Attempting to Understand the Trinity

A.W. Tozer once wrote, "What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us."  After reading that statement, ask yourself these two questions:
- Who is God?
- What is God?

I did this last night at AWANA and received pretty good answers including Savior, Creator, Father, good, and "those three things."  Those three things as one child put it, show the complexity that it takes to understand the Trinity.  While the term, Trinity, is not mentioned in the Bible, we do see throughout God's word that He exists as one God, but in three persons.

The Trinity Seen in Creation

First, we see the Father.  Malachi 2:10 reads, "Have we not all one Father?  Has not one God created us?"

Second, we see the Son.  John 1:1-4 reads, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things are made through  him, and without him not any thing made was made.  In him was life, and the life of men."

Third, we see the Holy Spirit.  Genesis 1:2 states, "And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters."
Lastly, we see all three as one in Genesis 1:26 - "Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."

The Trinity in our Prayers

Matthew 6:6 tells us, "When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.

Jesus instructs those listening to him numerous times throughout the gospels to ask in His name.  "If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it." - John 14:14

At times, we may be struggling in our payer, but we have help.  "The Spirit helps us in our weakness  For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words." - Romans 8:26

Jesus Speaks of the Trinity

In Matthew 28:19, Jesus gives us this command; "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."

A Couple of Examples

So we see that God exists as one being, but has three distinct identities.  How do we begin to comprehend that?  I showed the AWANA kids my name tag from work and we began to look at the different names that I go by.  Most people call me John.  Thomas calls me Daddy.  At work, I'm a loan officer.  I'm a son, a brother, and a friend.  Britt even calls me Sweetie sometimes (NOT!).  Just because I go by several different names, does that mean that I'm more than one person, of course not.  In the same way, God is one God, though his identity defined through three different names, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

We then went into science mode and began to look at a common element here on earth, water.  Or to be more technical, H2O.  When most of us think water, we think of it in its liquid form that we drink.  But on those hot summer days, we also enjoy water in its solid form as ice.  And if we are boiling water for cooking, we see the steam, or water vapor, coming off in the form of a gas.  So water can appear to us in several different ways, but it still remains at its core H2O, no matter what form it takes.  In the same way, God is God, whether he is in the person of God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit.

One writer stated that God can be described as one "what" and three "who's."  The concept of the Trinity can be difficult to fully comprehend as a child or an adult, but maybe we aren't supposed to fully understand it anyway.  "After all, if we believe God to be infinite and all-powerful, we should never expect to condense Him into a formula we can understand."