God Is Three

God Is Three

The one God of Scripture exists in three Persons.

“For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day.” Exodus 20:11

The great mystery of God is that He is both One and Three. This was only barely understood by the ancient Hebrews who received His Law, but the intimation of the Threeness of God is clear, especially in the account of His work of creation.

“In the beginning, God….” Thus begins the first book of the Law. When everything else began to be, God already was. The One God is without beginning and without end. He exists apart from, over, and through everything else, but without need of anything apart from Himself. God is Elohim, a word which seems to reference the exalted uniqueness and mystery of the One God, but a word which, at the same time, ends in a masculine plural morpheme, -im (the Hebrew equivalent to English “s” or “-es”). From the beginning, therefore, the Law intimates plurality in God.

Shortly after we are introduced to the pre-existing, worlds-creating God, we read, “And God said….” The one God consists of Word, a Word which is the expression and power of the eternal Mind and Thought of God. The Word is not the Mind, but the Word conveys the Mind. The Word issues from God and carries the power of God to accomplish the will of God upon, in, or against whatever that Word is spoken. The Word is of God and therefore is God Himself, although the Word functions in a way other than the “Begetter” of the Word—the eternal Mind or Thought—itself. God is Mind and Word, Father and Word, Father and Offspring, an Offspring as eternal, uncreated, and powerful as the Mind itself.

We also read, prior to the mention of God’s Word, that “the Spirit of God” hovered over the creation, brooding, as it were, like a hen on its eggs, protecting and urging the creation to life. The Spirit of God is not the Father and is other than the Word. Yet the Spirit is of God and has life-giving power. The Spirit also has power to animate the Word of God, thus expressing the Mind of God, in His chosen creatures (cf. Num. 11:25).

The Threeness of the One God is apparent in Genesis 1:26-28 when God, surveying His work of creation, takes counsel within Himself saying, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness….” (emphasis added). God cannot be talking to any other beings, for example, angels, for men are made in the image of God alone (Gen. 1:27). God Who thus made men consists of three expressions or Persons—the Father, the Word, and the Spirit—and each has work to perform in relation to all that God has created, intends, and promises, all the worldview the outlines of which begin in God’s Law.

The worldview of God’s Law thus invites us to know the one God according to His three Persons, and to understand and submit to the role of each Person in the outworking of the divine Covenant and the realization of the divine economy and worldview.

Because the Law of God says so little about the three Persons of the Godhead, but because it makes clear that such a “triune” God exists, the Law points us beyond itself to subsequent revelation, for which it is a kind of cornerstone or kernel, and which will be essential in helping us fully to understand and benefit from the worldview first outlined in the Law of God.

For more insight to the nature of God’s Covenant, order a copy of T. M.’s book, I Will Be Your God, from our online store. Visit our website, www.ailbe.org, and sign up to receive our thrice-weekly devotional, Crosfigell, featuring writers from the period of the Celtic Revival and T. M.’s reflections on Scripture and the Celtic Christian tradition.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T. M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.