HOMEThe Divine Trinity
The Eternal Being reveals Himself in His triune existence
even more richly and vitally than in His attributes. It is in this holy trinity
that each attribute of His Being comes into its own, so to speak, gets its
fullest content, and takes on its profoundest meaning. It is only when we
contemplate this trinity that we know who and what God is. Only then do we know,
moreover, who God is and what He is for lost man-kind. We can know this only
when we know and confess Him as the Triune God of the Covenant, as Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit.
In considering this part of our confession, it is
particularly necessary that a tone of holy reverence and childlike awe be the
characteristic of our approach and attitude. For Moses it was an awful and
unforgettable hour when the Lord appeared to him in the desert in the flame of
fire coming from the bramble bush. When Moses looked upon that burning fire,
which burned but did not consume, from a distance, and when he wanted to hasten
to the spot, the Lord restrained him and said: Draw not nigh hither: put off thy
shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. And
when Moses heard that he feared greatly, hid his face, and was afraid to look
upon God, (Ex. 3:1-6).
Such a holy respect suits us also as we witness God revealing
Himself in His word as a Triune God. For we must always remember that as we
study this fact, we are not dealing with a doctrine about God, with an abstract
concept, or with a scientific proposition about the nature of Divinity. We are
not dealing with a human construction which we ourselves or which others have
put upon the facts, and which we now try to analyze and logically to dismember.
Rather, in treating of the Trinity, we are dealing with God Himself, with the
one and true God, who has revealed Himself as such in His Word. It is as He said
to Moses: I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, (Ex. 3:6). So He reveals
Himself to us also in His Word and manifests Himself to us as Father, Son, and
Spirit.
It is thus that the Christian church has always confessed the
revelation of God as the Triune God, and accepted it as such. We find it in the
Twelve Articles of the Apostles’ Creed. The Christian is not in that creed
saying just how he thinks about God. He is not there giving out a notion of God,
nor saying that God has such and such attributes, and that He exists in this and
that wise. Instead, he confesses: I believe in God the Father, and in
Jesus Christ His only-begotten Son, and in the Holy Spirit: I believe
in the Triune God. In confessing this the Christian gives expression to the fact
that God is the living and the true God, that He is God as Father, Son, and
Spirit, the God of His confidence, to whom he has wholly surrendered himself,
and upon whom he rests with his whole heart. God is the God of his life and his
salvation. As Father, Son, and Spirit, God has created him, redeemed him,
sanctified him, and glorified him. The Christian owes everything to Him. It is
his joy and comfort that he may believe in that God, trust Him, and
expect everything from Him.
What the Christian goes on to confess about that God is not
summarized by him in a number of abstract terms, but is described, rather, as a
series of deeds done by God in the past, in the present, and to be done in the
future. It is the deeds, the miracles, of God which constitute the confession of
the Christian. What the Christian confesses in his creed is a long, a broad, and
a high history. It is a history which comprises the whole world in its length
and breadth, in its beginning, process, and end, in its origin, development, and
destination, from the point of creation to the fulfillment of the ages. The
confession of the church is a declaration of the mighty deeds of God.
Those deeds are numerous and are characterized by great
diversity. But they also constitute a strict unity. They are related to each
other, prepare for each other, and are interdependent. There is order and
pattern, development and upward movement in it. It proceeds from creation
through redemption to sanctification and glorification. The end returns to the
beginning and yet is at the same time the apex which is exalted high above the
point of origin. The deeds of God form a circle which mounts upward in the form
of a spiral; they represent a harmony of the horizontal and the vertical line;
they move upwards and forwards at the same time.
God is the architect and builder of all those deeds, the
source and the final end of them. Out of Him and through Him and to Him are all
things. He is their Maker, Restorer, and Fulfiller. The unity and diversity in
the works of God proceeds from and returns to the unity and diversity which
exist in the Divine Being. That Being is one being, single and simple. At the
same time that being is threefold in His person, in His revelation, and in His
influence. The entire work of God is an unbroken whole, and nevertheless
comprises the richest variety and change. The confession of the church
comprehends the whole of world history. In that confession are included the
moments of the creation and the fall, reconciliation and forgiveness, and of
renewal and restoration. It is a confession which proceeds from the triune God
and which leads everything back to Him.
Therefore the article of the holy trinity is the heart and
core of our confession, the differentiating earmark of our religion, and the
praise and comfort of all true believers of Christ.
It was this confession which was at stake in the warfare of
the spirits throughout the centuries. The confession of the holy trinity is the
precious pearl which was entrusted for safekeeping and defense to the Christian
church.
If this confession of the trinity of God takes such a central
position in the Christian faith, it is important to know on what ground it rests
and from what source it has flowed into the church. They are not a few in our
time who hold that it is the fruit of human argument and academic learning and
who, accordingly, regard it as of no value for the religious life. According to
them the original Gospel, as it was proclaimed by Jesus, knew nothing about any
such doctrine of the trinity of God—that is, nothing about the term itself nor
about the reality to which the term was intended to give expression. It was
only—so the argument goes—when the original and simple Gospel of Jesus was
brought into relationship with Greek philosophy and was falsified by it that the
Christian church absorbed the person of Christ in His Divine nature, and
eventually also the Holy Spirit into the Divine Being. And so it came about that
the church confessed three persons in the one Divine being.
But the Christian church itself has always had quite a
different idea about that. It saw in the doctrine of the trinity no discovery of
subtle theologians, no product of the wedding of Gospel and Greek philosophy,
but a confession rather which was materially concluded in the Gospel and in the
whole Word of God—a doctrine, in short, which was inferred by Christian faith
from the revelation of God. In answer to the question, Since there is but one
Divine Being, why do you speak of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? the
Heidelberg Catechism gives a brief and conclusive answer: Because God has so
revealed Himself in His Word, (Question 25). The revelation of God is the firm
ground on which this confession of the church also rests. It is the source out
of which this doctrine of the one, holy, catholic, Christian church has grown
and been built up. God has thus revealed Himself. And He has revealed Himself
thus, that is, as a triune God, because He exists in that way; and He exists in
this way because He has so revealed Himself.
The Trinity in the revelation of God points back to the
Trinity in His existence.
This revelation did not happen in a single moment. It was not
presented and perfected in a single point of time. Rather, this revelation has a
long history, spread out over the centuries. It began at the creation, continued
after the fall in the promises and deeds of grace which accrued to
When, in the days of the Old Covenant, God begins to reveal
Himself, the thing that stands in the foreground is certainly the unity, the
oneness, of God.
For, due to the sin of man, the pure knowledge of God had
been lost; the truth, as Paul profoundly says, was held in unrighteousness. Even
that which can be known of God in the things that He has made was made vain by
their imaginations and was darkened by the foolishness of their hearts. On every
hand mankind fell into idolatry and the worship of images, (Rom. 1:18-23).
Hence it was necessary that the revelation begin with an
emphasis upon the unity of God. It seems to cry out to mankind: The gods before
which ye bow are not the true God. There is but one true God, namely, the God
who at the beginning made the heaven and the earth, (Gen.1:1; 2:1), the God who
made Himself known to Abraham as God the Almighty, (Gen. 17:1; Ex. 6:3), the God
who appeared to Moses as Jehovah, as the I-Am-that-I-Am, (Ex. 3:14), and the God
who, out of sovereign favor, chose the people of Israel, and called them, and
accepted them in His covenant, (Ex. 19:4ff.). First of all, therefore, the
revelation had as its content: Jehovah alone is Elohim, the Lord alone is God,
and there is no other God beside Him.1
For the people of
Nevertheless, despite the fact that the oneness of God is so
strongly emphasized, and, as it were, constitutes the first article of Israel’s
basic law, the distinctions within that unity of the Godhead come to light also
as in that revelation His fulness of Being progresses. The very name which is
usually employed for designating God in the original Hebrew has a certain
significance here. For this name Elohim, is in plural form, and
therefore, although it does not, as was formerly generally supposed, designate
the three persons of the divine Being, it does, in its character as an intensive
plural, point to the fulness of life and of power which are present in God. It
is, no doubt, in connection with this same fact, that God sometimes, in speaking
of Himself, uses a plural referent, and by this means makes distinctions within
Himself that bear a personal character, (Gen. 1:26-27; 3:22; Isa. 6:8).
Of greater significance is the teaching of the Old Testament
to the effect that God brings everything in His creation and providence into
being by His Word and Spirit. He is not a human being, who, at the cost of great
difficulty and exertion, makes something else out of the materials He has at
hand. Instead, simply by the act of speaking, He calls everything into being out
of nothing.
In the first chapter of Genesis we are taught this truth in
the loftiest way possible, and elsewhere, too, it is expressed most gloriously
in word and song. He speaks, and it is done; He commands, and it stands fast,
(Ps. 33:9). He sends out His word, and melts the morsels of ice, (Ps. 147:18).
His voice is upon the waters, shakes the wilderness, causes the hills to skip
like a calf, and discovers the forests, (Ps. 29:3-10). Two truths are contained
in this exalted account of God’s works: the first is that God is the Almighty
One who has but to speak and all things leap into being, whose word is law,
(Ps. 33:9) and whose voice
is power, (Ps. 29:4);
and the second is that God works deliberately, and not without forethought, and
carries out all His works with the highest wisdom. The word which God speaks is
power, but it is also the vehicle of thought. He has made the earth by His
power, He has established the world by His wisdom, and has stretched out the
heavens by His discretion, (Jer. 10:12; 51:15). He has made all His works in
wisdom: the earth is full of His riches, (Ps. 104:24). This wisdom of God did
not come to Him from outside Himself, but was with Him from the beginning. He
possessed it as the principle of His way, before His works of old. When He
prepared the heavens, set a compass upon the face of the deep, established the
clouds above, strengthened the fountains of the deep, then wisdom was already
there, brought up alongside of Him, daily his delight, and rejoicing always
before Him, (Prov. 8:22-31; Job 20:20-28). God rejoiced in the wisdom with which
He created the world.
Alongside of this word and wisdom the Spirit of God as the
Mediator of the creation makes His appearance just as God at one and the same
time is wisdom and possesses it, so that He can share it and can
exhibit it in His works, so He Himself is Spirit in His being, (Deut. 4:12, 15)
and He possesses Spirit, that Spirit by which He can dwell in the world and be
always and everywhere present in it, (Ps. 139:7). Without anyone having been His
counselor, the Lord by His Spirit brought everything into being, (Isa.
40:13ff.). At the beginning that Spirit moved upon the face of the waters, (Gen.
1:2), and He remains active in all that was created. By that Spirit God
garnishes the heavens, (Job 26:13), renews the face of the earth, (Ps. 104:30),
gives life to man, (Job 33:4), maintains the breath in man’s nostrils, (Job
27:3), gives him understanding and wisdom, (Job 32:8), and also causes
the grass to wither and the flower to fade, (Isa. 40:7). In short, by the Word
of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the Breath of His
mouth, (Ps. 33:6).
And this self-diversity of God comes out even more in the
works of the re-creation. Then it is not
Elohim, but Jehovah, not God in general, but the Lord, the God of the
covenant, who reveals Himself and who makes Himself known in wonders of
redemption and salvation. As such He redeems and leads His people, not by His
word alone which He speaks or has conveyed to them, but also by means of the
Angel of the covenant, (the Angel of the Lord). This Angel appears already in
the history of the patriarchs: to Hagar, (Gen. 16:6ff.), to Abraham, (Gen.
18ff.), and to Jacob, (Gen. 28:13ff.). This Angel reveals His grace and power
especially in the emancipation of
Just as in His re-creating work, Jehovah carries out His
redemptive activities through this Angel of the covenant, so He by His Spirit
gives out all kinds of energies and gifts to His people. In the Old Testament
the Spirit of the Lord is the source of all life, all weal, and all ability. He
grants courage and strength to the judges, to Othniel, (Judges 3:10), Gideon,
(Judges 6:34), Jephthah, (Judges 11:29), and to Samson, (Judges 14:6; 15:14). He
grants artistic perception to the makers of the priests’ garments, the
tabernacle, and the temple,3 and He gives wisdom and understanding to
the judges who bear the burden of the people alongside of Moses, (Num. 11:17,
25). He gives the spirit of prophecy to the prophets,4 and renewal
and sanctification and guidance to all of God’s children, (Ps. 51:12-13;
143:10).
In short: the Word, the promise, the covenant, which the Lord
gave to Israel at the exodus from Egypt, have existed throughout the ages, and
still stood fast even after the Captivity in the days of Zerubbabel, so that the
people had no need to fear, (Hag. 2:4-5). When the Lord led
Thus gradually, then, but ever more unmistakably, the
threefold distinction within the Divine being comes to expression already in the
history of God’s leading of
Such a revelation was heralded by the prophets. In the
future, in the last days, then the Lord will call up out of the midst of Israel
such a prophet as Moses was, and the Lord will put His words in that prophet’s
mouth, (Deut. 18 :18). This one will be a priest for ever after the order of
Melchizedek, (Ps. 110:4); He will be a king out of the house of David, (2
Sam. 7:12-16), a rod out of the stem of Jesse, (Isa. 11:1), a king,
judging and seeking judgment, (Isa. 16:5). A human being, a man He will be, and
the son of a woman, (Isa. 7:14), and He will be without form or comeliness,
(Isa. 53:2ff.); but, at the same time, He will be Immanuel, (Isa. 7:14), the
Lord our righteousness, (Jer. 23:6), the Angel of the covenant, (Mal. 3:1), the
Lord Himself appearing to His people, (Hos. 1:7; Mal. 3:1). And He bears the
name of Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The
Prince of Peace, (Isa. 9:6).
This manifestation of the servant of the Lord is to be
followed by a richer dispensation of the Holy Spirit. As the Spirit of wisdom
and understanding, of counsel and strength, of the knowledge and fear of the
Lord, this Spirit will rest upon the Messiah, (Isa. 11:2; 42:1; and 61:1). He
will be poured out upon all flesh, over sons and daughters, old men and young
men, servants and handmaids,5 and He will give a new heart and a new
spirit, so that His people may walk in His statutes, and keep His ordinances,
and do them.6
Thus the Old Testament itself points out that the full
revelation of God will consist of the revelation of His triune being.
This promise and announcement the fulfillment of the New
Testament fully satisfies. In this respect also, the unity or oneness of God is
the point of departure of all revelation.7 But out of this oneness
the difference in the Divine being now, in the New Testament, comes into much
clearer light. This happens first in the great redemptive events of incarnation,
satisfaction, and outpouring, and next in the instruction of Jesus and His
apostles. The work of salvation is one whole, a work of God from beginning to
end. But there are three high moments in it, election, forgiveness, and renewal,
and these three point to a threefold cause in the Divine being: that is, to the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The very conceiving of Christ already shows us the threefold
activity of God. For while the Father gives the Son to the world, (John 3:16),
and while the Son Himself descends from heaven, (John 6:38), that Son is
conceived in Mary of the Holy Spirit, (Matt. 1:20; Luke 1:35). At His baptism
Jesus is anointed by the Holy Spirit, and is there publicly declared to be the
beloved Son of the Father, the Son in whom He is well pleased, (Matt. 3:16-17).
The works which Jesus did were shown Him by the Father, (John 5:19 and 8:38),
and they are fulfilled by Him in the strength of the Holy Spirit, (Matt. 12:28).
In His dying He offers Himself to God in the eternal Spirit, (Heb. 9:14). The
resurrection is a raising up by the Father, (Acts 2:24) and is at the same time
Jesus’ own act by which He is greatly proved to be the Son of the Father
according to the Spirit of holiness, (Rom. 1:3). And after his resurrection He,
on the fortieth day, ascends in the Spirit which quickened Him on high in heaven
and there He makes the angels and authorities and powers subject to Himself.
The teaching of Jesus and the apostles agrees fully with the
lesson of those events themselves.
Jesus came to earth to declare the Father and to make
His name known among men, (John 1:18; 17:6). The name of father applied to God
as creator of all things was also used by the pagans. This meaning of the term
is supported also by Scripture at various places.8 Besides, the Old
Testament several times uses the designation Father to refer to God’s theocratic
relationship to Israel because in His marvelous ability He has created and
maintained that relationship, (Deut. 32:6; Isa. 63:16). But in the New Testament
a gloriously new light is shed upon this name of father as applied to God. Jesus
always indicates an essential difference between the relationship in which He
Himself stands to God and that in which others, say the Jews or the disciples,
stand to Him. When, for example, He teaches the disciples, at their request, the
“Our Father. . .” He says expressly “When ye pray, say. . . .” And when,
after the resurrection, He announces His forthcoming ascension to Mary
Magdalene, He says: “I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God,
and your God”, (John 20:17). In other words, God is His own Father, (John
5:18). He knows the Son and loves Him in such a way and to such an extent as,
reciprocally, only the Son can know and love the Father.9 Among the
apostles, accordingly, God is constantly referred to as the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, (Eph. 1:3). This relationship between the Father and the Son did
not develop in time but existed from eternity, (John 1:1, 14; 17:24). God is
therefore Father in the first place because in a very unique sense He is the
Father of the Son. This is His original, special personal characteristic.
In a derived sense God is further called the Father of all
creatures because He is their creator and sustainer, (1 Cor. 8:6, and
elsewhere). He is called the Father of Israel because Israel is His handiwork by
virtue of election and calling, (Deut. 32:6 and Isa. 64:8), and the Father of
the church and all believers because the love of the Father for the Son accrues
to them, (John 16:27; 17:24) and because they have been accepted as His children
and are born of Him through the Spirit, (John 1:12; Rom. 8:15).
The Father is therefore always the Father, the
first person, He from whom in the being of God, in the counsel of God, and in
all the works of creation and providence, redemption and sanctification, the
initiative proceeds. He gave the Son to have life in Himself, (John 5:26), and
He sends out the Spirit, (John 15:26). His is the election and the good
pleasure, (Matt 11:26; Eph. 1:4, 9, 11). From Him proceed the creation,
providence, redemption, and renewal, (Ps. 33:6; John 3:16). To Him in a special
sense the kingdom and the power and the glory accrue, (Matt 6:13). He
particularly bears the name of God in distinction from the Lord
Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Indeed, Christ Himself as Mediator calls Him
His Father, not only, but also His God, (Matt 27:46; John 20:17) and Christ is
Himself called the Christ of God.10 In a word, the first person of
the Divine being is the Father because “of Him are all things”, (1
Cor. 8:6).
If God is the Father, the inference is that there also is a
Son who received life from Him and who shares His love. In the Old
Testament the name of son of God was used for angels,11 for the
people of Israel,12 and particularly too for the theocratic king of
that people.13 But in the New Testament this name takes on a far
profounder meaning. For Christ is the Son of God in a very peculiar sense; He is
highly exalted above angels and prophets, (Matt. 13:32; 21:27; 22:2), and He
Himself says that no one can know the Son except the Father, and no one can know
the Father except the Son, (Matt. 11:27). In distinction from angels and men, He
is the Father’s own Son, (Rom. 8:32), the beloved Son in whom the Father is well
pleased, (Matt 3:17), the only-begotten Son, (John 1:18) whom the Father gave to
have life in Himself, (John 5:26).
This very special, this unique, relationship between Father
and Son did not develop in time by way of the supernatural conception of the
Holy Spirit, or of the anointing at baptism, or of the resurrection and
ascension—though many have maintained this—but is a relationship which has
existed from all eternity. The Son who in Christ assumed human nature was in the
beginning with God as the Word, (John 1:1). then already had the form of God,
(Phil. 2:6), was rich and clothed with glory, (John 17:5, 24), was then already
the brightness of God’s glory and the express image of His person, (Heb. 1:3),
and precisely therefore He could in the fulness of time be sent out, given, and
brought into the world.14 Hence, too, the creation, (John 1:3; Col.
1:16) and providence, (Heb 1:3) and the accomplishment of the whole of
salvation, (1 Cor. 1:30) are ascribed to Him. He is not, as creatures are made
or created, but is instead, the first-born of all creatures that is the Son who
has the rank and rights of the first-born over against all creatures, (Col 1:15)
Thus He is also the first-born of the dead, the first-born of many brethren, and
therefore among all and in all He is the first, (Rom 8:29; Col 1:18) And even
though in the fulness of time, He assumed the form of a servant, He was
nevertheless in the form of God. He was in all things like unto God the Father,
(Phil. 2:6), in life, (John 5:26), in knowledge, (Matt. 11:27), in strength,
(John 1:3 and 5:21, 26), in honor, (John 5:23). He is Himself God, to be praised
above all else into eternity.15 Just as all things are of the
Father, so they are also all through the Son, (1 Cor. 8:6).
Both, Father and Son, come together and are united in the
Holy Spirit and by means of the Spirit dwell in all creatures. True, God is
according to His nature a Spirit, (John 4:24) and He is holy, (Isa. 6:3); but
the Holy Spirit is clearly distinguished from God as Spirit. Just as, in a
comparative way of speaking, man is a spirit in his invisible nature and also
possesses a spirit, by means of which he is aware of himself and is
self-conscious, so God is a Spirit by nature and also possesses a Spirit, a
Spirit which searches the depths of His being, (1 Cor. 2:11). As such the latter
is called the Spirit of God or the Holy Spirit, (Ps. 51:12; Isa. 63:10-11). And
this is done in distinction from the spirit of an angel or of a human being or
of any other creature. But, although He is distinguished from God, from the
Father and the Son, He stands in the most intimate of relationships with both.
He is called the breath of the Almighty, (Job 33:4), the breath of His mouth,
(Ps. 33:6), is sent out by the Father and the Son, (John 14:26; 15:26), and He
proceeds from both, not from the Father alone, (John 15:26) but also from the
Son, for He is also called the Spirit of Christ or the Spirit of the Father,
(Rom. 8:9).
Although the Holy Spirit is in that way given or sent or
poured out by the Father and the Son, He often makes His appearance as a power
or a gift which qualifies men for their calling or office. Thus, for example,
the Holy Spirit is spoken of at various places in the Acts of the Apostles in
connection with the gift of prophecy, (8:15; 10:44; 11:15; 15:8; 19:2). But it
is not warranted to infer from that fact, as many do, that the Holy Spirit is
nothing more or other than a gift or power of God. At other places He definitely
makes His appearance as a person, one who bears personal names, has personal
characteristics, and does personal deeds. Thus in John 15:26 and 16:13, 14,
(although the Greek of the word translated Spirit in our language is of
neuter gender) Christ uses the masculine referent: He shall testify of Me
and glorify Me. At the same place Christ calls Him Comforter, using the same
name that is used of Christ in 1 John 2:1, a name translated advocate in
the English version.
Besides these personal names all sorts of personal
characteristics are ascribed to the Holy Spirit: for example, selfhood, (Acts
132), self-consciousness, (Acts 15:28), self-determination or will, (1 Cor.
12:11). Besides He is credited with all kinds of personal activities, such as
investigating, (1 Cor. 2:11), listening, (John 16:13), speaking, (Rev. 2:17),
teaching, (John 14:26), praying, (Rom. 8:27), and the like. And all this comes
out most clearly and sublimely in the fact that He is placed on one and the same
level with the Father and the Son, (Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14).
The last point is the most important and it indicates the
fact that the Holy Spirit is a person not merely but also very God. And
Scriptures provide all the data which are necessary to make this confession. We
have only to note that despite the distinction between God and His Spirit which
was pointed out above, the two frequently exchange places in Scripture, so that
it is quite the same whether God or His Spirit says or does a thing. In Acts
5:3-4 the lying to the Holy Spirit is called a lying to God. In 1 Corinthians
3:16 the believers are called God’s temple, because the Spirit of God dwells in
them. To these facts we must add that various Divine attributes, such as
eternity, (Heb. 9:14), omnipresence, (Ps. 139:7), omniscience, (1 Cor. 2:11),
omnipotence, (1 Cor. 12:4-6), and various Divine works, such as creation, (Ps.
33:6), providence, (Ps. 104:30), and redemption, (John 3:3) are ascribed to the
Holy Spirit quite as well as to the Father and the Son. Consequently He shares
in the same glory with those two. He takes His place alongside of the Father and
the Son as the cause of salvation, (2 Cor. 13:14 and Rev. 1:4). It is in His
name also that we are baptized, (Matt. 28:19), and blessed, (2 Cor.
13:14). Moreover, the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is an unpardonable sin,
(Matt. 12:31-32). In other words, just as all things are of the Father
and through the Son, they all exist and rest in the Holy Spirit.
All of these elements of the doctrine of the trinity, spread
throughout the Scriptures, were gathered together, so to speak, by Jesus in His
baptismal command and by the apostles in their benedictions. After His
resurrection and before His ascension, Christ bids His apostles to go out and
make all peoples His disciples and to baptize them in the one name in which,
nevertheless, three different subjects are revealed. Father, Son, and Spirit are
in their oneness and their distinction the fulness of the perfected revelation
of God. Just so, too, according to the apostles the whole good and salvation of
man is contained in the love of the Father, the grace of the Son, and the
fellowship of the Holy Spirit.16 The good pleasure, the
foreknowledge, the power, the love, the kingdom, and the strength are the
Father’s. The Mediatorship, the reconciliation, the grace, and the redemption
are the Son’s. The regeneration, the renewal, the sanctification, the redemption
are the Spirit’s.
The relationship in which Christ stands to the Father
corresponds fully with the relationship in which the Spirit stands to Christ.
Just as the Son speaks nothing and does nothing of Himself but receives
everything from the Father, (John 5:26; 16:15), so the Holy Spirit takes
everything from Christ, (John 16:13-14). As the Son testifies of the Father and
glorifies the Father, (John 1:18; 17:4, 6), so the Holy Spirit testifies of the
Son and glorifies Him, (John 15:26 and 16:14). Just as no one comes to the
Father but through the Son, (John 14:6), so no one can say that Jesus is the
Lord except through the Holy Spirit, (1 Cor. 12:3). Through the Spirit we have
fellowship with the Father and the Son. It is in the Holy Spirit that God
Himself through Christ dwells in our hearts. And if this all be so, then the
Holy Spirit is, together with the Son and the Father, the one, true God, and is
to be eternally lauded and praised as such.
To this instruction of the Holy Spirit the Christian church
in its confession of the Trinity of God has said yea and amen. The church did
not arrive at this rich and glorious confession without a hard and long struggle
of the spirits. Centuries on end the profoundest experience of the spiritual
life of the children of God and the doughtiest intellect of the fathers and
teachers of the church went into the understanding of this point of the
revelation of Scripture and to reproducing it purely in the confession of the
church. No doubt the church would not have succeeded in this effort at the
laying of foundations, if it had not been led into the truth by the Holy.
Spirit, and if in Tertullian and Irenaeus, Athanasius and the three
Cappadocians, Augustine, and Hillary, and so many others besides, it had not
received the men who, endowed and equipped with unusual gifts of godliness and
wisdom, kept to the straight course.
Nothing less than the peculiar essence of Christianity was at
stake in this battle of the spirits. From two sides the church was exposed to
the danger of permitting itself to be wrested from the firm foundation on which
it was built and so to be submerged by the world.
On the one hand, there was the threat of Arianism, so called
after the Alexandrian presbyter Arius who died in the year 336. Anus held that
the Father alone was the eternal and true God, inasmuch as He alone in the full
sense of the word was ungenerated. Concerning the Son, the Logos, who in Christ
had become flesh, he taught that, inasmuch as this Christ was generated, He
could not be God but had to be a creature — a creature, it is true, who had been
made before other creatures, but nevertheless was made as they were made through
the will of God. And, in the same way, Arius held that the Holy Spirit was a
creature or else a quality or attribute of God.
On the other side the party of Sabellianism was at work, so
called after a certain Sabellius who lived in
While Arianism tries to maintain the oneness of God, by
placing Son and Spirit outside the Divine being and reducing these to the level
of creatures, Sabellianism tries to arrive at the same end by robbing the three
persons of the Godhead of their independence. This it does by metamorphosing the
persons into three successive modes of revelation of the same Divine Being. In
the first tendency the Jewish, deistic, rationalistic mode of thinking comes to
expression rather characteristically, and in the second the idea of Pagan
pantheism and mysticism. The moment the church set about giving itself a fairly
clear account of the truth which was later stated in the confession of the
Trinity of God, these two other tendencies arose alongside at the right and
left, and they accompany the confession of the church to this day. Always and
again the church and each one of its members must be on guard against doing
injustice on the one hand to the oneness of the Divine Being, and on the other
to the three Persons within that Being. The oneness may not be sacrificed to the
diversity, nor the diversity to the oneness. To maintain both in their
inseparable connection and in their pure relationship, not only theoretically
but also in practical life, is the calling of all believers.
In order to satisfy this requirement, the Christian church
and Christian theology in the early period made use of various words and
expressions which cannot be found literally in the Holy Scriptures. The church
began to speak of the essence of God and of three persons in that
essence of being. It spoke of the triune and the trinitarian,
or of essential and personal characteristics, of the
eternal generation of the Son and of the proceeding of the Holy
Spirit from the Father and from the Son, and the like.
There is no reason at all why the church and the Christian
theology should not use such terms and modes of expression. For the Holy
Scripture was not given to the church by God to be thoughtlessly repeated but to
be understood in all its fulness and riches, and to be restated in its own
language in order that in this way it might proclaim the mighty works of God.
Moreover, such terms and expressions are necessary in order to maintain the
truth of Scripture over against its opponents and to secure it against
misunderstanding and error. And history has taught throughout the centuries that
a lighthearted disapproval and rejection of these names and modes of expression
leads to various departures from the confession.
At the same time, we should, in the use of these terms,
always remember that they are of human origin and therefore limited, defective,
fallible. The church fathers always acknowledged this. For example, they held
that the term persons which was used to designate the three ways of
existence in the Divine Being did not do justice to the truth in the matter but
served as an aid towards maintaining the truth and cutting off error. The word
was chosen, not because it was accurate in every respect, but because no other
and better was to be found. In this matter again the word is far behind the
thought, and the thought is far behind the actuality. Although we cannot
preserve the actuality in any but this inadequate form, we may never forget that
it is the reality itself and not the word that counts. In the dispensation of
glory other and better expressions will certainly be laid upon our lips.
The reality itself which is concerned in the confession of
the holy trinity is of the highest importance, both for the mind and the heart.
For it is by that confession that the church maintains, in
the first place, both the unity and the diversity in the being of God. The
Divine Being is one: there is but one Being that is God and that may be called
God. In creation and redemption, in nature and grace, in church and world, in
state and society, everywhere and always we are concerned with one, same,
living, and true God. The unity of the world, of mankind, of truth, of virtue,
of justice, and of beauty depends upon the unity of God. The moment that unity
of God is denied or under stressed, the door is open to polytheism.
But this unity or oneness of God is, according to Scripture
and the confession of the church, not a contentless unity, nor a solitariness,
but a fulness of life and strength. It comprises difference, or distinction, or
diversity. It is that diversity which comes to expression in the three persons
or modes of being of God. These three persons are not merely three modes of
revelation. They are modes of being. Father, Son, and Spirit share one and the
same Divine nature and characteristics. They are one being. Nevertheless each
has His own name, His own particular characteristic, by which He is
distinguished from the others. The Father alone has fatherhood, the Son alone
has generation, and the Spirit alone possesses the quality of proceeding from
both.
To that order of existence in the Divine Being the order of
the three persons in all Divine work corresponds. The Father is He from
whom, the Son is He through whom, and the Spirit is He in whom all
things are. All things in the creation, and in the redemption, or re-creation,
come from the Father, through the Son and the Spirit. And in the Spirit and
through the Son they are come back to Him. It is to the Father that we are
particularly indebted, therefore, for his electing love, to the Son for His
redeeming grace, and to the Spirit for his regenerative and renewing power.
In the second place, the church in maintaining this
confession, takes a strong position over against the heresies of deism, (belief
in God without revelation) and pantheism, (polytheism) and of Judaism and
Paganism. Always there is that dual tendency in the human heart: the tendency to
think of God as distant and removed and to think of self and world as
independent of God, and the tendency to draw God down into the world, to
identify Him with the world, and so to deify the self and the world. When the
first tendency prevails in us we come to the point of thinking that we can do
without God in nature, in our calling, in our business, in our science and art,
and also in the work of redemption. And, if the second tendency prevails in us,
we change the glory of God into the image of some creature or other, deify the
world, the sun, the moon and the stars, art, science, or the state, and in the
creature, usually conceived in our image, we worship our own greatness. In the
first instance God is only afar off; in the second He is only
nearby. In the first, He is outside of the world, above it, free from it; in the
second, He is inside it and identical with it.
But the church confesses both: God is above the world,
distinguished from it in essence, and yet He is with His whole being present in
it and at no point in space or time separated from it. He is both afar off and
nearby. He is both highly exalted above all creatures and at the same time
deeply condescending to them all. He is our Creator who brought us into being by
His will as creatures distinct from Him in kind. He is our Redeemer who saves
us, not by our works but by the riches of His grace. He is our Sanctifier who
dwells in us as in His temple. As the triune God He is one God and is above
us, for us, and in us.
Finally, in the third place, this confession of the church is
also of the greatest importance for the spiritual life. Quite unjustifiably it
is sometimes maintained that the doctrine of the trinity is merely a
philosophically abstracted dogma and that it possesses no value for religion and
life. The Reformed Confession of Faith takes an entirely different view of this.
In Article XI of that Confession the church stated that God is one in essence
and three in persons. This we know from the witness of Holy Scripture, and from
the activities of the three persons, especially those which we sense within us.
True, we do not base our faith in the trinity on feeling and experience; but
when we believe it, we notice that the doctrine stands in intimate relationship
with the spiritual experience of the children of God.
For the believers come to know the workings of the Father,
the Creator of all things, He who gave them life, and breath, and all things.
They learn to know Him as the Lawgiver who gave out His holy commandments in
order that they should walk in them. They learn to know Him as the Judge who is
provoked to terrible wrath by all the unrighteousness of men and who in no sense
holds the guilty guiltless. And they learn to know Him, finally, as the Father
who for Christ’s sake is their God and Father, on whom they trust so far that
they do not doubt but that He will supply for every need of body and soul, and
that He will convert all evil which accrues to them in this vale of tears into
good. They know that He can do this as Almighty God and that He wants to do it
as a faithful Father. Hence they confess: I believe in God, the Father, the
Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.
Thus, too, they learn to know in themselves the workings of
the Son, He who is the only-begotten of the Father, conceived in Mary of the
Holy Spirit. They learn to know Him as their highest Prophet and Teacher, He who
has perfectly revealed to them the secret counsel and will of God in the matter
of their redemption. They learn to know Him as their only High priest, who has
redeemed them by the one sacrifice of His body, and who still constantly
intercedes for them with the Father. They learn to know Him as their eternal
King, who rules them with His Word and Spirit and who shelters and preserves
them in their achieved redemption. Hence they confess: I believe in Jesus
Christ, God’s only-begotten Son, our Lord.
And they also learn to recognize in themselves the workings
of the Holy Spirit, He who regenerates them and leads them into all truth. They
learn to know Him as the Operator of their faith, He who through that faith
causes them to share in Christ and all His benefits. They learn to know Him as
the Comforter, He who prays in them with unutterable longings and who testifies
with their spirit that they are children of God. They learn to know Him as the
pledge of their eternal inheritance, He who preserves them until the day of
their redemption. And they therefore confess: I believe also in the Holy Spirit.
Thus the confession of the trinity is the sum of the
Christian religion. Without it neither the creation nor the redemption nor the
sanctification can be purely maintained.
Every departure from this confession leads to error in the
other heads of doctrine, just as a mistaken representation of the articles of
faith can be traced back to a misconception of the doctrine of the trinity. We
can truly proclaim the mighty works of God only when we recognize and confess
them as the one great work of Father, Son, and Spirit.
In the love of the Father, the grace of the Son, and the
fellowship of the Holy Spirit is contained the whole salvation of men.
Endnotes
1.
Deut. 4:35,39; Josh. 22:22;
2 Sam. 7:22; 22:32; 1 Kings 18:39; Isa. 45:5,18, 21; and elsewhere.
2.
Ex. 3:2; 13:21; 14:19;
23:20-23; 32:34; 33:2; and Num. 20:16.
3.
Ex. 28:3; 31:3-5; 35:31-35;
and 1 Chron. 28:12.
4.
Num. 11:25,29; 24:2-3;
Micah 3:8; and like passages.
5.
Joel 2:28-29; Isa. 32:15;
44:3; Ezek. 36:26-27; and Zech. 12:10.
6.
Ezek. 11:19-20; 36:26; Jer.
31:31-34 and 32:38-41.
7.
John 17:3; 1 Cor. 8:4; and
1 Tim. 2:5.
8.
Luke 3:38; Acts 17:28; Eph.
3:15; and Heb. 12:9.
9.
Matt. 11:27; Mark 12:6; and
John 5:20.
10.
Luke 9 :20; 1 Cor. 3 :23;
and Rev. 12:10.
11.
Job 38: 7
12.
Deut. 1:31; 8:5; 14:1;
32:6, 18 and Hosea 11:1.
13.
2 Sam. 7:11-14 Ps. 2:7.
14.
John 3:16; Gal. 4:4; and
Heb. 1:6.
15.
John 1:1; 20:8; Rom. 9:5;
and Heb. 1:8-9.
16.
1 Cor. 13:14; 1 Peter 1:2;
1 John 5:4-6; and Rev. 1:4-6.
