Herman Bavinck Quote

 

But Judaism is AntiTrinitarian!!! What Does Scholarship Tell Us?

 
Anthony Rogers quotes scholars [most of whom are not Christians] showing how Trinitarian-like views pre-dated Christianity in Second Temple Judaism, during the intertestamental period, and after the advent of Christianity even to the medieval period.
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But Judaism is AntiTrinitarian!!! What Does Scholarship Tell Us?
https://youtu.be/_1J1O2az8C4

An objection that Unitarians have about these types of quotes is that they are more friendly to Modalism than to Trinitarianism. Here are some of my responses to that objection:

The quotes are useful for a number of reasons: 

1. They refute the claim made by some Unitarians (especially in times past 20 years ago and since before the time of the Reformation) that Judaism has always been monolithic in their understanding and always taught strict monotheism of the kind we find in modern Judaism whereby God is uni-personal without qualification.

2. Even if some of these quotes and views by Jews were more akin to Modalism than Trinitarianism that doesn't mean all of them were more akin to Modalism. But EVEN IF ALL of them were more akin to Modalism, they show how Jews were struggling and grappling with the OT passages that seem to imply plurality and/or fluidity in God. It shows that they were in the process of hammering out a formula of how these things could be, and they tried to do this without the New Testament. Sometimes because the NT didn't yet exist [if they lived BCE/BC], other times because they rejected the NT consciously/intentionally [if they lived during CE/AD].

3. The fact that many of these Jewish views are closer to Modalism shows that they are farther away from Semi-Arianism and Arianism or similar formulations/models.

4. It seems to me that Trinitarianism does best in balancing the oneness of God found in some of these Jewish Modalistic views on the one hand, and on the other hand the proper genuine desire by views like Semi-Arianism and Arianism (and similar views) to affirm the New Testament's teaching of the genuine personal distinctions between the Father and the Son [and the Holy Spirit, though many Unitarians would not consider the HS a distinct person]. Trinitarianism sits comfortably in the middle of Modalism and Semi-Arianism-like views because it takes in ALL of the Biblical evidence that affirms both the real unity of God and the real plurality of God.

5. All the above shows how versions of Humanitarian Unitarianism are ahistorical, aberrant and unlikely correct.

Here are the quotes that Rogers posted on the screen. Note, I'm not sure I always accurately cited the source correctly:

"...it is at least possible to find a clear precedent [in Judaism-AR/Anthony Rogers] of hypostases within the Hebrew Godhead." (Alan Segal, "The Incarnation: The Jewish Milieu," p.116)

"The ideas of Trinity and incarnation, or certainly the germs of those ideas, were already present among Jewish believers well before Jesus came on the scene to incarnate in himself, as it were, those theological notions and take up his messianic calling." (Daniel Boyarkin, "The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ," p. xiii)

"Although the official rabbinic theology suppressed all talk of the Memra or Logos by naming it the heresy of "Two Powers in heaven," both before the Rabbis and contemporaneously with them there was a A MULTITUDE OF JEWS, in both Palestine and the Diaspora, who held onto this version of monotheistic theology." (Daniel Boyarkin, "The Gospel of the Memra," p. 254)

"There is no doubt that the Christianity of the New Testament and the early church fathers of the first centuries CE adopted Jewish monotheism–however, it was not 'pure' monotheism matured to eternal perfection but rather the 'monotheism' that had developed in the postexilic period in the later canonical literature of the Hebrew Bible and noncanonical writings, the so-called apocrypha and pseudopigrapha. The New Testament took up these traditions that existed in Judaism, and did not reinvent but instead expanded and deeped them. The elevation of Jesus of Nazareth as the first-born before all creation, the God incarnate, Son of God, Son of Man, the Messiah: all these basic Christological premises are not pagan or other kinds of aberrations; they are rooted in Second Temple Judaism, regardless of their specifically Christian character." (Peter Schäfer, "Two Gods in Heaven: Jewish Concepts of God in Antiquity" pp. 4-5)

"It may be said that the Jewish mystics recovered the mythical dimension of a biblical motif regarding the appearance of God in the guise of the highest of angels, called 'angel of the Lord'...,'angel of God'..., or 'angel of the Presence"...which sometimes appeared in the form of a man. Evidence for the continuity of the exegetical tradition of an exalted angel that is in effect the manifestation of God is to be found in a wide variety of later sources." (Elliot R. Wolfson, "Through A Speculum That Shines," p. 225)

"In a tradition from the Sar-Torah material of the Hekhalot texts...Metatron is described as 'Metatron, Lord God of Israel, God of the heavens and the Earth.' In the Book of Illumination written by the first known Kabbalist in Castile, R. Ya'acov ben Ya'acov ha-Koken, Metatron is called...logos." (Daniel Abrams, "The Boundaries of Divine Ontology: The Inclusion and Exclusion of Metatron in the Godhead," Harvard Theological Review, 87:3 July 1994, ISSN 0017-8160, p. 296, fn17)

"This approach to the pardes account in general and the role of Metatron in particular can be found in the works of some kabbalists, beginning in the early thirteenth century. Although it may seem that we are reading a rabbinic text through the lenses of the kabbalistic worldview, the understanding of the continuous or organic being of the divine, which extends from the simple unity of the godhead to a hypostatic manifestation, predates much of the Talmud."  (Daniel Abrams, "The Boundaries of Divine Ontology: The Inclusion and Exclusion of Metatron in the Godhead," Harvard Theological Review, 87:3 July 1994, ISSN 0017-8160, p. 296-297)

"In the passage from Nahmanides' Commentary to the Torah discussed by Pines, Nahmanides explicitly takes issue with Maimonides (and with the tenth-century sage Sa‘adia Ga’on by inference), and seeks to characterize the fundamental difference between his tradition and Maimonides' Aristotelian worldview. The difference centers around the inclusion or exclusion of the divine manifestation within the godhead. Nahmanides posits an organic or continuous relationship between God's being and that of the angel–that is, they are both immanent in the same divine substance." (Daniel Abrams, "The Boundaries of Divine Ontology: The Inclusion and Exclusion of Metatron in the Godhead," Harvard Theological Review, 87:3 July 1994, ISSN 0017-8160, p. 297)

"There can be little doubt however that early Jewish theologoumena related to such a [hypostatic, supernal] son existed, as the books dealing with Enoch - in particular the Ethiopian one - and Philo's views...concerning the Logos as Son or firstborn convincingly demonstrate, and likewise there can be little doubt that they informed the main developments in a great variety of the nascent Christologies. In the course of time, due to the ascent in Christianity of both the centrality and cruciality of sonship understood in diverse forms of incarnation, it seems that Jewish authors belonging to rabbinic circles attenuated and in some cases even obliterated the role of sons as cosmic mediators. Nevertheless, some of these earlier traditions apparently survived in traditional Jewish writings that were subsequently transmitted by rabbinic Judaism. Yet there is no reason to assume that only the literary corpora adopted by rabbinic Judaism mediated the late antiquity views of theophoric sonship to the more extensive corpora written in the Middles Ages, or that sonship survived only in the written documents..." (Moshe Idel, "Ben: Sonship and Jewish Mysticism," pp. 49-50)

"In some instances, the Messiah has been conceived also as the representative of the divine into this world. The very fact that the phrase meshiyah YHWH recurs in the sources shows a special connection between him and God. This nexus could sometimes be stronger and richer, as it later became in Christian theology, in the ecstatic Kabbalah and Sabbateanism, or, less evidently, in some other cases in Jewish sources, though such a view is found also in the rabbinic literature, where the Messiah is described as one of the three entities designated by the Tetragrammaton." (Moshe Idel, "Messianic Mystics," p. 41)

"...earlier systems [of Judaism] resorted to the myth of the Messiah as savior and redeemer of Israel, a supernatural figure...even a God-man facing the crucial historical questions of Israel's life and resolving them: the Christ as king of the world, of the ages, of death itself." (Jacob Neusner, "Judaism and the Messiahs At the Turn of the Christian Era," p. 275)

"We shall find four basic messianic paradigms (king, priests, prophet, and heavenly messiah), and they were not equally widespread. (Admittedly, the "heavenly messiah" paradigm is somewhat different from the others, since it is not defined by function, and can overlap with the other paradigms.)" (John J. Collins, "The Scepter and the Star," p. 18)

"There were other paradigms of messianism besides the Davidic one, and some elements of these were found to be applicable to the Christian messiah...We shall find, also, texts that envisage exaltation and enthronement in heaven and texts that apply certain attributes of divinity to a messianic figure." (John J. Collins, "The Scepter and the Star," p. 19-20)

Andrew Murray Affirming the Personhood and Divinity of the Holy Spirit

 

I've read a number of Andrew Murray's book and have been benefited by them tremendously. However, one thing I've noticed whenever I've read his books is how he's reticent to refer to the Holy Spirit as divine or as a person. He doesn't outright deny it, but he sometimes makes statements which made me wonder whether he privately denied the personhood and full divinity of the Holy Spirit, and hence denied the doctrine of the Trinity.

As a Dutch Reformed theologian and pastor he was required to profess belief in the doctrine of the Trinity. It was part of his ordination process. But merely because someone is ordained in a Trinitarian denomination and professes to believe something doesn't necessarily mean that he does or continued to do so afterwards.

However, I have recently found a passage in one of Murray's books where he does seem to kind of affirm the personhood and full divinity of the Holy Spirit. It's not clear or unambiguous. His statements could still be interpreted in a Unitarian or Pneumatomachian way. But it at least approaches an acknowledgement of the full personhood and divinity of the Holy Spirit. It is the closest I recall seeing Andrew Murray doing so. The passage is the 29th chapter in his classic book Waiting On God. Here are various links to the chapter (or book) which is hosted on different websites:

Here: https://ccel.org/ccel/murray/waiting/waiting.xxxii.html

Or Here: https://archive.org/details/waitingongoddail00murr/page/134/mode/2up?ref=ol&view=theater

Or Here: https://www.biblestudytools.com/classics/murray-waiting-god/twenty-ninth-day.html

Or Here: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nnc1.cr60098201&view=1up&seq=141

Or scroll down to chapter 29 Here: https://www.worldinvisible.com/library/murray/waiting/waiting.htm

Here's the text as taken from the last link posted above. I'll highlight in yellow the relevant passages.

Day 29. FOR THE PROMISE OF THE FATHER

"He charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father." Acts1:4 ASV

In speaking of the saints in Jerusalem at Christ's birth—with Simeon and Anna—we saw how the call to waiting is no less urgent now, though the redemption they waited for has come, than it was then. We wait for the full revelation in us of what came to them, but what they could scarcely comprehend. In the same way, it is with waiting for the promise of the Father. In one sense, the fulfillment can never come again as it came at Pentecost. In another sense, and that in as deep a reality as with the first disciples, we need to wait daily for the Father to fulfill His promise in us.

The Holy Spirit is not a person distinct from the Father in the way two persons on earth are distinct. The Father and the Spirit are never without or separate from each other. The Father is always in the Spirit; the Spirit works nothing but as the Father works in Him. Each moment, the same Spirit that is in us is in God, too. And, he who is most full of the Spirit will be the first to wait on God most earnestly to further fulfill His promise and to still strengthen him mightily by His Spirit in the inner man. The Spirit in us is not a power at our disposal. Nor is the Spirit an independent power, acting apart from the Father and the Son. The Spirit is the real, living presence and the power of the Father working in us. Therefore, it is he who knows that the Spirit is in him who waits on the Father for the full revelation and experience of the Spirit's indwelling. It is he who waits for His increase and abounding more and more.

See this in the apostles. They were filled with the Spirit at Pentecost. When they, not long after, on returning from the council where they had been forbidden to preach, prayed afresh for boldness to speak in His name, a fresh coming down of the Holy Spirit was the Father's fresh fulfillment of His promise.

At Samaria, by the Word and the Spirit, many had been converted, and the whole city was filled with joy. At the apostles' prayer, the Father once again fulfilled the promise. (See Acts 8:14-7.) Even so to the waiting company—"We are all here before God"(see Acts 10:33)—in Cornelius' house. And so, too, in Acts 13. It was when men, filled with the Spirit, prayed and fasted, that the promise of the Father was afresh fulfilled, and the leading of the Spirit was given from heaven: "Separate me Barnabas and Saul" (Acts 13:2).

So also we find Paul, in Ephesians, praying for those who have been sealed with the Spirit, that God would grant them the spirit of illumination. And later on, that He would grant them, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by the Spirit in the inner man.

The Spirit given at Pentecost was not something that God failed with in heaven, and sent out of heaven to earth. God does not, cannot, give away anything in that manner. When He gives grace or strength or life, He gives it by giving Himself to work it—it is all inseparable from Himself. Much more so is the Holy Spirit. He is God, present and working in us. The true position in which we can count upon that working with an unceasing power is as we, praising for what we have, still unceasingly wait for the Father's promise to be still more mightily fulfilled.

What new meaning and promise does this give to our lives of waiting! It teaches us to continually keep the place where the disciples tarried at the footstool of the throne. It reminds us that, as helpless as they were to meet their enemies, or to preach to Christ's enemies until they were endued with power, we, too, can only be strong in the life of faith, or the work of love, as we are in direct communication with God and Christ. They must maintain the life of the Spirit in us. This assures us that the omnipotent God will, through the glorified Christ, work in us a power that can bring unexpected things to pass, impossible things. Oh, what the church will be able to do when her individual members learn to live their lives waiting on God—when together, with all of self and the world sacrificed in the fire of love, they unite in waiting with one accord for the promise of the Father, once so gloriously fulfilled, but still unexhausted!

Come and let each of us be still in the presence of the inconceivable grandeur of this prospect: the Father waiting to fill the church with the Holy Spirit. And willing to fill me, let each one say.

With this faith, let a hush and a holy fear come over the soul, as it waits in stillness to take it all in. And, let life increasingly become a deep joy in the hope of the ever fuller fulfillment of the Father's promise.

My soul, wait thou only upon God!

---

Around the beginning of March 2023, I found another quote that is allegedly from Andrew Murray that appears to have him implying the genuine divinity and personality of the Holy Spirit. See page 5 of the pdf HERE of Alliance Weekly. In an article by Rev. Robert D. Kilgour [starting on page 4 in the pdf], he quotes Andrew Murray as saying:

 "Just as wonderful and real is the divine work of God on the throne, graciously hearing, and, by His mighty power, effectually answering prayer; just as divine as is the work of the Son, interceding and securing and transmitting the answer from above, is the work of the Holy Ghost in us in the prayer which awaits and obtains the answer. The intercession within is as divine as the intercession above." END QUOTE

Notice how the author of the quote distinguishes the person of God the Father and His work, then the Son and His work, and then the work of the Holy Spirit. The logic of the quote implies the genuine personality of the Holy Spirit and His separate activity distinct from the work of the Son and the Father. Unfortunately, Kilgour didn't cite where he got that quote. Therefore, I'm uncertain whether it really is from Andrew Murray. I'll continue searching for the source of the quote.

Quotations from the Early Church Fathers Regarding the Deity of the Holy Spirit Compiled by David King

David King is a Christian apologist known (inter alia) for co-writing with William Webster the three volume book, Holy Scripture: The Ground and Pillar of Our Faith. I'm in a Facebook group with him and he posted some interesting quotes from the early church fathers regarding the Holy Spirit in response to someone who seemed to have doubted the Holy Spirit's full Deity. Below I'll reproduce some of his comments:

Ambrose (c. 339-97) commenting on Acts 5:4: Not only does the Scripture in this place clearly bear witness to the θεότης of the Holy Spirit, that is the Godhead, but the Lord himself also said in the Gospel: ‘For the Spirit is God’ (Jn 3:6). See Fathers of the Church, Vol. 44, Saint Ambrose: Theological and Dogmatic Works, On the Holy Spirit, Book III, Chapter 10, §59 (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1963), p. 174.

Basil of Caesarea (A.D. 329-379): We glorify the Holy Ghost together with the Father and the Son, from the conviction that He is not separated from the Divine Nature; for that which is foreign by nature does not share in the same honors. All who call the Holy Ghost a creature we pity, on the ground that, by this utterance, they are falling into the unpardonable sin of blasphemy against Him. I need use no argument to prove to those who are even slightly trained in Scripture, that the creature is separated from the Godhead. The creature is a slave; but the Spirit sets free. The creature needs life; the Spirit is the Giver of life. The creature requires teaching. It is the Spirit that teaches. The creature is sanctified; it is the Spirit that sanctifies. Whether you name angels, archangels, or all the heavenly powers, they receive their sanctification through the Spirit, but the Spirit Himself has His holiness by nature, not received by favour, but essentially His; whence He has received the distinctive name of Holy. What then is by nature holy, as the Father is by nature holy, and the Son by nature holy, we do not ourselves allow to be separated and severed from the divine and blessed Trinity, nor accept those who rashly reckon it as part of creation. Let this short summary be sufficient for you, my pious friends. From little seeds, with the co-operation of the Holy Ghost, you will reap the fuller crop of piety. “Give instruction to a wise man and he will be yet wiser.” I will put off fuller demonstration till we meet. When we do, it will be possible for me to answer objections, to give you fuller proofs from Scripture, and to confirm all the sound rule of faith. For the present pardon my brevity. I should not have written at all had I not thought it a greater injury to you to refuse your request altogether than to grant it in part. NPNF2: Vol. VIII, Letters, Letter 159, To Euraterius and his daughter, §2.

Moreover, taken in context (contrary to the claims of Roman apologists), Athanasius himself is a witness against your claim. In the citation below, while commenting on this passage from Ad Serapion 1.28, Shapland explains: “It is important to understand what Athanasius is appealing to here. The passage from ad Adelph. which we have already quoted makes it clear that tradition to Athanasius is not an indefinite source of knowledge, independent of Scripture. Not only does he insist upon the sufficiency of Scripture (de Syn. 6 and elsewhere), he does not strictly distinguish tradition and Scripture. See Robertson, Intro. lxxiv. Nor is he appealing to the authority of earlier Fathers. . . .The real direction of Athanasius’s appeal is to be understood from the citation of the baptismal formula later on. It is of the faith as delivered, expounded, and confessed in baptism that he is thinking. Thus the τεθεμελίωται of the succeeding sentence is taken up again in the preamble to the citation of Matthew 28:19 by τοῦτον θεμέλιον τιθέναι, making it plain that the θεμέλιον is nothing other than the threefold Name as invoked in baptism. See C. R. B. Shapland, trans., The Letters of Athanasius Concerning the Holy Spirit, Ad Serapion 1.28 (New York: The Philosophical Library, 1951), footnote # 28², pp. 133-134. Thus Athanasius is not appealing to some unwritten oral tradition, but the testimony of Scripture in Matthew 28…

Athanasius (297-373): These sayings concerning the Holy Spirit, by themselves alone, show that in nature and essence he has nothing in common with or proper to creatures, but is distinct from things originate, proper to, and not alien from, the Godhead and essence of the Son; in virtue of which essence and nature he is of the Holy Triad, and puts their stupidity to shame.

But, beyond these sayings, let us look at the very tradition, teaching, and faith of the Catholic Church from the beginning, which the Lord gave, the Apostles preached, and the Fathers kept. Upon this the Church is founded, and he who should fall away from it would not be a Christian, and should no longer be so called. There is, then, a Triad, holy and complete, confessed to be God in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, having nothing foreign or external mixed with it, not composed of one that creates and one that is originated, but all creative; and it is consistent and in nature indivisible, and its activity is one. The Father does all things through the Word in the Holy Spirit. Thus the unity of the Holy Triad is preserved. Thus one God is preached in the Church, ‘who is over all, and through all, and in all’—‘over all’, as Father, as beginning, as fountain; ‘through all’, through the Word; ‘in all’, in the Holy Spirit. It is a Triad not only in name and form of speech, but in truth and actuality. For as the father is he that is, so also his Word is one that is and God over all. And the Holy Spirit is not without actual existence, but exists and has true being. Less than these (Persons) the Catholic Church does not hold lest she sink to the level of the modern Jews, imitators of Caiaphas, and to the level of Sabellius. Nor does she add to them by speculation, lest she be carried into the polytheism of the heathen. And that they may know this to be the faith of the Church, let them learn how the Lord, when sending forth the Apostles, ordered them to lay this foundation for the Church, saying: ‘Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ (Matthew 28:19). C. R. B. Shapland, trans., The Letters of Athanasius Concerning the Holy Spirit, Ad Serapion 1.27-28 (New York: The Philosophical Library, 1951), pp. 133-136.

Niceta of Remesiana (335-415): However, it is possible that these benign and beneficent qualities do not rouse our mind to an understanding of the power of the Holy Spirit. Let us turn, then, to aspects more terrifying. It is written in the Acts of the Apostles that the disciple Ananias sold his possessions and by fraud kept back part of the price, and, bringing the rest in place of the whole, laid it at the feet of the Apostles. He offended the Holy Spirit whom he had thought to deceive. Now, what did St. Peter without hesitation say to him? ‘Ananias, why has Satan tempted thy heart, that thou shouldest lie to the Holy Spirit?’ Then he added: ‘Thou hast not lied to men, but to God.’ And being struck by the power of Him whom he had hoped to deceive, he expired. What does St. Peter here mean by the Holy Spirit? He clearly gives the answer when he says: ‘Thou hast not lied to men, but to God.’ It is clear that one who lies to the Holy Spirit lies to God; therefore, one who believes in the Holy Spirit believes in God. The wife of Ananias, who connived at the lie, also joined him in his death. FC, Vol. 7, Writings of Niceta of Remesiana, The Power of the Holy Spirit, §17 (New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1949), p. 37. Migne attributed this work mistakenly to Niceta the Bishop of Aquileia. See FC, Vol. 7, Introduction (New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1949), p. 6.

Augustine (354-430): When the apostle said, Do you not know that your body is the temple in your midst of the Holy Spirit whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a great price, he immediately goes on to say, Glorify God, then, in your body (1 Cor 6:19-20). There he showed with utter clarity that the Holy Spirit is God and that he should be glorified in our body as if in his temple. The apostle Peter said to Ananias, Have you dared to lie to the Holy Spirit? And to show that the Holy Spirit is God, he said, You have not lied to men, but to God (Acts 5:3-4). John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., ed., The Works of Saint Augustine, Arianism and Other Heresies, Answer to Maximinus the Arian, Book II:XXI.1, Part 1, Vol. 18, trans. Roland J. Teske, S.J. (Hyde Park: New City Press, 1995), p. 304.

Epiphanius of Salamis (310/320-403): Peter also makes us certain of the Holy Spirit by saying to Ananias, “Why hath Satan tempted you to lie to the Holy Ghost? You have not lied to men, but unto God,” for the Spirit is of God and not different from God. Frank Williams, trans., The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis: Book II and III (Sects 47-80, De Fide) Section IV, 59. Against the impure “Purists,” 10,1 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994), p. 109.

Gregory of Nazianzus (329/330-389): But now the swarm of testimonies [i.e. scriptural testimonies] shall burst upon you from which the Deity of the Holy Ghost shall be shewn to all who are not excessively stupid, or else altogether enemies to the Spirit, to be most clearly recognized in Scripture. Look at these facts:—Christ is born; the Spirit is His Forerunner. He is baptized; the Spirit bears witness. He is tempted; the Spirit leads Him up. He works miracles; the Spirit accompanies them. He ascends; the Spirit takes His place. What great things are there in the idea of God which are not in His power? What titles which belong to God are not applied to Him, except only Unbegotten and Begotten? For it was needful that the distinctive properties of the Father and the Son should remain peculiar to Them, lest there should be confusion in the Godhead Which brings all things, even disorder itself, into due arrangement and good order. Indeed I tremble when I think of the abundance of the titles, and how many Names they outrage who fall foul of the Spirit. He is called the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, the Mind of Christ, the Spirit of The Lord, and Himself The Lord, the Spirit of Adoption, of Truth, of Liberty; the Spirit of Wisdom, of Understanding, of Counsel, of Might, of Knowledge, of Godliness, of the Fear of God. For He is the Maker of all these, filling all with His Essence, containing all things, filling the world in His Essence, yet incapable of being comprehended in His power by the world; good, upright, princely, by nature not by adoption; sanctifying, not sanctified; measuring, not measured; shared, not sharing; filling, not filled; containing, not contained; inherited, glorified, reckoned with the Father and the Son; held out as a threat; the Finger of God; fire like God; to manifest, as I take it, His consubstantiality); the Creator-Spirit, Who by Baptism and by Resurrection creates anew; the Spirit That knoweth all things, That teacheth, That bloweth where and to what extent He listeth; That guideth, talketh, sendeth forth, separateth, is angry or tempted; That revealeth, illumineth, quickeneth, or rather is the very Light and Life; That maketh Temples; That deifieth; That perfecteth so as even to anticipate Baptism, yet after Baptism to be sought as a separate gift; That doeth all things that God doeth; divided into fiery tongues; dividing gifts; making Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors, and Teachers; understanding manifold, clear, piercing, undefiled, unhindered, which is the same thing as Most wise and varied in His actions; and making all things clear and plain; and of independent power, unchangeable, Almighty, all-seeing, penetrating all spirits that are intelligent, pure, most subtle (the Angel Hosts I think); and also all prophetic spirits and apostolic in the same manner and not in the same places; for they lived in different places; thus showing that He is uncircumscript.

30. They who say and teach these things, and moreover call Him another Paraclete in the sense of another God, who know that blasphemy against Him alone cannot be forgiven, and who branded with such fearful infamy Ananias and Sapphira for having lied to the Holy Ghost, what do you think of these men? Do they proclaim the Spirit God, or something else? Now really, you must be extraordinarily dull and far from the Spirit if you have any doubt about this and need some one to teach you. NPNF2: Vol. VII, The Fifth Theological Oration On the Holy Spirit, Oration XXXI, §29-30.

Quotations About the Trinity

I'll be collecting and posting interesting and notable quotes on the Trinity and Trinitarianism in this blogpost.

In the declaration, then, of this doctrine unto the edification of the church, there is contained a farther explanation of the things before asserted, as proposed directly and in themselves as the object of our faith, — namely, how God is one, in respect of his nature, substance, essence, Godhead, or divine being; how, being Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, he subsists in these three distinct persons or hypostases; and what are their mutual respects to each other, by which, as their peculiar properties, giving them the manner of their subsistence, they are distinguished one from another; with sundry other things of the like necessary consequence unto the revelation mentioned. And herein, as in the application of all other divine truths and mysteries whatever, yea, of all moral commanded duties, use is to be made of such words and expressions as, it may be, are not literally and formally contained in the Scripture; but only are, unto our conceptions and apprehensions, expository of what is so contained. And to deny the liberty, yea, the necessity hereof, is to deny all interpretation of the Scripture, — all endeavours to express the sense of the words of it unto the understandings of one another; which is, in a word, to render the Scripture itself altogether useless. For if it be unlawful for me to speak or write what I conceive to be the sense of the words of the Scripture, and the nature of the thing signified and expressed by them, it is unlawful for me, also, to think or conceive in my mind what is the sense of the words or nature of the things; which to say, is to make brutes of ourselves, and to frustrate the whole design of God in giving unto us the great privilege of his word.- John Owen, Brief Declaration and Vindication of The Doctrine of the Trinity

“The Old Testament may be likened to a chamber richly furnished but dimly lighted; the introduction of light brings into it nothing which was not in it before; but it brings out into clearer view much of what is in it but was only dimly or even not at all perceived before. The mystery of the Trinity is not revealed in the Old Testament; but the mystery of the Trinity underlies the Old Testament revelation, and here and there almost comes into view. Thus the Old Testament revelation of God is not corrected by the fuller revelation that follows it, but only perfected, extended and enlarged.” —Benjamin Breckinridge Warfied, Biblical Doctrines (New York: Oxford University Press, 1932; reprint, Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 141-42

Nothing could be more relevant to your life than the doctrine of the Trinity. For life is meaningless to you unless you know life’s meaning. And the meaning of life, the ultimate purpose of life, the greatest good, the supreme value, is love. And the doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation for that, because it means that love ‘goes all the way up’ into ultimate reality, into the very essence of God. The doctrine of the Trinity means that God is love.- Peter Kreeft, Because God Is Real, (Ignatius Press, 2008), p.87.

This is why I believe the intra-Trinitarian love is the basis and ground of creaturely morality. I plan to eventually write a blog on this concept.

An ordinary simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He is trying to get into touch with God. But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God, so to speak, inside him. But he also knows that all his real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God – that Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him. You see what is happening. God is the thing to which he is praying – the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing inside him which is pushing him on – the motive power. God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal. So that whole threefold life of the three-personal Being is actually going on in that ordinary little bedroom where an ordinary man is saying his prayers. - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Christian (and Jewish Messianic Believer in Jesus) Dr. Michael L. Brown, wrote

Interestingly, Dr. Benjamin Sommer, a professor in Bible and ancient Near Eastern languages at the Jewish Theological Seminary (that’s right, the Jewish Theological Seminary), came to similar conclusions in his recent book, The Bodies of God. He wrote: “Some Jews regard Christianity’s claim to be a monotheistic religion with grave suspicion, both because of the doctrine of the trinity (how can three equal one?) and because of Christianity’s core belief that God took bodily form. . . . No Jew sensitive to Judaism’s own classical sources, however, can fault the theological model Christianity employs when it avows belief in a God who has an earthly body as well as a Holy Spirit and a heavenly manifestation, for that model, we have seen, is a perfectly Jewish one. A religion whose scripture contains the fluidity traditions [referring to God appearing in bodily form in the Tanakh], whose teachings emphasize the multiplicity of the shekhinah, and whose thinkers speak of the sephirot does not differ in its theological essentials from a religion that adores the triune God.”

So, it appears that there are Jewish scholars who do not believe in Yeshua who can see what my dear friend Rabbi Blumenthal cannot. Let’s continue to pray for Rabbi Blumenthal!

More quotes regarding Sommer's book Here.

In no other subject is error more dangerous, or inquiry more laborious, or the discovery of truth more profitable. - Augustine De Trinitate 1.3.5 

God created us so that the joy He has in Himself might be ours. God doesn't simply think about Himself or talk to Himself. He enjoys Himself! He celebrates with infinite and eternal intensity the beauty of who He is as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And we've been created to join the party!- Sam Storms, A Christian Theory of Everything

 Before going on, notice the practical importance of this. All sorts of people are fond of repeating the Christian statement that ‘God is love’. But they seem not to notice that the words ‘God is love’ have no real meaning unless God contains at least two Persons. Love is something that one person has for another person. If God was a single person, then before the world was made, He was not love.- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

The Trinity eternally had communion. The uni-personal God, only one Person, no Trinity, is, to a gracious mind reflecting on the subject, an impossible thing. For a moment reflect. Eternally alone, eternally silent, eternally without communion, no creatures made, no Fellow with Himself, what an awful thought! Unitarianism is the utmost blank, and the most terrible conception imaginable. But the Trinity in Unity, the Father un-begotten, the Son begotten, the Spirit proceeding from Them both, Three Persons equal in essence, power, and glory, but distinct in Personality, distinct, but not different, having eternal communion; this received by faith is a glorious truth to a soul. On this eternal communion between the Three Persons in the Godhead, is built the communion of the saints; communion of saints follows. Think for a moment what it would be if we had no fellowship of any kind with one another, or any creature. What a blank this world would be! What a blank would the house be, no fellowship, no interchange of any sort of thought, or plan, or love, or wish, or design, always in yourself! It is a great thing if we are enabled to believe with a God-given faith in the Trinity. - J.K. Popham, The Testimony of the Trinity

The late Martin Hengel exposed many of the tenuous arguments put forward for an evolutionary process of christological development, He argued: "The time between the death of Jesus and the fully developed Christology which we find in the earliest Christian documents, the letters of Paul, is so short that the development which takes place within it can only be called amazing."6 If that is the case, then "more happened in this period of less than two decades than in the whole next seven centuries, up to the time when the doctrine of the early church was completed."7- How Jesus Became God, p. 13

6. Martin Hengel, "Christology and New Testament Chronology: A Problem in the History of Earliest Christianity," in Between Jesus and Paul (London: SCM, 1983), 31

7. Martin Hengel, The Son of God: The Origin of Christology and the History of Jewish-Hellenistic Religion (London: SCM, 1975), 4. This reminds me also of G. B. Caird's remark (New Testament Theology [ed. LD. Hurst; Oxford: Clarendon, 1994], 343): "the highest Christology of the NT is also its earliest."- How Jesus Became God, p. 207

"Martin Hengel, perhaps the greatest living scholar of Christian origins, is correct in saying,

The discrepancy between the shameful death of a Jewish state criminal and the confession that depicts this executed man as a preexistent divine figure who becomes man and humbles himself to a slave's death is, as far as I can see, without analogy in the ancient world.17

17 The Son of God: The Origin of Christology and the History of Jewish-Hellenistic Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976), 1."
"- James R. Edwards, Is Jesus The Only Savior?, p. 55.

//The Old Testament may be likened to a chamber richly furnished but dimly lighted; the introduction of light brings into it nothing which was not in it before; but it brings out into clearer view much of what is in it but was only dimly or even not at all perceived before. The mystery of the Trinity is not revealed in the Old Testament; but the mystery of the Trinity underlies the Old Testament revelation, and here and there almost comes into view. Thus the Old Testament revelation of God is not corrected by the fuller revelation which follows it, but only perfected, extended and enlarged. //
 The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity - Benjamin B. Warfield

“It should be quite clear that Paul is including the Lord Jesus Christ in the unique divine identity. He is redefining monotheism as christological monotheism. If he were understood as adding the one Lord to the one God of whom the Shema’ speaks, then, from the perspective of Jewish monotheism, he would certainly be producing, not christological monotheism, but outright ditheism. The addition of a unique Lord to the unique God of the Shema’ would flatly contradict the uniqueness of the latter…..Paul is not adding to the one God of the Shema’ a ‘Lord’ the Shema’ does not mention. He is identifying Jesus as the ‘Lord’ whom the Shema’ affirms to be one.”
- Richard Bauckham’s book Jesus and the God of Israel

https://seminaryramblings.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/the-shema-and-1-cor-86/


And God has appeared glorious to me, on account of the Trinity. It has made me have exalting thoughts of God, that he subsists in three persons; Father, Son and Holy Ghost. The sweetest joys and delights I have experienced, have not been those that have arisen from a hope of my own good estate; but in a direct view of the glorious things of the gospel. When I enjoy this sweetness, it seems to carry me above the thoughts of my own estate; it seems at such times a loss that I cannot bear, to take off my eye from the glorious, pleasant object I behold without me, to turn my eye in upon myself, and my own good estate.—Jonathan Edwards, "Personal Narrative," 1740.

From Charles Spurgeon's sermon "My Lord and My God." Spurgeon said of Arianism:

"The slander proposed by the Arian must, therefore, be rejected with derision. I am almost ashamed to have mentioned it, but in these days, when every kind of error is rife, it is needful to bring to light and break in pieces many idols which we had rather have left with the moles and bats."

Later in the same sermon:

"This exclamation is also a brief confession of faith, “My Lord and my God.” Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he be able to unite with Thomas heartily in this creed, “My Lord and my God.” I do not go in for all the minute distinctions of the Athanasian Creed, but I have no doubt that it was absolutely needful at the time it was written, and that it materially helped to check the evasions and tricks of the Arians. This short creed of Thomas I like much better, for it is brief, pithy, full, sententious, and it avoids those matters of detail which are the quicksands of faith. Such a belief is needful; but no man can truly hold it unless he be taught by the Holy Ghost. He can say the words, but he cannot receive the spiritual truth. No man can call Jesus “Lord” but by the Holy Ghost. It is therefore a most needful and saving creed that we should cry to the Lord Jesus, My Lord and my God.” I ask you to do this now in your hearts. Renew your faith, and confess that he who died for you is your Lord and God. Socinians may call Jesus what they please; to me he is God over all, blessed for ever. I know that you say, “Amen.” "