It is questions arising out of a knowledge of the redeeming grace of God in Christ that go to the heart of Trinitarian theology.  How is He to be regarded Who passes through the barriers of the personality, and by right makes His abode within the precincts of the soul?  Who is He whose presence brings a sense of sins pardoned, of peace with God, and of a power not our own working within us for righteousness?  This is not the relation of an ordinary leader to his followers: imagine anyone speaking of being ‘in Socrates’ or ‘in Confucius’, or they in him!  By definition both the relation and its effect require Deity for their support.  Only He who is the ground of our being, on whom we utterly depend, and Whose claim upon us is complete could properly establish this relationship with us, and the salvation flowing from it is something exclusively ascribed to God.  ‘The overwhelming sense of divine redemption in Christ led Christians to ascribe absolute Deity to their Redeemer’.^[1]

Here is the reason behind the high titles and functions accorded to Jesus in the New Testament: He is ‘Lord’,^[2] the Logos or Word of God,^[3] the Judge of mankind – living and dead,^[4] the Power and Wisdom of God.^[5]

It must be underlined that it is the sufficiency of Christ’s atoning work, perceived in the enjoyment of its benefits in believing experience through His indwelling presence by the Holy Spirit, that forms the basis and motive of the Christian doctrine of God.  In modern terms we should say that the Saviour and the Sanctifier have each the value of God for the soul, and it is only expressing this in another way to affirm that both have a place in ultimate Being, the Godhead.

The doctrine of the Trinity of Persons in unity of substance was thus based primarily on the experience of the first disciples.  They found that Jesus claimed an unique intimacy with God,^[6] and later died for His claim to be the Son of God.^[7]  He also spoke of the Holy Spirit as divine yet distinct from Himself,^[8] and when they experienced the Spirit’s power they knew that He could be no less than God.  Hence though the doctrine of the Trinity is not formally stated in the New Testament, it is implicit in the Apostolic teaching and exper­ience and becomes a reality in the experience of every faithful member of the Church.

Article II

OF THE WORD, OR SON OF GOD, WHICH WAS MADE VERY MAN^[9]

The Son, which is the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father, the very and eternal God, of one substance with the Father, took man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin, of her substance; so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood were joined together in one Person, never to be divided, whereof is one Christ, very God and very Man; who truly suffered, was crucified, dead and buried, to reconcile His Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for all actual sins of men.