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Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity
by Benjamin B. Warfield
The term 'Trinity' is not a Biblical term, and we are not using Biblical
language when we define what is expressed by it as the doctrine that there is
one only and true God, but in the unity of the Godhead there are three coeternal
and coequal Persons, the same in substance but distinct in subsistence. A
doctrine so defined can be spoken of as a Biblical doctrine only on the
principle that the sense of Scripture is Scripture. And the definition of a
Biblical doctrine in such unBiblical language can be justified only on the
principle that it is better to preserve the truth of Scripture than the words of
Scripture. The doctrine of the Trinity lies in Scripture in solution; when it is
crystallized from its solvent it does not cease to be Scriptural, but only comes
into clearer view. Or, to speak without figure, the doctrine of the Trinity is
given to us in Scripture, not in formulated definition, but in fragmentary
allusions; when we assembled the disjecta membra into their organic unity, we
are not passing from Scripture, but entering more thoroughly into the meaning of
Scripture. We may state the doctrine in technical terms, supplied by
philosophical reflection; but the doctrine stated is a genuinely Scriptural
In point of fact, the doctrine of the Trinity is purely a revealed doctrine.
That is to say, it embodies a truth which has never been discovered, and is
indiscoverable, by natural reason. With all his searching, man has not been able
to find out for himself the deepest things of God. Accordingly, ethnic thought
has never attained a Trinitarian conception of God, nor does any ethnic religion
present in its representations of the Divine Being any analogy to the doctrine
of the Trinity.
Triads of divinities, no doubt, occur in nearly all polytheistic religions,
formed under very various influences. Sometimes as in the Egyptian triad of
Osiris, Isis and Horus, it is the analogy of the human family with its father,
mother and son which lies at their basis. Sometimes they are the effect of mere
syncretism, three deities worshipped in different localities being brought
together in the common worship of all. Sometimes, as in the Hindu triad of
Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, they represent the cyclic movement of a pantheistic
evolution, and symbolize the three stages of Being, Becoming and Dissolution.
Sometimes they are the result apparently of nothing more than an odd human
tendency to think in threes, which has given the number three widespread
standing as a sacred number (so H. Usener). It is no more than was to be
anticipated, that one or another of these triads should now and again be pointed
to as the replica (or even the original) of the Christian doctrine of the
found the Trinity in the Homeric mythology, the trident of Poseidon being its
symbol. Hegel very naturally found it in the Hindu Trimurti, which indeed is
very like his pantheizing notion of what the Trinity is. Others have perceived
it in the Buddhist Triratna (Soderblom); or (despite their crass dualism) in
some speculations of Parseeism; or, more frequently, in the notional triad of
Platonism (e. g., Knapp); while Jules Martin is quite sure that it is present in
Philo's neo-Stoical doctrine of the 'powers,' especially when applied to the
explanation of Abraham's three visitors. Of late years, eyes have been turned
rather to
and H. Zimmern finds a possible forerunner of the Trinity in a Father, Son, and
Intercessor, which he discovers in its mythology. It should be needless to say
that none of these triads has the slightest resemblance to the Christian
doctrine of the Trinity. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity embodies much
more than the notion of 'threeness,' and beyond their 'threeness' these triads
have nothing in common with it.
As the doctrine of the Trinity is indiscoverable by reason, so it is incapable
of proof from reason. There are no analogies to it in Nature, not even in the
spiritual nature of man, who is made in the image of God. In His trinitarian
mode of being, God is unique; and, as there is nothing in the universe like Him
in this respect, so there is nothing which can help us to comprehend Him. Many
attempts have, nevertheless, been made to construct a rational proof of the
Trinity of the Godhead. Among these there are two which are particularly
attractive, and have therefore been put forward again and again by speculative
thinkers through all the Christian ages. These are derived from the
implications, in the one case, of self-consciousness; in the other, of love.
Both self-consciousness and love, it is said, demand for their very existence an
object over against which the self stands as subject. If we conceive of God as
self-conscious and loving, therefore, we cannot help conceiving of Him as
embracing in His unity some form of plurality. From this general position both
arguments have been elaborated, however, by various thinkers in very varied
The former of them, for example, is developed by a great seventeenth century
theologian -- Bartholomew Keckermann (1614) -- as follows: God is self-conscious
thought: and God's thought must have a perfect object, existing eternally before
it; this object to be perfect must be itself God; and as God is one, this object
which is God must be the God that is one. It is essentially the same argument
which is popularized in a famous paragraph (73) of Lessing's 'The Education of
the Human Race.' Must not God have an absolutely perfect representation of
Himself - that is, a representation in which everything that is in Him is found?
And would everything that is in God be found in this representation if His
necessary reality were not found in it? If everything, everything without
exception, that is in God is to be found in this representation, it cannot,
therefore, remain a mere empty image, but must be an actual duplication of God.
It is obvious that arguments like this prove too much. If God's representation
of Himself, to be perfect, must possess the same kind of reality that He Himself
possesses, it does not seem easy to deny that His representations of everything
else must possess objective reality. And this would be as much as to say that
the eternal objective co-existence of all that God can conceive is given in the
very idea of God; and that is open pantheism. The logical flaw lies in including
in the perfection of a representation qualities which are not proper to
representations, however perfect. A perfect representation must, of course, have
all the reality proper to a representation; but objective reality is so little
proper to a representation that a representation acquiring it would cease to be
a representation. This fatal flaw is not transcended, but only covered up, when
the argument is compressed, as it is in most of its modern presentations, in
effect to the mere assertion that the condition of self-consciousness is a real
distinction between the thinking subject and the thought object, which, in God's
case, would be between the subject ego and the object ego. Why, however, we
should deny to God the power of self-contemplation enjoyed by every finite
spirit, save at the cost of the distinct hypostatizing of the contemplant and
the contemplated self, it is hard to understand. Nor is it always clear that
what we get is a distinct hypostatization rather than a distinct
substantializing of the contemplant and contemplated ego: not two persons in the
Godhead so much as two Gods. The discovery of the third hypostasis - the Holy
Spirit -remains meanwhile, to all these attempts rationally to construct a
Trinity in the Divine Being, a standing puzzle which finds only a very
artificial solution.
The case is much the same with the argument derived from the nature of love. Our
sympathies go out to that old Valentinian writer - possibly it was Valentinus
himself - who reasoned - perhaps he was the first so to reason - that 'God is
all love,' 'but love is not love unless there be an object of love.' And they go
out more richly still to Augustine, when, seeking a basis, not for a theory of
emanations, but for the doctrine of the Trinity, he analyzes this love which God
is into the triple implication of 'the lover,' 'the loved' and 'the love
itself,' and sees in this trinary of love an analogue of the Triune God. It
requires, however, only that the argument thus broadly suggested should be
developed into its details for its artificiality to become apparent. Richard of
St. Victor works it out as follows: It belongs to the nature of amor that it
should turn to another as caritas. This other, in God's case, cannot be the
world; since such love of the world would be inordinate. It can only be a
person; and a person who is God's equal in eternity, power and wisdom. Since,
however, there cannot be two Divine substances, these two Divine persons must
form one and the same substance. The best love cannot, however, con-fine itself
to these two persons; it must become condilectio by the desire that a third
should be equally loved as they love one another. Thus love, when perfectly
conceived, leads necessarily to the Trinity, and since God is all He can be,
this Trinity must be real. Modern writers (Sartorius, Schoberlein, J. Muller,
Liebner, most lately R. H. Griutzmacher) do not seem to have essentially
improved upon such a statement as this. And after all is said, it does not
appear clear that God's own all-perfect Being could not supply a satisfying
object of His all-perfect love. To say that in its very nature love is
self-communicative, and therefore implies an object other than self, seems an
abuse of figurative language.
Perhaps the ontological proof of the Trinity is nowhere more attractively put
than by Jonathan Edwards. The peculiarity of his presentation of it lies in an
attempt to add plausibility to it by a doctrine of the nature of spiritual ideas
or ideas of spiritual things, such as thought, love, fear, in general. Ideas of
such things, he urges, are just repetitions of them, so that he who has an idea
of any act of love, fear, anger or any other act or motion of the mind, simply
so far repeats the motion in question; and if the idea be perfect and complete,
the original motion of the mind is absolutely reduplicated. Edwards presses this
so far that he is ready to contend that if a man could have an absolutely
perfect idea of all that was in his mind at any past moment, he would really, to
all intents and purposes, be over again what he was at that moment. And if he
could perfectly contemplate all that is in his mind at any given moment, as it
is and at the same time that it is there in its first and direct existence, he
would really be two at that time, he would be twice at once: 'The idea he has of
himself would be himself again.' This now is the case with the Divine Being.
'God's idea of Himself is absolutely perfect, and therefore is an express and
perfect image of Him, exactly like Him in every respect. . . . But that which is
the express, perfect image of God and in every respect like Him is God, to all
intents and purposes, because there is nothing wanting: there is nothing in the
Deity that renders it the Deity but what has something exactly answering to it
in this image, which will therefore also render that the Deity.' The Second
Person of the Trinity being thus attained, the argument advances. 'The Godhead
being thus begotten of God's loving [having?] an idea of Himself and showing
forth in a distinct Subsistence or Person in that idea, there proceeds a most
pure act, and an infinitely holy and sacred energy arises between the Father and
the Son in mutually loving and delighting in each other.;. . . The Deity becomes
all act, the Divine essence itself flows out and is as it were breathed forth in
love and joy. So that the Godhead therein stands forth in yet another manner of
Subsistence, and there proceeds the Third Person in the Trinity, the Holy
Spirit, viz., the Deity in act, for there is no other act but the act of the
will.' The inconclusiveness of the reasoning lies on the surface. The mind does
not consist in its states, and the repetition of its states would not,
therefore, duplicate or triplicate it. If it did, we should have a plurality of
Beings, not of Persons in one Being. Neither God's perfect idea of Himself nor
His perfect love of Himself reproduces Himself. He differs from His idea and His
love of Himself precisely by that which distinguishes His Being from His acts.
When it is said, then, that there 15 nothing in the Deity which renders it the
Deity but what has something answering to it in its image of itself, it is
enough to respond - except the Deity itself. What is wanting to the image to
make it a second Deity is just objective reality.
Inconclusive as all such reasoning is, however, considered as rational
demonstration of the reality of the Trinity, it is very far from possessing no
value. It carries home to us in a very suggestive way the superiority of the
Trinitarian conception of God to the conception of Him as an abstract monad, and
thus brings important rational support to the doctrine of the Trinity, when once
that doctrine has been given us by revelation. If it is not quite possible to
say that we cannot conceive of God as eternal self-consciousness and eternal
love, without conceiving Him as a Trinity, it does seem quite necessary to say
that when we conceive Him as a Trinity, new fullness, richness, force are given
to our conception of Him as a self-conscious, loving Being, and therefore we
conceive Him more adequately than as a monad, and no one who has ever once
conceived Him as a Trinity can ever again satisfy himself with a monadistic
conception of God. Reason thus not only performs the important negative service
to faith in the Trinity, of showing the self-consistency of the doctrine and its
consistency with other known truth, but brings this positive rational support to
it of discovering in it the only adequate conception of God as self-conscious
spirit and living love. Difficult, therefore, as the idea of the Trinity in
itself is, it does not come to us as an added burden upon our intelligence; it
brings us rather the solution of the deepest and most persistent difficulties in
our conception of God as infinite moral Being, and illuminates, enriches and
elevates all our thought of God. It has accordingly become a commonplace to say
that Christian theism is the only stable theism. That is as much as to say that
theism requires the enriching conception of the Trinity to give it a permanent
hold upon the human mind - the mind finds it difficult to rest in the idea of an
abstract unity for its God; and that the human heart cries out for the living
God in whose Being there is that fullness of life for which the conception of
the Trinity alone provides.
So strongly is it felt in wide circles that a Trinitarian conception is
essential to a worthy idea of God, that there is abroad a deep-seated
unwillingness to allow that God could ever have made Himself known otherwise
than as a Trinity. From this point of view it is inconceivable that the Old
Testament revelation should know nothing of the Trinity. Accordingly, I. A.
Dorner, for example, reasons thus: 'If, however - and this is the faith of
universal Christendom - a living idea of God must be thought in some way after a
Trinitarian fashion, it must be antecedently probable that traces of the Trinity
cannot be lacking in the Old Testament, since its idea of God is a living or
historical one.' Whether there really exist traces of the idea of the Trinity in
the Old Testament, however, is a nice question. Certainly we cannot speak
broadly of the revelation of the doctrine of the Trinity in the Old Testament.
It is a plain matter of fact that none who have depended on the revelation
embodied in the Old Testament alone have ever attained to the doctrine of the
Trinity. It is another question, however, whether there may not exist in the
pages of the Old Testament turns of expression or. records of occurrences in
which one already acquainted with the doctrine of the Trinity may fairly see
indications of an underlying implication of it. The older writers discovered
intimations of the Trinity in such phenomena as the plural form of the Divine
name Elohim, the occasional employment with reference to God of plural pronouns
('Let us make man in our image,' Gen. i. 26; iii. 22; xi. 7; Isa. vi. 8), or of
plural verbs (Gen. xx. 13; xxxv. 7), certain repetitions of the name of God
which seem to distinguish between God and God (Ps. xlv. 6, 7; cx. 1; Hos. i. 7),
threefold liturgical formulas Num. vi. 24, 26; Isa. vi. 3), a certain tendency
to hypostatize the conception of Wisdom (Prov. viii.), and especially the
remarkable phenomena connected with the appearances of the Angel of Jehovah
(Gen. xvi. 2-13, xxii. 11. 16; xxxi. 11,13; xlviii. 15,16; Ex. iii. 2, 4, 5; Jgs.
xiii. 20-22). The tendency of more recent authors is to appeal, not so much to
specific texts of the Old Testament, as to the very 'organism of revelation' in
the Old Testament in which there is perceived an underlying suggestion 'that all
things owe their existence and persistence to a threefold cause,' both with
reference to the first creation, and, more plainly, with reference to the second
creation. Passages like Ps. xxxiii. 6; Isa. lxi. 1; lxiii. 9-12 Hag. ii. 5, 6,
in which God and His Word and His Spirit are brought together, co-causes of
effects, are adduced. A tendency is pointed out to hypostatize the Word of God
on the one hand (e.g., Gen. i. 3; Ps. xxxiii. 6; cvii. 20; cxlvii. 15-18 Isa. lv.
11); and, especially in Ezek. and the later Prophets, the Spirit of God, on the
other (e. g., Gen. i. 2; Isa. xlviii. 16; lxiii. 10; Ezek. ii. 2; viii. 3; Zec.
vii. 12). Suggestions - in Isa. for instance (vii. 14; ix. 6) - of the Deity of
the Messiah are appealed to. And if the occasional occurrence of plural verbs
and pronouns referring to God, and the plural form of the name Elohim are not
insisted upon as in themselves evidence of a multiplicity in the Godhead, yet a
certain weight is lent them as witnesses that 'the God of revelation is no
abstract unity, but the living, true God who in the fullness of His life
embraces the highest variety' (Bavinek). The upshot of it all is that it is very
generally felt that, somehow, in the Old Testament development of the idea of
God there is a suggestion that the Deity is not a simple monad, and that thus a
preparation is made for the revelation of the Trinity yet to come. It would seem
clear that we must recognize in the Old Testament doctrine of the relation of
God to His revelation by the creative Word and the Spirit, at least the germ of
the distinctions in the Godhead afterward fully made known in the Christian
revelation. And we can scarcely stop there. After all is said, in the light of
the later revelation, the Trinitarian interpretation remains the most natural
one of the phenomena which the older writers frankly interpreted as intimations
of the Trinity; especially of those connected with the descriptions of the Angel
of Jehovah no doubt, but also even of such a form of expression as meets us in
the 'Let us make man in our image' of Gen. i. 26--- for surely verse 27: 'And
God created man in his own image,' does not encourage us to take the preceding
verse as announcing that man was to be created in the image of the angels. This
is not an illegitimate reading of New Testament ideas back into the text of the
Old Testament; it is only reading the text of the Old Testament under the
illumination of the New Testament revelation. The Old Testament may be likened
to a chamber richly furnished but dimly lighted; the introduction of light
brings into it nothing which was not in it before; but it brings out into
clearer view much of what is in it but was only dimly or even not at all
perceived before. The mystery of the Trinity is not revealed in the Old
Testament; but the mystery of the Trinity underlies the Old Testament
revelation, and here and there almost comes into view. Thus the Old Testament
revelation of God is not corrected by the fuller revelation which follows it,
but only perfected, extended and enlarged.
It is an old saying that what becomes patent in the New Testament was latent in
the Old Testament. And it is important that the continuity of the revelation of
God contained in the two Testaments should not be overlooked or obscured. If we
find some difficulty in perceiving for ourselves, in the Old Testament, definite
points of attachment for the revelation of the Trinity, we cannot help
perceiving with great clearness in the New Testament abundant evidence that its
writers felt no incongruity whatever between their doctrine of the Trinity and
the Old Testament conception of God. The New Testament writers certainly were
not conscious of being 'setters forth of strange gods.' To their own
apprehension they worshipped and proclaimed just the God of Israel; and they
laid no less stress than the Old Testament itself upon His unity (Jn. xvii. 3; I
Cor. viii. 4; I Tim. ii. 5). They do not, then, place two new gods by the side
of Jehovah as alike with Him to be served and worshipped; they conceive Jehovah
as Himself at once Father, Son and Spirit. In presenting this one Jehovah as
Father, Son and Spirit, they do not even betray any lurking feeling that they
are making innovations. Without apparent misgiving they take over Old Testament
passages and apply them to Father, Son and Spirit indifferently. Obviously they
understand themselves, and wish to be understood, as setting forth in the
Father, Son and Spirit just the one God that the God of the Old Testament
revelation is; and they are as far as possible from recognizing any breach
between themselves and the Fathers in presenting their enlarged conception of
the Divine Being. This may not amount to saying that they saw the doctrine of
the Trinity everywhere taught in the Old Testament. It certainly amounts to
saying that they saw the Triune God whom they worshipped in the God of the Old
Testament revelation, and felt no incongruity in speaking of their Triune God in
the terms of the Old Testament revelation. The God of the Old Testament was
their God, and their God was a Trinity, and their sense of the identity of the
two was so complete that no question as to it was raised in their minds.
The simplicity and assurance with which the New Testament writers speak of God
as a Trinity have, however, a further implication. If they betray no sense of
novelty in so speaking of Him, this is undoubtedly in part because it was no
longer a novelty so to speak of Him. It is clear, in other words, that, as we
read the New Testament, we are not witnessing the birth of a new conception of
God. What we meet with in its pages is a firmly established conception of God
underlying and giving its tone to the whole fabric. It is not in a text here and
there that the New Testament bears its testimony to the doctrine of the Trinity.
The whole book is Trinitarian to the core; all its teaching is built on the
assumption of the Trinity; and its allusions to the Trinity are frequent,
cursory, easy and confident. It is with a view to the cursoriness of the
allusions to it in the New Testament that it has been remarked that 'the
doctrine of the Trinity is not so much heard as overheard in the statements of
Scripture.' It would be more exact to say that it is not so much inculcated as
presupposed. The doctrine of the Trinity does not appear in the New Testament in
the making, but as already made. It takes its place in its pages, as Gunkel
phrases it, with an air almost of complaint, already 'in full completeness' (vollig
fertig), leaving no trace of its growth. 'There is nothing more wonderful in the
history of human thought,' says Sanday, with his eye on the appearance of the
doctrine of the Trinity in the New Testament, 'than the silent and imperceptible
way in which this doctrine, to us so difficult, took its place without struggle
- and without controversy - among accepted Christian truths.' The explanation of
this remarkable phenomenon is, however, simple. Our New Testament is not a
record of the development of the doctrine or of its assimilation. It everywhere
presupposes the doctrine as the fixed possession of the Christian community; and
the process by which it became the possession of the Christian community lies
behind the New Testament.
We cannot speak of the doctrine of the Trinity, therefore, if we study exactness
of speech, as revealed in the New Testament, any more than we can speak of it as
revealed in the Old Testament. The Old Testament was written before its
revelation; the New Testament after it. The revelation itself was made not in
word but in deed. It was made in the incarnation of God the Son, and the
outpouring of God the Holy Spirit. The relation of the two Testaments to this
revelation is in the one case that of preparation for it, and in the other that
of product of it. The revelation itself is embodied just in Christ and the Holy
Spirit. This is as much as to say that the revelation of the Trinity was
incidental to, and the inevitable effect of, the accomplishment of redemption.
It was in the coming of the Son of God in the likeness of sinful flesh to offer
Himself a sacrifice for sin; and in the coming of the Holy Spirit to convict the
world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment, that the Trinity of Persons in
the Unity of the Godhead was once for all revealed to men. Those who knew God
the Father, who loved them and gave His own Son to die for them; and the Lord
Jesus Christ, who loved them and delivered Himself up an offering and sacrifice
for them; and the Spirit of Grace, who loved them and dwelt within them a power
not themselves, making for righteousness, knew the Triune God and could not
think or speak of God otherwise than as triune. The doctrine of the Trinity, in
other words, is simply the modification wrought in the conception of the one
only God by His complete revelation of Himself in the redemptive process. It
necessarily waited, therefore, upon the completion of the redemptive process for
its revelation, and its revelation, as necessarily, lay complete in the
redemptive process.
From this central fact we may understand more fully several circumstances
connected with the revelation of the Trinity to which allusion has been made. We
may from it understand, for example, why the Trinity was not revealed in the Old
Testament. It may carry us a little way to remark, as it has been customary to
remark since the time of Gregory of Nazianzus, that it was the task of the Old
Testament revelation to fix firmly in the minds and hearts of the people of God
the great fundamental truth of the unity of the Godhead; and it would have been
dangerous to speak to them of the plurality within this unity until this task
had been fully accomplished. The real reason for the delay in the revelation of
the Trinity, however, is grounded in the secular development of the redemptive
purpose of God: the times were not ripe for the revelation of the Trinity in the
unity of the Godhead until the fullness of the time had come for God to send
forth His Son unto redemption, and His Spirit unto sanctification. The
revelation in word must needs wait upon the revelation in fact, to which it
brings its necessary explanation, no doubt, but from which also it derives its
own entire significance and value. The revelation of a Trinity in the Divine
unity as a mere abstract truth without relation to manifested fact, and without
significance to the development of the kingdom of God, would have been foreign
to the whole method of the Divine procedure as it lies exposed to us in the
pages of Scripture. Here the working-out of the Divine purpose supplies the
fundamental principle to which all else, even the progressive stages of
revelation itself, is subsidiary; and advances in revelation are ever closely
connected with the advancing accomplishment of the redemptive purpose. We may
understand also, however, from the same central fact, why it is that the
doctrine of the Trinity lies in the New Testament rather in the form of
allusions than in express teaching, why it is rather everywhere presupposed,
coming only here and there into incidental expression, than formally inculcated.
It is because the revelation, having been made in the actual occurrences of
redemption, was already the common property of all Christian hearts. In speaking
and writing to one another, Christians, therefore, rather spoke out of their
common Trinitarian consciousness, and reminded one another of their common fund
of belief, than instructed one another in what was already the common property
of all. We are to look for, and we shall find, in the New Testament allusions to
the Trinity, rather evidence of how the Trinity, believed in by all, was
conceived by the authoritative teachers of the church, than formal attempts, on
their part, by authoritative declarations, to bring the church into the
understanding that God is a Trinity.
The fundamental proof that God is a Trinity is supplied thus by the fundamental
revelation of the Trinity in fact: that is to say, in the incarnation of God the
Son and the outpouring of God the Holy Spirit. In a word, Jesus Christ and the
Holy Spirit are the fundamental proof of the doctrine of the Trinity. This is as
much as to say that all the evidence of whatever kind, and from whatever source
derived, that Jesus Christ is God manifested in the flesh, and that the Holy
Spirit is a Divine Person, is just so much evidence for the doctrine of the
Trinity; and that when we go to the New Testament for evidence of the Trinity we
are to seek it; not merely in the scattered allusions to the Trinity as such,
numerous and instructive as they are, but primarily in the whole mass of
evidence which the New Testament provides of the Deity of Christ and the Divine
personality of the Holy Spirit. When we have said this, we have said in effect
that the whole mass of the New Testament is evidence for the Trinity. For the
New Testament is saturated with evidence of the Deity of Christ and the Divine
personality of the Holy Spirit. Precisely what the New Testament is, is the
documentation of the religion of the incarnate Son and of the outpourcd Spirit,
that is to say, of the religion of the Trinity, and what we mean by the doctrine
of the Trinity is nothing but the formulation in exact language of the
conception of God presupposed in the religion of the incarnate Son and outpoured
Spirit. We may analyze this conception and adduce proof for every constituent
element of it from the New Testament declarations. We may show that the New
Testament everywhere insists on the unity of the Godhead; that it constantly
recognizes the Father as God, the Son as God and the Spirit as God; and that it
cursorily presents these three to us as distinct Persons. It is not necessary,
however, to enlarge here on facts so obvious. We may content ourselves with
simply observing that to the New Testament there is but one only living and true
God; but that to it Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are each God in the fullest
sense of the term; and yet Father, Son and Spirit stand over against each other
as I, and Thou, and He. In this composite fact the New Testament gives us the
doctrine of the Trinity. For the doctrine of the Trinity is but the statement in
well guarded language of this composite fact. Throughout the whole course of the
many efforts to formulate the doctrine exactly, which have followed one another
during the entire history of the church, indeed, the principle which has ever
determined the result has always been determination to do justice in conceiving
the relations of God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit, on the one hand
to the unity of God, and, on the other, to the true Deity of the Son and Spirit
and their distinct personalities. When we have said these three things, then -
that there is but one God, that the Father and the Son and the Spirit is each
God, that the Father and the Son and the Spirit is each a distinct person - we
have enunciated the doctrine of the Trinity in its completeness.
That this doctrine underlies the whole New Testament as its constant
presupposition and determines everywhere its forms of expression is the primary
fact to be noted. We must not omit explicitly to note, however, that it now and
again also, as occasion arises for its incidental enunciation, comes itself to
expression in more or less completeness of statement. The passages in which the
three Persons of the Trinity are brought together are much more numerous than,
perhaps, is generally supposed; but it should be recognized that the for- mal
collocation of the elements of the doctrine naturally is relatively rare in
writings which are occasional in their origin and practical rather than
doctrinal in their immediate purpose. The three Persons already come into view
as Divine Persons in the annunciation of the birth of Our Lord: 'The Holy Ghost
shall come upon thee,' said the angel to Mary, 'and the power of the Most High
shall overshadow thee: wherefore also the holy thing which is to be born shall
be called the Son of God; (Lk. i. 35 m; cf. Mt. i. 18 ff.). Here the Holy Ghost
is the active agent in the production of an effect which is also ascribed to the
power of the Most High, and the child thus brought into the world is given the
great designation of 'Son of God.' The three Persons are just as clearly brought
before us in the account of Mt. (i. 18 ff.), though the allusions to them are
dispersed through a longer stretch of narrative, in the course of which the
Deity of the child is twice intimated (ver. 21: 'It is He that shall save His
people from their sins'; ver. 23: 'They shall call His name Immanuel; which is,
being interpreted, God-with-us'). In the baptismal scene which finds record by
all the evangelists at the opening of Jesus' ministry (Mt. iii. 16, 17; Mk. i.
10, 11; Lk. iii. 21, 22; Jn. i. 32-34), the three Persons are thrown up to sight
in a dramatic picture in which the Deity of each is strongly emphasized. From
the open heavens the Spirit descends in visible form, and 'a voice came out of
the heavens, Thou art my Son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.' Thus care
seems to have been taken to make the advent of the Son of God into the world the
revelation also of the Triune God, that the minds of men might as smoothly as
possible adjust themselves to the preconditions of the Divine redemption which
was in process of being wrought out.
With this as a starting-point, the teaching of Jesus is Trinitarianly
conditioned throughout. He has much to say of God His Father, from whom as His
Son He is in some true sense distinct, and with whom He is in some equally true
sense one. And He has much to say of the Spirit, who represents Him as He
represents the Father, and by whom He works as the Father works by Him. It is
not merely in the Gospel of John that such representations occur in the teaching
of Jesus. In the Synoptics, too, Jesus claims a Sonship to God which is unique
(Mt. xi. 27; xxiv. 36; Mk. xiii. 32; Lk. x. 22; in the following passages the
title of 'Son of God' is attributed to Him and accepted by Him: Mt. iv. 6; viii.
29; xiv. 33; xxvii. 40, 43, 54; Mk. iii. 11; xv. 39; Lk. iv. 41; xxii. 70; cf.
Jn. i. 34, 49; ix. 35; xi. 27), and which involves an absolute community between
the two in knowledge, say, and power: both Mt. (xi. 27) and Lk. (x. 22) record
His great declaration that He knows the Father and the Father knows Him with
perfect mutual knowledge: 'No one knoweth the Son, save the Father; neither doth
any know the Father, save the Son.' In the Synoptics, too, Jesus speaks of
employing the Spirit of God Himself for the performance of His works, as if the
activities of God were at His disposal: 'I by the Spirit of God' --- or as Luke
has it, 'by the finger of God' - 'cast out demons' (Mt. xii. 28; Lk. xi. 20; cf.
the promise of the Spirit in Mk. xiii. 11; Lk. xii. 12).
It is in the discourses recorded in John, however, that Jesus most copiously
refers to the unity of Himself, as the Son, with the Father, and to the mission
of the Spirit from Himself as the dispenser of the Divine activities. Here He
not only with great directness declares that He and the Father are one (x. 30;
cf. xvii. 11, 21, 22, 25) with a unity of interpenetration ('The Father is in
me, and I in the Father,' x. 38; cf. xvi. 10, 11), so that to have seen Him was
to have seen the Father (xiv. 9; cf. xv. 21); but He removes all doubt as to the
essential nature of His oneness with the Father by explicitly asserting His
eternity ('Before Abraham was born, I am,' Jn. viii. 58), His co-eternity with
God ('had with thee before the world was,' xvii. 5; cf. xvii. 18; vi. 62), His
eternal participation in the Divine glory itself ('the glory which I had with
thee,' in fellowship, community with Thee 'before the world was,' xvii. 5). So
clear is it that in speaking currently of Himself as God's Son (v.25; ix. 35; xi.
4; cf. x. 36), He meant, in accordance with the underlying significance of the
idea of sonship in Semitic speech (founded on the natural implication that
whatever the father is that the son is also; cf. xvi. 15; xvii. 10), to make
Himself, as the Jews with exact appreciation of His meaning perceived, 'equal
with God' (v.18), or, to put it brusquely, just 'God' (x. 33). How He, being
thus equal or rather identical with God, was in the world, He explains as
involving a coming forth on His part, not merely from the presence of God (xvi.
30; cf. xiii. 3) or from fellowship with God (xvi. 27; xvii. 8), but from out of
God Himself (viii. 42; xvi. 28). And in the very act of thus asserting that His
eternal home is in the depths of the Divine Being, He throws up, into as strong
an emphasis as stressed pronouns can convey, His personal distinctness from the
Father. 'If God were your Father,' says He (viii. 42), 'ye would love me: for I
came forth and am come out of God; for neither have I come of myself, but it was
He that sent me.' Again, He says (xvi. 26, 27):' In that day ye shall ask in my
name: and I say not unto you that I will make request of the Father for you; for
the Father Himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that
it was from fellowship with the Father that I came forth; I came from out of the
Father, and have come into the world.' Less pointedly, but still distinctly, He
says again (xvii. 8): ' They know of a truth that it was from fellowship with
Thee that I came forth, and they believed that it was Thou that didst send me.'
It is not necessary to illustrate more at large a form of expression so
characteristic of the discourses of Our Lord recorded by John that it meets us
on every page: a form of expression which combines a clear implication of a
unity of Father and Son which is identity of Being, and an equally clear
implication of a distinction of Person between them such as allows not merely
for the play of emotions between them, as, for instance, of love (xvii. 24; cf.
xv. 9 [iii. 35]; xiv. 31), but also of an action and reaction upon one another
which argues a high measure, if not of exteriority, yet certainly of
exteriorization. Thus, to instance only one of the most outstanding facts of Our
Lord's discourses (not indeed confined to those in John's Gospel, but found also
in His sayings recorded in the Synoptists, as e.g., Lk. iv. 43 [cf. j Mk. i.
38]; ix. 48; x. 16; iv. 34; v.32; vii. 19; xix. 10), He continually represents
Himself as on the one hand sent by God, and as, on the other, having come forth
from the Father (e. g., Jn. viii. 42; x. 36; xvii. 3; v.23).
It is more important to point out that these phenomena of interrelationship are
not confined to the Father and Son, but are extended also to the Spirit. Thus,
for example, in a context in which Our Lord had emphasized in the strongest
manner His own essential unity and continued interpenetration with the Father
('If ye had known me, ye would have known my Father also'; 'He that hath seen me
hath seen the Father'; . ,, 'I am in the Father, and the Father in me ; 'The
Father abiding in me doeth his works,' Jn. xiv. 7, 9, 10), we read as follows (Jn.
xiv. 16-26): 'And I will make request of the Father, and He shall give you
another [thus sharply distinguished from Our Lord as a distinct Person]
Advocate, that He may be with you forever, the Spirit of Truth . . . He abideth
with you and shall be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I come unto you. . .
In that day ye shall know that I am in the Father. . . . If a man love me, he
will keep my word; and my Father will love him and we [that is, both Father and
Son] will come unto him and make our abode with him. . . . These things have I
spoken unto you while abiding with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom
the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and bring to
your remembrance all that I said unto you.' It would be impossible to speak more
distinctly of three who were yet one. The Father, Son and Spirit are constantly
distinguished from one another --- the Son makes request of the Father, and the
Father in response to this request gives an Advocate, 'another' than the Son,
who is sent in the Son's name. And yet the oneness of these three is so kept in
sight that the coming of this 'another Advocate' is spoken of without
embarrassment as the coming of the Son Himself (vs. 18, 19, 20, 21), and indeed
as the coming of the Father and the Son (ver. 23). There is a sense, then, in
which, when Christ goes away, the Spirit comes in His stead; there is also a
sense in which, when the Spirit comes, Christ comes in Him; and with Christ's
coming the Father comes too. There is a distinction between the Persons brought
into view; and with it an identity among them; for both of which allowance must
be made. The same phenomena meet us in other passages. Thus, we read again (xv.
26):' But when there is come the Advocate whom I will send unto you from
[fellowship with] the Father, the Spirit of Truth, which goeth forth from
[fellowship with] the Father, He shall bear witness of me.' In the compass of
this single verse, it is intimated that the Spirit is personally distinct from
the Son, and yet, like Him, has His eternal home (in fellowship) with the
Father, from whom He, like the Son, comes forth for His saving work, being sent
thereunto, however, not in this instance by the Father, but by the Son.
This last feature is even more strongly emphasized in yet another passage in
which the work of the Spirit in relation to the Son is presented as closely
parallel with the work of the Son in relation to the Father (xvi. 5 ff.) . 'But
now I go unto Him that sent me. . . . Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is
expedient for you that I go away; for, if I go not away the Advocate will not
come unto you; but if I go I will send Him unto you. And He, after He is come,
will convict the world . . . of righteousness because I go to the Father and ye
behold me no more. . . . I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot
bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth is come, He shall guide you
into all the truth; for He shall not speak from Himself; but what things soever
He shall hear, He shall speak, and He shall declare unto you the things that are
to come. He shall glorify me: for He shall take of mine and shall show it unto
you. All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine: therefore said I that He
taketh of mine, and shall declare it unto you.' Here the Spirit is sent by the
Son, and comes in order to complete and apply the Son's work, receiving His
whole commission from the Son - not, however, in derogation of the Father,
because when we speak of the things of the Son, that is to speak of the things
of the Father.
It is not to be said, of course, that the doctrine of the Trinity is formulated
in passages like these, with which the whole mass of Our Lord's discourses in
John are strewn; but it certainly is presupposed in them, and that is,
considered from the point of view of their probative force, even better. As we
read we are kept in continual contact with three Persons who act, each as a
distinct person, and yet who are in a deep, under lying sense, one. There is but
one God - there is never any question of that - and yet this Son who has been
sent into the world by God not only represents God but is God, and this Spirit
whom the Son has in turn sent unto the world is also Himself God. Nothing could
be clearer than that the Son and Spirit are distinct Persons, unless indeed it
be that the Son of God is just God the Son and the Spirit of God just God the
Meanwhile, the nearest approach to a formal announcement of the doctrine of the
Trinity which is recorded from Our Lord's lips, or, perhaps we may say, which is
to be found in the whole compass of the New Testament, has been preserved for
us, not by John, but by one of the synoptists. It too, however, is only
incidentally introduced, and has for its main object something very different
from formulating the doctrine of the Trinity. It is embodied in the great
commission which the resurrected Lord gave His disciples to be their 'marching
orders' 'even unto the end of the world': 'Go ye therefore, and make disciples
of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit' (Mt. xxviii. 19). 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 of the Son and of the Holy Ghost'; nor yet
(what might be taken to be 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 the 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 '(Authorized Version). These
three, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, each stand 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. Fully to comprehend the implication of this mode
of statement, we must bear in mind, further, the significance of the term, 'the
name,' and the associations laden with which it came to the recipients of this
commission. For the Hebrew did not think of the name, as we are accustomed to
do, as a mere external symbol; but rather as the adequate expression of the
innermost being of its bearer. In His name the Being of God finds expression;
and the Name of God - 'this glorious and fearful name, Jehovah thy God' (Deut.
xxviii. 58) - was accordingly a most sacred thing, being indeed virtually
equivalent to God Himself. It is no solecism, therefore, when we read (Isa. xxx.
27), 'Behold, the name of Jehovah cometh'; and the parallelisms are most
instructive when we read (Isa. lix. 19):' So shall they fear the Name of Jehovah
from the west, and His glory from the rising of the sun; for He shall come as a
stream pent in which the Spirit of Jehovah driveth.' So pregnant was the
implication of the Name, that it was possible for the term to stand absolutely,
without adjunction of the name itself, as the sufficient representative of the
majesty of Jehovah: it was a terrible thing to 'blaspheme the Name' (Lev. xxiv.
11). All those over whom Jehovah's Name was called were His, His possession to
whom He owed protection. It is for His Name's sake, therefore, that afflicted
Judah cries to the Hope of Israel, the Saviour thereof in time of trouble: '0
Jehovah, Thou art in the midst of us, and Thy Name is called upon us; leave us
not' (Jer. xiv. 9); and His people find the appropriate expression of their
deepest shame in the lament, 'We have become as they over whom Thou never barest
rule; as they upon whom Thy Name was not called' (Isa. lxiii. 19); while the
height of joy is attained in the cry, 'Thy Name, Jehovah, G6d of Hosts, is
called upon me' (Jer. xv. 16; cf. II Chron. vii. 14; Dan. ix. 18, 19). When,
therefore, Our Lord commanded His disciples to baptize those whom they brought
to His obedience 'into the name of . . . ,' He was using language charged to
them with high meaning. He could not have been understood otherwise than as
substituting for the Name of Jehovah this other Name 'of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost'; and this could not possibly have meant to His
disciples anything else than that Jehovah was now to be known to them by the new
Name, of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The only alternative would
have been that, for the community which He was founding, Jesus was supplanting
Jehovah by a new God; and this alternative is no less than monstrous. There is
no alternative, therefore, to understanding Jesus here to be giving for His
community a new Name to Jehovah and that new Name to be the threefold Name of
'the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.' Nor is there room for doubt that
by 'the Son 'in this threefold Name, He meant just Himself with all the
implications of distinct personality which this carries with it; and, of course,
that further carries with it the equally distinct personality of 'the Father'
and 'the Holy Ghost,' with whom 'the Son' is here associated, and from whom
alike 'the Son' is here distinguished. This is a direct ascription to Jehovah
the God of Israel, of a threefold personality, and is therewith the direct
enunciation of the doctrine of the Trinity. We are not witnessing here the birth
of the doctrine of the Trinity; that is presupposed. What we are witnessing is
the authoritative announcement of the Trinity as the God of Christianity by its
Founder, in one of the most solemn of His recorded declarations.
Israel had
worshipped the one only true God under the Name of Jehovah; Christians are to
worship the same one only and true God under the Name of 'the Father, and the
Son, and the Holy Ghost.' This is the distinguishing characteristic of
Christians; and that is as much as to say that the doctrine of the Trinity is,
according to Our Lord's own apprehension of it, the distinctive mark of the
religion which He founded.
A passage of such range of implication has, of course, not escaped criticism and
challenge. An attempt which cannot be characterized as other than frivolous has
even been made to dismiss it from the text of Matthew's Gospel. Against this,
the whole body of external evidence cries out; and the internal evidence is of
itself not less decisive to the same effect. When the 'universalism,'
'ecclesiasticism,' and 'high theology' of the passage are pleaded against its
genuineness, it is forgotten that to the Jesus of Matthew there are attributed
not only such parables as those of the Leaven and the Mustard Seed, but such
declarations as those contained in viii. 11,12; xxi. 43; xxiv. 14; that in this
Gospel alone is Jesus recorded as speaking familiarly about His church (xvi. 18;
xviii. 17); and that, after the great declaration of xi. 27 ff., nothing
remained in lofty attribution to be assigned to Him. When these same objections
are urged against recognizing the passage as an authentic saying of Jesus' own,
it is quite obvious that the Jesus of the evangelists cannot be in mind. The
declaration here recorded is quite in character with the Jesus of Matthew's
Gospel, as has just been intimated; and no less with the Jesus of the whole New
Testament transmission. It will scarcely do, first to construct a priori a Jesus
to our own liking, and then to discard as 'unhistorical' all in the New
Testament transmission which would be unnatural to such a Jesus. It is not these
discarded passages but our a priori Jesus which is unhistorical. In the present
instance, moreover, the historicity of the assailed saying is protected by an
important historical relation in which it stands. It is not merely Jesus who
speaks out of a Trinitarian consciousness, but all the New Testament writers as
well. The universal possession by His followers of so firm a hold on such a
doctrine requires the assumption that some such teaching as is here attributed
to Him was actually contained in Jesus' instructions to His followers. Even had
it not been attributed to Him in so many words by the record, we should have had
to assume that some such declaration had been, made by Him. In these
circumstances, there can be no good reason to doubt that it was made by Him,
when it is expressly attributed to Him by the record.
When we turn from the discourses of Jesus to the writings of His followers with
a view to observing how the assumption of the doctrine of the Trinity underlies
their whole fabric also, we naturally go first of all to the letters of Paul.
Their very mass is impressive; and the definiteness with which their composition
within a generation of the death of Jesus may be fixed adds importance to them
as historical witnesses. Certainly they leave nothing to be desired in the
richness of their testimony to the Trinitarian conception of God which underlies
them. Throughout the whole series, from I Thess., which comes from about 52
A.D., to II Tim., which was written about 68 A.D., the redemption, which it is
their one business to proclaim and commend, and all the blessings which enter
into it or accompany it are referred consistently to a threefold Divine
causation. Everywhere, throughout their pages, God the Father, the Lord Jesus
Christ, and the Holy Spirit appear as the joint objects of all religious
adoration, and the conjunct source of all Divine operations. In the freedom of
the allusions which are made to them, now and again one alone of the three is
thrown up into prominent view; but more often two of them are conjoined in
thanksgiving or prayer; and not infrequently all three are brought together as
the apostle strives to give some adequate expression to his sense of
indebtedness to the Divine source of all good for blessings received, or to his
longing on behalf of himself or of his readers for further communion with the
God of grace. It is regular for him to begin his Epistles with a prayer for
'grace and peace' for his readers, 'from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus
Christ,' as the joint source of these Divine blessings by way of eminence (Rom.
i. 7; I Cor. i. 3; II Cor. i. 2; Gal. i. 3; Eph. i. 2; Phil. i. 2;II Thess. i.
2;I Tim. i. 2;II Tim. i. 2; Philem. ver. 3; cf. I Thess. i. 1). It is obviously
no departure from this habit in the essence of the matter, but only in relative
fullness of expression, when in the opening words of the Epistle to the
Colossians the clause 'and the Lord Jesus Christ' is omitted, and we read
merely: 'Grace to you and peace from God our Father.' So also it would have been
no departure from it in the essence of the matter, but only in relative fullness
of expression, if in any instance the name of the Holy Spirit had chanced to be
adjoined to the other two, as in the single instance of II Cor. xiii. 14 it is
adjoined to them in the closing prayer for grace with which Paul ends his
letters, and which ordinarily takes the simple form of, 'the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ be with you' (Rom. xvi. 20; I Cor. xvi. 23; Gal. vi. 18; Phil. iv,
23; I Thess. v.28; II Thess. iii. 18; Philem. ver. 25; more expanded form, Eph.
vi. 23, 24; more compressed, Col. iv. 18; I Tim. vi. 21; II Tim. iv. 22; Tit.
iii. 15). Between these opening and closing passages the allusions to God the
Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit are constant and most
intricately interlaced. Paul's monotheism is intense: the first premise of all
his thought on Divine things is the unity of God (Rom. iii. 30; I Cor. viii. 4;
Gal iii. 20; Eph. iv. 6;I Tim. ii. 5; cf. Rom. xvi. 22; I Tim. i. 17). Yet to
him God the Father is no more God than the Lord Jesus Christ is God, or the Holy
Spirit is God. The Spirit of God is to him related to God as the spirit of man
is to man (I Cor. ii. 11), and therefore if the Spirit of God dwells in us, that
is God dwelling in us (Rom. viii. 10 ff.), and we are by that fact constituted
temples of God (I Cor. iii. 16). And no expression is too strong for him to use
in order to assert the Godhead of Christ: He is 'our great God' (Tit. ii. 13);
He is 'God over all' (Rom. ix. 5); and indeed it is expressly declared of Him
that the 'fullness of the Godhead,' that is, everything that enters into Godhead
and constitutes it Godhead, dwells in Him. In the very act of asserting his
monotheism Paul takes Our Lord up into this unique Godhead. 'There is no God but
one,' he roundly asserts, and then illustrates and proves this assertion by
remarking that the heathen may have 'gods many, and lords many,' but 'to us
there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto him; and one
Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him' (I Cor.
viii. 6). Obviously, this 'one God, the Father,' and 'one Lord, Jesus Christ,'
are embraced together in the one God who alone is. Paul's conception of the one
God, whom alone he worships, includes, in other words, a recognition that within
the unity of His Being, there exists such a distinction of Persons as is given
us in the 'one God, the Father' and the 'one Lord, Jesus Christ.'
In numerous passages scattered through Paul's Epistles, from the earliest of
them (I Thess. i. 2-5; II Thess. ii. 13, 14) to the latest (Tit. iii. 4-6; II
Tim. i. 3, 13,14), all three Persons, God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ and
the Holy Spirit, are brought together, in the most incidental manner, as
co-sources of all the saving blessings which come to believers in Christ. A
typical series of such passages may be found in Eph. ii. 18; iii. 2-5,14, 17;
iv. 4-6; v.18-20. But the most interesting instances are offered to us perhaps
by the Epistles to the Corinthians. In I Cor. xii. 4-6 Paul presents the
abounding spiritual gifts with which the church was blessed in a threefold
aspect, and connects these aspects with the three Divine Persons. 'Now there are
diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are diversities of
ministrations, and the same Lord. And there are diversities of workings, but the
same God, who worketh all things in all.' It may be thought that there is a
measure of what might almost be called artificiality in assigning the endowments
of the church, as they are graces to the Spirit, as they are services to Christ,
and as they are energizings to God. But thus there is only the more strikingly
revealed the underlying Trinitarian conception as dominating the structure of
the clauses: Paul clearly so writes, not because 'gifts,' 'workings,'
'operations' stand out in his thought as greatly diverse things, but because
God, the Lord, and the Spirit lie in the back of his mind constantly suggesting
a threefold causality behind every manifestation of grace. The Trinity is
alluded to rather than asserted; but it is so alluded to as to show that it
constitutes the determining basis of all Paul's thought of the God of
redemption. Even more instructive is II Cor. xiii. 14, which has passed into
general liturgical use in the churches as a benediction: 'The grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with
you all.' Here the three highest redemptive blessings are brought together, and
attached distributively to the three Persons of the Triune God. There is again
no formal teaching of the doctrine of the Trinity; there is only another
instance of natural speaking out of a Trinitarian consciousness. Paul is simply
thinking of the Divine source of these great blessings; but he habitually thinks
of this Divine source of redemptive blessings after a trinal fashion. He
therefore does not say, as he might just as well have said, 'The grace and love
and communion of God be with you all,' but 'The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.'
Thus he bears, almost unconsciously but most richly, witness to the trinal
composition of the Godhead as conceived by Him.
The phenomena of Paul's Epistles are repeated in the other writings of the New
Testament. In these other writings also it is everywhere assumed that the
redemptive activities of God rest on a threefold source in God the Father, the
Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit; and these three Persons repeatedly come
forward together in the expressions of Christian hope or the aspirations of
Christian devotion (e. g., Heb. ii. 3, 4; vi. 4-6; x. 29-31; 1 Pet. i. 2;ii.
3-12; iv. 13-19; I Jn. v.4-8; Jude vs. 20, 21; Rev. i. 4-6). Perhaps as typical
instances as any are supplied by the two following: 'According to the
foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience
and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ' (I Pet. i. 2); 'Praying in the Holy
Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord
Jesus Christ unto eternal life' (Jude vs. 20, 21). To these may be added the
highly symbolical instance from the Apocalypse: 'Grace to you and peace from Him
which is and was and which is to come; and from the Seven Spirits which are
before His throne; and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the
firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth' (Rev. i. 4, 5).
Clearly these writers, too, write out of a fixed Trinitarian consciousness and
bear their testimony to the universal understanding current in apostolical
circles. Everywhere and by all it was fully understood that the one God whom
Christians worshipped and from whom alone they expected redemption and all that
redemption brought with it, included within His undiminished unity the three:
God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, whose activities
relatively to one another are conceived as distinctly personal. This is the
uniform and pervasive testimony of the New Testament, and it is the more
impressive that it is given with such unstudied naturalness and simplicity, with
no effort to distinguish between what have come to be called the ontological and
the economical aspects of the Trinitarian distinctions, and indeed without
apparent consciousness of the existence of such a distinction of aspects.
Whether God is thought of in Himself or in His operations, the underlying
conception runs unaffectedly into trinal forms.
It will not have escaped observation that the Trinitarian terminology of Paul
and the other writers of the New Testament is not precisely identical with that
of Our Lord as recorded for us in His discourses. Paul, for example - and the
same is true of the other New Testament writers (except John) - does not speak,
as Our Lord is recorded as speaking, of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit, so much as of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. This
difference of terminology finds its account in large measure in the different
relations in which the speakers stand to the Trinity. Our Lord could not
naturally speak of Himself, as one of the Trinitarian Persons, by the
designation of 'the Lord,' while the designation of 'the Son,' expressing as it
does His consciousness of close relation, and indeed of exact similarity, to
God, came naturally to His lips. But He was Paul's Lord; and Paul naturally
thought and spoke of Him as such. In point of fact, 'Lord' is one of Paul's
favorite designations of Christ, and indeed has become with him practically a
proper name for Christ, and in point of fact, his Divine Name for Christ. It is
naturally, therefore, his Trinitarian name for Christ. Because when he thinks of
Christ as Divine he calls Him 'Lord,' he naturally, when he thinks of the three
Persons together as the Triune God, sets Him as 'Lord' by the side of God -
Paul's constant name for 'the Father' - and the Holy Spirit. Question may no
doubt be raised whether it would have been possible for Paul to have done this,
especially with the constancy with which he has done it, if, in his conception
of it, the very essence of the Trinity were enshrined in the terms 'Father' and
'Son.' Paul is thinking of the Trinity, to be sure, from the point of view of a
worshipper, rather than from that of a systematizer. He designates the Persons
of the Trinity therefore rather from his relations to them than from their
relations to one another. He sees in the Trinity his God, his Lord, and the Holy
Spirit who dwells in him; and naturally he so speaks currently of the three
Persons. It remains remarkable, nevertheless, if the very essence of the Trinity
were thought of by him as resident in the terms 'Father,' 'Son,' that in his
numerous allusions to the Trinity in the Godhead, he never betrays any sense of
this. It is noticeable also that in their allusions to the Trinity, there is
preserved, neither in Paul nor in the other writers of the New Testament, the
order of the names as they stand in Our Lord's great declaration (Mt. xxviii.
19). The reverse order occurs, indeed, occasionally, as, for example, in I Cor.
xii. 4-6 (cf. Eph. iv. 4-6); and this may be understood as a climactic
arrangement and so far a testimony to the order of Mt. xxviii. 19. But the order
is very variable; and in the most formal enumeration of the three Persons, that
of II Cor. xiii. 14, it stands thus: Lord, God, Spirit. The question naturally
suggests itself whether the order Father, Son, Spirit was especially significant
to Paul and his fellow-writers of the New Testament. If in their conviction the
very essence of the doctrine of the Trinity was embodied in this order, should
we not anticipate that there should appear in their numerous allusions to the
Trinity some suggestion of this conviction?
Such facts as these have a bearing upon the testimony of the New Testament to
the interrelations of the Persons of the Trinity. To the fact of the Trinity -
to the fact, that is, that in the unity of the Godhead there subsist three
Persons, each of whom has his particular part in the working out of salvation -
the New Testament testimony is clear, consistent, pervasive and conclusive.
There is included in this testimony constant and decisive witness to the
complete and undiminished Deity of each of these Persons; no language is too
exalted to apply to each of them in turn in the effort to give expression to the
writer's sense of His Deity: the name that is given to each is fully understood
to be 'the name that is above every name.' When we attempt to press the inquiry
behind the broad fact, however, with a view to ascertaining exactly how the New
Testament writers conceive the three Persons to be related, the one to the
other, we meet with great difficulties. Nothing could seem more natural, for
example, than to assume that the mutual relations of the Persons of the Trinity
are revealed in the designations, 'the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,'
which are given them by Our Lord in the solemn formula of Mt. xxviii. 19. Our
confidence in this assumption is somewhat shaken, however, when we observe, as
we have just observed, that these designations are not carefully preserved in
their allusions to the Trinity by the writers of the New Testament at large, but
are characteristic only of Our Lord's allusions and those of John, whose modes
of speech in general very closely resemble those of Our Lord. Our confidence is
still further shaken when we observe that the implications with respect to the
mutual relations of the Trinitarian Persons, which are ordinarily derived from
these designations, do not so certainly lie in them as is commonly supposed.
It may be very natural to see in the designation 'Son' an intimation of
subordination and derivation of Being, and it may not be difficult to ascribe a
similar connotation to the term 'Spirit.' But it is quite certain that this was
not the denotation of either term in the Semitic consciousness, which underlies
the phraseology of Scripture; and it may even be thought doubtful whether it was
included even in their remoter suggestions. What underlies the conception of
sonship in Scriptural speech is just 'likeness'; whatever the father is that the
son is also. The emphatic application of the term 'Son' to one of the
Trinitarian Persons, accordingly, asserts rather His equality with the Father
than His subordination to the Father; and if there is any implication of
derivation in it, it would appear to be very distant. The adjunction of the
adjective 'only begotten' (Jn. i. 14; iii. 16-18; I Jn. iv. 9) need add only the
idea of uniqueness, not of derivation (Ps. xxii. 20; xxv. 16; xxxv. 17; Wisd.
vii. 22 m.); and even such a phrase as 'God only begotten' (Jn. i. 18 m.) may
contain no implication of derivation, but only of absolutely unique
consubstantiality; as also such a phrase as 'the first-begotten of all creation'
(Col. i. 15) may convey no intimation of coming into being, but merely assert
priority of existence. In like manner, the designation 'Spirit of God' or
'Spirit of Jehovah,' which meets us frequently in the Old Testament, certainly
does not convey the idea there either of derivation or of subordination, but is
just the executive name of God --- the designation of God from the point of view
of His activity - and imports accordingly identity with God; and there is no
reason to suppose that, in passing from the Old Testament to the New Testament,
the term has taken on an essentially different meaning. It happens, oddly
enough, moreover, that we have in the New Testament itself what amounts almost
to formal definitions of the two terms 'Son' and 'Spirit,' and in both cases the
stress is laid on the notion of equality or sameness. In Jn. v.18 we read: 'On
this account, therefore, the Jews sought the more to kill him, because, not only
did he break the Sabbath, but also called God his own Father, making himself
equal to God.' The point lies, of course, in the adjective 'own.' Jesus was,
rightly, understood to call God 'his own Father,' that is, to use the terms
'Father' and 'Son' not in a merely figurative sense, as when Israel was called
God's son, but in the real sense. And this was understood to be claiming to be
all that God is. To be the Son of God in any sense was to be like God in that
sense; to be God's own Son was to be exactly like God, to be 'equal with God.'
Similarly, we read in I Cor. ii. 10,11:' For the Spirit searcheth all things,
yea, the deep things of God. For who of men knoweth the things of a man, save
the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God none knoweth, save
the Spirit of God.' Here the Spirit appears as the substrate of the Divine
self-consciousness, the principle of God's knowledge of Himself: He is, in a
word, just God Himself in the innermost essence of His Being. As the spirit of
man is the seat of human life, the very life of man itself, so the Spirit of God
is His very life-element. How can He be supposed, then, to be subordinate to
God, or to derive His Being from God? If, however, the subordination of the Son
and Spirit to the Father in modes of subsistence and their derivation from the
Father are not implicates of tbeir designation as Son and Spirit, it will be
hard to find in the New Testament compelling evidence of their subordination and
There is, of course, no question that in 'modes of operation,' as it is
technically called - that is to say, in the functions ascribed to the several
Persons of the Trinity in the redemptive process, and, more broadly, in the
entire dealing of God with the world - the principle of subordination is clearly
expressed. The Father is first, the Son is second, and the Spirit is third, in
the operations of God as revealed to us in general, and very especially in those
operations by which redemption is accomplished. Whatever the Father does, He
does through the Son (Rom. ii. 16; iii. 22;v. 1,11, 17, 21; Eph. i.5; I Thess.
v.9; Tit. iii. v) by the Spirit. The Son is sent by the Father and does His
Father's will (Jn. vi. 38); the Spirit is sent by the Son and does not speak
from Himself, but only takes of Christ's and shows it unto His people (Jn. xvii.
7 ff.); and we have Our Lord's own word for it that 'one that is sent is not
greater than he that sent him' (Jn. xiii. 16). In crisp decisiveness, Our Lord
even declares, indeed: 'My Father is greater than I' (Jn. xiv. 28); and Paul
tells us that Christ is God's, even as we are Christ's (I Cor. iii. 23), and
that as Christ is 'the head of every man,' so God is 'the head of Christ' (I
Cor. xi. 3). But it is not so clear that the principle of subordination rules
also in 'modes of subsistence,' as it is technically phrased; that is to say, in
the necessary relation of the Persons of the Trinity to one another. The very
richness and variety of the expression of their subordination, the one to the
other, in modes of operation, create a difficulty in attaining certainty whether
they are represented as also subordinate the one to the other in modes of
subsistence. Question is raised in each ease of apparent intimation of
subordination in modes of subsistence, whether it may not, after all, be
explicable as only another expression of subordination in modes of operation. It
may be natural to assume that a subordination in modes of operation rests on a
subordination in modes of subsistence; that the reason why it is the Father that
sends the Son and the Son that sends the Spirit is that the Son is subordinate
to the Father, and the Spirit to the Son. But we are bound to bear in mind that
these relations of subordination in modes of operation may just as well be due
to a convention, an agreement, between the Persons of the Trinity - a 'Covenant'
as it is technically called - by virtue of which a distinct function in the work
of redemption is voluntarily assumed by each. It is eminently desirable,
therefore, at the least, that some definite evidence of subordination in modes
of subsistence should be discoverable before it is assumed. In the case of the
relation of the Son to the Father, there is the added difficulty of the
incarnation, in which the Son, by the assumption of a creaturely nature into
union with Himself, enters into new relations with the Father of a definitely
subordinate character. Question has even been raised whether the very
designations of Father and Son may not be expressive of these new relations, and
therefore without significance with respect to the eternal relations of the
Persons so designated. This question must certainly be answered in the negative.
Although, no doubt, in many of the instances in which the terms 'Father' and
'Son' occur, it would be possible to take them of merely economical relations,
there ever remain some which are intractable to this treatment, and we may be
sure that 'Father' and 'Son' are applied to their eternal and necessary
relations. But these terms, as we have seen, do not appear to imply relations of
first and second, superiority and subordination, in modes of subsistence; and
the fact of the humiliation of the Son of God for His earthly work does
introduce a factor into the interpretation of the passages which import His
subordination to the Father, which throws doubt upon the inference from them of
an eternal relation of subordination in the Trinity itself. It must at least be
said that in the presence of the great New Testament doctrines of the Covenant
of Redemption on the one hand, and of the Humiliation of the Son of God for His
work's sake and of the Two Natures in the constitution of His Person as
incarnated, on the other, the difficulty of interpreting subordinationist
passages of eternal relations between the Father and Son becomes extreme. The
question continually obtrudes itself, whether they do not rather find their full
explanation in the facts embodied in the doctrines of the Covenant, the
Humiliation of Christ, and the Two Natures of His incarnated Person. Certainly
in such circumstances it were thoroughly illegitimate to press such passages to
suggest any subordination for the Son or the Spirit which would in any manner
impair that complete identity with the Father in Being and that complete
equality with the Father in powers which are constantly presupposed, and
frequently emphatically, though only incidentally, asserted for them throughout
the whole fabric of the New Testament.
The Trinity of the Persons of the Godhead, shown in the incarnation and the
redemptive work of God the Son, and the descent and saving work of God the
Spirit, is thus everywhere assumed in the New Testament, and comes to repeated
fragmentary but none the less emphatic and illuminating expression in its pages.
As the roots of its revelation are set in the threefold Divine causality of the
saving process, it naturally finds an echo also in the consciousness of everyone
who has experienced this salvation. Every redeemed soul, knowing himself
reconciled with God through His Son, and quickened into newness of life by His
Spirit, turns alike to Father, Son and Spirit with the exclamation of reverent
gratitude upon his lips, 'My Lord and my God!' If he could not construct the
doctrine of the Trinity out of his consciousness of salvation, yet the elements
of his consciousness of salvation are interpreted to him and reduced to order
only by the doctrine of the Trinity which he finds underlying and giving their
significance and consistency to the teaching of the Scriptures as to the
processes of salvation. By means of this doctrine he is able to think clearly
and consequently of his threefold relation to the saving God, experienced by Him
as Fatherly love sending a Redeemer, as redeeming love executing redemption, as
saving love applying redemption: all manifestations in distinct methods and by
distinct agencies of the one seeking and saving love of God. Without the
doctrine of the Trinity, his conscious Christian life would be thrown into
confusion and left in disorganization if not, indeed, given an air of unreality;
with the doctrine of the Trinity, order, significance and reality are brought to
every element of it. Accordingly, the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine
of redemption, historically, stand or fall together. A Unitarian theology is
commonly associated with a Pelagian anthropology and a Socinian soteriology. It
is a striking testimony which is borne by F. E. Koenig ('Offenbarungsbegriff des
AT,' 1882, 1,125):: J have learned that many cast off the whole history of
redemption for no other reason than because they have not attained to a
conception of the Triune God.' It is in this intimacy of relation between the
doctrines of the Trinity and redemption that the ultimate reason lies why the
Christian church could not rest until it had attained a definite and
well-compacted doctrine of the Trinity. Nothing else could be accepted as an
adequate foundation for the experience of the Christian salvation. Neither the
Sabellian nor the Arian construction could meet and satisfy the data of the
consciousness of salvation, any more than either could meet and satisfy the data
of the Scriptural revelation. The data of the Scriptural revelation might, to be
sure, have been left unsatisfied: men might have found a modus vivendi with
neglected, or even with perverted Scriptural teaching. But perverted or
neglected elements of Christian experience are more clamant in their demands for
attention and correction. The dissatisfied Christian consciousness necessarily
searched the Scriptures, on the emergence of every new attempt to state the
doctrine of the nature and relations of God, to see whether these things were
true, and never reached contentment until the Scriptural data were given their
consistent formulation in a valid doctrine of the Trinity. Here too the heart of
man was restless until it found its rest in the Triune God, the author, procurer
and applier of salvation.
The determining impulse to the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity in the
church was the church's profound conviction of the absolute Deity of Christ, on
which as on a pivot the whole Christian conception of God from the first origins
of Christianity turned. The guiding principle in the formulation of the doctrine
was supplied by the Baptismal Formula announced by Jesus (Mt. xxviii. 19), from
which was derived the ground-plan of the baptismal confessions and 'rules of
faith' which very soon began to be framed all over the church. It was by these
two fundamental principia --- the true Deity of Christ and the Baptismal Formula
--- that all attempts to formulate the Christian doctrine of God were tested,
and by their molding power that the church at length found itself in possession
of a form of statement which did full justice to the data of the redemptive
revelation as reflected in the New Testament and the demands of the Christian
heart under the experience of salvation.
In the nature of the case the formulated doctrine was of slow attainment. The
influence of inherited conceptions and of current philosophies inevitably showed
itself in the efforts to construe to the intellect the immanent faith of
Christians. In the second century the dominant neo-Stoic and neo-Platonic ideas
deflected Christian thought into subordinationist channels, and produced what is
known as the Logos-Christology, which looks upon the Son as a prolation of Deity
reduced to such dimensions as comported with relations with a world of time and
space; meanwhile, to a great extent, the Spirit was neglected altogether. A
reaction which, under the name of Monarchianism, identified the Father, Son, and
Spirit so completely that they were thought of only as different aspects or
different moments in the life of the one Divine Person, called now Father, now
Son, now Spirit, as His several activities came successively into view, almost
succeeded in establishing itself in the third century as the doctrine of the
church at large. In the conflict between these two opposite tendencies the
church gradually found its way, under the guidance of the Baptismal Formula
elaborated into a 'Rule of Faith,' to a better and more well-balanced
conception, until a real doctrine of the Trinity at length came to expression,
particularly in the West, through the brilliant dialectic of Tertullian. It was
thus ready at hand, when, in the early years of the fourth century, the
Logos-Christology, in opposition to dominant Sabellian tendencies, ran to seed
in what is known as Arianism, to which the Son was a creature, though exalted
above all other creatures as their Creator and Lord; and the church was thus
prepared to assert its settled faith in a Triune God, one in being, but in whose
unity there subsisted three consubstantial Persons. Under the leadership of
Athanasius this doctrine was proclaimed as the faith of the church at the
Council of Nice in 325 A.D., and by his strenuous labors and those of 'the three
great Cappadocians,' the two Gregories and Basil, it gradually won its way to
the actual acceptance of the entire church. It was at the hands of Augustine,
however, a century later, that the doctrine thus become the church doctrine in
fact as well as in theory, received its most complete elaboration and most
carefully grounded statement. In the form which he gave it, and which is
embodied in that 'battle-hymn of the early church,' the so-called Athanasian
Creed, it has retained its place as the fit expression of the faith of the
church as to the nature of its God until today. The language in which it is
couched, even in this final declaration, still retains elements of speech which
owe their origin to the modes of thought characteristic of the Logos Christology
of the second century, fixed in the nomenclature of the church by the Nicene
Creed of 325 A.D., though carefully guarded there against the subordinationism
inherent in the Logos-Christology, and made the vehicle rather of the Nicene
doctrines of the eternal generation of the Son and procession of the Spirit,
with the consequent subordination of the Son and Spirit to the Father in modes
of subsistence as well as of operation. In the Athanasian Creed, however, the
principle of the equalization of the three Persons, which was already the
dominant motive of the Nicene Creed - the homoousia - is so strongly emphasized
as practically to push out of sight, if not quite out of existence, these
remanent suggestions of derivation and subordination. It has been found
necessary, nevertheless, from time to time, vigorously to reassert the principle
of equalization, over against a tendency unduly to emphasize the elements of
subordinationism which still hold a place thus in the traditional language in
which the church states its doctrine of the Trinity. In particular, it fell to
Calvin, in the interests of the true Deity of Christ - the constant motive of
the whole body of Trinitarian thought - to reassert and make good the attribute
of self-existence (autotheotos) for the Son. Thus Calvin takes his place,
alongside of Tertullian, Athanasius and Augustine, as one of the chief
contributors to the exact and vital statement of the Christian doctrine of the
Triune God.
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ACS Vapor Monitor can be worn as a badge near the breathing zone to measure personal exposure, or placed in a room to measure area concentration.
Workplace Exposure Monitoring
Measurement of personal exposure is very easy. Clip the monitoring badge near the breathing zone of the worker. Record the start time and the stop time of the test on the pouch of the badge and return it to the laboratory for analysis in the mailer provided. The analysis report will show the average concentration of the worker's personal exposure level.
According to OSHA regulations, each person who uses a toxic gas as a regular part of their job must have their exposure monitored periodically.
Indoor Air Monitoring
Place or hang the badge in your home for 24 hours. Record the start and stop times and send the badge back to the laboratory for analysis in the mailer provided. The analysis report explains if the concentration level of your home is exceeding the exposure limit.
Principle of Operation
Air diffuses through a micro-porous membrane and collects vapor on special prepared adsorbents inside the monitoring badge.
TWA (ppm) | |||
STEL/CEIL (ppm) |
AKA | Methyl Butanoate, Methyl Ester Butyric Acid |
Analytical Method | OSHA PV2090, NIOSH 1450 |
Absorbent | Activated Carbon |
Minimum Level of Quantitation |
0.05 PPM for 8 Hours 1.6 PPM for 15 Minutes 0.02 PPM for 24 Hours |
Recommended Sampling Time | Workplace: 15 minutes to 8 hours Indoor Air: 24 hours – 48 hours |
Interferences | No interferences are known |
Effect of Temperature | Less than 10% for each 10°C variation from 24°C |
Effect of Humidity | No effects detected at 30% RH to 92% RH. |
Accuracy | Meets or exceeds OSHA accuracy requirements of +/- 25% |
Storage Conditions | Store at room temperature. |
Recommended Holding Time | Monitors need to be returned to Lab within two weeks after sampling. |


text:
June 17, 2004
Encouragement for Today
A Different Daddy
Susanne Scheppmann – Member of Proverbs Speaker Team
Key verse:
Because you are God's children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into us to call out, "Abba! Father!" Galatians 4:6 (God's Word)
The antiseptic smell of the intensive care unit assaulted my nose as I sat next to my father's bed. Machines whirred and beeped with each labored breath he took. One collapsed lung and the other full of pneumonia predicted the outcome for him.
"So this is how it ends," I pondered. For years, a love-hate relationship with this man influenced many of my decisions. Some good, some bad. I always sought his approval, but rarely did he grant it - until two years ago, when he accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior.
At the age of 79, my earthly father discovered the Father God's unconditional love. I struggled to believe my father could transform from a mean bitter man to one full of love for others. I traveled five hundred miles just to look into those crinkled hazel eyes to see a new dad peering out at me. Our relationship changed drastically. Finally, my father became the dad I desired.
Now he lay dying. Two years was not long enough! Yet strangely, I felt a deep peace. I knew he was going home to his Father in heaven. I leaned over to kiss his damp forehead and using a name I had not called him forty-five years, I whispered, "I love you, Daddy. I'll see you soon."
We use many terms to refer to our fathers. Father, poppa, pop, dad and daddy all recall certain images in our minds. Our hearts were designed for a father type of relationship. Perhaps your experience with your father was like mine, not the best. Maybe you had a wonderful daddy, if so count your blessings. Whatever the relationships between you and your father, remember he is human. No one is perfect. We all have faults.
Many of us remember the old television show, "Father Knows Best." We smile fondly as we recall the perfect family with the father sowing his wisdom in all sorts of different scenarios. What a family! Dad wore suits, mom wore dresses, and the children behaved with admirable manners.
However, in today's culture we watch bumbling television families. The Simpsons or the Osbournes appear nightly across the television screens of our homes. With such examples of fathers traipsing before us, how do we perceive our Heavenly Father?
The God of the universe is our Heavenly Father. He loves us as his daughters and longs for us to love and trust him as our "Daddy." Scripture tells us, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows (James 1:17 NIV)." God is the ultimate father who bestows good and perfect gifts upon his children. He does not change; he is worthy of our trust.
For me, eventually learning to trust my earthly father allowed me to call him, "Daddy." In the same way, when we trust our Heavenly Father, we see Him as He has always been, a perfect daddy to us. In our key verse today, "Abba" translates as daddy. God desires to be our Father God, the perfect Father, our Daddy, and our Abba.
Will you trust him today as your "Abba Father?"
My prayer for today:
Dear Father God, help me to know in my heart that you love me with a perfect fatherly love. Begin to teach me how to relate to you as my "Abba, Daddy."
Application steps:
Write Galatians 4:6 on an index card and tape it on your mirror. Ponder this verse each time you peek in the mirror. Read John 17:2-25 and then reflect on Christ's prayer to the Father for you and meditate on John 17:20-25.
Reflection points:
How does my relationship with my earthly father influence my relationship with God?
Do I blame God for past circumstances in my life?
Am I comfortable addressing God as "My Father?"
In what ways has God provided for me in the past? (Food, clothing, etc.)
Do I trust God with my future?
Power verses:
Matthew 6:26, Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? (NIV)
Zephaniah 3:17, The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." (NIV)
John 10:32, But Jesus said to them, "I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. (NIV)
Matthew 6:32-34, People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. "Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes. (The Message)
1 Corinthians 8:6, Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live. (NIV)
Additional resources:
Who Holds the Key to Your Heart by Lysa TerKeurst
Intimate Moments with God by Sharon Jaynes and others
A Woman after God's Own Heart by Elizabeth George
Originally published Thursday, 17 June 2004.