Trinitarianism
One God. Three Persons. Co-equal. Co-eternal.
A Position Paper • Bruce Mitchell • Agapao Allelon • allelon.us
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”
— 2 Corinthians 13:14, NASB95
A Brief Statement
I believe that there is only one God (Deuteronomy 6:4; Isaiah 45:5–7; 1 Corinthians 8:4), perfect in all His attributes, one in essence, yet eternally existing in three distinct persons — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19; 2 Corinthians 13:14). Each is fully God; each is worthy of worship; and each is worthy of obedience.
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A Detailed Exposition
I believe in one true God,1 who has made Himself known to us as three persons — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.2 The three persons of the Godhead are one in essence, yet each is entirely God: in nature, in attribute, in glory, in worthiness to receive worship, and in the right to command our obedience.3 Each is co-equal, and each is co-eternal — always having been, and always to be.4
Among the names by which God has revealed Himself are Adonai,5 Elohim,6 and Yahweh.7
I believe the triune God to be perfect, immutable, eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent; that He is true, holy, just, good, faithful, loving, merciful, and gracious; and that in the fullness of His being He remains beyond the comprehension of man.8 We know Him truly, because He has spoken — but never exhaustively, for the creature cannot contain the Creator.9
God the Father
I believe that God the Father is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, eternal, just, holy, loving, true, sovereign, and immutable.10 As the first person of the Trinity He orders and disposes of all things according to His purpose and grace; within the eternal life of God He is the unbegotten source from whom the Son is begotten and from whom the Spirit proceeds — an order of relation that implies no inferiority of essence, for the three are equally and wholly God.
God the Son
I believe that Jesus Christ, the eternal Son, existed from the beginning and before time itself — before Abraham, before creation — and is in His very essence equal with the Father.11 He does what God alone can do: He forgives sin, raises the dead, judges the living and the dead, created and sustains all things, holds all authority in heaven and on earth, knows the hearts of all, is present with His people everywhere, and receives the worship due to God alone. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. 12
Jesus is fully God and fully man — the eternal Word made flesh — two natures united in one person without confusion and without division.13 He is not human as we are in our fallenness; He is human as Adam was before the fall, truly tempted yet without sin and without the curse.14 His two natures do not operate independently of one another, but the one person acts through both; in the incarnation, He voluntarily veiled His glory and declined the independent use of His divine prerogatives, surrendering nothing of the divine essence.15
By His sinless nature, Christ became the true and final sin offering foreshadowed in Leviticus 4 — the spotless substitute who bears the guilt of His people — and the firstborn whose place is one of preeminence, not of created origin.16 He is our High Priest, not after the order of Aaron but after the order of Melchizedek, a priesthood that does not pass away. He is at once our sacrifice, our High Priest, our interceding Advocate, our Judge, and our King. 17
God the Holy Spirit
I believe that the Holy Spirit is fully God, sharing the divine attributes — omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, eternal, regenerating, and life-giving.18 He is a person, not a mere force: He speaks, He wills, He may be grieved. He is, in the words of the ancient creed, “the Lord and Giver of Life,” to be worshiped and glorified together with the Father and the Son.
The Deity of Each Person
God the Father is recognized as God; Jesus Christ is recognized as God; and the Holy Spirit is recognized as God.19 Yet the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father. Three distinct persons; one undivided God.
The Witness of History
The debate over the Trinity is as old as the church itself. When Arius taught that the Son was a created being — and therefore a lesser god — the church did not shrug. It confessed, at Nicaea and again at Constantinople, that the Son is of one substance with the Father, and it handed down a grammar for the mystery: one essence in three persons. Gregory of Nyssa, writing around the year 380, answered the Arians and the charge of tritheism alike, showing that to confess three persons is not to confess three gods.20 These were not quarrels over words. To make the Son or the Spirit a creature, or to collapse the three persons into one, is to lose the very God who saves.21
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Practical Implications
Ministry Emphasis: Teaching / Adult Ministries
There is one God, and only one God — and there are three persons who are that God: one God in essence, three in person. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have existed forever and will exist forever. Before Abraham, before creation, the Son said, “I AM”; He called Himself the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last; and nothing that was made was made apart from Him.
The New Testament shows the triune Godhead again and again. At the baptism of Jesus, all three persons appear at once — the Son in the water, the Spirit descending like a dove, and the Father’s voice from heaven: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.”22 In the Great Commission, Christ sends His disciples to baptize “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” — one name, three persons.23 The apostles wove the Trinity into their blessings and their appeals, from Paul’s benediction to Peter’s greeting to Jude’s charge to pray in the Spirit, keep ourselves in the love of God, and wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.24
The doctrine is a genuine stumbling block to other monotheists — most notably to Jews and Muslims — who cannot conceive how one God can subsist in three persons.25 Yet the oneness Scripture confesses was never a bare, solitary oneness. It is rich enough to hold the Father, the Son, and the Spirit without ever becoming three gods.
This is no abstraction. The whole plan of salvation depends on it. Redemption required the eternal, uncreated Son to be born sinless, to live a truly human life under every temptation without yielding, to be offered as the perfect sacrifice, to die, and to rise again, conquering death — so that Adam’s race might be freed from the punishment of sin and live forever with God.26 A created savior could save no one. This is why the heresies that demote the Son or the Spirit are not harmless speculation; they dismantle the gospel itself.
So the fact of the Trinity is essential to us as believers. We worship one God, and yet Scripture sets plainly before us three distinct persons — the Father who is not the Son, the Son who is not the Spirit, the Spirit who is not the Father — all of them God. They were together in the beginning; together they made all that is; and together, before creation, they purposed that the Son would enter His own creation, fully God and fully man, to purchase a people by His blood. This is the God who is Himself eternal love — for the Father has loved the Son in the Spirit from before the world began, and into that very fellowship He has drawn us.27
One God. Three Persons. Co-equal. Co-eternal.
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Biblical, Exegetical, Theological, Historical, and Explanatory Notes
1 Deuteronomy 6:4 — the Shema: “Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one.” The Hebrew ʾeḥad (אֶחָד) names a unity that may be compound (as the “one flesh” of two in Genesis 2:24), not a bare mathematical singularity — leaving room for the fuller revelation of the one God in three persons. See also Isaiah 45:5–7; 1 Corinthians 8:4.
2 The triadic name and benediction: Matthew 28:19 (“in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”) and 2 Corinthians 13:14. These texts set the three persons side by side as coordinate, with no hint that one is less than another.
3 The persons are homoousios (ὁμοούσιος) — “of one substance” — the word the Council of Nicaea (325) chose to confess the Son’s full deity against Arius. Each person possesses the whole divine essence, not a third part of it (John 1:1; Philippians 2:6; Colossians 2:9).
4 Co-equality and co-eternity are confessed in the Athanasian Creed: “none is afore, or after other; none is greater, or less than another … the whole three Persons are co-eternal together, and co-equal.” Cf. John 5:18, 23; 8:16; 14:9; 17:10; Philippians 2:9; 2 Peter 3:18; Revelation 7:10.
5 Adonai (אֲדֹנָי), “Lord” or “Master” — the name that confesses God’s rightful sovereignty over those who serve Him (Joshua 5:14; Isaiah 6:8–11).
6 Elohim (אֱלֹהִים), the common Hebrew word for God — grammatically plural, yet regularly joined to singular verbs (Genesis 1:1). The plural form, and the “let Us make man” of Genesis 1:26, hint at a plurality within the one God that later revelation names.
7 Yahweh (יהוה), the covenant name revealed at the burning bush: “I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3:14; 6:6). When Jesus said, “Before Abraham was born, I AM” (John 8:58), He took this very name upon Himself, and His hearers reached for stones, having understood the claim exactly.
8 On the divine attributes affirmed of the one God: perfect (Psalm 18:30; Matthew 5:48); immutable (James 1:17; Malachi 3:6; Numbers 23:19; Isaiah 46:9–10); eternal (Psalm 90:2; Genesis 21:33; Acts 17:24); omniscient (Psalm 147:4–5; Acts 15:18); omnipotent (Genesis 1:1; Revelation 19:6; Hebrews 1:3); omnipresent (Psalm 139:7–10); true (Romans 3:4; John 14:6); holy (1 Peter 1:15–16; 1 John 1:5; Isaiah 6:3); just (Psalm 145:17; Acts 17:31; Romans 3:21–26); good (Nahum 1:7; Mark 10:18; Psalm 34:8); faithful (Deuteronomy 7:9; 2 Timothy 2:13; 1 Corinthians 10:13); loving (1 John 4:8–10; John 3:16; Romans 5:8); merciful (Psalm 103:8; Ephesians 2:4; Lamentations 3:22–23); and gracious (Psalm 145:8; Ephesians 2:8–9). For a devotional treatment, see A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy; for a systematic one, Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology. Each attribute belongs equally and undividedly to each of the three persons.
9 God is incomprehensible — not unknowable, but never exhaustively knowable by a finite mind (Isaiah 55:8–9; Romans 11:33–36). What we know of Him is true because He has revealed it, yet it is analogical: the knowledge a creature has of the Creator.
10 On the attributes of God the Father — omniscient (Matthew 11:21; Psalm 147:4; Acts 15:18), omnipotent (Revelation 19:6; Hebrews 1:3; Genesis 1:1), omnipresent (Psalm 139), eternal (Psalm 90:2; Acts 17:24), just (Psalm 145:17; Acts 17:31; Romans 3:21–26), holy (1 Peter 1:15–16; 1 John 1:5), love (1 John 4:8–10; John 3:16; Romans 5:8), true (Romans 3:4; John 14:6), sovereign (Ephesians 1; Romans 9), and immutable (James 1:17; Malachi 3:6; Isaiah 46:9–10). Within the Trinity, the Father is the unbegotten source (fons divinitatis); this order of relation implies no inferiority of essence — the Son is “begotten, not made,” and the Spirit proceeds.
11 The eternal pre-existence and full deity of the Son: He is from the beginning and before time (Micah 5:2; Habakkuk 1:12; Isaiah 9:6; John 1:1; Colossians 1:16–17); He existed before Abraham (John 8:58); He claimed equality with God (John 5:18; 10:30); and He is of the same essence as the Father (Hebrews 1:3; Colossians 2:9).
12 The Son exercises the prerogatives of God alone: He forgives sin (Mark 2:1–12); raises the dead and judges (John 5:25–29); created and upholds all things (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16–17); holds all authority (Matthew 28:18); is the Alpha and the Omega (Revelation 1:8); knows hearts (Mark 2:8; John 1:48); is present everywhere with His people (Matthew 18:20; 28:20); and receives the worship due God alone (Matthew 14:33; Philippians 2:10; Hebrews 1:6).
13 Jesus is fully God and fully man — the Word made flesh (John 1:14; Galatians 4:4; 1 Timothy 3:16). The Definition of Chalcedon (451) confesses the two natures united in one person “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation,” each nature retaining its own properties.
14 He is human as Adam was before the fall — truly man, yet without sin and without its curse (Hebrews 4:15; 7:26; 2 Corinthians 5:21). Being a man, He could be tempted; being God, He would not and could not sin.
15 The two natures do not act independently; the one person acts through both. In the incarnation, the Son “emptied Himself” (ekenōsen, ἐκένωσεν, Philippians 2:7), voluntarily veiling His glory and declining the independent exercise of His divine prerogatives — without surrendering any part of the divine essence. This is the orthodox doctrine of the kenosis, as opposed to kenotic theories that have Him lay aside true deity. (This paragraph develops a point I first received in seminary lecture; I ground it here in Philippians 2 and the Chalcedonian tradition.)
16 As the sinless one, Christ became the true sin offering foreshadowed in Leviticus 4 — the spotless substitute bearing the people’s guilt. “Firstborn” (prōtotokos, πρωτότοκος, Colossians 1:15) denotes not origin in time but rank and preeminence — the heir’s standing, not a created beginning.
17 Our High Priest is not of Aaron’s line but “after the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 7:11–28; Psalm 110:4) — a priesthood that does not pass away. He is at once our sacrifice, our High Priest, our interceding Advocate (Hebrews 7:25; Romans 8:34; 1 John 2:1), our Judge (John 5:22; James 5:9), and our King (1 Timothy 6:15; Revelation 19:16).
18 The Holy Spirit is fully God, sharing the divine attributes: omniscient (1 Corinthians 2:10–11), omnipresent (Psalm 139:7), omnipotent (Job 33:4; Romans 15:18–19), eternal (Hebrews 9:14), regenerating and life-giving (John 3:5–8; Titus 3:5; Romans 8:10–11). The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (381) confesses Him “the Lord and Giver of Life” (to zōopoion), worshiped and glorified with the Father and the Son. He is a person, not a force — He speaks, wills, and can be grieved (John 16:13; 1 Corinthians 12:11; Ephesians 4:30).
19 Each person is expressly called God: the Father (John 6:27; 1 Peter 1:2), the Son (John 20:28; Titus 2:13; Romans 9:5), and the Spirit — for to lie to the Holy Spirit is, Peter says, to lie “not to men but to God” (Acts 5:3–4).
20 Arius (c. 256–336) of Alexandria taught that the Son was a created being — “there was when He was not” — and therefore a lesser god. The Council of Nicaea (325) answered with homoousios. The Cappadocian Fathers — Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa — refined the doctrine’s grammar as one ousia (essence) in three hypostaseis (persons); Gregory of Nyssa’s On ‘Not Three Gods’ (To Ablabius, c. 380s) answered the charge of tritheism. The Council of Constantinople (381) affirmed the Spirit’s full deity and gave the church the creed it still confesses.
21 The creeds stand as fences against perennial errors: Arianism (the Son created or lesser in essence), Modalism or Sabellianism (one person wearing three masks), Tritheism (three gods), and Pneumatomachianism (denial of the Spirit’s deity). To deny any person’s full deity, or to collapse the three into one, is to lose the God of the gospel.
22 At Jesus’ baptism, all three persons are manifest at once — the Son in the water, the Spirit descending as a dove, and the Father’s voice from heaven (Matthew 3:16–17; Mark 1:10–11; Luke 3:22) — a window opened in time onto the eternal Trinity.
23 In the Great Commission, the disciples baptize “in the name” — singular (onoma, ὄνομα) — “of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19): one name, three persons.
24 The apostles wrote the Trinity into their blessings and appeals: 2 Corinthians 13:14; 1 Peter 1:2; Jude 20–21; Ephesians 4:4–6.
25 The doctrine is a real stumbling block to strict monotheisms such as Judaism and Islam, which tend to read the oneness of God as bare solitude. Yet Scripture’s own “one” (Deuteronomy 6:4) is rich enough to hold the Father, the Son, and the Spirit without becoming three gods.
26 Salvation required the eternal, uncreated Son to become the spotless Lamb — born sinless, tested yet unyielding, offered as the perfect sacrifice, raised in triumph over death (1 Peter 1:18–19; John 1:29). Only God can save (Isaiah 43:11; Jonah 2:9); a created savior could redeem no one. This is why the heresies that make the Son a creature are not academic — they unmake the gospel.
27 The Trinity is not a riddle to be tolerated but the ground of the gospel and of love itself: God did not become loving when He made the world; the Father has loved the Son in the Spirit from eternity, and into that fellowship He draws us. See Michael Reeves, Delighting in the Trinity, and Fred Sanders, The Deep Things of God.
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Select Bibliography
The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (381).
The Athanasian Creed (Quicunque Vult).
The Definition of Chalcedon (451).
Augustine of Hippo. On the Trinity (De Trinitate).
Gregory of Nyssa. On ‘Not Three Gods’ (To Ablabius).
Berkhof, Louis. Systematic Theology. 2nd rev. and enl. ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Chafer, Lewis Sperry. Systematic Theology. 8 vols. Dallas: Dallas Seminary Press, 1947.
Holmes, Stephen R. The Quest for the Trinity: The Doctrine of God in Scripture, History, and Modernity. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2012.
Holsteen, Nathan D., and Michael J. Svigel, eds. Exploring Christian Theology: Revelation, Scripture, and the Triune God. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2014.
Pache, René. The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit. Chicago: Moody Press, 1954.
Packer, J. I. Knowing God. 20th anniversary ed. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993.
Reeves, Michael. Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to the Christian Faith. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2012.
Ryrie, Charles C. A Survey of Bible Doctrine. Chicago: Moody Press, 1972.
Ryrie, Charles C. Basic Theology. Wheaton: Victor Books, 1986.
Sanders, Fred. The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything. 2nd ed. Wheaton: Crossway, 2017.
Torrey, R. A. The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit. Rev. ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974.
Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy: The Attributes of God. New York: Harper, 1961.
Tozer, A. W. The Pursuit of God. Ventura: Regal, 2013.
Williams, John. The Holy Spirit, Lord and Life-Giver. Neptune, NJ: Loizeaux Brothers, 1980.
