When God reveals his oneness and plurality in Scripture, he ultimately says five facts. Feel free to look up these passages and meditate on them:
- There is only one God (Deuteronomy 6:4)
- The Father is God (John 6:27; Rom 1:7)
- The Son is God (John 1:1, 14)
- The Spirit is God (Acts 5:3-4)
- The Father is not the Son, and the son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father. (John 14:26; 15:26; 16:7)
For two thousand years, the church has used this definition: God is a trinity. God is one in his essence (or being) AND three co-equal and co-eternal persons. This is hard to understand because God is unique! None of us know what it is to be three persons in one essence. Each of us is one person (one mind: one WHO) in one human being (one WHAT). God is special. He is three persons (three eternal minds; three WHOs that existed forever) in one God (one WHAT).
This is massively helpful when we consider that the one God, in all three persons, was involved in our creation and our salvation and our eternal preservation.