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personal existence of God there is an infinite fulness of divine life in Him. Paul speaks of this
pleroma (fulness) of the Godhead in Eph. 3:19 and Col. 1:9; 2:9. In view of the fact that there
are three persons in God, it is better to say that God is personal than to speak of Him as a
Person.
2. SCRIPTURAL PROOF FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY.
The doctrine of the Trinity is very
decidedly a doctrine of revelation. It is true that human reason may suggest some thoughts to
substantiate the doctrine, and that men have sometimes on purely philosophical grounds
abandoned the idea of a bare unity in God, and introduced the idea of living movement and
self-distinction. And it is also true that Christian experience would seem to demand some such
construction of the doctrine of God. At the same time it is a doctrine which we would not have
known, nor have been able to maintain with any degree of confidence, on the basis of
experience alone, and which is brought to our knowledge only by God’s special self-revelation.
Therefore it is of the utmost importance that we gather the Scriptural proofs for it.
a. Old Testament proofs.
Some of the early Church Fathers and even some later theologians,
disregarding the progressive character of God’s revelation, gave the impression that the
doctrine of the Trinity was completely revealed in the Old Testament. On the other hand
Socinians and Arminians were of the opinion that it was not found there at all. Both were
mistaken. The Old Testament does not contain a full revelation of the trinitarian existence of
God, but does contain several indications of it. And this is exactly what might be expected. The
Bible never deals with the doctrine of the Trinity as an abstract truth, but reveals the trinitarian
life in its various relations as a living reality, to a certain extent in connection with the works of
creation and providence, but particularly in relation to the work of redemption. Its most
fundamental revelation is a revelation given in facts rather than in words. And this revelation
increases in clarity in the measure in which the redemptive work of God is more clearly
revealed, as in the incarnation of the Son and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And the more
the glorious reality of the Trinity stands out in the facts of history, the clearer the statements of
the doctrine become. The fuller revelation of the Trinity in the New Testament is due to the fact
that the Word became flesh, and that the Holy Spirit took up His abode in the Church.
Proof for the Trinity has sometimes been found in the distinction of Jehovah and Elohim, and
also in the plural Elohim, but the former is entirely unwarranted, and the latter is, to say the
least, very dubious, though Rottenberg still maintains it in his work on De Triniteit in Israels
Godsbegrip.[pp. 19ff.] It is far more plausible that the passages in which God speaks of Himself
in the plural, Gen. 1:26; 11:7, contain an indication of personal distinctions in God, though even
these do not point to a trinity but only to a plurality of persons. Still clearer indications of such
personal distinctions are found in those passages which refer to the Angel of Jehovah, who is on