Epilogue

by George Prasher, Manchester, England | Category: The Eternal God Revealed | Dec 1994

Zophar, one of Job's three friends, asked, "Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?" (11:17). Moses' words in Deuteronomy 29:29 suggest a wise answer to the question:

The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever.

During the past year in this series of articles we have been exploring "the things that are revealed" in Holy Scripture about the Eternal God. What wealth of revelation has been considered! Yet we are left with the realization that so much more lies beyond our present understanding. Now we "know in part" (1 Cor. 13:12). The wonder of what has been revealed leads us to bow the heart in adoration; the mystery of secret things as yet unknown constrains us to say with David:

LORD, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty;

Neither do I exercise myself in great matters,

Or in things too wonderful for me (Ps. 131:1)

In this spirit we conclude our year's contemplation of "The Eternal God Revealed".

The overall perspective of God's Self-revelation in Scripture has been

apparent in the monthly development of the subject. Truth about the Godhead was progressively revealed. Genesis opens with the declaration that "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth". This establishes the basic truth that God is the Originator of all things. He Himself transcends that creation in majestic Self-Existence; yet He also pervades all created things - His immanence.

In ~e giving of the Law at Sinai is revealed God's perfect moral character; both His standards of holiness and His compassion, graciousness and mercy. These truths are consistently upheld throughout Old Testament Scripture with special emphasis on the fact of one true God (monotheism) in contrast to the concept of many different gods (polytheism), which darkened the thoughts of the majority of mankind: a point emphasized by Moses in Deuteronomy 6:4, "Hear, 0 Israel: the LORD our God is one LORD".

With the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ, vast new dimensions of truth about the Godhead were disclosed.

No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father; He hath declared Him (John 1:18).

How far-reaching was that declaration! For while maintaining the central truth that God is one (Gal. 3:20), it revealed that within the Godhead are three Persons - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The Father is God: "One God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all" (Eph. 4:6).

The Son is God: "But of the Son He saith, Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever and ever" (Heb. 1:8).

The Spirit is God: "Now the Lord is the Spirit" (2 Cor. 3:17,18).

Here indeed is mystery beyond human comprehension, revealed truth received only by faith. Yet we may be strong to apprehend it, even though it passes our full knowledge (cf. Eph.3:18,19).

The inherent difficulty of conveying to limited human understanding the profound mysteries of the Divine Being is illustrated by the frequent attribution to God of human faculties, as in the examples below:

"...Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers" (Ps. 8:3), "...thick darkness was under His feet" (Ps. 18:9), "...the shaking of the hand of the

LORD" (Is. 19:16).

God is Spirit (John 4:24 RVM) which precludes physical identity with the human body and its limitations. Yet "man is unable to conceive of, and to discuss, God's actions without the employment of terms which present analogies with human acts" (T.C. Hammond). These analogies should therefore be recognized as such, and not thought of in a literal sense.

Over the centuries of Christian experience much reverent thought has been given to statements of Scripture about the nature of God and the relationships between the Persons of the Godhead'. Commendable attempts have been made to analyse and define what these scriptural statements involve. The word Trinity, meaning threefold, expresses the union of Father, Son and Holy Spirit within the Godhead; a truth helpfully and more fully summarized by an American theologian as follows:

There is one only and true God, but in the unity of the Godhead there are three co-equal and co-eternal Persons, the same in substance, but distinct in subsistence (B .B. Warfield).

In this definition, of course, the word "substance" means essential nature, not material substance. It should also be realized that the use of the word "Person" needs to be carefully qualified. For at the human level a person is "a separate rational and moral individual". In relation to the Trinity this is not the case: rather there are "three personal distinctions within the divine essence". Human personality involves independence of will, thought and behaviour peculiar to each individual. Not so within the Godhead, for Father, Son and Spirit, one in essence, are altogether harmonious in personality and will.

We should clearly understand that the relationships between Father, Son and Holy Spirit are eternal. The Son was from everlasting "the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father". This was an unoriginated relationship. The word "begotten" does not imply that His Sonship had a beginning, but indicates a relationship with the Father quite distinct from generation at the human level, a point emphasized in the ancient Nicene Creed: "...one Lord Jesus Christ very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father".

The relationship of the Holy Spirit to the Father and to the Son is understood in the light of John 15:26:

But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall bear witness of Me.

The phrase, "which proceedeth from the Father" is believed to reveal an eternal relationship. Because the Holy Spirit is referred to as the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of His Son, as well as the Spirit of God and the Spirit of the Father, it is understood that He proceeds from both the Father and the Son. As one devout expositor of the Word has expressed it:

Him who is "the Spirit of the Son, sent by the Son", for us men and for our salvation, we humbly and adoringly believe to be related to the Son in the inner sanctuary of Godhead after the manner of an unbeginning and unending Procession, Forthcoming, of Divine Life (H.C.G. Moule - Veni Creator).

We can see then, that answering to the thought of generation of the Son is

that of procession of the Holy Spirit: in both cases denoting, not a coming into existence, but an eternal mode of Being within the Godhead.

Relationships between Father, Son and Holy Spirit appear also to be governed by a certain order, involving a measure of subordination, in relationship, though not in nature. To quote R.A. Finlayson:

The Father as the Fount of Deity is First: He is said to originate. The Son, eternally begotten of the Father is Second: He is said to reveal. The Spirit, eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son is Third: He is said to execute. While this does not suggest priority in time or dignity, since all three Persons are divine and eternal, it does suggest an order of precedence in operation and revelation.

This comment on primacy within the Godhead usefully summarizes what is implied in a number of statements in Scripture. For example, on two occasions in John's Gospel the Lord Jesus spoke of His Father being "greater than all" (10:29) and "greater than I" (14:28). Some have explained these statements as relating to His Self-chosen status in the days of His flesh, the bondservant of Jehovah in this world: but may there not be a deeper reference to His place within the Godhead? - "He that is begotten being secondary to Him who begets". Certainly 1 Corinthians 15:28 indicates a future, eternal subjection of the Son to the Father: "And when all things have been subjected unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subjected to Him that did subject all things unto Him, that God may be all in all".

There is significance also, that in regard to the sending of the Holy Spirit, the other Comforter, the Lord Jesus said:

He shall not speak from Himself but what things soever He shall hear, these shall He speak: ... He shall glorify Me: for He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you (John 16:13,14).

It is with these considerations in view that reference is sometimes made to the First, Second and Third Persons of the Trinity; an order reflected in the terms of the Great Commission, "baptizing them into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Mat. 28:19).

The importance and helpfulness of analysing and defining the teaching of Scripture about the Godhead becomes apparent when we read the Word in the light of such research. For it then becomes evident in many contexts of both Old and New Testaments that the truth of the Trinity is interwoven in the warp and woof of the Word of God. It becomes discernible, for instance, in the three-fold high priestly blessing of Numbers 6:24-26; and in the thrice holy declarations of the seraphim in Isaiah 6:3. Again it emerges in the structure of the second Psalm - the declaration of the Father (verses 4-6); the response of the Son (verses 7-9); the counsel of the Spirit (verses 10-12). It also helps us to understand why "the Angel of the LORD" speaks as a divine Person in such contexts as Genesis 18 or Judges 13. Similarly in Luke 15 the threefold impression of divine love for the lost sinner may well be related to the Son as Shepherd, the Spirit as diligent Seeker and the Father in His yearning to bless the repentant.

To the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and power, before all time, and now, and for evermore. Amen. (Jude v.25).

George Prasher, Manchester, England | Dec 1994
The Eternal God Revealed