Why is it Good that God is Three in One?
By Pastor Josh Wamble
Last week we spent some time thinking about what the Bible says about God’s nature. That blog post can be read here. The Bible says eight things about God that can be summarized by the statement “God is three in one.” This is the doctrine of the trinity. God exists as one God in three persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit).
We might be tempted to think that it would be easier for us to understand if the doctrine of the trinity were not true. We might even think that it would be better if God were not a trinity. There are several reasons why it is good for us that God is a trinity. Below we will briefly look at three reasons why.
1. The Trinity Makes Full Revelation Possible.
God is transcendent. That means that He is separate from us. He is different from His creation. He is far removed from us. He is high and lifted up. We cannot approach Him. If we are to know anything about God, it is only because He has made Himself known. He has spoken to us in ways that we can understand while at the same time remaining separate and removed from us—transcendent.
God has revealed Himself in a few ways. He shows Himself in creation and the conscience (what is often called general revelation because it is available to all people in all places at all times), but He has also revealed himself in more specific ways. Sometimes this is called “special revelation” because it is only available to certain people in certain places at certain times.
There were specific times when God spoke directly to specific people in specific times. Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and others come to mind. He has also revealed Himself in His word. He did this through prophets and apostles. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit was actively involved in this process. 1 Peter 1:21 says, “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
The Bible says that God has revealed Himself even more fully in His Son—Jesus. God has told us about Himself in His word, but Jesus is the “exact imprint of His nature” (Hebrews 1:3). In John 1:14, we are told that God has actually taken on humanity and became one of us. In John 1:18, we read that “no one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”
God can remain transcendent and yet reveal Himself to us fully as the Father remains in heaven, the Holy Spirit inspires writers of the word, and the Son, Jesus, takes on humanity so that we can see and know God, Himself, in the flesh.
God can make Himself fully known because He is three in one!
2. The Trinity Makes Salvation Possible.
That God is three in one also makes salvation possible. It is absolutely true to say that God saves us. It is also absolutely true to say that the Father saves us, the Son saves us, or the Holy Spirit saves us. God in His fullness as Father, Son and Spirit accomplishes the work of salvation. However, the Father, Son, and Spirit do not do the same things in the work of salvation. The Father didn’t die on the cross for us. The Spirit didn’t plan the work of salvation or elect those that He would save. (In fact, there have been some serious heresies that have arisen at different points in church history by people who have gotten some of these things wrong.)
In Ephesians 1 and other places, we see clearly that the Father planned salvation. Paul wrote, “3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, 4as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him. In love 5he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will, 6for the praise of the glory of his grace that he granted us in the beloved.”
Of course, we know that the Son, Jesus, accomplished the plan of salvation by living a perfect holy life so that He could be the perfect, effective sacrifice taking our guilt on Himself and giving us His righteousness/obedience.
The Holy Spirit applies this work of salvation to us by convicting us of sin, waking us to the truths of the gospel so that we can respond in faith and repentance, giving us new life in Christ, transforming us, sanctifying us through His word, and eventually glorifying us as He makes us fully like Christ.
Because God is triune—three in one—the Father can send the Son, the Son can take on humanity, and offer his life to the Father, and the Holy Spirit can apply the Son’s work to our lives. If God were not triune, salvation could not work this way.
God can work for our salvation mercifully and graciously forgiving us while remaining holy, righteous, and just because He is three in one!
3. The Trinity Makes a Relationship with God Possible.
As we mentioned above, God is transcendent. He is separate and different and far removed from us, but He is also immanent. He is near to His creation and especially to His people—His children—His church. He can have a real and true relationship with us, but how can this be? How can God be transcendent and immanent at the same time? It is only because of His trinitarian nature.
We can come to know God as He reveals Himself to us in His word and have a relationship with Him as He speaks to us there and we speak to Him in prayer, but we can come to know Him even more fully as we come to know Him in Christ. When God entered into our world and our experience of life through the incarnation, we can come to know Him even more fully and relate to Him—and with Him—in a more experiential way, but that was not to last. In an almost unbelievable statement, Jesus told His followers, “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away …” (John 16:7a). But, how can that be? Jesus is God Himself with His people. How can it be to their (and our) advantage for His to go away? Jesus answered that question in the second half of that verse. “for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” (John 16:7b).
Jesus was “God with us” (Immanuel), but the Holy Spirit is God in us. Now, we can have an even more intimate relationship with God! The Holy Spirit dwells within us. Now God Himself relates to us as closely as possible leading us, guiding us, encouraging us, convicting us, strengthening us, and helping us. Paul even says, “the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” (Romans 8:26).
We can have this close, intimate, immanent relationship with the transcendent God of the universe because He is three in one!
There are other reasons that it is good for us that God is three in one. In fact, everything that God does, He does as a trinity. All three persons of God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) are involved in all of His actions. They are unified in their purposes as the one God while they are diversified in their individual actions to accomplish those purposes. Creation is this way as the Father is speaking the world into existence, the Son is the Word of God accomplishing that work, and the Holy Spirit is hovering over the waters of creation sustaining it and making order.
The doctrine of the trinity is confusing and hard to understand, but we should expect it to be so. God is so much greater and higher than us that it would be surprising if we were able to fully understand His very nature. It is not only true that God is three in one; it is also good for us in so many different ways that He is three in one. In fact, it is not an overstatement to say that all the good that we experience from God is due to his triune nature—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit working together for our benefit and our advantage!
