We celebrated Trinity Sunday. The Bible is clear about the teaching that God is three persons in one united God. Problems and false teachings arise, not because the Bible is unclear, but because people don’t understand this doctrine — the math just doesn’t work out according to how we think math should work.
One of the charges that those who deny the Trinity make is that the Old Testament doesn’t teach the Trinity. Actually, that is not true — although it is more clearly taught in the New Testament. Below is a quote from a Lutheran doctrine book that shows that believers who only had the Old Testament were not bothered by the teaching that God had more than one person.
It is interesting to note in this connection that in the New Testament record no one ever objected or expressed surprise when Jesus spoke of the plurality of persons in God and called them by name. Some to be sure violently objected to Jesus’ identification of himself as one of the three, but they did not object to the idea of three in one itself. The disciples on their weakest day never asked, “What in the world are you talking about?” when Jesus taught the truth that God is three and nevertheless one. It was a truth already known to them to a certain extent from the Old Testament. God’s identification of himself as one God in three persons is, of course most clearly spelled out and expressed in the New Testament. . . . Matthew 28:18–20: “Jesus came near and said to them, ‘All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’”
Daniel Deutschlander
Grace Abounds, p. 98
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