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Foreshadowings of the Trinity in the Old Testament

—In the Name of the Father,
and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit,
—Amen.

⸻

Before Jesus revealed the fullness of the mystery of the Holy Trinity,
God was already preparing His people to glimpse it — slowly, gently, through signs and shadows in the Old Testament.
One God… but within that oneness, a divine communion of Persons.

Let’s take a closer look.

In Genesis 1:26, God says, “Let Us make man to Our image and likeness.”
That “Us” and “Our” hint at more than one within the divine unity.
Saint Augustine taught that even here, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are acting together — creating in perfect harmony.

Just a few verses earlier, in Genesis 1:2, “the Spirit of God moved over the waters,”
and then “God said, Let there be light.”
The Word speaks, and the Spirit breathes life —
already showing us the divine Word and the divine Spirit at work with the Father.

In Genesis 18, Abraham looks up and sees three mysterious visitors.
He runs to them and says, “My Lord.”
Three persons, one Lord — a beautiful image the Fathers saw as a foreshadowing of the Holy Trinity.

Psalm 33:6 says, “By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of His mouth all their host.”
The Word and the Breath — the Son and the Spirit — together with the Father, creating all things.

Then, in Exodus 3, the Angel of the Lord appears to Moses in the burning bush.
But this Angel says, “I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
He is distinct from God, yet speaks as God —
a mystery the Church Fathers recognized as the pre-incarnate Word, the Son of the Father.

In Isaiah 6:3, the seraphim cry out, “Holy, Holy, Holy, the Lord God of hosts.”
That triple “Holy” has echoed for centuries in our liturgy —
threefold praise, one Lord, one God.

In Isaiah 48:16, the prophet says, “Now the Lord God hath sent Me, and His Spirit.”
Here we hear three divine figures: the Lord, the one sent, and the Spirit.
It’s as if God is revealing, little by little, the inner life of His own love.

And in Proverbs 8, divine Wisdom speaks: “The Lord possessed Me in the beginning of His ways… I was with Him forming all things.”
This Wisdom — eternal, uncreated — is the Son, the Word of God, who was “with God” and “was God,” as Saint John would later write.

From Genesis to Isaiah, from the Spirit hovering over the waters to the triple cry of “Holy, Holy, Holy,”
the Old Testament whispers the truth that the New Testament proclaims in full light:
One God in three divine Persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Trinity is not an abstract idea.
It is the eternal mystery of Love Himself.
The Father, who creates.
The Son, who redeems.
The Holy Spirit, who sanctifies.

Three Persons, one God — forever blessed, forever adored.

—In the Name of the Father,
and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit,
through Christ our Lord.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit…
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.