III=I

All evidences for the Trinity are revealed by God in the Scripture or are derived from Scripture. I will outline some (but not all) of the Biblical or internal Old and New Testament evidences. I will avoid many of the obvious Biblical evidences as most people either know them already or they can be easily found elsewhere. I want to dig a little.

The Old Testament:

As mentioned by Kerry McRoberts, the very first Biblical evidence shows up in Genesis where there is a separation or noted delineation in the Godhead.

"Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” ~ Genesis 1:26

Genesis 3:22
Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"

Genesis 11:7 "Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech."

Another distinction is the Angel of the Lord, theophanies and Yahweh which distinguishes this entity from Him/Father. These references include the verse or units Genesis 16:7-13 (Hagar & Ishmael in the Wilderness), Genesis 18:1-21 (Three Visitors to Abraham) & Genesis 32:22-32 (Jacob Wrestles With God).

All these were in Genesis alone!

In Isaiah we then have...

Isaiah 6:8
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"

In Isaiah 48:15-16; 61:1 we see the Messiah identify Himself with the other persons of the Godhead in unity and also by speaking in the first person when referring to the other persons in the Trinity.

Isaiah 48:15-16
I, even I, have spoken; yes, I have called him. I will bring him, and he will succeed in his mission. "Come near me and listen to this: "From the first announcement I have not spoken in secret; at the time it happens, I am there." And now the Sovereign LORD has sent me, with his Spirit.

This makes the Messianic reference plain. He is speaking yet Yahweh is directing him. Who is He? He is being sent by and is Yahweh at the same time...Jesus. In context of the chapter, Yahweh & the Holy Spirit send The One who was present at Creation.

Isaiah 61:1
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on Me, because the LORD has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners...

"Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the Lord hath anointed me" this is quoted by Jesus as His credentials in preaching in Luke 4:18-21. The first three verses of this chapter are talking about Jesus and His mission to earth as the Servant of the Lord introduced in earlier passages of Isaiah. This is confirmed by Jesus Himself when He quotes from this passage, as recorded in the gospel of Luke.

"Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

Zechariah 12:10 is the clearest image of this as it is God speaking in first person (me) when speaking of having been pierced. We then see a shift to third (him) mentioning the suffering. This intrinsically identifies a plurality of person (McRoberts 147-148)

Zecheriah 12:10
"And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit [The Spirit] of grace and supplication. They will look on [to] me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.

Of notable elegance is the Assemblies of God statement about the Trinity as their orthodoxy on the Trinity is the same as all evangelicals:

“The one true God has revealed Himself as the eternally self-existent "I AM," the Creator of heaven and earth and the Redeemer of mankind. He has further revealed Himself as embodying the principles of relationship and association as Father, Son and Holy Spirit”

A Personal Note:

The Trinity is such a mind-bending concept that is fairly clear to me that there is a low probability that it is the product of human reason or logic. If anything it is counter intuitive and defies conventional logic of men. In other words, it could only have been revealed by god, man probably would’ve never been able to invent the concept. What man can even fully grasp it?

We have a few Biblical references directly implicating the Holy Spirit as both an active agent in things and as a distinct third person of the Trinity

Psalms 104:30
When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.

Jesus also claimed deity for the Holy Spirit.

John 14:16
"And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever"

There are distinct Biblical references to The Father being a sanctifier in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, to Jesus as a sanctifier among other things in 1 Corinthians 1:2 and the Holy Spirit being a sanctifier in Romans 15:16.

1 Thessalonians 5:23
"May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."

1 Corinthians 1:2
"To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours..."

Romans 15:16
"...to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles with the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit."

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The New Testament:

The New Testament evidences are fairly straight forward and probably the most commonly known to believers (and some non-believers). The most pronounced and obvious example is John 1:1-3. This passage is commonly understood to be referring to Jesus Christ. In the second part of verse 1 we see, “And the Word was with God”. Word is capitalized as a proper noun and understood to be Jesus or the Word made flesh as noted in v.14. The Word or logos was with God. The word “with” means “toward”, “by the side of”, “face to face”. As Psalms 90:2 alluded to, a relationship they have always shared from [Hebrew: `owlam to `owlam], everlasting to everlasting or beyond vanishing point to beyond the vanishing point (McRoberts 148-149).

I could go into much more explicit detail about mentions of the Trinity in the New Testament but if I need to for the readers of this blog, you should be ashamed of yourselves for not knowing so that you are able to defend your position of a key doctrine and tenet of your faith. When people ask you who Jesus is you need to know how to answer this question and how it ties into Jesus Christ as He is part of the Trinity.

It is quite clear in the New Testament that the Trinity is shown in the redemption and reconciling aspect/attribute of God towards a sinful mankind. God sent His Son (Jesus) into the world as the atoning sacrifice for man’s sin. At the cross Jesus obviously submitted to the will of the Father as He himself had His own apprehensions about it (human side) asking if there was any way to take “this cup” from Him. Then followed this up with “not my will” but “as you will”. After Christ’s death we then have Pentecost and the “Helper” comes to indwell in believers of what Christ has come to accomplish with His death, burial and resurrection (McRoberts 168)

McRoberts, Kerry D. "Chapter 5 The Holy Trinity." Systematic Theology. Ed. Stanley M. Horton. Springfield: Logion Press, 2010. 145-177. Print. Anthology.