In Christian theology, the concept of the Holy Trinity is fundamental. This concept states there is one God who exists in three distinct persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ), and God the Holy Spirit.
For Christians and non-Christians alike, this concept can cause confusion and debate. How can there be only one God and three at the same time? This idea specifically challenges other monotheistic religions like Judaism and Islam.
However, we see all three persons of the Trinity expressed in the New Testament, and even in some ways in the Old.
We can see the differentiation of the three persons of the Trinity in one clear passage:
When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:16-17).
During the baptism of Jesus by John, all three persons are in action, distinct from one another. They are each God and divine with qualities, essence, and will. But what are the differences between God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit? What do we know about each?
Here are nine differences between the God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.
1. God the Father’s Nature
God the Father is typically understood as the first person of the Trinity. If there’s one with more authority over the others, however equal, it’s the Father.
One of the key attributes of God the Father is His role as the Creator of the universe. In Christian belief, He is credited with bringing the world into existence out of nothing, a concept known as “creatio ex nihilo.”
This creative act is an expression of His infinite power and wisdom, emphasizing His role as the originator of all that exists.
Additionally, God the Father is often associated with the qualities of divine authority, justice, and sovereignty. He is considered the ruler of the universe and the ultimate source of all moral and ethical standards.
As the Father, He is believed to exercise loving care, guidance, and providence over His creation, ensuring that His divine plan unfolds.
He cares for us and seeks our best as Father. God is love, the Bible says. God doesn’t do loving things or act according to some separate standard of love He must adhere to. God is love; therefore, his every action is a loving action because He does it.
Related to this, God alone is good. No other being is good. His actions and thoughts define goodness, and only God can perform good things.
2. God the Father’s Role
God the Father is the one who sent God the Son, Jesus Christ, into the world for the salvation of humanity. This is a fundamental aspect of the Christian understanding of the Incarnation, wherein God took on human form to redeem humanity.
God the Father's role in sending the Son underscores the divine plan for human salvation, and he sent His beloved Son due to His love for all people and creation.
God the Father is often associated with divine authority, justice, and sovereignty. He is regarded as the supreme ruler of the universe and the ultimate source of all moral and ethical standards.
As the Father, He exercises guidance, providence, and control over His creation, ensuring that His divine plan unfolds.
When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he made it clear to address the Father, so God the Father is the primary focus of prayer in Christian worship. Believers address their petitions, praises, and supplications to Him in the name of Jesus Christ.
This practice underscores the relationship between God the Father and His children, who rely on His grace, guidance, and intervention.
Even Jesus prays to the Father, as an intercessor, highlighting the Father’s role as the authority and the one who answers prayers.
3. God the Father’s Attributes
First, God the Father is described as omnipotent, signifying His all-encompassing power. He has the ability to do anything and everything in accordance with His divine will.
This attribute underscores His role as the Creator of the universe and the ultimate authority over all that exists. If He promises, He will perform it, and we can trust and rely upon God and His goodness.
Next, He is viewed as omnipresent, which means He is present everywhere at all times. His presence is not limited by time or space, and He is equally and fully present in every part of His creation. This attribute reinforces His role as the sustainer and ruler of the universe.
Third, God the Father is regarded as eternal, existing outside the confines of time. He has no beginning or end and is not subject to temporal limitations.
His eternal nature underscores His transcendence and absolute existence beyond the temporal world. Of course, Jesus and the Holy Spirit share this essence, as well.
Finally, God the Father is believed to be unchanging or immutable. His character, nature, and attributes remain constant and consistent throughout eternity, including his love and goodness.
This unchanging quality provides a sense of stability and reliability in the Christian understanding of God.
4. Jesus Christ’s Nature
Jesus is fully divine, sharing the same divine nature as God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. He is believed to be eternal, uncreated, and possessing all the attributes of deity, including omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence.
In addition to His divinity, Jesus is also fully human. This doctrine, known as the Incarnation, asserts that the divine Word became flesh in Jesus Christ. He experienced human life, emotions, and physicality, making Him fully relatable to humanity.
The theological concept that encapsulates Jesus’ dual nature is called the “hypostatic union.” It affirms that Jesus is one person with two distinct natures, divine and human, united in His unique personhood.
The dual nature of Jesus is crucial to the Christian understanding of salvation and atonement. His divinity qualifies Him to serve as the perfect sacrifice for the redemption of humanity’s sins, while His humanity allows Him to represent and sympathize with the human condition.
Through the incarnation, His resurrection also paves the way of eternal life for those who believe and follow Him. The dual nature of the incarnation gives Jesus the singular right to perform his roles.
Therefore, Jesus is the only way of salvation. No other way exists because no one else could do the work he accomplished.
5. Jesus Christ’s Role
Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah, serving as the Savior and Redeemer. While the nation of Israel continued to disobey and fall into sin and idolatry, the prophets began to declare the ways God would reconcile his people back to himself.
This reconciliation would be through a figure who would be both priest and king, from the line of David. This Messiah would also reconcile all the earth back to God. Jesus’ unique nature as both fully divine and fully human equipped Him to reconcile humanity with God.
The pinnacle of Jesus’ role as Savior is His sacrificial death on the cross. His crucifixion was the ultimate act of love and redemption, where He bore the weight of humanity's sins. Through His death and atonement, He provided a means for reconciliation between humanity and God.
In the High Priest aspect of the prophesied Messiah, Jesus serves as the mediator between God and humanity, representing the interests of believers. His role as intercessor is central to Christian prayer, as He is believed to advocate for those who place their faith in Him.
As the Savior and the one who lived a sinless life, Jesus also provides a moral and spiritual example for believers to follow. His teachings, parables, and actions offer guidance for living a life aligned with God’s will.
6. Jesus Christ’s Attributes
As we’ve already discussed, Jesus possesses both divine and human qualities. He was fully God and fully human all at once.
While this empowered Jesus to be the willing and appropriate sacrifice for all of humanity, his sinless life, innocence, and divine nature meant he couldn’t stay dead.
The divine aspect of Jesus never began and will never end. This meant although his human body died, the eternal Spirit raised the body back to life again.
The resurrection of Jesus is a core belief. Signifying His victory over death and the affirmation of His divinity, the resurrection is a testament to His authority and serves as a foundational doctrine for the Christian faith, offering the hope of eternal life.
The resurrection is part of why we recognize Jesus as Lord and Savior, acknowledging His authority, divinity, and His role in the salvation of believers. His attributes as Lord reflect His sovereignty over creation.
Furthermore, Jesus is King. His victory over death makes him Lord of Lords and King of Kings acknowledging His authority over all creation, and he will establish God’s kingdom on earth.
The victory over death also makes Jesus the healer. Throughout His ministry, Jesus demonstrated attributes of wisdom, compassion, and healing. His teachings and miracles are regarded as signs of His divinity and His role as a guide and healer for humanity.
7. Holy Spirit’s Nature
First, and most important, is that the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. He is a person, not a ghost or a force or some disembodied idea.
Since the Holy Spirit is sometimes referred to as the Holy Ghost, and with the growing acceptance in our Western culture of impersonal forces like magic, we can often imagine the Holy Spirit as a non-person. The New Testament refers to the Spirit as him and he and treats Him like a person.
The Holy Spirit is often referred to as the Comforter or Counselor. He is seen as the divine presence that provides comfort, guidance, and solace to believers, particularly in times of need or spiritual struggle.
Jesus promised this Spirit as a comforter the night before his death, a tragic and traumatic moment where Jesus knew they would need help moving forward.
The Spirit is given the name Spirit of Truth, and therefore at his core is being of the Truth. He is also called the Spirit of Christ or Jesus, as a connection to the work of Christ in our lives.
Jesus referred to himself as the way, the truth, the life, so the Holy Spirit is an expression of the truth of Jesus.
Also, the Holy Spirit is equated with life. The law kills, the Scripture says, but the Spirit brings life. He was the one who raised Christ from the dead and does the same for us.
8. The Holy Spirit’s Role
The Holy Spirit empowers believers with the supernatural ability to follow God. The Law is death not because it was a bad law but because it relied upon the strength of humanity to follow a divine standard.
Due to the Fall of Adam and Eve, humanity is unable to do good or walk according to the divine. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, Christ shares the Spirit with us. The Holy Spirit now empowers us with the divine nature to walk with God and obey Him.
We aren’t puppets but willing participants. Therefore, the Holy Spirit provides guidance and direction to believers. This guidance can be both personal, helping individuals make decisions in alignment with God’s will, and collective, directing the Church as a whole.
The Spirit fills the Church, both local and universal, promoting unity and fellowship with believers. He enables Christians to live in harmony and mutual support, emphasizing the interconnectedness of all believers.
The Holy Spirit intercedes for believers in their prayers, helping them articulate their needs and desires before God.
Just as Christ is the intercessor between us and God, the Spirit is the connection between us and Christ, all working together. We become part of the relationship of the Trinity through the Spirit.
9. The Holy Spirit’s Attributes
The Holy Spirit is the indwelling presence of God in our lives. Since He is the life of God, the Spirit is how the Father and Christ share their life and nature with us.
Through the Spirit, we’ve been made partakers of the divine nature. We were born again, reborn, restored, resurrected by this indwelling Spirit.
The Spirit is the witness of the truth, testifying of the truth of Christ and the Father. The Spirit testifies to the truth of Jesus Christ, His divinity, His redemptive work, and the reality of God’s love. Through this witness of truth, the Holy Spirit convicts us of our need for salvation.
God reveals to the world the need to repent and to believers the words of Jesus. These convict and correct, not condemn. Condemnation isn’t the Spirit’s job. He corrects us back to faith and intimacy with Christ.
In intimacy with Christ, the Spirit is the work of God to transform our hearts and lives into the image of Christ, helping us grow in holiness, character, and spiritual maturity.
This organic and supernatural life bears spiritual fruit, which the Scripture calls the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, enhancing the character of those indwelt by the Spirit.
The three persons are understood to be co-eternal, co-equal, and consubstantial, meaning they share the same divine essence.
While the doctrine of the Trinity can be somewhat confusing, we must remember the mystery of God and how His ways are often beyond the understanding of this world.
The three persons with different roles and attributes don’t put the One God into conflict. On the contrary, their perfect union expressed the One God.
For further reading:
What Should Christians Know about the Trinity?
The Roles of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
Photo Credit: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/sinseeho
