02.02.03 - The Trinity in the Old Testament
C. The Trinity in the Old Testament
1. Introduction: The Trinity is not only present in the verses of the Old Testament, but portrayed clearly enough to see (with the benefit of New Testament revelation). When God says "let us make Man in our image (Genesis 1:26), when the angels of God praise Him with their three-fold "holy, holy, holy" (Isaiah 6:3), when Aaron’s sons are told to "put My name" on the Israelites with a triple blessing (Numbers 6:24-26), the clear intent is to reflect (if not to convey) the triune nature of God. Moreover, some Old Testament scriptures cast the Trinity in even sharper relief, such as king David’s last words which in quick succession refer to God as "the Spirit of the Lord", "the God of Israel", and "the Rock of Israel" (2 Samuel 23:2-3; see 1 Corinthians 10:4 for the image of Christ as Israel’s Rock). There are many other passages commonly cited to demonstrate the reality of the Trinity in the Old Testament, a reality shimmering just beneath the veil (e. g., Isaiah 48:15-17; Isaiah 63:9-10), but perhaps the best example is the one used by our Lord to demonstrate that His divinity was indeed prophesied by scripture (cf. Zechariah 2:7-13): As the Pharisees were gathering together, Jesus put a question to them, saying "What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?" They answered Him, "David’s son." Then He said to them, "Well then, how can David, speaking in the Spirit, call Him Lord? For he says, The Lord said to My Lord, "Sit down at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet." [Psalms 110:1] So if David calls Him Lord, how is He his Son?" And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor did anyone dare to question Him any longer from that day forward.
We are not to assume that David, when he penned this prophecy under divine inspiration, saw the coming Christ as clearly as he wished to. Indeed, we have it from Christ that "many prophets and righteous men desired to see" what was being revealed to Jesus’ generation face to face, namely, the unveiling of the Messiah (Matthew 13:17; Luke 10:24; cf. John 8:56
Idolatry, a major problem in ancient times and one of Israel’s most serious stumbling blocks, is often adduced as the reason for this veiling in pre-Christian times of our present knowledge of the Trinity. Certainly it is true that the threat of idolatry to the faith and practice of Old Testament believers was a very real one. We need only to consider that the first two of the "ten commandments" deal with this subject (Exodus 20:1-6), and that Balaam’s counsel of idolatrous seduction was more destructive to Israel than any curse could ever have been (Numbers 25:1-18). The argument suggests that there was, therefore, a need to emphasize the oneness of God in the face of this very real polytheistic threat, thus obviating any possible twisting of a proper understanding of the Trinity. This explanation possesses much of value, but it does not entirely resolve the matter, however.(9) The full answer lies in the person of Jesus Christ. Before the fact, before we see with our own eyes Christ come in the flesh, His humility, His suffering, His sacrifice for us, can we really appreciate in full the Trinity and what God has chosen to do for us in Christ’s incarnation and death on the cross? Without the accomplished reality of the incarnation of Jesus, how could we ever but dimly conceive the glory of it? And without the accomplished fact of His incarnation, how could we possibly understand and appreciate the triune nature of God? For it is only through Christ – after He has come into the world in person – that we begin to see God with the clarity of vision it has now been given us to possess (John 1:18
2 Corinthians 4:6. For until this very day, the same veil remains [upon their unbelieving hearts] when the Old Testament is read, and it is not removed [when they hear these scriptures], because it is [only] done away with in Christ. 2 Corinthians 3:14.
* We see the Son more clearly after He comes into the world (John 1:14).
* The Son can only reveal the Father more clearly after He comes into the world (John 1:18).
* The Spirit cannot be sent to indwell believers until after the Son has been glorified (John 7:39).
Therefore:
* the Trinity can only be clearly explained and understood after the 1 Advent of Christ, a task undertaken by the New Testament. * while in the Old Testament, before the 1 Advent, the members of the Trinity are, understandably, not as clearly distinguished as they are in the New Testament.
2. The Messiah Pre-figured in the Old Testament: Contrary to much conventional wisdom about the Old Testament, Jesus Christ and His sacrifice on our behalf is depicted everywhere in the Old Testament. Furthermore, we know from New Testament scripture that the necessity for the mission and suffering of the Messiah was understood clearly enough by Old Testament believers (as Christ explains on the road to Emmaus: Luke 24:27; see also 1 Peter 1:10-12 and Hebrews 11:26). In fact, there are in the Old Testament a large variety of "types" employed to pre-figure the incarnation, death and suffering of the Son of God on our behalf. The subject of typology will be covered in more extensive detail in part 4A of this series (Christology), but two major categories of the Old Testament’s portrayal of the suffering of Christ should be mentioned now: a) Blood Sacrifice: From the coats of skin that God provides for Adam and Eve to indicate that One will die in their place (Genesis 3:21), to Abel’s sacrifice, superior to Cain’s because it depicts the Substitute’s death (Genesis 4:4), to the Noahic covenant demanding respect for blood that represents the death of Another in our place (Genesis 9:4), to the whole elaborate series of sacrifices commanded by the Mosaic law, all of which portray redemption through Another’s blood (cf. Hebrews 9:22 ff.), God made extensive use of the "teaching aid" of blood sacrifice in order that it might be crystal clear to all Old Testament believers that forgiveness of their sins was no light matter: it was something that only God could do for them, and it involved a steep and bloody price that God would somehow have to pay Himself on behalf of those who trusted in Him. b) Prophecy: The substitutionary suffering and death of Christ on our behalf is predicted and prophesied throughout the Old Testament, for example:
Genesis 3:15 : He will crush your head, and you, [serpent], will strike His heel.
Numbers 21:9 : So Moses made a bronze serpent and put it on a staff. And it came to pass that whoever was bitten by a serpent then looked at the bronze serpent would live.
Psalms 22:1 : My God, My God, why did You forsake Me?
Isaiah 53:3 : He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with suffering.
3. Appearances of Christ in the Old Testament: In terms of their presentation of the Trinity, the main difference between the Old and New Testaments is that in the New Testament, Christ is clearly visible and distinct from the Father, while in the Old Testament, the Father and Son are often difficult to distinguish.(10) Despite the discussion immediately above, there is a common misconception – even in many Christian circles – that the fact that the exact details about Christ’s incarnation were shielded in the Old Testament means that the visible person in the Old Testament is primarily God the Father. This is not entirely accurate, for the Father has always appeared to the world through the person of His Son, Jesus Christ, and this fact was just as true in the Old Testament as it is in the New Testament; only the manner of the Father’s representation of Himself through His Son changed: in the New Testament, an incarnate Jesus Christ becomes visible to the world (only His true glory is shielded), while in the Old Testament, Christ also represents the Father – but not in incarnate form. Additionally, in the New Testament, when our Lord says "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30), or otherwise speaks the Father’s words (John 8:28
John 12:50 NIV a) Definition of Theophany and Christophany: The words "Theophany" and "Christophany" mean, respectively, "an appearance of God" and "an appearance of Christ", the second part of each being derived from the Greek root phan, "appear" (from which we get the word "phenomenon"). In this section it will be argued that in biblical terms, at any rate, the only category of event we really need to be concerned with here is Christophany, for, in my view, all cases of Theophany in the Old Testament are really Christophanies.
It needs to be made clear right at the outset that by Christophany we are definitely not referring to the literal, physical appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ in His true humanity – ever since His deity assumed true humanity at the incarnation, Christ has not again appeared in temporary, Christophanic form. The position that all Old Testament appearances of God are, in reality, appearances of Christ, also allows for the possibility of other sorts of manifestations of the Father other than an ostensibly corporeal appearance here on earth, such as a dream or vision (Daniel’s vision of the "Ancient of Days" being the prime example: Daniel 7:13-14).(11) b) Invisibility of the Father: Until we get to heaven, we will not see the Father. We know that the Father is not invisible to the angels, for they "constantly see the face of My Father in heaven" (Matthew 18:10). But He is our heavenly Father (Matthew 6:9, Matthew 6:26, et passim), and as long as the earthly conflict between His would-be usurper, Satan, and His designated regent, Christ, still rages, in heaven He remains for His majesty’s sake, speaking and working His will through His Servant. Until the final and ultimate victory, and only after the complete purging of the universe will the Father come to the new earth to make His abode with us forever (Revelation 21:1-3).(12) Until that time, the Father, though acting and speaking through His representative, His Son Jesus Christ, remains invisible to human eye.
"But", He said, "you cannot see My face. For a man may not see My face and live."
Surely, You are a God who hides Himself.
Isaiah 45:15. No one has ever seen God. God the only Son – the One who has always been at the Father’s side – He has made Him known.
John 1:18. Not that anyone has seen the Father except He [the Son] who has always been with the Father; He has seen the Father.
He [the Father] who alone possesses immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has ever seen, nor can see.
1 Timothy 6:16. No one has ever seen God.
1 John 4:12. c) Inaccessibility of the Father apart from Christ: If mankind were able to see God the Father in all His glory without perishing in the process, it is at least safe to say that the issue of human free-will would be seriously compromised from that point forward. Confronted with the magnitude and majesty of God, not only would it be impossible to deny His existence, but it is also likely that even against their will most men would find themselves obliged to follow Him and His will out of sheer terror (rather than from a truly free choice).(13) Along with the principle of preserving mankind’s free-will, the issue of access to the Father also helps to explain why the Father remains unseen to us in this present life.
Although, as discussed earlier in this study, the Father is omnipresent in His creation, for purposes of visibility to His creatures, he is invariably described in the scriptures as residing in heaven (e. g., Matthew 6:9, Matthew 6:26). Obviously, as long as we live in these physical bodies, we cannot go to heaven to "seek God" (Deuteronomy 30:12-13; Romans 10:6). The Father, by virtue of the fact that His throne room is in heaven (Revelation 4:2; Hebrews 4:16), is inaccessible to us. This "physical" distance which separates us from the Father is indicative of the spiritual distance between God and mankind. As the person of the Trinity representing the authority and holiness of the Godhead, the righteous Father keeps Himself completely separate from human sin; it is in no small part because of mankind’s sinfulness that face to face fellowship with the Father is impossible. In fact, for sinful human beings to be confronted by God brings immediate realization that we are worthy of death by our very nature (Genesis 32:30):
"Woe is me! I am done for! For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts."
Though we cannot go to heaven to plead our case with the Father, Christ Jesus is the one who has come down from heaven on our account (John 3:13). Through faith in Him and His death for us, we now have access to the Father in His name. By His blood (that is, His death on the cross on our behalf), Christ has broken down the barrier of hostility between the Father and those who believe in His Son. Jesus Christ has made peace between us, and, as a result, we now have been granted entrance into the throne room of heaven and the presence of the Father. This means that on the basis of the acceptability of Christ’s sacrifice and our acceptance of Him, our prayers and petitions are heard by the Father now, and we ourselves shall enter into the heavenly holy of holies in His good time: So now that we have been justified by faith, let us take hold of the peace [we have] with God [the Father] through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have also obtained our access into this grace in which we stand.
Romans 5:1-2 a For through Him [Jesus Christ] we both [Jews and gentiles] have access to the Father by one Spirit.
Ephesians 2:18. Being in Him [Jesus Christ] and having confidence through our faith in Him we possess this access [to the Father] and freedom to speak [to Him].
Ephesians 3:12. So let us approach with confident free speech to the throne of grace [of the Father] that we might receive [His] mercy and gain [His] favor for timely help.
Hebrews 4:16. For Christ died once for us on account of our sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God.
1 Peter 3:18. The fact that through faith in the Son we now have full access to the Father (sonship, fellowship, acceptance of prayer, and eternal life with Him), shows that before the Son came and died for us, such access was at least limited. The Father’s splitting of the temple’s veil at the conclusion of our Lord’s sacrifice on our behalf is a dramatic indication that through His death the barrier that had previously separated us from the Father (that is, our sins) has now been removed (Luke 23:45). Now we have access to the Father in prayer, though we still cannot enter into His presence in heaven as long as we remain in these earthly bodies. Before the cross, the Father was even more inaccessible to sinful mankind. It would be surprising, therefore, if the instances of Theophany in the Old Testament are actual appearances of the Father. It is much more likely (based upon this principle of greater access after the cross, less beforehand) that just as the Father made Himself known through His Son in the New Testament (Hebrews 1:1-2), so also in the Old Testament His appearances were mediated by this same Son, that is to say, by Christophany. d) Dignity of the Father: The fact that the angelic rebellion led by Satan precedes the creation of man (Job 38:7; Isaiah 14:12-15; Ezekiel 28:12-19) explains much about the Father’s modus operandi of working through the One who will ultimately replace Satan as ruler of this world, His Son Jesus Christ (Luke 10:18; John 12:31
1) Message: Christ is the Word (John 1:1-3). This means that He is the embodiment of the message and truth of the Father, and speaks the Father’s words truly and precisely at all times (Deuteronomy 18:18; John 8:55 John 14:10 & John 14:24). Christ is the Father’s ultimate message (Hebrews 1:1), the messenger of the Father’s new covenant in His blood (Isaiah 42:6; Jeremiah 31:31 ff.; Malachi 3:1; Matthew 26:28; 1 Corinthians 11:25).(15)
2) Mediation: Christ is the Mediator between God the Father and sinful mankind (Galatians 3:19-20; 1 Timothy 2:5), the One who reconciles us to the Father by His blood (Romans 5:10-11; 2 Corinthians 5:18-21; Ephesians 2:14-16; Colossians 1:20-22).
3) Mission: Christ is the One anointed and sent by the Father to offer Himself as a sacrifice for our sins (Hebrews 9:11-14). He is thus the ultimate high priest who makes atonement to the Father on our behalf (Hebrews 5:5-10).
4) Monarchy: In recognition of His victory at the cross, the Father has "appointed Him Lord and Christ" (Acts 2:36), that is "the Lord anointed (to rule the world)". This passage signals not only Christ’s replacement of Satan as ruler of the world, but His acceptance of the regency of the world as the Father’s representative (explaining many Old Testament passages referring to the Father’s impending return being applied to the Son in the New Testament):
a) the Son’s ascension into heaven (Psalms 110:1 with Matthew 22:44); b) the Son’s ascension to the throne on earth (Psalms 45:6-7 with Hebrews 1:8-9); c) the Son’s primacy from creation to eternity (Psalms 97:7 b with Hebrews 1:6).
All the above examples of Christ’s role of representing the Father in the God’s plan of salvation support the position that all Old Testament Theophany is truly Christophany, the Son appearing, representing, and speaking for the Father before His incarnation. e) The Visibility, Accessibility and Humility of the Son: While we cannot initially see the Father, we can see the Son and the Father through the Son (John 14:9). While we could not initially approach Father, through the Son we have gained access to Him (John 14:6). And while our sinfulness kept us separated from the perfect holiness of the Father, the work of the Son has rendered us holy and has reconciled us to the Father (Colossians 1:22). As the visible, accessible member of the Trinity who was willing to humble Himself and associate with us to die for us (Php 2:5-11), Christ has always been our point of contact with the Godhead, whether in Old Testament Christophany, or after His appearance in true humanity following His incarnation. f) Cases of Christophany in the Old Testament:
1) Introduction: We have been in the process of demonstrating that the appearances of God to believers in the Old Testament (Theophanies), are really pre-incarnate appearances of the Father’s representative, our Lord Jesus Christ, acting for the Father and speaking in His stead. In the majority (though not all) of these cases, the Old Testament identifies such appearances as "the Angel of the Lord". Sometimes when God appears, however, as in His interrogation of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden (Genesis 3:8 ff), there is no mention of "angels". Yet it seems clear from a number of passages discussed below, where the "Angel" is variously described as the Lord and "the Angel of the Lord", that all such appearances are an essentially similar phenomenon: God appearing to Man in a recognizable form. The word "angel" is potentially confusing here on account of all the centuries of non-scriptural misinformation we have suffered through. "Angel" is a borrowing of the Greek aggelos, meaning "messenger", and is itself a translation of the Hebrew malach bearing the same meaning. It is important to note that neither word inherently signifies heavenly creatures; both were originally applied to human messengers. Messengers from God would, of necessity, have to be supernatural, and on many occasions these are "angels" in the traditional English sense of the word, that is, that heavenly race of creatures who serve and minister to God (Gabriel, for example: Daniel 8:16; Daniel 9:21; Luke 1:21-26). But the Angel of the Lord is an entirely different story, for scripture uses this phrase to designate an "appearance" of God Himself, taking on messenger form to deliver a message personally. As we have seen above, it is best to take these appearances of the Angel (messenger-servant) of the Lord to be appearances of the Messenger and Minister of the Father, Jesus Christ our Lord. For example, when we read of Isaiah’s vision of the Lord (Isaiah 6:1-13), it is understandable to assume at first that Isaiah’s vision was of the Father, but John 12:41 tells us that Isaiah was beholding Christ’s glory, and we understand (with our New Testament perspective) that this was a vision of our Lord in His capacity of King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the glorified ruler of the earth who has accepting the mantle of rulership from the Father (as He will return to reign until "He has placed all enemies under His feet" 1 Corinthians 15:25). The appearance of the Lord to Moses in giving the Mosaic Law presents a case similar to the vision of Isaiah. At first glance, we may assume that Moses is actually viewing the Father (or His likeness: i. e., a Theophany). But the New Testament is quite explicit in stating that the law was given "through angels" (Greek: di’ angelon: Galatians 3:19-20; Hebrews 2:2; Acts 7:38 & Acts 7:53). Since we know that these "angelic appearances" are represented in the Old Testament as appearances of God (e. g., Exodus 34:5 ff.), it must be the case that the New Testament passages which ascribe the giving of the Law to "angels" are if fact indicating that the Father spoke the Law to Moses through appearances of the Angel of the Lord, a manifestation of our pre-incarnate Lord, Jesus Christ (i. e., a Christophany).
2) The Angel of the Exodus: The case of the Angel of the Exodus demonstrates both the divinity of the Angel of the Lord and His identification as a pre-incarnate manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ. a. The Angel first appears to Moses in the burning bush (Exodus 3:2 ff.). It is the Angel of the Lord who appeared to Moses in the fiery flames (v. 2), but shortly thereafter the Angel represents Himself as God the Father, saying "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob (v. 6), and "I shall be who I am" (v. 14), and is further identified as "the Lord" (in v. 7). The symbolism of the fire and the bush is important: the bush calls attention to Christ, the Messiah, as the Branch (Isaiah 4:2; Isaiah 11:1; Isaiah 53:2; Jeremiah 23:5; Jeremiah 33:15; Zechariah 3:8; Zechariah 6:12), while the fire represents the fiery judgment of the cross that does not consume Him (cf., for example, the burnt offerings of Leviticus 1:1-17 which represent Christ’s work on the cross). This first appearance of the Angel of the Lord to Moses, then, is a Christophany, an appearance of the pre-incarnate Christ representing and speaking for the Father. b. The Angel is called "of God" at Exodus 14:19 as He appears in the column of cloud and fire. Previously, at Exodus 13:21; Jehovah Himself is said to have been the one going ahead of the Israelites in the column of cloud and fire. Once again, the Lord and the Angel are identified as one and the same, and by appearing from within the fire of the column (which would later stand over the place of the ark in the tabernacle where the blood representing Christ’s sacrifice would be sprinkled on the day of atonement: Numbers 9:15 with Leviticus 16:1-34), we again have a picture of Christ’s saving work, enduring judgment on our behalf. c. At Exodus 23:20-23 as part of the giving of the Law to Moses on Sinai, the Angel of the Lord (identified as such as we saw above from New Testament passages such as Galatians 3:19-20; Hebrews 2:2; Acts 7:38 & Acts 7:53) proclaims that He is going to "send" the Angel before the Israelites to lead and guard them (as Christ is sent by the Father). Moses is also told that they are to obey the Angel "because My Name is in Him" (v. 21), a similar description to that of the returning Son of Man in Revelation 19:11-16. d. Despite the fact that no one has ever seen the Father while on this earth (see above), we are told that the elders saw the God of Israel (in company with Moses and Aaron: Exodus 24:9-11), and we know that Moses entered the cloud of glory and spoke with the Lord on Sinai (Exodus 24:16-18) and petitioned the Lord to "show me Your glory" (a request He granted: Exodus 33:18 ff.). We also find in Numbers 12:8 that Moses saw "the form of the Lord" and from Deuteronomy we know that unlike any other servant of the Lord, Moses spoke with Him "face to face" (Deuteronomy 34:10). This then surely is once again the Angel of the Lord, not the actual presence of the Father, but the appearance of the One who is sent by Him, speaks for Him, and who has undertaken to fulfill His plan of salvation in this world, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, appearing in pre-incarnate Christophany. e. Finally, the last appearance of the Angel in respect to the Exodus is at Judges 2:1-5. Here the Angel claims to be the One who "led you up from the land of Egypt" and reminds the Israelites that He will never break "My covenant with you". Only the Father Himself could make such a claim – or Someone representing Him, that is, His Servant, our Lord Jesus Christ who would fulfill that covenant and minister a new one for us all in His blood.
3) The Angel of the Lord Elsewhere: Other appearances of God in the Old Testament are likewise best taken as Christophanies, whether or not the actual term "the Angel of the Lord" is employed: a. The supernatural "Man" who wrestles with Jacob (Genesis 32:22-32) elicits this response from Jacob: "I have seen God face to face, yet my life was spared". Hosea 12:3-4 confirms that this was the Angel and God. b. The "Man" who appeared to Abraham along with His two companions in Genesis 18:1-33 is later said to be "the Lord" (v. 22). c. The "Man" who appeared to Joshua (Joshua 5:13-15) claims to be the "commander of the Lord’s host". Joshua then not only worships Him (a thing forbidden where mere angels are involved: Revelation 19:10; Revelation 22:9), but is also told to remove his sandal because he is standing on ground that is holy (i. e., sanctified by the presence of God: cf. Exodus 3:5 ff.). d. Along with Moses and Aaron, the elders of Israel see "the God of Israel" on Mt. Sinai (Exodus 24:9-11). Despite the fact that no one has ever seen the Father, nor can see Him and live, they not only see the God of Israel, but have a symbolic meal of fellowship with Him, an event that clearly foreshadows communion based on the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, the coming "King of Israel" (John 1:49). e. The Angel of the Lord who appears to Gideon (Judges 6:11-23) is also said to be the Lord (vv. 16-17). The Angel also identifies Himself with the sacrifice (by touching it with His staff) which then goes up in flames, representing the fiery judgment of God (that Christ was to undergo on our behalf). f. The Angel of the Lord’s appearance to parents of Samson is similar to His appearance to Gideon (Judges 13:2-23). The Angel is described as such throughout the passage, but Manoah and his wife, though realizing that an angel has appeared to them, do not realize this is in fact the Angel of the Lord until His fiery departure (v. 21), at which point Manoah exclaims "We have seen God" (v. 22). The symbolism of self-sacrifice by the Angel is even more distinctly drawn in this passage, for He "ascended in the flame" of the burnt sacrifice (v. 20), the very picture of Christ being judged on our behalf, teaching Old Testament believers to look forward to God’s future forgiveness of sins through a sacrifice that He would provide. g. We have already discussed Isaiah’s vision of Israel’s King (Isaiah 6:1 ff.), which turns out to be a vision of Jesus Christ as Israel’s appointed ruler in the line of David (John 12:41). h. Similarly, Ezekiel’s vision of God (Ezekiel 1:25-28) is strikingly similar to the description of the glorified Christ found in Revelation (Revelation 1:12-16; cf. the elders of Israel on Mt. Sinai: Exodus 24:9-11). i. Zechariah’s vision of the Angel of the Lord (Zechariah 1:7-17) is instructive because the Angel, clearly divine as seen from the examples above, is presented as distinct from the Lord of Hosts, that is, the Father, so that this is undoubtedly a Christophany. j. Finally, it has often been pointed out that after the birth of Christ, though angels do make many more appearances in the Bible, the Angel of the Lord no longer appears in the scriptures. g) Conclusion: The Lord Jesus Christ has always been and will always be the Person with whom we have to do, and in whom we must believe in order to have an eternal relationship with the Father. It is only Christ who has "made the Father known" (John 1:18), and only through Him do we come to possess "the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6). In the Old Testament, we hear the Father appearing through the (pre-incarnate) Son; in the New Testament, we see and hear the (incarnate) Son speaking the Father’s words. So the Trinity has always been present in God’s revelation of Himself to those who believe and follow Him. As Christians, whenever we say the word "God" we should keep in mind that for us, this means the Trinity – the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
[Go to Bible Basics 2A: Angelology]
Notes:
1. Jehovah and Jahweh are the two most well-known English vocalizations of what is often called the "tetragrammaton", i. e. the four consonant name for the Lord explained in these verses. In Hebrew, yhvh, (éäåä) is traditionally vocalized as ’adonai, though it occurs in the Old Testament without vowels. The divine name "Lord", explained in these verses as based on "I am/shall be", can potentially be derived from either the Hebrew verb "to be" or the verb "to become" (the two verbs being very close in the Hebrew). Likewise, the form éäåä is a unique form which appears to be a cross between an imperfect (indicating repeated action irrespective of time as in "I shall be/I am") and an infinitive absolute (summing up the meaning of a verb at one throw: i. e., the very essence of "being/becoming"). Thus it is clear enough from the Hebrew context and verbal forms that "the Name" is a declaration that the Lord is the very definition of being and existence without regard to time or phenomena. Q. E. D.
2. This infinity of His nature and perfection of His character is unchangeable or "immutable" (Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:8; James 1:17).
3. God’s spirituality is also evident from His creation of our spirits (Genesis 2:7; Numbers 16:22; Ecclesiastes 11:5; Hebrews 12:9), and angelic spirits (Psalms 104:4; Isaiah 40:26; Hebrews 1:7 & Hebrews 1:14).
4. Since the beginning of human history, of course, God has in this life delegated some of this authority to human agencies in order to prevent lawlessness from eradicating mankind altogether (Genesis 3:16 b; Psalms 82:6-7; John 10:34ff.; Romans 13:1-7; 1 Peter 2:13 ff.).
5. On the Trinity as revealed in the Old Testament, see section II C. below.
6. In verse one of John 1:1-2; the clause "the Word was God" cannot legitimately be translated "the Word was a God". First, earlier in the verse, the apostle John had used the definite article with the Greek word theos θεός to refer to the Father according to customary usage ("the [sc. Father] God"), and so to use the identical combination again to refer to the Word would be potentially confusing, making it seem as if "the Word" was really identical to "the [sc. Father] God", one of the very points that John is disproving here. Secondly, Greek does not possess an indefinite article ("a/an"), but it does have an indefinite pronoun, tis (τις), meaning "a certain one" – the very word that a Greek reader would expect here if the point was that Christ was somehow a god, but not really "God". So John only had three ways to write this:1) the Word was "the God" (but this would mean that there was no real distinction between the Father and Christ); 2) the Word was "a certain god" (but this would mean that Christ was a lesser sort of divinity, not God on the level of the Father); or 3) the Word was "God" – what John actually did write, thus fully and unambiguously attributing deity to the Word as distinct from the Father.
7. The Greek for "one" here (hen) is neuter, not masculine (i. e., not "one person", but "one [thing = essence]". That even His hostile audience understood this to be a claim to divinity is clear from v. 33: "We are not going to stone you for a good deed, but on account of blasphemy, for though you are but a man, you are making yourself God."
8. This illustration of the Trinity in the Old Testament is commonly called "prophetic foreshortening". For more on this phenomenon, see part 1 of Coming Tribulation, section IV. 1.a, "Prophetical Foreshortening".
9. Pagan pantheons (not to mention pagan religions) are different from God and the true worship of Him in every way, and this would have been obvious to true believers, revelation of the Trinity notwithstanding. To state but two obvious points of departure, pagan pantheons are never even close to being "one" in purpose as the Trinity is (John 10:30 cf. 1 Corinthians 3:8), nor are their individual members so integral to the existence of the whole.
10. The Spirit is also more clearly distinguished in the New Testament, especially after He has been sent, but the issue in the case of the Spirit is really more one of degree (i. e., He is more perspicuous in the New Testament) than one of kind. We do see the Spirit distinctly in the Old Testament (e. g., Genesis 1:2; Genesis 6:3; Isaiah 63:10; Zechariah 4:6), though not with the same degree of clarity or frequency as we do in the New Testament, especially after He has been sent as the believer’s Comforter (John 14:16). The Spirit may act more in a "behind the scenes" manner in the Old Testament than in the New, but it is not a matter of His being difficult to distinguish from the other two members of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit will be considered separately in part 5 of this series, Pneumatology.
11. Daniel saw the Father in this vision as well as His Son. Note the unique title used for the Father, "Ancient of Days", a name which in Hebrew construct usage can be taken to imply "more ancient than [the origin] of days", and so may refer to the Father’s antecedence to the restoration of the heavens and the earth in Genesis 1:2 ff., a posture that fits hand-in-glove with His delegation to the "Son of Man" of the task of reclaiming the earth from the beast in Daniel 7:1-28. Both of the two most prominent recorded visions of the Father, Daniel 7:1-28 and Revelation 4:1-11; Revelation 5:1-14, deal with the commissioning of the Son to take His place as the new ruler of the world.
12. For more on these matters, until Part 2B of this series, Eschatology, becomes available, please see the series: The Satanic Rebellion: Background to the Tribulation and Coming Tribulation: A History of the Apocalypse.
13. The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart by God in Exodus chapter 14 is similar: confronted with the mighty wonders and miracles of God, no human could have resisted His awesome will without special dispensation from God to allow him to do so; how much more would this be the case if we actually saw Him with our own eyes? See the series Exodus 14:1-31 : Hardening Pharaoh’s Heart.
14. The details of Satan’s rebellion, its origin, course and resolution, are covered in the series The Satanic Rebellion: Background to the Tribulation.
15. This is not to say that the Father never speaks for Himself. When He does so, it is from heaven. Three important instances show Him validating His Son’s ministry: a) at its beginning with the baptism of Christ (Matthew 3:17; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22); b) at its foreshadowed conclusion at the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:5; Mark 9:7; Luke 9:35); c) in response to Christ’s prayer prior to His crucifixion (John 12:28).