Catholicity, Orthodoxy, and Lordship
Ralph Smith concludes by answering critics of the Trinitarian Covenant:
The compellingly consistent and comprehensive character of God’s covenantal relations with the creation suggest that the covenant is not a mere secondary feature of the world, but an aspect of God’s own being (37).
Again, if there is such a covenant relationship among the Persons of the Godhead, then as Smith observes:
…it ought to constitute the paradigmatic covenant and therefore supply not only the key notion of systematic as well as biblical theology, but also the essential link between these two disciplines. Indeed, it should be the very center of the whole Christian worldview. (13)
Ralph Smith in his Eternal Covenant: How the Trinity Reshapes Covenant Theology, asserts that many within the Reformed camp give primacy to the Adamic Covenant over the Trinitarian Covenant:
What is remarkable is that the covenant with Adam, though in conception lower and in time later than the covenant between Father and the Son, tends to be the paradigmatic covenant (11).
According to Smith, the Trinitarian Covenant is relevant to “the whole modern discussion of the Trinity.” How do the Persons relate to One Another? How does this covenant apply then to the relationships between image-bearers? Great questions to ponder as we approach Trinity Sunday.
I concur wholeheartedly with Tim Keller and D.A. Carson’s decision and rationale behind the dangerous public affair of the ER2. Keller and Carson observe:
There is always a place for a Paul to reason with pagan philosophers in the Areopagus,” the statement said. “That is a bit different from trying to reform another’s theology in a public setting where the trappings and attitudes largely suggest everyone is already on the same side.”
When you set things in the context of “conversation” that is very much public, the expectations entail a form of conciliatory agenda, even when the reconciliation may not be present. A conversation with Driscoll, Mcdonald, and T.D. Jakes on the particulars of Jakes’ trinitarian evolution would seem profitable in private. But as Carson and Keller observe, these public settings entail a form of “we truly agree on this” attitude. What I would suggest is a private meeting where these issues can be discussed without the pressure of the lights, cameras, and millions of viewers. Perhaps once participants of the ER observe, analyze, and confirm Jakes’ transition as authentic, and robustly creedal, then, and only then, should we give him a public opportunity to tell the world he has abandoned oneness theology, and truly embraced the Trinitarianism of Nicea.
Voddie clarifies the entire ER2 controversy, and adds a few insights to the discussion. His conclusion:
I’m not angry with James MacDonald. He’s my brother, and I love him. We disagree. We both understand that. Ironically, that’s what The Elephant Room is supposedly all about. Brothers should be able to disagree with one another and still be brothers. There’s just one problem: Embracing Jakes while rejecting others because we question his history of modalism and Word of Faith teaching… that’s the real “Elephant in the Room”?
Additionally, here is James White’s review of the discussion:
Trevin Wax adds an exhortation entitled Grace and Truth Beyond the Elephant Room. He concludes:
So when we engage in conflict, let’s make sure it is out of love for the truth, love for Jesus, love for one another, and love for the people we shepherd. Sometimes we may even stand against a brother on a certain issue, but even when we take an adversarial stance, it ought always to be for the good of that brother and the glory of King Jesus. Let’s take the goal of The Elephant Room seriously and be people who are full of grace and truth.
Jenson writes of the incorporation of Christian humanity into the triune life through music:
“Our enjoyment of God is that we are taken into the triune singing. Perhaps we may say that we are allowed to double the parts. And here too we must insist on concreteness. That the proclamation and prayer of the church regularly bursts into beauty, indeed seems to insist on music and choreography and setting, is not an adventitious hankering to decorate. A congregation singing a hymn of praise to the Father is doubling the Son’s praise, and the surge of rhythm and melody is the surge of the Spirit’s glorification of the Father and the Son.”
{Thanks to Peter Leithart}
Leithart observes that the three uses of the word on the pillar that are in the temple (Rev. 3:12) make reference to the Triune Name. He writes:
Jesus promises to write a triple name on the pillars that are in the temple (Revelation 3:12). The three uses of the word ????? are the name of “My God,” the name of the city, which is New Jerusalem, and Jesus’ own new name. This has got to be a Trinitarian formula. “My God” is definitely the Father, and Jesus’ own Name is the Name of the Son. The sticking point is that the third Name is not the name of the Spirit but of the city. But there are reasons to think that the Name of the city is the Name of the Spirit, that New Jerusalem is a way of speaking about the presence of the Spirit.
At the end of the book of Revelation, the Spirit and the Bride speak with a united voice, calling on the Bridegroom to come (22:17). The seven Spirits of God have formed and inhabited a bride, so that the Bride speaks with the Spirit’s voice. The description of the Bride/New Jerusalem descending from heaven reminds us of the dove descending from heaven onto Jesus at His baptism (Matthew 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32-33). In Revelation 3:12, the phrase “descending from heaven” is nearly identical to the phrase in John 1:32 . That the Spirit is pictured as a dove points to an association with the Bride, since the Bride is the “dove” of the Song of Songs (2:14; 5:2). By receiving the Spirit as a dove coming from heaven, Jesus is joined to the Bride.
Thus, it makes sense that the triple name of God would put the city where we would expect the Spirit. And that means that the city, the bride from heaven, is incorporated into the divine name. The Bride becomes part of the family and bears the family name.
Peter Leithart writes:
The cross is the work of the Father, who gave His Son in love for the world; the cross is the work of the Son, who did not cling to equality with God but gave Himself to shameful death; the cross is the work of the Spirit, through whom the Son offers Himself to the Father and who is poured out by the glorified Son. The cross displays the height and the depth and the breadth of eternal Triune love.
Because we are made in God’s image, God is the model for humanity. The Father, Son, and Spirit mutually indwell one another’s lives (Jn. 13-17). The theological term for this is “perichoresis.” “Peri” is Greek for “around.” We get the word “choreograph” from “choresis.” The idea is that the three persons of the Godhead “dance around” or “dance within” one another. Their lives are totally intertwined. They move in lockstep with one another because they abide within one another. But this is precisely how we are to live in Christian community. We are to open our lives to others so they can indwell us, but we are also to seek to “move into” the lives of others, abiding in them. In this kind of community, as we indwell one another and live “perichoretically,” we image the life of the Triune God. —Rich Lusk
Grace, Mercy, and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Sometimes it is easy to go back to our early days in the Christian faith. Back then everything was so simple. We believed in Jesus, everyone believed in Jesus, and life was simple. Of course, we then grow up and we learn more about the Scriptures, and we discover that Jesus is one with the Father, that He sends the Spirit, and then we hear the language of the Trinity. It’s in our confessions, our creeds, and in every Systematic theology. And then we learn that if we do not embrace the Trinity, we are not true Christians. But why can’t we just believe in Jesus, after all He is the answer to every question we can’t answer?
But we grow up. It’s good to grow up; it’s hard to grow, but it is ultimately our goal. And part of growing up means we become more mature in the language of the Bible. We come to know that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God. The Jews and the Muslims criticize the doctrine of the Trinity by saying that any doctrine that cannot be reconciled logically is not true. How can there be Three Persons and One God? Thomas Jefferson expressed the frustrations of many when he said that the doctrine of the Trinity should be abandoned all together:
“When we shall have done away with the incomprehensible jargon of the Trinitarian arithmetic, that three are one and one is three…when in short, we shall have unlearned everything, which has been taught since His day, and get back to the pure and simple doctrines he inculcated, we shall then be truly and worthily his disciples.”[1]
Thomas Jefferson, of course, is part right and part wrong. “He was correct in the sense that Christians needs to focus on Jesus more,” but he was sadly mistaken that this would bring us back to simple doctrines and away from the Trinity. The reality is that at the precise moment we begin to focus on Jesus we are led directly to the doctrine of the Trinity. It was precisely through Jesus that the disciples knew the Trinity; it was precisely through Jesus that they learned that all authority has been given to Him? By Whom? The Father. Through Jesus they learned that the paraclete, the Spirit, would be sent after His ascension, and through Jesus they learned that the baptism of the nations, young and old, must be done not only in Jesus’ name, but into the Name, notice, not NAMES, but into the God, Father, the Son, and the Spirit= Three Persons. God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity.
Prayer: Glory be to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end, amen, amen.