What do
you mean by a Triune God? How does the three, the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit exist as One being?
Honestly, Trinity is a mystery and the Almighty God has to speak to us regarding this mystery to each one of us separately as per own faith structure. However, this is one of the basic knowledge area, yet most important as a Christian. We can understand this mystery to a reasonable extent from whatever is revealed to us in the Bible .
Who is our God? How is He like? What should we
know about Him according to the revelations in the Bible?
Do we know Him as we ought to or are we deceived by the twisting traditions of Christianity that might makes us ignorantly a Tritheist or an heretic by accident? Let us look at what the Bible has to say about these matters.
A short prayer before we commence:-
O Lord, our heavenly Father, I pray in the name of our Lord Jesus to grant us wisdom to understand You in the manner how You want us to understand. Lord, we thank You for the Bible and its life dispensing words. May the Spirit enlighten us and help that these seeds would grow to bring forth abundant fruit for You. Thank You so much. Amen
Psalms 86.10 says, ‘… You alone are
God.’ God is one and we worship Him. We are not polytheists to worship three separate gods. Isaiah 45.5 says that our God is
Jehovah and there is no one else beside Him (Eph 4.6, 1 Tim 2.5, 1
Cor 8.4)
Now, let us who our God is. In Gen 1.26, we see God referring to Himself
as 'Us', 'Our image'. The pronoun 'Us' and
then God being one simultaneously means He is a Triune God. Triune means three substance or essence in One being. At this juncture, we need to confess
that we are little men who can never understand the Creator with ease. Trinity is a mystery and we can only rely
upon what the Bible has to say about our Triune God and understand to an extent
of how much ever has been revealed to us. In Isaiah 6.8, God uses ‘I’ and ‘Us’ to address Himself and similarly in Gen 3.22 and in Gen
11.7. Hence, we see that this
one God has three substance or essence in the Godhead.
In John 14.23 and 17.11 we see that
the Father and the Son are one and existing at the same time. Further in Mat 28.19 we understand that the
Father, Son and the Holy Spirit has one name. The verse doesn't say 'in the names of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit', but 'in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit'. This means
that the three have one name and they exist as one. How the functionality of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit is experienced by us can be understood from the
words of Andrew Murray, ‘In the Father we have the unseen God, the Author of
all. In the Son of God revealed, made
manifest, and brought nigh; He is the Form of God. In the Spirit of God we have the indwelling
God: the Power of God dwelling in human body and working in it what the Father
and the Son have for us…. What the Father has purposed, and the Son has
procured, can be appropriated and take effect in the body of Christ only
through the continual intervention and active operation of the Holy Spirit.’
Now let us delve further.
All three are God
The Father is God (1 Pet 1.2, Eph
1.17). The Son is God (Heb 1.8, Joh 1.1,
Rom 9.5). The Spirit is God (Acts
5.3-4).
All three are eternal
The Father is eternal (Isa 9.6). The Son is eternal (Heb 1.12). The Spirit is eternal (Heb 9.14).
All three are exiting at the same
time
In Joh 14.16-17, we see that our
Lord is promising us a Comforter, who is the Spirit of reality, by asking the
Father. Again, in Eph 3.14-17, Apostle Paul is
saying that he is bowing his knees unto the Father…. To be strengthened by the
Power of His Spirit into the inner man…. That Christ may make His home in our
hearts. Similarly, in 1 Cor 12.4-6 also we can clearly affirm that the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit are existing at the same
time. Many Christians have no problem
understanding until this point.
Now let us read further,
Son is the Father; Father and Son
are one. In Isa 9.6, we understand that the
Son, undoubtedly the Lord Jesus Christ, is the Mighty God, Eternal Father. Here the Son is the Father and He is the Mighty
God. In John 10.30, 14.8-14, we read
that the Father and the Son are one.
Next, in 1 Cor 15.45, 2 Cor 3.17, we
understand that the Lord Jesus is the Spirit.
He is the life giving Spirit and we enjoy freedom in the Spirit.
All three are in us
Eph 4.6, says that the Father is in
us. In John 14.20, Col 1.27, 2 Cor 13.5, we read that the Lord is in
us. Then John 14.17 says, that
the Spirit of reality shall be in you and thus the Spirit is in us.
Hence, at the point the Trinity
becomes a mystery. In John 1.1 we see
that the Word of God who is Jesus, was from the beginning; He was with God and
He was God. The Lord Jesus is the Spirit
(2 Cor 3.17). Heb 1.8-9, the Son is
addressed as God, then God is referred to as His God. This is why it is mystery. In Rev 1.4, 4.5 and 5.6, we the one Spirit is
called the seven Spirits. Thus this
mysterious Triune God is not for a terminology or for teaching, but for our
experience and enjoyment.
In Mat 3.16-17, we understand co-inherence
and co-existence of Father, Son and the Holy Spirit in the Godhead. In Rev 1.4-5 & Eph 3.14-17, we further
confirm this co-inherence and co-existence.
In the simplest words, the Triune
God can be understood by the burning lamp.
The oil, the lamp and the light that it shines forth cannot be
separated. The Father as the source of
all is like the oil, the Son is the burning lamp, the expression of the unseen
God. The light travels from the lamp,
not visible to our eyes, but when it falls on things, it exposes, it reveals
this unseen light cast forth from the lamp is the Holy Spirit. The Father is formless, limitless, infinite
Spirit, the source of all. His expression,
or the form is the Son and the power of God that is from the Son which convicts,
exposes, reveals things in the world is the Holy Spirit. Amen
Summary
We see Jesus as the Father in Isa 9.6, Father and the Son as One, the Son and the Spirit are one. All the three are One. In the Godhead, we have the Father, Son and the Spirit and they dwell as one Being in us today. To say that the Lord Jesus as an eternal Father is distinct from the Father is saying that we have two Fathers. This is heretical. Apart from this if the three essence are considered to be distinct and somehow, the traditions portrays that the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit cannot be the other essence to be experienced by us, then we fall in the danger of becoming a tritheist meaning we believe in three gods which is again heretical. In simple words, Father is the Son, the Son is Father; the Son is the Spirit, the Spirit is the Father and the Father is the Spirit all at the same time as one Being is our Triune God. Amen
