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The word ‘trinity’ does not appear in the Bible, but it describes the way in which we experience God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If several people witness an incident, all of them will have part of the whole truth. There are religions such as Islam and Judaism that describe God as an all powerful being far beyond our understanding. Others, like Hinduism believe in spiritual beings that came to earth as human beings. Some only think of God as a spirit present everywhere (such as Buddhism and many of the New Age ideas). In the Christian Bible we see God in all these ways, and this is what Jesus taught. He claimed to be the Son of the Father and said he would send his Spirit.
Before he left this world, Jesus commanded his followers to baptise “in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Whatever it means to do something “in the name of”, it clearly means that the name must represent the whole of God - everything that God is.
If you read the book of Acts there are lots of references to baptism. Where a name is given it is always “in the name of Jesus”. Acts 2:38,8:16, 10:48, 19:5, Romans 6:3, Galatians 3:27. There is not a single example of anyone being baptised “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”. This happened a short time after Jesus left and the New Testament was written down a few years later. If the apostles got this wrong then we cannot trust anything the New Testament says. If they did not get it wrong, then the apostles believed that Jesus is everything that God is.
We can never fully understand how God can be three yet one. But then, do we fully understand ourselves?
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