Groups such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses sometimes point out that the Trinity is never mentioned in the Bible and yet traditional Christianity uses the Trinity as one of its major tests of orthodoxy. Could the Trinity be so important if it is never mentioned in the Bible? Does it even make sense? When you study early church history, you see that there were some very complex arguments that were used to develop the doctrine of the Trinity. Most pastors and probably many theologians would have difficulty sorting through all the discussions of how the human and divine natures were present in Jesus. What are we to make of all this?
First of all, it must be noted that there were other competing views of Jesus in the early church. The Ebionites were a group of Jewish Christians who believed that Jesus was the Messiah but that he was not divine. The Arians believed that Jesus was some sort of divine being but that he was not equal to God, being merely a creation of God. We saw in the post Divinity By Decree: Part Two that there is a very strong and consistent theme in the New Testament of Jesus being a divine being. Does this get us to the Trinity?
The place we need to start is the Shema, the ancient Hebrew creed that there is only one God. We find in Mark 12:29 that Jesus himself affirmed Jewish monotheism. Jesus confirms for us that there is only one God. So what do we do with the divine descriptions of Jesus? Ancient groups such as the Arians and modern groups such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses attempt to put Jesus as a separate being. Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that Jesus is the archangel Michael. This is problematic. The first chapters of Hebrews go to great lengths to show that Jesus is not an angel. If you translate ‘archangel’ as ‘head of the angels’ rather than the ‘head angel,’ you are left with a Jesus who is not an angel but is a god (which is how the New World Translation puts John 1:1). However, this goes against the monotheism that Jesus affirmed. Jesus cannot be an angel and he cannot be a separate god. At the same time we have these divine descriptions of Jesus. What is the answer?
The Bible does present us with some proto-trinitarian passages such as 1 Corinthians 12:4-6 and Matthew 28:19 where Father, Son and Spirit are put together in a very interesting way. We also have the intriguing statement in John 10:30 where Jesus says “The Father and I are one.” These are not full fledged trinitarian statements but they are beginning a trajectory that made it inevitable for the early church, as it attempted to be faithful to the witness of biblical revelation, to arrive at the Trinity. It is the only explanation that retains monotheism and still accepts the divine descriptions of Jesus.
Many people still struggle with the Trinity and I can understand that as it is confusing. How can one plus one plus one equal one and not three? It is not logical. Personally I think that ‘one’ is an inadequate number to represent God. If we replace ‘one’ with ‘infinity’ (a much more fitting value for an eternal God), we have infinity plus infinity plus infinity equals infinity (not 3infinity). There are other explanations of the Trinity, but this is one that I have found helpful. My main point is that the doctrine of the Trinity is the only explanation that makes sense of all the biblical data.
