The Godhead is the divine nature or essence shared by the three Persons of the Trinity — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It refers to everything that makes God, God: His self-existence, His sovereignty, His holiness, His omnipotence, His immutability, His love. When Paul declares that "in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:9), he is making the staggering claim that everything God is — the totality of the divine essence — resides in the incarnate Christ. The Godhead is not a committee of three gods, nor a single person wearing three masks. It is one divine essence subsisting eternally in three distinct, co-equal Persons. The Father is fully God. The Son is fully God. The Spirit is fully God. Yet there are not three Gods but one. This mystery is the Godhead — not a problem to be solved but a reality to be worshipped.
GODHEAD — Godship; deity; divinity; divine nature or essence; applied to the true God, and to heathen deities.
GODHEAD — Godship; deity; divinity; divine nature or essence; applied to the true God, and to heathen deities. "In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." Colossians 2:9.
• Colossians 2:9 — "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."
• Romans 1:20 — "The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen...even his eternal power and Godhead."
• Acts 17:29 — "We ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device."
• John 1:1 — "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
Two errors plague modern handling of the Godhead.
Two errors plague modern handling of the Godhead. First, functional subordinationism: the idea that the Son is eternally subordinate to the Father in His very being — confusing the Son's voluntary submission in the economy of redemption with an ontological hierarchy within the Godhead. The Son is not less God than the Father; He chose to take the form of a servant for our salvation. Second, social trinitarianism: the attempt to model human society directly on relationships within the Godhead — claiming that the Trinity is a "community of equals" that validates egalitarian social structures. But the Godhead is not a model for democratic governance. The eternal processions (the Son begotten, the Spirit proceeding) reflect ordered relationships within perfect unity — authority and submission existing without inequality. Both errors arise from projecting human categories onto the divine rather than letting God reveal Himself on His own terms.