“Jesus was a servant of God, as it also says in the Quran (cf. Surah 19:30: ‘I am a servant of God’). Therefore, he cannot be the second person of the Trinity, but only a servant and prophet.”
Scripture testifies that Jesus Christ indeed understood himself as a “servant”—but this service is an expression of his voluntary incarnation, not a denial of his divinity. Paul summarizes this in the famous Christ hymn: “He was in the form of God, but did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant” (Phil 2:6–7). This means: precisely because he is God, he could humble himself and become a servant. A mere prophet could not decide to empty himself of God—only the Son of God, of one substance with the Father, could do this.
Moreover, the Old Testament refers to the coming Messiah as the “servant of God” (Isa 42:1; Isa 52–53). The early Church understood: in Christ, these prophecies are fulfilled, but in such a way that the Son of God becomes human in obedience and bears the suffering of the servant. His form as a servant does not contradict his divinity, but rather reveals it precisely in love and self-giving.
The New Testament makes both clear: he is the “servant” (Acts 3:13), but at the same time the Lord, before whom every knee should bow (Phil 2:10). Peter preaches: “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has glorified his servant Jesus” (Acts 3:13). But shortly thereafter he says to Ananias: “You have not lied to men, but to God” (Acts 5:4)—and it is clear that this refers to the Holy Spirit. Here the trinitarian structure is revealed: the Father glorifies the Son, the Son gives his life, the Spirit acts divinely.
The Fathers confirm this. Athanasius explains: “He became a servant for our sake, but in his divinity he remains Lord” (Orationes contra Arianos II,45). Augustine says in De Trinitate I,11: “He prayed and served in the form of a servant, but was worshipped in the form of God.”
The dogma of the Trinity is therefore not a later invention, but the interpretation of this tension: the one Christ is true God and true man. As man he serves; as God he is of one substance with the Father and with the Holy Spirit.