What does the Bible say about God's threeness? 

The Bible passages below can be used in sermons, prayers, or worship planning focused on God's threeness. 

Divinity and distinctness of God the Father 

• Luke 10:21, Lord of heaven and earth (Jesus thanks his Father for hiding things from the wise and revealing them to children)
• John 14:26, the Father sends the Spirit in the Son's name (the Advocate, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything)
• Romans 1:7, God our Father and the Lord Jesus (to all God's beloved: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ)
• 1 Corinthians 8:5-6, one God and one Lord (there is one God, the Father, from whom all things came, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came)
• 2 Corinthians 1:3, the Father of our Lord (blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercy)
• Ephesians 1:1, the Father of our Lord (blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ) 

Divinity and distinctness of Jesus Christ 

• John 1:1, the Word was with God (in the beginning was the Word, who was with God and who was God)
• John 1:18, Jesus is close to the Father's heart (no one has seen God; people saw Jesus, who is God and who made God known)
• John 17:20-22, Jesus was sent by the Father (Jesus said the Father is in him and he is in the Father)
• John 20:28, Thomas believes Jesus is God (Thomas calls Jesus his Lord and his God)
• 1 Corinthians 8:6, one God and one Lord (we exist through Jesus)
• Philippians 2:5-7, Jesus was in the form of God (Jesus emptied himself and did not exploit equality with God)
• Colossians 2:9-10, Jesus embodied God (in him the fullness of deity dwells bodily)
• Hebrews 1:3, Jesus is the reflection of God's glory (he is the exact imprint of God's being; he sustains all things by his powerful word) 

Divinity and distinctness of the Holy Spirit (or Advocate, or Paraclete) 

• Mark 3:29, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit is guilty of an eternal sin)
• John 14:26, the Father sends the Spirit (the Holy Spirit was sent by God to teach and serve as Advocate)
• John 16:8, the Advocate will come (the Advocate will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment
• Romans 8:15-16, the Spirit bears witness (when we cry to the Father, it is the Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God) 

Triadic formulas: Father, Son, and Holy Spirt 

• Matthew 28:19,"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit"
• Acts 2:38-39,"Peter said to them, `Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him'"
• 1 Corinthians 12:4-6,"Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone"
• 2 Corinthians 13:14,"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you" 

Sermon ideas about God's threeness 

One God, three divine persons 

A sermon on God's threeness can point out that the Bible identifies and distinguishes three divine persons while insisting on "one God." One God does not mean there is only one person in God (one thinker, speaker, lover, doer). "One person" is standard modalist heresy — that is, the heresy that there are three modes of being in one person. 

Not masks or roles 

A sermon on God's threeness can also point out that person in early Latin Christianity did not mean masks or roles as in dramatis personae. Tertullian's analogy is that Father, Son, and Spirit are three persons in God as, for example, multiple monarchs — such as a father and a son — may administer a single monarchy. Novatian observes that the Father and the Son are as plainly two persons as are Paul and Apollos. 

The Bible and classical Christianity 

One God in the Bible and classical Christianity may mean any of the following: 

• One Father, as in 1 Corinthians 8:6
• Johannine oneness exhibited by the Son and Father, who are "in" each other and "one" with each other, united by their common will, work, word, knowledge, love, and glory (This is roughly the meaning in later centuries of one "substance" or "essence" in God; it's the sum of those properties shared in common by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that constitute them as divine persons.)
• One holy Trinity 

So the tension within the Christian doctrine of the Trinity consists in honoring the distinctness of three persons, each divine by the same attributes as the other two, while also worshiping one God. 

Implications of God's threeness 

In theological anthropology, how shall we construe the image of God in humanity? Where is a place in it for harmony, inter-subjectivity, mutuality, reciprocity, fellowship? Human with-ness and in-ness can reflect the three-personed unity within God. It is striking, for example, that the "restoration of the image" texts in the New Testament (Ephesians 4:24-32; Colossians 3:9-17) are in wonderfully communal contexts. The overcoming of estrangement and alienation from God and humanity that is the heart of righteousness is, in Pauline perspective, both the graceful accomplishment and goal of the Christian community.  

In our fellowship and koinonia, in such seemingly homely endeavors as telling each other the truth and doing such "honest work" as will help those in need — above all in that love that "binds everything together in perfect harmony" — we not only demonstrate that we are members one of another but also that we as community, we-in-the-plural, constitute the restored image of God. 

In ecclesiology we note that in John 17:20-26 Jesus offers a rudimentary social analogy of the Trinity in the new community, of whom Jesus prays that "they may be one as we are one." Or, to move to Pauline ground, our "membership one with another" is a pale reflection of the superlative intra-trinitarian membership (1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4). The social God calls out a people to be a witness, agent, and model to the nations.  

The Christian community that is established by the self-giving events of Christ and under the sponsorship of the Spirit is called once more to be witness, agent, and model of the divine life-giving. Old and new people of God, old and new covenants, are called and constituted by the self-giving of God. For just as the missions of the divine persons extend the intra-trinitarian relations into the sphere of broken human life and habitat, so the people of God are called in turn to do the work and minister the love that is at "the inner heart" of the trinitarian mystery. 

Thus, a sermon on God's threeness can say, the summit of church membership is being membered with others — not only by common love or loyalty for the same Lord, but also by having the divine mind, the servant mind, the deferring-to-others mind. Membership in the church implies the high goal of imitating the divine life by glorifying and exalting others and so doing by "taking on the form of a servant."  

What Augustine says of the physical body of Christ may then be properly extended to the church: Even the communal body of Christ is a sort of sacrament — a visible sign of an invisible reality. 

Excerpts about God's threeness 

Following are sample excerpts from Zeteosearch sermon resources about God's threeness: 

• "The doctrine of the Trinity put simply is that God makes God's self known in a multiplicity of ways. Specifically, and most commonly, three ways, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I have personally experienced God as Father, God in Jesus, and the God in the movement of the Holy Spirit continuing in my life. Therefore, I have experienced the Holy Trinity." Scripture Meditation or Sermon by William Joseph Adams from Sunday GospelTalk  

• "Father, Son and Holy Spirit—three distinct means of God being over and above us, with and for us, and in and among us, and three distinct relationships with one another, who are nonetheless one in essence, will, purpose and work." Scripture Meditation or Sermon by Fred R. Anderson from Day1  

• "It would not have been enough for the Son to have been made an incarnate human being. The will of the Father had to be behind that. The power of the Spirit had to be permeating all of Christ's work and teachings. The power of Father and Spirit were needed to raise the Son from the dead as the ultimate stamp of approval on the sacrifice Jesus made and how it was that he—along with Father and Spirit—chose to take on the devil and also death itself (namely by dying himself)." Sermon Illustration, Sermon Preparation by Scott Hoezee from Center for Excellence in Preaching