S4 E15: Relationships in the Trinity

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Season 4 of Spirit-Led Hope covers the Doctrine of God, or theology, from a Spirit-led perspective. When looking at the Trinity, we learn that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are co-equal, co-eternal, and are all divine. So how are they different? Glenn teaches in this episode that the Persons of the Trinity differ in their relationship.

This episode has a transcript. If your podcast player does not support transcripts, please go to the Transcripts section of https://spiritledhope.com/ . These transcripts have been edited for accuracy and are typically of higher quality than those produced automatically by many podcast apps.

Season 4 is part of a long term goal to study systematic theology from a Spirit-led perspective. If you want to know more about systematic theology, or expand your study, Glenn is using the following text as a helpful framework to make sure the main topics are covered:  Foundations of Pentecostal Theology, by Guy P. Duffield and Nathaniel M. Van Cleave.  The book is published by Foursquare Media and Glenn is using the Second Edition published in 2016.

Transcript

S4 E15 TRANSCRIPT 

RELATIONSHIPS IN THE TRINITY   

  

INTRODUCTION

Hello everyone and welcome to Spirit-Led Hope. My name is Glenn Erichsen, and in this episode, we are discussing:

     RELATIONSHIPS IN THE TRINITY

THE MYSTERY OF GOD

Before we get started, thank you to everyone who gave me feedback about artificial intelligence. Many of you are interested in the topic, so do not be surprised if we look more at that in Season 5. No guarantees, but it is a possibility.

All right, in previous episodes we looked at the triune nature of God and we realized how limited we are in fully understanding what God is like. He is so far beyond us that we often struggle in our thinking about God because we wish we knew it all.

But I want to encourage you to also embrace the mystery of God. Something powerful happens when we delight and have joy in the majesty and magnitude of God. Because God is so far beyond us, we know that the God of the Bible is not a human fabrication. In fact, any God who we can fully understand is not worthy of our worship and devotion.

God gives us enough information about himself so that we can engage with him with our mind and our whole being. He does not ask us to believe anything illogical about himself. And what he gives us is enough so that everyone, no matter what their intelligence, can embrace him and have a relationship with him.

When you find that your brain hurts thinking about God, take a break and let the mystery and the majesty of our Creator fill you with wonder and joy.

GOD IS RELATIONAL

And when your brain calms down, then it is time to engage again and try to understand what God has revealed to us about himself. Because there is joy in both the intellectual pursuit of God, and the wonderment of realizing that we can never fully understand him. Mystery is okay. One more time, mystery is okay!

We saw in earlier episodes that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each co-eternal, co-equal in nature, and all have the same attributes. In other words, if the Father is good, then so are the Son and the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit is all powerful, then so are the Father and the Son. No member of the Godhead (or the Trinity) has an attribute that the others do not have. And this must be the case if they all have the same nature.

So, this begs the question, “If all three Persons of the Godhead have the same attributes, then what is the difference between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?” How can we say there are three Persons in the Trinity? And the answer has to do with relationships. Even though each member of the Trinity is fully God, they relate to each other differently. 

And this messes with us. Because as humans, whenever we have a relationship, it involves a separate person. Whenever you and I relate to each other, we recognize that we are distinct. I do not mistake you for me and you do not mistake me for you. We are different. We are in different bodies.

But somehow, God is still One and yet Three. And the only way this can be is if God is so much greater than us, that somehow in his Oneness and undividedness, there is the capacity for interpersonal relationships. This is a mystery. And any attempt to simplify it and make it understandable will take us in a direction that distorts a correct picture of God.

HOW THE FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT RELATE

But just because we cannot understand the Three-in-One nature of God, that does not mean we cannot understand the relationships between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In fact, Scripture shows us how the Father relates to the Son and the Holy Spirit; and how the Son relates to the Father and Holy Spirit; and how the Holy Spirit relates to the Father and the Son. Scripture does not give us every detail, but enough so that we can acknowledge the distinctiveness in each, even though each are fully God. 

One of the easiest ways to see the relationships among the Godhead is to look at how they relate to the world. In other words, we look at the way God works in the world. What we find is that each member of the Trinity participates in a unique way. 

As an example of this, let us look at redemption and how God saves us. We know that all humans are born broken from sin, but God provided a way for us to be born again. How did he do that?

First, we see that God the Father had the plan that would restore our relationship with him. And we see this in one of the most famous verses in the Bible, John 3:16…

For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 

John 3:16 CSB

Now notice here, the distinction between “God” and the “Son.” They are not the same Person because one gave the other. This is very noticeable in the New Testament, and the context shows us the word “God” here means “God the Father.”

Another example of this is found in 1 John 4:10…

Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 

1 John 4:10 CSB

It is through verses like this that we see God the Father made the plan of redemption and then he carried out the plan through the Son. You will never find in Scripture a reversal of these roles. Jesus the Son, never sends the Father anywhere. If fact, what you find, is that Jesus always voluntarily submits to the will of the Father. Think about Luke 22:42, where Jesus is heading to the cross and he says…

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me—nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” 

Luke 22:42 CSB

And this is interesting because Jesus is fully God, but he submits himself to the Father. Jesus was the one who went to the cross. Neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit endured the shame and torture. Only Jesus the Son did.

What about the Holy Spirit? Does the Father submit to him? No, just like Jesus, the Holy Spirit follows the will of the Father. And we see this in verses like John 14:25, where Jesus is talking to the disciples shortly before his death and he says…

“I have spoken these things to you while I remain with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you.

 John 14:25 CSB

So here we see that the Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and then he acts to help us remember the things Jesus said. The Holy Spirit will always elevate Jesus and the Father.

Interestingly, we also see that Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to us. I am going to read several verses from the book of John, and listen carefully to the relationships between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who is also called the Counselor and Spirit of Truth. Again, this is Jesus talking to his disciples before the crucifixion. 

Nevertheless, I am telling you the truth. It is for your benefit that I go away, because if I don’t go away the Counselor will not come to you. If I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world about sin, righteousness, and judgment: About sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will no longer see me; and about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged. “I still have many things to tell you, but you can’t bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. For he will not speak on his own, but he will speak whatever he hears. He will also declare to you what is to come. He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you. Everything the Father has is mine. This is why I told you that he takes from what is mine and will declare it to you. 

John 16:7-15 CSB 

Here we see that it is the Holy Spirit, not the Father or Jesus, who convicts the world about sin. But even though the Holy Spirit is God and is powerful and active in the world, the Holy Spirit speaks what he hears. He does not speak on his own.

We also see that the Holy Spirit takes from Jesus, but everything the Father has belongs to Jesus. It is this beautiful, intricate, cooperative relationship. And we see this when we look at the works of God.

Now to finish the discussion of redemption we see that God the Father had the plan, which was accomplished through Jesus going to the cross, but the ultimate result was carried out in us by the Holy Spirit. In other words, it is the Holy Spirit who renews us and works in us to complete the plan of redemption.

In the book of Titus, we read…

But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us—not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy—through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit. 

Titus 3:4,5 CSB

I know we have gone through this quickly, but I think you can see that each Person of the Trinity takes a different role in our salvation. As a homework assignment, see if you can find verses that show similar roles when it comes to Creation. Creation is another example where God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit work together with each taking on a specific role.

SUBORDINATION IN RELATIONSHIPS ONLY

When we talk about relationships between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, many people seem bothered by the idea that the Son and Holy Spirit yield to the will of the Father. The word often used is that the Son and Holy Spirit are subordinate to the Father in all they do. 

And this subordination seems to be eternal. In other words, God has always been that way and will always be that way. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have always related to each other the way they do today.

Subordination makes us think of a word that most people do not like much…submission. As humans, we often do not like submitting because we associate submission with weakness or a power imbalance.

Because of this, the idea that the Son and Holy Spirit are inferior to the Father can creep in. But that is not the case. The subordination of the Son and the Holy Spirit to the Father is based only on relationships. It has nothing to do with the nature of each Person.

If you ever study systematic theology, you will run across a few phrases that are used to describe this relationship. You will see this called “the economy of the Trinity.” And all this means is that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit voluntarily order their activities according to their differing roles. And these roles do nothing to diminish the fact that each are co-eternal, co-equal, and all have the same divine attributes and divine nature.

If Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, were in any way less than the Father, you would have an ontological difference. “Ontological” is another one of those words you will see in a philosophy or systematic theology book. An ontological difference means that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit would no longer have the same nature. And if that happened, they could no longer be One. Any argument that presents the members of the Trinity as ontologically different is contrary to the Biblical description of God.

I know that got a little wordier there, but it is important that we do not try to over-simplify our discussion about God. We do not need to know all this stuff to love God and worship him, but he has shown us these things about himself for a reason. He wants to make sure we do not fall for an imitation or false God. Again, there is a mystery in all of this, and that is okay.

THE ONENESS OF GOD

In this episode we have focused a lot on how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit relate to each other. I want to make sure that as we end this episode, we remind ourselves that there is only one true God. I think that sometimes we can get so caught up in the activities of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that we forget they are One. The danger then, is that we begin to think of them as three separate gods. But they cannot be separated, and you cannot ignore any of them and still have an accurate picture of God.

God is so loving and kind, that we can have a good relationship with him even if we know little about all three Persons of the Godhead. But I can tell you from my personal story that we have much more depth and intimacy with God when we experience the Oneness of God in its triune fullness. I believe you will find the same.

CLOSING

In this episode we have scratched the surface on how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit work together. It is very possible that we will go deeper in a later episode. However, we are going to look next at another of God’s attributes. In our next episode we will look at the immutability of God.

As always, you can send me comments, suggestions, or questions, by email at glenn@spiritledhope.com, or simply use the Contact Form at spiritledhope.com. That is spiritLEDhope.com. You can also send me a one-way text message by going to the episode show notes and clicking on the link with your smart phone. This is one of the ways you can encourage me.

If you find these episodes useful, please share them with your friends, leave a good review on your podcast app, post them to social media, and make sure to follow the podcast so that you are notified when the next episode is published.

As you think about the relationships in the Trinity, and how God wants relationship with you…

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope, by the power of the Holy Spirit.  

Until the next episode, take care.

Copyright 2025 Spirit-Led Hope