In this series, we seek to defend the much maligned doctrine of the Trinity. As a part of this defense, we will need to address the questions of skeptics who claim that Jewish monotheists could not have become trinitarians without somehow violating monotheism and engaging in the syncretism of Hellenistic, Platonic, and/or Gnostic thought forms. Our strategy will be threefold: to show that trinitarian notions implicit in the earliest pages of Scripture became explicit in the New Testament, to explore how first century Jewish Christians included the Son and the Spirit in the one divine identity, and then briefly to trace the intellectual formulation of the doctrine from the post-apostolic period through the end of the fourth century.

Our objective will be to demonstrate that the doctrine of the Trinity was not the result of an exercise in syncretism, but was the end product of a battle against syncretistic impulses in the theologically maturing church, and that the doctrine offers, within the reasonable limitations of human language, a fair representation of the God of the Bible as he has actually revealed himself. Along the way, we will keep in mind that “the Trinity is a mystery…more to be adored than investigated. The study of it is arduous, for we are dealing with matters too great for us, before which we must bow down and worship, recognizing our utter inadequacy” (Robert Letham, The Holy Trinity, 11-12). We begin with the evidence provided by the Old Testament.

Notions of a pluralistic dimension to God appear in the first chapter of Genesis. Here we find triadic expressions of God’s widely diverse creative activity in his separation, on the one hand, of light from darkness, water from sky, and water from dry land, and, on the other hand, his creation of those corresponding bodies and beings that inhabit these respective realms, that is, sun and moon, flying and sea creatures, and land animals and humans. We observe from this that “this God who created the universe does not work in a monolithic way. His order is varied––it is three fold, but one. His work shows diversity in its unity, and unity in its diversity. This God loves order and variety” (Letham, 19).

Furthermore, implicit in the act of creation itself recorded in the first three verses of Genesis 1, we may discern the threefold motion of God, his Spirit, and his Word. Although not explicitly revealed as distinct persons, God’s breath or Spirit and his Word/Wisdom seem to be revealed throughout the Old Testament as active and effective distinctions within the Godhead that have properties and impact of their own (Ps 33:6; Pr 8:22-31; Is 55:11, 40:7, and 59:21). Paul Owen argues that “the scriptural allusions to God’s Wisdom and Word existing with God in the beginning imply that within the very structure of…God there is eternal relationality.”

In Genesis 1:26-27, we find this stunning deliberation occurring within the Godhead regarding the creation of humans: “Let us make man in our image.” There have been a variety of interpretations attempting to explain away this apparent plurality within God in order to reconcile it with Jewish monotheism, from God huddling with the angels to a plurality of majesty, not person. But Letham contends that 

Scripture has a fullness that goes beyond the horizons of the original author. Many of the [Church] Fathers saw in Genesis 1:26 a reference to the Trinity. While this was concealed from the original readers and from the OT saints as a whole, the Fathers were not at variance with the trajectory of the text (Letham, 20).

In other words, evidence of distinction and plurality in the Godhead may be precisely what it seems, and there is no need to attempt to explain this evidence away.

Although not conclusive in themselves, these Old Testament texts are among those that form a cumulative case and lay the groundwork for a smooth transition to the fuller, richer understanding of God made explicit in the New Testament. Letham concludes that “the ultimate acknowledgement by the church of the triunity of God was ‘providentially prepared’ by these [Old Testament] foreshadowings” (Letham, 32). Thus, there is a sense in which first century Jewish Christians may have been better equipped than their conservative Jewish opponents to assimilate the Old Testament revelation into their theological understanding without violating their commitment to monotheism. The plural dimension of the one God implicit in the Old Covenant witness had become explicit in their New Covenant experience.

However, we must be careful not to press pre-Christian Jewish categories of plurality too far. For example, Richard Bauckham points out that there are scholars who seek trinitarian precursors in Old Testament and Second Temple Period “intermediary” figures such as angels or exalted patriarchs. The rigorous monotheism of Second Temple Judaism, however, placed the sovereign work of creation firmly into the hands of the one and only God. Therefore, these intermediary figures are disqualified as candidates for inclusion in the Godhead because “there is no suggestion anywhere in the literature that principal angels or exalted patriarchs participate in the work of creation. They are clearly created beings” (Richard Bauckham, God Crucified, 17-18).

On the other hand, this early literature testifies to “personified or hypostatized divine aspects,” such as the Word and the Wisdom of God that “take part in the work of creation, sometimes with distinguishable roles, sometimes interchangeably” and that “belong to the unique divine identity” (Bauckham, 20-21). Therefore, there appears to have been plenty of room within pre-Christian Jewish thought for distinction and plurality within the one divine identity without need to appeal to alleged intermediary figures. It is, in fact, to this singular divine identity that the early Jewish Christians pointed as they asked the question, “Who is Jesus?" We will begin to explore what the early evidence from the New Testament tells us about their answer to this question in our next post.

Arnie Gentile