God In Three Persons

God said, “Let us make human beings in our image.”   Genesis 1:26

Why would God refer to himself using the plurals us and our when he tells us so clearly and distinctively that he is one (see Deuteronomy 6:4)? The Old Testament raises some questions about the nature of God that don’t get resolved until the New Testament.

The Bible tells us that “God is love” (1 John 4:8), but love needs an object. Whom did God love before Creation? God has always been love, and before anything else existed, that love was shared among the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

In the Old Testament, God said, “I AM,” but in the New Testament, God was saying, “I am the Father, I am the Son, and I am the Holy Spirit.” If we’re going to know God, we must come to know him as Father, Son, and Spirit. If we do not know him in this way, we do not know him as he is.

This is more than a matter of knowledge; it’s a matter of experience. Jesus told his disciples that they were to “go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19).

The word baptize means “to dip, plunge, or immerse.” In the early church, believers were baptized in rivers. Either they were plunged under the water or water was poured over their heads. Either way, they got drenched! Jesus said baptism was to be given “in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” The Christian life is all about being drenched in the Father, plunged into the Son, and soaked in the Spirit. This is part of what baptism symbolizes.

The Father, the Son, and the Spirit permeate every part of a believer’s life. You cannot separate one from the other—the Spirit draws you to the Son, the Son brings you to the Father, and the Son pours the Spirit into your heart. You cannot know the Father apart from the Son, or the Son apart from the Spirit. While you cannot fully understand the nature of God, you must grasp what is revealed about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit if you’re to know God as he is.

For further reading, see Genesis 1