Last week we began discussing the Trinity. We defined the doctrine of the Trinity as follows: God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God, and there is one God.
The fact that God is three persons means that the Father is not the Son; they are distinct persons. It also means that the Father is not the Holy Spirit, but they are distinct persons. And it means that the Son is not the Holy Spirit.
Last week we discussed these three statements, all of which are taught in Scripture:
1) God is three persons.
2) Each person is fully God.
3) There is one God.
But why was the church so concerned about the doctrine of the Trinity? Is it really essential to hold to the full deity of the Son and the Holy Spirit? Yes it is, for this teaching has implications for the very heart of the Christian faith. First, the atonement is at stake. If Jesus is merely a created being, and not fully God, then it is hard to see how he, a creature, could bear the full wrath of God against all of our sins. Could any creature, no matter how great, really save us?
Second, justification by faith alone is threatened if we deny the full deity of the Son. If Jesus is not fully God, we would rightly doubt whether we can really trust him to save us completely. Could we really depend on any creature fully for our salvation?
Third, if Jesus is not infinite God, should we pray to him or worship him? Who but an infinite, omniscient God could hear and respond to all the prayers of all God’s people? And who but God himself is worthy of worship? Indeed, if Jesus is merely a creature, no matter how great, it would be idolatry to worship him, yet the New Testament commands us to do so (Philippians 2:9 – 11; Revelation 5:12 – 14).
Fourth, if someone teaches that Christ was a created being but nonetheless one who saved us, then this teaching wrongly begins to attribute credit for salvation to a creature and not to God himself. This wrongfully exalts the creature rather than the Creator, something Scripture never allows us to do.
Fifth, the independence and personal nature of God are at stake: If there is no Trinity, then there were no interpersonal relationships within the being of God before creation, and, without personal relationships, it is difficult to see how God could be genuinely personal or be without the need for a creation to relate to.
Sixth, the unity of the universe is at stake: If there is not perfect plurality and perfect unity in God himself, then we have no basis for thinking there can be any ultimate unity among the diverse elements of the universe either. Clearly, in the doctrine of the Trinity, the heart of the Christian faith is at stake.
If we say that each member of the Trinity is fully God, and that each person fully shares in all the attributes of God, then is there any difference at all among the persons? We cannot say, for example, that the Father is more powerful or wiser than the Son, or that the Father and Son are wiser than the Holy Spirit, or that the Father existed before the Son and the Holy Spirit existed, for to say anything like that would be to deny the full deity of all three members of the Trinity. But what then are the distinctions between the persons?
The persons of the Trinity have different primary functions in relating to the world. When Scripture discusses the way in which God relates to the world, both in creation and in redemption, the persons of the Trinity are said to have different functions or primary activities. Sometimes it has been called the “economy of the Trinity,” using economy in an old sense meaning “ordering of activities.” The “economy of the Trinity” means the different ways the three persons act as they relate to the world and to each other for all eternity.
We see these different functions in the work of creation. God the Father spoke the creative words to bring the universe into being. Vut it was God the Son, the eternal Word of God, who carried out these creative decrees. “All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:3). Moreover, “in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities – all things were created through him and for him” (Colossians 1:16). The Holy Spirit was active as well in a different way, in “moving” or “hovering” over the face of the waters (Genesis 1:2), apparently sustaining and manifesting God’s immediate presence in his creation.
In the work of redemption there are also distinct functions. God the Father planned redemption and sent his Son into the world (John 3:16). The Son obeyed the Father and accomplished redemption for us (John 6:38). God the Father did not come and die for our sins, nor did God the Holy Spirit. That was the particular work of the Son. Then, after Jesus ascended back into heaven, the Holy Spirit was sent by the Father and the Son to apply redemption to us. Jesus speaks of “the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name” (John 14:26), but also says that he himself will send the Holy Spirit, for he says, “If I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7), and he speaks of a time “when the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth” (John 15:26). It is especially the role of the Holy Spirit to give us regeneration or new spiritual life) John 3:5 – 8), to sanctify us (Romans 8:13), and to empower us for service (Acts 1:8). In general, the work of the Holy Spirit seems to be to bring to completion the work that has been planned by God the Father and begun by God the Son.
While the persons of the Trinity are equal in their entire attribute, they nonetheless differ in their relationships to the creation. The Son and Holy Spirit are equal in deity to God the Father, but they are subordinate in their roles.
These differences in role are not temporary but will last forever: Paul tells us that even after the final judgement, when the “last enemy,” that is, death, is destroyed and when all things are put under Christ’s feet, “then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things under him, that God may be everything to everyone” (1 Corinthians 15:28).
The persons of the Trinity eternally existed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but why do the persons of the Trinity take these different roles in relating to creation. Was it accidental or arbitrary? Could the Father have come instead of God the Son to die for our sins? Could the Holy Spirit have sent God the Father to die for our sins, and then send God son to apply redemption to us?
No, it does not seem that these things could have happened, for the role of commanding, directing, and sending is appropriate to the position of the Father, after whom all human fatherhood is patterned. And the role of obeying, going as the Father sends, and revealing God to us is appropriate to the role of the Son, who is also called the Word of God. These roles could not have been reversed or the Father would have ceased to be the Father and the Son would have ceased to be the Son. And by analogy from that relationship, we may conclude that the role of the Holy Spirit is similarly one that was appropriate to the relationship he had with the Father and the Son before the world was created.
Before the Son came to earth, and even before the world was created, for all eternity the Father has been the Father, the Son has been the Son, and the Holy Spirit has been the Holy Spirit. These relationships are eternal, not something that occurred only in time. We may conclude this from the unchangeable God, if God now exists as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, then he has always existed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Even the fact that the Father “gave his only Son” (John 3:16) and “sent the Son into the world (John 3:17) indicate that there was a Father-Son relationship before Christ came into the world. The Son did not become the Son when the Father sent him into the world. Rather, the great love of God is shown in the fact that the one who was always the Father gave the one who was always his only Son.
It may be said that there are no differences in deity, attributes, or essential nature between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Each person is fully God and has all the attributes of God. The only distinctions between the members of the Trinity are in the ways they relate to each other and to creation. In those relationships they carry our roles that are appropriate to each person.
How then can we say that God is one undivided being, yet that in this one being there are three persons? First, it is important to affirm that each person is completely and fully God. The Son is not partly God or just one-third God, but the Son is wholly and fully God, and so is the Father and the Holy Spirit.
We must say that the person of the Father possesses the whole being of God in him. Similarly, the Son possesses the whole being of God in him. When we speak of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit together we are not speaking of any greater being than when we speak of the Father alone, or the Son alone, or the Holy Spirit alone. The Father is all of God’s being. The Son is all of God’s being. And the Holy Spirit is all of God’s being. Each person of the Trinity has all of the attributes of God, and no one person has any attributes that are not possessed by the others.
Because God in himself has both unity and diversity, it is not surprising that the unity and diversity are also reflected in the human relationships that he has established. We see this first in marriage. When God created man in his own image, he did not create merely isolated individuals, but Scripture tells us, “male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). And the unity of marriage (Genesis 2:24) we see, not a tri-unity as with God, but at least a remarkable unity of two persons, persons who remain distinct individuals yet also become one in body, mind and spirit. In fact, the relationship between man and woman in marriage we see also the picture of the relationship between the Father and Son in the Trinity. Paul says, “But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Corinthians 11:3). Here, just as the Father has authority over the Son in the Trinity, so the husband has authority over his wife in marriage. The husband’s role is parallel to that of God the Father and the wife’s role is parallel to that of God the Son. Also, just as the Father and the Son are equal in deity and in importance and personhood, so the husband and wife are also equal in humanity and importance and personhood. Also the gift of children within marriage, coming from both the father and the mother, and subject to authority of both the father and the mother is analogous to the relationship of the Holy Spirit to the Father and Son in the Trinity.
The human family is not the only way in which God has ordained that there would be both diversity and unity in the world that reflects something of his own excellence. In the church we have “many members” yet “one body” (1 Corinthians 12:12). Paul reflects on the great diversity among the members of the human body (1 Corinthians 12:14 – 26) and says the church is like that: We have many different members in our churches with different gifts and interests, and we depend on and help each other, thereby demonstrating great diversity and great unity at the same time. When we see different people doing many different things in the life of a church we ought to thank God that this allows us to glorify him by reflecting something of the unity and diversity of the Trinity.