Ernie Carrasco
[Originally published as The Trinity]
There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. (Ephesians 4:4–6)
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity is a hard concept to grasp, much less explain cogently. Explaining the Trinity becomes even more challenging when the inquisitor is ignorant of Christian tenets. I experienced such a challenge this week when I received an email from a Jew who was curious about the topic. His email follows:
I just visited in your site. I’m a 40yo Jew from Israel. I understand that you guys [ICR] are Christians. When I ran into this: “The Creator of the universe is a triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There is only one eternal and transcendent God, the source of all being and meaning, and He exists in three Persons, each of whom participated in the work of creation.”
I wanted to ask you a religious question. What is the meaning of triune God? Since for me there is only “one eternal God”
What follows is my response to him. It makes sense to me, but more importantly, I hope it made sense to him. Here goes …
Wow! That is a tough one!
“Triune” is a compound word: “Tri” meaning “three” and “une” meaning “union” or “one.” It refers to the Christian doctrine of the “Trinity.” As a Christian, I understand the doctrine, and I believe that it is taught in the Bible — both Old and New Testaments. It is a difficult concept to explain even for a Christian, and it requires us to accept it by “faith” just as our belief in an Almighty, invisible God must be accepted by faith.
For me to continue, you may need to let go of any presuppositions you may have. Try to listen to what I have to say objectively.
First of all, the word “Trinity” is found nowhere in the Bible; however, the concept is taught in both Old and New Testaments. It is most clearly taught in the New Testament, from which Christians developed the doctrine.
You might want to keep in mind that Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew and He was faithful to all of the Mosaic Law (Torah). All the writers of the New Testament, except for perhaps Luke, were also Jews. The Gospel writer, Luke, author of the “Gospel of Luke” and the “Acts of the Apostles,” spoke Greek extraordinarily well, we know he was familiar with the Jewish religion, so he may either have been a Hellenistic Jew or a Jewish proselyte. All of these writers, including Jesus, put forth the doctrine of the Trinity.
So what is the Trinity?
It is the concept of a triune God. We believe in One God, not three, as we have wrongly been accused by Jews, Muslims, and several neo-Christian cults (Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons). There is only one God revealed as three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
To help you better understand this you could think of yourself as a “triune” being. You have a mind, body, and soul/spirit. All three are required for you to live. If your mind dies, your body will eventually cease to function, your spirit will depart, and your body will die. If your body dies, your spirit departs and your mind ceases to function, and if your spirit departs, your body and mind will cease to function. You are “three persons,” yet, you are one.
People see your body and recognize who you are, but they cannot discern what goes on in your mind. People know you, but they do not really “know” who you are entirely because the “real” you is that invisible mind and spirit. The mind plans, the spirit motivates and the body carries out the directions of the mind. Your mind is you, your physical body is you, and your spirit is you, yet you are one, indivisible person.
The Bible teaches us that God created man in His own image.
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them (Genesis 1:26–27).
There are many aspects of God’s nature inherent in mankind, but the triune nature of man gives is a picture (an image) of the triune nature of God. In trying to relate the triune nature of God with that of humanity, the Father could be compared to the “mind” that plans and controls all activity of the Godhead. The Holy Spirit is the energizing, motivating element that puts the Father’s plans into action, and Jesus is the body that does the physical work to carry out the Father’s plans. Of course, God is infinitely greater than His creation, but in this, at least in part, we can see a “family resemblance.”
We find the first hint of the triune nature of God in the very first verse of the Bible. בראשׁית ברא אלהים את השׁמים ואת הארץ׃ (Genesis 1:1) God, Elohim, is a plural, masculine noun; however, bara is a singular, masculine verb. At face value, this would be incorrect grammar, however, it shows the plurality of the One God.
Some would argue that God was using the royal “We.” Others say that this is just a way of expressing the limitless nature of God. Both of those are reasonable and plausible arguments, however the verse that follows introduces a second element. והארץ היתה תהו ובהו וחשׁך על־פני תהום ורוח אלהים מרחפת על־פני המים׃ (Genesis 1:2) In this verse, the Spirit (rûach) is presented as separate from God (Elohim).
Why the distinction?
The writer (Who I believe is God) could have simply said, “and God moved upon the face of the waters” and left off the “Spirit.” Why confuse the issue? God is not a God of confusion, so the distinction is intentional. Add to that the “self-talk” in vv. 26-27 – “Let us make … in our image, after our likeness” – speaking in the plural, and then in the next verse we read, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him” – speaking in the singular.
That is just for starters. You find many places (which I cannot cover here) in the Old Testament (Torah) where the LORD (HaShem) puts His Spirit in men to accomplish some special task.
You also find many instances of God appearing to men in physical form as “the Angel of the LORD.” The way you can see that this is God and no ordinary angel is because “the Angel of the LORD” takes personal responsibility for His actions, or for what He promises to do, and He accepts the worship of humans. We know that seeing God in His full glory would bring death to a man, yet Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Samson’s parents, and others saw God in physical form and did not die. These were all examples of Jesus in His pre-incarnate form.
So we see that in the Old Testament, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all represented, but all are One God working together in unison.
The prophet Isaiah reveals the Trinity this way: “Come ye near unto me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I: and now the Lord GOD, and his Spirit, hath sent me” (Isaiah 48:16). In this verse, the Son is speaking, and He claims that He has spoken from the beginning, i.e., Creation (Genesis 1:1). The Son asserts that He is being sent by the Lord God (Father) and His Spirit (Holy Spirit). Here we see the Trinity represented in one Old Testament verse.
The writers of the New Testament constantly referred to the Old Testament in their teachings. This is why Christians should not discard the study of the Old Testament. Without the Old Testament, the New Testament makes no sense.
John the Apostle was Jesus’ cousin and also related to Caiaphas, the high priest at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus. John begins his Gospel this way:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. (John 1:1–3)
“Word” in Greek is “logos,” which is a complex word that has meanings including reason, wisdom, and logic. All the wisdom of God is contained in that one word. John affirms that the Word existed in the “beginning” and he identifies the Word as God. In fact, “the Word was God” literally appears in the Greek as “God was the Word.”
And even though the Word was God, the Word was “with God.” Isn’t that strange?
However, it is the Word that created “all things,” and from Genesis 1:1 we know that God (Elohim) created all things. A few verses later, John clearly identifies “the Word:” “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
In Genesis 1, we learn that God (the Word) made man in His image. In John 1, we learn that the Word (God) made himself in the image of man — God in human form. Jesus Himself said, “I and my Father are one. Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him” (John 10:30–31). Their reaction was understandable given their perspective.
This is your Messiah (and mine), who came to live as a man without sin so that He could offer Himself up on the cross to make atonement for the sins of all men.
You may well ask, if Jesus is God, then how could He die? Remember earlier when I described the triune nature of man? I never referred to the spirit as dying. Rather, the spirit departs. The flesh dies, but the spirit lives on. When Jesus died, His body was offered as the perfect sinless sacrifice the only ultimate atonement for all the sins of humanity, but the Father and the Holy Spirit (Elohim) did not die. However, three days later, the Spirit returned to Jesus’ lifeless body, He rose again, ascended back to His throne on high, and one day, very soon, your Messiah (and mine) will return again to establish His royal throne — the throne of David — in His Holy Temple in Jerusalem. I can hardly wait!
I know this was a lot of information. If nothing else, I hope I helped you to understand the Christian concept of the Trinity. It is all through the Torah, but you may need to set aside your traditions to see it. If you would like to read more on this, here are a couple of articles that may be helpful to you:
The Wonderful Truth of the Trinity
The Trinity And The Christian Life
