At baptisms, we repeat the words of Christ in the Great Commission “in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” without realizing that we are referring to the stragglingly in-depth doctrine of the Trinity. Jesus wanted new converts to understand the doctrine of the Trinity. Jesus taught both the oneness of God’s essence and the threeness of the Persons in the Trinity in the baptismal formula: “Baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” (Mt 28:19). The one deity of the Trinity is seen in the singular “name” because God is one in substance or essence. But then Jesus followed up saying baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” or the three persons of the Trinity.
Ryrie quotes B. B. Warfield’s definition of the Trinity which includes some important words to help us comprehend the doctrine of the Trinity: “There is one only and true God, but in the unity of the Godhead there are three coeternal and coequal Persons, the same in substance but distinct in subsistence.”[1] The two important words that give us insight into the Trinity are substance and subsistence. This post is an expanded Trinitarian glossary of significant words necessary to understand the doctrine of the Trinity.
What Kevin Vanhoozer writes about another glossary is useful: “This is a wonderful primer to the grammar of ‘Trinitarian discourse,’ a grammar that is needed not simply to talk theological shop with the professionals but, more importantly, to read the Bible fluently, to name God correctly, to discern the true triune God from idols, and to praise the name of the one who invites us into the fellowship of the Father and the Son through the Spirit.”[2]
1. The word “substance refers to the one essence or nature of the Trinity which is deity.
2. The other important word is subsistence which refers to the distinctions of the three Persons of the Trinity. The Trinity is one God but also three unique Persons.
Theologian Giles Emery captures the difference between substance and subsistence: “The Son is all that the Father is [in substance], except that he is not Father [in subsistence].”[3]
· The first part of this statement speaks of the substance of the Trinity, that is, God is one in essence (Dt 6:4): “The Son is all that the Father is.” All God’s attributes equal God’s substance, essence, or nature.
· The second part of the statement reflects the subsistence of the three Persons of the Trinity. This is also called the personal properties that reveal the uniqueness of the three Persons: “Except that he [the Son] is not Father.”
1. The Ontological Trinity
Ryrie connects the subsistence of the Trinity to “the ontological Trinity [which] focuses on the personal operations of the Persons or the opera ad intra (works within), or personal properties by which the Persons are distinguished. The subsistence of the Trinity has to do with generation (filiation or begetting) [of the Son] and procession [of the Holy Spirit], which attempts to indicate a logical order within the Trinity but does not imply in any way inequality, priority of time, or degrees of dignity.”[4] The subsistence of the three Persons of the Trinity shows how the three Persons are unique from each other while remaining deity. The subsistence of each Person of the Trinity has to do with the eternal origins. The eternal origins of the three Persons make them unique.
· The Father is unbegotten
· The Son is eternally begotten
· The Spirit is eternally spirated. This refers to the paternity of the Father, the filiation of the Son, and the spiration of the Spirit.
Matthew Barrett distinguishes between the essence or substance of the Trinity or the deity which all three persons share and the subsistence which is the uniqueness of each person of the Trinity: “Heretics used the Bible to subordinate the Son. The church fathers used extrabiblical words to protect the Trinity of the Bible. Each person is a ‘subsistence’ of the same ‘simple’ essence. Only eternal relations of origin (unbegotten Father, begotten Son, spirated Spirit) distinguish the persons. The Son is both distinct and equal to the Father because he is begotten from the Father’s essence.”[5]
· The Father is not begotten
· The Son is eternally begotten or eternally generated. In John 1:18; 3:16, Jesus is called “the only begotten Son” or the eternally generated Son. The Father gives life to the Son (John 5:26). This makes the Son unique. Only the Son is begotten.
· Only the Holy Spirit is spirated or proceeds from the Father and the Son according to John 15:26.
The ontological Trinity also reveals the relationship between the three Persons within the Trinity. Ryrie writes, “Fellowship and love within the Godhead is only possible in a trinitarian concept of God, and that fellowship is akin to the believer’s fellowship with Christ”[6] (John 17:24). Theologian A. H. Strong called the ontological Trinity the Social Trinity. “There are personal relations between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit independently of creation and of time; in other words, we maintain that Scripture reveals to us a social Trinity and an intercourse of love apart from and before the existence of the universe. Love before time implies distinctions of personality before time.”[7]
While Strong was orthodox, others who promoted a social Trinity were not orthodox and advocated the three persons to the exclusion of the one essence of deity. Some like Jurgen Moltmann advocated a social trinity or perichoresis and three persons actively involved in creation but stated “We must dispense with both the concept of the one substance and the concept of the identical subjects.”[8] Moltmann rejected the deity or the substance of the Trinity. This heresy was rejected by the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD which affirmed the deity of the Son and the Father.
Paul used the doctrine of the biblical social Trinity to solve church problems. The carnal Corinthians were divided over spiritual gifts and Paul used the perfect unity of the Trinity as example for the Corinthians to follow in 1 Corinthians 12:4-6. If the combatting believers in the Corinthians would follow the example of the biblical social Trinity, they could experience harmony. No Person in the Trinity ever got upset and stomped off mad.
2. The Economic Trinity
The Trinity has a relationship to each other in the ontological Trinity, and to us. The relationship of the Trinity with God’s creation is called opera as extra or the outer works or the economic Trinity. Each Person of the Trinity had a different role or mission in salvation according to Paul in Ephesians 1:4-14. After discussing each Persons's role in our salvation, Paul burst out in praise for each Person’s involvement in our salvation.
God the Father elected us before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4-6). Let’s join Paul in exclaiming “To the praise of the glory of his grace” (1:6).
God the Son redeemed us at salvation and forgave all our sins (Eph 1:7-12) to which we rejoice with Paul “To the praise of the glory of his grace” (1:6).
God the Spirit sealed our salvation until the day of redemption (Eph 1:13-14). Again, we unite with Paul in a doxology: “To the praise of the glory of his grace” (1:6).
See chart by Matthew Barrett that compares the ontological and economic Trinity and places the mission of the Trinity as part of the economic Trinity and the outworking of the ontological Trinity about creation. [9]
The three persons have different functions in the Godhead. Subordinationism is the doctrine that teaches that there are different functions in the Trinity. A. H. Strong states, “Priority is not necessarily superiority …. We frankly recognize an eternal subordination of Christ to the Father, but we maintain at the same time that this subordination is a subordination of order, office, and operation, NOT a subordination of essence.”[10]
Paul again used the doctrine of the Trinity to solve a church conflict at Corinth in 1 Corinthians 11:2-3. Some of the women in the church at Corinth were not following the leadership of the men and Paul used the Trinity to demonstrate that even the Son is subordinate to the leadership of the Father in 1 Corinthians 11:3, “I would have you know that the head of man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God [the Father].” Subordination to God-ordained leadership is not inferiority of persons, because Christ is equal to the Father in their essence, but following the leadership roles established by God is simply obeying the teachings of God’s Word. Ryrie summarized this lesson: “Priority without inferiority as seen in the Trinity is the basis for proper relationships between men and women (1 Cor. 11:3).”[11]
[1] B. B. Warfield, “Trinity,” The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 1:283.
[2] Scott R. Swain, The Trinity: An Introduction (Wheaton: Crossway, 2020).
[3] Giles Emery, The Trinity: An Introduction to Catholic Doctrine on the Triune God (Thomistic Resourcement, The Catholic University of American Press, 2011, 126) quoted in Matthew Barrett, Simply Trinity: The Unmanipulated Father, Son, and Spirit, Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition, 145).
[4] Charles Caldwell Ryrie, Basic Theology: A Popular Systematic Guide to Understanding Biblical Truth (Chicago: Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition, 1999), 61-62.
[5] Matthew Barrett, Simply Trinity: The Unmanipulated Father, Son, and Spirit (Grand Rapids: Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition, 2021), 43.
[6] Charles Caldwell Ryrie, Basic Theology: A Popular Systematic Guide to Understanding Biblical Truth, 68.
[7] A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology (Complete - Volume 1, 2 & 3 of 3) (p. 217). BZ editors. Kindle Edition, 1907), 217.
[8] Jurgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom of God (New York: Harper & Row, 1981), 150).
[9] Matthew Barrett, Simply Trinity: The Unmanipulated Father, Son, and Spirit, 115.
[10] A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology, 342.
[11] Charles Ryrie, Basic Theology: A Popular Systematic Guide to Understanding Biblical Truth, 68.