Nothing But God! Part Three, by Michael Podhaczy

We have seen so far that before there was any created thing, there was God. God existed as Trinity, that is,

“that God is One in essence and subsists in threeness of Persons (or the Trinity) was one of the first dogmas established in the Church.”[1] 

The teaching of the Trinity arose because the New Testament writers needed to explain the incredible things they witnessed about Jesus. Yet they were loyal to and believed firmly in the one true God of the Old Testament. Almost all the New Testament writers were Jews, who believed that there was only one God, Deut 6:4, but they had to deal with Jesus. They lived with Jesus, saw all He did, heard all He said and could come to no other conclusion. They had come to know in Him as God among them. Yet, this has caused many problems and disputes throughout the history of the church.

When Jesus left, He promised to send another to take His place, to continue His teaching and work. They experienced the work of the Holy Spirit in their own transformed lives. They knew this incredible power of the Spirit and recognised God at work among them. So, in the exciting and memorable experience of those early days, when heaven and earth touched, the teaching of the Trinity was born.

Some ideas that are used within the context of the Trinity discussion are as follows,

·       Unity: There is only one God

·       Triunity: Three persons in one God

·       Essence: God’s being

·       Each of the Persons of the Trinity is fully God

·       God in all three Persons has always existed

·       The Trinity is beyond rational understanding or analogy

We can understand something about this truth in the following way,

·       The Father is not the Son or the Spirit

·       The Son is not the Father or the Spirit

·       The Spirit is not the Father or the Son

Each person is fully God:

·       The Father is entirely God, e.g., Is 64:8; Eph 4:6

·       The Son is entirely God, e.g., Jn 1:1-4

·       The Spirit is entirely God, e.g., Matt 28:19; Acts 5:3-4

Yet there is one God: Scripture is clear on this, e.g., cf. Deut 6:4-5; Is 45:5-6

Pause in His presence for a moment and think this over…

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[1] Hoeksema, Herman. Reformed Dogmatics. (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformed Free Publishing Association, 1985), 131.  Italics mine.

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