Can we really understand the Trinity?
Not exhaustively, no; but truly, yes. The Trinity is a revealed mystery, not a puzzle to be solved: God has shown us who He is, and He invites us to know Him. We can know the triune God truly, the way a child knows a father, without comprehending Him fully, the way no one can fathom the depths of God.
This question arose from studying What is the Trinity? and Is the Holy Spirit God? and Is Jesus really God?.
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Go into the Word
Not a summary of these passages: the passages themselves. Read them, then come back to the study below.
The study
What the Scripture says
God reveals what He wants us to know
Moses drew the line honestly: 'The secret things belong to Yahweh our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.' God has not left us guessing. He spoke through the prophets, and in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, inviting us to glory in the one thing that matters: knowing Him.
The secret things belong to Yahweh our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
God, having in the past spoken to the fathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, has at the end of these days spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds.
but let him who glories glory in this, that he has understanding, and knows me, that I am Yahweh who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, says Yahweh.
The Trinity is received, not reasoned into existence
No one sat down and invented the Trinity. The church confessed it because Scripture kept saying it: the Father and the Son and the Spirit all present at Jesus' baptism, all at work in redemption, all joined in one name at the Great Commission. We know it the way we know anything about God: because He showed us.
Jesus, when he was baptized, went up directly from the water: and behold, the heavens were opened to him. He saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming on him. Behold, a voice out of the heavens said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
Go,and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen.
We can know God truly without comprehending Him fully
'Can you fathom the mystery of God?' Job is asked; Paul answers, 'How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!' Yet Jesus says that eternal life is knowing the only true God. Knowing a person is not the same as comprehending a person: a child knows his father truly, and has not yet begun to fathom him. So with God: we know Him truly, truly enough to love and trust and follow, and His greatness is unsearchable.
“Can you fathom the mystery of God? Or can you probe the limits of the Almighty?
Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!
This is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ.
Great is Yahweh, and greatly to be praised! His greatness is unsearchable.
The whole story of salvation is trinitarian
The Bible does not teach the Trinity as a doctrine to memorize; it lives it. Creation and redemption move on three-fold rhythm: the Father sends the Son, the Son accomplishes the work, the Spirit applies it. We have access to the Father through the Son, in one Spirit; God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit; and the Spirit makes us cry, 'Abba, Father!'
For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
For through him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.
and hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
And because you are children, God sent out the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!”
The right response is worship, not frustration
Paul does not end his survey of God's ways with a quiz; he ends in doxology: 'For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen.' He prays for us to be strengthened to comprehend the love of Christ, and his prayer ends with glory in the church to all generations. The mystery we cannot exhaust is the mystery we were made to praise.
Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out! “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has first given to him, and it will be repaid to him again?” For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen.
may be strengthened to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know Christ’s love which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to him be the glory in the assembly and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.
As you read, you may wonder…
Scripture raises the next question
Studying the Word naturally opens more of it. Follow what you just read: it leads somewhere.
We haven't written this one yet. Take it to your church or small group: the Word answers it wherever it is asked. If we study it here later, all the better.
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Verses to meditate on
The secret things belong to Yahweh our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
This is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ.
Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!
But to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For who among men knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man, which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God, except God’s Spirit.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
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