April 27

For there are three that testify: — 1 John 5:7 BSB

All of God’s people are led into a knowledge of the Trinity—not through metaphysical reasoning or intellectual arguments, but by the power and sweetness of divine truth resting upon the heart. The Spirit teaches them, not by appealing to their heads, but by bringing His truth to bear upon their souls. All of God’s people learn the doctrine of the Trinity experientially.

Under divine teaching, they come to understand the authority, justice, majesty, and holiness of God the Father. In time, they also experience His love. They come to know the Godhead of Christ, feeling the power of His blood as the blood of God (Acts 20:28) and seeing His righteousness as the “righteousness of God.” They come to recognize the Deity and Personhood of the Holy Spirit by experiencing His power at work in their hearts. They sense that the Spirit is God because He scrutinizes all their actions, brings to light their innermost thoughts, and applies passages of Scripture to their souls in ways that only God could.

As they are led by the Spirit into a deeper knowledge of the three Persons of the Godhead, they come to know and feel in their consciences that there are indeed three Persons—equal in power, will, essence, and glory—but only one Jehovah. No one can learn these truths in a saving way except by this special teaching. A person may know these things in their mind, but a true understanding—a sense of these truths in the conscience, a melting of the heart under their weight, and an experience of them in the soul—comes only through the Spirit’s teaching, transforming the person into “a new creature” in Christ.