Ephesians 2
For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. (Eph. 2:18)
The doctrine of the Trinity can be summarized in seven statements: (1) There is only one God. (2) The Father is God. (3) The Son is God. (4) The Holy Spirit is God. (5) The Father is not the Son. (6) The Son is not the Holy Spirit. (7) The Holy Spirit is not the Father.
All of the creedal formulations and precise theological terms and philosophical apologetics have to do with safeguarding each one of the seven statements and doing so without denying any of the other six. When the ancient creeds employ extrabiblical terminology and demand careful theological nuance, they do so not to clear up what the Bible leaves cloudy, but to defend, define, and delimit essential biblical propositions.
Although the word Trinity is famously absent from the Bible, the theology behind the word can be found in a surprising number of verses.
For starters there are verses that speak of God’s oneness (Deut. 6:4; Isa. 44:6; 1 Tim. 1:17).
Then there are a myriad of passages which demonstrate that God is Father (e.g., John 6:27; Titus 1:4).
Next, we have scores of texts that prove the deity of Jesus Christ, the Son—passages like John 1:1 (“the Word was God”), John 8:58 (“before Abraham was, I am”), Colossians 2:9 (“in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily”), Hebrews 1:3 (“He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature”), and Titus 2:13 (“our great God and Savior Jesus Christ”). And this is to say nothing of the worship Christ willingly received from his disciples (Luke 24:52; John 20:28) and the charges of blasphemy leveled against him for making himself equal with God (Mark 2:7).
Then we have similar texts that assume the deity of the Holy Spirit, calling him an “eternal Spirit” (Heb. 9:14) and using “God” interchangeably with the “Holy Spirit” (Acts 5:3–4; 1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19) without any embarrassment or need for explanation.
The shape of Trinitarian orthodoxy is finally rounded off by texts that hint at the plurality of persons in the Godhead (Gen. 1:1–3, 26; Ps. 2:7; Dan. 7:9–14)— texts like 1 Corinthians 8:6 that place Jesus Christ as Lord right in the middle of the Jewish Shema, and dozens of texts that speak of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the same breath, equating the three in rank while assuming distinction of personhood (Matt. 28:19; 1 Cor. 12:4–6; 2 Cor. 2:21–22; 13:14; Gal. 4:6; 1 Pet. 1:1–2).
The book of Ephesians, for example, is full of triadic formulas like Christ/Spirit/ God or Spirit/Lord/Father (1:13–14; 2:18, 20–22; 3:14–17; 4:4–6; 5:18–20; 6:10–18), indicating that the persons are deserving of the same honor and that each person can be distinguished from the other two persons.
The doctrine of the Trinity, as summarized in the seven statements above, is not a philosophical concoction by overzealous and overintelligent theologians, but is one of the central planks of orthodoxy that can be demonstrated from a multitude of biblical texts and is meant to be understood, articulated, and celebrated.
Kevin DeYoung is the senior pastor at Christ Covenant Church (PCA) in Matthews, North Carolina and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary.
