The Trinity: The Oneness of God

Before I try to explain an infinite God with my finite brain, I will bring this verse to mind: Proverbs 3:5-7 states, ”Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil.” So, with this in mind, I will attempt to explain the Trinity.

The best way to explain the Trinity is not with a statement, but with a question. If l were to take an egg, and crack the shell in half, and then use a strainer to separate the white and the yoke, then, if I set all three parts down separately on the counter, there would be three different things, with three completely unique characteristics. The shell is the protective coat, the white is the nutrition for the growing chicken, and the yoke is the thick protein substance that becomes the chicken. The question, then, is: Which one is the egg?

Most people would probably want to say. “Well, the yoke is the most important, and therefore it is the egg.” However, it is not the most important, because all three are essential to bringing life. Without the yoke there could be no chicken. Without the white, it could never survive, and without the shell, it is breakfast. So then, the egg is all three put into one. There is only one egg, but it consists of three parts. I believe that examples such as the egg, and other examples such as electrons, protons, and neutrons, reveal the characteristics of God Almighty. The properties found throughout the Universe in Quantum Physics, etc., show that things are consistently made of sets of three–the very substance of our matter, things smaller than electrons, protons, and neutrons are built on sets of three. I and many others believe that these attributes are all the fingerprint of God, revealing His divine characteristics. Paul even before we saw such evidences in nature said:

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities– his eternal power and divine nature– have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse (Rom 1:20, NIV).

Of what our finite brains can understand, God is much like the egg, only on an infinite scale. God is three unique persons, known as The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit. Very clearly, throughout the Bible, God declares that there is only one God, see Isaiah 44:6, and yet all three are referred to as God. In Revelation 1:17-18, Jesus takes the same title of First and Last that God the Father declared for Himself in the passage in Isaiah. How many firsts and lasts can there be?. Then, in 2 Corinthians 3:17, the Spirit is identified as the Lord, and we know then, that he must be one with Christ, for in 1 Corinthians 8:6, Paul states that there is only one Lord, Jesus Christ. It also speaks of reaping eternal life from the Spirit, Galatians 6:8, which puts Him in equality with God, for only God can give eternal life.

Like the egg, each part, member, form, or “person” (for lack of any sufficient words) of the Trinity has His own unique features, but if you took one away, a vital piece would be missing. The Father loves the Son (John 3:35), the Son loves the Father, The Spirit loves Them both and vice versa. This is why God is not an egoist. During His life on earth, Christ always pointed the finger toward God the Father, to glorify Him. Then, after the resurrection, The Father gave His glory to Christ, and whenever you see the Holy Spirit at work, He will always focus the attention to what Christ did on the cross. They work together in perfect unity, for they are One, but they are distinct in the actions and characteristics that we see.

One of the most unique examples, however, that God has given us of His own divine nature, of His own Oneness, is that of marriage:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (Gen 1:26-27, NIV).

God is not alone even though He was before anything; He was never alone. When He created man, He said that it was “not good for man to be alone,” and created a “help-meet” (Strong’s #5828, 5048), an ally or helper suitable for man (Gen. 2:18). And scripture declares, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (Gen 2:24, NIV). In this simple aspect, God’s infinite and divine Oneness is foreshadowed by the example of marriage that God has given us. However, marriage is but a glimpse–a picture–a shadow, of the Oneness that is found in the Trinity. We were created in His image, but we are but a vague reflection.

Amazingly, through marriage, we learn to be unselfish, to serve another person, to become one with another person. God longed to teach us of His own Oneness, and through marriage, we can get a glimpse into the Awesomeness of God. In marriage, the husband learns to lay down his life for his wife as Christ laid down His life for the church, and the wife learns to submit to her husband like Christ submitted to the Father, and said, “… yet not my will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42, NIV) when He suffered on the cross. So, each spouse learns to die to their own desires for the sake of their spouse, and through this we are taught of the Oneness of God. A marriage done the right way, teaches each spouse of the Oneness and the unselfish nature of God Himself.

We truly are fearfully and wonderfully made (Ps. 139:14) in the image of our God (Gen. 1:27).

Therefore, if you want to understand the Oneness of God, get married and lay down your life for your spouse. Lay down your selfish desires, learn to serve someone else’s desires above your own, and then you will catch a small glimpse at our infinite God. Do not take what I have said to turn marriage into a “form of” the Trinity, for it is not the same thing, for it is finite and temporary. Rather, marriage is but shadow, a reflection, a glimpse into the Eternal, a glimpse at “I AM THAT I AM, The Almighty God.” We were created in His image, but we weren’t replicas. God is infinite, uncreated, and we will forever be finite and created beings, can something created become an uncreated eternal being–I think not. Only God “was, is, and is to come.” However, through the things that God has given us, we can see His divine characteristics in the world around us and in the examples that God has made to reveal to His creation the loving, unselfish God that He is.

FootNotes

I have put only a few verses above, and have not made the best argument for the Trinity since my goal is not proving the “existence of,” but in helping with the “understanding of.” If you struggle with whether or not the Trinity is taught in scripture, I can only say to read the Bible a lot, and pray that the Spirit will give you understanding. Read 1 Corinthians 2:6-16. Some verses that may be helpful are Isaiah 43-46, where God constantly says that there is only one God–Period. Then, John 1:1-14, which is one of the most self explanatory passages–“…and the Word was with God and the Word was God…and the Word became flesh.” Isaiah 44:24 says that the Father alone stretched out the Heavens, but Christ is also acredited with the same work, so how was he alone unless they are one. Other points of interest would be Isaiah 43:10, John 10:30, Mal. 2:10, Col. 2:9, Col. 2:10 (God the Father is given credit for raising Christ, but elsewhere, Christ credits Himself with the power to raise himself from the dead–Matt. 26:61, John 2:19) {Acts 5:31, Isaiah 43:11-12, Isaiah 45:21-22}. Now, these are just some of the verses that I compiled in about 10 minutes doing key word searches. Reading the Bible, I have found innumerable verses that reveal the Trinity.