The Trinity- Triune God

Though, the word “Trinity” is not found in the Bible, yet scholars, Church history and traditions have validated it over the past 2,000 years along with many other theological concepts not found explicitly in the Bible. There are passages of scriptures found in the Bible that have hints of a trinitarian relationship between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. When it is said, God is love, we mean, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit relate to one another, demonstrate love for each other, and work in concert to accomplish the purpose of God in the world.

In the Old Testament, God is the Creator of both the world, and of the nation of Israel through whom He promised to bless the world. Certainly, God was present in Spirit, and the coming of the Messiah was both prophesied and foreshadowed in various theophanies and encounters (appearances of God at different occasions with different men of God). But primarily in the pages of the Old Testament, we see the God of Israel, Yahweh, El-Shaddai, Elohim, Adonai, and all the other names by which God is called and worshipped.

In the New Testament Gospel accounts, the emphasis is upon Jesus, the Lord God incarnate — His birth, His baptism, His life, His teachings, His death, His resurrection, and His ascension to heaven. We see God the Father approves His Son, and the Holy Spirit descends upon Him and anoint Him for the ministry (Matthew 3:13-17).

In the New Testament Book of Acts and the epistles, the Holy Spirit is at the forefront, equipping, enabling, guiding, empowering the early church.

In the Book of Revelation, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are all present, each featured in a way that is both consistent with the Old Testament, witnesses to the New Testament, and brings fully into being the Kingdom of God in its closing chapters.

And Salvation itself — the divine remedy to make us right with God —proceeds from God, is finished through the work of Jesus on the cross of Calvary and is made freely available to the world by the work of the Holy Spirit.

We must know certain things to be true of God, primarily for one reason: in His mercy, God has chosen to reveal some of His characteristics to us. God is spirit, by nature intangible (John 4:24). God is One, but He exists in three Persons—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit (Matthew 3:16-17). God is infinite (1 Timothy 1:17), incomparable (2 Samuel 7:22), and unchanging (Malachi 3:6). God exists everywhere (Psalm 139:7-12), He knows everything (Psalm 147:5; Isaiah 40:28), and has all power and authority (Ephesians 1; Revelation 19:6).

Here are some of God’s characteristics as revealed in the Bible: God is just (Acts 17:31), loving (Ephesians 2:4-5), truthful (John 14:6), and holy (1 John 1:5). God shows compassion (2 Corinthians 1:3), mercy (Romans 9:15), and grace (Romans 5:17). God judges sin (Psalm 5:5) but also offers forgiveness (Psalm 130:4).

UNDERSTANDING GOD THROUGH SCRIPTURES

GOD THE FATHER

In Scriptures, God is described as a Trinity—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. In theology God the Father is called the First Person of the Trinity because in the nature of the relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Father sends the Son and the Spirit, rather than the Son sending the Father. As Father, He is Father over all creation. He is Father in the sense that He is the originator of everything that has been made. In Malachi 2:10, for instance, the questions are asked, “Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us?” In the sense that God the Father is our Creator, it is proper to speak of the universal fatherhood of God. This must not be understood, however, in the sense that all men are the spiritual children of God because this is true only of those who are born again, and the universal fatherhood of God does not bring with it any sense of salvation for all men as some have taught.

In the Old Testament God was also the father of Israel in that He established a relationship wherein He had a special place for Israel in His plan for humankind. In keeping with this, Moses told Pharaoh in Exodus 4:22, “This is what the LORD says: Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, ‘Let my son go, so he may worship me.’ But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son.” As in the universal fatherhood of God, the special Sonship that Israel enjoyed did not assure to them individual salvation but did assure to them the promises that God had made to the nation as such.