Discipleship Class – August 10, 2025 – The Triune God

Teaching Notes:  The Triune God

From The GCI Statement of Beliefs:

God, by the testimony of Scripture, is one divine Being in three eternal, co-essential, yet distinct Persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The One God may be known only in the Three and the Three may be known only as the one true God, good, omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, and immutable in his covenant love for humanity.  He is Creator of heaven and earth, Sustainer of the universe, and Author of human salvation.  Though transcendent, God freely and in divine love, grace and goodness involves himself with humanity directly and personally in Jesus Christ, that humanity, by the Spirit, might share in his eternal life as his children.

Section 1:  The Triune God

1.1 Who is the God Christians worship?

• Mark 12:29  Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.  
• Matt. 28:19  Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 
• Acts 20:28  Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church ^[a]of God which He purchased with His own blood.
• 2 Cor. 13:14  The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
• Heb. 10:29  Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant  by which he was sanctified  a common thing, and insulted  the Spirit of grace?
• 1 Pet 1:2   elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit,  for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ:
• In accordance with the testimony of the Holy Scriptures, the God we worship is one divine Being  in three eternal, co-essential, yet distinct Persons — God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

1.2 What does being triune tell us about God’s nature?

• John 14:9  Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip?  He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?  
• 1 John 4:8  He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.  
• 1 John 4:16    And we have known and believed the love that God has for us.  God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
• Rom. 5:8  But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  
• Titus 2:11  For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men,  
• Heb. 1:2-3  has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; ³ who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,  
• 1 Pet. 1:2   elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ:  Grace to you and peace be multiplied. 
• Gal. 3:26  For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 
• That God is the eternal communion of holy love shared by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

1.3 Does that mean there are three Gods?

• No.
• The triune God is one God who exists eternally as three distinct Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The triune God is one in being and three in Persons.

1.4 How can God be both one in being and three in Persons?

• Though we cannot know exactly how God’s being functions since we are mere creatures, we can say that, unlike human persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are related to each other in such an absolutely unique and profound way that they are one in being.
• The oneness of God’s being is a tri-unity.

1.5 Are the three Persons of the Trinity three different ways God acts towards his creation, or three roles the one God plays?

• No.
• In the being of God there is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit who know, love and glorify each other for all eternity.
• There never was a time when God was not triune.

1.6 Is one of the Persons of the Trinity the origin of the others, and thus superior?

• No.
• The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are equally eternal and divine and share the same authority and power, and have the same mind, will and purpose in all things.