The Trinity and Creation
If you were to spend a typical evening with my family, you would see our time of family worship. For us, this normally takes place after dinner. It’s not complicated, and there aren’t any bells or whistles. We just read a chapter of the Bible, talk about what we’ve read, pray, and sing. Then, we often like to recite catechisms, which are questions and answers designed to help instruct and teach our kids the truths of Scripture.
The catechism question all my kids learned first is question number six:
“How many Gods are there?”[1]
And as a family, we will answer together,
“There is only one God who is living and true.”
I will then ask question number seven:
“In how many persons does God exist?”
And in unison, we will respond together,
“God exists in three persons. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; they are one God, the same in substance, and equal in power and glory.”
As Christians, this is an orthodox doctrine of Scripture known as the Trinity. It teaches that God is one being, with one, singular, divine essence and nature. At the same time, Scripture also teaches that the one, true, and living God exists in three distinct persons.
B.B. Warfield, the nineteenth and twentieth century theologian and professor, summed up the main points of this doctrine of the Trinity in three ways, saying:
Scripture teaches that there is but one God.
Scripture reveals that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God.
From Scripture we learn that the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit are each a distinct person.[2]
I think Warfield’s summation is a good foundation for an understanding of the Trinity found in Scripture. However, just like building a house, the foundation is just the beginning. Scripture has much to say about the nature of the triune God. And it all begins with creation.
God the Father: Creating for His Own Glory
Scripture begins, in Genesis 1:1–2, with these words:
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”
So, it’s here that we are introduced, for the very first time, in all of Scripture, to the God who has created all things. He is a God who is so powerful that He speaks the entire universe into existence; a God so wise that He plans and implements the complexities of the laws and realities of our human existence; and a God so beautiful that He designs everything, from sunsets and rainbows to the miracle of childbirth and salvation. This is the God who is revealed in Scripture as our Creator and Sustainer, and furthermore, our Lord and Judge.
Yet, when we consider the totality of what the Bible says about this God, we realize that revealed alongside His power, wisdom, and splendor, is also His love. In fact, the Bible tells us that this God is love (1 John 4:16).
The sixteenth-century pastor-theologian and Reformer, John Calvin, helps us to think about this more deeply. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin writes:
“We ought in the very order of things (in creation) diligently to contemplate God’s fatherly love….(for as) a foreseeing and diligent father of the family, He shows His wonderful goodness toward us…To conclude once for all, whenever we call God the Creator of heaven and earth, let us at the same time bear in mind that…we are indeed His children, whom He has received into His faithful protection to nourish and educate…So, invited by the great sweetness of His beneficence and goodness, let us study to love and serve Him with all our heart.”[3]
Of course, the door, which takes us from the outside, where we relate to God merely as an all-powerful, impersonal deity, into the very heart of God, where we see and embrace Him as our heavenly Father, is His Son, Jesus Christ. For it is in Christ that we truly begin to see the glory of God in all the ways He blesses us with His grace and truth.
As the first council of Nicaea, in the year 325, articulated at the beginning of the Nicene Creed:
“We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible.”[4]
Therefore, in thinking about God the Father, as the Creator of all things, we look to Scripture to discover His role in creation. When we do, we find Him as the exalted Potter in Isaiah 64:8. The prophet there says:
“But now, O Lord, you are our Father;
we are the clay, and you are our potter;
we are all the work of your hand.”
This divine Potter is first seen in Genesis 1:26. There, God the Father presumably speaks to the Son and the Spirit, saying:
“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
And why has God crafted the cosmos and created humanity in His image? The totality of Scripture reveals that it is all for His glory (Eph 1:11–12).
Every molecule and every star; every plant and every planet; the earth, itself, and every human being have been created to bring glory to the Father; to exalt Him for the glorious attribute of His grace which He demonstrates to unworthy sinners like you and me.
We come to know God the Father by turning from our sins and believing upon the Son. And as we do, by the power of the Holy Spirit, this brings glory to the triune God.
God the Son: From Him, through Him, and to Him
Although Christmas is the time of year when we celebrate the incarnation of Jesus Christ, Scripture reveals that the Son of God did not begin to exist at His incarnation. His life did not start when He entered the world and became a human being. No, His existence and glory stretch back before the creation of the world into eternity past (John 17:4).
Therefore, as we consider the second person of the Trinity, here’s what we need to understand: Not only is Jesus, the Son of God, eternally equal with the Father, but all of creation is ultimately about Him. We see this in Colossians 1. The Apostle Paul speaks of Christ, saying,
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through Him and for Him” (15–16).
Notice with me that all of creation, both things in heaven and on earth, seen and unseen, from hierarchies of angels to the greatest of kingdoms on earth, everything has been created by the Son and through the Son. So, the Son is not some passive observer of what the Father has done in creation. No, he is a joyful participant.
We see that declared in the gospel of John, chapter 1. As a reverberation from Genesis 1, John reminds us how God created the universe. How did He do it? He spoke it into existence. Therefore, echoing that reality and pointing us to the Word that God spoke, John says:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.”
So, Christ, the Son of God, was the very way in which the Father created the world. He spoke creation into existence, and Christ was the very One who accomplished it.
In addition, though, notice also from Colossians 1 that creation was brought into existence for the Son. In his book, Delighting in the Trinity, Michael Reeves writes,
“It was (the) overflowing love for the Son that motivated the Father to create, and creation is His gift to His Son. The Father makes His Son the inheritor; ‘heir of all things’ (Heb 1:2). And so the Son is not only the motivating origin of creation: He is its goal.”[5]
If all of creation has been brought into existence for the exaltation of Christ, what does that say about the purpose of your life? Every aspect of our lives have been ordained by God for the devotion, glory, and adoration of Jesus.
God the Spirit: Giver of Life and Beauty
Returning again to the opening verses of Scripture, we’re reminded of a crucial detail.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (Gen 1:1–2).
So, there, hovering, as it were, over the dark ocean waters, we see the Spirit of God. In the Hebrew, the word translated as “hovering,” or “moving,” is only used two other times in Scripture. In one instance, the word is used to describe an eagle who is fluttering over her young, stirring them up, as if to teach them to fly, yet all the while, protecting them from harm (Deut 32:11). In the other instance, the word is used to describe a man whose bones “tremble” at the holiness of God’s Word (Jer 23:9).
From those usages, then, we gather this vivid picture of the Spirit of God, the third person of the Trinity, hovering over the dark depths of the unformed and unfilled ocean, in perfect unity with both the Father and the Son, preparing, with both reverence and affection, according to the plans and purposes of God, to exercise creativity and bring forth life. And bringing forth life is exactly what He does. This is why Job 33:4 says:
“The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”
Therefore, it is the Spirit of God who empowers the Word of God to do the work of God for the glory of God. And it’s for this reason that in the Nicene Creed, while it speaks of God the Father as “The Maker of Heaven and Earth”, and God the Son as “the only begotten Son of God…by whom all things were made”, that it speaks of God the Spirit as “the Lord and Giver of Life.”[6]
So, it is the Holy Spirit who empowers, cultivates, and causes life to begin and flourish. It is the Spirit who vitalizes, beautifies, and refreshes. And, it is the Spirit who produces love, joy, and peace in the hearts of God’s people.
The Harmonious Majesty of the Triune God
Therefore, as we contemplate the majestic triunity of God, although we’ve isolated each of the three persons in order to see their respective roles in creation, it is vitally important that we see them as one God. Although our minds cannot fully comprehend how God can exist as one Being, yet three distinct persons, it is crucial to our understanding of God that we see Him working in absolute unity within the Godhead. At no point is the Father working while the Son and the Spirit are inactive. On the contrary, at every step of the way, with every divine action, when the Father acts so, too, do the Son and the Spirit (the doctrine known as inseparable operations).
Do you see this triune God as infinitely glorious? Does His majestic triunity cause you to want to worship Him all the more? Or, does it bore you? Are you apathetic towards His nature and essence?
As the 18th century pastor-theologian, Jonathan Edwards, once said,
“How can you expect to dwell with God forever, if you so neglect and forsake Him here?”[7]
References:
[1] Brian Stone. Teach Your Family the Truth: Building on the Basics of the Faith. United Kingdom: Day One Publications, 2008, 6.
[2] B. B. Warfield, “Trinity,” in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, ed. James Orr, vol. 5 of The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, ed. James Orr. Chicago: Howard-Severance, 1915, 3016.
[3] John Calvin. Institutes of the Christian Religion. United Kingdom: Presbyterian Publishing Corporation, 1960, 161–162.
[4] Jared Ortiz., Daniel A. Keating. The Nicene Creed: A Scriptural, Historical, and Theological Commentary. United States: Baker Publishing Group, 2024, 37.
[5] Michael Reeves. Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to the Christian Faith. United States: InterVarsity Press, 2012, 50.
[6] Ortiz and Keating, Nicene, 141.
[7] Jonathan Edwards. The Works of President Edwards. United States: Leavitt & Allen, 1852, 482.