The doctrine of the Trinity taught in the Christian Bible is unique to the religion of the Bible, Christianity. Simply stated, this doctrine defines the triune godhead of biblical Christianity as one single unitary God, being of one divine essence and three distinct divine persons. This article briefly discusses the doctrine of the Trinity for the purpose of helping ordinary Christians understand a bit more about the Trinity.
The doctrine of the Trinity, as well as all doctrines of the Bible, belongs to the essential nature of the Christian religion, which is the life of God in the souls of human beings. This religion stands in absolute opposition to the disbelief in the existence of God (atheism) as well as the belief in more than one god (polytheism).
God is the only divine being who has ever been. He is the only being who is three persons in one essence. The three persons are distinguished from one another but exist in unity with the others subsisting together in the only divine essence. Without three persons, God wouldn’t be God. The three persons of God each subsist in the one and the same essence with each person sharing the entirety of the essence of the divine nature, not each possessing a part of it.
The biblical doctrine of the Trinity ascribes all divine characteristics, attributes, and titles to the three persons of the Trinity equally. Scripture definitely teaches that each divine personality is equal to the others in essence, in attributes, and in power and glory. One of the first issues regarding the Trinity that must be understood is the consubstantiality of the godhead. In other words, each of the three persons of the Trinity are equal in divine essence.
However, though the foregoing is absolutely true, there does exist subordination among the persons of the godhead regarding the mode of subsistence and operation, but never regarding the essence. Charles Hodge has written about this subordination of the divine persons as follows.
Notwithstanding that the Father, Son, and Spirit are the same in substance [essence], and equal in power and glory, it is no less true, according to the Scriptures, (a.) That the Father is first, the Son second, and the Spirit third. (b.) The Son is of the Father… and the Spirit is of the Father and of the Son. (c.) The Father sends the Son, and the Father and Son send the Spirit. (d.) The Father operates through the Son, and the Father and Son operate through the Spirit. The converse of the statements is never found. The Son is never said to send the Father, nor to operate through Him; nor is the Spirit ever said to send the Father, or the Son, or to operate through them. [1]
The three persons of the Trinity are not three individuals separated from one another. These three persons are all of one indivisible essence subsisting as “personal self-distinctions within the Divine essence, which is not only generically, but also numerically, one… the self-distinctions in the Divine Being implied an “I” and “Thou” and “He,” in the Being of God, which assume personal relations to one another. Matt. 3:16; 4:1; John 1:18; 3:16; 5:20-22; 14:26;”[2]
John Calvin wrote of the subsistence of the three persons in the divine essence in his Institutes in this way.
By person, then, I mean a subsistence in the divine essence― a subsistence which, while related to the other two, is distinguished from them by incommunicable properties… Now, I say that each of the three subsistences while related to the others is distinguished by its own properties. Here relation is distinctly expressed, because, when God is mentioned simply and indefinitely the name belongs not less to the Son and Spirit than to the Father. But whenever the Father is compared with the Son, the peculiar property of each distinguishes the one from the other. Again, whatever is proper to each I affirm to be incommunicable, because nothing can apply or be transferred to the Son which is attributed to the Father as a mark of distinction.[3]
THE WORKS OF THE TRINITY
The works of the godhead are often considered by theologians as either “internal works”(Lat. opera ad intra) or “external works” (Lat. opera ad extra). Internal works refer to the works of God within the godhead while external works refer to acts outside the godhead in regards to the world. The internal works of God are each member acting distinctly from the other members of the godhead, such as generation (the Father), suretyship (the Son), and sanctification (the Spirit). The external works are God’s works in the world such as creation and providence.
Within the godhead, each of the three persons of the Trinity, though equal in essence, are nevertheless different from the others in the mode of subsistence or personal relations. The internal works of the persons of the godhead distinguish each from the other. For example, only the Father generates, elects, and calls; only the Son acts as surety; and only the Spirit sanctifies.
Each of the three persons act internally within the Godhead to accomplish works of personal operations that are not performed jointly with one another. There are certain personal attributes which distinguish the three persons from each other and these personal operations are incommunicable.
Where the internal acts just mentioned are works of individual persons within the Godhead, external acts of God manifest the three persons of the Trinity to the outside world jointly. These external works are never exclusively the works of one person of the Trinity but are always the works of the Godhead as a whole. However, though the external works of the Trinity are works of the three persons jointly, sometimes external works are ascribed predominantly to one person of the Trinity or another.
So sometimes external acts are the works of predominantly one person of the Trinity but all three of the persons participate. One example is that creation is primarily ascribed to the Father but the Son and Spirit also participate. Likewise, redemption is primarily ascribed to the Son though the Father and Spirit also are involved and regarding sanctification, which is primarily ascribed the Holy Spirit, the Father and Son also participate.
TRI-PERSONALITY
When considering the doctrine of the Trinity, Christians must guard against accepting the form of the godhead taught in the word of God as an abstract construct. The Trinity is much more than that. It determines the very character of the Christian religion and it supplies the basic support for God’s plan of salvation.
Moreover, God’s tri-personality is the original form of personality while human personality is a copy. Louis Berkhof writes of this tri-personality in his Systematic Theology as follows.
God is tri-personal. And this tri-personal existence is a necessity in the Divine Being, and not in any sense the result of a choice of God. He could not exist in any other than the tri-personal form… Personality does not develop nor exist in isolation, but only in association with other persons. Hence it is not possible to conceive of personality in God apart from an association of equal persons in Him. His contact with his creatures would not account for His personality any more than man’s contact with the animals would explain his personality. In virtue of the tri-personal existence of God there is an infinite fulness of divine life in him. Paul speaks of this pleroma (fulness) of the Godhead in Eph. 3:19 and Col. 1:9; 2:9. In view of the fact that there are three persons in God, it is better to say that God is personal than to speak of Him as a Person.[4]
Christians should understand that this triune form of the godhead is necessarily so in order that God could associate with and communicate with other equally divine persons in Him. Of course this is not the case in humans who have other humans with whom to associate and communicate.
ORDER
There is a certain definite order in the operation and subsistence of the three persons of God. Regarding subsistence, the Father is first, the Son is second, and the Holy Spirit third. This is not some sort of cardinal ranking reflecting a priority of time or dignity. It is merely a logical order of derivation. The Father is not begotten nor does he proceed from any of the other two persons of the Trinity. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son eternally. This essential order is reflected more particularly in the internal works of each of the persons of the Trinity. Scripture teaches that all things are out of the Father, through the Son, and in the Holy Spirit.[5]
UNITY
We mentioned above that the three persons of God each subsist in the one and the same essence with each person sharing the entirety of the essence of the divine nature. The divine essence therefore is complete and perfect in each of the three persons, which results in a numerical unity of essence. Unlike the divine nature, which is capable of fully and inseparably existing in more than one person, a human nature can only fully and inseparably exist in one essence. Three human beings can only have a relational unity of essence in the sense that they have the same kind of essence. But the divine essence is numerically unified amongst the three persons in that they have the identical essence with one another.
MYSTERY
The Trinity is a mystery. In the biblical sense it is a truth formally hidden and now revealed. Though the Trinity has been revealed to human beings in the Bible, it is only partially intelligible. Humans can understand some of the relations and manifestations of the Trinity, yet the essential nature of the Trinity is unintelligible to human beings. Human beings cannot explain the essential relationship between the persons of the Trinity and the essence, nor can they explain the essential character of the relationships among the three persons. The best we can do is to accurately define the terms of the Trinity and avoid the temptation of speculation about those things that are truly unintelligible.
CLOSING REMARKS
The doctrine of the Trinity has been set forth by the Church to the extent that the Trinity has been revealed in Scripture. The concept of the biblical Trinity is partially intelligible and like God, is not fully comprehensible by humans. However, Scripture reveals what we need to know and what God wants us to understand about the Trinity. It may be that the human mind just is incapable of understanding the essential relationship between the persons of the Trinity and the essence and the essential character of the relationships among the three persons. And that’s fine. We will understand it when God wants us to understand it. In the meantime, the doctrine of the Trinity serves us well to know God, to communicate with him, to walk with Him, and to receive His blessings unto salvation and eternal life.
[1] Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, (Hendrickson 2016) 444-45.
[2] Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (The Banner of Truth Trust, 2012), 77.
[3] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion. Trans. by Henry Beveridge, Book Second, Chap. 8, 17 (Hendrickson, 2008), 243.
[4] Berkhof, 73-74.
[5] Berkhof, 78.
