Chapter 104 of 163

The Biblical Foundations of the Doctrine of the Trinity

At first sight, there are only two verses in the entire Bible which are explicitly trinitarian: Matthew 28: 19 (“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”) and 2 Corinthians 13: 13 (“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you”). Both these verses have become deeply rooted in the Christian consciousness, the former on account of its baptismal associations and the latter through the common use of the formula in Christian prayer and devotion. Yet these two verses, taken together or in isolation, can hardly be thought of as constituting a doctrine of the Trinity.

However, the biblical foundations of the doctrine do not lie exclusively in these two verses but in the overall pattern of divine activity to which the New Testament bears witness. The Father is revealed in Christ through the Spirit. There is the closest of connections between the activities of Father, Son, and Spirit in the New Testament writings. Time after time, New Testament passages link together these three elements as part of a greater whole. The totality of God's saving presence and power can only, it would seem, be expressed by involving all three elements (e.g., see 1 Corinthians 12: 4–6; 2 Corinthians 1: 21–2; Galatians 4: 6; Ephesians 2: 20–2; 2 Thessalonians 2: 13–14; Titus 3: 4–6; 1 Peter 1: 2).

The same trinitarian pattern is anticipated in the Old Testament. Three major “personifications” of God can be discerned within its pages, which naturally lead on to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. These are:

Wisdom. This personification of God is especially evident in the wisdom literature, such as Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. The attribute of divine wisdom is here treated as if it were a person (hence the idea of “personification”), with an existence apart from, yet dependent upon, God. Wisdom (who is always treated as female, incidentally) is portrayed as active in creation, fashioning the world in her imprint (see Job 28; Proverbs 1: 20–3, 9: 1–6; Ecclesiastes 2: 12–17).

The Word of God. Here, the idea of God's speech or discourse is treated as an entity with an existence independent of God yet originating with God. The Word of God is portrayed as going forth into the world to confront men and women with the will and purpose of God, bringing guidance, judgment, and salvation (see Psalms 119: 89, 147: 15–20; Isaiah 55: 10–11).

The Spirit of God. The Old Testament uses the phrase “the Spirit of God” to refer to God's presence and power within the creation. The Spirit is portrayed as being present in the expected Messiah (Isaiah 42: 1–3), and as being the agent of a new creation which will arise when the old order has finally passed away (Ezekiel 36: 26, 37: 1–14).

These three “hypostasizations” of God (to use a Greek-origin word in place of the more mainstream English “personification”) do not amount to a doctrine of the Trinity in the strict sense of the term. Rather, they point to a pattern of divine activity and presence in and through creation, in which God is both immanent and transcendent. A purely unitarian conception of God was ultimately inadequate to contain this dynamic understanding of God, expressed in the doctrine of the Trinity.

The doctrine of the Trinity can be regarded as the outcome of a process of sustained and critical reflection on the pattern of divine activity revealed in Scripture and continued in Christian experience. This is not to say that Scripture contains or expresses an explicit doctrine of the Trinity; rather, Scripture bears witness to a God who demands to be understood in a trinitarian manner. We shall explore the evolution of the doctrine and its distinctive vocabulary in what follows.

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