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THIS STUDY IS DESIGNED TO SHED LIGHT ON ONE OF THE MOST MYSTERIOUS ASPECTS OF GOD... THE TRINITY. HERE WE EXPLORE PROOFS FOUND IN SCRIPTURE TO HELP BUILD OUR UNDERSTANDING OF GOD'S TRIUNE NATURE AND WE SEARCH FOR WAYS TO SHARE THAT UNDERSTANDING WITH OTHERS.
The word TRINITY is never used in the Bible. It’s actually two words placed together to form a third word. These words are TRI and UNITY. We’re taught that God is a tri-unity, with each person of the Godhead equally and fully and eternally God. Each is necessary, and each is distinct, and yet, all are one. The Father is the unseen, omnipresent Source of all being, revealed in and through the Son, experienced in and by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, and the Son proceeds from the Father. Let’s look at some scriptures and see if this can be proven.
These are the first three verses in the Bible, and in each verse we see the three different persons of God. The Father is the Will of God commanding creation into existence, the Spirit is the Work of God constructing creation into existence, and the Son is the Word of God calling creation into existence.
This is another example of all three aspects of God being presented in scripture at once. In the Bible, there are three types of evidence that support the trinity doctrine…
We’re gonna study these three types of evidence and see where they lead. Let’s begin.
This is the beginning of what is called the SHEMA, the most important prayer in the O.T. and part of the roots to Christianity.
This scripture is telling us that God is ONE, not three, so we might be getting off to a rough start. Maybe we need to look at the original language to get a better perspective. The Hebrew word for “ONE” in this verse is ECHAD, which means properly united. That’s interesting, but still doesn’t fully give the big picture, let’s see if we can get a better understanding of how ECHAD is used.
There’s the same word ECHAD, and its used to describe how a man and woman get married and become ONE! Separate individuals, equally important, that make up a whole unit. Now we’re getting somewhere.
This is how the Bible describes God, as 3 separate, unified beings that form the GODHEAD. I’m not saying there are 3 gods, I’m saying there is 1 God in 3 persons. An interesting point is that the Hebrews had a word that meant ONE in the singular form, that word is YACHID, but it wasn’t used to describe God, because He wanted this word ECHAD used, which means ONE in the PLURAL form, as in a PROPERLY UNIFIED ONE.
If you’ve ever talked with a Jehovah’s Witness, you know that they speak pretty good “Christianese”. They are usually very nice folks and they’re more dedicated to their beliefs than a lot of church folks. But they have one very big difference that separates them from true Christianity. They don’t believe in the Trinity. Their main argument against the doctrine of the trinity is the deity or Godhood of Christ. They believe Christ was created and therefore inferior to YHVH.
They also deny the personhood of the Holy Spirit and instead view Him as just a “force” or energy and refer to Holy Spirit as “IT” instead of “Him”. They’ve created their own version of the Bible to support their claims, and unfortunately, changed scripture and ignored proper translation of certain words in order to do this.
Interestingly, in their version of the Bible, called The New World Translation, they forgot to change a very important prophecy concerning Christ. Let’s look…
Here we see a comparison between the JW’s translation and a common translation many of us use. It’s virtually the same. This verse is famous because it’s a prophecy of the coming Messiah.
We hear this verse quoted every year around Christmas. You’ll notice that in the description of the Messiah that Isaiah prophesied 700 years before Christ, He is called MIGHTY GOD… in both versions. The Truth can be distorted, but it can’t be destroyed.
I want to look a little deeper into this verse, because it actually supports the topic we’re studying. Hidden right in front of our eyes, the TRIUNE NATURE of God is presented to us in this verse. Can you see it? Let’s clarify it. We can see the “Prince of Peace” refers to Christ, and Everlasting Father obviously refers to The Father, but Wonderful Counselor, how does that relate to Mighty God???
In some versions of the Bible, that word “counselor” is translated as “comforter” or “advocate”. Neither of those is really wrong, but if you look at the Greek word used there, it’s actually a legal term that means something like a defense attorney. A counselor, if you will. A Wonderful Counselor. The Holy Spirit is our Wonderful Counselor that is spoken about in Is 9:16.
Continuing on, Scripture is full of evidence of Christ’s authority as God and Holy Spirit’s existence as the 3rd PERSON of the Godhead. Let’s learn some of those, starting with Christ…
CHRIST IS GOD
Mark 2:5-10= He forgives sins
Matt 13:41= He rules over angels
Matt 28:18= He has ALL authority
Matt 14:33= He accepts worship
Col 2:9-10= He is the fullness of the Godhead
John 10:30-33= He equated Himself with God
1 Cor 10:1-4= He was with the Israelites in the exodus. Who followed them?
These are just a few of many verses that speak on Christ’s divinity and authority as GOD. He is without a doubt God. Now Holy Spirit.
THE HOLY SPIRIT IS GOD
John 16:13= He guides
1 Cor 2:10= He searches
Acts 10:19= He speaks
Eph 4:30= He grieves
Romans 8:27= He has a mind
2 Cor 3:17= He is God
Again, these are just a few of many verses that prove from God’s Word that the Holy Spirit isn’t a mindless force or energy, but a divine person and being that IS GOD. These verses we’ve just covered about Christ and the Holy Spirit are more than enough to show us that the TRIUNE nature of God is in fact real and supported by scripture, but I like to really cover all the bases, so we’re also gonna look at some verses that hint at this Triune nature in both the Old and New Testaments…
HINTS THAT POINT THE WAY
We all know the verses in Gen 1:26 and 11:7 where God says, “LET US,” but there are deeper examples we can explore.
Proverbs 30:4= God’s Son mentioned
Is 48:12-16= Christ speaking
Daniel 7:13-14= vision of Christ coming
Mark 1:9-11= All three present
2 Cor 13:14= All three mentioned
1 Peter 1:2-3= All three mentioned
Now let’s look at God’s name. YHVH. This is known as the TETRAGRAMMATON, which means it’s made of 4 letters. His Name begins with the Hebrew letter YOD. That letter is transliterated into our language as a Y. The YOD is very interesting. In Paleo-Hebrew, it was first drawn as an outstretched hand and later looked more like our letter Y.
That Y, or YOD, lets the reader know that the 3 letters that follow have a plural relationship, hence the three points of the Y, and show the three being unified into ONE. The name I AM THAT I AM, was first mentioned in Ex 3:14 and when that verse is viewed in the Hebrew, we can see how those three words, (HAYA-ASER-HAYA) I AM-THAT-I AM, where unified together to form the name YAHUWAH, or as we affectionately call our Father YAHWEY. His name itself is a Tri Unity. I’ve included an example of what these phrases look like in Hebrew so we can see their relationship with the Name YHVH. The God who Was, and Is, and Is to come.
We can even find those 3 unified concepts in the Bible separately
· Daniel 7:9= God who Was
· John 8:58= God who Is
· John 16:7-15= God who Is to come
Finally, we can see evidence of a triune God as our creator, by the fact that we are made in His image. That doesn’t mean God has 5 fingers on each hand, or a nose, or hair. That means that He created us in His image. We are a tri unity of 3 different aspects. He has a MIND (FATHER) and we have a mind. He has a BODY (SON), and we have a body. He has a SPIRIT (HOLY SPIRIT), and we are given a spirit. This is how we are created in His image, and this is the strongest proof for the Triune nature of God. AMEN.