5 Myths About the Trinity

Myth #1: It’s only for theology experts.

The doctrine of the Trinity is for everybody who is saved by Jesus. Or, to say that just a little more elaborately, it’s for everybody who has been drawn to the Father through faith in the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit (see 2 Cor. 13:14). Or, to say it again, it’s for everyone who has been adopted by the Father who sent the Son to redeem us, and sent the Holy Spirit of adoption into our hearts to make us cry out to God, “Abba, Father” (see Gal. 4:4–6). Or, to say it another way, it’s for everyone who is in communion with other believers through our common access to the Father in Christ by the Spirit (see Eph. 2:18).

Or, to be more precise, it’s for everybody who wants to understand how any of this deep salvation works, and what the gospel reveals about the God who stands behind it. That’s because the doctrine of the Trinity is the only view of God that makes sense of Christian salvation. That’s one reason the church baptizes in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (see Matt. 28:19): it’s the birthright of all the born-again.

There are, of course, experts in the doctrine of the Trinity, who have thought about it with precision and depth, and studied it in an academic way. But any subject can be apprehended simply on the one hand and studied in depth on the other hand: there are experts in everything, and their expertise doesn’t mean the thing they’ve studied becomes their exclusive property. The Trinity is too important to be left to theological experts.