One of the favourite criticisms voiced by the opponents of Christianity is that the New Testament, at least in their eyes, seems to be completely different from the Old. They will often say that it is two different gods, the one of the Old and the one of the New. They often point to doctrines that come out of the NT, and point to the fact that these seem to be absent in the OT. They therefore conclude that the Bible contradicts itself, or at the very least the NT is incompatible with the Old or we are misinterpreting it.

One of the areas where this occurs is the doctrine of the Trinity: the wonderful truth that we have one God manifested in three persons. This central truth to our understanding of God is criticized by many. Some say we worship three gods. This is untrue, we worship one God who is three Persons. Some like to point out that the word trinity doesn’t appear in the Bible, but that’s neither here nor there; because the term doesn’t appear makes no impact on the fact that the teaching most certainly does. Today, we’d like to take a fascinating trip into the Old and New Testament to prove that the doctrine of the Trinity is most assuredly taught throughout Scripture. One has said, ‘The NT is concealed in the Old, the OT is revealed in the New’. That’s very true. The deep truths of God’s Son being the Messiah, of Him dying for our sins, of His resurrection are seen in the OT, albeit in a somewhat concealed way. In the NT they are clearly seen, and so many of the feasts, practices, and symbolism of the Tabernacle are revealed. The same is true of the Trinity. In the New Testament, the truth that God is three Persons but one God is developed and shown quite clearly.

First, we see the Trinity Revealed in the NT.

Jesus tells His disciples to baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Notice, it’s one name, three persons. At Jesus’ baptism, we see all three, the Son being baptized, the Spirit descending like a dove, and the Father speaking from heaven. In John 15:26, we see Christ speaking, including all three persons and their work in one verse.

“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:”

Paul, too, very clearly taught the Trinity. He closes off 2 Corinthians by saying “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.”

In Ephesians 4:4-6 he mentions all three Persons: yet emphasizing unity, “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” Three persons, One God. In Colossians 2:9 Paul says of Christ: “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”

The Apostle Peter clearly also believed it, I Peter 1:2: “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.” John’s writings have the Trinity: John 1:1. In John 17, Jesus praying in the garden, He keeps stating how He is one with His Father, like John 10:30.

Now the Trinity is not something we can fully grasp with our finite minds, any more than we can fully grasp what it means for God to have had no beginning. But the truths are laid out in the NT for all to see. We cannot in this program nor in any fully understand or grasp these truths that God is unity with diversity. But we cannot try and box God into a pigeonhole that is easy to understand. God has more fully revealed Himself to us in the NT; it is our duty to take that and believe it. Now, those who say the NT is not inspired or that we are misinterpreting it seek to show that God is never presented as a tri-unity of persons in the Old Testament. We want to show that the truths of the New are in the Old Concealed, and often not so subtly.

Let us see, secondly, the truth of the Trinity allowed for in the OT

First, let’s begin at the beginning.

The very first of Scripture Genesis 1:1, “In the Beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The interesting thing here is the Hebrew word for God, Elohim – this word is actually in the plural. There is a word available to emphasise Elohim as singular, but the plural word is used. In fact, throughout the O.T it is more often used than not. What are we to make of this? We do worship one God, not many gods, and yet the word itself suggests almost plurality or diversity.

This is not the only place where this occurs. Ps 149:2 “Let Israel rejoice in him that made him:” lit, makers; Ecclesiastes 12:1, “creators”; Isaiah 54:5:

“For thy Maker is thine husband”, literally makers & husbands. There is simply no logical explanation for the use of these plurals, when there are other Hebrew words that would suffice.

Also, we see some plural pronouns, especially in Genesis. 1:26 “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”; 3:22 “And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:” 11:6-7 “And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” Now do these prove the Trinity? No, as we said, the New is in the Old concealed. They do not prove it, but they certainly allow for it. That’s the key. The critic accuses us of inventing doctrines and reading them back into the Old, but the Old was before the New, and it has no problem harmonising with the truths taught in the New.

Well we come to the famous Shema: Deut 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:” Those who reject the Trinity say: there you go, God is one. But here’s the thing, again the Hebrew is the key. The Hebrew word for one is echad. Echad is like our word one, it can express unity in plural form, such as one class of students. Here, the Word is really emphasising the uniqueness of God, like saying, Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is the Lord alone. It is not a statement on number. We know this because the same Hebrew word is used in other places in the Bible to express compound unity. For instance, in Genesis 2:24 where it speaks of a man and his wife becoming one flesh, the word is echad. Are they now one Person? No, one flesh. Or in Numbers 13:23, the spies carried one cluster of grapes. Was it one grape? No, compound unity. This is significant, because there is another Hebrew word, yachid, that means singularity, one in number. The Bible does not use this word to describe God, it uses one that means and allows for compound unity. Again, does this prove the Trinity? No, but it allows for it. If the word had been yachid, the Old and the New would contradict.

We then come to an interesting topic that seems to further allow for the Trinity, namely the angel of the Lord. Now, in Scripture, angels are messengers. They speak for God, they speak on behalf of God, but they never speak as God. When Gabriel announces the good tidings to Zechariah, Joseph, Elizabeth and Mary, He never says, I, the Lord. He says I am Gabriel, which stand in the presence of God. However, especially throughout the book of Genesis, we have One who appears and speaks as God. He is called the angel of the Lord. Listen to Gen 22:15-17, just after Abraham obeyed in regard being willing to sacrifice Isaac.

“And the angel of the LORD called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time,

And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son:

That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;”

It’s clearly the angel of the Lord, who says, by myself I have sworn. What’s going on? How can the angel swear by God’s name, if He is not God? Very curious. This is seen again in the account of Sodom and Gomorrah. Genesis 18 tells us that Abraham was met by three men. Two of them, it turns out were angels. They leave in verse 22 to go to Sodom and they turn out to be the ones who pull Lot and his family out as it is about to be destroyed. But the third person turns out to be none other than the Lord Himself “And the LORD said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, which am old” We know that it was here that Abraham did his interceding for Sodom, begging the Lord not to destroy it if just ten righteous can be found. But this interceding took place face to face. The clincher comes in 19:24: “Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;” There the LORD rains fire down on Sodom from the LORD out of heaven. What’s going on? Is the Lord on earth or in heaven?

The angel of the Lord is to many an appearance of God prior to His birth in Bethlehem. So often He speaks as God and yet for God all at the same time. He reigns fire as God, and yet from God. The angel of the Lord is another wide open OT allowance for the Trinity, a pointer that God is more than one Person.

Don’t forget the man who wrestled with Jacob all night. Jacob names the place where He wrestled Peniel, the face of God, because as he said it, I have seen the face of God and lived. Not the face of an angel – the face of God. How is this possible? How can God tell Moses that no man can see Him and live, and yet the Bible says Moses talked with Him face to face? How could Jacob see Him as God and yet live? These are apparent contradictions, only solved by the possibility that God is more than one Person, that man cannot see the Father and live, while the Son who came to reveal God and save man can be seen.

Aren’t there any verses that clearly seem to indicate the Trinity in the OT?

There certainly are. Isaiah 48:16: “Come ye near unto me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I: and now the Lord GOD, and his Spirit, hath sent me” There in one verse, Yahweh, “I” and the Holy Spirit. Who is the ‘I”? Who is this mystery person? Clearly the same one who keeps revealing Himself throughout the OT, the Son of God. Hath sent me, is the key.

In Is 63:8-16, we have the Hebrew Abba or Father, Mashiach or Messiah and Ruach Hakodesh or Holy Spirit in one breath. God is not hiding the fact that He may not be as simple as some want Him to be.

Psalm 110 is the Psalm that our Lord quoted to the Pharisees: “The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” There is clearly something in this. The Lord said unto my Lord. Literally “Yahweh said to my Adonai” Was God talking to Himself? How could the Lord speak to another Lord? Are there two gods? Confusing, unless we begin to allow for the NT fuller explanation, God is One, but there are Three.

Or consider Psalm 2:7; “I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.” Some say this is the king, but notice v11 and 12 together. “Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.

Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.”

Or consider the enigmatic Proverbs 30:4: “Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? what is his name, and what is his son’s name, if thou canst tell?” The truth is that the OT allows for the Trinity. In fact, if you begin to deny it, as the opponents of Christianity did in reaction to Christianity, you end up with an OT that contradicts itself.

Did you ever consider a purely logical fact? The Bible says God is love. How could God have loved before He created if He is in fact only one Person? How did He remain true to His nature, that is to love, fellowship and give if there was no one else but one Person for all eternity? Perhaps these questions are too philosophical, but again, they are easily answered when we believe the NT revelation of God, three Persons who loved each other and fellowshipped in perfect harmony for eternity past, before the world began.

The New is in the Old Concealed.

On that note, did you ever consider, thirdly, how God has hidden or perhaps better, revealed the wondrous truth of the Trinity throughout creation?

Consider that the universe itself is a Trinity, time, matter, and space. There are not 3 universes, 1 universe, three aspects. Each of these in turn is a trinity. Space is made up of length, breadth and height. These are not spaces themselves, it is one space, three aspects. Time is a trinity, past, present, future. Neither of them is time by itself, they are all time. Much of what scientists have calculated and theorized seems to confirm that past, present and future co-exist, all making up 1 aspect of the universe, time.

Then consider matter. Matter occurs in three phases doesn’t it, Gas, Liquid, Solid. Is steam H2O? Yes. Is water H2O? Yes Is ice H2O? Yes. One substance, three types.

As we look at the fundamental building blocks of nature, guess what we find in the atom, trinities. Three basic particles, electrons, neutrons and protons. Inside the proton further particles, quarks in groups of three. Myriads of other particles and forces are being discovered, but they always seem to come in threes.

Look around you, and the millions of colours you see are actually combinations of guess how many colours? Three. Both in art and in light, there are three primary colours.

Music, again a coincidence that chords are essentially threes? A root, and two others. Music itself is really built up in a Trinitarian structure. As we saw in our series on music, music itself is a trinity, melody, harmony and rhythm. Is rhythm music? No. Is harmony music? No. But all three make up music as we know it.

And finally man himself, a trinity, body, soul and spirit.

God has hidden and yet revealed the Trinity to those who will hear. It is clearly seen in the NT, allowed for in the Old and illustrated in Creation.