What We Believe About the Trinity

From Gospel Translations

One God as Three Persons
The Bethlehem Baptist Church Elder Affirmation of Faith, Part 2

2.1  We believe in one^[1] living,^[2] sovereign,^[3] and all-glorious^[4] God, eternally existing in three^[5] infinitely excellent and admirable Persons: God the Father,^[6] fountain of all being;^[7] God the Son,^[8] eternally begotten,^[9] not made, without beginning,^[10] being of one essence^[11] with the Father; and God the Holy Spirit, proceeding in the full, divine essence,^[12] as a Person,^[13] eternally from the Father and the Son. Thus each Person in the Godhead is fully and completely God.

2.2  We believe that God is supremely joyful^[14] in the fellowship of the Trinity, each Person beholding and expressing His eternal and unsurpassed delight in the all-satisfying perfections of the triune God.

[1]Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one (Deuteronomy 6:4).

[2] Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16; see also 2 Corinthians 6:16; 1 Timothy 4:10; Hebrews 3:12; Revelation 7:2).

[3] I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted (Job 42:2).

Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases (Psalm 115:3).

The Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will (Daniel 4:25).

His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done” (Daniel 4:34-35)?

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will… (Ephesians 1:11).

Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that” (James 4:15).

See notes 29, 31-36, 45, 46.

[4] And they shall sing of the ways of the Lord, for great is the glory of the Lord (Psalm 138:5).

[5]Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19).

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all (2 Corinthians 13:14).

[6] No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known (John 1:18).

This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God (John 5:18).

Not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father (John 6:46).

Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’” (John 20:17).

Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing (Acts 2:33).

To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 1:7).

Together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 15:6).

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:3)!

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (Philemon 1:3).

[7] There is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist (1 Corinthians 8:6).

[8] These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name (John 20:31).

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made (John 1:1-3).

This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God (John 5:18).

Not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father (John 6:46).

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us) (Matthew 1:23).

All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him (Matthew 11:27).

I and the Father are one (John 10:30).

Believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father (John 10:38).

And whoever sees me sees him who sent me (John 12:45).

If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him (John 14:7).

To [Israel] belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen (Romans 9:5).

For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily (Colossians 2:9).

[We are] waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ (Titus 2:13).

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high (Hebrews 1:3).

But of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom” (Hebrews 1:8 ).

Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ... (2 Peter 1:1).

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end (Revelation 22:13).

[9] He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of [=over] all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him (Colossians 1:15-16).

For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you?” Or again, “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son?” And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship him” (Hebrews 1:5-6).

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth… No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known (John 1:14, 18).

[10]In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1).

[11] For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily (Colossians 2:9).

[12] But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit… You have not lied to men but to God” (Acts 5:3-4).

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you (1 Corinthians 3:16)?

These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 2:10-11).

And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God (Romans 8:27).

[13]But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you (John 14:26).

But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me (John 15:26).

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you (John 16:13-14).

All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills (1 Corinthians 12:11).

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption (Ephesians 4:30).

[14][Sound teaching is] in accordance with the glorious gospel of the blessed [=happy] God with which I have been entrusted (1 Timothy 1:11).

His master said to him, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:23).

These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full (John 15:11).

I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them (John 17:26).

Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased [delights]. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles (Matthew 12:18).

When he established the heavens, I [Wisdom, the Word, the Son] was there; when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always (Proverbs 8:27-30).