Jesus on the Trinity

“The word Trinity isn’t even in the Bible.” Sometimes it amazes me a little that after 1700 years, people still debate the deity of Christ and the Trinity. It should be settled doctrine by now. Yet the arguments go on.

I want to look at the passage that I think most clearly teaches the Trinity. Not the deity of Christ. Not the personhood of the Spirit. The Trinity. The whole shebang.

No, the word “Trinity” doesn’t appear in the Bible. The term was coined to give a name to three truths we see in the scriptures:

• The Father is God. The Son is God. The Holy Spirit is God.
• The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are separate persons.
• There is one God.

That last one keeps us from being polytheists; there are not three gods. The second one keeps us from being modalists; God does not just change names or faces but simultaneously exists as three separate persons. So we have the Trinity: one divine nature eternally shared by three distinct persons.

But does anything in the scriptures actually support that idea? Yes.

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matt 28:16-20).

This passage is absolutely packed with theology, but let’s focus on the baptismal formula. Jesus said to baptize “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

To do anything “in the name of” someone means to act on their authority. The old “stop in the name of the law” means “stop on the authority I have by the law.” To carry out an order “in the name of the king” means to act on the king’s authority; he has sent you and is backing your actions because he commanded it.

And if you have the king’s authority, you have all the authority you need. You wouldn't need the authority of the king, his son, and his major domo. The authority of the king is sufficient. Today, you don't need the authority of the president, the vice president, and some cabinet officer; if you have the president's authority behind you, you have what you need.

Putting the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit together like this is telling us that they share an authority. There is one name, one authority. God does not share authority. And yet the Father shares. Because, Jesus is telling us, God (the name the Jews baptized people in) is now to be understood as the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

How will those who deny the Trinity respond to this? I’ve been trying this argument out in various forums for a little while. The initial response is always someone’s favorite prooftexts which supposedly show Jesus isn’t God, always those texts that emphasize the humanity of Christ and his role as Messiah being subservient to the Father. For example, “Jesus said, ‘The Father is greater than I’!” Or you might also hear, "But the disciples baptized 'in the name of Jesus' in Acts."

My response is, “How do you respond to the argument I made? What do you think about what Jesus said in that passage?” To date the only responses have been insults, usually a good sign your interlocutor has no way of answering your argument.

We don’t want to win arguments; we want to win souls. Sometimes a necessary step to winning a soul is to help them see flaws in what they’ve been taught, often for their entire lives. It’s an uncomfortable process for them. We need to be gentle and loving while also giving aberrant theology no quarter.

The good news of Christianity is that God became flesh and died for our sins so that we might become children of God. Be ready to defend that to those who have been taught another “gospel.”

See also:
God is Triune


Image via Wikimedia Commons