I saw a very well made chart on Facebook the other day that best illustrates the nature of the Trinity/Godhead, and since I’m a visual learner and a sucker for a well-made chart, I wanted to share the picture and make a couple comments…
As you probably know, there are three ways in which God manifests Himself, and those three ways are forever united. Moses makes this statement..
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord
(Deuteronomy 6:4)
It’s hard to wrap the mind around it, maybe, but God is one God who has three personas, each one having His own mind yet each mind in perfect harmony with the others. He is one: He is not “one, cut into thirds,” or “three working as one,” but is “one with three ways He personifies Himself.” I suppose it’s hard to wrap the mind around it because God is the only Being who is like this; we have no frame of reference other than the very Being we fail to grasp.
There are illustrations we sometimes use to explain to children but they’re imperfect: “An apple has three parts, skin, flesh, core, and God has three parts, Father, Son, Spirit.” That’s fine enough for a six year old but it really doesn’t do it justice. An apple skin is not an apple; it’s just the skin of an apple and we understand it’s a limited part of the whole. God the Father is not a limited part; He is God. The same is true of God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. All are God…all are the one God.
*mind goes boosh*
Incidentally, the word “one” in Deuteronomy 6 is interesting. While we think of the word as a number, the word in the Hebrew is “Ekhawd” and can be translated as “united.” In other words Moses says “The Lord our God is a united Lord.” Wording it like that—“The Lord our God is united”—would hint at His multi-faceted nature.
But it gets better, because after saying that Moses tells God’s people to love God with everything they have (“all your heart, soul, mind, etc”).
Why?
Because doing that unites US to God. And when we don’t love Him with everything; when we love something else more, then we are guilty of sin…and what does sin do? Sin DIVIDES us from the united—and uniting—God (Isaiah 59).
I may not understand the inner mechanics of God’s united nature, but I don’t need to; I’m told to love Him with all I’ve got and by doing so, I’ll be united with Him too.
~ Matthew