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Psalm 110
“The Lord says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool’” (v. 1).
Only with the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ and the descent of the Holy Spirit can we fully know that the one God exists eternally as three distinct persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Yet that does not mean that the Old Testament Scriptures are silent on the Holy Trinity. As Reformed theologian B.B. Warfield stated in “The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity,” the Old Testament is like “a chamber richly furnished but dimly lit.” The elements of the doctrine of the Trinity—the “furniture,” if you will—are in the Old Testament, but the old covenant people, having only the Old Testament, could not discern them as we can. The New Testament is the light that shines into the furnished room of the Old Testament to show us the Trinity.
Where, then, do we find the doctrine of the Trinity revealed in shadowy form in the Old Testament? First, we have passages in which we can overhear a conversation between the persons of the Godhead. For example, in Psalm 110, we see a distinction between the “Lord” (the covenant name of God, Yahweh) and the “Lord” (the title Adonai, often used for God in the Old Testament) who is also a descendant of David. Jesus looks to this passage to prove that He is far more than just an ordinary son of David (Mark 12:35–37). He sees a declaration of God to One who is greater than David because that one is also God—specifically, the Son of God. In the fullness of new covenant revelation, we see in Psalm 110 the Father and the Son.
Another set of passages in the Old Testament show us the common working of all three persons of the Trinity. Consider Genesis 1, where there is the speaking God, the word that He speaks, and the Spirit hovering over the waters. Martin Luther argued that here we see the Trinity: the Father speaks creation into existence by means of His eternal Word and Spirit. To be sure, we probably would not reach that conclusion without the New Testament, but in light of God’s fuller revelation in Christ, Luther’s observation makes sense.
Though we could cite many other kinds of texts, we will conclude by looking at texts in which plural and singular pronouns are used interchangeably for God. In Genesis 1:26–27, God uses a plural pronoun (“us”) when deliberating over the creation of man, and then Moses uses a singular pronoun for God (“he”) to describe the Lord’s actual making of humanity. This interchange of pronouns is understandable if God is Himself both unity and plurality.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
God has given us the entire canon of Scripture as a rich source of doctrine, but we can easily read the text on only a surface level and miss the fullness of its teaching. Taking time to meditate on what we read and seeking to understand it in light of the sound theology that the church has confessed based on Scripture will help us see more of what God wants to tell us.
For further study
- Genesis 18:1–21
- Numbers 6:24–26
- Psalm 45:6–7
- Isaiah 6:1–8
The bible in a year
- Exodus 39–40
- Matthew 24:1–22