Introduction:
In our last three posts we have looked at what I am calling "four pairs of truths" that we can use to summarize the Biblical doctrine of the Trinity.
1. Truth Pair #1 God's oneness of being and plurality of Personhood.
2. Truth Pair #2 God the Father's eternal act of begetting and God the Son being eternally begotten.
3. Truth Pair #3 God the Father and the Son's eternal out-breathing of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit's procession from the Father and the Son.
4. Truth Pair #4 The Trinity in unity and the unity in Trinity.
We have so far looked at the first two pairs of truths and intend to explore the third pair in this post.
The doctrine of the Trinity is a compound doctrine
The doctrine of the Trinity is what I sometimes call a "compound doctrine", meaning it is arrived at by careful considerations stemming from other areas of Biblical doctrine. Let me lay out three other key doctrines which the Bible links together to form the doctrine of the Trinity.
Theology proper or the doctrine of God
We have found that when we look at the doctrine of God or theology proper, we conclude from Scripture the teaching of monotheism or the oneness of God's being and attributes. But then, we also see the Bible emphasizing the revelation of God as Personal by firstly identifying Him as the Father. We can note three senses of what is meant by God as the Father. To begin, God is the Father to the people He chose to redeem, adopting them as His own (Exodus 4:22; romans 8:14-16). That is, He is Father to saved sinners as their Adoptive Father, and they as His adopted sons and daughters. He is the source of their salvation.
Second, God the Father is the source of all things as the Creator of all things (see Deuteronomy 32:6 and Acts 17:25-26). Now why does this matter? Biblical monotheism reveals God as not only transcendent and infinite in His perfections, but also immanent or deeply in contact with every point in creation and more importantly - a Personal God.
Then thirdly, God as the Father is eternally the Father who begets the Son. This final designation was covered in the last post. To say God the Father begets the Son is not a relation of Creator to creature, but instead an eternal relation of origin wherein the Father and Son have co-eternally, co-equally related to one another in the Godhead, with the Father viewed as the source of the relation and the Son the eternal recipient thereof. In this understanding, the Father cannot be "the Father" apart from the Son. Furthermore, the Father's communication of His own essence to the Son is what ensures the eternal co-equality of the Son while distinguishing the Son from the Father in regards to the Son being the only-begotten Son of the Father.
Thus, the doctrine of God is the first major doctrine that is used in bringing us to the doctrine of the Trinity.
The doctrine of Christology or the doctrine of Christ.
We also observe the revelation of a second personage connected to the Father, which the Old Testament reveals indirectly through the theophanies of the Angel of the Lord, the pillar of fire and cloud, and through visions such as Isaiah's heavenly king vision in Isaiah 6. Once we arrive in the New Testament, this second personage is revealed as the Word (John 1:1) or the Son (Hebrews 1:5-11), co-equal and as much God as the Father, incarnating Himself to be also truly man at the same time (John 1:14).
Not only in the Person of the Son do you have another acting subject within the Godhead (i.e. the Divine essence or nature) that is the same in power, authority, and perfections as the Father, but One who is distinct from the Father in regards to His identity.
To put it another way, the Son is God as much as the Father is God, yet Scripture reveals the Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father. I've already spelled out in the last point what is entailed when the Scripture reveals the Son as "only-begotten". It is these revelations of the power of the Father and the deity of the Son that point us to the need for the doctrine of the Trinity.
The Person and work of the Holy Spirit
It is in the Bible's revelation of the Holy Spirit that we see the full circle of God's revelation completed. The Holy Spirit brings to us the inner-life of God, the relating of the Father and the Son, and Himself is united to them as One God. The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 confesses the Holy Spirit in its opening sentences on its article about the Holy Spirit:
"The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, fully divine. He inspired holy men of old to write the Scriptures. Through illumination He enables men to understand truth. He exalts Christ." 1
The way the Holy Spirit is related to by the Father and the Son and in how He goes forth from them as the totality of the revelation of God will comprise our focus in this post.
Truth Pair #3 God the Father and the Son's eternal out-breathing of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit's procession from the Father and the Son.
As we've observed the three main doctrines that comprise the doctrine of the Trinity terminating upon the Person of the Holy Spirit Himself, we can now see why our third main truth pair is important for our overall study.
Let me bring our discussion into clearer view by nicknaming this point as "The Holy Spirit as the Ambassador of the Trinity". Why? When I was a boy growing up, my father had ordered a weekly subscription to Schwan's ice cream delivery. Every Friday the Schwan's truck would pull into our driveway to bring us a 3-gallon tub of ice cream and frozen novelties. The tag-line that advertised the Schwan's deliver person was this: "The Schwan's man is the ambassador of goodness". When he came, he would open up the truck and pull out the goodies, so to speak. We got to sample all that was inside the truck.
When I think of the Person of the Holy Spirit, He brings to us the inner life of God, since He Himself is truly God by nature as much as the Father and the Son are truly God by nature. John 16:13-15 is where I base this analogy:
"But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. 14 He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. 15 All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you."
The Holy Spirit as the "Ambassador of the Trinity" does what He does because He comes forth from the Father and the Son or "Proceeds" forth from them as breath from a person's mouth. The combined testimonies of John 14:26-27 and John 15:26-27 are taught by Jesus to reveal the Holy Spirit's procession from the Father through the Son. In Romans 8:9 the Holy Spirit is called "the Spirit of God" (referring to His relating to the Father) and in the same verse, along with Philippians 1:19; and 1 Peter 1:11 He is called "The Spirit of Christ" (referring to His relating to the Son). 2
This procession or "coming forth" of the Holy Spirit from the Father and Son keeps in mind two important truths about all three Persons.
First, the Father and the Son being the relational source of the Holy Spirit shows their equality of power and glory to one another - a point we've noted already in our last two posts. Then second, the Holy Spirit's divine nature is upheld, since He as "the breath" of deity means He is as much God as the Father as God and as the Son is God, with all three being One God.
We will end there for now. My hope is the reader is beginning to gain a sense of the wonder, the splendor, and the awe the doctrine of the Trinity evokes. The Triune God of the Bible is certainly knowable as it pertains to His revealing of Himself in the Bible. Nevertheless, as we trace the contours of this precious doctrine, we find there are points and places within it that evade full comprehension. We can never cram God into a box that comprehends Him, since He exceeds the bounds of the human mind. We can though know Him since He has revealed Himself by the Spirit's by-product of the Divinely revealed Scriptures and the incarnation of the Son in Jesus Christ.
Endnotes:
1. Baptist Faith and Message 2000 - The Baptist Faith and Message
2. I've laid out in simple form the historic doctrine known as "the filoque", which stands for in Latin "and the Son". It was a phrase added to the Nicene Creed by the Council of Toledo in 589 A.D. to specify the equality of the Father and the Son in their relating to the Holy Spirit, and He with them. This move was rejected by the Eastern Orthodox Church and consequently would lead to an eventual schism reaching its full head in 1054 A.D. between Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Church bodies.
