Understanding the Trinity can feel like a maze, but we’re here to untangle it together. The core message of this episode is that God desires an intimate relationship with us, and the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is central to that understanding. Many folks think the Trinity is just a mystery we can't grasp, but we argue that it’s actually quite accessible when we dig into Scripture. We’ll break down who the members of the Trinity are, highlighting their distinct roles and the shared attributes that make them one God. By the end, you'll see that grasping the Trinity isn't just a theological exercise; it's about deepening our personal walk with God and clarifying misconceptions that often lead to confusion.

Takeaways:

• Understanding the Trinity is essential for deepening our personal relationship with God, as He desires us to know Him intimately.
• Many misconceptions about the Trinity arise from inadequate knowledge of the Bible's teachings, which aim to clarify who God is.
• The term Trinity may not appear in the Bible, but the concept is thoroughly supported by Scripture, illustrating God's nature as three persons in one.
• Recognizing the distinct roles of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit helps in understanding their unified work in salvation and our lives today.
• Misunderstandings about the Trinity can lead to false beliefs in other religions, emphasizing the importance of a correct theological foundation.
• The historical context of the term Trinity, introduced by Tertullian, shows its significance in defining God's unique essence as one substance in three persons.

Links referenced in this episode:

• www.bible805.com
• www.bible805academy.com

Welcome to the Bible 805 podcast.

God wants us to know him and the Bible is one of the ways he's communicated everything we need for our salvation and a closer, more personal walk with him now and forever.

In this podcast, which comes out every Wednesday morning with supporting materials published by Friday each week on www.bible805.com I take sometimes difficult sounding Bible topics and them easy to understand and apply. At least that's what my students tell me. See for yourself as we get started on our topic today, which is this.

Lesson is Part one, the Persons of the Trinity it's from our series that it's not hard to understand the Trinity when you understand what the Bible has to say about it.

Here's the challenge of understanding the Trinity Many people believe that the idea of the Trinity is one of the most difficult to understand in the Christian faith, and I very much disagree. God does not intentionally confuse us as to who he is. He desires an intimate, interactive relationship with us.

He created us in his image so he could communicate with us. He walked with his new creation in the Garden of Eden.

When humanity intentionally broke the intimate relationship that they had, God immediately set in place a plan to bring people back into fellowship with Himself. That plan culminated in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus that once again made possible an intimate relationship with God.

With that foundational reality, why do we have the problems in understanding who our God is? The challenge to understand the Trinity is the same challenge of understanding everything else about our faith.

We need to look at what God's Word says about it, which I'll help you do. So you won't simply accept statements about the Trinity that go along the lines of something like this. Oh, it's just a mystery we can't understand.

Many hear that and quit there. But we won't. We will look at God's Word and the passages that specifically deal with the Trinity.

A clear understanding of the Trinity isn't difficult when we simply look at the many, many verses that talk about it. The ones I'll share are not exhaustive on our topic of the Trinity, but representative as the whole Bible clearly teaches the reality of the Trinity.

And we will go into that in detail in lesson number three, part three of this series. But here's our overall plan for learning about the Trinity. Number one we're going to look at the persons of the Trinity.

I'm going to give you more of a little bit more of an introduction and then we will look at how the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are uncreated, co equal and eternal persons.

Next, Understanding The Trinity Part 2 the one substance of the Trinity this lesson will talk about the attributes or the characteristics shared by the members of the Trinity and what that means to us.

Understanding The Trinity Part 3 the Trinity throughout the Bible Here we'll look at the descriptions of the Trinity and the roles of each member in the Old and New Testaments.

Notes, videos, podcast charts and all the associated resource links that you need are available on www.bible805.com and if you would like to teach the lesson, the source materials to do that also on the Trinity and many other topics are all free editable and you don't need to attribute them to either me or Bible805.

All of that's available at thebible805, academy.com now why we need to Understand the Trinity first, an understanding of the Trinity is important to our personal faith, our relationship with God. One of the most frustrating things in any relationship is if we feel that the person we love doesn't understand us.

God loves us and wants us to understand him and he's gone to great lengths to make that possible. Again, God's given us creation, His Word and Jesus. God incarnate God made flesh so we can understand Him.

We are made in his image for a relationship with Him. So many problems of life are because we don't know our God and we have false ideas about Him. This series of lessons hopes to change that.

Second, we need to understand what is false in other religions. A proper view of the Trinity is one of the key differences between Christianity and non Christian religions such as Islam.

It is also a key difference between the cults that are distorted interpretations of the Christian faith such as the Mormon religion and Jehovah Witnesses.

Both of these mentioned and other cults and false religions have distorted and incorrect views of the Trinity based on teachings totally in disagreement with what the Bible teaches in place of the Christian Trinity. Other religions and cults believe in a primary God, an overall Father, and none of them doubt or deny that Jesus or the Holy Spirit exists.

But they do not believe Jesus is God or that the Holy Spirit is God and a part of the Eternal Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

They say Jesus is either a lesser God or a created part of the Godhead, such as the Mormons do, or that he's simply a revered prophet as the Muslims believe very wise perhaps, but totally human.

Other religions views of the Holy Spirit are that he's lesser than God, lesser than God the Father, and they define the Holy Spirit more as a force rather than a person. None of these opinions agree with what the Bible says about Jesus or the Holy Spirit.

As you'll see, the problem with understanding the Trinity though isn't only with other religions. Because most Christians don't understand the Trinity, which is why it's hard for them to spot problems with other religions views of it.

In addition, because most Christians don't understand it, they fall back on some version of saying oh it's too hard or it's just a mystery, or some other theologically confusing but spiritual sounding terms. Or they accept what is basically a heretical view of it without thinking.

And here is one of the most common examples of wrong thinking about the Trinity. It is popular to say that the Trinity is one substance like water.

And then the analogy goes on to say that it can also be three substances in how it can move through the forms of ice, liquid and steam. Though well meaning, this is actually the heresy of modalism. The true Trinity is nothing like this.

As you'll see, this and similar analogies are not truly useful, not only because they're incorrect, but they can lead to false beliefs. And an example of this false teaching is that the water view leads to what's called oneness theology, which is incorrect, which is false.

But it is a belief held by the United Pentecostal and United Apostolic Churches where they believe that the Father becomes the Son and then the Son becomes the Holy Spirit, that the Father was the representation of God in the Old Testament, the Son in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit today.

But it makes no sense when you think about the many times in the Bible, again going back to the Bible, where the members of the Trinity are talked about in the same place and the same time as in the following example, and this is the primary one modalism, oneness, pentecostalism, water, ice, etc. Is easily disproved with the baptism of Jesus.

In Matthew 3:16, 17 it says, When Jesus was baptized immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were open to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him. And behold, a voice from heaven said, this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.

The Father, Spirit and Son didn't transform into each other.

Instead, very clearly all three members of the Trinity are at the baptism of Jesus at the same time with the Father speaking, the Spirit descending like a dove to empower Jesus for ministry and Jesus being baptized. All members of the Trinity are united in the initiation of Jesus earthly ministry and prefigure their roles in it.

The New Testament continues with many references to both the separate and united work of God the Father, God the Son, Jesus Christ and God the Holy Spirit acting as individual entities as does the Old Testament. Again, you'll see this much more clearly in lesson three of this series on the Trinity.

In summary, modalism falls apart when you look at what the Bible says about our triune three in one God, as shown in the example of Jesus baptism where all three persons of the Trinity were simultaneously present at the event. As with other incorrect views of the Trinity, also you see what's false by looking at what the Bible clearly describes and states.

That's why our focus will be on Bible passages in this lesson. We won't go into the terms and definitions of various heresies about the Bible. I mean about the Trinity and there are a lot of them in these lessons.

Because though all these different docetism and this and that and the other, there's all kinds of fancy terms, though they may be useful to memorize in seminary. Rather than discussing them, we're going to use the oft repeated illustration of how to spot counterfeit currency to guide our studies.

Where they say you don't study all the varieties of counterfeit currency to spot it. You study the real thing, real money, real currency, and you know it so well that the genuine is obvious and the false clearly apparent.

That is what we will do in these lessons.

But first, an issue sometimes is brought up that we do need to address, and that is that the word Trinity is not in the Bible, nor is the word Bible in the Bible, nor is the word Christianity in the Bible. There are many words we use to properly explain biblical concepts that are not precisely in the Bible, but that are biblically correct.

Just as reading many Bible passages helps us identify what makes a Christian, so too looking at many passages in the Bible about the Trinity help us define it. To begin, let's look back in history at the person who first used the term Trinity to describe our God. This person was Tertullian.

He lived from 155 to 220 A.D. and he was the first to clarify the true nature of the three persons of the Trinity. He was a Roman lawyer prior to becoming a Christian and leader in the Church.

As a result of his study and in response to what he believed or the false views of the Trinity in his day. He coined the term Trinity and he defined it in this way.

He said the Trinity was una substantia tres personae, meaning God is one substance, three persons.

I created a chart to illustrate this and I strongly encourage you to go on to the www bible805.com again www.bible805.com website and you can download a copy of this. But the chart shows up shows what makes up our one God.

After this overview, we will look at the two parts of the chart where I des one substance, where God is holy, just, merciful, love, truth, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, omnipotent, unchangeable and eternal. And then how all of these characteristics are equally shared between the three persons of the Trinity.

God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. I think this chart will really help you. It's helped many people visualize the difference between the one substance and and the three persons.

What we're going to begin with though is just that statement overall of one God made up of three persons. And we're going to.

As we begin our discussion of the three persons, which is what this whole lesson is about, I want to ask the question of why is the idea of a Trinity so hard to understand? Now think about it. Our world is filled with many trinities of three parts. Here are some. That's all Trinity means, just three parts. Here are some.

One musical trio, three separate players, one government, three branches, one board of directors with a president, vice president, secretary. All the common sense familiarity with trinities in other areas of life seem to just disappear when the overall label is God.

But when we talk about God, the term does not change its meaning. We have one overall entity with three separate distinct parts. One God, three persons.

Tertullian helped explain it in this way when again, going back to our chart, you see, you can have a trinity of anything that has similar characteristics or that works together in some way. A group of three chairs, a government with three parts trio, a group of three people singing together.

But and here's what Tertullian really emphasized.

What makes the Trinity that makes up our God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit is that it is unique in its substantia, its substance, the attributes of it. Not just that it has three parts.

Only the Trinity of our God has the substance, the attributes, the characteristics of omnipotence, omnipresence, total truth and justice, immutability, etc. And that one substance, those attributes are shared equally and eternally by each member of the Trinity.

That's what makes the Trinity of our God unique. And I sometimes wonder if having a hard time understanding the Trinity has actually little to do with God and much more to do with us.

What I mean is we find it inconceivable that any two, let alone any three persons, ourselves included, could get along, could be in perfect union, love and how we act towards each other for five minutes, let alone from all eternity.

That's where Tertillian, who did have a reputation for being kind of difficult, understood so well the uniqueness of the characteristics of the Trinity of God and how that sets him apart from us. Many scriptures point to this uniqueness of God.

One example, in Isaiah 55, God says, My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

We have thoughts, we have ways, but God's are so exponentially different than ours. It is this unique essence of who he is that makes him God. This una substantia, the one substance.

The characteristics all the members of the Trinity share deserves much more study, which we'll do in part two of this series. But first let's dig in. Let's dig deeper into the three persons of the Trinity, because this tends to be much harder to understand.

And it's where many religions and cults go wrong, especially with the Holy Spirit, where He is incorrectly viewed simply as a force, not a person. Let's look now at a correct view of Him.

First we'll define what it means to be a person, and then we'll see how this definition applies to the members of the Trinity. Here's the definition of a person, a persisting entity that has those qualities of personal relations, intellect, emotions and will.

Again, personal relations, intellect, emotions and will that confer distinct individuality and that we will discuss and demonstrate with each person, the Trinity shortly. But before that, we need to be clear.

Not only are we going to look at what these characteristics of a person are, but we need to be very clear what a person is not. A person is not a force, an influence, a solar object, or a myth, or some sort of divinity like that, or God, as it is in other religions.

Just, you know, well, even Star Wars. May the force be with you. Not that at all. Or in theology, it's not just modes of existence.

Super important to understand though, in talking about personhood. Personhood is more than form. A person can be corporeal or incorporeal. That Means having or not having a body.

This is very important to understand because the Father and Holy Spirit are not corporeal. They do not have bodies, but are clearly defined as persons by the characteristics we just talked about.

Now to help you understand this, think about it. It's not that weird or different or whatever.

Think about who you are, your personhood, the real you, the real us, the eternal me inside me that's not dependent on our bodies. You're the same person you were in the body that you had in high school, but your body's very, very different now.

When you leave your body upon your death and go to be with Jesus, you will still be you though you won't have that same old body. You don't need the body to be a person and neither does God.

But you do need the qualities that we just mentioned of personal relationship, intellect, emotions and will. Now these are the things that confer persisting entity and let me define them a little bit better.

Personal relations, that's the ability to interact with others, intellect, the ability to form independent thoughts and to be aware of those thoughts, emotions, the opposite of what's called no affect as in deism or some God that's just kind of this emotional force or nirvana or this unfeeling entity. No, no, no. To really be a person you've got to have emotions, specifically experiencing emotions of love, hate, sadness, joy, persons.

To be a person you have to feel will, volition, self generated, ability to act. We as persons made in the image of God have all these qualities.

And having these attributes is how the members of the Trinity are clearly portrayed in the Bible. You may not have noticed this before, so let's look at it now that we could do this.

I have to admit though, before I get into it, was kind of surprising to me. When I years ago first started studying the Trinity, I thought of Jesus as a person, but that the Father and the Holy Spirit are also persons.

I didn't understand that.

But let's look at how understanding changed for me by simply looking at the verses that clearly identify the characteristics of personhood mentioned by the previous criteria of personal relationships, intellect, emotions and will. For each member of the Trinity, I'm going to list the characteristic and then quote verses in the Bible that clearly describe it. Now notes on this.

Like so many questions of confusion we have over simply complex issues to find out the answers. And I didn't know the answers till I really started looking this up. We simply need to carefully read and study God's Word. The answers are there.

If you have questions, break down the topics, look at what the Bible says. It will become clear for you when you do this, and I pray that it will.

Before I begin going through these different characteristics, let me just say that I will not be giving you the complete citation the verses verbally because just listening to the podcast, that would get a little bit confusing.

Please look at the transcript or the lesson notes on Bible 805 and you will get the exact reference for all of the verses that I'm going to quote for you. Okay, first of all, how the Father engages in personal relationships.

The book of John says the Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. Matthew tells us on his intellect, don't be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him. Emotions.

In Psalms it says, but you, O Lord, are a God of compassion and mercy, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness. And Matthew again says, regarding God's will, for whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.

Before we go on, stop and think about it a minute. When you read verses like these that God the Father loves, gives, gets angry, is merciful.

So many verses describe the feeling, emotions, the interactions of God. There's not some unfeeling cloud of unknowing in the sky described in these ways, but a person. Far more than us, but still a person.

You are made in his image. Again, he is so much more than you, but not less in terms of reaction, feelings, being moved by what we do as his beloved children.

Now then, God the Son, the Son engages in personal relations with God and the Father. The book of John tells us Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and prayed. Father, I'm grateful that you've listened to me. I know you always do listen.

But on account of this crowd standing here, I've spoken so they might believe you sent me. John continues by telling us about Jesus intellect. But Jesus didn't trust him because he knew all about people.

No one needed to tell him about human nature, for he knew what was in each person's heart. And then in Matthew, and this is the message translation, it talks about his emotions.

He taught in their meeting places, reported kingdom news, healed their diseased bodies, healed their bruised and hurt lives. When he looked out over the crowds, his heart broke.

And of course that very wonderful verse in John 11, well, I guess it's wonderful in the knowing Jesus feels in this way, but very sad situation where it says Jesus wept. And then in John 13, having loved his own that were in the world. He loved them until the end.

And then about Jesus Will, where he says, father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. And then God, the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit engages in personal relations.

In Acts, it tells us the Holy Spirit said to Philip, go over and walk along beside that carriage intellect. Romans says, and the Father, who knows all hearts, knows what the Spirit is saying.

For the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God's own will emotions. But they rebelled against him and grieved His Holy Spirit. So he became their enemy and fought against them.

And then in Ephesians, and do not bring sorrow to God's Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember he's identified you as his own, guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption. Think about what I just shared with you.

We can make the Holy Spirit sad. He emotionally reacts to our behavior, as do many similar verses, as do the other members of the Godhead.

Because we have similar verses about God the Father and Jesus reactions to our sins, we aren't simply breaking the rules of an unfeeling force. When we sin, we are deeply grieving a person and Then will. In First Corinthians 12, it is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts.

He alone decides which gift each person should have.

So far we've seen how all three members of the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, are distinct persons having the characteristics of personhood.

Yet their personhood is unique because though we share many of the same characteristics of personhood as the Trinity, they are distinct from us in that all three persons of the Trinity also share the characteristic that all three persons are God. This is so important because cults and other religions do not see all three as God equally, particularly in regards to the Son and the Holy Spirit.

But the Scriptures are clear that all three are God. As these verses show, the Father is God. The Father is explicitly called God in these verses.

And I'll be reading out of John, Romans, Galatians, and Peter do not work for the food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give you for on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval to all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul, an apostle not sent from men, nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead to God's elect exiles who've been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Christ Jesus. And then Jesus, God the Son is God. The verses that I'll be reading here come from Titus, Hebrews, Exodus, John and Colossians.

So first of all, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. But to the Son, he says, forever your throne, O God, is forever and ever.

And in this next little section in Exodus, remember God said to Moses, I am who I am, God, referring to himself as God. But then Jesus and John says to the Pharisees, most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was I am now. A little extra note here.

The Pharisees at that point took up stones to stone him, and they were doing exactly what they should have done. They understood what he said, they just didn't believe him.

They understood that he claimed to be God, and so they did the appropriate thing that they were supposed to do. Of course, Jesus slipped out of their midst and nothing happened to him because he is God.

But then, moving on, along with one other verse in Colossians where it says, for by him all things were created that are in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created through him and for Him. In addition, he forgave sins healed, raised from the dead, actions only God could do. And he accepted worship as God. The Holy Spirit is God.

The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of God throughout the Bible.

Let's start in Genesis, where it says, the earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. The Holy Spirit possesses attributes of deity, as shown in these verses. He's omnipresent. In Psalm 139, it says, where can I go from your spirit?

Or where can I flee from your presence? He's omniscient, as First Corinthians tells us, but God has revealed them to us through his Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things.

She asks, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the Spirit of the man which is in him. Even so, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.

The Spirit of God is eternal. This comes from Hebrews 9:14. I'm going to read the verse to you and then make a specific comment on it.

How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

Notice this verse referring to the Holy Spirit as the Eternal Spirit is a specific refutation of the idea that the Holy Spirit is a creator lesser come along who knows when part of the deity again. Here he is described as the Eternal Spirit. He was not created at a later time and then became God.

So far we've shown how the members of the Trinity are separate persons and all are God. Then as those separate persons, how do they relate to us in their interactions, particularly with humanity?

Each person of the Trinity has a different role, though they share the same characteristics. The theological term when discussing these roles is the economic Trinity.

The term economic in the term economic Trinity comes from the Greek word akoinomia, which means literally household management.

It is the term that describes the different roles that the members of the Trinity have, the different parts they play while all working towards the same goals. We see this illustrated in different ways throughout the Bible. Here's how it works in our salvation.

God the Father initiates sins, for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. God the Son accomplishes the work of salvation. He, Jesus is the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

God the Holy Spirit regenerates and renews us according to his mercy. He saved us by the worship of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit.

And they do each of their roles and tasks together in perfect love and harmony, deferring to one another when appropriate, communicating with each other, working to glorify each other. All examples of how we should work together.

This Lesson in Review in summary, the doctrine of the Trinity is not a mysterious hidden teaching, but one clearly taught throughout the Bible. And again, I'll talk about that more in lesson three.

In this lesson we saw how the members of the Trinity are persons uncreated, eternally and equally coexisting.

I have a chart that is in the handouts that not only emphasizes this, but shows in contrast how different views of God becoming different parts and being different parts and all of that are wrong. And you can look at that in the handouts.

Next we're going to look at understanding The Trinity, Part 2, the one substance of the Trinity, where we look at the attributes shared by the members of the Trinity and what each one of them means to us. And then, as I mentioned numerous times in this lesson, you've probably gotten tired of hearing about it.

But in lesson three, we'll talk about the Trinity throughout the Bible, which it really is an interesting one. And we'll look at the descriptions of the Trinity and the roles of each member in the Old and the New Testaments.

One more thing, back to the opening consideration, where I wonder if our questions about the Trinity aren't so much about the Trinity as about us.

What I mean by this is that from all eternity the three members, the persons of the Trinity, have existed in perfect love, unity, oneness of purpose, in peace, joy and delight with one another. In other words, it's very hard for us to imagine that kind of love and perfect interaction. And so we dismiss the reality of the Trinity.

And that's sad, because the truly extraordinary reality is that we are invited into that relationship of perfect love, not where we lose our individual personalities, but to participate in becoming all we were created to be in fellowship with our God, not only for after we die, but Jesus prayed for us and our relationships with each other in one of his last earthly prayers, where he said, I'm praying not only for these disciples, the ones around them, but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one, as you are in me, Father, and I am in you.

And may they be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me.

Jesus was praying for us that you and me and that as we work to grow in unity and love with fellow believers in our God, and as we observe that, that the world will want to join us.

A final reminder about the Trinity I pray that this study of the Trinity hasn't merely been a theological exercise, but an opportunity to get to know our God better. In closing, consider this trinitarian benediction from the Apostle Paul.

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Because our God, the Trinity of three persons existing from all eternity, have shared grace, love and fellowship among themselves, they now want to pour it out on us and invite us and our world into it. That's the essence of the Trinity. Now, that's not so hard to understand, is it?

That's all for now.

Please check out the show notes, a complete downloadable transcript, graph expansion and related materials at www.bible805.com until next time, I'm Yvonne Prin, your fellow pilgrim, writer and teacher for Jesus, and I'd like to close with this benediction.

May you know the invitation of God to move from confusion to clarity, from wandering to rest, from loneliness to knowing you are loved, from turmoil to peace from wherever you are in your spiritual journey to a growing knowledge of God's word and in your personal relationship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.