Beloved,
Below you will find a family worship devotion for question 6 of the Shorter Catechism. If you are desirous to explore this theme more deeply, check out the four sermons on the Trinity in our Knowing God sermon series HERE.
See you Sunday!
Yours in Christ,
Pastor Nick
Q. 6. How many persons are there in the godhead?
A. There are three persons in the Godhead; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory.
Read
Matthew 3:16–17; 28:19; 2 Corinthians 13:14; John 1:1, 14; Acts 5:3–4
Reflect
Many people want a God they can fully understand and explain. But God wouldn’t be very great if He could fit into our tiny minds and be completely described with our limited words.
Imagine a little girl who vacations by the sea and loves the ocean so much that she decides to take it home with her. She begins to collect the water in a glass jar, but the more she pours in, the more it overflows back onto the beach. If you can’t contain the ocean, you certainly can’t contain God!
Think about it: after thousands of years, humans still don’t fully understand themselves—the amazing way the human body functions or the mysterious way the soul relates to the body. If we can’t fully explain ourselves, what makes us think we can fully explain God? It’s important to keep that in mind when we think about the doctrine of the Trinity, where at every point we encounter mystery.
So, what do we mean when we speak of the Trinity? Simply this: the one, true, and living God exists always and forever as three distinct persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father is no more divine than the Son or the Spirit, and there was never a time when the Son or Spirit was not divine. All three persons are equally and eternally God. Jesus taught this when He commanded His church to baptize people in the singular name of God—a name that is mysteriously threefold: Father, Son, and Spirit.
It can be tempting to look for something in the world to help us understand the Trinity. Some say God is like an egg, made up of three parts: the shell, the white, and the yolk. But unlike the parts of an egg, the Father, Son, and Spirit are not parts of God that come together to make a whole. Each of them is fully God. Others compare God to water, which can exist as ice, liquid, or steam. But here’s the problem: a single drop of water cannot be all three at the same time. God doesn’t morph from Father to Son to Spirit, as if they were different masks or name tags He wears at different times. In Scripture, we clearly see all three persons of God revealed at the same time—such as at the baptism of Jesus.
The Bible calls us to love, trust, and obey all three Persons—not as three Gods, but as the one God who is Father, Son, and Spirit. The mystery of God’s triune glory should lead us to worship and adore Him as the God who is far beyond our ability to fully understand.
- Why should we expect not to be able to fully understand or explain God?
- What does it mean for God to be a Trinity? How should we respond to this reality?
- What is wrong with saying God is like an egg or water?