Ted’s Response:

Before I address your question, I want to talk about us as human beings, since we were made in the image of God (Genesis 1:17). We have a triune nature: spirit, soul, and body. Each of us is not three individuals; we are one individual with three natures or facets. We were made in the "image" of God (Genesis 1:26), who also has three natures or facets: the Father, the Holy Spirit, and the Son, Jesus.

When people look at you, they see your physical body; but it is a living, moving body. It could not live and move without your spirit and soul being inside of it. Even a person who has died, and whose spirit and soul have left his body and gone elsewhere, is still one individual.

That person is composed of a spirit and a soul, located in an unknown location or locations, and a body located in the ground. Yet, that person has not become three persons or individuals, even though his components no longer are in the same place anymore. He continues to be one person, and eventually he will be judged by God as one individual person, not as three separate people. Eventually, his spirit and soul will be reunited with his body, and all his components will spend eternity in the same place as one person or individual.

God can be viewed in a similar way. He told Israel that He is "one" in Deuteronomy 6:4. In that verse, the word "one" is echad in Hebrew. This word indicates a "unified one" (rather than yachid, which denotes an "only" or an "absolute numeric one"). God is one, single God with multiple facets or natures. He is not three separate "persons"; He is one, unified Being with (at least) three components (see singular and multiple).

Like us, all of His components can occupy the same place at once, such as on His throne (Revelation 4:2,10, 5:6, 6:16). Unlike us (unless we are dead), though, His components can be in more than one place at once. Jesus said, "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30) and "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" (14:9). Jesus could be on earth and the Father in heaven; but they were (and still are) aspects of one, single, unified person or individual.

In describing the coming Messiah, the prophet Isaiah used "Mighty God" and "Everlasting Father" as two of His attributes (Isaiah 9:6). In a way that we cannot yet fully comprehend, Jesus is God and He also is one with the Father.

It appears that eventually, in the eternal New Jerusalem, God's components will be unified in one place as the city's temple (Revelation 21:22), as the city's light and lamp (21:23), and on His throne from which the river of life will flow (22:1,3). Then everyone will see the face (22:4) of the single, unified God.