The Unity of the Trinity
Let’s begin with John 14:23 (NASB 2020) where we read, “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘If anyone loves Me, he will follow My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him.’”
The entire Trinity is in view here. The way God makes His dwelling with us is by His Spirit. In 2 Corinthians 3:17 (NASB 2020) we read, “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” Similarly, John 4:24 (NASB 2020) has this to say. “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” There is no indication that this occurs separately from the indwelling of Holy Spirit at regeneration. Therefore, we are justified in concluding that when scripture tells us that the Holy Spirit of God lives in us, it is the fullness of the Trinity who indwells our spirit.
We know and affirm that God is One. Yet we find throughout scripture that each member of the Trinity individually is seen acting in various situations. Nevertheless, we cannot separate the persons of the Trinity in any real sense. While scripture attributes certain reported activities to individual persons of the Trinity, in each case it is God who has acted.
Romans 8:9 (NASB 2020) gives us an example in saying, “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” Here the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ are frankly represented as being one and the same. By this we see that when we talk of the Spirit we also talk of Jesus Christ.
Furthermore, when we talk of Jesus we also talk of the Father. We see this in John 10:30 (NASB 2020) where Jesus is quoted as saying, “I and the Father are one.” We also find this idea in John 17:20–21 (NASB 2020). In this passage Jesus is praying for us. He prays, “20 ‘I am not asking on behalf of these [the Disciples] alone, but also for those who believe in Me through their word, 21 that they may all be one; just as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.’”
In 1 Corinthians 6:17 (NASB 2020) we also see that “the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.” We see another example pointing us toward the idea that we cannot separate the persons of the Trinity in Colossians 2:9–10 (NASB 2020) “9 For in Him [Jesus] all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, 10 and in Him you have been made complete…” If you have the Spirit, you have Jesus, and if you have Jesus, you have the Father because in Jesus (where you are) dwells all the fullness of the deity. King James renders the word “deity” here as “the godhead.”
In Genesis 1:1–2 (NASB 2020) we read “1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then in Genesis 1:26 (NASB 2020) we find, “Then God said, “Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness…”
God Himself uses “us” to refer to the members of the Trinity. We know that Jesus is included here because John 1:1-3 (NASB 2020) says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being.” (NASB 2020)
This is reenforced in Colossians 1:15–16 (NASB 2020) where we read that, “15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation: 16 for by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or rulers, or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.”
From all of this it is very clear that separating the Trinity in us is unnecessary. The three in one are so much more One than we can imagine that it is useless for us to separate them in this way. Moreover, since we are the children of God (see 1 John 3:1) and bear His seed, (see 1 John 3:9) we participate in the divine nature. (see 2 Peter 1:4)
The truth of this is freeing, yet some may have the impression that spiritual maturity is the process of getting closer to God or getting more of God. Though our behavior improves as we mature, maturity has nothing to do with our behavior. Maturity is not derived from behavior. Maturity has much to do with the renewal of our minds. When we more fully grasp who God has made us and what He has done to us, our behavior naturally begins to fall in line with who we believe ourselves to be—righteous, holy, blameless children of the God of the universe.
Even more importantly, maturity comes from growing in the knowledge of the Lord. Peter tells us this in 2 Peter 1:3 (NASB 2020) “for His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.” As we grow in our knowledge of the Lord our trust in Him grows as well. As we know Him relationally and intimately, we more readily see that He is faithful and can be trusted to guide us as we walk through this valley of the shadow of death. In this way His strength is made perfect in our weakness. When we know that we are weak and can do nothing apart from Him, we are left with trusting that He is doing all that must be done in and through us. We live a life of dependance on Him, just as Jesus did in John 12:49–50 (NASB 2020) “49 For I did not speak on My own, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak. 50 And I know that His commandment is eternal life; therefore, the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me.”
As we have seen, we have received fullness in Him and there is no more of God we will ever get. We do not have to be concerned that we are missing some important part of wholeness with God. We do not need to worry about the intricacies of the idea that we are in Jesus, the Holy Spirit lives in us, and we are hidden with Christ in God, yet we are seated with Christ at the right hand of God the Father while we remain here in the valley of the shadow of death. Every one of these things is true, and all these things are true. We children of God are one body of Christ and Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are One God over all.
