THE TRINITY: FATHER, SON AND HOLY SPIRIT!

According to Erickson1 “the doctrine of the Trinity is a crucial ingredient of our faith. Each of the three, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is to be worshiped, as is the Triune God.” They each have different role, but not One is subordinate to the Other, even though at times during history, One might be submitted to the Other in order to accomplish a certain work, as for example salvation for humanity!

We find three types of evidence to uphold the doctrine of the Trinity! One is the unity of God—that God is One; second, the Deity of each Person, and third, the three-in-Oneness! First we start with the Oneness of God. A Scripture that clearly shows this Oneness is found in Deuteronomy 6:4-5 , called the Shema, which says: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” It shows that God, which could be three persons, is One!

As for the Deity of the three, we see specially in the Old Testament, which goes without saying, that the Father is God. As for the Deity of Jesus, we see during His ministry that He was self-conscious of being God, though He couldn’t say it out loud. He spoke, as an example, of ‘angels of God ‘in Luke 12:8-9 and as ‘His angels’ in Matthew 13:4. As for the Holy Spirit being God, we see in Acts 5:3-4 where lying to the Holy Spirit is equated to lying to God “But Peter said, ‘Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit…You have not lied to men but to God.’ “ It is very explicit there.

As for the three-in-Oneness there is a clear Scripture in the New Testament, 1 John 5:7 which says: “For there are three that bear record in Heaven. The Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost, and these three are One.” Also we see in the book of Romans where Paul outlines it as follows: *The judgment of God upon all (1:18-3;20); *Justification through faith in Christ( 3: 21-8;1); *Life in the Spirit (8:2-30).

NOTES
1Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology,(Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006),367.