GOD A PERSON
Introduction
Trott and Beebe both confess a triune God, but they lean hard into a very Old-School instinct: say what Scripture says; be cautious with man-made labels; never let your vocabulary quietly manufacture either three Gods or a God who only “acts” in three modes. Their “definition” of a triune God is less a tidy formula and more a set of guardrails built out of biblical speech.
For Samuel Trott, the first and controlling note is always God’s oneness. He explicitly argues that Scripture is far more “positive” and repetitive about God being one than about anything else, and he treats that emphasis as deliberate—so any theological “system” that even indirectly implies three beings, three gods, or “parts of God” is, to him, a worse error than obscuring the “Three in One.” From there he defends God’s “plurality” as real and limited to three, appealing to texts like Genesis language (“Let us…”) and the Bible’s use of distinct personal pronouns, while also opposing the idea that the Three are merely “offices or manifestations.” Then comes his famous line: he believes in a Trinity, “but not in tri-personality.” Trott’s worry is that “three persons” (if left undefined) tends to sound like “three independent individuals,” which in practice drifts toward tritheism. He therefore says, if asked “Are the Three, three persons?”—“not in a proper sense,” because an undefined term used “in an indefinite and improper sense” darkens counsel. Yet he still insists the relations are genuinely “personal” in Scripture’s sense (pronouns, mutual relations, real distinction), and he’s willing to tolerate the word person if someone carefully explains they’re not using it in its full everyday import. So Trott’s “triune God” is: one God, eternally and essentially existing as Father/Word/Spirit, with real personal relations—without conceptualizing three separate “persons” as three beings.
Gilbert Beebe lands in the same doctrinal neighborhood, but he approaches it more as a pastor and doxologist than as a polemicist. Beebe’s center of gravity is not abstract metaphysics but the biblical proclamation that “God was manifest in the flesh,” and that in Christ “dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” That’s why he explicitly says the apostle was inspired “to use no such terms as, the first person in the Godhead… second… third… but God himself.” He’s not denying Father/Son/Spirit language; he’s refusing to let later terminology become the engine that drives what Scripture means. And he’s unusually explicit that true faith is not the same thing as comprehension: we believe what Scripture says “because they are declared,” not because we can “comprehend” Deity—if we could, it would “no longer be a mystery.” In his very practical description of prayer, Beebe speaks in a strongly triune pattern: prayer is addressed to the Father, in the name of the Son, “as indited by the Holy Spirit,” and he adds, “It is true that these three are One,” while describing the Spirit as Comforter, Teacher, and Prompter of prayer. That is Beebe’s “definition” in action: one God, known and approached through a triune order of salvation and worship, with real divine agency attributed to Father, Son, and Spirit—without turning the Trinity into a speculative diagram.
Now compare both to the traditional creedal concept of the Trinity (Nicene/Athanasian style). The Athanasian Creed famously states we worship “one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity,” “neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.” (Christian Classics Ethereal Library) That creed also presses a careful balance: real distinctions (“one person of the Father… another of the Son… another of the Holy Spirit”) while insisting the Godhead is not split into three gods. (Christian Classics Ethereal Library) In that sense, Trott and Beebe share the aim of the creeds: protect both unity and real distinction. Where they differ is mainly tone and permitted vocabulary. Beebe points out that Scripture itself doesn’t speak in the “first/second/third person” idiom and prefers apostolic phrasing centered on Christ as “God manifest.” Trott goes further and openly rejects “tri-personality” as a standard label, precisely because he thinks it tempts people to think in “three beings” categories—even if the creed’s authors did not intend that.
So if you want it in one sentence: the “traditional Trinity” is the church’s tightrope-walk in technical language; Trott and Beebe also walk the tightrope, but they insist on doing it with Scripture’s own vocabulary as much as possible, and they treat the mystery not as a problem to solve but as a reality to confess without contradiction—one God, truly revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and still (as Beebe bluntly says) beyond the creature’s power to comprehend.
What do we mean by “God is a Person”?
In ordinary English, “person” can mean “a human being.” That’s not what we mean here, because Scripture is blunt that God is not a man (Numbers 23:19), and that God is spirit (John 4:24). In classical Christian theology, “person” means a “who,” not a “what.” A person is a living subject who can say “I” and “You,” who knows, wills, loves, speaks, acts intentionally, enters covenant, and relates. A force or impersonal principle may have effects, but it doesn’t speak, command, promise, judge, forgive, grieve, or love.
The Bible relentlessly presents God not as a cosmic electricity, but as the living God who reveals Himself with personal names, personal speech, personal actions, and personal fellowship.
The Father: the living “I” who speaks, wills, loves, and relates
Start with the way God introduces Himself. At the burning bush, God doesn’t present a philosophy; He presents Himself: “I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3:14). That’s not a law of nature talking. That’s a self-identifying subject.
God speaks and is spoken to. He commands, promises, warns, comforts—verbs that only make sense for a personal agent. He calls Abraham, makes a covenant, and binds Himself by oath (Genesis 12:1–3; Genesis 15; Hebrews 6:13–18). He listens and answers prayer (Psalm 65:2; Psalm 34:15–17). He loves with deliberate commitment: “I have loved you” (Malachi 1:2), and supremely, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16). He chooses according to will and purpose (Ephesians 1:4–5). He judges with moral agency (Genesis 18:25; Psalm 9:7–8). An impersonal “it” does not covenant, love, hear, or judge.
Even the biblical names of God press personhood. “Father” is relational language, not the label of an abstract principle (Matthew 6:9). And God’s people are repeatedly called into communion with Him: “Draw near to God” (James 4:8). Nearness to a person is fellowship; nearness to a force is just proximity.
Jesus Christ: God revealed as a divine Person you can meet, hear, trust, and worship
The New Testament doesn’t merely say God is personal; it says God has personally come near in the Son. John opens with staggering clarity: “In the beginning was the Word…and the Word was God” (John 1:1), and then: “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). The “Word” here is not a sound-wave or an idea. He creates (John 1:3), He is sent, He is received or rejected (John 1:11–12), He makes the Father known (John 1:18). That’s personhood.
Jesus speaks as “I,” prays to the Father as “You,” and claims divine prerogatives. He forgives sins—something the scribes rightly recognize as belonging to God (Mark 2:5–12). He receives worship (Matthew 14:33; John 9:38), though worship belongs to God alone (Matthew 4:10). Thomas addresses Him: “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). Paul calls Him “our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). Hebrews says of the Son, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever” (Hebrews 1:8). If Jesus is truly God and yet is a distinct “who” who speaks, loves, chooses, and communes, then the living God is not impersonal.
Even more: the gospel itself assumes personhood. You can’t have reconciliation with an abstraction. But Scripture says we were alienated and are now reconciled to God (Colossians 1:21–22), that we have peace with God (Romans 5:1), that we know Him (John 17:3). Those are relational realities.
The Holy Spirit: not an “it,” but a divine “He” who speaks, wills, loves, and can be sinned against
If anyone in modern speech gets demoted into an impersonal “force,” it’s the Holy Spirit. The Bible won’t allow it.
The Spirit speaks and sends: “The Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them” (Acts 13:2). The Spirit forbids and directs missionary travel (Acts 16:6–7). The Spirit teaches and reminds (John 14:26). He bears witness (John 15:26). He intercedes (Romans 8:26–27), and Paul even speaks of “the mind of the Spirit” (Romans 8:27)—mind is personal language.
The Spirit also has will. Spiritual gifts are distributed by Him intentionally: “dividing to every man severally as he will” (1 Corinthians 12:11). A force doesn’t “will”; it just behaves.
The Spirit can be grieved (Ephesians 4:30). Grief is not a property of impersonal energy; it’s a personal response. The Spirit can be lied to—and Peter equates lying to the Spirit with lying to God (Acts 5:3–4). Isaiah says God’s people “rebelled, and vexed his holy Spirit” (Isaiah 63:10). You don’t “vex” gravity.
So biblically, the Holy Spirit is a divine “who”: He speaks, wills, knows, loves, can be resisted (Acts 7:51), and can be sinned against.
One God, yet personal distinction: Father, Son, and Spirit in Scripture
Scripture is uncompromising that God is one: “The LORD our God is one LORD” (Deuteronomy 6:4). Yet Scripture also portrays the Father, Son, and Spirit as personally distinct and mutually relating.
At Jesus’ baptism, the Son is baptized, the Spirit descends, and the Father speaks from heaven (Matthew 3:16–17). Jesus prays to the Father (John 17), speaks of the Father loving the Son before the world began (John 17:24), and promises to send “another Comforter” (John 14:16–17). The baptismal commission is singular “name” yet threefold: “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 28:19). Whatever else we say, the biblical data forces two truths to stand together without being bullied apart: God is one, and the Father, Son, and Spirit are each presented as personal agents who act and relate.
So the Bible’s “God” is not a vague Supreme Something
Put it all together: the God of Scripture speaks in the first person (“I AM”), makes promises, judges, forgives, loves, and enters fellowship. The Son is God and is personally encountered, trusted, obeyed, and worshiped. The Spirit is God and personally speaks, wills, teaches, intercedes, and can be lied to and grieved. That’s not how the Bible describes an impersonal ultimate.
Philosophically, an impersonal source might explain motion or matter. Biblically, it cannot explain covenant, prayer, sin, forgiveness, adoption, communion, or worship—because all of those assume a living personal God. Christianity doesn’t invite you to “align with the Universe.” It commands you to repent before God, and it offers reconciliation to Him through Christ, by the Spirit.
And that means the strange, blazing heart of the matter is this: reality is not finally governed by an “it,” but by a Someone—holy, personal, speaking, saving, and not at all tame.
Old School Baptist Views of Personage
What I laid out in the Bible-first defense (“God is personal; Father, Son, and Spirit are living ‘whos,’ not an impersonal force”) lands very close to the substance of both Beebe and Trott—but Trott, especially, would grab you by the lapels and say: “Fine—now clean up your nouns so nobody slides into tritheism.”
Beebe is comfortably “personal” in the practical, devotional sense: God is approached, addressed, trusted, loved, and worshiped, and that approach is explicitly trinitarian in operation. In one passage, he insists prayer is to the Father, in the name of Jesus Christ the Son, “as indited by the Holy Spirit,” and he calls the Spirit “officially our Comforter, our Teacher, and the … Prompter of our prayers,” while affirming, “It is true that these three are One.” That’s the same anti-impersonal point you were after: the Spirit isn’t a vibe in the room; He teaches, prompts, comforts—personal acts.
Beebe also shares a very Old-School instinct you can feel in his pen: don’t let philosophical scaffolding become the building. He warns against slicing God into “parts” and insists that we must not construe Father/Son/Spirit distinctions in a way that implies “a plurality of Gods,” and he presses Colossians language about “all the fullness of the Godhead” dwelling in Christ. So Beebe would largely nod along with my “a person is a ‘who’” framing, but he’d want it tethered tightly to Scripture’s own way of speaking, and constantly guarded from “three Gods” mental pictures.
Trott is even more explicit—and here’s the key comparison: Trott fully defends God’s oneness and also defends God’s being “One and Three” as Scripture reveals (Father, Son, Holy Ghost). He also argues the Holy Ghost is truly God (appealing to texts like Acts 5 and others) and describes the Spirit acting as a distinct Witness in the hearts of God’s children. So again: same core “not impersonal” result.
But Trott sharply diverges from my earlier wording when it comes to the classic slogan “three persons in the Godhead.” He says, point blank, “I do believe in a Trinity, but not in tri-personality,” and he rejects the claim that Scripture “declared” God exists as “three distinct persons.” Then he does something subtle (and very Trott): he says he is authorized to speak of the Son as “a person,” and the Spirit as exercising “the attributes of a person” (citing 1 Cor. 12:11—“as He will”), and therefore to speak of Father/Son/Spirit “individually as manifested, and as acting, as God and therefore as a person.” In other words: Trott is happy to affirm personal agency and real distinctions, but he distrusts the unqualified formula “three proper and distinct persons” because (in his judgment) it easily beguiles people into imagining “three gods or something like it.”
And Trott is not doing that as a slide into modalism (“just three roles”). He explicitly opposes “the notion that the Three are only three offices or manifestations of God,” and he grounds the distinctions in Scripture’s use of personal pronouns and revealed relations. So if you compare him to the argument I gave earlier: Trott would applaud the goal (God is living, personal, triune; Spirit is personal; Jesus is God), but he would insist you keep the vocabulary closer to Scripture’s own lines—Father/Word/Spirit, “these three are one”—and treat “person” language as carefully defined and tightly fenced so it doesn’t sound like tritheism.
So the clean synthesis, Beebe/Trott-style, looks like this: God is not an impersonal “it,” but the living God who speaks and saves; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are truly God and personally active; the distinctions are real (not mere “manifestations”), yet God remains one Jehovah. Beebe expresses that in the grammar of worship and prayer; Trott expresses it in the grammar of polemics—protecting unity while refusing any phrasing he thinks smuggles in “three Gods.”
This begs the question, how do Beebe and Trott define “person”?
Trott treats the word “person” like a loaded theological suitcase: if you don’t open it and show what’s inside, it tends to smuggle in three Gods. He says straight out that using an “undefined term” in an “indefinite and improper sense” only “confuse[s] and darken[s] counsel,” and when asked “Are the Three, three persons?” he answers, “not in a proper sense.” Trott will still use person in carefully limited, Scripture-anchored ways. He says he is “authorized to speak of the Father as a person” because Scripture speaks of God’s “person” (Heb. 1:3),1 but he insists that “person” there refers to God as “the invisible God” (parallel to Col. 1:15), not as a proof-text for “three distinct persons” as systems of men define it.
For Trott, the clearest place where “person” has real bite is Christology: he says he is authorized to speak of the Son as a person because the Son is God, because he stands in “personal relation” to the church as Husband/Head/King, and because Christ is revealed as God and man… “all in one person.” And he grants the Spirit “the attributes of a person” (notably will—“as He will,” 1 Cor. 12:11), so he can speak of Father, Son, and Spirit “as acting, as God and therefore as a person.” But then comes the fence: that does not warrant saying “three persons” any more than it warrants saying “three Gods.” So Trott’s “definition,” as he actually uses it, is basically: a “person” is a true acting subject (not a mere office or influence), yet the term must never be used in a way that implies three independent beings.
Beebe is less likely to define “person” at all—because he’s suspicious of turning revealed mystery into a vocabulary contest. In his polemic on “God was manifest in the flesh,” he explicitly says the apostle was inspired “to use no such terms as the first person in the Godhead, or the second… or the third… but God himself,” and he immediately anchors the point in Colossians 2:9 (“all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”). That tells you how Beebe “defines” the term in practice: he doesn’t want “person” to become a partition-word—as if Christ contained a “part” of God, or as if Father/Son/Spirit language implies “a plurality of Gods.”
At the same time, Beebe’s functional view of personhood is intensely concrete and relational. In prayer, he treats Father, Son, and Spirit as personally involved: prayer is addressed to the Father, through the Son, “as indited by the Holy Spirit,” and the Spirit is “officially our Comforter, our Teacher, and… Prompter.” In other words, Beebe doesn’t define “person” as a metaphysical category so much as he describes personal agency: the Three act, teach, comfort, intercede, and are approached—yet “these three are One.”
So if you forced a tight comparison: Trott gives you a guardrail-definition (don’t use “person” vaguely; use it only where Scripture warrants it, and never in a way that sounds like three beings), while Beebe gives you a scripture-vocabulary instinct (don’t lean on “first/second/third person” talk; say what the apostles say—God manifest in the flesh, fulness of the Godhead in Christ—while still treating Father/Son/Spirit as living agents in the work of salvation and communion).
How would Beebe and Trott use person for the Holy Spirit?
Trott would call the Holy Spirit “a person” in the strict, practical sense of personal agency:2 the Spirit is not a mere influence, office, or “manifestation,” but God acting with will, intention, and relational distinction. His favorite “tell” for this is volition—the Spirit distributes gifts “as He will” (1 Cor. 12:11), which Trott explicitly cites as the Spirit “exercising the attributes of a person.” Trott is careful, though: that language authorizes us to speak of Father, Son, and Spirit “as… acting, as God and therefore as a person,” but it does not authorize the unguarded slogan “three proper and distinct persons,” because he thinks that phrasing easily beguiles people into imagining “three gods or something like it.” So for Trott the Spirit’s “personhood” is real and Scriptural—shown by divine actions, divine will, and Scripture’s personal pronouns—yet never to be cashed out as three independent beings.
Beebe is less interested in defining the metaphysical term and more interested in describing how the Spirit personally deals with the saints. In his piece on prayer, he treats the Spirit as the living divine agent who teaches and moves prayer itself: prayer is to the Father, in the name of the Son, and “as indited by the Holy Spirit,” and the Spirit is “our Comforter, our Teacher, and the… infallible Prompter of our prayers.” He goes further and speaks of the Spirit leading into truth, taking of the things of Jesus and showing them to the church, and “mak[ing] intercession for them and in them, according to the will of God”—all intensely personal operations, not impersonal power. In Beebe’s hands, “person” is proved the old-fashioned way: by what the Spirit does—comforts, teaches, prompts, intercedes—because only a “who” can do those things.
So if you press them both for what makes the Spirit “personal,” Trott answers like a polemicist guarding God’s unity: the Spirit has divine will and acts as God, therefore personal attributes; don’t let the word ‘person’ smuggle in tritheism. Beebe answers like a pastor describing lived communion: the Spirit personally works in and with the saints—comforting, teaching, prompting prayer, and interceding—while remaining one with the Father and the Son.
Do the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit work in everything?
From an Old School Baptist view, the safest place to start is where God starts: God is one. The Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4 is blunt Hebrew: יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָד (YHWH ʾĕlōhênû YHWH ʾeḥād)—“The LORD our God is one LORD.” The key word אֶחָד (eḥād, “one”) isn’t a math lecture, but it does crush the idea that Father, Son, and Spirit are three separate beings cooperating like a committee. Old School Baptists cling to that oneness so tightly (Trott especially) because once you start imagining three independent centers of deity, you’ve left the Bible’s God and invented a pantheon with better manners.
That said, Scripture also refuses the opposite error: God is not a lonely monad who only appears in three disguises. Even in the opening creation account you feel complexity without polytheism. Genesis 1:1 uses בָּרָא (bārāʾ, “created”)—a singular verb—with אֱלֹהִים (ʾĕlōhîm), the majestic plural noun typically governing singular verbs when it refers to the true God. Then Genesis 1:2 speaks of רוּחַ אֱלֹהִים (rûaḥ ʾĕlōhîm), “the Spirit of God,” hovering. Psalm 33:6 tightens the weave: “By the word of the LORD…”—Hebrew דְּבַר (dĕvar)—“were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath/Spirit”—Hebrew רוּחַ (rûaḥ). Word and Spirit are not presented as mere poetic synonyms for “power”; they are named as divine agents in God’s one work.
When you come into the New Testament, the same unity-with-distinction becomes even more explicit. Creation itself is described as “through” the Son: John 1 calls Him the Λόγος (Logos, “Word”), and says πάντα δι’ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο (“all things came to be through him”). Paul’s triadic preposition-pattern in Colossians 1:16 is especially telling: ἐν αὐτῷ (“in him”), δι’ αὐτοῦ (“through him”), εἰς αὐτόν (“unto/for him”). That doesn’t split God into three workers; it shows one divine work described with ordered relations. Old School Baptists like this kind of language because it’s biblical: it states the distinctions without pretending to map the internal mechanics of the Godhead.
So do they always work together? Yes—because God is one in being, will, and power. In classical language you’ll sometimes hear “inseparable operations,” but you don’t need the label to see the thing: whenever God acts as God, He acts as the one God. Yet Scripture often assigns a manner or order of acting in which one Person is especially manifested. The Father is frequently described as the fountain of purpose and sending; the Son as the Mediator through whom that purpose is accomplished; and the Spirit as the immediate applier, bringing the accomplished work home to the heart.
You can see that “order” in salvation in the Greek of Ephesians 2:18: δι’ αὐτοῦ (“through him,” i.e., Christ) ἔχομεν… τὴν προσαγωγὴν (“we have access”) πρὸς τὸν Πατέρα (“to the Father”) ἐν ἑνὶ Πνεύματι (“in one Spirit”). That’s not three separate projects; it’s one access to one God, experienced in a triune pattern. Beebe loved to describe prayer this way devotionally—addressed to the Father, resting on the Son, animated by the Spirit—while still insisting “these three are One.”
Regeneration is where Old School Baptists become especially insistent that the Spirit is not an impersonal force. John 3 plays on the double-meaning of πνεῦμα (pneuma), “spirit/wind”: τὸ πνεῦμα ὅπου θέλει πνεῖ—“the Spirit/wind blows where it/he wills.” The verb θέλει (“wills”) points to volition, and Paul is even more explicit in 1 Corinthians 12:11: the Spirit distributes gifts καθὼς βούλεται (kathōs bouletai), “as he wills.” That verb βούλομαι is not “energy behaving,” but personal intention. Titus 3:5 describes salvation as a divine washing and renewal: παλινγενεσία (“new birth”) and ἀνακαίνωσις Πνεύματος Ἁγίου (“renewing of the Holy Spirit”). Old School Baptists will say: the Father purposed, the Son redeemed, and the Spirit quickened—yet the work is one, because the saving God is one.
So the answer, with Greek and Hebrew in the bloodstream, is this: Scripture gives us one God (YHWH… ʾeḥād), acting with one divine power (bārāʾ—God created), yet revealed with real distinctions—Word (dĕvar / Logos) and Spirit (rûaḥ / pneuma)—and experienced in a consistent gospel order: to the Father (πρὸς τὸν Πατέρα), through the Son (δι’ αὐτοῦ), in/by the Spirit (ἐν ἑνὶ Πνεύματι). Old School Baptists are happy to confess all of that, and then they stop exactly where Scripture stops: the relations are real, the unity is absolute, and the depths of how God is triune remain beyond the creature’s measuring tape—meant not for our mastery, but for our worship.
Is it true that every appearance or Revelation of God in the Bible is Jesus?
Not in the absolute way that sentence is usually meant. A more careful, Bible-shaped statement would be: the Son is the supreme and final revelation of God, and God’s visible self-disclosures are mediated—very often (and plausibly) through the pre-incarnate Son—but Scripture does not explicitly say that every appearance or every revelation is Jesus.
Here’s the Bible logic, with the Greek and Hebrew doing their honest work.
The New Testament teaches that God, in His essence, is invisible. Paul calls Him ἀόρατος (aoratos, “invisible”) (Col. 1:15; 1 Tim. 1:17). John is even sharper: “No one has seen God at any time,” and then says the Son is the one who “explained/made Him known”: ἐκεῖνος ἐξηγήσατο (ekeinos exēgēsato) (John 1:18). That verb ἐξηγέομαι is where we get “exegesis”—the Son is the Father’s interpreter. John 6:46 tightens the screw: “Not that any man has seen the Father,” with the Greek idea of seeing/looking upon (ἑώρακέν, heōraken)—except the one who is from God. So if humans truly “see God,” it’s not the Father’s essence they’re visually comprehending.
That’s why many Christians (including many Old School Baptists) reason this way: when the Old Testament describes God “appearing,” the manifestation must be accommodated and mediated, not a naked sight of the divine essence. The Hebrew Bible itself often signals this caution. Exodus 33:20 has God say, “You cannot see my face”—Hebrew פָּנַי (panai, “my face/presence”)—“for man shall not see me and live.” Ezekiel 1 is loaded with hedging words: “the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD” — Hebrew מַרְאֵה (mar’eh, appearance) and דְּמוּת (demût, likeness) with כָּבוֹד־יְהוָה (kavod YHWH, the glory of the LORD). That’s the text itself telling you: what was seen was a true revelation, but not an unmediated viewing of God’s essence.
So where does Jesus come in? The New Testament repeatedly says the Son uniquely images and reveals God. He is the εἰκὼν (eikōn, image) of the invisible God (Col. 1:15). Hebrews 1:3 says He is the χαρακτήρ (charaktēr, exact imprint) of God’s ὑπόστασις (hypostasis, substantial being/reality). Put bluntly: if God is going to be “seen” without ceasing to be the invisible God, the Son is the most fitting “mode” of that revelation—because He is the Father’s Word, image, and radiance.
This is why a large slice of the church has often identified the Old Testament Angel of the LORD” with the pre-incarnate Christ. The Hebrew phrase is מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה (mal’akh YHWH), literally “messenger of YHWH.” In multiple passages, this messenger speaks as YHWH, bears the divine name, and receives a kind of reverence that ordinary angels refuse (think of Exodus 3; Judges 13; also the way Genesis 16 and 22 blur “angel of YHWH” and “YHWH” speaking). That doesn’t “prove” it simplistically is Jesus, but it makes the identification very plausible: the messenger is distinct, yet fully represents and speaks as God—exactly the kind of pattern the New Testament later makes explicit in the Son as the Father’s revealer.
There’s also a smoking-gun New Testament rereading of an Old Testament vision. Isaiah 6 describes Isaiah seeing “the LORD” (Hebrew ְהוָה, YHWH) high and lifted up. John 12:41 comments that Isaiah said those things “because he saw his glory,” using Greek εἶδεν τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ (eiden tēn doxan autou) in a context referring to Christ. That doesn’t mean every theophany is Christ, but it absolutely means some Old Testament “seeing YHWH” is, in John’s inspired interpretation, seeing the glory of the Son.
Now, the limiting factor: your claim says every appearance or every revelation. That runs into straightforward biblical counterexamples. At Jesus’ baptism, the Father’s voice speaks from heaven, the Spirit descends “as a dove” (Greek τὸ πνεῦμα… καταβαῖνον ὡσεὶ περιστερὰν, “the Spirit… descending like a dove”), and the Son is there in the flesh (Matthew 3:16–17). That is a triune manifestation, not “every appearance is Jesus.” In Acts, the Spirit speaks and directs (Acts 13:2), and Scripture treats that as the Spirit’s own agency, not merely the Son masquerading as the Spirit. So the Bible itself won’t let you collapse all divine self-disclosure into “Jesus only,” as if Father and Spirit never act distinctly.
So, an Old School Baptist way to say it—carefully—is: all true revelation of God is trinitarian in source (one God), Christ-centered in clarity (the Son is the “exegesis” of God), and Spirit-applied in experience (the Spirit makes it known in the heart). Many Old School men will happily say that numerous Old Testament “appearances” are best understood as the pre-incarnate Christ, especially where מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה behaves in divine ways. But they would also warn you not to turn a strong theological inference into an absolute rule that Scripture itself never states in that universal form.
The bottom line is deliciously humbling: God truly reveals Himself, yet never becomes a specimen under our microscope. The Son makes the Father known; the Spirit gives light to see; and the one living God remains greater than our attempt to flatten every mystery into one slogan.
ENDNOTES
In Hebrews 1:3, the KJV word “person” is translating the Greek ὑπόστασις (hypóstasis): the Son is “the express image of his person,” but the Greek phrase is χαρακτὴρ τῆς ὑποστάσεως αὐτοῦ—literally, “the exact imprint (χαρακτήρ, charaktḗr) of his hypostasis.” The key point is that ὑπόστασις here is not the everyday Greek word for “a person” as an individual (that would more naturally be πρόσωπον prosōpon, “face/person,” which is not used in this verse). Instead, ὑπόστασις carries the sense of “underlying reality,” “actual being,” “substantial reality,” something like what God really is in himself—his real, concrete, existent “being,” not a mere appearance.
Etymologically, hypóstasis is built from ὑπό (“under”) + a root meaning “to stand” (as in histēmi), so it can suggest “that which stands underneath,” the supporting reality/foundation. In the wider New Testament, the same word can also mean “confidence/assurance” depending on context (for example, Hebrews uses it that way elsewhere), but in Hebrews 1:3 the surrounding imagery pushes strongly toward “real being”: the Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact “stamp” of God’s hypostasis. That’s why many modern translations render it as “nature” or “being” rather than “person.”
So why does the KJV say “person”? Because in older English, “person” could be used in a more metaphysical sense—closer to “subsistence/essential being”—not necessarily “one individual among others.” Read that way, Hebrews 1:3 is not trying to teach “God is three persons” by using hypostasis; it’s saying something even more blunt about Christ: the Son perfectly manifests the very reality of who/what God is—not a partial glimpse, not a created likeness, but the exact representation of God’s own divine being.
That’s also why writers like Trott could appeal to Hebrews 1:3 cautiously: the verse absolutely supports personal reality (God is not an impersonal force), but the Greek term in this specific place is doing the job of “God’s substantial being” more than the job of later technical “person” language.
In the New Testament, the question “Is the Holy Spirit a person?” isn’t answered by a single Greek noun that means “personhood.” It’s answered by the Spirit being treated, in Greek grammar and in Greek verbs, as a living ‘someone’ who speaks, knows, wills, loves, and can be sinned against. Impersonal forces don’t do those things; in Greek, they are not normally written as agents with intentional speech and volition.
Start with Jesus’ own teaching in John 14–16. The Holy Spirit is called ὁ παράκλητος (ho paraklētos, “the Advocate/Comforter,” a masculine noun), and then identified explicitly as τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον (to pneuma to hagion, “the Holy Spirit,” a neuter noun) (John 14:26). Right there you see something important: grammatical gender is not “biology,” but John attaches the Spirit to a title that behaves like a personal subject (Advocate/Helper). Then Jesus piles on personal actions using normal personal verbs: “he will teach” (διδάξει) and “he will remind” (ὑπομνήσει) (John 14:26). Teaching and reminding are intellectual acts of an agent, not mere effects.
Now look at John 16:13–14, where the Spirit is described with a striking pronoun choice. Even though πνεῦμα (pneuma, “spirit”) is grammatically neuter, Jesus says, “ἐκεῖνος… will guide you… will speak… will declare” (“ἐκεῖνος ὁδηγήσει… λαλήσει… ἀναγγελεῖ,” John 16:13–14). ἐκεῖνος is a masculine demonstrative (“that one / he”), and John is perfectly capable of using neuter pronouns when he wants. Here the Spirit is not “it,” but “that one… he,” the acting guide and speaker. Some of that is naturally supported by the masculine παράκλητος in the same discourse, but either way the effect is the same: the Spirit is written as a personal agent who guides, speaks, and announces—verbs of intentional communication.
Paul is even more blunt about personal volition. In 1 Corinthians 12:11, spiritual gifts are distributed by one and the same Spirit, “apportioning to each individually just as he wills”: καθὼς βούλεται (kathōs bouletai). The verb βούλομαι (boulomai) is not “it happens” language; it is deliberate will/intent language. Greek has plenty of ways to talk about impersonal causation. Paul chooses the one that attributes choice.
Then Paul attributes something like “mind/intent” to the Spirit in Romans 8. The Spirit “intercedes” (Romans 8:26–27), using the verb family ἐντυγχάνειν (to intercede/plead). Paul says God knows “the φρόνημα of the Spirit” (τὸ φρόνημα τοῦ πνεύματος, Romans 8:27). φρόνημα is mindset/intentional orientation—again, a personal category. And the Spirit’s intercession is said to be “according to God,” not random energy.
The New Testament also treats the Spirit as someone who can be personally wronged in moral-relational ways. Ephesians 4:30 commands, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit”: μὴ λυπεῖτε (mē lypeite). The verb λυπέω is the normal verb for causing sorrow/distress—something you do to someone. In Acts 5:3, Peter says Ananias “lied to the Holy Spirit”: ψεύσασθαί σε τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον (pseusasthai se to pneuma to hagion). Lying is a speech-act directed to a hearer; you don’t “lie” to electricity.
Put those strands together and the Greek case is cumulative and strong: the Spirit is the subject of verbs of speaking (λαλεῖν/λέγειν), teaching (διδάσκειν), guiding (ὁδηγεῖν), willing (βούλεσθαι), and interceding (ἐντυγχάνειν); the Spirit is described in terms of φρόνημα (mind/intent); and the Spirit can be grieved (λυπεῖν) and lied to (ψεύδεσθαι). That is how Koine Greek treats a personal agent. Whatever mysteries remain about the Spirit’s mode of subsistence in the one God, the New Testament does not allow the Holy Spirit to be reduced to an impersonal “it.”
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