Tag Archives | godhead

The interpretive grounds and soteriological purpose of the Trinity are based solely upon the authority and meaning of Scripture revealed by God as transmitted by the biblical authors. From the Old Testament to the New, God revealed Himself as three persons in one essence. And the biblical authors wrote about that under the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit. From creation, through the covenants, redemptive history, and eschatological trajectories, each person of the Trinity was at work as recorded throughout Scripture.

Doctrinal Assertions

There are four ways, among many, to understand the doctrine of the Trinity.

1. There is One God, Elohim, Plural (Deut 6:4)
2. There is One God, Eternal, Immutable, Transcendent (Heb 7:3)
3. There is One God, Exclusive, Distinct (Isa 45:5)
4. There is One God, Modeless (John 17:5, John 1:1, John 14:26)

Doctrinal Approaches

The Trinity is revealed by divine presence, activity, and instruction; not derived through human attainment of knowledge, reason, or inference.

A. Subjects of Scripture

Structured summarization of Trinitarian functions and assessment of affected topics (i.e., deconstructed doctrines without the Trinity):

1. God the Father    Doctrine of God
2. Pneumatology     Doctrine of the Holy Spirit
3. Christology          Doctrine of Christ
4. Angelology           Doctrine of Creation (bene-elohim)
5. Anthropology      Doctrine of Man
6. Hamartiology       Doctrine of Sin
7. Soteriology          Doctrine of Human Salvation
8. Eschatology         Doctrine of Last Things
9. Bibliology             Doctrine of God’s Word
10. Ecclesiology         Doctrine of the Church

B. Storyline of Scripture

Genesis to Revelation, the Scriptural presence of the Trinity and its productivity (i.e., coherent involvement of the Trinity through biblical events) were prominent for the overall creative and soteriological purpose among both old and new covenants. Specific events communicated through the various literary genres involved all three persons of the Trinity.

Tracing events through scripture narratives across generations to corroborate the existence and work of the Trinity is an interpretive necessity through the formation of comprehensive biblical theology.

C. Statements of Scripture

Explicit attestations concerning the Trinty – Individual truths, promises, and themes are consistent throughout the Bible. The doctrinal implications of the relational nature between the members of the Trinity affect covenants, marriages, parenting, contracts, mediation, communication, and relationships.

The Glory of Triune God

While the soteriological purposes of God are highly evident throughout both the Old and New Testaments, what we recognized about His glory is, I am convinced, a part of a larger meta-narrative. There is much more at work than what we realize. James Hamilton Jr writes an excellent biblical theology around the salvation of people as a central theme throughout Scripture. Hamilton’s work is an exhaustive book-by-book horizontal examination of how triune God attains glory in salvation through the judgment of disobedient people.

He writes from the various events that coalesce into biblical theology, but I happen to think there is a vertical narrative as made evident by revelatory detail. Especially from a first-century New Testament perspective. A solely human-centered theology presents a limited one-dimensional horizontal perspective, but the soteriological value of comprehensive biblical theology speaks to who God is and what He has done for humanity as recorded in the pages of Scripture. I have nothing but heartfelt gratitude for Hamilton’s work. I study a range of his materials.

I’m highly sympathetic to Karl Barth (renowned most influential theologian of the 20th-century). He didn’t like the phrase, “systematic theology” because it suggested to readers a root of human reason to discern spiritual truth to shape harmful ecclesiological outcomes (like socialist liberal tolerance and acceptance of the Jewish holocaust). He got a lot of pushback from that among socialists and liberals within his time (thus his “Church Dogmatics”). It’s also why we see “Reformed Dogmatics” (Bavinck) and other similar titles from Reformed theologians who object to liberalism or socialist thought stemming from Aristotle and Kant (i.e., modernity and the ensuing enlightenment). 

Assumptions about the supremacy of human thought and reason outside what specific truths, principles, and imperatives are revealed in Scripture can form categories of doctrine that misguide church polity and social structures contrary to the explicit interests of God as recorded in His Word, the Bible. Modernity and post-modern thought contribute to a low view of Scripture. – For example, a complementary perspective concerns God’s glory in the realm beyond ours (a vertical dimensionality). While Hamilton comprehensively and deeply writes about the redemptive human history (a horizontal dimensionality), Michael Heiser writes of nations reclaimed (salvation) through a process of judgment for God’s glory. Where those judged are not human, but spiritual as Yahweh reclaims humanity for His interests. See video: Heiser’s Biblical Theology (Biblical & ANE Cosmology).

This afternoon I finished reading the entirety of God in Three Persons: A Contemporary Interpretation of the Trinity (342-pages). The whole effort was time well spent because it concerns the doctrine of the Trinity upon which various other doctrines rest. The book was a comprehensive look at the doctrine and the Trinity itself from the author (Millard Erickson, 1995) yet from the perspectives of various 18^th, 19^th, and 20^th-century theologies as well. Moreover, the scope of the book covered the councils of Nicea (325 A.D.) and Constantinople (381 A.D.) to assert the relevance and consequences of the doctrine, including the safety and survival of Rome.¹

While the book thoroughly covers the history of the doctrine’s development and its interpretive approaches, it highlights with careful attention the importance of what it is and what it does. The well-known and highly influential German theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg (1923-2014) asserted without hesitation that the doctrine of the Trinity is the most important among all doctrines by comparison. With numerous historical citations involving early church patristics, Erickson traverses the formulaic development of the doctrines from the first through fourth centuries. The apostolic fathers, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Origen, and Athanasius formed instruction and traditions around the doctrine to counter opposing thoughts and assertions about the triadic form of God. Furthermore, over decades, modalism, tri-theism, Arianism, and other disputes concerned the developing church where the formation of the doctrine of the Trinity had to become a priority to settle.

From the earliest understanding of authoritative and inspired Scripture, the biblical meaning of the doctrine appeared on a scale. A valid and necessary interpretation of the Trinity was at rest on a sort of conceptual fulcrum on a scale. Move too much one way in understanding and interpretation slides to a form of modalism (liberation theology & feminism), move in the opposite direction on the scale, and interpretation moves to tri-theism, or Arianism. While tri-theism tends to be an errant way of thinking about the Trinity today, Arianism purported that Jesus could not have been truly God. The teaching of Arius (335/336 A.D.) was deemed heretical at the council of Nicea in 325 A.D.

Erickson enumerates the numerous passages that biblically reference the doctrine of the Trinity from the Old to New Testaments. Historical and cultural narratives concerning the nature and triadic unity of God across Old Testament covenants involved God’s interaction with individuals, groups, tribes, and nations. To further extend the presence of God as triune in the New Testament, numerous gospel and Pauline references point to the truth of God’s Being as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as separate yet One. The various triadic passages and references within Pauline writings and the baptismal formula set the doctrine’s foundation to assure interpreted revelation for humanity to recognize God as He is.

To further narrow the meaning of the triadic union of God, the gospel of John makes extensive reference to the relationship between all members of the Trinity. In contrast to the Old Testament, the members of the Trinity are identified explicitly to indicate their function, momentary subordination, incarnation, and the relationship between each other and humanity. Taken together, the compiled meaning of God’s identity as revealed in Scripture is nothing short of astonishing and profound. The testimony of Old and New Testament witnesses to God, His activity, and work through the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles made a punctuated and alarming impression about reality beyond day-to-day recognition that is certain to last until the Parousia.

As Greek and Latin recognition of the revelatory witness began, numerous approaches to the understanding of the Trinity ensued. Philosophical assertions about the metaphysical nature of Trinitarian theology took shape from early Greek thought to more scholastic and postmodern perspectives. Erickson does an exceptional job outlining the substance of various contributors to philosophical and theological engagement. From Aquinas and Kant to Schleiermacher, Barth, Rahner, and more contemporary contributors of Henry, Davis, and Lacugna, different competing perspectives are presented, emphasizing a process of elimination given biblically grounded rationale. Tradition, utilitarian, or social preferences carried no interpretive weight with the author.

To make a case for the understanding and correct interpretation of the doctrine of the Trinity, the author covers various objections to the Trinity in painstaking detail. Moreover, the author effectively argues for the necessity of instruction on the doctrine as a matter of pressing discipleship or catechesis. A proper understanding and interpretation of the doctrine are foundational and practical as it concerns prayer life, worship, apologetical contention, interpersonal relationships, and church governance. The doctrine of the Trinity is such a crucial area of instruction that it affects the future health and development of the Church and Christianity in general.

^[1] Erickson cites on page 13: Adolf Harnack, History of Dogma (New York: Dover, 1961), 4:60–67.