Trinity

January 2

“Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Genesis 1:26.

This passage reveals at the onset of the Lord’s discourse to mankind through His holy and inerrant Word, the Bible, two glorious truths. First, He introduces the concept that HE who is One, Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is ONE GOD,” has multiplicity to His personhood. Here we see the first indication that the One glorious and almighty God that we serve is a triune being.

The second is that man, frail grasshopper that he is, Isaiah 40:22, “God sits upon the circle of the earth and the people are as grasshoppers in His sight,” is created in the image of God.

Lest anyone misunderstand, let me hasten to assure you that Christians do NOT worship three gods! No! Emphatically and unequivocally, Christians absolutely do not bow before three gods. We bow before and worship only the God who declares Himself to be “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” Exodus 3:6.

Christians worship only the God of whom His holy Word says, “the LORD of hosts is His name; and He is your Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall He be called,” Isaiah 54:5.
Christians bow only before the One of whom it is declared, “there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved,” Acts 4:12, and that One is Jesus Christ.

Of Him, John 1:1-3 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made.”

The God who spoke the worlds and all that exists into being (see Genesis, Chapters 1 and 2) is the ONLY God and it is He before whom Christians bow in humble thanksgiving—for the life He gave all men at their creation and for the eternal life He has purchased for everyone who believes in the propitiatory life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

The God who is Creator, Savior and Comforter (see John 14:26, John 16:7) is the ONE before whom Christians lay their lives in service and the ONE for whom Christians will lay down their lives rather than deny His name. It is this ONE in whose likeness man is made. He is the One who has said, "You shall seek Me and find Me when you shall search for Me with all your heart," Jeremiah 29:13.

Man, his flesh, his mind, his spirit, is patterned after the triune unity of our Holy God. Just as HE has three aspects of His personhood in One undivided being, so man has three aspects to himself. As God is complete in every aspect of Himself and seamless in His oneness, so man cannot separate himself from the triune aspects of himself.

Man certainly nurtures his physical body and takes great strides toward advancing his mental acuity, but he sometimes neglects his spirit to the detriment of his eternal well-being. In order, however to approximate toward the oneness after which we are designed, we must allow the one part of our selfhood that will abide eternally to attain the holiness of Christ, the righteousness which He purchased for us at Calvary.

When that has been done, we will be the complete triune being that our Triune God designed us to be at creation, sacrificed Himself for us to be at Golgotha’s hill, and woos us to be through the tender Spirit who calls us to Himself.