The One God in Three Persons

The Three Persons Distinguished

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

Description

While affirming one God, Scripture clearly distinguishes three persons within the Godhead. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father—yet each is fully God. These distinctions are not modes or manifestations that God assumes at different times (modalism), nor are they three separate beings (tritheism). Rather, they are eternal, personal distinctions within the one divine being. The Father eternally begets the Son, the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father (and the Son, in Western theology), yet none is before or after another in time or dignity. This tri-personal existence is essential to God's nature as love—for love requires an object, and God has loved within Himself from all eternity.

Key Verses

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.
Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.
But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.
And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.