Since the triune God is the foundation of the Christian faith, getting our understanding of God right isn’t just about academic theology. Getting our understanding about God right is knowing God as he truly is. This is the most important and most practical thing we can do. Jesus said, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (Jn 17:3). This “eternal life” is qualitative rather than just quantitative. In other words, to have the best life possible, we must know God and should work to know God accurately.

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not just abstract ideas or concepts that theologians discuss. They are the one true God who actively loves, saves, and is with us in our daily lives. When we misunderstand the Trinity, it’s more than just a theological error; it can lead to confusion about God’s nature, how salvation works, and how we should approach him in prayer and worship. For example, if we don’t grasp the roles of each Person of the Trinity, we might miss out on the depth of God’s love or fail to fully understand the power of Christ’s sacrifice. That’s why it’s so important to carefully listen to what Scripture teaches about God and trust in the way he has revealed himself to us as Father, Son, and Spirit. Understanding the Trinity helps us relate to God more fully and live in a deeper, more meaningful relationship with him.

Throughout church history, various heresies have emerged that distort the Trinitarian doctrine revealed in Scripture. Each of these distortions has had practical consequences for Christian faith and life. Arianism, which denied the full deity of Christ, ultimately turned Jesus into a demigod—more than human but less than divine. This undermined the sufficiency of Christ’s atonement (since only God can save) and made genuine communion with God through Christ impossible (since Christ would not fully share in the divine nature).

The mistake of Modalism denied the distinct personhood of Father, Son, and Spirit, reducing the Trinity to a single deity adopting different masks for different divine functions. This theological error undermined the authentic relationship between Jesus and the Father so vividly portrayed in the Gospels. The three persons of God are seen with particularl clarity in Christ’s prayers (Jn 17:1-5; Mk 14:36) and the Son’s expressions of love toward the Father (Jn 14:31). Modalist theology renders these intimate divine exchanges merely performative, transforming the language of divine love within the Godhead into empty metaphor or, worse, divine deception. The baptism of Jesus dramatically refutes this view, as all three persons of the Trinity appear simultaneously as Jesus is in the water, the Spirit descends as a dove, and the Father speaks from heaven (Matt 3:16-17).

Subordinationist views downgrade the Son and Spirit to inferior ontological status within the Godhead, establishing a hierarchy of essential worth and dignity within the divine nature itself. This error not only compromised the full deity of Christ (Jn 1:1-3; Col 2:9; Heb 1:3) and the Spirit (Acts 5:3-4; 2 Cor 3:17-18) but also carried troubling implications beyond trinitarian theology. By depicting inherent inequality within God’s own being, subordinationism inadvertently provided theological justification for human power structures based on intrinsic worth rather than temporary functional distinctions, contradicting the biblical vision of equal dignity despite diverse roles (Gal 3:28; 1 Cor 12:4-6). The trinitarian formula in the Great Commission (Matt 28:19) and Paul’s trinitarian blessing (2 Cor 13:14) place all three persons on equal footing, confirming their shared divine status and authority.

These ancient heresies weren’t merely academic errors corrected by abstract theological formulations. They were distortions with real consequences for how believers understood God, salvation, and the Christian life. The church fathers who defended Trinitarian orthodoxy weren’t engaged in theological hairsplitting; they were protecting the nature of God and the gospel. Today, these same heretical tendencies resurface in various forms, from explicit theological revisions to subtle shifts in emphasis and language. By understanding the historical heresies and their consequences, we become better equipped to recognize and resist contemporary distortions of the Trinitarian faith.

Current Popular Misconceptions

Today, it has become popular to hold to views which can be described as “subordinationist.” These views present the Son and the Holy Spirit as divine but ontologically inferior beings created by and subject to the Father. This ancient heresy contradicts biblical teaching on their full equality within the Godhead. More recent debates have centered on the concepts of Eternal Ontological Subordination (EOS), Eternal Relational Subordination (ERS), and Eternal Functional Subordination (EFS). EOS argues the Son and Spirit are divine, but because of their divine nature is inferior to the Father’s. ERS and EFS attempt to maintain the full deity of all three persons while suggesting different relational dynamics. ERS proposes that the Son is eternally subordinate to the Father in their relationship, not in essence or nature. EFS argues that the Son eternally submits to the Father in function or role, while remaining equal in essence.

These positions inevitably compromise divine equality by making subordination an intrinsic feature of the Son’s divine identity rather than something limited to his human nature in the incarnation. Any eternal subordination, ontological, relational or functional, ultimately implies an essential hierarchy incompatible with true equality of being. Proponents counter that authority and submission can exist among equals without implying inferiority, pointing to passages describing the Son’s submission to the Father. These discussions reveal the challenge of articulating the mystery of the Trinity as we seek to: 1) maintain both the perfect unity of the divine substance; 2) the real distinction between the divine persons; and 3) avoid both the error of subordinationism and modalistic confusion of the persons.

These misunderstandings aren’t just minor theological mistakes. These errors change how we see God and his work in our lives. If we think of God as three separate beings, we end up with polytheism rather than the one true God of Scripture. If we believe God simply takes on different roles at different times, then the loving relationship between the Father, Son, and Spirit is just an illusion, and the cross loses its true meaning. And if the Son and Spirit are less than fully God, then Jesus’ sacrifice wouldn’t be enough to save us, and the Holy Spirit’s presence wouldn’t truly be God with us. Accuracy in Trinitarian theology matters because it affects how we understand salvation, how we approach worship, and how we conceive of our relationship with God. Far from being a mere intellectual exercise, precise Trinitarian thinking helps us avoid serious distortions in our faith and practice.