The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are one God. First Peter 1:2 tells us that the Father is God; Hebrews 1:8 tells us that the Son is God; and Acts 5:3-4 tells us that the Spirit is God. If you read the Bible in a superficial way, you may believe that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are three separate persons. But if you read even only the Gospel of John carefully, getting into the depth of the truth, you will see that the Son came in the Father’s name, He worked out the Father’s will, He worked the Father’s work with the Father and in the Father’s name, He spoke the Father’s word, and He sought the Father’s glory. If you touch the depth in the verses that cover these points, you will realize that the Son and the Father are one. You cannot separate them.
Likewise, the Spirit is not separate from the Son. From these two titles it seems They are two separate persons. But when you get into the depth of the details in the verses that cover this matter, you see that the Spirit comes in the name of the Son, He comes to testify concerning the Son, and He glorifies the Son. Furthermore, the Son has given everything He is and has to the Spirit. These points indicate that the Spirit and the Son are one. If the Spirit and the Son were not one, how could the Spirit come in the Son’s name? How could He come to reveal the Son? How could He come to glorify the Son? How could the Son give everything to Him? Eventually you have to admit They are one. This realization that the Son and the Father are one and that the Spirit and the Son are also one is according to the clear revelation in the Gospel of John.
All these matters added together show you a crucial point: these Three—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—are the one God; They can never be separate. The Second comes in the name of the First and with the First, and the Third was sent by the First in the name of the Second and came with the First and the Second. And They all are coinherent, as the Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son (John 14:10-11). They are mingled with one another. How could They be separated? The Three are one. The Third is the transfiguration of the Second, and the Second is the embodiment of the First. The Son is the embodiment of the Father, and the Spirit is the transfiguration of the Son. Such expressions actually mean that They are one. If the Son were not one with the Father, how could He be the Father’s embodiment? If the Spirit were not one with the Son, how could He be the Son’s transfiguration?
This matter of the Trinity is very mysterious; we cannot explain it thoroughly. It forces us to pick up terminology such as embodiment and transfiguration. We don’t like to use the word representation, because we do not believe there is any kind of representation between the Father and the Son and between the Son and the Spirit. We believe that the Son is the embodiment of the Father, and the Spirit is the transfiguration of the Son. They cannot be separated from one another; neither are They represented by one another.
John 4:24 says, “God is Spirit.” “God” here surely denotes the entire God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The entire God, not only the Spirit, but the Spirit and the Father and the Son, is Spirit. Hence, we cannot say that only the Spirit is Spirit and that the Father is not Spirit or that the Son is not Spirit. As the Three—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—are all Spirit, so They all are one. The Father is Spirit, the Son is Spirit, and the Spirit is Spirit. The entire God is Spirit. As the Spirit, all the divine Three are one.