God is three persons, and yet all three are in essence divine. Some counter this claim by falsely assuming that the Trinity is three gods and not three persons in one. God, being infinite, is bigger than every person put together. Since God is above all matter and above all humanity, it makes it difficult to find a perfect example. Still, there are some examples that can be “placeholders” as long as we see how they illustrate and also see where they fail. We can also begin to explore an omnipresent God (existing everywhere) who is outside of time, although the full exploration would require an eternity.
Consider the scenario where God is speaking to a sinner in their native language; while at the same time yet on the other side of the planet, someone is worshiping God in a different language from a pure heart; while at the same time, the angels are worshiping a visible God in Heaven. If each of these instances of God were considered a person, then each person would appear to be different based on the way they each relate to their situation. And yet this God is one God, transcendent and not limited to a single human personality. Although a mortal human with multiple personalities is considered abnormal, an omnipotent eternal God must have multiple facets of personality in order to relate to all of His creation throughout its history, a timeless being interacting with timespace. In the Trinity, a perfectly holy Father stands unapproachable; Jesus the Son came in the flesh to stand in our place and take our punishment; and the Holy Spirit enters our hearts to bring us to perfection so that we can one day stand before the perfectly holy Father.
The character Flash (Barry Allen) is able to travel through time via the speed force and even meet alternate versions of himself. Suppose your new therapist, the Flash, wanted to help you work through some issues. And so he traveled to the past and to the future to grab past and future versions of you. Actually, some psychologists will do this, but in a mental form of traveling rather than actual time travel. At that moment, there will be three people in the room, not including Flash the psychiatrist. And yet they are not three different people, because they are each essentially you. Each one could submit DNA, and results prove the three identical identities. Many people have core traits that identify their essence, such as intelligence or patience or skin color. The Flash television series also explores other dimensions as parallel worlds, producing alternate versions of the same person. My point is that there are dimensions larger than us that have a potential to envision three persons (people) who are identical in essence. Apply this to a God who is outside of timespace, who inhabits all dimensions, and whose perfect core is unchanging. Surely it is possible for one God to relate to us in three persons. Our imperfect example of time travel shows points of weakness, revealing the changing nature of humans who are subject to time and environment. But God has control over time and environment, so that their influence has no power over His core nature.
Did you know that God actually talked to Himself in the Old Testament, before Jesus displayed this superhuman behavior? While God was using the power of His speech to create the universe, He made a strange declaration on day six. “Let US make mankind in OUR image, according to OUR likeness…” (Gen. 1:26 NASB), emphasis added. We can assume that God was not speaking to humans or angels, but only to the Creator God, Himself. So notice that not only that His speech is able to create out of nothing, but also that His essence is so immense that a singular God is able to speak to Himself quite naturally. At the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve rejected God’s moral standards and arbitrated their own. God said to Himself, “Behold, the man has become like one of US.” (Gen. 3:22) Later on, God decided to stop the defiance behind the Tower of Babel and said, “Come, let US go down and there confuse their language.” (Gen. 11:7) You can find more examples in this blog by Chad Donley Does God Talk to Himself? So when Jesus comes on the scene, it may seem strange but not contradictory for Him to pray in communication with the Father. For example, Jesus says in John 12:28, “Father, glorify Your name.” The verse continues “Then a voice came out of heaven: “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.””
Someone has suggested that a great analogy of the Trinity can be seen in the triple-point of a substance, see video below.
The PLANE truth… Imagine meeting someone who had never experienced air travel, living far from any airports, and yet you had a lego plane on hand. (I guess there is a Lego plane that actually flies, but unfortunately not this one.) You could use the smaller model to illustrate some concepts of air travel, but you would be severely limited if the person insisted on being literal. “A real person cannot fit in that Lego plane; therefore, air travel is not real. Your arm carries this plane, and yet you tell me that air can carry a much bigger plane. Prove to me that this plane can travel at hundreds of miles per hour and lift off with its own engines. I don’t want anything to do with an airplane that breaks into pieces when descending from the sky.” We arrive at the same shortcomings when describing an even bigger God. Because our present state limits us from seeing God’s fullness, we need to be careful to keep our approach humble and grounded in the Bible, assured by imperfect examples but confident through perfected faith. The most perfect picture of air flight is best achieved in a real flying airplane, and the perfect picture of the Trinity is a God made distant by our sin. This distance is bridged through a right relationship with God. I look forward to knowing Him more and more through eternity, but for now I can only explain Him in a flash of time.
More reading:
https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Arrowverse:_The_Once_and_Future_Flash
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