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Course 8 · Lesson 3.2

Father, Son and Spirit in the New Testament

13 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 8 outline

Module 1: Speaking About God

  1. What systematic theology is and what it can claim
  2. Naming God: analogy, negation and the limits of language
  3. Classical theism defined and compared with alternatives
  4. Beyond the world and present in it: transcendence and immanence

Module 2: The Classical Attributes

  1. Divine simplicity: God is not made of parts
  2. Divine immutability: does God change?
  3. Divine eternity: timeless or everlasting?
  4. Divine omniscience and human freedom

Module 3: The Trinity in Scripture and the Early Church

  1. One God: the Shema and the Old Testament background
  2. Father, Son and Spirit in the New Testament
  3. Early Trinitarian language: Justin, Irenaeus and Tertullian
  4. Two early errors: modalism and subordinationism

Module 4: Arius, Athanasius and Nicaea

  1. What Arius taught and why it spread
  2. The Council of Nicaea in 325 and the word homoousios
  3. The long fight after Nicaea and the role of Athanasius
  4. Constantinople in 381 and the deity of the Holy Spirit

Module 5: The Cappadocians and the Shape of Trinitarian Thought

  1. One ousia, three hypostases: the Cappadocian vocabulary
  2. Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa
  3. Augustine and the Western tradition
  4. The filioque and the monarchy of the Father

Module 6: Creation from Nothing

  1. Creation in Scripture
  2. Rivals to creation from nothing: eternal matter and emanation
  3. The doctrine of creation ex nihilo and its development
  4. Creation, the goodness of matter and the Trinity

Module 7: Providence, Sovereignty and Evil

  1. Providence: preservation, concurrence and governance
  2. Divine sovereignty and human freedom across the traditions
  3. The problem of evil: logical and evidential forms
  4. Christian responses: free will, privation and the suffering God
  5. Evaluating the responses and living with what remains unanswered

All courses

Program / Course 8: God, Trinity, and Creation / Lesson 3.2

What you will learn

  • Identify the main New Testament passages in which Father, Son and Spirit appear together.
  • Explain how the New Testament speaks of Jesus in terms that belonged to the one God of Israel.
  • Describe what the New Testament says about the Holy Spirit as a personal agent.
  • Distinguish what the New Testament states from what later doctrine adds.

The big idea

The New Testament never presents a finished doctrine of the Trinity. It does present a pattern: the first Christians prayed to the Father, worshiped Jesus as Lord and experienced the Holy Spirit as the presence of God in their midst, and they did all this while still insisting that God is one. The later doctrine is an attempt to say clearly what this pattern requires. Whether the New Testament teaches the Trinity or only supplies its raw material is a question that Christians answer in different ways.

Key terms

Triadic formula
A phrase naming Father, Son and Spirit together, such as the baptismal command in Matthew 28:19.
Kyrios
The Greek word for Lord. The Septuagint used it to translate the divine name, and the New Testament applies it to Jesus.
Logos
A Greek word for word or reason. In John 1 it names the Word who was with God and was God.
Paraclete
A Greek word meaning one called alongside, translated Comforter in the King James Version. John uses it of the Holy Spirit.
Divine identity
A phrase used by scholars such as Richard Bauckham for what marks out the God of Israel: sole Creator, sole Ruler, sole object of worship.
Christology
The study of who Christ is.
Pneumatology
The study of the Holy Spirit.
Economic Trinity
God as revealed in acts of creation, salvation and sanctification, where the three are seen working. Contrasted with the immanent Trinity, God as God is in himself.

Background

The New Testament is a collection of writings by different authors, and none of them sets out to explain the Trinity. They write to answer questions, to correct problems and to proclaim Jesus. Yet the three names appear together far more often than a reader might expect, and often in places where the writer is not arguing anything, simply speaking from habit. This suggests that a threefold way of speaking about God was already part of the early church’s life.

Scholars date Paul’s letters to the middle of the first century, and they are the earliest Christian writings that survive. In them Jesus is already called Lord, prayed to, and spoken of as sharing in God’s work of creation and judgment. Many scholars, such as Larry Hurtado, argue that this very early worship of Jesus is the most surprising fact about the first Christians, since it arose among Jews who held that only God may be worshiped. Others dispute how fully the earliest Christians placed Jesus within the identity of God. The question of how high the earliest Christology was is a major scholarly debate.

The Gospel of John, usually dated to the end of the first century, is the most explicit. It opens by saying that the Word was with God and was God, and that the Word became flesh. Throughout it speaks of the Father and the Son sharing glory, works and knowledge, and of the Spirit who will be sent. The other Gospels, Acts and the letters supply further pieces.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The triadic passages

Several texts name the three together. At Jesus’ baptism the Spirit descends like a dove and the Father’s voice is heard from heaven (Matthew 3:16 to 17). In Matthew 28:19, the risen Jesus commands the disciples to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. The word name is singular, which many readers take as pointing to one divine identity shared by three. Paul ends 2 Corinthians with a blessing: the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost (2 Corinthians 13:14).

Other examples include 1 Corinthians 12:4 to 6, which speaks of one Spirit, one Lord and one God working in the church, and Ephesians 4:4 to 6, which lists one Spirit, one Lord and one God and Father. First Peter 1:2 speaks of the foreknowledge of God the Father, the sanctification of the Spirit and the blood of Jesus Christ. Whatever one thinks of the later doctrine, these texts show a pattern of speech that is hard to explain without some experience of threefold divine action.

Step 2: Jesus and the identity of God

The New Testament applies to Jesus language that the Old Testament reserved for the Lord. Paul quotes Isaiah 45:23, where every knee shall bow to God, and applies it to Jesus in Philippians 2:10 to 11. Hebrews 1:10 applies Psalm 102, addressed to the Lord who laid the foundation of the earth, to the Son. In John 1:3 all things were made through the Word, and in Colossians 1:16 all things were created through and for the Son. Thomas calls the risen Jesus my Lord and my God (John 20:28).

The New Testament also distinguishes Jesus from the Father. Jesus prays to the Father. The Father sends the Son. The Son says the Father is greater (John 14:28) and that he does not know the day or the hour (Mark 13:32). Later writers had to explain how the same texts could call the Son God and also speak of him as subordinate. The councils answered that the Son is fully divine and also fully human, and that the subordination texts speak of his humanity or of his role as sent.

Step 3: The Spirit as personal

In the Old Testament the Spirit of God is God’s power and presence. In the New Testament he is also spoken of in personal terms. In John 14 to 16 Jesus calls him the Comforter, who will teach, remind, testify and guide. He is spoken of with a masculine pronoun, even though the Greek word for spirit is neuter. In Acts 5:3 to 4, Peter says that Ananias lied to the Holy Ghost, and then says that he has lied to God. In Romans 8:26 the Spirit intercedes with groanings. In Ephesians 4:30, believers are told not to grieve the Holy Spirit, which is something a person can be.

Some groups deny that the Spirit is a person, calling him a force. The main churches reply that these texts speak of a personal agent who is distinct from the Father and the Son and is also God. It took until the fourth century for this to be stated with full clarity, as the last lesson of module 4 will show.

Step 4: What the New Testament does not say

The New Testament does not use the words Trinity, person, substance or nature in the later technical sense. It does not say in one place that there are three who are one God. The text called the Johannine Comma, found in some old copies of 1 John 5:7 in the King James Version, states that the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost are one, but scholars agree it was not in the original Greek and was added in later Latin manuscripts. Careful modern writers do not use it as evidence.

Christians differ on what to conclude. Catholic and Orthodox tradition holds that the New Testament and the church’s living faith together contain the Trinity, and that the councils expressed what was already believed. Many Protestants hold that the doctrine is a faithful and necessary inference from Scripture, which is why they accept it. A few thinkers, and some groups outside the main churches, hold that it goes beyond Scripture. Historians note that the doctrine arose in answer to real questions the text left open.

  1. Which triadic text did I know before, and which was new to me?
  2. What does it mean that the early Christians worshiped Jesus while holding that God is one?
  3. How do I read the passages where Jesus speaks of the Father as greater?
  4. What is lost if the Spirit is treated as only a force?
  5. What would I say to someone who says the Trinity is not in the Bible?
  6. What would I say to someone who says it is stated plainly in the Bible?

Examples

The baptism of Jesus

In Matthew 3, Jesus stands in the Jordan, the Spirit descends and a voice from heaven says that this is the beloved Son. Father, Son and Spirit are each present in a distinct way. The early church returned to this scene as a picture of the Trinity.

Thomas at the wall

Thomas, who doubted, sees the risen Jesus and says my Lord and my God. In John 20:28, the Lord and God language is the language of the Old Testament, and Jesus accepts it. Some scholars see this as the high point of John’s Gospel.

Ananias

In Acts 5 Ananias keeps back part of the money from a sale and claims to give all of it. Peter says he lied to the Holy Ghost and then says he lied not to men but to God. The Spirit is spoken of as a someone, and as God.

Different perspectives

Catholic

Catholic teaching holds that the Trinity is revealed in the New Testament, particularly in the baptismal formula and the sending of the Son and the Spirit. The Catechism speaks of the Trinity as the central mystery of faith, which could not be known by reason alone. The Church understands Scripture as read within Tradition.

Orthodox

Orthodox writers stress that the Trinity is encountered in worship, in baptism and in the liturgy before it is explained. They read John’s Gospel and the triadic blessings as the church’s life with God, which the fathers later put into words.

Protestant

The Reformers, Lutheran and Reformed, accepted the Nicene doctrine and argued that it is drawn from Scripture. The Westminster Confession lists the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost as three persons of one substance. Evangelical scholars such as Bauckham defend the case that early Christians already included Jesus in the identity of God.

Critical scholarship

Some historians, such as Bart Ehrman, argue that the earliest Christians thought of Jesus as an exalted human or an angel, and only later as God. Others, such as Hurtado and Bauckham, argue for a very early high view. Both groups agree that the technical doctrine is a later development, and they disagree over how continuous it is with the earliest belief.

Non-Trinitarian groups

Jehovah’s Witnesses, Unitarians and some others hold that the New Testament does not teach the Trinity and that Jesus is a created or human being. They point to texts of subordination. The main churches reply that these texts are about the Son’s humanity or his mission.

Why it matters

A student who has read these texts directly is better placed to judge the later arguments. The doctrine of the Trinity can seem an invention of councils if the New Testament material is unknown. It can also seem too obvious if the real difficulties are ignored. Seeing the pattern as it appears, in baptism, blessing, worship and prayer, shows why the question had to be asked and why the answer took centuries.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: The word Trinity is in the Bible.

Correction: It is not. The word is first found in Christian writing around the end of the second century. Many theologians say that the idea is in the Bible even though the word is not, and others say it is a later construction.

Misunderstanding: 1 John 5:7 proves the Trinity.

Correction: The clause often cited in the King James Version is missing from the oldest Greek manuscripts and is considered a later addition. Modern Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant scholars do not use it as proof.

Misunderstanding: Texts about Jesus being sent or subordinate disprove his divinity.

Correction: The church fathers took them as speaking of the Son’s humanity or his role in salvation. Whether that reading is persuasive is the question, but it is not a refutation to say that the texts exist.

Misunderstanding: The Holy Spirit is only a name for God’s power.

Correction: The New Testament speaks of the Spirit teaching, interceding and being grieved. The main churches read this as speech about a personal agent. A minority reads it otherwise.

Knowledge check

Name two New Testament passages in which Father, Son and Spirit appear together.

Examples are Matthew 28:19, the command to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost; 2 Corinthians 13:14, the blessing naming the Lord Jesus Christ, God and the Holy Ghost; and the baptism of Jesus in Matthew 3. Any two correct passages count.

How does the New Testament place Jesus within the identity of God?

It applies to Jesus words that the Old Testament says of the Lord. All things are made through him, every knee bows to him, and Thomas calls him Lord and God. He is worshiped and prayed to. It also speaks of him as sent by the Father, which later doctrine had to explain.

What evidence suggests that the Holy Spirit is personal?

The Spirit teaches and testifies in John 14 to 16, can be lied to in Acts 5, intercedes in Romans 8 and can be grieved in Ephesians 4. These texts treat the Spirit as an agent, and Acts 5 joins this with the statement that lying to the Spirit is lying to God.

Why is the Johannine Comma not used as evidence?

It is a clause in some old Latin copies of 1 John 5:7 and in the King James Version, saying that the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost are one. It is missing from the early Greek manuscripts, so scholars from all traditions agree it was added later.

Think it through

  1. Which of the triadic passages is the most helpful to you, and why?
  2. What does it say about the first Christians that they worshiped Jesus yet held to one God?
  3. How would you describe the difference between saying that a doctrine is in the Bible and saying it is drawn from the Bible?

Independent assignment

A list of passages

In your own notebook, write about 400 words. Make three columns: texts that speak of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit as distinct, texts that put them together, and texts that present difficulties. Fill in at least three entries in each, with references. Then write a paragraph on what one would need to say about God to account for all three columns. Do not send this to anyone.

Further study