Allergies, Anyone? The Trinity Does Not Fit Into Your Tiny Box of History
As Jesus claims repeatedly to be the way to salvation in John’s Gospel, he will also back up his right to make that claim, especially when the religious leaders question his authority, by appealing to his eternal origin from the Father. It is only because he is begotten by the Father from all eternity that he can then claim to be sent by the Father to become incarnate in history. His eternal relation to the Father constitutes his redemptive mission to the world, but not vice versa.
I must admit, we evangelicals have developed an allergy to things eternal, especially when it comes to our doctrine of the Trinity. To be brutally honest, we are prone to conflation. We approach the Bible assuming history is its only focus. Ironically, this approach is a failure to be biblical enough. Yes, Scripture’s storyline does take a narrative form, focused as it is on salvation history. But the biblical authors never stop there, nor is narrative an end in and of itself. Never do they shove the infinite, incomprehensible Trinity into our tiny box of history, limiting who God is to what God does, prioritizing function over being. Either in their presuppositions (consider the Psalms) or in their theological conclusions (purview Paul’s letters), they intend the reader to read theologically. More to the point, the biblical authors are not so focused on the historical facts of the life of Christ that they are unconcerned with his eternal, trinitarian origin prior to the incarnation. They are not so earthly minded that they are of no heavenly good.
We should not be either.
Consider the opening of John’s Gospel, for example. As I share in Simply Trinity: The Unmanipulated Father, Son, and Spirit (Baker, 2021), I often hear pastors advising churchgoers to give the Gospel of John to someone they are trying to evangelize. That’s for good reason, too: John’s Gospel lays out the gospel with lucid conviction, bringing the unbeliever face-to-face with the crucified and risen Christ and the many gifts he gives to all recipients of his grace. That’s why we love texts like John 3:16; we desire to tell the world about God’s Son so that they might receive eternal life.
But in our rush to talk about eternal life, we sometimes skip to the second half of John 3:16 and forget to talk about the eternal Son. As the first half of John 3:16 says, God “gave his only begotten Son” (KJV). Let those words marinate: God . . . gave . . . his . . . only begotten . . . Son. When we rush to the benefits the Son brings and skip over the identity the Son has in eternity, we neglect not only the first half of John 3:16 but the first two chapters of John’s Gospel—chapters, need I remind you, that precede John 3.
God in Himself
Did you know, for instance, that John begins his Gospel not with the eternal life we receive but with the life the triune God enjoyed in eternity? Go back to the opening of John 1 and what do you read? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God” (1:1–2). Before we get to the good news about Jesus and the eternal life he brings, let’s take a step back and consider, as John does, where this Jesus originates from in the first place. This will be hard, but let’s put off what God has done in creation and focus first on who God is apart from creation. Why would we do that? Here’s why: unless you understand who God is apart from you, you will never understand the importance of what God has done for you, at least not in full. I realize how counterintuitive that sounds, holding off on the history of redemption—your history—to talk about things eternal. Abstract and esoteric perhaps. But John is convinced that in doing so you will have a better grasp of who this Word is and why he became flesh and dwelt among us. Furthermore, a long line of church fathers also believe that John’s approach avoids a dirty swamp of heresies, many of which threaten to conflate who God is in and of himself (ad intra) with how God’s acts externally (ad extra) toward his creation.
-
The Account of Creation and Its Relation to the Biblical Storyline
What, one may ask legitimately, is the relation of Genesis 1–11 to Genesis 12–50, to the rest of the Torah, to the rest of the Old Testament, or to the rest of the Bible? The latter questions assume, of course, the existence or possibility of a single plot structure running through the assorted collection of books we call the Bible. Is Genesis 1–11 just the “primeval history” that we have to get out of the way before the real story starts with Abraham in Genesis 12? Some Christians approach putting the Bible together this way.
My thesis in this brief piece is that all of our foundations for life and living are found in the biblical teaching on creation, especially as delineated in Genesis 1–3. From the account of creation, we see that God rules sovereignly over all his works as King. He establishes his rule, moreover, in a bond or relationship of love, loyalty, spirit, and trust with humans. Not surprisingly, then, one of the central themes of the Old Testament is kingdom through covenant.[1]
The Image of God as a King in Covenant with God
The foundation for kingdom through covenant is laid by the creation of humans as the image of God. Genesis 1:27–28 actually deals with two topics by means of a chiasm or literary sandwich:
(A) in the image of God he created him
(B) male and female he created them
(B´) be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth
(A´) and subdue it and rule over the fish/birds/animals
After the general statement in verse 27a that God created humanity in his image, we have in verse 27b a couple of important footnotes. The fact that humanity is constituted as male and female prepares us for the command to be fruitful, and the fact that humanity is the divine image prepares us for the command to rule over the creatures. Thus, while binary sexual differentiation is the basis for procreation enabling humans to increase in number (the B elements in the chiasm), our status as God’s image is expressed in subduing and ruling (the A elements). Note that our identity as God’s image is expressed as we rule creation on God’s behalf. This identity does not require bearing children, nor is biological gender a necessary aspect of our ability to function as God’s image. Rather, the image of God correlates to men and women ruling over creation.
Careful analysis of the terms “likeness” and “image” in the Hebrew scriptures shows that these words speak of kinship and kingship. Likeness focuses on our relation to God as his obedient sons and daughters while image focuses on the way we represent God to the rest of his creation. These would have been understood as covenantal relationships since family language is invoked to describe covenants in the Bible and ancient Near East. Note as well that according to the grammar of the original text, ruling over the creatures in v. 26b is a result of creating man in the divine image. So, the image has to do with the core of our being and status and is not only or simply functional.[2]
Most occurrences of the word “image” denote a physical statue. Accordingly, mankind is set in the midst of creation as God’s statue. He is evidence that God is the Lord of creation. Mankind exerts his rule not in arbitrary despotism but as a responsible agent, as God’s steward. His duty to rule is not autonomous; it is a copy of the divine king who sits in glory. Hence the concept of the kingdom of God is found on the first page of the Bible.
From the First Adam to the Second
Adam begins to rule the world under God by naming everything created on the earth just as God ruled by naming everything created in the heavens. This understanding of the divine image fits the background of the ancient Near East where the setting up of the king’s statue was the equivalent to the proclamation of his domination over the area in which the statue was erected.
When the descendants of the first man and woman fill the earth with chaos and social violence flowing from the breaking of the covenant by Adam and Eve, God destroys all creatures by a flood and preserves a pair of each kind. God makes a new start with Noah and he is given Adam’s covenant and mandate (comp. Genesis 1:27–29 with 9:1–7). When the family of Noah ends up confused and scattered over the face of the earth because of the curse of Babel in Genesis 11, God chooses Abraham and his family in Genesis 12 to inherit the role of Adam and Eve.
Read More
Related Posts: -
What Does John 10:10 Mean?
Jesus’ offer of abundant life in John 10:10 means that to gain Him as your Shepherd is far and away the greatest thing that could ever happen to you. It means that anything this world may either give to you or take away from you doesn’t really matter that much, because a life awaits you beyond the present that greatly surpasses this one in every way.
Jesus’ mission statement in John 10:10 states, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” If your interpretation of “abundantly” doesn’t go beyond fine dining, designer clothes, or a luxury car, then you are missing His point. In fact, if you take it even further to include perfect health, the spouse of your dreams, and worldwide fame, you still fall far short of Jesus’ meaning. Jesus’ understanding of the abundant life is not your best life now. It is so much more.
To understand John 10:10, we must first enter Jesus’ analogy of sheep, shepherds, and thieves. In the analogy, God’s people are the sheep, Jesus is the shepherd, and the thieves are any who approach the sheep illegitimately and with ill-intent.
From the earliest books of the Bible, God’s people are compared to sheep (see Num. 27:17). As a result, this was already a well-known image by the time Jesus used it, and the image still applies today. In whatever time or place they may live, God’s people are sheep who need someone to care for them—to lead them to food and water, to rescue them when they wander away, and to defend them from wolves and thieves.
As for the thieves, their ranks include anyone who approaches God’s people without license or love. The thief doesn’t enter by the door, with the gate-keeper’s approval, but “climbs in by another way” (John 10:1). He hops the fence because he doesn’t have the right to be there, and he comes to do harm. He doesn’t care for the sheep. His purpose is to “steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10).
But no thief will succeed against the flock of the “good shepherd” (John 10:11). Whereas the thief comes to take life, the good shepherd stands ready to give it. But it is not the sheep’s lives that he gives. He gives his own: “the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” The good shepherd takes upon himself the harm that the thief intends for the sheep, and he neutralizes the threat. The sheep are no longer in danger of being killed, robbed, or destroyed.
Read More
Related Posts: -
Where Is the Power of God?
Written by R.C. Sproul |
Sunday, August 29, 2021
Where’s the power? It’s in the Word, and we’re looking for it everywhere else. I doubt if any of us have relic collections, but some churches seek power in adding a coffee shop to their church or pursuing the latest trendy church-growth method. These things don’t have power. There is a formula for a prosperous and successful ministry, and that formula is in preaching the Word of God in season and out of season.The last sermon Martin Luther preached was in the second week of February 1546 in his hometown of Eisleben. Two days later, he would become ill and soon after perish. In this last sermon, Luther preached with passion about his concern for Germany. He observed that after the gospel had been rediscovered—after light had dawned and pushed aside the darkness that had eclipsed it during the Middle Ages—people were now becoming somewhat jaded to the gospel. They could hear it from virtually every pulpit in Germany, but it was no longer something that ignited fire in their bones. Instead, peasants were journeying to see relics throughout various villages in Germany, which signified a return to the system of medieval Roman Catholicism.
The peasants were going to these villages because in one town, they boasted the possession of the trousers of Joseph, and another one had a vial of milk from the breast of the Virgin Mary. And so, people flocked to these places just to get a glimpse of the pants of St. Joseph and the milk of Mary the Mother of Jesus. Luther was very upset about this. He wondered, “Why in the world would peasants anywhere make an arduous journey just to see a piece of cloth that was worn by Joseph?” The answer was very simple: they were looking for power. They believed that the relics of the saints contained power—power to heal, power to forgive, and power to transform their lives.
Read More
