The TRI-UNITY of GOD

Three important teachings about
God: God is Spirit, God is One, God is Three.

God is Spirit

In His Word, God is called: LORD, Father, Shepherd, Friend, Counselor. God is always referred to as “He,” not “it.” He also is expressed as having personal and effectual characteristics, e.g., He thinks, He acts, He feels, and He speaks; and yet, God does not have a physical body as we have.

John 4:24, “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” Luke 24:39, “ See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”

Paul says God is “invisible” (1Timothy 1:17), “ Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. ”

In the Old Testament God represented Himself as light, fire, and cloud; in the New Testament God represented Himself in the human form of Jesus Christ. All the visible representations given in Scripture do not reveal the complete fullness of God’s nature.

There are verses like Psalm 98:1, “O sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done wonderful things, His right hand and His holy arm have gained the victory for Him,” and Proverbs 15:3, “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, watching the evil and the good.” These descriptions are called anthropomorphisms, from the Greek words for “man” and “form.” These picture God as though He were a man because God chose to describe Himself in a way we can comprehend; otherwise, we would have no hope of understanding, let alone of knowing Him.

We must be careful, however, not to take anthropomorphisms literally, for it can lead to a false view of God that fails to express His real nature and His true power. Psalm 91:4 says, “[God] will cover you with His pinions [the outer part of a bird’s wing including the flight feathers], and under His wings you may seek refuge; His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark [a defensive wall].”

God is certainly not a bird, and neither is God a man (cf. Numbers 23:19), “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent; has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?”

God is spirit, and even though spirit is invisible, God has seen fit to reveal Himself to us. Romans 1:20, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made.”

God is One

When God freed Israel from Egypt, He said: “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Exodus 20:3). Later Moses told the Israelites (Deuteronomy 4:35), “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” Isaiah wrote: “I am the Lord, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God. I will gird [secure and surround] you, though you have not known Me; That men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun that there is no one besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other, the One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these” (Isaiah 45:5-7).

In Mark 12:29-30, Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 6:4-5, “‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’”

Jesus said (John 10:30), “I and the Father are one,” and (John 14:7), “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.”

Paul writes (1Corinthians 8:4-6), “We know … that there is no God but one. For us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.”

How can all things be from God the Father whom we exist for, and and all things be from Jesus Christ, for whom we exist through? Because God the Father and Jesus Christ the Lord are One!

God is Three

Though there is only one God, He exists in three Persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We call this the Trinity, a contraction of “tri-unity,” meaning “three in one.” The word Trinity doesn’t appear in the Bible, but God’s existence as three persons in one God is clearly taught in Scripture.

Old Testament evidence of God’s plurality can be found in the very first verse: “In the beginning God…” (Genesis 1:1). The Hebrew word used for God is Elohim, which is a plural noun. Isaiah 42:1 speaks of the Messiah: “Behold, My Servant whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations.” The Messiah says (Isaiah 48:16), “The Lord God has sent Me, and His Spirit.”

The New Testament declares fulfillment of the above verses: After Jesus’ baptism, the Spirit of God descended upon Him as a dove, and the Father said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased” (Matthew 3:17). The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are together in the same scene.

In (John 14:16-17) Jesus says, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth.”

Paul writes (Romans 1:1-4), “Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord”; (Romans 8:9), ”… if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ”; (2Corinthians 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.”

Peter declares (1Peter 1:2) that we are chosen, “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, that you may obey Jesus Christ.”

Jude writes, (Jude 20-21), “But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.” Ephesians 4:4-6, “There is one body and one Spirit–just as you were called to one hope when you were called–one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

There is only one body of believers; every person who has or will trust in Christ. There is only one Spirit–the Holy Spirit of God, and He is the inner unifying force in the body of Christ. When believers walk in obedience to and in the power of the Holy Spirit, our doctrine and our relationships are pure and unified in the one hope to which we have been called: to be Christlike.

There is but one Lord, Jesus Christ our Savior. And there is only one faith in true Christianity: All that leads us to, nurtures us in, and guarantees to keep us for an eternal relationship with each other and Jesus Christ. There is but one baptism among believers: Spiritual baptism, by which we are placed into the Body of Christ, by the Holy Spirit.

We are one people, under one God who is over all (sovereign), through all (omnipotent), and in all (omnipresent). Our oneness (unity) as God’s people, is foundational to Christianity, just as God’s Oneness is foundational to His diety.

Yahweh, Jehovah, the Great I Am of the Old Testament is GOD!

Exodus 20:2, ”I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt…” God the Father of the New Testament is GOD!

Matthew 6:9-13, “Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. [For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’]”

Jesus Christ, Immanuel, The Messiah, the Holy One, Lord and Savior, is GOD!

John 20:28, “Thomas said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God!’”

The Holy Spirit, God’s Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of Christ, is GOD! Acts 5:3 Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit… What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God.”

“God the Father” is often used as the most comprehensive and inclusive divine title for God, though it is clear from Scripture that God the Father is never separated in nature or power from God the Son or God the Holy Spirit.

In the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) Jesus declares God’s tri-unity: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Colossians 1:15-20, “He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him,, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.”

Hebrews 1:1-3, “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

God is spirit, yet God put on flesh; God is one, yet He is expressed in three; God is eternal, yet He died! This is a profound mystery that no human illustration or explanation can adequately describe; and no scientific explanation or investigation can prove or disprove. The Trinity is something we believe by faith, because God has revealed, demonstrated, and repeatedly instructed about it in His Word.

Pastor Michael Hale, 9.08.18.
Revised and Expanded, 5.02.21