Matthew 3:16-17 (NIV), ‘As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”’

Questions:
This verse speaks of God in the person of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Father:

• What is your response to verses like these which point to the “triune nature” of God?
• Is there a contrast to verses like Deuteronomy 6:4, “The Lord our God, the Lord is one!”?
• If you were asked to explain how this works, what might you say?
• Do you have questions or comments about this you would like to put to the group to discuss?

Related verses: Matt 28:19, 2 Cor 13:14, Gen 1:1-2, John 1:1-3

In the famous hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy”, the last line of the first and fourth verses reads, “God in three persons, blessed Trinity”. But these phrases do not appear anywhere in the bible. And there are many bible verses that refer to God as one and only one. So what is going on here?

If I were think up a religious doctrine to appeal to people, I would never imagine this, my limited human brain rebels against the idea of three in one.

I don’t recall the church I attended as a child ever mentioning Trinity as a doctrine – I was in Churches of Christ, who are very light on doctrine. They try to rely on what the bible says without translating that into human concepts. So, I was familiar with the nature of Jesus being divine, and talk about the Holy Spirit, but I was a young adult before I became aware of the doctrine of the Trinity.

In the film on the first hymn, which is our fourth hymn this Sunday, it shows the fragment source of that early hymn was dated to the AD 200’s, and that fragment highlighted our God as being the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So, this was an essential aspect of belief of the very early church. And that is reflected in the Apostles Creed, which was not formulated at any council, but was the commonly accepted statement of faith of the early church.

However, the mere human brain tends to object to this doctrine, so there has been a continual tendency over the centuries to undermine this belief. The council of Nicea was called because of attempts by a priest in Alexandria by the name of Arius to change this belief, so the doctrine of the Trinity that is clearly stated in the Nicene creed was produced in response to the Arian philosophy, to clearly state the belief of the early church.

In our modern era we can see this tendency to change belief into our own wishful thinking in the development of the Unitarian church, which rejects the doctrine of the Trinity.

In one way I find the difficulties with this doctrine to be very encouraging, since it wouldn’t have been produced if people sat down to dream up their own religion. Instead, it reflects how the early believers accepted scripture as being God’s revelation of Himself to mankind, and their statements conformed to what the bible tells us, so the early creeds and doctrine reflect exactly what the bible says.

And the bible says that God is One, yet within the oneness of God there are three individual persons.

It should not surprise us that we cannot fit the nature of our infinite and eternal God into a logical framework within our limited human brain.

One analogy which I find useful is that of water. Water can be ice, liquid, or steam. They are all different, yet all are exactly the same chemical composition of H2O. Ice is not liquid nor gas, steam is not solid nor liquid, and liquid water is not solid nor gas. So, if we need to unlock our brain to take in the nature of an everyday substance like water, we need much more to allow our brains to open up to the real nature of God as he has revealed Himself in the bible, rather than insisting His nature should conform to our limited imagination.

My personal response is to take the doctrine of the Trinity as a useful shorthand or reference to all of the many bible verses that refer to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as each being divine and eternal. I trust in what the bible says about these aspects of God, and I accept that human logic cannot contain the infinite nature of God.

Some relevant verses:

The Great Commission (Matthew 28:19) — Jesus instructs His followers to baptize “…in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Name is singular, although three Persons are listed.

The Apostolic Blessing (2 Corinthians 13:14) — “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

Creation (Genesis 1:1–2, John 1:1–3) — mentions God and the Spirit hovering over the waters. John 1 clarifies that “the Word” (Jesus) was with God in the beginning and was God, and that all things were made through Him.