Part Three: The Witness of the New Testament
7 – The Father
In antiquity it was common to call both god and king by the name of father. This is not surprising when one recalls that the father in a family was seen as its protector, nourisher, and the begetter of the children. Our task is to notice specifically the way in which YHWH is called Father in the Old Testament, how Jesus addressed God as “my Father,” and how the Apostle Paul spoke of the “God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Then we shall reflect upon the nature of the word “Father” and its contemporary appropriateness in the light of modern sensitivities.
YAHWEH AS A FATHER
From the beginning, there is in the religion of Israel a clear and precise yet limited confession of the fatherhood of Yahweh. To appreciate this belief and its expression in words it needs to be seen in the context of the polytheistic mythologies that surrounded it. Within these mythologies sexual potency and fertility were ritually divinized; the gods were portrayed as sexual beings who lust, mate, and give birth. Further, the god who was called ’ab (father) was nothing like the patriarchal figure which feminist rhetoric has depicted. Most often, the father god in ancient Near Eastern mythologies is incompetent, ineffective, and inert while the divine activity is conducted by his wife or consort or son or daughter.
In contrast, Yahweh’s fatherhood is wholly removed from the notion of physical procreation. In fact, it has been well said that the loudest silence of the Hebrew Bible is the absence of a consort for Yahweh. He is utterly and completely alone! Perhaps Yahweh’s solitude is the most distinctive thing about him, for to be Semitic he needs a female consort and he does not have one! Amazing! Yahweh is male and beyond sexuality!
Yahweh’s fatherhood is best described as supervenient, for Yahweh deliberately and mercifully comes upon and makes Israel into his “firstborn son.” When Moses was instructed by Yahweh to return to Egypt he was told to say to Pharaoh, “Thus says the LORD, Israel is my first-born son, and I say to you, ‘Let my son go that he may serve me’; if you refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay your first-born son” (Ex. 4:22–23). Yahweh as Father exercises his fatherhood by creating a specific relation with an already existing people. His fatherhood is a supervenient intrusion into the life of an historical people.
This message is clear in Deuteronomy, where Moses addressed the assembly of Israel and said:
Do you thus requite Yahweh, you foolish and senseless people? Is not he your father, who created you, who made you and established you? (32:6)
For the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage (32:9).
And using the image of begetting, Moses further said:
You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth (32:18).
By divine election, Yahweh made this people his people. The deep impression of this fatherhood in terms of election is seen vividly in the Book of Hosea, where Yahweh speaks in great tenderness of his son.
When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Ba’als, and burning incense to idols.
Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of compassion, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them (11:1–4).
Commenting on this text, Paul Mankowski expresses the view that the picture here is not of a father teaching his own infant son to take his first steps. Rather it is “of one who is helping an injured youth, most probably a slave lamed by mistreatment, to regain the power to walk. God comes upon Israel enslaved in Egypt the way a man walking in the countryside might come upon a young beaten slave, whom he nurses and takes to his bosom as a son.”1 Thus again fatherhood for Yahweh is a purely gratuitous extension of partiality: “Out of Egypt I called my son” (Hosea 11:1).
Jeremiah also uses the image of the fatherhood of Yahweh along with the image of God as the Bridegroom both to describe the unfaithfulness and to call the elect people back to loyalty to their God. Israel has polluted the land with vile harlotry and as faithless children have forsaken Yahweh, who says:
Have you not just now called to me, “My father, thou art the friend of my youth” (Jer. 3:4).
Later, speaking of the future, Yahweh declares,
And I thought you would call me, My Father, and would not turn from following me (3:19).
God’s love and favor met Israel’s disobedience and ingratitude. They would not match their words with their deeds! Yet Yahweh remained their Father.
Speaking for his people and addressing Yahweh, Isaiah lamented:
Look down from heaven and see, from thy holy and glorious habitation. Where are thy zeal and thy might? The yearning of thy heart and thy compassion are withheld from me. For thou art our Father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not acknowledge us; thou, O Yahweh, art our Father, our Redeemer from of old is thy name (Isa. 63:15–16).
Yet, O Yahweh, thou art our Father; we are the clay, and thou art our potter; we are all the work of thy hand (64:8).
The same kind of appeal and thought is found in the work of the Prophet Malachi (1:6; 2:10). Such speech was not borrowed from its Semitic neighbors by Israel and it was not the projection of patriarchalism into the nature and character of Yahweh. No! Rather it was the confession of a faith in the one God as solitary, active, generous, and compassionate, whose fatherhood consists in adopting a people and making them his own.
As part of his fatherhood of the whole people, Yahweh is also “Father of the fatherless and protector of widows” (Ps. 68:5). In fact, “as a father pities his children, so Yahweh pities those who fear him” (Ps. 103:13).
Alongside the confession of faith in Yahweh as Father through election, we meet in the Old Testament the proclamation that Yahweh is the Father of the king. This is found first of all in the oracle of Nathan the prophet addressed to David and concerning his son, Solomon:
When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son ( 2 Sam. 7:12–14).
This oracle is repeated in 1 Chronicles (17:13; 22:10; 28:6) and in two Psalms.
I will tell of the decree of Yahweh: He said to me, “You are my son, today I have begotten you” (Ps. 2:7).
And with reference to David and his house:
He shall cry to me, “Thou art my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.” And I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth (89:26–27).
Here the king is created or made “son of God” by Yahweh when he is crowned. As the whole people is Yahweh=s firstborn son by election (Ex. 4:22–24), so the king, who represents the people, is adopted and appointed son of God by election. In Canaanite religion and culture, the king was believed to be an offspring of the gods and to have been suckled at divine breasts. In contrast, within the Hebrew Bible no claims are made for the king’s divinity and, furthermore, no prophet is ever recorded as condemning any Hebrew king or kingship on this ground.
Naturally these texts concerning the Son were interpreted by the early church as pointing to the coronation of Jesus in his resurrection and exaltation as the Messiah and as the true Son of God (see Acts 13:33; Heb. 1:5).
In Proverbs there is a further reference to an individual man as a son of God in terms of beneficent, divine discipline.
My son, do not despise Yahweh’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for Yahweh reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights (Prov. 3:11–12).
However, the idea that Yahweh is “my father” reappears in the deuterocanonical literature (see Sir. 23:1, 4; 51:10; Wisd. 2:16–18; 5:5; 14:3; Tob. 14:3).
If personal names are any indication of the faith of a people then it is significant that while there are no personal names which are compounds of the word “mother” in biblical Hebrew, there are at least eight persons (six men and two women) who are called ’abiyya (“Yahweh is my father” – 1 Sam. 8:2; 1 Kings 14:1; 2 Kings 18:2; Neh. 12:2; 1 Chron. 2:24; 7:8; 24:10; 2 Chron. 11:20) and three who are called Yo’ab (“Yahweh is father” –1 Sam. 26:6; 1 Chron. 4:14; Ezra 2:6). In addition, the word ’El for God occurs in compounds of the same kind, confessing God as Father – e.g., ’eli’ab (Num. 1:9; 16:1; 1 Sam. 16:6; 1 Chron. 12:9; 15:8) and ’abi’el (1 Sam. 9:1).
In order to understand what Israelites had in mind when they used the word “father,” it is instructive to note what is both presupposed and taught concerning the place and roles of a father in the Torah and Wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible. Here John Miller’s book, Biblical Faith and Fathering, is very useful in showing how Israel’s understanding of God produced a new kind of human fatherhood for the ancient world.2 What Miller makes clear is that (contrary to feminist claims – for which see below) the word “father” was not forged as a legitimation of coercive power in Israel, but rather was an expression of a caring, educative, and committed authority (where authority is not conceived as coercive as in much modern thought!).
YHWH AS FATHER IN EARLY JUDAISM
A careful study of The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament3 reveals that in both Palestinian and Hellenistic Judaism the term “father” was used only rarely of YHWH – six times in Palestinian and seven times in Hellenistic texts. For example, in the Hellenistic Tobit comes the confession: “For he is our Lord and God, he is our Father forever” (13:4).
Further, there is only one example in the Qumran texts (1QH9:35f.). The supplicant (relating to Ps. 22:11) states: “My [human] father has renounced me and my mother has abandoned me to thee. Yet thou art a Father to all who know thy truth. Thou wilt rejoice over them like a mother over her infant.”
In the Rabbinic Judaism of the first century the use of the name of Father for YHWH (e.g., as “Father in heaven,” emphasizing his transcendence) increased; even so, it is still far less frequently used than other standard Old Testament terms and names. It is possible that in the time of Jesus, Jews were addressing YHWH in the Jewish New Year Liturgy as “Our Father, our King.”
Commenting upon this evidence, Robert Hamerton-Kelly notes that the simple invocation “Father” does not occur in the extant prayer sources of Judaism. (To make this statement he has with other scholars to read Sirach 23:1, 4 as originally stating in Hebrew, “God of my father and God [Master] of my life,” instead of via the Greek as, “Lord, Father and Master of my life.”) Then he concludes: “Therefore, although early Judaism differs from the Old Testament by invoking God as Father, this invocation does not indicate a personal intimacy with God of the kind that is the hallmark of Jesus’ use of ‘Father’ in his prayers.”4 YHWH is the Father in the sense of the heavenly, transcendent, patriarchal Father. The connection between YHWH and Father is bound here, as in the Jewish Bible, by the ties of election, covenant, and the promise of salvation.
In general agreement with the Protestant Hamerton-Kelly, the Dominican biblical scholar, Francis Martin, writes that the material “indicates that God was spoken of as Father and addressed as such in both Greek- and Hebrew-speaking Jewish milieu. The paucity of references, however, also indicates that while such language was intelligible and acceptable, it was quite rare.”5
THE ABBA OF JESUS IN MATTHEW, MARK, AND LUKE
It seems clear that Jesus often addressed God, YHWH, as abba. This is an Aramaic word with a warm familiar ring to it and seems to have originated as a word used by small children of their fathers. It is not inflected and takes none of the suffixes by which Aramaic indicates the personal and possessive pronouns. Thus abba can mean “father,” “my father,” and “the father.” We have no evidence that any Jew before Jesus addressed YHWH as abba. Significantly this Aramaic word occurs three times in the Greek New Testament. First of all, in the mouth of Jesus, abba occurs only in the oldest form of the prayer in Gethsemane (Mark 14:36). It is an expression of a childlike trust in God and of obligation to obedience (both aspects being characteristic of the calling of God “Father” in Judaism). Jesus prayed, “Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee; remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what thou wilt.”
In the light of Mark 14:36, it is probable – but cannot be proved – that the expression, the father, ho pater, of Mark 13:32 (Matt. 24:36) as well as the expression my father, ho pater mou, in Matthew 16:17 and Luke 22:29 are translations of abba. This points both to the general use of this intimate expression by Jesus and to the preference of Jesus to speak of YHWH as the one and only Father, who is uniquely his Father.
Further, it is difficult to believe that any Christians would have used the word abba of God (see Paul’s use in Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6) had Jesus himself not set the precedent. We can therefore suggest the word abba was cherished and remembered by the first Christians because it was expressive of Jesus’ own sonship and they wanted to share in that sonship. Probably the “Our Father” was originally addressed to Abba.
In the Synoptic Gospels Jesus himself is reported as speaking of God as “Father,” Pater, on various occasions. From these we can choose three brief sayings which modern scholars generally accept are authentic words of Jesus (in contrast to words placed on the lips of Jesus by the evangelists). We should assume that Jesus originally said Abba.
(1) After the confession by Peter that Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus said to him: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 16:17).
(2) Speaking of the end of the age, Jesus said: “Of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mark 13:32; cf. Matt. 24:36).
(3) Addressing his disciples in the upper room at the Passover, Jesus said to them: “As my Father appointed a kingdom for me, so do I appoint for you that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom” (Luke 22:29–30).
Whether it is “my Father” or “the Father” there is a certain intimacy with God who is in heaven (transcendent and all-glorious) communicated by this form of speech. However, it is certainly not irreverent. It is probably to be seen as an intensification in terms of personal relationship of the reality of the divine fatherhood known in Judaism. What is hinted at and experienced before is wholly surpassed in the knowledge and experience of God by Jesus, the Servant-Messiah and Son.
To these three sayings must be added, also from the Synoptic Gospels, a further, longer saying. This is found in both Matthew and Luke and is also usually reckoned as being an original saying of Jesus. It has been called “the Johannine logion” because it sounds as if it could belong to the Gospel of John.
I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes; yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will. All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him (Matt. 11:25–27; Luke 10:21–22).
To address YHWH as “Lord of heaven and earth” was common in Jewish prayer, but to combine with this the more intimate, Abba, “Father,” was to move into the unfamiliar. The addressing of God as “Father” appears to be closely related to the revelation of God’s will to the disciples of the kingdom of heaven. In the second half of this logion Jesus speaks specifically of “the Father” and “the Son” (note the definite articles) as well as of the unique and intimate knowledge between them. He is the Son who reveals the Father.
The distinction between the “my Father” of Jesus and the “your [heavenly] Father” of his disciples is maintained in the Synoptic Gospels. They pray “Our Father,” knowing that “[their] your Father is merciful/perfect” (Matt. 6:9; 5:48; Luke 6:36). The disciples never address the Father together with Jesus for the simple reason that their relation to the Father is dependent upon and derivative from his own unique relation to the Father.
An “astonishing fact” is often noted by modern biblical scholars concerning Jesus’ prayers as recorded in the five layers of the Gospel tradition (Mark, Q, Matthew, Luke, and John). With one exception, Jesus always addressed God as “Father”; and the one exception is a quotation from Psalm 22:1, which was prayed by Jesus on his Cross at Calvary (Mark 15:34; Matt. 27:46) – “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
Hamerton-Kelly summarizes the three levels of intimacy on which Jesus used “Father” according to the Synoptic Gospels:
“My Father” when he prayed and when he revealed his identity as the Son to his disciples; “your Father” when he taught his disciples how to pray to a God who cared for them with compassion and forgiveness ... “the Father” when defending his message against doubters and attack.6
In comparison with the Judaism of his time, Jesus’ teaching on God as his/our/the Father is remarkable – most probably unique.
THE ABBA OF JESUS IN THE GOSPEL OF JOHN
In the Gospel of John the expression “Father” for Theos occurs 122 times, which is more than the total number in the other three Gospels (Matthew–44; Mark–5; and Luke–17). Here is a list and summary of the major occurrences of the name of “Father” in John’s Gospel.
1:14: The Father has an “only-begotten Son.”
1:18: No one has ever seen God – the Father. The only-begotten Son is in his bosom (i.e., in an intimate relation with him).
2:16: The temple in Jerusalem is (says Jesus) “my Father’s house.”
3:35: The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hands as the Mediator between God and man.
4:23: The Father seeks those who will worship him in spirit and in truth.
5:17–23: Jesus calls God his Father and also claims that the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself does. Also the Father shares with his Son his prerogatives of raising the dead and judging the world.
5:26: The Father has life in himself, and this prerogative he shares with his Son.
5:36: The Father has given to the Son works to complete.
6:57: The living Father sent the Son, who has life through the Father – and this life is given to those who “eat” the Son.
8:38–44: Jesus has come forth from God, his Father, and bears the Father’s authority.
10:30: Jesus and the Father are One.
10:38: The Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father.
14:2: In the Father”s house, in which the Son stays forever, there are many places to stay.
14:6: No one goes to the Father except through Jesus, the Son, who is the way, the truth, and the life.
14:9–11: To see the Son is to see the Father, for the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father. So the Father works in and through the Son.
15:1: The Father is the cultivator of the real vine, which is Jesus, the Son.
16:26–28: The Son came out from the Father into the world and he is leaving the world and going to the Father.
17:1: Jesus prays to the Father asking him to glorify his Son so that the Son may glorify the Father.
17:5: Jesus prays that he as the Son will be glorified in the presence of the Father with the glory which he had with the Father before the world existed.
17:21: Jesus prays that his disciples will be one as he the Son is one with the Father. The mutual glorification of the Father and the Son implies a unity in which the disciples are to share.
18:11: The Father has given to Jesus, the Son, a “cup” to drink.
20:17: Jesus is ascending to his Father and his God.
20:21: As the Father has sent Jesus into the world, so Jesus sends his disciples into the world.
A first impression on looking through these verses is that they tell us more about the Son than the Father. And, since the Son reveals the Father, and the Son is visible and the Father is invisible, this is an appropriate impression. However, we do learn some things about the Father. Yahweh-Elohim is the Father, and he is called the Father because he has an only-begotten Son who is one with him and shares his eternal glory and his prerogatives. The Son perfectly loves and obeys his Father, doing the work given to him on earth. So, in the first place, this heavenly fatherhood is by its very nature to be understood only in reference to the eternal relation of Yahweh to the Logos, the incarnate Son, Jesus. It is not a fatherhood whose first reference is to creatures. Further, “Father” is a proper name: it is the literal name of Theos for Jesus, who is the only Son. Finally, the disciples of Jesus are “children of God” (1:12; 11:52), who call God “Father” because of their union with the only Son.
THE ABBA OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS
In the letters of Paul God is said to be “Father” about forty times. A common way of speaking of YHWH is “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 15:6; 2 Cor. 1:3; 11:31; Eph. 1:3; Col. 1:3). Yet YHWH, Theos, is also the Father of believers and thus “our Father” (1 Cor. 1:3; 8:6; 2 Cor. 1:2; Gal. 1:4; Eph. 1:1; Phil. 1:2; 4:20; Col. 1:2; 1 Thes. 1:3; 3:11, 13; 2 Thes. 1:1; 2:16; Phile. 3). “For us there is but one God, the Father” (1 Cor. 8:6).
It is obvious that the early Christians did not so much speak of God as Father but rather they addressed him as “Father.” They knew YHWH, Abba, through Jesus and in the Spirit as their Father by adoption through grace. In fact, they knew that they had received the Spirit of adoption and were able to cry out in prayer, “Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:6–7; Rom. 8:14–17). Being in vital union with the Lord Jesus they had the great privilege of joining him in his way of addressing YHWH. The Fatherhood is not a fact of nature but it is a miracle of grace.
In 1 John, YHWH remains as “the Father” (1:2; 3:1; 4:14) while God=s fatherhood of believers is interpreted through the concept of begetting. Christians are God’s children because they have been begotten by him (3:9). The origin of their new being is wholly from God himself (4:4). So they have fellowship with him and he abides in them (4:16) and they abide in his love (3:16–17).
It would appear that alongside this distinctive naming of YHWH as the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Father of those whom he calls, adopts, and begets through Christ, there is also the naming of YHWH as “the Father” in a related but different sense. “I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named” (Eph. 3:14–15). Here the universe is not a Greek cosmos but a Palestinian and Jewish cosmos, where God, the Father, is the Father of both the upper cosmos of the angelic world and the lower cosmos of the human world. The Father is the Master of the whole house, of the invisible and visible worlds. It is possible that “Fatherhood” is here understood as inherent in the nature of God and thus it is wholly appropriate to see Yahweh-Elohim, the Father, as the archetype, origin, and source of all fatherhood in the created realm.
The writer of Hebrews asks: “Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?” Again the reference is to the Lordship of YHWH over both heaven and earth and is dependent upon the way Yahweh-Elohim is described in Numbers 16:22 and 27:16. And James, using a phrase which was familiar in the liturgy of the synagogues, wrote of blessings coming down from heaven “from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (1:17).
INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE
There is a significant minority of people within the Christian church in the West who are hesitant, or not prepared, to call God (however they define God) by the name of “Father.” In chapter 1 we noted the nature of the feminist challenge to orthodox Christianity. The material presented in this chapter makes it clear that the name of “the Father” when used of YHWH has a major place in the Christian Scriptures, especially in the New Testament. Thus to cease to use the name of the Father or to replace it by another name would be to impose a major change in the way Christians think about, name, and address God. Further, it would mean that the revealed name and nature of God was probably giving way to an identity projected from below upon the Godhead out of human experience – a theology from below in contrast to a theology from above.
Perhaps we need to note that the word “Father” as used of God functions at different levels in the Christian Bible. First of all, it can be a simile, where God is likened to this or that aspect of human fatherhood. For example, the psalmist claimed that “as a father pities his children so YHWH pities those who fear him” (Ps. 103:13). In the second place, it can be a metaphor, where God is given the name of Father. This is a stronger meaning than the simile. When the writers of the Old Testament speak of YHWH as the Father of the nation and the Father of the king they use metaphor. Here God’s relation to his chosen people in the created order is being described through a well-known picture drawn from human experience. God is not in all respects exactly the same as a human father – for example, he does not sexually beget his children – but his care is sufficiently similar to that of the care of a good, patriarchal father for his family that he can be called “Father.”
There is the third level of the literal statement – God is truly and really “the Father.” This is not found in the Old Testament and occurs only in the New Testament where God is naming himself through self-revelation. Thus Theos is literally “the Father” and he is the Father of “the only begotten Son” and the Father from whom comes “the Holy Spirit.” What “the Father” means here is not to be gained by studying human fatherhood and projecting that information into God so as to name and understand him. Rather, this is God=s self-revealed name and what it means is revealed by the One who is his “Son” and by the One who is his “Holy Spirit.” Converts to Christianity were to be baptized into the fully revealed Name (YHWH) of “the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19). In the Old Testament YHWH is the literal Name of the living God. In the New Testament the literal Name of the living God is spelled out more: “the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” The literal Name of God is most clearly revealed in the Gospel of John, but it is not absent from the rest of the New Testament as we noted above.
It is a mistake to treat this third level merely as a specific form of metaphor. For while the actual name of “the Father” is certainly a word taken from the language of mortal men, the content of what Fatherhood means is wholly revealed. As the Son who has been given complete knowledge of the Father (John 3:35; 10:15; 16:15), Jesus reveals the Father (John 1:18; 8:26–29; 12:49–50; 14:7, 9). When Jesus addressed his Father he was not using a metaphor drawn from human experience. He was speaking in the literal mode according to personal knowledge.
Now if we take the word “mother” and ask whether or not it can be a substitute for “father” in these three levels we discover interesting results. First of all, God is likened to a mother (human or animal) in both the Old and New Testaments. Here are some examples. First of all, God is like a protective mother bird:
Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions, YHWH alone did lead him (Deut. 32:11–12).
and,
Like birds hovering, so the LORD of hosts will protect Jerusalem; he will protect and deliver it, he will spare and rescue it (Isa. 31:5).
Further, in delivering the tribes of Israel from Egypt YHWH described his action thus: “I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself” (Ex. 19:4). Jesus, the Son, also used this simile, likening himself in his relation to the holy city, Jerusalem, to a mother bird. “O Jerusalem How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not” (Matt. 23:37; Luke 13:34).
The clearest examples of feminine images for God in the Old Testament occur in Isaiah. In none of them is YHWH called or addressed as “Mother,” but the image of motherhood is used to dramatic effect by the prophet through simile:
(1) 42:13–14: Having been bottled up, Yahweh’s war cry bursts forth like the cries, gasps, and groans of a woman in labor.
YHWH goes forth like a mighty man, like a man of war he stirs up his fury; he cries out, he shouts aloud, he shows himself mighty against his foes. For a long time I have held my peace, I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in travail, I will gasp and pant.
(2) 45:9–10: YHWH is likened first to a potter, then to a father, and finally to a mother, as a woe is pronounced upon anyone who resists his God.
Woe to him who strives with his Maker, an earthen vessel with the potter! ... Woe to him who says to a father, “What are you begetting?” or to a woman, “With what are you in travail?”
(3) 49:14–15: YHWH is first presented as the bridegroom of the bride (Zion) and then as the mother of the child (Zion).
But Zion said, “YHWH has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.” “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?” Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.
(4) 66:13: Yahweh is like a mother who comforts her child.
As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.
While this image of motherly care conveys a vital sense of the compassion of YHWH for his people, it occurs only rarely in the Old Testament and is thus never developed into a metaphor, where God is said to be “a” or “the” Mother.7
IN CONCLUSION
The early church confessed that Theos is the Father and the Father is the Pantokrator, whose divine action, creative and provident, is universal in scope. This teaching entered the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, whose first paragraph is brief and reads: “We believe in one God the Father Almighty (pantokrator), Creator of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.” In the second paragraph, which is devoted to the Son, the relation of the Son to the Father is set forth and thus the reason why the Father is called the Father becomes clear. The one God is the Father because he has a Son begotten before all ages, who is consubstantial with him.
The German Protestant theologian, Jürgen Moltmann, explained the identity of “the Father” in this way:
The first person of the Trinity is the Father only in respect of the Son, that is, in the eternal begetting of the Son. God the Father is the Father of the Son. He is never simply “universal Father,” like Zeus, Jupiter, Vishnu or Wotan. He is not called Father merely because he is the unique cause on whom all things depend. Nor is it for the sake of the authority and power which all authorities and powers in heaven and on earth, in religion, state and family, hold from him. It is solely and exclusively in the eternal begetting of the eternal Son that God shows himself as the Father. He is uniquely “the Father of Jesus Christ” and only through Christ, the only-begotten Son, and in the fellowship of this “firstborn” among many brothers and sisters, is he also “our Father.”8
In order to maintain this crucial distinction, Moltmann continued in his lecture (paper) to speak emphatically of “the Father of the Son.”
The Jesuit theologian, Bertrand de Margene, summarized the teaching of the western medieval councils on the identity of “the Father” within the Blessed and Holy Trinity in these words.
The Father is the foundation and principle of intra-divine unity. It is the Father, and not the divine essence considered abstractly, who is the principle of the Son and of the Spirit; and a principle without principle, for the Father himself does not spring from some mysterious impersonal essence. The Council of Florence says formally: “All that the Father is, and all that he has, he does not derive from another, but from himself he is the principle that has no principle.” The Father is ex se, he cannot then be ab ilio. Much earlier a local council of Toledo had proclaimed the Father “source and origin of the whole divinity,” – fons et origo totius divinitatis. An incomprehensible abyss of affirmation, the Father is eternally plenitude as source, fontalis plenitudo, without receiving anything from anyone, not only uncreated but also unbegotten.
And he continues:
The Father gives to the Son and to their Spirit his substance or nature without losing it, and in giving it, and in giving it totally, he gives himself. Thus he gives and he retains. He remains in the Son and in the Spirit to whom he is essentially relative, at the same time that he communicates to them his essence and gives himself personally to them.9
Therefore the Father is “the summit of the Holy Trinity” and the Son and the Spirit, within the immanent Trinity, are truly consubstantial with him because they receive from him their substance/essence.
Yet the truth of the matter is that we can only name, address, and know the Father because of our Lord Jesus Christ who is God, the Son incarnate. So it must be our task in the next chapter to investigate the identity and the nature of this unique and only-begotten Son of God the Father. The fact of the matter is that we only know the Father in, through, and by the Son, Jesus of Nazareth, who addressed God as Abba.
FOR FURTHER READING
Achtemeier, Elizabeth. “Exchanging God for ‘No Gods’: A Discussion of Female Language for God.” In Speaking the Christian God: The Holy Trinity and the Challenge of Feminism, edited by Alvin F. Kimel, Jr. Grand Rapids: Eendmans, 1992.
Barr, James. “Abba Isn’t ‘Daddy.’” Journal of Theological Studies 39 (1988): 28–47.
De Margerie, Bernard. The Christian Trinity in History. Still River, Mass.: St. Bede’s, 1982.
Dunn, James D. G. The Parting of the Ways between Christianity and Judaism. Philadelphia: Trinity, 1991.
Hamerton-Kelly, Robent. God the Father: Theology and Patriarchy in the Teaching of Jesus. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979.
Jeremias, Joachim. The Prayers of Jesus. London: SCM, 1967.
_____ New Testament Theology. Volume 1: The Proclamation of Jesus. New York: Scribner’s, 1971.
Mankowski, Paul V. “Old Testament Iconology and the Nature of God.” In The Politics of Prayer, edited by H. H. Hitchcock. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992.
Martin, Francis. The Feminist Question. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994.
Miller, John W. Biblical Faith and Fathering. New York: Paulist, 1989.
Moltmann, Jürgen. “Theological Proposals.” In Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ, Faith and Order Paper, WCC, no. 103. London: SPCK, 1981.
Toon, Peter. Yesterday, Today and Forever: Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity in the Teaching of the Seven Ecumenical Councils. Swedesboro, N.J.: Preservation, 1995.
See also the articles on abba and pater and theos in Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider, eds., Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990, 1991, 1993).
Notes:
1. Paul V. Mankowski, “Old Testament Iconology and the Nature of God,” in The Politics of Prayer, ed. H. H. Hitchcock (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1992), 167.
2. John W. Miller, Biblical Faith and Fathering (New York: Paulist, 1989).
3. The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1913).
4. Robert Hamerton-Kelly, God the Father: Theology and Patriarchy in the Teaching of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 54.
5. Francis Martin, The Feminist Question (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 278.
6. Hamerton-Kelly, God the Father, 81.
7. In the supplementary volume of The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (1976), the article on “God, Nature of, in the OT,” is written by Phyllis Trible. Here and in her book God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (1978) she made claims concerning the femininity of God, which have been repeated many times by feminists since the late 1970s. One such claim is based on the use of the word rehem (womb) and its use in declaring the compassion of God. However, her philological and linguistic arguments have been shown to be false and thus her conclusions also to be false. See further Mankowski, “Old Testament Iconology and the Nature of God,” 160–65.
8. Jürgen Moltmann, “Theological Proposals,” in Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ, Faith and Order Paper, WCC., no. 103 (London: SPCK, 1981), 167.
9. De Margene, The Christian Trinity, 148.
8 – The Son
One thing is clear. Because Jesus himself addressed Elohim, ho Theos, God, as ho Pater, Abba, Father, Christians have spoken of God as the Father – as the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, with their “I believe in God the Father almighty...” have long declared. In this chapter we shall continue to reflect upon the implications of Jesus using the word Abba. Further we shall examine several Christological titles used or given to Jesus in the New Testament. Hopefully this will lead us into an appreciation of the filial relation of Jesus Christ to the Father.
THE SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS OF JESUS HIMSELF
Serious readers of the four Gospels find it difficult to escape the conclusion that Jesus had a relation to God which is impossible to fit into regular human ways of describing the relation of a man to God. His disciples sensed this unique relation, relatedness, and relationship of Jesus to the God of their fathers. Jesus’ relation was not merely that of a prophet to Yahweh-Elohim or of a member of the righteous remnant, the “poor of the Lord,” in his humility before God; it was different from that of the devoted priest in the temple, waiting upon God in faithful service; and it was not like that of the Pharisee, devoted to God through meticulous obedience to the Law. In terms of the external manner and events of his ministry, Jesus fits into various categories – prophet, rabbi, miracle-worker, exorcist, and healer. Yet in terms of his inner life – as reflected in his prayer and in his naming of the living God, Yahweh-Elohim as Abba – Jesus of Nazareth cannot easily be fitted in any category. In fact, he fits into no obvious category.
Already, in the last chapter, we noted the rare but extremely important occurrences of the Aramaic word, Abba, in the New Testament – on the lips of Jesus and as the cry of the Spirit of Jesus in the hearts of baptized believers. We recognized that the retention of this Aramaic word within the Greek New Testament pointed to Abba being the word specifically chosen and used by Jesus to express his own, unique relation to the living God, YHWH. Further, we noticed that the way it is used by the Apostle Paul of the intimate sense of union with the Father of Jesus Christ enjoyed by believers also points to the unique use of this word by Jesus himself (Gal. 4:16; Rom. 8:15). Paul did not use the word in other places (e.g., doxologies) and, as far as we can tell, the word was not used in any of the early liturgies of the church (i.e., as we know of them via the anonymous Didache and the writings of Justin Martyr and Hippolytus of Rome).
It is possible to see Jesus= use of Abba as merely reflecting his creativity, independence of thought, boldness of expression, and freedom from Jewish traditionalism. Certainly there was no precedent in his religious and devotional heritage for calling the God of Jewish monotheism Abba. However, the wiser and better way is to see in Jesus’ adoption of this startling form of address indications of not only his own true identity, but also the true identity of Yahweh-Elohim. In fact, one might say that Jesus chose the word Abba because his own relation to, and experience of, the living God could not adequately be expressed in any of the ways of speaking of Elohim/Theos provided in the Jewish Scriptures or the Jewish tradition of worship.
Of course, when he was at the synagogue and in the temple Jesus prayed as a Jew with Jews and used the traditional forms of worship and prayer. Yet, at the personal level, such was his unique relation, relatedness, and relationship to YHWH that he had to create his own verbal expression, using his own vocabulary. The One whom Jesus addresses as Abba is certainly Yahweh-Elohim and Theos; yet he is known, experienced, and addressed in a more intimate way by Jesus than had ever been the case on earth before.
Without denying the Hebraic and Jewish tradition of prayer and covenantal communion with Yahweh, and without setting aside the Torah, Jesus moves on into new spiritual territory. For what God was/is to him, God was/is to no one else. In fact (as later Christology will make clear), Jesus spoke from within Divinity – from inside the Godhead. He experienced fully the divine Filiation. To pray privately addressing the Deity as Elohim or to Yahweh or to Adonai would have been to pray to himself! So he prays to Abba as the Son praying to the Father, where both Father and Son together (in the unity of the Holy Spirit) are Yahweh-Elohim, the one unique God, who is a plurality in unity!
The Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels is conscious of a personal intimacy with the Father, knows that YHWH is his Father and Father of his disciples in different but related ways, and is wholly dedicated as the Son-Servant to be the Suffering Servant in absolute obedience to the will of God. All this is clear in the Gospel of Mark which begins with the statement, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” and then quickly moves to the baptism, where Jesus is told by the Father that he is the Son and his vocation is that of the Suffering Servant.
Obviously, the implications of Jesus’ choice and use of Abba only became clear to his apostles and disciples after his resurrection and after their reception of the gift of the Holy Spirit. This means that the Gospels were written by those who had this insight and knowledge. So it is the Synoptic Gospels and Mark in particular (14:36) which provide the clues concerning Jesus’ original use of Abba, as we noticed in the last chapter. However, being written in Greek they use ho Pater all the time, with Matthew’s Gospel containing the greatest frequency of use of the words “Father” and “Son” in the Synoptics. In fact, Matthew makes it clear that “Son of God” is the only adequate title of Jesus and that to recognize Jesus as truly the Son of God requires divine revelation. Even Peter the apostle needed illumination from heaven (see Matt. 16:13–17; cf. 27:51–54). Further, in this Gospel, the sonship of Jesus is presented primarily in terms of obedience to the Father, his readiness to suffer and die in order to fulfill all righteousness (3:15). Because of this total, loving obedience, the Father raised him from the dead and exalted him, giving him “all authority in heaven and on earth” (28:18). Now he reigns as the Son (28:19; 24:36) and will return to the earth in glory as the only Son of the Father (10:32; 16:27; 25:31-46).
There are, of course, all kinds of indications in the Gospels that Jesus is unique in his knowing of God. One such is his relation to the Torah, which he claimed to revise and fulfill as though he were its original giver (Matt. 5). He acted according to who he is – the maker and therefore the reviser of the Torah. Further, as Raymond E. Brown, the distinguished Catholic biblical scholar, writes: “Jesus could and did declare sins forgiven, modify the Law of Moses, violate Sabbath ordinances, offend against the proprieties (eat with tax collectors and sinners), make stringent demands (forbid divorce; challenge to celibacy and to leave family ties), defy common sense (encouragement to turn the other cheek) – in short, teach as no teacher of his time taught. ... Moreover, the certainty with which Jesus spoke and acted implies a consciousness of a unique relationship to God.”1
The kingdom of God (= kingdom of heaven), which was the focal point of his ministry, is never described by Jesus for it is beyond description – ineffable. Yet all kinds of hints were given by Jesus in his parables and actions for those who had ears to hear. In terms of the perspective of Jesus himself George Tavard writes:
The kingdom of Elohim, the kingdom of the heavens, must have, as it were, two levels. As the kingdom of Abba, it belongs to the One who is beyond Yahweh-Elohim, whom the Jewish hearers of Jesus did not know because he was yet unrevealed in their life. Into this kingdom no one can enter except the Son, who comes from it without having left it. In the mouth of Jesus, the parables of the kingdom reveal first of all that there exists a realm so far unsuspected, an impenetrable aura of divinity, which no one has ever entered since no one can see God and live, yet of which he, Jesus, can speak, since he belongs to it, and soon will return to it. But Jesus cannot describe it, cannot even conceptualize it, because no words in any language can formulate this experience of being the Son.
This is the first level, the level into which the prayer to Abba is addressed. Then there is the second level.
There is, accordingly, another level ... the kingdom of Elohim, of which Jesus speaks, is the kingdom of himself, of which he is the king, an aura of Divinity around Jesus closely related to what the Old Testament had called the Spirit of God. This is the kingdom of the One whom the gospel of John calls the Logos, whom Paul calls the Kyrios, of the One who gave the Law, who spoke in the prophets and who sent the Apostles. Thus the parables of the kingdom are Jesus’ mythical presentation of himself and of his mission on earth. To say that Jesus has a kingdom is, on the analogy of the Old Testament, to imply the he has a Spirit, that this Spirit seeks those who belong to Jesus and brings them into his joy.2
There are other indications in the Synoptic Gospels of the profound sense enjoyed by Jesus of an intimate communion with the Father in heaven. In the last chapter we noted some of the recorded words of Jesus where he spoke of his unique relation to the Father (e.g., Matt. 11:27; Mark 12:6; 13:32; Luke 10:22; 20:13). To these can be added the words Jesus uttered at the age of twelve when he was in the temple in Jerusalem. Addressing Joseph and Mary who were earnestly and urgently looking for him he said, “How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father=s house?” (Luke 2:49). Luke’s comment on this early expression of filial consciousness in Jesus is: “And they did not understand the saying which he spoke to them” (v. 50).
When we look at the Synoptic Gospels and ask what further evidence within them points to a unique relation of Jesus to Yahweh-Elohim and harmonizes with Jesus’ own sense of Abba, we cannot avoid examining the narratives of the conception and birth of Jesus in Matthew and Luke, and the descriptions of the baptism and Transfiguration in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Later we shall return to these important events to seek evidence of the revelation of the Trinity, but here our only concern is with Jesus as the unique Son of the Father.
Though the Matthean and Lucan infancy narratives are very different, they agree on two facts. First of all, in terms of his human identity, Joseph is his legal father and thus Jesus is of the House of David (Matt. 1:20; Luke 1:27). In the second place, in terms of his divine identity, he was conceived by Mary without a human father through the unique act of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:20; Luke 1:35) – therefore, God is his Father. So Jesus is Emmanuel (God with us) and God’s Son (Matt. 1:23; Luke 1:32). We must presume that sooner or later Mary told Jesus that Joseph was not his father. What Jesus knew innately within himself was surely confirmed by this knowledge of his origins.
The three Synoptic Gospels present us with accounts of both the baptism and the Transfiguration of Jesus. At the baptism, the beginning of his public ministry, the voice of the Father from heaven tells Jesus that he is “my beloved Son” (Mark 1:11; Matt. 3:17; Luke 3:22); then, again, at the Transfiguration, as he turned his face toward Jerusalem, the city of God, the voice of the Father from heaven tells Moses, Elijah, and the disciples, “This is my beloved Son” (Mark 9:7; Matt. 17:5; Luke 9:35). Again we have to say that only he to whom and about whom such heavenly words are said could pray in a wholly natural way, Abba.
THE IMPACT OF THE RESURRECTION
We possess what we now call the New Testament because the apostles and disciples of Jesus believed that God the Father by the Holy Spirit had raised Jesus of Nazareth from the dead and exalted him into heaven to his right hand. This message resounds in the early chapters of Acts where we are told of the first preaching in Jerusalem, “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses ... God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified@ (2:32, 36). “The God of our fathers raised Jesus ... God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins” (5:30–31).
Undoubtedly the Resurrection is the major event in Jesus= revelation of the divine life, that is, of the full identity of YHWH. In terms of the revelation of God as Holy Trinity, we may say that the revelation was incidental to, and the inevitable effect of, the accomplishment of redemption – first in the resurrection of the crucified Jesus (who was raised by the Holy Spirit) and then in the gift of the Holy Spirit to the waiting disciples (for which see chapter 9).
The books of the New Testament were certainly written by men who believed that Jesus was truly raised from the dead in a bodily resurrection, left behind an empty tomb, and ascended into heaven in his glorified human nature/body. Further, the conviction of these authors that the resurrection of Jesus demonstrated that he is truly the Messiah of the Jews, the Son of God, and the Lord resounds through their writings. Therefore, even the Gospels, as they tell of the ministry of Jesus before his death and resurrection, show that they were written from within a profound faith in the living, exalted Lord Jesus Christ, Messiah, and Son. This is especially true of the Gospel of John where the full identity of Jesus, known after the Resurrection, is used in a more intense and obvious way to inform the narrative of events and the sayings of Jesus before the crucifixion and Resurrection.
It is because the Gospels were written from within commitment to the exalted, living Lord Jesus, that it is (for modern scholars) exceedingly difficult to determine what impact this faith and knowledge had on the actual reporting of the words and works of Jesus during his public ministry. So it is not surprising that in academia there has been the “quest for the historical Jesus” – the search for the “Jesus of history” freed from interpretations based on “the Christ of faith.” There are, of course, legitimate and interesting questions raised by biblical scholars concerning whether or not we can ever surely know precisely what Jesus originally knew, felt, and said. Obviously we are dependent on the memory of faithful disciples for what he said and did; and happily they lived in a culture where accurate memory was taken for granted. Yet the impact of the Resurrection, by which the glory of his full identity began to dawn upon them, must have caused them to see in his remembered words and works meaning which was earlier, during the period of the public ministry, far from obvious to them.
It may be claimed that their memory remained accurate but their interpretation of the content of memory enlarged and developed under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And it is reasonable to assume that their insight into the full identity of Jesus and the total meaning of his time on earth grew and matured as the days and years went by. However, admitting all this, we do also need to take into account the basic honesty of the writers of the Gospels as reporters of past words and events – and thus affirm the historical reliability not only of the Synoptic Gospels but also, in a different but complementary way, of the Gospel of John. The latter was written on its own admission “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name” (20:31).
JESUS IS THE SON OF GOD – THE GOSPEL OF JOHN
In the last chapter, we noted how the word “Father” is used of God as a simile, a metaphor, and in the New Testament only, in a profound literal sense in the Bible. Here we must also note that the expression, “Son of God,” has various meanings in the Bible. In the Old Testament, as we already noted in chapter 7, both the king (2 Sam. 7:14; Ps. 2:7) and Israel (Ex. 4:22‑23; Hosea 11:1) are presented as sons. Further, angels are also called sons of God (Gen. 6:2; Job 1:6; Dan. 3:25). In the New Testament the confession of Jesus as “Son of God” is sometimes a way of speaking of Jesus as the Davidic Messiah. Jesus is raised from the dead, exalted into heaven, and enthroned as the “Son” – in fulfillment of the prophetic words of Psalm 2:7. For example, in Acts 13 Luke presents Paul as preaching in the synagogue at Antioch of Pisidia. In his address he said:
We bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus; as also it is written in the second psalm, “Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee” (Acts 13:32–33).
Here Paul is certainly thinking of the enthronement of Jesus as the Son through his exaltation from death to the right hand of the Father in heaven. Psalm 2:7 is seen as being fulfilled. It is not clear whether or not there is also the further insight (which becomes clear in other places in Paul’s writings) that he is the Son of God before the Resurrection and that his being raised is a demonstration of his sonship.
When we turn to the Gospel of John we find the teaching that Jesus is the Son of God in a profound, ultimate, and unsurpassable sense. The poetic opening of the Gospel proclaims the Logos who was God in the beginning (1:1) and became flesh “and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth ... the only Son from the Father” (1:14); toward the end of the Gospel, Thomas, one of the Twelve, addresses Jesus as “my Lord and my God” (20:28). In between these statements Jesus is presented as being supremely conscious of his filial relation to the Father as the unique Son of the Father. For example, on the eve of his glorification in Crucifixion (and Exaltation) he told his disciples: “I came from the Father and have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and going to the Father” (16:28); and he prayed: “Father, glorify thou me in thy own presence with the glory which I had with thee before the world was made” (17:5).
As the Son, Jesus is presented in the Gospel of John as perfectly obeying the will of his Father both in his coming into the world to be incarnate and in his vocation as the Messiah (4:34; 5:30; 6:38; 7:28; 8:42). Further, Jesus is the One who uniquely shares the work of the Father, specifically including those deeds which God alone can do – judging (5:22, 27–29; 8:16) and giving life to the dead (5:21, 24; 6:40). In fact, Jesus says and does nothing unless he has first heard or seen it from the Father (3:32–34; 12:49–50). As the Son, Jesus does the will and the work of the Father because of the unique communion he has with the Father, whom he knows intimately and with whom he is one (1:18; 4:22–23; 6:45–47; 14:13–16; 17:1–5). The unity of the Father and the Son is seen in the holy love of the Father for the Son and the Son for the Father (10:17; 14:31; 17:23).
Jesus is the only Son; he is one of a kind. Certainly his Father has children through divine grace (1:12), but his Father has one and only one Son. This unique status of Jesus and this unique relation with the Father is communicated by the constant use of the definite article – the Son of the Father – in the Gospel of John. God requires that people come to the Son, believe the Son, and obey the Son and honor the Son (3:36; 5:23; 14:6) in order to receive salvation (5:34) and eternal life (6:40, 47) from the Father and become his children, begotten by his grace.
The preexistence of the Word/the Son (who as the Incarnate God is Jesus of Nazareth) is also made clear in the Gospel of John through the words ego eimi (with no predicate) spoken by Jesus. Though in ordinary Greek these words often mean “It is I” or “I am the one,” in John’s Gospel the meaning is to be fixed through their particular use in the Greek Bible, the Septuagint. Let us first note the significant occurrences of ego eimi without a predicate:
You will die in your sins unless you believe that I AM (8:24).
When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I AM (8:28).
Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM (8:58).
When it does take place you may believe that I AM (13:19).
Jesus said [to the soldiers], “I AM” (18:5).
Other places where the “I am” of Jesus has the predicate (e.g., when he says he is the good Shepherd, the Light of the world, and so on) are significant; but, they are not of the same profound significance as those without the predicate.
In saying “I AM” and not supplying a predicate, Jesus is speaking in the same way as YHWH speaks in Isaiah 40–55. The Hebrew for “I YHWH” or “I He” is translated in the Septuagint simply as ego eimi, and since the predicate is not present, the translation into Greek puts particular emphasis upon existing – the existence of God. Thus in the Hebrew YHWH says ’ani hu’ and in the Greek he says ego eimi (see Isa. 41:4; 43:10; 43:25; 46:4; 51:12; 52:6). This way of speaking is to be traced back to Exodus 3:14, where YHWH tells Moses to declare in Egypt that, “I AM has sent me [Moses] to you [Pharaoh].” Commenting on this usage, the Swedish professor Tryggve Mettinger writes: “When Jesus proclaims his ‘I AM,’ he is unambiguously playing on a formula that recalls the Old Testament text about the revelation of the divine Name. In other words, when a reader of the Bible puts himself in the vantage point of the New Testament ‘I AM’ expressions and looks backwards to the Old Testament, he sees a line of tradition back to Exodus 3:14. But there is another kind of flashback to Isaiah 40–55.”3 Thus the Father is YHWH and Jesus, the Son of the Father, is YHWH. The rich unity of YHWH has a plurality.
It would be wrong for us to assume that John invented the absolute use of the “I AM,” for there are hints of it in the Synoptic Gospels. For example, both Mark and Matthew describe Jesus walking across the water to his disciples and saying to his disciples, “Ego eimi, take heart, have no fear” (Matt. 14:27; Mark 6:50; and cf. John 6:20). Though (as we noted above) the Greek may be translated as “It is I” (as in the RSV here and in John 6:20), that the full “I AM” is intended is suggested by the response of the disciples in the boat, “Truly you are the Son of God” (Matt. 14:33). Then, of course, the same Gospel of Matthew contains the command of Jesus that converts be baptized in the Name (YHWH) of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (28:19).
JESUS IS THE SON OF GOD – FURTHER TESTIMONY
Another book of the New Testament which proclaims that Jesus is Son of God in himself, and not merely Son because of being the enthroned Messiah-Son, is Hebrews. The main theme of 1:1–3:6 is the superiority of Jesus both to the angels and to Moses. He is superior because he is the Son of God, through whom the Father created and sustains the universe. God the Father has spoken “to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power” (1:2–3). Of this Son, Scripture not only says (in Ps. 2:7) “You are my Son, today I have begotten you,” but also (in Ps. 45:6) “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever” (KJV). From earth by faith believers confess that “we see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels [in his incarnate existence on earth], crowned with glory and honor” (Heb. 2:9).
The Apostle Paul calls Jesus “the Son of God” on four occasions (Rom. 1:4; 2 Cor. 1:9; Gal. 2:20; Eph. 4:13), and on thirteen occasions he speaks of Jesus’ divine sonship in such expressions as “his Son” (Rom. 1:3, 9; 5:10; 8:3, 29, 32; 1 Cor. 1:9; 15:28; Gal. 1:16; 4:4, 6; Col. 1:13; 1 Thes. 1:10). It is of interest and theological importance that in all of his seventeen references to the divine sonship of Jesus Paul uses the definite article (which is not always obvious in the English translations). For example, in Romans 1:3 the literal translation is “the Son of him” which the RSV renders as “his Son.” By this grammatical means Paul declares that the sonship of Jesus is unique – he is one of a kind. Paul’s calling was to proclaim “the Son of him [God the Father]” among the Gentiles (Gal. 1:15–16). The Gospel is the Gospel of God concerning his Son, the Royal Son (Rom. 1:4), the Sacrificed Son (Rom. 8:32), and the Son in and through whom God adopts sons through his grace (Gal. 4:5).
JESUS CHRIST IS GOD
In chapter 7 we noted that theos (elohim) meaning “God” is normally used of the Father in the New Testament. However, there are several times in the New Testament where Jesus Christ is certainly called, and several when he is apparently called, theos, and these we must now examine. We cannot here go into the complex issues of textual variants and syntax, which are raised by the full study of whether and where Jesus is called theos by the writers of the New Testament. Happily a recent book, Jesus as God: The New Testament Use of Theos in Reference to Jesus, by the erudite, conservative scholar, Murray J. Harris, covers the technical evidence more than adequately. We shall examine the occurrences as they appear in the order of the books of the New Testament.
(1) “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).
(2) “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known” (John 1:18). (Instead of “the only Son” we perhaps should read “the only God” or “the only-begotten who is God” for this has superior textual support.)
(3) “Thomas answered [Jesus], ‘My Lord and My God!’” (John 20:28)
(4) “... and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ. God who is over all be blessed for ever” (Rom. 9:5). (Here the RSV follows the Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, where a full stop or period is put after flesh. If a full stop is put only after “for ever” and a comma is placed after “Christ” then it reads, “... the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all God blessed for ever.”)
(5) “... awaiting our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).
(6) “But of the Son he says, ‘Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever’” (Heb. 1:8).
(7) “To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours in the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:1).
(8) “... in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20).
Of these it may be said that three (1, 3, and 6) contain reasonably sure statements that Jesus is theos. In four of the rest (4, 5, 7, and 8) it is possible but unlikely that theos refers to God the Father, while in one (2) it is a matter of which textual variant is followed.
What seems clear is that the readiness and tendency to call Jesus theos belongs to the latter part of the apostolic age – Romans 9:5 being the earliest possible calling of Jesus theos. We know that early in the second century Ignatius of Antioch freely called Jesus theos, as his Letters reveal. Further, in the same period the Roman Pliny described the Christians in one of his reports to Rome as those who sang “a hymn to Christ as God.”4
There are good reasons for thinking that in the first decades of Christianity the Old Testament heritage dominated the use and meaning of theos. Only the Father in heaven, the One to whom Jesus prayed, could be theos. However, by the 50s and 60s of the Christian era, theos began to be used in a fuller, even richer way to reflect the conviction that God had been fully revealed in Jesus. Theos now included both the Father and his Son, and so the Son could also be called theos. It is perhaps worthy of note that of the eight texts cited above the majority belong to the spirit and content of worship. The calling of Jesus theos must have occurred and developed – as Pliny indicates – in worship, where Jesus is addressed as “God-and-Savior.”
JESUS CHRIST THE IMAGE OF GOD
When Paul called Christ “the image (eikon) of God” the emphasis is upon the equality of the image with the original. The meaning is that Christ shares in God’s real Being and is therefore a perfect manifestation of that Being. In 2 Corinthians 4:4 Paul writes of “the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God.” In commenting on this verse Philip E. Hughes wrote:
St. Paul is not simply saying that Christ is like God or reflects the character of God, or that through his incarnation he is the revealer of God to the world, true though it may be that Christ represents God to us in these respects; for what is stated here is far more than a declaration of the function or effect of the incarnation. It is in the profoundest sense a declaration concerning the essential being of Christ, that is to say, an ontological statement with reference to the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. This conclusion is drawn from the context – a context which speaks (3:7ff.) of the divine glory reflected from the face of Moses but veiled from the people because of their unbelief, and which declares that the divine glory now beams forth, unreflected and unveiled, from the face of Jesus Christ and in the gospel of God=s grace, but with transcendent brilliance. The glory of Christ is not a mere reflection or copy of the glory of God; it is identical with it.5
This biblical language of image and glory is dynamically equivalent to the “consubstantial” language of the Creed.
In Colossians 1:13–15 Paul writes of God=s beloved Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. This Son is “the image of the invisible God.” Again, we can benefit from the words of Dr. Hughes.
In the nature of the case, there can be no such thing as a pictorial copy of the invisible; consequently, the term “image” does not mean here simply a visible likeness other than the reality itself. Within the mystery of the infinite trinitarian being of God it is the Son who authentically reveals the divine nature and gives effect to the divine will. Certainly, he does this as the incarnate Son in the perfection of his life and his performance of the work of redemption. He is the image, however, not just temporarily, during the time of his incarnate manifestation here on earth, but eternally; for, as St. Paul goes on to say in this same passage, it was through him and for him who is the image of the invisible God that all things were created (vv. 16f.).6
The underlying idea of the image is the manifestation of the hidden and thus Christ is the manifestation of the invisible God. Mankind is not the image of God; rather human beings are made in the image of God. Only Jesus Christ is truly and really the eternal eikon of God, the Father. As the eikon of God, the Son became man to identify fully with man who is originally created in (not as) the image of God.
In three other places, Paul uses the word eikon in a significant way pointing to the renewal of man through being conformed to the image of the Son of God (Rom. 8:29; 1 Cor. 15:49; Col. 3:10). Made in the image of God but marred through sin, man is renewed in Jesus Christ who is the image of God in which man was first formed!
Related in meaning to eikon is the word morphē, used by Paul in the important Christological passage, Philippians 2:5–11, where he speaks of the preexistent Christ as being “in the form of God” before he took the “form of a servant.” The contrast of the heavenly and earthly existence suggests that morphē points to a participation in God which is real, just as partaking in human life and history was real for Jesus. In fact, the meaning is much like that of John 1:1–5, where John speaks of the preexistent Word who became flesh.
JESUS CHRIST IS LORD
Jesus is certainly addressed and described as kyrios in the New Testament. But what does kyrios mean? Does it have one or a variety of meanings, depending on the context? What we know for sure is that the word kyrios was used in Greek in a variety of ways – for example, as a master (owner of slaves), as a polite expression (“Sir”), as a title of gods and heroes, and a title of the Roman Emperor. So shades of these meanings occur throughout the New Testament, for example, in the parables and ministry of Jesus.
Further, scholars are not sure whether in the versions of the Septuagint available in the first century of the Christian era YHWH was usually rendered by Kyrios. The earliest major preserved copies of the Septuagint that we possess were prepared by Christians in the fourth and fifth centuries. These certainly use Kyrios for YHWH. In fact, kyrios occurs about 8,400 times, and of these 6,700 are substitutes for the tetragram, YHWH.
Bearing this in mind, it is not in the least surprising that the Father is often called, ho kyrios, “the Lord,” in the New Testament – for example, in expressions such as “the angel of the Lord” (Matt. 1:20, 24) and “the name of the Lord” (James 5:10), as well as in the expression, “the Lord God” (Rev. 22:5–6). However, Kyrios is used as a title of Jesus in all the books of the New Testament except Titus and 1–3 John.
The early Christian confession, “Jesus is Lord” (1 Cor. 12:3; Rom. 10:9), which Paul inherited from Palestinian Christianity, obviously celebrates Jesus as kyrios in a religious sense as the risen and exalted agent of God, by whom comes salvation, and to whom allegiance is owed and given. Paul himself continued to use kyrios in the absolute sense of the exalted Jesus in his lordship over both the old and new creations – “for us there is ... one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist” (1 Cor. 8:6).
About 100 times Paul simply calls Jesus “the Lord” (ho kyrios) without any other name or title, suggesting perhaps that he received this shorthand name and form of address from Jewish Christianity (from the Aramaic, marya’; and see also the use of Maranatha, “Lord come” in 1 Cor. 16:22). Certainly Jesus is Lord in the sense that he is the Master who is to be served and obeyed with an allegiance which is offered only to God (Rom. 14:1–12). He is also the Lord in the sense that it is he who will appear to judge the world on “the Day of the Lord” (1 Cor. 4:1–5). Thus he acts as YHWH, the Judge. Also he is the Lord who is worshiped in the assembly of Christians, when they meet at the Lord’s Table on the Lord’s Day (1 Cor. 11:17–22). At the end of the age the whole created order will confess to the glory of God the Father that Jesus is the one and only Kyrios (Phil. 2:9–11). So for Paul to call Jesus ho kyrios was to identify him in the closest possible way with YHWH, the LORD, and in so doing also identify Jesus in the closest possible way with God the Father, who is YHWH. Thus, to change the title, he is truly the Son of God.
OTHER TITLES OF JESUS
Apparently very early Christos, a verbal adjective used as a noun, became a proper name or title for Jesus, which Paul received from Christians before him (see 1 Cor. 15:3) and often used. Obviously its early and general use indicated that the first Christians believed that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel and that his resurrection and exaltation proved this to be so. Paul added to this understanding the confession that Christ is also “God blessed forever” – as we saw above in looking at Romans 9:5.
Another indication that for Paul the name of Christ suggests deity is his constant use of the phrase “in Christ” (en Christo). It occurs about 170 times in the letters and means much more than the word, Christianos, which he does not use at all. For Paul, all baptized believers are “in Christ”; it is only as they are “in Christ” that they can approach the Father, possess the gift of the Spirit, be the adopted sons of God, receive salvation and enter the church which is the body of Christ. All this indicates that Paul thought of Christ as a divine Person in whom all believers everywhere dwell and the One who also dwells by his Spirit in all believers.
The phrase, “Son of Man,” is used more often in the Gospels than any other name or title except Jesus, and with one exception (John 12:34) only Jesus speaks of the “Son of Man.” Much research and debate among scholars has occurred in the attempt to locate the origin and meaning of this title. It seems generally agreed that in it there is a reference to the “Son of Man” of Daniel 7, who comes from heaven and is therefore, in some sense, divine. However, the actual form of words of the title (see Mark 2:10, 28) also points to manhood – a male man, his father’s son. Thus this title conveys the truth that Jesus is both human and divine. As Son of Man he has authority – to forgive sins, as lord of the Sabbath, and as ruler in the kingdom of God. As Son of Man he will come in majesty and glory to judge the people – a coming which stands in contrast to his first coming with its betrayal, rejection, mockery, and injustice, leading to execution and death. The Son of God is the Son of Man for he was incarnate and thus is both God and man.
Finally there is the title, the Word (logos). Again there has been much academic interest in the Hellenistic and Jewish background to this word as it is used in the prologue of the Gospel of John. Wherever, precisely, the inspiration for the use of Logos came from its meaning in the Gospel of John is clear. The Word is the Person within the Godhead (the only Son) through whom the world was created, who is the source of light and life for mankind and who became flesh that men might become the children of God by grace. In some way the Logos is the actual personification of the word and wisdom of God (see chap. 5).
Jesus, the Word, is the express declaration of the divine mind. He is God’s utterance to man. He is the Revealer of the will and character of God. He declares, utters, and reveals the Truth!
IN CONCLUSION
Whether Jesus is confessed as “the Son,” or “the Lord” or “the Christ,” or “the Son of Man,” it is clear from the total witness of the New Testament that he is seen as God in the flesh, God with a human nature and body. Further, it is clear that early Christians loved, served, and worshiped him as God incarnate, and did so without in any way setting aside their monotheism, their commitment to YHWH. In worshiping the Father through the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, they acclaimed the Son as in, with, and through him they praised the Father.
Because of the pressure from feminists today, there is a growing tendency in Christian worship to reduce or take out of the prayers, hymns, and sermons the naming of Jesus as “the Lord,” and “the Son,” and “the King.” In their place are put such words as “Servant” and “Child” so as to avoid charges of sexism and androcentricism. Any careful student of the New Testament knows that to do this kind of thing is to run the risk of losing the heart of the Faith. For it is in the relation of “the Father and the Son” and “the Son and the Father” that the true identity of Jesus is known and salvation is available. To take away the words is also to take away the reality. Christian Trinitarian Theism comes from the Scripture with a specific vocabulary and to change this is to lose that unique monotheism and drift into other forms of belief in God (where “God” becomes grammatically neuter in gender and pantheist in meaning!).
As we observed in chapter 3, the key word which the early church used to establish the full and true deity of Jesus as the only Son of the only Father was homoousios, meaning consubstantial with the Father. In so doing the church rejected Arianism, the teaching that Jesus is an inferior form of deity. The paragraph of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed concerning Jesus reads:
We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten from the Father before all ages, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one substance (homoousios) with the Father, through Whom all things came into existence, Who because of us men and because of our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man, and was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried, and rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father, and will come again, with glory, to judge both the living and the dead, of Whose kingdom there will be no end.7
Once the deity of Jesus had been established the next major question to answer was the relation within the one Person of the Son, Jesus Christ, of his divine and human natures. Guidelines for answering this question in line with the witness of the New Testament and the Nicene Creed were provided by the Council of Chalcedon (451) in this Declaration:
In agreement, therefore, with the holy fathers, we all unanimously teach that we should confess that our Lord Jesus Christ is one and the same Son, the same perfect in Godhead and the same perfect in manhood, truly God and truly man, the same of a rational soul and body, consubstantial with the Father in Godhead, and the same consubstantial with us in manhood, like us in all things except sin; begotten from the Father before the ages as regards his Godhead, and in the last days, the same, because of us and because of our salvation begotten from the Virgin Mary, the Theotokos, as regards his manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten, made known in two natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation, the difference of the natures being preserved and coalescing in one prosōpon and one hypostasis – not parted or divided into two prosōpa, but one and the same Son, only-begotten, divine Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets of old and Jesus Christ himself have taught us about him and the creed of our fathers has handed down.8
This doctrine entered into the western Athanasian Creed (the Quicunque Vult) and was further refined at the ecumenical Councils of Constantinople (in 553 and 680). Those who desire to maintain that Jesus is one and one only Person, and that he is truly and really God and truly and really man, return often to this statement in order to keep their thinking biblically and patristically orthodox.
Since Jesus Christ, One Person made known in two natures, was filled with the Holy Spirit (in his human nature) and consubstantial with the Father and the Holy Spirit (in his divine nature) his relation to the Holy Spirit belongs both to the very center of both the Trinity and the work of human salvation. Therefore, having studied the identity and nature of the Father and the Son, it is now necessary and appropriate to turn, in the next chapter, to the study of the Holy Spirit.
FOR FURTHER READING
Brown, Raymond E. An Introduction to New Testament Christology. New York: Paulist, 1994.
Cullman, Oscar. The Christology of the New Testament. London: SCM, 1959.
Dunn, J. D. G. Christology in the Making. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980.
Hughes, Philip E. The True Image: The Origin and Destiny of Man in Christ. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989.
Jeremias, Joachim. New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus. New York: Scribner’s, 1971.
Kramer, W. Christ, Lord, Son of God. London: SCM, 1966.
Harris, Murray J. Jesus as God: The New Testament Use of Theos in Reference to Jesus. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992.
Mettinger, Tryggve N. D. In Search of God: The Meaning and Message of the Everlasting Names. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988.
Toon, Peter. Yesterday, Today and Forever: Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity in the Teaching of the Seven Ecumenical Councils. Swedesboro, N.J.: Preservation, 1995.
Notes:
1. Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to New Testament Christology (New York: Paulist, 1994), 101.
2. George Tavard, The Vision of the Trinity (Washington, D.C.: Univ. Press of America, 1981), 10-11.
3. Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, In Search of God: The Meaning and Message of the Everlasting Names (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 44.
4. Pliny Epistle 10.96.7.
5. Philip E. Hughes, The True Image: The Origin and Destiny of Man in Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 26.
6. Ibid., 28.
7. J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 5th ed. (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978), 297.
8. Ibid., 339-40.
9 – The Holy Spirit
Most of us have no difficulty at all in thinking of the Spirit of God, or the Holy Spirit, as the general presence of God in his world or as the specific presence of God within the church of Jesus Christ and in the hearts of believers. Thus we are able to appreciate the two general aspects of the Spirit of YHWH which we encounter in both the Old and New Testaments. First of all, the Spirit is like wind and fire, a power which invades a person from without causing him to be moved in a direction of God=s choosing. We read that the Spirit of God “drove” Jesus into the wilderness after his baptism in the river Jordan (Mark 1:12); and in Acts the coming of the promised Spirit is accompanied by wind and fire (Acts 2:1–4). In the second place, the Spirit is like a fluid or substance with which a person is filled or into which he is immersed so that he has life, gifts, or virtues from the Spirit. “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power,” said Peter (Acts 10:38). “Be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18) and “drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13), writes Paul.
From this perspective, it is quite natural to refer to the Spirit as “it,” just as we refer to the wind or human breath with the pronoun as neuter. In fact, the Greek word pneuma is, in terms of grammar, neuter gender (in contrast to ruach in Hebrew which is feminine gender and spiritus in Latin which is masculine gender). Therefore, we find the neuter pronoun used of the Spirit (e.g., “It had not yet fallen on any of them,” Acts 8:16). However, as we shall see below, in the teaching concerning the Holy Spirit as the Paraclete in John’s Gospel the Spirit assumes the masculine gender. The Spirit is “he.”
THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS
If we turn to what Jesus is recorded by the Synoptic Gospels as saying concerning the Holy Spirit, we find that, while the concepts he utilized can be contained within inherited Old Testament and Jewish categories, they do point to a more exact definition of the Spirit of YHWH and his relation both to the Father and to Jesus, the Son. This becomes clear in these two examples.
(1) When the Pharisees allege that Jesus cast out demons by the power of Beelzebul, prince of the demons, the response of Jesus includes this terrible saying: “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin” (Mark 3:28–29). Matthew records these extra words: “And whoever says a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come” (12:32). The Spirit present and at work in Jesus and his ministry is the Spirit of the age to come – as the Old Testament prophets promised. The Spirit is the “already” of the “not yet” fully arrived kingdom of God. So to deny the presence and activity of God’s Spirit in the exorcisms of Jesus and, worse still, to attribute the Spirit’s work to Beelzebul is to have no place in the age to come. It is “an aeonian sin,” a sin relating to the age to come.
Glimpses of the distinct personhood of the Holy Spirit are contained in the verbs used – to blaspheme against and to speak against the Holy Spirit. In both instances the blaspheming and speaking is obviously against YHWH, but it is also specifically against “the Holy Spirit.”
(2) In looking forward to the time when the disciples would be proclaiming the Gospel and being beaten and arrested, Jesus promised: “When they bring you to trial and deliver you up, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say; but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit” (Mark 13:11; cf., Matt. 10:20, where the Spirit is “the Spirit of your Father speaking through you”). Here there is a hint of a distinct identity for the Holy Spirit, who is both the Spirit of prophecy and the Spirit of the Father.
If we move on to examine what is said editorially concerning the relation of the Holy Spirit to Jesus, we find again the heightening and personalizing of the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit in contrast to Jewish thought. This is particularly clear in Luke (at which we shall specifically look), but it is not absent from Matthew. In the latter is the baptism formula of 28:19 containing the words, “the Holy Spirit,” after “the Father and the Son.” This statement is not in the form of a promise of the Spirit to the disciples, but it is of interest to us as a major hint of an emerging understanding of the Holy Spirit as a distinct identity alongside and in relation to the Father and the Son.
Luke describes the conception of Jesus in the womb of Mary as being directly caused by the Holy Spirit (“the Holy Spirit will come upon you,” 1:35). Further, he describes the principal persons in the narrative of the birth of Jesus and John as being “filled with the Spirit” – Mary herself (1:35), John from his mother=s womb (1:15), Elizabeth (1:41), and Zechariah (1:67).
After Jesus had been baptized by John and was praying, “the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon [Jesus] in bodily form, as a dove” (3:21–22). Luke draws here upon the imagery of Genesis 1:2 (“the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters”) in order to emphasize the creative activity of the Holy Spirit. A new thing was being wrought at the baptism comparable with the creation of heaven and earth out of the primeval chaos. The description of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus, the unique Son, takes us beyond descriptions of his descent upon prophets and moves us, through the dove image, toward an indication of a unique identity for the Spirit in relation both to Jesus and the Father.
Following the baptism we read that Jesus, “full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit for forty days in the wilderness, tempted by the devil” (Luke 4:1–2). Here through the theme of the New Exodus is the role of the Spirit entering and filling Jesus, who is the new Israel and Son/Servant of YHWH; and also there is the more personal idea of the same Holy Spirit specifically leading him to where the Father wanted him to be. By the Spirit, Jesus successfully defeats Satan.
Jesus “returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee” (4:14) and eventually arrived in Nazareth and entered the synagogue. Here Jesus read from Isaiah 61:1–2: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he [the Lord] has anointed me to preach good news to the poor” (4:18). The descriptions of the Spirit are well within those of the Old Testament. The New Exodus is under way and Jesus in the Spirit as the Son/Servant of YHWH is releasing Israel from Satan’s oppression. Such release involves both exorcisms and healings, as well as removing the spiritual and moral blindness of the Jews to God as he is revealed in his Messiah, Jesus.
However, in the next reference to the Spirit we are probably entering into a dimension not found in the old covenant. When the seventy disciples returned from their mission of proclaiming the kingdom of God, rejoicing because of their spiritual success, Jesus himself “rejoiced in the Holy Spirit” as he prayed in intimate terms to his Father in heaven (10:21–22). This is the prayer in which Jesus (as the Son) says that “no one knows who the Son is except the Father and who the Father is except the Son.” Is it possible there is here a revelation of the Trinity, specifically the unique communion of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit? It is probable that one result of Jesus being “filled with the Spirit” was a heightening awareness of the Father, whose work he as the Son was doing. It has been well said, as we noted in the last two chapters, that it is the interaction of Jesus’ filial consciousness and the Spirit, who fills him, that gives Jesus’ ministry its distinctive character.
The final reference to the Holy Spirit in Luke is a prediction of what will happen on the Day of Pentecost. “Behold I send the promise of my Father upon you; but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high” (24:49). Here the Holy Spirit is called “the promise of my Father” (pointing to Joel=s prophecy as cited in Acts 2:17, 33) and “power from on high” and, significantly, Jesus claims to be wholly involved in the sending, along with “my Father.”
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
On several occasions it has been claimed in this book that the Holy Trinity is revealed in and through events – the Incarnation and the Descent of the Holy Spirit – before being known by the disciples. It is in Acts 2 that we are given the description of the event of the Holy Spirit – that is, the arrival of the Spirit, who is sent by the Father and by the Son, to the waiting disciples. Though we must assume that the presence of the Spirit brought a tremendous leap forward in the insight and understanding of the apostles and disciples, we have also to recognize that the full spiritual and doctrinal implications of this unique event naturally took time to form and develop in the explicit knowledge of the church. So we look for these implications not only in the Acts but in the rest of the New Testament as well – remembering that the books were written by those who were inspired by and filled with the Holy Spirit.
The Feast of Pentecost had come in Judaism to be a commemoration of the giving of the Law at Sinai. So it is not surprising that the theophany described by Luke in Acts 2:1–3 includes the vivid realities and images of wind and fire – for they were associated (as we saw in chaps. 4 and 5) with the theophanies on Sinai. On Mount Sinai YHWH descended to meet with Moses and the elders of Israel; in Jerusalem as the theophanies of Sinai are remembered, the Spirit of YHWH (who is sent by the Father and the exalted Lord Jesus, the Son) descends not only to rest upon the twelve apostles and the disciples but also to remain with them and to be in them. Therefore, not only are they filled with the Holy Spirit, but they break forth into praise and rejoicing in a variety of languages. Further, they become bold to proclaim the Gospel of God concerning Jesus, Messiah, and Lord.
What happened at this Day of Pentecost was the fulfillment of prophecy – that of Joel in particular. He had prophesied in Yahweh=s name that “in the last days ... I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams” (Acts 2:17, citing Joel 2:28–32). The “last days” had certainly arrived for the dynamic Sign of the age to come was now gloriously present.
Peter declared to the crowd which assembled the good news concerning Jesus of Nazareth and the Spirit of God. “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this which you see and hear” (Acts 2:32–33). At the end of his proclamation he called upon his fellow Jews to “repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (2:38). The gift is given by the crucified and exalted Jesus, whom the Father has declared to be Lord and Christ.
The church now has a mission. It is a mission, like that of the Messiah whom it proclaims, in the power of the Spirit – as the text of Acts makes clear. It is the mission of the Father and of the Son through the church; and the church is to be always filled with the Holy Spirit, who is the gift of the Father and the Son.
If we survey the references to the Holy Spirit in Acts 3–28 we find that they fall into two types, those which continue the traditional biblical (O. T.) way of speaking of the presence and activity of the Spirit, and those which point (dimly but surely) toward the full and distinct personhood of the Spirit within the plurality of the unity of YHWH. It will be sufficient for our purposes to give examples of each type to indicate the fluidity of expression used of the invisible and ineffable Holy Spirit.
First of all, there are texts where the Spirit’s coming or presence is presented through the image of filling, as if the Spirit were a heavenly fluid or substance. On a lot of occasions an apostle or disciple is said to be “filled with the Holy Spirit” (e.g., 4:8; 4:31; 6:3; 7:55; 9:17) while on other occasions a person is said to “receive the Spirit” (8:18; 10:47) in becoming a Christian. In the second place, there are occasions when the Spirit is said to act like “a person” in terms of telling Philip what to do (8:29), carrying Philip from one place to another (8:39), explaining to Peter the meaning of his dream (10:19), prompting the church in Antioch to commission Barnabas and Saul (13:1–4), forbidding the apostles to preach in Asia (16:6), and witnessing to Paul that bonds and afflictions await him in Judea (20:23).
In whatever way and through whatever image we read of the Holy Spirit in the Acts, it (he) is always engaged in continuing the mission of Jesus, now exalted in heaven as the Lord and Christ. There is an obvious but ineffable relation between the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.
THE GOSPEL OF JOHN
In the Gospel of John are profound statements and rich teaching concerning the Holy Spirit which are not found in the Synoptic Gospels. It is usual in modern biblical scholarship to attribute this important doctrine not to Jesus himself but to the theological insight of the evangelist, as he reflected upon the experience of the Spirit in the apostolic age. Another way of putting this viewpoint is to say that, having carefully noted what the Spirit was doing from the Day of Pentecost onward, John placed a creative summary of the principles of this action upon the lips of Jesus.
From a more conservative viewpoint, and allowing for the input of the evangelist in filling out the content of the original words of Jesus in the light of the Resurrection, Exaltation, and descent of the Spirit, it is possible to say that Jesus did speak of the Spirit in such a way as to inspire the fuller and developed record of which we read in the Gospel of John. In fact, such is the richness of the content that it makes excellent sense to see the genius of Jesus behind the words.
The most prominent and important teaching on the Spirit is obviously in chapters 14–16. Yet there are important statements concerning the Spirit in earlier chapters. In our own chapter 2 we examined the expression, “God is Spirit” which occurs in 4:23–24, where Jesus is in conversation with the woman of Samaria. To her he spoke of the gift of the Spirit in terms of “a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (v. 14). In John 3:1–8 there is significant teaching on the necessity of being “born from above [i.e., of God]” and “born of the Spirit,” an image which points to the personhood of the Holy Spirit, the Begetter. At the end of chapter 3 it is said of the Son: “For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for it is not by measure that he gives the Spirit” (v. 34). In 7:37–38 we learn that the fullness of the gift of the Spirit (which gift is again presented in terms of “rivers of living water”) to the disciples must wait until Jesus is glorified (through his Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension).
So the Jesus who is presented as meeting his disciples in the Upper Room before the feast of the Passover (John 13–17) is the person who both knows all about the Spirit and who has been filled and endowed with the Spirit from the beginning – as John the Baptist perceived (1:32–34). A reader will judge that such must be the case for in chapters 14–16 Jesus speaks in such a way about the Holy Spirit, whom he calls the Paraklētos (the Paraclete), as to suggest a holy “familiarity” with him. This said, it needs also to be added that what is taught in these chapters of the work of the Holy Spirit is fully in line with the Jewish understanding of the Spirit as “the Spirit of prophecy” and of the Spirit who inspired and brings the wisdom of YHWH. It is in line with such concepts, but it also extends and deepens that teaching.
In Greek paraklētos is formally a passive verbal adjective meaning “one called alongside” (e.g., to assist in a court). So it has often been translated as “Advocate” or “Counselor.” The translation of “Comforter” (KJV) is partly generated by the content of John 14–16 (the comfort brought by the Spirit) and by deriving the word from the verb parakalein, to encourage.
The future sending of the Paraclete from heaven is the means whereby the Lord Jesus himself returns to the disciples, and in doing so brings glory to the Father. Receiving the Spirit and his ministry, the disciples in turn will know Christ’s presence with them on earth. Yet, for all the affinity of the Spirit to Christ, the Spirit is distinct and personal; the emphatic personal pronoun following the neuter noun (to pneuma – ekeinos) from 15:26 onward vividly makes this clear. It is the Lord Jesus who will send the Spirit from the Father, and it is also the Father who will send the Spirit in answer to the prayer of the Lord Jesus. In these holy relations between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit we are given an indication of the identity of the Holy Trinity.
In summary, the teaching of Jesus on the pneuma and the paraklētos in John 14–16 is as follows:
(1) The Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, will indwell the disciples forever (14:15–17).
(2) The Paraclete, whom the Father will send in the name of the Lord Jesus, will teach the disciples all things and bring to their remembrance what he has taught them (14:25–26).
(3) The Paraclete, as the Spirit of Truth from the Father, will bear witness to the Lord Jesus in his ministry to the disciples (15:26–27).
(4) The Paraclete on coming into the world will convince the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment as he turns people to believe in the Lord Jesus (16:7–11).
(5) The Paraclete as the Spirit of truth will take what belongs to the Lord Jesus and declare it into the disciples; further, he will speak of things that are to come (i.e., the Crucifixion and Resurrection). In all that he says and does he will glorify the Lord Jesus (16:12–15).
To convey adequately what is said of the pneuma as paraklētos we need probably to use two English words, both of them nouns that apply to persons – Advocate and Comforter. As the Advocate, the Holy Spirit continues the work of Jesus himself to persuade people that Jesus is truly the Son of the Father, whom to know is life eternal. The removal of Jesus from earth will leave the disciples as orphans and defenseless. The Spirit comes to be the defense of the disciples as they go forth into the world; the Paraclete takes over Jesus’ advocacy of the Father’s cause. So the Spirit prosecutes the case against the world. He works through the disciples and their ministry in and upon the minds of people to persuade and to convince them of the truth of the Gospel. “He will convince the world of sin ... because they do not believe in me [Jesus]; of righteousness because I go to the Father ... of judgment because the ruler of this world [Satan] is judged” (16:8–11). Thus this great work of the Holy Spirit who comes into the world from the Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus, is to stir the world’s conscience and to confute its errors in order to bring men to conversion (John 12:31–32).
As the Comforter, the Holy Spirit brings to the disciples a new and vital communion with the Father and the Son. In this communion there is genuine peace and true joy as there is also comfort in tribulation and trial – “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (15:11); “I have said this to you that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (16:33).
In his mission within the church and within the world, the Holy Spirit will depend upon and listen to the exalted Lord Jesus, who is the Son, just as the Lord Jesus depended (and still depends) and listened (and still listens) to the Father. As the Lord Jesus glorified his Father by declaring the things of the Father as an obedient Son, the Holy Spirit will glorify the Son by declaring the things of the Son to the disciples. In fact, it may be said that the unity of the Son and the Spirit is as permanent and comprehensive as is the unity of the Father and the Son (10:30).
Not only is the personhood of the Holy Spirit as Paraclete indicated by the emphatic personal pronoun ekeinos (14:26; 15:26; 16:8, 14) and autos (16:7), it is also suggested by means of the parallelism between Jesus and the Spirit. The Paraclete is to Christ as Christ is to the Father. This may be set out as follows:
(1) Both Jesus and the Spirit are sent from the Father into the world (3:16–17 and 16:27–28; 14:26 and 15:26).
(2) Both Jesus and the Spirit are called “holy” (6:69; 14:26) and characterized by “the truth” (14:6; 14:17; 15:26).
(3) Both Jesus and the Spirit teach (13:13–14; 14:26).
(4) Both Jesus and the Spirit are revealers. Jesus bears witness to the Father and reveals all things (4:25–26; cf. 1:18; 3:34–36); the Paraclete witnesses to the Son and reveals him as the glorified Son (15:26–27; 16:13–14).
(5) Both Jesus and the Spirit seek to convince and convict the world (1:12; 16:8–12).
Jesus was the Paraclete until his glorification. The Holy Spirit is the Paraclete from the glorification of Jesus.
Here as well as in chapters 3 and 6 we have noted the possibility that God was conceived as a Binity not a Trinity by the early Christians, Paul in particular. Not surprisingly, the suggestion has been made that because of the way the Paraclete and Jesus are identified in John’s Gospel God is here also conceived as a Binity. For example, J. E. Davey has written: “In John, Son and Spirit seem to be aspects of the one Incarnate Divine Life.”1 In contrast, Gary Burge, in his outstanding study of the Spirit in John’s Gospel entitled The Anointed Community, has written:
The going/coming texts of John 14 stress that Jesus himself is experienced in the Spirit. Therefore in his eschatology John moves very close to a binitarian theology. To have the Spirit is to have Jesus (and the Father) dwelling within (14:23; cf., 1 John 4:12ff.). But this binitarian danger is only apparent. John understands the Persons of the Godhead as closely unified. The unity and distinction of Jesus and the Spirit is paralleled by the same close relationship between Jesus and the Father. There is oneness (10:30; 14:18, 23) and at the same time there is separation (14:28; 16:7).2
Later patristic theology (as we noted in chapter 2) will make use of the concept of perichoresis or circuminsessio to speak of “merging” (mutual immanence) of the three Persons within the one Godhead.
Finally, let us note that the Gospel of John also provides an account of the occasion when what Jesus had promised in 7:39 at the Feast and in 14–16 to his disciples in the Upper Room actually came to fulfillment. Jesus, the crucified and now resurrected and ascended Lord – and thus according to this Gospel the glorified Lord – went through closed doors to his fearful disciples on the evening of the day of his resurrection. They were obviously glad to see him but were not prepared for what he had to say: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” Then Jesus breathed upon them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (20:21–22). Even as Yahweh-Elohim breathed the breath of life into man (Gen. 2:7), so the Lord Jesus breathes his Spirit, his personal life force, into the disciples. Thus a new order, a new epoch, a new creation has come into being with the glorification of Jesus and with the gift of the Spirit. In this new creation the Spirit gives power over sin (“if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven,” 20:23), since it was sin that brought disorder into the old creation.
It would seem that John intends this account of the giving of the Holy Spirit as a parallel way of stating what Luke does more graphically in Acts 2. What is described certainly appears to be intended to be more than symbolic; but, exactly how Acts 2 and John 20:22 are to be reconciled is very difficult to determine.3 Certainly both accounts make it very clear that the Holy Spirit comes from the Father and the Son and that he is only given, breathed out, and poured out when the saving work of Jesus on earth is wholly completed.
THE LETTERS OF PAUL
The Apostle Paul had a lot to say about the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit. This Spirit is truly the one and only Spirit of the one and only God. The time for the full expression of his presence and work is in the age to come; however, because of the exalted Jesus Christ the Spirit is present and active on earth in this age as the Spirit of the Father and of the Son to speed along the revelatory, reconciling, and redeeming work of the Son. In the present evil and dark age, true wisdom from God through the Cross of Jesus is desperately needed, but it can only be grasped by the Spirit’s illumination and work in human hearts. In fact, because of the sinfulness and weakness of human nature, the making of obedient and holy disciples can only be achieved through the power of the Spirit, who must also guide the Christian mission into and through the evil world. The presence of the Spirit in the lives of believers is also necessary for them to be able to pray and worship aright, to enjoy the reality of Christian fellowship, and to overcome temptations and live victoriously for the sake of Christ and to the glory of God.
It is not part of Paul’s task in his letters to argue for and present the personhood of the Holy Spirit. Where he presents suggestions in this connection, they are to be seen as arising from what we called in chapter 6 a general trinitarian consciousness and also from the fact that in his experience of God and meditations upon God=s grace in Jesus Christ he actually knew the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit – even if he had no theory concerning their precise relations. So, being very selective from Paul’s many references to the Spirit, we shall notice the places where (1) he establishes the closeness of (or the near identity of) Christ and the Spirit and yet he also carefully distinguishes them; (2) he writes of the Spirit in personal terms; and (3) he makes statements which have a trinitarian character.
(1) When Paul writes that Christ as the last Adam “became a life-giving spirit” a question arises as to whether or not he is here (as in other places) identifying the risen, exalted Christ with the Holy Spirit. Then also Paul writes on the one hand of Christians being both “in the Spirit” (Rom. 8:9; Gal. 5:25) and the Spirit being in them (Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19) and, on the other hand, of their being “in Christ” (2 Cor. 5:17) or having Christ in them (Gal. 2:20). Then in Romans 8:9–11 we read:
But you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God really dwells in you. Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you.
Apparently “the Spirit of God,” “the Spirit of Christ,” “Christ,” and “the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus” all refer to the same reality, the Holy Spirit. He is from the Father, and he acts in the name of Jesus Christ. However, it is clear from the rest of Paul’s writing that Christ is not the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not Christ. There is, of course, a perfect unity of divine purpose between them (and in terms of later, patristic Trinitarian theology they share one and the same divinity even though they differ in personhood).
The relation of Christ and the Spirit in these Pauline texts has been well explained by Eduard Schweizer.
Paul shares with Judaism and the early Christian Church the conception of the Spirit as the gift and power of the last age. His concern is not to replace the concept of “power” by the concept of “person,” but to show that this power is not an obscure “something” but is the way and manner in which the Lord of the Church is present. For that reason the Spirit can be placed on a level with the Lord, or subordinated to him, quite indifferently. For that reason also, Paul can occasionally use God, Lord and Spirit interchangeably, simply because their encounter with the believer always takes the same form.4
The impact of the risen Christ and the impact of the Holy Spirit upon Christians is the impact of God.
More recently J. D. G. Dunn has surveyed the same Pauline material and written:
So, in some sense that is not clear, the life-giving Spirit and exalted Christ merge in Paul’s thinking, the Spirit can now be thought of as the Spirit of Christ – that is, as that power of God which is to be recognized by the consciousness of oneness with Christ (and in Christ) which it engenders and by the impress of the character of Christ which it begins to bring about in the life of the believer.5
However, despite the “merging” it is appropriate and possible for us to make conceptual distinctions.
We can distinguish between having personal communion with Jesus Christ and experiencing the presence, witness, and filling of the Holy Spirit in the heart. In terms of both Christ and the Spirit dwelling in the heart or soul, we can say that Christ is the indwelling content while the Spirit is the quickening cause of Christ=s indwelling. Finally, Paul’s own preference (though not universal usage) seems to be to speak of Christians being “in Christ” and of the Holy Spirit being in Christians: thus to be a Christian is to be incorporated in Christ and to have the Spirit of Christ within oneself.
If there is one place in Paul’s writings where one needs especially to be aware of the “merging” in terms of Jesus and the Spirit it is 2 Corinthians 3:17–18. “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding [or reflecting] the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” In context Paul is saying that when people turn to the Lord Jesus, as Moses turned to Yahweh at Mount Sinai (Ex. 34:34), a veil of spiritual blindness is lifted from their eyes. The removal of this blindness is the spiritual work of the Lord. But which Lord? Perhaps Paul intended the Lord Jesus, who is “a life-giving spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45). So, if we read the word “Spirit” as “spirit” and see it as referring, not to the actual Holy Spirit, but to the spiritual action of the Lord Jesus, the source of life and light in removing blindness, then the text makes perfect sense in terms of grammar and meaning. In other words, there is no specific reference to the Holy Spirit and no equation of the Lord and the Spirit in the first part of the quotation. However, there is certainly a reference to the authority of the Lord Jesus giving light and life in the spiritual realm (where, no doubt, we can say that he is active in and by the Holy Spirit, even though that is not stated in these verses).
Another way of reading the text is to put the first occurrence of the word “Lord” in quotation marks and say that “the Lord” is the Spirit. That is, the Spirit active in the new covenant conforming men to the image of God so that they reflect his glory is truly the dynamic equivalent of “the Lord” (YHWH) in the Moses story; but the difference is one of sovereign power, the transformation of the lives of Christians. Paul is ascribing to the Spirit a work and sovereignty which is wholly divine.
Obviously if it is believed that Jesus Christ is truly alive forevermore, but alive not on earth but in heaven at the Father’s right hand as the exalted Lord, then the question of how believers are united to him for salvation and enjoy communion with him is of great importance. Paul’s answer to the question is that the union and communion is in and by the Holy Spirit, who is so close to and so identified with Christ in his work within the body of Christ, that it seems at times that they are one and the same “Person.”
This “merging” is often referred to when it is being claimed that God is revealed as a Binity not a Trinity in the New Testament. However, to identify closely the presence and work of the Son and the Spirit within the souls of men is not necessarily to identify the personhood of the Son and the Spirit, who are distinct yet acting as one.
(2) Since for Paul the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, it is not surprising that he is described in personal terms, having “a mind” (Rom. 8:27). Believers are led by the Spirit to produce the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:18), and “all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Rom. 8:14). Further, the Spirit reveals the mystery of Christ to believers as they are taught the truth by the Spirit (1 Cor. 2:10–16). Then, also the Spirit is active as the One who witnesses with the spirit of believers and who helps them to pray by interceding from within their souls (Rom. 8:15, 26–27). In fact, so sensitive is the Holy Spirit that he may be grieved by careless Christians (Eph. 4:30).
What we may claim is that the personhood of the Spirit is suggested, not proved, by such forms of speech. However, as we discussed above, when it is recognized that in Paul the Spirit as the active and transforming presence of God is intimately associated with the crucified and exalted Jesus, through whom alone he comes to, and by whom alone, he is defined for Christians, then the personhood of the Spirit becomes more apparent. And this is so even though – in fact, because of the fact that – the Spirit is invisible and anonymous in his presence and work in the church of God. Only the invisible and anonymous Spirit as Person could cause individual Christians as persons to cry out, “Abba, Father!” to the Person of the Father. This is because he is truly “the Spirit of Christ,” “the Spirit of God’s Son,” and “the Spirit of Jesus Christ” (Rom. 8:9; Gal. 4:6; Phil. 1:19; cf., Acts 16:7).
(3) We have already cited various Pauline statements which point to the Holy Trinity and thus to the personhood of the Holy Spirit (see chap. 6). To these can be added the following quotations from Paul:
For the kingdom of God [the Father] does not mean food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit; he who thus serves Christ [the Son] is acceptable to God [the Father] and approved by men (Rom. 14:17–18).
To be a minister of Christ Jesus [the Son] to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God [the Father], so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 15:16).
But it is God [the Father] who establishes us with you in Christ [the Son], and has commissioned us; he [the Father] has put his seal upon us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee (2 Cor. 1:21–22).
You show that you are a letter from Christ [the Son] delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God [the Father], not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts (2 Cor. 3:3).
Now it is evident that no man is justified before God [the Father] by the law ... that in Christ Jesus [the Son] the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith (Gal. 3:11–14).
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man, and that Christ [the Son] may dwell in your hearts through faith (Eph. 3:14–17).
The cumulative force of these threefold formulae is great. In them the Holy Spirit is given a place higher than that afforded to the Spirit in the Old Testament. And the reason for this is his specific relation to the Son. In a real sense the personhood of the Spirit follows from the personhood of the Son.
IN CONCLUSION
As the early Christians engaged in worship, proclaimed the Gospel, and reflected upon their Faith, they came to see that the Holy Spirit is truly a persona or hypostasis. Yet the personhood of the Holy Spirit is not identical with the personhood of the Son and of the Father. In fact, each of the Three is a “Person” in a unique way; but yet all are Persons. There is a certain “self-effacingness” and other directedness to the Holy Spirit’s activity. He is the light who is seen by what (who) he illuminates. His personhood is to point to the person of the incarnate Son and in and though him to the person of the Father.
The early church rejected both Unitarianism and Binitarianism and adopted Trinitarianism. In the words of the ecumenical Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, they confessed: “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Life-giver, who proceeds from the Father; who with the Father and the Son is together worshiped and glorified, who spoke through the Prophets.” The phrase, “and the Son” (filioque), was added later in the West (not in the East!) to this Creed – as we noted in chapter 2. Though this creed does not affirm that the Holy Spirit is consubstantial with the Father and with the Son, it was certainly understood in this way in both East and West.
The early fathers spent much time meditating upon the possible reason why Jesus had confirmed the name of the divine Third One as “the Holy Spirit/Breath.” Augustine gave much thought to the question and wrote:
The Holy Spirit is a certain unutterable communion of the Father and the Son; and on that account, perhaps, the Holy Spirit bears this name precisely because the Father and the Son can accommodate themselves to it. For in effect we give to him by special title the name we give to them by common title, since the Father is Spirit and the Son is Spirit, the Father is holy and the Son is holy. For thus in order to represent their mutual communion, there is need of a name that is applicable to both of them.6
Thus the name of the Holy Spirit points both to the communion of the Father and the Son and to his “procession” from the Father [and from the Son] – as the Nicene Creed declares.
Writing of the Holy Spirit in Western ecclesiology as influenced by St. Augustine, Bertrand de Margerie said:
The eternal Spirit of the Father and of the Son, their Communion and their reciprocal Gift, becomes then the Spirit of the Church in time, the temporal Gift which the Father and the Son make to her. The Breath of divine Love becomes the Soul of the universal Church, the Body of Christ. The principle of communion among Christians is at once consubstantial Communion between the Father and the Son and also between the Father and the sons in the Only Son.7
The communion of the faithful in the church flows from the communion of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit, the Trinity of Holy Love.
In the last three chapters, we have studied and contemplated “The Name [YHWH] of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” It is now most appropriate to begin to think not of each of the Persons in isolation, but of the Three in One and the One in Three. Therefore, we shall proceed to notice how the Holy Trinity is revealed (1) in the saving deeds of God as they are presented in the New Testament, and (2) in the human (yet divine) work of worship.
FOR FURTHER READING
Augustine. On the Holy Trinity. Vol. 3 of A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956.
Barrett, C. K. The Holy Spirit and the Gospel Tradition. London: SPCK, 1947.
Brown, R. E. The Gospel According to John. 2 vols. New York: Doubleday, 1966 and 1970.
Burge, Gary M. The Anointed Community: The Holy Spirit in the Johannine Tradition. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987.
Davey, J. E. The Jesus of St John: Historical and Christological Studies in the Fourth Gospel. London: Lutterworth, 1958.
De Margerie, Bertrand. The Christian Trinity in History. Still River, Mass.: St. Bede’s, 1982.
Dunn, J. D. G. Jesus and the Spirit. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975.
_____ Christology in the Making. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980.
Heron, Alisdair. The Holy Spirit. London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1983.
Hoskyns, Edwyn Sir. The Fourth Gospel. Edited by F. N. Davey. London: Faber and Faber, 1947.
Montague, George T. The Holy Spirit: Growth of a Biblical Tradition. New York: Paulist, 1976.
Ramsey, Michael. Holy Spirit: A Biblical Study. London: SPCK, 1977.
Schweizer, Eduard. Spirit of God: Bible Key Words. London: A & C Black, 1960.
Swete, H. B. The Holy Spirit in the New Testament. London: MacMillan, 1909.
Toon, Peter. Yesterday, Today and Forever: Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity in the Teaching of the Seven Ecumenical Councils. Swedesboro, N.J.: Preservation, 1995.
Notes:
1. J. E. Davey, The Jesus of St. John: Historical and Christological Studies in the Fourth Gospel (London: Lutterworth, 1958), 75.
2. Gary Burge, The Anointed Community: The Holy Spirit in the Johannine Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 147.
3. See the full discussion by Burge, The Anointed Community, 114ff.
4. Eduard Schweizer, Spirit of God: Bible Key Words (London: A & C Black, 1960), 83.
5. J. D. G. Dunn, Christology in the Making (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980), 149.
6. Augustine, On the Holy Trinity, 5.6.12.
7. De Margerie, The Christian Trinity, 118.
Part Four: Joyful and Informed Orthodoxy
10 – Disclosures of the Holy Trinity
Our major task in this chapter is to examine the primary moments of God’s saving deeds recorded in the New Testament and to see and hear the revelation of the Trinity in the act of redemption. So we shall look at the conception, baptism, death, and resurrection of Jesus, along with the descent of the Holy Spirit and the arrival of the New Jerusalem. In doing so we shall see the truth of the observation made at various points in the preceding chapters – that the revelation of the Trinity had to wait for the completion of the saving acts of the Trinity.
THE CONCEPTION OF JESUS
Here we need to bear in mind three sets of facts before we look at the narratives in Matthew 1 and Luke 1. In the first place, Jesus did not exist before he was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary. The existence of Jesus began nine months before his birth in Bethlehem. Secondly, considered as divine, the Son of God (or the Word of John 1:1) existed before Mary existed. In the third place, Mary conceived Jesus without the introduction into her body of any male semen. She conceived by the Holy Spirit.
What the narratives tell us in their differing ways and emphases is that (1) the Father sent his Son into the created order; (2) the preexisting Son of God took human nature in Mary’s womb, and (3) this act of the Son of God occurred because of the act of the Holy Spirit upon and in Mary, who in glad submission to God conceived “by the Holy Spirit.”
(1) Matthew tells us that Joseph discovered before their actual marriage and during their betrothal that Mary was pregnant. As he considered what to do, “an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream.” This heavenly messenger from YHWH said to him, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (1:18–21). We are not told how Joseph understood this remarkable communication. All we know is that he took it at its face value and acted accordingly.
Matthew, who describes Mary as “with child by the Holy Spirit,” also declares that her unique conception fulfilled prophecy (Isa. 7:14) and provided the basis for the essential truth concerning Jesus, who is Emmanuel (God with us). Throughout the narrative of Matthew 1 it is understood that this Incarnation occurs because it is the will of YHWH, who sends both his Son and his Holy Spirit to Nazareth.
(2) Luke weaves the accounts of the conception and birth of John the Baptist and Jesus together so that we see God’s purposes in greater relief. Thus it was after Elizabeth had been pregnant six months that Mary was visited by the messenger from heaven whose name was Gabriel. Naturally the young virgin of Nazareth was taken aback by the angel’s visit, but he comforted her and gave her the message from YHWH that she would become pregnant without knowing a man.
Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end (Luke 1:30–33).
Mary knew enough about human sexuality to ask how she could conceive when she did not as yet have a husband. Gabriel replied:
The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God (1:35).
Here we have “God,” “the Most High,” and “the Lord God” referring to YHWH as “the Father.” Then we have the Incarnation of “the Son of the Most High,” who is “the Son of God”; this becoming man is because of the unique presence and action of “the Holy Spirit,” who is “the power of the Most High.” Though the preexistence of the Son is not specifically stated, the difference in the conception of John by Elizabeth and of Jesus by Mary points to this preexistence. John is conceived by normal means in an unexpected way through “the power of the Holy Spirit” working through the laws of nature. In contrast, Jesus is conceived “by the Holy Spirit” alone, for his (eternal) Father is God. Thus Elizabeth described the pregnant Mary as “the mother of my Lord” (1:43).
It is important to note that the Nicene Creed declares that “the only-begotten Son of God was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary.” The Apostles’ Creed declares that Jesus Christ, the only Son of the Father Almighty “was conceived by the Holy Spirit.” The modern translation of these Creeds (as used, for example, by Roman Catholics and Episcopalians at the Eucharist) contains the added words “power of.” Thus, Mary is said to have conceived “by the power of the Holy Spirit” not “by the Holy Spirit” (as in the original Greek/Latin). Such an erroneous translation is intended to remove the uniqueness of the conception by Mary, the virgin.
THE BAPTISM OF JESUS
Only when John the Baptist was engaged in his public ministry of calling the Jews to repentance did Jesus leave Nazareth to identify with John, with his own people the Jews, and to begin his ministry of proclaiming the arrival of the kingdom of YHWH. Each of the Synoptic Gospels provides an account of the baptism of Jesus (Matt. 3:13–17; Mark 1:9–11; Luke 3:21–22), and the Gospel of John assumes it took place (1:24–34).
Since Mark’s account is generally regarded as the earliest, we shall examine it.
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased” (Mark 1:9–11).
Jesus was given a vision of the heaven of heavens, the dwelling place of YHWH opened. From there he saw the Holy Spirit descending upon him as though a dove in flight. This was an objective vision through which genuine, divine communication occurred. Jesus experienced the arrival of the Holy Spirit to anoint/clothe him and to fill him; further, he heard the voice of YHWH, the Father, from heaven.
“Thou art my Son” is not the conferring of a messianic title. Rather, it is the confirming of a filial consciousness which Jesus already had. “Beloved” can either be taken with “Son” (“my beloved Son”) or stand alone (“my Son, the beloved”). The Father is well pleased with his (incarnate) Son because he has dedicated himself to the vocation of the Servant of YHWH by his full identification with his people in John=s ministry. What is said by the Father to the Son is, as we would expect, made up of phrases from the Old Testament – Psalm 2:7 and Isaiah 42:1.
In terms of the revelation of the Trinity, the Father is present as the One who addresses his Son; the beloved Son is present as the One who has the vision, receives the Holy Spirit, and hears the voice of the Father; and the Holy Spirit is present as the One who is sent by the Father from the heaven of heavens to his Son who is the Servant-Messiah.
Immediately following the baptism, Jesus, the Son, was driven by the Spirit to be tested by the Father through the temptations brought by Satan. Forty days later, in communion with the Father and led by the Spirit, the Servant Son returned to Galilee to proclaim the kingdom of God in word and deed (Mark 1:12–14). He went into the synagogue at Nazareth, where he had lived, and, as the Son of God, declared that the Spirit of YHWH, his Father, was upon him (Luke 4:16–21).
Later in Mark’s Gospel there is the account of the amazing Transfiguration of Jesus (9:2–8; cf. Matt. 17:1–8; Luke 9:28–36), where again the Father speaks from heaven to the disciples telling them that Jesus is “my beloved Son” to whom they are to listen! Probably we are to understand this event, wherein the true glory of Jesus is revealed, as an anticipation or prolepsis of his future resurrection and the Parousia. The fact that the Holy Spirit is not mentioned here should not surprise us – he is the invisible One anointing and filling Jesus the Servant-Son and causing his raiment to glow with divine glory. (A comparison of Luke 9:34–35 and Luke 1:35 suggests the presence of the Spirit at the Transfiguration.)
Six days before the Transfiguration, Jesus had asked his disciples who they thought he really was. Simon Peter had confessed, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” In reply Jesus said, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 16:16–17). Again, while the Spirit is not mentioned, his presence and activity is surely understood as being the means of the revelation from the Father in heaven.
THE CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS
To read the accounts of the Passion and Crucifixion of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels is to be aware of the filial consciousness of Jesus. The Father was always there and very real to him. According to Mark, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus uttered the memorable words, “Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee; remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what thou wilt” (Mark 14:36). Then, as Jesus breathed his last on the Cross, the Roman centurion exclaimed, “Truly this man was a (the) Son of God” (15:39). Luke reports that Jesus cried with a loud voice from the Cross saying, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!” (23:46)
In John’s Gospel, the last recorded words of Jesus (who is always conscious that he is the unique Son of the Father) were, “I thirst,” and then, after sipping the wine, he said, “It is finished” (19:30). Following these final words, we read that Jesus “bowed his head and gave up his spirit” [lit. “he handed over the spirit”]. Then a little later we are told that there came forth from his side “blood and water” (19:34). In his comment upon these events Sir Edwyn Hoskyns wrote:
If it be assumed that the author intends his readers to suppose that the Beloved Disciple and Mary, the Mother of Jesus, remain standing beneath the cross, the words He bowed his head suggest that He bowed His head towards them, and the words, He handed over the Spirit are also directed to the faithful believers who stand below. This is no fantastic exegesis, since verses 28–30 record the solemn fulfillment of vii. 37–39 [where Jesus spoke of the Spirit in terms of rivers of living water].
Hoskyns proceeds to explain what he has in mind.
The thirst of the believers is assuaged by the rivers of living water which flow from the belly of the Lord, the author having already noted that this referred to the giving of the Spirit. The outpouring of the Spirit here recorded must be understood in connection with the outpouring of water and blood (v. 34). The similar association of Spirit and Water and Blood in 1 John v. 8 (There are three who bear witness, the Spirit, and the water and the blood: and the three agree in one) seems to make this interpretation not only possible, but necessary.1
Raymond E. Brown summarized this way of reading John 19 in these words: “the symbolism here is proleptic and serves to clarify that, while only the risen Jesus gives the Spirit, that gift flows from the whole process of glorification in the ‘hour’ of the passion, death, resurrection and ascension”.2
So we find that in the Crucifixion of the incarnate Son of the Father there is (in John’s presentation) the handing over of the Spirit who has anointed and filled Jesus the Servant-Son. In the darkness of the Crucifixion, which for John’s Gospel is the first stage of the glorification of Jesus, there is the Revelation of the Father, of his Son, who is being glorified, and the Holy Spirit who is the gift of the Father and the Son to the disciples, represented by Mary and John.
In Hebrews the author compares the sacrifice of animals under the old covenant with the unique sacrifice of the incarnate Son inaugurating the new covenant:
For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God (Heb. 9:13–14).
Christ, who is the Son, offers the sacrifice; the sacrifice of the Son is received by the Father in and through the Holy Spirit. Thus redemption is the work of the Holy Trinity.
THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS
The Gospel proclaimed by the apostles was the good news that God the Father had raised his incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, from the dead in and by the Holy Spirit. However, as exalted into heaven and away from earth Jesus was not, as it were, absorbed into the realm of Spirit – losing his own independent existence in exaltation. In the Book of Acts the resurrection of Jesus is usually said to be by the Father – “God raised Jesus from the dead” (2:24, 32). This, of course, leaves open the possibility that the Father acted in and by his Spirit.
Paul begins his letter to Rome by referring to the Gospel of God concerning his Son, who was declared or designated Son of God “in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:4). Later in the same letter he wrote to the Christians: “If the Spirit of him [God the Father] who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you” (8:11). However, Paul does not often attribute the actual bodily resurrection of Jesus to the Spirit and his reason was probably so as not to give the impression that Jesus in being raised in a transformed body was absorbed into the Spirit. As we saw in the previous chapter, though there is a vital and close relation of the Spirit and the Lord Jesus, they are not to be identified.
Certainly the Lord Jesus is presented in the narratives of his resurrection appearances as speaking of his Father and of the Holy Spirit. This is especially true of John 20. Jesus told Mary: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (v. 17). He commissioned his disciples as he said: “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you”; and then he breathed upon them and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit” (vv. 21–22).
At the end of Matthew the resurrected Lord Jesus is with the eleven apostles on a mountain and they worship him – but apparently with some doubts. He then is reported as saying to them these remarkable words.
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age (28:18–20).
Jesus presents himself as the exalted Son of Man who has received from the Father the universal and eternal dominion promised to him in Daniel 7:14. Because he actually has such authority he commands his apostles to go forth and make disciples in all the world, promising that he will always be with them.
Many commentators suppose that the trinitarian formula was not original at this point in Matthew’s Gospel since there is no evidence anywhere else in the New Testament of such a formula. They point out that baptisms were performed “in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 2:38; 8:16) in the early days of the church. So they suggest that the formula used by the church toward the end of the first century of performing baptism in the threefold Name was placed on the lips of the resurrected Lord Jesus by the evangelist. However, another way of looking at the evidence is to say that “in the name of the Lord Jesus” is Luke’s summary of the longer “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
What is noteworthy, however, is this. Whether or not Jesus actually said what he is recorded as having said, such a formula is actually present in the Gospels. At least it shows that when Matthew was written (A. D. 80–90?) Christianity was self-consciously trinitarian. The formula for baptism is very precise with its four definite articles in THE Name of THE Father and THE Son and THE Holy Spirit. There is one and only one Name – YHWH. And YHWH is the one and only Father with his one and only Son and his one and only Holy Spirit. “The” tells us that each One is truly unique as well as being perfectly related to the other Two. Certainly it is not said that (in later patristic terms) there are Three Persons and One Substance. However, the two occurrences of “and” joining the three Persons, each of whom has the definite article, is in biblical terminology a very positive way of speaking of the Holy Trinity – and this formula has been used since the earliest times for baptism and in liturgy.
The Gospel of Luke, which is continued in Acts, presents Jesus as telling his disciples that they were witnesses of his death and resurrection and then saying, “I send the promise of my Father upon you; but stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high” (24:49). The reference is of course to the events described in Acts 2, to which we turn in the next section.
THE DESCENT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
In Luke’s account of the Ascension (Acts 1:6–11) the last words of Jesus to his disciples were: “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” (v. 8). So the disciples waited in Jerusalem for the promise to be fulfilled. And it was – at the Feast of Pentecost, ten days after the Ascension.
The Trinitarian character of this event – a great saving and revealing act of YHWH – is obvious to the careful reader of Acts 2. The arrival of the Holy Spirit in ways and with characteristics already known in the descriptions of the theophanies of YHWH under the old covenant (see chaps. 4 and 5) is central for all that follows. The disciples are anointed and filled with the Spirit.
There is the praise of God in a variety of languages. Peter’s citing of the prophecy of Joel to explain the amazing turn of events identifies the Spirit and his relation to heaven and to Yahweh-Elohim. God, himself, has sent his Spirit to dwell with his people under the new covenant, the new epoch, and the new order. And his arrival and presence really make a difference!
But why has God sent his Spirit at this time? Peter has a very clear answer. It is because God has raised up Jesus from the dead and exalted him into heaven and there declared him to be both Lord and Christ. The Spirit descends because Jesus ascended as the victorious Messiah. In fact, the Lord Jesus, who is himself the recipient of the Spirit, joins with the Father in sending the Spirit (2:33). When sinners repent and believe the Gospel of God concerning Jesus the Lord then they receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, who is to them the Spirit of the exalted Lord Jesus.
There is a close relation between the Holy Spirit and the Father – the Spirit is sent by the Father from heaven. Also there is a close relation between the Spirit and the Lord Jesus Christ – the Spirit is sent both for the sake of Jesus and by Jesus so that he may dwell and work in those who belong to Jesus on earth and are continuing his mission. And, of course, there is a close relation between the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who is “exalted at the right hand of God” (2:33) sharing the divine throne and name. Obviously Acts 2 does not present a developed Trinitarian picture; the Holy Trinity is encountered in an implicit and functional way rather than an explicit and ontological way.
There is also the account of the giving of the Spirit in John’s Gospel – sometimes called “John’s Pentecost” and to which we made reference in chapter 9. This account is decidedly Trinitarian in character. Jesus, the Son, said to the disciples, “As the Father has sent me, even so I [his Son] send you.” Then breathing out upon them the Life-Force within him – that is, his personal Spirit – he said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:21–22).
A VISION OF THE NEW JERUSALEM
It is God’s purpose to create a new order of existence in a new age – “new heaven and a new earth.” At the end of the Revelation of John there is a vision of the life of the age to come. The grand, theological finale of the book is in the description of “the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” and of the glorious declaration from the Throne, “Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them and they shall be his people” (21:1–3). To know God is to know the Holy Trinity.
Then he [the Spirit through one of the seven angels] showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There shall no more be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall worship him; they shall see his face, and his name shall be on their foreheads. And night shall be no more; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they shall reign for ever and ever (22:1–5).
Here in rich symbolic language drawn from the Old Testament and the tradition of the Gospel there is a portrayal of both the Holy Trinity and of the beatific vision. There is one throne – the throne of both God (the Father) and the Lamb (the crucified, exalted Son). Earlier in chapter 21 it had been made clear that the Father and the Son are so close that both are “the One who sits upon the throne” (21:5). At the throne and flowing from the throne is the Holy Spirit – presented here (as in John 7:38–39) as a river of living water. Already in 2 1:6, the Lamb had promised that “to the thirsty I will give water without price from the fountain of the water of life.” The Spirit fills the city which is the church of the saints. And (in, through, and by the Holy Spirit) the dwellers in the New Jerusalem enjoy the beatific vision – “they shall see his face” (cf. Matt. 5:8; 1 John 3:2).
In this passage (and in the whole section 21:1–22:5) the scriptural revelation of the Holy Trinity reaches its zenith. The vision presented to the reader heralds for the saints a holy, glorious, progressive discovery – a growing in vital knowledge in the life of the age to come of the Three who are One and the One who is Three, YHWH-Elohim.
IN CONCLUSION
The “Trinity” is an abstract noun which has one and one meaning only for theology – it designates the concrete reality of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In chapter 2 we noted how they came to be called “Three Persons” (Latin, persona). Here it will be useful to see how St. Augustine dealt with this word which he received within the tradition of the church.
Writing in his treatise, De Trinitate, Augustine faced the problems with using the word persona.
When then someone asks: what are these Three [i.e., the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit]? Three what? We are hard put to find a specific or a generic noun that will cover these Three [haec tria] but none comes to mind, for the transcendence of the divinity exceeds the resources of our normal vocabulary. When dealing with God, thought is more accurate than discourse, and the reality is more accurate than thought. ... Where there is no difference in essence there is need of a specific name common to the Three, but we do not find one. Person is a generic term since it can be applied to man, even though there is such a distance from man to God.3
Augustine’s difficulty was that he could not find a word to apply to each of the Three and to the Three alone – one without any possible reference to creatures. He accepted and used the word “Person,” but he was not entirely happy to do so.
What seemed as a disadvantage to Augustine was later taken as an advantage by Thomas Aquinas because of his doctrine of analogy. In his Summa Theologica he expounds a notion of Person which can be applied analogically to men, to angels, and to God. As such it allows us to start from the datum of experience so as to reach in faith an understanding of the Holy Trinity as Three Persons and One God.4 All serious exposition of the doctrine of the Trinity since the time of Thomas has had to take account of his exposition of persona and his doctrine of analogy.5
In modern English (as in other European languages) the meaning of “person” has moved a long way from its meaning in scholastic philosophy and theology. The current, usual meaning of the word is inextricably bound up with notions of personality and the input of psychology in a culture where individualism is dominant. Therefore, theologians have either to stop using the word “Persons” of the Three or they have to explain what precisely is the technical meaning. I can see no alternative but to adopt the second option and explain what it means – as I did briefly in chapter 2. In doing so, I believe that the doctrine of analogy is of great service for it allows us in the modern debate over appropriate language for God to defend with vigor the designation of the Three as Persons as also the naming and addressing of Them as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
In some modern theology (as we noted in chap. 3) God is described as a/the Spirit and as one Person. Here the word “person” is being used in a modern rather than in the classical sense. The Dutch theologian, Hendrikus Berkhof, adopted this approach and vocabulary in his book, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit (1965) but later modified it in his The Christian Faith (1975). Referring to God’s presence and activity in Jesus and the Holy Spirit, he wrote:
In all this God is Person, acting in a personal way, seeking a personal encounter. The triune God does not embrace Three Persons; he himself is a Person, meeting us in the Son and in his Spirit. Jesus Christ is not a Person beside the Person of God; in him the Person of God becomes the shape of a human person. And the Spirit is not a Person beside the Persons of God and of Christ. In creation he is the acting Person of God, in re-creation he is the acting Person of Christ, who is no other than the acting Person of God. Therefore we must reject all presentation of the Holy Spirit as an impersonal force. The Spirit is Person because he is God acting as a Person. He is a Person in relation to us, not in relation to God; for he is the personal God himself in relation to us.6
I have quoted this because it is the kind of thing which has often been said in one way or another when people attempt to state the doctrine of the Trinity. It sounds like and probably in fact is a form of Modalism – a doctrine which constantly appears in the church through history. In fact, it is an extreme statement of the Barthian position that God is One Person, who has Three Modes of Being. Despite its attractiveness in apparently simplifying the portrayal of the Holy Trinity, it is a long way from the orthodoxy of the Ecumenical Councils and Protestant Confessions of faith.
It is one thing to claim, as I have done, that we need to retain the language of three personae and hypostaseis; it is another to insist that we understand the meaning of person as applied to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit as identical in each case – that each in the same way is a person as if they are three members of a class. Is each One a divine person distinctively as the Father and as the Son and as the Holy Spirit? Much traditional theology has answered “no” claiming that person is used in an identical way of each of the Three. In challenging such a position Alisdair Heron writes:
It runs counter to the profoundest motive for the framing of a fully trinitarian theology in the fourth century [between the Council of Nicea of 325 and that of Constantinople in 381], where the application to the Spirit of the logic of argument already developed in reference to the Son itself depended upon the recognition that the pattern of God’s work of salvation is complete in triunity, not in binity, that the movement issuing from the Father through the Son reaches us in the Spirit, that in the Spirit we are renewed in the image of the Son and drawn through him to the Father. Interlocking complementarity rather than simple threefold repetition determines and characterizes the pattern. Hence the need felt by the fathers to develop pneumatological concepts that would not simply parallel the Spirit to the Son, but also make essential distinctions between them – hence such terms as “procession.” The same motive can be traced in Augustine’s attempts to devise models for the Trinity which would not present it simply as “one plus one plus one” but as an organic three-dimensional unity.7
In the next chapter we shall examine this “interlocking complementarity” rather than simple “threefold repetition.” And Augustine On the Holy Trinity, Books 9 to 16, has all the material necessary for those who wish to examine the models developed by the Bishop of Hippo to portray the Holy Trinity as an organic three-dimensional unity.
FOR FURTHER READING
Augustine. On the Holy Trinity. In Vol. 3 of A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956.
Berkhof, Hendrikus. The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit. London: Epworth, 1965.
Brown, Raymond E. The Gospel according to John. 2 vols., New York: Doubleday, 1966, 1970.
_____ The Birth of the Messiah. New York: Doubleday, 1977.
Heron, Alisdair. The Holy Spirit. London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1983.
Hoskyns, Edwyn. The Fourth Gospel. London: Faber and Faber, 1947.
Ramsey, Michael. The Glory of God and the Transfiguration of Jesus. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1949.
Rocca, Gregory P. “Aquinas on God Talk.” Theological Studies, 54 (1993): 641–61.
Schaberg, J. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit: The Triadic Phrase in Matthew 28:19b. Chico, Calif.: Scholars, 1982.
Tavard, George H. The Vision of the Trinity. Washington, D.C.: Univ. Press of America, 1981.
Notes:
1. Sir Edwyn Hoskyns, The Fourth Gospel (London: Faber and Faber, 1947), 532.
2. Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John (New York: Doubleday, 1966, 1970), 2:951.
3. Augustine, On the Holy Trinity, 7.4.7.
4. Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica 1.29.
5. For which see Gregory P. Rocca, “Aquinas on God-Talk,” Theological Studies 54 (1993): 641–61.
6. Berkhof, Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, 116.
7. Alisdair Heron, The Holy Spirit (London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1983), 175.
11 – From the Father ... To the Father
Let us begin with the answering of a question. For Jewish monotheism, what is missing from the equation, “God minus the world = ”? The answer is obviously God. God is always God whether or not there is a world. For pantheism the answer is “nothing at all” since God is the world and the world is God; and for panentheism the answer is “God without his/her Body” – not really God at all!
For Christianity, which confesses that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God in (everlasting) human nature, the completion of the equation, “The Holy Trinity minus the created universe = ?@ is not straightforward. The Second Person of the Trinity in becoming incarnate has made his very own, and his own unto all ages, created, human nature. Further, because of his union with mankind through the incarnation and by the very fact that he has a human nature, the Son has drawn into the most intimate communion with the Father in and by the Holy Spirit all those who believe on his name. Thus the completion of the equation cannot be answered as simply as it can in non-Trinitarian monotheism (Judaism, Islam, Unitarianism).
This puzzle and its related observations lead us on to consider how the Holy Trinity is portrayed in the Scriptures in relation to the cosmos and to mankind. There is a movement out from God in creation, salvation, and revelation into the world, and a movement back toward and into God in worship and service. In this “descent” and “ascent” the Holy Trinity is present, active, and revealed, and this conception of the living God is called by theologians the economic Trinity (economy being God=s ordered relation to the world).
DESCENT – CREATION
The Old Testament makes it clear that YHWH is the Creator of the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1–3; Isa. 42:5). He creates and sustains the cosmos by his creative word/wisdom and his powerful breath or Spirit: “By the word of YHWH the heavens were made; and all their host by the breath of his mouth” (Ps. 33:6).
Three New Testament writers build upon this teaching concerning the word and wisdom of YHWH found in both the canonical and deuterocanonical books within the Septuagint as they develop their Christology. Jesus is the personal Word and Wisdom of God.
First of all, in the prologue of John’s Gospel there are these statements:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made (1:1–3).
The whole of creation is included in one broad sweep as it is said that the Father created through (not “by”) the Word, who is the Son.
In the second place, in Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae there is this teaching:
For in him [the Lord Jesus Christ, the beloved Son] all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities; all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together (Col. 1:16–17).
By the prepositions in and through Paul communicates the agency and participation of the Son in the creation of heaven and earth. In another place, Paul presents the activity of Christ in the sustaining and maintaining of the creation: “There is ... one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist” (1 Cor. 8:6). Further, God’s plan is “for the fullness of time to unite all things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:10). Here the movement is toward God, what shall be when Christ’s redeeming work is totally completed. Finally, the writer of Hebrews, making use of the description of Wisdom in the Septuagint, wrote:
In these last days he [God] has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power (1:2–3).
Here Christ is presented as active with the Father in both the creating (through him) and the upholding of the universe.
In none of these texts is there a mention of the Holy Spirit. However, it is surely right to assume that his presence and activity were taken for granted. For the first Christians the biblical (O. T.) teaching concerning the Spirit=s activity in creation was revealed by God and could not be set aside. Thus the Father through the Son [the Word] and by the Holy Spirit [the breath of his mouth] is the Creator and Sustainer of the universe.
DESCENT – SALVATION
Under the old covenant YHWH descended into his creation in a variety of ways – for example, in theophanies, sending angels, and placing his word in the mouths of prophets and sages. The new covenant was established to replace the old (1) by the descent and incarnation of the Word, who is the Son of the Father, and (2) by the descent of the Holy Spirit, sent by the Father and by his Son. Salvation which presupposes the created order and thus occurs within creation is from the Father, through the Son, and by the Spirit.
The Lucan narratives of the conception and birth of Jesus assume and proclaim that God sent his own Son to become man; to achieve this miracle of Incarnation he sent his own Spirit to Mary so that she could and would conceive Jesus. The message is clear – YHWH is active as Creator again, creating a new epoch, order, and creation through his Son, who is Immanuel, and by his Spirit, the Life Giver.
At the beginning of Acts, Luke presents the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the assembled apostles and disciples. Now the new creation is beginning to take practical shape. The Son has descended and ascended and he has poured out his Spirit, who is the Spirit of the Father, upon his own disciples. Through this anointing and indwelling Spirit, the Lord Jesus will always be with his disciples on earth until the end of the age; and salvation from God will be proclaimed in his name throughout the world.
Paul’s teaching
Speaking of the descent of the Son, Paul wrote: “When the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law” (Gal. 4:4–5). Here is Incarnation to achieve redemption. The Lord Jesus Christ who was “rich” (in heavenly glory) for the sake of man and his salvation became “poor” (in earthly humiliation) so that, through his poverty, poor sinners might become rich (1 Cor. 8:9). The descent of the Son from the heaven of heavens into the world of sin and shame followed by his glorious exaltation back to the heaven of heavens is powerfully dramatized by Paul in Philippians 2:5–11. Here the Son sets aside his eternal privileges and position with the Father and descends into the evil world for the salvation of mankind. To achieve this he becomes a servant and dies on a cross.
Paul’s writings assume that the Holy Spirit has descended and is present as the Spirit of Christ in the churches and within individual lives. He is present because many are confessing, “Jesus is Lord,” and this is only possible by the presence of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:3). Evidence of spiritual gifts given by the exalted Lord through the Spirit abound in the congregations (1 Cor. 12). Believers know that God has sent the Holy Spirit for they experience the Spirit of the Father and the Son in their hearts as they cry out, “Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:6). In his own ministry as he proclaimed “Christ and him crucified,” Paul knew that his speech was “in demonstration of the Spirit and power” and not in the wisdom of men (1 Cor. 2:1–5).
For the apostle to the Gentiles the work of salvation was the work of the Father, his Son, and his Spirit. As he explained to Titus, his son in the Faith: “When the goodness and loving kindness of God [the Father] our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit, which he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior” (Titus 3:4–6).
At the beginning of his letters, Paul usually wrote, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (e.g., Rom. 1:7). This is the downward movement from God the Father and from (through) his Son. The presence and work of the Holy Spirit is not stated but is assumed – by the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit grace and peace become realities in the souls of believers.
In explaining the redemption and salvation of the Holy Trinity, Paul developed the theme of justification and made great use of it in his letters to Rome and Galatia. Here is an extract from his presentation of justification to the Romans.
Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God [the Father] through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings ... because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us (5:1–5).
Justification is being placed in a right relation with God the Father on account of the saving work and merit of Jesus Christ. Justification is therefore the gift from the Father through the Son and by the Spirit, and it is a gift which is received by faith. Those who are declared righteous for Christ’s sake have open access by grace to the Father to commune with him through Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit. Further, the effect of being declared righteous and placed in this right relation with the Holy Trinity is that believers live joyfully and righteously; and this they do through the presence of the Holy Spirit in their hearts and through the love which he brings – the same love for and by which the Father sent his Son and Spirit to the church in the world.
Caught up in prayerful adoration of the Holy Trinity, Paul wrote these words at the beginning of Ephesians.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved [Son]. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us (Eph. 1:3–8).
He continued by blessing God because “you ... were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it” (vv. 13–14).
The gracious, saving work of God in space and time is traced back here, as Paul engaged in holy contemplation, to the purposes of the Father before the creation of the world. Yet the movement for the salvation of man is the same as elsewhere in Paul’s writings – the Father (in his transcendent, eternal glory) through the Son (by the shedding of his blood) and in by the Holy Spirit (the living guarantee of the fullness of the life of the age to come).
John’s teaching
In earlier chapters, we have paid careful attention to what is said in the Gospel of John concerning the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Paraklete). Here what we need to notice is the theme of the Father sending his Son into the world and the Father with his Son sending the Holy Spirit into the world.
The prologue declares that the only Son comes into the world from the Father and that grace and truth (salvation and revelation) come through him. As Incarnate God, he is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world@ (1:29). And in the much quoted words of John 3:16–17: “For God [the Father] so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”
The sending and giving of the Spirit by the Father and the glorified Son to the disciples is given much emphasis in John 14–16, as we noted in chapter 9. The Paraklete comes from the Father in the name of the Son: he brings the virtues of the Son to the disciples and continues the mission of the Son in the hostile world. Yet already in John 3:1–8 it was made clear that the same Spirit, who alone causes spiritual birth into the kingdom of God, is the Holy Spirit who is “from above,” that is, from the Father. There is salvation only for those who believe in the Son and are “born of the Spirit” and thus “born from above.”
In 1 John it is made clear that the fellowship of Christians is not only with each other “but is with the Father and the Son”; further, this is because they have “an anointing from the Holy One” which abides in them.
By this we know that we abide in him [God] and he in us, because he has given us of his own Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we know and believe the love God has for us (4:13–16).
God the Father sent his Son into the world and gives his Spirit to those who believe in his Son in order that they may abide in God.
Other teaching
The movement from the Father through the Son and by the Spirit is well expressed in the opening words of 1 Peter: “To the exiles of the Dispersion ... chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you” (1:1–2). Here the emphasis is not upon the Father sending the Son (which is assumed), but upon the electing love of the Father as the basis for the application of the atoning blood of Jesus, his Son, and the sanctification wrought by the Holy Spirit in believers.
After making it clear that God the Father had sent his Son, Jesus Christ, into the world and that this Son is superior to angels and Moses, the writer of the letter to the Hebrews portrayed Christ as the new High Priest offering the unique sacrifice to establish the new covenant:
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God [the Father], purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God [the Father] (9:11–14).
Here in what we have called the “descent” the Son becomes the Priest and Victim in order to fulfill and bring to an end the sacrifices offered under the Mosaic covenant. Thereby he opened up “a new and living way” (10:20) to the Father. Thus already the “ascent” is included in this description of the “descent” – the Son pours out his blood that man might serve the living God with a clear conscience.
In sending his visions to the seven churches John wrote: “Grace to you and peace 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 ... and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever” (Rev. 1:4–6). Here the Trinity in heaven is presented (in the symbolic language of the seer) as facing the faithful on earth to bless and to keep them.
ASCENT – SALVATION
The four Gospels were not written merely to provide information concerning Jesus and satisfy curiosity as to his identity. They were written with an evangelistic purpose – to declare the Gospel of the Father concerning his Son, Jesus Christ, so that Jew and Gentile would believe in Jesus as Lord and Christ and receive God=s salvation. The purpose of the Gospels is to cause men to turn from sin and idolatry to trust, serve, and worship the Father through his Son and by his Spirit. So while they certainly assume and powerfully declare the “descent,” practically speaking they were written to make the “ascent” possible by providing the content of the good news of Jesus, in and by whom alone we know and come to the Father. In fact, we could say that everything in the New Testament was written in order to make possible the “ascent” from earth into the “new heaven and earth” and from this evil age into the glorious age of the kingdom of God.
To be saved by God into his everlasting kingdom of grace, it is necessary to be united in the Spirit to Jesus Christ and be presented or brought to the Father by this divine agency. Such an “ascent” out of sin into friendship with God is stated with clarity and power in the letter to Ephesus, where the apostle is discussing the unity of Jew and Gentile in Christ and before God.
Now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near [to God] in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who has made us [Jew and Gentile] both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility ... that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father (Eph. 2:13–17).
The last words are very important: “Through Christ we have access in one Spirit to the Father.” Here is the basis of both salvation and worship. Then he continues:
So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit (2:19–22).
Here is a powerful picture of a living temple centered on Christ, indwelt by the Holy Spirit and made not of stones of granite but of apostles, prophets, and all true believers, both Jews and Gentiles. The temple rises from earth toward heaven, which is its goal. This divine household is built upon the saving work of Jesus Christ, energized and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Christ, and is oriented toward the Father.
Hebrews contrasts that to which the Israelites were brought by the old Exodus through the Red Sea with that to which Christians are brought through the new Exodus of the cross and resurrection of Jesus.
For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers entreat that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” Indeed so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear” (Heb. 12:18–21).
The writer is recalling what is recorded in Exodus 19 and Deuteronomy 9. He continues:
But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel (vv. 22–24).
The “ascent” into the new creation is clearly only possible because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who is the Mediator of the new covenant. “For Christ has entered ... into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (Heb. 9:24).
Knowing what the Father through the Son and in the Spirit has done in establishing the new covenant, Christians ought to respond wholeheartedly. Because they know that the way to God is now wide open unto those who believe, they ought to respond in worship and service. Thus the writer of Hebrews declares:
Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way which he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water (10:19–22).
And in terms of practice he wrote:
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he [the Father] who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near (vv. 23–25).
As they wait for the Parousia of Christ, the Day of the Lord, Christians are to ascend to the Father in spirit by offering him the sacrifice of good works and the corporate activity of spiritual worship. This theme naturally leads us on specifically to the “ascent” in prayer.
ASCENT – PRAYER
Salvation has three tenses in the New Testament. By the unique, sacrificial, atoning death of Jesus Christ salvation is procured once for all and forever. We are saved by the expiatory and propitiatory death of the Lord Jesus. Once a person believes in Jesus and confesses that he is Lord, then he enters into salvation – he is being saved from sin and into the life of the Holy Trinity. Salvation is for him “already” experienced, but it is “not yet” fully realized. He knows that he is still a sinner in a mortal, sinful body. However, he will certainly enjoy the fullness of salvation when, after the Parousia of the Lord Jesus Christ, in his resurrection body and with all the saints he beholds the glory of God the Father in the face of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.
The New Testament has a lot to say about the privileges and duties of those who are being saved from this evil age into the fullness of salvation in the life of the age to come. Within these privileges and duties we find worship and prayer. In such holy activities, the church on earth is united in the Holy Spirit with the Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Father, and High Priest in heaven: her worship ascends to the Father within the worship and prayer offered unceasingly by Jesus to the Father. Is not Christ at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us? And is not the Holy Spirit interceding from within our hearts? (Rom. 8:26, 34) And will not this continue until the end of the age when Christ shall come again to judge the living and the dead?
Speaking as a Christian to Christian believers, Paul told the church in Philippi: “We are the true circumcision, who worship God in spirit, [or “worship by the Spirit of God”] and glory in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh” (Phil. 3:3). Here is Paul’s simple theology. Because of Jesus Christ (who he is and what he has done and is doing), worship ascends in the Holy Spirit to the Father.
Worship (prayer) is not only thanksgiving, praise, and worship, it can also be petition and intercession. Thus Paul made this request of the church in Rome – a church he had not yet visited: “I appeal to you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf, that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, so that by God’s [the Father’s] will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company. The God of peace be with you all. Amen” (Rom. 15:30–33).
In writing to the church in Colossae, Paul expressed the “ascent” in simplicity: “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Col. 3:17). And Paul told the church in Rome: “I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God [the Father], which is your spiritual worship” (Rom. 12:1).
First Peter is clear that, as those who are chosen by the Father, redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, and being sanctified by the Holy Spirit (1:1–2, 19), Christians are placed in such a privileged relation to God that they have a joyous duty both to proclaim the Gospel and to offer spiritual sacrifice in worship and service.
You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s [the Father’s] own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were no people but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy (1 Peter 2:9–10).
And recalling Psalm 118:22 and Isaiah 28:16, which refer to Christ as the chief cornerstone of God’s new temple, Peter wrote:
Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by men but in God’s [the Father’s] sight chosen and precious; and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God [the Father] through Jesus Christ (2:4–5).
The assembled local church, as the holy priesthood, offers its worship, prayer, and service in the Holy Spirit to the Father through Christ the High Priest.
In his very short letter Jude told his fellow Christians, whom he addressed as “those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ” (v. 1) to “build yourselves up on your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit ... wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life” (vv. 20–21). His letter ended with a doxology which points to the “ascent” of the faithful to the Father: “Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you without blemish before the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and for ever. Amen” (vv. 24–25).
In fact, there are many doxologies in the New Testament, most of which (as we would expect) are addressed to the Father. This is true of the powerful doxologies provided by Paul in Romans 11:33–36 and 16:25–27, as well as that of Peter in 1 Peter 1:3–5 and those of John in his Revelation (e.g., 4:11). Yet there are also doxologies to Jesus Christ – had he not said, “that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father”? (John 5:23) Here are two:
Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity (2 Peter 3:18).
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen (Rev. 1:5–6).
Then there is the brief Aramaic prayer, Maranatha (1 Cor. 16:22) meaning “the Lord is coming” or “our Lord come,” which points to the highest honors and true worship being offered to Jesus Christ as YHWH. Mention also ought to be made of the Old Testament expression “calling upon the name of the Lord” (Rom. 10:12–17; 1 Cor. 1:2) as further evidence of prayer to Jesus Christ.
So the church, the bride of Christ, invokes her Lord, giving him the honor which is his due and moves in, with, and through him to render her worship to the eternal Father. In this movement of “ascent” the Spirit is wholly present, but invisible and often anonymous. In the New Testament there is no example of prayer being offered directly to the Holy Spirit. This practice came later after the dogma of the Trinity had been clarified and the divine personhood of the Holy Spirit clearly established as a truth of the Faith.
Direct addressing of the Holy Spirit in liturgy is, however, rare. When it is found, its presence is as significant as its rarity (e.g., the Veni, Creator Spiritus at ordinations). It is important to note that while the Father is made known to the church by the Son, and the Son is made known by the Holy Spirit, there is no fourth divine Person to make the Spirit known in the church. This is because he is the locus (as the Son is the agent) of both the “descent” and the “ascent” of God’s economy.
IN CONCLUSION
If we look at what are called the two Gospel sacraments – baptism and the Lord’s Supper – we see clearly in them the recognition and proclamation of the “descent” and the active participation in the “ascent.” As the sacraments of salvation, they symbolize what the Gospel proclaims and teaches.
In submitting to baptism in the apostolic age, the repentant sinner was committing himself (through the active work of the invisible Holy Spirit) to the Lord Jesus Christ and to the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was entering the “ascent” because he had received the message of the “descent” and been changed by it. The act of being dipped, immersed, washed, or sprinkled with water pointed to cleansing and forgiveness through the blood of Jesus Christ and identification with Christ in death, burial, and resurrection. Baptism placed him in a new relation to God and to fellow Christians and pointed him in one direction only – to the service and praise of the Father through the Son in and by the Spirit in this age and the age to come (see e.g., Gal. 3:26–27; Rom. 6:1–11; Col. 2:11–12; Titus 3:5–7). So even if it was the case that the first baptisms were “in the name of Jesus” (Acts 2:38) and only later “in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19), they were Trinitarian from the beginning for they presumed, symbolized, and participated in the great movement, the missio Dei, from the Father and to the Father.
In coming to the table of the Lord and receiving sacramentally the body and blood of Jesus, Christians proclaimed the Lord Jesus Christ, who had died for them, who was now exalted in heaven, and who would come in glory to judge the world (1 Cor. 11:23–34). It was, therefore, entirely in accord with this central theme of the Lord’s Supper that it soon came to be called “the Eucharist” – from eucharisteo meaning to give thanks. (An interesting statistic is that Paul mentions the subject of thanksgiving more often, line for line, in his letters than does any other Hellenistic author!) In the fellowship of the meal and in receiving Christ’s body and blood sacramentally, Christians were united in and by the Spirit with Christ to the Father. They participated in the “ascent” as they partook by the presence of the Spirit of the future feast of the kingdom of God of the age to come – the Messianic banquet.
This structure is clearly found within the early liturgies of the church in both the East and West. Both daily prayer and the Sunday Eucharist were offered to the Father in and by the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ. And worship was offered in this way because of the clear recognition and celebration of the fact that all things come “from the Father by and through the Son and in and with the Holy Spirit” to man.
Because of the need to defend the Faith and set forth the clear, ecclesial doctrine of the Trinity as defined by the ecumenical councils, the Liturgies were later fine-tuned to include the developed doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Thus, for example, the shorter Gloria became the praise of the immanent Trinity and the economic Trinity, “Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit ...” instead of the earlier praise of the economic Trinity alone, “Glory be to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit ...” Here we see from the fourth century onward what has been called the ontological Trinity replacing the economic Trinity. Because heresies arose in the early church and keep on arising in the modern church, it seems that the church must always use metaphysical and ontological statements in order to ground the biblical, functional affirmations on a firm base.
The Second Council of Constantinople in 553 provided both a statement of the doctrine of the Trinity in biblical, functional terms (the economic Trinity) and in metaphysical terms (the ontological Trinity).
There is one only God and Father, from whom everything comes, and one only Lord Jesus Christ, through whom everything exists, and one only Holy Spirit, in whom everything subsists (cf. 1 Cor. 8:6; Rom. 11:36; Eph. 4:5–6).
If anyone does not confess the one nature or essence, the one force and power of the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit, the consubstantial Trinity and one divinity, which must be adored in three hypostases or persons, let him be anathema.
The Latin translation of the original Greek rendered hypostaseis as subsistentiae, subsistences.
In order to preserve the biblical theology of the economic Trinity (from the Father through the Son and in the Holy Spirit; to the Father through the Son and in the Holy Spirit), which is fundamental to the maintenance of authentic Christian faith and worship, the confessing of the orthodox dogma of the ontological Trinity is absolutely necessary. Yet teachers and preachers need to be clear as to the difference between, and the necessary union of, the economic and the immanent (or ontological) Trinity. This theme will be developed in the next chapter.
FOR FURTHER READING
Bradshaw, P. F. The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship. London: SPCK, 1992.
Martin, Ralph P. The Worship of God. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982.
Percival, Henry R., ed. The Seven Ecumenical Councils. Vol. 14 of the Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers. New York: Scribner’s, 1900.
Toon, Peter. Proclaiming the Gospel Through the Liturgy. Largo, Fla.: Prayer Book Society of the Episcopal Church, 1993.
______ Which Rite Is Right? Swedesboro, N.J.: Preservation, 1994.
Vagaggini, Cyprian. Theological Dimensions of the Liturgy. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical, 1976.
12 – Confessing the Trinity Today
In this final chapter, we shall reflect upon aspects of what it means in a practical sense to confess the Holy Trinity today, recalling as we do the words of wisdom from Augustine that were quoted in the Preface.
THE HOLY TRINITY IN SCRIPTURE
When we speak about the biblical doctrine of the Trinity, we need to be clear what we mean. The word “Trinity” is not found in the Bible. For millions of Christians over the centuries the biblical doctrine of the Trinity has meant providing proof texts from the Bible for the theological statements of the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds – or for the later confessions of faith and public statements of doctrine, based on the Creeds. At the same time, because to believe that somehow three is one and one is three is contrary to normal logical thinking, there have always been those in the Catholic and Protestant traditions who have swung toward Unitarianism, Modalism, or Deism.
However, it is only in modern times, since the Enlightenment and with the development of the historical-critical method and its application to the Bible, that serious questions have been raised within the mainline churches as to what portrayal of God is actually found in the New Testament, and to what extent the early church dogma of the Trinity in the Nicene Creed is the growth of the Gospel in the soil and atmosphere of Hellenism. There has been a swing from one extreme where the Bible is a quarry of proof texts to the other extreme where it is a book so complicated in its origins and its content that only scholars can possibly fathom its purpose and meaning.
In this book the conviction has been expressed that what the Bible provides is not a developed doctrine of the Holy Trinity and not even proof texts for developing such a doctrine. Rather the whole of the New Testament stands as a witness to a basic Trinitarian consciousness in the hearts of the writers and of the early Christian church. They knew the reality of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in their Christian experience, worship, and contemplation. Sometimes they expressed an implicit Trinitarianism and sometimes an explicit Binitarianism. Yet underlying these varying expressions there is a vision of YHWH as the Three, a conviction that the Father, his only Son, and his Holy Spirit are in some profound sense One.
So the church with the Old and New Testaments in its possession could only go theologically in one direction, even though the road was not straight and easy. That direction was to confess in the ecumenical Councils the full doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Having confessed the Holy Trinity, then the Bible was read from this doctrinal perspective and released ever deeper levels of meaning to believing hearts.
THE ONTOLOGICAL TRINITY IN PERSPECTIVE
If a person is introduced to the mystery of the Holy Trinity through a careful statement of what is called the ontological or immanent Trinity (God as God is toward and unto himself) then it is not surprising if he thinks that the doctrine of the Trinity is merely an intellectual puzzle. The first half of the Quicunque Vult, often called the Athanasian Creed, and part of the doctrinal heritage of the Western church, is primarily a brief and concise exposition of God in his substance (essence), of the Three Persons within the One Godhead. Here is part of it.
The Catholic Faith is this: that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance; for there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, is all one: the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal. Such the Father is, such is the Son and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate and the Holy Ghost uncreate. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible. The Father eternal, the Son eternal and the Holy Ghost eternal. And yet there are not three eternals but one eternal, as also there are not three incomprehensibles, nor three uncreated but one uncreated and one incomprehensible, so likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty and the Holy Ghost Almighty. And yet there are not three Almighties, but one Almighty. So the Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet there are not three Gods but one God. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord and the Holy Ghost is Lord. And yet not three Lords, but one Lord.... So that in all things... the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in unity is to be worshipped.1
To read this alone and in isolation from the study of the portrayal of the Holy Trinity in Scripture and the development of the doctrine of the Trinity in the Patristic period is certainly to run the danger of thinking that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is merely a cerebral, intellectual extra to the Christian Faith. Historically, the Christian in the West was introduced first to the Apostles’ Creed and its presentation of the economic Trinity and only later to the Athanasian Creed.
The Quicunque Vult was produced in the fifth century in Latin as an orthodox response to two major heresies which were plaguing the church in Gaul – Arianism and Modalism. As such it remains valuable for the church today since Arianism and Modalism in various forms are still with us, and they have to be recognized and rejected on the solid grounds provided by this creed and the testimony of sacred Scripture. Yet if we give the impression that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is only and solely the doctrine of the immanent or ontological Trinity then we run the risk of its confession being irrelevant to Christian worship, life, and service. This doctrine of the Trinity appears to have no practical relevance to life in this world because it speaks of that which is outside space and time.
Unless we begin with God-as-God-is-toward-us and think first of all in terms of God in relation to us and we in relation to God, we shall miss the biblical emphasis upon the Holy Trinity. Christians are baptized into “the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” and they know the Father through the Son and in and by the Holy Spirit, even as they look to the Father through the Son and in and by the Holy Spirit. They are led to adore the Holy Trinity and contemplate the relations between the Three Persons only because the Father has graciously called them through the Son and in and by the Spirit. The natural way for the ontological Trinity to enter Christian experience is through contemplation.2
However, since some prevalent heresies and errors can only be shown to be such by speaking of what we know of God in his essence, that is, reflecting upon and speaking the truth concerning the ontological Trinity, it is necessary for teachers and preachers to have the intellectual facility to move from the economic to the ontological Trinity and back again in order rightly to defend the Faith. Practically speaking, this means that teachers and preachers must be wholly familiar with the exposition of the Holy Trinity in the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, and know how this teaching was incorporated into the major Protestant confessions of faith in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The major point here is that preachers and teachers need so to communicate the Faith and so direct public worship that they really and truly give the impression that the Holy Trinity is God and God is the Holy Trinity. That is, when they speak of creation and salvation they speak of the Father through the Son and in/by the Spirit as Creator and Savior, and when they pray and worship they address the Father through the Son and in and by the Holy Spirit. In such a context and atmosphere their hearers and congregations will recognize that we only know God-as-God-is-in-himself because by grace we know God-as-God-is-toward-us. Then, from time to time and when occasion requires, the people will be prepared to appreciate the teaching of the Athanasian Creed – especially if they are encountering heresy.
Alisdair Heron, the Scottish Reformed theologian, has expressed the truth of this point very well.
The heart of the matter is that the doctrine of the Trinity is not an abstract mathematical puzzle, not the articulation of the rhythm of life, and not the projection upon the Ultimate of the manifold triplicities that a little inspired imagination can easily suggest to us. It arises from the fundamental recognition that Jesus Christ is Immanuel, God with us, a recognition which is itself enabled by awareness of participation in the Spirit in that same mystery. The rhythm is that of faith and of worship, and the mystery at the center is the crucified and risen Christ, the sacrament and pledge of the reconciling and redeeming good favour of the Father extended even to us. Yet just because he is God with us, the awareness of faith opens into recognition of the triune being of God, for nothing less is required if the truth of the Gospel is not in the last resort to be set aside.3
Christians believe in the Holy Trinity because of the Incarnation and the gift of the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Christ.
Heron continued by referring to the constant danger of Modalism (= Sabellianism):
Sabellianism, open or concealed, implies that the trinitarian structure of redemption has nothing really to do with the nature of God, and loses hold on God in his own reality, like a climber on a rock face who can find no crevice to give him a grip. Only if there is genuine differentiation within God is there space and room for him so to reach out that he engages us with himself, going forth to become his own creature and at the same time enabling and empowering an authentic creaturely response. In this sense the doctrine of the Trinity cannot and must not be understood as the speculative projection of the theological mind into realms too high for it, but as the doxological answer evoked in us by the divine condescension that in Christ comes down to meet us and in the Spirit bears us up from within.4
God’s movement is from the Father through the Son and by the Holy Spirit unto his creatures who are called and enabled by grace to ascend in the Spirit and through the Son unto the Father. Only so will they become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4), enjoy and glorify God forever and behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
ON THE NEED FOR PRECISE LANGUAGE
Anyone who has studied the theological controversies concerning the precise relation of the Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father will know that precision in language is important. For example, there is, theologically speaking, a major difference in meaning between saying with the orthodox that Jesus is homoousios (consubstantial – of one and the same identical substance) with the Father and of saying with others that Jesus is homoiousios (of like substance). The iota made a difference in the Arian controversy in the fourth century!
There is a world of difference between the now common expression, “God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” and the more traditional, “In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” or “God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Here the point is that to be precise in English the definite article matters. In speaking of Yahweh-Elohim, Christians do not speak of any father but of the one, unique Father, from whom all fatherhood is derived; they do not speak of any son but of the one and only Son, begotten of the one, unique Father before all ages; and they do not speak of any spirit but of the one and only eternal Spirit, who proceeds from the one, unique Father. From the time before the Athanasian Creed was produced, Christians have been aware of the danger of falling into Modalism – of saying that God is One Person with three Names or three forms of manifestation. In writing and speaking in English we cannot be accused of being modalist if we speak of the glorious transcendence of the living God and we use carefully the definite article in naming the Blessed, Holy, and Undivided Trinity. YHWH is not “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” but “the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
Many times I have heard this benediction at the end of a service: “The blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be upon you and remain with you always.” This sounds as though it is Almighty God who has three names! In contrast, as handed down in Western Christianity, the authentic benediction is, “The Blessing of Almighty God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit ...” Here, as in the Nicene Creed, “God” is “the Father” and a genuine Trinity of Persons gives the Blessing.
B. B. Warfield emphasized the presence of four definite articles in our Lord’s baptismal command – “in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” He wrote:
In seeking to estimate the significance of this great declaration, we must bear in mind the high solemnity of the utterance, by which we are required to give its full value to every word of it. Its phrasing is in any event, however, remarkable. It does not say, “In the names [plural] of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost”; nor yet (what might be taken as the equivalent to that), “In the name of the Father and in the name of the Son and in the name of the Holy Ghost,” as if we had to deal with three separate Beings. Nor, on the other hand, does it say, “In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost,” as if “the Father, Son and Holy Ghost” might be taken as merely three designations of a single Person. With stately impressiveness it asserts the unity of the Three by combining them all within the bounds of a single Name; and then throws up into emphasis the distinctness of each by introducing them in turn with the repeated article: “In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.” These Three, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, each stands in some clear sense over against the others in distinct personality: these Three, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, all unite in some profound sense in the common participation of the one Name.5
The “one Name” is that of YHWH (“Jehovah” for Warfield).
Very few theologians write or speak today as did Warfield! At this time within modern American culture people do not generally place too great an emphasis upon either clarity of speech or precision in expression. While it can be argued that vagueness and imprecision of expression make little or no difference for the ordinary aspects of daily living, the same cannot be argued for specific areas of life. For example, a doctor has to state precisely what medical problem he has diagnosed and to be accurate for the sake of right treatment he usually has to use words which mean little or nothing at first to the patient. However, the patient has to learn the basics of the new vocabulary in order to know precisely what is his problem and how to make responsible decisions.
Words, phrases, and sentences about the Holy Trinity belong both to the realm of public speech (e.g., corporate worship) and also to the realm of doctrinal clarity (e.g., distinguishing truth from error). We need to be as careful and accurate as possible in addressing and speaking of the Trinity in both spheres, reserving the full weight of technical language for the latter. Certainly correct speech can be an empty shell but, on the other hand, it can be, should be, and must be the verbal adornment of the mystery of the living YHWH.
We can never be as those who lived before the great debates which helped to clarify the mind of the church and to produce the dogma of the Holy Trinity. We cannot pretend that the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople did not take place. We cannot deny the existence of the Apostles’, the Nicene, and the Athanasian Creeds. We live in a world which has known and still knows many doctrinal errors concerning the identity of God and the identity of Jesus Christ. Yet we also live in a church which has developed a precise way of talking about God. Surely we ought to pay attention to that (not dead but) living tradition of precise expression in words and learn gratefully from it.
ON THE REJECTION OF INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE
If the “Name” of YHWH is revealed by God to man; and if the “Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” is also revealed by God to man, then there is no room for negotiation. The Name of the Holy Trinity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is a given.
However, if the name of YHWH is merely the projection into the metaphysical sphere by Moses of his view of God, and if “the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” is the projection by Jesus and his disciples of images in their minds related to their patriarchal culture, then these “holy” Names are all negotiable. They may be changed at any time with or without general consent.
It is clear that many of the claims made by feminist theologians concerning the supposed androcentric, sexist, and patriarchalist basis of Israelite and Christian speech about God are false or in need of revision. However, even if all the feminist theologians were to disappear overnight and take with them all their ideology and claims, we would still have to face and hear again that which for over a century liberal theology has been proclaiming – that we name God out of our religious experience and thus project our naming of God into God (whoever God as ultimate Mystery be). We cannot avoid the question: Has God in self-revelation named God, and, do we have the right and capacity to name God ourselves? Christian orthodoxy answers decisively in terms of God’s self-naming, and especially so with regard to the Holy Trinity.
A further question to arise for orthodoxy today is whether there is any relation between God’s self-naming and the way Christians speak about the creatures whom the Holy Trinity has made in his image and after his likeness. If we are not free to use inclusive language about YHWH (e.g., not to baptize “in the name of Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier” or “in the name of Mother-Father, Child, and Spirit”), are we free to use inclusive language about God’s creatures made in his image? This is a question which receives various answers from orthodox Christians. All I can indicate here is the relation I see between the Name of the Holy Trinity and the way we speak of men and women in Christian discourse.
There is holy order in the divine Name. It is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Of course, as we have seen, when the actual work of God for and in man is being described, then the order of the Persons may be different – e.g., “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.” However, concerning God in his own essence, we say that the Father is truly the first in order for he is the Father of the only Son; the Son is second in order for he is the Son of the unique Father; and the Holy Spirit is third in order for he is the Spirit who proceeds from the Father through the Son. This order does not mean inferiority of the Second and Third Persons, for they are all equal in that each Person is as fully God as are the other two Persons. (This is a truth clearly stated in the Quicunque Vult and the major Reformation confessions of faith.)
As the Creator, the Holy Trinity has communicated holy order into his creation including the creature who is made in his image and after his likeness. We read: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27). There is holy order in the creation where the male man is first in order and the female man is second in order; but, at the same time there is a perfect equality in terms of essential being of the male and female man. In the New Testament Jesus Christ, the male Man who is the Word made flesh, is proclaimed as the true image of God.
To maintain holy order we need also to maintain the long-established custom of speaking of God’s creatures made in his image as man or as mankind. We do not have to be saying “man and woman” and “he and she” all the time. The use of the word man in the traditional sense conveys the notion of order for he being first in order contains in himself she who is second in order. It is wholly appropriate that the word man can mean both the human race and the male species; and that the word woman can only mean female man and never the human race. This, in a trinitarian perspective, mirrors the truth that the Father is first and the Son is included in the Father, for he is begotten of the Father before all ages.
From this perspective responsible fatherhood can be proclaimed – and it is certainly needed in modern society. Yet at the same time, the approach can easily be intentionally or unintentionally misunderstood and also used by sinful men to justify evil attitudes and actions. What seems clear to me is that too many who profess an orthodox doctrine of God have swung on the pendulum of inclusivity too far away from traditional Christian discourse with regard to human beings. Paul K. Jewett’s fine exposition of the doctrine of God, God, Creation & Revelation (1991), is one clear example. He denies any connection between the classic dogma of the Holy Trinity and the preservation of traditional ways of speech using the word “man.”
When we feel the need to use the adjective “human” as a noun to avoid speaking of “man,” when we consistently use the word “gender” instead of “sex” to refer to the chromosomal and physical reality of maleness or femaleness, and when we cannot write “he” without adding “she” in a sentence then perhaps we have gone too far on the pendulum of modernity. When we use the word “patriarchy” in a pejorative sense and have not examined the nature and character of fatherhood in Israel, when we suggest that the male images for God imply that God is sexually male or favors male human beings, and when we translate “the male man” in Psalm 1:1 as “they” or “the one” then perhaps we have been blown away from our anchors by the winds of modernity.
The doctrine of the Holy Trinity gives us the assurance and the humble confidence to speak of man in such a way as to celebrate the divine order in creation. To do this is not (see chap. 1) to say that God is male!
We must also add that the Christian understanding of personhood flows from the Christian doctrine of the Three Persons who are God. The decision by God to create man in his image was an interpersonal decision. Elohim (God in his plurality) said, “Let us make man in our image after our likeness” – the decision of the Three. Yet the Three acted as one: “Elohim created man in his own image, in the image of Elohim he created him” (where the plural noun takes the singular verbs). If God is simply a monad then he cannot be or know personality. To be personal otherness must be present together with oneness, the one must be in relation to others. Personhood is only a reality where there are relations, relatedness, and relationships. In the holy, eternal life of the Blessed Trinity personhood as relation is eternally present and human personhood exists because man is created by the Holy Trinity in the image of God and because (as we saw in chap. 8) the Son is the Image of God.
ON MODALISM AND PANTHEISM
On various occasions we have made reference to Modalism (Sabellianism) and to pantheism. Widmert, the Genevan, Calvinist theologian, offers a summarizing comment: “Modalism, on the level of popular piety, dissolves into gross Pantheism.”6 I take this as a very important observation, and I fear that it is very true of much North American religion.
In chapter 1, the presence of pantheism in European religion and culture and, very particularly, in American popular religion and culture was described. One point made there was that in modern democratic society, where evolution and development are taken for granted, the tendency is to think of God as in some way the equivalent of the cosmos, the Zeitgeist, or the mind and unity of the cosmos. Then, in reference to modern feminist theology, we noted that it is normally panentheistic in its description of God in order to allow for the naming of God as “Mother” (with the world as God=s body). So pantheism is evident on all sides.
In much religion of both a conservative and liberal kind, the tendency is to refer to the Trinity in such a way as to imply by the grammar used and illustrations given that God is One Person with Three Names. It is often said that the triangle with its three sides, or the man who is simultaneously the son of his father, the husband of his wife, and the father of his son, illustrate how God is One in Three. And both “God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” from the conservatives and “God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier” from the liberals can reflect Modalism, just as the illustrations obviously do. Now if this way of thinking of God as one Person with several names is not set in the context of a clear belief in YHWH, who is the Creator of the world out of nothing (ex nihilo), then the belief expressed is probably not even Unitarianism; it is more likely pantheism.
Another way of stating this matter is to say that where the expression of religion is primarily experiential in a modern sense (i.e., in terms of self-worth, self-expression, self-development, “meeting my needs,” and so on) and horizontal and immanentalist (God is primarily in the here and the now), and not primarily experiential in the classic sense (i.e., an encounter with the transcendent God of glory to whom we ascend through Christ and in the Holy Spirit) then the danger of modalistic pantheism is real – and real whether we be conservatives or liberals.
If there is truth in what has just been explained, then the duty of pastors and teachers in their congregations joyfully and clearly to proclaim the Holy Trinity in both his Transcendence and his Immanence (where his Immanence flows from his Transcendence) is always necessary. Only when God is known and adored first and foremost as the Majestic, Transcendent, Holy and Glorious Unity in Trinity, who creates the world and redeems his creatures in love, will experience be of such a kind as to rise heavenward and not to slip from Modalism into pantheism.
Let us not forget that to love God is to love in unity the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit – to love their equality and their order. To love God is to love and not confound the operations, the eternal communications, and the mutual relations of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. To love God is to love all that makes the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit to be One, and all that makes them Three.
A RECENT CONFESSION OF FAITH
In the midst of much uncertainty and little doctrinal clarity in the churches, it is good to find solid orthodoxy being professed. On the nineteenth centenary of the martyrdom of the apostles Peter and Paul in Rome (June 30, 1968), the Bishop of Rome, Pope Paul VI, closed the liturgical celebrations with a profession of faith. Here is the first part of it which states the received Western doctrine of the immanent Holy Trinity – God-as-God-is-in-himself.
We believe in one God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Creator of all things visible – such as this world in which our brief life runs its course – and of things invisible – such as the pure spirits which are also called angels – and Creator in each man of his spiritual and immortal soul.
We believe that this unique God is as absolutely one in his infinitely, holy essence as in his other perfections: in his almighty power, his infinite knowledge, his providence, his will and his love. He is “the One who is” as he revealed to Moses (Ex. 3:14, Vulgate). He is “Love” as the apostle John has taught us (1 Jn. 4:8); so that these two names, Being and Love, express ineffably the same divine Reality of him who has wished to make himself known to us and who, “dwelling in light inaccessible” (1 Tim. 6:16) is in himself above every name and every created thing and every created intelligence. God alone can give us true and full knowledge of this Reality by revealing himself as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in whose eternal life we are by grace called to share, here on earth in the obscurity of faith and after death in eternal light. The mutual bonds which from all eternity constitute the Three Persons, each one of whom is one and the same Divine Being, constitute the blessed, inmost life of the most holy God, infinitely above all that we can humanly understand. We give thanks, however, to the divine goodness that very many believers can testify with us before men of the unity of God, even though they do not know the mystery of the Holy Trinity.
We believe then in God who eternally begets the Son; we believe in the Son, the Word of God, who is eternally begotten; we believe in the Holy Spirit, the uncreated Person who proceeds from the Father and the Son as their eternal Love. Thus in the three divine Persons, who are co-eternal and co-equal among themselves, are found in superabundant and consummated fashion, the life and beatitude of God, who is perfectly one; and we must always worship the unity in Trinity and the Trinity in the unity.7
In the following paragraphs of the confession, the Incarnation of the only begotten Son is confessed in detail and the Person and mission of the Holy Spirit is described. At this point the creed has moved from God the Holy Trinity in eternity to the revelation and work of the Holy Trinity in space and time. In Christian confession of the Faith, knowledge of God-as-God-is-in-himself is inextricably united to knowledge of God-as-God-is-toward-us.
So we return to where we began. The Holy Trinity is revealed for those with eyes to see in the creation and sustaining of the cosmos; in the election and redemption of Israel; in the birth, life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth; in the formation of the church; in the gift of the Holy Spirit to the church; and in the experience of God in worship, fellowship, and service within the church. In fact, Holy Scripture bears witness in its inspiration and its content to the Holy Trinity: the books of the Bible present the glorious, majestic YHWH, the Father, and his only-begotten Son together with his Holy Spirit, active in the creation and redemption of the world. Thus God has been/is revealed in what he did/does and said/says for he is the living God. Because the Father makes himself known through his only Son and in his Holy Spirit, the church militant on earth (on behalf of the whole, visible creation) unites with the invisible world of holy angels and the church triumphant in heaven to adore and serve the Father through the Son (the great high priest) in the Holy Spirit. Led by the Holy Spirit to contemplate the glory of the Father in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6), the church on earth is given insight into the ordered, eternal relations within the one Godhead of the Father, his only-begotten Son, and his Holy Spirit. Reverential knowledge of the immanent Holy Trinity comes through experiential knowing of the Father, through the Son and in the Holy Spirit.
With knowledge through revelation of the immanent Trinity, Christians know and experience the economic Trinity in grace and in prayer. In illustration of this, I end this book with one of the much used prayers of the Anglican tradition – the General Thanksgiving from the Daily Service in The Book of Common Prayer (1549, 1662, 1928, etc.).
Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we, thine unworthy servants, do give thee most humble and hearty thanks for all thy goodness and loving-kindness to us, and to all men. We bless thee for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all, for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory [i.e., the presence and work of the Holy Spirit in the church]. And we beseech thee, give us that due sense of all thy mercies that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful; and that we show forth thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up ourselves to thy service, and by walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee [O Father] and the Holy Ghost, be all honor and glory, world without end. Amen.
“Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, even unto ages of ages.” Amen.
FOR FURTHER READING
Heron, Alisdair. The Holy Spirit. London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1983.
Hughes, Philip E. The True Image: The Origin and Destiny of Man in Christ. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989.
Kelly, J .N. D. The Athanasian Creed. London: A & C Black, 1965.
Tavard, George H. The Vision of God. Washington, D.C.: Univ. Press of America, 1981.
Toon, Peter. The Art of Meditating on Scripture. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993.
_____. Yesterday, Today and Forever: Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity in the Teaching of the Seven Ecumenical Councils. Swedesboro, N.J.: Preservation, 1995.
Warfield, B. B. “The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity.” In Biblical and Theological Studies. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1968.
NOTES
1. J. N. D. Kelly, The Athanasian Creed (London: A & C Black, 1964), 17–18.
2. See further Tavard, Vision of the Trinity, chap. 4; and Peter Toon, The Art of Meditating upon Scripture (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993).
3. Heron, Holy Spirit, 172–73.
4. Ibid., 173.
5. Warfield, “Doctrine of the Trinity,” 42.
6. G. P. Widmert, Gloire au Pere, au Fils, au Saint-Esprit (Neuchâtel: Brémond, 1963), 30.
7. The creed is found in Latin in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 60 (Rome: The Vatican, 1968), 433ff.