Note that we must not say three separate persons, but three distinct persons, because although they are distinct, that is to say, no one of them is either of the others, yet they cannot be separated, for each is what He is by the total possession of the one same nature. Having talked about spirit and person, let’s turn our attention to “nature.”
My nature decides what I can do. I can raise my hand, for instance, because that action goes with human nature; I can eat, laugh, sleep, think, because each of these actions goes with human nature. I cannot lay an egg, because that goes with bird nature; if I bite a man, I do not poison him, because that goes with snake nature; I cannot live underwater, because that goes with fish nature.
But though it is my nature which decides what actions are possible to me, I do them, I the person; nature is the source of our operations, person does them. Applying this bit of insight to God, we can say that there is but one divine Nature, one answer to the question “What is God?”, one source of the divine operations that yields what God can do (everything). But there are three persons who totally possess that one nature.
In Christ, Ken.
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