C.S. Lewis describes the beginning of Christian theology in this way: "People already knew about God in a vague way. Then came a man who claimed to be God; and yet he was not the sort of man you could dismiss as a lunatic. He made them believe him. They met him again after they had seen them killed. And then, after they had been formed into a little society or community, they found God somehow inside them as well: directing them, making them able to do things they could not do before. And when they worked it all out they found they had arrived at the Christian definition of the three-personal God." Sounds simple, right?
The Bible asserts that there is one God who eternally exists as three distinct persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each word in the previous statement must be understood and weighed very carefully. A slight misstep in any direction here will get us into loads of trouble. So, "one God." Another term for this is monotheism (as opposed to polytheism). The great Hebrew expression of faith in the Old Testament, the Shema, says, "The Lord our God, the Lord is one" (Deut. 6:4). Now this is probably somewhat assumed by most of us, but we have to remember that in the ancient world polytheism was assumed and monotheism was for those slow on the uptake. The Israelites were surrounded by nations that worshipped all different types of gods. So for Israel to confess daily that there is one God was unique. It went against the grain of the surrounding cultures and systems of faith.
Another distinctive of the God of the Bible is that he is eternal. In short, this means that God has always existed. He is everlasting. Someone or something did not bring him into existence. One cannot point to a specific time and say, "this was the beginning of God." This is important for a number of reasons. This shows us that God's existence is independent of anything else in the creation. He is self-existent. He derives his existence from himself and no other. This also indicates for us a clear contrast between our existence and his, between our nature and his. We have a clear beginning and end (along with everything else that was made). God does not share this in common with us. He is distinct from the rest of creation.
Finally, the Bible describes this one God eternally existing as three distinct persons. One God and yet three persons. Classically, this has been understood as one essence and three persons. The essence of something is the stuff that makes it what it is. God's essence is what makes him God. He is God because he is made up of God stuff. If his essence changes then his Godness would change. He would become either more or less god-ish. If God is god-ish then he cannot be God. There can be no –ish in God. What he is he is and he is what he is from all eternity (you may want to read that sentence again). The tri-unity of God describes what God is, his essence, and how is essence is expressed in three eternally distinct persons. The Father is God. The Son is God. The Holy Spirit is God. Errors abound here so we have to tread carefully. God is not made up of three parts, but eternally expresses himself as three persons. God does not decide to sometimes show up as the Father, then later feel like he wants to show up as the Son, and then even later as the Spirit (one could read Lewis this way, but that is not what he is saying). These are not three different modes that God can transform into depending upon his mood. Sometimes God shows up as all three at specific moments in redemptive history, like Christ's baptism (Matt. 3:13-17). He is eternally the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.
So, biblically, we have to hold God's oneness and threeness together. To overemphasize one over or against the other is to go beyond the God of the Bible. Admittedly, this is impossible to grasp. It is a mystery. And it is only knowable through God's self-revelation. God has made it known to us so that we would affirm and understand how different he is from us. "Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods" (Ex. 15:11)? There is none like him.
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