Will You Plow Ahead by God’s Grace?

+++

“Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.’”

–Luke 9:62

+++

Lately, I have been working through a book written by a mid-nineteenth century Danish philosopher and Christian. 

The book is called Attack Upon Christendom by Soren Kierkegaard, and it, I believe, was his final work before he died at the young age of 42.

Maybe you have heard a bit about Mr. Kierkegaard. To be sure, he was quite the character. Engaged to his sweetheart earlier on in life, he cut off the relationship because he did not feel that by marrying he could be faithful to himself or his philosophy…

So the book. It is largely – so far at least as I’m still reading it – a collection of articles that he got published in a popular Danish political magazine, the Fatherland. 

In it, he attacks the state church in Denmark, claiming that this church knew nothing about the cross, agony, suffering, crucifying the flesh, suffering for doctrine, or the poverty that Christ required… 

There was no striving to really be Christian, Kierkegaard said! “Official Christianity” was not Christianity at all, he accused, but rather its opposite! 

The passion of God’s Kingdom, Kiekegaard insisted, is to NOT be of this world. 

The Danish church, with its “royal commission” showed the exact opposite. 

The clergy were unwilling to be salt in the world and to be sacrificed like their Lord. In fact, all 1,000 Christian officials were actually against Christianity!

Why? Because they were those who had presided over the death of the Christian church as everyone simply just assumed that they were Christian. These clergy were spiritually asleep even as they fully enjoyed the salaries and privileges associated with being state officials…

…content to “make a living” by in effect wearing the skin of what I can only assume Kierkegaard believed to have been the formerly faithful… or relatively faithful church…

Mockingly, he said that if one could convert Kings to Christianity, monetary advantage (“pecuniary advantage”), material power, and delicate refinement – silk, velvet, long robes – could be theirs!

So these men, he claimed, were hardly “witnesses to the truth,” but rather were a part of an institution that had basically had its heart and soul carved out of it…

Kierkegaard’s relentless accusations leave us with the impression that there were very few true Christians in Denmark…

He, of course… in spite of all of his own doubts… considered himself to be one of these… a “Knight of Faith”! 

Which, of course, made it all the more shocking and scandalous when he went so far to say that true Christians should no longer attend the worship services of this state church…

+++

Whatever you finally think of ideas from a man like Soren Kierkegaard he certainly gives us a lot to think about! 

I could not help but think, in fact, about some of his hard words when I read the last part of our Gospel reading for this morning, particularly as Jesus responds to two men who say they want to follow Him, and after He asks another to do the same….

I read a comment on the words “Lord, I will follow you” in a non-Lutheran book, The [Eastern] Orthodox Study Bible. 

It said, matter of factly, this: 

“There is a cost to discipleship. Jesus talks of three such costs:

1. Provision for personal security does not mix with true discipleship. The disciple will be no more secure than the Teacher. If the Teacher has nowhere to lay His head (v. 58), neither will the disciple. 
2. Discipleship demands singular commitment to the Kingdom of God. A disciple must be willing to let the spiritually dead bury the physically dead (v. 60).
3. Discipleship does not look back to reconsider, or operate by delayed response. It means taking hold of the commission given by Christ and moving forward” (OSB, 163).”

Wow. 

Given Jesus’ responses, this sounds right, doesn’t it?

Where are we with all of this? Where are we with all of this? 

Well, before we get to that, let me say some things Soren Kierkegaard might not like, exploring a bit more each one of these points… trying to put all of Jesus’s jolting words into a wider frame and context…

First of all, we have to admit that in our text for today… because of our incomplete knowledge… there are likely some wider cultural nuances that we do not fully understand here. 

So for instance, while I am convinced that some of what Soren Kierkegaard said was unhelpful and even very wrong I need to admit that I know little about just what the Danish church of his day was really like (I mean, I can’t help but think it probably did have really good biblical words in its liturgy and hymns)…. 

And so, just like we probably don’t have a real handle on what things were like in Kierkegaard’s day, we don’t know as much as we could or even should about Jesus’s day as well. 

+++

Let’s look at point number 1 from this study Bible: “Provision for personal security does not mix with true discipleship… If the Teacher has nowhere to lay His head (v. 58), neither will the disciple.” 

This study Bible note could be taken to mean that a person should have absolutely no concern for personal security. 

Well, people like the commentator Ken Bailey, who has taught the Bible in the contemporary Middle East where he also lived for many years, talks about how in this text, “foxes” may refer to Herod’s family and “birds” to the Gentiles, particularly the Romans, whose symbol was the eagle. 

In this interpretation, Jesus is asking the first would-be follower if he really wants to join the ranks of those who are without worldly power (Wendt, Parables of Jesus). 

Whether this is the case or not, I think what the study Bible means to say, more specifically, is that concern for personal security should not be at the top of the disciple’s list – but rather “restless devotion” to the Kingdom of God (Fraanzman, CSSC. 23). 

In other words, personal security is not their primary concern nor a priority, even if it must be addressed.

Here, we might think about the Apostle Paul’s statement that “we brought nothing into the world, so we cannot carry anything out of it.” He goes on to talk not only about how if he and other preachers of the Gospel have food and covering they will be content with that (I Tim. 6:8), but also, in the book of Philippians, he goes so far to say: 

“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”

+++

Regarding the point about the dead burying their own dead meaning letting the spiritually dead bury the physically dead…this one is certainly a zinger!

Again, Ken Bailey offers his cultural commentary based on his knowledge of today’s Middle East. He says the man here Jesus asks to follow Him was most likely wanting to abide by Middle Eastern standards of filial piety – meaning that he was going to wait to follow Jesus until after his father died… 

An argument here is that if his father was dying or already dead after all, wouldn’t he be at home right now, taking care of family affairs? So, in other words, he was not dead yet, and the delay might be many, many years…

Once again, in any case the main point Jesus seems to be making is that those burying the dead need to understand that the Kingdom of God is even more important than honoring those who have fallen in the fallen world. 

With the coming of Christ, something new and better, something absolutely death-destroying is coming and all of us should want to be a part of this! 

Should we ultimately be concerned to bury the dead or, rather, raise the dead? (Jon McNeill, Hard Sayings of the Bible, 464). 

Or as the Lutheran theologian Martin Fraanzman put it “with Him is life, the only life in a world of the dead…” 

Finally, the point about delayed response not being an option is certainly true, even if we might wince or worse at Jesus’ insistence that a man saying he wants to follow him not say goodbye to his loved ones….

So what about this man? Bailey, again, says that it is possible that he might mean that he needs to first get permission from his family, particularly his father… 

Evidently, even today in the Middle East, an engineer of 40 years of age will travel from his large city to his village birthplace to get his father’s permission – basically as a formality but still as a sign of respect – before undertaking foreign travel, or before some other job change or business venture…. (Wendt, Parables of Jesus) 

Whatever the case may be, it is of course likely that in going back to say good-bye to one’s family one might find one’s self tempted to not follow Jesus after all…

And as the Lutheran Study Bible puts it, dealing with the plow imagery…

“It took one’s full attention to hold and press down on a plow with one hand as it cut though the earth. The plowman’s other hand held a goad for the animal pulling the plow”. 

So here, I suppose, the hope would be that every family member would see and understand that not only some of us but all of us must take Jesus’ mission seriously, realizing that nothing is more important than the Kingdom of God and His Gospel. 

That is, the good news of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension

…the only thing that brings everlasting hope to the world!

+++

Now, I think that kind of information is helpful….

Even as I imagine that someone like Soren Kierkegaard might say that, perhaps a bit like the 19th century Danish church, it seems to domesticate Jesus a bit…  

En route to creating a complacent church…

Well, and if he would be inclined to say this, I think I’d have to disagree overall… and double down. 

Saying a bit more about necessary context in light of the whole of the Scriptures…  

For example, even if Jesus does command His disciples to “count the cost” of downplaying personal security – and to embrace practices that downplay our worldly attachments – we must nevertheless be wise… 

The book of Proverbs, after all, has much to say about issues surrounding property and money. It even tells us that a good man leaves an inheritance not only for his children, but his children’s children – as Soren Kierkegaard’s father did for him and perhaps beyond!

And the Apostle Paul also does not contradict Jesus when he speaks about how ministers are worthy of their wages, how believers who do not take care of their own family are worse than pagans or, also, when he says to the Thessalonian congregation to be – gasp! – “respectable”…: 

“…we urge you, brothers and sisters, to [love one another] more and more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody….”

And the Apostle Paul also does not denigrate the Apostle Peter – who was married, appeared to have had a thriving fishing business, and owned his own home in Capernaum (see Matthew 8:14-16) – when he says in I Corinthians 7 that he wishes all men were like him… that is, 

not tied down to the affairs of this world[!]…

not needing to have their attention divided between family on the one hand and the Kingdom of God on the other[!]…

And let’s also keep in mind that even if, somehow, someway, Jesus Christ did not have anywhere to lay his head we learn from the book of Luke that His ministry was in part supported by wealthy women (see Luke 8:1-3) and also that His disciple John at least had a home that he could take Jesus’ mother into following his Lord’s death on the cross (also see Acts 12, where we see the early disciples retained property).

+++ 

So… have I domesticated Jesus here? 

Set up a situation where radical challenge can’t be heard and complacency must reign?

Should I be warned that I have tried to remove all the offense of the passages like from our Gospel reading? 

If so, I really think I’d appreciate the warning… the concern… but then would also offer my own warning that we can’t be like Martin Luther’s proverbial drunk man who falls off of one side of a horse only to get back on and fall off the other….

A man like Kierkegaard wanted to be a devout Lutheran, Christian, and he strove to lead a higher and better life – but I sometimes get the impression he forgot some fundamentals as well… 

I can’t help but wonder what he might have thought of the 16th c. reformer Martin Luther’s words in His Large Catechism regarding the:

“…cursed presumption of those desperate saints who dare to invent a higher and better life and estate than the Ten Commandments teach, pretending (as we have said) that this is an ordinary life for the common man, but that theirs is for saints and perfect ones. And the miserable blind people do not see that no man can get so far as to keep one of the Ten Commandments as it should be kept, but both the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer must come to our aid (as we shall hear), by which that [power and strength to keep the commandments] is sought and prayed for and received continually.”

Again, Jesus’ words in our Gospel reading are arresting. 

It is true that we must not attempt to shave off the edges of Jesus’ words…

At the same time we must also not overstate what He, in fact, finally wants us to conclude, to learn….

+++

So, with all of this said, do these not remain, do they not continue to be… very difficult passages?!

They do – and we might even feel offended…

Still, again, all of us must take Jesus’ mission seriously, realizing that nothing is more important than the Kingdom of God and His Gospel. 

For did He not come, after all, to reverse the curse? 

To bring the new heavens and earth? 

To destroy the devil’s work on the cross? 

Is this not why He sets His face like flint towards Jerusalem in our reading? 

And does He not now – by His Holy Spirit – involve all of us in His work?

What battle does not need fully committed soldiers?

And the call that Christ makes is certainly of even greater importance than Elijah’s calling of Elisha we heard about in the Old Testament reading this morning! 

Do we not see how the heightened need is emphasized in Jesus’ arresting words today?! 

And especially now – in these last days when God has poured out His Spirit on His church after Christ’s death and resurrection – the times are becoming increasingly perilous for we who believe! 

The Apostle Paul’s words in I Corinthians 7 about our living in the last days have always been timely and relevant – even if we haven’t perceived this – but it is now, for those with eyes to see, becoming increasingly obvious. 

I mentioned this earlier… Again, in this chapter, he talks about faithful servants who are not encumbered… weighed down… by the “affairs of this world” and who can give “undivided devotion to the Lord…” to His work. 

For this reason, he urges those who can do so – who are not consumed by a passionate “burning” or desire – to abstain from marriage to give time to this battle. 

Even if those with the gift of celibacy end up being relatively few, one can fully understand this need Paul speaks to!

Jesus does, in fact, call all to follow Him and to carry their cross. 

To not be those who give in to complacency! 

To not be those who would attempt to domesticate the Lion of Judah!

To realize that if the world hated the Teacher, and caused Him to suffer, it will do the same to His disciples! 

The thing is, He knew where each one of these people He responded to were at personally…  

He knew what they were thinking… 

What claimed their hearts and attention…  

He knows where each of us is at as well!… 

And He does not call each and every one of us the same way…

God’s word in each instant to Nicodemus, to the rich young ruler, to the Pharisees He ate with (Luke 14), to each of the disciples, and to the Philippian jailer through the Apostle Paul all take different forms. 

And so the way He gets us to where He wants us to be…

…the way He helps us to see what He wants us to see

 …and to help us strive for what He wants us to strive… 

…will vary.

+++

Again, these are, these remain, very difficult passages…

We, with Kierkegaard, know that the church has often become corrupted by worldliness… 

And I trust we see the problems in our own individual hearts as well!

How does this happen? 

How do we not only not grow, but diminish?

I think “What kind of disciple am I? What kind of disciple could I be, is He calling me to be?” are the questions Jesus means us to be asking in our text today…. 

How would the Lord get us to not only understand why He says what He does but also live as He desires? 

Two things come to mind:

First, before anything else, God chooses us by grace, through faith – inviting us to His wedding feast! He desires we believe His words of sheer grace to us like a simple child would….

Second, He means for us to grow in faith and mature, to increasingly become the kinds of persons for whom hard words like His do not frighten us or make us sad, but rather energize us and fill us with exhilaration, making our daily vocations not a hum-drum thing that we must get through… but helping us to imagine the possibilities about just how we, in our various stations, might help His Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven….

So, I think, finally, in the end, this is rather simple. 

It involves us meeting Jesus, His looking us in the eye, His speaking both hard and faith-creating words to us, and we saying “Amen”….

What do I mean? 

Well, again, let’s go back to Luther, as he explains the Christian catechism. By “catechism” I mean not so much what he wrote, but what things like the 10 commandments and Creed say – and what these clear words reveal and give us…

Luther begins by extolling the 10 commandments, pointing out how they, when taken seriously, will convince us of our need for God and His grace. 

The 10 commandments show us our disease! Deep down we are idolaters, blasphemers, rebels, thieves, adulterers, murderers, liars, and coveters!

We are not spared pain here! These commandments show us what we really look like in the mirror! 

Indeed, they always, to one extent or another, reveal our need for Jesus, who we then hear about in the Creed… (SOS! – shows our sins – so God can show us our Savior… SOS, again!)

Luther explains this in his Large Catechism: 

“Thus far we have heard the first part of Christian doctrine, [the Ten Commandments,] in which we have seen all that God wishes us to do or to leave undone. Now, there properly follows the Creed, which sets forth to us everything that we must expect and receive from God, and, to state it quite briefly, teaches us to know Him fully. And this is intended to help us do that which according to the Ten Commandments we ought to do. For… they are set so high that all human ability is far too feeble and weak to [attain to or] keep them. Therefore it is as necessary to learn [the Creed] as the [Ten Commandments] in order that we may know how to attain thereto, whence and whereby to obtain such power. For if we could by our own powers keep the Ten Commandments as they are to be kept, we would need nothing further, neither the Creed nor the Lord’s Prayer.”

+++

In the end, I think that a man like Soren Kierkegaard was very right and also that he was very wrong…

In advising Christians to stay away from the only church they knew, he was making a terrible mistake! – ultimately advising people to stay away from God’s gifts!

The Old Testament prophets certainly showed us that God’s servants in His institutions could become corrupt, but at the same time, it was in the worship services – the divine service – where God provided the sacrifices for His people…

And for us, it is where the fruits of the Lamb of God’s sacrifice for us are given – even if by imperfect or even corrupt ministers!

Even when things go very wrong with the church’s clergy, we still have God’s promises that He serves us in His Word and the gifts like confession and absolution, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper that He instituted for our encouragement and comfort. 

How does God’s Kingdom come among us? 

As Luther said, in his explanation of the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer in the Small Catechism: 

“Thy Kingdom Come.” 

“What does this mean? The kingdom of God certainly comes by itself without our prayer, but we pray in this petition that it may come to us also.

How does God’s kingdom come? God’s kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we believe His holy Word and lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity.”

And this kingdom always comes anew in the gracious words of God we hear in this place, in the readings, in the prayers, in the hymns, in the sermon, in the benediction, in the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper!

The Bible says that an earthly inheritance is important, but this is the ultimate, the eternal, inheritance! 

God forbid you neglect these things! 

Don’t let your children and grandchildren neglect these things!

There is a true spiritual war going on! A war that would utterly corrupt your soul and pull you away from the only Life in a Sea of Death. 

But corruption within the church itself will also never negate the real gifts God gives to His people!

And so, may the Holy Spirit give us all those gifts deep in our souls!

May these things be true of us, and for us and to us – each and every one of us! – more and more and more so, until our Lord returns.

Amen

With footnotes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BwWWUue1ISS2slDmnDtQFqg0fdgDfnmpTqOwBiq12fk/edit?usp=sharing

Advertisement

 

Meeting the Eternal Wisdom of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in Human Flesh

+++

“I honor my Father and you dishonor me. I am not seeking glory for myself; but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge…”

–John 8:49b-50

+++

What do you know about the Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses? Have you ever had one come to your door?

In the past, when I felt like I had a couple hours to burn, I’ve invited them into my house or gone outside to talk with them.  

Because, you see, someone needs to tell them the truth about who Jesus is!

Many people often believe that these folks pretty much believe what we Christians do. They do, after all, tend to be people who are quite devoted to “conservative principles”, to living well, to virtue! 

And yet, both of these groups, for example, do not believe that Jesus is God, but “a god”! A “demigod” of sorts….

And the Mormons also ultimately teach that he is a god like you can become a god too… 

When they talk about Jesus you might think they are talking about your Jesus but what they cannot abide – what they will not abide – is the fact that there is a distinction between the Creator of all things and His creatures and that the Son of God is in the former category, not the latter. 

He is not a creature, but He is the Creator. Like the Father is the Most High God, the Son is the Most High God as well, God the Son.

And all of this kind of thing is at the heart of our Old Testament reading this morning from the book of Proverbs! 

Starting in the 4th century, 1700 years ago, this reading from the book of Proverbs has been controversial over the years, but it shouldn’t have been. 

For it is about the Wisdom that existed with God from before the creation of the world, and that brings order out of chaos, and this should sound familiar to us (think, for example, of Genesis 1 and Jonn 1…) 

Even though chapter 8 of Proverbs uses the literary technique of personification – making wisdom into Lady Wisdom and contrasting her with Woman Folly, the seductive woman spoken of in Proverbs 7 – this creative way of presenting wisdom ultimately gives way to actual  fulfillment in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

In sum, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we are being encouraged by Solomon in Proverbs to flee the path that leads to death and to instead marry wisdom… to have a relationship with wisdom…. 

And now, in light of the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh in history, we know that the ultimate way this happens is by knowing the Holy One, the Son of God, who is also referred to as the Logos of God, or Word of God, or Reason of God – and the Wisdom of God as well (I Cor. 1, see also Colossians 2)!  

We should not lose sleep over this passage from Proverbs, wondering why the wisdom of God, ultimately revealed as Jesus Christ, is personified here as a woman. It is a literary allusion that probably also has to do with the fact that the Hebrew word for wisdom is a feminine noun…

What we should be concerned about are readings of the book of Proverbs that miss the fact that wisdom is ultimately about heeding the voice of God, believing in His Word, and trusting Him for forgiveness, life, and salvation. 

If you go to the website of the Mormons, “the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints”, you will read this about wisdom in Proverbs: 

“Like all Hebrew intellectual virtues, wisdom … is intensely practical, not theoretical. Basically, wisdom is the art of being successful, of forming the correct plan to gain the desired results. Its seat is the heart, the centre of moral and intellectual decision [see 1 Kings 3:9, 12].” (J. D. Douglas, ed., The New Bible Dictionary, s.v. “wisdom.”)

This is called missing the heart of the issue.  

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And God, really, is to be believed for His own sake. His words about who He is believed for His own sake. His commands followed and promises trusted for His own sake. This is how we honor Him…

And, shockingly, passages like Luke 11 actually tell us that it was the wisdom of God that knew full well the Old Testament prophets would not to prosper in this life, but suffer instead!…

So, these Mormons, God bless them, need to hear a hard word. 

Like the Athanasian Creed, which many good Lutheran churches are confessing this Trinity Sunday, says: 

“Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith [catholic here should be understood as “universal”]. Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled; without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. And the catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; Neither confounding the Persons; nor dividing the Essence. For there is one Person of the Father; another of the Son; and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one; the Glory equal, the Majesty coeternal…”

Yes, folks like the Mormons might strike us as pretty moral people… 

But in their words and deeds their highest “prophets” do not give evidence that they are in the truth, and, as the Athanasian creed goes on to say, they “shall give an account for their own works…” 

+++

What are some things that people like the Mormons need to begin to learn, and that we need to always learn better?

I think there are three key truths that we should focus on today, on this Trinity Sunday…: 

First of all, Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, 100% God and 100% man. 

Second, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit perfectly reveal to us what it means to faithfully follow God’s commands, even if it appears to the world that this ends in utter failure. 

Finally, all of this should drive us to reflect on the ultimate nature of the Triune God as love. 

As regards the first truth, Jesus Christ is God in human flesh, we see this today in our Gospel reading. One of the most important statements in the whole of the New Testament I believe is found at the end of the reading: 

“‘Very truly I tell you,’ Jesus answered, ‘before Abraham was born, I am!’ At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.”

The Jews in our reading picked up stones to throw at and kill Jesus because they knew exactly what He was saying here: He was saying that He is God!

How? Because God revealed to Abraham that His name was “Yahweh”, that is “I am”. “I am who I am,” he said (Exodus 3:14). When Jesus says “I am” of Himself, He is clearly meaning to share that He in fact did not come after Abraham and that He not only was before Abraham, but that He was and is Abraham’s God. 

Second, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit perfectly reveal to us what it means to faithfully follow God’s commands, even if it appears to the world that this ends in failure.

When the so-called “Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day saints” speaks of the divine wisdom contained in God’s commands, they focus on the aspect of success in this life. 

Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit however, reveal to us that what the world considers success and what God considers success are two very different things. 

For the Christian, we succeed not when we obtain material blessings and rewards – which yes, will generally happen as well when God’s commandments are respected – but when we grow in faithfulness to God, increasingly trusting our Lord’s promises and then going on to fulfil God’s commandments. 

These are summed up in loving God with our whole heart, soul, strength and mind and loving our neighbor as ourselves (see Romans 8:4).

We can do this because Jesus Christ fulfilled the law on our behalf, doing what sinners cannot do. And so we are free to follow Him not to be saved, by climbing a ladder to heaven or something like this… but because in Him we are saved and know true love…. 

Christ teaches us the commandments by His words and He shows us more deeply what He means by His deeds. He “embodies” things perfectly for us. 

In like fashion, the Holy Spirit reminds us of what we already know in embryonic form as followers of Jesus Christ – reminding us of what Jesus teaches us about who God is and what God commands and promises by His words and example. 

And I was reminded of all of this by my own pastor last week. In His sermon He used a couple illustrations about the Holy Spirit that will stick with me…

[story about how as a boy my pastor learned a little bit by watching his friend be coached in tennis, but his friend actually had a personal coach… the Holy Spirit is like our personal trainer]

And…

[story about how my pastor had a piano teacher who was really good at piano and knew her stuff, but he could not focus when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw her writing down things whenever he made a mistake… the Holy Spirit is not like this either, but intelligently and patiently guides us…]

+++

So Jesus and the Holy Spirit teach us to realize and see what it means to love.

And this then brings us to our third point that folks like the Mormons need to begin to realize and that we need to more deeply realize: 

All of this should drive us to reflect on the ultimate nature of the Triune God as love. 

Take some of the other things that Jesus says about Himself in our Gospel reading for today…

To the Jews in our Gospel text Jesus says 

“I honor my Father and you dishonor me. I am not seeking glory for myself; but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge…” 

Shortly after this Jesus says 

“If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me….”

In his Large Catechism, explaining the command to honor one’s father and mother, Martin Luther said this: 

“…it is a far higher thing to honor than to love one, inasmuch as it comprehends not only love, but also modesty, humility, and deference as to a majesty there hidden, and requires not only that they be addressed kindly and with reverence, but, most of all, that both in heart and with the body we so act as to show that we esteem them very highly, and that, next to God, we regard them as the very highest. For one whom we are to honor from the heart we must truly regard as high and great…”

Even if it is not the same as it is with us, can anyone doubt that Jesus Christ honors His Father in heaven?

And while the Son of God does this according to His human nature, we also know that the Son of God is eternally begotten of the Father – and He is eternally the Son who honors the Father! 

And before the foundation of the world – before Adam and Eve had sinned and thrown the world into chaos and disintegration and death and even before time began – the Father determined that the Son of God would be sent into the world to save the world. 

And this the Son, who is the very Word of the Father, gladly embraced! 

As the Father sent the Son, the Son gladly sent Himself as well, honoring the Father who begat Him, the Father who, mysteriously and wondrously, was the Source… the Origin… the Beginning… of all that is, in heaven and on earth, both created and uncreated…!

+++

Here, some of us might start wondering though: even if all three persons are God is there nevertheless a kind of “hierarchy” in the Trinity?

In truth, I do not know. I know that man needs hierarchy and that we see all kinds of indications that there is hierarchy in heaven. 

In seeming contrast to any thoughts about “hierarchy” though, we could also mention that Jesus teaches us that the disciples were all brothers, that the church’s rulers would not be like those of the world who lorded it over their subjects, and that “the first shall be last, and the last shall be first”….

I simply do not know if there is something we could call “hierarchy” in the Trinity… I believe in large part this is mysterious and difficult to understand…

What I do know is that there is neither any coercion or unwillingness in the Trinity, for Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are equally God, one in will, action, power, and glory!

As a friend put it to me “[t]he reality of [man’s] sin makes us much more familiar with compliance than obedience, [which is from the heart and not just a matter of external conformity,] but that’s not exactly an issue in the Godhead.”

So what can we say with certainty about this question – regarding hierarchy…?

We can say that as the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, exists in itself it is love, and that matters of honor always go hand in hand with love.

And we can also say that we creatures, even we who are Christians, are not this insofar as we are sinful men and women, and need His help…

+++

It is important that we human creatures confess what the Athanasian Creed says: “the deity[, or Godhood,] of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, equal in glory, coeternal in majesty…”

Also that “in this Trinity none is before, or after another; none is greater, or less than another. But the whole three Persons are coeternal, and coequal….” 

And yet – again… we must nevertheless remember that there is an order in the Trinity, an “order of flow” in the Trinity perhaps with the Father listed as first, then the Son, and then the Spirit – and yet these three Persons do not have any sin problems like we who abuse authority, for instance, and are in no need of confessing those bits from the Athanasian Creed or exhorting One Another to do the same!

You see, it is we who are the problem here. 

So great is our wickedness, for example, that we need to be told not only that it is enough for earthly servants to become like their masters (Matt 10:25), but even admonished to not seek our own glory (John 8:50, 54) and to rather consider others better than ourselves (Philippians 2:3)! 

The Triune God, on the other hand, being love, simply is this way. 

For the Father, this can be seen as He delights in His Son.

For the Son, this can be seen as He embraces the fullness of love and harmony which originates from the Father.

And the Spirit can be seen to exult in and proclaim this blessed eternal relationality that always bears good fruit…

+++

This is the great Triune God… 

So what, ultimately, is wisdom?

Fearing and knowing God! Life is about knowing Wisdom, knowing God in the whole truth and nothing but the truth!

Ultimately, nothing can be more practical than that!

Again, let Jeremiah 9:23-24 fire up your imagination and strengthen your resolve!

“Let not the wise boast of their wisdom

    or the strong boast of their strength

    or the rich boast of their riches,

but let the one who boasts boast about this:

    that they have the understanding to know me,

that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness,

    justice and righteousness on earth,

    for in these I delight,’

declares the Lord.”

So… how do we do that? How to reach this goal of knowing well the great Triune God?

First and foremost, by knowing the Lord Jesus Christ, the One who shows us the face of God in our own human flesh!

And by getting to know Him even better than we now do! 

For remember, He is the not the One who – as the NIV translation Proverbs suggested today – was “made” or “formed”… but rather was established, appointed, ordained…. (a better translation…)

For as the book of John tells us, in the beginning, the Word was with God and the Word was God!    

This man Jesus Christ is the God-Man. Fully God, He is not so much a creature but your Creator who, at a particular point in time, took on a human, or created nature! 

And what a good God He is!

In Proverbs 8, we heard the Holy Spirit sing that “Wisdom was constantly at his [Father’s] side… and… was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in [the Father’s] presence, rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind.”

Again, this is our God! Sit at His feet brothers and sisters! The Lord Jesus, in particular, invites you!

Then what about the Father and the Holy Spirit? 

Won’t they get jealous if we fixate on Jesus? 

Not at all, for, ever eager to honor the other, they are God and not man!

Lutherans in particular are often accused of not speaking enough about the Holy Spirit, but consider what happened on Pentecost!

Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, preached about Jesus…. 

The Holy Spirit is always pointing and leading people to Jesus!

This is why, in our Acts reading, Peter preaches like this:

“…let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”

+++

Saints who are baptized, set apart for God and His work –  set your hearts and minds on the things above; by that I mean our great and glorious Triune God, the lover of mankind!

The Son of God is truly God, for He says to us “I am”, just as God did in the Old Testament! 

And it is God the Son – this second person of the Trinity – who God the Father decided before the world began would become man, taking on our flesh… not only becoming one of us, but becoming the lowest among us…

As the book of Philippians tells us, He did not consider the equality He had with His Father something to be grasped, but took on the form of a servant or slave – dying a criminal’s death on the cross because of the evils we had done…  

The wages of our sin was our death, but our sin became His death…

And yet, death could not hold Him, and the man Jesus Christ, that is, the Son of God according to His human nature, was made Lord and Messiah over this fallen world!

And because of this divine plan executed in history – because, as we heard Peter say in our Acts reading, “[t]his man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge” – we have salvation… eternal life in Him!

Foolishness? 

Well, yes. 

Remember our Psalm for today?: 

“Through the praise of children and infants

    you have established a stronghold against your enemies,

    to silence the foe and the avenger…”

Again – this crucified Christ, this man Jesus Christ, has been raised from the dead! 

Vindicated by the Father as the King of this world, before the eyes of the world – the God-Man indeed! – this means that you and I and all people have hope! 

I can’t sum up things up better than Martin Luther, speaking about the Triune God’s actions in light of our fallen, our sinful condition… He shares this encouraging message to all of us in his great hymn “Dear Christians, One and All Rejoice”: 

He spoke to his belovèd Son:

“It’s time to have compassion.

Then go, bright jewel of my crown,

and bring to all salvation.

From sin and sorrow set them free;

slay bitter death for them that they

may live with you forever.”

The Son obeyed his Father’s will,

was born of virgin mother,

and, God’s good pleasure to fulfill,

he came to be my brother.

No garb of pomp or pow’r he wore;

a servant’s form like mine he bore

to lead the devil captive.

Amen. 

With footnotes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T8XF96SI313ySVU0zOJJeq-RWP6dHmoVOCbr4wcvAVA/edit?usp=sharing

 

Considering Matthew Barrett’s Simply Trinity: Is All Subordination Out of the Question? (parts I-III in one post)

Part I

What does this mean?

+++

To cut to the chase, “No, I don’t think so.”

Some do though. I asked an online friend about why he thought this issue was so important and he said this: 

“The real concern is the person of Christ – namely who he is, and how He saves us, namely the reason we believe Christ to be equal to the father is because He is our savior. Who else can save us but God? But that is not the only thing we are told Christ does, we are also told we are united under Christ in a single body, and he presents us to the Father. Essentially, we achieve unity and reconciliation with God the Father through our savior, Jesus Christ… We can have no savior other than God, and no one can unite us to God but God…. It’s so important that Christ is equal to the father and not subordinated within the Trinity. Essentially, if there is subordination, we cannot be truly saved.” 

Or consider what the well-known theological blogger Bradly Mason has to say about all of this in this post. Three hard-hitting and thought-provoking quotes:

“Is it not that the GOD, Jehovah Himself, became man and thus in His full Godhead and full humanity, has reconciled fallen and corrupt man to the true, perfect, and eternal God; that full and complete God with all majesty and authority has met together with true humanity in the Person of Jesus Christ? Is not the Gospel itself sapped of its inaccessible majesty and glory if the death and resurrection of our Lord was really the death and resurrection of humanity united with an eternally subordinate God, an eternally submissive God, a lower ranking person within the Godhead; in short, a sort of Jehovah Jr.?”

And: 

“[W]ho is this God we meet with in Jesus Christ? The eternally subordinate and submissive One? Blasphemous! No, He is the true God indeed, that the saints of old had always known and worshipped, though the full revelation awaited His coming in the flesh. That is, in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ it is Jehovah Himself that is united in perfect personal union with the Human Nature of His fleshy creatures. This is the grandeur of the Gospel message.”

And:

“[O]ne equal with God, one with God, and Himself the true God, voluntarily condescended, taking on the form of a servant through corruptible flesh, and became obedient, though it was not and is not His natural estate. The Gospel message is not and cannot be that an eternally subordinate and submissive being became subordinate and submissive… We must, to uphold the truth and majesty of the Gospel itself, confess with clarity that the mission of Christ was to become submissive—a role contrary to and not a simple corollary of His eternal Nature. In a word, submission was the mission, not the cause of the mission.”

This all sounds pretty important, huh? Now, though, enter Martin Luther, and his great hymn “Dear Christians, One and All Rejoice”: 

“He spoke to his belovèd Son:

“It’s time to have compassion.

Then go, bright jewel of my crown,

and bring to all salvation.

From sin and sorrow set them free;

slay bitter death for them that they

may live with you forever.”

The Son obeyed his Father’s will,

was born of virgin mother,

and, God’s good pleasure to fulfill,

he came to be my brother.

No garb of pomp or pow’r he wore;

a servant’s form like mine he bore

to lead the devil captive.”

Now I have never, for one moment, considered anything in these lines to be questionable, or furthermore, as representing anything else than the unvarnished truth of the Gospel. Before the foundation of the world – before time itself was created! – the Lamb of God is slain for our salvation. It is determined that the eternally begotten Son is to be temporally sent, that is sent into the world to undo the curse that would be unleashed in Eden! 

I have been reading the book Simply Trinity by Matthew Barrett, which I would recommend that any contemplating this topic take time to read. On the one hand, I can say that I basically agree with a lot of the book’s arguments. For example, as Pastor Jordan Cooper has also pointed out in two videos on the topic (also referencing Barret; also see his most recent videos here and here) there are a number of ways modern EFS (Eternal Functional Subordination)/ESS (Eternal Subordination of the Son) advocates make errors the ancient church would never have tolerated! 

And here, for more conservative Lutheran readers of this post who are not regularly taking in Pastor Cooper’s content, I should give a little more background for those not familiar with these debates! In sum, evangelicalism is traditionally not strong when it comes to deeper doctrines like that of the Trinity. So as folks like both Barnett and Cooper are pointing out in their own ways, real care should be taken so that the doctrine of the Trinity as presented by Evangelicalism is actually the doctrine of the Trinity with all of its mystery left as mystery! And not – as happened repeatedly in the 20th century and still happens today – not simply what amounts to theological propaganda for some sort of favored social, cultural, or political position.

+++

With all of this said, as I consider both the arguments and the framing of those fighting against EFS and ESS, time and again I am left with the impression that Luther’s words would make them wince at best and become sick at worst, as Christology is thought to swallow up the Trinity. How so? Because, again, when it comes to the activities of the Triune God apart from His activities in the creation and history (known as His “ad intra” activity) the Son is equal to the Father in every way. And since, I think, we all know that obedience and submission go hand-in-hand – and that submission and subordination are basically seen by most everyone as being synonymous – surely the pre-incarnate Son of God cannot be seen as being subordinate! 

At the same time though we all must recognize that the Son is the Word of the Father, and there is no way that this can be turned around, right? And likewise, we all must recognize that the Son is eternally begotten, and hence is temporally sent by the Father, and there is no way this can be turned around, correct? Thomas Torrence in fact spoke of “Patrocentricity” giving an “unreserved place to the Spirit of the Father who is conveyed to us through the Son and on the ground of his saving and reconciling work” (Kleinig, 3). Does this not perhaps all have something to do with why we can say there is “harmony of will” (Greogory of Naziansus, in Barret, 138) when it comes to the persons of the Triune God? After all, one does need particular persons in order to do harmony!

And this, I think, gets to the main issue with this book and the main issue with this debate, as odd as this may sound: even as some cases might seem obvious enough to many of us in the day and age that we live, the church has nevertheless never really agreed on a good definition of “person” for created persons much less divine ones! 

Classically, Barrett notes, the Trinity is three distinct persons that are nevertheless not separate from each other, but “always coexist; wherever one is, there the other really is” (Francis Turretin, 136). Furthermore, the actions of the Trinity are co-inherent, identical, indistinguishable, and indivisible (see 151, 228, 291): it is not like any members of the Trinity exist, think, will or act apart from the others, acting as separate persons. Therefore, since the Son of God is one with the Father and Spirit in intellect, will, and even act, He is not, in any sense, His own “center of consciousness” (see Barret, 82)! For if we said this, it is thought that this would also necessarily mean that the Son had His own intellect and will as well, and He would therefore not be one with God’s essence, substance, being. Barrett expands on this elsewhere, insisting that thinking about the Trinity as three distinct agents, or three “centers of knowledge,” or three “centers of consciousness” is wrong. It may be correct, he says, to think about created persons this way, as individuals who are able to cooperate in a harmonious fashion, but this cannot be true of divine persons, otherwise the Godhead would be divided (see 57-59). Barret goes so far as to say “where there are three separate centers of consciousness there are three separate gods” (149, see 148-150). 

He then goes on to point out how the modern psychological category of “relationship” should not be confused with the “relations” of the Trinity, which are ultimately reducible to paternity (the Father), filiation (the eternally begotten Son), and spiration (the Holy Spirit). And yet, again, the persons are somehow distinct, as Barrett, for example, favorably mentions Augustine speaking of the three as Lover (the Father), Beloved (the Son), and Love (the Holy Spirit) (283, see 273 as well). Finally, even if a modern definition of person, perhaps something like a “center of autonomy gifted with consciousness and freedom” (Boff, on 82, 226) clearly would not apply here (should a Christian even say this is true of created persons!? – more on this below), it would definitely seem odd to feel the need to assert that distinct Persons of the Trinity would not be aware of, that is conscious of, their own love for one another or their own particular “everlasting provenances” (59). Indeed, as Barrett himself points out regarding modalism or Sabellianism, such a heresy does not have “a plurality of persons to love” (283).

Again, however, even though we are using all of these terms, evidently assuming a basic understanding, exactly what a person has never been agreed upon, much less a “center of consciousness” or “relationship”. I get every impression from the way that Barrett puts things that when we speak of the persons of the Trinity, this term, “person,” is much like the term “begotten”: it needs to be understood not in an earthly sense, but perhaps a rather strange or “otherworldly” eternal sense. I am actually sympathetic here, but I come back to the fact that, unlike “begotten”, the church (or even the world!) has not even really agreed on a good definition of what a created person is! Furthermore, I cannot stop thinking about this picture:     

I mean, perhaps some find this picture compelling and attractive and true, but all of these terms, particularly “true”, seems like a bit of a stretch to me. I not only prefer but think I should prefer the picture of Jesus’ baptism, with all three persons of the Trinity making an appearance, so to speak, individually, as a much more appropriate picture, don’t you? That is what faith like a child would say, right?

Part II

Andrei Rublev’s Troitsa, a Trinitarian interpretation of Gen 18:1-16. Showing “the Monarchy of the Father”?: “…it is the angel on the left that becomes the center of the relationships.”

+++

Overall, I am not sure Barrett and I are at odds but it appears to me that we are. I agree that the Son and the Spirit, by nature, always share in the will and actions of the Father. The Father’s desires, purposes, and goals – and actions! – are theirs’ as well. To do justice to Luther’s language about the Son obeying His Father’s will without making it wholly figurative, we could say that the even though we all equally honor the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, something important nevertheless happens within the Trinity itself.

Here the Son, being essentially begotten, always honors His Father, of course being one with His desires, purposes, and goals. If the Son is the Word of the Father, how could He not want only and ever what the Father wants? And of course, the Father, from whom the Son is begotten, is the beginning, the source, the [eternal] origin of the Son. This is highly significant because the Father is also the beginning of the coordination that occurs within the Trinity. Does the importance of this escape us today? Consider, for example, what Paul says to Timothy in the ever-controversial chapter 2 of the first book, “A woman must learn in quietness and full submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, and then Eve.” 

I know some heads might be exploding now! Isn’t talking about these things in the context of the doctrine of the Trinity exactly the kind of problem Mattew Barrett is trying to counter? Yes, true. At the same time, even though the Son is not formed or made but eternally begotten, Paul is nevertheless pointing out something important here that people have always understood: Order matters. The numbering matters. Primacy matters (see 172). For Barrett, “[P]rimacy [is] precluded by the very nature, will, power and glory of the three persons held in common.” (172). Nevertheless, the order is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and not otherwise!  And the one divine will, along with the one divine substance, is originally from the Father.

And therefore the Son – at least it seems to me – eternally honors His Father as Primary! 

And so it is only in this sense and not another that the eternal Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, is “subordinate” to His Father. When He, for example, says in the Gospel of John “[f]or God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him…” (see also I John 4:9) we should not think of Him as saying that He is unequal or less than the Father, even as He eagerly obeys. Bradley Mason, mentioned above, addresses this passage by looking to Augustine, and notes that because of the Trinity’s inseparable operations “as true God [the Son]… sent Himself [as well]” and comments that “[t]ruly sending refers to unequal authority” (see comments here). Presumably, Mason would then have something similar to say about Luther’s “obey”. Why absolutely insist on this however? Because obedience is not really obedience and sending is not really sending unless the will of the sender is backed up with power and force? Where is the willingness to consider a submission based on love that I heard so much about in the 1980s and 1990s when “mutual submission” was being discussed regarding Ephesians 5:21?*

No, contrary to Mason’s take, I believe we should see the pre-incarnate Son of God as vigorously embracing His role in the order, being this “co-ordinate,” this point on the graph and not another point! In other words, we should see Him as glorying in His given position, His given and necessary role, His given “co-ordinate”. Hence, being “sub-ordinate”. Barrett, however, says that subordination means inferiority (114), and that “the minute someone projects authority and subordination into the inner life of God (imminent Trinity), the burden of proof is on them to explain how there is not now three wills in the Trinity (tritheism) rather than one will (simplicity)” (229). “Where there is one simple will,” he states, “ there can necessarily be no authority and submission” (229), also insisting that subordination “is appropriate in the economy of salvation” but not in the immanent Trinity.” In the passages from John 3:16 and 3:17 however, what do we see? We see actions pertaining to the economy of salvation, i.e. the Son’s taking on “the form of a servant” (which Barrett, following Augustine, takes to mean he lowers himself to become a man) that do in fact reach “back into eternity, even into the immanent Trinity” (239)! I think Luther, in spite of largely agreeing with critiques of EFS and ESS, might tell us here, “that will preach!” On the other hand, even as Basil says “[t]he Father is the initiating cause’; the Son ‘the operating cause’; the Spirit, ‘the perfecting cause’” (302), Barret is ever eager to avoid any hint of subordination and confidently asserts “the order… does not introduce time into the essence of God, as if there is a before and after for God. If it did then one person would be superior to another” (300). 

Barrett says that the word “order” “reflects who the triune God is in and of himself” (Calvin), and also “communicates how the persons are distinguished by their eternal relations of origin, all the while being coequal and coeternal” (300). Further, he says that when the word “subordination” is used by past theologians it “merely refers to the order within the Godhead (Father, Son, Spirit) due to the eternal relations of origin” and “suborder is not the same as subordination. Processions, not authority [or hierarchy] are in view”. “Past theologians,” he says, “never considered the Trinity in anything but Nicene categories” (256). I’m not saying I necessarily disagree here. At the same time, I think if we stop there regarding this point about order (and, I think, primacy), we are cutting off any hope of seeing where the ESS or EFS folks just might have a point! 

Part III

“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

+++

So do the ESS or EFS folks have a point? 

I have every impression that the respected Lutheran theologian John Kleinig would think so. In his paper “The Subordination of the Exalted Son to the Father” he also speaks to the matter of eternal relations: “The Son… is ‘subordinate’ to the Father as the eternal source of his sonship and his divinity as Son… to speak of mutual dependence [for example]… does not do full justice to the asymmetrical order and character of the relation of the persons to each other” (2). Even though Barrett says himself that the Son was “appointed to be our Redeemer from eternity,” “it was established in the crown of heaven as the Father commissioned his Son” and this was “just as the Father intended from the beginning” (307) he still doesn’t see anything suggesting primacy here. Furthermore, he quotes Richard Muller saying this is a “pretemporal, intratrinitarian agreement of the Father and Son” (306). Does this not sound like some kind of primacy, and hence some kind of eternal sub-ordination in the sense that I have been talking about it here? I do not understand how one can insist that it is not, even if this is not something the Son would ever choose differently, as this one will simply unfolds according to the Godhead’s very nature of love…

Barrett, however, does seem to give mixed messages here. For example, when critiquing EFS in footnote 92, he writes: 

“Submission is not merely an economic appropriation for [Eternal Functional Subordinationism]; it is intrinsic to the immanent identity of the Son. For the Reformed, the Son’s obedience in the covenant of redemption[, made between Him and the Father,] is optional, an economic deliberation that is not necessary for God to be triune. For EFS, the Son’s obedience in the covenant of redemption is necessary, an extension of the submission that defines him as a person within the immanent Trinity, necessary for the Son to be the Son and therefore necessary for the Trinity to be triune” (346).

If the Trinity has one will, should we really be saying the Son’s obedience is “optional”? Would it not be better if we said that since it is the one will of the Triune God to redeem man, that the Son desires and wills and does nothing else than what His Father desires? In other words, we certainly can say that the Son did not need to save man – but only because we first say that the Triune God, the Godhead – even the Father Himself! – did not need to save man. Also, I understand that Barrett believes that what Fesko said of Barth’s Trinitarian view – “Christ’s mission ends up defining the Trinity rather than revealing it” (345) – is equally true of the EFS or ESS view. While I think that is likely the case, I am left wondering about the assumptions of men like Barret as well. How would the Godhead have communicated a simultaneous equality and subordination had he wanted to do so (and, per above, I believe He has in John 3:16 and 17)? After all, Barrett himself wants to communicate that he simultaneously believes in earthly equality and subordination (affirming his belief in the book about male headship)!  

Nevertheless, we should also point out the following here: those who would argue against any notion of subordination seem to be insisting on defining subordination in a wholly temporal fashion instead of recognizing that this would need to be understood in a way consistent with the Eternal nature of the Godhead. That said, even in an earthly sense any definition of subordination should not necessarily need to involve the reconciliation of two opposing wills (with one accepting overrule by the other). This would be to insist on understanding everything only according to the law, where not only matters of fatherhood (from which wisdom flows and which begets honor and love), but matters of kingship and judgeship (which insists on jurisdiction, that the law be followed, and that power be used in the service of enforcement) play a role. While these terms ultimately all describe the One True God (in the Godhead’s entirety as well) the nuances in distinction are critical. Recognizing that there is action born primarily of love and action taken primarily in light of power (and corresponding threat) is critical to proper understanding.

In line with matters regarding what it means to honor a father, Barrett recognizes that “mere compliance is not enough” (283) – we must go deeper. Obedience in a biblical sense is ultimately about adopting the will of another for the sake of an internal unity while mere compliance involves a will bending and distorting to the other’s for the sake of some external unity. Surely we must be able to see that subordination, subordination understood in a truly biblical sense, could also conceivably go hand-in-hand with an innate desire for the primary person – who is indeed distinct in some fashion! – to be the one who initiates and determines… As a friend put it to me “[t]he reality of sin makes us much more familiar with compliance than obedience, but that’s not exactly an issue in the Godhead.”

This is exactly right. While it is important that we human creatures confess “the deity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, equal in glory, coeternal in majesty” there are also three Persons who do not have any sin problems and are in no need of such confessions or exhortations. We, for example, need to be told not only that it is enough for earthly servants to become like their masters (Matt 10:25), but even admonished to not seek our own glory (John 8:50, 54) and to rather consider others better than ourselves (Philippians 2:3). The Triune God, on the other hand, simply is this way. For the Father, this can be seen as He delights in His Son. For the Son, this can be seen as He embraces the fullness of love and harmony which originates from the Father. And the Spirit can be seen to exult in and proclaim this blessed eternal relationality that always bears good fruit!

Perhaps it might also be helpful to consider the matter in the following way. Eastern Orthodox Christians, in discussing how they view the papacy, emphasize the difference between there being a primary of jurisdiction – which they do not believe the Pope has – and a primacy of honor, which they do attribute to the Roman See. As best I understand matters, they are saying that the Pope may well have the position he does through a kind of “divine right” (as opposed to a merely human right and arrangement), but that he is also to be understood as the “first among equals”. Both the “first” and “equals” are important here, along with the fact that they are saying that – ideally, at least – one would honor this primary one and his direction. All this speaks to how we could conceivably speak of there being authority and submission within one divine essence and will.  All of this should not be controversial, but simply can go along with how “specific acts of God, acts that are attributed to the entire Godhead, can also be appropriated to specific persons” (310), as “each person possesses… a distinct mode of action” (Giles Emery, 309) and all this, of course, is “consistent with each persons’ eternal relation of origin (311), that is paternity, filiation, and spiration. 

+++

As we conclude, I want to deal with one last thing that Barrett speaks about. Take this paragraph:

“Paul, Andrew, and James are three persons, and they all have the same human nature. We might say they all possess the nature we call humanity. But can we say they are one human? We cannot. Paul, Andrew, and James all participate in what they call humanity, but they are not a single human being. They are, rather, three separate individuals, three separate beings. They are not only distinct but independent. They may have much in common, but three they remain, not one. The illustration buckles: what we call human nature can be divided. Never can it be a single human essence and at the same time three humans. ‘The common humanity of the three human persons does not indicate as it must in God, a numerical unity of essence, only a generic unity.’ And a generic unity will not do when we are speaking of the triune God” (144).

He goes on to say that “Paul, Andrew, and James can exist without one another; they do not need one another, nor is their identity dependent on one another…” but I think this underlies how many points he is missing above. 

First of all, human beings actually do need one another, do depend on each other for both their creation and sustenance, and even if one particular human being does not help us directly, this point is not diluted. We can see this clearly in that if our three individuals were husband, wife, and child, that is, not only sharing the same nature but the same flesh and blood, then the interdependency of human creatures becomes just as obvious as any “individuality”. And as a friend puts it “since we’re all sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, those relationships are only where it’s most obvious, not the only place it’s real. The very fact that we can all fall in one man and rise in one Man also testifies to that deeper unity.” 

Second, even though I do not have the references before me, I am aware that at least one of the Cappadocian church fathers – men who Barrett seems to be very keen to follow in other respects, did analogize about the persons who are “humanity” to the Persons who are Divinity. In other words, in some sense they do share a human nature in a similar fashion to how the three persons of the Godhead share a divine nature. We can say they share one human nature or one humanity, just as the three persons of the Godhead share one divine nature or one divinity (and so I have, I confess, often pondered what might be wrong, if anything, with the phrase “Tri-Personal Being,” which I heard a friend once [helpfully?] use to describe the Trinity…). So what is significant here is that what it means to be divine and what it means to be man are two fundamentally different things, and this is because man is a creature while God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal and immutable. This means, for example, that it is possible for man to not share one will, even if God would indeed have this be the case!: the will of all men – as one body united in Christ! – should indeed always be in full accordance with God’s desires, purposes, and goals!

Finally, there are two more things that I think need to be brought up as well. While I think we can all see how the equality of the three persons of the Trinity could potentially be popular among those who are more culturally progressive, I do not see how the sub-ordination of the Son could ever be. In like fashion, again, if someone is absolutely against any kind of “subordination” (is “suborder” OK? Why?) in the Trinity because of concerns about equality and is also pro-male headship – as Barrett says he is – I don’t understand how such a person escapes the charge of implying women are of some sort of an inferior nature. That might seem like a brutal thing to say, and probably doesn’t seem very conciliatory either, but the logic of it all and the direction this discussion seems to be moving does weigh on me. That was confirmed for me further when the online friend I quoted to begin this article also said to me: “I think you are correct to be honest. I don’t know how a pro-male headship person who is against ESS can escape the charge a woman’s nature is inferior which is why I tend to support women’s ordination.” Even persons like Bradly Mason, who argue that male headship is only temporal due to the Fall, will need to face those deeply angered and irritated by their insistence on such a temporary arrangement. 

But order, a “numbering”, a primacy — if not a hierarchy — appears to be rather fundamental. Because of Love, and Love which honors, and Love which glories in and glorifies all of this. 

FIN

 

*Thomas Winger’s Ephesians commentary discusses “the oxymoron of ‘mutual submission’” (669, see also 639-646).

 

Considering Matthew Barrett’s Simply Trinity: Is All Subordination Out of the Question? (part III of III)

“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

+++

Part I

Part II

So do the ESS or EFS folks have a point? 

I have every impression that the respected Lutheran theologian John Kleinig would think so. In his paper “The Subordination of the Exalted Son to the Father” he also speaks to the matter of eternal relations: “The Son… is ‘subordinate’ to the Father as the eternal source of his sonship and his divinity as Son… to speak of mutual dependence [for example]… does not do full justice to the asymmetrical order and character of the relation of the persons to each other” (2). Even though Barrett says himself that the Son was “appointed to be our Redeemer from eternity,” “it was established in the crown of heaven as the Father commissioned his Son” and this was “just as the Father intended from the beginning” (307) he still doesn’t see anything suggesting primacy here. Furthermore, he quotes Richard Muller saying this is a “pretemporal, intratrinitarian agreement of the Father and Son” (306). Does this not sound like some kind of primacy, and hence some kind of eternal sub-ordination in the sense that I have been talking about it here? I do not understand how one can insist that it is not, even if this is not something the Son would ever choose differently, as this one will simply unfolds according to the Godhead’s very nature of love…

Barrett, however, does seem to give mixed messages here. For example, when critiquing EFS in footnote 92, he writes: 

“Submission is not merely an economic appropriation for [Eternal Functional Subordinationism]; it is intrinsic to the immanent identity of the Son. For the Reformed, the Son’s obedience in the covenant of redemption[, made between Him and the Father,] is optional, an economic deliberation that is not necessary for God to be triune. For EFS, the Son’s obedience in the covenant of redemption is necessary, an extension of the submission that defines him as a person within the immanent Trinity, necessary for the Son to be the Son and therefore necessary for the Trinity to be triune” (346).

If the Trinity has one will, should we really be saying the Son’s obedience is “optional”? Would it not be better if we said that since it is the one will of the Triune God to redeem man, that the Son desires and wills and does nothing else than what His Father desires? In other words, we certainly can say that the Son did not need to save man – but only because we first say that the Triune God, the Godhead – even the Father Himself! – did not need to save man. Also, I understand that Barrett believes that what Fesko said of Barth’s Trinitarian view – “Christ’s mission ends up defining the Trinity rather than revealing it” (345) – is equally true of the EFS or ESS view. While I think that is likely the case, I am left wondering about the assumptions of men like Barret as well. How would the Godhead have communicated a simultaneous equality and subordination had he wanted to do so (and, per above, I believe He has in John 3:16 and 17)? After all, Barrett himself wants to communicate that he simultaneously believes in earthly equality and subordination (affirming his belief in the book about male headship)!  

Nevertheless, we should also point out the following here: those who would argue against any notion of subordination seem to be insisting on defining subordination in a wholly temporal fashion instead of recognizing that this would need to be understood in a way consistent with the Eternal nature of the Godhead. That said, even in an earthly sense any definition of subordination should not necessarily need to involve the reconciliation of two opposing wills (with one accepting overrule by the other). This would be to insist on understanding everything only according to the law, where not only matters of fatherhood (from which wisdom flows and which begets honor and love), but matters of kingship and judgeship (which insists on jurisdiction, that the law be followed, and that power be used in the service of enforcement) play a role. While these terms ultimately all describe the One True God (in the Godhead’s entirety as well) the nuances in distinction are critical. Recognizing that there is action born primarily of love and action taken primarily in light of power (and corresponding threat) is critical to proper understanding.

In line with matters regarding what it means to honor a father, Barrett recognizes that “mere compliance is not enough” (283) – we must go deeper. Obedience in a biblical sense is ultimately about adopting the will of another for the sake of an internal unity while mere compliance involves a will bending and distorting to the other’s for the sake of some external unity. Surely we must be able to see that subordination, subordination understood in a truly biblical sense, could also conceivably go hand-in-hand with an innate desire for the primary person – who is indeed distinct in some fashion! – to be the one who initiates and determines… As a friend put it to me “[t]he reality of sin makes us much more familiar with compliance than obedience, but that’s not exactly an issue in the Godhead.”

This is exactly right. While it is important that we human creatures confess “the deity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, equal in glory, coeternal in majesty” there are also three Persons who do not have any sin problems and are in no need of such confessions or exhortations. We, for example, need to be told not only that it is enough for earthly servants to become like their masters (Matt 10:25), but even admonished to not seek our own glory (John 8:50, 54) and to rather consider others better than ourselves (Philippians 2:3). The Triune God, on the other hand, simply is this way. For the Father, this can be seen as He delights in His Son. For the Son, this can be seen as He embraces the fullness of love and harmony which originates from the Father. And the Spirit can be seen to exult in and proclaim this blessed eternal relationality that always bears good fruit!

Perhaps it might also be helpful to consider the matter in the following way. Eastern Orthodox Christians, in discussing how they view the papacy, emphasize the difference between there being a primary of jurisdiction – which they do not believe the Pope has – and a primacy of honor, which they do attribute to the Roman See. As best I understand matters, they are saying that the Pope may well have the position he does through a kind of “divine right” (as opposed to a merely human right and arrangement), but that he is also to be understood as the “first among equals”. Both the “first” and “equals” are important here, along with the fact that they are saying that – ideally, at least – one would honor this primary one and his direction. All this speaks to how we could conceivably speak of there being authority and submission within one divine essence and will.  All of this should not be controversial, but simply can go along with how “specific acts of God, acts that are attributed to the entire Godhead, can also be appropriated to specific persons” (310), as “each person possesses… a distinct mode of action” (Giles Emery, 309) and all this, of course, is “consistent with each persons’ eternal relation of origin (311), that is paternity, filiation, and spiration. 

+++

As we conclude, I want to deal with one last thing that Barrett speaks about. Take this paragraph:

“Paul, Andrew, and James are three persons, and they all have the same human nature. We might say they all possess the nature we call humanity. But can we say they are one human? We cannot. Paul, Andrew, and James all participate in what they call humanity, but they are not a single human being. They are, rather, three separate individuals, three separate beings. They are not only distinct but independent. They may have much in common, but three they remain, not one. The illustration buckles: what we call human nature can be divided. Never can it be a single human essence and at the same time three humans. ‘The common humanity of the three human persons does not indicate as it must in God, a numerical unity of essence, only a generic unity.’ And a generic unity will not do when we are speaking of the triune God” (144).

He goes on to say that “Paul, Andrew, and James can exist without one another; they do not need one another, nor is their identity dependent on one another…” but I think this underlies how many points he is missing above. 

First of all, human beings actually do need one another, do depend on each other for both their creation and sustenance, and even if one particular human being does not help us directly, this point is not diluted. We can see this clearly in that if our three individuals were husband, wife, and child, that is, not only sharing the same nature but the same flesh and blood, then the interdependency of human creatures becomes just as obvious as any “individuality”. And as a friend puts it “since we’re all sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, those relationships are only where it’s most obvious, not the only place it’s real. The very fact that we can all fall in one man and rise in one Man also testifies to that deeper unity.” 

Second, even though I do not have the references before me, I am aware that at least one of the Cappadocian church fathers – men who Barrett seems to be very keen to follow in other respects, did analogize about the persons who are “humanity” to the Persons who are Divinity. In other words, in some sense they do share a human nature in a similar fashion to how the three persons of the Godhead share a divine nature. We can say they share one human nature or one humanity, just as the three persons of the Godhead share one divine nature or one divinity (and so I have, I confess, often pondered what might be wrong, if anything, with the phrase “Tri-Personal Being,” which I heard a friend once [helpfully?] use to describe the Trinity…). So what is significant here is that what it means to be divine and what it means to be man are two fundamentally different things, and this is because man is a creature while God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal and immutable. This means, for example, that it is possible for man to not share one will, even if God would indeed have this be the case!: the will of all men – as one body united in Christ! – should indeed always be in full accordance with God’s desires, purposes, and goals!

Finally, there are two more things that I think need to be brought up as well. While I think we can all see how the equality of the three persons of the Trinity could potentially be popular among those who are more culturally progressive, I do not see how the sub-ordination of the Son could ever be. In like fashion, again, if someone is absolutely against any kind of “subordination” (is “suborder” OK? Why?) in the Trinity because of concerns about equality and is also pro-male headship – as Barrett says he is – I don’t understand how such a person escapes the charge of implying women are of some sort of an inferior nature. That might seem like a brutal thing to say, and probably doesn’t seem very conciliatory either, but the logic of it all and the direction this discussion seems to be moving does weigh on me. That was confirmed for me further when the online friend I quoted to begin this article also said to me: “I think you are correct to be honest. I don’t know how a pro-male headship person who is against ESS can escape the charge a woman’s nature is inferior which is why I tend to support women’s ordination.” Even persons like Bradly Mason, who argue that male headship is only temporal due to the Fall, will need to face those deeply angered and irritated by their insistence on such a temporary arrangement. 

But order, a “numbering”, a primacy — if not a hierarchy — appears to be rather fundamental. Because of Love, and Love which honors, and Love which glories in and glorifies all of this. 

FIN

 

Considering Matthew Barrett’s Simply Trinity: Is All Subordination Out of the Question? (part II of III)

Andrei Rublev’s Troitsa, a Trinitarian interpretation of Gen 18:1-16. Showing “the Monarchy of the Father”?: “…it is the angel on the left that becomes the center of the relationships.”

+++

Part I

Overall, I am not sure Barrett and I are at odds but it appears to me that we are. I agree that the Son and the Spirit, by nature, always share in the will and actions of the Father. The Father’s desires, purposes, and goals – and actions! – are theirs’ as well. To do justice to Luther’s language about the Son obeying His Father’s will without making it wholly figurative, we could say that the even though we all equally honor the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, something important nevertheless happens within the Trinity itself.

Here the Son, being essentially begotten, always honors His Father, of course being one with His desires, purposes, and goals. If the Son is the Word of the Father, how could He not want only and ever what the Father wants? And of course, the Father, from whom the Son is begotten, is the beginning, the source, the [eternal] origin of the Son. This is highly significant because the Father is also the beginning of the coordination that occurs within the Trinity. Does the importance of this escape us today? Consider, for example, what Paul says to Timothy in the ever-controversial chapter 2 of the first book, “A woman must learn in quietness and full submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, and then Eve.” 

I know some heads might be exploding now! Isn’t talking about these things in the context of the doctrine of the Trinity exactly the kind of problem Mattew Barrett is trying to counter? Yes, true. At the same time, even though the Son is not formed or made but eternally begotten, Paul is nevertheless pointing out something important here that people have always understood: Order matters. The numbering matters. Primacy matters (see 172). For Barrett, “[P]rimacy [is] precluded by the very nature, will, power and glory of the three persons held in common.” (172). Nevertheless, the order is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and not otherwise!  And the one divine will, along with the one divine substance, is originally from the Father.

And therefore the Son – at least it seems to me – eternally honors His Father as Primary! 

And so it is only in this sense and not another that the eternal Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, is “subordinate” to His Father. When He, for example, says in the Gospel of John “[f]or God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him…” (see also I John 4:9) we should not think of Him as saying that He is unequal or less than the Father, even as He eagerly obeys. Bradley Mason, mentioned above, addresses this passage by looking to Augustine, and notes that because of the Trinity’s inseparable operations “as true God [the Son]… sent Himself [as well]” and comments that “[t]ruly sending refers to unequal authority” (see comments here). Presumably, Mason would then have something similar to say about Luther’s “obey”. Why absolutely insist on this however? Because obedience is not really obedience and sending is not really sending unless the will of the sender is backed up with power and force? Where is the willingness to consider a submission based on love that I heard so much about in the 1980s and 1990s when “mutual submission” was being discussed regarding Ephesians 5:21?*

No, contrary to Mason’s take, I believe we should see the pre-incarnate Son of God as vigorously embracing His role in the order, being this “co-ordinate,” this point on the graph and not another point! In other words, we should see Him as glorying in His given position, His given and necessary role, His given “co-ordinate”. Hence, being “sub-ordinate”. Barrett, however, says that subordination means inferiority (114), and that “the minute someone projects authority and subordination into the inner life of God (imminent Trinity), the burden of proof is on them to explain how there is not now three wills in the Trinity (tritheism) rather than one will (simplicity)” (229). “Where there is one simple will,” he states, “ there can necessarily be no authority and submission” (229), also insisting that subordination “is appropriate in the economy of salvation” but not in the immanent Trinity.” In the passages from John 3:16 and 3:17 however, what do we see? We see actions pertaining to the economy of salvation, i.e. the Son’s taking on “the form of a servant” (which Barrett, following Augustine, takes to mean he lowers himself to become a man) that do in fact reach “back into eternity, even into the immanent Trinity” (239)! I think Luther, in spite of largely agreeing with critiques of EFS and ESS, might tell us here, “that will preach!” On the other hand, even as Basil says “[t]he Father is the initiating cause’; the Son ‘the operating cause’; the Spirit, ‘the perfecting cause’” (302), Barret is ever eager to avoid any hint of subordination and confidently asserts “the order… does not introduce time into the essence of God, as if there is a before and after for God. If it did then one person would be superior to another” (300). 

Barrett says that the word “order” “reflects who the triune God is in and of himself” (Calvin), and also “communicates how the persons are distinguished by their eternal relations of origin, all the while being coequal and coeternal” (300). Further, he says that when the word “subordination” is used by past theologians it “merely refers to the order within the Godhead (Father, Son, Spirit) due to the eternal relations of origin” and “suborder is not the same as subordination. Processions, not authority [or hierarchy] are in view”. “Past theologians,” he says, “never considered the Trinity in anything but Nicene categories” (256). I’m not saying I necessarily disagree here. At the same time, I think if we stop there regarding this point about order (and, I think, primacy), we are cutting off any hope of seeing where the ESS or EFS folks just might have a point! 

(to be continued…)

*Thomas Winger’s Ephesians commentary discusses “the oxymoron of ‘mutual submission’” (669, see also 639-646).

 

Considering Matthew Barrett’s Simply Trinity: Is All Subordination Out of the Question? (part I of III)

What does this mean?

+++

To cut to the chase, “No, I don’t think so.”

Some do though. I asked an online friend about why he thought this issue was so important and he said this: 

“The real concern is the person of Christ – namely who he is, and how He saves us, namely the reason we believe Christ to be equal to the father is because He is our savior. Who else can save us but God? But that is not the only thing we are told Christ does, we are also told we are united under Christ in a single body, and he presents us to the Father. Essentially, we achieve unity and reconciliation with God the Father through our savior, Jesus Christ… We can have no savior other than God, and no one can unite us to God but God…. It’s so important that Christ is equal to the father and not subordinated within the Trinity. Essentially, if there is subordination, we cannot be truly saved.” 

Or consider what the well-known theological blogger Bradly Mason has to say about all of this in this post. Three hard-hitting and thought-provoking quotes:

“Is it not that the GOD, Jehovah Himself, became man and thus in His full Godhead and full humanity, has reconciled fallen and corrupt man to the true, perfect, and eternal God; that full and complete God with all majesty and authority has met together with true humanity in the Person of Jesus Christ? Is not the Gospel itself sapped of its inaccessible majesty and glory if the death and resurrection of our Lord was really the death and resurrection of humanity united with an eternally subordinate God, an eternally submissive God, a lower ranking person within the Godhead; in short, a sort of Jehovah Jr.?”

And: 

“[W]ho is this God we meet with in Jesus Christ? The eternally subordinate and submissive One? Blasphemous! No, He is the true God indeed, that the saints of old had always known and worshipped, though the full revelation awaited His coming in the flesh. That is, in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ it is Jehovah Himself that is united in perfect personal union with the Human Nature of His fleshy creatures. This is the grandeur of the Gospel message.”

And:

“[O]ne equal with God, one with God, and Himself the true God, voluntarily condescended, taking on the form of a servant through corruptible flesh, and became obedient, though it was not and is not His natural estate. The Gospel message is not and cannot be that an eternally subordinate and submissive being became subordinate and submissive… We must, to uphold the truth and majesty of the Gospel itself, confess with clarity that the mission of Christ was to become submissive—a role contrary to and not a simple corollary of His eternal Nature. In a word, submission was the mission, not the cause of the mission.”

This all sounds pretty important, huh? Now, though, enter Martin Luther, and his great hymn “Dear Christians, One and All Rejoice”: 

“He spoke to his belovèd Son:

“It’s time to have compassion.

Then go, bright jewel of my crown,

and bring to all salvation.

From sin and sorrow set them free;

slay bitter death for them that they

may live with you forever.”

The Son obeyed his Father’s will,

was born of virgin mother,

and, God’s good pleasure to fulfill,

he came to be my brother.

No garb of pomp or pow’r he wore;

a servant’s form like mine he bore

to lead the devil captive.”

Now I have never, for one moment, considered anything in these lines to be questionable, or furthermore, as representing anything else than the unvarnished truth of the Gospel. Before the foundation of the world – before time itself was created! – the Lamb of God is slain for our salvation. It is determined that the eternally begotten Son is to be temporally sent, that is sent into the world to undo the curse that would be unleashed in Eden! 

I have been reading the book Simply Trinity by Matthew Barrett, which I would recommend that any contemplating this topic take time to read. On the one hand, I can say that I basically agree with a lot of the book’s arguments. For example, as Pastor Jordan Cooper has also pointed out in two videos on the topic (also referencing Barret; also see his most recent videos here and here) there are a number of ways modern EFS (Eternal Functional Subordination)/ESS (Eternal Subordination of the Son) advocates make errors the ancient church would never have tolerated! 

And here, for more conservative Lutheran readers of this post who are not regularly taking in Pastor Cooper’s content, I should give a little more background for those not familiar with these debates! In sum, evangelicalism is traditionally not strong when it comes to deeper doctrines like that of the Trinity. So as folks like both Barnett and Cooper are pointing out in their own ways, real care should be taken so that the doctrine of the Trinity as presented by Evangelicalism is actually the doctrine of the Trinity with all of its mystery left as mystery! And not – as happened repeatedly in the 20th century and still happens today – not simply what amounts to theological propaganda for some sort of favored social, cultural, or political position.

+++

With all of this said, as I consider both the arguments and the framing of those fighting against EFS and ESS, time and again I am left with the impression that Luther’s words would make them wince at best and become sick at worst, as Christology is thought to swallow up the Trinity. How so? Because, again, when it comes to the activities of the Triune God apart from His activities in the creation and history (known as His “ad intra” activity) the Son is equal to the Father in every way. And since, I think, we all know that obedience and submission go hand-in-hand – and that submission and subordination are basically seen by most everyone as being synonymous – surely the pre-incarnate Son of God cannot be seen as being subordinate! 

At the same time though we all must recognize that the Son is the Word of the Father, and there is no way that this can be turned around, right? And likewise, we all must recognize that the Son is eternally begotten, and hence is temporally sent by the Father, and there is no way this can be turned around, correct? Thomas Torrence in fact spoke of “Patrocentricity” giving an “unreserved place to the Spirit of the Father who is conveyed to us through the Son and on the ground of his saving and reconciling work” (Kleinig, 3). Does this not perhaps all have something to do with why we can say there is “harmony of will” (Greogory of Naziansus, in Barret, 138) when it comes to the persons of the Triune God? After all, one does need particular persons in order to do harmony!

And this, I think, gets to the main issue with this book and the main issue with this debate, as odd as this may sound: even as some cases might seem obvious enough to many of us in the day and age that we live, the church has nevertheless never really agreed on a good definition of “person” for created persons much less divine ones! 

Classically, Barrett notes, the Trinity is three distinct persons that are nevertheless not separate from each other, but “always coexist; wherever one is, there the other really is” (Francis Turretin, 136). Furthermore, the actions of the Trinity are co-inherent, identical, indistinguishable, and indivisible (see 151, 228, 291): it is not like any members of the Trinity exist, think, will or act apart from the others, acting as separate persons. Therefore, since the Son of God is one with the Father and Spirit in intellect, will, and even act, He is not, in any sense, His own “center of consciousness” (see Barret, 82)! For if we said this, it is thought that this would also necessarily mean that the Son had His own intellect and will as well, and He would therefore not be one with God’s essence, substance, being. Barrett expands on this elsewhere, insisting that thinking about the Trinity as three distinct agents, or three “centers of knowledge,” or three “centers of consciousness” is wrong. It may be correct, he says, to think about created persons this way, as individuals who are able to cooperate in a harmonious fashion, but this cannot be true of divine persons, otherwise the Godhead would be divided (see 57-59). Barret goes so far as to say “where there are three separate centers of consciousness there are three separate gods” (149, see 148-150). 

He then goes on to point out how the modern psychological category of “relationship” should not be confused with the “relations” of the Trinity, which are ultimately reducible to paternity (the Father), filiation (the eternally begotten Son), and spiration (the Holy Spirit). And yet, again, the persons are somehow distinct, as Barrett, for example, favorably mentions Augustine speaking of the three as Lover (the Father), Beloved (the Son), and Love (the Holy Spirit) (283, see 273 as well). Finally, even if a modern definition of person, perhaps something like a “center of autonomy gifted with consciousness and freedom” (Boff, on 82, 226) clearly would not apply here (should a Christian even say this is true of created persons!? – more on this below), it would definitely seem odd to feel the need to assert that distinct Persons of the Trinity would not be aware of, that is conscious of, their own love for one another or their own particular “everlasting provenances” (59). Indeed, as Barrett himself points out regarding modalism or Sabellianism, such a heresy does not have “a plurality of persons to love” (283).

Again, however, even though we are using all of these terms, evidently assuming a basic understanding, exactly what a person has never been agreed upon, much less a “center of consciousness” or “relationship”. I get every impression from the way that Barrett puts things that when we speak of the persons of the Trinity, this term, “person,” is much like the term “begotten”: it needs to be understood not in an earthly sense, but perhaps a rather strange or “otherworldly” eternal sense. I am actually sympathetic here, but I come back to the fact that, unlike “begotten”, the church (or even the world!) has not even really agreed on a good definition of what a created person is! Furthermore, I cannot stop thinking about this picture:     

I mean, perhaps some find this picture compelling and attractive and true, but all of these terms, particularly “true”, seems like a bit of a stretch to me. I not only prefer but think I should prefer the picture of Jesus’ baptism, with all three persons of the Trinity making an appearance, so to speak, individually, as a much more appropriate picture, don’t you? That is what faith like a child would say, right?

(to be continued….)