Is the Baptism of Jesus Evidence for the Trinity?

Welcome to Apostolic Life in the 21st Century, a podcast dedicated to helping modern-day believers live out the teachings of the first-century church. This podcast is part of the teaching ministry of Dr. David K. Bernard. Dr. Bernard has dedicated his life to studying the Bible and helping believers apply its message to their daily lives. In Apostolic Life in the 21st Century, Dr. Bernard answers your questions about what the Bible teaches and how those teachings apply to everyday life. Thank you for joining us for this broadcast.

In describing the account of the baptism of Jesus, Matthew said that when Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens opened, the Spirit of God descended on Him like a dove, and there was a voice from heaven that spoke and said, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." The other Gospel writers describe the baptism of Jesus in much the same fashion, which has led some to conclude that these passages show a distinction between the persons of the Godhead, so that there's three separate persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. What do Oneness Pentecostals say about these passages?

That's a great question that many people have asked. First of all, as a key principle of interpretation, we start with what has already been revealed before we look at anything new. And so we know by reading the Old Testament — Deuteronomy 6:4 and many other passages, such as many in Isaiah — "Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God is one LORD." The Lord is one. And Isaiah 44:24, for example, God said, "I created the heavens alone, by Myself." So by the time we get to Matthew 3, we already know there's only one God, one personal being who is God.

The second thing we should look at in interpretation is the background, the setting. So the people who were there that day — the early followers of Jesus, the disciples of John the Baptist — they actually watched Jesus getting baptized. If this was a revelation of the Trinity, this would be the first time in the Bible that you would have this doctrine being revealed. And these Jewish onlookers had been trained all their life that, "Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God is one LORD." This would be the first time in their whole life that they would have had even a hint that there's more than one person. So looking at it historically, if that was really what happened — that God was saying, "I know you didn't realize this before; Moses didn't know this; Isaiah didn't know this; but I'm going to show you something you've never known before, that actually there are three persons in the Godhead, and there are three of us up here talking" — well, you would see in Matthew 3 a shocking reaction from the crowd: "Wow, our God is a Trinity!" And then you would see Matthew record something like, "And by this, for the first time in history, all men knew there was a Trinity." But you don't see any reaction from the crowd. You don't see the Gospel writer, the apostle, using this as a doctrinal point in any way. I mean, if he was a Trinitarian preacher, this is the best place to preach it. But no — what you find is people recognizing Jesus as the Messiah, because that's really what was going on.

The purpose of the baptism was not to introduce a new doctrine of the Godhead that had never been known in the human race or in the Bible, but it was to inaugurate the ministry of Jesus, to reveal Him as the Son of God — which would mean God manifest in the flesh — to reveal Him as the King of Israel, the Messiah, the Christ who would fulfill the prophecies, and to give Him a visible anointing of the Holy Spirit. Of course, as God manifest in the flesh, He was the Spirit; but this was to show that He, as a man, was not proceeding on His own authority, but the power of God from this point on was anointing Him to do the work that He had been born to do. So it was an introduction and a revelation of Jesus, and an inauguration of His ministry. And that is what the people saw, and that is what the four Gospels record.

And so what I've just described to you fits very well. But we still might ask: well, then you have Jesus here on earth, you have this voice from heaven, you have the Spirit descending — Luke says in the bodily form of a dove, so there's a visible manifestation — so wouldn't that be three persons? And I would say, well, wait just a minute. God is one. God is a Spirit. God is invisible. God is omnipresent. Now, there's Scriptures for all of that. John 4:24: God is a Spirit. John 1:18: God is invisible. Psalm 139: God is everywhere. So we have one God who is everywhere. He can speak from heaven, He can be incarnate in flesh as the Son of God, and He can send His Spirit and show a bodily form of a dove. And one God can do all that.

For example, even today — you and I, we're sitting right here in the United States. We can pray; we can feel the presence of God when we pray. Perhaps God would speak to us in tongues and interpretation, or prophecy. We could have a vision; we could have a dream; we could have a very definite, tangible manifestation of God right here. But at the same time, a group of people in China could be praying and get a manifestation, or in Russia could be praying, in Africa could be praying. We could have four groups of people praying in four different locations; each one of them could have a manifestation of God, including a vision or a dream or some visible appearance. Does that mean there are four persons of the Godhead? No. It means there's one God who is everywhere. So just because you have a voice from heaven, and yet Jesus as a man on earth, doesn't mean God has to be two persons to do that. It means one God, who is Spirit, can do both at the same time.

So then the question might be: well, why would He do that? Isn't He trying to show us three persons? Well, no. Think about it: there's only one person in that scene — Jesus. A voice is not a separate person. God used a donkey to speak, but that voice did not mean an actual intelligent person other than God doing a miracle. The dove was a visible sign, but we wouldn't think that a member of the Godhead is a bird. So these are symbols for a purpose. What's the purpose? Well, John chapter 12 — you have another occurrence of the voice from heaven, and Jesus explained this voice was not for My sake, but for your sakes.

So Jesus could have stood on the banks of the Jordan and said, "I'm God manifested in flesh. I'm the Son of God. I'm the Messiah. I'm the Savior. You need to believe on Me. If you don't believe on Me, you're all going to be lost." But what credibility would that have had, especially since He hadn't even started His ministry yet? So in order for His identity to be given credibility, the voice from heaven spoke. Then everybody can understand: this is God, this is supernatural, this is Spirit, this is from heaven. Now, is God confined to outer space, or is He confined to earth's atmosphere? Of course not. But by having the voice come above and beyond, that signified God's sovereignty. It wasn't just Jesus as a man claiming something for Himself; it was the invisible Spirit of God, who was also incarnate in Jesus, who was confirming His true identity.

And then when you read the Gospel of John, chapter 1, John the Baptist explains the purpose for the dove. He said, God told me that the One I was preaching about would come, and the way I would know Him is the Spirit would descend in the form of the dove. So we're not even sure if the crowds that day — they probably saw the dove, but whether they fully understood the significance or not, it's not clear. But we do know for sure it was a sign for John the Baptist, so he would know: the One that you see the dove descending upon is the One who's going to baptize with the Holy Spirit. So the voice from heaven was a sign for the people; the dove was a sign for John. But one God can operate multiple signs at the same time, at the same location or in different locations, without being more than one God, without being more than one personal being.

So to summarize: the people on the spot, and the apostles who wrote the story — none of them saw this as promoting the Trinity. So why should we, who live 2,000 years later, read this story and see something in it that the original audience and the original writers didn't see themselves? Instead, we simply understand this story is a wonderful depiction of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, being endowed with the authority of the Almighty God and anointed with the power of the Holy Spirit. But yet we know God is our Father, is our Creator; we know Jesus Christ as the Son of God, God manifest in the flesh; we know the Holy Spirit, God's Spirit that works in our lives today. But these are three manifestations of one God, who is revealed as one personal being in Jesus Christ.

Thank you for joining us for today's broadcast. We hope you'll make plans to join us again next time, when once again we take a look at how the Bible applies to our everyday lives.