Theological topic - the Holy Trinity in the Bible and its positive implication for humanity in Western/Christian nations

   

      The "Godhead" or "Holy Trinity" is one of the core, foundational beliefs of Christianity. By definition, it explains the nature of God as 1 in being or 1 in deity while being 3 in person. It is by no means a contradiction as its opponents would purport to propound because God can be 1 in one sense and more than 1 in another sense and that is exactly where the Triune nature of God comes in. The word Trinity, although not present in the Bible, explains the above idea that God is 1 in deity or essence which explains the question of "what" when discussing about God's essence whereas the question of "who" explains the uniqueness of each of the persons (3 to be specific) within the Trinity as given verses like Matthew 28:19-20 where Jesus clearly orders his apostles to go preach the Gospel to every creature in the world, baptising them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Again, in Matthew 3:17, we see God the Father from heaven saying of Jesus on Earth about to be baptised by John the Baptist in the river Jordan "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased" while the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus as a white dove, hence we see the Trinity at action here. In the Old Testament, there are prophecies of Jesus like in the book of Daniel 7, Isaiah 53 etc, that show the future Messiah (Jesus) as the "Son of Man" who goes to meet the "Ancient of Days" a term for "God the Father" and when Jesus referred to Daniel 7 in Matthew 26:65, the chief priest tore his clothes as if Jesus had said something blasphemous, the chief priest knew that Daniel 7's "Son of Man" is the Jewish "Messiah" and that Jesus was saying that He (Jesus) was the Son of Man of Daniel 7. Aside from this, we see countless parts in the Old Testament like "Melchizedek" King of Salem who met Abraham which again was referred to by Jesus in John 8:56 when Jesus said "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day" when talking to the Jewish chief priests and scribes, on hearing which again, they tried to stone Jesus. Their hostile reactions can only mean that Jesus was claiming to be God by saying that He is the Messiah, therefore one with the Father with the Holy Spirit, this is aside from countless theophanies in the Old Testament where a specific figure called "Angel of the Lord" appears before Old Testament personalities and does not chide people who worship Him from doing so, in stark opposition to regular angels who do not accept worship both in the Old and in the New Testaments.

     So, the Trinity is a belief that is inherent not just in the Old and New Testaments but also in the writings of Old rabbis from Jesus' time and before his time. However, as Orthodox Jews and Christians moved further away from each other, Orthodox Jews later rejected the plurality of personhood within the Godhead because most Orthodox Jews did not accept the Gospel except for a handful of people who went on to become the first Christians, also because of centuries of bad blood between the Catholic Church and Orthodox Jews where Jews were wrongly persecuted by the Roman Catholic church as well (something which Jesus neither encouraged nor abetted in the Bible). These first Christians believed in the Trinity because the apostles who wrote the 4 Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) recorded in them what they saw and heard from Jesus' own mouth as He spoke of the Father, Himself and the Holy Spirit. Genesis 1:27 further declares "God made man in His own image" meaning that men were created in God's own image. Since God exists as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, men also have a threefold nature as is given by their body, Spirit and soul. While some may deny that the body is a person, it is nonetheless a part of who each person is because someone else's body cannot be ours. This is because everyone we know, knows how we look from the outside based on appearance and hence they can say "this is so and so" based on our facial features, complexion and appearance. This threefold nature within us as humans while ourselves being 1 in being is a testament to us being a reflection of God's Triune image. We are Triune, just as God is Triune!.

   Some might ask, why 3, why not 4 or 2?. While we can question the intentions of those who ask such questions. We can see in 1 John 4:7 the nature of God - "God is love". "Love" cannot exist as a single person because "love", grammatically speaking, is a transitive verb, implying that it requires a "subject" whence the love originates and the "object" which can either be a "person" or an "object" being loved. So, God the Father is the subject or agent whence the love originates and it is directed eternally towards His Son (Jesus) with the person who is the embodiment of the force of love - the Holy Spirit (the Trinity) connecting the Father and the Son. This is the reason why we can infer why God says in the Bible that all men are equal before God in the light of verses like "God is not a respecter of persons (Acts 10:34 and Romans 2:11)", further reinforcing how Jesus adeptly and aptly summarised the essence of the first 5 of the 10 commandments to refer to how men are to love God and the second 5 of the 10 commandments on how men are to love their neighbours. This is the very foundation of British law and its counterparts in many countries including the US, as well as in Britain's former territories of India, South Africa and in many other countries. This is the foundation of human rights, freedom of speech and equality between all peoples, the origin is in the Bible and at its deepest point, we see men having been made in God's Triune image, whence the need for all men to love each other irrespective of social status or ethnic backgrounds for peace to thrive in lands where Constitutions were created based off of the Bible. This is precisely why science thrived in countries where Christianity was the faith which can be considered "cradles of Western thought and Civilisation". Hence the contribution of Christian faith and thinking at a legal and Constitutional level cannot be understated as well as its contribution to the scientific and economic growth of Western nations by providing the peaceful basis between fellow beings with their Human Rights because Human Rights come from the concept of the "Sanctity of Life" straight from the Bible because all men are made in God's image, hence all men are called to love one another just as they would love God. This is why the Bible says that if men claim to love God and do not love their fellow humans, regardless of their background, then their love for God is false and in vain. To sum up, we see that "The Trinity" shows that God has always existed from eternity past as a plurality of persons within the Oneness of His essence or deity, highlighting His core nature of "love", also we see that the Trinity is in fact key to understanding why humans are to love all fellow humans just as they would love God which is the foundation of all Human Rights as well as Western thought as can be seen in the Constitution of Western countries as well as the UN's charter of Human Rights and how beneficial this in turn has been to the development of such nations that hold to the Christian worldview.