I. What is being confessed in this article?⤒🔗

Article 8 raises a new subject. However, it explicitly ties in with the previous articles. Articles 2 through 7 contain this confession: the Holy Scriptures are the reliable and authoritative Word of God. That is the foundation. The first item that arises on the basis of this confession is the doctrine of the Trinity, even though the term itself is not introduced until art. 9.

1. This means that there is one God, but that there are three Persons in him. Each of these Persons has distinct properties that the other two do not possess. For that reason these are called "incommunicable properties". So there is a real difference between the three Persons. They each have their "own independence."
   That is also reflected in their names. The Father is the beginning of all things, the Son is the image of the Father, while the Holy Spirit is the eternal power proceeding from the Father and the Son.
2. Two wrong conclusions are rejected:
   a. The three Persons must not be separated from each other. The One was never without the Other. And in their power and goodness, the one never goes first or the other falls behind. In all of this they are completely one.
   b. The three Persons must also not be intermixed with each other. One example already makes this clear: neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit became man, but the Son only.

II. Why the Trinity needs to be confessed←⤒🔗

1. Why is it necessary to speak at length about the Trinity as the church is doing in Articles 8 and 9? We ask this because the word itself indicates that it is in fact a matter that can never be understood: There is one God, and yet there are three Persons. In order to display the content of this difficult term, words are used that we do not encounter anywhere in the Bible, such as Person, substance, incommunicable properties. Not even the word “Trinity” is found in Scripture. Won’t the end result be a sterile exercise of logical theory – something that we should try to understand rather than believe?
   These are all understandable questions. Even Luther and Calvin have asked them and wondered if it would not be wiser to keep silent about this difficult mystery. Yet they didn’t do so. Why can the church not be silent about this?
2. . a. In the first place: the glory of God is at stake.
   We would be offended when people to whom we are like an open book pretended to know us only vaguely. This is but a weak comparison for God who is as an open book to us in his Word. He has increasingly revealed himself as the Triune God. Therefore, it would be too disrespectful of us not to respond to this revelation of himself at all. Our God wants to be honoured as he has made himself known to us. Therefore this article begins with the confession that we believe in this triune God “according to this truth and this word of God.”
   b. At the same time, this confession contains our treasure. For since there are three Persons in God, he is never alone and he possesses within himself a perfect wealth of relationships and contacts. It is therefore our riches that this God wants to be our God. He does not need us at all and yet we enjoy his full attention and love.

III. Against whom the Trinity is to be defended←⤒🔗

1. This doctrine has been contested from the time of the apostles until the present. This is because our human logic strongly opposes the idea that there is one God in whom there are three Persons. This logic argues as follows: if there is one God, then there must be one Person! And with this "conclusion" the foundation is laid for all further error.
2. After this general false start, people diverge in two directions:
   a. There is a group that recognizes only the Father as God. The Son and the Spirit are, strictly speaking, outside of the divine Being. In doing so, they clearly break the unity in God. They create a gulf between the Father on the one hand, and the Son and the Spirit on the other.
   In short: they maintain the number three, but at the expense of unity. See I, 2a.
   This is what Arius taught, and this is also what the Jehovah's Witnesses claim, saying that only the Father (whom they call Jehovah) is God.
   b. Another group claims that God, as it were, alternately plays the role of Father, Son or Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament we would be dealing with the Father, in the New Testament with the Son and after Pentecost with the Holy Spirit. But in no case are there three distinct divine Persons.
   In short: they maintain the unity, but at the expense of the "three." See I, 2b.
   This is what Sabellius (in the third  century) and others taught.

IV. The meaning of “One in essence” in the Trinity←⤒🔗

1. Although there are three Persons, we must never call the absolute unity of God’s Being (or Essence) into question. The Athanasian Creed says that the Father begat the Son. Yet this does not mean that the Son is thus dependent on the Father, as if he had received his divinity from the Father. No, the Son and the Spirit also possess their divinity in themselves: “All three persons are co-eternal with each other and co-equal.”
   We cannot comprehend this, yet the Father is wholly in the Son, and the Son wholly in the Father. As Jesus said, “the Father is in me and I am in the Father” (John 10:38).
   The Father, the Son and the Spirit, as it were, permeate each other. They merge so completely that “these three Persons are but one only God.”
2. This unity is so strong that what is first said of the Triune God is later applied to the Son or Spirit separately. Cf. e.g. Compare Psalm 102:25 with Hebrews 1:10. What the Psalm says about God (triune) is applied in Hebrews to the Son. And therefore, according to our article, they are “all three one: in truth, in power, in goodness, and in mercy.”

V. The meaning of "three Persons" in the Trinity←⤒🔗

1. The three Persons are “really, truly, and eternally distinct.” They each are their own Person. Each of them has something unique, something that cannot be transferred to the others. Hence the name “incommunicable properties.” For that reason the three Persons can never be intermixed with each other.
2. What are these properties?
   a. Already from their names it appears that the one is not the other. The Father is so called, because in relation to the Son he is indeed the Father. He alone is the Father. Likewise the Son is called by that name because he is the Son of this Father. He alone is the Son. And the Holy Spirit is so called because he is, as it were, the breath (= pneuma = Spirit) who proceeds from the Father and from the Son. He alone is the Spirit.
   In their mutual interaction the three Persons each have their own specific place in relation to each other.
   b. Outwardly, the three Persons also act in a unique way from each other. Our article expresses this distinction in this way: “For the Father has not assumed our flesh and blood, neither has the Holy Spirit, but the Son only.”
   Yet the One never does anything without the Other. We need to express ourselves with caution and therefore we put it this way: the Father comes to the foreground in our creation, the Son in our redemption, and the Spirit in our sanctification, see also Heidelberg Catechism, q/a 24. We can also point to the Form for Baptism, which clearly describes what the three Persons promise to the person being baptized.
   c. In this article the Father is called “the cause, origin, and beginning of all things visible and invisible” (Ephesians 4:6; Colossians 1:16).
   The Son is “the Word, the wisdom, and the image of the Father” (John 1:14; 1 Corinthians 1:24; Colossians 1:15). See also Belgic Confession, Article 10.
   The Holy Spirit is called “the eternal power and might who proceeds from the Father and the Son” (Romans 15:13). See also Belgic Confession, Article 11.

Points to discuss←↰⤒🔗

1. There is a story of an Indian who thought he could explain the Trinity by borrowing an image from nature: as the same water comes down in the form of rain, snow, or hail, so the one God would reveal himself in the form of three Persons.
   What is your opinion on this comparison? Can we actually try to clarify the Trinity, with all kinds of images such as three colours on a flag, a mountain with three peaks, a cloverleaf, or other images?
2. Show how John 1:1 teaches both the Son’s independence and his unity with God.
3. What is the difference between the attributes of God listed in Article 1 and those listed in Article 8?
4. Answer 24 of the catechism speaks of "God the Father and our creation,” but does this mean that the Son and the Spirit were excluded? Compare John 1:3 and Genesis 1:2.
5. You can also ask the same questions regarding “the Son and our redemption” and “God the Holy Spirit and our sanctification.”
6. Our Form for Baptism makes it clear what the three Persons promise. Explain why these three promises form one indivisible whole.