A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE TRINITY IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

by Anthony Rogers

Introduction

As pointed out in A Brief Account of the Trinity in the Old Testament, when the great prophet Isaiah looked back to Israel’s redemption from Egypt—the foundational event by which God savingly revealed Himself to them as the Father, the Angel of His presence, and the Holy Spirit—he was also looking to God in prayer to bring about a greater salvation in the future (Isaiah 63:7-64:12). Isaiah’s prayer, together with hundreds of promises and prophecies, are what the Old Testament faithful were longing to see answered and fulfilled, and this is what took place in the first century. As the New Testament says, “But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Galatians 4:4-6). Throughout the New Testament the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all identified as deity exactly as has been shown to be the case in the Old Testament.

The Father

New Testament authors such as Peter, John, Jude, Paul and others all referred to “God the Father.” Peter spoke of believers being “chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father” (1 Peter 1:2) and said that Jesus “received honor and glory from God the Father” when He called Jesus His beloved Son on the mount of transfiguration (2 Peter 1:17). Jude spoke of “those who are the called, beloved in God the Father” (Jude 1:1), and John spoke of God the Father when greeting believers: “Grace, mercy and peace will be with us, from God the Father, and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love” (2 John 1:3). Just as Peter, John, and Jude all made reference to “God the Father,” so the apostle Paul often referred to “God the Father” or “God our Father” in the opening salutations of his epistles (Galatians 1:1; 1 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Thessalonians 1:2; 1 Timothy 1:2; 2 Timothy 1:2; Titus 1:4). Besides the full title “God the Father,” other references to God as Father also abound in the New Testament. In James 1:17, Jesus’ half-brother James wrote: “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.” In James 1:27, James said: “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” In all of this the disciples were simply following Jesus. For example, Mark recorded Jesus saying, “Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you.” In Matthew, Jesus directed His followers to “glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16), and He said, “One is your Father, He who is in heaven” (Matthew 23:9). In Luke 10, it is written that Jesus “rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit, and said, ‘I praise you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this was well-pleasing in Your sight. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Luke 10:21-22).

The Son

The apostolic writings also identify the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as a divine person. All four Gospels identify Jesus as the coming of the Lord, Yahweh, predicted by Isaiah the prophet (Matthew 3:1-11; Mark 1:1-3; Luke 3:1-6; John 1:19-23; cf. Isaiah 40:3). In Matthew 1 the angel Gabriel instructed Mary to name her child Jesus, or Y’shua in Hebrew, which means Yahweh saves, and Gabriel gave the following reason for this name being given to Him: “for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Precisely because Jesus is Yahweh who saves, Matthew also pointed out that Jesus’ conception in Mary’s womb fulfilled Isaiah’s promise of the coming of Immanuel, which means, as Matthew considered it necessary to draw attention to, “God with us” (Matthew 1:23; cf. Isaiah 7:14). In Mark Jesus repeatedly claimed to be Lord. He claimed for example to be “the Lord of the Sabbath,” a divine institution (Mark 2:28), and He claimed to be the one of whom David spoke when he said, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand until I put your enemies beneath your feet.’” (Mark 12:35-37; cf. Psalm 110:1). Numerous times in Mark Jesus also claimed to be the “I Am” of the Old Testament (e.g. Deuteronomy 32:39), such as when Jesus was walking on the water past the disciples and said to them, “Take courage, I Am, do not be afraid” (Mark 6:50), or when, in response to the High Priest’s question, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?”, Jesus said: “I Am; and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:61:-62), a response that led the High Priest to charge Jesus with blasphemy (Mark 14:63). Luke also identified Jesus as Lord. In Luke 1, in reference to John the Baptist who was being raised up to prepare the way for Jesus, John’s father said: “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare His ways; to give to His people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins…” (Luke 1:76-77). Later in Luke, Jesus rebuked people for rightly recognizing Him as Lord but failing to obey Him: “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord’ and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46). Since Matthew, Mark, and Luke identify Jesus as the Lord, the great I Am, and God with us, it is hardly a surprise that John also frequently identified Jesus as Lord (John 4:1, 6:23, 6:68, etc.), the I Am (e.g. John 8:24, 8:28, 8:58), and God (John 1:1, 1:18, 20:28; cf. 5:17-18), as well as the one who is, and who was, and who is to come (Revelation 1:8), the first and the last (Revelation 1:17, 22:13), the beginning and the end (Revelation 22:13), and the alpha and the omega (Revelation 1:8, 22:13).

The same thing is also seen in the New Testament epistles. Jude referred to Jesus as “our only Master and Lord” (Jude 1:4), even as James referred to Jesus as “the glorious Lord” (James 2:1). The apostle Peter instructed believers to “sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts” (1 Peter 3:15) and he spoke of “the eternal kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:11). According to Peter, those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ are “those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ…” (2 Peter 1:1). In the same vein, the apostle Paul identified Jesus as Lord and God. He called Jesus “the Lord of glory” (1 Corinthians 2:8) and said in Him “all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form” (Colossians 2:9). Elsewhere Paul said that although Christ is from Israel according to the flesh, nevertheless He is “God over all, forever praised” (Romans 9:5), and believers who are waiting for the return of Christ are “looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).

The Holy Spirit

According to the New Testament the Holy Spirit also is a divine person. Peter identified the Holy Spirit as God when he said to Ananias, who lied to the Holy Spirit, “You have not lied to men, but to God” (q.v. Acts 5:1-6). In the same context Peter speaks of Saphira agreeing with her husband to put the Holy Spirit to the test (5:9), something that presupposes the Spirit’s personhood and deity (Deuteronomy 6:16; cf. Matthew 4:7; Luke 4:12). Throughout the book of Acts the Holy Spirit is presented as active, bestowing power on the apostles (1:8), enabling the early believers to perform miracles as Jesus did (10:38, 13:4-12), speak in other languages (2:4, 10:44-48, 19:6), prophecy (2:17-18, 4:8, 31), and speak forth the truth (4:8, 31, 6:10), and the Spirit Himself is said to speak (8:29, 10:19, 11:12, 13:2, 21:11), bear witness or testify (5:32, 20:23), and to send out and direct (11:12, 13:4, 19-20, 19:21, 20:22-23) as well as forbid and disallow the apostles from speaking the Word in certain places (16:7-8). Even as the Spirit foretold things in the past (1:16, 28:25), so He also did through New Covenant prophets (11:28). Paul identified the Holy Spirit as deity when he said, “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (1 Corinthians 3:17), and when he said that the Spirit plumbs the depths of the divine being and knows all the Father’s thoughts just as a man’s spirit knows his own thoughts (1 Corinthians 2). Paul also said “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you” (1 Corinthians 6:19; cf. 1 Corinthians 3:16), which is the fulfillment of God’s promise that believers would be “the temple of the living God; just as God said, ‘I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people’” (2 Corinthians 6:16; cf. Exodus 29:45; Leviticus 26:12; Jeremiah 31:1; Ezekiel 37:27). Precisely because the Spirit is Lord and God, the New Testament writings refer to Him as “the eternal Spirit” (Hebrews 9:14) and the source of eternal life. In John 3:5, Jesus said that those who want to enter the kingdom of God must be born of the Spirit, and in John 6:63, Jesus said: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing.” The same eternal Spirit who is the source of eternal life and who indwells believers and makes them temples of the living God is also the source of Holy Scripture. Paul said, “all Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16), and the God-breathed truths that the apostles spoke and wrote were “not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:15).

Conclusion

As seen in Part One, in the Exodus God revealed Himself in and through His saving activity when He delivered Israel from bondage by sending forth the Angel of His Presence to redeem them and by causing His Holy Spirit to dwell in their midst (Isaiah 63:7-19). In accordance with Isaiah’s prayer in that chapter for God to do a yet greater work of salvation in the future, as well as all the promises and prophecies that are of a piece with it, the New Testament writings reveal the same God, and they do so in the course of showing how God answered that prayer and fulfilled those promises. In the fullness of time God sent forth His Son to redeem His people by His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, and the Father and the Son in turn sent forth the Holy Spirit to indwell believers and make them temples of the living God. It is for this reason that Jesus commanded His church to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.