Trinity – a Mystery

Nothing confuses Christians and non-Christians more than the doctrine of the Trinity. How could Christians assert that they are monotheists (i.e., believers in one supreme God) and yet give three titles for him: Father, Son, and Spirit? People of other faiths find this teaching incomprehensible, offensive, or blasphemous. Christians, too, err in how they portray this mystery. For example, some teach that God died on the cross or that Mary was God’s mother. To be precise, Jesus died on the cross, and Mary was Jesus’s mother.

One thing, however, is certain: the oneness and connectivity between Father/God, Son, and Spirit is not the church’s creation but something Jesus and the apostles taught. In his final exhortation, for example, Jesus said, “Baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Spirit” (Matt 28:19). At Jesus’s baptism, the Father spoke from the heavens while the Spirit descended on Jesus in the form of a dove (Matt 3:16–17). Jesus said to the disciples, “When the comforter comes – whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth, who comes from the Father – he will testify concerning me” (John 15:26). Paul writes, “When you were children, God sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts so you may call him: Abba, Father” (Gal 4:6). Father/God, Son, and Spirit were involved in creation (Gen 1:1–2; John 1:1–3; Col 1:15–18a) and re-creation, i.e., salvation (Col 1:18b–20; Eph 1:3–14).

The interrelationship between the Father/God, Son, and Spirit had been a mystery and a quest for early Christians, often explained in credal formulas. The earliest Creed (A.D. 150–180) says, “I believe in the Father Almighty and in Jesus Christ our Savior and in the Holy Spirit” (Testamentum in Galilaca Dominus Noster Iesu Christi). The Apostles’ Creed (6th–7th century) has a much-elaborated definition of God as the Father and Almighty and Maker of the heavens and the earth, and Jesus Christ as God’s only Son, the Lord, and a human born through Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, buried, resurrected, and ascended into the right hand of God the Father, the Almighty. About the Spirit, it only says, “I believe in the Holy Spirit.”

Tertullian used the term “trinity” first, and he was a church elder from the third century. Coming from Latin trinitas, meaning “three-ness” or three things co-occurring, trinity meant the functional oneness of the Father, Son, and Spirit (oneness in their function). After a great debate about Jesus’s nature (being), the bishops gathered at Nicene used the term “of the same substance” (omo-ousios) for the Son, meaning Jesus, too, was God and of the same substance as the Father (the Nicene Creed). From it, we get the commonly accepted formula of one God in three persons.

Trinity continues to mystify people, as it involves philosophy (Aristotelianism) and biblical theology. We may not understand the nature and being of Father/God, Son, and Spirit, but we can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. The biblical authors unashamedly talk of the oneness of the Father/God, Son, and Spirit in creation and re-creation (salvation). Peter did the same:

“Peter . . . to the diaspora exiles . . . chosen according to the foreknowledge of God/Father in the holiness of the Spirit for the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied in you” (1 Pet 1:2)

The triune God/Father, Spirit, and Son brought salvation to Peter’s audience. The same is true of us.