The Trinity mystery contrasted with the Bible

This blog is a paper that I (Dan) presented at the Unitarian Christian Alliance (UCA) UK International Conference in July 2025. The paper, which contrasts the common appeal to a Trinity mystery with the Biblical presentation of mysteries, was submitted for blind review earlier in 2025. I am very grateful to have received an invitation from the UCA board to present my paper at the conference.

The video will be published on the UCA YouTube channel and I’ll include it here when it is updated. I have also included various links throughout this page to different resources and podcasts that are relevant. The appendices are also available here.

Introduction

“The Father is God; the Son is God; and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not three Gods; but one God.”^[1]

“…one Christ, very God, and very Man; who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried.”^[2]

As the incarnate Son, “Jesus’ temptations were genuine although he could not sin.”^[3]

These could be beautiful and profound mysteries that speak of the incarnation of the Son and of God as Trinity and convey a powerful paradox about the eternal dying or the impeccable God being tempted. But on the other hand, they might be illogical contradictions that witness only to innovative word games of fourth century ruling bishops.

The Trinity and the Incarnation are regularly described as profound mysteries, but does this have a good biblical basis? Or is it instead a case of the emperor’s new clothes—an embarrassing and mythical construct that quickly unravels when common sense is applied, and obvious contradictions are acknowledged?

I plan to address these questions in this paper by firstly defining “mystery” both in usage of the English word and also the NT Greek word. I compare the biblical concept of mystery with examples from Christian literature. By the end of the paper, I hope that you see the stark contrast between the biblical “revealed” mysteries and the appeals to mystery in relation to the Trinity and the incarnation. They are frequently referred to as unknowable and unfathomable paradoxes, mysteries that are outside of our ability to comprehend. My concern is that these appeals to ‘mystery’ scare the Christian laity into never questioning such post-biblical doctrines and deferring to the “experts.” This is both unbiblical and unpersuasive in an evangelistic context. We should be able to “test everything; hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21), and this implies that we should discard post-biblical speculations that are not “good”—those things that simply do not make any sense. Sadly, the “experts” have been continuing a tradition that has no biblical or logical basis by invoking a “mystery” whenever trinitarian theology runs into logical problems.

My concluding appeal is for all Christians everywhere stop talking about the Trinity and the incarnation as mysteries, but I want to also offer something to fill that void. The gospel is indeed profound, but it most certainly isn’t an illogical contradiction. Instead, it’s very profound and practical, and is so very important to Christian living.

Defining “Mystery”

The first and most important thing to do in this topic is to define what we could mean by the word “mystery.” Thinking primarily about the English word first of all, I think there are three broad definitions that are possible.

The first is simply a description of something that is unknown. Mystery fiction books are good examples of this. They focus on a crime or unexplained phenomenon in order to treat the reader to a logical puzzle to solve. Only at the end is the truth revealed, and it’s important to recognise that there is an expectation that the mystery can be solved, that it is logically coherent after all. However, it is only a mystery when it is unknown. Once it is solved, the mystery vanishes; the case is closed.

The second use of “mystery” is when it is employed as an honorific, used to convey a sense of intrigue or importance. For example, the dancing northern lights, the aurora borealis, are very mysterious to experience. By saying this, I simply mean that the experience is really profound. It makes the northern lights seem more enigmatic, and by that you understand that I was really, really moved by them. But of course my statement doesn’t suggest that there’s any logical contradiction in them.

The third broad definition is when the word “mystery” means a paradox. By definition a paradox is something that is apparently contradictory, yet communicating something true and profound. One biblical example of a paradox is Paul’s statement that when he is weak then he is strong. (2 Corinthians 12:10). It’s paradoxical because Paul can’t be strong when he’s weak as they are opposite terms denoting contradictory states. But the paradox makes you think deeply about what is being communicated, and you’re expected to refine what you understand as strength. His meaning is clearly that he’s weak in human terms, but this allows him to be strong in another sense, when he relies on Christ’s power. It is natural and normal for us to interpret him in some such way, resolving the apparent contradiction, resulting in self-consistent statements. It’s a contradiction on the level of words only, that communicates a truth that is not easily accepted by us, that human weakness is actually strength in the eyes of God, because the power and influence of God can work through humble and receptive hearts.

We are going to see that trinitarian commentators resort to describing things that are logically contradictory as “paradoxical” or “great mysteries.” For example, we will find people referring to the paradox of the incarnation, or the mystery of Jesus knowing everything and yet simultaneously being limited by human capacity to reason. We will be able to test those claims to see if they are paradoxes, merely apparent contradictions, or if they are instead logically incoherent claims, implying real contradictions.

So, when the English word “mystery” is used, it will generally fall into one of these three camps: something unknown, an honorific conveying that it is profound, or a paradox. Now, we need to turn to the New Testament to find if the biblical authors appeal to “mysteries” in any of these senses in their writings.

Mystery in the New Testament

The word “mystery” in the New Testament translates the Greek word mysterion, which has a recognised lexical definition:

28.77 μυστήριον, ου n: the content of that which has not been known before but which has been revealed to an in-group or restricted constituency…There is a serious problem involved in translating μυστήριον by a word which is equivalent to the English expression ‘mystery,’ for this term in English refers to a secret which people have tried to uncover but which they have failed to understand.^[4]

You can see that we have immediately run into a problem. The English word “mystery” appears in Bible translations in many places, translating mysterion, yet it doesn’t match the sense of the Greek. In English, “mystery” can refer to an unsolved crime or anything presently unknown, it can be used honorifically, or it can describe a paradox. But the Greek word in the New Testament is always about something that used to be hidden, but has now been revealed, at least to some people.

I have analysed all occurrences of mysterion in the New Testament and the full list is shown in Appendix A. These passages all show that the lexicon definition is correct. Biblical mysteries are not apparent logical contradictions or things that cannot be understood, but are instead previously hidden truths that can now be understood with clarity. This is evident immediately in Matthew 13, the chapter about parables, where Jesus describes how his teaching divides people into those who understand his words and those who do not. “To you it has been given to know the secrets [Gk. mysterion] of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given” (Matthew 13:11, see Mark 4:11 and Luke 8:10). The mystery is clearly something that can be understood if you receive the teaching with an “honest and good heart” (Luke 8:15), as the parable of the sower explains. The mystery of the kingdom of heaven is not a contradiction, it’s not a paradox and it’s not an unfathomable truth. If you have ears to hear, you can discern and fully understand it.

The remaining examples mostly continue in this vein. The mystery that Paul describes in Romans is about the inclusion of Gentiles into the family of God. “I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.” (Romans 11:25). This was a mystery that had not been appreciated until the coming of Christ and his death for all. It was a truth that lay shrouded and unknown, until it was revealed.

The same pattern is evident in Ephesians and Colossians. Paul paints a picture of the “mystery of his [God’s] will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” (Ephesians 1:9). The all things that are to be united are Jews and Gentiles. As he goes on to say,

“you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” (Ephesians 3:4-6).

God’s planned reconciliation between Jews and Gentiles is a revealed mystery. Furthermore, there was nothing illogical, contradictory or obscure about this. Paul was crystal clear in his own mind that on the cross, Jesus allowed those who had been “separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise” to be “brought near” (Ephesians 2:12-13). The union of all families of the earth into one new humanity is also seen in the “mystery” of Christ and his bride, revealed in Ephesians 5:32. After quoting Genesis 2 about the union of a man and woman in marriage, Paul exclaims that “this mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christa and the church”. This previously hidden echo of the relationship that Jesus has with his believers, whether they be Jewish or Gentile, is now revealed, in keeping with the uses we’ve seen so far.

The mysteries in Colossians echo Ephesians, though less clearly about the Gentiles. However, what is clear is that Paul understands the mystery as fully revealed. It’s his teaching about “Christ in you”—more about this later—which was “hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints” (Colossians 1:26-27). Listen to how Paul begins concluding his letter to the believers in Colossae:

“pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison— that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak” (Colossians 4:3-4).

He couldn’t be more emphatic that this mystery was to be fully understood. Pray that I may “declare” the mystery, and “make it clear”. This is the very opposite of an obfuscating appeal to “mystery,” or an appeal to an apparent contradiction.

Later in 1 Corinthians, Paul includes a rare reference to a “mystery” that is not yet understood:

“For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 14:2).

Whatever your interpretation of tongues is, this is not about an unfathomable mystery. Paul would rather the Corinthian Christians to prophesy, not speak in tongues “unless someone interprets, so that the church may be built up” (1 Corinthians 14:5), which demonstrates that tongues were capable of being revealed, i.e. interpreted.  Without interpretation, they were hidden—the basic meaning of the word—and this is why Paul was discouraging them in the absence of an interpretor.  So “mystery” even here fits within the normal lexical useage of the word mysterion.[5]

Additional examples of revealed secrets include the “mystery [Gk. mysterion] of the seven stars . . . and seven golden lampstands” in Revelation 1:20, (which relate to seven churches in Asia minor), “the mystery [Gk. mysterion] of the woman” (Revelation 17:5-7) who is explained to be Babylon the great, and further explained by reference to a city founded on seven hills, and finally the “mystery [Gk. mysterion] of lawlessness” in 2 Thessalonians 2:7 which is the man of lawlessness who is to be revealed. These are all, yet again, secrets that are being explained. In the New Testament a mysterion is nearly always a revealed truth that was previously hidden.

I’ve left a reference in 1 Timothy until the end because we need to look at this in a little more detail. Here is the passage in full:

“I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery [Gk. mysterion] of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.” (1 Timothy 3:14-16 ESV).

At first reading you may think that this is (finally!) a description of the incarnation as a mystery, a profound and inconceivable truth that is otherwise true even though we cannot fully understand it. But we need to pay attention to what is being said.

Firstly, there is a textual variant. The KJV preserves the majority text version: “God was manifest in the flesh,” as opposed to most modern versions opting for “Who was manifest,” in line with modern textual criticism.[6] I don’t have any reason to doubt the textual critics, but this doesn’t drastically change things for our purposes. The key to is notice that the mystery is about the one who was “manifest,” that is, revealed. The whole poem is about the one who has been manifested, vindicated, seen, and proclaimed. There is no ambiguity about it. It is not an incomprehensible mystery. Again, it’s another revealed truth that was hidden and is now clearly proclaimed. As the NET translates the beginning phrase of verse 16, “we all agree, our religion contains amazing revelation.” So, whether this is about God revealed and shown in the person of Jesus or Jesus revealed to the world, neither interpretation comes close to a mysterious incarnation of a “godman.” Instead, both are about the revealing of God to the world through Jesus the Christ who is the one we have seen, heard, proclaimed, and believed on.

To conclude this survey of the biblical mysteries, we can agree with the lexicon definitions that mysterion denotes something formerly hidden, but which has been or will be revealed. It isn’t used honorifically, and isn’t used to describe a paradox that seems logically contradictory. Mysterion is regularly used to denote the teaching of the apostles in general and specifically about the inclusion of Gentiles into God’s family, the revealing of Jesus as the Christ, and revealing of God’s wisdom in the person of Jesus. Where mysterion is about Jesus, there is no mention of two natures, an incarnation, the Trinity, or puzzles such as having divine and human nature, or his being tempted even though he is untemptable. It is straightforwardly about God’s revealed purpose in his Son, Jesus, that is now clear and open to all, both Jew and Gentile.

With those passages in mind, let’s turn to some post-biblical Christian literature.

Examples in Christian literature and content

Christians have been writing and talking about God for as long as they have existed, and therefore we should be able to look at the language of mystery where it is employed, to see whether it has been used in ways that mirror the biblical usage. I’m going to share just a small sample of passages where God as a Trinity and Jesus as the incarnation of the Son are portrayed as “mysteries” in various ways.

Creeds

Let’s start with an example from the heyday of emerging trinitarian theology in the late fourth century. Kegan Chandler dissects the issues surrounding the Nicene and post-Nicene controversy, and notes how the Cappadocian Fathers championed a way of describing God that ultimately ended up enshrined in the creeds, which was to appeal to paradox. Chandler quotes Gregory of Nyssa:

“Do not be surprised that we should speak of the Godhead as being at the same time both unified and differentiated. Using riddles, as it were, we envisage a strange and paradoxical diversity-in-unity and unity-in-diversity.”[7]

Chandler continues by observing that,

“For them, the Christ was a ‘riddle’ and a ‘paradox,’ not by virtue of circumstance, as if he were a secret merely awaiting disclosure, but by fact of nature. If the conclusions of dogma were to make Jesus a walking contradiction, then the orthodox Christian must embrace him as such.”[8]

These and other early examples such as the so-called Athanasian Creed[9] show that by the fourth and fifth centuries it had become acceptable, or even fashionable, to describe God in terms of mystery, as a means of avoiding or obfuscating the seeming contradictions involved in the then-new triune God and incarnate deity speculations. But let’s jump ahead in time to a much more recent example.

Bible Project

I greatly admire and appreciate the work that Dr. Tim Mackie and his associate Jon Collins have done in founding and growing the Bible Project into such a successful and humble Christian teaching mission. We’re in their debt for a lot of inspiring, text-based exegesis in their podcasts, videos and classroom lectures.

Unfortunately, their video “Who is God?” is an example of how even the very best of faithful and truth-seeking interpreters in the modern mainstream Christian community can revert to avoidance and obfuscation tactics when trying to articulate a flawed theory about a triune God. Mackie opens the video by acknowledging that God as three in one is “a question that has mystified people for thousands of years. And while we can’t fully explain it, I think we can better understand what it is that we can’t fully understand.”[10] By the end of 7 minutes, his co-presenter Collins observes “It can look like these are three distinct gods. But in some way that transcends my view of reality, they’re also one.”[11] Let’s listen to their conclusion:

Tim: But this isn’t just a philosophy puzzle. To describe God as a tri-unity is to claim that the universe is held together by an eternal community of love.

Jon: Which is something that I can’t really understand.

Tim: But the God of the Bible isn’t a being that you understand. The point is to know and be known by this God, so that we can participate in his love.[12]

Although they don’t use the word “mystery” in this section of the video, there is a mystery appeal here. But what sort? They’re not saying that the Trinity is a mystery that has been revealed. Nor is their point that it is a profound, awe-inspiring doctrine, though I think that is partly what they intend to convey. Primarily, their appeal to mystery is because they recognise that the Trinity is not possible to fully understand, at least, in this life. It’s unfathomable for us. They have assumed that “the God of the Bible isn’t a being that you understand” without any justification from scripture. It’s all too convenient to offer that excuse for a post-biblical theology which they admit seems to present three gods while asserting that there’s only one.  Instead of calling this a “mystery”, they should consider whether the incoherence may be due to failed human speculation.  This is not the Bible Project’s usual high-quality exegesis, but merely traditional appeals to mystery to obfuscate, even if that’s not their conscious intention.

Modern Christian literature

My examples so far have been quite literally worlds apart. From ancient Cappadocia during the Constantinian reign and subsequent Christian ecumenical councils, to 21^st century Portland—from parchment to YouTube. This shows how pervasive the idea of God’s mysterious triune nature has been. I have reviewed many more passages of Christian literature that appeal to mystery and have drawn similar conclusions. The bulk of this can be found in Appendix B, but I’m going to describe a couple more in a more detail.

The spectre of contradictions lurking in the very heart of Christian theology haunts modern theologians. To illustrate this, the book Across the Spectrum by Greg Boyd and Paul Eddy surveys many disputed questions in modern Evangelical Christianity, and includes a chapter on Christology. The central question they raise is between what they call “classical” Christology as an unavoidable paradox, and modern Kenotic Christology. This very debate arises precisely because of the contradictions that are inherent in the concept of a godman, someone who is both human and divine. In describing the “classical” view, they state, “The church has always admitted that this teaching constitutes a profound mystery, but it has always denied that it constitutes a contradiction.”[13] This classical view undoubtedly engages in appeals to mystery as an obfuscation, avoiding the real issues by insisting that what for all appearances is a contradiction is simply a profound mystery, a merely apparent contradiction. Yet Boyd and Eddy put the issue in starker terms, writing that “As a man, Jesus was indeed limited in what he knew. But it is also abundantly clear that as God, he was not limited. Somehow, Jesus was both simultaneously.”[14] Limited and knowledge . . . and not? That is a real contradiction. Once you have asserted and denied the very same thing, you have a real contradiction. Jesus is limited by not knowing the day or hour of his coming (Mark 13:32), but Boyd and Eddy present classical Christology as also affirming that Jesus is simultaneously omniscient i.e. not limited in knowledge. It is not possible for Jesus to be both limited in knowledge and not limited in knowledge. This should prompt you to reassess your conclusion and go back to the scriptures to find out where things have gone wrong because it is a dead end. Accepting a contradiction and calling it a “mystery” does not somehow make it OK, nor is it helpful for those searching for the clarity of the gospel.

But as Boyd and Eddy show, the Evangelical conversation has basically been a big attempt to try and show that the “godman” doctrine isn’t contradictory, even though they continue to refer to it as a “profound mystery.” But that is simply papering over the cracks. Awarding that honorific title to a seeming contradiction does nothing to remove the strong evidence for thinking it is false.

As we’ve seen, biblical “mysteries” are not like this. Neither God’s nor Christ’s metaphysical nature(s) or composition have ever been described by a biblical author as a “mystery.” But after about 1700 years, for many that obfuscating habit is hard to break.

Popular level theology and apologetics

The philosophical conversation and debate about whether the contradictions in Trinity theories are merely apparent or real gets very technical.  Boyd and Eddy only touch on the vast scholarly discussion that is relevant. However, it’s the large Christian laity and regular believers who hear that the Trinity is a “mystery” without the precision of philosophical definitions. They are put off from ever questioning the Trinity because, since it is a “mystery”, it is perceived to be impossible to ever understand.

In popular level theology books you’ll find frequent appeals to mystery. For example, “the miracle and paradox of Jesus as the Anointed One was that although he was eternal God, he was born into our common estrangement,”[15] and claims such as this: “as mysterious as the Trinity is, perhaps even above and beyond our capacity to understand it in its fullness, the historic formula is not a contradiction.”[16]

As you might expect, popular level Christian apologetics materials frequently appeal to mystery when describing Trinity and incarnation. Paul Copan, in an apologetics anthology that he co-edited with William Lane Craig sets up a challenge for himself to maintain the mystery of the Trinity but nonetheless attempts to show that it is not contradictory.

“Christians have long pondered the mystery of the Trinity, and we’re not here trying to demystify the God whose nature and purposes can’t be reduced to tidy formulas or manageable boxes. We should celebrate the unfathomable God, who’s under no obligation to human demands to clarify everything about Himself (Deut 29:29). And why think our puny minds could grasp these “secret things” (NASB) anyway? Paul reminds us that we know partially and lack the clarity about God’s nature and ways (1 Cor 13:9; cf. Isa 55:9). “The great things of the gospel” (as theologian Jonathan Edwards put it) are astonishing, but mystery or partial knowledge doesn’t imply contradiction. Let’s keep this in mind as we consider the divine Trinity.”[17]

This immediately misunderstands the biblical presentations of mysteries as truths that have been revealed and that can be clearly understood.[18] Furthermore, it’s a complete red herring to compare denial of contradictions in trinitarian theology with believing that everything about God can be fully comprehended. No-one believes that they suddenly understand everything about God just because they cannot accept the logical contradictions that the Trinity inevitable imply! We don’t understand everything there is to know about anything—the migration patterns of birds, what lives at the bottom of the ocean, or the human brain—but this doesn’t mean that we should suddenly accept contradictory statements about these topics, like “birds both have and don’t have a homing instinct”. Just because we might not fully understand everything about it doesn’t mean we should settle for anything less than rational. We still need to apply some basic common sense and critical thinking skills about the information that we do have.

Copan has clearly started his contribution with an appeal to mystery to veil the contradictions that are inevitably going to ensue, despite his protestations. The same thing happens in his chapter on the incarnation:

“Though an amazing mystery, the doctrine of the incarnation isn’t a contradiction. In this mystery a fully divine, fully human Jesus possesses a certain dual awareness. In one, He is fully knowing; in another He is voluntarily limited in His knowledge so that He could truly endure temptation, identifying with us in every way except without sin.”[19]

This is Copan’s summary of a chapter that makes many bold assertions about Jesus having two sets of awarenesses.  The claims include:

“When God the Son took on human form, His fully aware eternal, His divine consciousness . . . continued uninterrupted . . . Jesus, however, didn’t regularly rely on His divine consciousness while on earth but primarily operated in His human consciousness, just like us, with the added depth of divine awareness.”[20]

No matter what Copan attempts, he is still presenting a real contradiction. According to his model, Jesus is both omniscient and not omniscient at the same time. And again:

“Jesus is also ignorant of certain things such as the timing of his return (parousia, lit. “presence”): “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone” (Matt 24:36). We could also add Jesus’ ignorance about the fig tree (Mark 11:13) and the haemorrhaging woman who touched him (Mark 5:30-33) or His amazement at a Gentile centurion’s faith (Matt 8:10). Likewise, Jesus’ mission included intentionally surrendering the knowledge that He, being divine, couldn’t ultimately deviate from His Father’s will.”[21]

This discussion about awareness and omniscience is the bedrock for Copan’s way of dealing with the problem of the temptations of Jesus.  We know that God cannot be tempted, (James 1:13), and we also know from scripture that Jesus was “in every respect…tempted as we are” (Hebrews 4:15).  If Jesus is God, then we have Jesus both being unable to be tempted and also being tempted at the same time—another real contradiction.  He relies on Jesus being unaware of his inability to deviate from God’s will as a way of solving this problem, yet the true contradiction of omniscience remains. It is also difficult to understand how you can choose to “turn off” your omniscience at will—Copan avoids presenting any kind of model for this and just asserts that this is precisely what Jesus did.

Summary and Conclusions

And herein lies the problem. The Trinity and the incarnation are so deeply ingrained as unsolvable mysteries that this language pervades all aspects of Christian literature, worship songs, animated videos, podcasts and biblical commentaries. We’ve reviewed a whole range of sources now, and even where a good standard of exegesis and critical thinking is usually evident, the spectre of mystery continues to loom large.

As we’ve seen, the biblical authors have no such worries. The Bible does contain mysteries, but these are revealed truths that had been hidden until revealed through the twists and turns of history and the coming of Christ. Indeed, the appearance of Jesus and the good news preached about him, the mystery of Christ, was supposed to be clear and understandable! Paul didn’t teach an unfathomable paradox. He taught a story of good news with beautiful clarity: the mystery revealed.

Despite this, Christians have for far too long invoked a mystery veil where prior theological assumptions are shielded from the usual standards of logic and reason. The Trinity and the incarnation are protected from careful interrogation and biblical assessment, because they are, ultimately, “mysteries” that must nonetheless be accepted.

I would like all Christians everywhere to stop invoking mystery when discussing God. I’d like to see good, healthy questioning and good scriptural exegesis. And I would like Christians everywhere to adopt the attitude of one biblical unitarian Bible student from the mid 1800s who includes, within his “Rules for Studying the Scripture”:

“Never be afraid of results to which you may be driven by your investigation, as this will inevitably bias your mind and disqualify you to arrive at the ultimate truth . . . Investigate everything you believe: if it is the truth, it cannot be injured thereby; if error, the sooner it is corrected the better.”[22]

And the sooner the mystery of the Trinity is corrected, the better, because it would allow lay Christians everywhere to open their eyes to what is really revealed—not obscured—about God and his Son Jesus.

Paul proclaimed the revealed mystery of “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). What does it mean to have Christ in you? Well Paul later describes the new Christian as someone who has “put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Colossians 3:9-10). We show Christ living in us by our actions and our behaviour. And Christ himself, is the image of God, as the same letter shows (Colossians 1:15). The revelation about Jesus is that he reveals God to us. He isn’t God incarnate, but manifests God to us by his perfect life. This language is everywhere in the New Testament. For example.

• Christ is “the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4)
• The Son is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Hebrews 1:3)
• Whoever has seen Jesus “has seen the Father” (John 14:9)
• Jesus did the Father’s works (John 5:19)
• Jesus prayed to his Father; “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known” (John 17:26)

These scriptures do not teach an incomprehensible Trinity or incarnation. They are scriptures of God, who is the Father, being manifest or clearly revealed through humanity, and more specifically, through the one perfect human being, Jesus, the Christ.[23] They are scriptures that lead us to God’s character through the life and teaching of Jesus, the Son of God. And in the same way that Jesus manifests God, those who follow Christ, are called to live lives “conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29); lives that reveal Christ and the Father to the world through their own conduct. This is why this topic is really important—because to shroud the reality of Jesus revealing God behind an incomprehensible mystery is to miss the practical import of how we should live our lives today.

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[1] A quote from the (so-called) Athanasian creed.

[2] A quote from the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer, Articles of Religion, Article II, https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources/book-common-prayer/articles-religion, accessed 27/04/25.

[3] Wellum, Stephen, The Gospel Coalition, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/the-incarnation-and-two-natures-of-christ/, accessed 27/04/25.

^[4] Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 344.

[5] A similar passage is found in Revelation 10:1-7 where John is about to write about the seven thunders but is stopped from included them in his account. He is told that when the seventh angel sounds his trumpet, the catalyst for the thunders to be unleashed on the world, “the mystery of God would be fulfilled, just as he announced to his servants the prophets”. Thus, the exact details of the judgements are withheld from the reader, however John clearly comprehended them because he was about to write them. These mysteries are therefore not unfathomable paradoxes, but are secrets that could and will be revealed by God.

[6] For example, “But in the original text, the subject of the verse is simply “who”—which most translators render as “he” and which most commentators identify as Christ.” Philip W. Comfort, New Testament Text and Translation Commentary: Commentary on the Variant Readings of the Ancient New Testament Manuscripts and How They Relate to the Major English Translations (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2008), 663.

[7] Gregory of Nyssa, “Unity in Diversity”, quoted in Gregory of Nyssa’s Mystical Writings, translated and edited by Herbert Mursillo (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press), 1979

[8] Chandler, Kegan A. The God of Jesus in light of Christian Dogma, Fayeteville, Georgia: Restoration Fellowship, p224

[9] It famously says, in part: “The Father is God; the Son is God; and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not three Gods; but one God.” The delight in expressing paradoxical and contradictory statements continues with relish in the rest of the creed.

[10] Collins, J and Mackie, T, bibleproject.com video “Who is God?” 00:11

[11] Ibid, 07:06

[12] Ibid, 07:25

[13] Boyd, Gregory A. and Eddy, Paul R. Across the Spectrum. Understanding Issues in Evangelical Theology, Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002, p103

[14] Ibid, p104

[15] M. James Sawyer, Resurrecting the Trinity: A Plea to Recover the Wonder and Meaning of the Triune God (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2017), 130

[16] R. C. Sproul, What Is the Trinity?, vol. 10, The Crucial Questions Series (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2011), 2

[17] Paul Copan, “Is the Trinity a Logical Blunder? God as Three and One” in Contending with Christianity’s Critics: Answering New Atheists and Other Objectors, ed. Paul Copan and William Lane Craig, p. 210, 2009, Nashville Tennessee

[18] Indeed, the casual appeal to Isaiah 55:9, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” depends on a misreading. In context, God is berating his people for not knowing him, and asking the wicked to forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. The point the prophet makes is that despite the fact that the human mind is naturally so far removed from God’s thinking, God wants humanity to raise their minds to see God’s point of view! It’s not a passage about how God is unfathomable. It’s actually a passage about how we should raise our intellect to fully understand and appreciate God!

[19] Paul Copan, “Did God become a Jew? A Defence of the Incarnation” in Contending with Christianity’s Critics: Answering New Atheists and Other Objectors, ed. Paul Copan and William Lane Craig, p. 230, 2009, Nashville, Tennessee.

[20] Ibid, p226

[21] Ibid, p228

[22] Foreman, J. Rules of Interpretation and Directions for Investigating the Scriptures, Herald of the Kingdom Age to Come, (9.1.180), 1859.

[23] Commenting on the same passages and more, Biblical Unitarian Andrew Perry notes that the incarnation of John 1 would be better understood as a manifestation, or revealing. “What these texts show is that ‘manifestation’ is the leading idea in relation to Jesus, whether this be God the Father being manifested in Jesus or Jesus being foreordained in the Scriptures and then being manifested to Israel.” (Perry, Andrew. One God, the Father, Edited by Gaston, Thomas E., East Boldon: Willow Publications, 2013, p254)