THE three persons of the Godhead, known as the Trinity, and exactly how they are co-related and co-existent, has long been a topic of discussion in the Christian Church.    

The Scriptures speak of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit as the one God; this is not so unintelligible to the Christian as is the question of how they are the one God.

The Christian accepts the fact that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three eternal persons are existing as the one God, who is revealed in the Old Testament as Jehovah.

This is not without reason or question, but is based upon the totality of the revealed Word of God.The Watchtower magazine, however, teaches that the notion that there is a trinity is a product not of the Holy Scriptures, but of Satan himself:

Never was there a more deceptive doctrine than that of the trinity. It could have only originated in one mind that of Satan the Devil.Reconciliation, 1928, p.101.

The Christian believes that in the nature of the one God, there are three eternal persons.

The Jehovah's Witness is often told something quite different by the Watchtower.

The Society's 1982 publication YOU CAN LIVE FOREVER IN PARADISE ON EARTH, on page 39, offers the Witness a rarely seen, realistic definition of the trinity:

"According to the teaching of the Trinity, there are three persons in one God, that is, there is one God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit."

Yet, even where the concept of the Trinity may be most correctly stated, the Society continues on the same page to distort its meaning by presenting the idea that the Trinity doctrine teaches that Jesus and God are the same person:

"Since Jesus prayed to God, asking that God's will, not his, be done, the two could not be the same person."You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth, 1982, p.39.

Just because Jesus prayed to the Father, or referred to God as His God is not something we should be surprised about.

Instead, such passages, such as the one below, should be considered in the context in which they were spoken.

One passage, distorted almost beyond recognition in the Watchtower's New World Translation, is Philippians 2:4-8.

⁴ not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

⁵ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

⁶ Who, being in very nature God

                     did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

⁷ rather, he made himself nothing

                     by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,

                    being made in human likeness.

⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,

                   he humbled himself

                  by becoming obedient to death—

                  even death on a cross!

Here we realise that Jesus, having the nature of God and being equal with God, emptied Himself and took on another nature, an additional nature, the nature of a slave and was made a man.

Jesus humbled Himself and became obedient to the Father until death.

Speaking as a man, Jesus indeed has a God whom He called Father.

While Philippians 2 assists the Christian in understanding the incarnation, at the same time it throws a "monkey wrench" into the Watchtower idea that Jesus was a created being, a creature brought into existence by Jehovah. How?

The Scripture said that Jesus took on the form of a slave, and became obedient. He became obedient when He became a man.

But if the Watchtower was right, He would have been a creature, and as such would already have been a servant.