Three Gods? No! God In Three Persons!

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

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The doctrine of the Triune God is ridiculed as a fiction, depreciated and discounted by those opposed to the Faith. So-called “Christian cults,” Unitarians and Oneness Pentecostals as examples, ridicule the idea that God reveals Himself as a triunity. Similarly, the classic cults, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and Latter-Day Saints, imagine that the Triune God is an absurdity. In the estimate of such cults, that God should present Himself as a triunity flies in the face of logic; it is as though their ability to understand becomes the ultimate determinant in any doctrinal discussion. Non-Christian cults, such as Islam and eastern cults, distort the Doctrine of the Triune God, arguing that Christians worship three gods or that we don’t really understand monotheism. However, we who are twice-born followers of the Christ do not appeal to the lost to instruct us in how we are to know God or how we are to please Him. We appeal to the written Word of God which is a revelation of all that God has deemed necessary to know Him and to discover what is pleasing in our service to Him. If we will know God, He must reveal Himself to us; our responsibility is to receive what He has given us.

Thus, from the outset of our study, we confess that the Doctrine of the Triune God is controversial outside the precincts of orthodox, trinitarian Christianity. What is perhaps worse is that even professing Christians are often uncomfortable with the Doctrine of the Triune God. Perhaps you yourself wonder how to explain your belief that God is one and yet three. Most Christians profess to believe the doctrine because they realise that it is orthodox, but they believe themselves unqualified to defend what is taught.

I don’t suggest that we will all going to be transformed into brilliant theologians as result of this one message. Nevertheless, I trust that as result of our study today, our faith will be strengthened and we will gain understanding of God’s nature. In studying the doctrine of the Trinity, several truths support my contention that a Christian can comprehend this revelation of God. First, the teaching concerning the Person of God is not something that originated in the febrile imaginations of rabid theologians bent on inventing a new religion. If God is to be known, He must reveal Himself to mankind; no man could search out God or create Him. If God reveals Himself as a triunity, then whether we fully understand His revelation or not, we must accept that this is how He has chosen to reveal Himself to us.

Again, I rest confident in the knowledge that the Spirit of God lives with and in each Christian; He always testifies to our spirit, guiding our thoughts and keeping us from error. He is always working in the life of the redeemed saint, teaching us those truths that glorify the True and Living God. Outsiders will find the teaching unsatisfying, however clear and reasonable it may be. Indeed, an unsaved person cannot understand even basic biblical truth. We are taught, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. ‘For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ” [1 CORINTHIANS 2:14-16].

Though he doesn’t appear to be attempting to present a treatise on God’s character, nevertheless, the character of God is assuredly in view as the Apostle concludes this missive. Paul frequently employs triune references in his letters, which is significant for understanding God. As examples, and in preparation for a more thorough study, look at the follow references. “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba! Father’” [GALATIANS 4:4-6]! The language demonstrates that the Apostle equates God the Son and the Spirit of God with God the Father. It should be noted that this was one of the earliest letters—if not the earliest letter—from the Apostle to have been included in the canon of Scripture. We can deduce from this information that the Triune Godhead was not some novel doctrine sprung on the churches at a later date. Rather, the Trinity was present from the beginning of the Faith.