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The Eternal and Necessary Relations which the Three Divine Persons sustain to Each Other.
The unity of God implies self-existence; the Trinity in unity implies relationship. We believe that there are Three Persons in the Godhead, and that these are distinguished from each other by certain personal relationships. “I do not mean,” writes Dr. Gill, “that the divine nature, in which the divine Persons subsist, distinguishes them; for the nature is one and common to them all. The nature of the Son is the same with that of the Father; and the nature of the Spirit the same with that of the Father and the Son; and this nature which they in common partake of is undivided; it is not parted between them so that one has one part and another a second, and another a third, nor that one has a greater and another a lesser part, which might distinguish them, but the whole fulness of the Godhead is in each.” (“Body of Divinity”)
“It will be seen,” writes J. C. Philpot, “that a distinction is drawn between Essence and Person; but as some of my readers may feel a difficulty in gathering up the distinction between the two, I submit the following idea as an illustration, but be it remembered only as an illustration. Human nature is distinct, or at least distinguishable, from the individual men and women who in common possess that nature. Then we may say that human nature is common to all men and women, and yet the men and women are distinct from one another as individuals. So in a high and mysterious sense, the Essence of Deity, which is self-existent, may be distinguished from the Persons in the Unity, who sustain to each other a peculiar and eternal relationship. In their essence they are One, in their Personality they are Three; in their essence they are self-existent, in their Personality they subsist the Father as Father to the Son, the Son as Son to the Father, the Holy Ghost as proceeding from the Father and the Son. Thus we establish a Trinity in Unity. “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.” There is the unity of the divine essence, “There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost.” There we have the Trinity of Persons in the divine essence, “for these Three are One.” (1 John 5.7). (“The Eternal Sonship of the Lord Jesus Christ” p.84).
The Objection Answered — that Sonship implies Derivation and hence Inferiority.
“An objection brought forward against the eternal Sonship of the blessed Lord is, that it denies His co-eternity and co-equality with the Father” writes J. C. Philpot. “This is their carnal deduction from the doctrine of Christ’s true and proper Sonship, that as a father necessarily exists before a son, if Christ be the true and proper Son of God, He must have come into being subsequently to the Father, and consequently cannot be co-eternal with Him. But to this we answer: 1. We must not carry ideas borrowed from earth and time into heaven and eternity, and weigh and measure the nature and being of God by the nature and being of man. But, 2. Even on natural grounds, so far from a father necessarily existing before a son, it is not true, for though a father exists as a man before he has a son, yet he is not a father before he has a son. Father and son, therefore, even in time, only co-exist at the same instant, for the mutual relationship commences at the same moment. But 3. The very expression, “the eternal Son,” declares His co-eternity with the Father. For are there two eternities? If the Father exist from all eternity as the Father, and the Son exist from all eternity as the Son, is not this co-eternity? In asserting, therefore, His eternity we assert His co-eternity So with His co-equality. And giving Him all the perfections of Deity, and making Him one with the Father and the Holy Ghost in the unity of the divine essence, we assert His equality, and if His equality, His co-equality; for as there are not two eternities, so there are not two equalities. If our blessed Lord is the eternal Son, He is necessarily the co-eternal Son; if He is the equal of the Father, He is His co-equal. Indeed, it is as His Son that He is co-equal with the Father; for as a Son He partakes of His nature, is the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His Person. He, therefore, said to Philip, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, show me the Father? :John 14.9). And again, “I and my Father are One.” In Deity there can be no inequality, in eternity no priority or posteriority. It is because men will persist in carrying earthly ideas into heavenly things that they then stumble and fall at the foundation which God has laid in Zion.” (“The Eternal Sonship of the Lord Jesus Christ,” pp. 84, 85).
“To deny the eternal relationship of the Son of God to God the Father is in reality to confess that at some period if no Son then no Father, and then it must follow no Holy Ghost, seeing that the Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son.” (Patterson).
It is to be noted that when Christ says, “My Father is greater than I” (John 14.28) He does not mean that He is greater with respect to his nature, but with respect to his office as Mediator; in which respect He is the Father’s servant (Isa. 42.1). The apostle Paul in his epistle to the Philippians says of Christ, “Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and being found in fashion as a man He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even to death on the cross.” (ch.2, 6-8).
The Mystery of the Trinity, the Basis of Faith.
“This mystery is not only to be acknowledged or asserted to as a revealed truth, but it is to be embraced by faith, and to be held, and held fast; as many violent and unwearied attacks, both by devils and heretics, will be made against it; and if we are unsound or unsettled in the ground work of foundation, all the rest will be out of order. The building cannot be fitly framed, according to the account of a wise master builder, unless the glorious Proprietor of the building be savingly known; for it is a mystical building, founded in faith, and cemented together in love, and grows up in wisdom, knowledge and power, not by human might, nor by the power of free-will, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts. Take the Apostle’s account: Now therefore, ye are no more strangers, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone; in whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” (Eph. 2:19-22). The apostle tells us that the living stones, the choice materials of this building are God’s household, free-born citizens; and Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone that unites all saints, Jews and Gentiles, antediluvian and post-deluvian saints together; and that the building grows up into a holy temple in the Lord, a habitation of God through the Spirit.
If God the Son be kept out of our faith, there is no foundation; and if God the Father, or the Holy Spirit be left out, where is the inhabitant? “It is an habitation of God through the Spirit.” Christ is the nearest object of faith, as our Mediator. “Ye believe in God, believe also in Me”; for through Christ we believe in God, who “raised Him from the dead.” (1 Peter 1:21). And we receive the promise of the Spirit through faith, and are sealed by Him. This is the groundwork, the basis and power on which faith stands or rests; all the building is in vain without this. “Building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” (Jude 20:21).
The most Holy Trinity is the mystery on which faith rests; and we stand by faith, or rest on the powerful confidence which the arm of God reveals in us. Hence the exhortation: “Hold the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience.” (1 Tim. 3:9). This is called building ourselves up on our most holy faith. Faith is the Father’s gift to us through Christ, and from His fulness it comes, and by the operation of the Spirit it is wrought in us, and therefore called a fruit of the Spirit; this is the basis, namely the Holy Trinity.
Moreover, the Holy Trinity are to be considered in all our addresses and approaches to God: “For through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.” Here is the Father, to whom we find nearness and access, the Surety having removed our sins and a broken law out of the way, and appearing as our Peace-maker and Mediator; through whom we are indulged with this access; and here is one Spirit, under whose influence, as a Spirit of grace and supplications, we draw nigh. This is the new and living way which Christ has consecrated, and He tells us that no man can come to the Father but by Him; and he that enters not by this new way and strait gate, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber; and such thieves and robbers are the Arians, Socinians and Papists, the two former which allow no Mediator, and the latter have brought in a hundred.”
(Extracts from “The God of Israel” by William Huntington.) W.M.