Discipleship Class – August 24, 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 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. 1:1-3 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, ²has 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; ³who 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. 1:1-2 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the pilgrims of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, ²elect 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 (different; distinguishable) 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.
(The three Persons are distinct, but NOT separate.)

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.

1.7 Does the equality of the three divine Persons mean that they are interchangeable with each other?

No, the divine Persons are not interchangeable “parts” of God.
Each has a unique relationship of holy love to the other two, and each has an eternal name that reveals their real personal distinction.

1.8 What are the unique relationships in the being of the triune God that are not interchangeable?

The Father eternally begets the Son,
the Son is eternally begotten by the Father, and
the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and through the Son.

1.9 Do the three divine Persons act independently of each other towards creation?

No.
All the works of the triune God toward his creation are indivisible since God is one in being and of one mind, will, authority and holy love.

1.10 Is there no difference, then, in how the three divine Persons relate to creation?

There is a difference, for though the acts of the divine Persons are undivided, each contributes uniquely to the perfectly united works of the one triune God.

1.11 How can we speak of the unique contributions of the three divine Persons without separating their works?

We could say that one of the Persons initiates, or takes the lead, in one or another of the distinct and gracious acts towards the triune God’s creation, while the others perfectly follow in complete harmony with each other.

1.12 What are the primary acts of the triune God towards creation?

The Father is most associated with creation,
the Son with redemption, and
the Holy Spirit with bringing all things to perfection.
However, all three of the divine Persons are involved in all the works of the one triune God.

1.13 Why did the triune God create?

Because the triune God is a living, loving and generative God who creates for the sake of communion and holy love with his creation.
(so that others could participate in the loving relationship that God has shared as Father, Son and Holy Spirit since eternity past)

1.14 Why did the triune God redeem creation?

From the beginning, God’s human creatures, in distrusting God, have alienated themselves and sought to live autonomously from their good, faithful and life-giving Creator.
But, because the triune God is a faithful and loving God who does not give up on His creatures, God himself made a way for them to be reconciled to Him and thus return to fullness of communion with him as their Lord and Savior.

1.15 Why does the triune God now work to perfect the creation?

Because the triune God is a communion of perfect holy love who created us to share in the triune God’s love and life for all eternity and in that way give glory to God.

1.16 How can we finite creatures know, love and trust the triune God?

The triune God has the desire, will and ability to make himself known to his human creatures who do not have the desire, the will, or the ability to know God on their own.
That revelation, which culminated in the Father’s personal self-revelation in Jesus Christ, has, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, been preserved for us in the Holy Scriptures.

1.17 What do the Holy Scriptures say about the triune God?

Luke 10:22 All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”
Matt. 11:27 All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.
John 1:18 No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
John 17:25 O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me.
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,
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.
The Bible records Jesus’ teaching concerning the eternal names of the divine Persons of the Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) and the relationships in the eternal being of God — most specifically knowing, loving and glorifying one another.
Coming from the eternal communion of the Trinity, Jesus is the only one who can tell us surely and authoritatively that God, from eternity, is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Only the Father knows the Son, and only the Son knows the Father and those to whom the Son has chosen to reveal him.

1.18 What do Christians understand from the Holy Scriptures about the character of the triune God revealed by Jesus Christ?

John 10:30 “I and My Father are one.”
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’?
John 17:11 Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are.
John 17:21-22 that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. ²²And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one:
1 John 2:23 Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
We learn that the character, mind, purpose, will and heart of the triune God is identical to what we see and hear in Jesus Christ, demonstrated by what he accomplished in his earthly ministry.
Those who have met and seen the Son have indeed met in him the Father.
We know the Father by knowing the Son.
They are united in such a way that they have the same nature, character, heart, mind, will, authority, power and purpose.

Teaching Notes: The Triune God

From The GCI Statement of Beliefs:

As you have seen in the part 1 Q&A, We Believe begins with the doctrine of the triune God (also called the doctrine of the Trinity). Why? Because what we believe about God is our most important belief. In accord with GCI’s incarnational Trinitarian theology, the doctrine of the Trinity, rather than being just one of several doctrines, is the primary doctrine of our Christian faith, which gives shape to all the others.

Some people object to the doctrine of the Trinity, noting that the word “Trinity” is not in the Bible. That concern is addressed in GCI’s article, Is the Doctrine of the Trinity in the Bible?

Other common questions and concerns related to the doctrine of the Trinity are addressed in the following GCI articles (click on the titles to read them online):

Having begun with the triune God (the doctrine of the Trinity), We Believe now proceeds to address each of the three Persons of the triune God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

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