G.D. Watson
While no one can be a New Testament Christian without an unquestioning faith that there are Three Divine Persons in the Godhead, of the same substance, eternity and glory; yet there are very few who have searched into the Bible doctrine upon this subject, sufficient to find out the mode of the Divine existence, or the offices of these three Divine Persons, or the experiences we may have in communion with them. In treating upon this blessed theme, we want to examine some Scriptures on the subject. We will then endeavour to form a clear view of the mode of God's existence, and then the special functions of the adorable Trinity.
It is a beautiful task to study about God. The human mind can never be employed on any subject so full of rich reward as when trying to find out the knowledge of God. To search after the character and perfections of God is the highest science, the deepest philosophy, the loftiest poetry, the sublimest history, the truest theology and the most thrilling biography.
1. Let us examine some Scripture passages that unmistakably set forth that the true and living God is a community of three Divine Persons. In the Old Testament the word "Elohim", translated God, is in the plural form, indicating more than one Person. God is spoken of by the name "Father", about ten times in the Old Testament. The second Person in the Godhead is spoken of as the "Son of God" nearly as many times, and the Holy Spirit as a Divine Person is spoken of scores of times. When we come to the New Testament where the Son of God is manifest in flesh and blood, the veil that seemed to hang over the Divine Trinity in the Old Testament, is entirely removed. Nothing can be more clear than the revelation of the Godhead, as Father, Son and Holy Ghost in the gospels and epistles.
In Matthew 3:16 we read, "When Jesus was baptized, the Heavens were opened unto Him, and the Spirit of God descended like a dove, and lighted upon Him, and a voice from Heaven said, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased". Here we see the Son of God standing on the earth in His humanity, and then the Holy Spirit descending from the Father and resting on the incarnate Son in a visible form, and then the unseen but distinctly heard Person of the eternal Father, speaking from Heaven. Here are not only three Divine Persons, but they are acting in perfect unity, and their relative positions exactly set forth their special offices, as the authoritative Father, the submissive and obedient Son, and the proceeding and anointing Holy Spirit.
In Matthew 28 :19, Jesus commands His ministers, "to go and make disciples among all nations, baptizing them in the name (or into the name) of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost". Here again is the Trinity of Persons with perfect oneness of nature. A name in Scripture indicates the nature of the person or thing bearing the name, and hence you notice the name is one, but the Persons are three, baptizing them not into the names, but into the name, that is, into the Divine nature of one God, Who is the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
In John 14:16-26, we read, "I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, even the Spirit of Truth". And again, "but the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things". And again in John 15:26, "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 testify of me".
In all three of these passages, we have a perfect statement of the three Divine Persons, acting in perfect unity, yet each Person in the same relative position—the Father as the Fountain of all authority; the Son as obeying the Father, revealing, and teaching, and praying, in His prophetic and priestly offices; and then the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father, by the command of the Son, as the anointing and powerful Comforter.
We read in Acts 1:7-8, that the Father had retained all things in His own power, "but ye shall receive power, (or as the margin reads, the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you) and ye shall be witnesses unto me". Here is the same invariable order of function in the blessed Trinity, namely the supreme authority of the Father, the mediation and redeeming work of the Son, for Whom believers are to witness; and then the Holy Ghost coming from the Father and the Son, to fill believers with power and boldness sufficient to send them to the ends of the earth, or to be martyrs.
In Ephesians 2:18 we read that through Christ, "we both have access by one Spirit, unto the Father". Here is the same unchanging order of the three Divine Persons; Jesus is the Mediator, through Whom we have access by the operation within us of the Holy Spirit, unto the Person of the Father, Who is the Divine Fountain Head, the ultimate resting place of our souls. More than a score of similar passages could be cited, in which the three Persons of the Godhead are mentioned, and always the invariable order of office belonging to each Person.
2. The mode of Divine existence. Let us put together all the various thoughts which we gather from the Bible, as to the order of the Divine Personalities, and find out how there are three Persons of eternal necessity, and only three, and the relation they sustain to each other. It will not hurt us, but help us, to do a little deep thinking, and go slow in these sublime mysteries. After we get through, it will be so much easier to understand a great many things about God, and the Bible, and our own religious experiences which have in the past so puzzled and perplexed numberless Christians.
There is only one God. The Scriptures declare this over and over. Hence Unitarians and Mohammedans are gravely false when they charge us Christians with worshipping three Gods. There is one and only one Divine Being, Who is a Spirit-substance, without beginning, without ending, without increase, without diminuition, with absolute power, knowledge, truth, love, justice, wisdom, goodness. He fills all immensity, possesses every possible perfection in all infinite degree, and is eternally immutable.
In this one Divine substance of Spiritual Being, there are of necessity and eternally, three coordinate Persons—the Father, the eternally begotten Son, the Word of the Father, the eternally proceeding Holy Spirit. There are not two Fathers, nor two Sons, nor two Holy Spirits, nor two Gods; but one Father, one Son, and one Holy Spirit, Who exist in one blissful, uncreated unity of substance and being. The Father is the Fountain in the Godhead, supreme in authority and love Who utters forth His word in a second Person and pours forth His Spirit in a third Person.
The Father is never commanded, is never sent on a mission, is never subjected to humiliation, like the Son. He is never sent forth like the Spirit nor is visible to human vision like the Son—Lamb, or the Spirit—Dove. As
Paul says, He forever "dwells in a light that no man can approach unto". We are told in Scripture that the Father made His Son to have dominion over all things, visible and invisible, with one exception, and that was the Father. It is the supreme office of the Father to love, and give.
The second Person is the only begotten Son, the Word of God, the Father. Of necessity the Divine Being must utter forth the blissful knowledge He had of Himself; and this utterance, this outspoken Word, this Infinite delight, which God has in His own perfection, breaks forth of necessity into a glorious Person, called the Word of God, the Son of the Father's love. It is through God's understanding that He knows Himself, and His self- knowledge inside the bosom of God, constitutes the eternal generation of the Son. Ever since God existed, He certainly saw and understood His own infinite blessedness, and as God's self-knowledge of His own bliss, constitutes the very Person of His Word, of His dear Son, you see that of necessity the Son is of the same eternity with the Father.
When God said within Himself, "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee", (Psa 2:7), we are to understand it as an eternal act, inside the glorious Godhead, without beginning, and without ending. God's knowledge of Himself is not an act once done and finished, but an act incessant, and ongoing forever and ever. Therefore the ecstatic joy of God's looking into Himself, and understanding Himself, and speaking forth that self-knowledge, which constitutes the generation of the Son inside the Divine bosom, is transpiring at this moment, in all the vastness of the Divine Nature, just as it has been transpiring in the eternal past, and will continue through the eternal future. No angel mind, that has been gazing for countless ages into the glad perfections of God, could begin to tell us of the infinite bliss that God has in seeing His own glory, in understanding the riches and perfections inside of His own bosom. It is in this unimaginable bliss that the Father has in Himself, which forms the Person of His Son, we see the reason why Scripture piles on the emphasis about Christ being the "beloved Son", "His dear Son", "the only begotten Son", and the "Son of His love".
When the eternal Father gazes down into the blissful immensity of His own fullness, it is not a mere look, a mere glance of the eye, but it is vital, and substantial, and reproductive. It is this abiding act of His infinite fecundity which forms another Divine Person; co-equal, and co-eternal, with His own Person, that adorable, begotten Son, Who dwells in the bosom of the Father. He is the articulation of the Father's self-knowledge, the pronouncing of the gladness of God's understanding, and hence is named "the Word, which was in the beginning with God, and which was God".
The Person of the Holy Ghost is constituted by the union of the love of the Persons of the Father, and the Son, for each other. The Father loves the Person of His outspoken Word, with all the strength of His omnipotence, and the only begotten Son loves the Person of His Father to the uttermost extent possible to Divinity. The union of these two streams of melting, burning love, is so powerful, so unctuous, that it constitutes a third personality inside of the one Divine essence, and that is the Person of the Holy Spirit, Who proceedeth, floweth, like a river of burning omnipotence, without beginning and without ending, from the Father and from the Son.
The Holy Ghost is not begotten like the Son, and is not outspoken from the Father, but Scripture emphatically states "He proceedeth" from the other two Divine Persons. Just as the second Person is produced by God's knowledge of Himself, so the third Person is produced by God's love of Himself. Just as the Son is light, wisdom, knowledge, understanding, revelation, truth, so the Holy Spirit is heat, emotion, feeling, energy, unction, power, love.
We could gather over a hundred passages of Scripture, that would perfectly fit in with this statement of how the three Persons in the Godhead exist. The Holy Spirit was spoken of by the ancient fathers, as the "Divine Jubilee" because in His Person the joyous love of Father and Son were united. He was also spoken of as the "Divine Kiss", for in His Person was the fruition of the reciprocal greeting of the two loves of the Father and the Son.
The Holy Spirit is always compared to things in motion, like air, heat, fire, exuding oil, a living dove, and a flowing river. He is never compared to standing water, but to a flowing river, a gushing stream. Motion is force, power; hence the Holy Spirit is constantly referred to in Scripture as the power of God, the Energizer, the Person Who imparts Divine feeling, Divine motion. As Christ is generated by the Divine understanding, and reveals to us the truth of the Father; so the Person of the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the burning mutual love of the Father, and the Son, causes us to feel, to experience, to rejoice, in what the Son reveals.
The Holy Spirit proceeds from, and always obeys the Father and the Son, but there is not a single Scripture where the Spirit exercises any authority inside the Divine nature, but His authority is over creatures. The fecundity of the Father is seen in the production of the Word; and the fecundity of the Father and the Son is seen in producing the eternally proceeding Spirit. The Holy Spirit has no fecundity inside the Godhead, and is the limit to Divine personalities. But as if to compensate His blessed Person, His fecundity is manifest outside the Divine nature, in giving life to numberless creatures. When the Son of God had created all things, it was the Spirit that brooded over creation, and filled creation with living creatures and it is by the fruitful Spirit that penitent sinners are born again.
A beautiful type of this is set forth in Scripture in the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Every Bible reader will recognize the fact that Abraham is a biographical type of God the Father, and that Isaac is a type of God, the Son, that peaceful and obedient Son Who obeyed His Father, even to being offered up in sacrifice. But how few Bible readers ever remember, that just as truly as in either of the other cases, Jacob was a type of the Holy Spirit, because of his fruitfulness, from whom came the twelve tribes, the twelve Princes in the kingdom, corresponding with the twelve gates in the Bridehood city, and corresponding with the twelve manner of fruits spoken of in Scripture, which is produced by the Holy Spirit or the tree of life.
3. The various offices of the three Divine Persons correspond most accurately with the three great functions in our bodies—the heart, the head and the hand. God, the Father, is the infinite heart in the Godhead, the original, unseen, living fountain, from which the other Persons flow. In every living creature, the heart is the first thing that is formed. From it, the next organ that is produced, is the head. From these there come forth the hands, or wings. Every part and atom of a human body was at one time in the heart. The eternal Father is, in the Godhead, what the heart is in the body—the fountain, the spring, hidden out of sight—and its special function is to live and give for with every pulse it is giving. God is love. The Father so loved "that He gave His only begotten Son". The Holy Ghost is the gift, the promise of the Father. The Father has appointed His Son to be the head over all things. Paul tells us, all things are to be headed up, or retreaded, in Christ. The head is the organ of knowledge, understanding, wisdom, revelation, dominion, Kingship, judging, speaking—all of which functions are in Scripture, in multiplied ways, ascribed to our blessed Lord Jesus. As in the production of every natural life, the head is the first organ that is produced out of the heart, so God's Word is the first begotten, the firstborn, the adorable Person, Who comes next to the eternal Father. As the hand is the third organ formed from the pulses of the heart and head, and is pre-eminently the organ of power, of executive strength, of ministry to all the body, so the Person of the Holy Ghost, Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, is the hand, the power, the executive Minister, the unction, the all efficient Agent of the Godhead. The hand obeys the heart and the head, as the Holy Ghost implicitly and powerfully carries out the will of the Father and the Son. As the hand is that organ that ministers to all needs — feeding, bathing, nursing, soothing, caressing, lifting, and moving—with executive beauty, or delicacy, or power, the affections of the heart, or the judgments of the head, so the Holy Ghost is spoken of as performing these corresponding ministries in the things of God.
Thus in our own bodies, our own God has set up a type of His glorious being, and the functions of the three Divine Persons. Have you ever noticed how the power of the Holy Ghost is spoken of in Scripture, as "the hand", and as "God's right hand", and as "His holy arm"? For years, I used to wonder why the Bible so many times says, that "God spake by the hand of Moses". I understand it now, since the glorious Trinity has been so sweetly and powerfully revealed to me. Moses spake by the Holy Ghost Who is the right hand of God's power. The very instant that a heart is formed the head and hands are also within it, of the same substance, and age, though not manifest. In like manner from all eternity, in the bosom of the Father, the heart of the Godhead, the love-fountain of all being, there was the blessed Son and the Holy Spirit, of the same substance, essence, and glory, to be successively manifested to us creatures in time.
Taken from: "Our own God" by G.D. Watson (1845-1923). Published by Harvey Christian Publishers