Christians praise the triune God because that is how God presents himself to us in the Holy Scripture: as one God in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In the previous chapter, we considered the basic grammar of the Bible’s Trinitarian discourse as summarized in the baptismal mandate of Matthew 28:19. In the present chapter, we will consider three types of biblical texts that give us a fuller sense of the Bible’s Trinitarian discourse. A brief summary of biblical teaching on the Trinity will round out the chapter.

Three Types of Biblical Texts That Speak about the Trinity

Having considered the ABCs of the Bible’s Trinitarian discourse under the rubric of Matthew’s baptismal formula, we turn now to three types of biblical texts that are especially important to biblical teaching on the Trinity. First, we will consider “inner-Trinitarian conversation texts,” where we overhear the persons of the Trinity speaking to and of each other. Second, we will consider “cosmic framework texts,” which frame the entire cosmos, as well as the entirety of God’s work in the cosmos, in relation to the Trinity. Third, we will consider “redemptive mission texts,” which display the sending or “mission” of the Son (and, sometimes, the sending of the Spirit) as the great divine acts whereby God fulfills his redemptive purpose, establishing his dwelling among us, for the praise of his name.

Inner-Trinitarian Conversation Texts

As we observed earlier, because of its uniqueness, the name YHWH is one that God himself must interpret to us if we are to appreciate and adore its significance. We come to know the meaning of God’s holy name YHWH only by means of divine self-naming. This is also true when it comes to a knowledge of the persons of the Trinity: if we are to know the persons of the Trinity, the persons themselves must reveal themselves to us: “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Matt. 11:27; see also John 1:18; 1 Cor. 2:10–11). The reason for this is not that “father,” “son,” and “spirit” are unique terms, never applied to would-be gods or creatures. It is that the persons of the Trinity belong to the “inside” of the one God’s life. Knowledge of the persons of the Trinity is “insider knowledge,” known to outsiders only when insiders make it known to them.1

Consider Paul’s analogy in 1 Corinthians 2:11: “For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him?” Paul’s analogy helps us appreciate one of the important differences between God’s revelation through his works and God’s self-revelation through his word. While creation reveals many things about the Creator, much as a work of art reveals many things about an artist, there are some things we can know about an artist only if he himself speaks to us, opening up to us the depths of his inner life. So it is with the Trinity. Because the persons of the Trinity are internal to God’s life, not external works of God, we can know the persons of the Trinity, as well as their ultimate plan for creation (Eph. 3:9), only if they stoop down and open up the depths of their inner life to us. Only the persons of the Trinity know the persons of the Trinity. Therefore, only the persons of the Trinity can make known the persons of the Trinity. The revelation of the Trinity is a matter of divine self-revelation, divine self-presentation, divine self-naming. Biblical texts where we overhear inner-Trinitarian conversations—conversations where the persons of the Trinity speak to or about each other—are among the Bible’s primary modes of Trinitarian self-revelation. One example of an inner-Trinitarian conversation comes in Matthew’s, Mark’s, and Luke’s accounts of Jesus’s baptism. There we overhear the Father speaking of/to the Son, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:16– 17; see also Mark 1:10–11; Luke 3:21–22). Viewed within the overarching structure of Matthew’s Gospel, it seems Matthew wants to teach us that one of the reasons we baptize in “the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19) is that, at Jesus’s baptism, the Father called Jesus his beloved Son and anointed him with his Holy Spirit (Matt. 3:16–17). Divine Trinitarian self-naming is the foundation of our baptismal naming of the triune God. Another example of an inner-Trinitarian conversation comes in Matthew 11:25–27. There Jesus breaks out in praise, addressing the Father:

I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

Several features of this passage are worth noting. First, Jesus identifies the “Lord of heaven and earth” as his “Father,” and he identifies himself as the Father’s “Son.” To recall our earlier labels, this is an example of “proper predication”—that is, predication that distinguishes one person of the Trinity from another person of the Trinity. Second, Jesus claims that the authority that belongs to his Father as Lord of heaven and earth also belongs to him because the Father has granted it to him. Again, to recall our earlier label, this is an example of “common predication”—that is, predication that identifies what the persons of the Trinity hold in common as the one God. Third, as we observed above, Matthew 11:25–27 is a classic example of a text indicating that the knowledge of the Trinity is a matter of “insider knowledge.” The only reason we come to know the persons of the Trinity is that they name themselves in our hearing.2 Fourth, as in Matthew’s account of Jesus’s baptism, Matthew 11:25–27 anticipates the baptismal formula of Matthew 28:19 by identifying Jesus as the Son who, with the Father and from the Father, has “all authority” (Matt. 28:18) to demand the discipleship of “all nations” through baptism and instruction (Matt. 28:19) and to guarantee the success of the Great Commission by his divine presence (Matt. 28:20).3

One final example of an inner-Trinitarian conversation comes in Hebrews 1:5: “For to which of the angels did God ever say: ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you’?”4 Hebrews 1:5 offers an interpretation of Psalm 2:7 that seeks to demonstrate the superiority of the Son, as God’s divine ambassador, over angels, God’s heavenly but creaturely ambassadors. In so doing, the author of Hebrews engages in an interpretive technique, common in the ancient world, known as “prosopological exegesis.” Prosōpon is a Greek term for “person.” In prosopological exegesis, an interpreter clarifies the identities of persons speaking or spoken to in texts where their identities are otherwise ambiguous. Thus, in the case of Psalm 2:7, while the identity of the speaker is clearly YHWH (“The LORD [YHWH] said to me”—Ps. 2:7), the identity of the person to whom he speaks is not. Is the Lord addressing David, one of David’s sons, someone else, or perhaps all of the above? According to the author of Hebrews, the answer is clear: in Psalm 2:7, the Lord is addressing the “person” of his divine Son.

How do we know this? Recall the context of Hebrews 1:5. The author is seeking to establish the superiority of Jesus over the angels. If the Lord were merely addressing one of David’s human sons in Psalm 2:7, then the citation would not work. Why not? Because the author explicitly states in Hebrews 2:7 (citing Ps. 8) that human beings are “lower than the angels.” Jesus is superior to angels, the author of Hebrews insists, because he is YHWH’s divine Son.

Several other features of Hebrews 1:5 are worth observing. First, Hebrews 1:5 says something about the nature of the “relation of origin” that constitutes the Son’s relation to the Father. Hebrews 1:5 teaches that the Son is “begotten” of the Father, and it teaches that the “timing” of the Son’s begetting occurs in the eternal, unchanging “today” of God’s triune life.5 The Son is thus superior to angels because he is eternally begotten, not made (compare Heb. 1:7, which refers to the created nature of angels).

Second, if this reading is correct, then it says something not only about the Son’s relation to the Father but also about the Son’s relation to creation. The progression of Hebrews 1:2–4 moves from the eternal appointment of the Son as the heir of all things to his creation of all things, to his providential preservation of all things, to his atoning work, to his exaltation at the Father’s right hand, culminating in his public reception of a name more excellent than the angels. According to Hebrews, creation is from the Father’s eternally begotten Son. Creation is redeemed by the Father’s eternally begotten Son. And creation exists for the Father’s eternally begotten Son, to be his inheritance. The person of the Son is the purpose of creation. He is why creation exists, and he is what creation is for. Within the argument of Hebrews 1, the relationship between the Son and creation provides yet another reason for the Son’s superiority to angels, and a reason for the summons issued in Hebrews 1:6: When he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship him.” All things are by and for God’s eternally begotten Son; to him be glory forever. Third, and more broadly, the interpretation of inner-Trinitarian conversations in Old Testament texts by New Testament texts like Hebrews 1:5 possibly explains the origin of the term “person” in Christian theology. Although the Bible does not use the term “person” to describe the three agents of the one God’s life, the Bible does engage in the practice of “person-centered” interpretation.6 We will return to the Trinitarian concept of person in later chapters. For now, it is useful to have a label for that to which the Bible’s Trinitarian discourse refers in proper predication.

Cosmic Framework Texts

Whereas inner-Trinitarian conversation texts focus primarily on relations between the persons of the Trinity, cosmic framework texts set the entire cosmos, as well as the entirety of God’s work within the cosmos, in relation to the Trinity. Much as the hymnic account of creation in Genesis 1:1–2:3 functions in relation to the narrative account of creation in Genesis 2:4–25, these texts provide a cosmic framework within which the unfolding story of God’s relation to his creatures becomes meaningful. Functioning like a playbill for a theatrical production, these texts identify characters and provide context for grasping the drama of creation, redemption, and consummation.

John 1:1–18 (John’s “prologue”) provides an entryway into John’s larger narrative account of Jesus’s life and ministry. It begins “in the beginning,” before creation, portraying the Father and the Son existing in a stance of mutual repose and delight: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was facing God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1 ESV, altered). John’s prologue concludes on the same note, portraying “the only begotten God” as leaning on “the Father’s side” (John 1:18 ESV, altered).7 The mutual love of the Father and the Son thus sets the context within which God’s works of creation and redemption make sense.8

John 1:3–5 identifies the Word as the one through whom all things were made and as the life and light of men, which shines unconquered by the darkness of the cosmos. John 1:6–13 sets the work of “the true light” in contrast and relation to the witness of John the Baptist, identifying the latter as “a man sent from God” (v. 6) “to bear witness about the light” (v. 7). John 1:14–18 then describes the incarnation of the Word. The same Word who was with God in the beginning, through whom all things were made, becomes the means whereby God’s redemptive purpose is fulfilled, causing those who receive him to become children of God, causing the fullness of God’s grace and truth to dwell in our midst, declaring the glory of the unseen God. In each case, the incarnate Word transcends in his person and work what God did through Moses in ages past.

It is impossible to overestimate the significance of John 1:1–18 for Trinitarian theology. For now, let me simply summarize several relevant points. First, in a manner similar to Hebrews 1:5, this passage identifies the mutual love of the Father and the Son as the primary context for understanding the meaning and purpose of the cosmos (again, compare John 17:24–26). Second, this text at once distinguishes the Word from God and identifies the Word with God, thus exhibiting both proper predication and common predication, the basic grammar of the Bible’s Trinitarian discourse. Third, this passage identifies the Word as the Creator of all things, placing him—with God—on the divine side of the distinction between Creator and creatures. Fourth, again in a manner similar to what we saw in Hebrews 1 with respect to angels, this text clearly distinguishes the Word from other messengers of God, in this case John the Baptist and Moses. Fifth, this passage identifies the Word as the divine agent of redemption who personally assumed our mortal nature (“flesh”) to embrace us within God’s family and to manifest God’s invisible glory.

Colossians 1:15–20, like John 1:1–18, is a hymnic description of God’s beloved Son (Col. 1:13) that frames the entirety of God’s work in the cosmos in creation, redemption, and consummation in relation to him. Colossians 1:15 identifies God’s beloved Son as “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” The latter title extends to his status not only in relation to creation but also in relation to new creation: he is “the beginning, the firstborn from the dead” (Col. 1:18). Adopting a series of prepositions commonly used in ancient philosophical discussions of causality (e.g., “through,” “in,” “for”),9 Colossians 1 describes God’s beloved Son as the first and final cause of all creatures: “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him” (v. 16). Colossians 1 also describes God’s beloved Son as the cause of creation’s providential harmony (v. 17) and as the cause of reconciliation, by means of his incarnation and bloody execution (vv. 19–20). Each description of God’s beloved Son in turn aims at drawing our attention to one divine purpose for the cosmos: “that in everything he might be preeminent” (v. 18).

Again, like John 1:1–18, this cosmic framework text sets all things in relation to God’s beloved Son and to God’s purpose in him. First, by means of proper predication, it identifies the second person of the Trinity as God’s beloved Son and as the image of the invisible God. Second, it places the beloved Son on the divine side of the distinction between Creator and creatures. Third, it identifies him as the agent of creation, providence, and reconciliation. And, fourth, in each instance, it seeks to demonstrate the preeminence of Jesus Christ in all things, revealing a perspective on the relationship between the Son and creation that is similar to what we find in Hebrews 1. Before moving on, we should note that, in both of the cosmic framework texts I have discussed, we hear echoes of Proverbs 8, as well other Jewish texts that reflect on God’s Wisdom. We will explore the significance of the Bible’s identification of the Son with Wisdom in later chapters.

Redemptive Mission Texts

The final type of text we will consider in our survey of the Bible’s Trinitarian discourse focuses on the sending or “mission” of the Son (and the Spirit) to fulfill God’s redemptive purpose. Whereas inner-Trinitarian conversation texts focus on the relations between the persons of the Trinity, and whereas cosmic framework texts focus on the relation between the cosmos and the Trinity, “redemptive mission texts” focus on the one God’s work of redemption and the relations between the persons in effecting that work of redemption. Two examples of this type of text will round out this discussion of the Bible and the Trinity. In Mark 12:1–12, Jesus tells the parable of the tenants. This passage summarizes, in parable form, the main characters and plotline of Mark’s Gospel as a whole. The parable portrays the Father as a man who plants a vineyard, Israel as that vineyard, and the leaders of Israel as tenants hired to keep the vineyard and to produce fruits for the owner. Time after time, the owner sends servants to collect the fruits of the vineyard. And, time after time, the tenants respond harshly to the owner’s servants: some they beat, others they treat shamefully, still others they kill. At last, the owner of the vineyard sends his “beloved son” (Mark 12:6) —the same title applied to Jesus at his baptism and at his transfiguration (Mark 1:11; 9:7). The owner wagers, surely they will respect him. They, we know, do not. Instead, the tenants of the vineyard see the beloved son’s appearance as their opportunity: “Those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours’” (Mark 12:7). The tenants follow through with their wicked plot, taking the beloved son, killing him, and throwing him out of the vineyard. But the story does not end there. Jesus asks and answers his own question: “What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others” (Mark 12:9). Jesus then quotes Psalm 118:22–23 to explain the ultimate narrative resolution to these events:

The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. (Mark 12:10–11)

The tenants’ plot, far from undoing the beloved son’s claim upon the vineyard, is the means of their own undoing, and the means whereby the beloved Son is established as the cornerstone of God’s eschatological building (Eph. 2:20), in marvelous fulfillment of God’s purpose.

Note several features of this passage. First, as in Colossians 1, the second person of the Trinity is portrayed as the special object of the Father’s affection, as his “beloved son.” Second, though he too is “sent” like the “servants” of the Father (undoubtedly a reference to Old Testament prophets), the second person of the Trinity is clearly distinguished from the servants of the Father, and that in two ways. On the one hand, the Son is sent at the climax of the story; the Father saves his best emissary for last (so John 1:15). On the other hand, the second person of the Trinity is aligned with the Father, being identified as co-owner of the vineyard, “the heir” (Mark 12:7), to whom its fruits are also rightly due. This is a powerful identification since much of the remainder of the chapter will be occupied with addressing the fruits that are due to the one God alone (Mark 12:13–17, 28–34). In Galatians 4:4–7, Paul concludes an argument begun in chapter 3 regarding the identity of Abraham’s true children and heirs. Having affirmed our baptismal status as “sons of God” (Gal. 3:26) and “Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal. 3:29), Paul recapitulates the means whereby our status as members of God’s family has come about:

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. (Gal. 4:4–7)

Again, several features of this text are worth noting. First, as in Mark 12:1–12, God saves his best emissary for last: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son” (Gal. 4:4) to bring about an eschatological new exodus, redeeming us from slavery, securing our adoption, and assuring us that we will indeed arrive at our eschatological inheritance. Second, alongside the mission of God’s “Son” (Gal. 4:4), Galatians 4:4–7 proclaims the mission of “the Spirit of his Son” (v. 6). Third, both missions, Paul insists, are included within the one saving agency of God. When God makes us heirs of God through the missions of the Son and the Spirit, he makes us heirs “through God” (v. 7), not through the agency of another (Hos. 1:7).

Fourth, Galatians 4:4–7 reveals how the relations that constitute the one God’s life come to embrace us as well, to the praise of God’s triune glory. God sends forth his divine Son to become incarnate and to redeem us in order that “we might receive adoption as sons” (v. 5). And God sends the Spirit of his Son into our hearts to indwell us in order that the very cry of the divine Son to the divine Father might emerge from our hearts on our lips: “Abba! Father!” (v. 6). Here—gloriously—we see how the God who is Father, Son, and Spirit becomes our Father, through the Son, by the Spirit, making us sons of God by the incarnate Son of God, enabling us to enter into the Son’s praise of the Father by the indwelling Spirit. The God who speaks to God within the life of the Trinity redeems and indwells us so that we too might speak to God in praise of the Trinity.

Conclusion: Summarizing the Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity We conclude this chapter with a summary sketch of the Bible’s teaching on the Trinity.

Such a summary brings together much of what we have surveyed in this and the previous chapter. It also provides a foundation for the more thematic treatment of the doctrine of the Trinity in the chapters that follow. My hope is that it may also serve to further cultivate our fluency, as those baptized in the triune name, as we seek to read the Bible’s Trinitarian discourse, to contemplate God’s triune life, and to speak of and to the Trinity in prayer, proclamation, and praise.

1. There is one God, the source and end of all creatures.

2. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are identical with the one God and, as such, are on the divine side of the distinction between the one God and all creatures.

3. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are distinguished from each other only by relations of origin.

4. The relations of origin that distinguish the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit do not follow as a consequence of the one God’s will to create. Rather, God’s will to create follows the relations of origin that distinguish the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

5. Certain creatures are destined by God’s grace to be embraced within the relations of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, to the praise of his triune glory.

6. God himself, through the missions of the Son and the Spirit, brings it about that certain creatures are embraced within the relations of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Sources: 

1. Fred Sanders, The Triune God, New Studies in Dogmatics (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2016), 38.

2. Luke’s account of the same incident makes two related points. On the one hand, Jesus’s doxology is a fully Trinitarian event because Jesus rejoices “in the Holy Spirit” in offering his praise to the Father (Luke 10:21). On the other hand, this incident of Trinitarian self-naming is taken as representative of the apostles’ unique access to the revelation of God’s triune name and purpose and therefore serves as a foundation for the apostles’ authority to proclaim God’s triune name and purpose (Luke 10:23–24).

3. Compare with Matt. 1:23, where the Son is called “Immanuel” or “God with us.”

4. For more extensive analysis of this text, see Madison Pierce, “Hebrews 1 and the Son Begotten ‘Today,’” in Retrieving Eternal Generation, ed. Fred Sanders and Scott R. Swain (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2017).

5. That the “today” of Heb. 1:5 refers to God’s eternity seems clear for three reasons: (1) Heb. 1:2–4 ascribes an array of attributes and activities to the Son to demonstrate his superiority over the angels: he was appointed the heir of all things; he created the world; he is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact imprint of his substance; he upholds the world by the word of his power; he made purification for sins; he sat down at the right hand of the Father; he has inherited a more excellent name than the angels. A natural reading of this array of attributes and activities suggests that the Son was appointed the heir of all things before he created all things. Why is this relevant? Because the claim of Heb. 1:2 that God appointed the Son to be the heir of all things is likely an allusion to Ps. 2:8 (“Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, / and the ends of the earth your possession”), the same psalm that speaks of the “timing” of the Son’s begetting. The author of Hebrews thus seems to view both the Son’s begetting and the Son’s being appointed heir of all things as having occurred before creation in God’s eternal life. (2) The eternity of the Son is a major theme in Heb. 1. In Heb. 1:8–9, the author cites Ps. 45:6–7 to prove that the Son’s kingdom will endure throughout eternity. In Heb. 1:10–11, the author cites Ps. 102:25–27 to prove that the Son is YHWH, the eternal, unchanging Creator of all temporal, changeable creatures. Reading Heb. 1:5 as referring to the Son’s eternal begetting is thus entirely in keeping with the rest of Heb. 1. (3) The eternity of the Son is a major theme throughout the letter to the Hebrews. In Heb. 7:3, the author draws a comparison between Jesus, the eternal Son of God, and Melchizedek, stating that the latter “is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest forever.” Similarly, in Heb. 13:8, the author says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” This verse is significant because the author uses two terms to describe the unchanging eternity of the Son (“today” and “the same”) that he has already used in Heb. 1:5 (“today”) and 1:12 (“the same”). Given the author’s other uses of the term “today” to describe the unchanging and abiding eternity of God’s Word (Heb. 3:7, 13, 15; 4:7), the implication seems clear: the “today” of the Father’s begetting of the Son is an “eternal” begetting.

6. Matthew W. Bates, The Birth of the Trinity: Jesus, God, and the Spirit in New Testament and Early Christian Interpretation of the Old Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).

7. John 13:23 uses identical language to describe the beloved disciple reclining on Jesus’s breast at the Last Supper.

8. Compare with John 17:24–26, which describes the mutual love and glory of the Father and the Son before the foundation

9. Compare this with Rom. 11:36’s use of prepositions to describe the one God as the first and final cause of all things.