Time passes, and we look back, and from the benefit of a future vantage point, we can see things we were blind to in the moment. We get a slight glimpse of what possible good could come from something that felt, at the time, so bad. And from that vantage point, we would never look back at the disease or evil or pain we experienced and call that “thing” good in and of itself, but we might, by God’s grace, be able to see that time and time again God took what was evil and painful and trying and brought good from it.

The word “sovereign” can be either an adjective or a noun.
As a noun, a “sovereign” is a a person who has supreme power or authority. As an adjective, the word is used to describe someone with supreme rank, power, or authority. And while we might use either form to describe an earthly ruler, we know that using the word like that has some inherent qualifications.
For example, to use the word in reference to, say, the British monarchy, implies great power and authority. And yet even in such a case we know there is a limited sense to that sovereignty. King Charles, the British sovereign monarch, cannot control how much rain falls on London.
That’s important to understand because when we call God “sovereign” we mean something similar, but different, than when we use that word in another context. And that’s because there are no limitations to God’s sovereignty. Rather, God’s sovereignty is the exercise of His power of His creation.
The weather? The orchestration of world events? The flight patterns of birds? Yes, and more:
“In the Lord’s hand the king’s heart is a stream of water    that he channels toward all who please him” (Prov. 21:1).
It’s true, then to say that God is sovereign over all earthly sovereigns. Job sums up this truth well in Job 42:2:
“I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.”
That might be a terrifying truth for you. To know that there is a God who is directing all things to His ultimate ends. It might make you feel ridiculously small and feeble and weak… and it really should. But it’s only terrifying when it’s not blended with the truth of who this God is who is sovereign over all things.
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Believers need not fear death and we’ll receive it willingly when God calls us to it. But until then, we give ourselves for the good of others and the glory of God. We tell those who don’t know about the beauty of our God and the good news of his gospel. We encourage believers not to give up in doing good, for in due time they will reap if they continue. We worship God even though we only see him dimly and not yet face to face. We live this life not for itself, but as a passing voyage to our true home.

I’m ready to go home. I’m tired.
I’m tired of seeing the effects of the curse. I’m tired of seeing people sin against God and against others in harmful ways. I’m tired of my own struggle against sin.
I grow weary hearing the latest news. Wars and rumors of wars fill the headlines and burden my soul. Corruption and greed by so-called leaders serving themselves rather than their people exasperates me. Explicit rebellion against God and his beautiful design is celebrated and those who speak against it are mocked.
I groan with creation and long to be fully restored and made new. My longing deepens with the passing of each loved one, each friend. Death takes another, and another, and another and never seems satisfied.
Paul tells us “to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). Whether God gives him another fifty years or just a few more seconds, Paul declares either way a win. To live means to have more opportunity to spread the gospel and minister to others. Death brings the true treasure we all long for: eternity with Christ.
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Written by Scott R. Swain |
Tuesday, January 11, 2022
He, someone not something, is the supreme subject matter and scope of Christian preaching: God the Son incarnate, clothed with the promises of the gospel, crucified and risen, ascended and coming again.

The Trinity and Christian Preaching
Recent days have prompted me to think about the relationship between trinitarian theology and Christian preaching.
The first prompt came in June while participating in the International Presbyterian Church’s Catalyst Conference in London. Over the course of three days, I had the opportunity to listen to a lot of good preaching, including three sermons from Sinclair Ferguson on the Pastoral Epistles. In the evenings, I had the opportunity to spend time with a number of IPC ministers and ministerial candidates, discussing the nature and calling of gospel preaching, as well as the current status of gospel preaching in the UK and North America. The second prompt came in July when I finished a short manuscript on the doctrine of the Trinity (which is to be published by Crossway next year). The third prompt came from research I am doing for other projects. The following are a few scattered thoughts on the relationship between trinitarian personalism and Christian preaching inspired by the confluence of these three prompts.
What Is Trinitarian Personalism?
“Personalism” is a term with specific philosophical connotations that I do not intend here. What I mean by “trinitarian personalism” follows from an insight, expressed by Thomas Aquinas in his disputation on divine power, that the term “person” is a term of dignity, which indicates two things about God’s supreme greatness and goodness.[1]
First, that God exists in three “persons” indicates that God’s manner of existing is the highest manner of existing. Specifically, the triune God is the living God; and the life he lives is a life of perfect intelligence, love, and beatitude. Second, that God exists in three “persons” indicates that God’s intelligent, loving, and blessed manner of existing subsists in three distinct, irreducible, unsubstitutable ways: as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The true and living God is the tripersonal God; and the life he lives is the life of the Father who begets, of the Son who is begotten, and of the Spirit who is breathed forth in their mutual love.
What does this rather fine metaphysical point have to do with Christian preaching? Stay with me.
Trinitarian Personalism in Patristic Exegesis
The Church Fathers display a kind of trinitarian personalism in the ways they read Holy Scripture. Three examples stand out.
The first example comes from Irenaeus of Lyon. In his dispute with Gnostic interpreters who so twisted Holy Scripture that its unified message became unrecognizable, Irenaeus argues that the main purpose of the “rule of faith” is to help readers identify the person of Jesus Christ as the handsome king to which all scriptures point. The scope or aim of Scripture, on this understanding, is not something but someone. Holy Scripture, in all its literary and historical diversity, is a book that holds forth before the eyes of faith God the Son, the handsome king.
The second example agrees with Irenaeus in seeing the persons of the Trinity as the central subject matter of Holy Scripture and (potentially) explains the origin of the term “person” in Christian theology. As Matthew Bates and others have recently argued, New Testament and early patristic interpretation of the Old Testament exhibits an ancient reading strategy known as “prosopological exegesis,” the practice of identifying otherwise unnamed or ambiguously identified characters (dramatis personae) within the drama of scriptural discourse. For example, the author of Hebrews identifies the king whom God addresses in Psalm 2:7 as Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity (Heb 1:5). This “person-centered” approach to exegesis is the “birth” of trinitarian personalism: the scriptural foundation of the church’s perception of three “persons” in one God.[2]
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