2 Corinthians 13:14
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Q: How many persons are there in God?
A: There are three persons in the one true and living God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
They are the same in substance, equal in power and glory[1].
The Trinity can be a difficult doctrine to explain, especially by way of analogy. That is because the Triune God is not “like” anything else in existence. God is thoroughly unique. There is only one true and living God, and he is three in persons. These persons are the same in substance (they share all the same essential properties) and are equal in their power and glory (they share no properties in lesser or greater degrees). Let us be careful not to treat the Trinity like a math problem, and instead focus on the truths this doctrine teaches us about God, our relationship to him, and our relationship to others.
The Trinitarian truth that I would like to focus on is that God is a relational God. In Jesus’ intercessory prayer for the church recorded in John 17, Jesus prays “Father . . . you loved me before the foundation of the world.” Before the foundation of the world, for all eternity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have communed together in perfect love and fellowship. This, indeed, is an essential part of God’s nature: 1 John 4:8 tells us that “God is love.” This does not simply imply that God has love or is loving of others. For God to be love himself means that love must have its origin and essence in God. This cannot be the case unless God is Trinity, for, in order to be love, God must have someone to love. Love must have an object – real, biblical love always implies a relationship.
Kevin DeYoung writes that “when you have a triune God, you have the eternality of love. Love has existed from all time. If you have a god who is not three persons, he has to create a being to love, to be an expression of his love. But Father, Son, and Holy Spirit existing in eternity have always had this relationship of love. So love is not a created thing. God didn’t have to go outside of himself to love. Love is eternal. And when you have a triune God, you have fully this God who is love.”
What’s more, it is God’s desire that we share in this love. In his book Delighting in the Trinity, Michael Reeves explains how the creation of the world was motived by the essentially outgoing and loving nature of God the Father toward God the Son. He writes that “The God who loves to have an outgoing Image of himself in his Son loves to have many images of his love (who are themselves outgoing)”. Even more, it is God the Son’s desire that we, his people, share in this relationship (John 17).
Christ said that “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Christ said it, and he modeled it, and even more, modeled it not just to his friends, but to his enemies. Romans 5:7-8 says “For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” The Trinity, loving one another in perfect fellowship for eternity, sent one of their own to suffer and die for not only for friends, but for enemies. Why would God do this?
To make his enemies his friends, and to share his loving fellowship with us.
In closing, let us briefly explore the roll of the Holy Spirit in God’s trinitarian expression of love. Matthew 3:16–17 records the baptism of Jesus:
And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
The Father makes his love known by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. God the Father blesses his Son with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and the Son sends the Holy Spirit to us. Romans 5:5 states that “God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” In John 16:7, Jesus tells his disciples that it is to their advantage that he leave them, otherwise he would not have sent the Helper. It is through this Helper that we both know the love of God, and are enable to follow God’s loving, other-directed example in our own lives. Michael Reeves writes that “The Spirit shares the triune life of God by bringing God’s children into the mutual delight of the Father and the Son—and there we become like our God: fruitful and life-giving.” In other words, God gives us spiritual life by giving us himself.
This we did not deserve. We experience the love of God purely through the grace of Christ, the free gift offered by the blood of the Son. Christ freely gave his life on our behalf so that we might share with him in the love of the Father; that we might be heirs with Christ as sons of God. The Holy Spirit testifies of this love within us, and enables us to experience right fellowship with God and with one another.
Finally, with this Trinitarian view of God and his expression of love in mind, I encourage you to read Romans 8, perhaps now with fresh eyes. Thank you, Lord, for bringing us in to so great a love!
Romans 8
English Standard Version (ESV)There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.