The Bible Provocateur
The Bible Provocateur
LIVE DISCUSSION: One God, Three Persons
Ever wondered how Christians can confess one God while worshiping the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? We take a slow, careful walk through Scripture to show why the Bible leads us to a triune confession without turning God into parts or faces of a single person. With a pastor’s tone and a student’s humility, we map the clear boundaries: three divine persons, one indivisible essence, acting inseparably in creation, providence, and redemption.
We start by defining the Godhead and why equality of eternity and deity must be held for Father, Son, and Spirit. From there, we trace the distinct roles in salvation—election by the Father, redemption by the Son, regeneration by the Holy Spirit—showing how unity and distinction live together in the same gospel. Along the way, we address common pitfalls like modalism and the “Jesus only” movement, explaining why the Bible’s personal language for the Spirit and the Son rules out a single-person God who changes forms.
To anchor the conversation, we open key texts: Elohim in Genesis 1, “Let us make man,” the confusion at Babel, and the Shema in Deuteronomy 6, read carefully to show how God’s oneness does not erase the hints of plurality. We also talk about why terms like Trinity or triune can be useful even if they aren’t in the Bible, just as believers use words like “millennium” or “rapture” as shorthand for clear biblical ideas. Because no analogy can capture the uncreated God, we end by commending a posture of faith, repentance, and humility—receiving what God has revealed and refusing to force what he has not.
If this helped you see the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit with fresh clarity, follow the show, share this episode with a friend who’s wrestling with the Trinity, and leave a review telling us which passage most changed your perspective.
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The Trinity, you know, Trinity is one of those kind of things that so many people, so many people uh wrestle with. And understandably so. And it's also one of those things where so many people pretend to know more about it than they know. And likewise, there's so many people who pretend to know more about it than the scripture talks about. Um, but there are certain things about it, about the subject, that must be believed, and it and it and those things are easily discernible in the word of God. So I like talking about it, but then again, I like talking about the word of God all the time, and that's pretty much all I uh would prefer to talk about. Um because it's the the scriptures and and what God tells us in the scriptures are are um unchanging, solid, unmovable. And they um um uh you know they give us the ground of hope. So, nope, Bruce Moore, it's not sad. I'm happy with it. I love it. You know, you know, the world has so much that it it invests in only to die having no result. And uh, you know, so I don't get it with these people, but that's here nor there. But one of the things in starting out in this whole thing, I think that every Christian, I think every Christian starts off needing to believe that the word of God is true. All of it. Because it is, it's all true. If you're a believer, you know it's all true. If you're not a believer, you need to believe it's true, or you deal with the content contained inside once you find out, I mean, once you stand before the holy God. Now, when it comes to the Trinity, I think that it is safe to say, I'm in fact, I'm emphatic about this, that we understand that God has an incomprehensible nature. Incomprehensible. And even when it comes to God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, and them being one, there's a whole lot of ministry, a whole lot of, not I'm sorry, not ministry, there's a whole lot of mystery that is still contained in that. Still kind of contained in that. So what we have to understand is that there are aspects of God that he makes clear to us that we must believe is true, those things which have been made clear. And there are some aspects of God that he has not revealed that aren't necessarily for us to know, and we can't know until such time as we go to be with the Lord when this is all over and done. Now, the Trinity, the oneness, the oneness of God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost has always been a topic of hot debate. It always is. Now, for some reasons I can understand why, and there are others that I just don't understand why. However, it is necessary for us to grasp what has been revealed and to not dwell too much on what has not been revealed. Because what's been revealed is plenty for us to absorb. Excuse me. So the first thing that we under that we need to understand is that there is what we refer to as the Godhead. The Bible talks about the Godhead. What is the Godhead? The Godhead are the principles of God. And I mean principles, not like in terms of ideas or rules or guidelines or ethics. I'm talking about principles as in the those who are involved, the people, or not people, but the entities, if you will, involved. If you have a company, and the company has three or four partners, each one of those partners is a principle in that company. So the Godhead has three principles: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Those are the principles of the Godhead. And this is clear in Scripture whether or not you embrace Trinity or not. Whether you can get you embrace the idea of the unified Trinity that we call Trinity or Triunal. So we know those are the principles. So, fact number one, there are three principles in the Godhead: Father, Son, Holy Ghost. The next thing that must be believed is that they are equally eternal. They are equally eternal. This is absolutely essential because they are all part of, they are all God. So being God as such, all the attributes of God are annexed to them. So that right there are two elements that we must understand. They are they are equally God, equally eternal, and all involved in carrying out God's divine decree because they are all administers, the administrators, in terms of executing God's decree. And like someone said, it is government. It is government. And God Himself is the government. But in biblical terms, God's government is how he manages his creation, all of his creation. And he manages it, manages it through his providence. He uses events that take place in this world. He uses the will of man. He uses the will of angels. He uses the will of demons. He uses everything that takes place. He manages them to govern his creation. And he governs his creation providentially to bring about his eternal decree. And each principle in the Godhead has an involvement, has an administrative involvement in it. For example, we read in Scripture where God the Father, where God the Father, his role in salvation, we're talking about salvation now. I want to show you how the Godhead, the principles of the Godhead, all work in salvation. And how they all work together and in unity. God the Father, his role in our salvation is election. His sovereign election. I'm not going to go too much into that right now because I just wanted to lay it out. God the Father, election. God the Son, redemption. Sovereign and redemption. God the Holy Ghost, regeneration. So when it comes to salvation, when it comes to salvation, God the Father elects. God the Son redeems those who are elect. God the Holy Ghost redeems those who were redeemed and elected by God the Father and God the Son. That is the involvement of the principles of the Godhead in man's salvation. In his most basic terms. Now, when it comes to God's nature, and when I say God, we're referring to all the principles that make up God. Now, in the way I'm speaking, it already assumes that these three, God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are somehow all related to God. They have a connection to whatever we view as whatever we whatever the Bible conveys as God. But at the outset, I'm making a case for the Trinity or for the triunal nature of God. He is one and three. But they are all one. Now, there's a difference. There's a difference between triple or triplicate and triunal. God is not triple. He is not three. He is one. And that being said, He is a unified entity. God is a unified triunal entity. He is one comprised of three persons that comprise this Godhead. So this means that God is not made up of parts. Even though he is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, He is not made up of parts. He is not made up of parts. And so, therefore, if he is not made up of parts, that also means that he is indivisible. God is indivisible. What we refer to as God is an indivisible being having no parts. He is undivided. God has three is three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. However, he is indivisible, not comprised of parts, and he is undivided. So that being said, and we move on here, dealing with somebody here that got a bunch of crazy things to say. Um, so yeah, so now we have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost all operating in scriptures in the capacity of the divine. That means that when you read about the Father, there's no question that the Father does only what divinity can do. This is my voice, you got to live with it. Sorry. Get off or handle it. Now, when you read about the Son of God, when you read about the Son of God, you read about him, and you read him having divine attributes. Every reference to God the Father shows him working in the divine capacity. Whenever you read about the Son of God, you read his actions and his everything he's done in his life operating in the divine capacity. When you read about the Holy Spirit, everywhere in the New Testament, you see Christ, you see the Holy Spirit, Christ, and God the Father all working in divine capacities. Now I'm assuming that so far all of this makes sense to everybody who's a believer. When you isolate, like so many people do, anyway, and so few people are able to maintain multiple streams of biblical consciousness when they are trying to read the scriptures, but you have to be able to hold on to a lot of different things in order to fully grasp the truth. But if you isolate, and this is one area where isolating passages of scripture, this is one area where isolating passages of scripture can make a lot of sense. When you read what the Father does, you have no qu there's no question that he is operating in an officially divine capacity. He is not a normal, regular father, a human father. We know he is divine. When we see what Jesus himself does, and we see what he says, and we see the claims that he makes, he is speaking and acting as one who is divine. One who does and says only what God can say and do. The Holy Spirit is divine, and the Holy Spirit, like Christ, is personal. God the Father is personal, God the Son is personal. When you have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, as we are required to have, if we would have salvation, you have to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. But you cannot have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ without a personal relationship with God the Father. Likewise, you cannot have a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit without having a personal relationship with Him. Him. Sorry, no, you can't. So this is what we all have to understand. The Holy Spirit, for example, we are told that He is, He dwells within all of us. That He we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are the temple of the Holy Ghost. The church is the temple of the Holy Ghost. All of us who are believers, how can we possibly believe that the Holy Ghost is just simply a force, an effusion? How can we look at it that way and then understand that it is the Holy Spirit that leads us and guides us into all truth? That is something only an intelligent being can do. Make us understand the word of God, for example. The Holy Spirit is every bit God, as the Son is every bit God, and as the Father is every bit God. And yet, as I said, they are indivisible, they're undivided, and they are not comprised of parts. All the attributes that belong to God belong to the each of the principles of the Godhead. Omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, they all have the same attributes. Wherever God the Father is, the Son is also there. And wherever the Son and the Father are, the Holy Spirit is also there. Where are they? Everywhere. In all, all in all. Now, so that being said, it is admittedly true that us having finite minds, it is very difficult sometimes for us to be able to embrace the infinite and the eternal. But we deal with what the Lord has revealed to us and we believe what He has revealed. And God has to spoon feed us because we are basically, when it comes to us as creatures, we are still an infant. Mankind is still in his infancy. And we have yet to grasp fully all the aspects that God wants us to know and that he shall eventually reveal to us when our Lord and Savior returns. So it is okay not to fully understand all the aspects of the Godhead. Even though, as I said at the beginning of this conversation, that there are certain things that must be understood. Now, here's something else that we must believe, must be believed as a Christian, essential to our faith. And that is that we must believe that there is only one God. There is only one God. Just one. Existence. Existence doesn't have room for two, let alone three. Existence. Eternal existence. Eternity does not have room for more than one God. There can only be one God. If the one God is everywhere, then there's nowhere another God can be. So when we say God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, we are talking about them as one. And they are one. Jesus is not one God, the Father is not one God, and the Holy Spirit is not another God. They are not individually God. In fact, if you take away the Holy Spirit, there is no God. If the Holy Spirit is not divine, there is no God. If the Son is not divine, there is no God. If the Father does not have the Son and the Holy Spirit, he is not God. That is how intimately connected they are. They are one, indivisible, undivided, distinct in personality, but unified in essence. Distinct in personality, distinct in roles, but unified in essence and in substance. They are one unified substance. Theologically, they are called, we would refer to that as a, they are a hypostatic union. Hypostatic union. This is what our God is. Now, here's the hard part. And I will not have an answer for, but then neither will any of you. I know that Jesus the Son is God. I know that the Holy Ghost is God. I know that the Father is God. We have to believe all those things. We also know that the Scripture tells us there is only one God. What is unclear to the rational finite mind is understanding how there are three distinct yet undivided, unindivisible, unified parts. Parts is the wrong word. They are not parts. Let me clear that up. They're undivided, and they are not comprised of parts. Yet they're one. That is where we don't grasp this. But here's the thing. Somebody will think of it. I'm just not, I'm drawing a blank. It says, To whom will we liken God? How can we draw a comparison to what God is? From where? Who do we compare God to? What do we compare God to? There is nothing, there is nothing that we can compare God to. So we cannot fully grasp all that he is because there is nothing like him that we can compare him to. There is no analogy that we can come up with. Men have tried it for centuries to come up with to come up with something analogous to God. There's nothing. This is where faith comes in. We can't know everything, but it doesn't mean that we can't be responsible for what we can know. And we can't say that, well, if I don't understand this thing, then that means I have to discard the other things. And this is what so many people do. If they can't come to a conclusion fully on one piece, then they disregard all the truths that are clear and clearly understood. But God has nothing or no one to which we can compare him. There's nothing to which we can liken him in order for us to say, oh, now I got it all. Now I get it. But this is where the faith comes in, as one brother or sister said, this is where the faith comes in. We must believe that there is only one God, not apart, indivisible, and undivided. And yet there are three distinct personalities, but yet they are all one. How that happens, I don't know. Do not fall into the trap of trying to explain it to people. Because the little that we do know, only Christians can understand it. You have to be a believer to understand it. You have to be a believer to understand what we do know. This is why you get all these people coming on here telling us like that I sound ridiculous or that you sound ridiculous, that you sound crazy. Because only a Christian can understand this. And only a Christian has the Holy Spirit of God that will help them, that will teach us to understand these things. So I don't get mad when these when when unbelievers come on here and say all these nasty things. What else can they do? They're carnal people. That's what they do. That is what they do. God's words, God's ways, like one of the Christians here is saying, his ways are higher than our ways. But it takes a monumental amount of humility to be able to understand these things. But it requires a repentance from sin to be able to begin laying hold onto these things. And Christians, we have to stop trying to give answers for things that God has not given us answers to. These people, if they are sincerely seeking the truth, they will come to faith when they repent from their sins, and God will enlighten their eyes and they will know. Just like you and I met, they will know. So we have to have patience with people the same way those had patience with us in our past. So God is three in person, one in essence, one nature, one spiritual singular substance. Jason, get this Matangus idiot out of here. So this is what we're dealing with. You guys see this guy, Matangas? Let me let me see if I can get this. I don't know if it's see if it's on your side. This is the kind of person that we have to be able to tolerate. A man says, if he were around during the time of Christ, he would throw feces in his face. You see, this is what depravity is all about. This is what depravity is all about. And it it mystifies me, it mystifies me, and I'm trying not to be distracted. I'm gonna get back to it, but it it never, I don't know why it is. I always get amazed at the people who hate God so much, but they need the company of Christians to tell it how much they hate it. Why don't they go commiserate with people that are like-minded the way we do? I don't understand. You know, I don't understand it. So now there's another aspect of the Godhead that we need to examine. Because there are a lot of Christians, believe it or not, there are a lot of Christians who get this wrong. And I'm and I'm not saying they're not Christian for getting it wrong, because the Trinity is a difficult, difficult, complex, high subject matter. It really is. So when we talk about God, God is not a, he is not a threefold manifestation of one person. This is something that we really have to distinguish. In other words, God is not, like, let's say, put it this way. God the Father is not the Son. And God the Father is not the Holy Spirit as well. The Son of God is not the Father andor the Holy Spirit, and likewise the Holy Spirit. It is not just one person who just changes his form and becomes the second person. That is called Sibellionism. Now, for those of you who have heard of the modern Sibellionist, they would refer to themselves as the Jesus only movement. There are people who say that Jesus is the Father, Jesus is the Son, and Jesus is the Holy Spirit. That is not what the Bible teaches. That is not what the Bible teaches. That is called, if you take it back historically, you will understand the doctrine of Sabellianism, which gave way to the teaching that the movement today that is referred to as the Jesus only movement. So there are lots of subtleties that can express the idea of what the Trinity is that falls short, but that sound real, sound realistic. And I don't really fault people for not getting that, but as we said, the Godhead, they're one, and they have distinct personalities, but they're one. And that's the element that is whole hard for us to grasp. But we need to understand that when the Holy Spirit is talking or moving or doing or you know, or acting, that is not the Father or the Son. That is the Holy Spirit. Same thing with the Holy with the Son, same thing with the Father. The Father did not go to the cross. The Holy Spirit did not go to the cross. The Son went to the cross. Now, how the Son and the Holy Spirit proceed from the Father, and how the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son and the Father, I have no idea how that works. No idea. And neither do you, neither do anybody at any of these seminaries. They don't know. And if they're honest, they will tell you. How that procession takes place between how each of the Godhead, each of the members of the Godhead, rolls out administratively in creation, I don't know. I just know that it is so. And that is one of the essential reasons for having faith. We believe, Christians believe the unbelievable. Christians comprehend the incomprehensible. That's what we do. Trust in God is what we do. We can say comfortably that we don't know all these things. But we know that God sits on the throne in heaven, and that he will guide us by his Holy Spirit into and in and through all things. And we will be known. We will know him just as we are known by him. And I can't wait for that day. Cannot wait for that day to take place. We believe that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are distinct and personal manifestations of the one indivisible essence. That's what we believe. We believe that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are distinct and personal manifestations of the one indivisible, undivided essence in which the unity of God exists. And these things we have to understand and embrace. There are certain things, but it is not easy. So what I want to try, what I'm attempting to do is to furnish you with a broader understanding of what is going on here. And admittedly, there are boundaries to our capacity to grasp. Admittedly. Admittedly. The Trinity, which also signifies triunity or tri-unal, the triunal attributes of God, attribute of God. Trinity itself, the word Trinity, not in the Bible. Not in the Bible. There's no argument there, there shouldn't be. Trinity, triunal, um, uh, or triunity, none of these words are actually in the Bible. But they are terms that are derived from what the Bible implies. In other words, if you read a text that says the Father is God, and then you read a separate text that says the Son is God, and then you read a separate text that says the Holy Spirit is God, and then you read another text that says all of them are one. Well, that implies the expression that we have labeled it with as triunity, triunal. So it's a suitable word. Another example. Revelation 20, which is always a topic of a lot of my conversations because so many people bring it up on a regular basis, it says that there is going to be a 1,000-year reign. Now, I won't get into all of that because it's symbolism. But it never says millennial. Many Christians make a big, big deal about the millennium, the millennial reign, the millennium, the millennium, the millennia. The Bible never uses the word millennium, but if you say a 1,000-year reign, 1,000 year is millennium. It is. If you read in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 about the Christian church and even sinners being caught up, raised from the dead, to be caught up, to be snatched away. The Bible says caught up or snatched away. It doesn't say rapture. But that's what a rapture means. It means to be snatched away, to be caught up. But the Bible itself doesn't use the word rapture. So this is the point I'm making here with Trinity or Triunal. It's a word that helps us give embodiment to the complexity of the truth, the truths that we're talking about with respect to the divinity of the persons in the Godhead or the principles in the Godhead. So if somebody argues with us about the use of the word trinity, we're under no obligation to contend for why the word is used or if the word should not be used. It doesn't matter. We still know that the Son is God, the Father is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and they are one. So someone said, you shouldn't use the word Trinity. All right, I won't use it with you. But it doesn't change what the word is conveying. So there's no point in having that kind of an argument with people because they are always trying to find ways to argue because they think that if you can be beat in an argument, then somehow that overturns the reality of the truth or the veracity of the truth that you're trying to convey, and it doesn't. It simply does not. So now what I'm gonna do is put up is talk about a few verses in the Bible. And I gotta get my Bible to do that. I wasn't gonna do this, but I'm gonna do it. I want to give you a few verses before I finish up here that clearly, where the Bible clearly talks about the plurality of God. God has a plurality. He is plural, but he's one. Again, I want to reemphasize that's the part that cannot be explained or understood. And I don't think any theologian will disagree with me on this issue. But T Saint, you're right. Elohim. So I got some verses that I want to look at here in the scriptures and to point out. So starting back in Genesis chapter 1, so it says here in Genesis 1, and it's interesting to me that the first verse of the Bible, the very first verse of the Bible, speaks of God as a plurality in the plural. So now, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. God here is the word Elohim, plural. For those of you who study Greek, Koine Greek, or I mean Hebrew, you'll know that when you add I am to the end of a word, that means it's plural. God here in the very first book of the very first, excuse me, verse of the Bible, the introduction to God in the Bible, he is referred to in the plural, not the singular. Elohim. Elohim. Genesis 1 verse 1. Now, Genesis 1 verse 26. It says, then God said, then God said, try to look up so I can not put my head down and disrespect you guys. It says, uh, then God said, let us make man in our image. Let us make man in our image. Us. Us. Plural. He's not talking about angels. He's not talking about demons. He's referring to him. He's referring to that communion that exists between him and his son, the word, and the Holy Ghost. Let us make man in his image. Us. Then there's Genesis eleven. Genesis chapter eleven. When we looked at the Tower of Babel, when God came down to confuse the languages. And then God says in verse seven, in Genesis chapter eleven, come, come, let us go down and there confuse their language. Let us go down and confuse, let us go down and confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. God speaks in the plural regarding himself. Let us go down and confuse their language. Here's another one. Let me back up a little bit. I should have put these in order, but I did not. I apologize. Genesis chapter three, again, backwards a few verses. Genesis chapter three, verse 22. Then the Lord God said, Behold, this is after the fall. Behold, the man has become like one of us. God says, Behold, man has become like one of us, to know good and evil, etc., etc. Elohim. Now, I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna give you another significant verse, but I wanted to preface it, and I saved it last for a reason. Because this is the verse that so many of our Jewish friends and so many of our Muslim friends like to appeal to discount the triunal nature of God. And this is in Deuteronomy chapter six. And it says here in chapter six, verse four. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Hear, O Israel, watch this. The Lord our God, the Lord is one. The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Now, those of you who have commented that you have been exercised academically in Hebrew, you will know what I want to tell everyone else here. That when it says here in Deuteronomy 6, verse 4, when it says, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, what is being said here is that Jehovah, our Elohim, is one Jehovah. Jehovah, our Elohim is one Jehovah. Hold on. Somebody else I gotta give the boot to. One of Satan's worshipers. Deuteronomy six four. Deuteronomy six four. A popular verse that those who oppose us use to say that God is not a plurality. God is a plurality, and yet he is singular. In the very verse that another the very verse that a lot of these opponents use is Deuteronomy 6.4. And what it says, and what it says, is Jehovah our Elohim. Jehovah, God, our Elohim. God in plural is one Jehovah, one God. Look that up. You see if I'm telling you the truth. I'm telling you the truth. So when someone comes and tells you, somebody of, you know, amongst our Jewish friends or Muslim friends or whatever, we can point out very easily that the very verse that they use to oppose the triunal nature of God doesn't support their arguments. It supports ours. It supports ours. Jehovah, our Elohim, is one. So that being said, I think that my next the next few days, um, at this time, two o'clock, on the East Coast, I'm going to continue this discussion, continuing with the Trinity. So that being said, the next segment, I'm going to deal with verses that show the comprehensive nature of God. You know, in other words, tying Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together, showing and pointing out the oneness. The verses I gave you today is about five or six verses. These show that He is a plurality. So the next verses that I'm going to show starting tomorrow, God willing, I'm going to show the comprehensive nature of the plurality. The comprehensive in the sense of the plurality being this Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And the person that says, You think I would have to quit? I want to thank you for your encouragement. And all of you, thank you for your kind attention and for your encouragement as well. Because sometimes it's hard for me to not get distracted from these people that come on here and they get rude. My first inclination is to reciprocate, and I know and you know that's not the way to do it. Um, but that's the resistance that I always have to fight. And so uh please pray for me in that regard to be able to uh withstand that that those those um that that would assail me uh in this regard. And you know, and I will do the same for you because I know that all of you have to deal with the same types of things either on your other channels or in your life. Or in your life. Um so that being said, I will close here and may you all have a good Friday. Have a blessed weekend. Hope you have a great Lord's Day, and I look forward to getting back here on here again with you. I will probably be here on here tonight as well. So um, I kind of have to go with the flow. But thank you, thank you, thank you, and may you all have a blessed uh weekend.