By Farther Steps

Reformed and Reforming, semper reformanda to Christ's glory.

Posts Tagged ‘Trinity’

Piper on Edwards on the Trinity

The Trinity in Two Minutes from Desiring God on Vimeo.

Piper perfectly summarizes Edwards conception of the Trinity in two minutes here and that is difficult to do! I think Edwards is correct and if so, it explains why we don’t see the Holy Spirit mentioned sometimes (often?) when the Bible speaks of the Father and the Son. The Spirit may be expressed there in other words.

If you’re interested in reading Edward original thoughts on this to see if Piper is accurate, I did some formatting on Edwards unpublished paper on the Trinity in 2002. It is posted here.

No Imagined Furnishings

[W]e should not fill out our knowledge of the life of the eternally triune God with elaborate, mythological imaginings. This is the perfect place for some realism and restraint in the use of the imagination in theological thinking. We know that God’s life as Father, Son, and Spirit is eternally rich and full, but we do not know its details, and we should not manufacture them. We cannot describe the geography of the happy land of the Trinity. We do no know what kind of music the persons of the Trinity listen to, or what they cook for each other, or who does the dishes, or if they carpool. We do not know if they hold hands and do some kind of liturgical round-dance, as has often been suggested in some of the more purple theological literature. The perfect life of the blessed Trinity is lived above all worlds, including all worlds that we can fill out with imagined furnishings. – Fred Sanders, The Deep Things of God, 82-83

From St. Patrick’s Confession

For there is no other God, nor ever was before, nor shall be hereafter, but God the Father, unbegotten and without beginning, in whom all things began, whose are all things, as we have been taught; and his son Jesus Christ, who manifestly always existed with the Father, before the beginning of time in the spirit with the Father, indescribably begotten before all things, and all things visible and invisible were made by him. He was made man, conquered death and was received into Heaven, to the Father who gave him all power over every name in Heaven and on Earth and in Hell, so that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and God, in whom we believe. And we look to his imminent coming again, the judge of the living and the dead, who will render to each according to his deeds. And he poured out his Holy Spirit on us in abundance, the gift and pledge of immortality, which makes the believers and the obedient into sons of God and co-heirs of Christ who is revealed, and we worship one God in the Trinity of holy name.