The Bible affirms that there is only one God, yet it also describes God as three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This triune personage is commonly known as the Trinity.
All three persons of the Trinity are fully and simultaneously God. They are not parts of one God, three separate gods, or one God in three successive forms. God the Father did not create Jesus as a person or the Holy Spirit as a force.
Each person shares the same divine essence and attributes. They have all existed eternally and are coequal in every respect, including power, authority, knowledge, and ability, without hierarchy or subordination. We can pray to the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit.
Each person has a distinct role. The Father formulates plans, the Son implements them, and the Holy Spirit brings them to completion.
The Father
God the Father is a spirit who resides in heaven, a place he created for himself, his loyal angels, and us.
He designed the world and all its inhabitants. He gave Adam and Eve, the first humans, authority over the earth and unlimited freedom to do whatever they could conceive, except for one thing.
After Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, God the Father established a plan of salvation for humanity and oversaw its execution.
The Son
Jesus is God the Son. He is both fully human and fully divine. He served as the Father’s agent at creation, commanding the world into existence.
Jesus left heaven about two thousand years ago to live on earth for a little more than thirty years. While here, he revealed what the Father is like; validated, explained, and expanded on the Old Testament; and paid the penalty for sin through his death.
Jesus ascended into heaven forty days after his resurrection and now advocates for our salvation before the Father. He is the Savior of all who choose to be spiritually reborn.
Jesus will someday physically return to earth to gather his reborn believers and escort them to heaven. Then he will rule the world for one thousand years before bringing heaven to earth.
The Holy Spirit
God, the Holy Spirit, is distinct from the spirit that is God the Father. He brought order to creation and now completes the Father’s work on earth.
The Holy Spirit does not inhabit nature—trees, rocks, animals, etc.—but he is transcendentally active everywhere.
In the process of salvation, the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin and helps us understand God’s mercy and grace, enabling us to make an informed decision about whether to be spiritually reborn. He indwells us after we accept Jesus as our Savior, securing our eternal life.
As we walk in harmony with God, the Holy Spirit strengthens our stamina, intensifies our noble desires, reinforces our self-discipline, and empowers us as needed.
He manifests the divine attributes within us that enable us to live contentedly in a troubled world: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. This manifestation is known as the fruit of the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit illuminates the truths that apply to our lives as we study the Bible. Amid affliction, he provides guidance, direction, comfort, strength, and hope. When we cannot pray, he intercedes with God the Father on our behalf.
The Holy Spirit works through us to mentor fellow believers and to inform unbelievers about God’s plan of salvation. He prompts us to assist those in all manner of need.
The Holy Spirit equips each reborn believer with a spiritual gift to edify the church and serve the broader community as we walk in harmony with him. Examples include teaching, administration, mercy, encouragement, evangelism, and hospitality.
Read More
Learn more about God’s nature and his role in our lives by following the links in the sidebar menu on this page.
Jesus is unique among the founders of other major religions. There is a plausible explanation for his virgin birth and ample evidence for his resurrection.
Many of us understand the nature of God but still do not completely trust him. Listed below are the common reasons why. The highlighted titles link to other pages on this website that provide more details.
- Presence Of Suffering. If God is good, why does he allow us to suffer so much? Why does he not use his power and authority to make life easier? Suffering is a manifestation of evil, not evidence that God is untrustworthy or nonexistent. Evil exists because moral truth and our free will exist.
- Misunderstood Metaphors. God uses metaphors in the Bible to describe, in simple terms, how he relates to us personally. We will question his existence if we expect him to embody every nuance implicit in these figures of speech.
- Unanswered Prayers. God tells us to pray continuously about all our concerns, but he grants only those petitions that align with his will. Since we cannot always discern his specific will in every circumstance, we often ask him for things that fall outside his intentions. These unanswered prayers cast doubt on him.
- Misapplied Promises. We will be dismayed if we assume that the unique promises God made in the Bible to certain people under specific circumstances are always applicable to us in situations of our choosing. Misapplying God’s general promises to all spiritually reborn believers can also create false expectations.
- Misconstrued Intentions. We may become distrustful if we conflate God’s ultimate intentions with our current longings. We can lose confidence in him when these immediate desires go unmet.
- Miraculous Expectations. Faith contingent on the occurrence of miracles risks disillusionment. God does marvelous things every day, but he chooses the nature, occasion, and beneficiaries of these wonders, not us.
- False Attribution. We are destined for disappointment if we expect God to routinely guide us through signs, wonders, assurances, and coincidences. This expectation can prompt us to mistake everyday occurrences for his overt guidance, resulting in poor choices that produce adverse outcomes he never intended.
- Unforeseen Outcomes. Following God’s clear direction does not always guarantee a good outcome, at least initially. His guidance sometimes leads us to arid desert locations rather than to green pastures and still waters. These outcomes can cast doubt on his existence.
- Self-Magnification. We are bound to be disappointed if we think we can impose demands on God. We are not his peers. He is our sovereign. He is not subject to our will. We are subject to his.
- Transactional Entitlement. We will lose faith in God if we expect him to reward our righteousness with personal success, safety, and satisfaction. Our relationship with him is not transactional.
- Personal Iniquity. We will give up on God if we think our unrighteousness means he is ineffective or nonexistent, that we are irreparably defective, or that this “God-thing” works for a select few but not for us.
- Hypocrisy. The unrighteousness of other reborn believers can distort our view of God and undermine our faith in him because his influence seems to have little bearing on their behavior.
- Unfairness Of Life. We will distrust God if we expect him to make life fair. Our lives are unfair because we are surrounded by the adverse consequences of wrong choices made by others, ranging from Adam and Eve to those in our present orbit. Conversely, our mistakes contribute to the unfairness in the lives of those around us.
- Draconian Decrees. Some people distrust God because they dislike specific laws he established in the Old Testament and object to the severe penalties he imposed for violating them. These folks misread his purposes in issuing the Old Testament laws and overlook the grace and mercy he offered to violators who repented.
- Sanctioned Killings. Some people distrust God because they object to the killings in the Bible that he either initiated directly or ordered the Israelites to carry out. He sanctioned these killings to ensure the success of his salvation plan and to punish individual and corporate sin. He gave the victims fair warning of his impending judgment and ample opportunity to avoid it through repentance.
- Flawed System. Some of us question God because we mistakenly believe he set up a flawed system with inherent vulnerabilities that produce suffering. On the contrary, his system respects and preserves our volitional freedom.
- Divine Sexism. We may distrust God because we have been deceived into believing that he sanctions sexism and authorizes the subjugation of women. The truth is that men and women are equal in his eyes.
- Value Differences. Some of us reject God because we disagree with his moral values. We condone what he condemns. He draws distinctions we dispute. We elevate issues he considers secondary. He esteems what we deem disposable.
- Unequal Blessing. We may lose faith in God because he blesses reborn believers unequally. Some of us endure more distress than others. Our temporal needs are more persistent and acute, and we receive less relief. Others enjoy greater abundance than we do.
- Unjust Condemnation. Some people distrust God because they question the fairness of his salvation plan. If the only way to heaven is through Jesus, it seems grossly unjust for God to condemn to hell those who live and die without ever hearing about him. Fortunately, this is not the case. God’s plan of salvation is fair to everyone.
