THE HOLY TRINITY IN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES
Although there is no explicit reference to the term “Holy Trinity”, yet there are several
passages in the Holy Bible that mention the Holy Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit, One God.
From the very beginning of the Holy Scriptures, the first verses in the book of Genesis expose us to this when it is written: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said,…” (Gen. 1:1-3).
So here we are immediately exposed to God the Father, the Holy Spirit Who was hovering over the face of the waters and the Son, the Word of God, Who says. Moreover, in the Hebrew, God is written as Elohim, or the plural of God, referring in the same context, to the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit.
And it is clear that this God that Moses wrote about at the time of creation is the same God spoken of when he wrote in Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!” So there is One God Who is the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. There are multiple other verses in the Holy Bible that speak about the One God.
There are a few verses in the Holy Scriptures where God, or the Lord, is used in the plural but still referring to the One God. For example, when God created man and woman, He is referred to in both the singular and the plural at the same time: “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Gen. 1:26-27).
After the fall, it is further written:“Then the Lord God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever’— therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life” (Gen. 3:22-24).
The same occurs in the story of the tower of Babel: “And the Lord said, ‘Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech’” (Gen. 11:6-7).
There are also several other references to the Holy Trinity in the Holy Bible. Isaiah refers to this mystery in his book when he writes concerning the sending of the Messiah, the Son of God, by God the Father and the Holy Spirit: “Come near to Me, hear this: I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; From the time that it was, I was there. And now the Lord God and His Spirit Have sent Me” (Is. 48:16; see also Is. 61:1).
There is also an explicit reference in the Gospel according to St. Matthew speaking of the faith and formula by which one is baptized: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,…” (Matt. 28:19).
We also have the Divine Manifestation (Theophany) at the time of the baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ where the Spirit descended on Him in the form of a dove and the voice of the Father was heard from heaven (Matt. 3:16-17;Mark 1:10-11; Luke 3:21-22).
love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen” (2Cor. 13:14)
amongst other verses where he mentions the Holy Trinity (Rom. 8:1-4; 1Cor. 12:3-7; Gal. 4:4-6; Eph. 1:3-14; 2:18; 4:4-6; 2Thess. 2:13-14; Tit. 3:4-6; Heb. 9:14).
St. Peter in his first epistle also mentions the Holy Trinity: “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” (1Pet. 1:2).
In order to establish the Biblical teaching of the Holy Trinity, one must see the verses that
state that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, in addition to the verses that state that there is only one God. There are many verses referring to all of these. By the grace of God, we will address these separately in subsequent lessons. However, we will limit this topic here as a summary of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and how this can be understood and explained.