Scripture

The Trinity

The Holy Spirit, Christ the Power of God

Verses That Support the Trinity

Genesis 1:26–27 — "Let Us Make Man"

Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps over the earth." So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.Genesis 1:26–27

Genesis 11:7 — "Let Us Go Down"

"Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech." So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of the earth, and they left off building the city.Genesis 11:7

Matthew 3:21–22 — The Baptism of Jesus

When all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus was also baptized; and while He prayed, the heaven was opened. And the Holy Spirit descended like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, "You are My beloved Son, in You I am well pleased."Matthew 3:21–22

Daniel — The Son of Man and the Spirit of the Holy Gods

The book of Daniel does not contain a full revelation of the three persons of the Trinity. However, the "Son of Man" in 7:13–14 is portrayed as having both a human and divine nature, as the New Testament affirms about God the Son. Also, while Nebuchadnezzar speaks from his polytheistic perspective, his speech in 4:5–6 — that in Daniel is "the spirit of the holy gods" — seems to reflect that Daniel was filled with God the Holy Spirit.

2 Corinthians 13:14 — The Clearest Picture

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.2 Corinthians 13:14

The word "Trinity" is not in the Bible, but if you want to see a clear picture of the Trinity, look at 2 Corinthians 13:14. The Trinity is in the book of Genesis all the way through Revelation, over and over again. Look at the order here — it is the natural flow of salvation and sanctification in our lives. Once we receive the Lord Jesus Christ, we are able to engage in love with the Father. Because He is Holy, Holy, Holy, we can be in a relationship with the Father through His grace in Jesus Christ, and then communion with the Holy Spirit follows.

John MacArthur

God's Sovereignty and Man's Responsibility

Though faith and repentance are both gifts from God, we are still responsible to act on those gifts — to believe in Christ, to repent of our sins, and to be justified. Herein lies the mystery, or irreconcilable paradox as Spurgeon put it, that exists between God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. Though these two doctrines seem to contradict each other from a human perspective, both truths are nonetheless clearly taught in scripture.

Just as we cannot humanly comprehend the mystery of the Trinity — how God is one in essence and yet also three persons — or the dual nature of Christ — how He can be fully God and also fully man — we cannot understand with our finite minds how God can be completely sovereign while man is still responsible. Thus, as with most of Christendom in the past, including the great reformers, the Puritans, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, John Bunyan, C.H. Spurgeon, J.C. Ryle, and Martyn Lloyd-Jones, we must accept this doctrine with a childlike faith and not try to venture beyond it, for God has not chosen to reveal this mystery to us.

This is critical: if we deny these truths simply because we cannot reconcile them to our human understanding, we will in essence deny scripture — and veer into either extreme, whether toward Hyper-Calvinism, which overemphasizes God's sovereignty to the neglect of man's responsibility, or toward a view that overemphasizes human free will to the neglect of God's sovereign grace. Neither is biblical. It is essential that we strive, by God's grace, to maintain balance.