Category: Trinity

Sunday Quote: I Am

In an argument with “the Jews” of his day, Jesus uttered these words:

Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.” (John 8:58 NRSV)

As I sat in on a the SBL Development of Early Trinitarian Theology program yesterday, there was some discussion on this verse. Just like in Jesus’ day, today many tempers flare over the last two words of this verse—although this did not happen at the SBL, of course—and many today will argue over the last two words of this verse, providing a variety of interpretations: (1) I am = I am he, (2) I am = an incomplete sentence, (3) a claim to be YHWH of Exodus 3:14, (4) other interpretation.

My initial understanding of this verse has generally been point 3, in that I understood Jesus to be referring to the Hebrew. I have come to understand this in other slightly different ways. I will iterate them below:

(a) The Septuagint was around in Jesus’ time. It might have been that Jesus was quoting not from the Hebrew text but from the LXX. At Exodus 3:14, we find in the LXX the words “I am HO ŌN [the being].” While Jesus does not quote the last two words, could it be possible that the Jews, upon hearing Jesus’ statement, would have filled in the other two words, and thus understood his claim to be YHWH?

(b) The words translated “I am” with the emphatic pronoun attached could mean “I exist.” The verb is present tense signifying on-going action which in this case is the act of existing. This on-going existence is qualified by the phrase “before Abraham was,” which tells us something about when this existence took place. Furthermore, I have understood this to somehow be verb expressing timelessness. Could it be, then, that Jesus’ claim to on-going, timeless existence is a claim that he is YHWH?

As to the above, I learn more toward (b). I am not convinced that the verb in that construction necessary indicates timelessness—and if it did not, then there is the possibility for an Arian reading. The entirety of Scripture, however, does argue against such reading.

Where does your understanding of John 8:58 lie? Does it lie close to either (a) or (b)? Or do you understand it in a completely different way? If so, what is your view?

Sunday Quote: The Extent of God’s Love

I found this perspective on God’s love quite interesting:

If we were to take all the love in every heart of everyone on earth, and add it to all the love of all those who ever existed throughout history, then add the love of all saints in heaven, and all the angels, seraphim and cherubim, and pour all that love into one heart, and direct that love on ourselves, it would still fall infinitely short of the love God is pouring out on each one of us, right now. Because God is infinite, his love is not divided, with each of us receiving but a portion. We each receive the totality, the fullness of divine love, twenty-four hours a day, every day of our lives.

(Joseph Langford, Mother Teresa’s Secret Fire [Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 2008], 92)

This reminds me of the doctrine of divine simplicity, where God’s essence cannot be divided, but must remain whole. Divine simplicity is why there can be the distinct persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and each person is God, but yet we remain with one God, not three. It makes sense that if God’s essence is love, and we receive that love, then we are not receiving part of God’s infinite love but the entirety of that love itself. I have found the ending prayer of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska’s Chaplet of Divine Mercy to echo this simplicity of God and his love: “. . . and with great confidence submit ourselves to Thy holy will which is Love and Mercy itself.”

Book Contest Winner for Fred Sanders’ The Deep Things of God

A couple of weeks ago we announced that we have a signed copy of Fred Sanders’ new book on the Trinity–The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything–that we are giving away. We want to thank all those who spread the word via your own blog, Facebook, and/or Twitter. Since the book is on the Trinity our method of choosing was to put every entry into a cup and the third name that came out was the winner (one contest; three drawings…get it?). The third name and the winner is….Jason Gardner!

Jason, you can now send your address to brianleport@gmail.com and we will send it your way.

Book Contest: The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything by Fred Sanders

The Deep Things of God

We have obtained a signed copy of The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything by Fred Sanders and we are going to give it away. The blurb on the book is as follows:

A specialist in the doctrine of the Trinity explains how the gospel is inherently Trinitarian, and how this adds depth and richness to faith and the Christian life.

The doctrine of the Trinity is widely taught and believed by evangelicals, but rarely is it fully understood or celebrated. Systematic theologian Fred Sanders, in The Deep Things of God, shows why we ought to embrace the doctrine of the Trinity wholeheartedly and without reserve, as a central concern of evangelical theology.

Sanders demonstrates, with passion and conviction, that the doctrine of the Trinity is grounded in the gospel itself. Written accessibly, The Deep Things of God examines the centrality of the Trinity in our salvation and the Trinity’s presence in the reading of the Bible and prayer. Readers will understand that a robust doctrine of the Trinity has massive implications for their lives. Indeed, recognizing the work of the Trinity in the gospel changes everything, restoring depth to prayer, worship, Bible study, missions, tradition, and our understanding of Christianity’s fundamental doctrines.

If you are interested here is how you can enter:

(1. Post a link to this post on your Facebook, MySpace, personal blog, or other social media then either leave a comment here or send us an email at brianleport@gmail.com letting us know where you posted it.

(2. If you are connected to us on Twitter you will see this blog post being tweeted by @brianleport. If you RT or tweet a link to this post mentioning @brianleport we will add an entry each time.

The contest will close Monday, October 11th.

Sunday Quote: Paul’s Doxologies

I found myself thinking on what Ben Witherington III wrote:

Paul is quite happy to speak about Christ assuming a variety of functions previously predicated only of Yahweh in the Old Testament. Though Paul did not articulate a full trinitarian theology, the raw stuff of trinitarian thinking surfaces again and again in his letters, especially in doxological texts, where Paul is thinking about whom he worships, or in prayer texts (cf. 1 Thess 1:2-5; 2 Cor 13:14). Paul had previously invoked blessing only in God’s name, but now God had three names by which the Lord could be called [italics mine]. (Ben Withernington, “Jesus as the Alpha and Omega of New Testament Thoughts,” in Contours of Christology in the New Testament, ed. Richard N. Longenecker [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2005], 44)

I found this fitting with today’s text from the lectionary:

In the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, . . .  I charge you to keep the commandment without spot or blame until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will bring about at the right time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords. It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honour and eternal dominion. Amen. (1 Tim 6:11-16 NRSV)

“Let Us Make”: Five Primary Options for Genesis 1.26a

Genesis 1.26a has been problematic for readers of Scripture for some time. It reads as follows:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our own image, according to our likeness…

וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים נַֽעֲשֶׂה אָדָם בְּצַלְמֵנוּ כִּדְמוּתֵנוּ

Over the last several years I have read five primary opinions on this text (and I sure there are more that I welcome people to contribute). I would like to divide these five into two categories: external communication and internal communication.

External Communication

(1) God was addressing a “pantheon”
Several commentators have said that this is evidence that some residual polytheism remained in the language of the author. In pagan creation mythology there were many gods and this could be an example of the “great God” addressing the pantheon of lesser gods. Where I find this problematic is that the author seems to have given every effort to provide a monotheistic polemic against the pagan deities even using mythological language that seems similar to documents such as the Enuma Elish. Unless the author of this chapter maintained that lesser gods did exist along with the Creator God but were totally subject this interpretation seems unlikely.

(2) God was addressing angelic beings
In Job 1.6 and 38.7 (cf. Gen. 6.2) there seems to be indication that the angels were present at Creation. If this was so then it does seems to provide a plausible audience which would explain the plurality of the address. Of course, as it has been noted, it seems a bit odd that the “image and likeness” would include angels. While it does seem humans are ontologically inferior to angels (see Ps. 8.5; Heb. 2.7 for this assertion) this doesn’t mean that humans are in the image of angelic beings and for that matter that angelic beings are made in the image of God.

(3) God was using the majestic plural
Sometimes royal sovereigns have been known to use the plural to speak on behalf of their kingdom/government. It has been said that in other places in Scripture this is how sovereigns spoke. Along with the suggestion that angels were present this is one of the primary reasons given by strict monotheist (e.g. Rabbi Tovia Singer whose argument as well as examples of the majestic plural you can find here). I think of these first three this is the most plausible since Elohim/YHWH is presented as the ruling sovereign throughout the Torah.

Internal Communication

(4) God was “thinking aloud”
A Oneness Pentecostal theologian suggested that it is similar to when I think to myself, “Let’s see now, what do I need to buy at the store?”. In this situation I am not addressing anyone in particular, and I am not a plurality in myself (though Augustine may say I am to some extent!), yet I still use this phrase. I think the serious problem with this is it imports a phenomenon of the English language back on to the Hebrew. I don’t see a strong argument for God “thinking aloud”.

(5) God was communicating within a plurality-in-unity
This is the common Christian interpretation of this text. When we see language used of Jesus as the Word and Wisdom of God (e.g. the Fourth Gospel; the Epistle to the Colossians) being with him in the beginning as the one through whom the Father created the world it seems evident that this is a Christian unfolding of several elements of Genesis (as we see in some other works of Second Temple literature). This does not prove that the author of Gen. 1.26a had a pluarality-in-unity in mind but it does seem to suggest that the early church reinterpreted it through Christ to mean something like this.

I would tend to think some combination of (3) and (5) is the way we should read it now. It would seem the original author would have used (3) while leaving room for something like (5) which allowed the early Christians to reread Scripture Christologically in such a way that the plurality seemed to unpack further meaning for them.

Wednesdays with Wright: Monotheism in Second Temple Judaism

Since there have been a few conversations on this blog in recent weeks regarding the doctrine of God it is only fitting that this week’s quotation from N.T. Wright be related somehow. It is a short paragraph from an essay titled “Jesus and the Identity of God” (find here). If you need more context I recommend reading the rest of it, but here is the relevant paragraph where Wright on monotheism in Second Temple Judaism :

“This monotheism was never, in our period, an inner analysis of the being of the one God.  It was always a way of saying, frequently at great risk: our God is the true God, and your gods are worthless idols. It was a way of holding on to hope.  We can see the dynamic of this monotheism working its way out in the manifold crises of second-temple Judaism, with the Maccabees, Judas the Galilean, and above all the two wars of the late 60s and early 130s A.D. revealing how the creational and covenantal theology and worldview remained at work through the period and in different groups.”

In other words (my exposition) when we use OT and STJ language about God being one we should not over define this to the point where we can’t adjust to the plurality introduced in the NT writings.

Is Trinitarian-Oneness Dialog Profitable?

The Society of Pentecostal Studies sponsored a Trinitarian-Oneness dialog from 2002-2007. When it was all said and done notable religious historian Daniel Ramirez of the University of Michigan (then of Arizona State University) told me he did not think it was very profitable. He gave his reasons publically in “A Historian’s Response: Final Report of the Trinitarian-Oneness Pentecostal Dialogue,”Pneuma, vol. 30, no. 2 (2008): 245-254. As a former Oneness Pentecostal who came to adopt the doctrine of the Trinity as orthodox his arguments were convincing to me. After hearing his thoughts I have rarely engaged Oneness Pentecostals in a conversation about the Trinity because I don’t expect it to go anywhere.

It has been my position that if anyone is going to change views from one side to the other it would be like it was for me. It would come through personal study and discussions with respectable people. It is unlikely that a Trinitarian scholar or a Oneness scholar will go into a “discussion” open to being converted by the other. It is a debate at best but hardly a real dialog.

That being said let me ask a simple question: Do you think Trinitarian-Oneness dialog can be profitable? If so, why? If not, why not? What do you understand to be the greatest differences between the two groups in areas of theology proper, soteriology, ecclesiology, and the likes?

See also:
- Roger Olson’s post on the authentic evangelicalism here.
- Daniel Segraves response to the Oneness-Trinitarian dialog here.

Ask Bruce Ware

Bruce Ware

Dr. Bruce Ware of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is here at Western Seminary teaching a course on the doctrine of the Trinity. Marc Cortez has secured a lunch meeting with him for all of us Th.M. students.

I intend on being there but I am not sure if I will contribute much to the conversation since I am not all that familiar with Ware’s writings. If you would like to have a question asked of Ware let me recommend that you put it on this blog post here.

Sunday Quote: Douglas McCready on the Risk of Oversimplifying Doctrine

Today at lunch my wife and I were discussing the differences between Trinitarian and Oneness (Pentecostal) approaches to God. At one point she asked me if I thought that the Oneness view was an attempt to make things too simple that lead to making erroneous statements. In fact, I think this may be one of the root causes of the development of Oneness Pentecostalism. It was this conversation that led me to choose my quote for this week which comes from Douglas McCready. Although he was writing in regards the the doctrine of the preexistence of Christ it is still applicable to the discussion my wife and I had today about the mistakes some people make with the doctrine of the Trinity:

The great risk involved is that in making doctrine simpler, theologians often distort it, and no theological persuasion is exempt. Doctrines can be changed subtly or not so subtly (deliberately or not) into something other than what Christians have historically affirmed by either oversimplifying complex issues or removing the tension inherent in many Christian doctrines due to our finite perspective. In this new, rational neatness and tidiness, these doctrines lost their historical meaning.

He Came Down from Heaven: The Preexistence of Christ and the Christian Faith, 15.

The doctrine of the Trinity (as well as the preexistence of Christ) are complex, hard to comprehend doctrines because of the truthfulness of these doctrines. If Christian had no revelatory component it seems to me that one doctrine we would not have imagined would have been the doctrine of the Trinity. It is much easier to compromise this or that element of the doctrine to make it more palatable. Nevertheless, this is not our task. Our task is not to oversimply God but to worship him as he has revealed himself.

Prayers for Trinity Sunday

Holy Trinity

In celebration of Trinity Sunday I want to quote three prayers:

The first is from the Catholic liturgy:

Father,
you sent your Word
to bring us truth
and your Spirit to make us holy.
Through them we come to know
the mystery of your life.
Help us to worship you,
one God in three Persons,
by proclaiming and living our faith in you.
We ask you this, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
one God, true and living, for ever and ever.

The second is from the Anglican liturgy:

Almighty and everlasting God,
you have given to us you servants grace,
by the confession of a true faith,
to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity,
and in the power of your divine Majesty
to worship the Unity:
Keep us steadfast in this faith and worship,
and bring us at last
to see you in your one and eternal glory, O Father;
who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The third is written by N.T. Wright:

Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth:

Set up your kingdom in our midst.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God:

Have mercy on me, a sinner.

Holy Spirit, breath of the living God:

Renew me and all the world.

Fully Trinitarian; Fully Embracing Pentecost

I read this great quote from Steve Farmer today: “I love that Pentecost is followed by Trinity Sunday. We’re often not Trinitarian, because we don’t fully embrace Pentecost.” It is no coincidence in my mind that Pentecost Sunday is followed by Trinity Sunday. We can fully appreciate the Triune God only when we acknowledge that he exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Too often it seems we forget to think in these terms.

Origen: Heretic or Great Theologian?

As aforementioned, several of my classmates have been posting papers related to theologians that we discussed in our Greek Fathers class at Western Seminary (see here). My classmate Billy Cash has written his paper on Origen. He discusses the “subordinationist” perspective of Origen that was used later by groups like the Arians. He concludes that Origen was not heretical. To read it for yourself go here.

Introduction to the ‘Letters to Serapion on the Holy Spirit’

I wrote an introduction to Athanasius’ Letters to Serapion on the Holy Spirit for my final paper in a recent class on the Greek Fathers. It has been posted over at the Western Seminary ThM program blog Scientia et Sapienta here.

By the way, this will be very similar to the paper I will be contributing to the 2010 Trinity Blogging Summit. The only (important) addition I will be making is an argument for its value that I left absent from this version. I think the second version for the Summit will be worth reading as well since the whole thing is about Trinitarian theology and I will be trying to revive Athanasius’ voice as regards the Spirit in this discussion. So do read this version if you wish but don’t ignore the revised one for the Summit!