What Is the Trinity?

David F. Wells

PUBLISHING

P.O. BOX 817 • PHILLIPSBURG • NEW JERSEY 08865-0817

© 2012 by David F. Wells

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—except for brief quotations for the purpose of review or comment, without the prior permission of the publisher, P&R Publishing Company, P.O. Box 817, Phillipsburg, New Jersey 08865-0817.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from ESV Bible ® (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version ®). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Italics within Scripture quotations indicate emphasis added.

ISBN: 978-1-59638-436-1 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-59638-556-6 (ePub)

ISBN: 978-1-59638-555-9 (Mobi)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wells, David F.

What is the Trinity? / David F. Wells.

p. cm. -- (Basics of the faith)

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-59638-436-1 (pbk.)

1. Trinity. I. Title.

BT111.3.W45 2012

231’.044--dc23

2012012508

Basics of the Faith

Sean Michael Lucas, Series Editor

This much is certain. Had the Christian faith merely been a human invention, Christians would never have come up with the doctrine of the Trinity. This doctrine is too thorny to understand and too difficult to explain for anyone to have deliberately fabricated it. There is no other religion that has anything remotely like this. No, this is not the fruit of our imagination but a doctrine of the way things are. God is triune. Knowing him in his triunity is central to Christian faith. Indeed, without this truth, that faith is not Christian at all.

Given this doctrine’s centrality, it may seem surprising that there is no single verse in the Bible, or even a single passage, that explains how it is that God can be one in being and yet have three centers of self-consciousness within his being: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Why is this?

The teaching that God is triune has to be constructed from many passages for two main reasons. First, there are many facets to it. It is not a simple doctrine. Second, God’s disclosure of himself did not take place all at once. He revealed his triune nature only gradually and across large stretches of time. It is therefore revealed across a large swath of Scripture.

God began by showing Israel that he is a single, unique being. Then he began to give intimations that he is also tripersonal. However, it was the incarnation in particular that made this conclusion inescapable, and it was Christ’s resurrection and ascension that especially brought into focus the third member of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit’s work to apply the redemption that Christ won on the cross. It was, then, in this redemptive process, initiated by God’s grace, that the full nature of his triunity was revealed to us. “In a word,” ...