The One God Is Three – Foundations of a Worldview

The One God Is Three
Foundations of a Worldview

Exodus 20:11

“For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day.”

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 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. The Word is of God and therefore is God Himself (John 1:1). God is God and Word, Father and Word, Father and Offspring, an Offspring as eternal and uncreated as the Mind itself (Prov. 8:22-26).

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 her 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 which begins to be outlined 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, and which will be essential in helping us fully to understand and benefit from the worldview first outlined in the Law of God.

Act: Since men and women are made in the image of God, they also are spiritual beings. How can you see the “Threeness” of God reflected in human beings? Talk with a pastor or church leader about this.

The book of Ecclesiastes is a crucial resource for understanding the Biblical worldview against the backdrop of our secular age. Follow T. M.’s studies in Ecclesiastes by downloading the free, weekly studies available in our Scriptorium Resources page at The Fellowship of Ailbe. Click here to see the weekly studies available thus far.

Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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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).