The Trinity was there all along

Christian and Tariq chat over tea after dinner at Tariq’s home, the conversation turns to faith. Tariq raises the topic of the Trinity.

Tariq: Can I be honest? This idea that Jesus is God, the whole Trinity - wasn't it invented at Nicaea in 325? It looks like three gods dressed up as one. To me that's shirk, the unforgivable sin of associating partners with God (Quran 4.48, 4:116). What do you think?
Quran 4:48

Lo! Allah forgiveth not that a partner should be ascribed unto Him. He forgiveth (all) save that to whom He will. Whoso ascribeth partners to Allah, he hath indeed invented a tremendous sin.

Christian: Forget Nicaea for a moment, Tariq - forget Paul, even the New Testament. Let's go back to the first page of Genesis. The Trinity is the most ancient revelation of the one living God. Can I show you, from the Scriptures themselves?
Tariq: Go on. But the Shema says it plainly: "Hear O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one" (Deuteronomy 6:4). One.
Deuteronomy 6:4

Hear, Israel: the LORD is our God. The LORD is one.

Christian: And as Christians we fully believe that - the LORD is one. We're not arguing whether God is one; we both say he is. The question is what kind of oneness, and what that one God is like within himself.
Tariq: Fair enough. Where do you want to start?
Christian: The first thing God says about making us: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" (Genesis 1:26). "Us," "our" - not "me" and "my." Then the very next verse: "So God created man in his own image" - singular. Plural and singular in one breath. Who is the "us"?
Genesis 1:26

God said, “Let’s make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Tariq: The royal "we" - like a king saying "we decree." Or God speaking to the angels.
Christian: The royal "we" didn't exist in ancient Hebrew; no king in the Hebrew Bible talks that way - it's a later European habit. And angels? Look closely: "in our image." Are we made in the image of angels? Do angels create? No - only God makes man, and man bears God's image. So the "us" is somehow within God. The same language appears in Genesis 11:7 and Isaiah 6:8 - from Moses through the prophets, the one God who says "us."
Genesis 11:7

Come, let’s go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”

Isaiah 6:8

I heard the Lord’s voice, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am. Send me!”

Tariq: The "us" is interesting, I'll grant you. But that's a long way from three persons.
Christian: All through the Hebrew Bible there's a figure sent by God yet called God: the Angel of the LORD (Genesis 16:7-13, Exodus 3:1-6), the Word of the LORD (Genesis 15:1-5), the Presence of the LORD (Isaiah 63:9). The LORD "appears" to people - the God no one can see and live somehow stands before them. In Genesis 18 he appears to Abraham and shares a meal. This sent-One receives worship (Joshua 5:14), forgives sin (Exodus 23:21), speaks as God in the first person (Exodus 3:5).
Genesis 16:7-13

The LORD’s angel found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain on the way to Shur. He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s servant, where did you come from? Where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from the face of my mistress Sarai.” The LORD’s angel said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself under her hands.” The LORD’s angel said to her, “I will greatly multiply your offspring, that they will not be… read full verse

Exodus 3:1-6

Now Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the back of the wilderness, and came to God’s mountain, to Horeb. The LORD’s angel appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the middle of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush burnt with fire, and the bush was not consumed. Moses said, “I will go now, and see this great sight, why the bush is… read full verse

Genesis 15:1-5

After these things the LORD’s word came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Don’t be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.” Abram said, “Lord GOD, what will you give me, since I go childless, and he who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” Abram said, “Behold, you have given no children to me: and, behold, one born in my house is my heir.” Behold, the LORD’s word came to him, saying, “This man will… read full verse

Isaiah 63:9

In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and in his pity he redeemed them. He bore them, and carried them all the days of old.

Genesis 18

The LORD appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day. He lifted up his eyes and looked, and saw that three men stood near him. When he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself to the earth, and said, “My lord, if now I have found favour in your sight, please don’t go away from your servant. Now let a… read full verse

Joshua 5:14

He said, “No; but I have come now as commander of the LORD’s army.” Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and worshipped, and asked him, “What does my lord say to his servant?”

Exodus 23:21

Pay attention to him, and listen to his voice. Don’t provoke him, for he will not pardon your disobedience, for my name is in him.

Exodus 3:5

He said, “Don’t come close. Take off your sandals, for the place you are standing on is holy ground.”

Tariq: But sent from God - so he's a separate being. A creature. Not God himself.
Christian: Yet the one sent is also called the LORD. Listen: when God judged Sodom, "the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulphur and fire from the LORD out of heaven" (Genesis 19:24). And David: "The LORD says to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand'" (Psalms 110:1) - Yahweh speaking to my Lord at his right hand. Jesus set that very verse before the religious leaders, asking how David could call the Messiah "Lord," and they had no answer (Luke 20:41-44).
Genesis 19:24

Then the LORD rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulphur and fire from the LORD out of the sky.

Psalms 110:1

A Psalm by David. The LORD says to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool for your feet.”

Luke 20:41-44

He said to them, “Why do they say that the Christ is David’s son? David himself says in the book of Psalms, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet.”’ “David therefore calls him Lord, so how is he his son?”

Tariq: So that's two - Father and Son, you're suggesting. What about the third?
Christian: Let me read you the speaker who is "the first and the last," the LORD in both Bible and Quran (Isaiah 44:6; cf. Quran 57.3). Then: "And now the Lord GOD has sent me, and his Spirit" (Isaiah 48:16). In one breath, three: the speaker who is the LORD, sent by the Lord GOD, together with his Spirit who is also God.
Isaiah 44:6

This is what the LORD, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the LORD of Armies, says: “I am the first, and I am the last; and besides me there is no God.

Quran 57:3

He is the First and the Last, and the Outward and the Inward; and He is Knower of all things.

Isaiah 48:16

“Come near to me and hear this: “From the beginning I have not spoken in secret; from the time that it happened, I was there.” Now the Lord GOD has sent me with his Spirit.

Tariq: I've honestly never been shown these. We're always told it's only the New Testament - really only Paul.
Christian: That's exactly it - the Trinity is older than Nicaea, older than Paul. It's Moses. One last picture, and it's clear, because God drew it himself. When he told Moses to build the tabernacle - the tent where he'd dwell - the first things made were three pieces of furniture, each covered in gold.
Tariq: Furniture? What does that have to do with God being three?
Christian: Everything - the tabernacle is God's own diagram of himself. First, the Ark of the Covenant: a golden throne with two angels facing each other over it. Where is the Father's throne? In heaven, among the angels. The Ark is that throne brought to earth: "There I will meet with you… from between the two cherubim" (Exodus 25:22).
Exodus 25:22

There I will meet with you, and I will tell you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the covenant, all that I command you for the children of Israel.

Tariq: A striking picture. But a throne is only where a king sits; one golden box isn't three of anything. Where do the other two come from?
Christian: Second, the Table of the Presence, and on it always twelve loaves - the Bread of the Presence (Exodus 25:30), literally the bread of God's face. In Scripture the Presence, the Face of God, is that sent-One, the Angel of his Presence in Isaiah 63:9. Later Jesus stands and says, "I am the bread of life, the bread that came down from heaven" (John 6:25-59). The Son is always tied to the bread.
Exodus 25:30

You shall set bread of the presence on the table before me always.

Isaiah 63:9

In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and in his pity he redeemed them. He bore them, and carried them all the days of old.

John 6:25-59

When they found him on the other side of the sea, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Most certainly I tell you, you seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Don’t work for the food which perishes, but for the food which remains to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For God the Father has sealed him.” They said… read full verse

Tariq: Part of me wonders if you're reading Jesus back into Moses' furniture - a loaf is a loaf. But the pattern's harder to brush off than I expected. Go on - the third?
Christian: The Lampstand - pure gold, seven branches, burning with olive oil. And Scripture tells us plainly what oil and light mean. Zechariah is shown this lampstand and told: "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts" (Zechariah 4:1-6). And John, in Revelation, sees seven burning lamps before the throne - the seven Spirits of God (Revelation 4:5). Oil and lamplight: the Holy Spirit. So before God builds anything else, he makes three golden things - a throne, the bread of the Presence, a lamp of oil - the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. All divine, yet one God.
Zechariah 4:1-6

The angel who talked with me came again and wakened me, as a man who is wakened out of his sleep. He said to me, “What do you see?” I said, “I have seen, and behold, a lamp stand all of gold, with its bowl on the top of it, and its seven lamps on it; there are seven pipes to each of the lamps which are on the top of it; and two olive trees by it, one on… read full verse

Revelation 4:5

Out of the throne proceed lightnings, sounds, and thunders. There were seven lamps of fire burning before his throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.

Tariq: That's a completely different way of reading it than I've ever heard. I started by asking about a council in 325, and you've taken me back to Moses.
Christian: Because that's where it's rooted, brother. When you say the Trinity is three gods dreamed up by Greeks, I understand - that's how it's often badly explained. But the Hebrew Scriptures you and I both honour give us one God who says "us," who comes as his own Word and Presence, who acts by his own Spirit - never three gods. It isn't shirk. It's the one living God showing us his own nature. Will you read whose verses yourself this week - Genesis 18, Psalms 110, Isaiah 48 - slowly, just asking who is who?
Genesis 18

The LORD appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day. He lifted up his eyes and looked, and saw that three men stood near him. When he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself to the earth, and said, “My lord, if now I have found favour in your sight, please don’t go away from your servant. Now let a… read full verse

Psalms 110

A Psalm by David. The LORD says to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool for your feet.” The LORD will send out the rod of your strength out of Zion. Rule amongst your enemies. Your people offer themselves willingly in the day of your power, in holy array. Out of the womb of the morning, you have the dew of your youth. The LORD has sworn, and will not change his mind:… read full verse

Isaiah 48

“Hear this, house of Jacob, you who are called by the name of Israel, and have come out of the waters of Judah. You swear by the LORD’s name, and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth, nor in righteousness— for they call themselves citizens of the holy city, and rely on the God of Israel; the LORD of Armies is his name. I have declared the former things from of old. Yes, they went out… read full verse

Tariq: Of course I will. Thank you. This wasn't the conversation I expected to be having at my own kitchen table.