The Holy Trinity Part 2
Review Our limitations in understanding the Trinity The benefits of studying the Trinity The term Trinity A caution to avoid doctrinal error St. Augustine s writing, On the Trinity The early church s affirmation that three eternal centers of consciousness coexist in the Godhead
Review Our knowledge of God is predicated on cognitive and propositional revelation (i.e., special revelation). God reveals all that is necessary for us to know in order to serve him truly and obediently and to share the blessings of redemption in this life and the next. The Trinity is a mystery, more to be adored than investigated.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) We know truth not only through our reason, but also through our heart. Two excesses: to exclude reason, to admit nothing but reason. Reason s last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it.
Biblical Theology & the Trinity Biblical Theology deals with the process of the self-revelation of God deposited in the Bible. Revelation in Biblical Theology is a divine activity, not the finished product of that activity. Viewed from divine activity: (1) Divine self-revelation; (2) Revelation is committed to writing; (3) Gathering the writings into a unified collection; (4) Study of the content of these writings.
Four Features of the Divine Work It is progressive (i.e., the historic progressiveness of the revelatory process). It is historic (i.e., the embodiment of revelation in history). It is organic (i.e., from seed-form to full growth; not uniform motion, but epochal ). It s practical adaptability (see next slide).
Practical Adaptability Biblical Theology exhibits the organic growth of the truths of special revelation. It imports new life and freshness to the truth by showing it to us in its original historic setting. It avoids building fundamental doctrine on isolated proof texts. Its supreme goal is the glory of God.
O.T. N.T.
God in the Old Testament In the beginning, God (plural) created (singular) the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1). The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters (vs. 2). The speech or Word of God issued the fiat, Let there be light (vs. 3). Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness (vs. 26). Here we have in seed form what is explicitly made known in the New Testament regarding the Trinity. Plural in 26; singular in 27. The early readers would not have understood a plurality of persons in this text, but having the completed canon, we can easily see the clues.
God in the Old Testament God s work of creation shows diversity in unity, and unity in diversity. God s nature is reflected in the three-fold manner of the earth s formation. The O.T. Scripture attests to a plurality in God. The context points to God s intrinsic relationality. In other words, God is a relational being. Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil (Gen. 3:22). Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another s speech (Gen. 11:7).
God in the Old Testament And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? (Is. 6:8). By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host (Ps. 33:6). The personification of Wisdom in Proverbs 8:22ff. When he established the heavens, I was there (vs. 27). The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life (Job 33:4). By his wind the heavens were made fair; his hand pierced the fleeing serpent (Job 26:13).
God in the Old Testament When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground (Ps. 104:30). I am has sent me to you (Ex. 3:14).
Summary Thoughts What is in view is plurality in the one Godhead, but not yet specifically Trinitarian distinctions (Carl F.H. Henry). Without the further light of the New Testament, the Old Testament use of terms such as Word, Wisdom, Spirit, Son, would of itself leave us unsure whether two, three or more centers of consciousness exist within the one God (Henry).
God Made Us For Himself The triune God is not lonely (consider single-person gods). Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have been loving for all eternity. Since God the Father eternally loved His Son, it is entirely characteristic of him that he would create others that he might also love them. The Father has always loved others. God s love is about extending his love outwardly to us. He made us to be in communion with him and to share in the fullness of life that comes from him, the fountain of goodness. Creation is about the spreading, the diffusion, the outward explosion of God s love (Reeves).
The Father Loves the Son Just as the Father has loved me, I have also loved you; abide in my love (John 15:9). Just as is translated from the Greek from a word indicating comparison. Christ s love for his disciples was exactly like the Father s love for his Son. This leads us to ask, What do we know about the Father s love for his Son? At the baptism of Jesus: and behold, a voice out of the heavens, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Mt. 3:17).
The Father Loves the Son At the Transfiguration: While he (Peter) was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud over-shadowed them; and behold, a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; hear him! (Mt. 17:5). For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to him by the Majestic Glory, This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased, and we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain (II Peter 1:17-18).
The Father Loves the Son Father, I desire that they also whom Thou hast given me be with me where I am, in order that they may behold my glory, which Thou has given me; for Thou didst love me before the foundation of the world (John 17:24). the love wherewith Thou didst love me may be in them, and I in them (John 17:26). The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into his hand (John 3:35). For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life for the sheep (John 10:17).
The Father Loves the Son I in them, and Thou in me, that they may be perfected in unity, that the world may know that Thou didst send me, and didst love them, even as Thou didst love me (John 17:23). If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love; just as I have kept my Father s commandments and abide in his love (John 15:10).
How the Father Loves the Son With an infinite love With a supreme inconceivable love With an unconditional love With a holy love With an inexhaustible love With a perfect love With an immutable love Freely, decisively, and personally
Unfathomable Truths Infinite: having no limit or end; boundless, unlimited, endless. Inconceivable: unthinkable, unimaginable, incredible, incalculable. Unconditional: not limited by or subject to conditions or stipulations; absolute. Holy: infinite moral perfection. Inexhaustible: incapable of being exhausted, consumed, or spent. Perfect: supreme moral or spiritual excellence or virtue; righteous, holy; spiritually pure or blameless.
Unfathomable Truths Immutable: not subject to or susceptible of change; unchangeable, unalterable. Freely: without compulsion or constraint. Decisively: unhesitatingly. Personally: through one s personal presence.
Jesus Christ in the New Testament Whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever (Rom. 9:5). For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living (Rom. 14:9). they would not have crucified the Lord of glory (I Cor. 2:8). And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together (Col. 1:17). that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God (II Cor. 4:4).
Jesus Christ in the New Testament Who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped (Phil. 2:6). baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (Mt. 28:19). I and the Father are one (John 10:30). And Jesus said, I am; and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven (Mk. 14:62).
The Deity of Jesus Christ The New Testament offers no retreat from affirming the deity of Jesus Christ (Carl F.H. Henry). The supreme basis for affirming Christ s deity lies in divine revelation, especially in the propositional content recorded in the inspired New Testament writings (Henry).
C.S. Lewis God is love. Again, Herein is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us (I John 4:10). We must not begin with mysticism, with the creature s love for God, or with the wonderful foretastes of the fruition of God vouchsafed to some in their earthly life. We begin at the real beginning, with love as the Divine Energy. This primal love is Gift-love. In God there is no hunger that needs to be C.S. Lewis 1898-1963
C.S. Lewis filled, only plenteousness that desires to give. The doctrine that God was under no necessity to create is not a piece of dry scholastic speculation. It is essential. Without it we can hardly avoid the conception of what I can only call a managerial God; a Being whose function or nature is to run the universe who stands to it as a head-master to a school or a hotelier to a hotel. In himself, at home in the land of the Trinity, he is Sovereign of a far greater realm.