The Holy Trinity of God is a hard concept to understand, I mean, there is only ONE God, but He is referred to in three separate forms, The Father, The Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit. All three are the SAME God, NOT three separate Gods, but in three different forms. As humans, we are one person in one body/form, but God is one person in three different bodies/forms. Trust me, this can make your head hurt thinking about it because our human brains are not capable of fully understanding all the aspects of an All powerful and All Knowing Eternal being such as God. God is God and I am not, some things are just out of my grasp of understanding, however, sometimes illustrations can help to get a grasp of difficult to understand concepts. Here is an analogy that I hope will help you to understand the Trinity of God, at least a little bit.
For this analogy, let’s look at H2O, aka, water. Water has three different forms, Solid (Ice), Liquid (water), and Vapor (steam/fog). All three of these are still water, but in different forms, however, the chemical make-up of each is still H2O, hence it is still water. If we look at God in a similar way, it might help to better understand the Trinity of God; God is three forms of a single being, The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit. Similar to water in it’s different forms, these three forms of God are all still equally God, the chemical make-up is still God, so to speak; however, he has three forms that can move and operate independently from each other, but they are One.
In the H2O analogy:
God the Father is like the solid form of water (ice), not because he is cold, but because he is Solid in his righteousness, He is so holy and righteous that us sinners cannot even approach him or look upon his face and similarly he cannot touch sin. This is why in the old testament of the Bible, the only ones who could approach God were the high priests by going into the “Holy of Holies” inside the temple. There was a whole ritual for cleansing before they could even go inside to meet with God and even then, it was only done once a year after sacrifices were made to cover their sins for the year. This can make God seem cold, distant and unloving, however, he is VERY Loving and caring and has compassion for all of us. This is most noticeable in his patience in judging sin to allow everyone a chance to repent and worship him; instead of ending the world now and abolishing sin, since this would mean and any unrepentant sinners would perish and spend an eternity without Him. He does not want this, that is why we are still living in this broken, sinful world awaiting his return.
He is also not distant, he is always close and always actively seeking us, however, it is us that push him away or suppress his presence in our lives. When God feels distant, it is not Him who has went away, it is us who pull away from him, he is always there since he promises he will never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5).
God the Son (Jesus) is like liquid water, freely flowing and covering all of us sinners with his righteousness. Jesus seems softer and less rigid than God the Father, but only because he is showing his Love and Mercy over Judgement/punishment of sin. “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:17). See Jesus didn’t come to judge and condemn the world, but instead to show grace and mercy and offer the free gift of salvation so that everyone can to be saved if they believe and trust in him. Jesus took the punishment of sin, which is death (Romans 6:23), that meant for us and died on the cross and rose again so that we might not perish but have eternal life with him. His blood, like liquid water, covers us with his righteousness so that we can stand before God the Father blameless and holy, not because we are good or have earned it, but because Jesus already paid the price and has covered us with his holy righteousness. This is a gift Jesus willingly offers to us, it is free to us, but cost Jesus his life so it should not be taken lightly or overlooked.
God the Holy Spirit is like water vapor, easily passing through objects and lives inside us. God, the Holy Spirit dwells inside believers (Christians) and guides and teaches us the ways of God so we can know Him and understand what pleases him and what doesn’t. He will sometimes be a voice of reason in our heads, sometimes he will take over and lead conversations if we are stuck, but of course we have to trust and submit to Him to experience this. It is really easy to suppress the Holy Spirit and lean on our own understanding, not that we have the power to suppress God, but he will NEVER force himself upon us. We have to willing choose to allow him into our lives and submit to him, he will not force us to do that because that would be taking away our free will, which allows us to either choose him or not choose him. But trust me, things Always go better when we lean on God’s understanding as opposed to our own. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:5) He is The Great Teacher and if we submit to him, he will guide us down the “Right” and “Good” paths and keep us from the dark and destructive paths of the world.
I hope this helps to understand the Holy Trinity at least a little bit better. It’s still hard to comprehend, but I look forward to the day when I can sit at God’s feet in heaven and ask Him to explain it to me as well as to show me how it all works. I believe once we are in heaven a lot of things will come together like a big picture instead of just pieces and it will make much more sense. But until then, we do our best to understand what we can with what we have, which is a limited knowledge and simple intellect compared to God and his infinite wisdom.
Love your analogue.