Becoming Like Jesus: Who Is God?Sample

The Mystery of the Trinity

One of the greatest mysteries about the nature of God is that He has eternally existed as a Trinity. This word means “the state of being three.” God is three-and-one. From page one of the Bible we see God revealing Himself this way. God the Father, speaking the universe into existence through the power of the Son, who is the Word, in the presence of the Spirit, hovering over the waters.

When God forms human beings, He explicitly refers to Himself as “us” (plural) and also “His” (singular).

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:26-27 NIV

God brought His whole self to bear when it came to forming us. Every part of His eternally existent being—Father, Son, and Spirit—was part of creating you and the world we live in.

There’s distinctness to the Father, who is different from the Son, who is different from the Spirit. Another example where we see this is at Jesus’ baptism. Jesus, God the Son, comes up out of the water. God the Father speaks His favor over Him, while God the Spirit is descending on Him like a dove. God is three, and at the same time, He is also one.

The Shema, the most repeated prayer in the Jewish faith begins with the phrase: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” And Jesus, throughout His ministry makes it very clear that He is unified with the Father, that Him and God are one, and that He is, in fact, God in the flesh.

In John 8, He shocks His listeners with these words: “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” John 8:58 NIV

At this statement, the crowd picked up rocks to stone Jesus because they knew He was claiming to be the eternally existent One. God. The Great I AM.

Over the years, people have attempted to explain the Triune nature of God with analogies like that of water. Water has three forms—liquid, solid, and gas. They are different, but they are all still water. While analogies like this fall short and have their flaws, they can help us begin to wrap our minds around the mystery of the Trinity. The union and yet distinction of our God.

St. Augustine writes this in His essays on Christian doctrine:

“...the Trinity, one God, of whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things. Thus the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and each of these by Himself, is God, and at the same time they are all one God; and each of them by Himself is a complete substance, and yet they are all one substance. The Father is not the Son nor the Holy Spirit; the Son is not the Father nor the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is not the Father nor the Son: but the Father is only Father, the Son is only Son, and the Holy Spirit is only Holy Spirit. To all Three belong the same eternity, the same unchangeableness, the same majesty, the same power. In the Father is unity, in the Son equality, in the Holy Spirit the harmony of unity and equality. And these three attributes are all one because of the Father, all equal because of the Son, and all harmonious because of the Holy Spirit.”

God’s triune nature teaches us a lot. It teaches us that the very fabric of reality is woven together in relationship. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit are the community on which all of creation is based and by which it all holds together.

The three-in-one nature of God shows us that unity and distinctness are not actually opposites, that community and individuality are a glorious, holy possibility, and that love invites our submission without robbing us of our autonomy.

There will always be more to learn about what all that really means and how to live in light of who God has revealed Himself to be. Eugene Peterson reminds us that:

“It is commonly said that the Trinity is a mystery. And it certainly is … . But it is not a mystery veiled in darkness in which we can only grope and guess. It is a mystery in which we are given to understand that we will never know all there is of God … . It is not a mystery that keeps us in the dark, but a mystery in which we are taken by the hand and gradually led into the light …”

The God of the universe wants to be known by you. He has gone to the greatest of lengths to reveal Himself to you. And the mystery of the Trinity is not intended to get in the way of us knowing God—it’s meant to invite us to investigate the depths of who God is and be filled with the confident hope that there will always be more of Him to discover.