Why the Holy Trinity?
In view of the fact that we don’t find the expression in the Bible, why do people talk about the Holy Trinity? The answer is simple. God is so far beyond our understanding that we cannot come close to appreciating His divine attributes. We can only comprehend certain truths about Him, and respond to those. We use the term ‘Holy Trinity’ to describe a particular mystery concerning God’s nature. This is outlined below.
One of the things the Bible makes quite clear is that there is only one God. The ancient Greeks and Romans worshipped many gods which we deem to be mythical. Their gods were regarded as supernatural beings having powers to affect certain areas of human experience: Mars (the Roman god of war), Athena (the Greek goddess of wisdom), Neptune (the Roman god of the sea), etc.
The one single God of the Bible is the only true God, and is perfect in every respect. He has no failings, weaknesses or human limitations. One of the things particularly worth noting is that He has never been lonely, because He is company for Himself. If we start talking to ourselves, folk around us would consider it to be the first signs of madness. God, in contrast, is able to talk intelligently within Himself, e.g. At the time of the creation, God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them ...” What’s this? ‘Us’ and ‘our’ signifies plurality, and we have just stated that there is one God, i.e. in the singular. How can we reconcile that?
I suggest the answer is that God has multiple personality. This is an aspect of His nature which we do not share. Each of us is just one person, but within the one Godhead, we can discern three persons from Scripture: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. We know from the Bible that all three persons were present at the creation, and my guess is that the words quoted above were spoken by the Father to the Son and the Holy Spirit. Three persons, yes, but only one essence. The Holy Trinity is the name we give to God being one Godhead, but also three distinguishable persons: one in three and three in one, both at the same time.
This is on a par with the reference in the Bible to, “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” Taking that statement at its face value, it clearly contradicts itself, but what is being said is that God is outside of time, and is not limited by it, which subject we have already considered. Both are ways of stating truths beyond our imagination.
While we are looking at ways in which God is beyond our powers of comprehension, we ought to note that God is omniscient. He knows the whole of what is going on at any and every instant in time. We are only aware of a few things that are happening in the world at any given moment, but God is constantly and totally aware of everything. Furthermore, it is all noted and written down in books which will be opened on the day of judgment.
Following on from this, we may observe also that God has the power to communicate with any number of men, women, angels, etc. concurrently. There is no intention of being irreverent in this comparison, but it may help to consider God as a telephone call centre of infinite capacity. Each one of us can only have conversation with a limited number of people at once, preferably one to one, whereas God can hold a multitude of ‘one to one’ conversations at the same time. It is difficult for us to understand how it is done, but it is yet another aspect which demonstrates the vastness of our God’s capabilities. Those of us who serve Him delight in His ability to be alongside each one of us on our day to day journey through life.
Understanding our God may be beyond us, but we are still able to derive immense pleasure from His company.