On February 4, 1962 I was baptized by immersion by Brethren assembly elder, Cecil Batstone, at Bethany Gospel Chapel in Worcester, Massachusetts. About seventeen years earlier, in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, the venerable Archdeacon A. F. Arnold poured water three times over my tiny bald head in the baptismal ritual of the Church of England. The spiritual history of my family that led to these two baptisms is beyond the scope of this article. What is of importance is that in each case the officiant spoke these words, “David John MacLeod, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Echoing the words of the Lord Jesus Christ at the time of the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19), they believed that Christians were to be baptized in the “Great Name” of our God, “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
Both of these men were Trinitarians, that is, they believed the historic Christian doctrine that God is one in essence and three in persons. That they believed the doctrine was true does not imply that they found it easy to comprehend. The witty Dr. Robert South (1634–1716) said, in a sermon on the Trinity, “As he that denies it may lose his soul; so he that too much strives to understand it may lose his wits.” [2] A student once approached his professor, the German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831), and asked him to interpret a difficult passage in one of the latter’s books. The philosopher examined it and replied, “When that passage was written, there were two who knew its meaning—God and myself. Now, alas! There is but one, and that is God.” [3]
That all true Christians defend the doctrine of the Trinity does not mean that it has not been challenged. Our Lord’s observation (John 15:18–19) that the world hated Him and would hate His followers seems to have been especially confirmed in its attitude toward the Triune God. Some challenge the doctrine of the Trinity as a relic of the traditional past. Others, says German theologian Jürgen Moltmann, view the doctrine as “mere speculation, a kind of higher theological mathematics for the initiated.” [4] Many Protestants and Catholics hold to a generic monotheism, he says, quite happy to quote the young Philip Melancthon, “We adore the mysteries of the Godhead. That is better than to investigate them.” [5]
Others challenge the doctrine as meaningless and impractical. Immanuel Kant wrote, “The doctrine of the Trinity provides nothing, absolutely nothing, of practical value, even if one claims to understand it; still less when one is convinced that it far surpasses our understanding. It costs the student nothing to accept that we adore three or ten persons in the divinity…. Furthermore, this distinction offers absolutely no guidance for his conduct.” [6]
Still others reject the doctrine as contradictory nonsense. Thomas Jefferson was irritated by the complexities of “Trinitarian arithmetic” which blurred our vision of who Jesus truly was. [7] He wrote, “When we shall have done away with the incomprehensible jargon of the Trinitarian arithmetic, that three are one, and one is three; when we shall have knocked down the artificial scaffolding, reared to mask from view the very simple structure of Jesus; when, in short, we shall have unlearned everything which has been taught since his day, and got back to the sure and simple doctrines he inculcated, we shall then be truly and worthily his disciples.” [8]
There are also the challenges of various cultic groups, many of which take the name “Christian.” The Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, reject the doctrine and proclaim a form of the ancient heresy of Arianism that denies the eternality and full deity of Christ.9 The Mormon Church rejects the monotheism of the Bible and the doctrine of the Trinity. “Mormon theology is polytheistic, teaching in effect that the universe is inhabited by different gods….”10 Christian Science also rejects the doctrine of the Trinity and the deity of Christ. According to Mary Baker Eddy, “God is impersonal, devoid of any personality at all.” [11] “Oneness Pentecostalism,” taught by the United Pentecostal Church, is a form of ancient Sabellianism that denies the Trinity. There are not three real, distinct, coequal persons in the eternal Godhead. Rather, the three are “only different roles that one divine person temporarily assumes.” [12] Likewise, various New Age cults oppose the Trinity. [13] Shortly before his death, Walter Martin, the premier evangelical authority on the cults, noted that despite its lip service to tolerance and compatibility with Christianity, the New Age movement is “pointedly anti-Christian and particularly hostile to the unique claim of deity by the Lord Jesus Christ and confirmed by apostolic witness.” [14]
There are new challenges as well, chief among them radical feminism. [15] This movement is engaged in a frontal assault upon “the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” The historic biblical faith is looked upon as “patriarchal,” “androcentric,” and “sexist.” Gone are God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Now we have the more impersonal or more feminine, Goddess as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. [16]
Along with the new challenges there are old challenges, chiefly from the other “monotheistic” religions of the world, Judaism and Islam. Judaism, which has historically revered the Scriptures of the Old Testament, finds the idea of a Triune God abhorrent. It rejects the doctrine of original sin and the need for Christ’s atoning sacrifice. Jews do not believe in the Messiahship of Jesus, and they reject His deity as well. [17]
Muhammad, the founder of Islam, and author of its holy book, the Koran or Qur’an, spoke of Jesus as a prophet of God on a par with Noah, Abraham, and Moses.18 He rejected the doctrine of the Trinity as a monstrous falsehood [19] —“Say not, ‘Three.’ Refrain; better is it for you. God is only One God.” [20] It is clear that he misunderstood the doctrine, believing the Christian Trinity to consist of three gods, the Father, the Virgin, and their Child.21 God could not have a Son when “He has no consort.” [22] God is a solitary God—“They are unbelievers who say, ‘God is the Third of Three.’ No god is there but One God.” [23]
And before I move on to the argument of my essay, I must bring the subject closer to home. Sadly, our own Brethren churches have not been free from Trinitarian error. In the early years of our movement there was major division over Christological teaching. [24] At least one party of the Exclusive wing of the Brethren has known serious heretical teaching on the Trinity. [25] In our own time I am aware of at least two assemblies of Open Brethren in the North American Midwest that have suffered great damage due to false teaching on the Trinity, [26] and I have seen docetic, Eutychian, and Sabellian views expressed in written materials produced by men from the Brethren assemblies. [27]
In light of the current situation with its indifference, hostility, cultic thought, and religious pluralism, it is imperative that true believers be clear on the teaching of Christ and His Apostles as it pertains to the Godhead.
A Brief Introduction to the Doctrine
For evangelical Christians the Trinity is a central doctrine. It is, says Grudem, “one of the most important doctrines of the Christian faith.” [28] “What greater joy can a theologian have,” said Peter Toon, “than to contemplate the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, His Son, by the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit!” [29] Karl Barth, perhaps the most influential theologian of the twentieth century, agreed, “The doctrine of the Trinity is what basically distinguishes the Christian doctrine of God as Christian.” [30] John Feinberg says that it is “a ’showcase” for Christianity’s distinctiveness.” [31] These four authors are but a sample. As Calvin observed, “All acknowledged doctors [i.e., teachers of theology] of the church confirm the doctrine of the Trinity.” [32] In light of the importance attached to the doctrine by the “acknowledged doctors,” it is most appropriate that we give our attention to it. As we do, it will be helpful if I set forth some definitions and explain my approach.
Terminology
Trinity
The word, “Trinity” does not appear in Scripture, but it “summarizes everything which God has revealed in Scripture concerning Himself.” [33] The word, as it is used in theology, means that in the one God (1 Cor. 8:4) there are three co-eternal and coequal Persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is well to remember, as Eric Mascall, observed, “The Trinity is not primarily a doctrine.… There is a doctrine about the Trinity…but if Christianity is true, the Trinity is not a doctrine; the Trinity is God.” [34]
Immanent/Ontological/Essential Trinity
The “immanent,” “ontological,” or “essential” Trinity is a theological expression meaning Father, Son and Holy Spirit considered from the standpoint of God’s internal relationships within Himself. [35] It is “God-as-God-is-in-and-unto-Himself.” [36] The term immanent means, “near, close to, actively involved with,” and the term ontological is from the Greek participle (ὄντος, ontos) meaning “being.” Jewett speaks of the ontological Trinity as “The Trinity of Being.” [37]
Economic Trinity
“Economic Trinity” is a theological expression that is used in two ways: First, it considers the Father, Son and Holy Spirit from the standpoint of their work in the world for human salvation. [38] It is “God-as-God-is-toward-us.” [39] The term economic is from the Greek word (οἰκονομία, oikonomia) meaning “the arrangement or order of things.” When theologians speak of the economic Trinity, they are speaking of God’s work in the world, and they include in their discussion the different functions of each person. [40] Jewett speaks of the economic Trinity as “the Trinity of Revelation.” [41]
Second, the expression “economic Trinity” also includes the different ways the three persons have functioned and acted toward each other from all eternity. [42] The functions that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have performed in time are “simply the outworkings of an eternal relationship between the three persons. The functions performed by each member in time were not arbitrary or accidental. It was appropriate, for example, that the Son should come into this world and not the Father because it is the function of a Father to command, direct, and send. And it was appropriate for the Son to become incarnate and reveal God because He is the eternal Word of God. In this sense the “economic Trinity” can also be called “the Trinity of Function” or “the Trinity of Role.”
Person
The history of debate over the meaning of the term “person” must be left for another article in this series. [43] In modern times some of the ancient tensions are with us as scholars debate whether it is the oneness or the threeness of God that should be stressed. At one end of the spectrum is Karl Barth who emphasizes God’s oneness and expresses his unhappiness with the word person. He advises caution and warns that the term “person” should not be understood in a human sense as an individual being or individual personality. [44] “By Father, Son and Spirit we do not mean what is commonly suggested to us by the word ‘persons.’” [45] He prefers to speak of God’s “three modes of being” [46]
At the other end of the spectrum are the “social trinitarians” who stress the threeness of God. The biblical view, wrote Leonard Hodgson, is that God is not three modes of being but rather three “distinct Person[s] in the full sense of that word. Each is a He, none is an it.” Contrary to Barth’s stress on a single personal subject who loves, and otherwise relates to, Himself in a couple of ways, the Bible sets before us three “intelligent, purposive centers of consciousness.” [47] The NT evidence, especially in John, Paul, and Hebrews does point to three persons who can commune with one another, love one another, and engage in distinctly personal activities, viz., sending, praying, glorifying, etc. [48]
Evangelical Approaches
Evangelical theologians have approached the doctrine in two ways. [49] Some of the older writers have treated the doctrine of the Trinity as one of the fundamental truths revealed in the Bible. There is an assumption that the doctrine is there in perfect clarity. God is one in essence and three in person, and the inspired Word says so. [50] It is important because it is part of our orthodox faith. They assume that the doctrine is clearly and formally articulated in the Bible. [51]
Others have adopted a more sophisticated, though no less devout, approach to the doctrine. They recognize that the word “Trinity” does not appear in the Bible, and they recognize that the shaping of the doctrine took place in the patristic age. [52] Feinberg notes that the Bible nowhere says that God is “one as to essence and three as to persons.” [53] Plantinga writes that the doctrine is “a classic case of a premier doctrine that is also a problem doctrine,” the major problem being the problem of threeness and oneness. [54]
This is not to say that these evangelicals do not think the doctrine is biblical. They do. They recognize that the writers of the NT had a sense, conviction, or consciousness “of a wonderful and mysterious plurality within the unity of God.” However, “they did not explore or develop their convictions concerning the plurality within unity in a full intellectual sense.” [55] Nevertheless, if “the Trinity is God,” as Mascall said, [56] then we do believe He revealed Himself as such to the Apostles, even if it was left to later writers to formulate a theological definition of the doctrine. As Warfield explained, “The Trinity lies in Scripture in solution; when it is crystallized from its solvent [i.e., by post-biblical theologians] it does not cease to be Scriptural.” [57]
Methodology
This essay is an exercise in biblical doctrine, i.e., it is a study of what was taught by the writers of the books of the Bible. It is necessary that I state at this point in my discussion that I believe that the Bible (Old and New Testaments) is a collection of inspired, authoritative books. The writers of Scripture were guided by the Holy Spirit as they wrote so that what is written is the Word of God. [58]
My method of approach is both inductive and deductive. It is inductive in that I have read the NT asking what it says about God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. I then set out my findings in what I felt to be a logical way. Theology, however, does not end with induction. The student of Scripture must make inferences from what he has found. This is true of many subjects of theology (e.g., the nature of inerrancy, the hypostatic union of Christ, the chronology of end-time events, the time of the church’s beginning, etc.). It is a methodology encouraged by apostolic exegesis, used by our Lord in His teaching, [59] and approved by historical precedent. [60]
I say this because of the common refrain, “The word Trinity is not in the Bible,” or: “There is not one verse in the Bible that says there are three persons in the one God of the Bible.” When this conference was first advertised, we received a number of letters expressing interest in our topic. One woman in particular has written to us several times. Her problem is one of methodology. She is so inductivistic that she is unable to see what may be deduced by good and necessary inference. When we do the work of systematic theology, we do not rely solely on the inductive approach. Understanding the teaching of Scripture requires as well the work of deduction. We do not end our study with the question, “What does it say?” We must go on and ask, “What does it mean, and how does it all fit together?”
The Biblical Foundations of the Doctrine [61]
The doctrine of the Trinity, says Frame, is not “an abstruse philosophical speculation.” Rather, it is an attempt “to describe and account for something biblically obvious and quite fundamental to the gospel.” [62] The doctrine is inferred from the following things that are taught in the Bible:
- In Scripture there is only one God
- In Scripture three persons are recognized as God
- In Scripture three persons are associated on an equal footing as God
- In Scripture the three persons are distinguished from each other
- In Scripture the tri-personality of the Godhead is eternal and not merely temporal
- In Scripture (i.e., the OT) there are other indications that point to the doctrine of the Trinity
The Bible, both the Old and New Testaments, teaches that God is one. [63] This monotheism is contrasted with animism (worship of nature spirits), fetishism (worship of spirit-indwelt objects), idolatry (worship of an artistically fashioned object regarded as the habitation of a deity), polytheism (belief in many gods), henotheism/monolatry (an exclusive commitment to one’s deity while recognizing there are other deities), pantheism (the belief that the deity is the totality of things [God is all] and that the totality of things is deity [all is God]), and gnosticism (the belief that emanating from God are lesser deities). The Scriptures may be called “a mighty protest” against such views. [64] From Genesis 1, where God’s creative activity is described in absolute terms, He is distinguished from nature and cosmos, and leaves no room for the existence of lesser deities. Elsewhere the OT affirms that He is “unoriginate and eternal” (Ex. 3:13–15; Isa. 40:28). [65] That the heathen world believed in spirits and various deities the Bible does not deny. What it does say is that they are not real. They were “not gods” (Jer. 2:11); they were “godlings” or “weaklings” (Lev. 19:4; 26:1). [66] Jeremiah portrays them as lifeless, man-made things with “no breath in them.” They can do a person neither harm nor good (Jer. 10:5, 14–15). Indeed the apostles say, “there is no such thing” (1 Cor. 8:4) and that they are “vain things” (Acts 14:15). Scripture therefore demands that people worship the one true God and that they put away false gods (Ex. 20:3; Mark 12:29–30).
The sedes doctrinae (“seat of doctrine”) or locus classicus (“classic passage”) of the doctrine of monotheism is Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!” [67] Known in Jewish tradition as the Shema because of the first word in the verse (שְׁמַע [s̆emaʾ], “hear”), this text is “the essential creed and duty of Israel.” [68] For many centuries this has been the first bit of the Bible learned by Jewish children. The prayer or confession of faith is said twice a day by every adult Jewish male. [69] The much debated command probably has two nuances. [70] First, the command stresses the uniqueness of Yahweh. There is only one true God, and He is Yahweh. No other god can be compared to Him. He is the only God to whom the attributes of deity really belong. He is therefore worthy of His people’s love (v. 5). Second, as a corollary to the first nuance of the term, the command also focuses on the unity of Yahweh, i.e., He is numerically one. He is not merely the first among the gods, as Baal in the Canaanite pantheon. Rather, He is the only God there is! In short, He alone is God, and there is only one of Him. This command is “the death knell to all views lesser than monotheism.” [71]
Other OT texts affirm that there is only one true God. Moses asks, “Who is like You among the gods, O Lord? Who is like You, majestic in holiness?” (Ex. 15:11). The question is rhetorical; there is no one like Yahweh. Deuteronomy 4:35 and 39 state that there is no other God besides Yahweh. 1 Kings 8:60 says the same thing: “the Lord is God; there is no one else” (cf. Ps. 86:10). In Isaiah 43:10 Yahweh says, “Before Me there was no God formed, and there will be none after Me.” Speaking to Cyrus, Yahweh says, “I am the Lord, and there is no other; besides Me there is no God” (Isa. 45:5, 6; cf. 46:9). [72]
The NT reaffirms the monotheism of the OT. [73] The Lord Jesus, for example, placed His stamp of approval upon the Shema when one of the scribes asked, “What commandment is the foremost of all?” (Mark. 12:28–30). Jesus then quoted Deuteronomy 6:4. When praying to the Father, He called Him “the only true God” (John 17:3). The apostles, too, claimed that there is only one God. Paul argues that there can be only one method of justification for both Jews and Gentiles because there is only one God (Rom. 3:29–30). In responding to Corinthian questions about Christian liberty, specifically the matter of meat offered to idols, Paul notes that while there are many false gods, Christians know “there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things” (1 Cor. 8:5–6). In an exhortation to unity to the believers in Ephesus, he stresses that there is “one God and Father of all” (Eph. 4:6). Telling Timothy that God desires all to be saved, he adds, “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). Finally, in his admonition against lifeless faith, James says, “You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder” (James 2:19). James does not disparage the intellectual belief that there is one God. He disparages faith that is not accompanied by works.
In Scripture Three Persons are Recognized as God
When we turn to the NT, the “problem” of the Trinity emerges. We must remember, however, that while it is a problem for the readers of Scripture it was not a problem for the inspired authors. As we have noted, the NT writers were monotheistic, i.e., they worshipped and proclaimed the one true God, the God of Israel. They did not, furthermore, place two new Gods by the side of Yahweh to be worshipped and served. They did speak of Yahweh as Father, Son and Spirit, yet there is no indication that they felt they were being innovative. [74]
Their writings are “Trinitarian to the core,” i.e., they view God as Father, Son and Spirit, yet they “betray no sense of novelty in so speaking of Him.” They saw no breach between their teaching and that of the OT, and “they saw the Triune God whom they worshipped in the God of the Old Testament revelation.” The doctrine, which is so difficult to us, “took its place without struggle—and without controversy—among accepted Christian truths.” [75] This is not to say that the NT gives us the doctrine of the Trinity in the formal sense found in the creeds and later theology. [76] The revelation, says Warfield, “was made not in word but in deed. It was made in the incarnation of God the Son, and the outpouring of God the Holy Spirit.” [77] It was left to later Christians to put down in words what God had done in deed. [78]
Three Persons are Called God
The Father is God
In the OT Yahweh is viewed as the Father of the nation Israel (Deut. 32:6, 9, 18). This is a fatherhood by election; by sovereign choice God made this people His people. This is vividly seen, for example, in the book of Hosea (11:1–4). God is also portrayed as the Father of the king, i.e., of David and his house (2 Sam. 7:12–14). The king is made “son of God” when he is crowned. Just as the people were made “Yahweh’s firstborn son by election (Ex. 4:22–24), so the king, who represents the people, is adopted son of God by election (Ps. 2:7; 89:26–27).” [79]
In the NT Jesus repeatedly addressed God as “Father” (e.g., Mark 14:36) and spoke of Him to others as His Father (e.g., Matt. 16:17). This is picked up in the epistles where God is commonly spoken of as the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ (e.g., Rom. 15:6; 2 Cor. 1:3; 11:31). The early Christians knew God as their Father by adoption through grace (Gal. 4:6–7; Rom. 8:14–17).
For our present investigation we need only point out that the Father is recognized as God and called God throughout the NT. In fact, He is the principal referent of the word God (ὁ θεός, ho theos), and when the word is used, “we are to assume that the NT writers have ὁ πατήρ [ho patēr, the Father] in mind unless the context makes this sense of (ὁ) θεός impossible.” [80]
Although extended proof is not needed, the following examples of the Father being called God are offered. In Matthew 6:25–34 Jesus counsels His disciples against worry using the expressions “heavenly Father” and “God” interchangeably. As He anticipated His return to heaven, He addressed God as “Father” and spoke of Him as “the only true God” (John 17:1–3). In His last words from the cross He addresses God as both “God” (Matt. 27:46) and “Father” (Luke 23:34, 46). In the salutations of his letters Paul will regularly speak of God the Father (Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:3; Gal. 1:1). In 1 Corinthians 8:6 he says, “there is but one God, the Father,” and in Ephesians 4:6 he repeats the idea. Likewise the apostle Peter spoke of “the foreknowledge of God the Father” (1 Pet. 1:2).
The Son is God
As Warfield notes, “It was in the coming of the Son of God in the likeness of sinful flesh to offer Himself a sacrifice for sin; and in the coming of the Holy Spirit to convict the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment, that the Trinity of Persons in the Unity of the Godhead was once for all revealed to men.” [81]
That the NT ascribes deity of Jesus Christ is evident for a number of reasons, [82] chief among them that He is called God. [83] In John 1:1, John writes,
“the Word was God.” The construction used by John gives the word θεός (theos, “God”) a qualitative force. Harner’s paraphrase is to the point, “the Word had the same nature as God.” [84] In John 1:18 Christ is called μονογενὴς θεὸς (monogenēs theos), which is rendered by the NASB as “the only begotten God.” This reading may seem strange to ears used to the AV’s “the only begotten Son.” The King James translation reflects the reading of a large number of Greek manuscripts, but not the oldest manuscripts. [85] The oldest manuscripts favor something close to the reading of the NASB. Yet the NASB is not quite right because the word translated “only begotten” has a filial quality, i.e., it connotes sonship—whether or not the term son (υἱος) is used. [86] The reading of the NIV is a bit better, i.e., “God the only Son.” [87] Perhaps the best we can do is, “the only Son, God,” [88] or “the only begotten Son, (Himself) God.”After His resurrection Jesus invited Thomas to examine His wounds, and the startled disciple responded, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28). Most scholars agree that the expression is vocatival and addressed directly to Jesus. In uttering this cry Thomas recognized the lordship of Jesus over his life “and the essential oneness of Jesus with the Father.” [89] It is a straightforward ascription of deity to Jesus. Nobody, says Morris, had “previously addressed Jesus like this.” [90]
In Romans 9:5 Paul speaks of Christ as “God blessed forever.” After expressing his sorrow over Israel’s rejection of Messiah, Paul affirms that Christ has been exalted over the whole universe, “including the Jews who reject Him in that He is God by nature, eternally the object of worship.” [91] Christians, says Paul to Titus (2:13), are to be “looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus.” The grammar indicates that the two expressions, “great God” and “Savior” describe Jesus Christ. [92] This, says Simpson, is “a studied assertion of the Redeemer’s Deity.” [93]
Contrasting the Son with angels, the author of Hebrews cites Psalm 45:6 to show that Christ’s reign will be eternal, unlike the transitory angels. The Father addresses the Son, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever” (Heb. 1:8). The author’s recognition of Christ’s deity, says Attridge, is “explicit.” [94] The apostle Peter [95] opens his second epistle with a reference to Jesus Christ as “our God and Savior” (2 Pet. 1:1). The apostle believed his readers needed to advance in their knowledge of Jesus Christ as the best protection against “the specious arguments and ethical libertinism of the false teachers who were harassing them.” In light of this need “an early reminder of the deity and saving power” of the Lord was “totally apt.” [96]
Excursus # 1: The Holy Spirit is a Person
In discussions of the Holy Spirit in the early church two important questions emerged. First, is the Spirit a person, [97] and, second, is the Spirit God? The question of the Spirit’s personhood is still widely debated. Some scholars have arrived at a unitarian position, arguing that the Spirit is the Father in His activity within the world and that Jesus was merely a man in whom God was uniquely active. [98] Others have adopted a binitarian conception of God, arguing that while Christ is distinguishable from the Father as an eternal person, the Spirit is the presence of God, but not “a third eternal ‘Peson.’” [99] Evangelical Christians, however, have always held that God is a Trinity and that the Holy Spirit is a distinct person in the Godhead.
The evidence in favor of the personhood of the Holy Spirit is sixfold. [100] First, the Spirit has the attributes of personality: intellect (1 Cor. 2:10–11, 13), emotions or sensibility (Eph. 4:30), and will (1 Cor. 12:11; Acts 16:6–12). Second, the Spirit performs the actions of personality: He teaches (John 14:26), He bears witness (John 15:26; Rom. 8:16), He guides (Rom. 8:14), He convinces (John 16:7–8), He restrains (Gen. 6:3), He commands (Acts 8:29), He calls to service (Acts 13:2), He sends into service (Acts 13:4), and He intercedes (Rom. 8:26). Third, the Spirit receives the ascriptions of personality: He can be obeyed (Acts 10:19–21a), He can be lied to (Acts 5:3), He can be resisted (Acts 7:51), He can be grieved (Eph. 4:30), and He can be outraged (Heb. 10:29). Fourth, normal Greek usage is contradicted when speaking of the Spirit. The word for “Spirit” (πνεῢμα, pneuma) is neuter in Greek, which might lead one to conclude that the Spirit is an “it,” i.e., a force, influence, power, or presence. Significantly, however, Jesus refers to the Spirit as “Him” or “who,” i.e., as a person. Greek usage would dictate that neuter pronouns be used in agreement with the neuter πνεῢμα, but Jesus used masculine pronouns instead (John 15:26; 16:13–14), and Paul followed His example (Eph. 1:14, “who”). [101] Fifth, there is “the appearance of the Spirit’s name in bi- and triadic formulas.” [102] In Romans 8:26 and 34 an intercessory function is attributed to both Christ and the Spirit. “If intercession is a personal function, and if Christ is a person, then a reasonable inference is that the Spirit is a person too.” [103] The same is true of Jesus’ promise of “another Helper” (John 14:16). Jesus has been their Helper, and now the Father is going to send another of the same kind. If Jesus is a person, the Holy Spirit is also. [104] Finally, the Holy Spirit is related to His own power yet distinguished from it, so one may conclude that He is not merely power, but a person. For example, He is distinguished from His gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:4, 8. And Luke records that early in His ministry Jesus “returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit,” i.e., power received from the Spirit. [105]
The Holy Spirit is God [106]
In Acts 5 Ananias is accused by Peter of lying to the Holy Spirit. When the Apostle repeats the charge, he says, “You have not lied to men but to God” (vv. 3, 4).107 This is the only passage where the Spirit is explicitly called God.108 That the NT writers identified the Spirit as God is seen in a passage like Acts 7:51, where Stephen says to his Jewish listeners that their “fathers” resisted the Holy Spirit. In the OT it is clear that the Israelites were resisting God. Also, in 1 Corinthians 3:16–17, collectively, and 6:19–20, individually, believers are called the “temple of God/temple of the Holy Spirit.” Paul’s clear assumption is that to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit is to be indwelt by God.
Three Persons Possess the Attributes of God [109]
The Father Possesses the Attributes of God
That the Father possesses the attributes of God is not debated. In the majestic scene described by John in Revelation, God the Father is described as holy, all powerful, and eternal (4:8). When the Lord Jesus instructs His disciples to pray He assures them that they will be heard. That He hears and anwers prayer implies that He is omniscient and omnipresent. The prayer itself says that He is holy and sovereign over the affairs of heaven and earth. That He knows all their needs and cares for them assures the disciples of His goodness (Matt. 6:6–9, 13, 32).
The Son Possesses the Attributes of God [110]
Further evidence that Christ is recognized as God in the NT stems from the fact that divine attributes are ascribed to Him. For example, He is assumed to be eternal. John writes, “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1). The phrase, “in the beginning,” echoes the opening verse of Genesis. It takes the reader back to the beginning of history. The imperfect verb “was” (ἦν, ēn) suggests continuous action in past time. At the time of the creation, the Word already existed. “There never was a time when the Word was not.” [111]
Unlike His creatures, He is immutable (Heb. 1:10–12). He is omnipotent in that He has the power “to subject all things to Himself” (Phil. 3:21) and can do “something He sees the Father doing” (John 5:19). Furthermore, He created all things (Col. 1:15–17). He is omniscient, assuring the church of Thyatira that with His “eyes like a flame of fire” He knows all her deeds both good and bad (Rev. 2:18–20; cf. John 2:24–25; 6:64; 21:17). Finally, He is omnipresent, promising His disciples after His resurrection, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20; cf. 18:20). To sum up, Christ is said to possess attributes that belong to God, something possible only if He is deity. [112]
The Spirit Possesses the Attributes of God [113]
The Holy Spirit is omniscient, knowing the very thoughts of God (1 Cor. 2:10–11) and able to communicate this truth to the disciples (John 16:13). He is omnipresent. David wrote, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?” (Ps. 139:7). His possession of omnipotence is seen in His creative power. “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life” (Job 33:4). His very name, “the Holy Spirit of God,” indicates that He possesses the divine attribute of holiness (Eph. 4:30). Also, the Spirit is said to be an agent in the resurrection of God’s people in the future (Rom. 8:11). “Only Deity can impart this kind of life.” [114] These attributes, like the attributes of Christ, point to the deity of the One who possesses them.
Three Persons Do the Works of God
The Father Does the Works of God
As Paul wrote, He is the creator, “There is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things” (1 Cor. 8:6). Furthermore, the Father is the One who providentially “causes all things to work together for good” (Rom 8:28). [115] In Matthew 11:25 Jesus calls Him “Father, Lord of heaven and earth,” and thanks Him for His work of revelation. In John 6:44 Jesus attributes the believer’s coming to Christ as the work of the Father in “drawing” him. He further attributes the eternal security of the believer to the Father from whose hand no one can snatch him (John 10:29). Finally, the authority to execute judgment is the Father’s, and He delegates that responsibility to the Son.
The Son Does the Works of God
Most dramatically, the creation of the universe is attributed to Christ.116 The classic texts on Christ’s role in creation link His creative work to His redemptive work, i.e., to the great events of His incarnation, life, death, resurrection and ascension. [117] In John 1, Christ is the means of creation, and His creative work is linked to His incarnation, life, and redemptive work (vv. 3, 10, 12, 14). In Hebrews 1, the Son’s work of creation is linked to His death, ascension, and eschatological inheritance (vv. 2–3). In Colossians 1, He is the means of creation but also its reason or purpose; He is the creator of the universe and also its sustainer. He is the One who in the beginning created the universe, and He is the one who in the end will reconcile the universe (vv. 16–20). As Jensen well says, Jesus Christ is “creation’s past, present, and future.” [118]
Not only did He create the universe, but He providentially sustains it—“in Him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17). He is the One who shares such intimacy with the Father that He can perfectly reveal Him (John 1:18; cf. Heb. 1:2). And He is the One who shall judge the world (John 5:27–29; Matt. 25:31–32). These are all the actions of One who can be nothing less that God.
The Spirit Does the Works of God [119]
The Holy Spirit is said to have been in some way involved in the creation of the world (Gen. 1:2; cf. Job 26:13; 27:3; Pss. 33:6; 104:30). [120] While Paul attributes the work of the inspiration of Scripture to God (2 Tim. 3:16), Peter attributes the same work to the Holy Spirit. “Men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God” (2 Pet. 1:21). The Holy Spirit played a part in the birth of Christ, according to Luke 1:35: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you.” In the divine work of salvation (Jonah 2:9), the Lord Jesus says that it is the Holy Spirit who convicts people of sin (John 16:8) and imparts new life to them in the work of regeneration (John 3:8; cf. Titus 3:5). It is the Spirit who pours out the love of God (Rom. 5:5), gives joy (Rom. 14:17), hope (Rom. 8:17–25), peace (Rom. 8:6), and faith (2 Cor. 12:9). Finally, the Apostle Paul attributes the divine work of sanctification (1 Thess. 5:23) to the Holy Spirit (2 Thess. 2:13).
Three Persons Receive the Honor Due Only to God
The Father Receives the Honor Due to God
In some of the most memorable passages of Scripture God the Father is honored and worshipped. In Daniel’s great courtroom scene, for example, He is attended by thousands and thousands of angelic beings (Dan. 7:9—10). In the parallel passage, Revelation 4:8, the four living creatures ceaselessly say, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty” (cf. Isa. 6:3). The twenty-four elders add, “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power” (Rev. 4:11). One chapter later the whole order of created beings honors “Him who sits on the throne” (Rev. 5:13). The “Lord’s Prayer” begins with the words, “Our Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 6:9). Jesus speaks of His Father as the One to whom divine honor is due (John 5:23). In fact, He says that His work on earth was to glorify the Father (John 17:1–4).
The Son Receives the Honor Due to God
“In the NT,” says Plantinga, “Jesus Christ becomes a center of sacrament (Matt. 28:19; John 6:54), doxology (2 Pet. 3:18; Rev. 1:5), and prayer (Acts 7:59–60; 1 Cor. 16:22).” [121] People are baptized in His name (Acts 2:38), and they gather in worship around the emblems of bread and wine in remembrance of Him (1 Cor. 11:23–26). Just before the judgments of the Book of Revelation He is worshipped on a par with the Father, “To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever” (Rev. 5:13). And finally, the author of Hebrews reports that when the Son of God returns to the earth in the future God the Father will give the command to the angels, “Worship Him” (Heb. 1:6). “He deserves alone, or with the Father, the reverence one reserves for God (John 14:1; Rev. 7:10).” [122]
The Spirit Receives the Honor Due to God
The evidence for worship of the Spirit is not as full as it is for the worship of the Father and the Son. [123] One reason for this is because He is, as Bruner puts it, “the shy member of the Trinity.” “When the Helper comes,” Jesus had said, “He will testify about Me” (John 15:26); “He will glorify me” (John 16:14).” “The work of the Holy Spirit is the honoring of Jesus Christ.” [124] That is not to say that the Holy Spirit is not honored as God in the NT. The very words of Jesus as He promises the Spirit’s coming are honorific. He is “the Spirit of truth” (John 16:13) who comes “from the Father” (John 15:26), and it is to the disciples’ advantage that He come (John 16:7). Also, as noted earlier, believers collectively (1 Cor. 3:16–17) and individually (1 Cor. 6:19) are the “temple of the Holy Spirit.” As Strong noted, “He who inhabits the temple is the object of worship there.” [125]
In Scripture Three Persons are Associated on an Equal Footing as God [126]
The Baptismal Command [127]
If the Deity of Christ was the “determining impulse” for the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity, then the “guiding principle” was the baptismal formula announced by Jesus after His resurrection. [128] He commanded His disciples to baptize believers “in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19). The new follower of Christ is to be baptized “in the name,” or more literally, “into the name” (εἰς τὸ ὄνομα, eis to onoma). [129] The phrase states the goal of baptism, the preposition “into” meaning “in order that they may enter into a relationship with” or “in order that they may belong to.” [130] It suggests a “coming-into-relationship-with” or a “coming under-the-Lordship-of-the Triune God.” [131] It is “a sign both of entrance into Messiah’s community and of pledged submission to His lordship.” [132]
What is significant for the study under investigation is the singular “name.” Jesus does not say εἰς τὰ ὀνόματα (“into the names,” eis ta onomata, plural). Nor does He say, “Into the name of the Father, and into the name of the Son, and into the name of the Holy Spirit,” as if He were speaking of three different Beings. “With stately impressiveness [He] asserts the unity of the three by combining them all within the bounds of the single Name; and then throws up into emphasis the distinctness of each by introducing them in turn with the repeated article: ‘Into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’” [133]
These three, Warfield notes, “each stand in some clear sense over against the others in distinct personality,” yet they “all unite in some profound sense in the common participation of the one Name.” [134] This has tremendous implications, he goes on, when one bears in mind the Hebrew understanding of “the Name.” For modern people a name is no more than a tag or label. In biblical thought a name represents “the innermost being of its bearer.” [135] Thus in the OT we find that the Name of God expresses His very Being (Deut. 28:58; Isa. 30:27; 59:19). It was generally combined with other words, as in “name of the Lord,” or “Your name, O Lord God of hosts” (Jer. 15:16). So pregnant with meaning was the “Name,” however, that it was possible for the term to stand absolutely as in Leviticus 24:11, “The son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the Name and cursed.” [136]
When the Lord Jesus commanded His disciples to baptize new converts “into the name,” He was using language charged with profound meaning. He was obviously substituting for the great Name of Yahweh this other Name, “of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” This could not mean anything else to the disciples than that Yahweh was now to be known to them by the new great Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. [137] The only alternative explanation was that Jesus was supplanting Yahweh by a new god; and this alternative would be “monstrous.” [138] For His church there would be a new great Name for Yahweh, and that new Name was to be the threefold Name of “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Warfield concluded:
This is a direct ascription to [Yahweh] the God of Israel, of a threefold personality, and is therewith the direct enunciation of the doctrine of the Trinity. We are not witnessing here the birth of the doctrine of the Trinity; that is presupposed. What we are witnessing is the authoritative announcement of the Trinity as the God of Christianity by its Founder, in one of the most solemn of His recorded declarations. Israel had worshiped the one only true God under the Name of [Yahweh]; Christians are to worship the same one only true God under the Name of “the Father, and the Son, and the Holy [Spirit].” This is the distinguishing characteristic of Christians. [139]The Apostolic Benediction
At the close of his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul prays for “a continuation and deepening of what has already been done and given in Corinth.” [140] He wrote, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all” (2 Cor. 13:14). In this famous benediction the Apostle attaches three blessings of redemption (“grace,” “love,” and “fellowship”141 ) distributively to the three Persons of the Triune God. [142] It is evident from this sentence that he “thinks of the one God as in some sense triune.” [143] That is not to say that Paul sets forth the kind of formal definition of the Trinity (one essence, three persons) that is found in later Trinitarian orthodoxy, but he does provide a “starting-point” for such thinking. [144]
Other Threefold Formulas
In addition to Matthew 28:19 and 2 Corinthians 13:14 there are several other passages that offer trinitarian formulas or “triadic patterns” in referring to the work of God. [145] Paul the Apostle, whose monotheism was “intense” (Rom. 3:30; 1 Cor. 8:4; Gal. 3:20; Eph. 4:6; 1 Tim. 2:5) habitually speaks of the blessings of redemption in “a trinal fashion.” [146] In 2 Thessalonians 2:13 he thanks God for “the brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.” In addressing the question of spiritual gifts he uses three descriptions of them and connects each with a different Divine Person. “There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. There are varieties of effects, but the same God” (1 Cor. 12:4–6). As he defends justification by faith alone, Paul includes these expressions: “before God,” “Christ redeemed us,” and “the promise of the Spirit” (Gal. 3:11–14). To the Corinthians he wrote, “Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge” (2 Cor. 1:21–22). He also said, “You are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God” (2 Cor. 3:3). To the Ephesians he wrote, “For through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father” (Eph. 2:18). In encouraging unity in the church he spoke of “one Spirit…one Lord…one God and Father of all” (Eph. 4:4–6). Several other passages would have to be included to make the list complete (Rom. 14:17–18; 15:16, 30; Phil. 3:3; Col. 1:6–8; Eph. 2:20–22; 3:14–16; Titus 3:4–6). In all these texts three persons—God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit—are “brought together, in the most incidental manner, as co-sources of all the saving blessings which come to believers in Christ.” [147]
Paul is not alone in His “trinal” thinking. Other NT writers seem to assume that “the redemptive activities of God rest on a threefold source.” [148] Peter tells his readers they were “chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood” (1 Pet. 1:2). [149] The author of Hebrews, in his first warning passage, speaks of the salvation “first spoken through the Lord,” the testimony of “God,” and the “gifts of the Holy Spirit” (Heb. 2:3–4). He later speaks of apostates who have “trampled under foot the Son of God” and have “insulted the Spirit of grace” (Heb. 10:29). Although the Father is not mentioned in this text the warning in chapter two indicates that he was “aware of the triadic pattern.” [150] Jude lays out the following three parallel clauses, “praying in the Holy Spirit,” “keep yourselves in the love of God,” and “waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 20, 21). John’s “Trinitarian consciousness” is seen in the opening lines of the Revelation (1:4–5), “from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness.” [151]
The triadic pattern is rather pervasive, being found in Matthew, Paul, Hebrews, 1 Peter, Jude, and the Revelation. As F. H. Chase noted, “The writers speak without hesitation or misgiving. They assume that their friends to whom they write will at once understand their words about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” [152] Kelly concluded, “The Trinitarian pattern which was to dominate all later creeds was already part and parcel of the Christian tradition of doctrine.” [153]
In Scripture Three Persons are Distinguished From Each Other
One possible way to explain the evidence so far is to claim that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not really distinct persons. One might argue that “Father,” “Son,” and “Holy Spirit” are only three names given to the one God to describe different roles He plays in relation to the world. This might solve the “problem of the Trinity,” viz., the alleged contradiction that one God = three persons, but the solution must be rejected because of passages in the Bible that show that the three persons are truly distinct. [154]
Shedd points to twelve actions that, he says, prove they are distinct from each other: (1) One divine person loves another, John 3:35. (2) One person dwells in another, John 14:10, 11. (3) One person inflicts suffering on another, Zech. 13:7. (4) One person knows another, Matt. 11:27. (5) One person addresses another, Heb. 1:8. (6) One person is the way to another, John 14:6. (7) One person speaks of another, Luke 3:22. (8) One person glorifies another, John 17:5. (9) One person confers with another, Gen. 1:26; 11:7. (10) One person plans with another, Isa. 9:6. (11) One person sends another, John 14:26. (12) One person rewards another, Phil. 2:5–11; Heb. 2:9. These twelve actions, he argues, “demonstrate that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not one and the same person.” [155]
The Father and Son are Distinct Persons
A number of examples can be cited to show that the Father and the Son are distinct. In the second line of his “Logos Hymn” John went beyond the truth of the preexistence and eternality of the Word and described Him in eternity past with the clause “the Word was with God” (ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, ho logos ēn pros ton theon, John 1:1). The preposition “with” (πρός, pros) carries the two ideas of accompaniment and relationship. [156] The literal idea, says grammarian A. T. Robertson, is “face to face with God.” [157] It expresses personal companionship, i.e., the presence of one person with another. [158] And, of course, it implies distinction from that person.
That the Father and the Son are distinct persons is also demonstrated at the baptism of Jesus, which took place at the beginning of His public ministry (Matt. 3:13–17). [159] As Jesus emerged from the water the Holy Spirit descended upon Him, and the Father voiced His approval, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.” “If Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not distinct persons,” Feinberg wryly observes, “this is quite a feat of ventriloquism and optical illusion!” [160] The same kind of distinction between the Father and the Son is manifested on the Mount of Transfiguration when the Father again expresses His approval, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!” (Matt. 17:5). And the distinction is demonstrated in the prayers of Jesus, e.g., in His Gethsemane petition, “yet not as I will, but as You will” (Matt. 26:39).
The distinction between the Father and the Son is also seen in the Father’s testimony to Christ. “There is another who testifies of Me, and I know that the testimony which He gives about Me is true…. And the Father who sent Me, He has testified of Me” (John 5:32, 37). The classic “sending passages” also demonstrate that the Father and the Son are distinct persons (John 3:16–17; Rom. 8:3–4; Gal. 4:4; 1 John 4:9–10). These texts all imply the preexistence of the Son, the eternality of His Sonship, and His distinct personhood. [161] A final example is found in the “High Priestly Prayer” of John 17. In that passage the Son says, “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do” (v. 4). The pronouns “I” and “You” (ἐγώ and σε) distinguish the two persons. It should be noted that what the Son accomplished on earth He was commissioned to do in eternity past (“the work which you have given me”).
The Father and Son are Distinct from the Spirit
Just as the Bible distingishes between the Father and the Son, it also distinguishes the Father and the Son from the Holy Spirit. This is clearly demonstrated in the Upper Room Discourse, as Jesus prepared His disciples for His departure. He told them that He was going away, but He was not going to leave them alone. Rather, He was going to ask the Father, and the Father would send them “another Helper” to be with them forever. The Helper is identified as the Holy Spirit “whom I will send to you from the Father” (John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7, 8). John’s use of the pronouns “I” and “Him” (ἐγώ and αὐτόν) clearly distinguish the Son from the Spirit and from the Father. A prima facie reading of these texts with the Son asking the Father and the Father giving the Spirit suggests a distinction between the persons. “Moreover, it makes no sense to promise another Helper, for unless Jesus, the Father, and the Spirit are distinct, there is no other Helper.” [162]
Another evidence of the distinction of persons is offered by Berkhof, who draws attention to the so-called praepositiones distinctionales, i.e., distinction in prepositions. [163] In describing the work of the Father (“from whom are all things”) Paul uses ἐκ (ek), but when describing the work of Christ (“by whom are all things”) he uses διά (dia), 1 Corinthians 8:6. The Father is the source of all things, and the Son is the agent through whom creation was accomplished. John writes, “All things came into being through (διά) Him” (John 1:3). He adds that the Son came “that the world might be saved through (διά) Him” (John 3:17). On the other hand, the Son says, “I can do nothing on My own initiative (ἀπ᾿ ἐμαυτοῢ),” John 5:30. In a text like 1 Corinthians 12:13 (“For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body”) the preposition ἐν (en) is used to denote the sphere or the means by which the divine work was accomplished. [164]
In Scripture the Tri-Personality of the Godhead is Eternal and Not Merely Temporal
One could argue that the distinction of three persons merely refers to manifestations of God in time. Scripture, however, compels us “to maintain that there are personal relations between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit [independent] of creation and time.… Scripture reveals to us a social Trinity and [a communion] of love apart from and before the existence of the universe.” The evidence is fivefold. Much of it has already been discussed, is overlapping, and need only be briefly reviewed here. [165]
The Existence of the Word from Eternity with the Father
John 1:1 (“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”) takes the reader to the moment of creation and clearly indicates that the Word already existed. He is eternal, He is distinct from the Father, and He is Himself deity. In a similar fashion the Apostle Paul ascribes deity to Christ and places Him in the eternal past. In Philippians 2:6 he says that He “existed in the form of God” (ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ ὑπάρχων, en morphē theou hyparchōn). Of these four words in the Greek text Sabatier said, They “form the most exalted metaphysical definition ever given by Paul to the Person of Christ.” [166] Almost every word of the entire section must be examined carefully. At this point we shall consider only one. Lightfoot argued that the word existed (ὑπαρχων, hyparchōn, NASB; “being” in AV) denotes “prior existence.” [167] In the present context it “clearly implies a state existing prior to the point in time at which our Lord took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.” [168] Not only does Paul place Christ in the eternal past, but the expression “equality with God” also implies that He was with God the Father. [169] In heaven He enjoyed the prerogatives of deity. Subsequent to His earthly ministry God the Father “highly exalted Him” (Phil. 2:9). [170]
The Pre-Existence of Christ
Without any allusion to fellowship with the Father Jesus claims to preexist the created world. “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am” (John 8:58). “A mode of being that has a definite beginning is contrasted with one that is eternal.” [171] This, says Haenchen, is “a reference to His eternal being.” [172] The absolute, “I AM” comes straight from the LXX of Exodus 3:14 and Moses’ encounter with Yahweh. As Morris notes, He does not say, “I was.” “It is eternity of being and not simply being that has lasted through several centuries that the expression indicates.”
The Pre-Temporal Relationship of Father and Son
The “High Priestly Prayer” indicates that there was communion between the Father and the Son “before the world was.” In His preincarnate state Christ enjoyed a “unique glory with the Father in [His] preexistent state” (John 17:5). [173] He asks to be returned to the splendor of heaven and what He had left in coming to earth. [174] The Son says to the Father, “You loved Me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). In context Jesus is praying that the disciples will be with Him in heaven that they might see the glory that the Father has given Him.
The Creation of the World by Christ
“All things came into being through (διά) Him” (John 1:3). He was with God in eternity past, and He was the Father’s agent in creating the universe. Paul makes a similar point in Colossians 1:16. He says, “By Him all things were created.” Christ existed before every created thing, material or immaterial. He was in existence before this universe, the human race, and the entire angelic realm. In fact, He created all of these things. The author of Hebrews also stresses that the Son was the Father’s agent in creation “through whom also He made the world” (Heb. 1:2). The point to be made in all these texts is that they presuppose that the persons of the Godhead are not merely temporal manifestations; rather, they are eternal.
The Eternality of the Holy Spirit
At the time of the creation, the Holy Spirit, too, was already in existence. The opening verses of the Bible portray “the Spirit of God…moving over the surface of the waters” (Gen. 1:2). That He is an eternal person is more clearly indicated in Hebrews 9:14. At His baptism Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit (cf. Isa. 42:1), and it was in the power of the Spirit that the Servant accomplished every phase of His ministry. This is especially true of “the crowning phase in which He accepts death for the transgression of His people.” [175] It was, says the author of Hebrews, “through the eternal Spirit” that Jesus “offered Himself without blemish to God.”
Excursus # 2: The Eternal Sonship of Christ
Charles Hodge expressed the conviction of historic Christianity when he said that Christ was the Eternal Son of God, i.e., “that He is from eternity the Son of God.” [176] The title “Son of God” he argued is not a term of office, but of nature. He did not become the Son at His birth, transfiguration, resurrection or ascension. The eternality of Christ’s Sonship was taught by orthodox Christians for centuries, and it is found in the works of our most eminent, evangelical systematic theologians (e.g., Calvin, Shedd, Strong, Warfield, Murray, Buswell, Chafer, Walvoord, and Grudem). [177] It has also been taught by our most respected Brethren Bible teachers (e.g., Darby, Kelly, Mackintosh, Hoste, Hocking, Vine, Ironside, and Bruce). [178]
The eternality of Christ’s Sonship has periodically been denied by evangelical men of high standing. [179] Two examples from the past are Adam Clarke [180] and Albert Barnes, [181] who taught Sonship by means of incarnation. More recently similar views have been espoused by Walter Martin, [182] Colin Brown, [183] and John MacArthur. [184] Happily, MacArthur has abandoned the position and now defends the Eternal Sonship of Christ. [185] Those who have denied the eternality of Christ’s Sonship have usually pointed to texts such as Luke 1:35; Acts 13:33; Romans 1:4; and Hebrews 1:5 where He seems to be invested with Sonship in time or as a result of what He accomplished during His earthly ministry. [186] I shall say more below, but for now I shall say that the men mentioned here were all guilty of a methodological fault. They tried to force all the verses on Christ’s sonship into one mold, and in doing so they missed the fact that many texts do support the eternal Sonship of Christ.
The arguments favoring the eternality of Christ’s Sonship are seven-fold: (1) The NT teaches the true deity of Christ. (2) The NT teaches the preexistence of Christ. (3) The NT teaches that Christ enjoyed a pre-temporal relationship with the Father. (4) The term μονογενής (“only begotten,” monogenēs) is used of Christ and has a filial quality to it, i.e., it implies that He is His Father’s Son. (5) The NT teaches that the “only begotten” came from the Father [John 1:14]. In the context of John 1 this implies that the Father is eternal [cf. John 1:1]. Likewise, John 16:28 says, “I came forth from the Father,” which suggests Jesus was with the Father before He came into the world. The work of election in eternity past (“before the foundation of the world,” Eph. 1:4) is attributed to the Father. Likewise Peter speaks of the “foreknowledge of God the Father” (1 Pet. 1:2). Other NT texts imply that the Father is eternal [John 17:1–5; Rev. 1:4; 4:8], and “an eternal Father cannot exist before an eternal Son.” [187] (6) The NT teaches that the Son created the world [Heb. 1:2]; this would seem to imply that He was the Son when He did this—at a time long before His birth or resurrection. (7) The NT teaches that the Father “sent” the Son into the world [John 3:16–17; Rom. 8:3–4; Gal. 4:4; 1 John 4:9–10]. This would suggest that He was the Son before He was sent. [188] Darby writes that if we abandon this “vital truth…we lose the Father sending the Son, and the Son creating, and we have no Father if we have no Son, so that it lies at the basis of all truth.” [189]
Excursus # 3: Other Nuances of the Title “Son of God”
Our defense of the eternal Sonship of Christ must not lead to ignoring other nuances of the title “Son of God” in the NT. We must not assume that because some texts speak of Eternal Sonship then all the texts which speak of Christ’s Sonship speak of Eternal Sonship.
If we are completely true to the biblical record, we must concede that the title “Son of God” is used of our Lord in more than one way. C. F. D. Moule has observed that from the days of Jesus and the disciples the title Son has been invested “with a highly complex, multivalent set of associations.” [190] As Vos and others have noted, the title is used in at least three ways: [191]
(1) Eternal Sonship. Christ shares the very nature of God. He has been the Son of God in His essence from eternity. In history He was sent into the world to redeem men. John Murray says this is the preponderant usage. [192] This has also been called ontological Sonship, [193] divine Sonship, [194] and essential Sonship. [195] The title “Son of God” speaks, first of all, of Christ’s essential deity. “The designation ‘Son of God’ is a metaphysical designation and tells us what He is in His being of being.” [196] He is the One who was one with the Father and has been sent into the world.
(2) Incarnational or Nativity Sonship. In Luke’s gospel (1:35) “the origin of Christ’s human nature is ascribed to [His mother Mary and] to the direct, supernatural paternity of God.” “For that reason,” the angel says, He is called “Son of God.” [197]
(3) Messianic Sonship. Other texts describe Him as the descendent of David who is appointed as Messiah and installed as God’s Son. Here the title describes our Lord’s function or office as Messiah. It does not refer to His divine nature [see 2 Sam. 7:14; Rom. 1:4; Heb. 1:5]. This has also been called official Sonship, [198] incarnate Sonship, [199] and acquired Sonship. [200] As David’s son, Jesus, viewed in His manhood, was “adopted” [201] or “appointed” [202] as God’s Son (cf. 2 Sam. 7:12–16). In this third sense Christ becomes God’s Son at His resurrection-ascension (cf. Rom. 1:4; Heb. 1:5–6; Psalm 2:7). Marcus Dods well observed, “The Messianic Sonship no doubt rests upon the Eternal Sonship,” and, I would add, the Incarnational Sonship rests on the Eternal Sonship as well. [203] To sum up, Christ is called “Son of God” in three distinct ways in the NT, and we must take note of all three if our doctrine of the Sonship of Christ is to be complete.
Excursus # 4: The Interrelations of the Three Persons
The “Trinity of Being,” or the Ontological Trinity
The Trinitarian Name. As I noted in my introduction, Christians are baptized into the Trinitarian name, “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Evangelical theology has generally held that the eternal relations of the members of the Godhead account for the universally recognized order of Father, Son, and Spirit. Jewett calls these relations “unique and mysterious,” and so they are, for the Bible tells us little about them. [204]
What is the “distinguishing property” or “characteristic” of each person? [205] Standard evangelical texts use the classical distinctions based on the relationships implied in the names Father, Son, and Spirit. The Father is characterized as Father due to His relation to the second person; the Son is characterized as Son in His relation to the first person; the Spirit is characterized as Spirit in relation to the first and second persons. [206]
The Father is uniquely the Father in that He is “of none.” [207] He is begotten of none and proceeds from none. He is the Father, primarily, because He is the Father of the Son, and, secondarily, because He is the source of all created reality. [208] His distinguishing property is “paternity.”
The Son is the Son because He is begotten of the Father. This language is traditional, and I believe it is biblical for three reasons: First, while the traditional translation of μονογενής (monogenēs), viz., “only begotten” (John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18) is presently out of favor, it is not without support and “implies a relationship that may be described as an eternal begetting.” [209] Second, even if the translation “only Son” is preferred, to say that Jesus was God’s “only Son” and that God is His own Father, who shared His glory with His Son (John 17:5) and to use an expression like “the only Son from the Father” (John 1:14) implies the notions of kinship and derivation. [210] The Son is equally divine with the Father, but He is the Father’s Son. He is “the Father all over again.” They are not “just members of the class of divine persons, but also members of the same family.” [211] Third, John’s statement that the Son was “begotten” (γεγεννημένος, gegennēmenos) of God (1 John 5:18, NASB mg.) also supports the traditional doctrine. [212] The distinguishing property or characteristic of the Son, therefore, is filiation, and most evangelicals still speak of the eternal generation of the Son. [213]
The Holy Spirit, too, subsists as a distinct and eternal person in the Godhead. [214] His distinguishing characteristic has been historically defined as “procession.” [215] It is a term that was used originally to assert that He is not a creature and that He is distinct from the Son and the Father.216 By way of explanation, theologians have suggested that “procession is a divine ‘breathing’” (Latin spiratio). [217] So the Father (and Son) eternally “spirate” the Spirit, whose very name means “breath” or “wind.” [218] If most of our knowledge of the eternal relationships comes by way of analogy from what Scripture says about the way the persons relate in time, [219] the terms “procession” and “spiration” are appropriate. The Holy Spirit does come from God as “the life-giving breath of God.” He is the Creator Spiritus, who renews the face of the ground (Ps. 104:30), the regenerating Spirit who brings new life to the hearts of people (Jn. 3:5; Titus 3:5), and the inspiring Spirit who produced the “God-breathed” Word of God (2 Tim. 3:16). [220]
God’s Oneness-in-Threeness and His Threeness-in-Oneness. God is One, i.e., He is unique—there is no God like Him, and He is numerically one—there is only one God. In light of the NT evidence that there are three distinct and eternal persons who are God, theologians have wrestled over this mystery of a God who is one, yet who is also three. The solution they have offered is that God is one in essence and three in person.
This led to a further question, one that is with us still in the twenty-first century: How is this oneness of essence to be explained? Using language from the early church, many evangelical theologians have spoken of numerical oneness of God’s essence. There are not three essences, but only one. It is “the substance, or essence…—that very thing, which is God.”221 Each of the persons is identical with that thing. [222] This is a common understanding of the unity of the Godhead among evangelicals, i.e., an identity of nature. [223] “The divine essence is not divided among the three persons, but is wholly with all its perfection in each one of the persons, so that they have numerical unity of essence.” [224]
Picking up on another emphasis of the ancient church, some evangelicals have tended to emphasize the threeness of God. These “Social Trinitarians” speak of the Trinity as “a divine, transcendent society or community of three fully personal and fully divine entities: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” [225] They prefer to speak of a “generic oneness” of the three persons, rather than of a numerical oneness—which, they suggest, could lead to modalism. The terms “Father” and “Son” suggest that these persons are related in some way. The Social Trinitarians suggest “a derivation or origin of relation that amounts to a personal essence.” The Son is the Father’s Son. They are not members of a class of divine persons; they are “members of the same family.” They have “generic equality” and are “related by quasi-genetic derivation. As a stream from a source, or a twig from a branch, or a child from a parent.” The same generic essence assures that each person is fully and equally divine. [226]
How are the three persons one in such an understanding? Proponents point to Scripture which suggests “a mutual indwelling of the persons, an eternal coinherence.” Jesus says to Philip, “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works” (John 14:10). In John 10:38 He says, “the Father is in Me, and I in the Father” and in John 1:18 the Son is described as being “in the bosom of the Father.” Paul describes the Holy Spirit as One atuned to the very thoughts of God—He knows God’s thoughts (1 Cor. 2:11). John of Damascus (ad 675–749) described this as a περιχώρησις (perichōrēsis), meaning “a circulating” or “going about.” [227] The Father, Son, and Spirit are not eternally “with” or alongside each other, but eternally “in” one another. “The three persons are in one another and reciprocally interpenetrate, interpermeate, each other.” [228] “There is an eternal intercommunion and interaction of being in the Godhead, so that each person coinheres in the others, and the others in each.” [229] This describes an intimacy far beyond anything we can know, an indwelling “beyond all human experience and reality.” [230] “This mysterious in-ness or oneness relation in the divine life, says Plantinga, is short of personal identity [modalism], but much closer than mere common membership in a class [tritheism].” [231] “There is in the divine life a mysterious, primordial in-ness or oneness relation.” [232]
Both of these tendencies (overemphasis on the oneness or the threeness) were found in the early church, and both are in play today. The danger of one is that it will stray into modalism, and the danger of the other is that it will wander into tritheism. We must remember, says Paul Jewett, that all of our human analogies are broken. We must go on using them, he says, “until faith becomes sight; but we should not chafe under such limitations, for it is common to the human situation.” [233]
The “Trinity of Revelation,” or the Economic Trinity
Because God is one there is a sense in which we must say that all His works are the work of the one God. Classical Christian theology, going back to Augustine, speaks of the works of God as indivisible. Yet at the same time we affirm that the one God subsists as three persons, and each of the persons has distinct roles. [234]
This “ordering of activities” into distinct roles is where the expression “economic Trinity” comes from (“economy” = “ordering of activities”). [235]
In considering the roles of the three persons we can say that God reveals Himself to us as our Father, our Savior, and our Sanctifier.236 This is important because we believe that “God is in Himself who He has revealed Himself to be in His relationship to us.” [237]
The Father Who Becomes Our Father. The Father is God, the creator of all things (Ps. 100:3). We acknowledge Him as the Father of “whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name” (Eph. 3:14–15). He is the One who made the world (Acts 17:24), the “Father of lights,” the giver of “every perfect gift” (James 1:17). It is true that the Son was His agent (John 1:3), but the Father was the “originator” of the creation. From the biblical perspective, the most significant aspect of God’s Fatherhood is that He becomes our Father through adoption when we receive Christ (John 1:12–13; Rom. 8:15).
The Son Who Becomes Our Savior. Our salvation is attributed to God without distinction of persons (Jonah 2:9; Ps. 3:8). And it is spoken of with distinction of persons, i.e., from the Father, through the Son, and by the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:4–6). Having said this, we must observe that in the NT salvation is always regarded as the peculiar and distinctive work of our Lord Jesus Christ (Matt. 1:21; Luke 2:11; 2:28–30; 19:9; John 10:9–10; Acts 4:12; Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:18; Col. 1:14; Heb. 5:9). [238] The Father, for example, did not come and die for us on the cross. It was the Son who “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). It was His distinct work to die for us and be our Savior (1 Cor. 15:3). [239]
The Spirit Who Becomes Our Sanctifier. The distinction of persons is seen when the other Helper comes to the earth (John 14:6; 15:7). “The Spirit who comes is not the Son coming back.” The Spirit convicts people of their sins (John 16:8–9). He empowered the disciples in their preaching (1 Cor. 2:4) and guided them in the writing of the Scriptures (2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:21). It is the Spirit who regenerates people and gives them life (John 3:5–8; Titus 3:5), who sanctifies them (Rom. 8:13;), and who empowers them for service (Acts 1:8; 1 Cor. 12:7–11). In short, it is the Holy Spirit who applies the benefits of the work of the Son to people.
Excursus # 5: The Question of Subordination
Theologians today still grapple with the nature of the relations of the members of the Trinity. Both devout Catholics and biblical Evangelicals reject any notion that the Son or Spirit is subordinate in essence to the Father. [240] Orthodox believers of all denominations and fellowships of churches affirm that all three persons are perfectly equal as to substance or essence.
At the same time, evangelical teachers will speak of “ontological equality but economic subordination,” i.e., while each member of the Trinity is fully God and equal in essence, there is a subordination of the Son and Spirit in role and function. [241] The Son and Spirit are equal in being but subordinate in role. [242] “This subordination,” Hodge adds, “does not imply inferiority” in the infinite perfections of deity that the three persons share. [243]
There is some difference of opinion about the time frame of this subordination. [244] Some argue that the subordination was of limited duration, i.e., it lasted only for the period of the Son’s ministry on earth. [245] Others have concluded that the Son is eternally subordinate in role to the Father and that the Spirit is eternally subordinate to the Father and the Son. [246] That there is a subordination in the economy of redemption is clearly taught in the New Testament (e.g., Phil. 2:5–8; John 15:26–27). That there is also an order in the eternal relations of the persons of the Trinity seems to be a valid inference from the evidence. [247] God has revealed Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These are not just temporary labels adopted for the era of redemptive history. They tell us who God is “eternally and antecedently in Himself.… If God’s self-revelation in human history was simply a convention designed only for our salvation we could not know Him truly.” [248] “The revelation of the economic Trinity truly indicates the ontological Trinity.” [249] If there is no inherent difference in the way the three persons relate to each other, if there is no eternal “Father,” eternal “Son,” and eternal “Spirit,” then the relations are only temporary, and we are left with modalism. [250]
Excursus # 6: The Question of Masculine Language and the Trinity
Mention needs to be made of a topic raised in my introduction. Since the 1960s radical feminism has mounted a sustained attack against the Bible’s masculine language for God. “The use of masculine titles and pronouns absolutizes maleness and gives men the right to rule over women.” [251] “Since God is male,” Mary Daly writes, “the male is God.” [252] The solution to this problem is to redefine God in nonsexist or even in feminine language. [253] All language about God is metaphorical and analogical and can be therefore changed to overcome the church’s patriarchialism. [254] Instead of the personal and masculine titles, “Father,” “Son,” and “Holy Spirit,” [255] feminine or sexless titles are used such as “Mother,” “Child of God,” and “Comforter.” [256]
Rosemary Radford Reuther argues that the root image of the divine in human consciousness is the great Womb from which all things are generated. [257] She questions whether a male savior can save women and expounds an androgynous Christology. Christ is not necessarily male and we encounter Him (Her?) in the form of our sister. [258] God is She in whom we live and move and have our being. [259] Virginia Ramey Mollenkott writes of God as the God who has breasts, who breastfeeds the universe. [260] Mary Daly dismisses biblical language (“After the Death of God the Father”), exonerates Eve from wrongdoing (“The Fall into Freedom”), questions whether a male Christ can be a role model for today’s woman (“Beyond Christolatry: A World Without Models”), undermines biblical ethics (“The End of Phallic Morality”), and champions a freedom outside of historic Christianity (“Sisterhood as Antichurch”). [261] At the cutting edge of all of this is the revival of ancient goddess religion, which some feminists see as the first stirrings of a new stage of human consciousness. [262]
Evangelical scholar Elizabeth Achtemeier offers the following responses to the arguments of the radical feminists: [263] First, biblical scholars all agree that the true God, i.e., the God of the Bible, has no sexuality. Sexuality is an aspect of the created order (Gen. 1–2) and is confined within the limits of that order (Matt. 22:30). The Bible consistently pictures God as totally “other” than the creation—He is holy, i.e., “set apart” from what He has made (Hos. 11:9; Isa. 31:3; 40:18). [264] By insisting on female language for God, the radical feminists are promoting the unbiblical view that God has sexuality. This distorts the biblical understanding of God “who is without sexual characteristics.”
Second, as literary critic Roland Frye has demonstrated, the few instances of feminine imagery for God in the Bible take the form of simile, not metaphor. A simile compares one aspect of something to another. For example, in Isaiah 42:14, God cries out “like a woman in travail.” In this text it is His crying out that is being referred to, not His being as a whole. In a metaphor, however, the whole of a being is compared to the whole of another. God is Father, and Jesus is the Good Shepherd. “The basic distinction lies between the operations of simile/comparing (mother) and the metaphor/naming (father), and the meanings they convey.” [265]
Third, the Bible uses masculine terminology for God because that is the terminology with which God has revealed Himself. “The biblical, Christian faith is a revealed religion. It claims no knowledge of God beyond the knowledge God has given of Himself through His words and deeds in the histories of Israel and of Jesus Christ and His church.” [266] Contrary to modern theologians who claim that God is the great Unknown, [267] and that we must invent language for God, “the God of the Bible has revealed Himself in five principal metaphors: King [Ps. 10:16; 24:8, 10], Father [Acts 1:4, 7], Judge [Gen. 18:25; Ps. 50:6], Husband [Hos. 2], and Master [Col. 4:1], and then finally, decisively, as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” [268] When the question is asked, “What is the ontological nature of God?” our answer must be, “God is the Father of Jesus Christ.” Kimel explains,
God is not just like a father; He is the Father. Jesus is not just like a son; He is the Son. The divine Fatherhood and Sonship are absolute, transcendent, and correlative.… The relationship between Christ Jesus and His Father, lived out in the conditions of first-century Palestine and eternally established in the resurrection and ascension of our Lord, belongs to the inner life of God. It constitutes the identity of the Almighty Creator.… “Father” is not a metaphor imported by humanity onto the screen of eternity; it is a name and filial term of address revealed by God Himself in the person of His Son.… No matter how other groups of human beings may choose to speak to the Deity, the matter is already decided for Christians, decided by God Himself. To live in Christ in the triune being of the Godhead is to worship and adore the holy Transcendence whom Jesus knows as His Father. [269]Fourth, “God is not just any god, capable of being named according to human fancy.” [270] This is one of the lessons of the great Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4. God is not just any god—one of the diffuse gods known around the world. He is one particular God. He is Yahweh, “the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exod. 20:2). The God of the Exodus, Jesus asserts, is His Father (Mark 12:29–30). One cannot pull names out of a hat and name God to suit the shifting sands of a godless culture. God has defined Himself and revealed Himself, and this knowledge is found in the inspired Word of God.
Fifth, although God is spirit (John 4:24) He has revealed Himself in personal terms. Yes, God has revealed Himself using impersonal metaphors (e.g., Rock, Fire, Water, Bread, Way, Door, and Fortress), and these vividly describe His many characteristics. Yet the principal revelation of God shows Him to be supremely personal. A rock or a door can demand nothing of us, but our God calls for total commitment, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deut. 6:5). “No impersonal designations…can adequately express that gracious and demanding relationship of love with Himself into which God woos and calls us.” [271]
Sixth, God’s revelation of Himself in masculine terms is in marked contrast to the world’s religious traditions. In those traditions female deities are often worshipped, and such goddess worship identifies God with the world. The true God, on the other hand, is transcendent and to be distinguished from the world. Elaine Pagels states that “the absence of feminine symbolism of God marks Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in striking contrast to the world’s other religious traditions, whether in Egypt, Babylonia, Greece and Rome, or Africa, Polynesia, India, and North America.” [272] Ancient Israel was surrounded by nations that worshipped female deities, and the revelation of God in masculine terms made Israel unique. Among contemporary radical feminists classic monotheism is jettisoned for goddess theology which is at heart pantheistic. Virginia Mollenkott writes of “the God with Breasts,” “the undivided One God who births and breast-feeds the universe.” [273] The United Church of Christ’s Book of Worship includes these words in a prayer, “You have brought us forth from the womb of your being.” In such theology, Achtemeier says, “A female goddess has given birth to the world!” [274] Budapest writes, “This is what the Goddess symbolizes—the divine within women and all that is female in the universe.… The responsibility you accept is that you are divine, and that you have power.” [275] Achtemeier wisely concludes, “If God is identified with His creation, we finally make ourselves gods and goddesses—the ultimate and primeval sin, according to Genesis 3 and the rest of the Scriptures.” [276]
In the Old Testament There are Other Indications of the Doctrine of the Trinity [277]
The Plural Name
The NT teaching that there are three persons in the Godhead may shed light, Christians believe, on certain mysterious elements of the OT revelation. [278] For example, although the OT is strongly monotheistic it commonly uses a plural form of the word God (אֱוֹּהִים, ʾĕlōhîm) when speaking of the one true God. [279] This plural form is used, for example, in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” [280]
The plural has been variously understood. First, it has been explained as a vestige of a time when Israel’s ancestors were polytheistic. [281] Second, it has been understood to be meaningless, i.e., it is a plural form with a singular meaning. [282] Third, it has been understood to designate not a plurality, but an intensification, i.e., the “great,” “highest,” and “only” God. [283] Fourth, it has been viewed as a plural of majesty, i.e., the one true God is spoken of in an honorific way.284 Yet another view is that it denotes plenitude of might, i.e., God is the almighty fountain and source of all things. [285]
A final understanding of the plural is that it suggests a plurality in the Godhead that is only explained by the revelation of the Trinity in the NT. Proponents of this view offer the following arguments: (1) The word is a genuine plural when used of heathen gods [Exod. 20:3], [286] (2) There are singular forms of God used of Yahweh [ל (ʾēl) [287] and אֱלוֹץַ (ʾĕlôah)]. [288] (3) The so-called honorific plural of majesty is grammatically possible, [289] but is contextually improbable in a context like Genesis 1:26 (“let Us make man in Our image”), where the Hebrew has one verb in the plural [נַעֲשֶׂה, naʾăśeh, “let Us make”] and two nouns with plural suffixes [בְּצַלְנוּ, beṣalmênu, “in Our image;” and כִּדְמוּנוּ, kidmûtēnû, “according to Our likeness”]. [290] (4) The NT teaches that there is a plurality of persons in the Godhead. In short, the plural אֱוֹּהִים is used “to cover an aspect of the Godhead which is specifically Hebraic, viz., the conception that God is both singular and plural at one and the same time.” [291]
The Plural Pronouns
The idea that God exists as more than one person is further suggested in the OT by the use of plural verbs and pronouns for God. Even though אֱוֹּהִים is a plural form it was understood in biblical Hebrew (when used of Israel’s God) to refer to one God. One would therefore expect that singular pronouns would be used to refer to God. In four passages of the OT, however, the plural pronoun is used (Gen. 1:26; 3:22; 11:7; Isa. 6:8).
The classic text is Genesis 1:26, “Let Us make man in Our image.” Here both the verb (“make”) and the pronoun (“our”) are plural. [292] This has been explained in at least six ways by scholars: [293] (1) As an unassimilated fragment of myth, i.e., Genesis 1:26 is a holdover from ancient polytheistic mythologies. [294] (2) As an address to the creation, i.e., God addressed Himself to the earth from which man’s body would be made, while God Himself would contribute the spiritual part of man’s being. [295] (3) As a plural of majesty, i.e., God, like an ancient monarch, issues commands in an honorific way with the royal “we” (e.g., Ezra 4:18). [296] (4) As an address to the heavenly court, i.e., God consulted with the angels of the heavenly court. [297] (5) As a plural of self-deliberation, self-exhortation, i.e., God speaks to Himself as in colloquial English (“Let’s see,” or “Let’s go”). [298]
The sixth view, and the correct one, in my opinion, is that the plural suggests plurality in the Godhead. [299] The “let us” suggests “the cooperation of the Godhead in the work of creation.” [300] While it is true that Moses was not schooled in the intricacies of Trinitarian theology, what he says is certainly compatible with it. The text does not say whether God is addressing His Spirit (Gen. 1:2) or Wisdom (Prov. 8), but it does suggest some kind of distinction in the divine nature. [301] Barth wrote, “It may be stated that an approximation to Christian doctrine of the Trinity—the picture of a God who is the one and only God, yet who is not for that reason solitary, but includes in Himself the differentiation and relationship of I and Thou—is both nearer to the text and does it more justice than the alternative suggested by modern exegesis in its arrogant rejection of the exegesis of the Early Church.” [302]
The Plurality of “Lords”
In two important passages in the Book of Psalms one person is called “God” or “the Lord” and is distinguished from another person who is also called “God” or “the Lord.” In Psalm 45:6 the psalmist writes, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.” [303] Then, still speaking to God, the psalmist goes on, “God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of joy above Your fellows” (v. 7). [304] In the NT the author of Hebrews (1:8) interprets Psalm 45:6 in a Trinitarian fashion and applies it to Jesus Christ, “Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever.” [305]
In Psalm 110: 1, David wrote, “The Lord (Yahweh) says to my Lord (ʾād̠ôn), ‘Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.’” In a highly charged encounter with the Pharisees Jesus clearly interpreted David to mean that there were two separate persons who were called, “Lord” (Matt. 22:41–46). Who was David’s Lord if not God Himself? And who could say to God, “Sit at My right hand” except someone who was also God? From the perspective of fulfilled prophecy in the NT we know that it was God the Father who said to God the Son, “Sit at My right hand” (Heb. 1:3; 8:1; 10:12). In short, Psalm 110:1 does suggest a plurality of persons in one God. [306]
The Son of Yahweh
In spite of the monotheism of the OT, at least one passage ascribes a Son to Yahweh. Proverbs 30:4 asks a series of wondering questions about the transcendence of God. One of his questions is, “What is His name or His son’s name?” Interpreters have long puzzled over the identity of this figure. [307] Many have concluded that in Agur’s words the NT doctrine of the Son of God announces itself from afar. [308]
It should be noted that others are called God’s “sons” in the OT. Angels are called sons of God (e.g., Job 2:1); Israel is called God’s son (Exod. 4:22; Hos. 11:1); Solomon is called God’s son (2 Sam. 7:14); and Messiah is called God’s Son (Ps. 2:7). It is clear that in these contexts deity is not being ascribed to the “son” of Yahweh. Yet speaking about a son of Yahweh may suggest a divine person, and some believe that is the case in Proverbs 30:4. [309]
The Angel of the Lord (of Yahweh)
Yet another intimation of plurality in the Godhead may come from various references to the angel of the Lord (מַלְאָךְ יְהֹוָה, malʾāk yhwh). [310] Although there are numerous references to angels in the OT, on a number of occasions he seems to be more than one of God’s angelic creatures.
The arguments in favor of identifying the angel of the Lord as a divine person are these: [311] First, He identifies Himself as Yahweh. This is true, for example, in the stories of Abraham (Gen. 22:11, 16) and Jacob (Gen. 31:11, 13). On these occasions He spoke both for and as God. Second, He is identified as God by others. This is true in the stories of Hagar (Gen. 16:9, 13) and Joseph (Gen. 48:15–16). Third, He is distinguished from Yahweh, as in the story of Balaam and his donkey (Num. 22:22, 31) and in the story of Gideon (Judg. 6:11–23). Fourth, although Scripture teaches that only God is to be worshipped (Exod. 34:14), the Angel of the Lord accepts acts of reverence and worship (Exod. 3:2, 5; Judg. 13:18–20). Finally, divine knowledge and actions are attributed to Him (Judg. 13:7, 19).
Many Christian interpreters have concluded that the Angel of the Lord is the preincarnate Christ. [312] Arguing without NT revelation one can hardly deduce the doctrine of the Trinity, but the data, once again, suggests a plurality in the Godhead. [313]
The Deity of Messiah
Additional evidence suggesting a plurality in the Godhead is the OT teaching about the coming Messiah, the anointed king who would sit on David’s throne. [314] Three key passages suggest that the Messiah is God. In Isaiah 9:6–7 the prophet speaks of a child who will be born and who will establish the throne of David. Remarkably he also calls this child, “Mighty God” (ל גִּבּוֹר, ʾēl gibbôr). Young wrote, “By means of the words yeled, ‘child,’ and yullad, ‘is born,’ he has called attention to the Messiah’s humanity, but by the phrase ʾel gibbor we are brought face to face with Messiah’s deity.” [315]
In a similar fashion Jeremiah makes an announcement concerning a future time in which Messiah, a king from the Davidic line, will restore the kingdom of Israel and Judah (Jer. 23:5–6). The name of this king will be, “the Lord our righteousness” (יהוה צִדְנוּ, yhwh ̣id̠qēnû). Many commentators take this to mean that Messiah is the one by whom Yahweh deals righteously. [316] Others take the expression as a proper name, and they argue that Messiah is not only presented as the righteous king but as deity. He is called, “the Lord our righteousness” because He is God who saves His people and deals righteously with them. [317]
The third text is Micah 5:2, also a Messianic passage as the Jewish leaders affirmed in Matthew 2:4–6. The prophet looked on to a glorious future in which Messiah would arise in Bethlehem, the birthplace of the Davidic dynasty. He added that this future ruler would be a person of great antiquity. “His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity.” This is “strong evidence that Micah expected a supernatural figure.” [318] As Keil remarked, “The announcement of the origin of this Ruler as being before all worlds unquestionably presupposes His divine nature.” [319]
Assuming that one or more of these three texts does attribute deity to the Messiah, one might ask how the evidence is to be evaluated. [320] There is the possibility that Messiah is just another term for Yahweh, i.e., there is only one person in the Godhead who can be called, “Messiah,” “Yahweh,” or a variety of other names. Such a conclusion is rendered impossible by those OT passages in which Messiah is distinguished from God. In Psalm 2 the Messiah is the king whom God has installed upon Zion. He is God’s Son and therefore distinct from God. Likewise in Psalm 45:7 Messiah is anointed by God and distinguished from Him. The OT leaves the puzzle unsolved. How can Messiah be God and yet distinguished from God? All that can be said from the OT revelation is that there seems to be some kind of plurality in the Godhead.
The Spirit as Distinct from God
“The New Testament writers identify their ‘Holy Spirit’ with the ‘Spirit of God’ of the older books.” [321] It was He whom the Israelites resisted in the wilderness (Acts 7:51). He gave Israel its ritual service (Heb. 9:8), and He caused men of old to write the Scriptures (2 Pet. 1:21). The anointing Spirit of Isaiah 61:1 is the same Spirit who descended upon Jesus at His baptism (Luke 4:18–19), and the Spirit promised by Joel (2:27–28) is the same Spirit who descended upon the disciples on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:16).
The full deity and distinct personality of the Spirit are part of NT revelation to be sure. In the OT there are hints pointing toward the NT doctrine. There is, says Warfield, a “sort of objectifying of the Spirit over against God,” a tendency toward hypostatizing or personifying the Spirit. [322] There are a number of passages in which the Spirit is distinct from God. In Exodus 31:3 Yahweh tells Moses that He has filled Bezalel with the Spirit of God. In Exodus 35:30–31 Moses says the same thing of Bezalel. As Balaam looked at the tribes of Israel, “the Spirit of God came upon him” (Num. 24:2). Later Moses is told to commission Joshua, “a man in whom is the Spirit” (Num. 27:18–19). Job speaks of the Spirit of God as his Creator (Job 33:4), and David pleads, “Do not take Your Holy Spirit from me” (Ps. 51:11). Isaiah 61:1 also distinguishes the Spirit from God, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me.” The tendency toward personifying the Spirit is seen in Isaiah 48:16, “The Lord God has sent Me, and His Spirit.” Here the Spirit of the Lord, like the servant of the Lord, has been sent by God on a mission. [323] Isaiah 63:10 says, “But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit.” This suggests that the Spirit is distinct from God and that He can be grieved. [324] To sum up, a number of OT texts seem to intimate that the Holy Spirit is divine, distinct from God and personal. [325]
The Wisdom of God (Personal, Distinct from God, Eternal)
The OT personified divine Wisdom, i.e., it spoke of Wisdom as if it were a hypostasis, i.e., an actual heavenly person. For example, in Proverbs 8 (vv. 22–31) Wisdom speaks as if it was the person, the master craftsman through whom God created the earth. Wisdom says, “The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His way, before His works of old. From everlasting I was established, from the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth;…then I was beside Him” (NASB mg.). [326]
Kidner, who concludes that wisdom is here conceived of as a personification, i.e., an abstraction, made personal for the sake of poetic vividness, nevertheless concedes, “But if this is how the poem should be read in its immediate context, there is also a wider setting. The New Testament shows by its allusions to this passage (Col. 1:15–17; 2:3; Rev. 3:14) that the personifying of wisdom, far from overshooting the literal truth, was a preparation for its full statement, since the agent of creation was no mere activity of God, but the Son, His eternal Word, Wisdom and Power (see also John 1:1–14; 1 Cor. 1:24, 30; Heb. 1:1–4).” [327]
A Diversity in Unity
In Israel’s Great Confession (Deut. 6:4), “The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!” the word translated “one” is the numerical adjective אֶחֱד (ʾeḥād). It occurs about 960 times in various contexts, and its predominant use is to designate something that is numerically one. [328]
There are a number of instances, however, where this word can indicate a compound unity. The union of evening and morning in one day (Gen. 1:5, 8, 13), the union of Adam and Eve in “one flesh,” [329] the gathering of all the people in one assembly (Ezra 2:64), the treatment of fifty gold clasps as a unit (Ex. 26:6, 11), and the joining of two sticks to represent the union of Judah and Ephraim in a single nation (Ezek 37:17, 19, 22) are all examples of this usage. [330] In light of the NT teaching of three persons in the one Godhead, some scholars have cautiously suggested that אֶחֱד in Deuteronomy 6:4 may represent diversity in unity, i.e., the compound unity of the Triune God. [331]
The Trisagion of Isaiah 6:3
In Isaiah 6 the prophet Isaiah records the vision that would give shape and direction to the whole course of his ministry. The Seraphim who attend Yahweh respond in worship to His holiness, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts.” Modern commentators are very cautious about suggesting that Isaiah saw the Trinity in the trilogy of praise (“Holy, Holy, Holy”). [332]
One need not assume, however, that Isaiah saw a reference to the Trinity to say that there was one. Delitzsch asks, “Did this thrice-holy refer to the triune God?” He answers in the affirmative. “The fact that three is the number of developed and yet self-contained unity, has its ultimate ground in the circumstance that it is the number of the trinitarian process; and consequently the trilogy (trisagion) of the seraphim (like that of the cherubim in Rev. 4:8), whether Isaiah was aware of it or no, really pointed in the distinct consciousness of the spirits themselves to the triune God.” [333]
Oswalt says, “There is nothing in the context to cause us to take this as a reference to the Trinity.” [334] That is true if we ignore all other biblical evidence for the Trinity. If Isaiah 6 stood alone then the threefold, “Holy, Holy, Holy” would be merely emphatic. However, Isaiah does not stand alone. It is a book of Messianic prophecy, and Messiah has come, and we have the New Testament record to guide us. Let me, in light of the NT, make the following five observations: (1) The seraphim do use the threefold, “Holy, Holy, Holy.” (2) In verse 8 the Lord, using the plural, asks, “Who will go for Us?” [335] (3) The title “Lord of Hosts,” all would agree, includes God the Father. (4) In referring to this scene, John observed, “These things Isaiah said because he saw His [i.e., Christ’s] glory, and he spoke of Him” [John 12:41]. (5) In Acts 28:25 the Apostle Paul saw in the same scene the presence of the Holy Spirit. “The Holy Spirit rightly spoke through Isaiah the prophet to your fathers, saying… ‘Otherwise they might see with their eyes…and I would heal them.’” [336] These observations may indicate that there is an allusion to the Trinity in Isaiah 6.
Conclusion
The Mystery of the Doctrine of the Trinity
It is Inscrutable
The difficulty of the doctrine is illustrated by evangelical writer, Marguerite Shuster, using the “new math.” If one is working in base three, one plus one plus one looks suspiciously like “10” to the uninitiated. Or “11, ” if one is working in base two. It’s so confusing that most old-timers are quickly driven back to the old math, where one plus one plus one always equals a nice familiar three. My generation agrees that things were simpler in the good old days. In this article, however, we have been discussing what Shuster calls, “the oldest math of all.” In the oldest math, one plus one plus one equals one. “Before you or I existed, before any human being existed, before a world or a universe or a cloud of hot gasses existed, from all eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were and are one God. One plus one plus one equals one.” [337]
There have been many analogies suggested over the centuries, but almost all have been judged to be inadequate.338 Yet the Trinity is certainly intelligible in some of its manifestations, e.g., the creating work of the Father, the saving work of Christ, and the sanctifying work of the Spirit. But the various ways to explain the mystery of the oneness in threeness and threeness in oneness are somewhat speculative. We can only follow the guidelines of those who have gone before in avoiding the destructive heresies of the past.
It is Not Self-Contradictory
In spite of its difficulty, the doctrine is not a contradictory one. We are not saying that God is three Gods and one God at the same time. Contrary to the oft-repeated barb of the Unitarians, Trinitarians can count! Our doctrine would be contradictory if we said that God was three in the same numerical sense in which we said He was one. But, we do not. We simply assert that the God who is one in essence is three with respect to persons.
The Importance of the Doctrine of the Trinity
Theological Significance [339]
The Doctrine of the Trinity is Essential for a Proper Understanding of God
The doctrine makes three points clear. First, it explains the Lord Jesus Christ, and that alone makes the doctrine vital. The doctrine of the Trinity, said Pannenberg, “is not a doctrine of secondary importance” to other concepts about God. He goes on to say that it can be defended “only on the condition that there is no other appropriate conception of the God of the Christian faith than the Trinity.” If the doctrine is sound, then the three persons are God, and everything said in Christian theology about God is said of them in their eternal union. Pannenberg’s point is Christological. This doctrine “simply states explicitly what is implicit already in God’s revelation in Jesus Christ and basically in Jesus’ historical relationship to the Father whom He proclaimed to be the one true God. “If Jesus’ relationship to the Father could be adequately described and accounted for in other terms than those of trinitarian doctrine, the case for that doctrine would be lost.” [340]
Second, it guards against all of mankind’s false notions of God. Barth comments, “There can be protection against atheism, polytheism, pantheism or dualism only with the doctrine of the Trinity” [341] Antitrinitarianism seems to inevitably lead to one of those false belief systems.
Third, the doctrine of the Trinity assures us that God is truly personal. One of the most wonderful statements in the Bible is, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Such a thing is impossible in the abstract and radical monotheism of Islam, for love requires an object. God, says Shedd, is “not a unit, but a unity.” Love, joy, and communion require a society of persons. [342]
The Doctrine of the Trinity is Essential for a Proper Revelation of God
“Without the doctrine of the Trinity we go back to mere natural religion and the far-off God of deism.” [343] Without the Trinity we cannot know God, and God cannot be revealed. The deity of the Spirit and the Son are vital here. [344]
Paul says, “The thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:11). Paul’s logic is that because the Spirit is divine, He knows the very thoughts of God. And because He knows them He can tell them to us (v. 12; cf. John 16:13). He guided men so that they could not only receive revelation but record that revelation in the Scriptures (2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:21).
Similarly, the NT stresses that we have something unique with the Son-type of revelation found in Scripture (Heb. 1:2). He shares the attributes of His Father (Heb. 1:3); all the fullness of deity resides in Him (Col. 2:9). He has an intimacy with God that is unparalleled (John 1:18). If He is not truly God (John 1:1), then the revelation He gave is from one who is only like God and not truly God. [345]
The Doctrine of the Trinity is Essential for a Proper Redemption from God
Paul and the author of Hebrews tell us that the Lord Jesus Christ is our “mediator” (1 Tim. 2:5; Heb. 8:6; 9:15; 12:24). He is the perfect “middle-man” between God and the sinner. Because of His human nature He can die as our sin bearer; because of His deity His death has infinite value. Bishop Handley Moule said, “A Savior not quite God is a bridge broken at the farther end.”346 In the Trinitarian theology of the Bible there is a wonderful unity of purpose in the redemption of people. God planned it and sent His Son. The Son accomplished our redemption on the Cross, and the Spirit applies the benefits to believing sinners. Students of theology have long noted that a departure from Trinitarianism leads to defection in other areas of theology, e.g., in one’s estimate of sin, the dignity of Christ, and the need for a substitutionary atonement. In fact, substitution is impossible without the Trinity.
Practical Significance
The Trinity Provides an Impetus to Worship
Love that caused us first to be,
Love that bled upon the tree,
Love that draws us lovingly:
We beseech Thee, hear us.347
Father of heaven, whose love profound
A ransom for our souls hath found…
Almighty Son, Incarnate Word,
Our, Prophet, Priest, Redeemer, Lord…
Eternal Spirit, by whose breath
The soul is raised from sin and death.348
Paul Jewett said there are certain “ground rules” for students of the Trinity as they seek to describe the activites of the persons of our Triune God.349 These three “ground rules” can be modified as guidelines for Christian worship: We should, first of all, not be unitarian in our worship. We should gladly pray to the Father (Matt. 6:9), through the Son (Col. 3:17), in the leading of the Holy Spirit (Eph. 6:18)—ever mindful that ours is the Triune God. Second, as we speak of the works of each person, we should not violate the unity of God and think and speak as if there were three Gods. God is One, unified in essence, redemptive purpose, and revelation. The glorious description of our salvation in Ephesians 1 is a case in point—the Father chooses us, the Son redeems us by His blood, and the Holy Spirit seals us. Third, we should not blur the distinctions; they are real. Just as the Son is not the Father, and the Father is not the Son, so the Father is not the Savior who was crucified for us, nor is the Son the One who sanctifies us. An illustration of this point is the person who leads the congregation in prayer to the Father and then thanks Him for dying on the Cross for our sins—the Father did not die for our sins! [350]
Finally, let us remember that when we were baptized in the “Great Name,” we were announcing our adoption into the joy and warmth of the family of God.
The Trinity Provides a Model for Life
Of all the analogies of the Trinity the one that has biblical support is that of the family. The very idea of “fatherhood” and “sonship” are derived from the persons of the Godhead (cf. Eph. 3:15). [351] One of the miracles of our salvation is that the Lord Jesus Christ wants His people to be brought into familial communion as “sons” with the living God (John 17:21; cf. 1:12–13). The unity and diversity that we see in the divine family of Father, Son, and Spirit offer a model for the many relationships of human life. [352]
For married people the Triune God models both diversity—distinct persons with distinct roles—and unity of purpose. The Apostle Paul says the relationship of the Father and Son, with the Father exercising authority over the Son, is a picture of the husband and wife role wherein headship is exercised by the husband. Both are equally human (Gen. 1:26), but both exercise different functions (1 Cor. 11:3).
For Christians involved in the vital reality of church life the Trinity is a model. There is diversity (“many members”), and there is to be unity (“one body”), (1 Cor. 12:12). There should be no rancor or jealousy over differences. In the one body there are different sexes, different races (Eph. 2:16), and different gifts (1 Cor. 12:12–26). All “alienations get transformed into delightful complementarities.” [353] In the mysterious union of Christ and His church (Eph. 5:31–32) there is a wondrous union with Christ, a union in which we do not lose our individual identities.
ADDENDUM Μονογενής in John’s Gospel, The Translation Debate: A Survey of the Arguments in the Secondary Literature
Wayne Grudem, in a recent printing of his superb Systematic Theology, explains why he rejects the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son. It is because of a common misunderstanding of the word μονογενής, which, he says, has been wrongly interpreted. [354] The adjective μονογενής is used nine times in the NT, five times in the Johannine literature (John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9), and four times elsewhere (Luke 7:12; 8:42; 9:38; Heb. 11:17). The question at hand is how the word is to be translated in John’s Gospel. There are two points of view: The majority, [355] as Grudem notes, argue that it means “unique,” “one of a kind,” or “only,” and a vocal minority argue that it means, “only begotten.” [356] In the following discussion the major arguments favoring the current majority view are set forth in the left-hand column, and the counter arguments favoring “only begotten” are set forth in the right-hand column.
Arguments Set Forth to Defend “Unique,” “One of a Kind,” “Only”
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Arguments Set Forth to Defend “Only Begotten” or “Only Child” [357]
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1. Assertion: Etymologically, μονογενής is from μόνος (“only,” “single”) + γένος (“kind”). The noun γένος is derived from γίνομαι (early Class. form is γίγνομαι, [358] but in NT times this had lost the early sexual sense of the root γεν- (“to beget”). Similar adjectives illustrate the sense “kind,” e.g., θηλυγενής (“of female sex”), ὁμογενής (“of the same kind”), ἑτερογενής (“of different kind”).
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1. Response: Etymologically, the root γεν- is closely related to γενν-, the root of γεννάω (“to bring forth by birth”). The related γίγνομαι (later γίνομαι) is connected to the notion of birth (Rom. 1:3; Gal. 4:4). The idea of begetting or derivation would seem to be in the foreground when γένος is understood as “offspring” (Rev. 22:16; Acts 18:24). Similar adjectives to μονογενής illustrate the sense “born,” e.g., αἰθρηγενής, “born in the air,” διογενής, “sprung from Zeus,” παλαιγενής, “born long ago,” εὐγενής, “well born.” It makes no difference whatsoever, so far as the idea of generation is concerned, whether we say “born” or “begotten.” [359]
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2. Assertion: The double nu (μονογέννητος, adj.) would be necessary for the sense “only begotten.” [360]
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2. Response: The word μονογέννητος nowhere occurs in Greek. This leaves open the possibility that it does not occur because μονογενής was commonly used with the meaning “only begotten.” Furthermore, as Moulton and Milligan elsewhere recognize, the term γένος and compounds with -γενής do have the significance of “offspring” or “born.” [361]
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3. Assertion: The widow of Nain’s son (Luke 7:12) is called μονογενής, and the word must there be translated “only,” for she could not have begotten him—begetting is a male function. [362]
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3. Response: To call the widow of Nain’s son her μονογενής with the sense “‘only begotten’ would not require that she did the begetting.” Elsewhere the verb γεννάω is used of children begotten of women (Matt. 1:3, 16). Furthermore, the verb γεννάω is not limited to the male function (Luke 1:13, 57). [363]
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5. Assertion: In early Nicene times and before, μονογενής did not by itself mean “only begotten.” The idea of generation was indicated by μονογενής and certain supplementary expressions. For example, the Synod of Antioch (ad 269) affirms, “We confess…the Son as begotten, an only Son [γεννητόν, υἱὸν μονογενῆ].” [366]
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5. Response: Three observations suggest that this contention is not easily justified: (1) Justin Martyr [AD 100–165] states that Christ was “monogenēs of the Father of all things, being begotten of him in a peculiar manner as word and power [Dialogue with Trypho 105]. This statement seems to assume that μονογενής includes the idea of generation and goes on to explain how this generation is to be understood. (2) Μονογενής is translated by the single term unigenitus (“only begotten”) in Tertullian’s Against Praxeas 15. Tertullian [ad 160–225] explained the term unigenitus as meaning “alone begotten of God” (ut solus ex Deo genitus, Against Praxeas 7). (3) Μονογενής is also translated unigenitus in the Latin text of Irenaeus [ad 130–200]. [367]
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6. Assertion: In 1 Clement 25.2, a writing contemporaneous with the Gospel of John, it says of the mythical phoenix, “There is a bird which is called the Phoenix. This is the only one of its kind (μονογενής), and lives 500 years.” It is evident that the Phoenix was neither born nor begotten, but it was unique. In defending the translation, “alone of its kind, unique,” Lightfoot quotes Milton who speaks of “that self-begotten bird…that no second knows nor third.” [368]
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7. Response: The claim that unicus was used first in Latin translations is questionable due to the uncertainty as to the date of Old Latin texts. Furthermore, it is not certain that unicus excludes the connotation of derivation. For example, in John 1:14 the Old Latin renders the single term μονογενής by unici filii (“only son”), that is with an image involving derivation. This is certainly true in an era when “son” as applied to Christ was assumed to refer to His generation. This assumption is quite clear in the writings of the apologists of the second century. The use of unigenitus by Tertullian and the Latin text of Irenaeus has already been noted. That no conflict was felt in that era between unicus and unigenitus is indicated by the fact that Latin texts using unicus continued to be issued and used long after Jerome. [371]
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8. Assertion: Jerome’s rendering unigenitus was due to the influence of such Nicene fathers as Gregory of Nazianzus (ad 329–90). In His Oration 29 (ad 379–81) Gregory refers to the Father as “Begetter” (γεννήτωρ) and the Son as “Begotten” (γέννημα). In resistance to Arianism’s view that the Son had a beginning, Jerome adopted unigenitus. Another Nicene father, Epiphanius (ad 315–403), in his work Ancoratus (“the Anchored One”), set forth in two creeds the Nicene faith. In the second he takes two words in the accusative case (γεννηθέντα + μονογενῆ) to say “only begotten” because μονογενής has to do with uniqueness rather than conception. He writes, γεννηθέντα ἐκ θεοῢ Πατρὸς μονογενῆ. Jerome read the two words into one, viz., μονογενής. [372
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9. Response: It is true that Abraham had other sons, but only of Isaac is it said that he “begot” (ἐγέννησεν) him (Gen. 25:19, LXX). This marks Isaac out as the exclusive heir of the promise. The verb γεννάω does seem to be linked to legal descent (Ps. 2:7, LXX; Matt. 1:8), as is the word μονογενής in Tobit 3:15 (OT Apocrypha). According to the Targum of Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 21, “In Isaac shall sons be called unto thee; and this son of the handmaid shall not be genealogized after thee.” The Targum on Genesis 22 describes Isaac as the son of Abraham’s wife, whereas Ishmael is said to be the son of Sarah’s handmaid. Philo says of Abraham, “He had begotten no son in the truest sense but Isaac” (On Abraham 194). As for the translation μονογενής for ן יָחִיד in Genesis 22, it should be noted that no existing manuscript of the LXX has such a reading. [375]
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10. Response: L. H. Feldman, in the Loeb edition of Josephus (vol. 10) offers a translation which undermines the view that μονογενής must mean “favorite” in this passage. He translates, “It was clear that all his favor was concentrated on Izates as if he were an only child (ὡς εἰς μονογενῆ).” [377]
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12. Response: It is hard to see why this argument nullifies the translation “only begotten.” Christ is not simply the favorite or special son. His relationship is ontologically different from that of believers. Three observations are in order: (1) In verse 12 the word for “children” is τέκνα. In the Johannine literature the word τέκνον is never used of Christ’s relation to God, just as the word υἱός is never used of the relationship of Christians to God. (2) In John 1:14 the term “Father” is used not of God’s relationship to believers, but of His relationship to the divine Son. It is true that believers are “children of God” [John 1:12; 11:52; 1 John 3:1, 2, 10; 5:2] and “born of God” [John 1:13; 1 John 3:9; 4:7; 5:1, 4, 18], but the designation “Father” never occurs in those contexts. In the nearest thing to an exception [John 20:17] Christ actually places Himself in a different relationship to the Father than that of His followers. He speaks of “My Father and your Father [of]…My God and your God,” but not of “our Father.” (3) The phrase παρὰ πατρός in 1:14 (contrast the παρὰ θεοῢ of John the Baptist in 1:6) therefore provides another reason to believe that Jesus’ Sonship is different from the relationship of believers to God. That He is unique we do not deny. That His uniqueness lies in a “one of a kind” relationship to God (“only-begottenness”) we also affirm. [380]
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Significance of the Translation, “Unique,” “One of a Kind,” “Only”
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Significance of the Translation, “Only Begotten”
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“He stands to the Father in a relation wholly singular. He is the one and only Son, the one to whom the title belongs in a sense completely unique and peculiar. The thought is centered in the Personal existence of the Son, and not in the Generation of the Son.” The word stresses “the uniqueness of the Nature of the Son.” [385] “Jesus is not only God’s Son, which connotes derivation, relationship, and loving obedience, but the Father’s ‘unique’ Son, which is John’s way of expressing the Lord’s qualitatively superior sonship.” [386] In what way is the Son “unique?
Due to His relation to the Father (He is the μονογενής, cf. John 1:14, 18; 3:16). He is the unique Son of God.
1. Due to His relation to the Father (He is the μονογενής, cf. John 1:14, 18; 3:16). He is the unique Son of God.
2. Due to His mission. He is the mediator of salvation (1 John 4:9; John 3:16, 18).
3. Due to the revelation which He gives (John 1:18; 3:13; 6:46; 8:38, 55; 14:6, 9). [387]
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He is eternally the Son, as the great sending passages make clear (John 3:16–17; Rom. 8:3–4; Gal. 4:4; 1 John 4:9–10). As F. F. Bruce argued, “If the Spirit was the Spirit before God sent Him, the Son was presumably the Son before God sent Him.” [388]
Μονογενής is a title of revelation, i.e., it tells us something about His relationship to the Father. It suggests that they are the same in nature, and it suggests that He is like His Father. It also suggests that there is a reciprocal love that is that of a Father and a Son. [389]
The term μονογενής originated with Christ Himself (cf. John 3:16, 18). It is parallel to Paul’s term πρωτότοκος (“first born,” Col. 1:15). In μονογενής the incommunicable relation of the Son to the Father predominates; in πρωτότοκος, His relation to the world. In μονογενής the ontological idea of the Trinity rules; in πρωτότοκος, the functional and soteriological. Μονογενής denotes “the only begotten,” but it thereby makes Christ also “the peculiarly begotten” (Tholuck), who is “the principle of all other births and regenerations” (J. P. Lange). In John 1:14 and 18 the term μονογενής refers back to τέκνα θεοῢ (John 1:12) and marks the difference between Christ and the believers: (1) He is the only Son in a sense in which there is no other; they are many; (2) He is Son from eternity; they become children in time; (3) He is Son by nature; they are made sons by grace and by adoption; (4) He is of the same essence with the Father; they are of a different substance; in other words, His is a metaphysical, primitive and co-essential sonship; theirs only an ethical and derived sonship. The idea of generation, as Meyer correctly remarks, is implied in the very term μονογενής. It means the same thing as ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῢ πατρός. [390] “This leads logically to the Nicene dogma of the homoousia and the eternal generation, i.e., the eternal communion of love between the Father and the Son.” [391] Luther said, “God has many sons and daughters besides; but He has only one only-begotten Son, of whom it is said that all was created through Him.” [392]
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Notes
- This is article one in a six-part series on the subject, “Understanding the Trinity.” The six articles were originally lectures delivered at a symposium on the Trinity held at Emmaus Bible College on October 10-12, 2002.
- Robert South, Works of Robert South (Philadelphia, 1844), 2:184. Quoted by Samuel Harris, God the Creator and Lord of All, 2 vols. (New York: Scribner’s, 1896), 1:295.
- Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, 1907), 345. Strong also tells of Samuel Coleridge who told Robert Browning that he could not understand all his poetry. “Ah, well,” replied the poet, “if a reader of your caliber understands ten percent of what I write, he ought to be content.” When William Wordsworth, another poet, was told that Browning had married Elizabeth Barrett, he said, “It is a good thing that these two understand each other, for no one else understands them.”
- Jürgen Moltmann, “The Trinitarian History of God,” Theology 78 (1975): 632.
- Philip Melancthon, Loci Communes (1521), in R. Stupperich, ed., Melanchthons Werke, vol. 2 (Gütersloh, 1952), 7, quoted in Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 1.
- Immanuel Kant, Der Streit der Fakultäten, A 50, 57, quoted in Christopher Hall, “Adding Up the Trinity,” Christianity Today (April 28, 1997): 26; cf. Moltmann, “The Trinitarian History of God,” 633.
- In the seventeenth century a common complaint against Trinitarians was that they were people who did not know how to count. Cf. Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., “Social Trinity and Tritheism,” in Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement, eds. Ronald J. Feenstra and Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1989), 21.
- Thomas Jefferson to Timothy Pickering, Feb. 27, 1821, in Albert Ellery Bergh, ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson. Definitive Edition, 20 vols. (Washington, 1907), 15:323. He later wrote, “I trust there is not a young man now living in the United States, who will not die an Unitarian.” See Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, June 26, 1822, in Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 4 vols. (Boston: Gray and Bowen, 1830), 4:350. He spoke contemptuously of “the fanatic Athanasius,” who foisted on the church “the hocus-pocus phantasm of a God like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads.” See Thomas Jefferson to James Smith, Dec. 8, 1822, in Randolph, Memoir, 4:360. The source of Trinitarianism, he declared, was the belief of the Fathers in the “Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three, and yet the one is not three, and the three are not one: to divide mankind by a single letter into ὁμοουσιans and ὁμοιουσιans [‘consubstantialists and like-substantialists’].” See Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, Aug. 22, 1813, in Lester J. Cappon, ed., The Adams-Jefferson Letters (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina press, 1988), 368. For further discussion of Jefferson’s views on the Trinity, cf. Charles B. Sanford, The Religious Life of Thomas Jefferson (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1984), 88–90, 112–14 and passim.
- See the booklet, Should You Believe in the Trinity? (Brooklyn: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1989). On Arianism and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, cf. Robert Morey, The Trinity: Evidence and Issues (Grand Rapids: World, 1996), 469–506. Cf. also: Walter Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults, rev. ed., edited by Hank Hanegraaff (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1997), 101–2 and passim.
- The Mormon doctrine of God is fully documented using original works of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young in Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults, 220–21 and passim. Mormon theology is contradictory on this point. The Book of Mormon (2 Nephi 31:21) does stress the unity of God, but the materials by Smith and Young that are cited by Martin do speak of a plurality of gods. There are puzzles in the Book of Mormon itself. In Mosiah 16:15 Jesus seems to be regarded in modalistic fashion as the Father. The following quotes give one a flavor of Mormon thought: “God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man” (Joseph Smith). “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s: the Son also” (Doctrine and Covenants). “As man is, God once was: as God is, man may become” (Prophet Lorenzo Snow).
- Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults, 259, 265–67.
- See the devastating analysis of this cult in Gregory A. Boyd, Oneness Pentecostals and the Trinity (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 9–14 and passim.
- Elliot Miller calls the New Age movement “an extremely large, loosely structured network of organizations and individuals bound together by common values (based in mysticism and monism—the worldview that ‘all is one’) and a common vision (a coming ‘new age’ of peace and mass enlightenment, the “Age of Aquarius’).” Cf. A Crash Course on the New Age Movement (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989), 15.
- Walter Martin, The New Age Cult (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1989), 18; idem., The Kingdom of the Cults, 334, n. 1.
- Cf. Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father, new ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1985), xi-xxxiv and passim. Cf. the sober evaluations of this movement in Alvin F. Kimel, Jr., ed. Speaking the Christian God: the Holy Trinity and the Challenge of Feminism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992). Also see: Peter Toon, Our Triune God: A Biblical Portrayal of the Trinity (Wheaton: BridgePoint, 1996), 21–25, 171.
- The pantheistic element in such thinking is seen in the Ecofeminist theology of Sallie McFague who argues that the transcendent and patriarchal God of orthodox theology is “idolatrous and irrelevant” (Models of God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987], ix-xv; idem, The Body of God [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993], vii-xii). Instead of the “distant” model of orthodoxy of God as Father, she opts for the metaphors of “mother, lover, and friend.” Her God is so immanent that he/she loses personal identity. Salvation is not due to God’s love for the individual; rather “we participate in God’s love not as individuals but as members of an organic whole” (Models of God, 84–86). She elsewhere speaks of the universe as God’s body (The Body of God, 134). Cf. the devastating critique of these theologies in Loren Wilkinson, “The New Story of Creation: A Trinitarian Perspective,” Crux 20 (Dec., 1994): 26-36.
- Isidore Epstein, Judaism: A Historical Presentation (Baltimore: Penguin, 1959), 106–7; 142, 200; cf. Donald MacLeod, Shared Life: The Trinity and the Fellowship of God’s People (Greenville, SC: Reformed Academic Press, 1987), 77–85.
- A. J. Arberry, trans. The Koran, 2 vols., Surah 33: The Confederates, Lines 5–9 (New York: Macmillan, 1955), 2:122.
- Islam’s antagonism towards Christianity has in recent years taken on ominous tones. In Europe and the United States large groups of Muslim immigrants “reject assimilation and continue to adhere to and propagate the values, customs, and cultures of their home societies.” Many of their young men assert the moral superiority of Islam, view Western culture with disdain, and are eager to side with Islam in the coming “clash of civilizations.” Cf. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Touchstone, 1997), 304–5. For in insider’s look at Muslim life and beliefs, cf. Ergun Mehmet Caner and Emir Fethi Caner, Unveiling Islam (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2002).
- The Koran, Surah 4: Women, Lines 165–69 (1:125).
- “And when God said, “O Jesus son of Mary, didst thou say unto men, “Take me and my mother as gods, apart from God”? He [Jesus] said, ‘To Thee be glory. It is not mine to say what I have no right to do.’” The Koran, Surah 5: The Table, Lines 115 and following (1:147). Cf. J. N. D. Anderson, The World’s Religions (Downers Grove: Inter Varsity Press, 1963), 62.
- The Koran, Surah 6: Cattle, Lines 100–04 (1:161).
- The Koran, Surah 5: The Table, Lines 75–79 (1:140). For a full discussion of Islam and the Trinity, cf. Norman L. Geisler and Abdul Saleeb, Answering Islam, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), 263–77; Timothy George, Is the Father of Jesus the God of Muhammad? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), 69–88.
- See the balanced discussion in F. F. Bruce, “The Humanity of Jesus Christ,” in A Mind for What Matters (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 248–58, 321–23.
- Cf. the documentation in R. A. Huebner, The Eternal Relationships in the Godhead (Morganville, NJ: Present Truth Publishers, 1997). Huebner belongs to that wing of the Exclusive Brethren that has closely adhered to biblical Christology and Trinitarianism.
- In 1971 Brethren from one of these assemblies started a periodical, Open Forum, for the free expression of ideas on Scriptural topics. In the course of its twenty-three year run it affirmed belief in the inspiration and authority of the Bible, yet it ran articles questioning the Eternal Sonship and Deity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity (e.g., “G,” The Father and the Son,” 2 [Dec. 1971], 1–3; idem. “Pre-Incarnate Sonship,” 8 [Nov. 1973], 1, 7; Craig Bitler, “God and His Son, parts 1–4, June 1982; Dec., 1982; June, 1983; May, 1984; cf. the correspondence in no. 28 [Oct., 1984]: 8-9; 29 [March, 1985]: 8-12; 30 (Sept., 1985): 12-14. The magazine betrayed a weakness in the thinking of many Brethren, viz., that uninhibited Bible study can be practiced with indifference to the lessons of the history of doctrine, the great confessions, and the eminent teachers of the church (cf. “A Proposal to Stimulate Uninhibited Bible Study,” 9 [May, 1974], 1–3; “Creed or Credo?” 18 [Feb., 1979]: 1-2). B. P. Sutherland’s rightly viewed one series of articles (“Divine Headship,” 13–16 [Dec., 1975; July, 1976; Nov. 1977; March, 1978]) as a “radical departure from the historic Christian faith” (18 [Feb., 1979]: 11-12). One of the authors replied that he was only getting back “to New Testament thought and language” (16), all of which shows that many such attempts actually get back to something else!
- William G. T. Shedd long ago suggested a spirit of patience toward brethren who have not studied the issue. Very devout Christians who lack theological training, he noted, can deviate toward Sabellianism and Arianism without a conscious desire to reject the Bible or the great confessions and creeds. “Many a man in the very bosom of the church” can no more define the three persons and their mutual relations than he can “specify the chemical elements of the air he breathes, or map the sky under whose dome he walks every day.” The irony is that the absence of precise language about the Trinity is found on the lips of the “most devout” and “the most rationalistic.” Cf. A History of Christian Doctrine, 2 vols (New York: Scribner’s, 1889), 1:246–48.
- Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 226.
- Toon, Our Triune God, 9.
- Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 1.1, trans. G. W. Bromiley, 2d ed. (Edinburgh: Clark, 1975), 301.
- John Feinberg, No One Like Him: The Doctrine of God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2001), 437.
- John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 1.13, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, 2 vols (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 1:158.
- Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 4 vols. (St. Louis: Concordia, 1950), 1:408.
- Eric Mascall, Whatever Happened to the Human Mind? (London: SPCK, 1980), 117.
- Philip W. Butin, The Trinity (Louisville: Geneva Press, 2001), 122.
- Toon, Our Triune God, 41.
- Paul K. Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 294.
- Butin, The Trinity, 121.
- Toon, Our Triune God, 43.
- Grudem, Systematic Theology, 248–49.
- Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation, 305.
- Grudem, Systematic Theology, 249–51. Jewett and Grudem illustrate two tendencies in Trinitarian discussion. Jewett limits the expression “economic Trinity” to God’s work in the world for salvation. Grudem also includes the roles or functions of the three persons in eternity past.
- Thomas Aquinas wrote, “a divine person signifies a relation as subsisting” (Summa Theologica 1, Q. 29, Art. 4, 3 vols. (New York: Benzinger, 1947), 1:159). According to Thomas, “the key to understanding the term ‘person,’ in an intertrinitarian sense, is the relationship which the members of the Godhead have one to another.” This idea, says Jewett, “pervades the history of the doctrine of the Trinity” (God, Creation, and Revelation, 286).
- Barth, Church Dogmatics 1.1 (355–58). Cf. the discussions in Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 1:409–10; Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation, 284–86.
- Barth, Church Dogmatics 4.1 (204–5). Barth’s view has puzzled many in that he at times sounds modalistic. “The one name of the one God is the threefold name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The one ‘personality’ of God, the one active and speaking divine Ego, is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Otherwise we should obviously have to speak of three gods” (205).
- Barth, Church Dogmatics 1.1 (299, 333). Barth is unquestionably paradoxical in his exposition. On the one hand he sounds modalistic. On the other he can speak of “the three persons…to be distinguished in the essence.” He speaks of “our concepts of unimpaired unity and unimpaired distinction” (Church Dogmatics 1.1 [333]).
- Leonard Hodgson, The Doctrine of the Trinity (New York: Scribner’s, 1944), 140, 129. Hodgson viewed Barth’s views as “a flat contradiction to the biblical evidence” (229).
- Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., “The Threeness/Oneness Problem of the Trinity,” CTJ 23 (April, 1988): 37-53 (esp. 44); idem., “Social Trinity and Tritheism,” 21–47.
- There has been a wide variety of approaches to the doctrine in the twentieth century (cf. Welch, The Trinity in Contemporary Theology, 48, 65–76). John Baillie represented those who took an almost wholly negative view, implying that it was a development of Hellenistic philosophy. (185–86). He quoted with approval Edward Gibbon’s jest, “Taught in the school of Alexandria bc 300…Revealed by the Apostle St. John ad 97” (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 7 vols., ed. J. B. Bury [London: Methuen, 1909], 2:356, 358). That Triads appear in the philosophy and religion of the ancient world no one denies. The religions were polytheistic and pantheistic, not monotheistic, and in the philosophy there is Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis, with the Infinite becoming finite, and the finite returning to the Infinite. “None of these triads has the slightest resemblance to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity embodies much more than the notion of ‘threeness’ and beyond their ‘threeness’ these triads have nothing in common with it.” Warfield speaks of “an odd human tendency to think in threes” (Warfield, “The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity,” 134; Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3 vols [New York Scribner, 1872], 1:442; Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology [Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, 1907], 351–52; cf. the brief essay, “The Pagan Trinity,” in William G. T. Shedd, A History of Christian Doctrine, 2 vols. [New York: Scribner’s, 1889], 1:243–45). A second approach is that of Emil Brunner who viewed it as true to the Bible’s witness to Father, Son, and Spirit. It is not so much a biblical doctrine, however, as a reflection upon the problem raised by the relationship of the Father and the Son. He saw it as secondary doctrine developed by the Fathers as a protecting wall against heresies. It was not part of the evangelistic message of the early Christians, nor is it a central doctrine of the faith. (The Christian Doctrine of God, trans. Olive Wyon [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1950], 205–6, 220–22, 236). A third approach is that of Karl Barth who viewed it of such importance that he placed it at the beginning of his Church Dogmatics. “The basis or root of the doctrine of the Trinity…lies in revelation” (Dogmatics 1.1 [311]). A fourth approach, viz. unitarianism, was defended by G. W. H. Lampe, Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. God is one Person, not three, and Jesus was only a man in whom God as Spirit was active (God as Spirit, The Bampton Lectures, 1976 [Oxford: Clarendon, 1977], 228). Hendrikus Berkhof represents a fifth point of view, which is a modern variety of modalism, the view that there is one person in the Godhead who manifests Himself in three different ways (The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit [Atlanta: John Knox, 1964], 115–16; idem., Christian Faith, rev. ed., trans. Sierd Woudstra [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986], 324–35). Toon calls H. Berkhof’s view “an extreme statement of the Barthian position that God is One Person” (Our Triune God, 210). A sixth and final example from the modern landscape is Cambridge professor, C. F. D. Moule. His conception of God is binitarian, i.e., there is a plurality in unity in the Godhead, viz., the two persons of the Father and the Son (C. F. D. Moule, The Holy Spirit [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978], 101; idem., “The New Testament and the Doctrine of the Trinity,” ET 78 [Oct., 1976]: 17-18). For further discussion, cf. Toon, Our Triune God, 51–69.
- E.g., H. Orton Wiley, Christian Theology, 3 vols. (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press, 1940), 394–439; John Theodore Mueller, Christian Dogmatics (St. Louis: Concordia, 1934), 147–60.
- Claude Welch made the interesting observation that the Trinity was not a central theme for the fundamentalist. “It is not central in his polemic against liberalism: there the argument revolves chiefly around the inspiration of the scriptures, the divinity of Christ, the ‘blood-atonement,’ and the Second Coming. Nor is the doctrine central in his ‘constructive’ theology, for the essential outlines of the doctrine have long since been laid down and nothing has happened or could happen to require revision” (The Trinity in Contemprary Theology [London: SCM, 1953], 94).
- Chafer wrote, “The word trinity is not found in the Sacred Text, and…the doctrine which it represents is not directly taught therein.” Cf. Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, 8 vols. (Dallas: Dallas Seminary Press, 1947), 1:272.
- Feinberg, No One Like Him, 437, 471.
- Plantinga, “The Threeness/Oneness Problem of the Trinity,” 37–38.
- Toon, Our Triune God, 68.
- Mascall, Whatever Happened to the Human Mind?, 117.
- Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, “The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity,” in Biblical Doctrines (New York: Oxford, 1929), 133. One of the defects of Welch’s analysis of the Evangelical view was his apparent ignorance of this significant article by Warfield (The Trinity in Contemporary Theology, 41). That Warfield understood well the concept of the development of doctrine is seen in another essay in which he explains the refinements introduced by Calvin. Cf. B. B. Warfield, “Calvin’s Doctrine of the Trinity,” in Calvin and Augustine, ed. Samuel G. Craig (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1956), 189–284.
- After listening to me preach on the doctrine of the Trinity, a man came to me with this question. “I am a Trinitarian,” he said, “but why can’t we think of God as a single major God with three lesser Gods underneath Him?” My answer was a brief explanation of biblical authority. Our views of God must come from the Bible and not our own speculations. This comment and others I have heard show that many members of “Bible believing churches” are not doctrinally well grounded people.
- A classic case of deductive reasoning is found in Jesus’ encounter with the Sadducees, who demanded inductive evidence of the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead (Matt. 22:23–33). They questioned Jesus about a hypothetical woman who had married seven brothers successively in this life (Matt. 22:23–33). They wanted to know whose wife she would be in the resurrection. Jesus rejects their conclusion with the words, “You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures, or the power of God” (v. 29). The Lord then proceeded to give His listeners a brief lesson in the proper interpretation of Scripture. He said, “But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken to you by God saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?’ He is not the God of the dead but of the living” (vv. 31–32; cf. Ex. 3:6). The relevance of this illustration to this article should be obvious. Our Lord did not point to a verse and say, “There is the doctrine of the resurrection specifically stated.” Instead He used an argument that demanded deduction or inference. The precise nature of the argument as to how Exodus 3:6 proves the resurrection has been debated. 1) The argument in Matthew 22:32 is commonly understood to rest on the present tense of the verb, “I am.” His point, commentators suggest, is that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are still alive and awaiting resurrection (cf. W. Hendriksen, The Gospel of Matthew, p. 806; R. H. Gundry, Matthew: A Commentary on His Literary and Theological Art, p. 446; D. A. Carson, “Matthew,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, 12 vols., ed. F. E. Gaebelein, 8:462). We might ask, however, how the continued existence of the patriarchs proves their future resurrection? 2) Rather, Jesus’ argument rests on the fact that God is a covenant God who will fulfill His promises to His people. We should note that in the OT context God did not say, “I am the God of Adam, and the God of Abel, and the God of Enoch.” In other words, it is not the relationship of God to the race that is the point. Rather, it is His relationship to those with whom He made the Abrahamic covenant and its promises. Jesus’ argument hinged on God’s relationship with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God had made a covenant with these men which involved their future possession of the land. Abraham lived his life seeking fulfillment of the promise and yet never did receive it (cf. Heb. 11:8–16). If the patriarchs do not rise from the dead and enter the land of promise, then the promises are inexplicable. If there is a Messianic age to come, there must be a resurrection of the patriarchs in order for them to enjoy the fulfillment of the promises. It would be more accurate to say that His argument rested on the genitive case in our English translations: “of Abraham … of Isaac … of Jacob.” In the original text, of course, the names of the patriarchs are uninflected, but the phrases must, nevertheless, be translated as genitives. On the above interpretation, cf. George N. H. Peters, The Theocratic Kingdom, 3 vols. (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1884; reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1972), 1:296–99; S. Lewis Johnson, Jr., “Christ’s Answers to Carping Questions, Matt. 22:15–40, ” BBB (July 17, 1977): 4-5. Matthew 11:5–6 provides a second illustration of our Lord’s use of deductive reasoning. To John’s question, “Are you the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?” Jesus did not give a “Yes” or “No” answer. Instead He provided evidence from which He expected John to make a deduction.
- “The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture” (The Westminster Confession of Faith 1.6, in Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, 3 vols., vol. 3: The Evangelical Protestant Creeds [New York: Harper, 1877], 603).
- The Scriptural evidence for the Triune nature of God is set forth in most of the major systematic theologies. The following list is a sampling of important evangelical works. The authors represent a cross section of viewpoints including Reformed, Lutheran, Anglican, Dispensational, and Arminian positions. Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 1.13 (1:120–59); Hodge, Systematic Theology, 1:442–82; Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:248–333; Edward Arthur Litton, Introduction to Dogmatic Theology, new ed., ed. Philip E. Hughes (1892; London: James Clarke, 1960), 91–108; John Miley, Systematic Theology, 2 vols. (New York: Hunt and Eaton, 1893), 1:223–75; Strong, Systematic Theology, 304–52; Edgar Young Mullins, The Christian Religion in Its Doctrinal Expression (Valley Forge: Judson, 1917), 203–13; Warfield, “The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity,” 133–72; W. H. Griffith Thomas, The Principles of Theology, rev. ed. (1930; London: Church Book Room Press, 1956), 20–31, 90–99; Mueller, Christian Dogmatics, 147–60; Wiley, Christian Theology, 1: 393–439; Chafer, Systematic Theology, 1:272–347; 5:7–38; 6:7–46; Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 4th ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949), 82–99; Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 1:381–405; Herman Bavinck, The Doctrine of God, trans. William Hendriksen (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951), 255–334; Henry Clarence Thiessen, Lectures in Systematic Theology, rev. Vernon D. Doerksen (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 89–99; Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, vol. 5: God Who Stands and Stays, part 1 (Waco: Word, 1982), 165–213; J. Kenneth Grider, “The Holy Trinity,” in A Contemporary Wesleyan Theology, 2 vols., ed. Charles W. Carter (Grand Rapids: Francis Asbury Press, 1983), 1:375–409; Donald MacLeod, “The Doctrine of the Trinity,” Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 3 (Spring, 1985): 11-21; Gordon R. Lewis and Bruce A. Demarest, Integrative Theology, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987), 251–89; Thomas C. Oden, Systematic Theology, vol. 1: The Living God (San Francisco: Harper, 1987), 181–224; Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., “Trinity,” ISBE, 4 (1988): 914-21; Alister E. MaGrath, Understanding the Trinity (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988), 119–42 and passim; Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation, 261–325; Gerald Bray, The Doctrine of God (Downers Grove: Inter Varsity press, 1993), 111–51; Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 226–61; Stanley J. Grenz, Theology for the Community of God (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1994), 68–99; Donald G. Bloesch, God the Almighty (Downers Grove: Inter Varsity Press, 1995), 166–204; Millard J. Erickson, God in Three Persons (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995), 97–114 and passim; Robert Morey, The Trinity: Evidence and Issues (Grand Rapids: World, 1996), 85–203, 243–448; Toon, Our Triune God, 73–194; Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 346–67; Charles C. Ryrie, Basic Theology, 2d ed. (Chicago: Moody, 1999), 58–68; Feinberg, No One Like Him, 437–98; John M. Frame, The Doctrine of God: A Theology of Lordship (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2002), 619–750.
- Frame, The Doctrine of God, 621.
- Ethelbert Stauffer speaks of the “radical monotheism” of the OT prophets. Cf. “θεός,” TDNT 3:94.
- Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 1:376.
- J. Goldingay, “Monotheism,” NDTheol, 443–44; G. W. Bromiley, “God,” ISBE 2 (1982): 495-96.
- The word translated “idols” in Leviticus 19:4 and 26:1 (אֶלִילִם /elilim) seems to have been created as a disparaging pun and diminutive of אֱוֹּהִים (elōhim, “God”). Horst Dietrich Preuss, “אֶלִיל,” TDOT, 1:285; cf. Gordon J. Wenham, The Book of Leviticus, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 266.
- Peter C. Craigie, quoting W. Rupprecht, calls this “the fundamental monotheistic dogma of the OT.” The Book of Deuteronomy, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), 169.
- George Adam Smith, The Book of Deuteronomy, CBSC (Cambridge: University Press, 1918), 97. It is the subject of the opening page of the Talmud. Cf. Berakoth 2a, in The Babylonian Talmud, Seder Zara|im, trans. Maurice Simon (London: Soncino, 1948), 1:1.
- George Adam Smith, The Book of Deuteronomy, 97; Emil Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, rev. and ed., Geza Vermes, Fergus Millar and Matthew Black (Edinburgh: Clark, 1979), 2:454–55
- S. R. Driver, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Deuteronomy, ICC (New York: Scribner’s, 1916), 89–90; Eugene H. Merrill, Deuteronomy, NAC (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1994), 163.
- J. A. Thompson, Deuteronomy: An Introduction and Commentary, TOTC (Downers Grove: Inter Varsity Press, 1975), 122.
- Jewett notes that in revelation God always discloses Himself as “I” (“I AM who I AM”), never as “we.” God, Creation, and Revelation, 295.
- “Early Christian monotheism is confirmed rather than shattered by the Christology of the NT.” Stauffer, “θεός,” 102.
- Larry W. Hurtado argues that among the first Christians there was a “redefinition of Jewish monotheism.” It “did not result from a clumsy crossbreeding of Jewish monotheism and pagan polytheism under the influence of gentile Christians…. Rather in its crucial first stages, we have a significantly new but essentially internal development within the Jewish monotheistic tradition, a mutation within that species of religious devotion.” By “mutation,” Hurtado means “that earliest Christian devotion was a direct outgrowth from, and indeed a variety of, the ancient Jewish tradition. But at an early stage it exhibited a sudden and significant difference in character from Jewish devotion” (One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988], 99, 100). Toon suggests that the new form of Christian monotheism developed progressively in the understanding of the apostles. There was first of all a binitarianism and then ultimately a trinitarian consciousness. Cf. Toon, Our Triune God, 113–30.
- William Sanday, quoted by Warfield, “The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity,” 143. In the discussion in the above paragraph the ideas and quotes are taken from Warfield, 142–43.
- One of the closest things to a Scriptural affirmation of the Trinity is the reading of 1 John 5:7 in the King James Version: “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one.” The problem is that there is no early Greek manuscript evidence in support of the KJV at this point. One of the more amusing incidents in the history of textual criticism took place when Erasmus (ad 1469–1536) published his edition of the Greek New Testament. Another scholar (Stunica) complained that he had omitted 1 John 5:7, and Erasmus responded that he had found no Greek manuscript that contained these words. He rashly promised to include them if a single Greek manuscript could be produced that contained them. In his third edition (1522) he included the words explaining that a Greek manuscript had indeed been found; in fact it had probably been made to order just to be included in his text! Three Greek manuscripts have the reading, none of which was copied any earlier than the twelfth century (Bruce Manning Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, 2d ed. [New York: Oxford, 1968], 101–2). The New King James Version contains the verse, but the editor, Dr. Arthur Farstad, was under no illusion that the words were genuine. In another work, which he co-edited, the verse is omitted as spurious. Cf. Zane C. Hodges and Arthur L. Farstad, The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text (Nashville: Nelson, 1982), 713. J. N. Darby omitted the verse “as having, as is well known, no real manuscript authority” (A New Translation, note on 1 John 5:7).
- Warfield, “The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity,” 144.
- That the doctrine of the Trinity was formulated in the centuries after the NT is true. That the truth of the Trinity is found in the NT is also true. “It is a mistaken idea that the doctrine of the Trinity and the deity of Christ were developed by the church councils of the fourth and fifth centuries” (Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 1:381). Luther said that the doctrines formulated by the Councils of Nicea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon are presented “far more abundantly and powerfully in the Holy Scriptures themselves” (quoted by Pieper). Pieper and Luther have overstated their case, but their intended point is correct. All the essential materials that would later be assembled at Nicea, Constantinople, and Chalcedon are found in the NT. Martin Hengel is of the opinion that in the first two decades of the church (AD 30–50) there was more Christological development, i.e., understanding of the person of Christ, including His deity, than in the next seven centuries (The Son of God, trans. John Bowden [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976], 2). This, Robert J. Karris says approvingly, is a remarkable claim when one remembers that the years ad 50–700 included the councils of Nicea and Chalcedon (A Symphony of New Testament Hymns [Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1996], 24). Richard Bauckmam concurs, “The earliest was already the highest Christology” (God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998], viii).
- Toon, Our Triune God, 137. As Toon notes, the NT interprets these texts as pointing to the resurrection and exaltation of the Messiah as the true Son of God (Acts 13:33; Heb. 1:5).
- Murray J. Harris, Jesus as God (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 40–47; cf. Karl Rahner, “Theos in the New Testament,” in Theological Investigations, trans. Cornelius Ernst (Baltimore: Helicon, 1961), 1:79–148.
- Warfield, “The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity,” 144. He adds, “The doctrine of the Trinity…is simply the modification wrought in the conception of the one only God by His complete revelation of Himself in the redemptive process.” He goes on, “The determining impulse to the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity in the church was the church’s profound conviction of the absolute Deity of Christ, on which as on a pivot the whole Christian conception of God from the first origins of Christianity turned” (169).
- The NT evidence for Jesus Christ’s deity is “rich, varied, and impressive” (Plantinga, “Trinity,” 915). In addition to the evidence cited in the body of this article, the following two kinds of evidence are found in the NT: (1) Titles ascribed to Yahweh in the OT are ascribed to Christ in the NT: “Lord,” Joel 2:32; Rom. 10:9, 13; “The First and the Last,” Isaiah 41:4; 44:6; 48:12; Rev. 2:8; 22:13–16; “I AM,” Ex. 3:14; John 6:35; 8:12; 9:14; 10:7; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1. Especially noteworthy are John 8:58, 59; 18:5–6; Mark 14:62. Commenting on the Mark passage, Bruce and Martin write, “The savage vehemence that this called forth in the high priest and the company can be explained only if they thought that it was a claim to personal deity, a blasphemy of such magnitude as to be expiated only by death.” “The Rock,” Gen. 49:24; Ps. 18:2; 95:1; 1 Cor. 10:4; 1 Pet. 2:6–8; “the Bridegroom or Husband,” Hos. 2:16, 19; Isa. 62:5; 54:5; Jer. 3:14; 31:32; Mark 2:19; Matt. 25:1–13; “the Shepherd,” Ps. 23:1; Ezek. 34:11–19; John 10:11; 1 Pet. 2:25; 5:4; Heb. 13:20; “the Judge,” Gen. 18:25; Joel 3:12; Matt. 25:31–46, and compare Rom. 14:10 and 2 Cor. 5:10. [W. Childs Robinson, “Jesus Christ is Jehovah,” EvQ 5 (1933):144-55, 271–90; F. F. Bruce and William Martin, “Equal with God, part 2,” His (May, 1965): 14-21]. (2) The NT writers make ontological claims of deity for Jesus Christ. Thus, Christ was “in the form of God” and enjoyed “equality with God,” i.e., He was God by nature and enjoyed the prerogatives of deity, Phil. 2:6 [David J. MacLeod, “Imitating the Incarnation of Christ: An Exposition of Philippians 2:5–8, ” BibSac 158 (July, 2001): 313-15]. He was “the radiance” of His Father’s glory and “the exact representation of His nature,” i.e., He had the same nature as the Father and He personally and distinctly embodied the divine essence, Heb. 1:3 [Brooke Foss Westcott, The Epistle to the Hebrews, 2d ed. (London: Macmillan, 1892), 9]. Also, “In Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form,” Col. 2:9.
- Harris, in his magisterial study, says that Jesus Christ is called God “certainly in John 1:1; 20:28, ” “very probably in Rom. 9:5; Titus 2:13; Heb. 1:8; 2 Pet. 1:1, ” “probably in John 1:18, ” and “possibly in Acts 20:28; Heb. 1:9; 1 John 5:20” (Jesus as God, 49, 272).
- Philip B. Harner, “Qualitative Anarthrous Predicate Nouns: Mark 15:39 and John 1:1, ” JBL 92 (1973): 87. On the grammar of the anarthrous predicate nominative preceding the copulative in John 1:1 (καὶ θεός ἦν ὁ λόγος), cf. Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 256–70. For a fuller treatment of John 1:1, cf. David J. MacLeod, “The Eternality and Deity of the Word,” BibSac 160 (Jan, 2003): 48-64.
- Most modern scholars agree that with the acquisition of P66 and P75, both of which have θεός, the scales have tipped against υἱος. A small minority, however, still defend the reading υἱος (Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John, 169; Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John, 1:280; Hodges, “Grace after Grace—John 1:16, ” BS 135 (January, 1978): 43, n. 29). Advocates appeal to two considerations: (1) “Only begotten Son” seems to be required by the following clause [“in the bosom of the Father”]. (2) “Only begotten Son” is more in conformity with Johannine usage [3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9]. Proponents of the reading θεός make the following responses: (1) It is a mistake to assume that John always links τοῦ πατρός to the phrase ὁ μονογενὴς υἱος. In fact, of the three undisputed uses of ὁ μονογενὴς υἱος in John [3:16, 18; 1 John 4:19], all relate the phrase to ὁ θεός, none to ὁ πατήρ. The true filial counterpart to the πατρός of 1:18 is simply μονογενής—unaccompanied by υἱος. (2) It is mistaken to assume that μονογενής has to mean either “unique” or “one of a kind.” It more likely means “only begotten [son]” or “only son.” In every one of the eight undisputed uses of μονογενής in the NT it refers to an only child, i.e., it denotes a filial relationship, whether or not it is accompanied by υἱός or θυγάτηρ. Cf. D. A. Fennema, “John 1:18: ‘God the Only Son,’” NTS 31 (1985): 124-35. For further discussion, see the addendum to this article.
- The reading of the NASB is also favored by Jehovah’s Witnesses’ New World Translation (“only begotten god”). The translation has been justly criticized by Büchsel as a “weakening of monotheism.” He argues that it has a Gnostic ring to it, that is, it sounds like an emanation from God, which is a lesser divine being. The appeal of the reading to the Jehovah’s Witnesses is not surprising, says Fennema, but its inclusion in the NASB certainly is. Cf. F. Büchsel, “μονογενής,” TDNT, 4:740, n. 14; Fennema, “John 1:18: ‘God the Only Son,’” NTS 31 (1985): 127, 133–34, nn. 26, 28, 41.
- So: Brown, The Gospel According to John, Chs. 1–12, AB, 17.
- Fennema, who offers this translation, says that it may be taken to mean, “the only Son, who (in addition to the Father) is God.” Fennema, “John 1:18: ‘God the Only Son,’” NTS 31 (1985), 128.
- Harris, Jesus as God, 110–11, 129.
- Leon Morris, The Gospel according to John, NICNT, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 753.
- Harris, Jesus as God, 172. As Harris notes, it would be singularly inappropriate for Paul, after sorrowing and grieving over Israel’s unbelief, to conclude the paragraph on a note of joyful praise to God the Father.
- This, says Wallace, is a valid application of the Granville Sharp rule which states that when the copulative καί connects two nouns of the same case (here = τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ σωτῆρος), and if the article (here = τοῦ) precedes only the first, the latter noun always relates to the same person that is described by the first noun. The rule only applies to personal, singular, and non-proper nouns (Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, 270–77, esp. 276).
- E. K. Simpson, The Pastoral Epistles (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954), 109.
- Harold W. Attridge, Hebrews, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989), 58. For a thorough and satisfying treatment of both the OT and NT contexts of this citation, cf. Harris, Jesus as God, 187–227.
- Questions relating to the authorship of 2 Peter are beyond the scope of this article. For a robust defense of Petrine authorship, cf. Donald Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, rev. ed. (Downers Grove: Inter Varsity Press, 1990), 811–42.
- Harris, Jesus as Lord, 238. 2 Peter 1:1 contains another example of the Granville Sharp rule (τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν καὶ σωτῆρος,᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ). Cf. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, 276–77.
- Augustine spoke of the Holy Spirit as the bond of love (vinculum caritatis) between the Father and the Son. When Paul admonishes the Ephesians to “preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3), he is admonishing them in their communal life to imitate the communal life of God Himself. See On the Trinity 6.5.7 in NPNF, 1st Series, 3:100. Augustine’s analysis has been criticized as “leading to a curiously depersonalized notion of the Spirit” (Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction [Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1994], 259).
- E.g., Lampe, God as Spirit, 228.
- Moule, The Holy Spirit, 101; idem., “The New Testament and the Doctrine of the Trinity,” 17.
- The first four items are nicely laid out in Charles C. Ryrie, The Holy Spirit, rev. ed. (Chicago: Moody, 1997), 13–20.
- In John 15:26 and 16:13–14 the masculine demonstrative pronoun (ἐκεῖνος) is used. In 15:26 it is possible that the pronoun refers back to the masculine “Helper” (παράκλητος), but that is unlikely because τὸ Πνεῦμα is nearer. Cf. Morris, The Gospel according to John, 606, n. 64.
- This, says Plantinga (“Trinity,” 916) is “what tips the balance in favor of a personal concept of the Spirit in the NT.”
- Plantinga, “Trinity,” 916
- The Spirit is called ἄλλον παράκλητον in 14:16. Jesus is not called a παράκλητος here, but He is in 1 John 2:1. Jesus here calls the Spirit ἄλλος (“another of the same kind”) and not ἕτερος (“another of a different kind”). Henry Barclay Swete (The Holy Spirit in the New Testament [London: Macmillan, 1910], 300, n. 2) says, “It is impossible to conceive of ἕτερον παράκλητον standing in this context.” Carson, though cautious about the distinction in adjectives, writes, “‘Another Paraclete’ in the context of Jesus’ departure implies that the disciples already have one, the one who is departing.” D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 500; cf. Morris, The Gospel according to John, 576, n. 43.
- I take the genitive (τοῦ πνεύματος) to be a genitive of source, not apposition. The Spirit is the source of the power, not the power itself. “The Spirit’s main role is to guide Jesus or equip Him” (Darrell L. Bock, Luke 1:1–9:50 [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994], 391). On the grammar, cf. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, 109–10.
- Jewett makes an interesting observation about the interconnectedness of doctrines in his discussion of the Holy Spirit. “To confess the deity of the Spirit compels one to acknowledge that salvation is God’s work, not only in its initiation (the Father gives the Son, Jn. 3:16), not only in its accomplishment (the Son make purification for our sins, Heb. 1:3), but also in its efficacy (the Spirit enables the sinner to call Jesus Lord, 1 Cor. 12:3). Once, therefore, the trinitarian doctrine of the Spirit had been worked out, the debate between Augustine and Pelagius over sin and grace became inevitable” (God, Creation, and Revelation, 290).
- “The Holy Spirit in the church is God Himself present with His people.” F. F. Bruce, The Book of the Acts, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 105, n. 13.
- Feinberg cites 2 Cor. 3:17, “Now the Lord is the Spirit,” as proof that the Holy Spirit is God (No One Like Him, 464; cf. also: Gordon D. Fee, God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994], 311–14). However, in this passage “Paul’s concern is with the relationship and contrast between the old and new covenants, not with the ontology of trinitarianism.” (Philip E. Hughes, Paul’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT [Grand Rapids; Eerdmans, 1962], 115). Paul is simply saying that Christ is active through the Spirit, and is experienced by believers as the Spirit. The identification of Christ and Spirit here is functional and dynamic, not personal. The Apostle did not identify the exalted Christ with the Spirit and teach a binitarian and not trinitarian doctrine of God (C. K. Barrett, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, HNTC [New York: Harper and Row, 1973], 123). He elsewhere distinguished Christ and the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:4–5; 2 Cor. 13:14), “but dynamically they are one, since it is by the Spirit that the life of the risen Lord is imparted to believers and maintained within them”(F. F. Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians, NCB [London: Oliphants, 1971], 193). A. T. Hanson calls this text, “the Mount Everest of Pauline Texts as far as difficulty is concerned.” Cf. “The Midrash in II Corinthians 3: A Reconsideration,” JSNT 9 (1980): 19. For a detailed discussion of various interpretations of the verse, cf. Margaret E. Thrall, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 2 vols., ICC, (Edinburgh: Clark, 1994), 1:278–82.
- “An attribute is a quality or characteristic inherent in a being. The attributes of God are those qualities or characteristics that belong to Him” (Ryrie, The Holy Spirit, 22).
- Cf. Strong, Systematic Theology, 309–10.
- Morris, The Gospel according to John, 65.
- On the basis of John 5:26 Feinberg asserts that Christ had the attribute of aseity or self-existence (No One Like Him, 462). In that Jesus said that the Father “gave to the Son to have life in Himself” it is more likely that the text speaks of the historical person, Jesus of Nazareth. As Hodge noted (Systematic Theology, 1:470), the verse speaks of the incarnate Word and not of the Word, the Second Person of the Trinity, i.e., it speaks of Christ in the flesh, and not of Christ in His divine nature. Calvin was on safer ground when He argued that Christ was self-existent simply because He was Yahweh, the great “I Am that I Am” (cf. John 8:58). Cf. John Calvin, Letters, 1:55–56, quoted by Hodge, 1:467.
- Cf. Strong, Systematic Theology, 316; Ryrie, The Holy Spirit, 22–23.
- Ryrie, The Holy Spirit, 23.
- The reference to “His Son” in v. 29 makes it clear that v. 28 is a reference to the Father.
- On the creation of the universe by Christ, cf. David J. MacLeod, “The Creation of the Universe by the Word (John 1:3–5),” BibSac 160 (April, 2003): forthcoming.
- Michael P. Jensen, “The Gospel of Creation,” RTR 59 (December, 2000): 131.
- Jensen, “The Gospel of Creation,” 131. Jürgen Moltmann wrote, “This messianic doctrine of creation therefore sees creation together with its future—the future for which it was made and in which it will be perfected.” (God in Creation—A New Doctrine of Creation and the Spirit of God, trans. Margaret Kohl [San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985], 5). “There is then an eschatology of creation, an understanding of a destiny which is something more than a return to its beginnings” (Colin Gunton, “The Doctrine of Creation,” in The Cambridge Companion to Christian Doctrine, ed. Colin E. Gunton [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997], 143). John taught that the world had a beginning (“before the foundation of the world,” Rev. 13:8; 17:8), and it has an end (“the world passes away,” 1 John 2:17). See Paul R. Raabe, “A Dynamic Tension: God and World in John,” Concordia Journal 21 (April, 1995): 133.
- Strong, Systematic Theology, 316; Ryrie, The Holy Spirit, 23–25.
- “Absolutely none other than the Holy Spirit is here under consideration…. It may require the full light of New Testament revelation to enable us to discern that the Spirit of God here is the same as He who in the New Testament is seen to be the Holy Spirit; but having that light, we need not hesitate to believe that it sheds clear light back on the Old Testament usage of the expression…. Does it not seem reasonable that the Spirit of inspiration should have so worded the words that bear upon His activity that, when the full New Testament revelation has come, all statements concerning the Spirit are in perfect harmony with this later revelation?” H. C. Leupold, Exposition of Genesis, 2 vols. (1942; reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1967), 1:49–50. After evaluating the case for “wind” or “Spirit” as the proper translation of רוּחָ in this context, Bruce K. Waltke opted for “Spirit” (Genesis: A Commentary [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001], 60).
- Plantinga, “Trinity,” 915.
- Plantinga, “Trinity,” 915. Cf. Arthur W. Wainwright, The Trinity in the New Testament, 2d ed. (London: SPCK, 1969), 93–104.
- Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen notes that at various times in the church’s history there has been a neglect of the Holy Spirit. Early in church history the Spirit was spoken of as “the Unknown Third.” In the fourth century Nazianzus spoke of “the God about whom no one writes.” Before ad 1054 Eastern theologians accused their Western counterparts of “forgetfulness of the Spirit.” Nineteenth century Catholic theologians spoke of “the forgotten God.” In modern times Greek Orthodox theologian Nikos Nissiotis charged Western theology with “Christomonism,” and some Protestant writers spoke of the Holy Spirit as “the Cinderella of the Trinity”—when the other two sisters went to the ball, Cinderella was left at home (Pneumatology [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002], 16–19). There has been a great deal of interest in the Spirit more recently, with Christian experience swinging between the extremes of rationalism and emotionalism. These extremes must not lead to the Spirit’s neglect, warns Geoffrey W. Bromiley, or Christian life and work will be impoverished (“The Holy Spirit,” in Fundamentals of the Faith, ed., Carl F. H. Henry [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1969], 145).
- F. Dale Bruner, “The Shy Member of the Trinity,” in The Holy Spirit—Shy Member of the Trinity, eds. Frederick Dale Bruner and William Hordern (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984), 14–15. Bruner writes, “What I mean here by shyness is not the shyness of timidity (cf. 2 Tim. 1:7), but the shyness of deference, the shyness of a concentrated centering of attention on another.” Shedd wrote, “The reason why less is said in Scripture respecting the adoration and worship of the third person than of the others is, that in the economy of redemption it is the office of the Spirit to awaken feelings of worship, and naturally, therefore, He appears more as the author than the object of worship” (Dogmatic Theology, 1:331).
- Strong, Systematic Theology, 316.
- Feinberg, No One Like Him, 467–68.
- I am using the word “command” instead of the more common “formula” to describe Jesus’ instructions to His disciples. Our Lord’s words were eventually adopted as the formula for baptism, but the early Christians did not treat them as strict liturgical guidelines. This is evidenced by their actual practice in NT times. They consistently baptize in Jesus’ name and not in the three-fold name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38; 8:16; 10:48; 19:5; Rom. 6:3; Gal. 3:27). The early church did not feel “bound by precise ‘formulas’ and felt no embarrassment at a multiplicity of them, precisely because Jesus’ instruction…was not regarded as a binding formula” (D. A. Carson, “Matthew,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, 12 vols., ed. Frank E. Gaebelein [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984], 8:598). The variety of “formulas” used in the NT is helpfully laid out in W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, 3 vols., ICC (Edinburgh: Clark, 1997), 3:685. Although the command in Matthew 28:19 was not considered a “binding formula” in the NT era church, it soon became “the ground-plan of the baptismal confessions and ‘rules of faith’ which very soon began to be framed all over the church” (Warfield, “The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity,” 169).
- Warfield, “The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity,” 169. For a fuller discussion of some of the debates over this text, cf. Carson, “Matthew,” 8:595–98; Leon Morris, The Gospel according to Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 746–48.
- In the Koine Greek of the NT era the prepositions ἐν and εἰς are “freely interchanged.” Matthew, however, gives εἰς its full sense. Cf. James Hope Moulton, A Grammar of New Testament Greek, 4 vols., vol. 3: Syntax by Nigel Turner (Edinburgh: Clark, 1963), 254–55; Maximilian Zerwick, Biblical Greek, trans. Joseph Smith (Rome: Pontifical Institute, 1963), § 106, p. 35.
- Davies and Allison, The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, 685.
- The command to baptize “in the name” distinguishes Christian baptism from John’s baptism, which required only repentance. Cf. Robert H. Gundry, Matthew: A Commentary on His Handbook for a Mixed Church Under Persecution (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 596.
- Carson, “Matthew,” 597; Willoughby C. Allen, The Gospel According to St. Matthew, 3d ed., ICC (Edinburgh: Clark, 1912), 305–6. The question of baptismal regeneration is beyond the scope of this article. I shall only say that I believe the Bible indicates that baptism is performed on those who have already believed in Christ and are regenerate (cf. Acts 8:35–38; 10:47–48).
- Warfield, The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity,” 153. In the quote from Warfield I have changed “in” to “into” and added italics. The Greek text reads, εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος.
- Warfield, “The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity,” 154.
- In the Bible “name” is that which “reveals the true nature of its bearer.” G. F. Hawthorne, “Name,” ISBE 3 (1986): 480.
- Warfield, “The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity,” 154.
- “So that we see that God is not truly known, unless our faith distinctly conceives three Persons in one Essence; and the efficacy and fruit of Baptism flow from thence: God the Father adopts us in His Son, and through the Spirit reforms us into righteousness.” John Calvin, A Harmony of the Gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke, vol. 3 and The Epistles of James and Jude, trans. A. W. Morrison (Edinburgh: Clark, 1972), 253.
- Warfield, “The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity,” 155.
- Warfield, “The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity,” 155. D. Wenham wrote, “The Trinitarian tendencies of the early church are most easily explained if they go back to Jesus Himself; but the importance of the point for our study is that it means that Matthew’s reference to the Trinity in chapter 28 is not a white elephant thoroughly out of context. Whether a formula or not, whether ipsissima verba or evangelist’s paraphrase, the Matthean command may be regarded as the crystallization of ideas that are present as well in the resurrection accounts of Luke and John. “The Resurrection Narratives in Matthew’s Gospel,” TynB 24 (1973): 53.
- Barrett, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 345.
- Barrett prefers the translation “participation” for κοινωνία in this context (The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 344).
- Warfield, “The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity,” 159.
- Paul Barnett, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 619. Bengel said of this verse, “an admirable testimony to the Holy Trinity.” Cf. John Albert Bengel, New Testament Word Studies, 2 vols., trans. Charlton T. Lewis and Marvin R. Vincent (1864; reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1971), 2:338.
- Barrett, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 345. Swete wrote, “The manner in which this Apostolic benediction brings together the Father, the Son, and the Spirit in their relation to the Church suggests beyond a doubt that beneath the religious life of the Apostolic age there lay a profound though as yet unformulated faith in the tripersonality of God” (The Holy Spirit in the New Testament, 198).
- Wainwright, The Trinity in the New Testament, 237–47.
- Warfield, “The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity,” 160.
- Warfield, “The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity,” 159.
- Warfield, “The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity,” 160.
- Edward Gordon Selwyn argued that the baptismal command of Matthew 28:19 “had some influence upon 1 Pet. 1:2.” He theorized that the Matthean passage first appeared as “the concluding section of a collection of verba Christi.” One need not accept Selwyn’s theory of an early collection of the words of Christ to accept his primary thesis, viz., that Matthew 28:19 influenced 1 Peter 1:2. After all, Peter was present when the Lord commissioned His disciples with the words, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.” Cf. The First Epistle of St. Peter, 2d ed. (London: Macmillan, 1947), 247.
- Wainwright, The Trinity in the New Testament, 244.
- The highly enigmatic expression, “the seven Spirits who are before His throne,” is no doubt influenced by themes to be found later in the book, specifically in Revelation 4:5 and 5:6 where the Spirit is spoken of as “seven lamps” and “seven eyes.” This imagery, in turn, is taken from Zechariah 4:1–10 (F. F. Bruce, “The Spirit in the Apocalypse,” in Christ and Spirit in the New Testament, eds. Barnabas Lindars and Stephen S. Smalley [Cambridge: University Press, 1973], 336). The language there (“seven lamps…not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord…eyes of the Lord”) suggests perhaps the “Holy Spirit in the plurality of His functions” (George Eldon Ladd, A Commentary on the Revelation of John [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972], 25). For other interpretations, cf. Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, NICNT, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 46–48. G. R. Beasley-Murray rejects the theory that the seven Spirits are the seven angels who stand before God (8:2) for two reasons: (1) John uses the term “angels” in 8:2, but he uses the term “spirits” here. (2) While angels are linked to God and Christ in other texts (Luke 9:26; 1 Tim. 5:21), it is unlikely that they would come between God and Christ in a Christian benediction (The Book of Revelation, NCB [London: Oliphants, 1974], 55).
- Bishop F. H. Chase, JTS 6 (1904–5): 510, quoted by Wainwright, The Trinity in the New Testament, 247.
- J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 3d ed. (New York: Longman, 1972), 23.
- Cf. Feinberg, No One Like Him, 466; Grudem, Systematic Theology, 231–33. A common symbol on the stained glass windows of medieval churches is the Shield of the Trinity. Almost an inverted equilateral triangle in shape, it has three curving sides, each exactly equal in length. At each of the three angles is a small circle bearing the name of one of the members of the Trinity, Pater (“Father”), Filius (“Son”), and Spiritus Sanctus (“Holy Spirit”). In the center of the triangle is a larger circle with the word Deus (“God”). Going in from the small circles to the large one are three bands with the word est (“is”), and on each of the sides of the triangle is the phrase non est (“is not”). Read in any direction, the shield teaches the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. The Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father. The Father is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father. The Spirit is not the Son, and the Son is not the Spirit. Cf. F. R. Webber, Church Symbolism, 2d ed. (Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1971), 44–46.
- Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:279.
- Morris, The Gospel according to John, 67.
- A. T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research (Nashville: Broadman, 1934), 623.
- Cf. Marcus Dods, “The Gospel of St. John,” in The Expositor’s Greek Testament, 5 vols. (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1910; reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 1:684. J. H. Bernard (The Gospel According to St. John, 2 vols., ICC [Edinburgh: Clark, 1928], 1:2), however, denies that πρός with the accusative differs much from παρά with the dative. In short, the preposition means no more than “existence along side of.” M. E. Boismard (St. John’s Prologue, trans. Carisbrooke Dominicans [London: Aquin, 1957], 8) states that John is seeking to convey the idea of distinction from God and not closeness to God. Likewise Carson (The Gospel According to John, 116) argues that Dods and others claim too much in suggesting that John is trying to express a peculiar intimacy with πρός. He goes on to concede, however, that πρός normally means “with” only when a person is with a person, usually in some fairly intimate relationship. Basil F. C. Atkinson said it has the same sense of intimacy as it does in the story of the prodigal son where he gives it the sense “home” (Luke 15:18, 20): “I will get up and go home to my father…. And he got up and came home to his father” (The Theology of Prepositions [London: Tyndale, 1944], 19).
- Cf. David J. MacLeod, “The Baptism of Christ, or: The Anointing of the King,” EmJ 9 (2000):135-54.
- Feinberg, No One Like Him, 466.
- E. Schweizer, “υἱός,” TDNT 8:374–76. The formula in each of these texts has these elements: (1) God is the sender, (2) a verb for sending is used, either ἐξαποστέλλω, πέμπω, or δίδωμι, and (3) the mission of the Son is a salvific one and is always expressed by a ἵνα (purpose) clause. Cf. Reginald H. Fuller, “The Conception/Birth of Jesus as a Christological Moment,” JSNT 1 (1978): 40-43.
- Feinberg, No One Like Him, 466.
- L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 89. Cf. Oscar Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963), 247.
- Calvin cautioned that the distinction between the persons should be investigated with “much reverence and sobriety” (Institutes of the Christian Religion 1.13.17 [1:141]). He quotes a passage from Gregory of Nazianzus that “vastly delights me.” Gregory said, “I cannot think on the one without quickly being encircled by the splendor of the three; nor can I discern the three without being straightway carried back to the one.” Gregory, Oration on Holy Baptism 41 in NPNF, 2d Series, 7:375.
- Strong, Systematic Theology, 326.
- A. Sabatier, The Apostle Paul (London: Hodder and Stoughton, n.d.), 259. Briggs wrote, “The epistle distinctly sets forth three different states of the Messiah: pre-existence in heaven, humiliation on earth, and enthronement in heaven. Each of these is presented with a wealth of meaning beyond anything taught in [Paul’s earlier epistles].” Cf. C. A Briggs, The Messiah of the Apostles (New York: Scribner’s, 1895), 179.
- J. B. Lightfoot, St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians (London: Macmillan, 1913; reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1968), 110. In classical Greek this participle would mean “being by nature” or “being originally” (RV, mg.). In later Greek it frequently meant simply “to be.” Cf. J. Hugh Michael, The Epistle of Paul to the Philippians, Moffatt New Testament Commentary (New York: Harper, 1927), 86. In New Testament Greek, however, there are times when the context suggests a being already (cf. Acts 7:55; 8:16). The present context would suggest that ὑπάρχων has a fuller meaning than simply “to be.” There are two reasons: (1) In this passage Paul’s choice of terms is, by almost universal agreement, careful. In such a context the fact that he uses three words to express existence would suggest that his usage observes their nuances of meaning: εἶναι [“to be,” v. 6], ὑπαρχών [“to be essentially,” v. 6], γίνομαι [“to come to be,” “become,” vv. 7, 8]. Cf. Alfred Plummer, A Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians (London: Robert Scott Roxburghe House, 1991; reprint ed., Old Tappan: Revell, n.d.), 42. (2) It is clear that verse 7 (“being made in the likeness of men”) is subsequent in time to verse 6. The choice to humble Himself was antecedent to His incarnation.
- E. H. Gifford, The Incarnation: A Study of Philippians 2:5–11 and A University Sermon on Psalm 110 (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1911), 7.
- Cf. MacLeod, “Imitating the Incarnation of Christ,” 314–15.
- David J. MacLeod, “The Exaltation of Christ: An Exposition of Philippians 2:9–11, ” BibSac 158 (Oct., 2001): 437-50. In Philippians 2:5–11 Paul follows a three-stage Christology: preexistence, humiliation, exaltation.
- Morris, The Gospel according to John, 419.
- Ernst Haenchen, John 2: A Commentary on the Gospel of John Chapters 7–21, Hermeneia, trans. Robert W. Funk (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 30.
- Morris, The Gospel according to John, 639.
- “The sojourn of Jesus on earth does not then mean merely an irrelevant change in scene, but a forfeiture of that pre-worldly existence that He once possessed” (Haenchen, John 2, 152).
- This interpretation of “the eternal Spirit” in Hebrews 9:14 is ably defended by F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews, NICNT, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 217.
- Hodge, Systematic Theology, 1:471. In context he is commenting with approval on the Nicene Creed (325). For the text of that creed, cf. Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, 3 vols., vol. 2: The Creeds of the Greek and Latin Churches (New York: Harper, 1877), 60. The Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed (ad 381) says of Christ, “the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds” (Schaff, 58). The expression “before all worlds” affirmed that “the Son did not become the Son in the Incarnation; rather, He who became incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth was the Son begotten of the Father from all eternity. The Incarnation was the act of an eternal Subject…first He was the Son, then He became incarnate as the Son” (Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation, 288, n. 26).
- Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 2.14.5 (1:487–89); Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:288; Strong, Systematic Theology, 340; Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, “The Christ that Paul Preached,” in The Person and Work of Christ, ed. Samuel G. Craig (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1950), 77; John Murray, “Jesus the Son of God,” in Collected Writings of John Murray, 4 vols., vol. 4: Studies in Theology (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1982), 58–81; James Oliver Buswell, A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1962), 1:107, 112; Chafer, Systematic Theology, 3:30; 7:290; John F. Walvoord, Jesus Christ Our Lord (Chicago: Moody, 1969), 39, 41–42; Grudem Systematic Theology, 547.
- J. N. Darby, “The Son of Man,” in Notes and Comments on Scripture (reprint ed., Sunbury, PA: Believers Bookshelf, 1971), 2:300; William Kelly, An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews (London: T. Weston, 1905), 15; C. H. Mackintosh, Genesis to Deuteronomy: Notes on the Pentateuch (1880–82; reprint ed., Neptune, NJ: Loizeaux, 1972), 295 [comment on Leviticus 2]; William Hoste, “Divine Relations Before the Incarnation,” in The Collected Writings of William Hoste, ed. W. M. Banks (Kilmarnock: John Ritchie, 1991), 1:54–61; W. J. Hocking, The Son of His Love (London: Hammond, 1946), 7–18 and passim; W. E. Vine, “Christ’s Eternal Sonship,” in The Collected Writings of W. E. Vine, 5 vols. (Glasgow: Gospel Tract Publications, 1985), 4:195, 198–202; idem., “The First and the Last,” 231; H. A. Ironside, A Historical Sketch of the Brethren Movement (Neptune, NJ: Loizeaux, 1985), 131; F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews, NICNT, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 54.
- For an evaluation of current denials of Christ’s Eternal Sonship, cf. George W. Zeller and Renald E. Showers, The Eternal Sonship of Christ (Neptune, NJ: Loizeaux, 1993), 30–35. It should be noted that many who have denied the eternality of Christ’s Sonship have not denied His deity or eternality.
- Adam Clarke, Clarke’s Commentary, 6 vols., vol. 5: Matthew to the Acts (Nashville: Abingdon, n.d.), 360–61. Clarke’s comments are based on Luke 1:35.
- Albert Barnes, Notes on the New Testament: Romans (London: Blackie, 1884–85), 15–16. In this section Barnes is commenting on Rom. 1:4.
- Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults, 169–70. In his classic work Martin argued that the title “Son” was functional and not ontological. “He was known prior to His incarnation as the eternal Word.”
- In his excellent treatment of our Lord’s miracles, Colin Brown limits the title “Son of God” to Messianic Sonship. He writes, “The title ‘Son of God’ is not in and of itself a divine title.” A more careful analysis of the evidence, however, indicates that it can be a divine title as when used of Christ’s Eternal or Essential Sonship. Cf. That You May Believe: Miracles and Faith Then and Now (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), 98–99. I should hasten to note that Prof. Brown affirms the deity of Christ; his point is that the title “Son of God” is only functional, not ontological, and refers only to Christ’s Messianic office. My own assessment of the evidence is that the title is used in three distinct ways in the NT.
- E.g., John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Hebrews (Chicago: Moody, 1983), 22.
- John MacArthur, “Reexamining the Eternal Sonship of Christ,” Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 6 (Spring, 2001): 21-23.
- Aberrant views on the person of Christ surfaced in the Exclusive wing of the Brethren, specifically in the party of F. E. Raven. The views of Raven, James Taylor, and C. A. Coates, including Raven’s fall into Apollinarian error are ably presented and refuted in R. A. Huebner, The Eternal Relationships in the Godhead (Morganville, NJ: Present Truth, 1997).
- Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:288. Cf. Athanasius, Four Discourses Against the Arians 1.4-5, in NPNF, 2d Series, 4:312–16.
- “The Son was presumably the Son before God sent Him” (F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 195). One might argue that these verses use the term “son” proleptically, i.e., with reference to what He was to become when born into the world. 1 John 4:14 (“the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world”) rules this out. In this text “He who was already the Son became the Savior, so that there is no room for doubt that the preexistent Lord was already the Son.” Cf. F. Büchsel, “μονογενής,” TDNT, 4:741, n. 16.
- Darby, “The Son of Man,” 300.
- C. F. D. The Origins of Christology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 31
- Geerhardus Vos, The Self-Disclosure of Jesus, ed. J. G. Vos (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954), 141–42, 191–93; cf. William Kelly, An Exposition of the Gospel of Mark (London: C. A. Hammond, 1934), 184; Idem., An Exposition of the Gospel of Luke, ed. E. E. Whitfield (London: Alfred Holness, 1914), 26–27; Idem., Lectures on the Epistle of Paul, the Apostle, to the Ephesians (London: G. Morrish, n.d.), 8; Idem., An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews (London: T. Weston, 1905), 14–15.
- Murray, “Jesus the Son of God,” 77.
- David G. Dunbar, “The Relationship of Christ’s Sonship and Priesthood in the Epistle to the Hebrews” (Th.M. Thesis, Westminster Theological Seminary, 1974), 7.
- Vos, The Self-Disclosure of Jesus, 189; cf. Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977),
- Norman F. Douty, Union With Christ (Swengel, Pennsylvania: Reiner, 1973), 26.
- Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, “The Christ that Paul Preached,” in The Person and Work of Christ, ed. Samuel G. Craig (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1950), 77.
- Vos, The Self-Disclosure of Jesus, 142, 193.
- Vos, The Self-Disclosure of Jesus, 141.
- Hughes, Hebrews, 49, 55.
- Douty, Union With Christ, 37.
- Zane C. Hodges, “Hebrews,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: New Testament Edition, eds. John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck (Wheaton: Victor, 1983), 781. The term “adoption” was incorrectly used by the Adoptionists of the 2nd and 8th centuries. They taught that Jesus was a man who became God by adoption. Evangelicals rightly reject this ancient heresy. The New Testament teaches that Christ in His divine nature is the eternal Son of God. Yet He is, in His human nature, the Messianic Son. God the Son took a human nature, and in that human state as David’s son, in fulfillment of the Davidic covenant (2 Sam. 7:12–14); Ps. 89:26–28), was adopted as God’s Son. Jesus is not only the eternal Son; He is also the Messianic Son. Cf. Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, s.v. “Adoptionism,” by H. F. Vos, 13–14.
- In Romans 1:4 the aorist passive participle ὁρισθέντος (horisthentos) is translated “declared” in the NASB (also AV, NIV, NEB). The problem with that translation is that the verb ὁρίζω means “to appoint,” “constitute,” or “install.” This is the sense it has in all NT uses (cf. Lk. 22:22; Acts 2:23; 10:42; 11:29; 17:26, 31; Heb. 4:7). Cf. K. L. Schmidt, “ὁριζω,” TDNT, 5:453.
- Marcus Dods, “The Epistle to the Hebrews,” in The Expositor’s Greek Testament, 5 vols., ed. W. Robertson Nicoll (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1910), 4:253.
- Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation, 287. Barth speaks of “the incomprehensible distinctions in God Himself” (Church Dogmatics 1.1 [372]).
- Hodge, Systematic Theology, 1:461. Calvin wrote, “‘Person,’ therefore, I call a ‘subsistence’ in God’s essence, which, while related to the others, is distinguished by an incommunicable quality” (Institutes of the Christian Religion 1.13.6 [1:128]). Hodge’s expression, “distinguishing property” is a paraphrase of Calvin’s “incommunicable quality.” Jewett makes a point in his definition of the Trinity of using the word “subsist” and not “exist” (“in God’s one essential being there eternally subsist three distinct persons”). He explains, “To ‘subsist’ is to be in a certain manner, form, or state, as white ’subsists’ in snow. As snow would not be snow apart from whiteness, so this particular whiteness of which we speak when we say that snow is white would not be whiteness apart from snow. So it is with the divine persons; they do not exist independently, but rather subsist mutually, in the Godhead” (God, Creation, and Revelation, 285).
- Hodge, Systematic Theology, 1:461.
- Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation, 287.
- The Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed (ad 381) reads, “I believe in one God the Father Almighty; Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible” (Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, 2:58.).
- Jewett (God, Creation, and Revelation, 293) rejects the translation “only begotten,” but argues that the concept of eternal generation is “a theologically correct inference.” Cf. Büchsel, “μονογενής,” TDNT, 4: 737–41.
- Plantinga, “Social Trinity and Tritheism,” 28; Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation, 28.
- Plantinga, “Social Trinity and Tritheism,” 28. Elsewhere Plantinga quotes with approbation J. A. T. Robinson’s paraphrase of John 1:14: Jesus is “the exact…reflection of God, His spit and image” (“The Use of the Fourth Gospel for Christology Today,” in Christ and Spirit in the New Testament, ed. Barnabas Lindars and Stephen S. Smalley [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973], 71). Cf. Plantinga, “The Threeness/Oneness Problem of the Trinity,” 51, n. 38.
- “We don’t use the words begetting or begotten much in modern English, but everyone still knows what they mean. To beget is to become the father of: to create is to make. And the difference is this. When you beget, you beget something of the same kind as yourself. A man begets human babies, a beaver begets little beavers and a bird begets eggs which turn into little birds. But when you make, you make something of a different kind from yourself. A bird makes a nest, a beaver builds a dam, a man makes a wireless set” (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity [New York: Macmillan, 1952], 138).
- Not all evangelical scholars agree. Due to the consensus of contemporary scholarship concerning the meaning of μομογενής (“unique,” “one of a kind,” “only”), they have suggested jettisoning the doctrine of eternal generation. Cf. Buswell, A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion, 1:111–12; Grudem, Systematic Theology, Appendix 6, 1233–34; Feinberg, No One Like Him, 492.
- “The Spirit did not become the Spirit at Pentecost. Rather, He who is eternally the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost as the promised Paraclete” (Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation, 291).
- The Scriptural support for the doctrine is John 15:26 (“the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father”). Most modern commentators argue that the statement speaks of the Spirit’s mission in the world to help the disciples, and not with the eternal mutual relationships of the persons of the Trinity. Westcott notes that if John had meant “procession from a source” he would have used the preposition ἐκ. Instead he used παρά, which suggests proceeding on a mission. Brooke Foss Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John: The Greek Text with Introduction and Notes, 2 vols., ed. A. Westcott (London: John Murray, 1908), 2:213; cf. Morris, The Gospel according to John, 606. Jewett holds out for the traditional idea of procession, arguing that the contemporary interpretation reduces the text to a “tautology”—“I will send the Spirit from the Father at Pentecost, i.e., the Spirit who will come from the Father at Pentecost.” Cf. God, Creation, and Revelation, 293.
- Barth, Church Dogmatics 1.1 (473–74). Barth was content to say that he did not really know what the terms “procession” and “generation” meant. “Our knowledge can be only an acknowledgment of the fact.” Jewett says the Cappadocian Fathers used a distinct term (procession) from that of the Son (generation) to escape the Arian jibe that the Father had two Sons (God, Creation, and Revelation, 291, n. 30). See also, Augustine, On the Trinity 15.27.48 in NPNF, 1st Series, 3:226.
- Barth, Church Dogmatics 1.1 (470). Barth quotes with approval Augustine’s remark that the Holy Spirit is “a kind of consubstantial communion of Father and Son” (On the Trinity 15.27.50 [227]). This suggests, says Barth, that the Spirit is “the common element, or, better, the fellowship, the act of communion, of the Father and the Son.” Elsewhere Augustine wrote, “And if the love by which the Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the Father, ineffably demonstrates the communion of both, what is more suitable than that He should be specially called love, who is the Spirit common to both?” (On the Trinity 15.19.37 [219]).
- Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation, 291.
- Cf. Grudem, Systematic Theology, 247
- Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation, 292.
- Augustine, On the Trinity 2.18.35 (54).
- Augustine, On the Trinity 5.10.11 (92–93), 5.11.12 (93). Adolph Harnack wrote, “Augustine only gets beyond Modalism by the mere assertion that he does not wish to be a Modalist.” History of Dogma, 7 vols., trans. Neil Buchanan (London: Constable, 1900), 4:131, n. 1. As Plantinga noted, this charge is unfair in that Augustine freely distinguishes the persons elsewhere (On the Trinity 15.5.7 [202], 15.7.12 [205], 15.17.28 [215], 15.19.36–37 [219-20]), Cf. Plantinga, “The Threeness/Oneness Problem of the Trinity,” 46. Nevertheless, says Plantinga, Books 5–7 explain God’s oneness with a strong “Neo-Platonic conviction that God is a simple being.” Jewett agrees that Augustine’s understanding of the divine oneness as numerical was based on a conviction—“more Greek than biblical—that the divine essence was simple and therefore indivisible” (God, Creation, and Revelation, 295). Erickson admitted that the classical doctrine of the Trinity was built on “a Greek metaphysics that was viable at the time but no longer makes a great deal of sense” (God in Three Persons, 211). The problem with the simplicity theory is that it suggests that Father, Son, and Spirit are finally just the same object. The NT writers, especially Paul and John, do not. “Simplicity theories are negotiable in ways that Pauline and Johannine statements are not” (Plantinga, “Social Trinity and Tritheism,” 39).
- One of the main defenders of the emphasis on God’s oneness in the twentieth century was Karl Barth. He preferred the phrase, “modes of being” to “person” (Church Dogmatics 1.1 [360]). He says the essence of all three persons is “one and the same.” “The essence of God is the Godhead of God” (349). “Whatever else we may have to say about this threeness, in no case can it denote a threeness of essence.” “The idea we are excluding is that of a mere unity of kind or a mere collective unity, and the truth we are emphasizing is that of the numerical unity of the essence of the ‘persons’” (350).
- L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 88.
- Plantinga, “Social Trinity and Tritheism,” 27; Hodgson, The Doctrine of the Trinity, 129, 140 and passim. James I. Packer wrote, “There is far more to be said in favor of L. Hodgson’s ‘social’ than of Barth’s ‘modal’ model of the divine triunity” (“Theism for Our Time,” in God Who is Rich in Mercy: Essays Presented to Dr. D. B. Knox, eds. Peter T. O’Brien and David G. Peterson [Homebush West NSW, Australia: Lancer, 1986], 20).
- Social Trinitarians deny that they are tritheists by using one of three (or all three) arguments: (1) “If God is used as the peculiar name of the Father, as much of the NT uses it, then Father, Son, and Spirit are all divine persons, but there is only one fount of divinity, only one Father, only one God in that sense of God. [cf. Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 1.13.20 (1:144)]. (2) Supposing that God is the name of the divine essence, “then there are three divine persons but only one generic divinity, one divinitas or deitas, one Godhead, or Godhood, or Godness—only one God in that sense of God.” (3) “We could say that God is the designation of the whole Trinity.… We could then mean…that the Father is a divine person, the Son is a divine person, and the Holy Spirit is a divine person; yet there are not three ultimate monarchies, but only one, the holy Trinity. For though each of the three is a divine person, each is also essentially related to the other two divine persons such that none alone is God the Trinity.” He goes on to note that classical tritheism is Arianism, the view that only the Father is fully divine, while Son and Spirit, though ontologically inferior, are still worshiped. “It’s the combination of polytheistic worship with second-rate divinity—with differing generic essences in the divine life—that is objectionable. Social trinitarians, like all Trinitarians, view this as heretical.” Plantinga, “The Threeness/Oneness Problem of the Trinity,” 52; idem., “The Perfect Family,” Christianity Today (March 4, 1988): 27.
- It is also called a “circumincession” from the Latin circumincessio. This is found in John’s work, Fount of Wisdom. Cf. ODCC, s.v. “John of Damascus,” 748.
- Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 1:415.
- Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:300.
- Barth, Church Dogmatics 1.1 (370); cf. Hodge, Systematic Theology, 1:461; Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation, 298.
- Plantinga, “Social Trinity and Tritheism,” 29.
- Plantinga, “The Threeness/Oneness Problem of the Trinity,” 51.
- Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation, 303.
- Augustine, On the Trinity 1.4.7; 1:5.8 (20–21). The intertrinitarian acts of God (opera ad intra) are said to be divisible, only the Father “begets,” only the Son is “begotten,” only the Spirit “proceeds.” The outward works toward the world (opera ad extra) are said to be indivisible, i.e., common to all members of the Godhead. Cf. Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation, 306; Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 1:415–16. Pieper wrote, “This terminology is not meaningless jargon, but necessary theological apparatus…. [It] became necessary on account of the errors and the treachery of the heretics.”
- Common theological usage speaks of “appropriation,” i.e., each member of the Godhead is said to have “appropriated” a certain task or role. Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation, 306.
- Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation, 307. The three categories are from Martin Luther. Jewett says there are three ground rules in speaking of the different roles (“doctrine of appropriation”): (1) There should be a genuine analogy between the personal distinctions and the roles they are given by appropriation, e.g., the Father is given the role of creator since He is the first member of the Godhead. (2) The doctrine must never be pressed so as to violate the unity of God’s works, e.g., by speaking as if there are three Gods. (3) The doctrine should never be applied so as to blur the distinctions.
- Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation, 305. In this sense, at least, we can agree with Karl Rahner, “The ‘economic’ Trinity is the ‘immanent’ Trinity and the ‘immanent’ Trinity is the ‘economic’ Trinity” (The Trinity [New York: Herder and Herder, 1970], 21–22). He says that if this is not true, “there would no longer be any connection between ‘mission’ and the intra-trinitarian life.… That which God is for us would tell us absolutely nothing about that which He is in Himself, as triune” (30).
- Could the roles have been reversed? Thomas Aquinas suggests that they could have been (Summa Theologica 3.3.5 [2:2047]). I would suggest that the answer is, “No,” for these reasons: (1) The various activities were performed as God deemed best. What God does is what is “right,” “proper,” or “fitting” for God to do, cf. Heb. 2:10 [F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews, NICNT, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 79]. (2) If Aquinas is correct, then God’s activities for us tell us nothing about His being. Yet, it is salvation history that tells us what God is like [Rahner, Trinity, 30]. (3) The unchangeableness of God argues for the appropriateness of the roles. God has always been Father, Son, and Spirit, and these roles could not be reversed.
- Failure to appreciate the distinct roles of the three persons is seen when a believer leads the congregation in prayer, addresses God as Father, and then thanks Him for dying on the cross for our sins. Cf. Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation, 308, n. 53.
- In the era before the church articulated the orthodox statement of the Trinity at Nicea (ad 325) and Constantinople (ad 381), Origen (ad 185–254) attributed a secondary grade of deity to the Son. The Son, he said, derived His being from the Father. The Father alone possesses the absolute and eternal essence of the Godhead. Such ontological subordination of the Son and Spirit is today universally rejected by believing Christians. Cf. the discussion of Origen’s trinitarianism in Shedd, A History of Christian Doctrine, 1:288–305 (esp. 293–94).
- It is important at this point to be clear in definitions. R. C. and C. C. Kroeger claim that the heresy of subordinationism “assigns an inferiority of being, status, or role to the Son or the Holy Spirit within the Trinity” (“Subordinationsim”, EvDictTheol, 1058). The addition of the phrase “or role” is historically inaccurate and reflects the feminist distortions of the authors. More correct is Alan Richardson’s definition, “Any christological position which subordinates the Son to the Father in such a way as potentially to endanger His essential divinity” (“Subordinationism,” in WDCT, 553). Another standard work says that Subordinationism is the view that the Son and Spirit “do not fully possess the divine essence (Homoousion)” (“Subordinationism,” in Dictionary of Theology, 2d ed., eds. Karl Rahner and Herbert Vorgrimler [New York: Crossroad, 1981], 488, italics mine). In short, the ancient heresy undermined the equality of essence of the Son and Spirit with the Father. The question of role or function was not the point.
- Evangelical feminist Stanley J. Grenz writes, “The subordination of the Son to the Father must be balanced by the subordination of the Father to the Son” (Women in the Church: A Biblical Theology of Women in Ministry [Downers Grove: Inter Varsity Press, 1995], 154). The exegetical evidence for this outrageous statement is, of course, non-existent. At times Grenz writes as if his wishing something to be so makes it so! There is a difference between a mutual dependence and a mutual subordination. That there is mutual dependence between Father and Son no one denies.
- Hodge, Systematic Theology, 1:460–61.
- The difference of opinion has not been a hotly debated one until recently. Since the onset of evangelical feminism, however, there has been an attempt to portray the view that there is an eternal difference of roles as a heresy. Egalitarian writers have rightly concluded that the doctrine gives ammunition to complementarian writers who argue for a difference in role between husbands and wives in the home, and for male leadership in the church. The most recent example of this kind of partisan exegesis and historiography is Kevin Giles, The Trinity and Subordinationism (Downers Grove: Inter Varsity Press, 2002). For a critical evaluation of this work, cf. Peter R. Schemm, Jr., “Kevin Giles’ The Trinity and Subordinationism: A Review Article,” JBMW 7 (Fall, 2002): 67-78.
- Erickson, Christian Theology, 363, 714–15; Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation, 317.
- Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 1.13.18 (1:143); Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:300–2; Hodge, Systematic Theology, 1:460–62; Strong, Systematic Theology, 342; Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 89; Grudem, Systematic Theology, 251–52. Strong wrote, “We frankly recognize an eternal subordination of Christ to the Father, but we maintain at the same time that this subordination is a subordination of order, office, and operation, not a subordination of essence.”
- The Scriptural evidence for the eternality of the Son’s subordination to the Father is as follows: (1) Christ’s Sonship is eternal. The Son was “sent” into the world, and only one already existing could be sent [Gal. 4:4; cf. John 3:16–17]. That there is rank or role involved is indicated by the fact that it is the Son and not the Father who was sent. (2) The Son came to do the will of the Father, “the will of Him who sent Me” [John 4:34; cf. Luke 2:49; John 6:38–40; 17:4; Heb. 10:7–9]. (3) The Son is the Father’s agent in creation. All things were created “through Him” [John 1:3] and “by Him” [Col. 1:16]. In 1 Corinthians 8:6 the Father is said to be the originator of all things and Christ is His agent. The Father and the Son are united in being, but they are “ranked in function” (4) In the pre-temporal councils of God the Father is singled out as the member of the Godhead who elects His people. Ephesians 1:3–6 certainly teaches functional distinctions within the Godhead. (5) In 1 Corinthians 15:58 Paul indicates that in eternity future the Son will be subordinate to the Father. (Paul Rainbow, “Orthodox Trinitarianism and Evangelical Feminism” [unpublished ms.]); Stephen D. Kovach and Peter R. Schemm, Jr., “A Defense of the Doctrine of the Eternal Subordination of the Son,” JETS 42 (Sept., 1999): 470-72. Both of these articles have impressive discussions of the history of this doctrine that clearly demonstrate that it is the historical view of orthodoxy.
- Robert Letham, “The Man-Woman Debate: Theological Comment,” WTJ 52 (1990): 68.
- Robert Letham, “The Man-Woman Debate,” 68; Cf. Thomas F. Torrance, “Toward an Ecumenical Consensus on the Trinity,” in Trinitarian Perspectives: Toward Doctrinal Agreement (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1994), 77–102.
- Letham, “The Man-Woman Debate,” 68–69; Grudem, Systematic Theology, 251. In recent years evangelical feminists have attacked the view that the Son is eternally subordinate in role to the Father (cf. Gilbert Bilezikian, “Hermeneutical Bungee-Jumping: Subordination in the Godhead,” JETS 40 [March, 1997]: 57-68). The attack is based on the feminist claim that a subordinate role necessarily implies lesser importance or lesser personhood. Since this is not true among members of the Trinity, it is not true between husband and wife either (Letham, 75–78; Grudem, 251, n. 35).
- My discussion of the Bible’s masculine language for God follows Elizabeth Achtemeier, “Exchanging God for ‘No Gods’: A Discussion of Female Language for God,” in Speaking the Christian God, ed. Alvin F. Kimel, Jr. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 1–16.
- Mary Daly, “The Qualitative Leap Beyond Patriarchal Religion,” Quest 1 (1974): 21.
- In speaking of God and Christ feminists will speak of “she” and “her” (Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Reconstruction of Christian Origins [New York: Crossroad, 1983], 345, 347).
- Christian theologians speak of the incomprehensibility of God, but they also speak of His self-revelation and knowability (cf. Herman Bavinck, The Doctrine of God, trans. William Hendriksen [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951], 13–59). Orthodox theology balances apophatic theology, which says that God is in His essential deity unknowable, with cataphatic theology, which says that God has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. Feminist theology stresses the apophatic dimension and says that God is Mystery which we are to name. Cf. Toon, Our Triune God, 22–23.
- The Greek word for Spirit (πνεῦμα) is neuter, but the pronouns used in John’s Gospel are masculine (14:26; 15:26; 16:13–14). Clark Pinnock admits to the temptation to use the feminine pronoun “she” for the Spirit, but was apparently constrained by John’s usage. Cf. Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Downers Grove: Inter Varsity Press, 1996), 15–17.
- Cf. the usage in the National Council of Churches’ An Inclusive-Language Lectionary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983).
- Rosemary Radford Reuther, Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology (Boston: Beacon Press, 1983), 48.
- Reuther, Sexism and God-Talk, 116–38.
- Reuther, Sexism and God-Talk, 266.
- Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, The Divine Feminine: The Biblical Imagery of God as Female (New York: Crossroad, 1983), 58.
- Daly, Beyond God the Father. The phrases in parentheses are her chapter titles.
- Cf. the documentation in Letham, “The Man-Woman Debate,” 75–76. As Dale Youngs notes, however, goddess worship actually works against the feminists for four reasons: (1) In no pagan religion was the goddess the Chieftess; rather, she always played a subordinate role. (2) Goddesses are always connected to motherhood and fertility, which fact undermines the feminist attack against motherhood and being reduced to being “baby factories.” (3) The contention that goddess worship yields a more peaceable religious tradition is undermined by the fact that goddesses like the Canaanite Anat took joy in the blood of their enemies. (4) Societies that worshipped goddesses were far more oppressive and patriarchal than that of the Old Testament. “What’s So Good About the Goddess?” Christianity Today (August 16, 1993): 21.
- Elizabeth Achtemeier, “Exchanging God for ‘No Gods’: A Discussion of Female Language for God,” 4–9.
- Feminist theologian Sallie McFague rejects the classical theism that is espoused in this article. She argues instead for a worldview that is “monist and perhaps more precisely designated as panentheistic.” She affirms “the basic oneness of all reality, including the unity of God and the world” and proposes that we view the cosmos as “God’s body” (Models of God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987], 72–73, 93). Commenting on the theology that is being taught in some of the more radical seminaries, Harvard professor Paul D. Hanson said that “the pendulum is now where not a revision but a negation of tradition is espoused in the classrooms.” He contended that “when we lose sight of the transcendent God, we begin to create our own gods” (quoted in Paul Wilkes, “The Hands That Would Shape Our Souls,” Atlantic [Dec., 1990]: 86).
- Roland M. Frye, “Language for God and Feminist Language: Problems and Principles,” in Kimel, ed., Speaking the Christian God, 36–43. Cf. E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1898; reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1968), 727, 735. “Simile clarifies the subject but does not identify.… Metaphor, on the other hand, predicates and names” (Alvin F. Kimel, Jr. A New Language for God? (Shaker Heights, OH: Episcopalians United, 1990), 4).
- Achtemeier, “Exchanging God for ‘No Gods’: A Discussion of Female Language for God,” 5.
- McFague (Models of God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age argues that God is essentially unknowable. “All language of God ‘misses the mark,’” she writes (p. 23), and “no language about God is adequate” (p. 35). The meaning of all language “applies properly only to our existence, not God’s” (p. 39). Consequently, she affirms, “theology is mostly fiction,” but “some fictions are better than others” (pp. xi, xii).
- Achtemeier, “Exchanging God for ‘No Gods’: A Discussion of Female Language for God,” 5.
- Kimel, “A New Language for God?”, 11–12.
- Achtemeier, “Exchanging God for ‘No Gods’: A Discussion of Female Language for God,” 6.
- Achtemeier, “Exchanging God for ‘No Gods’,” 7.
- “What Became of God the Mother? Conflicting Images of God in Early Christianity,” in Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion, ed. Carol Christ and Judith Plaskow (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979), 107.
- Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, The Divine Feminine: The Biblical Image of God as Female (New York: Crossroad, 1983), 58.
- Achtemeier, “Exchanging God for ‘No Gods’,” 9.
- Zsuzsanna E. Budapest, “Self-Blessing Ritual,” in Womanspirit Rising, 271–72.
- Achtemeier, “Exchanging God for ‘No Gods’,” 9.
- Warfield wrote, “The mystery of the Trinity is not revealed in the Old Testament; but the mystery of the Trinity underlies the Old Testament revelation” (“The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity,” 141–42). For further discussion of indications of the Trinity in the OT, cf. Hodge, Systematic Theology, 1:446–47; Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:262–266; Grudem, Systematic Theology, 226–30; Feinberg, No One Like Him, 448–56.
- These elements are traditionally called indicia et vestigia (“indications and traces”) of the Holy Trinity. Cf. Mueller, Christian Dogmatics, 159.
- The word אֱוֹּהִים occurs 2570 times in the OT. It is sometimes used of heathen gods (Ex. 20:3; Deut. 13:2) where it takes plural verbs (Ps. 97:7). When used of Israel’s God it normally takes the singular verb (E. Fretheim, אֱוֹּהִים,” NIDOTTE, 1:405–6). The use of the singular verb is “grammatically unusual” because nouns and verbs usually agree in number. Yet this phenomenon is “stylistically normal” in the OT. There are a few exceptions where אֱוֹּהִים takes a plural verb (Gen. 20:13, “caused to wander,” 35:7, “revealed,” 2 Sam. 7:23, “went”). By itself these usages do not point to the Trinity, but with the NT evidence they are suggestive. Cf. Feinberg, No One Like Him, 449.
- The word אֱוֹּהִים has a wide semantic range in the OT. It is used of the one true God of Israel (Gen. 1:1) and the false gods of the heathen (Ex. 20:3). In addition it is used of the representative of the Lord (Ex. 7:1), of human judges who administered justice in accordance with the word of the Lord (Ps. 82:1), and of angelic beings (Ps. 8:5, LXX). Cf. Robert Baker Girdlestone, Synonyms of the Old Testament, 2d ed. (1897; reprint, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, n.d.), 19–31.
- W. O. E. Oesterley and T. H. Robinson, Hebrew Religion: Its Origin and Development (New York: Macmillan, 1937), 127. This option has been universally rejected today. There is no example outside the OT of peoples of the ancient Near East using the plural of ’el when describing any one of their gods as an individual. Why should only the Hebrews have failed to discard the plural number when referring to their one God? The OT itself does use the plural when referring to pagan gods as individuals to underscore the polytheistic overtones of their worship (Eugene H. Merrill, “Is the Doctrine of the Trinity Implied in the Genesis Creation Account? Yes,” in The Genesis Debate, ed. Ronald Youngblood [Nashville: Nelson, 1986], 120.).
- E.g., Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1–15, WBC (Waco: Word, 1987), 14.
- Helmer Ringgren, “אֱוֹּהִים,” TDOT, 1:272–73. Gottfried Quell calls this the “plural of amplitude” (“θεός,” TDNT, 3:86).
- E.g., H. Freedman, “The Book of Genesis,” in The Soncino Chumash, ed., A. Cohen (London: Soncino, 1947), 1; Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary, 58.
- E.g., J. H. Hertz, ed., The Soncino Edition of the Pentateuch and Haftorahs (2d ed., London: Soncino, 1960), 2.
- In a number of OT passages the plural אֱוֹּהִים is used of singular heathen gods—Dagon, Baal, Ashtoreth, Chemosh, Milcom, and Nisroch (Judg. 6:31; 8:33; 16:23–24; 1 Sam. 5:3–7; 1 Kings 11:33; 18:27; 2 Kings 1:2; 19:37)—just as it is used of the one true God of Israel. Does not this usage, where there is no thought of a triune God, require an interpretation of the plural, not as a plurality of persons, but as an intensification, i.e., the “great” god, or the “highest” god? (cf. Ringgren, “אֱוֹּהִים,” 272–73). Does this not further require that the plural אֱוֹּהִים, when used of the one true God of Israel, be understood as an intensification and not as a plurality of persons? In answering, “No,” to both questions, I would make the following observations: First, Israel’s idea of God did not come from the etymology of the word אֱוֹּהִים or from the heathen world. In fact, the word אֱוֹּהִים is not found in ancient Near Eastern documents outside the OT (Fretheim, “אֱוֹּהִים,” 405). Israel’s understanding of God came through divine revelation (Girdlestone, Synonyms of the Old Testament, 27). The word itself has a wide semantic range, and the heathen world of OT times was polytheistic. There is, therefore, no need to think that אֱוֹּהִים meant the same thing to God’s elect people as it did to the surrounding nations. Nor must we assume that the plural form of the word had the same overtones to both Israel and the Gentile world. Second, scholars have offered two possible reasons why the plural אֱוֹּהִים retains the notion of plurality even when used of a single pagan god: (1) The names Dagon, Chemosh, etc. were not the names of single idols, but of innumerable idols throughout the kingdom. The plural form is a collective noun embracing every idol in the realm [David L. Cooper, The Eternal God Revealing Himself to Suffering Israel and to Lost Humanity [Los Angeles: Biblical Research Society, 1928], 44, n.]. (2) In OT Canaan, 1600–1200 BC, there was a movement in the direction of “theological universalism.” The Canaanites began to use the plural form for their gods (e.g., Ashtarôt and Anatôt) in the sense of “totality of manifestations of a deity.” The Canaanites would magnify “one of their own gods in monolatrous fashion by addressing him as the totality of gods, i.e., as equivalent to the entire pantheon” (William Foxwell Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity, 2d ed. [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1957], 213). “Monolatry” may be defined as “the worship of but one god when other gods are recognized as existing” (The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, 926).
- The appelation ל is the oldest Semitic name for God, appearing in Babylonian, Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Arabic. Its great antiquity is seen in its use in early names (e.g., Methusael in Gen. 4:18, and Ishmael in Gen. 16:11). Its etymology is problematic. It has been understood to be part of a verb אוּל = “to be strong.” This is the root underlying לָה or אַיִל (an oak, i.e., a mighty tree). Others connect it to the Arabic root ’ûl = “to be in front,” and therefore ’awwal, “first [in rank].” Another view connects it to a supposed root אלה meaning “power or might.” A. B. Davidson, The Theology of the Old Testament (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1904), 39; Edmond Jacob, Theology of the Old Testament, trans. Arthur W. Heathcote and Philip J. Allcock (New York: Harper, 1958), 43–44; Merrill F. Unger and William White, Jr., Nelson’s Expository Dictionary of the Old Testament (Nashville: Nelson, 1980), 157–61; and Ringgren, “אֱוֹּהִים,” 273. These scholars and others express a wise caution and humility in trying to explain the complex useage of אֱוֹּהִים in the OT.
- The term ל occurs 217 times, and אֱלוֹץַ occurs 57 times. On the usage, cf. Ringgren, אֱוֹּהִים,” 272.
- Cf. Bruce K. Waltke and M. O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990), § 7.4.3c, 122–24.
- Merrill, “Is the Doctrine of the Trinity Implied in the Genesis Creation Account? Yes,” 120.
- G. A. F. Knight, A Biblical Approach to the Doctrine of the Trinity, SJT Occasional Paper No. 1 (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1953), 19. See also: Cooper, The Eternal God Revealing Himself to Suffering Israel and to Lost Humanity, 43–46; Merrill, “Is the Doctrine of the Trinity Implied in the Genesis Creation Account? Yes,” 117–21.
- The pronoun “our” is actually a pronominal suffix on the nouns “image” and “likeness.”
- D. J. A. Clines, “The Image of God in Man,” TynB 19 (1968): 62-69. Cf. also Gerhard Hasel, “The Meaning of ‘Let Us’ in Gen. 1:26, ” AUSS 13 (1975): 58-66.
- Hermann Gunkel, Genesis, trans. Mark E. Biddle and Ernest W. Nicholson (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1997), 112; cf. Richard Elliott Friedman, Commentary on the Torah (San Francisco: Harper, 2001), 12. Gunkel argues that Genesis has purged out the pagan polytheism, but he still speaks of Yahweh as the chief God over a council of lesser gods. Against this view is the fact that Genesis 1 is antimythological in thrust, rejecting Near Eastern views of creation (Wenham, Genesis 1–15, 28). “It is false, therefore, to reckon here even occasionally with archaic and half-mythological rudiments” (Gerhard von Rad, Genesis, trans. John H. Marks (rev. ed., Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972), 47).
- This was the view of some medieval Jewish writers. Cf. Freedman, “The Book of Genesis,” 6. This view is untrue to other elements of the context. It is unlikely that the earth would be spoken of in the third person in verse 24 and the first person in verse 26. Furthermore, in verse 27 God alone is the Creator (Clines, “The Image of God in Man,” 65).
- C. F. Keil, The Pentateuch, 3 vols., K & D (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1864), 1:62; S. R. Driver, The Book of Genesis, WC (London: Methuen, 1904), 14; Hertz, The Soncino Edition of the Pentateuch and Haftorahs, 5. There are no examples, however, in the Hebrew OT of a monarch using plural verbs or plural pronouns of himself in this way. The only examples in Bible related literature are Alexander the Great (152 bc) and King Demetrius (145 bc) in the LXX text of 1 Macc. 10:19 and 11:31 (Grudem, Systematic Theology, 227, n. 1). As for Ezra 4:18 (“the document which you sent to us”), it is best understood as a reference to Artaxerxes and his court (D. J. Clines, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, NCB [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984], 81).
- This view is found in rabbinic literature. Cf. also: Franz Delitzsch, A New Commentary on Genesis, 2 vols., trans. trans. Sophia Taylor (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1888), 1:98–99; Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary, 64–65. The OT teaches that creation is the act of Yahweh alone. The expression “let us” is too strong to be understood as a mere consultation with the angels. Augustine wrote, “We might have supposed that the words uttered at the creation of man, “Let us,” and not “Let me,” “make man,” were addressed to the angels, had he not added “in our image;” but as we cannot believe that man was made in the image of angels, or that the image of God is the same as that of angels, it is proper to refer this expression to the plurality of the Trinity” (The City of God 16.6, in NPNF, 1st Series, 2:313).
- E. Kautzsch, ed., Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar, rev. A. E. Cowley (2d ed., London: Oxford University Press, 1910), § 124g, n. 2 (p. 398); Claus Westerman, Genesis 1–11: A Commentary, trans. John J. Scullion (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984). Cf. also: U. Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, Part 1: From Adam to Noah, trans. Israel Abrahams (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1961), 55. Cassuto sees some difference, which I do not, between self-deliberation and self-exhortation. There are few parallels to this usage (Song of Sol. 1:11; 2 Sam. 24; 14; Gen. 11:7), all of which have been challenged.
- This trinitarian understanding of the text goes back to the exegesis of the early church (e.g., First Council of Sirmium, ad 351). Cf. Barth, Church Dogmatics 3.1 (192); Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1–17, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 134; Clines, “The Image of God in Man,” 68–69; Merrill, “Is the Doctrine of the Trinity Implied in the Creation Account of Creation?” 121–22.
- Clines, “The Image of God in Man,” 62. Knight paraphrases, “God ‘discussed with his alter ego’” (A Biblical Approach to the Doctrine of the Trinity, 49).
- John Peter Lange, ed., Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, 25 vols., vol. 1: Genesis or, the First Book of Moses, trans. Tayler Lewis and A. Gosman (1868; reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1960), 173.
- Barth, Church Dogmatics 3.1 (192). He goes on, “If understood only against the background of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, we have at least the advantage of being able to accept everything that is said quite literally and without attenuation in this or that respect. We can take seriously not only plurality in the being of God, but also the ‘Let us’ as a summons to a real divine act of creation and the “our” image as the true image of God as in the equivalent in v. 27. Those who are not prepared to think of God’s triunity must ask themselves whether they can really do the same.”
- For a vigorous defense of the traditional translation and interpretation of this text, cf. Harris, Jesus as God, 187–202. Harris calls Psalm 45:6–8, “One of the most celebrated cruces interpretum in the OT.” The RSV reading, “Your divine throne endures forever and ever,” was probably adopted due to the theological presupposition that an OT psalmist could not have predicted a divine Messianic king (Grudem, Systematic Theology, 227, n. 4). The reading, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever,” follows “the punctuation and obvious syntax of the MT (viz. that אֱוֹּהִים is vocative). Cf. Peter C. Craigie, Psalms 1–50, WBC (Waco: Word, 1983), 337.
- Derek Kidner wrote, “This paradox is consistent with the incarnation, but mystifying in any other context. It is an example of Old Testament language bursting its banks, to demand a more than human fulfillment.” Cf. Psalms 1–72 (Downers Grove: Inter Varsity Press, 1973), 172.
- Psalm 45 is commonly understood as a song celebrating the Davidic king’s marriage. A. B. Davidson argues that the king is addressed ideally, not as he was or ever attained to be. The psalm, he says, is prophetic, and is finally realized in Messiah. Cf. The Epistle to the Hebrews (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1882), 48–49.
- Grudem, Systematic Theology, 228. Franz Delitzsch understood Psalm 110 to be purely predictive. “Among all the Davidic psalms there is only a single one, viz., Ps. 110, in which David…looks forth into the future of his seed and has the Messiah definitely before his mind.” Biblical Commentary on the Psalms, 3 vols., trans. Francis Bolton (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1871), 1:66; cf. Bruce K. Waltke, “A Canonical Process Approach to the Psalms,” in Tradition and Testament: Essays in Honor of Charles Lee Feinberg, eds. John S. and Paul D. Feinberg (Chicago: Moody, 1981), 6.
- The “son” of Proverbs 30:4 has been identified as: (1) Israel, (2) the demiurge, (3) the Messiah, (4) the Alexandrian Logos, (5) the NT doctrine of the Son of God. Cf. Crawford H. Toy, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Proverbs, ICC (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1899), 521–22.
- J. D. Michaelis, quoted with approbation by Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Proverbs of Solomon, 2 vols., trans. M. G. Easton (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1872), 2:276–77.
- Feinberg (No One Like Him, 451) adds Psalm 2:7 to Proverbs 30:4 as a suggestion of divine sonship. My own view is that Psalm 2:7 refers to Jesus’ Messianic Sonship. Assuming that Psalm 2 is Messianic, I would argue that the begetting of verse 7 refers to Christ’s being installed into the Messianic office at the time of His resurrection-exaltation (Acts 13:33; Rom. 1:4; Heb. 1:5). See above on the three divine “sonships” of Christ.
- The pointing of יְהֹוָה (yehōwāh) is that of the Massoretic text as it was read (the Qere). It is generally accepted that the original pronunciation was יַהוֶה (yahweh). Cf. BDB, s.v. “יהוה,” 218.
- Strong, Systematic Theology, 319; Feinberg, No One Like Him, 452–53.
- John F. Walvoord, Jesus Christ Our Lord (Chicago: Moody, 1969), 44–66, 52–54.
- Not all interpreters are convinced that the Angel of the Lord is a divine person. For a dissenting voice, cf. William Graham MacDonald, “Christology and ‘The Angel of the Lord,’” in Current Issues in Biblical and Patristic Interpretation, ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 324–35.
- Feinberg, No One Like Him, 453–54.
- Edward J. Young, The Book of Isaiah, 3 vols., NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), 1:337. Elsewhere in Isaiah the word ל is used only of God (p. 336). Young writes, “In the light of the New Testament we learn that this revelation was an adumbration of the doctrine of the Trinity. Isaiah, in other words, is now given a glimpse of the fact that in the fullness of the Godhead there is a plurality of Persons (p. 338). John N. Oswalt adds, “Wherever ʾel gibbôr occurs elsewhere in the Bible there is no doubt that the term refers to God (10:21; cf. also Deut. 10:17; Jer. 32:18). Cf. The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 1–39, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 247.
- C. F. Keil, The Prophecies of Jeremiah, 2 vols., trans. David Patrick, K & D (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1874), 1:353. Keil says this interpretation is required by the parallel passage (Jer. 33:16) wherein Jerusalem is given the same name. He seems to have wanted to have it both ways, however, because he later says (354), “the Godhead of this King is contained implicitly in the name.”
- Charles L. Feinberg, “Jeremiah,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, 12 vols., ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 6:519–20, n. 6.
- Thomas E. McComiskey, “Micah,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, 7 (1985): 427.
- Carl Friedrich Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets, 2 vols., trans. James Martin, K & D (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1871), 1:481. Keil wisely cautioned that although the passage implies the divine nature of the Messiah, we must not seek in it “the full knowledge of the Deity” or the inward relations of the Trinity.
- Feinberg, No One Like Him, 453–54.
- Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, “The Spirit of God in the Old Testament,” in Biblical and Theological Studies, ed. Samuel G. Craig (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1952), 129.
- Warfield, “The Spirit of God in the Old Testament,” 152.
- Derek Kidner speaks of Isaiah 48:16 as “a remarkable glimpse, from afar, of the Trinity” (“Isaiah,” in D. Guthrie and J. A. Motyer, eds., The New Bible Commentary: Revised [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970], 616). Commentators have wrestled over the identity of the new speaker who mysteriously enters the prophecy, the Lord God being the speaker in both the preceding and following contexts. A number of commentators have identified the new speaker (“The Lord God has sent Me, and His Spirit”) as the Servant of the Lord, i.e., Messiah. It is “an anticipatory interjection,” looking on to 49:1; 50:4; and 61:1 (J. Alec Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary [Downers Grove: Inter Varsity Press, 1993], 381; Young, The Book of Isaiah, 3:257–59; Geoffrey W. Grogan, “Isaiah,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, 12 vols., ed. Frank E. Gaebelein [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986], 6:281). For other interpretations, cf. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 40–66, 278.
- Knight argues that it is in Isaiah 63 that for the first time the concept of living personality is applied to the Spirit (A Biblical Approach to the Doctrine of the Trinity, 53).
- Feinberg, No One Like Him, 454; Grudem, Systematic Theology, 228. Merrill (“Is the Doctrine of the Trinity Implied in the Genesis Account of Creation?” 122–23) adds Genesis 1:2 to the passages cited above. The plurality of pronouns in Genesis 1:26 lends substance “to the fact that the Spirit at least is to be understood as a person of God co-laboring with ʾĕlōhîm in the work of creation.”
- Karl Barth (Church Dogmatics 2.2, eds. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1957], 95) protested applying Proverbs 8:22 to Christ. The Word, he argued, must be distinguished from Wisdom and all other created realities. His argument seems to assume something like the RSV translation, “The Lord created me at the beginning of His work.” The translation “possessed me”(NASB), of which Barth was aware, is to be preferred. The translation “created Me” in the RSV: (1) reflects the low Christological presuppositions of the Arian heresy, which Barth abhorred, (2) implies the use of the Hebrew בָּרָא [“create”] which is not used, (3) runs counter to the general meaning of the verb קָנָה (qānāh), which occurs eighty-four times in the OT and almost always means “get,” “acquire,” or “possess,” and not “create” [cf. BDB, s.v. “קָנָה,” 888–89], (4) ignores the context, which separates Wisdom from the creation, and (5) fails to apply the New Testament analogy of Christ as the only-begotten of the Father, who is begotten and not made. The teaching of the rest of the NT must not be ignored here. Our Lord used the phrase, “the Wisdom of God,” as interchangeable with a simple reference to Himself (Luke 11:49; Matt. 23:34). The Apostle Paul says that all wisdom is in Him (Col. 2:3) and entitles Him “the Wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24, 30). Cf. J. Barton Payne, The Theology of the Older Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1962), 171, n. 18.
- Derek Kidner, Proverbs, TOTC (Chicago: Inter Varsity Press, 1964), 79. A possible objection to the Messianic interpretation is the use of feminine pronouns of Wisdom. This is not a formidable objection, however, because it is based on grammatical, rather than theological considerations. The word wisdom (חָכְמָה) in Hebrew is in the feminine gender, and usage dictates that pronouns associated with a word must be in the same gender (Thurman Wisdom, “The Call of the Wisdom of God,” Biblical Viewpoint 33 [Nov., 1999], 22). A more formidable objection is the fact that there are similar detailed personifications of wisdom in Proverbs 8:1–12 and 9:1–6, and of foolishness in Proverbs 9:13–18, and no interpreter takes these to be actual persons (Grudem, Systematic Theology, 229, n. 7; cf. Gordon D. Fee, “Wisdom Christology in Paul: A Dissenting View,” in The Way of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Bruce K. Waltke, eds. J. I. Packer and Sven K. Soderlund [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000], 261–62.
- Norbert Lohfink and Jan Bergman, “אֶחֱד,” TDOT, 1:193–201. Fretheim, (“אֱוֹּהִים,” 405) is more guarded in his conclusion. He writes, “While Trinitarian perspectives are probably not in view, the OT witnesses to a richness and complexity in the divine realm (Gen. 1:26; Isa. 6:8) such that later Trinitarian developments seem quite natural.”
- Knight illustrates “and they shall be one flesh.” “What is emphasized is not that Mr. and Mrs. Smith are a different couple from Mr. and Mrs. Brown. That of course they are, and therefore there is no need to say that they are yāḥîd [יָחִיד, “unique”]. The word for one that we find in Genesis 2:24 is rather a description of their union—Mr. and Mrs. Smith are two united as one, yet distinct entities as man and woman” (A Biblical Approach to the Doctrine of the Trinity, 48)
- Earl S. Kalland, “Deuteronomy,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, 12 vols., ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 3:65, n. 4.
- E.g., Knight, A Biblical Approach to the Doctrine of the Trinity, 17, 48; Toon, Our Triune God, 98. Cooper was not quite so cautious. He wrote, “The real meaning of Israel’s Great Confession is that the Divine Personalities…constitute a real unity.” Cf. Cooper, The Eternal God Revealing Himself to Suffering Israel and to Lost Humanity, 55.
- E.g., Edward J. Young, The Book of Isaiah, 3 vols., NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), 1:244; John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 1–39, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 181, n. 34. John Calvin says, “I have no doubt that the angels describe One God in Three Persons.” He goes on to say, however, that if he were debating the doctrine of the Trinity with heretics, he “would rather choose to employ stronger proofs” (Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, 2 vols. trans. William Pringle [reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989], 1:205).
- Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Isaiah, 2 vols., trans. James Martin (Edinburgh: Clark, 1877), 1:193.
- Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 1–39, 181, n. 34.
- Oswalt (The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 1–39, 185) understands the plural to be an address to the heavenly host.
- Richard Watson, Theological Institutes, 2 vols. (New York: Hunt and Eaton, 1850), 1:470–71.
- Marguerite Shuster, “The Oldest Math,” in Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation, 327.
- Theologians sometimes speak of the vestigia, i.e., the pictures or analogies of the Trinity that they see in nature. These examples are offered by Strong, Systematic Theology, 344–45: (1) From inanimate objects: the spring, the stream, the rivulet [Athanasius], the cloud, the rain, and the mist [Boardman], color, shape, and size [F. W. Robertson], the form of the flower, its fragrance, and its medicinal efficacy [Luther], sunlight, rainbow, and heat [Joseph Cook], the wax of the candle, its wick, and its flame [Ruder]. (2) From the psychology of the mind: intellect, affection, and will [Augustine], thesis, antithesis, and synthesis [Hegel], subject, object, and subject-object [Melanchthon]. The index of Augustine’s great work produces several (The Trinity, trans. Edmund Hill [Brooklyn, New City Press, 1991], 469). He offered these: memory, understanding, will (4.30; 10.17-19; 14.8, 10), the lover, being loved, love (8.14; 9.2), three linked rings made from the same piece of gold (9.7), a drink made from wine, water, and honey (9.7) image, likeness, equality (9.16), disposition, learning, and practice (10.17), senses, memory, attention (11.14), male, female, offspring (12.5,8, 9), memory, thought, will (12.25), etc. Several are discussed in Barth, Church Dogmatics 1.1 (336–38). Most Evangelicals would reject these analogies for a number of reasons. First, many are farfetched. Second, they are often more illustrative of heresy than of orthodoxy. For example, Sabellius approved of the illustration from water in a threefold form as solid, liquid, and vapor because it illustrated his modalism in that water is never all three forms at the same time. Third, it is too easy to move beyond illustrating the doctrine with such arguments and eventually trying to prove the doctrine with them. Fourth, the “doctrine of the Trinity is grounded in revelation and has no other ground whatever.” Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation, 273–75.
- I am here following the justly famous discussion of Strong, Systematic Theology, 347–52; cf. Grudem, Systematic Theology, 256–57; Feinberg, No One Like Him, 439–41.
- Wolfhart Pannenberg, “The Christian Vision of God: The New Discussion on Trinitarian Doctrine,” Trinity Seminary Review 13 (1991): 53-54; cf. Feinberg, No One Like Him, 440.
- Barth, Church Dogmatics 1.1 (302).
- Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 254–55. After delivering a sermon on the Trinity, one of my listeners came to me with a smile and an enthusiastic response: “I now see why God had to create the world and the human race; He needed someone to love.” I had to tell him that he had missed the point. God did not have to create the world. He was not lonely in eternity past, and the creation did not fill some deep deficiency in His own being. God did not need to create the human race to have someone to love. No, He is love, and if He had never created the human race He would have suffered no deficiency. From all eternity God’s eternal unity was marked “by a dynamic reciprocity, a mutuality, a holy community of love” (George, Is the Father of Jesus the God of Muhammad? 83–84). God created, and then sent His Son to redeem fallen humanity because He is gracious.
- Strong, Systematic Theology, 349.
- Feinberg, No One Like Him, 440–41.
- Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation, 317.
- Handley C. G. Moule, “Prefatory Note,” in Robert Anderson, The Lord From Heaven, 3d ed. (London: Pickering and Inglis, n.d.), vi.
- Thomas Benson Pollock, “God the Father, God the Son,” in The Book of Common Praise (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1910), Hymn # 786, p. 981.
- Edward Cooper, “Father of Heaven,” in Christian Worship, ed. B. Howard Mudditt (Exeter: Paternoster, 1976), Hymn # 313.
- Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation, 307–8.
- Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation, 308, n. 53.
- “It is therefore not that there is first of all human fatherhood and then a so-called divine Fatherhood, but just the reverse: true and proper fatherhood resides in God, and from this Fatherhood of God what we know as fatherhood among us men is derived. The divine Fatherhood is the primal source of all natural fatherhood” (Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, trans. G. T. Thomson [London: SCM, 1949], 43).
- Grudem, Systematic Theology, 256–57.
- Plantinga, “The Perfect Family,” 27.
- Grudem, Systematic Theology, Appendix 6, 1233–34.
- For example, see: RSV, NEB, NIV; B. F. Westcott, The Epistles of St. John, 169–72; Paul Winter, “ΜΟΝΟΓΕΝΗΣ ΠΑΡΑ ΠΑΤΡΟΣ,” Zeitschrift für Religions und Geistes Geschichte 5 (1953), 335–65; F. M. Warden, “God’s Only Son,” RevExp 50 (April, 1953), 216–23; Dale Moody, “God’s only Son: the Translation of John 3:16 in the Revised Standard Version,” JBL 72 (1953), 213–19; Karl Heinz Bartels, “One,” NIDNTT, 2 (1976), 723–25 (esp. 725); R. N. Longenecker, “Only Begotten,” ZPEB, 4:538–39; C. B. Hoch, “Only Begotten,” ISBE 3 (1986), 606; J. A. Fitzmyer, “μονογενής,” EDNT 2:439–40; Gerard Pendrick, “ΜΟΝΟΓΕΝΗΣ,” NTS 41 (1995), 587–600.
- For example, see: AV, ERV, ASV, NASB, NKJV; R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. John’s Gospel, 78–80; F. F. Bruce, The Gospel of John, 39, 65, n. 26; F. Büchsel, “μονογενής,” TDNT, 4:737–41; James M. Bulman, “The Only Begotten Son,” CTJ 16 (April, 1981), 56–79; John V. Dahms, “The Johannine Use of Monogenēs Reconsidered,” NTS 28 (1983), 222–32.
- Mention should be made here of a study by D. A. Fennema, “John 1:18: ‘God the Only Son,” NTS 31 (1985): 124-35. On the one hand Fennema rejects the majority view (“only,” “unique,” “one of a kind”) that μονογενής bears no effective relationship to γεννάω. As he notes, every undisputed NT occurrence of μονογενής denotes a unique filial relationship, i.e., it refers to an only child. On the other hand he agrees with the majority in rejecting the translation, “only begotten,” because, he says, it reflects the Trinitarian controversies of the third and fourth centuries. He opts for the translation, “only child.”
- LSJGL, 349.
- Dahms, “The Johannine Use of Monogenēs Reconsidered,” 222–23; Bulman, “The Only Begotten Son,” 58.
- MMVNT, s.v. “μονογενής,” 416.
- James M. Bulman, “The Only Begotten Son,” Calvin Theological Journal 16 (1981): 58.
- Moody, “God’s only Son: the Translation of John 3:16 in the Revised Standard Version,” 216–17.
- Bulman, “The Only Begotten Son,” 58–59.
- Pendrick, “ΜΟΝΟΓΕΝΗΣ,” 588–89.
- Dahms, “The Johannine Use of Monogenēs Reconsidered,” 223.
- Westcott, The Epistles of St. John, 170–71.
- Tertullian Against Praxeas 7, 15, in ANF, 3:601, 610; Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.20.11, in ANF, 1:491. Cf. Bulman, “The Only Begotten Son,” 59.
- Moody, “God’s Only Son,” 219; Pendrick, “ΜΟΝΟΓΕΝΗΣ,” 589–90; J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers , 5 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1889–90), 2:87.
- Cited in The Oxford Universal Dictionary, 1489; Bulman, “The Only Begotten Son,” 59–60.
- Moody, “God’s Only Son,” 214.
- Bulman, “The Only Begotten Son,” 60–61.
- Moody, “God’s Only Son,” 215; cf. Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom (New York: Harper and Row, 1889), 2:35.
- Bulman, “The Only Begotten Son,” 61–62; cf. Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, 2:60.
- Winter, “ΜΟΝΟΓΕΝΗΣ ΠΑΡΑ ΠΑΤΡΟΣ,” 337–40 (esp. 337–38).
- Cf. Dahms, “The Johannine Use of Monogenēs Reconsidered,” 223–24; Bulman, “The Only Begotten Son,” 63–64. Pendrick, “ΜΟΝΟΓΕΝΗΣ,” 593, disputes the translation of On Abraham 194 offered above.
- Winter, “ΜΟΝΟΓΕΝΗΣ ΠΑΡΑ ΠΑΤΡΟΣ,” 342.
- Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.20; Dahms, “The Johannine Use of Monogenēs Reconsidered,” 224.
- Pendrick, “ΜΟΝΟΓΕΝΗΣ,” 590.
- Winter, “ΜΟΝΟΓΕΝΗΣ ΠΑΡΑ ΠΑΤΡΟΣ,” 226.
- Dahms, “The Johannine Use of Monogenēs Reconsidered,” 228.
- Moody, “God’s Only Son,” 219; Pendrick, “ΜΟΝΟΓΕΝΗΣ,” 596.
- Dahms, “The Johannine Use of Monogenēs Reconsidered,” 230–31.
- Stephen S. Smalley, 1, 2, 3 John, Word Biblical Commentary (Waco: Word, 1984), 303.
- Alfred Plummer, The Epistles of St. John (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1886), 125.
- Westcott, The Epistles of St. John, 170, 171.
- Longenecker, “Only Begotten,” 4:539.
- Cf. Pendrick, “ΜΟΝΟΓΕΝΗΣ,” 595; Moody, “God’s Only Son,” 218; T. Rees, “Only Begotten,” ISBE, 4 (1939), 2196.
- F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians, NIGNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 195.
- Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (New York: Scribner, 1872), 1:468–70.
- Heinrich August Meyer, Critical and Exegetical Hand-Book of the Gospel of John, trans. William Urwick and Frederick Crombie (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1884; reprint ed., Winona Lake: Alpha, 1979), 64.
- Philip Schaff, editorial note in John Peter Lange, The Gospel According to John, in Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, 12 vols. (1871; reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1960), 9:74, n. A comparison between the Nicene Fathers and Calvin illustrates that Orthodox theologians have differed in their understanding of the eternal relationship of the Father and the Son. At the outset a distinction needs to be made between the Nicene Creed and the teaching of the Nicene Fathers. The Creed taught the absolute unity of the members of the Godhead as to substance or essence and, consequently, their perfect equality. The Fathers also taught a functional (not essential) subordination of the Son to the Father, and the Spirit to the Father and the Son. These facts, says Hodge, have been accepted by the church universal (Systematic Theology, 1:462). In addition, however, the Fathers explained sonship to mean derivation of essence. They spoke of the Father as the Monas, as having in order of thought the whole Godhead in Himself. He alone was God of Himself (αὐτόθεος, i.e., “very God,” “God in His very essence”). While Evangelicals affirm the Nicene Creed, they generally take issue with the Nicene Fathers’ explanation of the Son’s derivation of His essence from the Father. They have instead followed Calvin’s lead. He argued (Letters, vol. 1) that if Christ be Jehovah (Yahweh), and the name Jehovah implies self-existence (“I Am That I Am”), then Christ is self-existent (Hodge, 1:467). In short, He did not derive His divine essence from the Father. “Since the names, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not applicable to the divine essence, but are only applicable to its [personal] distinctions, they imply no derivation of the essence of the Son from the essence of the Father (Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology (Old Tappan: Revell, 1907), 341). “Yet we teach from the Scriptures that God is one in essence, and hence that the essence both of the Son and of the Spirit is unbegotten; but inasmuch as the Father is first in order, and from Himself begot His wisdom…He is rightly deemed the beginning and fountainhead of the whole of [the Trinity].…Deity in an absolute sense exists of itself; whence likewise we confess that the Son since He is God, exists of Himself, but not in respect of His Person; indeed, since He is the Son, we say that he exists from the Father. Thus His essence is without beginning; while the beginning of his person is God Himself” (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 1.13.25, 2 vols. trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 1:153–54.). Does this mean that there was a time when the person of the Son did not exist and God was not the Father? Orthodox and evangelical theologians reject such an Arian idea. They concur with Cyril who said that the person of the Son always existed and that by generation (quoted in Strong, 342). The terms “Father” and Son” must be understood in the same way. If one person is eternal, so is the other; if one term denotes a temporal relation, so does the other. If God is eternally the Father, there must be an eternal Son (Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:313). Cf. Socrates, Ecclesiastical History 1.6, in NPNF, 2d Series, 2:3–6. Hodge clarifies the received doctrine as follows: (1) “It was the person not the essence of the Son that was generated. The essence is self-existent and eternal, but the person of the Son is generated (i.e., becomes a person) by the communication to Him of the divine essence.” (2) “This generation is said to be eternal. It is an eternal movement of the divine essence.” (3) “It is by necessity of nature, and not by the will of the Father.” (4) “It does not involve any separation or division, as it is not a part, but the whole and complete essence of the Father that is communicated from the Father to the Son.” (5) “It is without change.” Beyond these clarifying points, Hodge says, the creeds do not go, and he cautions that we should leave the matter there as well (Systematic Theology, 1:468–69).
- Luther, Sermons on the Gospel of St. John Chapters 1–4, 115.
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