Holy, Holy, Holy: A Song for the Eternal Throne

The final year of Judah’s king Uzziah heralded a tumult in politics. The rising pagan storm of Assyria was blowing away the small nations of the Middle East. Even the great states of Egypt and Babylon would not be able to withstand her mighty onslaught. The national-economic winds were shifting radically to the north. 

The people of Judah and Israel feared that the security of their future was slipping away, no matter what they tried. Uzziah assembled a military like few others could imagine. Personally flawed, even profane, he proved a surprisingly astute ruler. But the kings who came immediately after him repeatedly demonstrated that no mere human ruler could handle the dangers of Assyrian martial conquest, much less the Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and Roman empires which would follow. 

A court prophet fretted as he worshiped in the Temple. Then, with social and political turmoil threatening to engulf the people of God, Isaiah was granted a vision of that one royal court which really mattered. He saw formidable angels, seraphim, literally “burning ones.” They humbled themselves before the divine throne, covering their feet, hiding their faces, careful not to detract from the glorious One on the eternal throne. They flew hither and thither, calling out, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of Hosts!” These messengers did not praise any mere human ruler. They would not dread even the most powerful emperor. They did fear God.

The word “holy” indicates a mysteriously present, tremendously powerful otherness wherein there resides no hint whatsoever of that which is common, profane, evil. “Holy” indicates a sacred place, a sacred time, even a sacred presence, the awful presence of a person beyond the observer’s normal capacity for discourse. In Hebrew, to say “holy” is to say, “this is other.” And to say “holy” twice is to say, “this is superior to others.” But to say “holy” three times is to say, “the most holy, the Holy One.” The Lord, He is God, and He has shown Himself. Comprehensive holiness truthfully engenders absolute alarm.

The existential impact of this heavenly vision upon Isaiah was personally and communally devastating. When the prophet glimpsed the government of God, his perspectival grasp of contemporary reality experienced a revolutionary shift. The veil of eternity was peeled back. The nations paled into insignificance. Isaiah gazed upon the heavenly throne, and he could only tremble. The nations have pretentious petty potentates, but the Lord God outshines every nation, indeed the sum of all together, with his matchless purity, his resplendent presence, his crushing power. The whole earth shudders beneath the weight of Yahweh’s glory.

And the only proper response before the One who rules the universe itself is to repent. Isaiah cried out from the depth of his terrified soul, “Woe is me! I am undone!” “I am a man who has spoken evil.” “And I live in the midst of a nation which speaks evil!” Perhaps he thought of how the court scribes fawned over their rulers; of how his people paraded their perverted sexuality; of how his nation’s parents sacrificed their children to a false god of prosperity; of how the strong oppressed the weak and abused the defenseless. Whatever the particular cause, Isaiah knew every single person was wicked, deserving of damnation.

By all appearances, there was no hope. Alas, there is no hope for any of us, for we have all gone our own way. We are all sinners. We are, therefore, hopeless, unless God himself makes an atonement, provides a sacrifice, creates a way for the unholy person to become holy. True hope will not be found with any name offered on a ballot during a national election day. Hope will be found only in the electing grace of the thrice-holy God. 

The Father freely offers us the sacrifice of his own Son’s life as the atonement for our sins. This is why our only hope is to cry out, under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, “Christ has died! Christ has risen! Christ will come again!” Confess your sins, whatever they are, to Him. He wants to forgive you. You can be holy, even as the One on the heavenly throne is holy. He offers, by his Holy Spirit, to make you holy through faith, repentance, regeneration. Come and drink freely from his water of life. Only then may you enter God’s presence, only then, as you place your hope, your faith, your trust in Christ alone, the forever King.

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:1-5)

[Delivered to the Lakeside Baptist Church on November 1, 2020, the third day before the American National Election.]

Trinity and Authority (Part Five of Five)

A Way Forward?

Having surveyed the debate and noted the limitation of analogies between Trinity and anthropology, we now propose a way of approaching the eternal relations that may bring ERA theologians and their detractors closer together. This involves four proposals, two each for the two primary parties. Individual proposals may already be redundant to certain theologians on either side—if so, please accept these as fait accompli.

First Proposal

First, we ask the ERA complementarian theologians to grant other theologians freedom to describe the eternal distinctions of the divine persons in terms of "generation" (of the Son) and "procession" (of the Holy Spirit) rather than as relations of authority. Even if the biblical language of μονογενής (monogenes) indicates unique sonship rather than generation, the language of "Father" and "Son" must be granted as eternally true.

The revealed proper names for the divine persons indicate an eternal relation of shared nature, which real relation is denominated in the terminology of "generation." Among orthodox theologians, there is no materiality or composition intended thereby and the adjectival qualifier of "eternal" may be properly ascribed to the generative relation between the Father and his Son as distinct eternal persons.

Even if ERA theologians find the language of eternal generation extrabiblical (we disagree), this traditional terminology certainly encapsulates biblical conceptions regarding the Father’s sharing of the divine life with the Son. The use of "eternal generation" ought to be an issue of freedom between mutual proponents of ὁμοούσιος (homoousios). In his most recent comments to Reformation 21, a generous reading would suggest Grudem is already open to this first proposal.

Second Proposal

Second, we propose other complementarian theologians grant freedom to ERA theologians to prefer the language of "eternal functional subordination," "eternal relations of authority and submission," and "eternal submission of the Son." Those of us who are more classical in our language have legitimate questions regarding the implications of these newer terms. But, apart from direct contradictions of the unity of the three persons, we should believe the ERA theologians when they say they are not seeking to compromise the shared nature of the three.

For instance, let us hear them out regarding the structure of willing within the Trinity. But, if they as a group have not deemed it necessary to address that issue conclusively yet, we are compelled to wait patiently until they feel led by the Spirit to declare their view formally. Moreover, it just may be that the Spirit is leading the churches, through the ERA theologians, to recognize there is more theological development required beyond the ecumenical councils. This may especially be the case with regard to the "will," which has meanings developed not entirely from Scripture, which is a controverted term historically, and which is often used in contemporary conversations with widely varying meanings affected on all sides by anthropocentric individualism.

Third Proposal

Third, while we would counsel mutual allowance of preferred terms and patience regarding questions that go beyond current declarations, we also propose the ERA theologians consider a necessary connection of eternal relations of authority with the singular and undivided authority of the Godhead.

"Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One" (Deut 6:4): Scripture uses numerous terms and images, such as "rule," "king," "lord," and "throne" to indicate divine authority. The term, "Lord," for instance, carries significant Trinitarian weight in the Bible. The Shema placed both the common name of God and the covenantal name together in the Israelites' wholehearted confession of loyalty to him (Deut 6:4-5). The covenantal name of Yahweh was later correlated with Adonai, "Lord," among the Hebrews. "Lord" thence came into early Christian usage. The fundamental Christian confession is "Jesus is Lord" (Rom 10:9-10; 1 Cor 12:3). Paul specifically identified God the Father with the "Lord" Jesus Christ in a Shema-like statement (1 Cor 8:6). Paul also included the Holy Spirit in that divine Lordship (2 Cor 3:17). For Paul, there is only "one Lord," but if there is a particular placement of that authoritative term with one of the three persons, it resides foremost not with the Father but with the Son (Eph 4:5; 1 Cor 8:6).

When earlier theological exegetes such as John Calvin read these and like passages, they concluded the Son's eternal authority was equivalent to that of the Father. They were thus reluctant to countenance any eternal diminution of the Son's authority. For instance, when commenting upon 1 Corinthians 15:27-28, which says the Son will be "subjected" to the Father at the end, Calvin argued the Son's kingdom nevertheless has no end. He did not deny the Son's subjection to the Father, but located that subjection in Christ's "humanity" rather than in his "glorious deity." This partitive hermeneutic helps correlate 1 Corinthians 15:28 with other canonical passages such as Daniel 7:14, 27; Luke 1:33; Ephesians 1:22-23; Philippians 2:9-11; Colossians 1:18-20; and 2 Peter 1:11, which elevate and continue the Christ's complete authority into eternity.

Similarly, the creedal tradition supporting unified Lordship is substantive. It begins in the fourth-century Nicene Creed, which states of Christ that "his kingdom will have no end." Also important is the sixth-century Athanasian Creed, which locates divine authority in the divine nature, not once, but twice: "Likewise, omnipotent Father, omnipotent Son, omnipotent Holy Spirit—and nevertheless not three omnipotents, but one omnipotent." "Therefore Lord Father, Lord Son, Lord Holy Spirit—and nevertheless not three lords, but one Lord." More recently, article II of the Baptist Faith and Message declared that God the Father is "all powerful," the Son is "ever present Lord," and the Holy Spirit as "fully divine" also "empowers." But the Baptist confession located divine authority not compositely in the persons but indivisibly in the divine nature: Among the infinite "perfections" of the "one and only one living and true God" is that he is "Ruler of the universe."

A Possible Formula: If we were ERA theologians, we would suggest the language of eternal relations of authority explicitly follow linguistic rules previously detected in Trinitarian doctrines like eternal generation and divine glory. For instance, patristic orthodoxy used the terminology of eternal generation, not to suggest a diminution or composition in the divine nature the Father shares with the Son, but to emphasize complete participation. Through generation God the Father eternally shares his being entirely with the Son, without loss, division, or composition. The Father's begetting of the Son secures simultaneously the distinction between the persons and the unitary divine nature. The procession of the Holy Spirit is construed according to a similar if distinct set of rules governing procession.

Another instance may be detected in the Johannine doctrine of divine glory. Jesus begins his prayer to the Father in John 17 with two major ideas about the perfection of glory. First, the Father and the Son glorify one another (John 17:1). (And the Holy Spirit sovereignly glorifies the Son in John 16:14.) Second, the Father and the Son shared this glory "before the world was" (John 17:5). The divine attribute of glory is thus eternally one yet also dynamically moving between the persons. Perhaps, on the basis of a similar complexity in divine equality and differentiation, one could argue the eternal relations of authority originate with the Father and proceed toward the Son, in the dynamic of paternal headship and filial submission, but without ever diminishing the eternally perfect authority of the Son (and the Spirit).

In a few sentences immediately after Grudem's quotation from Malcolm's book, Malcolm stated, "the one who sits on the throne is the origin of all power; the Lamb is worthy to receive all power; and the seven spirits exercise all power" (God the Trinity, 218). The authority of God could similarly be seen as located in the headship of the Father, shared entirely and eternally with the Lamb, and sovereignly exercised by the Holy Spirit. The "eternal relations of authority and submission" exegetically detected by Bruce Ware could perhaps be correlated with the placement of divine authority in the singular throne shared between God and the Lamb (Rev 22:3b). Eternally, there is only one authority and it is located in the divine nature. The eschatological reorientation of authority and submission finds it fulfillment, not in a division of authority upon the singular divine throne, but in the divisible slavery of humanity (Rev 22:3b), whom the Son subjected through himself to the Father (1 Cor 15:28).

Fourth Proposal

Our fourth proposal is that other theologians retract any calls for the removal of the ERA theologians from their teaching offices. Yes, there are times when we must join the apostle Paul in ringing down anathemas upon those who proclaim a different gospel than that which the church received (Gal 1:8-9). Yes, there are times to stand for eternal truth in a shifty world, but this is not yet that time.

While we share Trueman and Goligher's questions about the implications of the eternal relations of authority approach to the Trinity, it is not clear the eternal gospel has been compromised. Theologians like Grudem and Ware have proclaimed the good news in their public ministries of teaching with long effort and much grace. Even if moments of ineloquence or indiscretion were discovered in their writings, though we know of none, who among us would dare claim absolute perfection in our own presentations of the holy dogmas of inerrant Scripture? Do we really believe these men have compromised the gospel of God and Christ? We think not.

Conclusion

Speaking of the gospel, that is how we would like to end this excursion from Trinitarian theology into theological anthropology. As Derek Rishmawy indicated early in this controversy, the debate itself could have positive benefits. One of the benefits is that it helps us arrive at theological accuracy. However, the major benefit of the controversy is not that it drives us back through considerations of historical theology into biblical theology, though these are necessary and good, but ultimately it drives us to consider the triune God in himself and in his activity toward his creation.

So, here is the main thing to see: The eternal Father sent his only begotten Son into this world in order to unite with our humanity. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died on a cross for our sins and rose from the dead for our justification. The Father and the Son sent the eternally proceeding Holy Spirit into the world in order to convict us of sin and judgment and the righteousness available through faith in the Son. And through regeneration, the Spirit unites us with the Son of God, allowing us to approach the Father in the service of worship.

And that is what we, his redeemed slaves, will be doing for eternity: Worshiping the one enthroned Lord God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—three persons yet one in essence, eternally sharing the divine perfections in the beautiful order of relations without division, without diminution, without composition.

Malcolm and Karen Yarnell

Fort Worth, Texas

June 2016