The doctrine of the Trinity is impos­sible to completely understand. God consists of three persons: Fa­ther, Son, and Holy Spirit. Yet God is one in essence. There are not three Gods, but one. Easy to say, hard to figure out.

This is not to say that it doesn’t make sense, or that it is illogical. Rather, this teaching touches on the incomprehensibility of God. The depth of this truth goes be­yond anything we can ever experience in this life. When it comes to our inability to fully grasp this real­ity, the problem is not with the teaching; the problem is with the limitation of our creaturely minds.

Why Bother with this Doctrine?⤒🔗

It can well be asked: if it’s so diffi­cult to get a handle on this doctrine of the Trinity, why should we be­lieve it? Or at least, why should we bother dealing with it? Does it make sense to spend time thinking about something so difficult to comprehend?

The simple answer to all of this is that we believe and study the Trin­ity because this is who God is. God reveals himself in His Word distinctly as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Yet, He also makes clear that there is only one God, besides whom there is no other.

Because this is what God says about Himself, this is what we be­lieve. This is the answer of faith. It’s the answer of all who truly know the one true God.

Now, it is true that the actual word Trinity is not found in the Bible. But the teaching that lies behind the word, this is found in the Bible. The fact that Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, is clearly shown in Scripture. So also is the fact that God is one. The word Trinity is merely a helpful word that we use to refer to this biblical teaching.

Reject This Doctrine at Your Peril←⤒🔗

Is it really all that important to con­fess and teach this truth? What if some people were to say that God is only one person, and someone else were to say He is seven per­sons? Would it really matter? What practical difference would it make?

According to the Athanasian Creed, a longstanding founda­tional faith statement confessed by churches around the world, this teaching is crucial. Listen to how the creed starts:

Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith, which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, with­out doubt he shall perish everlast­ingly. And the Catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in Trin­ity, and Trinity in unity.

According to this creed, if you want to be saved, you’ve got to believe in the Triune God. Not believing in the Trinity demonstrates that you have an unregenerate heart.

Of course, not everyone who con­fesses this doctrine is necessarily saved. But you can be quite confi­dent that those who reject this teaching are showing that they have not been washed clean by the blood of Christ and renewed in the spirit of their minds.

Doesn’t this very fact alone make this a rather practical doctrine? You want to know whether you or someone you love is a believer? Here’s a good place to start.

What This Doctrine Shows Us←⤒🔗

The question still remains though, what makes this particular doctrine so important? After all, there are many aspects to God that He has­n’t bothered to make known. Why did He deem it necessary to teach us this truth about Himself?

Well, we could talk about how this doctrine affects everything we do. How we look at the world around us, how we study science, the way we deal with unbelievers, what we do with our time — the doctrine of the Trinity impacts all of this and so much more.

But instead of focusing on such matters, let’s make it more per­sonal. To know God as Trinity is essential for understanding how God works in our lives. By know­ing that the one God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we can have a better understanding of what God has done for us in sav­ing us.

God the Father and Our Salva­tion←⤒🔗

We start off with God the Father. He is the author of everything that exists. In the beginning, God, that is, God the Father, cre­ated the heavens and the earth. That’s not to say that God the Son and God the Holy Spirit were not involved in the creation of the universe. After all, Genesis 1:2 talks about how the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And John 1:3 talks about how all things were created through the Word, Jesus Christ. Colossians 1:15-17 also teaches us that Christ, the second person in the Trinity, played an important role in the creation of the universe. Still, when we consider the ulti­mate creator, we look primarily to the person of the Trinity known as God the Father.

At the risk of sounding somewhat trite, it would have been rather hard for us to be saved if we were never created in the first place.

Mind you, not only is the Father the author of creation, He is also the author of the election of His people. When we consider how God’s people have been chosen since before time to receive sal­vation through Jesus Christ, we look to God the Father. As Ephesians 1:3-5 says so clearly,

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, accord­ing to the purpose of his will.

Without God the Father electing us, the whole process of salvation would never have started.

God the Son and Our Salvation←⤒🔗

Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, God the Son, has ac­complished our salvation. Because He humbled himself and came to be among us so many years ago; because He assumed a human form, taking upon himself a truly human nature; because He died on the cross as a sacrifice to pay the price for the sins of his people; and because He rose vic­torious from the grave: we have salvation, if we belong to Him. We are washed clean of our sins, because of the blood of Jesus Christ. As we read in Romans 5:9, 10 —

Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

The Savior lives. Believers are saved because he sacrificed him­self for the forgiveness of sins. Mind you, just as the Son and the Spirit are involved in creation, so too are the Father and the Spirit involved in redemption. The Son did not work all alone in all of this. For one thing, the Father is the one who sends the Son so that we can be redeemed. As the famous verse John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Plus, we also know that the Father was involved in raising Christ from the dead. We read about the Fa­ther’s strength in Ephesians 1:19, 20 — “...and what is the im­measurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead.”

And of course, the Spirit is involved in the whole process of redemption as well.

We read in Romans 8:11 —

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.

There is no salvation apart from the Father or the Holy Spirit. And yet, when we consider the forgiveness of sins, our focus is primarily on the Son. When we look to the redeemer, we look to Jesus Christ. When we look to our Savior, we look first of all to Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity.

God the Spirit and Our Salvation←⤒🔗

It is the Spirit of God who works in our hearts if we belong to Christ. It is the Holy Spirit of God who en­ables us to know of our heavenly Father and points us to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is the person of the Trinity who lives in our hearts, cleansing our hearts.

If God the Holy Spirit lives in our hearts, we can know that we are one of God’s children. We can know that we are forgiven through the blood of Jesus.

Mind you, we could not have the Spirit in us without the Father or the Son sending Him to us, causing Him to dwell in us. As Jesus says in John 14:16-17,

I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you for­ever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

The Spirit lives in us because Je­sus asked his Father and together they sent Him. Still, when we con­sider how we come to experience our salvation, we look to the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.

A Living Doctrine←⤒🔗

So you see, each person in the Trinity is intimately involved in the salvation of God’s people. God the Father creates and elects the people of God. God the Son re­deems the people of God. And God the Spirit lives in the hearts and sanctifies the people of God. Of course, all three are tied to each other. You can never make them into three different gods. And they are all equally eternal, equally infinite, equally majestic, equally sovereign, equally worthy of praise, equally God.

But still, when we consider differ­ent aspects of how God works in our lives, we can look to the different persons. And so, if we are to have any understanding of what God does for us, we have to know him as the Triune God. When we realize this, the doc­trine of the Trinity becomes more than just abstract concepts that are hard to understand. The doctrine of the Trinity should be a living reality within our hearts and souls.

We should not just recognize with our heads how God is one God with three persons. We should recognize in our hearts the work of this Triune God. The Triune God is the source of strength for God’s people. The Triune God is their source of peace. The Triune God is the source of comfort.

You might not know all the com­plex doctrines regarding the Trin­ity. You might not know all about the glorious history of this doc­trine. These are good things to know, but they are not essential. What is essential is that you know God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as your creator, your redeemer, your sanctifier.