The Trinity

The key issues that had to be thrashed out were essentially the same ones that the church of the third to the sixth centuries resolved. These questions revolved around the tensions between the biblical revelation that seemed to point to God's profound oneness (the Unitarian evidence) and those passages that strongly pointed to a plurality of divine Persons in the Godhead (the Trinitarian texts).

More specifically, the central issues revolved around two key questions: (1) Is the deity of Jesus Christ just as fully divine in substance and nature as is the deity of the Father? and (2) Is the Holy Spirit also fully divine and genuinely personal—just as divine and just as much a person as are the Father and the Son? By the middle of the twentieth century, Seventh-day Adventists had reached the same consensus on these issues as had the church of the fourth century: that there is "one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit," who have manifested them selves as a "unity of three co-eternal Persons." When it comes to confessing that all Three possess divine characteristics of immortality, omnipotence, omniscience, and eternal existence, what can be said about the substance of the Father's divine nature can also be said about the Son and the Spirit.

While incomprehensible to the unaided human mind, the triune God can be "known through His self-revelation"! And it is the steady conviction of Seventh-day Adventists that the key revelation of God has come through Jesus Christ, the Infinite Son of God and Second Person of the Holy Trinity. The key work of the Holy Spirit has been to proceed forth from both the Father and the Son to draw attention to the Son. And in uplifting the Son, the Father is revealed and glorified.

Historically, there have been two basic types of objections to the Triune understanding of the Godhead: (1) scriptural and (2) logical. The main temptations in meeting these objections has been to gravitate to either Unitarian or tri-theistic solutions. We are persuaded that neither Scripture nor logic will sustain either the Unitarian or tri-theistic interpretations. If sufficient evidence can be adduced from the Scriptural testimony to support the full deity of both the Son and the Spirit, then we will have taken giant steps toward a Trinitarian interpretation of the evidence.

We will present some of the most appealing biblical evidence when we discuss the Son and the Holy Spirit in succeeding articles. But at this juncture we will present more general biblical evidence for the Trinitarian oneness of the Godhead. Then we will address the logical objection to the Trinity.

Old Testament evidence

One of the passages that is most often cited in support of Unitarian interpretations of the Godhead is Deuteronomy 6:4. This great passage, known as the "Holy Shema," forthrightly pro claims the oneness of God: "Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is one" (NASB).

A superficial reading of this text could point toward unitarianism, but when the meaning of the Hebrew word that is translated "one" ('echad) is explored in depth (and compared with the word yachid), the results are revealing. 'Echad actually means "'one (among others),' the emphasis being on a particular one.... The possibility of there being others is inherent in 'echad, but yachid precludes that possibility."⁴

The difference between 'echad and yachid can be further explained: 'echad refers to the oneness that results from a unity of numerous persons, while yachid is used in Hebrew to refer to an exclusively unitary being. In contrast to 'echad, yachid "means 'one' in the sense of 'only/ or 'alone.'"⁵ Moses, therefore, chose to employ the word 'echad to express the idea of one among others in a joined or shared oneness.

This use of 'echad is neatly illustrated by the way Moses employed it to describe the marriage union: "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one ['echad] flesh" (Gen. 2:24, NKJV, emphasis supplied). Here we have a plurality of two persons who enter into a deep plural oneness—a most appro priate illustration of the infinite oneness of the plural Godhead.

Other suggestions of this "oneness" are hinted at in Genesis. Genesis 1:26 reports the Creator God as saying, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness" (NKJV, emphasis sup plied). The passage has God speaking of Himself with plural references. Furthermore, when God did create humanity in "Our" image, He established a plurality of two individuals, distinct from each other, yet capable of becoming "one" (Gen. 2:24). These verses strongly portray the historical fact that the plurality of oneness involves the image of God.

Yet there is further evidence in the Genesis record and in Isaiah that hints at God's inherent plurality: (1) Referring to the sin of Adam and Eve, "the Lord God said, 'Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil'" (Gen. 3:22, NKJV, emphasis supplied). (2) In the story of the great sin of the people at the Tower of Babel, God said, "Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language" (Gen. 11:7, emphasis supplied). (3) Isaiah 6 records a remarkable vision in which the prophet saw "the Lord sit ting on a throne, high and lifted up" (verse 1). During this experience, Isaiah reports hearing "the voice of the Lord, saying: 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?'" (verse 8, NKJV, emphasis supplied).

While none of these examples are coercive, their cumulative force provides interesting evidence from the Old Testament for the plurality of persons within the Godhead. The evidence, however, from the New Testament is more compelling.

New Testament evidence

The most often cited passage is in Matthew 28:19: "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (NKJV).

Please note that the text declares the Three Members of the Godhead to have a "name" (singular, not plural), strongly suggesting that They are One in personal character and nature.

This verse, along with 2 Corinthians 13:14, offers a striking insight to the life of the early apostolic church. These two passages present the apostolic greetings and Christ's own formula for the rite of initiation (baptism) into the family of God in triune ways. Both suggest the unity of the Three great Persons operative in redemption and the life of the church.

The final evidence of the unity of the Godhead arises out of the presence of the Three at the baptism of Jesus: "When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, 'This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased'" (Matt. 3:16, 17, NKJV).

Thus, Jesus formally begins His public ministry of redemption, all Three Members of the Heavenly Trio are present. The newly baptized Jesus comes out of the Jordan, the Spirit descends on Him like a dove, and the Father audibly speaks words of divine approval and identity from heaven. This scene power fully portrays the oneness of purpose shared by the Godhead. Furthermore, it clearly evidences the distinctness of each divine being. Matthew does not present the Spirit and the Son as different manifestations or personifications of the Father, but as distinct personalities in concert with the Father even while They give every appearance of oneness in purpose and character as They focus on the redemptive mission of the Son.

Logical objections to the Trinity

To many non-Trinitarians the concept of one equaling three seems illogical. Millard Erickson has cogently suggested that Trinitarians need to give a coherent answer to how we can logically conceive three as one.

Erickson suggests that the real-life, practical world would not tolerate such fuzzy, "three = one" math. If I went to the grocery store and took three loaves of bread to the checkout counter and tried to persuade the clerk that they were really one and all that we have to pay for is one, the clerk might quickly call for store security.⁶

Thus Trinitarians must give some reasonably coherent account to explain how one is three and three is one in the life of the Godhead. The question is this: What is it about the nature of the triune Godhead that makes the alleged persons called Father, Son, and Holy Spirit "one"?

The first response to the logic of Trinitarian thought is to admit that we are dealing with a profound mystery.

While we readily believe the Bible when it says that Adam and Eve became "one" and were yet two, we have yet to fully fathom the ways of any man with any maiden (Prov. 30:19). Yet in loving relationships, there does develop a profound oneness. Are such relationships, therefore, illogical and incoherent?

Erickson points the way to a credible solution: "We therefore propose thinking of the Trinity as a society of persons, who, however, are one being. While this society of persons has dimensions to its inter-relationships that we do not find among humans, there are some illuminating parallels. Love is the bind ing relationship within the Godhead that unites each of the persons with each of the others."⁷

It comes as no surprise to Seventh-day Adventists that Erickson then appeals directly to 1 John 4:8,16: "God is love." Do we truly comprehend the depths of this inspired statement, so disarming in its seeming simplicity? We would suggest that these three words have a profound contribution to make to our understanding of a God who has eternally preexisted in a state of Trinitarian "oneness."

Once more we resonate with the suggestively intriguing comments of Erickson: "The statement . . . 'God is love/ is not a definition of God, nor is it merely a statement of one attribute among others. It is a very basic characterization of God."⁸

For Seventh-day Adventists the key question about God has ultimate reference to the issue of His love. And if God is not love in the very core of His being, then any questions about His nature quickly descend to a state of biblical irrelevance. We, however, sense that love is the most basic characterization of God. If God is truly—in His essence—the God of love (John 3:16 and 1 John 4:8), then consider the following:

Could One who has existed from all eternity past and who made us in His loving image—could this God truly be called love if He existed only as a solitary being? Is not love, especially divine love, possible only if the One who made our universe was a plural being who was exercising love within His divine plurality from all eternity past? Is not real, selfless love possible only if it proceeds from the kind of God who, by nature, was and is and shall eternally be a God of love? Is the Creator God, who is called love, in any way finally dependent upon His created beings to reveal and demonstrate His love?

Instead, God is a Trinity of love, and this love has found its most moving rev elation in the creative work, incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of the fully divine Son of God. In the unique God/Man, love has been fully demonstrated, and the Godhead will be fully and finally vindicated as the only Power that can govern the universe.

Seventh-day Adventists believe that the great issues of sin, salvation, and God's fitness to govern can be fully vindicated only through the unfolding revelation of Triune love.

God's Trinitarian oneness, in the finale, is not illogical but is the source of the only logic that makes any ultimate sense—a love that is self-sacrificing, mutually submissive, and eternally out ward flowing in the graces of creative and redemptive power.

More on this topic in March . . .