When we encounter a profound truth, we may want to delve in and wrap our minds round it completely, or else we may dismiss it as too abstract to matter in our lives. Even Christians can push away a truth like the Trinity as too complicated for us to need to worry about. A recent survey of evangelicals in the US found that 53% agree with the statement, “The Holy Spirit is a force but is not a personal being,” even though this is incompatible with belief in the Trinity, which these same evangelicals profess. Unbiblical and incoherent, this state of affairs demonstrates a desperate need for better teaching and the rededication of the church to the one living and true God we profess to believe in. One pastor, Hugh Binning, longed for people to grasp the glorious truth about our three-one God, firmly believing that this is not only a vital way of worshipping God but it also provides stability and comfort for our faith.

Christianity is a bundle of excellent mysteries, things hidden from even the wise ones of the world, and the greatest of all is the mystery of the Holy Trinity.

The Lord has chosen to raise us up from our fallen condition by the way of faith, rather than knowledge — by believing rather than researching. The great command of the gospel is to receive what the Lord says to us, whatever it may look like to sense and reason.

We are called, then, to receive this truth that God is one, truly one, and there are three in this one, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

One and three

The God who saves is one

In the books of Moses, the unity of God is asserted. “The Lord thy God is one Lord” (Deuteronomy 6:4). Indeed, it is engraved on the very hearts of mankind by nature that God is one, for common reason may tell anyone that there can be only one most perfect and excellent being. There can be only one infinite, one almighty, one beginning and end of all, one first mover, one first cause, of whom are all things, and who is of none.

The God who saves is three

Again, in the writings of John you have a testimony of the blessed trinity of persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in that holy oneness of essence. “There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one …” (1 John 5:7).

The great point which John is making is the foundational truth of our salvation, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and Saviour of the world, in whom all our confidence should be placed, and on whom we should lean the weight of our souls. He demonstrates this by a twofold testimony, one out of heaven, another in the earth. There are three bearing witness to this truth in heaven, the Father, the Word (that is, Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, John 1:1), and the Holy Spirit.

The witness of the Father

The Father witnessed to this truth in an audible voice out of heaven when Christ was baptised. “This is my well-beloved Son, hear him” (Matthew 3:17). This testimony of the Father to the Son was given very solemnly in a great congregation of people, and with great glory and majesty from heaven. It was as if the heavens had opened on Him, and the inaccessible light of God had shined down on Him. This was confirmed in the transfiguration, when the Lord gave a glorious evidence, to the astonishment of the three disciples, of how He regarded Him (Matthew 17:5), and how all saints and angels must serve him.

The witness of the Son

Then the Son Himself gave ample testimony to this. It was the subject of His preaching to the world, “I am the light and life of men. He that believeth on me shall be saved.” This why He is fittingly called “the Word of God” and “the Wisdom of God” (John 1:1; Proverbs 8), because He reveals to us the blessed mystery of wisdom concerning our salvation. He is the very expression and character of the Father’s person and glory (Hebrews 1) in His own person.

The witness of the Holy Spirit

Jesus revealed and expressed His Father’s mind, and His own office, so fully to the world that there should be no more doubt of it. Out of the mouth of these two witnesses, this word could be established. But, for superabundance, behold a third witness, the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit witnesses at Jesus’ baptism, in His resurrection, and after His ascension. The Holy Spirit showed His presence with and His consent to Christ’s work when He appeared in the similitude of a dove. He testified it in the power that raised him from the dead. And He put it beyond all question when He descended on the apostles, according to Christ’s promise.

Three agreeing on earth

I will not spend long on the other three witnesses on earth (1 John 5:8), only to say that the work of the regeneration of souls by the power of the Word and Spirit (signified by water), the justification of guilty souls (signified by the blood of Jesus Christ), and the testimony of the Spirit in our conscience bearing witness to our spirits, is an assured testimony that Jesus Christ, in whom we believe, is the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. The changing, pacifying and comforting of souls, in such a wonderful manner, cries aloud that He in whom the soul believes is the true and living God, “whom to know is eternal life.”

Agreeing in one vs being one

But mark how precisely the apostle speaks. These three witnesses on earth (he says) “agree in one,” in giving one common testimony to the Son of God, the Saviour of sinners. But as for the heavenly witnesses, the Father, the Word, and Holy Spirit, who also agree in one common testimony to the Mediator, they “are one.” They not only agree in one, but are one God, one simple, undivided, self-existent, infinite spirit, made known to us in three persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to whom be praise and glory.

Why it matters

When the mystery is such an infinite depth, human eloquence and wisdom must be shallow, far too shallow, either to find it out or to unfold it.

Yet there is both more instruction and more consolation to be pressed out of this mystery. If you cannot reach it in itself, yet consider what it means for us.

One God means one love

When Moses spoke of the unity of God’s essence, the great instruction he draws from it is, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart” (Deuteronomy 6:5).

Since God is one, then we must have no God but one, and let that God be the true and living God. This is the very first command of God, which flows directly from His absolute oneness and perfection of being.

I beseech you to consider that what you give your time, efforts, thoughts, and affections to, that is your God. Do your care, and grief, and desire, and love, express themselves not towards God, but towards base things? Christianity raises the soul again, and advances it by degrees to this love of God from whom it had fallen. Having tasted how good this one self-sufficient good is, the soul gladly and easily divorces from all other loves and lovers. It now begins to live in another. Love transplants the soul into God, and in Him it lives, and with Him it walks.

True, this is done gradually. Yet enough is gained when the soul is converted to God that God now has the chief place in the soul.

It is a great shame and reproach to Christians, that they do not carry the stamp of this first principle of Christianity in their walk. The condition and lifestyle of many declares how little regard they have for the true God. Why do you enslave your souls to your lusts and the service of the flesh, if you believe in this one God? Why do you do all these things to please yourselves, if this one Lord is your God? Your God is one Lord. Have, then, no other lords over your souls and consciences!

Three witnesses means complete consolation

Next consider the reason why John brings in three witnesses. What they are witnessing to is the foundation of all a Christian’s hope and consolation — that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God and Saviour of the world, able to save to the utmost all who put their trust in Him.

Sometimes, people think of Jesus Christ as more loving than any of the other persons of the Godhead. Perhaps there are some thoughts of the Father as estranged and distant, as if the Son had to work to win Him round to love us, and this mistake fills the soul with continual suspicions about the love of God.

But observe, I beseech you, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, all of them agreeing in one testimony. The Father declares from heaven that He is abundantly well pleased with His Son, not only because He is His Son, but in His taking on and performing the work of the redemption of sinners. In fact, if we speak properly, our salvation is not the business of Christ alone, as we may imagine — the whole Godhead is deeply involved in it. So deeply, in fact, that you cannot say who loves it most, or likes it most. God the Father so loved the world, that He has sent His Son. Christ has not purchased that eternal love to us — it is rather the gift, the free gift, of eternal love.

And the Holy Ghost concurs in this testimony. As the Son had the work of purchasing the right to grace and glory, so the great work of applying all these privileges to saints, and making them actually partakers of the blessings of Christ’s death, is committed in a special way to the Holy Spirit.

So then, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all agree in one, that Jesus Christ is a sure refuge for sinners, a firm and sure foundation to build our everlasting hopes on. Whoever you are who want to flee to God for mercy, do it in confidence. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are ready to welcome you. They are all of one mind to exclude none.

But, to speak more precisely, there is only one love, one will, one purpose in the Father, Son, and Spirit, for these three are one. They not only agree in one, they are one, and what one purposes or loves, all love and purpose.

A God to worship

Then, worship God! Gregory Nazianzen expressed it best: “I cannot think upon one, but by and by I am compassed about with the brightness of three, and I cannot distinguish three, but I am suddenly driven back unto one.”

Too often, our minds are either reduced to such a simple unity that we think on one person alone, or else distracted and divided into such a plurality that we almost worship three Gods instead of one. It is a great mystery to keep the right middle way!

Learn, I beseech you, to think of God and pray to Him in the name of Jesus Christ by the help of the Spirit, so that all three persons may have equal honour, and all of them one honour. While you consider one God, adore the sacred and blessed Trinity, and while you worship that holy Trinity, be straight away reduced to a unity. To this wonderful and holy one, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be all praise and glory!

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