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Answer
All the members of the Trinity are coexistent, co-eternal, and co-equal. God eternally exists in three Persons who are in complete unity. One God but three Persons. God has revealed Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
In Matthew 28:19, as part of the Great Commission, Jesus said, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit is often referred to as the third Person of the Trinity because, in this “Trinitarian formula,” He is listed third.
The Spirit is also considered the third Person of the Trinity because, in the progression of revelation, He was the third to be revealed as an individual Person. In Genesis 1:2, the Spirit of God is hovering over the waters at creation. Later, the Spirit of the Lord would come upon a person (Samson, for instance, in Judges 13–16) to accomplish a specific task. However, these references would have been understood as “the power of God” rather than a specific personality who is God.
It is not until Jesus is on earth that we begin to understand the Trinity. The Father (the first Person) sent the Son (the second Person). However, the Son said that, when He left the world, He would send a third Person who was God—the Holy Spirit (John 14:16-17;16:12-15). From Jesus’ words, it is clear that the Holy Spirit is not just the impersonal power of God but God Himself—a third Person who was not previously revealed. The Spirit is God, but He is neither the Father nor the Son. He is a third individual—a third Person.
When Christians use the terms first, second, and third in relation to the Persons of the Trinity, they are not suggesting that different Persons of the Trinity are more important than others. Each Person is equally significant. In the words of the AtHanasian Creed, written, as believed, by Athanasius, an archbishop of Alexandria in the fourth century AD, states, “We worship one God in trinity and the Trinity in unity, without confusing the persons or dividing the divine essence. The Father is one person, the Son is another, and the Spirit is yet another. However, the deity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, equally glorious, and eternally majestic. . . . In this Trinity, no one is superior or inferior to another; all three persons are inherently eternal and equal. Therefore, we must worship the Trinity in unity and the one God in three persons.”
As God exists, all three Persons are co-equal. Nevertheless, as God has revealed Himself to us and interacts with us, each Person of the Trinity has assumed specific roles. The Spirit directs attention to the Son “He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you.”, (John 16:14), and the Son directs attention to the Father “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”, (John 14:13). In this sense, the Holy Spirit is also third.
