Horton: God is three persons.

The early Christians did not arrive at the doctrine of the Trinity by theological speculation. Like the gospel itself, the New Testament brings to clear expression that revelation of the Trinity that was more obscurely present all along in the Old Testament. Jesus is the Son who existed with the Father before the ages and was made human “when the set time had fully come” (Gal 4:4; cf. Rom 1:1–5).

With intentional echoes of Genesis 1, John 1 begins, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning” (vv. 1–2). Here the Son is distinct from the Father. There are two persons, yet the Son is identified as God along with the Father. He is “the one and only Son, who came from the Father” (v. 14) and “is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father” (v. 18).

Paul follows the same formula. Jesus Christ is “the image of the invisible God. . . . For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col 1:15–17).

The Father, the Son, and the Spirit were all involved in creation. Yet each was involved in a different way. We also see the doctrine of the Trinity arising out of the drama of Jesus’s baptism (Matt 3:13–17; Mark 1:9–11; Luke 3:21–22; John 1:32–34). In that story we find the Father who speaks (“This is my Son, whom I love”), the beloved Son who is baptized, and the Spirit hovering above Jesus as he did over the waters in creation.

The doctrine arose out of the drama of redemption. God came down to us, and he was the Son who existed eternally with the Father. Now he is one of us: a human being, though still God. Then there is the Holy Spirit, who not only descended at Jesus’s baptism but also at Pentecost.

People experienced Jesus as God in his life, death, and resurrection. Then they came to know the Holy Spirit as God when he was poured out at Pentecost. Whatever views you have had of God have to catch up with the story. God is three persons.

Michael Horton, Core Christianity: Finding Yourself in God’s Story (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2016).

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