If you asked a room full of people this question, you’d get all kinds of answers. A common answer might even be an all-powerful deity—the big guy upstairs. But what does the word “god” actually mean in the Bible?

Jesus claimed to be the embodiment of the biblical God in human form. He is presented as both distinct from God and also God. He addressed God as “my Father,” but he also claimed that he and the Father are one. And when Jesus experienced the love of the Father, it was through the personal presence of the Spirit, who is both one with Jesus and the Father yet distinct from both. And while our minds aren’t fully capable of comprehending a being who is both one and more than one, this is precisely the portrait of God that is presented to us in the story of the Bible.

The Hebrew Scriptures prepared us for the concept of a God who is a complex unity, and the New Testament claims that in Jesus we see the most perfect portrait of the Creator, who is an eternal community of unified love—the one who is three and one.

This is not an easy concept to understand, but the biblical story isn’t asking us to simply comprehend the idea of God. Rather, in the story of Jesus, we are invited to know and be known by this being and participate in his eternal love.