Trinity In Scripture

The Trinity in Scripture The doctrine of the Trinity is easily one of the most controversial teachings in Christianity. It has been so since the early years of the Christian Church and continues to be so today. Part of the problem is that the word trinity is not found in the Bible. Even so the concept is found in many places and different terms that are used suggest the existence of God in three persons, known as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Scripture underlines love as the foundational characteristic or attribute of these three members of the Godhead (1 John 4:8-16). Their love for one another indicates that the God of Scripture is a relational Trinity. How He relates to His creation in covenant history, presented as hesed in

It may be important to underline at this point that the New Testament portrays a positive attitude towards submission to another’s authority. There is no place for the secular connotation of submission as depicting inferiority of being, or implying ontological inferiority. The many examples of “submit” or “subject” in the NT never imply ontological inferiority resulting from being under authority even when there is apparent ontological inferiority. When Jesus was submissive to His parents (Lk 2:51), when believers are exhorted to submit to governing authorities (Rom 13:1), when younger believers are urged to submit to elders (1 Pet. 5:5), these passages in no way indicate ontological subordination, particularly the case of Jesus submitting to His parents. In Ephesians 5:21 where believers are urged to submit to one another, it seems that ontological equality is what Paul has in mind here and not ontological subordination. The same image is portrayed in 1 Cor. 15:27-28, where everything is subject to the Son, depicting the subordination of creation to the Son. The text also says the Son subjects Himself to the Father, but this is not ontological subordination. Paul does not seem to see any problem in acknowledging authority in this instance. Again, as alluded to above, being under authority does not mean that one is ontologically inferior, insofar as the New Testament is concerned.

Scriptures makes clear in many instances the full deity of the God the Son. “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God…. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made” (Jn 1:1,3). The Son then is equal in all attributes to God the Father. Even so, the terms still imply subordination, but not subordinationism, that ancient heresy that Christ and the Holy Spirit are subordinate to God the Father in nature and