Introduction to the Trinity

When trying to define the Trinity, analogies fail us.  We can’t say that God is “like” anything else because He isn’t like anything else.  In fact most analogies people use only serve to illustrate a heretical view of God.  Some have suggested that God is like an egg, there is the yolk, the white, and the shell all comprising one egg.  The problem is this promotes the idea that God is 1/3 Father, 1/3 Son, and 1/3 Holy Spirit and all three combined are all of God when the orthodox view is that all of God is the Father, all of God is the Son, and all of God is the Holy Spirit.  God cannot be divided and this analogy compromises the simpleness of “indivisibleness” of God.  Another analogy sometimes used is that of water, water can be solid (ice), liquid, or gas (steam) but it is all water.  The problem is that water cannot be in all three states at the same time but God is all three persons of the Trinity simultaneously.  This analogy does a better job of illustrating the heresy known as modalism than it does the orthodox view of God.

Isa 40:25  To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One.

There simply isn’t a good way to illustrate the Trinity because God is utterly unique.

God is not bound by time or space.  He is an infinite being that defies description.

Here is our working definition of the Trinity shamelessly stolen from Dr. James White.

Within the one Being that is God, there exists eternally three coequal and coeternal persons, namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit

Within the one Being that is God - We are monotheists.  We do not worship three separate Gods but one God only.

 

the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit - God is three persons.  Not three beings that are one being or three persons that are one person.  Three persons that are one Being.  This distinction is absolutely critical to an orthodox understanding of the Trinity.

God is one what and three whos – One being and three persons

there exists eternally three coequal and coeternal persons, These three relationships are eternal.  There has never been a time that the Father was not the Father or the Son was not the Son.  The Father did not create the Son.  There relationships are eternal
Each is not ⅓ of God

These are the Three Foundations of a clear understanding of the Trinity: Monotheism, 3 Divine Persons, The persons are Coeternal and Coequal

Every Heresy will deny one of these truths

The word “Trinity” doesn’t appear in the Bible but the Doctrine of the Trinity is the only one that affirms everything the Bible says about who God is.

If you deny Monotheism-You get Polytheism
If you deny Equality – You get Subordinationalism (By which I mean that the Father is more powerful, or older, or more valuable than the Son or the Spirit, not that the Son nd Spirit don’t willingly submit to the Father.  More on that in a few weeks.)
If you deny Three Persons – You get Modalism (The heretical belief that God exists sometimes as Father, sometimes as Son, Sometimes as Holy Spirit.  God exists as all three simultaneously.)

A correct understanding of the Trinity will answer most objections to it.  Here are three common ones.

If Jesus is God, then when He was baptized and the voice of God was heard, was Jesus throwing His voice like a ventriloquist? 

No, while Jesus was (and is) God the voice heard was that of the Father who is also God but a separate person of the Trinity.

When Jesus prays, is He praying to Himself?

No, He is praying to the Father.

When Jesus was dead for three days, does this mean that God was dead?

No, The Godhead was still alive and holding the universe together.  Only the physical body of Jesus was dead.

 

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