Encountering
the Trinity in Scripture
In the religion of the Old Testament,
God is one and there is no other: “Hera, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the
Lord alone [or one]” (Deuteronomy Ch. 6 v. 4). There is nothing in the Old
Testament that even remotely prepares us for the doctrine of the Trinity. The
Old Testament does speak of the Spirit and of the Word and of Wisdom almost as
if they were separate entities or persons having distinct personalities. But
these are always attributes or manifestations of the One God. They are never
separate divine beings in their own right. In Genesis Ch. 18 vv. 1-15 an
incident is described in which the LORD appears to Abraham. The text goes on to
add that Abraham “looked up and saw three men standing near him”. At first,
Abraham sees his guests as mere human beings and he accordingly welcomes them warmly
and bestows on them the same generous hospitality he might show to any human
visitor. Yet it is clear from the overall context that the three strangers
described are not earthly beings. They are of heavenly origin. Abraham in the
text addresses the three using the singular “As soon as he saw them he ran from the entrance of the tent to greet them and bowed to the ground. My Lord,
he said, if I find favour with you, do not pass by your servant.” Although
the Fathers of the early Church saw in this text a foreshadowing of the mystery
of the Trinity, it would be reading too much into the text to assume that the
writer was speaking of God as being three separate and equal persons. If
there was any one thing more than anything else that led to the separation of
church and synagogue, it was the belief of the early Christians in the divinity
of Jesus. To the Jews this seemed to indicate the existence of at least two
Gods. (National Bible Society of Ireland, Meeting God in the Trinity [Baldoyle,
Dublin: ColourBooks Ltd., 2000], 29-30, emphasis added)