Eavesdropping on the Trinity

 

Did you hear about the March 2025 survey from the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University? The survey revealed that only 11% of American adults, and only 16% of people who identify as Christians, believe in the Trinity.

For Christians, sharing our faith in Jesus Christ can be difficult if we’re asked about the trinitarian nature of God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. In trying to answer these questions, we may stumble through awkward, finite attempts to explain the infinite.

If you’ve ever wondered about the Trinity, you’re not alone. Is God one or three? And why can’t we find the word trinity anywhere in the Bible?

It doesn’t help that if we’re having a conversation with someone of the Jewish faith, we may hit a theological brick wall. After all, in Deut. 6:4, the Old Testament clearly states, “Hear O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” As we read the Bible, it’s easy for some to conclude that the Trinity is a New Testament concept. Indeed, many faithful Jewish people find the idea of the Trinity a significant obstacle to believing in Jesus as the Son of God for that reason.

You may be surprised to learn that although the actual term, Trinity, is not found on the pages of Scripture, the concept appears in both the Old and New Testaments. Trinity is simply a word used to describe the reality of God’s nature, revealed from Genesis through Revelation.

God is one in essence, yet three distinct Persons. How can we, with finite minds, understand and even begin to explain such an infinite concept?

 

Old Testament References

 

• The first hint of the Trinity is found in the first chapter of Genesis:
  • 1 – “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
  • 26 – “Then God said, ‘Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness.’”

The Hebrew word translated as God is Elohim, which is actually a plural form of the word El. And in v. 26 we see the plural pronoun, “our.”

 

• We’ve already noted Deuteronomy 6:4 – “Hear O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”
  • The Hebrew word, echad, can be translated as the numeral one, but it can also refer to unity. For example, we speak of one bunch of grapes or one army.

 

• We also see the prophetic statement spoken by the Messiah recorded in Isaiah 48:16, which referred to the three Persons of the Trinity: The Lord God, Me (Messiah), and His Spirit.

“Come near to Me, listen to this:
From the beginning I have not spoken in secret,
From the time it took place, I was there.
And now the Lord God has sent Me, and His Spirit.”

 

Eavesdrop on Conversations in the Trinity

 

We also have Old Testament passages that give us the privilege of eavesdropping on conversations within the Trinity:

• “But as for Me, I have installed My King
  Upon Zion, My holy mountain.”
  “I will announce the decree of the Lord:
  He said to Me, ‘You are My Son,
  Today I have fathered You.
  Ask it of Me, and I will certainly give the nations as Your inheritance,
  And the ends of the earth as Your possession.
  You shall break them with a rod of iron,
  You shall shatter them like earthenware.” (Psalm 2:6-9)

And

• The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at My right hand
  Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.”
  The Lord will stretch out Your strong scepter from Zion, saying,
  “Rule in the midst of Your enemies.”
  Your people will volunteer freely on the day of Your power;
  In holy splendor, from the womb of the dawn,
  Your youth are to You as the dew.
  The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind,
  “You are a priest forever
  According to the order of Melchizedek.”
  The Lord is at Your right hand;
  He will shatter kings in the day of His wrath. (Psalm 110:1-5)

Both of these psalms, written by David, reflect a conversation between the Father and the Son.

 

And in the New Testament, we read Jesus’s words about conversations within the Trinity that include the Holy Spirit. John 16:13-15 tells us:

“When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take from Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; this is why I said that He takes from Mine and will disclose it to you.”

The Holy Spirit speaks what He hears from the Father and the Son!

 

Simultaneous Presence  

 

One of the clearest descriptions of the simultaneous presence of all three Persons of the Trinity is found in Matthew 3:16-17, describing Jesus’s baptism:

After He was baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and settling on Him, and behold, a voice from the heavens said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

Did you catch it? Jesus in His humanity, the Father’s voice, and the Holy Spirit represented by a dove, are all present at the same time.

 

The Trinity is not a new invention, nor is it solely a New Testament concept. We see the trinitarian nature of God throughout the Bible. Can we, with finite minds, fully understand how our infinite God is one God yet three distinct persons? No, but I’m glad we can’t. If we could, then He wouldn’t be any greater than you and me!

 

* All quoted verses are from the New American Standard Bible translation.