The Holy Spirit is the God of Love

In the Bible, three persons are revealed to be God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. There is no difference whatsoever in the divine attributes, in the divine will, and in the divine working, as well as in the divine worship due to each person, for the three are the one God. Each person is fully God, yet the three persons remain distinct from one another.

The Father is the person from whom the Son of God is eternally begotten, begotten not in a flat carnal way, but in an analogically beautiful way from the very being of the Father. The Son always has been “in the bosom of the Father” (John 1:18). The Son of God possesses all the Father possesses (John 16:14-15), does whatever the Father does (John 14:10), and speaks whatever the Father speaks (John 12:49-50). The persons of the Father and the Son are united not only in act but in being. The two may thus be described, according to Jesus, as “in” one another (John 14:11). The Son is one with God (John 10:30).

And both the Father and the Son in turn send the Holy Spirit from eternity into the world to work the will of God declared by the eternal Word. “Sending” speaks to the economy or work of the Spirit, while “proceeding” speaks to the ontology or essence of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit proceeds from God eternally. The language used to describe the eternal procession from the Father in John 15:26 is both fascinating and instructive. The Greek term is ἐκπορεύομαι, which the Bauer lexicon says can be used in two closely related ways. It can either mean “to be in motion from” or “to come forth from.” Bauer classifies John 15:26 under the first to mean the Spirit “proceeds from someone.” And this someone is God.

Did you catch that? The Holy Spirit does not proceed from a creature. He is not like you and me or any other creature. Nor is the Holy Spirit sent by any mere creature. The Holy Spirit proceeds, like the Son, directly from God. The Son and the Spirit are uniquely related to the Father in that both participate by nature in the Godhead. The Son is the eternally begotten God. The Holy Spirit is the eternally proceeding God.

The Spirit’s deity is why, throughout Scripture, we find the Holy Spirit described with divine attributes, working with the divine will, doing things only God can do. Over the next several weeks we must speak of the Holy Spirit in his person and his work. And the first thing we must consider about the Holy Spirit is that He is Love.

I. Love

One of the divine perfections, alongside the attributes of sovereignty, knowledge, holiness, and so on, understood simply, is love. But be careful about your definition of love. When we run up against the Bible’s definition of love, we soon discover God the Trinity’s love is totally beyond our love. God’s love is perfect love.

John writes that “God is love,” not once but twice (1 John 4:8, 16). God the Father is ontologically love and practically love. From the internal perfection of the dynamic, eternal, and unitary love of the Three, the Father sends His Son into the world (1 John 4:9; John 3:16).

And from the internal perfection of the dynamic, eternal, and unitary love of the Three, God the Son demonstrates perfect love in the supreme loving act of becoming the God-Man. He is the One who was crucified for his unworthy friends. “Greater love has no man than this, that He lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). The Son showed his love toward us by giving his life for us, even while we were yet sinners.

So, the Father is love, the Son is love, and the Holy Spirit, too, is love. Another apostle, Paul, wrote, “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Rom 5:5). The Spirit as God brings the love of the Trinity to us, working with the dynamic Word to encounter us from without (Romans 10:9-10, 17) and within, engaging our minds, convicting our hearts, and loosening our tongues (Romans 8:26-27). The Spirit wants to unite you with Himself and with the Son, so that you become indwelt by the Son and the Spirit (Romans 8:9-11).

Did you catch that? The Father loves us by sending his Son as a propitiation for our sins. The Son loves us by dying so we might be reconciled to God and by arising from death so we will be justified before the eternal throne of judgment (Romans 4:25). The Triune God works from the perfection of his love so that we may be saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. And the Spirit presents to our hearts that perfect love, pulling us majestically and gently into the very heart of God.

And God’s love is perfect, pure, for: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends” (1 Cor 13:4-8a).

Why is the Holy Spirit so humble, so focused upon glorifying the other persons of the Godhead, especially the Son? Why does the Holy Spirit appear at first to recede into the background in our mind as He makes sure we clearly see Jesus Christ, the Son of God who was crucified and died for our sin, and who arose for our justification?

The Holy Spirit is humble, because humility is the perfect expression of pure love. The Holy Spirit is love. He humbly loves both the Son and the Father, and He humbly loves you. He is gently knocking on the door of your heart. As your pastor preaches the Word, will you let the Holy Spirit into your heart and confess the truth of the Gospel with your tongue?

(This is the first part in a four-part short series on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. For part two, concerning the Spirit as Intimate, click here. For part three, concerning the Spirit as the Giver of Life, click here.)

Trinity and Authority (Part One of Five)

The throne [θρόνος] of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and His slaves [δοῦλοι] will serve Him. (John 22:3b; HCSB)

My wife, Karen, is a close and careful reader of Scripture, and some of our greatest joys occur when we discuss the proper interpretation of the authoritative Word of God. Karen is also a close reader of Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the Trinity, since she is writing a thesis on that subject under the supervision of Gerardo Alfaro. Bonhoeffer's innovative if incomplete ruminations on the Trinity have shaped the contemporary discussion in a profound, if largely unrecognized, way.

One particular question with which we have been struggling is exactly how creation in the image of God (Gen 1:26-27) is to be seen in our marriage. What does it mean that there is an analogia relationis (Bonhoeffer's term) between the triune God and his image in humanity, especially in the relation of a man and his wife? Little were we to realize that a conversation with parallels to our own questions about Trinity and relation would explode in controversy on the web in recent weeks.

We bring forward this essay as a small contribution to that huge and fruitful, if sometimes tense, discussion. Before beginning, please allow a few caveats.

First, this is not intended to be an academic presentation, though it draws on academic work we performed together and individually. We have opted to speak freely in summary rather than with scholastic detail in order to allow the general reader some access to this discussion.

Second, the issue of authority is not our foremost concern with regard to the Trinity. Malcolm recently wrote a book, God the Trinity: Biblical Portraits, in which he lightly touches on the current issue. His foremost concern, demonstrated at length there, is knowing who God is through his revelation so we might worship him truly. Likewise, Karen studies the Trinity, not for speculative anthropological reasons but to help her lead women and children to worship God in mind, heart, and deed.

Third, determining the exact method one should follow in moving from theology (including the doctrine of the Trinity) to anthropology (including the relations between man and wife) requires contemplation. We only touch upon aspects of that movement here and refer the reader to Malcolm's contribution to a forthcoming book edited by Keith Whitfield. B&H Academic plans to publish Whitfield's Trinitarian Theology: Theological Models and Doctrinal Application in time for the Evangelical Theological Society meeting in November of this year. Malcolm's essay stresses that the direction of theological anthropology moves from theology to anthropology with utmost care and eschatological openness.

Finally, to extend our second point, we again note that Trinity and gender is not our primary concern. Worshiping God truly and with joyous hearts is our primary concern. Because we believed entering this conversation might detract from that service, we have been reluctant to enter it. We fear a reader's hasty preconceptions will categorize us as being "with them," whoever "they" are. Evangelicals have divided between egalitarians and complementarians, and the conversation has been so heated that whole agendas appear at work to build up one position or tear down the other. Moreover, these two major parties have further divided among themselves, with accusations of going beyond orthodoxy. We lament all unnecessary divisions and ask our brothers and sisters in Christ to treat each other with the love and generosity our Lord exemplified and commanded (John 13:34-35).

With those caveats, we now turn to an explication of the Trinity in light of some of the recent conversations online.

The Two Primary Complementarian Positions

Both Wayne Grudem and Mark Jones have summarily cited Malcolm as supporting their respective yet opposite positions in the recent internet controversy. Actually, we find positive aspects in both of the complementarian positions. Our hope is to help provide a positive way forward. In order to reach that goal, we must summarize the two major positions as we perceive them. If we have not represented your position correctly, we beg your forbearance and would gladly stand corrected.

The Eternal Relations of Authority Position

Bruce Ware, Wayne Grudem, Owen Strachan, and Mike Ovey are among the primary proponents of what has been variously called Eternal Functional Subordination, Eternal Relations of Authority and Submission, Eternal Submission of the Son, etc. We will classify these under the name of Eternal Relations of Authority (ERA). We offer four summative statements to characterize the positive position of this accomplished set of conservative evangelical theologians:

1.     Their primary method is to construct an understanding of the Trinity from the biblical ground up.
2.     The primary analogy they have chosen to organize the complex biblical witness about the immanent relations of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the biblical text is a relational analogy, that of personal "relations of authority."
3.     The ὁμοούσιος (homoousios) of the Nicene tradition is affirmed. God the Father and God the Son, along with the Holy Spirit, share the same nature.
4.     Most ERA proponents seem to operate from a modern Calvinist perspective.

The Other Complementarian Position

The initiating proponents of this position include such theologians as Liam Goligher and Carl Trueman, but many others have weighed in. (From inside conservative evangelical circles, still other complementarians have joined in the critique of the ERA position, but without condemnations. Egalitarian evangelicals such as Scot McKnight and Michael Bird have also stepped forward with comments. Beyond evangelicalism, patristic scholars such as Lewis Ayres and Michel Rene Barnes have supported this other position.) We tossed around different terms to classify this second position, but settled on the primary descriptive term, "other," though "classical" could be used with justification. We offer four summative statements to characterize the positive position of this accomplished set of conservative evangelical theologians:

1.     These theologians seek to construct a biblical theology of the Trinity, but with an ear sensitive to the theological exegesis of the classical tradition.
2.     The primary analogy they have chosen to organize the complex witness of the biblical text regarding the immanent Trinity is the Cappadocian and Augustinian language of "eternal generation" with regard to the Son and "eternal procession" with regard to the Holy Spirit. This theological analogy is relational, but differs from that of the ERA theologians. Where the ERA theologians stress relations of authority, the others use the ontological language of "relations of origin" and "modes of subsistence" or simply "ordered relations" (τάξις, taxis).
3.     The ὁμοούσιος (homoousios) of the Nicene tradition is affirmed. God the Father and God the Son, along with God the Holy Spirit, share the same nature. Also receiving major emphasis is the divine attribute of simplicity.
4.     Many of these proponents also operate from a modern Calvinist perspective. Some follow B.B. Warfield's disjunction between the immanent Trinity and economic Trinity, while others lean toward a modified version of Karl Rahner's identification between the immanent Trinity and the economic Trinity. Some appeal to the Augustinian presentation of the Trinity with its psychological analogy or love analogy. Some appeal to the Reformed covenant of redemption. Others appeal to Calvin's origination of the Son from himself as God (αὐτόθεοϛ, autotheos). In various ways, the traditional emphasis on the unity of the three persons is thus emphasized.

From these descriptions of the opposing positions, it should be evident that, alongside their obvious agreement regarding gender complementarianism, there is much agreement regarding the presentation of their doctrine of the Trinity. Both the ERA complementarians and the other complementarians agree there is a threeness and oneness in the biblical witness to God. Both affirm the Nicene tradition's appeal to the one οὐσία (ousia, often translated as "essence," "nature," "substance," or "being") of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Both positions appear to affirm there are three persons (ὑπόστασεις, hypostaseis) in the Godhead, though this has been typically implied. Next, we turn to the crisis between the two groups, which we believe is focused upon whether describing the relations between the three persons, and particularly between the Father and the Son, as eternal relations of authority is orthodox.

Malcolm and Karen Yarnell

Fort Worth, Texas

June 2016