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Tag: trinity

15

Published on 15 Comments on Christ in the Old Testament 3

The Angel of the LORD continued...

Let's look at the Angel in action in Genesis and Exodus.

His first appearance is to the Egyptian, Hagar:

Then the Angel of the LORD told her, "Go back to your mistress and submit to her." The Angel added, "I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count." The Angel of the LORD also said to her: "You are now with child and you will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the LORD has heard of your misery... She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: "You are the God who sees me," for she said, "I have now seen the One who sees me." (Gen 16:9-14)

Here the Angel speaks of another Person called the LORD who has heard Hagar.  This is typical in the OT - God hears and sends His Angel to deliver.  See Gen 21:17; Ex 2:23ff; Num 20:16; Judges 13:9 - also similar is Dan 3:28; 6:22.

But even though the Angel is distinctly called of the LORD He can also own the name 'LORD' Himself.  In verse 13 even the narrator calls the Angel "LORD" and Hagar calls Him "the God who sees me."  He is from God but He also is God - in fact He is the visible God for Hagar is astonished that she has seen Him.

Read on to Genesis 22 and here we see that the Angel of the LORD is the One who intercepts the judgement of father Abraham on his son.

But the Angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied. "Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son." Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, "On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided." The Angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, "I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore.

Difficult to read these verses if you're a unitarian!  'Now I know that you fear God because you haven't witheld your son from Me.'  The Angel clearly thinks the offering is to Himself and later in v16 He clearly thinks that He is the LORD who will bless Abraham.  But He also clearly speaks of 'God' as another Person in the equation.  There's much more to be said about Genesis 22, but we must move on.

In Genesis 32, Jacob wrestles with a man ('ish) who is clearly a source of blessing (v26) and is in fact God (v28).  Jacob rightly identifies Him as 'God face to face' (perhaps best understood as a divine title?).  Why are we looking at this passage while considering the Angel?  Because of what Hosea 12:3-5 makes of this incident.

...[Jacob] struggled with God. He struggled with the Angel and overcame Him; he wept and begged for His favour. He found Him at Bethel and talked with Him there-- the LORD God Almighty, the LORD is His name of renown!

Hosea knows how it is that Jacob could actually wrestle with God and see Him face to face.  He knows that Jacob wrestled with the Angel.  But Hosea also knows that such a name is not a diminutive title for this figure. The Angel is Himself the LORD God Almighty (Yahweh the God of Hosts).  What's interesting is not only Hosea's high christology but also how OT saints thought through the issues of how God is mediated.  It was clear to Hosea, even though Genesis does not mention the name, that Jacob wrestled 'the Angel.'  OT saints are able to make such distinctions and properly interpreted their own Scriptures christologically centuries after the events and centuries before the incarnation.

Moving on in Genesis we come to Jacob's blessing of his grandsons.  Just as he sought the Angel's blessing for himself (Gen 32:26,29) so now he wants the Angel's blessing for Ephraim and Manasseh:

"May the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my Shepherd all my life to this day, the Angel who has delivered me from all harm--may He bless these boys.  (Gen 48:15-16)

Who is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob?  This is a massive question today.  Can we please have the courage to proclaim from Genesis that Christ is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  He is the Deliverer God before Whom the patriarchs walked.  The Angel is God and Shepherd, Deliverer and the Source of all blessing.  The Angel is God from God and the One to Whom the patriarchs looked.

I can't see a) any way around this, b) any reason you'd want to get around this!

Let's move on briefly to Exodus.  And here again we see the pattern whereby people call out to God, God hears (Exod 2:23-24) and in response He sends His Deliverer.  And who is the Deliverer?

2 There the Angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight-- why the bush does not burn up." 4 When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses!" And Moses said, "Here I am." 5 "Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." 6 Then He said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. (Ex 3:2-6)

The Angel is Him who dwelt in the burning bush (Deut 33:16).  He is, v4,  LORD and God and the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  Furthermore He is the great I AM (v14) who saves His people.  When Jesus claims to be I AM He isn't (as many seem to say) audaciously applying to Himself a title belonging to ""God"".  He's saying - I'm 'Him who dwelt in the burning bush.'  He's not just saying 'I have the same name as Israel's Redeemer, He's saying - You know the whole burning bush, plagues, Red Sea thing?  That was me!'

Notice how in Exodus 3:12 the Angel says:

"I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain."

The Angel will save a people and bring them to God.  That is the story of salvation.  And does the Angel deliver on His promise?  Yes! He is the LORD who goes at their head:

By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. (Ex 13:21)

How do we know that this is the Angel?

Then the Angel of God, who had been travelling in front of Israel's army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them (Ex 14:19)

So the Deliverer is the Angel who is of the LORD and who is the LORD.  Exodus 23:20-23 tells us how the Angel relates to the Most High God: 'My Name is in Him' says the LORD on top of the mountain.  The Angel is the One the people should follow knowing that He has been sent from the LORD on high with the very character of the unseen God.  To hear the Angel (v22) is to know the favour and salvation of God Most High.

The Exodus was wrought at the initiative of God the Father hearing His people’s cries for mercy.  Out of His compassion He sent His Angel to deliver His people and bring them back to the Mountain to worship Him.

And just to drive home the point even further, let's look at one last reference.  When all is done and dusted and Scripture looks back on the redemption out of Egypt, who is it who takes the credit?

The Angel of the LORD went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, "I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land that I swore to give to your forefathers. I said,`I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.' Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this? Now therefore I tell you that I will not drive them out before you; they will be thorns in your sides and their gods will be a snare to you."  When the Angel of the LORD had spoken these things to all the Israelites, the people wept aloud. (Judges 2:1-4)

At this point I feel like pulling a CS Lewis - when the Angel makes such incredible claims, He's either mad, bad or the LORD.  So who is He??

I hope it's obvious.  But I hope we also see that these things are plain on their own terms and in their own context.  I haven't needed to do any NT 're-reading'.  I hope you see this isn't a conjuring act it's simply taking these verses seriously. And allowing them to say what they say without forcing them into a pre-fab unitarian mould.

I think it's clear (don't you?) the Angel is clearly divine, clearly Israel's Deliverer, clearly trusted in.  But also note - He is also clearly distinct from another called LORD or God (we'll see this more and more as we go on).  And He has His identity as the Sent One (malak - Messenger). To see Him is to be immediately drawn into knowledge of the Sender whose Name He bears.  His very being is defined by relationship to Another.  He is a divine Person who belongs to another divine Person.  Israel's LORD is God from God.

And if this is true then the OT doctrine of God is nothing like the modern Jew's god, nothing like the philosopher's god, nothing like allah.  The God of the OT is inescapably and irreducibly trinitarian in nature and christocentric in focus.

One more post on the Angel to come and then we'll look at some other fun stuff.

Next post...

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Published on 15 Comments on Christ in the Old Testament 2

Who is the Angel of the LORD?

In my last post I laid out my intention to show from the Old Testament that Christ has always been the one Mediator between God and man.

I find the easiest place to start in these discussions is with the Angel of the LORD.  If a person cannot see from Scripture that this is a title belonging to Christ then the conversation will not get very far.  So I wonder whether you have a view?

Perhaps the first thing to say is - don't be thrown by the title.  Angel (malak) just means 'Sent One' or 'Messenger' (as most translations render it in Malachi 3:1).  So literally the Angel of the LORD is the One Sent from the LORD.  And already we should be hearing resonances with Jesus' self-descriptions.  In John's Gospel for instance Jesus is described as the One Sent from God 40 times!  That might be significant!

The second thing to say is that not every angel is The Angel.  There are many created angelic beings in the bible.  But when Scripture speaks of the Angel we know who we're talking about.  In the same way there are many ones sent from God in a general sense.  But when you talk about 'the One sent from the Father' you are talking about Jesus.

But really the proof is in the eating.  So get a load of these verses.

Genesis 16:9-14; Genesis 21:17-20; Genesis 22:11-18; Genesis 24:7,40; Genesis 31:11-13; Genesis 48:15-16; Exodus 3:1-6; Exodus 13:21 <=> Exodus 14:19; Exodus 23:20-23; Exodus 32:34; 33:2 <=> 34:9; Num 20:16; Num 22:22-35; Judges 2:1-5; Judges 5:23; Judges 6:11-24; Judges 13:3-23; 2 Sam 24:16-17; 1 Kings 19:5,7; 2 Kings 1:3,15; 1 Chron 21:11-20; Psalm 34:7,9; Psalm 35:5-6; Isaiah 37:36; Isaiah 63:9; Daniel 3:28; Daniel 6:22; Hosea 12:4-5 <=> Genesis 32:24-30; Zechariah 1:9-19; Zechariah 3:1-10; Zechariah 4:1-6; Zechariah 12:8; Malachi 3:1

See also these verse where people are said to be like the Angel and so are said to be like Christ:

1 Sam 29:9; 2 Sam 14:17,20; 2 Sam 19:27; Gal 4:14

As you see the Angel is not an insignificant figure in the Old Testament.  I'm not expecting you to check out all the references but thought it might be useful to have them all together.  Over the next few posts I'll pick out some key passages to highlight some fundamental truths.  At bottom this is where these verses take us:

  • The Angel is divine - He is very often called the LORD and God, He speaks as the LORD, acts as the LORD and accepts divine worship.

  • The Angel is distinct from another Person called 'LORD' or 'God' or 'God Most High.'

  • The Angel acts on behalf of God Most High in revelation and salvation.

  • The Angel is correctly identified by the OT saints as a distinct, divine Person

  • He is feared, trusted and hoped for by the faithful.

The Angel is God from God.  Light from Light.  True God from True God.  That's clear from the biblical portrait.  To fail to see His identity is, I think, a real problem.

What always strikes me in discussions about the Angel's identity is that the Scriptures are so unambiguous in naming Him LORD.  I would go so far as to say that the Old Testament is even clearer on the divine identity of the Angel than the New Testament is on the identity of Jesus. But of course once we grasp who the Angel is in the OT the NT pictures of Christ's divinity become much more apparent.

When Jesus claims to be the One sent from the Father He is not merely defering to divinity - He is claiming it.  His divine identity in the New Testament is so much easier to see for those who have already grasped it in the Old.

In the next post I'll have a look at some of the key Angel passages.  Let me leave you with a Calvin quote who sums up the history of Christian interpretation on this issue:

The orthodox doctors of the Church have correctly and wisely expounded, that the Word of God was the supreme angel, who then began, as it were by anticipation, to perform the office of Mediator. For though he were not clothed with flesh, yet he descended as in an intermediate form, that he might have more familiar access to the faithful. This closer intercourse procured for him the name of the Angel; still, however, he retained the character which justly belonged to him - that of the God of ineffable glory. (Instit. I.xiii.10)

Next post...

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Published on 11 Comments on Christ in the Old Testament 1

When we confess that Jesus is our Substitute most people mean this:

Jesus stands in our place - living the life we should have lived, dying the death we should have died

I wonder though how many also have this understanding of Jesus' substitution:

He sits on the bench for the first half before the Coach brings Him on as match-winner in the closing stages.

I find that many Christians, though believing in the pre-existence of Christ, function with an understanding akin to this latter belief.

Though we shout from the roof-tops the centrality of Christ, we affirm His exclusivity, His supremacy, His full deity, in practice our gospel has Jesus coming late to the game to solve a problem He's had nothing to do with.  We insist that He is the crux, the ultimate, the final, the greatest, the fulfilment but somehow lose that He is the Beginning, the Author, the Logos, the Creator, the Head etc.

In such theology Jesus becomes the Kappa and the Omega, the Middle and the End.  The foundations are laid.  God is defined (monadically).  Humanity is defined (apart from the true Man).  The God-man relation is taken for granted (according to these Christ-less definitions).  Sin, law, wrath, sacrifice, blessings, hope etc are slotted into place.  And then Jesus comes to find His place within this pre-fab mould.

But we know this can't be right.  Jesus is not merely the cherry on the cake.  He is the flour, eggs, sugar, butter and everything else besides.  We know this because we have come to experience life in Christ.  And it is not the experience of Jesus-the-bridge-to-something-else.  He has not taken us by the hand to another reality (heaven, glory, forgiveness, God), He Himself is our all in all.  All those other things find their meaning in Him and only in Him.

Now it seems to me there are three ways that this christocentricity can be argued:

  1. Systematically
  2. From the New Testament back
  3. From the Old Testament forwards

Systematically we point to verses like Matthew 11:25-30 or John 1:18 or Colossians 1:15 and say Christ is, was and ever shall be the one and only Mediator of the Father in revelation and salvation.  This, when grasped, opens our eyes to see that all of history, all of theology and all of God to His very depths is truly trinitarian and christocentric.  Glory!

But of course, people will soon ask you to show it from the bible.  So often people appeal to the New Testament.  Jesus was constantly saying things like He was the One who spoke with Abraham (John 8:56), He was the One the prophets persecuted (Matt 5:11-12), He was David's Lord (Matt 22:42-45), He was the One who kept pursuing Jerusalem (Matt 23:37).  Or Paul would say Christ accompanied Israel in the wilderness (1 Cor 10:4,9), Hebrews insists Moses trusted Christ (Hebrews 11:26), Jude asserts that Jesus saved Israel out of Egypt (Jude 5).  And this gets people excited.  For a while.

And then someone says: "Ahhh, with what freedom the Apostles imposed christocentricity on the Hebrew Scriptures."  And all of a sudden you get odd things asserted like: "It's ok for Apostles to retrospectively award a Christ-focus to the OT even though the Jewish authors intended nothing of the sort."  And thus a rarely substantiated but practically unimpeachable maxim is born: "They spoke better than they knew."

Rather than rant polemically about the laughible paucity of Scriptural warrant for this view, or the ethical conundrum of Apostles modelling such dodgy hermeneutics or the logical absurdity of retrospectively awarding Abraham or Isaiah or Israel an encounter with Christ I will side-step a stomach ulcer and move to the third argument.  Because if I can show that the OT by itself proclaims Christ then all such nonsense will be shown to be completely unnecessary.

So here's my assertion that I will seek to unpack over a long series of posts: The OT on its own grounds, in its own context, according to its own intention is a plain and understood revelation of Christ.  I will seek to argue that,

  • Christ is active pre-incarnation
  • He is the Mediator in Old Testament times as well as New
  • He Mediates as a distinct Person, divine and yet differentiated from God Most High
  • He was trusted by (the faithful) OT saints as their LORD and as the One who was to come to save
  • In this way the object of saving faith has always been Christ
  • And in this way the experience of true faith has always been irreducibly trinitarian and christological.

If Jesus tarries I will, in my next few posts, have a look at the Angel of the LORD passages before moving onto some other key multiple-Person OT verses.  I'll look at the very natural way in which the NT picks up on this.  I'll give quotes from church history and I'll draw out some implications.

And having made such a commitment, I immediately wish I hadn't.  Ah well, it'll do me good to get it all off my chest!

NEXT POST

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Published on 27 Comments on The Allah of the Quran is not the God of the Bible

These are thoughts that I've been sharing over at Between Two Worlds on a post called Is the Father of Jesus the God of Muhammed?

My answer?  Of course not.  Here are some points in no particular order:

1) Let's let Allah define himself:

"He does not beget nor is he begotten." (Sura 112)

The Quran defines the god of Islam explicitly as not the God of the Bible. Let's respect Muslims enough to let them define who their god is. He is not the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We honour their faith by speaking of Allah as another god - that is how Allah defines himself. From our perspective we cannot speak of Allah as anything other than an idol - anything else fails to take Muslim faith on its own terms.

2) Can anyone really imagine the prophets addressing the Edomites, Philistines etc saying 'Yahweh is very much like Baal/Molech/Asherah'??! Never!

The question for the nations is not 'Do you believe in God?' But 'What god do you believe in?' Whether you're evangelizing in north Africa or north America "God" cannot be assumed.  In fact "God" is the least obvious word in our evangelistic encounters.  How on earth do we get to a position where people make it the point of commonality!

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At this point a commenter replied that the 'Baal' analogies do not work because Allah is thought to be 'the transcendent Creator' and not simply a power within the world.  He claimed that a Muslim convert would have to repent of many beliefs but not his belief in 'God as infinite transcendent Creator.'

To this I replied...

3) We don't say "Baal is called 'Lord' and receives worship therefore no convert from Baalism needs to repent of their notions of Lorship or worship."  Of course they will have to repent of all of this.  So then why would anyone claim that a belief in the 'infinite transcendent Creator' is of a different order?  Fundamentally I see this as committing two errors.  It is to say...

A) 'Transcendent Creator' is more foundational to God's being than His triunity.

B) The Muslim means roughly the same as the Christian when speaking of the 'Transcendent Creator'

I strongly disagree with both.

A) i) If God is transcendent Creator you've made Him dependent on creation.

A) ii) It is a position that leads to Arianism. Athanasius complained that Arius' error was to conceive of God as Unoriginate and then to consider trinity. On this trajectory he could never affirm the homo-ousios of One whose being was 'ek tes ousia tw patri' (out of the being of the Father). Similarly if your conversation with a Muslim begins with some 'bedrock' notion of transcendence before introducing them to Jesus it will necessarily mean introducing them to one who is less than the transcendent one. You'll have shot yourself in the foot from the very beginning. Let's not define Jesus out of full deity before we've even begun. We therefore must not begin on the Arian trajectory of affirming transcendent Creator first - Jesus will not come out very well from such a starting point!

B) Only the God who exists as Himself in relations of otherness can actually have a relationship with creation in which we can know Him as transcendent. 'Transcendent Creator' is dependent on trinity (not the other way around). The Muslim account of transcendence is completely confused (as is every unitarian account). Allah is a prisoner of his 'transcendence' - by definition cut off from any relationship with it (whether transcendent or immanent).

'Transcendent Creator' is neither the foundational nor a shared understanding of the living God. And it's not desirable that it should be.

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At this point my interlocutor (rightly) suspected I was denying the possiblity of true philosophical reflection on divinity apart from Christian revelation.  He claimed I was being overly Barthian ;-)   I replied with these points...

4) In terms of theological method, "Christ alone" is not a Barthian novelty!  It's difficult to think of a more crucial verse in the history of the church for theological method than Matthew 11:27: "No-one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him."

To this let's add John 1:18; 14:6 and Colossians 1:15. To this let's add the continual Scriptural witness that we are blind, dead, enemies of God unable to know Him apart from His Word to us.  (e.g. Ps 14:2; 2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:21).  These plain and central truths cannot be evaded by crying 'Barthian'!

5) Nicea's "The Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth" was a deliberate and crucial choice of order. Triunity precedes creation. Of course it does - unless we want to define God as dependent upon creation.

6) Even Jews who have the Scriptures do not know the Father if they reject the Son. (cf ALL OF JOHN'S GOSPEL!)

7) To go over a previous point - there are tremendous Arian dangers of considering 'Creator' more foundational than trinity. Once you have assured your Muslim friend that she really does know God and that the God she knows is definitionally the infinite, transcendent Creator, do you really think you've helped her towards faith in Jesus of Nazareth?? Have you not just given her every reason to reject divine honours (thus defined) being attributed to Christ. Won't she simply thank you for confirming her own doctrine of God which by definition precludes Jesus from being anything more than a prophet??

Athanasius rightly said 'the only system of thought into which Jesus Christ will fit is the one in which He is the starting point.'

The Rock upon which we build is nothing and no-one else but Christ.  Let's be clearer on this whether we're evangelizing Muslims or our friends in the pub.  They do not know God and besides - why would we want to confirm for them a sterile, non-relational doctrine of God in the first place??  Let's tell them, 'The god you had thought existed was not God - let me tell you about the living God who is unlike anything you've imagined.  His name is Jesus and He blows your god out of the water!'

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Published on Leave a comment on How He has loved us

Bobby's just commented on a brilliant Richard Sibbes quotation re participation in the trinitarian communion of love.  Go read it. 

It got me thinking about the upper room, before Jesus died.  Here Jesus gives us three pictures of how we are loved.  The waterfall, promotion, God's compass.  They all deserve reflection as we immerse ourselves in how we have been loved by the triune God.

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First, the waterfall:

"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you." (John 15:9)

Here the love of the Father for His Son cascades over to us.  We stand in a beginningless, limitless torrent of love.  Think about it.  Take the word 'as' with utmost seriousness.

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Then there's promotion to Jesus' side:

The Father Himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. (John 16:27)

Here, in loving Christ we are raised shoulder to shoulder with the Son.  Think how highly we have been raised.  Anointed ones alongside the Anointed One.  Sons and daughters alongside the Son.  Receiving the same love from the Father that Jesus does.  Promoted into the Godhead!

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Then there's God's compass placed within us: 

...in order that the love You [Father] have for Me may be in them and that I myself may be in them. (John 17:26)

The Father's own 'true north' of love for His Son is placed within the Christian.  Now we have the Father's love for His Son in us.  The Christian loves the Son with the love the Father has placed within us.  That beginningless, limitless waterfall is not only something we receive, it's something that now flows from within us (John 7:38f).

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How He has loved us!  How He has caught us up in His love!  Meditate on these things

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Published on Leave a comment on “You and me, we’re not so different really…”

There's often a point in the crime drama where the bad guy tells the cop 'You and me, we're not so different really.'  Well there are two baddies in the history of trinitarian theology who really aren't that different: Arius and Sabellius.  Arius was the sub-ordinationist.  He defined the One God such that Jesus could not fit in.  Instead Jesus had to take His place under the One God.  Sabellius was the modalist.  He defined the One God such that Jesus was absorbed in, losing everything that made Him distinctly Jesus.  Instead Jesus was just the mask that the One God wore occasionally.  But you know - Arius and Sabellius weren't so different.  They both had a doctrine of the One God that couldn't cope with Jesus.

It was Jurgen Moltmann who really nailed this in my thinking. Check out this quote from The Trinity and the Kingdom of God:

A pre-conceived doctrine of the One God means "Christ must either recede into the series of the prophets, giving way to the One God, or he must disappear into the One God as one of his manifestations." (p131)

Here are the errors of Arius and Sabellius - and Jesus gets either squashed down or squished in.  The distinct Person of Christ will always lose out when 'the One God' is defined without Him.  Arius will allow Him to be Jesus and not God, Sabellius will allow Him to be God and not Jesus.  But fundamentally these errors are not so different because both prefer a pre-conceived 'One God' to Jesus. 

This leaves us no option but to begin with a doctrine of God that expressly includes the mutual relations of Father and Son.  Nothing else will allow Jesus to be Jesus and God.  Moltmann helped me to see what was at stake in this.  To begin with a definition of God that doesn't already include the distinct Personhood of the Son means either Arius's or Sabellius's error.  And, at the end of the day, they're not so different.

This is why Moltmann says:

...the doctrine of the Trinity is not only the deification of Christ; it is even more the Christianization of the concept of God. God cannot be comprehended without Christ, and Christ cannot be understood without God. If we are to perceive this, we not only have to reject the Arian heresy; the Sabellian heresy must be dismissed with equal emphasis." (p131-132)

Christ will never fit into a 'God' defined without Him.  We must begin with Him or else we will never honour Him properly.  The errors of subordinationism and modalism are simply the result of falling off either side of the wrong horse.  We must begin with Christ.

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Published on Leave a comment on "You and me, we're not so different really…"

There's often a point in the crime drama where the bad guy tells the cop 'You and me, we're not so different really.'  Well there are two baddies in the history of trinitarian theology who really aren't that different: Arius and Sabellius.  Arius was the sub-ordinationist.  He defined the One God such that Jesus could not fit in.  Instead Jesus had to take His place under the One God.  Sabellius was the modalist.  He defined the One God such that Jesus was absorbed in, losing everything that made Him distinctly Jesus.  Instead Jesus was just the mask that the One God wore occasionally.  But you know - Arius and Sabellius weren't so different.  They both had a doctrine of the One God that couldn't cope with Jesus.

It was Jurgen Moltmann who really nailed this in my thinking. Check out this quote from The Trinity and the Kingdom of God:

A pre-conceived doctrine of the One God means "Christ must either recede into the series of the prophets, giving way to the One God, or he must disappear into the One God as one of his manifestations." (p131)

Here are the errors of Arius and Sabellius - and Jesus gets either squashed down or squished in.  The distinct Person of Christ will always lose out when 'the One God' is defined without Him.  Arius will allow Him to be Jesus and not God, Sabellius will allow Him to be God and not Jesus.  But fundamentally these errors are not so different because both prefer a pre-conceived 'One God' to Jesus. 

This leaves us no option but to begin with a doctrine of God that expressly includes the mutual relations of Father and Son.  Nothing else will allow Jesus to be Jesus and God.  Moltmann helped me to see what was at stake in this.  To begin with a definition of God that doesn't already include the distinct Personhood of the Son means either Arius's or Sabellius's error.  And, at the end of the day, they're not so different.

This is why Moltmann says:

...the doctrine of the Trinity is not only the deification of Christ; it is even more the Christianization of the concept of God. God cannot be comprehended without Christ, and Christ cannot be understood without God. If we are to perceive this, we not only have to reject the Arian heresy; the Sabellian heresy must be dismissed with equal emphasis." (p131-132)

Christ will never fit into a 'God' defined without Him.  We must begin with Him or else we will never honour Him properly.  The errors of subordinationism and modalism are simply the result of falling off either side of the wrong horse.  We must begin with Christ.

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Published on 15 Comments on Trinity, universalism and women’s ministry

How about that for a title?

Just two half-formed thoughts really that flow from recent musings on the trinity...

First, Bobby has some interesting posts here and here that touch on (among other things) Barthian methodology and avoiding universalism.  Now one way of describing universalism is the conflation of church and world - that is church and world become, in the end, identical.  Can trinitarian theology help?

Well Christ is Priest of God.  And we've been seeing that Christ and His Father are one - not identically but with important self-distinctions upheld in their mutual relations.   Christ as Priest has His distinct existence which is neither identical with the Father nor identical with humanity.  He is God for man and Man for God and this mediatorial existence is absolutely essential to His Person.  But in this mediation He does not collapse into either party.  He remains, in eternity, distinct.

Now the church, corporately, is a royal priesthood.  And, again, the absolutely essential nature of the church is mediatorial.  We do not exist for ourselves but find our very being in reaching out into the world.  But, church does not for this reason collapse into world.  Church remains, in eternity, distinct.   

Now it's interesting that Barth's trinity is explictly not 'three divine I's'.  He states emphatically that his trinity is a 'single subject thrice repeated'.  Here (IMHO) there is not adequate room for self-distinction in the Godhead.  I wonder whether the fruit of that, down the line, is inadequate distinctions being drawn between church and world?  Just a thought.

Secondly, more briefly.  If, as I've argued, the equal Persons are differently gifted and perform different roles, doesn't this re-shape what we mean by gender-equality?  Equality, if it's grounded in God's equality, includes and upholds real differences in gifting and function.  I mean let's do the exegetical work on the relevant passages, but beware playing the 'equality' card in a way that would commit you to modalism when speaking of God!

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13

Published on 13 Comments on Trinity, universalism and women's ministry

How about that for a title?

Just two half-formed thoughts really that flow from recent musings on the trinity...

First, Bobby has some interesting posts here and here that touch on (among other things) Barthian methodology and avoiding universalism.  Now one way of describing universalism is the conflation of church and world - that is church and world become, in the end, identical.  Can trinitarian theology help?

Well Christ is Priest of God.  And we've been seeing that Christ and His Father are one - not identically but with important self-distinctions upheld in their mutual relations.   Christ as Priest has His distinct existence which is neither identical with the Father nor identical with humanity.  He is God for man and Man for God and this mediatorial existence is absolutely essential to His Person.  But in this mediation He does not collapse into either party.  He remains, in eternity, distinct.

Now the church, corporately, is a royal priesthood.  And, again, the absolutely essential nature of the church is mediatorial.  We do not exist for ourselves but find our very being in reaching out into the world.  But, church does not for this reason collapse into world.  Church remains, in eternity, distinct.   

Now it's interesting that Barth's trinity is explictly not 'three divine I's'.  He states emphatically that his trinity is a 'single subject thrice repeated'.  Here (IMHO) there is not adequate room for self-distinction in the Godhead.  I wonder whether the fruit of that, down the line, is inadequate distinctions being drawn between church and world?  Just a thought.

Secondly, more briefly.  If, as I've argued, the equal Persons are differently gifted and perform different roles, doesn't this re-shape what we mean by gender-equality?  Equality, if it's grounded in God's equality, includes and upholds real differences in gifting and function.  I mean let's do the exegetical work on the relevant passages, but beware playing the 'equality' card in a way that would commit you to modalism when speaking of God!

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