Debating the Trinity, Part III

In the previous post, I argued that the different functional properties of each person of the Trinity should not indicate a difference in nature as Tom McCall and Keith Yandell argue it does.  The God of the Bible is not defined as a sum of all properties equally attributed to every Person.  Rather, there are good reasons to hold to the distinct, personal, and relative properties of authority and submission in the Triune God.  Though there are many reasons, for the sake of the space that we have, I will offer here a few:

(1) We should be instructed by the biblical names of Father and Son.  If Scripture wanted to preserve an equal-function Godhead, the obvious word choice would have been Friend or Partner which the canonical history provides themes to operate within, rather than a father-son framework.  The difference is not in substance, but only relationally.  Yet, still in this relationship, the language that Scripture uses employs authority and submission.  They are not described as brothers, but Father and Son.  The function of fatherhood does not fundamentally add or subtract to the nature of God.  Herman Bavinck adds this analogy, "A human person who becomes a father does not fundamentally change, but only acts in a relation that had been foreign to him earlier."  The names Father and Son are inconsequential if they do not instruct us on how they are relationally distinct from one to another. 

(2)  The kingship of Christ instructs us on how the Son and the Father relate.  The title King is peculiar to the Son, not the Father.  Yet, the title is bestowed by the Father.  "You are my Son; today I have begotten you" (Psalm 2:7) - the Davidic royal psalm that is ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the Son of God when he was raised from the dead (Acts 13:33).   Keith Yandell argues that, "Scriptural talk about begetting is about Bethlehem; the Son was begotten when Jesus was conceived and born."  Yet this seems to ignore entirely how Scripture uses the theme of begetting. It refers to the appointing power of the Father that raised the Son from the dead, seated him at his right hand, and gave him authority over all things and a name that is above every name (Ephesians 2:19-22).   

It was the eternal plan of the Father to unite all things in King Jesus (Ephesians 1:8-10) and to show the manifold wisdom of his gospel realized in King Jesus (Ephesians 3:10-11).  The Father blesses all those who are identified under his headship.  There is no biblical warrant to pass off the word begotten to refer simply to Bethlehem.  It refers to the Father's appointment of a King over his kingdom.  King David was appointed king over Israel, but it is the Son appointed by the Father who rules the nations at his right hand.

(3)  One remaining question that endured throughout the entire debates was, What properties distinguish Father, Son and Spirit?  If you deny the meaning and implications of the words Father and Son, then you have, as Grudem points out, only Person A, Person A, and Person A.  Our contemporary individualistic mindset should not inform our understanding of the Triune God.  The Godhead is not only intra-relational, but intra-dependant.  Each has an eternal role to carry out.

The same is true of our gender roles in marriage and in the Church.  Galatians 3:28, "There is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" should not indicate that there are now no important distinctions between male and female.  If we are to take this argument literally, we should keep the proceeding verse in mind, "For in Christ Jesus, we are all sons of God through faith" (Galatians 3:26).  Parity should not be the unique quality desired in the Trinity, nor in gender.  John Owen writes on the necessity of this diversity in the Trinity, "They which thus know each other, love each other, delight in each other, must needs be distinct; and so are they represented unto our faith."   Let us glory in our distinctions - it's a very God-like exercise.