Essentials of the Christian Faith
Intro to The
Godhead
by Mike Bugal
Founder, Heartland Christian Ministries
The nature of God is a subject which has been debated among those professing the name "Christian" almost since the beginning of the New Testament era. In Deuteronomy 6:4 we are presented with an apparently plain statement concerning His nature: "Hear, O Israel! The LORD our God, the LORD is One". However, even a cursory glance at the balance of the Word of God quickly makes it clear that such a statement is anything but "plain". An in-depth study on the subject makes it even less "apparent"... presenting what appears at times to be contradictory views of God. Okay, in Deuteronomy Moses says "God is one". Yet right in the beginning of his writings, the book of Genesis, he shows God the Creator "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth". (Gen. 1:1) and mentions the Spirit of God as a distinct entity "...And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters" (Gen. 1:3b). Then within the same chapter, as God is about to create man, we read "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness..." (Gen. 1:26a). Is God "one" or is He "two".... or "three"?? Or does the word "one" have a deeper meaning than a mere mathematical concept? Thus man has struggled with God's nature... and formulated several doctrines to try to get their finite minds to grasp the Infinite God.
Two such formulations, and the ones most common today among professing believers, are the "Modalist" view and the "Trinitarian" view. I will not endeavor to relate the history of each since excellent articles already exist online detailing those histories. Simply put the former teaches that God has appeared at various times in human history in various "roles, titles or offices" or "modes" (thus the name "Modalist"). An in-depth delineation of this view may be found by reading David K Bernard's book "The Oneness of God". Stating this position in the most simplistic form "God is: the Father in creation, the Son in the Incarnation and the Holy Ghost indwelling believers today". While this appears reasonable on the surface, it requires that one overlook several things about the nature of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit that the Word of God plainly states... such as Their relationship one to another (said relationship is impossible between mere "roles, titles or offices") or how They speak about one another (in the third person singular). On the other hand, the latter doctrine... the Trinity... does not require these aspects be overlooked. There are objections, however, that its opponents raise.
A Couple Of Commonly Presented Objections
One of the first things that opponents of the Trinitarian viewpoint will bring up is that the word "trinity" doesn't appear in scriptures. While this is absolutely true (and is one of the reasons I've stopped using it here), it doesn't mean that the concept described by the word is unscriptural. It should be noted that there are several doctrines that the opponents of the Trinitarian view adhere to whose descriptive words are not in the Bible. For example, nowhere in the English translation of the Scriptures does the words "rapture" or "bible".... or even "pentecostal"... appear. Trinitarians claim that there are well over 700 verses which support the teaching. We will examine just a few here, but will also be providing some links to sites where the subject is covered in much more depth.
Another argument that non-Trinitarians will try to make is that belief in the Trinity is equal to polytheism. As one proponent of the Oneness Pentecostal position likes to put it, "Like peas in a pod, so are the gods in their squad". They teach that the doctrine of the Trinity says that there are THREE Gods. This is not at all what the Trinity means. Trinitarians maintain the words, "Hear, O Israel! The LORD our God, the LORD is One". One in what sense? If we hold to a strictly numerical definition we run smack up against the issues raised above concerning what the balance of the Word says about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If we hold that "One" means oneness in purpose and substance, but Three in "Person" (we will discuss the meaning of this word in a later article) we avoid such conflict. As Hank Hanegraaff, president of the Christian Research Institute and host of "The Bible Answer Man" radio program puts it, "One what? God. Three who? Persons". This will be examined more thoroughly in the articles on the Father and the Son.
In this introduction we will attempt to lay build a framework into which the succeeding parts of this series will fit to give you a good picture of the teaching of the panoply if Scripture on this subject. Below is a brief Bible study that will help long those lines, demonstrating that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are all referred to as "God" (with all the attributes inherent in that term) and yet are shown to be distinct from One Another.
Introduction To The Trinity Bible Study
End Notes
Note 1:
Scripture: Genesis 1:1-2 "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth..."
This is one of the places when it is necessary to deal with language a little. The word translated into English as "God" in Hebrew is "Elohim". It is the plural form of the root word "El". The entire Trinity took part in the Creation. Notice in verse 2 that the Holy Spirit is involved and we are told in John 1 that the Son was the One Who created all things. In Colossians 1 we are told that it was the will of the Father that creation happen. Thus we see that the entire Godhead (Elohim) was involved in creation
Note 2:
Scripture: John 1:1-3 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made."
This is a scripture that the causes the cults a lot of problems. The Jehovah's Witnesses' "New World Translation" changes verse 1 to read "...the Word was a god", as in one of many. We won't attempt to go into the corrupt origins of the NWT here, but the justification that is used is a lack of the definite article "the" in the original Greek. Therefore, they say, it should be translated with the indefinite article "a". They also point out that the word translated "God" in the first part of the verse is not the same word used to describe "the Word". Both of these points result from poor knowledge of proper transliteration from Greek to English. We go into more depth on these verses in the article "The Eternal Son" which follows.
For an even more detailed explanation on this, please see the article we have included titled "Understanding the Greek of John 1:1" which we prepared from a USENET post by Corey Keating of "Ministry of the Word Homepage".
Note 3: An excellent additional resource on this subject is the works of Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. Three of his works on the Trinity and the scriptural support for the Doctrine are available here.
The next article in this series is entitled "The Eternal Son".