Understanding the Trinity may be impossible, but proving that the Trinity is scriptural is not an especially difficult task. One needs only to define the Trinity accurately, then show that the Bible teaches the details of the definition. It makes no difference whether the word “Trinity” appears in the text or not. It only matters if the doctrine is taught there.
The definition of the Trinity is straightforward: there is only one God and He subsists as three distinct persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. One God in three persons. Simple.
How to Prove the Trinity
If you want to prove the Trinity, then, all you need to do is show that three specific truths are taught in Scripture. First, there’s only one God. Second, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are truly distinct persons. Third, each has the essential attribute of deity. That’s it.
The first item–the oneness of God–is virtually uncontested by those challenging the Trinity on Scriptural grounds. Almost all who hold Scripture in high regard acknowledge the famous Shema of Deuteronomy 6:1, “”Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! ”
The second, that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are truly distinct persons, is denied by modalists like Oneness Pentecostals. They hold there is one God who manifests Himself in different “modes” at different times, sometimes as the Father and sometimes as the Son. The popular illustration of the Trinity that a man can be a father to his son yet, in other modes, a husband to his wife and a brother to his siblings is a fine illustration of this second-century heresy, and not the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. In this view the Father and the Son are both fully God, but there is no genuine distinction between the persons, only a linguistic distinction.
The third, that the distinct persons are each fully God, is denied by Arians like Jehovah’s Witnesses. Jesus and the Father are distinct persons, they say, but do not share the essential attribute of deity. Only the Father is God. Jesus is a lesser, created “god.”
The Irrefutable Argument
My purpose is to answer the Arian challenge by giving an airtight, scriptural proof for the deity of Jesus Christ. This technique is so simple you should be able to sketch it out on a napkin from memory the next time someone knocks on your door. Remember, you don’t have to master every counter-argument to every verse thrown at you. All you need is one unequivocal textual proof to make your case. Here it is. It comes from the Gospel of John.
Most discussions of this nature focus initially on John 1:1. It says,
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
That’s the way your Bible reads.
But the Jehovah’s Witness’s New World Translation renders the verse this way:“In the beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god.”The heated discussion that follows is almost never productive. Don’t waste your time wrestling with Greek grammar neither of you understand.
Just drop down two verses. Verse three says,
“All things came into being by Him [the Word], and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”
The NWT is virtually the same:
“All things came into existence through him, and apart from him not even one thing came into existence.”
Have your visitor read the verse out loud. Then take out a napkin or a piece of scratch paper and draw a large box. Explaining that this box represents everything that exists. Run a line right through the middle of the box, dividing everything that exists into two categories. It will look something like this:On the left side write “all things that never came into being,” that is, all things that exist but have never been created.
Ask your friend, “What goes in that box?” If he says “God” he got the right answer. God is the only thing that exists that has never been created. God alone is eternal and uncreated. Put the word “God” in the left-hand side of your box.
— Fred Sanders, The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), page 13
Polytheism = diversity without unity Monotheism = unity without diversity Trinitarianism = unity and diversity, God the three-in-one.Truth, Brother, truth!
Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
-John Donne, Holy Sonnet XIV
“There is something even better than the good news, and that something is God. The good news of the gospel is that God has opened up the dynamics of His triune life and given us a share in that fellowship. But all of that good news only makes sense against the background of something even better than the good news: the goodness that is the perfection of God Himself.”
- Fred Sanders, The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything
