prophecy.

Third, the Holy Spirit is God. Scripture reveals that the Spirit of God is God, but acts under the authority of the Father to reveal the Son to us. He secretly guides humanity to fulfill the Father’s decrees or providence. The Holy Spirit displays all the attributes of God to perfection. Genesis 1:2 reveals that the Spirit was co-Creator of this earth, “moving across the waters” to bring order out of chaos and life from non-life. This indicates the Spirit is co-eternal with God.

1 Corinthians 2:10-11 both distinguishes the Personhood of the Spirit from the Father and His equality in substance with the Father. “For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.” Clearly, only a Person equal with God can search the depths of God’s Being and His thoughts.

Yet the Holy Spirit wills to be subordinate in authority to the Father and the Son, even though He is co-equal in nature. He is sent by the Father to glorify the Son and draw people to faith in Him. The Holy Spirit never exalts Himself as the primary person of worship – only the Father through the Son. God the Father and the Son in turn are jealous for the honor of the Holy Spirit than their own before sinful men. Jesus said in Matthew 12:31, “Any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven.” Only God can be blasphemed, and Holy Spirit is God.

Scripture testifies we can grieve the Holy Spirit. Peter accused Ananias of “lying to the Holy Spirit” before Ananias died. “You have not lied to men but to God.” So the Holy Spirit is personal and is also God. That His name is included in Jesus’ command to baptize disciples in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit also confirms His true divinity. Grudem says, “This can be seen if we recognize how unthinkable it would have been for Jesus to say something like, “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the archangel Michael” – this would give to a created being a status entirely inappropriate even to an archangel. Believers throughout all ages can only be baptized into the name (and thus into a taking on of the character) of God himself.”

So far, I have attested that God is three Persons, and each Person is fully God. Now we must integrate that with the truth that 3. There is one God. The Hebrew Bible emphatically emphasizes the absolute uniqueness and oneness of God. Moses declared to the people of Israel, “The Lord, He is God; there is no other besides Him.” He then issued the great declaration of Hebrew faith in Deuteronomy 6:5, known to Jews as the Shema: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!” Monotheism, belief in only one God, was deeply ingrained in the Jews for almost 15 centuries before the coming of Jesus. Isaiah’s grand prophecy, beginning with chapter 40, has at least ten explicit declarations by God that He is the only God, and none other has ever existed but Him. That is why the Greatest Command of Scripture, which ensues the Shema is “You shall love the LORD your God with all Your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”

So each of these three statements concerning the Trinity must be true, and together they reveal the great Truth which has defined the Christian faith from the beginning. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are three co-equal Persons who together compose the one, true God. This is not to deny that there is in that declaration of faith imponderables that we will never be able to penetrate or know. How the Persons of the Trinity differ and yet think and act in perfect unity is the holiest of mysteries. No one can outside of God can ever fully know how the Triune God relates within. It is incomprehensible, even to angels. Nor should our limitations in comprehending the fullness of the Trinity cause us to doubt that it is true. Why should an infinitely multi-dimensional being like God, who exists outside of all nature, be fully comprehensible to weak and finite creatures like us? Trinitarianism simply affirms that God is wholly other to us, even though He gives of Himself to us and loves us.

I believe that Scripture wisely did not state: “God is three persons in one Godhead.” First, the Holy Trinity is the greatest of all mysteries, one that we cannot fully explain or describe; so these words would fall short of the truth as a flat declaration. Second, I don’t believe people must comprehend the three-in-oneness of God in order to be saved; for Scripture never says they must. God wants people to believe that Jesus is the Son of God who died for our sins and rose from the grave. While it is a grave heresy to deny the divinity of Jesus, I believe there are genuine Christians who misunderstand the Holy Trinity. Understanding the doctrine of the Trinity, however, is essential to having the richest and truest understanding of our God and how each Person works and relates to us. We owe a deep debt of gratitude to the apostolic fathers, who clearly enunciated the doctrine of the Trinity and explored the richness of its implications.

The most important statement of belief, or creed, explicitly affirming the Trinity is the Nicene Creed. It was formulated in 325 AD at the behest of one church leader, Athanasius, who opposed the errant teaching of a bishop named Arius. Arius taught that Jesus was created by God before the creation; so He was not co-eternal with God. Arius misinterpreted the Greek word for “only begotten” in John 3:16, monogené, to liken Jesus’ begetting with the common human usage of a woman begetting a child. Arius failed to interpret the verb in light of everything else Scripture taught about Jesus’ divinity and equality with the Father in substance, if not in authority.

The Emperor Constantine summoned a church council from throughout the Roman Empire to the city of Nicaea to examine and discuss what Scripture taught about the divinity of Jesus Christ. They formulated a concise statement on the core beliefs of the faith, expanding the well-known “Apostle’s Creed” to give explicit affirmation to the triunity of God. This is the Nicene Creed.

Let’s read it together.



The Nicene Creed
^{(325 A.D. Council of Nicaea)}
We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures.
He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father [and the Son].
With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. AMEN.


Brethren, the truths stated in this statement of faith instructed millions of Christians, most of whom were illiterate, the core beliefs of the Christian faith. Most of the Nicene Creed focuses on the divinity of Jesus Christ; for he is our Savior. This is a belief that our natural minds hesitate to believe because, as a man, Jesus laid aside every divine prerogative that would easily distinguish from other men. Yet He was in fact true God from true God. Because of His ultimate condescension in being made in the likeness of mortal flesh, His willingness to endure a sinful world around Him, and above all His willingness to suffer the most ignominious and cruel of deaths for our redemption, God has rightly exalted His name above every other name. It is only by the name of Jesus that we are saved. God made Him human to make Him the center of our affection and attention. We were purchased by His blood to be espoused to Him forever.

I bid you to look into your hearts and consider whether Jesus is truly your first love, and whether you are committed to being a worshiper of the Triune God forever.

Let us pray.