How Does the Bible Teach Us That God Is a Trinity?

by R.C. Sproul
| Time: 13 Minutes

How Does the Bible Teach Us That God Is a Trinity?

Below you will find chapter two of R.C. Sproul’s book, What Is the Trinity?. Why have we shared it with you? Well, we want you to see that the idea that God is the Trinity is a concept that the Bible itself teaches, although the term “trinity” does not appear in the Bible. This article will give you a brief overview of the biblical witness to the Trinity, including specific passages that hint at this reality and explicitly teach the triune nature of God in both the Old and New Testament. Here’s R.C. Sproul’s helpful reflection on the subject:

The Biblical Witness

One of the key issues the ancient Greek philosophers tried to resolve was the problem of “the one and the many.” Much of early Greek philosophy was dedicated to this difficulty. How, the philosophers wondered, can we make sense out of so many diverse things that are part of our experience? Do we live in a universe that is ultimately coherent or ultimately chaotic? Science, for example, assumes that in order for us to have knowledge, there has to be coherence, some kind of order to things. So, our enterprise of scientific investigation presupposes what Carl Sagan called “cosmos,” not chaos. This means that there must be something that gives unity to all of the diversity that we experience in the universe. In fact, the very word universe combines the concepts of unity and diversity—it describes a place of great diversity that nevertheless has unity.

The Greek philosophers sought to find the source of both unity and diversity in a coherent way. In my opinion, they never succeeded. But in the Christian faith, all diversity finds its ultimate unity in God himself, and it is significant that even in God’s own being we find both unity and diversity—in fact, in him we find the ultimate ground for unity and diversity. In him we find one being in three persons.

Unlike the Greeks, we have a source of authority for our beliefs in this sphere—the Scriptures. In this chapter, I want to give a brief overview of the biblical teaching on the Trinity, beginning with the Old Testament and, following the pattern of unfolding revelation, concluding with the New Testament.

Scattered Hints in the Old Testament

Even though we cannot find an explicit definition of the Trinity in the Old Testament, we do find scattered hints there about God’s triune nature. We touched on one of those hints in chapter one—the name of God that appears in plural form, Elohim. The critics see the use of that name as an indication of a crass form of polytheism. Others, however, have seen in that plural name, particularly since it is accompanied by a singular verb, a cryptic reference to the plural character of God.

I do not think the name Elohim necessarily points to the Trinity. It could simply be a literary form similar to what we call the editorial plural or the editorial “we,” which a writer or speaker uses to communicate a point. This device is often used by dignitaries; a king, a pope, or another person in high office prefaces his or her comments by saying, “We decree” or “We declare,” even though the person is speaking only for himself or herself. More specifically, there is a Hebrew literary device called the plural of intensity, which calls attention to the depth of the character of God, in whom resides all elements of deity and majesty. So, I believe that the name Elohim is compatible with the doctrine of the Trinity and may be hinting in that direction, but the name itself does not demand that we infer that God is triune in his nature.

There are other significant hints about the Trinity in the Old Testament. It is also in the creation account that we first encounter the Spirit of God (Genesis 1:2). By bringing something out of nothing, the Spirit meets one of the criteria for deity that are set forth in the New Testament. That is another hint as to the multipersonal character of God early on in the Scriptures.

Another is found in the Old Testament passage that is quoted in the New Testament more often than any other text—Psalm 110. This psalm has a very strange beginning. The psalmist says, “The Lord says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool’” (Psalm 110:1 ESV). Characteristically, when we see the personal name of God, Yahweh, in the Old Testament, we also see his chief or supreme title, Adonai, associated with it. For instance, Psalm 8 says, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (Psalm 8:1 ESV). In the Hebrew, “O Lord, our Lord” reads “O Yahweh, our Adonai”; there is a clear connection between Yahweh and Adonai. In Psalm 110, however, God is having a conversation with David’s Lord: “The Lord[Yahweh] says to my Lord [Adonai]: Sit at my right hand…” The New Testament picks up on this and talks about Jesus simultaneously being David’s son and David’s Lord. This psalm also provides another hint to the multiple dimensions of the being of God when it declares that God’s Son will be a priest forever, an eternal priest after the order of Melchizedek (Psalm 110:4).

Monotheism Assumed in the New Testament

When we come to the New Testament, we find that the concepts of monotheism that are so firmly established in the Old Testament are not only assumed, they are repeated again and again. Let me mention a couple of examples.

Acts 17 records the apostle Paul’s address to the philosophers at the Areopagus in the ancient Greek city of Athens. We read: “So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: ‘Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, “To the unknown god”’” (Acts 17:22-23 ESV). When Paul came to Athens, he noticed that the city was given over to idolatry. He passed by numerous temples and saw religious activity everywhere. He even noticed, as if the Greeks were afraid they might leave one deity out, that they had an altar with this inscription: “To the unknown god.” As he saw all this, his spirit was moved within him (Acts 17:16); in other words, he was troubled about the abundance of false religion.

One of the most striking things that I encountered during my graduate work in the 1960s was the evidence that was emerging from the work of theological anthropologists and sociologists who were examining the religious views of various primitive tribes in the world. They were finding that while animism was outwardly prevalent in those cultures, the people frequently spoke about a god on the other side of the mountain or a god who was distantly removed from them. In other words, they had a concept of a high god who was not at the center of their daily religious practices. This god was like the unknown god of the Greeks, a god with whom they were not in contact but who nevertheless was there.

This concept conforms to Paul’s declaration in Romans 1 that the God of all the universe has manifested himself to everyone (Romans 1:18-20). That means that every human being knows of the existence of the Most High God, but the sinful character of humanity is such that all of us repress and bury that knowledge, and choose idols instead. That is why we are all held guilty before God.

Paul picked up on the Greeks’ altar to the unknown god and said:

“What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” (Acts 17:23-31 ESV)

Here Paul affirms the bedrock tenets of classical Jewish monotheism—one God who made all things and from whom everything derives.

Indications of God’s Tri-Unity

In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul again affirms the oneness of God, but he brings in a new element. In the midst of a discussion of the issue of eating food items that had been offered to idols, a pastoral problem that came up in the Corinthian church, Paul says:

Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”—yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. (1 Corinthians 8:1-6 ESV)

The new element here is that Paul ascribes deity to Christ. He distinguishes between the Father and the Son, and he notes that all things are “from” the Father and “through” Christ, and that we exist “for” the Father and “through” the Son. Clearly, Paul is equating the Father and the Son in terms of their divinity.

There are many passages in the New Testament that ascribe deity to Christ and to the Holy Spirit, more than I could cite in this chapter or indeed in this entire booklet. Still, let me reference a few of these passages to make the point that this teaching is present in the New Testament and that it is not obscure.

In John’s gospel, Jesus makes a number of “I am” statements: “I am the bread of life” (John 6:48 ESV), “I am the door” (John 10:7 ESV), “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6 ESV), and others. In each of these statements, the wording in the Greek New Testament for “I am” is ego eimi. These Greek words also happen to be the words with which the essential name of God, Yahweh, is translated from the Hebrew. Jesus, then, by using this construction for himself, is equating himself with God.

There is another “I am” statement in John 8. Abraham was the great patriarch of Israel, the father of the faithful, who was deeply venerated by the Jewish community of Jesus’ day. Jesus told the Jewish leaders that Abraham had rejoiced to see his day (John 8:56). When the leaders asked how Jesus could possibly have seen Abraham, he replied, “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58 ESV). He did not say, “Before Abraham was, I was.” Rather, he said, “I am.” In doing so, he made a claim to eternality and deity. What many people miss in our day, the first-century contemporaries of Jesus caught rather quickly. They were filled with fury against Jesus because he, a mere man in their eyes, made himself equal with God.

John’s gospel also records the intriguing narrative of a post-resurrection appearance of Jesus. Some of his disciples had seen him when Thomas was absent. When Thomas heard about it, he said, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe” (John 20:25 ESV). In the midst of this skepticism, Jesus appeared to him and offered his hands and his side (John 20:27). John does not tell us whether Thomas ever actually probed Jesus’ wounds, but he does say Thomas fell on his knees and cried out, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28 ESV). That is significant. In the book of Acts, we are told that people on one occasion were so amazed by a miraculous healing that they wanted to worship Paul and Barnabas, but they rebuked the people immediately (Acts 14:11-15). Elsewhere in Scripture, when people see the manifestation of angels and begin to worship them, the angels prevent them, saying that they are not to be worshiped because they are creatures. But Jesus accepted Thomas’ worship without rebuke. He recognized Thomas’ confession as valid.

The Trinity Clearly Affirmed

The clearest reference to Jesus’ deity in the New Testament comes at the opening of John’s gospel. It reads, “In the beginning was the Word [that is, the Logos], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1 ESV). In that first sentence, we see the mystery of the Trinity, because the Logos is said to have been with God from the beginning. There are different terms in the Greek language that can be translated by the English word with, but the word that is used here suggests the closest possible relationship, virtually a face-to-face relationship. Nevertheless, John makes a distinction between the Logos and God. God and the Logos are together, but they are not the same.

Then John declares that the Logos not only was with God, he was God. So in one sense, the Word must be distinguished from God, and in another sense, the Word must be identified with God.

The apostle says more. He adds: “He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 2-4 ESV). Here we see eternality, creative power, and self-existence attributed to the Logos, who is Jesus.

The New Testament also states that the Holy Spirit is divine. We see this, for instance, in Jesus’ triune formula for baptism. By the command of Christ, people are to be baptized in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). Likewise, Paul’s closing benediction in his second letter to the Corinthians reads, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Corinthians 13:14 ESV). The apostles also speak of the Father, Son, and Spirit cooperating to redeem a people for Themselves (2 Thessalonians 2:13-14; 1 Peter 1:2).

In these and many other passages in the New Testament, the deity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is set forth explicitly or implicitly. When considered together with the Bible’s clear teaching as to the oneness of God, the only conclusion is that there is one God in three persons—the doctrine of the Trinity.

© Ligonier Ministries, Inc. This excerpt from What Is the Trinity? by R.C. Sproul is offered by special permission of Ligonier Ministries, the teaching fellowship founded by Dr. R.C. Sproul. To download additional free ebooks from Ligonier, visit Ligonier.org/freeCQ. All rights reserved.
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What Is the Trinity?
The Trinity is a name that we give to God, meaning tri (three) + unity (one), because of the Bible’s revelation that God is one being, but three persons. The Triune nature of God is a bedrock truth of the Bible, and what sets the God of the Bible apart from any other god. God being triune is what makes him personal, and what makes the story of the Bible so glorious.