The Simplicity of the Trinity

My friend Ron, who departed for heaven a few years ago, once told me that before he accepted Christ, he found the concept of the Trinity nearly impossible to accept. “How can one God be three persons?” he said. “I’m Jewish, and every observant Jew is taught to daily recite the Shema: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one’” (Deut. 6:4). 

For thousands of years, the Jews dwelled among nations and peoples who worshipped a pantheon of gods and goddesses. Their insistence on worshipping one invisible God set them apart from every other group. 

So how can the God who called himself ONE be three? And why isn’t the word Trinity found in the Bible? 

The word may not be found in the scrolls of Scripture, but the holy writings reveal an element of plurality in Israel’s singular God. In the Orthodox Jewish Bible, Genesis 1:1 reads: “In the beginning Elohim created hashomayim (the heavens) and haaretz (the earth).” Elohim, the word for God, is plural. 

And the Shema? In Hebrew, “Shema Yisroel Adonoi Eloheinu Adonoi Echad.” Echad is the Hebrew word for one in nature, a compound unity. Like a marriage in which two become one. The combination of daylight and darkness into one day. 

Eggs, water, and the Trinity

For years, people have been trying to fashion an analogy to make the concept of the Trinity easier to grasp. How about an egg? Three parts—shell, white, and yolk—equals one egg. Is God like an egg? 

Not really. And as a dedicated chicken keeper, I can assure you that though God has three separate parts, an egg’s shell, white, and yolk have completely different attributes. The shell is made of calcium, the yolk is comprised of fats, and egg white is a mixture of protein and water.

The three persons of the godhead, however—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—share the same attributes: omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience. They are each without sin. They are each eternal, without beginning or end. And, unlike the parts of an egg, they cannot be divided.

Perhaps the Trinity is like water? Water can appear in three different forms: steam, liquid, or ice. Sometimes we speak of God the Father, exalted in heaven. Sometimes we speak of him as the Son, who had a physical body and walked on earth. And sometimes we speak of him as the Holy Spirit, who indwells and moves among believers.

But that analogy doesn’t quite work, either. If God is one person in three different forms, why did Jesus address his Father as a separate person? Why did he speak of the Spirit as a separate being with a unique job? The three persons of the godhead act simultaneously, but in different ways and as different individuals. Furthermore, water cannot exist in all three forms at once, but God can.

The Trinity at creation

We’ve already seen how the Trinity was present and active at creation. Genesis 1 records that the plural godhead was present, with the the Spirit of God hovering upon the face of the waters (Gen. 1:2).

John 1:1–3 tells us that Jesus, the Word, was present at creation: 

All things were made through Him, and apart from Him nothing was made that has come into being. ( Tree of Life Version )

This is a direct reflection of what one of the first passages of Scripture says:

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness! Let them rule over the fish of the sea, over the flying creatures of the sky, over the livestock, over the whole earth, and over every crawling creature that crawls on the land. (Gen. 1:26 TLV)

Let that sink in—only humans were made in the image of the plural God! What does that mean? I’ve heard lots of explanations that fall short—some say we were made in God’s mental image because we think. But animals think, too. We weren’t made in God’s emotional image because animals also feel emotions. The Bible never suggests we are made in God’s physical image, because “God is spirit” (John 4:24), and though Jesus was given a physical body at the incarnation, He has always been a supernatural being. 

I think being created in the image of God means we were created to represent him in creation. Adam was to rule Eden as God’s steward.

Picture this: Every time the Roman army marched out to conquer, someone near the front line carried a flag or a pole bearing an image of the Roman Eagle, symbolizing the power and authority of Rome. To disrespect said flag or carved eagle was a grave offense. Likewise, in Gen. 9:6, God says that any human who kills another human must die. Why? Because man was created in the image of God. To dishonor God’s image-bearer is to dishonor God. 

The Trinity in the New Testament

In the book of Matthew we see all three members acting at Jesus’ baptism. Jesus submitted to baptism “to fulfill all righteousness,” and after he came out of the water the heaven was opened. The Spirit descended on him “like a dove,” and the voice of God the Father said,

This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. (Matthew 3:15–17 NIV) 

When Jesus gave the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19, he bore witness to the truth of the Trinity. He urged His followers to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (NIV).

Scoffers

The notion of a triune God has certainly attracted scoffers. In a letter to James Smith, Thomas Jefferson unloaded his disdain for the concept. In 1822, he wrote: 

In fact, the Athanasian paradox that one is three, and three but one, is so incomprehensible to the human mind, that no candid man can say he has any idea of it, and how can he believe what presents no idea? He who thinks he does, only deceives himself. He proves, also, that man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without a rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason, and the mind becomes a wreck.

Jefferson was wrong—faith is certainly not gullibility. Informed faith is what persuades us that a cause lies beneath the mystery. While we may not have adequate knowledge to perfectly frame the Trinity in terms of human experience, we cannot deny that Jesus testified to it.

Years ago I read the little book Flatland by Edwin Abbot. In this eye-opening work, Abbot creates a two-dimensional world where beings have only width and length. Imagine that you are viewing objects on a table at table height—no higher, no lower. Without height, an approaching object—be it a circle or square or triangle—will appear to be a straight line. Flatlanders do not have the ability to see objects in the third dimension, so they could never see or even conceptualize a cube. But beings who live in Abbot’s Spaceland, where residents experience life in three dimensions, are able to see width, depth, and height. 

So what must life be like in the dimensions where supernatural beings dwell? God sees our three dimensions, but he also sees beyond and before our present time. He can act and move in other planes of existence. We know this because he has given us his Word, written by men who wrote as the Spirit—part of the Trinity—moved them to write (2 Pet 1:21). Paul wrote of being caught up to a third heaven, an experience so far out of his realm that he couldn’t be sure if he was still in his physical body (2 Cor 12:2). The Spirit of God lifted Ezekiel to some place “between earth and heaven,” where Ezekiel was able to see things beyond his plane of existence (Ezk 8:3). Daniel and the apostle John were both allowed to see future events that “will come to pass” (Rev 1:1); in fact, many of those prophecies have already been fulfilled.

In the Scripture, God has described himself, the Trinity, in sufficient detail for us while we live in our three-dimensional space. What we do not fully understand, the “secret things” that belong to the Lord (Deut 29:29) we leave to Him, because we trust Him to be true and righteous and faithful.