Our Bible verse for today: “Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Deuteronomy 6:4 (CSB)
Our thought for today: “God is a Trinity.”
It’s a good thing that we have already come to terms with the truth that God is mostly incomprehensible to us, because now we have to deal with the fact that He is a trinity – one God and yet three persons. This is part of the divine mystery of God that is simply beyond the capacity of our human brain to fully grasp.
Some people deny and reject anything they can’t explain. Therefore since it doesn’t make sense in human understanding for God to be one and three at the same time, they conclude it is impossible. But this is where faith comes in. Faith requires that we believe even when we do not understand, and even when cannot prove something to be true. Believing without understanding is the essence of faith. (Everyone has faith by the way, the believer and the non-believer alike. Every person goes through life accepting a wide variety of things that they don’t really understand and which they cannot fully explain. It’s just a question of what we have faith in.)
Although the term “Trinity” is found nowhere in the Bible, the concept of the Trinity is plainly taught in both the Old and New Testaments. In theological terms, Trinity simply means “three in one”. God is one God who consists of three co-equal persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Sometimes we try to explain God’s Trinitarian nature by saying that He is one God who shows Himself to us in three different ways and for three different reasons. He is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and in each manifestation He shows Himself to us in different ways and for different reasons. While there is an element of truth to that explanation, it still doesn’t really fully capture the essence of the Trinity. It makes it sound as if each person of the Trinity is not a different and distinct person, only one person acting in three different ways. And that is not true – each person of the Trinity is an individual person but yet, somehow, all three together are still just one.
And so this morning, in our attempt to know God better, we have to be content with marveling at a mystery we are incapable of fully understanding. The human brain simply doesn’t provide us with the ability to truly understand how one could be three, and three could be one, separate and distinct, and yet one and not divided.
Spend some time this morning marveling at the mystery of the Trinity and simply worship Him in faith for who He is.
Oak Hill Baptist Church