A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE TRINITY IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

by Anthony Rogers

Introduction

The foundational event for Old-Covenant Israel was the Exodus. Through the Exodus God brought about a temporal deliverance for His people and made Himself known to them (Exodus 6:7, 7:5, 17, 8:10, 22, 9:14, 10:2, 14:4, 18, 16:6, 12, 18:11, etc.). According to the prophet Isaiah, this saving and God-revealing event was accomplished by the threefold activity of “the Father,” “the Angel of His presence,” and “the Holy Spirit” (Isaiah 63:7-19), each of whom are identified as God in the writings of Moses and the rest of the prophetic Scriptures.

The Father

In Deuteronomy 32:6, Moses said of the LORD: “Is not He your Father who has redeemed you? He has made you and established you”. In the same chapter it says that that God through the Exodus gave birth to Israel (32:18), and it refers to the people of Israel as His “sons and daughters” (32:19-20). Deuteronomy 14:1 says, “You are the sons of the LORD your God.” Because God is a Father to His people and they are sons to Him, Moses reminded Israel that God carried them in the wilderness “just as a man carries his son” (Deuteronomy 1:31), and when Israel was chastised for disobedience, Moses said: “the LORD your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son” (Deuteronomy 8:5).

The other prophets also spoke in one accord with Moses and identified God as Father. The prophet Isaiah said, “You, O LORD, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is Your name” (Isaiah 63:16), and “O LORD, You are our Father, we are the clay, and you our potter, and all of us are the work of Your hand” (Isaiah 64:8). God through Isaiah also spoke of His people as “My sons” and “My daughters” (Isaiah 43:6). Through the prophet Jeremiah the Lord said: “You shall call Me ‘My Father,’ and not turn away from following Me’” (Jeremiah 3:19), a statement made because Israel did call God “My Father” but behaved like wayward sons (Jeremiah 3:4). This teaching of God as Father was so firmly established that the prophet Malachi could rhetorically ask, “Do we not all have one Father? Has not one God created us?” (Malachi 2:10), and Israelites would bear names that pointed to God as Father, such as Abijah (“Jehovah is my Father”), Joab (“Jehovah is Father”), Abihu (“He is my Father”), and Abimael (“God is my Father”).

The Angel of the Lord

The same thing is seen in the case of the Angel of the LORD. This title in the writings of Moses and the prophets does not refer to a created angel but to a divine person. In Exodus 3, when God appeared to Moses in the burning bush to deliver Israel and Moses asked God for His name, the Lord replied, “I Am Who I Am” (Exodus 3:14). According to the context, the one who appeared and spoke from the bush was the Angel of the LORD (Exodus 3:2). Later, when Israel departed from Egypt, the Lord went before them in a pillar of fire by night and a cloudy pillar of glory by day (Exodus 13:21). According to Exodus 14:19, the Lord who went before them in a pillar of fire and cloud was the Angel of the Lord. Earlier in the book of Genesis, Moses recorded that Hagar referred to the Angel of the Lord as “the God who sees me” (Genesis 16:13). In Genesis 31, the Angel of the Lord appeared to Jacob (Genesis 31:11), and He said to Jacob, “I am the God of Bethel” (Genesis 31:13). In identifying Himself as the God of Bethel He was referring back to the occasion when the Lord appeared to Jacob in human form at Luz, which led Jacob to change the name of the place to Bethel, which means the house of God (Genesis 28:19). In Genesis 48:15-16, Jacob prayed to the Angel of the Lord and referred to Him as “the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked,” and as “the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day,” and as “the Angel who redeemed me from all evil.”

It was this figure who was with the Patriarchs and who later visited Moses at the burning bush and delivered Israel from Egypt. It was also this figure that was with Israel in the wilderness and brought them into the promised land as later prophetic witnesses further confirm. In Judges 2, for instance, it is written that the Angel of the LORD appeared to the people in the promised land and said, “I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land which I have sworn to your fathers….” The Angel of the Lord was still with them in the times of David, who said that “the Angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and rescues them” (Psalm 34:7). An example of the Angel of the Lord rescuing Israel was mentioned by the prophet Isaiah who said that the Angel of the Lord struck down in a single stroke 185,000 men of the Assyrian army (Isaiah 37:36). In an effort to call the people of his day back to the God of their fathers, the prophet Hosea reminded them that their ancestor Jacob wrestled with the Angel of the Lord and sought His favor. And then, Hosea said that Jacob found the Angel of the Lord, and refers to Him as God: “He found Him at Bethel, and there He spoke with us, even the LORD, the God of hosts, the LORD is His memorial name” (Hosea 12:4-5). The prophet Zechariah said that he saw the Angel of the Lord sitting on a heavenly throne and dispensing forgiveness (Zechariah 3).

The Holy Spirit

Finally, Moses and the prophets also identify the Holy Spirit as a divine person. When God brought the people out of Egypt, it is written that the Spirit came to rest upon Moses and enabled Him to speak the words of God and lead and judge the people (Numbers 11:16-17), thereby indicating that the Spirit is the source of revelation and wisdom. In order to help Moses in this great task, the Spirit also came to rest upon seventy others (Numbers 11:24-29). It was this same Spirit that Moses mentioned in Genesis 1:2, speaking of Him brooding over the surface of the world upon its creation, thereby indicating His omnipresence, omnipotence, and world-sustaining activity. In Genesis 6 Moses identifies the Spirit as the one who strives with mankind on account of their rebellion.

In 2 Samuel 23:2-3, King David pointedly stated not only that the Spirit is the source of His prophetic utterances, but also identified the Spirit as the God of Israel: “The Spirit of the LORD spoke by me, and His word was on my tongue. The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spoke to me…” In these words, David shows that the Spirit spoke, thus indicating that He is a person, and He calls Him the God of Israel, thereby indicating that He is divine. Because the Spirit is a divine person David in the Psalms could speak of Him as the one by whom the Lord creates and renews: “You send forth Your Spirit, they are created; and You renew the face of the ground” (Psalm 104:30). For the same reason David could also speak of the Spirit as omnipresent: “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there” (Psalm 139:7-8). This same idea of the Spirit as creator, sustainer, and ever-present Lord is seen in the book of Job. According to Job 33:4: “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” And speaking of the Spirit as sustainer and the ever-present source of life, the next chapter says: “If He should gather to Himself His Spirit and His breath, all flesh would perish together and man would return to dust.”

Conclusion

While the Old Testament is clear that there is only one God (Deuteronomy 4:35, 39, 6:4; Isaiah 43:10), it is also clear that this God revealed Himself at the Exodus to Israel and throughout her history as tri-personal, namely as the Father, the Angel of His Presence, and the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 63:7-19).