Summary: Christians believe there is one God, composed of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. But how can this be? In 325 A.D. the church sought to explain this seeming contradiction with a statement known as the Nicene Creed, Later, they sought to further clarify this with a statement known as the Athanasian Creed which has become the accepted understanding of God. However, is this what the Bible teaches? This article seeks to answer this question.

The Bible tells us that “The Lord our God is one Lord” (Deuteronomy 6:4).

Moses made this statement to the Israelites shortly after having left Egypt where the Egyptians worshipped a plurality of gods. On Mount Sinai, God told his people “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). For Jews, as well as for Christians, we believe there is only one God.

And yet, Christians believe that there is God, the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Then, how can there be one God if there are three people who are gods? The Jews didn’t have a problem with this, but the Greek Christians did.

For centuries, the Jews believed there was only one true God and when they accepted Jesus, they accepted him as that God. However, the Greeks believed in a plethora of gods and in the logic of their mind, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost constituted three gods, so it didn’t make sense how three gods could all be the same, one God.

After the destruction of Jerusalem and the scattering of the Jews, the church of Jesus Christ consisted mostly of Greek Gentiles, and once all the apostles had died, the problem of how three persons could all be one God became a major point of debate, which led to the rise of the first theologians in the church who attempted to explain this apparent contradiction.

The way they finally resolved this issue was using the word “trinity” which said that God is made of three persons in one. Since they couldn’t really explain what this meant, they said it was a mystery that man in incapable of understanding,

In 325 A.D. a council consisting of 300 bishops met in the city of Nicea and decided that what made both the Father and the Son one God was the substance they were made of. In the Nicene Creed they used the Greek word homoousios to explain how the Father and Son were made of a particular substance. They further declared that it is this substance that makes them God.

More than a century later, the church put forth a statement known as the Athanasian Creed where they added the Holy Ghost to the list of those who are made of this unique substance. In this creed it declares that “We worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, nor dividing the Substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost.” What this means is that, although there are three persons, yet there is only one substance that cannot be divided into three parts. This is why three individuals can be considered as being one God.

The creed also declares that although there are three persons they are all equal in glory and majesty and that they are all co-eternal. It states, “The Father Incomprehensible, the Son Incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost Incomprehensible. The Father Eternal, the Son Eternal, and the Holy Ghost Eternal and yet they are not Three Eternals but One Eternal.”

How can this be? The answer is that they are “incomprehensible,” meaning that mere morals are incapable of comprehending this mystery.

This has since become the accepted understanding of God.

Furthermore, Christians believe that in all matters of faith, the Bible is our only source of knowledge. This is known as the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, or only the scriptures. Therefore, it’s said that we’re to believe only what is found in the Bible.

However, the concept of the Trinity – or a triune, or three-in-one God – is not found in the Bible. Even so, it is contended that when the apostles wrote the New Testament, although they never directly addressed this issue, it’s said that they provided enough clues that we can see that the idea of a triune God is inferred by what they taught.

But is this true? Did the apostles teach that there is one God consisting of three persons who are all made of the same, unique substance and that they are equal in all things?

Among all the various Christian denominations, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints may be the only one who teaches that God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ are two separate and distinct individuals who are each a God in their own right. If that is true, then that would mean there are two Gods, and if the Holy Ghost is a separate person who is also a God, then that would make three Gods.

The reason why they teach such a doctrine is because in 1820 a young fourteen year old boy named Joseph Smith knelt in prayer in a grove of trees on his father’s farm and said that both the Father and the Son appeared to him. However, no other Christian faith accepts this account as being true, mostly because they say it contradicts what the Bible says.

Or does it?

It is unarguable that the person who knew Jesus the best was Peter, therefore, it would be instructive to see what he had to say on this subject, if anything.

In his first epistle, Peter wrote to the “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied” (1 Peter 1:2).

In this verse Peter acknowledges the existence of the Father as God, the Holy Ghost as the sanctifier, and the Son who was obedient in sprinkling his blood. What we see is that Peter recognizes the existence of three individuals and has assigned a specific role to each member of the Godhead concerning our salvation.

He went on to say, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3).

There are several very important things we learn from this, The first is that Peter refers to Jesus as “our Lord,” rather than as “our God.” Second, Peter says that God is not only the Father of Jesus Christ, but he is also the God of Jesus Christ. That shows that Jesus has a God who is over him, which means they cannot be equal in power and authority.

When Jesus was hanging on the cross, at one point he cried out “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). That was not just a vain use of the word God, Jesus was calling to his Father in heaven and addressing him as his God.

Three days later Jesus affirmed this when he appeared to Mary on the morning of his resurrections and said to her “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God” (John 20:17).

Jesus has a Father in heaven who is the same Father in heaven we have, and he has a God who is the same God we worship.

The next thing we learn in verse 3 of Peter’s epistle is that it is the abundant mercy of God, the Father (not the Son) who has given us the hope of eternal life through “the resurrection of [his Son] Jesus Christ from the dead.”

When Jesus was suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane, he pled with his Father to take away this bitter cup, but he nevertheless said, “Not my will be done, but thine” Luke 22:42). Clearly, what the Son wanted to do was not the same as what the Father wanted done, showing they were not equal in thought, yet Jesus subordinated his will to that of his Father, showing that he was obedient to doing what his father wanted, which is what Peter said in verse 2.

In verse 3 what Peter is saying is that it is the Father’s abundant mercy by which we are saved, and the way the Father has shown us his mercy is by sending his only Begotten Son to die for us so we could live. And it was the Son who was obedient to the will of his Father in carrying out the Father’s plan for the salvation of our souls (verse 9).

Peter went on to say that it was God, the Father, who raised Jesus from the dead and that it was God, the Father, who gave Jesus his glory, for the express purpose that our faith might be in God (verse 21).

If Jesus is God and is co-eternal and co-equal with God, the Father, as nearly all Christians believe, then how could the Father give his glory to his Son if his Son always had the same glory as his Father from all eternity as the Athanasian Creed states?

Furthermore, Peter didn’t say that Jesus resurrected himself, but specifically said it was the Father who raised Jesu from the dead. In addition to this, Peter states that the reason why God, the Father did this was so our “fatih and hope might be in God.”

Christians will say that “God” is Jesus Christ, however, in these verses whenever Peter is talking about God it’s always in reference to the Father. It is noteworthy that Peter did not say that God raised Jesus from the dead so that our faith might be in Jesus. He specifically said that our faith might be in God. Given the context of this statement, it’s clear that Peter is referring to God, the Father, not God, the Son.

In fact, Peter tells the saints to “call on the Father who ]is] without respect of person” (verse 17). It was Jesus who taught us to pray to the Father, and when he himself prayed, he told his Father, “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do” (John 17:4).

The Son of God was sent to earth by the Father, to do the will of the Father, and Jesus himself declared that he came to glorify the Father, not himself. Peter verifies this when he said, “that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ’ (1Peter 4:11).

And it was because of what Jesus did, that God, the Father then glorified his Son by placing him on his right hand and “made” all angels and powers subject unto him (1 Peter 3:22). The scriptures also tell us that it was after Jesus had suffered death that he was “crowned with glory and honor… by the grace of God” (Hebrews 2:9).

If Jesus is co-equal with the Father, then the Father couldn’t have glorified his son and crowned him with glory and honor and placed him on his right hand and made all the angels and powers subject to him because he would have always have had the same glory as the father, and would have always sat on the right hand of the father, and all the angels and power of heaven would have always been subject to him from all of eternity.

The apostle Paul taught this same message when he said, “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him (Jesus), and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11).

Jesus didn’t exalt himself, but rather it was God, the Father who exalted him and it was God, the Father who decreed that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow… and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” Notice, Paul doesn’t say that every tongue should confess that Jesus is God. And why should every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord? Paul says that it was for “the glory of God the
Father.”

Peter tells us to “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: (1 Peter 5:6). Just like God, the Father exalted his Son Jesus Christ, so also God the Father will likewise exalt us in due time if we humble ourselves and are obedient to him as was Jesus Christ.

In his second epistle, Peter wrote that we too “might be partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:3,4). If we say that what makes God divine is the unique substance he is made of, then we are forced to understand Peter as saying that the time will come when we will also be made of this same substance and become just as divine as God.

However, what Peter has shown is that the Father and the Son are not co-equal in power, that the Father is greater than the Son, that the Son is subservient and obedient to the Father, that the plan for the salvation for mankind is that of the Father, that Jesus Christ was sent to earth by the Father to die on the cross for our sins as the Father directed him, and that the glory for this belongs to the Father. We also see that just as the Father exalted his Son, we too, as sons of God, can someday become exalted and be crowned with glory along with Jesus (Revelation 3:21).

Rather than the Bible being silent on the relationship between the Father and the Son, the New Testament is very clear about this. Then, why do we say there is only one God if there are three persons who are God and if we can also be partakers of God’s divine nature and be exalted in glory?

Jesus gave the answer when he said, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3).

There is only one true God, and he isn’t composed of three people. The God we worship, the God Jesus worshiped, the God we pray to, and the one Jesus prayed to, the God that Jesus gave all glory to is God, the Father. And that’s because he alone is the one true God.

 

related articles can be found at The Nature of God