HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE TRINITY

The passages on the subject easily divide themselves into two groups that at first sight seem to conflict. The first seems to teach that God the Father (or Jehovah of the Old Testament) is one person, and Jesus, the Son of God, is another person, quite distinct and separate. But, as we saw in Chapter 2, there is also a second group of passages that teach that they are one and the same, that Jehovah of the Old Testament and Jesus of the New are indeed the same Person. Obviously, these two groups of teachings have to be considered and reconciled if we are to discover the Divine Word's complete teaching.

Here are some examples of passages in the first group:

In this last passage, not only does it seem that the Father and the Son are distinct, but also that there is yet a third Divine Person or Being, the Holy Spirit.

If we were to consult only passages like these and ignore all the others that seem to conflict with them, we might come to the conclusion that there are three persons in God. This is extremely puzzling to people of a reflective turn of mind, because their common sense tells them that there simply cannot be three Divine Persons or Beings, because that is the same as saying that there can be three infinites, or three gods.

This puzzle plagued me as a fifteen-year-old, at the age when many young people reflect on what they have been taught and seek to understand it. The Lord Himself taught us to pray to Our Father in heaven? But the question that bothered me was this: "When I am praying to the Father, am I leaving Jesus—and the Holy Spirit—out in the cold?" The task of uniting three distinct Divinities into one God is the ultimate in frustration.

But the way out of this frustration is to notice that it is never explicitly stated in so many words that the Father and the Son are two distinct persons. That is never said. But it was taken for granted by the councils of the early Christian Church from A.D. 325 onward, and has been unthinkingly accepted as the orthodox Christian faith itself. But search as you will, you will never find a passage that says explicitly that the Father and the Son are two, or that anyone who has seen the Son has yet to see the Father. As a matter of fact, you will find the very opposite, as we shall see in a moment.

Moreover, the second thing to be noted is that while it has usually been taken for granted that in these passages the terms Father and Son always refer to people, this is not necessarily the case. Do we not say in common speech, "The wish is father to the thought"? In the Word of God, we find a similar usage: When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it (John 8:44).

From these considerations, we may see how risky it is to seize upon only one of the possible meanings of a term and build doctrine upon it. Even though common usage in ordinary conversation indicates that father and son refer to different people, if we assume that as a principle here, we will encounter severe difficulties when trying to understand the second group of passages, which teach that God the Father and God the Son are the same and the only Divine Person.

In the Old Testament, the Son is called "Mighty God" and "Everlasting Father" (Isaiah 9:6). Many passages say that there is only one Mighty God (Isaiah 43:10-11; 44:6; 45:21-22) and that He would Himself come into the world as the Savior (Psalm 9:18; Isaiah 25:9; 40:3, 5, 10). In the Old Testament, the Lord Jehovah says that He is the First and the Last. Yet in the New Testament, in the Book of Revelation 1:11, Jesus says He is the First and the Last. Since it is impossible to have two people being the first or the last, it must be the same Person who is described in both cases. The same conclusion was reached from the fact that Jehovah says He is the only Savior, yet in the New Testament, Jesus is frequently called the Savior. So the irresistible conclusion is that Jesus is Jehovah in human form.

In full agreement with this, in the New Testament we find the Lord Jesus Christ saying to the multitude, I and My Father are one (John 10:30)—not two, but one. Jesus did not say anything about being one in purpose, or any other such thing. He said simply one. In any case, His audience made no mistake about His meaning—the only possible meaning. They took up stones to stone Him, and when they were asked why, they replied, Because You, being a man, make Yourself God (John 10:33).

It is interesting that the Jewish Church, which rejected Him, understood what He was saying, but the Christian Church, which accepted Him, has not fully known Him.

Furthermore, in the first chapter of John, it is written:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.... Everything was made by Him, and not one thing that was made was made without Him.... He was in the world and He made the world, and the world did not know Him.... And the Word became flesh and lived among us. (John 1:1, 3, 10, 14, The Good News Bible).

Here it is plainly stated that it was the Creator of the world who came on earth in the form of a man. That is why the Lord, when on earth, could say without blasphemy, Before Abraham was, I AM (John 8:58).

"I AM" can have but one meaning. It is Jehovah's name (Exodus 3:14). Jehovah means "being," the only Divine Being or life itself. On this occasion also, the Jews understood the Lord to be saying, "I am Jehovah," and therefore they wished to stone Him for blasphemy.

From all these passages, the teaching is manifest: Jehovah (or the Father) and Jesus (the Son of God) are actually the same Divine Person. But it is in the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of John, above all, that this teaching is given its clearest expression. Here, Jesus, having mentioned going to His Father, is misunderstood by both Thomas and Philip, who think that He is referring to some other person. So Philip says, "Lord, show us the Father, and it  is sufficient for us"  (John 14:8). In answering, the Lord removed the misunderstanding: Have I been with you so long, He asked, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, `Show us the Father'?"(14:9). Could anything be more plain? What other Father can there be but the one whom Philip's eyes were beholding?

Then the Lord went on to give an explanation that furnishes the clue to understanding the whole doctrine. He said, The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works (14:10).

How are we to understand that? What is it in a human being that dwells within, causes words to be spoken, and also does the works? What else answers this description but the soul? It dwells within, it causes words to be spoken, it does the works. What else fits the description, in this case, but the Divine Soul? Is not the Divine Soul like a father to the body? Is not the body a kind of off spring from the soul?

When we see that the Father means "the Divine in itself" or "the Divine Soul," and that the Son of God means "the Divine Body visible to humankind" (together with the mind that grew up with it), then at last we are in a position to understand something about the Holy Spirit. In every person there is a trinity—a human trinity. It is not a trinity of persons; humans do not consist of three persons each. The human trinity is a trinity of parts: a trinity of soul, body, and that intangible influence that flows forth from the union of soul and body. This spirit or influence going forth is approximately what is called, in popular language, a person's aura or personality. It is the atmosphere that emanates from the combination of soul and body, and that is what has an effect on other people. We have this trinity of soul, body, and influencing spirit because we are made in the image of God, and in God there is a Divine trinity: the Divine Soul, called the Father; the Divine Body, called the Son; and the Divine Influence or Spirit, called the Holy Spirit.

This understanding of the relationship between God and the Son of God is a real understanding because it throws light on the whole Word, both the Old Testament and the New. The real teaching of the Word becomes transparently clear when all the passages are considered and when those teaching unequivocally that there is but one God are taken as the basis, all others being interpreted in that light.

Now we can see where the obscurity, confusion, and mystery came from. It came from taking the wrong set of passages as the basis, that is, the first group we looked at, those that seemed to teach that there are two or three separate Divine Beings. In the new view of this subject, these passages can be understood in quite a different way: