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Bible Dictionaries
God
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or 1. General aspects of the apostolic doctrine.-The object of this article is to investigate the doctrine of God as it is presented in the Christian writings of the apostolic period; but, in view of the scope of this Dictionary, the teaching of our Lord Himself and the witness of the Gospel records will be somewhat lightly passed over.
The existence of God is universally assumed in the NT. The arguments that can be adduced, e.g. from the consent of mankind and from the existence of the world, are only intended to show that the belief that God is is reasonable, not to prove it as a mathematical proposition. But undoubtedly the fact that the doctrine is by such arguments shown to be probable will lead man to receive with more readiness the revealed doctrine of God’s existence. The biblical writers, however, did not, in either dispensation, concern themselves to prove a fact which no one doubted. Psalms 10:4; Psalms 14:1; Psalms 53:1 are no exceptions to this general consent. The ungodly man (the ‘fool’) who said in his heart ‘There is no God,’ did not deny God’s existence, but His interfering in the affairs of men. ‘The wicked … saith, He will not require it. All his thoughts are, There is no God.’
The apostolic doctrine of God as we have it in Acts, Revelation, and the Epistles does not come direct from the OT. It presupposes a teaching of our Lord. At first this teaching was in the main handed down by the oral method, and the Epistles, or at least most of them, do not defend on any of our four Gospels, though it is quite likely that there were some written evangelic records in existence even when the earliest of the Epistles were written (Luke 1:1). St. Paul, writing on certain points of Christian teaching, tells us that he handed on what he himself had received (1 Corinthians 11:2; 1 Corinthians 11:23; 1 Corinthians 15:3; the expression ἀπὸ τοῦ κυρίον in 1 Corinthians 11:23 probably does not mean ‘from the Lord without human mediation’: it was tradition handed on from Christ).
In approaching the apostolic writings we must bear in mind two points. (a) The NT was not intended to be a compendium of theology. The Epistles, for example, were written for the immediate needs of the time and place, doubtless without any thought arising in their writers’ minds of their being in the future canonical writings of a new volume of the Scriptures. We should not, therefore, a priori expect to find in them any formulated statement of doctrine. (b) There is a considerable difference between the Epistles on the one hand and the Gospels on the other in the presentation of doctrine. The Gospels are narratives of historical events, and in them, therefore, the gradual unfolding of Jesus’ teaching, as in fact it was given, is duly set forth. This is especially the ease with the Synoptics, though even in the Fourth Gospel there is a certain amount of progress of doctrine. At the first the doctrines taught by oar Lord are set forth, so to speak, in their infancy, adapted to the comprehension of beginners; and they are gradually unfolded as the Gospel story proceeds. In the Epistles, on the other hand, the writer treats his correspondents as convinced Christians, and therefore, though he instructs them, he plunges at once in medias res. There is no progress of doctrine from the first chapter of an Epistle to the last.
The question we have to ask ourselves is, What did the apostles teach about God? Or rather, in order not to beg any question (since it is obviously impossible in this article to discuss problems of date and authorship), we must ask, What do the books of the NT teach about God?
2. Christian development of the OT doctrine of God.-It is an essential doctrine of the NT writers that a new and fuller revelation was given by the Incarnation and by the fresh outpouring of the Holy Ghost.
(a) The revelation by the Incarnate.-That the Son had made a revelation of old by the part which He took in creation (see below, 6 (e)) is not explicitly stated, but is implied by Romans 1:20, which says that creation is a revelation of God’s everlasting power and Divinity (θειότης, ‘Divine nature and properties,’ whereas θεότης is ‘Divine Personality’ [see Sanday-Headlam, International Critical Commentary , 1902, in loc.]). But the Incarnate reveals God in a fuller sense than ever before: ‘God … hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in [his] Son’ (Hebrews 1:1 f.). The revelation by the Incarnation is a conception specially emphasized in the Johannine writings, not only in the Gospel, but also in the First Epistle and the Apocalypse. The Prologue of the Gospel says that ‘God only begotten’ (or ‘the only begotten Son’ [see below, 6 (c)]) ‘which is in the bosom of the Father, hath declared him’ (John 1:18). ‘What he hath seen and heard, of that he beareth witness’ (John 3:32). The revelation of the Son is the revelation of the Father (John 14:7-11). The ‘life which was with the Father’ was manifested and gave a message about God (1 John 1:2-5). The revelation of eternal life which is in the Son was made when God bore witness concerning His Son (1 John 5:10 f.). This new and fuller revelation is that with which the Apocalyptist begins his book (Revelation 1:1): ‘the revelation (apocalypse) of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to shew unto his servants’ (see Swete, Com. in loc., who gives good reasons fox thinking that the revelation mode by Jesus, rather than that made about Jesus, is meant; cf. Galatians 1:12).
We find the same teaching, though in a somewhat less explicit form, in the Pauline Epistles. Christ is ‘the power of God and the wisdom of God … made unto us wisdom from God’ (1 Corinthians 1:24; 1 Corinthians 1:30). In Him ‘are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden’ (Colossians 2:3). In the new ‘dispensation of the fulness of the times’ God has ‘made known unto us the mystery of his will’ (Ephesians 1:9 f., a passage where ‘mystery’ specially conveys the idea of a hidden thing revealed, rather than one kept secret). To St. Paul personally Jesus made a revelation (Galatians 1:12; see above). That our Lord made a new revelation is also stated in the Synoptics: ‘Neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal [him]’ (Matthew 11:27; cf. Luke 10:22). So in Acts, Jesus bids the disciples ‘wait for the promise of the Father, which [said he] ye heard from me’ (Acts 1:4); and St. Peter (Acts 10:36) calls the new revelation ‘the word which [God] sent unto the children of Israel, preaching good tidings of peace by Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all).’ Sanday (Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) ii. 212) points out that the passages about our Lord being the ‘image’ of God, and ‘in the form of God’ (see below, 6 (c)), express the fact that He brings to men’s minds the essential nature of God.
(b) The revelation by the Holy Ghost.-The new revelation of the nature of God by the full outpouring of the Spirit, in a manner unknown even in the old days of prophetical inspiration, is also, as far as the promise is concerned, a favourite Johannine conception (see especially John 14-16). The promise is, however, alluded to by St. Luke (Luke 24:49, Acts 1:4), and its fulfilment is dwelt on at great length in Acts, which may be called the ‘Gospel of the Holy Spirit,’ and in which the action of the Third Person in guiding the disciples into all the truth (John 16:13) is described very fully. Jesus gave commandment to the apostles ‘through the Holy Ghost’ (Acts 1:2). The guidance of the Spirit is described, e.g., in Acts 2:17 f.; Acts 8:9; Acts 10:19; Acts 11:12; Acts 13:2; Acts 16:6 f.; Acts 20:23; Acts 21:11, though these passages speak rather of the practical loading of the disciples in the conduct of life rather than of the teaching of the truth. St. Paul says that ‘the things which eye saw not’ (he seems to be paraphrasing Isaiah 64:4) have been revealed by God ‘unto us’ (ἡμῖν is emphatic here) ‘through the Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God’ (1 Corinthians 2:9 f.; so 1 Corinthians 2:13). It is the Holy Spirit only who can teach us that ‘Jesus is Lord’ (1 Corinthians 12:3).
3. Attributes of God in the NT.-Before considering the great advance on the OT ideas made by the Christian doctrine of God, we may notice certain Divine attributes which are emphasized in the NT, but which are also found in the OT.
(a) God is Almighty.-The word used in the NT (as in the Eastern creeds) for this attribute is παντοκράτωρ, chiefly in the Apocalypse (Revelation 1:8; Revelation 4:8; Revelation 11:17; Revelation 15:3; Revelation 16:7; Revelation 16:14; Revelation 19:6; Revelation 19:15; Revelation 21:22), but also in 2 Corinthians 6:18, as it is used in the Septuagint , where it renders ṣebhâ’ôth and Shaddai. We notice in each instance in Rev. how emphatically it stands at the end: ‘the Lord God, which is and which was … the Almighty,’ ‘the Lord God, the Almighty’; not ‘Lord God Almighty’ as Authorized Version (the Authorized Version translates the word by ‘omnipotent’ in Revelation 19:6 only). The word omnipotens occurs in the earliest Roman creed.-But what does ‘Almighty’ imply? To the modern reader it is apt to convey the idea of omnipotence, as if it were παντοδύναμος, i.e. ‘able to do everything,’ on account of the Latin translation omnipotens. So Augustine understands the word in the Creed (de Symbolo ad Catechumenos, 2 [ed. Ben. vi. 547]), explaining it, ‘He does whatever He wills’ (Swete, Apostles’ Creed, p. 22). Undoubtedly God is omnipotent, though this does not mean that He can act against the conditions which He Himself makes-He cannot sin, He cannot lie (Titus 1:2, Hebrews 6:18; so 2 Timothy 2:13 of our Lord). As Augustine says (loc. cit.), if He could do these things He would not be omnipotent. But this is not the meaning of ‘Almighty.’ As we see from the form of the Greek word (παντοκράτωρ), and as is suggested by the Hebrew words which it renders, it denotes sovereignty over the world. It is equivalent to the ‘Lord of heaven and earth’ of Acts 17:24, Matthew 11:25. Everything is under God’s sway (see Pearson, Expos. of the Creed, article i., especially notes 37-43). The Syriac bears out this interpretation by rendering the word aḥîdh kûl, i.e. ‘holding (or governing) all.’
(b) God is ‘living.’-He has ‘life in himself’ (John 5:26). He is ‘the living God’ (Revelation 7:2), ‘that liveth for ever and ever’ (Revelation 10:6); and therefore is eternal, the ‘Alpha and Omega, which is and which was and which is to come’ (ὁ ὢν καὶ ὁ ἦν καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος), ‘the beginning and the end’ (Revelation 1:8; Revelation 21:6; cf. Revelation 16:5)-these words are here (but not in Revelation 22:13; see below, 6 (e)) rightly ascribed by Swete to the Eternal Father. ‘One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day’ (2 Peter 3:8; cf. Psalms 90:4; see also Romans 1:20).
(c) God is omniscient.-He knows the hearts of all men (καρδιογνῶστα πάντων, Acts 1:24; Acts 15:8.; The prayer in Acts 1:24 is perhaps addressed to our Lord); He knows all things (1 John 3:20). St. Paul eloquently exclaims: ‘O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God!’ (Romans 11:33), and ascribes glory ‘to the only wise God,’ i.e. to God who alone is wise (Romans 16:27; the same phrase occurs in some Manuscripts of 1 Timothy 1:17, but ‘wise’ is there an interpolation). Even the uninstructed Cornelius recognizes that we are in God’s sight (Acts 10:33). Such sayings cannot but be a reminiscence of our Lord’s teaching that ‘not one of them is forgotten in the sight of God’ (Luke 12:6). They are summed up in the expressions ‘God is light’ (1 John 1:5) and ‘God is true’ (‘This is the true God,’ 1 John 5:20; for the reference here see A. E. Brooke’s note in International Critical Commentary , 1912, in loc.), God ‘cannot lie’; see above (a).
(d) God is transcendent.-This Divine attribute had been exaggerated by the Jews just before the Christian era, but it is nevertheless dwelt on in the apostolic writings. The ‘things of God’ are indeed ‘deep,’ so that man cannot, though the Spirit can, ‘search them out’ (1 Corinthians 2:10 f.; cf. Job 11:7). God, who ‘only hath-immortality,’ dwells ‘in light unapproachable, whom no man hath seen nor can see’ (1 Timothy 6:16; cf. John 1:18, 1 John 4:12; 1 John 4:20). He is spirit (John 4:24 Revised Version margin) and invisible (Colossians 1:15, 1 Timothy 1:17, Hebrews 11:27), unchangeable (Hebrews 6:17 f.,; cf. Malachi 3:6, Psalms 102:27), infinite, omnipresent (Acts 7:48; Acts 17:24; Acts 17:27; cf. Psalms 139:7 ff.) These statements do not mean, however, that God is altogether unknowable by men; for God in His condescension reveals Himself to man (see above, 2).
(e) God is immanent.-That God dwells in man is stated several times. ‘God is in you indeed,’ says St. Paul (1 Corinthians 14:25 Authorized Version and Revised Version margin; Revised Version text has ‘among’; the Gr. is ἐν ὑμῖν). ‘There is one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all’ (Ephesians 4:8). ‘God abideth in us’ (1 John 4:12). His ‘tabernacle is with men’ and He ‘shall dwell with them … and be with them’ (Revelation 21:3). For the immanence of the Son and the Spirit in man see below, 6 (e) and 7.
(f) Moral attributes.-God is love (1 John 4:8; 1 John 4:16); love is His very nature and being, and therefore love is the foundation of all true religion; love is of God (v. 7; see Brooke’s notes on these verses [op. cit.]). The love of God is specially emphasized by Christianity; cf. also John 3:16 (the kernel of the gospel message), Romans 5:5; Romans 5:8; Romans 8:31-39, 2 Corinthians 13:14, Colossians 1:13 (‘the Son of his love’), 2 Thessalonians 3:5, 1 Timothy 2:4 (desire of universal salvation), 1 John 2:5; 1 John 3:1. The ‘love of God’ may be God’s love for us, or our love for God; but the latter, as St. John teaches (see above), comes from the former.
God is holy. This attribute is emphasized both in the OT (Leviticus 11:44) and in the NT (1 Peter 1:15 f.). The four living creatures cry ‘Holy (ἄγιος), holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty’ (Revelation 4:8; cf. Isaiah 6:3). ‘Thou only art holy’ (ὅσιος)* [Note: The word ὅσιος (equivalent to the Latin pius) ‘represents God as fulfilling His relation to His creatures, even as He requires them to fulfil theirs towards Himself’ (Swete, Com. in loc.).] cry the conquerors (Revelation 15:4; cf. Revelation 16:5)-a striking comment on the ascription of holiness to our Lord and to the Spirit (below, 6 (e), 7). Brooke (op. cit.) thinks it unnecessary to determine whether ‘the Holy One’ in 1 John 2:20 is the Father or the Son.
God is just; He has no respect of persons (Acts 10:34, Romans 2:11, Galatians 2:8, 1 Peter 1:17; cf. Deuteronomy 10:17).
He is righteous (for the meaning of this see below, 6 (e)); St. Paul not only speaks of the ‘righteous judgment’ (δικαιοκρισία, Romans 2:5; cf. 2 Thessalonians 1:5), but of the ‘righteousness’ (δικαιοσύνη), of God (Romans 1:17; Romans 3:22; Romans 10:3). On this phrase, δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ, see an elaborate investigation by Sanday in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) ii. 209-212; it was familiar to the Jews, and to them meant the personal righteousness of God. Many commentators take it, as used in the NT, to mean the righteous state of man, of which God is the giver. But in either case it predicates righteousness of God. In Philippians 3:9 we find τὴν ἐκ θεοῦ δικαιοσύνην, ‘the righteousness which is of God.’ The Apocalyptist also emphasizes this attribute (Revelation 15:3; Revelation 16:5; Revelation 16:7).
God is merciful (Romans 11:32; Romans 15:9, etc,). This is really the same attribute as love; but it is not the same as the Musulman idea of the mercy of God, which can scarcely be distinguished from indifference. Love and justice combined produce the true Divine mercy.
He is the God of hope (Romans 15:13). A despairing pessimism is rebellion against the good God who makes us to hope, and who promises to overthrow Satan.
He is the God of peace (Romans 15:33; Romans 16:20, 1 Thessalonians 5:23, 2 Thessalonians 3:16, Hebrews 13:20).
(g) God is Creator and Saviour.-That God the Father is the Maker of the world is again and again insisted on (Acts 14:15-17; Acts 17:25-29, Romans 1:20-25; Romans 11:36, 1 Corinthians 3:9, Ephesians 2:10; Ephesians 3:9 [cf. Ephesians 3:14 f.] Colossians 1:15 f, Hebrews 1:2; Hebrews 4:4; Hebrews 12:9 [the spirits of men], James 1:17 f. [‘the lights,’ the heavenly bodies], Revelation 4:11; Revelation 10:6). Man was made in God’s likeness (1 Corinthians 11:7, James 3:9). That God made the world was also much emphasized by the sub-apostolic writers (Swete, Apostles’ Creed, p. 20), in opposition to the Gnostic conception of a Demiurge, an inferior God who was Creator, and who was more or less in opposition to the supreme God. (For God the Father as Saviour, see below, 6 (e); for the part of the Son and of the Spirit in creation see below, 6 (e), 7).
4. The Fatherhood of God.-We now pass to the great developments made by the Christian doctrine of God. In the OT it had been freely taught that God was Father; but the conception scarcely went further than a fatherhood of the chosen people. ‘Israel is ray son, my first born.… Let my son go that he may serve me,’ is Jahweh’s message to Pharaoh (Exodus 4:22). The Deuteronomist goes no farther (Exodus 8:5, Exodus 32:6, and especially Exodus 14:1 f.: ‘Ye are the children of the Lord your God … for thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself above all peoples that are upon the face of the earth’). The restrictive words of Psalms 103:13 are very significant: ‘Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.’ The prophets made no advance on this. To Judah and Israel God says: ‘Ye shall call me, My father’ (Jeremiah 3:19; cf. Isaiah 63:16; Isaiah 30:1; Isaiah 30:9, Malachi 1:6); ‘When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt’ (Hosea 11:1).
The NT greatly develops this doctrine. It teaches that God is Father of all men, though in a special sense Father of believers. But, above all, God is the Father of our Lord in a sense quite unique.
(a) The Father of our Lord.-Jesus ever makes a difference between the Father’s relationship to Himself and to the rest of the world. The striking words of the twelve-year-old Child; ‘Wist ye not that I must be in my Father’s house?’ (or ‘about my Father’s business,’ ἐν τοῖς τοῦ πατρός μου, Luke 2:49) are the first indication of this. Jesus speaks of ‘my Father’ and ‘the Father’ and ‘your Father,’ but never of ‘our Father,’ though He teaches the disciples to use these words (Matthew 6:9). In John 20:17 the Evangelist represents our Lord as using what would otherwise be an unintelligible periphrasis: ‘My Father and your Father, and my God and your God.’ This same distinction is kept up in the rest of the NT. Thus in Romans 8:3 St. Paul calls our Lord God’s ‘own Son’ (τὸν ἑαυτοῦ υἱόν), in a manner in which we could not be designated ‘sons’; we can only be ‘conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren’ (Romans 8:29), while Jesus is ‘his own Son’ (τοῦ ἰδίου υἱοῦ, Romans 8:32; cf. Colossians 1:13 : ‘Son of his love’). St. Paul exhibits a fondness for the phrase ‘the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (Romans 15:16, 2 Corinthians 1:3, Ephesians 1:3; cf. Colossians 1:3 ‘God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ’), which is re echoed by St. Peter (1 Peter 1:3), and in the Apocalypse (Revelation 1:8 ‘his God and Father’). (On the other hand, in Ephesians 1:17 we read: ‘the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory.’) In Revelation 3:21 our Lord is speaking, and uses the words ‘my Father.’ This distinction is at the root of the Johannine title ‘Only-begotten,’ applied to our Lord (1 John 4:9, John 1:14; John 1:18; John 3:16; John 3:18). See Adoption, Only-Begotten.
(b) The Father of all men.-This relationship is expressly affirmed by St. Paul in his speech at Athens (Acts 17:28 f.). God has created us; ‘in him we live and move and have our being, as certain even of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.’ And he endorses this heathen saying by continuing: ‘Being then the offspring of God,’ etc. (Acts 17:29). We may compare our Lord’s saying: ‘that ye may be sons of your Father which is in heaven, for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust’ (Matthew 5:45); ‘he is kind towards the unthankful and evil’ (Luke 6:35). The same thought seems to be at the root of St. Paul’s saying that all fatherhood (πᾶσα πατριά) in heaven and earth is named from God the Father (Ephesians 3:14 ff; see Family). ‘There is one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all’ (Ephesians 4:6). ‘To us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things and we unto him’ (1 Corinthians 8:6). In several passages in the Epistles where we read ‘our Father’ (Romans 1:7, 1 Corinthians 1:3, 2 Corinthians 1:2, Ephesians 1:2, Philippians 4:20, etc.), there is no special restriction to God’s relationship to Christians, such as we find with regard to the chosen people in the OT passages. St. James speaks of ‘the Father of lights’ (James 1:17), i.e. of the created heavenly bodies. And the writer of Hebrews refers to a universal Fatherhood due to creation. As contrasted with the ‘fathers of our flesh,’ God is ‘the Father of spirits’-the Author not only of our spiritual being but of all spiritual beings (Hebrews 12:9; see Westcott, Com. in loc.).
(c) The Father of believers.-Side by side with the doctrine of universal fatherhood is the special relationship of God to believers, not only as Saviour (1 Timothy 4:10) but as Father. Here the apostolic writers ascribe to Christians the prerogatives of the chosen people in the old covenant. This special fatherhood is brought out in the passages where St. Paul applies the metaphor of adoption to Christians (Romans 8:14-17; Romans 8:23, Galatians 4:5 f., Ephesians 1:5; see Adoption; cf. also 1 Peter 1:17, 1 John 3:1 f, John 1:12, etc.).
(d) ‘The Father’ in general.-In many passages we find the absolute expression ‘the Father,’ comprehending any or all of the above meanings, as, e.g., 1 Corinthians 8:6, Galatians 1:1, Ephesians 5:20 (‘give thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father’), Colossians 1:12, James 3:9 Revised Version (‘the Lord and Father’), 1 John 2:13; 1 John 2:15 f.; and 2 Peter 1:17, 1 John 1:2, where there is a special reference to our Lord.
The word ‘Father’ stands at the head of most Christian creeds, but it is probable that it was not originally in that of Rome. The Creed of Marcellus of Ancyra, an early Western specimen, though coming from an Eastern bishop, begins; ‘I believe in Almighty (παντοκράτορα) God’ (Epiphanius, Haer. lxxii. 3). The language of Tertullian (de Virg. Vel. 1-one of his later works) leads us to suppose that the creed used by him: began similarly; he speaks of ‘the rule of believing in one only God omnipotent, the Creator of the universe, and His Son Jesus Christ.’ But thenceforward it appears in the Western creeds (see Swete, Apostles, Creed, p. 19f.).
5. The Holy Trinity
(a) The technical terms by which the Christian Church has expressed the faith that it derived from the Scriptures were not invented for a considerable time after the apostolic period. Thus no one would expect to find the terms ‘Trinity’ and ‘Person’ in the NT. It is usually said that the word ‘Trinity,’ referred to God, was first used by Theophilus of Antioch (ad Autol. ii. 15; c. [Note: . circa, about.] a.d. 180), as far as extant Christian literature is concerned. This is true, but the context shows that it was not then an accepted technical term. The first three days of creation are said to be ‘types of the trinity (τριάς), God, and His Word, and His Wisdom.’ Theophilus goes on to say that the fourth day finds its antitype in man, who is in need of light, so that we get the series: God, the Word, Wisdom, Man. Swete justly remarks that an author who could thus ‘convert the Divine trinity into a quaternion in which Man is the fourth term, must have been still far from thinking of the Trinity as later writers thought’ (Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church, p. 47). Or we should perhaps rather put it that Theophilus did not use the word ‘Trinity’ in the technical sense which immediately afterwards is found; as when Tertullian speaks of ‘the Trinity of the one God-head, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’ (de Pudic. 21; cf. adv. Prax. 2), and as when Hippolytus says: ‘Through this Trinity the Father is glorified, for the Father willed, the Son did, the Spirit manifested’ (circa, about Noet. 14).
The words which we render ‘Person’ (ὑπόστασις, πρόσωπον, persona) are of a still later date, and at first exhibited a remarkable fluidity of signification. Thus ὑπόστασις was used at one time to denote what is common to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, what we should call the Divine ‘substance,’ at another it was used to distinguish between the Three; so that in one sense there is one ὑπόστασις in the Holy Trinity, in the other there are three. With regard to the word ‘Person,’ the student must necessarily be always on his guard against the supposition that ‘Person’ means ‘individual,’ as when we say that three different men are three ‘persons’; or that ‘Trinity’ involves tritheism, or three Gods. These technical expressions are but methods of denoting the teaching found in the NT that there are distinctions in the Godhead, and that, while God is One, yet He is not a mere Monad. These technical terms are not found in the apostolic or sub-apostolic writers; with regard to the second of them, it may be remembered that the idea of personality was hardly formulated in any sense till shortly before the Christian era; and its application to theology came in a good deal later.
(b) The name ‘God’ used absolutely.-In considering the distinctions in the Godhead taught by the NT, it must be borne in mind that, when the name ‘God’ is used absolutely, without pronoun or epithet, it is never, with one possible exception, applied explicitly to the Son as such or to the Spirit as such. It is, indeed, most frequently used without any special reference to the Person. But it is often, when standing absolutely, used in contrast to the Son or to the Spirit, and then the Father is intended. Instances of this are too numerous to mention; but we may take as examples Acts 2:22 (‘Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved or God … by mighty works … which God did by him’), Acts 13:30 (‘God raised him from the dead.’), Romans 2:16 (‘God shall judge the secrets of men … by Jesus Christ’), Ephesians 4:30 (‘the Holy Spirit of God’). This is sometimes the case also when ‘God’ is not used absolutely, as in Acts 3:13 (‘the God of our fathers hath glorified his Servant [παῖδα] Jesus’), Acts 5:30 (‘the God of our fathers raised up Jesus’), Acts 22:14, Romans 1:8 (‘I thank my God through Jesus Christ’). In Revelation 3:2; Revelation 3:12 our Lord calls the Father ‘my God’; compare the similar Pauline phrases quoted above, 4 (a). See below, 8.
The one possible exception is Acts 20:28 ‘to feed the church of God which he purchased with his own blood.’ This is the reading of א B and other weighty authorities (followed by Authorized Version and Revised Version text), but ACDE read ‘the Lord’ instead of ‘God’. The balance of authority is in favour of the reading ‘God,’ and it is decidedly more difficult than the other variant. At first sight, to say the least, the word ‘God’ (if read) must refer to our Lord, and yet this usage is unlike that of the NT elsewhere, and a scribe finding θεοῦ would readily alter it to κυρίου because of the strangeness of the expression. Thus both because of superior attestation, and because a difficult rending is ordinarily to be preferred to an easier one, θεοῦ has usually been accepted here (so Westcott-Hort’s Greek Testament , ii [1882] Appendix, p. 98). To get rid of the strangeness of the expression, it has been suggested that the reference is to the Father, and that ‘his own blood’ means ‘the blood which is his own,” i.e. the blood of Christ who is essentially one with the Father; but this seems to be a rather forced explanation. A somewhat more probable conjecture (that of Hort) is that there is here an early corruption, and that the original had ‘with the blood of his own Son,’ The beat reading of the last words of the verse, supported by overwhelming authority, is διὰ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ ἰδίου: and this conjecture supposes that υἱοῦ has dropped out at the end (cf. Romans 8:32). However this may be, it would seem that the verse as we hate it in א B was so read by Ignatius, and gave rise to his expression ‘the blood of God’ (Ephesians 1)-a very early Instance of what later writers called the communicatio idiomatum, by which the properties of one or our Lord’s natures are referred to when the other nature is in question, because of the unity of His Person (see 6 (b)). Another early instance is perhaps to be found in Clement of Rome (Cor. ii. 1): τὰ παθήματα αὐτοῦ (‘his sufferings’), θωοῦ having just preceded; but the reading, though accepted by Lightfoot, is not quite certain. On these two passages see Lightfoot, Apostolic Father, ‘S. Ignatius and S. Polycarp2,’ 1889, ii. 29f., S. Clement of Rome,’ 1890, ii 13-16. Tertullian uses the expression ‘the blood of God’ (ad Uxor. ii.3).
(c) Trinitarian language.-In the NT teaching the Son and the Spirit are joined to the Father in a special manner, entirely different from that in which men or angels are spoken of in relation to God. Perhaps the beat example of this is the apostolic benediction of 2 Corinthians 13:14, which has no dogmatic purpose, but is a simple, spontaneous prayer, and is therefore more significant than if it was intended to teach some doctrine. The ‘grace of our Lord,’ the ‘love of God,’ and the ‘communion of the Holy Ghost’ are grouped together, and in this remarkable order. In many passages Father, Son, and Spirit are grouped together, just as the Three are mentioned together in the account of our Lord’s Baptism (Matthew 3:16 f.), only in a still more significant way. Thus in Acts 5:31 f. we read that God exalted Jesus to be a Prince and a Saviour, and gave the Holy Ghost ‘to them that obey him.’ Stephen, being full of the Holy Ghost, saw the glory of God, and Jeans standing at the right hand of God (Acts 7:55). The Holy Ghost is in one breath called by St. Paul the ‘Spirit of God’ and the ‘Spirit of Christ’ (Romans 8:9). See also 1 Corinthians 12:3-6 (‘the Spirit of God … Jesus is Lord … the same Spirit … the same Lord … the same God’), Acts 2:33, 1 Peter 1:2 (‘foreknowledge of God the Father,’ ‘sanctification of the Spirit,’ ‘sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ’), Titus 3:4-6 (‘the kindness of God our Saviour’ [the Father], ‘renewing of the Holy Ghost,’ ‘through Jesus Christ our Saviour’), 1 John 4:2, and especially Judges 1:20, where the writer’s disciples are bidden to pray in the Holy Spirit, to keep themselves in the love of God, and to look for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the greeting of all the Pauline Epistles but one, the Father and Son are joined together as the source of grace and peace; e.g. ‘Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ’ (Romans 1:7); the only exception being Colossians 1:2 Revised Version , which has ‘grace to you and peace from God our Father.’ And this Pauline usage is also found in 2 John 1:3. It is difficult to conceive the possibility of this zeugma unless our Lord be God. With this compare St. James’s description of himself as ‘a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ’ (James 1:1), and many other passages such as ‘one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him’ (1 Corinthians 8:6; see above, 4 (b)); ‘in the sight of God and of Christ Jesus’ (2 Timothy 4:1); ‘fellowship with the Father and with his son Jesus Christ’ (1 John 1:3); ‘he that denieth the Father and the Son’ (1 John 2:22); ‘the same hath both the Father and the Son’ (2 John 1:9); ‘the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb are the temple thereof’ (Revelation 21:22); ‘the throne of God and of the Lamb’ (Revelation 22:1; Revelation 22:3).
These expressions are the counterpart of our Lord’s words in the Fourth Gospel: ‘I am in the Father and the Father in me’ (John 14:10). We might try the effect of substituting for ‘Son’ and ‘Spirit’ the names of ‘Peter,’ ‘Paul,’ or even of ‘Michael,’ ‘Gabriel,’ to see how intolerable all these expressions would he on any but the Trinitarian hypothesis. St. Paul uses a similar argument in 1 Corinthians 1:13 : ‘Was Paul crucified for you, or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?’
These passages are taken from the NT outside the Gospels. The Fourth Gospel, which is full of the same doctrine, is here passed by. But one passage of the Synoptics must be considered. How did St. Paul come by the phraseology of his benediction in 2 Corinthians 13:14? Some would say that he invented it, and was the real founder of Christian doctrine (see below, 9). For those who cannot accept this position-and the Apostle betrays no consciousness of teaching a new doctrine, but, as we have seen (above, 1), professes to hand on what he has received-the only conclusion can be that the benediction is based on teaching of our Lord. In the Synoptics there is one passage (Matthew 28:19) which would at once account for St. Paul’s benediction. According to this, our Lord bade His followers ‘make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name (εἱς τὸ ὄνομα) of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.’ This passage has been criticized on three grounds. (1) It has been said not to be an authentic part of the First Gospel. This, however, is not a tenable position (see Baptism, § 4); but it is important to distinguish it from the view which follows. (2) It has been acknowledged to be an authentic part of Mt., but said to have been due to the Christian theology of the end of the 1st cent., to the same line of thought that produced the Fourth Gospel; and not to have been spoken by our Lord. (3) In support of this it is urged that as a matter of fact, the earliest baptisms, as we read in Acts, were not ‘in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,’ but ‘in the name of the Lord Jesus,’ or the like. But may there not be a mistake here on both sides? ‘It is quits unnecessary to suppose on the one hand that the passages in Acts describe a formula used in baptism, or, on the other, that our Lord in Matthew 28:19 prescribed one. All the passages may, and probably do, express only the theological import of baptism (for authorities, see Baptism as above).* [Note: We are not here concerned with the meaning of ‘in’ or ‘into the name.’ The argument is independent of the disputed interpretation of these words.] It was not the custom of our Lord to make minute regulations, as did the Mosaic Law. He rather laid down general principles; and it would be somewhat remarkable if He made just one exception, in regulating the words to be used in baptism. (The justification of the Christian formula is the general consent of the ages, dating from immediately after the apostolic period.) Nor is it necessary to suppose that Matthew 28:19 gives us-any more than the other Gospel records do-the ipsissima verba of Jesus. It is almost certain that such teaching, if given, would be much expanded for the benefit of the hearers, and that we have only a greatly abbreviated record. But that our Lord gave such ‘Trinitarian’ teaching in some shape on the occasion of giving the baptismal command is the only way of accounting for the phenomena of Acts, Epistles, and Revelation. This would explain not only the apostolic benediction, but also the whole trend of the teaching of the NT outside the Gospels.
Having now considered the general scope of apostolic teaching with regard to distinctions in the Godhead, we must consider in particular the doctrine with regard to the Godhead of our Lord and of the Holy Ghost.
6. The Godhead of our Lord.-In historical sequence the realization of our Lord’s Divinity came before the teaching which we have already considered. The disciples first learnt that their Master was not mere man, but was Divine; and then that there are distinctions in the Godhead.
(a) Jesus is the Son of God.-Of this the apostles were fully convinced. The passages are too numerous to cite, but they occur in almost every book of the NT, whether they give the title to our Lord in so many words, or express the fact otherwise (see above, 4 (a)). Before considering the meaning of the title, we may ask if the name παῖς (‘child’ or ‘servant’) applied to our Lord (Acts 3:13; Acts 3:26; Acts 4:27; Acts 4:30) has the same signification. Sanday points out (Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) iv. 574, 578) that παῖς is taken in the sense of ‘Son’ in the early Fathers, as in the Epistle to Diognetus (viii. 9f.; c. [Note: . circa, about.] a.d. 150?). This may also be the meaning of St. Luke in Acts; but it is equally probable that he refers to the OT ‘servant of Jahweh.’ This is clearly the meaning in Matthew 12:18, whore Isaiah 42:1 is quoted: ‘Behold my servant whom I have chosen,’ etc.
But what is the significance of the title ‘Son of God’? It was not exactly a now title when used in the NT, though Daniel 3:25 cannot be quoted for it (‘a son of the gods,’ Revised Version ; Authorized Version wrongly, ‘the Son of God’). It is probable that Psalms 2:7 was t
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'God'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/g/god.html. 1906-1918.
