Perhaps no doctrine of the Christian Church is more obscure in the minds of church-goers than is the doctrine of the Trinity, the fact that God is One in three Persons. The early church councils of the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. debated long and hard before they arrived at a satisfactory statement of the doctrine, and still today, persons misunderstand or distort the teaching.

The doctrine of the Trinity took shape out of the testimony of the scriptures, beginning with their witness to Jesus Christ. Most of the writers of the New Testament were originally Jews who believed in one God. But when the apostles and disciples encountered Jesus of Nazareth and witnessed his life, death, and resurrection, they became convinced that he was fully Immanuel, God with them, the Person of God inca…