You said that in Romans, creation doesn’t portray the Godhead, but in Romans 1:20 (KJV) it does. Is this a translation issue?

This text is from a transcript of a talk by David Gooding, entitled ‘God’s Power for Salvation’ (2005).

For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and . . .

Now we have to think very clearly in our minds about the exact terminology.

In English, we have two words: Godhood and Godhead. Godhood speaks of the essence of God—his being: that he is God and not man; he is God and not an angel; he is the uncreated God. That is his Godhood: the nature of God in his being.

In modern English, Godhead is our reflection, in the light of Scripture, on 'the persons of the Godhead', as we say. The Godhead is: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Each is God, equally God. Here there are three distinct persons, not three distinct people but three distinct persons. That is normally what we nowadays mean by Godhead.

What Romans is saying by its Greek word theiotes is that as you look at creation you see the Godhood. You see that God is God. He is Creator. He is the everlasting God. He had no beginning nor will he have an end. He is God and not man. He is not an angel. He is the uncreated. That is the nature of God—his Godhood. And that certainly is what the Greek word means that underlies the translation here.

Godhead—the fact that God is a Trinity—is something that many people never knew and only came to know clearly by the incarnation of our Lord and his claim to be equal with the Father and his resurrection. We have come to know that God is, in fact, a Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I am not sure that the Bible means that just by looking at creation you could deduce that God is a Trinity. I don't know how it would be done. You deduce that there is a God, scarcely that there is a Trinity. The 'Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him' (John 1:18). He has 'told him out'.

Now, we know that God is a Trinity, but the pagan, so to speak, is not told that creation reveals to him that there is a Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It reveals to him that there is God, and now we know he is a Trinity.

You asked me, 'Is this a translation issue?' My answer is: yes, it is a translation issue. There are two words in Greek: theiotes and theotes. They are different. Theiotes means the nature of God—Godhood. Theotes means divinity: one of the three persons of the Godhead.