How Can Three Be One?

At the age of 19, having attended church all my life, I embarked upon a new adventure – my first Alpha course. Truthfully, I did not know what to expect. I’m not even sure whether I wanted to go, but it felt like the right thing to do. Our church had a new pastor, and he had bucket-loads of enthusiasm. Up to that point, Bethlehem had been a pretty quiet place. We had Sunday services, with Sunday school in the middle. There was also a mid-week meeting for children, and a Monday night prayer meeting and Bible study. I guess looking back that wasn’t bad going for a congregation of about 12 people, many of whom were over 60. However, for me, church had become a little irrelevant. I had never lost my faith, but I wore it kind of like an old tired garment. I didn’t read the Bible, and my prayers were a sort of mantra, asking Jesus each night to protect those I loved from, I quote, “fires, fights, burglaries, serious illness, disease, and accidents of any kind.’ Don’t ask me how I defined the difference between serious illness and disease. I guess I was just covering all bases.

So, I turned up for my first Alpha meeting, looking forward to the meal, and not much else. We watched the video, entitled “Who is Jesus’, and it was a lot better than I’d anticipated. Then came more tea and biscuits. I liked that part. And finally, the discussion time. I wondered what on earth we were going to discuss. Didn’t everyone know who Jesus was? I’d never thought to question his existence. He just was, and although I wasn’t reading the Bible, or praying in any deep relational kind of way, he was as real to me as my family.

Mid-way through the discussion, a topic came up which seemed to take over the entire meeting – the question of the trinity. How could God be one God, and yet 3 persons? For some present, this seemed to hold them back in their faith, but although I’d never pondered it much, it had never been an issue for me. It seemed perfectly logical that being God all-powerful, he could be one, or 3 in one as he chose. I didn’t need to understand it; I just believed.

Several Alpha courses later, having first been a helper, and then a small group leader, I have noted this subject has come up almost every time. It is therefore an issue we must face. How can God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit be one, when they seem to be 3 distinct persons? We can understand Jesus in his human form, when he came to the earth as a man, lived a sinless life, and then died a totally undeserved death, and rose on the third day to precure the salvation of those who accept him as their saviour.
We perhaps find it a little more tricky to understand the other 2 persons of the trinity, but we learn the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within us at the moment we become Christians, and that he convicts us of sin, kind of like that little inner voice who taps us on the shoulder, and whispers “Are you sure you want to be doing that?” God the Father is the hub of all things. He is the supreme boss, if you like, of the entire world. He keeps it all spinning and runs the whole show.

There is at least one incident in the scriptures where we see all 3 persons of the trinity at the same time, and interestingly, it is at Jesus’ baptism, where Jesus himself in bodily form is being baptized by John, while the Holy Spirit rests upon him in the form of a dove, and the voice of the Father can be heard from heaven, affirming that this is his dearly beloved son, with whom he is well pleased. (Matthew 3: 13-17, Mark 1: 9-11, and Luke 3: 21-23.)

The 3 persons of the Godhead – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – all have their distinct roles, but they are not 3 separate beings, in the way a father, mother and child would be. Whether we can understand it or not, we must accept by faith that the 3 are one. The best description I’ve ever heard is the fact that ice, water and steam are all the same thing, and yet different. However, this doesn’t come close to explaining the trinity, because some things are just too wonderful to be explained.

As I have grown in my faith, I am so grateful for the presence of all 3 persons of the trinity in my life. The more I read my Bible, and the more I pray, I can see the hand of the whole Godhead at work in perfect harmony.