The aim of this arti­cle

Why we believe there is “One God in three Per­sons” and how we under­stand it is what we want to write about in the fol­low­ing essay. In con­nec­tion with a sum­ma­ry of the dis­cus­sions about God’s tri­une nature of the first three cen­turies AD, we want to explain what we believe based on the New Tes­ta­ment.

1 Monotheism and Trinitarian Discussions of the First Three Centuries AD

In Jesus God came very near to us and revealed him­self as the tri­une God. The Bible is the basis of the teach­ing about the Trin­i­ty, although this term is not used. Build­ing on the foun­da­tion of the monothe­ism of the Old Tes­ta­ment, the New Tes­ta­ment speaks about God as Father, Son and Holy Spir­it and we can find state­ments about the rela­tion­ships with­in God among the three divine per­sons.

In an effort to make the being of God and Jesus com­pre­hen­si­ble, Chris­t­ian the­ol­o­gy devel­oped the con­cept of per­son­hood. The orig­i­nal under­stand­ing of the term “per­son” was not mate­r­i­al, nor was it under­stood as describ­ing an autonomous sub­ject. Char­ac­ter­is­tic of a per­son is the abil­i­ty to have rela­tion­ships, to love and to com­mu­ni­cate.

The rev­e­la­tion of God’s tri­une nature is a process in the his­to­ry of sal­va­tion. In the time of the Old Tes­ta­ment God laid the foun­da­tion for the right con­cept of his nature. He revealed him­self as the only God and through­out the whole Old Tes­ta­ment we find his exhor­ta­tion to strong­ly hold on to Monothe­ism.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. (Deuteron­o­my 6:4–5)

Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god. Who is like me? Let him pro­claim it. Let him declare and set it before me, since I appoint­ed an ancient peo­ple. Let them declare what is to come, and what will hap­pen. Fear not, nor be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it? And you are my wit­ness­es! Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any.” (Isa­iah 44:6–8)

The New Tes­ta­ment rev­e­la­tion of God’s nature does not change any­thing here; monothe­ism is an indis­putable basis for the right under­stand­ing of the Trin­i­ty.

Dur­ing the Trini­tar­i­an dis­cus­sions of the first cen­turies the right belief had to be defend­ed against dif­fer­ent attempts to false­ly explain God’s nature in a way that is com­pre­hen­si­ble for our human minds.

Monar­chi­an­ism tried to main­tain the uni­ty and unique­ness of God by explain­ing the three divine per­sons as three modes, three dif­fer­ent ways in which the one-per­son­al God appeared. Monar­chi­an­ism, there­fore, was called also Modal­ism. Anoth­er name for this teach­ing was Patri­pas­sian­ism. The per­son who coined this term cer­tain­ly want­ed to show the con­se­quence of this teach­ing: it would mean to believe that God the Father suf­fered and died on the cross, which is an absur­di­ty when believ­ing in a God who is almighty and eter­nal. The chief-rep­re­sen­ta­tives of this teach­ing were Noe­tus from Smyr­na and Prax­eas in the 2^nd cen­tu­ry AD and Sabel­lius in the 3^rd cen­tu­ry AD (there­fore called also Sabel­lian­ism.)

So it became nec­es­sary to explain the real dif­fer­ence between Father, Son and Holy Spir­it more deeply.

Sub­or­di­na­tian­ism tried to explain the Trin­i­ty as a hier­ar­chi­cal order: God the Father stands above all as one who is inac­ces­si­ble. A well-known pro­po­nent of this teach­ing was Ori­gen in the first half of the 3^rd cen­tu­ry AD. Sub­or­di­na­tian­ism said that the Son and the Spir­it are divine in nature but clear­ly sub­or­di­nat­ed to the Father. Arius devel­oped this teach­ing fur­ther at the end of the 3^rd and the begin­ning of the 4^th cen­tu­ry AD. Ari­an­ism taught that in the begin­ning the Son was cre­at­ed by the Father and then togeth­er with the Father cre­at­ed the world. The con­se­quence would be that the Son is a cre­at­ed being and not God. A fur­ther pro­po­nent of this teach­ing was Euse­bius from Nico­me­dia.

The Coun­cil of Nicaea, 325 AD dealt with this mat­ter and declared that Father and Son are of the same nature (Greek: homoou­sion to patri). The Coun­cil of Con­stan­tino­ple, 381 AD con­firmed the for­mu­la­tions of Nicaea and declared that the Holy Spir­it is also of the same nature as Father and Son.

2 About the Divine Nature of Jesus

The New Tes­ta­ment teach­es that Jesus is of divine nature, com­plete­ly one and yet dis­tin­guished from the Father.

…from their race (the Israelites), accord­ing to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed for ever. Amen. (Romans 9:5)

In the begin­ning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the begin­ning with God. All things were made through him, and with­out him was not any thing made that was made. (John 1:1–3)

No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known. (John 1:18)

In these vers­es we find essen­tial state­ments for our top­ic. Here it speaks about the eter­nal exis­tence and divin­i­ty of the sec­ond divine per­son, the Son. The “Word” (Greek: logos) is the term John used for the Son. He writes that the Word was God and was with God, which express­es on the one hand the equal­i­ty of nature and on the oth­er hand the dif­fer­ence between the per­sons.

In Jesus the Word became human. Nei­ther the Father nor the Spir­it became human but the Son, the One begot­ten of the Father, who has his eter­nal pro­ceed­ing in the Father and since he is begot­ten, has the same nature as the Father. Dif­fer­ent vari­a­tions of verse 18 exist in dif­fer­ent man­u­scripts. Most­ly we find the trans­la­tion “the only begot­ten Son”, but the trans­la­tion of the New Amer­i­can Stan­dard Bible, “the only begot­ten God”, cor­re­sponds to the text of the old­est and most reli­able man­u­scripts of this verse and is a fur­ther unam­bigu­ous tes­ti­mo­ny of the divine nature of Jesus.

You can find a detailed and com­pre­hen­sive essay about “Jesus’ Divin­i­ty” as a sep­a­rate top­ic.

3 The Holy Spirit As a Person

If you love me, you will keep my com­mand­ments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you anoth­er Helper, to be with you for ever, even the Spir­it of truth, whom the world can­not receive, because it nei­ther sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. (John 14:15–17)

These things I have spo­ken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spir­it, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remem­brance all that I have said to you. (John 14:25–26)

The Holy Spir­it is called the “Helper”, a trans­la­tion of the Greek word parak­le­tos. The Spir­it will teach and he will remind us of what Jesus said. Describ­ing the Spir­it in this way, Jesus reveals him as a per­son and not as some kind of imper­son­al pow­er.

This pas­sage con­tains an unam­bigu­ous philo­log­i­cal¹ proof that the Holy Spir­it is a per­son, which can­not be prop­er­ly trans­lat­ed into Eng­lish. In Greek the word “Spir­it”, pneu­ma has neuter as its gram­mat­i­cal gen­der, but in the above quot­ed text the demon­stra­tive pro­noun (whom, Greek: ekeinos) refer­ring to pneu­ma does not take the neuter but the mas­cu­line form (i.e. “the Holy Spir­it whom the Father will send…”, not “which the Father will send”). Here the gen­der of the sub­ject that is spo­ken about (he, a per­son), replaces the gram­mat­i­cal gen­der (it, a thing). The only pos­si­ble expla­na­tion is that Jesus speaks about the Holy Spir­it as a per­son.

In the Book of Acts we can find more hints that the Spir­it is a per­son.

But a man named Ana­nias, with his wife Sap­phi­ra, sold a piece of prop­er­ty, and with his wife’s knowl­edge he kept back for him­self some of the pro­ceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apos­tles’ feet. But Peter said, “Ana­nias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spir­it and to keep back for your­self part of the pro­ceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your dis­pos­al? Why is it that you have con­trived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.” (Acts 5:1–4)

How could some­one lie to an imper­son­al pow­er? You can lie to a real vis-à-vis, to some­one with whom it is pos­si­ble to have a rela­tion­ship and who demands and deserves hon­esty. There­fore, it becomes clear that the apos­tles believed that the Holy Spir­it is a per­son.

4 About the Trinity

But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spir­it of truth, who pro­ceeds from the Father, he will bear wit­ness about me. (John 15:26)

Jesus sent the Helper from the Father—all three divine per­sons are men­tioned here. In John 14:26 it was the Father who was to send the Spir­it. In this way we can see that Jesus has the same author­i­ty as the Father. This is a strong proof for the divine nature of the Son and for the deep uni­ty of the three divine per­sons.

When the Spir­it of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own author­i­ty, but what­ev­er he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glo­ri­fy me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; there­fore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. (John 16:13–15)

This is anoth­er pow­er­ful expres­sion of the uni­ty with­in God and the activ­i­ty of and inter­re­la­tion between the three Divine Per­sons. These vers­es show the dis­tinc­tion of the three divine per­sons on the basis of the rev­e­la­tion of the one God.

5 The Proceedings of the Persons Within the Trinity

When do we speak of the eter­nal beget­ting of the Son and the pro­ceed­ing of the Spir­it? Are these only ways of expres­sion or do these words real­ly describe the inner being of God? We have to admit that our human lan­guage is far from per­fect. The way we under­stand words is the result of our expe­ri­ence. God’s eter­nal being is far beyond all human expe­ri­ence. As such, every human lan­guage is (and must be) a very insuf­fi­cient tool to describe the eter­nal God. How­ev­er, we do not have any oth­er tool. In addi­tion, even God used human lan­guage to reveal him­self to us, know­ing that his words would be mis­un­der­stood or even dis­tort­ed.

Jesus came to reveal the Father. There­fore, his words can­not only be some ways of express­ing him­self accord­ing to the Jew­ish under­stand­ing. He came to reveal, that is to share infor­ma­tion about God’s being with us. Jesus spoke about his rela­tion­ship with God as one between father and son. We can under­stand this as a pic­ture. But this pic­ture has the con­tent that the Father begot the Son. The oth­er way round is not pos­si­ble. John called the sec­ond divine per­son “Logos”, the Word. The exis­tence of a word assumes that some­body speaks this word. The Logos has His ori­gin in the Father.

There can­not be any dif­fer­ence between the three divine per­sons con­cern­ing their divine attrib­ut­es. There can­not be any dif­fer­ence con­cern­ing omnipo­tence, omni­science or omnipres­ence. There can­not be a greater or a small­er per­son in God. If we neglect the dif­fer­ences con­cern­ing their rela­tion­ships, no dif­fer­ence remains at all, in which case it would not make sense to speak about three divine per­sons. This way of think­ing is a pre-form of Modal­ism in which it is denied that the three divine per­sons are an eter­nal real­i­ty with­in God, being instead only dif­fer­ent modes through which God revealed him­self to the world.

Fur­ther­more, it is not pos­si­ble to say that some bib­li­cal expres­sions con­cern­ing Trin­i­ty fit the Jew­ish way of think­ing. John called Jesus the “only begot­ten God” (Greek: mono­genes theos). This term fits nei­ther Jew­ish nor Greek thought. This term bears in itself a log­i­cal con­tra­dic­tion. Either he is begot­ten or he is God. This term was hard to under­stand. There­fore, some copy­ists thought that they had to “cor­rect” this expres­sion in the man­u­scripts. Instead of cor­rect­ing their own ideas they rather “cor­rect­ed” the Bible. This expres­sion only makes sense if we refer it to the eter­nal beget­ting of the Logos with­in the Trin­i­ty. The beget­ting of the Son is an eter­nal process beyond time and space. Sim­i­lar to the sun which con­stant­ly emits its rays, the Father begets the Son in a process with­out begin­ning and with­out end. The Father is the eter­nal ori­gin of the Son. Both take part in the one and only invis­i­ble God. The “pri­or­i­ty” of the Father can­not be a pri­or­i­ty in time. It can­not be a pri­or­i­ty in impor­tance or pow­er either. It is only a pri­or­i­ty of ori­gin.

An essen­tial prin­ci­ple con­cern­ing the per­sons in the Trin­i­ty is that they dif­fer only in their rela­tion to one anoth­er, but in oth­er things they are one. There­fore, when we say that the Father loves us, this includes the love of the Son and the Holy Spir­it. When we say that the Son is present in the com­mu­ni­ty of those who believe in him, we include the pres­ence of the Father and the Holy Spir­it as well. When we say that the Holy Spir­it clothes us with pow­er we know that he does this togeth­er with the Father and the Son. When the com­mon oper­a­tion of the three divine per­sons is attrib­uted to one of the divine per­sons, it reflects some­thing about the role of each divine per­son with­in the Trin­i­ty.

In sum­ma­ry, we see that the New Tes­ta­ment reveals that Jesus is ONE with the Father and yet he is dis­tin­guished from him. The expres­sion “only-begot­ten” (Greek: mono­genes) shows that the Son received his being from the Father. It is not a state­ment con­cern­ing his ori­gin at a cer­tain point in time, but one which describes the rela­tion­ship between the Father and the Son. The Father is the ori­gin of the Son, the Son pro­ceeds eter­nal­ly from the Father, and hence he has the same eter­nal nature. The Holy Spir­it is sent into the world from the Father and the Son. His being has the same ori­gin, he is of the same eter­nal nature and in the same way he par­tic­i­pates in the inner giv­ing, receiv­ing and uni­ty of God.

In 1 Tim­o­thy 6:16 Paul writes:

…who alone has immor­tal­i­ty, who dwells in unap­proach­able light…

This pas­sage does not only speak about how holy God is, but also how unfath­omable he is. Our inabil­i­ty as God’s crea­tures to grasp his eter­nal nature with our human minds can­not be an argu­ment against the real­i­ty of the Trin­i­ty. God lives in a dif­fer­ent dimen­sion to what we know. He revealed Him­self in a mys­tery, which grants us more than we are able to ask and to expect. Hence, we are thank­ful that he has showed us so much of him­self. Even though we can­not under­stand him ful­ly yet, the love and uni­ty, which are his very nature, are giv­en to us as clear guide­lines for our life and con­duct here and now. God wants us to know him so that we can find a real and liv­ing rela­tion­ship with him. The way to get there is open for every­one.

1. The study of lan­guage in writ­ten his­tor­i­cal sources. ↩