What Is the Trinity?

1. It is not polytheism. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons/Personalities, but share precisely the same eternal, divine essence (being).

2. The Trinity is not composed of “parts” like a three-leaf clover. God cannot be divided or reduced. A more apt representation would actually be space, which consists of height, width, and depth. Without height, there can be no width or depth; without width, there can be no height or depth; and so forth. Likewise, God's nature cannot be represented by 1+1+1=3, because God is One and not three. 13=1 might be a better comparison.

3. The Trinity is not “modes.” In other words, God is not three “manifestations” or “forms.” He is one being with one form and that form is Spirit. Modalism as is found in Oneness Pentecostalism is kind of a hybrid doctrine between traditional Christianity and classic Unitarianism. It teaches that God is a bit like water, which can take the form of a solid, liquid, or gas. This is not an accurate reflection of what the Bible teaches about the nature of God. The Father and the Son are distinct Persons. The Father can't “become” the Son and vise versa. Furthermore, the Son lacks nothing that the Father has, and the Spirit lacks nothing that the Son has. The Three possess the same being, powers, and attributes.

The word “Trinity” is not found in the Bible, but it was a term coined to describe God's nature as revealed in the Bible with a single word. It is the English transliteration of Latin Trinitas. The earliest reference actually belongs to Theophilus, the Patriarch of Antioch, and not Tertullian, as some have suggested. The corresponding Greek word Theophilus used was Τριάδος, mentioned by Theophilus in the 2nd century in reference to Theos ("God" - the Father), the Logos ("the Word" - the Son), and Sophia ("Wisdom" - the Holy Spirit).

It should come as no surprise that the word Trinity is not found in our Bibles, as it isn't a name or title for God, but purely a systematized description of what the Bible reveals. “Substitutionary atonement” is also not found in our Bibles, yet is the very basis of our faith. Theologians “systematize” a doctrine to find a coherent description of what the Bible teaches on a particular subject. For example, the doctrine of faith alone (sola fide) was not systematized until the 16th century, but that doesn't mean the Bible doesn't teach the doctrine. It simply means that it wasn't a major focus of intense study until that time. In fact, there are dozens of references to the doctrine of sola fide in the early Church even though it wasn't systematized until much later. Regarding the Trinity, the reason it became a major subject of focus in the 2nd through 4th centuries was because it was during that time that numerous sects came on the scene either denying that Christ was God (Arianism) or denying that the Father, Son, and Spirit were distinct Persons (Sabellianism).