Saturday, December 15, 2007

God is Three in One

The Trinity

The sovereign God wants to be loved for Himself and honored for Himself, but that is only part of what He wants. The other part is that He wants us to know that when we have Him we have everything -- we have all the rest. – A. W. Tozer

Under the subject who God is we must first talk about the Trinity.  This is one God revealed in three persons for all eternity.  We cannot properly conceive of three in one with perfect unity.  The idea is an oxymoron for us, it is itself contradictory.  I like A. W. Tozer’s idea on this, “The doctrine of the Trinity is truth for the heart.  The spirit of man alone can enter through the veil and penetrate into that Holy of Holies…Love and faith are at home in the mystery of the Godhead.  Let reason kneel in reverence outside.”1 

We must endeavor to grasp this on some level in order to attempt to think properly about God.  So put your faith and love into motion and ask God for illumination of the tri-unity of God.  Here are several belief statements we would do well to emulate in our thinking:

That there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
(Deut. 6:4; Isaiah 43:10-11; Matt. 28:18; Luke 3:22; John 14:16)2

“There is only One True God–revealed in three persons...Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (commonly known as the Trinity).”3

There is but one living and true God.  In the unity of the Godhead there are three persons, of one substance, power and eternity – God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  The Father is one, neither begotten or proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Hoy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.4

Scripture itself reveals this tri-unity in several places.  Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him”  John 14:23.  “I and the Father are one" John 10:30.  There are a number of instances where the Bible records the three Persons of the Godhead in evidence at the same time.  Jesus is baptized and the Holy Spirit descends and God the Father speaks from heaven in Matthew 3:16 and 17.  Jesus is speaking to His disciples at the last supper and says, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth.” (John 14:16) and again He says, “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” (John 14:26).  The great commission, again spoken by Jesus says “…baptizing them in name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

“It is most important that we think of God as Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the substance.  Only so may we think rightly of God and in a manner worthy of Him and our own souls.”5   “In this Trinity, nothing is before or after, nothing is greater or less: but all three Person coeternal, together and equal.”6

“The Persons of the Godhead, being one, have one will.  They work always together, and never one smallest act is done by one without the instant acquiescence of the other two.  Every act of God is accomplished by the Trinity in Unity.  Here, of course, we are being driven by necessity to conceive of God in human terms.  We are thinking of God by analogy with man, and the result must fall short of ultimate truth; yet if we are to think of God at all, we must do it by adapting creature-thoughts and creature-words to the Creator.  It is a real if understandable error to conceive of the Persons of the Godhead as conferring with one another and reaching agreement by interchange of thought as humans do…..That instant, immediate communion between the Persons of the Godhead which has been from all eternity knows not sound nor effort nor motion.”7

“A popular belief among Christians divides the work of God between the three Persons, giving a specific part to each, as, for instance, creation to the Father, redemption to the Son, and regeneration to the Holy Spirit.  This is partly true but not wholly so, for God cannot divide Himself that one Person works while another is inactive.  In the Scriptures the three Persons are shown to act in harmonious unity in all the might works that are wrought throughout the universe.”8

So there is one essence, three distinct persons, eternally revealed as one God.  I know I fall into the trap often in my thinking that Jesus was separated from the Father or that the Holy Spirit dwelling inside me is somehow separated from the Father and Jesus.  This does a huge dis-service to whom God has revealed Himself to be.  God has given us Himself in the Holy Spirit to live in our hearts and given Himself at the cross for our sins.  Kind of changes your perspective, doesn’t it?  Wow, God lives inside us.  God went to the cross for us.  It is difficult, but not inaccurate, to see all of God doing these things.  He is a unity of three persons revealed in different ways.

Unity of the Trinity9

Father
Son
Holy Spirit
Creation
Gen 1:1
Col 1:16
Job 26:13, Ps 104:30
Incarnation
Luke 1:35
Luke 1:35
Luke 1:35
Christ’s Baptism
Matt 3:16-17
Matt 3:16-17
Matt 3:16-17
Atonement
Heb 9:14
Heb 9:14
Heb 9:14
Resurrection
Acts 2:32
John 10:17-18
Rom 1:4
Salvation
1 Peter 1:2
1 Peter 1:2
1 Peter 1:2
Indwelling of man
John 14:15-23
John 14:15-23
John 14:15-23



Footnotes
1 Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy: the Attributes of God, Their Meaning in the Christian Life. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. 20. Print.
2 From Statement of Beliefs of the Fellowship of Christian Assemblies at http://www.fcaoc.org/belief_s.html
3 From the 16 Fundamental Truths of the Assemblies of God at http://ag.org/top/Beliefs/Statement_of_Fundamental_Truths/sft_short.cfm
4 From http://www.reformed.org/documents/wcf_with_proofs/
5 Tozer. 20.
6 Tozer. 21.
7 Tozer. 22.
8 Tozer. 23.
9 Tozer. 23.

References
All Scriptures not specified are quoted from Life in the Spirit Study Bible (NIV). Stamps, Donald C., and John Wesley Adams. Life in the Spirit Study Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003. Print.
Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy: the Attributes of God, Their Meaning in the Christian Life. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. Print.