The Trinity – How Do We Explain It?

Everybody’s Asking — Episode 8

Every Christian believes in the Trinity. Most cannot explain it. And almost everyone who tries explains it wrong.

The doctrine of the Trinity is one of the most foundational beliefs in Christianity, and one of the least understood. Ask most believers to explain it and you will get one of three popular illustrations: water, ice, and steam. An egg. A three-leaf clover. The problem is that all three of those illustrations describe heresies, not the Trinity. We will come back to that.

The goal today is not to produce a complete systematic theology. It is to show what the Bible actually says, build the case from the text itself, and answer the question people are really asking: how can God be one and three at the same time?

The honest answer is that we cannot fully comprehend it. But we can clearly believe it, and Scripture gives us every reason to.

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What the Trinity Is and Is Not

The word Trinity does not appear in Scripture. That fact is sometimes used to dismiss the doctrine. But the word Bible does not appear in Scripture either. A doctrine does not need a specific label to be true. It needs scriptural support.

The doctrine states: there is one God, eternally existing in three distinct persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each is fully God. They are equal in nature and essence and distinct in person.

Three errors have appeared throughout church history that are worth naming briefly, not to dwell on them, but because understanding what the Trinity is not actually helps clarify what it is.

Modalism teaches that God is one person who revealed Himself in three different modes or roles: as Father in creation, as Son in the incarnation, as Spirit at Pentecost. The water, ice, and steam illustration describes this heresy, not the Trinity, because water, ice, and steam are the same substance appearing sequentially in different forms, never three simultaneous persons. This is the position held by Oneness Pentecostalism today.

Arianism teaches that the Son is a created being, not co-eternal or co-equal with the Father. The Jehovah’s Witnesses hold this position, which is why their translation changes John 1:1 to read “the Word was a god.”

Tritheism teaches that Father, Son, and Spirit are three separate gods. The egg illustration actually describes this, since the shell, white, and yolk are three distinct and separable parts of one whole. But the Father is not one-third of God. Each person of the Trinity is fully God.

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The Foundation: One God

The starting point of the doctrine is monotheism. There is one God. Everything else must be built on this foundation.

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD.”

Deuteronomy 6:4

“For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

1 Timothy 2:5

Scripture is unambiguous on this point. There is one God. Any understanding of the Trinity that drifts toward three separate gods is not the biblical position. The question then becomes: how does Scripture describe this one God?

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The Father Is God

This is the least contested part of the doctrine. The New Testament addresses the Father as God consistently throughout.

“But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.”

1 Corinthians 8:6

The Father is God. This is the established starting point for the whole discussion.

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The Son Is God

This is where the real theological weight falls. And this is where Scripture is most explicit.

“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.”

John 1:1–2

Two truths in one verse: the Word was with God, meaning He is distinct from the Father, and the Word was God, meaning He is equal in nature. Arianism cannot survive John 1:1.

“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

The Word who was God became flesh. The incarnation is God taking on human nature, not a created being being elevated to divine status.

“For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”

Colossians 2:9

Not a portion of the Godhead. Not a representation of it. All the fullness. Bodily.

“And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.”

John 20:28

Thomas addresses the risen Jesus directly as God. Jesus does not correct him. He commends him.

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”

Isaiah 9:6

Seven hundred years before the birth of Christ, Isaiah calls the coming Messiah the mighty God and the everlasting Father. These are not titles given to a creature.

“I and my Father are one.”

John 10:30

The Jews understood exactly what Jesus was claiming. Verse 31 records they immediately took up stones to kill Him for blasphemy. He was not claiming agreement of purpose. He was claiming unity of essence.

“Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.”

John 8:58

I AM is the covenant name of God revealed to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3:14. Jesus applies it directly to Himself. Again, the Jews immediately tried to stone Him. They understood the claim perfectly.

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The Holy Spirit Is God

The Holy Spirit is not a force or an energy. He is a person. He speaks (Acts 13:2), He grieves (Ephesians 4:30), He intercedes (Romans 8:26), He teaches (John 14:26). And He is identified as God.

“But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost… thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.”

Acts 5:3–4

Peter uses Holy Ghost and God interchangeably in the same statement. To lie to the Holy Spirit is to lie to God.

“Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?”

1 Corinthians 3:16

“What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God?”

1 Corinthians 6:19

In chapter 3, being the temple of God means the Spirit of God dwells in you. In chapter 6, the body is called the temple of the Holy Ghost. The Spirit of God and the Holy Ghost are the same divine indweller.

“For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.”

1 Corinthians 2:11

The Spirit searches and knows the deep things of God. Omniscience belongs to God alone. The Spirit possesses it. Therefore the Spirit is God.

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Three Persons, One God

Having established that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God, we come to the passages where all three appear together.

The Baptism of Jesus

“And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

Matthew 3:16–17

The Son is being baptized in the water. The Spirit descends from above. The Father speaks from heaven. Three distinct persons are present at the same moment in the same event. This passage alone dismantles Modalism entirely. The Father is not speaking to Himself. Three persons are simultaneously present.

The Great Commission

“Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

Matthew 28:19

In the name, singular, not names plural. One name shared by three persons. The grammar itself reflects the doctrine.

The Apostolic Benediction

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.”

2 Corinthians 13:14

Paul closes his letter with a Trinitarian benediction. Three persons, each named, each contributing something distinct to the believer: grace from Christ, love from the Father, communion from the Holy Ghost.

1 John 5:7

“For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.”

1 John 5:7

This is the most explicit Trinitarian statement in the New Testament. Father, Word, Holy Ghost, three persons, and these three are one.

This verse is absent from most modern translations because it does not appear in the majority of surviving Greek manuscripts that contain 1 John 5. That is a fact worth acknowledging honestly. However, the evidence for its authenticity is substantial, and the reasons for its absence in many Greek manuscripts are equally worth knowing.

The verse is found in 10 Greek manuscripts. It is quoted by Tertullian around 200 AD, Cyprian around 250 AD, Athanasius around 350 AD, and Jerome around 382 AD. That takes us back within 100 to 150 years of when John wrote the epistle. At the Council of Carthage in 485 AD, approximately 350 bishops cited the verse publicly against the Arians without a single challenge to its authenticity from the opposing side.

The most likely explanation for its scarcity in Greek manuscripts is deliberate suppression. The Arian emperor Constantius II actively worked to promote Arianism throughout the empire and erased this text from as many copies as he could reach. A verse this explicitly Trinitarian would have been a prime target. John Wesley noted that Constantius was so successful that his reign was commonly called the “Arian age.”

There is also a compelling grammatical argument. Without verse 7, the masculine participle in verse 8 has no grammatical antecedent, because Spirit, water, and blood are all neuter nouns in Greek. The masculine nouns Father and Word in verse 7 provide the antecedent that makes the grammar of verse 8 work. Gregory of Nazianzus noted this grammatical problem as early as 390 AD. As Louis Gaussen concluded: “Remove it, and the grammar becomes incoherent.”

John Wesley said of the verse: “I would insist only on the direct words, unexplained, just as they lie in the text.” John Calvin said he was “inclined to receive it as the true reading” because it is found in “the best and most approved copies.” The KJV translators included it on the authority of the Received Text, and that is sufficient ground to teach it.

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The Trinity in the Old Testament

The Trinity is not a New Testament invention. The seeds of it are present from the very opening of Scripture.

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”

Genesis 1:1

The Hebrew word for God here is Elohim, a plural noun used with a singular verb. The singular form Eloah exists in Hebrew and appears about 250 times in Scripture, yet the plural Elohim is used over 2,500 times. The consistent preference for the plural form is at minimum consistent with a God who exists in plurality, and it opens the door to a doctrine of plurality within the Godhead that the rest of Scripture fills in.

“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”

Genesis 1:26

Let us. In our image. God is speaking to someone within the Godhead. He is not speaking to angels, since man is not made in the image of angels. This is a plurality within the one God speaking internally within Himself.

“And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

Genesis 1:2

The Spirit is present and active at creation. John 1:3 and Colossians 1:16 tell us the Son was the agent through whom all things were created. So in Genesis 1 alone: the Father speaks, the Son creates, the Spirit moves. All three persons are present at the beginning.

“The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.”

Psalm 110:1

David calls two persons Lord in the same verse. Jesus quoted this Psalm in Matthew 22:44 and asked the Pharisees how the Messiah could be both David’s son and David’s Lord. The question was unanswerable without a Trinitarian understanding of the Messiah.

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Why the Trinity Matters: The Gospel Depends on It

The Trinity is not a theological abstraction. It is the foundation on which the gospel stands.

The problem of sin requires an infinite sacrifice. A finite, created being cannot bear infinite guilt. The death of a mere creature cannot pay a debt owed to the infinite Creator. If Jesus is not God in the flesh, His death is the death of a man, valuable perhaps, but not sufficient to save anyone.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

John 3:16

God gave His Son. The giver and the gift are not the same person. The Father sends; the Son goes. This is a Trinitarian act of salvation.

“For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”

2 Corinthians 5:21

The Father made the Son to be sin. Two distinct persons in one act of substitution. Modalism cannot account for this. God cannot make Himself to be sin for Himself.

The resurrection matters equally. If Jesus is only a man, His resurrection is remarkable but not saving. If Jesus is God, His resurrection is the guarantee of ours, because the same infinite power that raised Him will raise those who are in Him.

The Spirit’s role is just as essential. He convicts of sin (John 16:8), regenerates the believer (John 3:5–6), seals the saved (Ephesians 1:13), and intercedes for the believer (Romans 8:26). Remove the Spirit as a divine person and the entire application of salvation collapses.

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The Trinity and Worship

There is one more dimension that is easy to miss. The Trinity tells us something profound about the nature of God that has everything to do with who He is apart from creation.

A solitary God, one person with no Trinity, would have had no one to love before creation existed. Love requires an object. A solitary God would need creation in order to love, which would make creation necessary to God. A God who needs anything is not sovereign.

The Triune God is love within Himself before anything was made. The Father loves the Son (John 17:24). The Son glorifies the Father (John 17:4). The Spirit proceeds from the Father and is sent by the Son (John 15:26, John 16:7). Creation is not necessary to God’s love. It is an overflow of it.

“He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”

1 John 4:8

God is love. Not God became love when He created beings to love. He is love intrinsically, eternally, within the fellowship of the Trinity. That is who we worship.

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Beyond Explanation, Worthy of Worship

Can we fully explain the Trinity? No. And that is exactly what we should expect.

If God were fully explainable by human logic, He would be no greater than human logic. The Trinity is not irrational. It is above reason, not against it. It is a mystery in the biblical sense: a truth that transcends what unaided human reason could have discovered, but which Scripture reveals plainly enough to believe and to build a life on.

Every major heresy about God is ultimately an attempt to make Him more manageable. Arianism shrinks the Son to a creature we can understand. Modalism flattens the Trinity into a single actor we can follow. But the God of Scripture refuses to be reduced. He is what He is.