Prayer: Lord, we love You, and we love Your word. How we thank You for Your speaking. Lord, we trust in You, Your grace, Your anointing, and every word that You would speak to us. Lord, cover us. We praise You for Your cleansing blood, which allows us to enjoy Your rich anointing.
In Exodus there are two main matters related to the Divine Trinity: the Angel of God and the Spirit of God. These two matters correspond with the New Testament revelation of the Trinity. The Lord Jesus is the New Testament fulfillment of the Angel of Jehovah as God’s sent One, and the Spirit is also a major item in the New Testament.
The thought concerning the Divine Trinity in the Old Testament is exactly the same as the thought in the New Testament. However, the revelation of the Trinity is clearer in the New Testament but more detailed in the Old Testament. The New Testament revelation is clear because verses like Matthew 28:19 explicitly mention the three of the Trinity—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Divine Trinity is also clearly revealed in 2 Corinthians 13:14, which says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” Revelation 1:4-5 says, “Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is coming, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful Witness, the Firstborn of the dead, and the Ruler of the kings of the earth.” These verses in Revelation 1 refer to the Father, the Spirit, and the Son, indicating the Divine Trinity. Several other New Testament passages reveal the Divine Trinity in a similar way.
Although the revelation of the Trinity in the Old Testament is not as clear as in the New Testament, the Old Testament conveys more details concerning the Trinity. When the children of Israel were thirsty in the wilderness, God told Moses to strike the rock in Horeb, and water came out of the smitten rock (Exo. 17:6). In 1 Corinthians 10:4 Paul says that the rock typifies Christ, the second of the Trinity, who was smitten by God to flow out living water (cf. John 19:34). In John 7:37-38 the Lord Jesus cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes into Me, as the Scripture said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.” Verse 39 indicates that the living water is the Spirit. Therefore, the New Testament allows us to see that the Old Testament type of the smitten rock flowing out living water portrays the Triune God flowing out to dispense Himself into His thirsty people. These details concerning the Trinity are particularly revealed in the Old Testament.
Another Old Testament type is the lampstand. The lampstand in Exodus 25:31-37 typifies Christ as the embodiment and expression of the Triune God (Matt. 4:16; John 1:4-9). According to Zechariah 4:10, the seven lamps of the lampstand signify the seven eyes of Jehovah. Revelation says that the seven lamps are the seven Spirits of God (4:5), which are the seven eyes of the Lamb (5:6). By these verses we can see that the lampstand is Christ shining with the Spirit as the lamps. The nature, or substance, of the lampstand is gold, which signifies God the Father in His divine nature. Thus, the lampstand reveals the Father as the substance, the nature; the Son as the embodiment, the form; and the Spirit as the shining, the expression.
The compound ointment in Exodus 30:23-25, which signifies the all-inclusive Spirit in the New Testament, is another type full of details that can be found only in the Old Testament picture. We need much time, prayer, and appreciation to digest the details of the Divine Trinity as revealed in the Old Testament. The revelation concerning the Trinity is clear in the New Testament, but it is more detailed in the Old Testament. For this reason, we need to study the entire Bible concerning the Trinity.
We need a proper heart in order to thoroughly study the Trinity in the Bible. Since my youth I have had a heart for this. Anytime I heard others talking about the Trinity, I would leave whatever I was doing and go to listen. Whenever I learned of a book concerning the Triune God, I would buy it and read it.
The Divine Trinity is the structure of the entire Bible. Although steel may not be visible in a large building, the basic structure of the building is a steel frame. The rest of the building does not mean anything without the steel frame. Similarly, the framework of the entire divine revelation is the Divine Trinity.