Part 4 — Chapter II. Doctrine Of The Trinity.

In the nature of the one God there are three eternal distinctions which are represented to us under the figure of persons, and these three are equal. This tripersonality of the Godhead is exclusively a truth of revelation. It is clearly, though not formally, made known in the New Testament, and intimations of it may be found in the Old.

The doctrine of the Trinity may be expressed in the six following statements: 1. In Scripture there are three who are recognized as God. 2. These three are so described in Scripture that we are compelled to conceive of them as distinct persons. 3. This tripersonality of the divine nature is not merely economic and temporal, but is immanent and eternal. 4. This tripersonality is not tritheism; for while there are three persons, there is but one essence. 5. The three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, are equal. 6. Inscrutable yet not self-contradictory, this doctrine furnishes the key to all other doctrines.—These statements we proceed now to prove and to elucidate.

Reason shows us the Unity of God; only revelation shows us the Trinity of God, thus filling out the indefinite outlines of this Unity and vivifying it. The term “Trinity” is not found in Scripture, although the conception it expresses is Scriptural. The invention of the term is ascribed to Tertullian. The Montanists first defined the personality of the Spirit, and first formulated the doctrine of the Trinity. The term “Trinity” is not a metaphysical one. It is only a designation of four facts: (1) the Father is God; (2) the Son is God; (3) the Spirit is God; (4) there is but one God.

Park: “The doctrine of the Trinity does not on the one hand assert that three persons are united in one person, or three beings in one being, or three Gods in one God (tritheism); nor on the other hand that God merely manifests himself in three different ways (modal trinity, or trinity of manifestations); but rather that there are three eternal distinctions in the substance of God.” Smyth, preface to Edwards, Observations on the Trinity: “The church doctrine of the Trinity affirms that there are in the Godhead three distinct hypostases or subsistences—the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit—each possessing one and the same divine nature, though in a different manner. The essential points are (1) the unity of essence; (2) the reality of immanent or ontological distinctions.” See Park on Edwards's View of the Trinity, in Bib. Sac., April, 1881:333. Princeton Essays, 1:28—“There is one God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are this one God; there is such a distinction between Father, Son and Holy Spirit as to lay a sufficient ground for the reciprocal use of the personal pronouns.”Joseph Cook: “(1) The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one God; (2) each has a peculiarity incommunicable to the others; (3) neither is God without the others; (4) each, with the others, is God.”

We regard the doctrine of the Trinity as implicitly held by the apostles and as involved in the New Testament declarations with regard to Father, Son and Holy Spirit, while we concede that the doctrine had not by the New Testament writers been formulated. They held it, as it were in solution; only time, reflection, and the shock of controversy and opposition, caused it to crystalize into definite and dogmatic form. Chadwick, Old and New Unitarianism, 59, 60, claims that the Jewish origin of Christianity shows that the Jewish Messiah could not originally have been conceived of as divine. If Jesus had claimed this, he would not have been taken before Pilate,—the Jews would have dispatched him. The doctrine of the Trinity, says Chadwick, was not developed until the Council of Nice, 325. E. G. Robinson: “There was no doctrine of [pg 305]the Trinity in the Patristic period, as there was no doctrine of the Atonement before Anselm.” The Outlook, Notes and Queries, March 30, 1901—“The doctrine of the Trinity cannot be said to have taken final shape before the appearance of the so-called Athanasian Creed in the 8th or 9th century. The Nicene Creed, formulated in the 4th century, is termed by Dr. Schaff, from the orthodox point of view, ‘semi-trinitarian.’The earliest time known at which Jesus was deified was, after the New Testament writers, in the letters of Ignatius, at the beginning of the second century.”

Gore, Incarnation, 179—“The doctrine of the Trinity is not so much heard, as overheard, in the statements of Scripture.” George P. Fisher quotes some able and pious friend of his as saying: “What meets us in the New Testament is the disjecta membraof the Trinity.” G. B. Foster: “The doctrine of the Trinity is the Christian attempt to make intelligible the personality of God without dependence upon the world.”Charles Kingsley said that, whether the doctrine of the Trinity is in the Bible or no, it ought to be there, because our spiritual nature cries out for it. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 1:250—“Though the doctrine of the Trinity is not discoverable by human reason, it is susceptible of a rational defense, when revealed.” On New England Trinitarianism, see New World, June, 1896:272-295—art. by Levi L. Paine. He says that the last phase of it is represented by Phillips Brooks, James M. Whiton and George A. Gordon. These hold to the essential divineness of humanity and preëminently of Christ, the unique representative of mankind, who was, in this sense, a true incarnation of Deity. See also, L. L. Paine, Evolution of Trinitarianism, 141, 287.

Neander declared that the Trinity is not a fundamental doctrine of Christianity. He was speaking however of the speculative, metaphysical form which the doctrine has assumed in theology. But he speaks very differently of the devotional and practical form in which the Scriptures present it, as in the baptismal formula and in the apostolic benediction. In regard to this he says: “We recognize therein the essential contents of Christianity summed up in brief.” Whiton, Gloria Patri, 10, 11, 55, 91, 92—“God transcendent, the Father, is revealed by God immanent, the Son. This one nature belongs equally to God, to Christ, and to mankind, and in this fact is grounded the immutableness of moral distinctions and the possibility of moral progress.... The immanent life of the universe is one with the transcendent Power; the filial stream is one with its paternal Fount. To Christ supremely belongs the name of Son, which includes all that life that is begotten of God. In Christ the before unconscious Sonship of the world awakes to consciousness of the Father. The Father is the Life transcendent, above all; the Son is Life immanent, through all; the Holy Spirit is the Life individualized, in all. In Christ we have collectivism; in the Holy Spirit we have individualism; as Bunsen says: ‘The chief power in the world is personality.’ ”

For treatment of the whole doctrine, see Dorner, System of Doctrine, 1:344-465; Twesten, Dogmatik, and translation in Bib. Sac., 3:502; Ebrard, Dogmatik, 1:145-199; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:57-135; Kahnis, Dogmatik, 3:203-229; Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:248-333, and History of Doctrine, 1:246-385; Farrar, Science and Theology, 138; Schaff, Nicene Doctrine of the Holy Trinity, in Theol. Eclectic, 4:209. For the Unitarian view, see Norton, Statement of Reasons, and J. F. Clarke, Truths and Errors of Orthodoxy.

I. In Scriptures there are Three who are recognized as God.

1. Proofs from the New Testament.

A. The Father is recognized as God.

The Father is recognized as God,—and that in so great a number of passages (such as John 6:27—“him the Father, even God, hath sealed,” and 1 Pet. 1:2—“foreknowledge of God the Father”) that we need not delay to adduce extended proof.

B. Jesus Christ is recognized as God.

(a) He is expressly called God.

In John 1:1—Θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος—the absence of the article shows Θεός to be the predicate (cf. 4:24—πνεῦμα ὁ Θεός). This predicate precedes the verb by way of emphasis, to indicate progress in the thought = “the Logos was [pg 306] not only with God, but was God” (see Meyer and Luthardt, Comm. in loco). “Only ὁ λόγος can be the subject, for in the whole Introduction the question is, not who God is, but who the Logos is” (Godet).

Westcott in Bible Commentary, in loco—“The predicate stands emphatically first. It is necessarily without the article, inasmuch as it describes the nature of the Word and does not identify his person. It would be pure Sabellianism to say: ‘The Word was ὁ Θεός.’ Thus in verse 1 we have set forth the Word in his absolute eternal being, (a) his existence: beyond time; (b) his personal existence: in active communion with God; (c) his nature: God in essence.” Marcus Dods, in Expositor's Greek Testament, in loco: “The Word is distinguishable from God, yet Θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος—the word was God, of divine nature; not ‘a God,’ which to a Jewish ear would have been abominable, nor yet identical with all that can be called God, for then the article would have been inserted (cf. 1 John 3:4).”

In John 1:18, μονογενὴς θεός—“the only begotten God”—must be regarded as the correct reading, and as a plain ascription of absolute Deity to Christ. He is not simply the only revealer of God, but he is himself God revealed.

John 1:18—“No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” In this passage, although Tischendorf (8th ed.) has μονογενὴς ὑιός, Westcott and Hort (with א*BC*L Pesh. Syr.) read μονογενὴς Θεός and the Rev. Vers. puts “the only begotten God” in the margin, though it retains “the only begotten Son” in the text. Harnack says the reading μονογενὴς θεός is “established beyond contradiction”; see Westcott, Bib. Com. on John, pages 32, 33. Here then we have a new and unmistakable assertion of the deity of Christ. Meyer says that the apostles actually call Christ God only in John 1:1 and 20:28, and that Paul never so recognizes him. But Meyer is able to maintain his position only by calling the doxologies to Christ, in 2 Tim. 4:18, Heb. 13:21 and 2 Pet. 3:18, post-apostolic. See Thayer, N. T. Lexicon, on Θεός, and on μονογενής.

In John 20:28, the address of Thomas Ὁ κύριός μου καὶ ὁ θεός μου—“My Lord and my God”—since it was unrebuked by Christ, is equivalent to an assertion on his own part of his claim to Deity.

John 20:28—“Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.” This address cannot be interpreted as a sudden appeal to God in surprise and admiration, without charging the apostle with profanity. Nor can it be considered a mere exhibition of overwrought enthusiasm, since it was accepted by Christ. Contrast the conduct of Paul and Barnabas when the heathen at Lystra were bringing sacrifice to them as Jupiter and Mercury (Acts 14:11-18). The words of Thomas, as addressed directly to Christ and as accepted by Christ, can be regarded only as a just acknowledgment on the part of Thomas that Christ was his Lord and his God. Alford, Commentary, in loco: “The Socinian view that these words are merely an exclamation is refuted (1) by the fact that no such exclamations were in use among the Jews; (2) by the εἶπεν αὐτῷ; (3) by the impossibility of referring the ὁ κύριός μου to another than Jesus: see verse 13; (4) by the N. T. usage of expressing the vocative by the nominative with an article; (5) by the psychological absurdity of such a supposition: that one just convinced of the presence of him whom he dearly loved should, instead of addressing him, break out into an irrelevant cry; (6) by the further absurdity of supposing that, if such were the case, the Apostle John, who of all the sacred writers most constantly keeps in mind the object for which he is writing, should have recorded anything so beside that object; (7) by the intimate conjunction of πεπίστευκας.” Cf. Mat. 5:34—“Swear not ... by the heaven”—swearing by Jehovah is not mentioned, because no Jew did so swear. This exclamation of Thomas, the greatest doubter among the twelve, is the natural conclusion of John's gospel. The thesis “the Word was God” (John 1:1) has now become part of the life and consciousness of the apostles. Chapter 21 is only an Epilogue, or Appendix, written later by John, to correct the error that he was not to die; see Westcott, Bible Com., in loco. The Deity of Christ is the subject of the apostle who best understood his Master. Lyman Beecher: “Jesus Christ is the acting Deity of the universe.”

In Rom. 9:5, the clause ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων Θεὸς εὐλογητός cannot be translated “blessed be the God over all,” for ὢν is superfluous if the clause is a doxology; “εὐλογητός precedes the name of God in a doxology, but follows it, [pg 307] as here, in a description” (Hovey). The clause can therefore justly be interpreted only as a description of the higher nature of the Christ who had just been said, τὸ κατὰ σάρκα, or according to his lower nature, to have had his origin from Israel (see Tholuck, Com. in loco).

Sanday, Com. on Rom. 9:5—“The words would naturally refer to Christ, unless ‘God’is so definitely a proper name that it would imply a contrast in itself. We have seen that this is not so.” Hence Sanday translates: “of whom is the Christ as concerning the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever”. See President T. Dwight, in Jour. Soc. Bib. Exegesis, 1881:22-55; per contra, Ezra Abbot, in the same journal, 1881:1-19, and Denney, in Expositor's Gk. Test., in loco.

In Titus 2:13, ἐπιφάνειαν τῆς δόξης τοῦ μεγάλου Θεοῦ καὶ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ we regard (with Ellicott) as “a direct, definite, and even studied declaration of Christ's divinity” = “the ... appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (so English Revised Version). Ἐπιφάνεια is a term applied specially to the Son and never to the Father, and μεγάλου is uncalled for if used of the Father, but peculiarly appropriate if used of Christ. Upon the same principles we must interpret the similar text 2 Pet. 1:1 (see Huther, in Meyer's Com.: “The close juxtaposition indicates the author's certainty of the oneness of God and Jesus Christ”).

Titus 2:13—“looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ”—so the English Revised Version. The American Revisers however translate: “the glory of the great God and Savior”; and Westcott and Hort bracket the word ἡμῶν. These considerations somewhat lessen the cogency of this passage as a proof-text, yet upon the whole the balance of argument seems to us still to incline in favor of Ellicott's interpretation as given above.

In Heb. 1:8, πρὸς δὲ τὸν υἱόν; ὁ θρόνος σου, ὁ Θεὸς, εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα is quoted as an address to Christ, and verse 10 which follows—“Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth”—by applying to Christ an Old Testament ascription to Jehovah, shows that ὁ Θεός, in verse 8, is used in the sense of absolute Godhead.

It is sometimes objected that the ascription of the name God to Christ proves nothing as to his absolute deity, since angels and even human judges are called gods, as representing God's authority and executing his will. But we reply that, while it is true that the name is sometimes so applied, it is always with adjuncts and in connections which leave no doubt of its figurative and secondary meaning. When, however, the name is applied to Christ, it is, on the contrary, with adjuncts and in connections which leave no doubt that it signifies absolute Godhead. See Ex. 4:16—“thou shalt be to him as God”; 7:1—“See, I have made thee as God to Pharaoh”; 22:28—“Thou shalt not revile God, [marg., the judges], nor curse a ruler of thy people”; Ps. 82:1—“God standeth in the congregation of God; he judgeth among the gods” [among the mighty]; 6—“I said, Ye are gods, And all of you sons of the Most High”; 7—“Nevertheless ye shall die like men, And fall like one of the princes.” Cf. John 10:34-36—“If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came” (who were God's commissioned and appointed representatives), how much more proper for him who is one with the Father to call himself God.

As in Ps. 82:7 those who had been called gods are represented as dying, so in Ps. 97:7—“Worship him, all ye gods”—they are bidden to fall down before Jehovah. Ann. Par. Bible: “Although the deities of the heathen have no positive existence, they are often described in Scripture as if they had, and are represented as bowing down before the majesty of Jehovah.” This verse is quoted in Heb. 1:6—“let all the angels of God worship him”—i. e., Christ. Here Christ is identified with Jehovah. The quotation is made from the Septuagint, which has “angels” for “gods.” “Its use here is in accordance with the spirit of the Hebrew word, which includes all that human error might regard as objects of worship.” Those who are figuratively and rhetorically called “gods” are bidden to fall down in worship before him who is the true God, Jesus Christ. See Dick, Lectures on Theology, 1:314; Liddon, Our Lord's Divinity, 10.

[pg 308]

In 1 John 5:20—ἐσμεν ἐν τῷ ἀληθινῷ, ἐν τῷ υἱῷ αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ. οὗτος ἐστιν ὁ ἀληθινὸς Θεός—“it would be a flat repetition, after the Father had been twice called ὁ ἀληθινός, to say now again: ‘this is ὁ ἀληθενὸς Θεός.’ Our being in God has its basis in Christ his Son, and this also makes it more natural that οὖτος should be referred to υἱῷ. But ought not ὁ ἀληθενός then to be without the article (as in John 1:1—Θεός ἦν ὁ λόγος)? No, for it is John's purpose in 1 John 5:20 to say, not what Christ is, but who he is. In declaring what one is, the predicate must have no article; in declaring who one is, the predicate must have the article. St. John here says that this Son, on whom our being in the true God rests, is this true God himself” (see Ebrard, Com. in loco).

Other passages might be here adduced, as Col. 2:9—“in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”; Phil 2:6—“existing in the form of God”; but we prefer to consider these under other heads as indirectly proving Christ's divinity. Still other passages once relied upon as direct statements of the doctrine must be given up for textual reasons. Such are Acts 20:28, where the correct reading is in all probability not ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ Θεοῦ, but ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ Κυρίου (so ACDE Tregelles and Tischendorf; B and א, however, have τοῦ Θεοῦ. The Rev. Vers. continues to read “church of God”; Amer. Revisers, however, read “church of the Lord”—see Ezra Abbot's investigation in Bib. Sac., 1876: 313-352); and 1 Tim. 3:16, where ὅς is unquestionably to be substituted for Θεός, though even here ἐφανερώθη intimates preëxistence.

Rev. George E. Ellis, D. D., before the Unitarian Club, Boston, November, 1882—“Fifty years of study, thought and reading given largely to the Bible and to the literature which peculiarly relates to it, have brought me to this conclusion, that the book—taken with the especial divine quality and character claimed for it, and so extensively assigned to it, as inspired and infallible as a whole, and in all its contents—is an Orthodox book. It yields what is called the Orthodox creed. The vast majority of its readers, following its letter, its obvious sense, its natural meaning, and yielding to the impression which some of its emphatic texts make upon them, find in it Orthodoxy. Only that kind of ingenious, special, discriminative, and in candor I must add, forced treatment, which it receives from us liberals can make the book teach anything but Orthodoxy. The evangelical sects, so called, are clearly right in maintaining that their view of Scripture and of its doctrines draws a deep and wide division of creed between them and ourselves. In that earnest controversy by pamphlet warfare between Drs. Channing and Ware on the one side, and Drs. Worcester and Woods and Professor Stuart on the other—a controversy which wrought up the people of our community sixty years ago more than did our recent political campaign—I am fully convinced that the liberal contestants were worsted. Scripture exegesis, logic and argument were clearly on the side of the Orthodox contestants. And this was so, mainly because the liberal party put themselves on the same plane with the Orthodox in their way of regarding and dealing with Scripture texts in their bearing upon the controversy. Liberalism cannot vanquish Orthodoxy, if it yields to the latter in its own way of regarding and treating the whole Bible. Martin Luther said that the Papists burned the Bible because it was not on their side. Now I am not about to attack the Bible because it is not on my side; but I am about to object as emphatically as I can against a character and quality assigned to the Bible, which it does not claim for itself, which cannot be certified for it: and the origin and growth and intensity of the fond and superstitious influences resulting in that view we can trace distinctly to agencies accounting for, but not warranting, the current belief. Orthodoxy cannot readjust its creeds till it readjusts its estimate of the Scriptures. The only relief which one who professes the Orthodox creed can find is either by forcing his ingenuity into the proof-texts or indulging his liberty outside of them.”

With this confession of a noted Unitarian it is interesting to compare the opinion of the so-called Trinitarian, Dr. Lyman Abbott, who says that the New Testament nowhere calls Christ God, but everywhere calls him man, as in 1 Tim. 2:5—“for there is one God, one mediator also between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus.” On this passage Prof. L. L. Paine remarks in the New World, Dec. 1894—“That Paul ever confounded Christ with God himself, or regarded him as in any way the Supreme Divinity, is a position invalidated not only by direct statements, but also by the whole drift of his epistles.”

[pg 309]

(b) Old Testament descriptions of God are applied to him.

This application to Christ of titles and names exclusively appropriated to God is inexplicable, if Christ was not regarded as being himself God. The peculiar awe with which the term “Jehovah” was set apart by a nation of strenuous monotheists as the sacred and incommunicable name of the one self-existent and covenant-keeping God forbids the belief that the Scripture writers could have used it as the designation of a subordinate and created being.

Mat. 3:3—“Make ye ready the way of the Lord”—is a quotation from Is. 40:3—“Prepare ye ... the way of Jehovah.” John 12:41—“These things said Isaiah, because he saw his glory; and he spake of him” [i. e., Christ]—refers to Is. 6:1—“In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne.” So in Eph. 4:7, 8—“measure of the gift of Christ ... led captivity captive”—is an application to Christ of what is said of Jehovah in Ps. 68:18. In 1 Pet. 3:15, moreover, we read, with all the great uncials, several of the Fathers, and all the best versions: “sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord”; here the apostle borrows his language from Is. 8:13, where we read: “Jehovah of hosts, him shall ye sanctify.” When we remember that, with the Jews, God's covenant-title was so sacred that for the Kethib (= “written”) Jehovah there was always substituted the Keri (= “read”—imperative) Adonai, in order to avoid pronunciation of the great Name, it seems the more remarkable that the Greek equivalent of “Jehovah” should have been so constantly used of Christ. Cf. Rom. 10:9—“confess ... Jesus as Lord”; 1 Cor. 12:3—“no man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit.” We must remember also the indignation of the Jews at Christ's assertion of his equality and oneness with the Father. Compare Goethe's, “Wer darf ihn nennen?” with Carlyle's, “the awful Unnameable of this Universe.” The Jews, it has been said, have always vibrated between monotheism and moneytheism. Yet James, the strongest of Hebrews, in his Epistle uses the word 'Lord' freely and alternately of God the Father and of Christ the Son. This would have been impossible if James had not believed in the community of essence between the Son and the Father.

It is interesting to note that 1 Maccabees does not once use the word Θεός or κύριος, or any other direct designation of God unless it be οὐρανός (cf. “swear ... by the heaven”—Mat. 5:34). So the book of Esther contains no mention of the name of God, though the apocryphal additions to Esther, which are found only in Greek, contain the name of God in the first verse, and mention it in all eight times. See Bissell, Apocrypha, in Lange's Commentary; Liddon, Our Lord's Divinity, 93; Max Müller on Semitic Monotheism, in Chips from a German Workshop, 1:337.

(c) He possesses the attributes of God.

Among these are life, self-existence, immutability, truth, love, holiness, eternity, omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence. All these attributes are ascribed to Christ in connections which show that the terms are used in no secondary sense, nor in any sense predicable of a creature.

Life: John 1:4—“In him was life”; 14:6—“I am ... the life.” Self-existence: John 5:26—“have life in himself”; Heb. 7:16—“power of an endless life.” Immutability: Heb. 13:8—“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to-day, yea and forever.” Truth: John 14:6—“I am ... the truth”; Rev. 3:7—“he that is true.” Love: 1 John 3:16—“Hereby know we love” (τὴν ἀγάπην = the personal Love, as the personal Truth) “because he laid down his life for us.” Holiness: Luke 1:35—“that which is to be born shall be called holy, the Son of God”; John 6:69—“thou art the Holy One of God”; Heb. 7:26—“holy, guileless, undefiled, separated from sinners.”

Eternity: John 1:1—“In the beginning was the Word.” Godet says ἐν ἀρχῇ = not “in eternity,”but “in the beginning of the creation”; the eternity of the Word being an inference from the ἦν—the Word was, when the world was created: cf. Gen. 1:1—“In the beginning God created.” But Meyer says, ἐν ἀρχῇ here rises above the historical conception of “in the beginning” in Genesis (which includes the beginning of time itself) to the absolute conception of anteriority to time; the creation is something subsequent. He finds a parallel in Prov. 8:23—ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸ τοῦ τὴν γῆν ποιῆσαι. The interpretation “in the beginning of the gospel” is entirely unexegetical; so Meyer. So John 17:5—“glory which I had with thee before the world was”; Eph. 1:4—“chose us in him before the foundation of the world.” Dorner also says that ἐν ἀρχῇ in John 1:1 is not “the beginning of the world,” but designates the point [pg 310]back of which it is impossible to go, i. e., eternity; the world is first spoken of in verse 3. John 8:58—“Before Abraham was born, I am”; cf. 1:15; Col. 1:17—“he is before all things”; Heb. 1:11—the heavens “shall perish; but thou continuest”; Rev. 21:6—“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.”

Omnipresence: Mat. 28:20—“I am with you always”; Eph. 1:23—“the fulness of him that filleth all in all.” Omniscience: Mat. 9:4—“Jesus knowing their thoughts”; John 2:24, 25—“knew all men ... knew what was in man”; 16:30—“knowest all things”; Acts 1:24—“Thou, Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men”—a prayer offered before the day of Pentecost and showing the attitude of the disciples toward their Master; 1 Cor. 4:5—“until the Lord come, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the hearts”; Col. 2:3—“in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden.” Omnipotence: Mat. 27:18—“All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth”; Rev. 1:8—“the Lord God, which is and which was and which is to come, the Almighty.”

Beyschlag, N. T. Theology, 1:249-260, holds that Jesus' preëxistence is simply the concrete form given to an ideal conception. Jesus traces himself back, as everything else holy and divine was traced back in the conceptions of his time, to a heavenly original in which it preëxisted before its earthly appearance; e. g.: the tabernacle, in Heb. 8:5; Jerusalem, in Gal. 4:25 and Rev. 21:10; the kingdom of God in Mat. 13:24; much more the Messiah, in John 6:62—“ascending where he was before”; 8:58—“Before Abraham was born, I am”; 17:4, 5—“glory which I had with thee before the world was” 17:24—“thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.” This view that Jesus existed before creation only ideally in the divine mind, means simply that God foreknew him and his coming. The view is refuted by the multiplied intimations of a personal, in distinction from an ideal, preëxistence.

Lowrie, Doctrine of St. John, 115—“The words ‘In the beginning’ (John 1:1) suggest that the author is about to write a second book of Genesis, an account of a new creation.”As creation presupposes a Creator, the preëxistence of the personal Word is assigned as the explanation of the being of the universe. The ἦν indicates absolute existence, which is a loftier idea than that of mere preëxistence, although it includes this. While John the Baptist and Abraham are said to have arisen, appeared, come into being, it is said that the Logos was, and that the Logos was God. This implies coëternity with the Father. But, if the view we are combating were correct, John the Baptist and Abraham preëxisted, equally with Christ. This is certainly not the meaning of Jesus in John 8:58—“Before Abraham was born, I am”; cf. Col. 1:17—“he is before all things”—“αὐτός emphasizes the personality, while ἔστιν declares that the preëxistence is absolute existence”(Lightfoot); John 1:15—“He that cometh after me is become before me: for he was before me” = not that Jesus was born earlier than John the Baptist, for he was born six months later, but that he existed earlier. He stands before John in rank, because he existed long before John in time; 6:62—“the Son of man ascending where he was before”; 16:28—“I came out from the Father, and am come into the world.” So Is. 9:6, 7, calls Christ “Everlasting Father” = eternity is an attribute of the Messiah. T. W. Chambers, in Jour. Soc. Bib. Exegesis, 1881:169-171—“Christ is the Everlasting One, ‘whose goings forth have been from of old, even from the days of eternity’(Micah 5:2). ‘Of the increase of his government ... there shall be no end,’ just because of his existence there has been no beginning.”

(d) The works of God are ascribed to him.

We do not here speak of miracles, which may be wrought by communicated power, but of such works as the creation of the world, the upholding of all things, the final raising of the dead, and the judging of all men. Power to perform these works cannot be delegated, for they are characteristic of omnipotence.

Creation: John 1:3—“All things were made through him”; 1 Cor. 8:6—“one lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things”; Col. 1:16—“all things have been created through him, and unto him”; Heb, 1:10—“Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the works of thy hands”; 3:3, 4—“he that built all things is God” = Christ, the builder of the house of Israel, is the God who made all things; Rev. 3:14—“the beginning of the creation of God” (cf. Plato: “Mind is the ἀρχή of motion”). Upholding: Col. 1:17—“in him all things consist” (marg. “hold together”); Heb. 1:3—“upholding all things by the word of his power.” Raising the dead and judging the world: John 5:27-29—“authority to execute judgment ... all that are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall come forth”; Mat. 25:31, 32—“sit on the throne of his glory; and before him shall be gathered all the nations.” If our argument were addressed wholly to believers, we might also urge Christ's work in the world as Revealer of God and Redeemer from sin, as a proof of his deity. [On the works of Christ, see Liddon, Our Lord's Divinity, 153; per contra, see Examination of Liddon's Bampton Lectures, 72.]

[pg 311]

Statements of Christ's creative and of his upholding activity are combined in John 1:3, 4—Πάντα δι᾽ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν. ὅ γέγονεν ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν—“All things were made through him; and without him was not anything made. That which hath been made was life in him”(marg.). Westcott: “It would be difficult to find a more complete consent of ancient authorities in favor of any reading than that which supports this punctuation.”Westcott therefore adopts it. The passage shows that the universe 1. exists within the bounds of Christ's being; 2. is not dead, but living; 3. derives its life from him; see Inge, Christian Mysticism, 46. Creation requires the divine presence, as well as the divine agency. God creates through Christ. All things were made, not ὐπὸ αὐτοῦ—“by him,” but δι᾽ αὐτοῦ—“through him.” Christian believers “Behind creation's throbbing screen Catch movements of the great Unseen.”

Van Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics, iv, lvi—“That which many a philosopher dimly conjectured, namely, that God did not produce the world in an absolute, immediate manner, but in some way or other, mediately, here presents itself to us with the lustre of revelation, and exalts so much the more the claim of the Son of God to our deep and reverential homage.” Would that such scientific men as Tyndall and Huxley might see Christ in nature, and, doing his will, might learn of the doctrine and be led to the Father! The humblest Christian who sees Christ's hand in the physical universe and in human history knows more of the secret of the universe than all the mere scientists put together.

Col 1:17—“In him all things consist,” or “hold together,” means nothing less than that Christ is the principle of cohesion in the universe, making it a cosmos instead of a chaos. Tyndall said that the attraction of the sun upon the earth was as inconceivable as if a horse should draw a cart without traces. Sir Isaac Newton: “Gravitation must be caused by an agent acting constantly according to certain laws.” Lightfoot: “Gravitation is an expression of the mind of Christ.” Evolution also is a method of his operation. The laws of nature are the habits of Christ, and nature itself is but his steady and constant will. He binds together man and nature in one organic whole, so that we can speak of a “universe.” Without him there would be no intellectual bond, no uniformity of law, no unity of truth. He is the principle of induction, that enables us to argue from one thing to another. The medium of interaction between things is also the medium of intercommunication between minds. It is fitting that he who draws and holds together the physical and intellectual, should also draw and hold together the moral universe, drawing all men to himself (John 12:32) and so to God, and reconciling all things in heaven and earth (Col. 1:20). In Christ “the law appears, Drawn out in living characters,” because he is the ground and source of all law, both in nature and in humanity. See A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 6-12.

(e) He receives honor and worship due only to God.

In addition to the address of Thomas, in John 20:28, which we have already cited among the proofs that Jesus is expressly called God, and in which divine honor is paid to him, we may refer to the prayer and worship offered by the apostolic and post-apostolic church.

John 5:23—“that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father”; 14:14—“If ye shall ask me [so אB and Tisch. 8th ed.] anything in my name, that will I do”; Acts 7:59—“Stephen, calling upon the Lord, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (cf. Luke 23:46—Jesus' words: “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit”); Rom. 10:9—“confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord”; 13—“whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (cf. Gen. 4:26—“Then began men to call upon the name of Jehovah”); 1 Cor. 11:24, 25—“this do in remembrance of me” = worship of Christ; Heb. 1:6—“let all the angels of God worship him”; Phil. 2:10, 11—“in the name of Jesus every knee should bow ... every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord”; Rev. 5:12-14—“Worthy is the Lamb that hath been slain to receive the power....”; 2 Pet. 3:18—“Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory”; 2 Tim. 4:18 and Heb. 13:21—“to whom be the glory for ever and ever”—these ascriptions of eternal glory to Christ imply his deity. See also 1 Pet. 3:15—“Sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord,” and Eph. 5:21—“subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ.”Here is enjoined an attitude of mind towards Christ which would be idolatrous if Christ were not God. See Liddon, Our Lord's Divinity, 266, 366.

Foster, Christian Life and Theology, 154—“In the eucharistic liturgy of the ‘Teaching’we read: ‘Hosanna to the God of David’; Ignatius styles him repeatedly God ‘begotten and unbegotten, come in the flesh’; speaking once of ‘the blood of God’, in evident allusion to Acts 20:28; the epistle to Diognetus takes up the Pauline words and calls him the ‘architect and world-builder by whom [God] created the heavens’, and [pg 312]names him God (chap. vii); Hermas speaks of him as ‘the holy preëxistent Spirit, that created every creature’, which style of expression is followed by Justin, who calls him God, as also all the later great writers. In the second epistle of Clement (130-160, Harnack), we read: ‘Brethren, it is fitting that you should think of Jesus Christ as of God—as the Judge of the living and the dead.’ And Ignatius describes him as ‘begotten and unbegotten, passible and impassible, ... who was before the eternities with the Father.’ ”

These testimonies only give evidence that the Church Fathers saw in Scripture divine honor ascribed to Christ. They were but the precursors of a host of later interpreters. In a lull of the awful massacre of Armenian Christians at Sassouan, one of the Kurdish savages was heard to ask: “Who was that ‘Lord Jesus’ that they were calling to?” In their death agonies, the Christians, like Stephen of old, called upon the name of the Lord. Robert Browning quoted, in a letter to a lady in her last illness, the words of Charles Lamb, when “in a gay fancy with some friends as to how he and they would feel if the greatest of the dead were to appear suddenly in flesh and blood once more—on the first suggestion, ‘And if Christ entered this room?’ changed his tone at once and stuttered out as his manner was when moved: ‘You see—if Shakespere entered, we should all rise; if He appeared, we must kneel.’ ” On prayer to Jesus, see Liddon, Bampton Lectures, note F; Bernard, in Hastings' Bib. Dict., 4:44; Zahn, Skizzen aus dem Leben der alten Kirche, 9, 288.

(f) His name is associated with that of God upon a footing of equality.

We do not here allude to 1 John 5:7 (the three heavenly witnesses), for the latter part of this verse is unquestionably spurious; but to the formula of baptism, to the apostolic benedictions, and to those passages in which eternal life is said to be dependent equally upon Christ and upon God, or in which spiritual gifts are attributed to Christ equally with the Father.

The formula of baptism: Mat. 28:19—“baptising them into the name of the father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”; cf. Acts 2:38—“be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ”; Rom. 6:3—“baptized into Christ Jesus.” “In the common baptismal formula the Son and the Spirit are coördinated with the Father, and εἰς ὄνομα has religious significance.” It would be both absurd and profane to speak of baptizing into the name of the Father and of Moses.

The apostolic benedictions: 1 Cor. 1:3—“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”; 2 Cor. 13:14—“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.” “In the benedictions grace is something divine, and Christ has power to impart it. But why do we find ‘God,’ instead of simply ‘the Father,’ as in the baptismal formula? Because it is only the Father who does not become man or have a historical existence. Elsewhere he is specially called ‘God the Father,’ to distinguish him from God the Son and God the Holy Spirit (Gal. 1:3; Eph. 3:14; 6:23).”

Other passages: John 5:23—“that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father”; John 14:1—“believe in God, believe also in me”—double imperative (so Westcott, Bible Com., in loco); 17:3—“this is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ”; Mat. 11:27—“no one knoweth the Son, save the Father; neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him”; 1 Cor. 12:4-6—“the same Spirit ... the same Lord [Christ] ... the same God” [the Father] bestow spiritual gifts, e. g., faith: Rom. 10:17—“belief cometh of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ”; peace: Col. 3:15—“let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.” 2 Thess. 2:16, 17—“now our lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father ... comfort your hearts”—two names with a verb in the singular intimate the oneness of the Father and the Son (Lillie). Eph. 5:5—“kingdom of Christ and God”; Col. 3:1—“Christ ... seated on the right hand of God” = participation in the sovereignty of the universe,—the Eastern divan held not only the monarch but his son; Rev. 20:6—“priests of God and of Christ”; 22:3—“the throne of God and of the Lamb”; 16—“the root and the offspring of David” = both the Lord of David and his son. Hackett: “As the dying Savior said to the Father, ‘Into thy hands I commend my spirit’ (Luke 23:46), so the dying Stephen said to the Savior, ‘receive my spirit’ (Acts 7:59).”

(g) Equality with God is expressly claimed.

Here we may refer to Jesus' testimony to himself, already treated of among the proofs of the supernatural character of the Scripture teaching (see pages 189, 190). Equality with God is not only claimed for himself by Jesus, but it is claimed for him by his apostles.

[pg 313]

John 5:18—“called God his own Father, making himself equal with God”; Phil. 2:6—“who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped”—counted not his equality with God a thing to be forcibly retained. Christ made and left upon his contemporaries the impression that he claimed to be God. The New Testament has left, upon the great mass of those who have read it, the impression that Jesus Christ claims to be God. If he is not God, he is a deceiver or is self-deceived, and, in either case, Christus, si non Deus, non bonus. See Nicoll, Life of Jesus Christ, 187.

(h) Further proof of Christ's deity may be found in the application to him of the phrases: “Son of God,” “Image of God”; in the declarations of his oneness with God; in the attribution to him of the fulness of the Godhead.

Mat. 26:63, 64—“I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou art the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said”—it is for this testimony that Christ dies. Col. 1:15—“the image of the invisible God”; Heb. 1:3—“the effulgence of his [the Father's] glory, and the very image of his substance”; John 10:30—“I and the Father are one”; 14:9—“he that hath seen me hath seen the Father”; 17:11, 22—“that they may be one, even as we are”—ἕ, not εἰς; unum, not unus; one substance, not one person. “Unum is antidote to the Arian, sumus to the Sabellian heresy.” Col. 2:9—“in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”; cf. 1:19—“for it was the pleasure of the Father that in him should all the fulness dwell;” or (marg.) “for the whole fulness of God was pleased to dwell in him.” John 16:15—“all things whatsoever the Father hath are mine”; 17:10—“all things that are mine are thine, and thine are mine.”

Meyer on John 10:30—“I and the Father are one”—“Here the Arian understanding of a mere ethical harmony as taught in the words ‘are one’ is unsatisfactory, because irrelevant to the exercise of power. Oneness of essence, though not contained in the words themselves, is, by the necessities of the argument, presupposed in them.” Dalman, The Words of Jesus: “Nowhere do we find that Jesus called himself the Son of God in such a sense as to suggest a merely religious and ethical relation to God—a relation which others also possessed and which they were capable of attaining or were destined to acquire.” We may add that while in the lower sense there are many “sons of God,” there is but one “only begotten Son.”

(i) These proofs of Christ's deity from the New Testament are corroborated by Christian experience.

Christian experience recognizes Christ as an absolutely perfect Savior, perfectly revealing the Godhead and worthy of unlimited worship and adoration; that is, it practically recognizes him as Deity. But Christian experience also recognizes that through Christ it has introduction and reconciliation to God as one distinct from Jesus Christ, as one who was alienated from the soul by its sin, but who is now reconciled through Jesus's death. In other words, while recognizing Jesus as God, we are also compelled to recognize a distinction between the Father and the Son through whom we come to the Father.

Although this experience cannot be regarded as an independent witness to Jesus' claims, since it only tests the truth already made known in the Bible, still the irresistible impulse of every person whom Christ has saved to lift his Redeemer to the highest place, and bow before him in the lowliest worship, is strong evidence that only that interpretation of Scripture can be true which recognizes Christ's absolute Godhead. It is the church's consciousness of her Lord's divinity, indeed, and not mere speculation upon the relations of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that has compelled the formulation of the Scripture doctrine of the Trinity.

In the letter of Pliny to Trajan, it is said of the early Christians “quod essent soliti carmen Christo quasi Deo dicere invicem.” The prayers and hymns of the church show what the church has believed Scripture to teach. Dwight Moody is said to have [pg 314]received his first conviction of the truth of the gospel from hearing the concluding words of a prayer, “For Christ's sake, Amen,” when awakened from physical slumber in Dr. Kirk's church, Boston. These words, wherever uttered, imply man's dependence and Christ's deity. See New Englander, 1878:432. In Eph. 4:32, the Revised Version substitutes “in Christ” for “for Christ's sake.” The exact phrase “for Christ's sake” is not found in the N. T. in connection with prayer, although the O. T. phrase “for my name's sake” (Ps. 25:11) passes into the N. T. phrase “in the name of Jesus” (Phil. 2:10); cf. Ps. 72:15—“men shall pray for him continually” = the words of the hymn: “For him shall endless prayer be made, And endless blessings crown his head.” All this is proof that the idea of prayer for Christ's sake is in Scripture, though the phrase is absent.

A caricature scratched on the wall of the Palatine palace in Rome, and dating back to the third century, represents a human figure with an ass's head, hanging upon a cross, while a man stands before it in the attitude of worship. Under the effigy is this ill-spelled inscription: “Alexamenos adores his God.”

This appeal to the testimony of Christian consciousness was first made by Schleiermacher. William E. Gladstone: “All I write, and all I think, and all I hope, is based upon the divinity of our Lord, the one central hope of our poor, wayward race.” E. G. Robinson: “When you preach salvation by faith in Christ, you preach the Trinity.”W. G. T. Shedd: “The construction of the doctrine of the Trinity started, not from the consideration of the three persons, but from belief in the deity of one of them.” On the worship of Christ in the authorized services of the Anglican church, see Stanley, Church and State, 333-335; Liddon, Divinity of our Lord, 514.

In contemplating passages apparently inconsistent with those now cited, in that they impute to Christ weakness and ignorance, limitation and subjection, we are to remember, first, that our Lord was truly man, as well as truly God, and that this ignorance and weakness may be predicated of him as the God-man in whom deity and humanity are united; secondly, that the divine nature itself was in some way limited and humbled during our Savior's earthly life, and that these passages may describe him as he was in his estate of humiliation, rather than in his original and present glory; and, thirdly, that there is an order of office and operation which is consistent with essential oneness and equality, but which permits the Father to be spoken of as first and the Son as second. These statements will be further elucidated in the treatment of the present doctrine and in subsequent examination of the doctrine of the Person of Christ.

There are certain things of which Christ was ignorant: Mark 13:32—“of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” He was subject to physical fatigue: John 4:6—“Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well.” There was a limitation connected with Christ's taking of human flesh: Phil. 2:7—“emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men”; John 14:28—“the Father is greater than I.”There is a subjection, as respects order of office and operation, which is yet consistent with equality of essence and oneness with God; 1 Cor. 15:28—“then shall the Son also himself be subjected to him that did subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all.” This must be interpreted consistently with John 17:5—“glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was,” and with Phil. 2:6, where this glory is described as being “the form of God” and “equality with God.”

Even in his humiliation, Christ was the Essential Truth, and ignorance in him never involved error or false teaching. Ignorance on his part might make his teaching at times incomplete,—it never in the smallest particular made his teaching false. Yet here we must distinguish between what he intended to teach and what was merely incidental to his teaching. When he said: Moses “wrote of me” (John 5:46) and “David in the Spirit called him Lord” (Mat. 22:43), if his purpose was to teach the authorship of the Pentateuch and of the 110th Psalm, we should regard his words as absolutely authoritative. But it is possible that he intended only to locate the passages referred to, and if so, his words cannot be used to exclude critical conclusions as to their authorship. Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 136—“If he spoke of Moses or David, it was only to identify the passage. The authority of the earlier dispensation did not rest upon its record being due to Moses, nor did the appropriateness of the Psalm lie in its being uttered by David. [pg 315]There is no evidence that the question of authorship ever came before him.” Adamson rather more precariously suggests that “there may have been a lapse of memory in Jesus' mention of ‘Zachariah, son of Barachiah’ (Mat. 23:35), since this was a matter of no spiritual import.”

For assertions of Jesus' knowledge, see John 2:24, 25—“he knew all men ... he needed not that any one should bear witness concerning man; for he himself knew what was in man”; 6:64—“Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who it was that should betray him”; 12:33—“this he said, signifying by what manner of death he should die”; 21:19—“Now this he spake, signifying by what manner of death he[Peter] should glorify God”; 13:1—“knowing that his hour was come that he should depart”; Mat. 25:31—“when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory” = he knew that he was to act as final judge of the human race. Other instances are mentioned by Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 24-49: 1. Jesus' knowledge of Peter (John 1:42); 2. his finding Philip (1:43); 3. his recognition of Nathanael (1:47-50); 4. of the woman of Samaria (4:17-19, 39); 5. miraculous draughts of fishes (Luke 5:6-9; John 21:6); 6. death of Lazarus (John 11:14); 7. the ass's colt (Mat. 21:2); 8. of the upper room (Mark 14:15); 9. of Peter's denial (Mat. 26:34); 10. of the manner of his own death (John 12:33; 18:32); 11. of the manner of Peter's death (John 21:19); 12. of the fall of Jerusalem (Mat. 24:2).

On the other hand there are assertions and implications of Jesus' ignorance: he did not know the day of the end (Mark 13:32), though even here he intimates his superiority to angels; 5:30-34—“Who touched my garments?” though even here power had gone forth from him to heal; John 11:34—“Where have ye laid him?” though here he is about to raise Lazarus from the dead; Mark 11:13—“seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find anything thereon” = he did not know that it had no fruit, yet he had power to curse it. With these evidences of the limitations of Jesus' knowledge, we must assent to the judgment of Bacon, Genesis of Genesis, 33—“We must decline to stake the authority of Jesus on a question of literary criticism”; and of Gore, Incarnation, 195—“That the use by our Lord of such a phrase as ‘Moses wrote of me’ binds us to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch as a whole, I do not think we need to yield.” See our section on The Person of Christ; also Rush Rhees, Life of Jesus, 243, 244. Per contra, see Swayne, Our Lord's Knowledge as Man; and Crooker, The New Bible, who very unwisely claims that belief in a Kenosis involves the surrender of Christ's authority and atonement.

It is inconceivable that any mere creature should say, “God is greater than I am,”or should be spoken of as ultimately and in a mysterious way becoming “subject to God.” In his state of humiliation Christ was subject to the Spirit (Acts 1:2—“after that he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit”; 10:38—“God anointed him with the Holy Spirit ... for God was with him”; Heb.9:14—“through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God”), but in his state of exaltation Christ is Lord of the Spirit (κυρίου πνεύματος—2 Cor. 3:18—Meyer), giving the Spirit and working through the Spirit. Heb. 2:7, marg.—“Thou madest him for a little while lower than the angels.” On the whole subject, see Shedd, Hist. Doctrine, 262, 351; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:61-64; Liddon, Our Lord's Divinity, 127, 207, 458; per contra, see Examination of Liddon, 252, 294; Professors of Andover Seminary, Divinity of Christ.

C. The Holy Spirit is recognized as God.

(a) He is spoken of as God; (b) the attributes of God are ascribed to him, such as life, truth, love, holiness, eternity, omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence; (c) he does the works of God, such as creation, regeneration, resurrection; (d) he receives honor due only to God; (e) he is associated with God on a footing of equality, both in the formula of baptism and in the apostolic benedictions.

(a) Spoken of as God. Acts 5:3, 4—“lie to the Holy Spirit ... not lied unto men, but unto God”; 1 Cor. 3:16—“ye are a temple of God ... the Spirit of God dwelleth in you”; 6:19—“your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit”; 12:4-6 “same Spirit ... same Lord ... same God, who worketh all things in all”—“The divine Trinity is here indicated in an ascending climax, in such a way that we pass from the Spirit who bestows the gifts to the Lord [Christ] who is served by means of them, and finally to God, who as the absolute first cause and possessor of all Christian powers works the entire sum of all charismatic gifts in all who are gifted” (Meyer in loco).

[pg 316]

(b) Attributes of God. Life: Rom. 8:2—“Spirit of life.” Truth: John 16:13 “Spirit of truth.” Love: Rom. 15:30—“love of the Spirit.” Holiness: Eph. 4:30—“the Holy Spirit of God.” Eternity: Heb. 9:14—“the eternal Spirit.” Omnipresence: Ps. 139:7—“Whither shall I go from thy Spirit?” Omniscience: 1 Cor. 12:11—“all these [including gifts of healings and miracles] worketh the one and the same Spirit, dividing to each one severally even as he will.”

(c) Works of God. Creation: Gen. 1:2, marg.—“Spirit of God was brooding upon the face of the waters.”Casting out of demons: Mat. 12:28—“But if I by the Spirit of God cast out demons.” Conviction of sin: John 16:8—“convict the world in respect of sin.” Regeneration: John 3:8—“born of the Spirit”; Tit. 3:5—“renewing of the Holy Spirit.” Resurrection: Rom. 8:11—“give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit”; 1 Cor. 15:45—“The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.”

(d) Honor due to God. 1 Cor. 3:16—“ye are a temple of God ... the Spirit of God dwelleth in you”—he who inhabits the temple is the object of worship there. See also the next item.

(e) Associated with God. Formula of baptism: Mat. 28:19—“baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” If the baptismal formula is worship, then we have here worship paid to the Spirit. Apostolic benedictions: 2 Cor. 13:14—“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” If the apostolic benedictions are prayers, then we have here a prayer to the Spirit. 1 Pet. 1:2—“foreknowledge of God the Father ... sanctification of the Spirit ... sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.”

On Heb. 9:14, Kendrick, Com. in loco, interprets: “Offers himself by virtue of an eternal spirit which dwells within him and imparts to his sacrifice a spiritual and an eternal efficacy. The ‘spirit’ here spoken of was not, then, the ‘Holy Spirit’; it was not his purely divine nature; it was that blending of his divine nature with his human personality which forms the mystery of his being, that ‘spirit of holiness’ by virtue of which he was declared ‘the Son of God with power,’ on account of his resurrection from the dead.” Hovey adds a note to Kendrick's Commentary, in loco, as follows: “This adjective ‘eternal’ naturally suggests that the word ‘Spirit’ refers to the higher and divine nature of Christ. His truly human nature, on its spiritual side, was indeed eternal as to the future, but so also is the spirit of every man. The unique and superlative value of Christ's self-sacrifice seems to have been due to the impulse of the divine side of his nature.” The phrase “eternal spirit” would then mean his divinity. To both these interpretations we prefer that which makes the passage refer to the Holy Spirit, and we cite in support of this view Acts 1:2—“he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit unto the apostles”; 10:38—“God anointed him with the Holy Spirit.” On 1 Cor. 2:10, Mason, Faith of the Gospel, 63, remarks: “The Spirit of God finds nothing even in God which baffles his scrutiny. His ‘search’ is not a seeking for knowledge yet beyond him.... Nothing but God could search the depths of God.”

As spirit is nothing less than the inmost principle of life, and the spirit of man is man himself, so the spirit of God must be God (see 1 Cor. 2:11—Meyer). Christian experience, moreover, expressed as it is in the prayers and hymns of the church, furnishes an argument for the deity of the Holy Spirit similar to that for the deity of Jesus Christ. When our eyes are opened to see Christ as a Savior, we are compelled to recognize the work in us of a divine Spirit who has taken of the things of Christ and has shown them to us; and this divine Spirit we necessarily distinguish both from the Father and from the Son. Christian experience, however, is not an original and independent witness to the deity of the Holy Spirit: it simply shows what the church has held to be the natural and unforced interpretation of the Scriptures, and so confirms the Scripture argument already adduced.

The Holy Spirit is God himself personally present in the believer. E. G. Robinson: “If ‘Spirit of God’ no more implies deity than does ‘angel of God,’ why is not the Holy Spirit called simply the angel or messenger, of God?” Walker, The Spirit and the Incarnation, 337—“The Holy Spirit is God in his innermost being or essence, the principle of life of both the Father and the Son; that in which God, both as Father and Son, does everything, and in which he comes to us and is in us increasingly through his manifestations. Through the working and indwelling of this Holy Spirit, God in his person of Son was fully incarnate in Christ.” Gould, Am. Com. on 1 Cor. 2:11—“For who among men knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of the man, which is in him? even so the things of [pg 317]God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God”—“The analogy must not be pushed too far, as if the Spirit of God and God were coëxtensive terms, as the corresponding terms are, substantially, in man. The point of the analogy is evidently self-knowledge, and in both cases the contrast is between the spirit within and anything outside.” Andrew Murray, Spirit of Christ, 140—“We must not expect always to feel the power of the Spirit when it works. Scripture links power and weakness in a wonderful way, not as succeeding each other but as existing together. ‘I was with you in weakness ... my preaching was in power’ (1 Cor. 2:3); ‘when I am weak then am I strong’ (2 Cor. 12:10). The power is the power of God given to faith, and faith grows strong in the dark.... He who would command nature must first and most absolutely obey her.... We want to get possession of the Power, and use it. God wants the Power to get possession of us, and use us.”

This proof of the deity of the Holy Spirit is not invalidated by the limitations of his work under the Old Testament dispensation. John 7:39—“for the Holy Spirit was not yet”—means simply that the Holy Spirit could not fulfill his peculiar office as Revealer of Christ until the atoning work of Christ should be accomplished.

John 7:39 is to be interpreted in the light of other Scriptures which assert the agency of the Holy Spirit under the old dispensation (Ps. 51:11—“take not thy holy Spirit from me”) and which describe his peculiar office under the new dispensation (John 16:14, 15—“he shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you”). Limitation in the manner of the Spirit's work in the O. T. involved a limitation in the extent and power of it also. Pentecost was the flowing forth of a tide of spiritual influence which had hitherto been dammed up. Henceforth the Holy Spirit was the Spirit of Jesus Christ, taking of the things of Christ and showing them, applying his finished work to human hearts, and rendering the hitherto localized Savior omnipresent with his scattered followers to the end of time.

Under the conditions of his humiliation, Christ was a servant. All authority in heaven and earth was given him only after his resurrection. Hence he could not send the Holy Spirit until he ascended. The mother can show off her son only when he is fully grown. The Holy Spirit could reveal Christ only when there was a complete Christ to reveal. The Holy Spirit could fully sanctify, only after the example and motive of holiness were furnished in Christ's life and death. Archer Butler: “The divine Artist could not fitly descend to make the copy, before the original had been provided.”

And yet the Holy Spirit is “the eternal Spirit” (Heb. 9:14), and he not only existed, but also wrought, in Old Testament times. 2 Pet. 1:21—“men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit”—seems to fix the meaning of the phrase “the Holy Spirit,” where it appears in the O. T. Before Christ “the Holy Spirit was not yet” (John 7:39), just as before Edison electricity was not yet. There was just as much electricity in the world before Edison as there is now. Edison has only taught us its existence and how to use it. Still we can say that, before Edison, electricity, as a means of lighting, warming and transporting people, had no existence. So until Pentecost, the Holy Spirit, as the revealer of Christ, “was not yet.”Augustine calls Pentecost the dies natalis, or birthday, of the Holy Spirit; and for the same reason that we call the day when Mary brought forth her firstborn son the birthday of Jesus Christ, though before Abraham was born, Christ was. The Holy Spirit had been engaged in the creation, and had inspired the prophets, but officially, as Mediator between men and Christ, “the Holy Spirit was not yet.” He could not show the things of Christ until the things of Christ were ready to be shown. See Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 19-25; Prof. J. S. Gubelmann, Person and Work of the Holy Spirit in O. T. Times. For proofs of the deity of the Holy Spirit, see Walker, Doctrine of the Holy Spirit; Hare, Mission of the Comforter; Parker, The Paraclete; Cardinal Manning, Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost; Dick, Lectures on Theology, 1:341-350. Further references will be given in connection with the proof of the Holy Spirit's personality.

2. Intimations of the Old Testament.

The passages which seem to show that even in the Old Testament there are three who are implicitly recognized as God may be classed under four heads:

A. Passages which seem to teach plurality of some sort in the Godhead.

[pg 318]

(a) The plural noun אלהים is employed, and that with a plural verb—a use remarkable, when we consider that the singular אל was also in existence; (b) God uses plural pronouns in speaking of himself; (c) Jehovah distinguishes himself from Jehovah; (d) a Son is ascribed to Jehovah; (e) the Spirit of God is distinguished from God; (f) there are a threefold ascription and a threefold benediction.

(a) Gen. 20:13—“God caused [plural] me to wander from my father's house”; 35:7—“built there an altar, and called the place El-Beth-el; because there God was revealed [plural] unto him.” (b) Gen. 1:26—“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”; 3:22—“Behold, the man is become as one of us”; 11:7—“Come, let us go down, and there confound their language”; Is. 6:8—“Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” (c) Gen. 19:24—“Then Jehovah rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of heaven”; Hos. 1:7—“I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by Jehovah, their God”; cf. 2 Tim. 1:18—“The Lord grant unto him to find mercy of the Lord in that day”—though Ellicott here decides adversely to the Trinitarian reference. (d) Ps. 2:7—“Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee”; Prov. 30:4—“Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son's name, if thou knowest?”(e) Gen. 1:1 and 2, marg.—“God created ... the Spirit of God was brooding”; Ps. 33:6—“By the word of Jehovah were the heavens made, And all the host of them by the breath [spirit] of his mouth”; Is. 48:16—“the Lord Jehovah hath sent me, and his Spirit”; 63:7, 10—“loving kindnesses of Jehovah ... grieved his holy Spirit.”(f) Is. 6:3—the trisagion: “Holy, holy, holy”; Num. 6:24-26—“Jehovah bless thee, and keep thee: Jehovah make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: Jehovah lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.”

It has been suggested that as Baal was worshiped in different places and under different names, as Baal-Berith, Baal-hanan, Baal-peor, Baal-zeebub, and his priests could call upon any one of these as possessing certain personified attributes of Baal, while yet the whole was called by the plural term “Baalim,” and Elijah could say: “Call ye upon your Gods,” so “Elohim” may be the collective designation of the God who was worshiped in different localities; see Robertson Smith, Old Testament in the Jewish Church, 229. But this ignores the fact that Baal is always addressed in the singular, never in the plural, while the plural “Elohim” is the term commonly used in addresses to God. This seems to show that “Baalim” is a collective term, while “Elohim” is not. So when Ewald, Lehre von Gott, 2:333, distinguishes five names of God, corresponding to five great periods of the history of Israel, viz., the “Almighty” of the Patriarchs, the “Jehovah” of the Covenant, the “God of Hosts” of the Monarchy, the “Holy One”of the Deuteronomist and the later prophetic age, and the “Our Lord” of Judaism, he ignores the fact that these designations are none of them confined to the times to which they are attributed, though they may have been predominantly used in those times.

The fact that אלהים is sometimes used in a narrower sense, as applicable to the Son (Ps. 45:6; cf. Heb. 1:8), need not prevent us from believing that the term was originally chosen as containing an allusion to a certain plurality in the divine nature. Nor is it sufficient to call this plural a simple pluralis majestaticus; since it is easier to derive this common figure from divine usage than to derive the divine usage from this common figure—especially when we consider the constant tendency of Israel to polytheism.

Ps. 45:6; cf. Heb. 1:8—“of the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever.” Here it is God who calls Christ “God” or “Elohim.” The term Elohim has here acquired the significance of a singular. It was once thought that the royal style of speech was a custom of a later date than the time of Moses. Pharaoh does not use it. In Gen. 41:41-44, he says: “I have set thee over all the land of Egypt ... I am Pharaoh.” But later investigations seem to prove that the plural for God was used by the Canaanites before the Hebrew occupation. The one Pharaoh is called “my gods” or “my god,” indifferently. The word “master” is usually found in the plural in the O. T. (cf. Gen. 24:9, 51; 39:19; 40:1). The plural gives utterance to the sense of awe. It signifies magnitude or completeness. (See The Bible Student, Aug. 1900:67.)

This ancient Hebrew application of the plural to God is often explained as a mere plural of dignity, = one who combines in himself many reasons for adoration (אלהים from אלה to fear, to adore). Oehler, O. T. Theology, 1:128-130, calls it a “quantitative plural,” signifying unlimited greatness. The Hebrews had many plural forms, where [pg 319]we should use the singular, as “heavens” instead of “heaven,” “waters” instead of “water.” We too speak of “news,” “wages,” and say “you” instead of “thou”; see F. W. Robertson, on Genesis, 12. But the Church Fathers, such as Barnabas, Justin Martyr, Irenæus, Theophilus, Epiphanius, and Theodoret, saw in this plural an allusion to the Trinity, and we are inclined to follow them. When finite things were pluralized to express man's reverence, it would be far more natural to pluralize the name of God. And God's purpose in securing this pluralization may have been more far-reaching and intelligent than man's. The Holy Spirit who presided over the development of revelation may well have directed the use of the plural in general, and even the adoption of the plural name Elohim in particular, with a view to the future unfolding of truth with regard to the Trinity.

We therefore dissent from the view of Hill, Genetic Philosophy, 323, 330—“The Hebrew religion, even much later than the time of Moses, as it existed in the popular mind, was, according to the prophetic writings, far removed from a real monotheism, and consisted in the wavering acceptance of the preëminence of a tribal God, with a strong inclination towards a general polytheism. It is impossible therefore to suppose that anything approaching the philosophical monotheism of modern theology could have been elaborated or even entertained by primitive man.... ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me’ (Ex. 20:3), the first precept of Hebrew monotheism, was not understood at first as a denial of the hereditary polytheistic faith, but merely as an exclusive claim to worship and obedience.” E. G. Robinson says, in a similar strain, that “we can explain the idolatrous tendencies of the Jews only on the supposition that they had lurking notions that their God was a merely national god. Moses seems to have understood the doctrine of the divine unity, but the Jews did not.”

To the views of both Hill and Robinson we reply that the primitive intuition of God is not that of many, but that of One. Paul tells us that polytheism is a later and retrogressive stage of development, due to man's sin (Rom. 1:19-25). We prefer the statement of McLaren: “The plural Elohim is not a survival from a polytheistic stage, but expresses the divine nature in the manifoldness of its fulnesses and perfections, rather than in the abstract unity of its being”—and, we may add, expresses the divine nature in its essential fulness, as a complex of personalities. See Conant, Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, 108; Green, Hebrew Grammar, 306; Girdlestone, O. T. Synonyms, 38, 53; Alexander on Psalm 11:7; 29:1; 58:11.

B. Passages relating to the Angel of Jehovah.

(a) The angel of Jehovah identifies himself with Jehovah; (b) he is identified with Jehovah by others; (c) he accepts worship due only to God. Though the phrase “angel of Jehovah” is sometimes used in the later Scriptures to denote a merely human messenger or created angel, it seems in the Old Testament, with hardly more than a single exception, to designate the pre-incarnate Logos, whose manifestations in angelic or human form foreshadowed his final coming in the flesh.

(a) Gen. 22:11, 16—“the angel of Jehovah called unto him [Abraham, when about to sacrifice Isaac] ... By myself have I sworn, saith Jehovah”; 31:11, 13—“the angel of God said unto me [Jacob] ... I am the God of Beth-el.” (b) Gen. 16:9, 13—“angel of Jehovah said unto her ... and she called the name of Jehovah that spake unto her, Thou art a God that seeth”; 48:15, 16—“the God who hath fed me ... the angel who hath redeemed me.” (c) Ex. 3:2, 4, 5—“the angel of Jehovah appeared unto him ... God called unto him out of the midst of the bush ... put off thy shoes from off thy feet”; Judges 13:20-22—“angel of Jehovah ascended.... Manoah and his wife ... fell on their faces ... Manoah said ... We shall surely die, because we have seen God.”

The “angel of the Lord” appears to be a human messenger in Haggai 1:13—“Haggai, Jehovah's messenger”; a created angel in Mat. 1:20—“an angel of the Lord [called Gabriel] appeared unto” Joseph; in Acts 3:26—“an angel of the Lord spake unto Philip”; and in 12:7—“an angel of the Lord stood by him”(Peter). But commonly, in the O.T., the “angel of Jehovah” is a theophany, a self-manifestation of God. The only distinction is that between Jehovah in himself and Jehovah in manifestation. The appearances of “the angel of Jehovah” seem to be preliminary manifestations of the divine Logos, as in Gen. 18:2, 13—“three men stood over against him [Abraham] ... And Jehovah said unto Abraham”; Dan. 3:25, 28—“the aspect of the fourth is like a son of the gods.... Blessed be the God ... who hath sent his angel.” The N.T. “angel of the Lord” does not permit, the O.T. “angel of the Lord” requires, worship (Rev. 22:8, 9—“See thou do it not”; cf. Ex. 3:5—“put off thy shoes”). As supporting this interpretation, see Hengstenberg, Christology, 1:107-123; J. Pye Smith, [pg 320]Scripture Testimony to the Messiah. As opposing it, see Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, 1:329, 378; Kurtz, History of Old Covenant, 1:181. On the whole subject, see Bib. Sac., 1879:593-615.

C. Descriptions of the divine Wisdom and Word.

(a) Wisdom is represented as distinct from God, and as eternally existing with God; (b) the Word of God is distinguished from God, as executor of his will from everlasting.

(a) Prov. 8:1—“Doth not wisdom cry?” Cf. Mat. 11:19—“wisdom is justified by her works”; Luke 7:35—“wisdom is justified of all her children”; 11:49—“Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send unto them prophets and apostles”; Prov. 8:22, 30, 31—“Jehovah possessed me in the beginning of his way, Before his works of old.... I was by him, as a master workman: And I was daily his delight.... And my delight was with the sons of men”; cf. 3:19—“Jehovah by wisdom founded the earth,” and Heb. 1:2—“his Son ... through whom ... he made the worlds.” (b) Ps. 107:20—“He sendeth his word, and healeth them”; 119:89—“For ever, O Jehovah, Thy word is settled in heaven”; 147:15-18—“He sendeth out his commandment.... He sendeth out his word.”

In the Apocryphal book entitled Wisdom, 7:26, 28, wisdom is described as “the brightness of the eternal light,” “the unspotted mirror of God's majesty,” and “the image of his goodness”—reminding us of Heb. 1:3—“the effulgence of his glory, and the very image of his substance.” In Wisdom, 9:9, 10, wisdom is represented as being present with God when he made the world, and the author of the book prays that wisdom may be sent to him out of God's holy heavens and from the throne of his glory. In 1 Esdras 4:35-38, Truth in a similar way is spoken of as personal: “Great is the Truth and stronger than all things. All the earth calleth upon the Truth, and the heaven blesseth it; all works shake and tremble at it, and with it is no unrighteous thing. As for the Truth, it endureth and is always strong; it liveth and conquereth forevermore.”

It must be acknowledged that in none of these descriptions is the idea of personality clearly developed. Still less is it true that John the apostle derived his doctrine of the Logos from the interpretations of these descriptions in Philo Judæus. John's doctrine (John 1:1-18) is radically different from the Alexandrian Logos-idea of Philo. This last is a Platonizing speculation upon the mediating principle between God and the world. Philo seems at times to verge towards a recognition of personality in the Logos, though his monotheistic scruples lead him at other times to take back what he has given, and to describe the Logos either as the thought of God or as its expression in the world. But John is the first to present to us a consistent view of this personality, to identify the Logos with the Messiah, and to distinguish the Word from the Spirit of God.

Dorner, in his History of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ, 1:13-45, and in his System of Doctrine, 1:348, 349, gives the best account of Philo's doctrine of the Logos. He says that Philo calls the Logos ἀρχάγγελος, ἀρχιερεύς, δεύτερος θεός. Whether this is anything more than personification is doubtful, for Philo also calls the Logos the κόσμος νοητός. Certainly, so far as he makes the Logos a distinct personality, he makes him also a subordinate being. It is charged that the doctrine of the Trinity owes its origin to the Platonic philosophy in its Alexandrian union with Jewish theology. But Platonism had no Trinity. The truth is that by the doctrine of the Trinity Christianity secured itself against false heathen ideas of God's multiplicity and immanence, as well as against false Jewish ideas of God's unity and transcendence. It owes nothing to foreign sources.

We need not assign to John's gospel a later origin, in order to account for its doctrine of the Logos, any more than we need to assign a later origin to the Synoptics in order to account for their doctrine of a suffering Messiah. Both doctrines were equally unknown to Philo. Philo's Logos does not and cannot become man. So says Dorner. Westcott, in Bible Commentary on John, Introd., xv-xviii, and on John 1:1—“The theological use of the term [in John's gospel] appears to be derived directly from the Palestinian Memra, and not from the Alexandrian Logos.” Instead of Philo's doctrine being a stepping-stone from Judaism to Christianity, it was a stumbling-stone. It had [pg 321]no doctrine of the Messiah or of the atonement. Bennett and Adeny, Bib. Introd., 340—“The difference between Philo and John may be stated thus: Philo's Logos is Reason, while John's is Word; Philo's is impersonal, while John's is personal; Philo's is not incarnate, while John's is incarnate; Philo's is not the Messiah, while John's is the Messiah.”

Philo lived from B. C. 10 or 20 to certainly A. D. 40, when he went at the head of a Jewish embassy to Rome, to persuade the Emperor to abstain from claiming divine honor from the Jews. In his De Opifice Mundi he says: “The Word is nothing else but the intelligible world.” He calls the Word the “chainband,” “pilot,” “steersman,” of all things. Gore, Incarnation, 69—“Logos in Philo must be translated ‘Reason.’But in the Targums, or early Jewish paraphrases of the O. T., the ‘Word’ of Jehovah (Memra, Devra) is constantly spoken of as the efficient instrument of the divine action, in cases where the O. T. speaks of Jehovah himself, ‘The Word of God’ had come to be used personally, as almost equivalent to God manifesting himself, or God in action.” George H. Gilbert, in Biblical World, Jan. 1899:44—“John's use of the term Logos was suggested by Greek philosophy, while at the same time the content of the word is Jewish.”

Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, 174-208—“The Stoics invested the Logos with personality. They were Monists and they made λόγος and ὕλη the active and the passive forms of the one principle. Some made God a mode of matter—natura naturata; others made matter a mode of God—natura naturans = the world a self-evolution of God. The Platonic forms, as manifold expressions of a single λόγος, were expressed by a singular term, Logos, rather than the Logoi, of God. From this Logos proceed all forms of mind or reason. So held Philo: ‘The mind is an offshoot from the divine and happy soul (of God), an offshoot not separated from him, for nothing divine is cut off and disjoined, but only extended.’ Philo's Logos is not only form but force—God's creative energy—the eldest-born of the ‘I am,’ which robes itself with the world as with a vesture, the high priest's robe, embroidered with all the forces of the seen and unseen worlds.”

Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 1:53—“Philo carries the transcendence of God to its logical conclusions. The Jewish doctrine of angels is expanded in his doctrine of the Logos. The Alexandrian philosophers afterwards represented Christianity as a spiritualized Judaism. But a philosophical system dominated by the idea of the divine transcendence never could have furnished a motive for missionary labors like those of Paul. Philo's belief in transcendence abated his redemptive hopes. But, conversely, the redemptive hopes of orthodox Judaism saved it from some of the errors of exclusive transcendence.” See a quotation from Siegfried, in Schürer's History of the Jewish People, article on Philo: “Philo's doctrine grew out of God's distinction and distance from the world. It was dualistic. Hence the need of mediating principles, some being less than God and more than creature. The cosmical significance of Christ bridged the gulf between Christianity and contemporary Greek thought. Christianity stands for a God who is revealed. But a Logos-doctrine like that of Philo may reveal less than it conceals. Instead of God incarnate for our salvation, we may have merely a mediating principle between God and the world, as in Arianism.”

The preceding statement is furnished in substance by Prof. William Adams Brown. With it we agree, adding only the remark that the Alexandrian philosophy gave to Christianity, not the substance of its doctrine, but only the terminology for its expression. The truth which Philo groped after, the Apostle John seized and published, as only he could, who had heard, seen, and handled “the Word of life” (1 John 1:1). “The Christian doctrine of the Logos was perhaps before anything else an effort to express how Jesus Christ was God (Θεός), and yet in another sense was not God (ὁ θεός); that is to say, was not the whole Godhead” (quoted in Marcus Dods, Expositors' Bible, on John 1:1). See also Kendrick, in Christian Review, 26:369-399; Gloag, in Presb. and Ref. Rev., 1891:45-57; Réville, Doctrine of the Logos in John and Philo; Godet on John, Germ. transl., 13, 135; Cudworth, Intellectual System, 2:320-333; Pressensé, Life of Jesus Christ, 83; Hagenbach, Hist. Doct., 1:114-117; Liddon, Our Lord's Divinity, 59-71; Conant on Proverbs, 53.

D. Descriptions of the Messiah.

(a) He is one with Jehovah; (b) yet he is in some sense distinct from Jehovah.

[pg 322]

(a) Is. 9:6—“unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given ... and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace”; Micah 5:2—“thou Bethlehem ... which art little ... out of thee shall one come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.” (b) Ps. 45:6, 7—“Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever.... Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee”; Mal 3:1—“I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant, whom ye desire.” Henderson, in his Commentary on this passage, points out that the Messiah is here called “the Lord” or “the Sovereign”—a title nowhere given in this form (with the article) to any but Jehovah; that he is predicted as coming to the temple as its proprietor; and that he is identified with the angel of the covenant, elsewhere shown to be one with Jehovah himself.

It is to be remembered, in considering this, as well as other classes of passages previously cited, that no Jewish writer before Christ's coming had succeeded in constructing from them a doctrine of the Trinity. Only to those who bring to them the light of New Testament revelation do they show their real meaning.

Our general conclusion with regard to the Old Testament intimations must therefore be that, while they do not by themselves furnish a sufficient basis for the doctrine of the Trinity, they contain the germ of it, and may be used in confirmation of it when its truth is substantially proved from the New Testament.

That the doctrine of the Trinity is not plainly taught in the Hebrew Scriptures is evident from the fact that Jews unite with Mohammedans in accusing trinitarians of polytheism. It should not surprise us that the Old Testament teaching on this subject is undeveloped and obscure. The first necessity was that the Unity of God should be insisted on. Until the danger of idolatry was past, a clear revelation of the Trinity might have been a hindrance to religious progress. The child now, like the race then, must learn the unity of God before it can profitably be taught the Trinity,—else it will fall into tritheism; see Gardiner, O. T. and N. T., 49. We should not therefore begin our proof of the Trinity with a reference to passages in the Old Testament. We should speak of these passages, indeed, as furnishing intimations of the doctrine rather than proof of it. Yet, after having found proof of the doctrine in the New Testament, we may expect to find traces of it in the Old which will corroborate our conclusions. As a matter of fact, we shall see that traces of the idea of a Trinity are found not only in the Hebrew Scriptures but in some of the heathen religions as well. E. G. Robinson: “The doctrine of the Trinity underlay the O. T., unperceived by its writers, was first recognized in the economic revelation of Christianity, and was first clearly enunciated in the necessary evolution of Christian doctrine.”

II. These Three are so described in Scripture that we are compelled to conceive of them as distinct Persons.

1. The Father and the Son are persons distinct from each other.

(a) Christ distinguishes the Father from himself as “another”; (b) the Father and the Son are distinguished as the begetter and the begotten; (c) the Father and the Son are distinguished as the sender and the sent.

(a) John 5:32, 37—“It is another that beareth witness of me ... the Father that sent me, he hath borne witness of me.” (b) Ps. 2:7—“Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee”; John 1:14—“the only begotten from the Father”; 18—“the only begotten Son”; 3:16—“gave his only begotten Son.” (c) John 10:36—“say ye of him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?”; Gal 4:4—“when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth his Son.” In these passages the Father is represented as objective to the Son, the Son to the Father, and both the Father and Son to the Spirit.

2. The Father and the Son are persons distinct from the Spirit.

(a) Jesus distinguishes the Spirit from himself and from the Father; (b) the Spirit proceeds from the Father; (c) the Spirit is sent by the Father and by the Son.

[pg 323]

(a) John 14:16, 17—“I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth”—or “Spirit of the truth,” = he whose work it is to reveal and apply the truth, and especially to make manifest him who is the truth. Jesus had been their Comforter: he now promises them another Comforter. If he himself was a person, then the Spirit is a person. (b) John 15:26—“the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father.” (c) John 14:26—“the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name”; 15:26—“when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father”; Gal. 4:6—“God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts.” The Greek church holds that the Spirit proceeds from the Father only; the Latin church, that the Spirit proceeds both from the Father and from the Son. The true formula is: The Spirit proceeds from the Father through or by (not “and”) the Son. See Hagenbach, History of Doctrine, 1:262, 263. Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 195—“The Filioque is a valuable defence of the truth that the Holy Spirit is not simply the abstract second Person of the Trinity, but rather the Spirit of the incarnate Christ, reproducing Christ in human hearts, and revealing in them the meaning of true manhood.”

3. The Holy Spirit is a person.

A. Designations proper to personality are given him.

(a) The masculine pronoun ἐκεῖνος, though πνεῦμα is neuter; (b) the name παράκλητος, which cannot be translated by “comfort”, or be taken as the name of any abstract influence. The Comforter, Instructor, Patron, Guide, Advocate, whom this term brings before us, must be a person. This is evident from its application to Christ in 1 John 2:1—“we have an Advocate—παράκλητον—with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

(a) John 16:14—“He (ἐκεῖνος) shall glorify me”; in Eph. 1:14 also, some of the best authorities, including Tischendorf (8th ed.), read ὄς, the masculine pronoun: “who is an earnest of our inheritance.” But in John 14:16-18, παράκλητος is followed by the neuters ὁ and αὐτό, because πνεῦμα had intervened. Grammatical and not theological considerations controlled the writer. See G. B. Stevens, Johannine Theology, 189-217, especially on the distinction between Christ and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is another person than Christ, in spite of Christ's saying of the coming of the Holy Spirit: “I come unto you.” (b) John 16:7—“if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you.” The word παράκλητος, as appears from 1 John 2:1, quoted above, is a term of broader meaning than merely “Comforter.” The Holy Spirit is, indeed, as has been said, “the mother-principle in the Godhead,” and “as one whom his mother comforteth” so God by his Spirit comforts his children (Is. 66:13). But the Holy Spirit is also an Advocate of God's claims in the soul, and of the soul's interests in prayer (Rom. 8:26—“maketh intercession for us”). He comforts not only by being our advocate, but by being our instructor, patron, and guide; and all these ideas are found attaching to the word παράκλητος in good Greek usage. The word indeed is a verbal adjective, signifying “called to one's aid,” hence a “helper”; the idea of encouragement is included in it, as well as those of comfort and of advocacy. See Westcott, Bible Com., on John 14:16; Cremer, Lexicon of N. T. Greek, in voce.

T. Dwight, in S. S. Times, on John 14:16—“The fundamental meaning of the word παράκλητος, which is a verbal adjective, is ‘called to one's aid,’ and thus, when used as a noun, it conveys the idea of ‘helper.’ This more general sense probably attaches to its use in John's Gospel, while in the Epistle (1 John 2:1, 2) it conveys the idea of Jesus acting as advocate on our behalf before God as a Judge.” So the Latin advocatus signifies one “called to”—i. e., called in to aid, counsel, plead. In this connection Jesus says: “I will not leave you orphans” (John 14:18). Cumming, Through the Eternal Spirit, 228—“As the orphaned family, in the day of the parent's death, need some friend who shall lighten their sense of loss by his own presence with them, so the Holy Spirit is ‘called in’to supply the present love and help which the Twelve are losing in the death of Jesus.”A. A. Hodge, Pop. Lectures, 237—“The Roman ‘client,’ the poor and dependent man, called in his ‘patron’ to help him in all his needs. The patron thought for, advised, directed, supported, defended, supplied, restored, comforted his client in all his complications. The client, though weak, with a powerful patron, was socially and politically secure forever.”

B. His name is mentioned in immediate connection with other persons, and in such a way as to imply his own personality.