The Holy Trinity, Part 2

We return this week to Chapter 4 of Authentic Christianity, with the first point after the Introduction; namely "God is One".

Under this point there are three subpoints discussed. The first is the singularity of God:

There is only one, living and true God. (333)

Romans 1:18f makes clear that everyone on earth knows that God is one; yet, the anti-Christian, still unregenerate and dominated by rebellion against God, suppresses that truth in self-deception so that he can go on living in sin without the
possibility, (or so he pretends), of being confronted by God. (334)

He goes on to emphasis that God IS.

He IS in the most absolute and ultimate sense of existence. With him there is no becoming. He IS necessarily and eternally. He alone IS in this way. He did not begin to be. He always has been and IS. His existence is of himself. He is of himself existent and of himself sufficient. All other beings ultimately have their existence as the result of creation. They have become. Only God has not become, but has always
been…. There is no more ultimate truth about God than this, God IS. God is absolute, ultimate, independent and unoriginated Being. 20. Morton Smith,  Systematic Theology, 2 vols. (Greenville, SC: Greenville Seminary Press, 1994), 1:125 (334)

There are multiple emphasis on this singularity of God:

BECAUSE GOD IS ONE ABSOLUTE, INFINITE, PERSONAL GOD, THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE ABSOLUTE, UNCHANGING, ALL-EMBRACING LAW. (335)

BECAUSE GOD IS ONE, THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE INFALLIBLE WORD AND ONE TRUE GOSPEL (Rom. 3:29f; 10:12). (335)

BECAUSE GOD IS ONE, THERE CAN BE VICTORY ONLY FOR HIM AND HIS PLANS. (335)

Because the Lord is one God, and besides Him there is no other, we are to love Him with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind: “And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deut. 6:5). (336)

This primary and eternal duty and privilege of Christians—to love God with the totality of our being—means that we will devote ourselves and our families to the worship and service of this one true God with pure and intense affection. Love for God is the fundamental motive of all godly human actions (Deut. 10:12; 11:1, 13, 22; 13:4). It characterizes the entirety of life of the true worshippers of the living God (Ex. 20:6). It flows out of our gratitude to God for His undeserved mercy to us (Deut. 5:12). It compels those who are filled with it to conscientious observance of all of God’s commands (Deut. 11:1, 22). And it involves the devotion of the whole being, intellect, personality and character of a person (Deut. 4:29; 10:12; 30:16, 20). (337)

The second point is "The Unity of God":

God is numerically one and He is unique...His uniqueness is confessed in
Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!” The Hebrew word for “one” here may also be translated “an only,” stressing the fact that Jehovah is the only God entitled to the name Jehovah. (339)

God is His perfections: “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). “God is Spirit” (John 4:24). The Westminster Confession describes God’s unity in these words: “a most pure Spirit, invisible, without body, parts or passions” (WCF, II, i). (339)

Every divine perfection “is identical with God’s being by reasonof the fact that every one of his virtues is absolutely perfect.…With creatures there is a difference between being, living, knowing, willing.... But God is one in every respect. He is whatever he has.” 27. Bavinck, The Doctrine of God, 168. (339)

God’s Being subsists in Three Persons. He is one Being in three Persons, and this is His eternal, unchangeable and necessary manner of existence. These three Persons are “the same in substance, equal in power and glory” (LC, Q. 9). (340)

All composition, i.e., the combining or uniting of parts into a whole, implies imperfection, dependency and capacity to be divided into parts. If God were a composite of parts, imperfection would exist in Him, since a composite whole is more perfect than each individual part; but nothing in God is less than God. (340)

The reason this particular doctrine is important is as follows:

(1) It has preserved the Church from an ancient form of polytheism that sees a different god in each of the divine perfections. (2) The old philosophy of Gnosticism, which keeps raising its ugly head in various contemporary forms, tried to account
for the different perfections of God as various emanations from God. According to this view, God Himself is totally unknowable, but various emanations come from him, with decreasing degrees of reality, the farther they emanate from him. Hence, in this view, God is an essence that is an empty abstraction without content or reality. (3) Since God’s being, essence and perfections are one, we have in God an absolute (tri-personal) personality...(4) Albrecht Ritschl, one of the leading fathers of modern liberal theology, taught that the doctrine of the Trinity is a matter of  speculative thought: “Personality is the form in which the idea of God is given through revelation.” 34 He believed that the terms, Father, Son and Spirit are man’s attempts to explain the self-revelation of God, and that it is impossible to say anything about God in Himself, or even about any distinctions in Him as He reveals Himself. Our doctrine preserves us from this modern form of the old heresy of Sabellianism or modalism, which taught that God is one person who expresses himself in three modes. 34. Erickson, God In Three Persons, 120 (341-342)

The second of the main points in chapter four is that God is Three, just as He is One.

Dr. Morecraft first defines our terms for us:

To call God, the “Trinity,” is to say that in the Being of the one true God, there are three distinct Persons, the same in being, equal in power and glory. These three Persons may be distinguished by their unique individual distinctions, and yet each one is truly and fully God. (342)

“Trinity” means “three in unity.” By “Godhead” we mean the infinite, eternal and unchangeable nature and being of God common to all three Persons (Rom. 1:20; Col. 2:9). By “Person” we refer to a distinction in the being of God that is beyond human comprehension...A “Person” has a distinct individual existence, a personality, which has perfections common to all three, but who, nevertheless, is unique. “Substance” refers to the one, indivisible, uncreated, independent being or essence of the one true God. “Subsistence” refers to the manner in which that Being
exists. (342)

With the definitions in place, he then addresses the legitimacy of using non-biblical (i.e. words not found in the Bible) to explains doctrines. I thought the following quote from B.B. Warfield summed it up nicely:

“No ambiguous meanings should be permitted to hide behind a mere repetition of the simple words of Scripture, but all that the Scripture teaches shall be clearly and without equivocation brought out and given expression in the least indeterminate [imprecise and unclear] language.”36. Benjamin Warfield, Calvin and Augustine, ed. Samuel G. Craig (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1956), 218. (343)

We then jump right into the doctrine of the Trinity.

Three persons are in the Godhead: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These three persons are one, true and living God. They are the same in essence, equal in power and glory, although distinguishable by their unique, individual distinctions.
“The great mystery of the Trinity is, that one and the very same substance, can subsist as an undivided whole in three persons simultaneously [John 14:10–11; 17:21, 23].” 41. W. G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 3 vols. (Nashville: Thomas  Nelson Publishers, 1980), 1:297. (344)



I"n this Trinity there is an absolute equality. In Divinity the Father is not greater than the Son; nor are the Father and the Son together greater than the Holy Spirit; nor is any single Person of the Three anything less than the Trinity itself.” 43. Augustine, Augustine: Later Works, ed. John Burnaby (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1955), 39. (345)

The distinctions of Persons in the Godhead are not differences of being or essence, but they are real distinctions within the Being of God...These three Persons are distinct but not separate. They are co-substantial, co-equal and co-existent. (345)

An order of relationship of Persons is present within the Godhead, without implying levels of power, glory or ultimacy. Without implying that this order involves priority of time or glory, we must speak of the Father, as the first Person of the Trinity, the Son, as the second, and the Holy Spirit as the third. (346)


(1) The Bible consistently gives us the names of the three Persons in this order. (2)
The names, Father, Son, and the Spirit of the Father and the Son, indicate this order of their personal subsistence in the Godhead. (3) The Bible presents us with this order when it speaks of the works of the Trinity in creation and redemption. (346-347)

There is no subordination with reference to the Persons in the Divine Being, i.e., in “the ontological Trinity”; but the Bible does present us with a subordination in “the economic Trinity.”...By “the ontological Trinity” we refer to the triune God as He has existed from all eternity—one God in three Persons, the same in being, equal in divine perfections. By “the economic Trinity” we mean the Trinity as manifested in creation and redemption. (347)

The phrase, “the ontological Trinity” means that WITHIN the Godhead there is a certain order—the Father is the First Person, the Son is the Second Person and the Spirit is the Third Person. This does not imply that one existed before the other or that one is senior to the others. Each Person is God in His own right and the  Persons are equal. The phrase, “the economic Trinity,” refers to the fact that the relationships of the Persons in the Trinity are reflected in the way God acts and reveals Himself to human beings. “Everything that God does springs from the Father. He is first. It comes to pass through the Son. He is second. And it is effected by the Spirit. He is third. All God’s works are works of the three Persons jointly.” 51. Olyott, The Three Are One, 80–82. (347-348)

Having established the one-ness and the three-ness of the Godhead, we turn toward the basis for the doctrine. We first look at the Old Testament.

The Hebrew word for God in Genesis 1:1 is Elohim, which is in the plural form, indicating more than two persons, (not the dual form which indicates two persons), and takes a third person singular verb “created.” (348)

Moreover, it denotes a plurality of persons in the one being of God. The Creator is one God in being and essence, yet more than one in manner of existence. (349)

Therefore, we can see in the very first chapter of the Bible, a triune, or threefold, cause of the origin and preservation of the entire universe. God first thought of the
universe; then He called it into existence by the almighty Word of God; and once created, the universe does not have an independent existence, apart from the life-giving and life-sustaining Spirit of God. (349-350)

A few verses later in Genesis 1:26, we read: “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness” (also see Gen. 3:22 and 11:7). In this verse we learn three important truths. (1) God addresses Himself, as is evident from the content of what He said...(2) The God who is speaking is ONE God: Then “God said.” Although God is a plural noun, Elohim, the verb, said, is in the third person SINGULAR. (3) A plurality of persons subsists in the one Divine Being as is obvious
from the plural noun, Elohim, and the plural pronouns, us and our. (350)

The point of these verses is twofold. (1) The Old Testament, with reference to its teaching on the Trinity, is a richly furnished room, dimly lit until the full light of the New Testament shines in. The doctrine of the Trinity is thoroughly Biblical, being
intimated in the Old Testament and clarified in the New Testament. (2) The entire Old Testament history and revelation rests on this triune Divine principle, which is the basis of creation and redemption. (351)

With that we turn to the New Testament...

As in the Old Testament so in the New Testament God’s oneness and unity are
emphasized (John 17:3; 1 Cor. 8:4); but this One God exists as Father, Son and Holy Spirit; and He manifests Himself in the incarnation and baptism of the Son and in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. In Luke’s narratives of Christ’s birth, Christ is called “the Son of the Most High” (Luke 1:32), the Father is called “the Lord God” (1:32), and Christ is conceived in the Virgin Mary by “the Holy Spirit” (1:35). (353)

The fact that the God of the covenant is triune becomes very clear now: it becomes evident that he must needs be triune, and that salvation itself rests upon a threefold principle. This trinitarian revelation is not limited to a few texts; the entire New Testament is trinitarian in character. God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is the source of all blessing, comfort, and salvation. 63. Bavinck, The Doctrine of God, 264. (354)

All three Persons of the Trinity are mentioned in a variety of places in the New Testament (Luke 1:35; Matt. 3:16–17; 28:19f, John 1:1–5; John 14:26; 2 Cor. 13:14; 1 Cor. 12:3–31; 2 Cor. 3:3; Eph. 4:4; 1 Pet. 1:2). (354)

Matthew 28:19 especially clarifies the oneness and threeness of God, when it refers to “baptizing them in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” “In the name” is singular, but it is followed by three persons. Disciples are baptized into the ONE NAME OF THE THREE PERSONS. (355)

A Trinitarian consciousness pervades the entire New Testament... (355)

Dr. Morecraft briefly addresses the "Biblical case for the unity and equality of the Three Persons of the Trinity as One God":

Divine perfections, actions, titles and worship are equally ascribed to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. None of these perfections, actions, titles and worship can be ascribed to man or to anything or anyone less than God Himself. All three persons are said to be eternal (Isa. 44:6; Rom. 16:26; Rev. 1:17; Heb. 9:14). All
three persons are said to have created the universe (1 Cor. 8:6; John 1:3; Job 33:4).
They are equally omnipresent (Jer. 23:24; Matt. 28:20; Ps. 139:7). Each one is incomprehensible and omniscient (Matt. 11:27; 1 Cor. 2:10). Each is true, holy and good (John 7:28; 10:11; Ps. 143:10). Each has His own individual, sovereign will, although in perfect harmony with the others (Eph. 1:11; Matt. 11:27; 1 Cor. 12:11). Each is the fountain of life (Ps. 36:9; John 1:4; Rom. 8:10). Each strengthens, comforts, and sanctifies God’s people (Ps. 138:3; Phil. 4:13; Eph. 3:16). Each fills the soul with the love of God (1 John 2:15; 2 Cor. 5:14; Rom. 15:30). Each is said to have given the Law of God (Ps. 19:7; Ezek. 2:4; Gal. 6:2; Col. 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21; Acts 13:2). Each dwells in the hearts of believers (1 John 1:3; 2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 3:17; John 14:17). Each is called Jehovah and God (Ex. 20:2; Isa. 40:3 with Matt. 3:3; Luke 1:76 with Matthew 11:10; Ezek. 8:1, 3). (356-357)

Moreover, the Bible commands us to worship the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Each by Himself and all together are to receive our adoration, worship, praise and prayers. (358)

Then follows the biblical case for the distinction of the Three Persons in our One God:

First, in many passages we see one Person acting upon or acting through another Person. (358)

In John 15:26, we once again read of all three Persons of the Trinity, the Son, who is speaking, the Father, and the Spirit who is sent by the Son and who proceeds from the Father: “When the Helper comes whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness of Me.” ... “where God the Father is said to send, to enthrone, to appoint to sacerdotal office, to uphold, to reward the Son, and the Son and Father to send the Holy host.”
79. Robert L. Dabney, Lectures in Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, [1878] 1972), 177. (359)

Second, in several passages mutual love and affection are said to exist between these three Persons in the Godhead. (359)

Third, many Biblical passages speak of each Person of the Trinity exercising His will with reference to created beings, and yet in perfect harmony between the three. (359)

Fourth, many more passages ascribe to these three Persons individual actions toward created beings. (360)

The titles—Father, Son and Spirit—are not the names of the same person manifesting himself in different ways at different times. These titles identify Persons, equally God, but distinct from each other. (360)

“There are three who are God, and each can say I; and none of them says ‘we.’” 80. Olyott, The Three Are One, 55. (360)

Each Person of the Trinity is self-existant:

Each Person of the Trinity has self-existence, therefore each Person can be designated the self-existent God. (361)

Whenever Christ is identified as Jehovah incarnate, this divine Name “carries with it the self-existence of Christ with respect to His deity.…‘For if He is Jehovah, it cannot be denied that He is the same God who elsewhere cries through Isaiah (xliv. 6), “I, I am, and besides me there is no God.”’” 86 In other words, all that is properly ascribed of God can be ascribed to each Person in the Trinity. Therefore if God is self-existent, it can be rightly said that each Person in God is self-existent. 86. John Calvin, quoted in Warfield, Calvin and Augustine, 242. (362)

The whole essence of God belongs to each Person; hence, each is truly and fully God. (362)

The Trinity has It's own interpersonal fellowship:

The three persons of the Godhead enjoy an internal life of love and fellowship (John 8:42, 16:26–27; 17:8; 15:26)...The three persons of the Trinity enjoy an eternal friendship with each other in the one divine essence. (363)

Each Person of the Trinity has His own uniqueness: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. First, of Christ:

(1) The living Word is eternal; (2) The Person of the Word enjoys fellowship with
the Person of the Father, (the preposition “with” in Greek denotes this); (3) The Person of the Word subsists in the Divine Being equally with the Father; and (4) The Word is the expression of the Father, and is what He is because of the Father; so that, without the Father, there would be no Person in the Godhead who is the Word. (364)

Second, of the Spirit:

God the Holy Spirit PROCEEDS eternally from the Father and the Son...In Romans 8:9, the Holy Spirit is called “the Spirit of God” and “the Spirit of Christ,” meaning that is originates, as a Person, from God the Father and from God the Son. (364)

Next, Dr. Morecraft expounds on the uniquenss of the Father and Son together:

Thus God the Father is the first in order and in operation, sending and working through the Son and the Spirit. God the Son is the Son of the Father, from eternity the only begotten of the Father. God the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and the Son, from eternity proceeding from them. He is sent by the Father and the Son, both of whom act through Him, and He acts immediately upon the creature. (365)

Thus the Father is called the Beginning, Cause, Root, Fountain, Origin and Head, with reference to the Son. And the Son is called the Word, Wisdom, Son, Firstborn, only-begotten, Image of God, with reference to the Father. (367)

The Son is of Himself with respect to His Divine Being; and is of the Father with respect to His Person. (367)

God the Father is self-existent, and He has given, or “generated” to the Person of God the Son the same kind of living, self-existent personhood. God the Father did not give to the Son His Deity or His Divine essence; rather, He eternally gives to Him His personhood as Son. God the Father eternally begets God the Son. Insofar
as the Son is of the same substance with the Father, He is self-existent; and insofar as He is a Person subsisting in the Divine Being, He is begotten of the Father. (368)

Then Dr. Morecraft returns to the uniquness of the Spirit (the reasoning makes better sense if you read the passages quoted in full).

The proceeding of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son is also an eternal act of self-communication taking place within the divine being. This “proceeding” puts the Holy Spirit in “possession of the whole divine essence, without any division, alienation or change,”103 in much the same way as the “begottenness” does the
Son. 103. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 97. (368-369)

The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son in a way that can best be described as “to breathe,”...That the Holy Spirit proceeds from or is breathed forth by the Father and the Son is confirmed in several passages. (369)

The Holy Spirit works in this world as a continuation of the ministry of Jesus because of His intimate relation to the Father and the Son in the Trinity. He
proceeds from the Father and Son into the Church of Christ, because He eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son. (370)

A brief description of the difference between "generation" and "procession" follows:

“They speak more wisely who, stammering in a matter so difficult, place the distinction in three things: (1) In the principle, because the Son emanates [flows from as from a fountain] from the Father alone, but the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son together. (2) In the mode, because the Son emanates by way of
generation [begetting], which terminates not only on the personality, but also on the similarity (on account of which the Son is called the image of the Father and according to which the Son receives the property of communicating to another person the same essence; but the Spirit by way of spiration [breathing forth], which terminates only on the personality and by which the proceeding person does not receive the property of communicating that essence to another person). (3) In the order, because as the Son is the second person and the Spirit the third, generation in our mode of conceiving precedes spiration (although they are really coeternal).”
106. Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 1:309. (370-371)

And Augustine says: “There is a difference between generation and procession, but I know not how to distinguish them because both are inexpressible.” 109. Turretin, 
Institutes of Elenctic Theology,  1:309. (371)

The final point from today's reading is why this discussion on the uniqueness of the Persons of the Trinity is important.

This discussion on the unique individual distinctions of the three Persons in the Trinity is an attempt to deal faithfully, accurately and fully with several passages in the Bible that speak to this issue. (371)

I don't know about you, but I find the Trinity to be a mind-boggling doctrine. An awesome doctrine that leaves me feeling very, very small and wondering.

        Racheal