_4_Objections to the Unity of the Godhead

The First Objection: In His sacerdotal prayer, Christ addresses the Father as “the only true God” (John 17:3) and thereby disclaims essential equality with the Father (homoousia). Answer: The fact is that Christ very emphatically claims nothing less than this essential equality. In John 10:30 () He declares in unmistakable words that there is absolute unity of essence between Him and the Father. Any other interpretation of these words is out of the question, because Christ makes this statement to prove that it is as impossible to pluck the sheep out of His hand as out of the Father’s. But if Christ claims unity of essence with the Father, why does He demand in John 17:3 that men must know not only the Father, but that in distinction from, and in addition to, the Father they must also know the Son? The answer is found in the immediate context. First (in v. 2), Christ claims unity of essence with the Father by ascribing to Himself the divine work of giving eternal life. Second, the real scope of John 17 is to answer the practical question how men can come to the saving knowledge of the one true God. And Christ answers this question when He says: “I have glorified Thee on earth” (v. 4); “I have manifested Thy name unto men” (v. 6); “I have given them Thy Word” (v. 14). In other words, the “only true God” is revealed only in the incarnate Son of God, whom the Father has sent (v. 4). Christ is the only way by which men can come to the Father (John 14:6-11). Accordingly, it is not sufficient for salvation to know the Father, but men must also know the Son if they would be saved. Luthardt is essentially correct when he says: “Men can find life only in God, who has revealed Himself as the God of our salvation only in Christ. Hence He is not the only true God to the exclusion of Jesus Christ, as Arians, Socinians, and Rationalists teach”21 In a masterful way Luther shows that the Arians pervert Christ’s words (John 17:3) “as though Christ excluded Himself and ascribed the deity only to the Father.” The Arians press the word “only,” superficially look at the text, and ignore the context entirely. They refuse to see that Christ “makes our salvation dependent on knowing both the Father and the Son and makes of the two one knowledge.” Luther continues: “These words [John 17:3] are most powerfully directed against the Arians and all heretics, Jews, and unchristians, who claim to believe, and pride themselves on believing, in only one God, who made heaven and earth, and on account of that article condemn us Christians as people setting up another God. For He [Christ] means to indicate that they do not know the right, true God, though they think so and boast of it; for they do not discover Him as the one He is, nor do they know how they must learn to know Him, namely, that He is this one true God who has sent Jesus Christ. Which amounts to saying: Whoever wants to discover the one true God, he must seek Him alone in the Lord Christ, for there is in truth no other God but the One who sent Christ. Now, whoever has not Christ, must also miss the right, true God, even though he knows and believes that there is but one true God. For he does not believe in Him who has sent Christ and through Him gives eternal life. Therefore the important word is Thee’ (“that they might know Thee, the only true God”). Which Thee’? Thee who hast sent Jesus Christ. As though He said: The Jews and others also have only one God, as they think; but Thee, who alone art the true God, they do not know, because they do not know Christ sent by Thee, and in the meantime imagine a god according to their own thoughts, who is in truth no god, but pure nothing. Hence you see that Christ does not use the little word ‘only’ to separate Himself from God according to the divine essence (since this is amply prevented through the other words), but rather to show the intimate union between the Father and Himself against those who seek God outside of Christ.” (St. L. VIII:759ff.) In the eleventh sermon on the Gospel of John (St. L. VII: 1702 ff.) Luther calls the knowledge of God which does not know Christ “a knowledge of the wrong side of God,” a knowledge in which God does not show His real face to man, but “turns His back to man.” The knowledge of God outside Christ leads man no farther than to the knowledge of the Law of Moses, which shows us that God will give eternal life to those who keep the Law, while He will condemn those who transgress it. But that is not the true and complete picture of God, for God has not sent His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save it (John 3:17; 1 Tim. 1:15). “Therefore;” says Luther, “face about, and see what the true countenance of God is.” The true face of God is He whom God has sent into the world, Jesus Christ. He is the “Angel of His presence” (Is. 63:9) and God’s (2 Cor. 4:6). On the face of Jesus is emblazoned the gracious truth that God does not desire to condemn one sinner, but to save all sinners for Christ’s sake. The inscription on Christ’s face reads: “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son,” etc. (John 3:16), and the Father directs all mankind to look upon this face of Jesus Christ (Matt. 17:5). Whoever has a different God cannot have the “one true God.” He has painted a god according to his own fancy; his god is a caricature, a nonentity, an idol. Hence St. John’s earnest warning: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21), for, as he said in the preceding verse, the Christian knowledge of God consists in this, that “we know that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal Life.” These words state as expressly as do the words in John 17:3, that there is no knowledge of the true God outside the incarnate Son of God. The only difference between the two statements is that the implied homoousia of John 17:3 is here stated expressis verbis. “This [the Son, Jesus Christ] is the true God.” 22

Second Objection: Because the Son is of the Father () and the Holy Spirit of the Father and of the Son ( and ), the Son must be inferior to the Father and the Holy Ghost inferior to both the Father and the Son.23 Answer: This objection is puerile. Even in the natural realm a son is not necessarily inferior to his father in physical stature, intellectual endowments, position, and prestige. Theologians who raise this objection lack not only discernment in the realm of nature, but are void of spiritual insight. According to God’s own self-revelation in His Word it is impossible for the Son to be inferior to the Father and for the Holy Spirit to be inferior to the Father and the Son. As shown above, each Person possesses the entire divine essence as well as the divine attributes and works, which do not exist in three “sets,” but only in one “set.” In other words, each Person in the Deity is the entire God, and not a third of God. Luther: “Of these Persons each one is the entire God, outside which [Person] there is no other God.” 24 And the Christian congregation sings with Luther in the “battle hymn of the Reformation”: “Jesus Christ it is… . And there’s none other God.”

Franz Delitzsch raised the question: “Is it permissible to call Jesus Christ the Lord Sabaoth, the one God, besides whom there is none other?” (Allgem. Ev.-luth. Kirchenzeitung, 1884, No. 49). But Delitzsch raised the question only to deny it and thereby manifested that his spiritual insight had fallen far below the Christian level, for he actually denied the clear statement of Col. 2:9. If Delitzsch really followed the implications of his denial, then he thought of the Son of God only as a half-god or third-god. Every form of Subordinationism and modern Kenoticism is nothing less than a relapse into pagan polytheism.

Zoeckler straddles the issue. He states: “We cannot classify as heretical that form of subordination which maintains the essential equality of the three Persons while subordinating the Son and the Spirit to the Father and which was taught by many ante-Nicene Fathers, the Arminians, Episcopius, Curcellaeus, Limborch, a large part of the supranaturalist dogmaticians, likewise Kahnis, the more positive theologians of the Ritschlian School” (Handbuch der theol. Wissenschaften III, 91). Whoever takes the term “Subordinationism” in its native and accepted sense is compelled to deny the unity of essence and to say with Kahnis that “the Son is God only in a secondary sense of the word” (Dogmatik, 2d ed., I, 361).

The following argument of the Subordinationists also renounces the Christian knowledge of God: Since the Son is of the Father, He is younger than the Father, and the Holy Spirit is inferior to the Son and the Father regarding time, because He proceeds from them. This argument presumes that the concept of time with all its implications can be predicated of timeless eternity and of the immutable and eternal God. Such an assumption is a denial of eternity and of the eternal God. Whoever uses this specious argument renounces the Christian knowledge of God, yes, even the natural knowledge of God, for the eternity of God’s power and Godhead is clearly understood by the things that are made (Rom. 1:20). Accordingly the Athanasian Creed states: “And in this Trinity none is before or after other; none is greater or less than another, but the whole three Persons are coeternal together and coequal” (Trigl. 33, 24-25).

The ecclesiastical terminology “the Father is the First, the Son is the Second, and the Holy Spirit is the Third Person” is Scriptural. According to the Scriptures, the Father is called the First Person, because He is not of another, but of Himself. The Son is called the Second Person, because He has the divine essence from the Father. The Holy Spirit is called the Third Person because He is not of Himself, but has the divine essence from the Father and the Son and because another does not proceed from Him. The dogmaticians call this an order of natural enumeration (ordo naturalis enumerationis). It is the best way in which the divine mode of subsistence in the Holy Trinity can be expressed (ordo in modo subsistendi). The argument that this order implies subordination either as to time or dignity is suggested by the unscriptural and irrational assumption that human and temporal standards apply to the eternal God.

Third Objection: Scripture itself teaches subordination when it states that the divine works in nature and in the Church are wrought through () the Son and the Holy Spirit. Answer: True, Scripture states that all things were made by the Son (John 1:3; Col. 1:16); that “by the Word of the Lord were the heavens made and all the host of them by the Breath [Spirit] of His mouth” (Ps.33:6); that “God hath chosen us in Him [the Son]” (Eph. 1:4); “God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit” (2 Thess. 2:13). But it is a fallacy to infer from this a subordination of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. As there is an order of Persons, without subordination, so there is also an order of operation (ordo in modo operandi). As the Son has His divine essence from the Father, so also His operation: “the Son can do nothing of Himself but what He seeth the Father do” (John 5:19). Likewise the Holy Spirit has from the Father and the Son both His Godhead and His operation, for the Holy Ghost “shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak… . He shall receive of Mine” (John 16:13-15). The fact that there is an order of operation does not imply a division of the divine activity, for the Scriptures ascribe the one operation (una numero actio) to the Son and the Holy Ghost as well as to the Father. Jesus not only says that He can do nothing of Himself, but adds immediately that He does the same work in the same manner () as the Father, thereby declaring that the work of the Father and the Son is numerically identical, that is, the operation belongs to the entire Trinity without any division among the three Persons (John 5:19).25 This is evident from such passages as ascribe a divine work to one Person without even mentioning the others, e. g., Heb. 1:10 (the work of creation is ascribed to the Son) and 1 Cor. 12:11 (as He wills, the Holy Spirit distributes the special spiritual gifts).

Fourth Objection: Christ says expressly that the Father is greater than the Son (John 14:28-29). Answer: Christ is here speaking of an inferiority to the Father which is to cease at His glorification and return to the Father; in other words, Christ is inferior only according to the human nature in the State of Humiliation. The Savior tells His disciples to rejoice that He will go to the Father, because this event marks His entrance into the State of Exaltation according to the human nature and will therefore terminate His inferiority. This is the only possible meaning of the Savior’s words in the light of His high-priestly prayer: “O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own Self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was” (John 17:5). In a sermon on the Gospel for Pentecost Sunday, Luther says: “What He says — ‘the Father is greater than I’ — is not said of the personal, divine essence of His own nature, nor of His Father’s, as the Arians have falsely interpreted this passage, not wishing to see why or whereof Christ so speaks here; but concerning the difference between the Kingdom which He shall have with His Father and His service or servile state in which He was before His resurrection. Now I am small, He wishes to say, in My work and station as a Servant; as He says in Matt. 20:28: ‘The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many.’ That is making Himself little, and, as St. Paul says in Phil. 2:8, humbling Himself, or casting Himself beneath all things and letting sin, death, devil, and world tread upon Him. But this littleness shall not continue, He says, for that would be a complete undoing; it shall be only a passageway, the way and means by which I come to the Father, where I shall no longer be little, but great and powerful, as He is, and where I shall rule and reign with Him forever.” (St. L. XI: 1079 f.)

In his exposition of John 14:28-29 Luther discusses this same point in greater detail. He points out that the Arians used these words to mislead the simple Christians; that even some Church Fathers, as Hilary, missed the real meaning when they taught that Christ’s inferiority to the Father was not one of essence, but one of authority. Luther points out that it is necessary to understand the words if one is not to misunderstand the subject matter; otherwise he may, as the proverb says, “take a cow for a horse.” But it is just as important to know the subject matter; otherwise one may understand the words but fail to comprehend the subject matter under discussion. Luther then proceeds to show from the context that Christ is not speaking of Himself according to the divine nature, nor according to the human nature in general, but according to the human nature in the State of Humiliation. “The Father is greater than I, because now I am a Servant; but when I return yonder to My Father’s, then shall I become greater, namely, as great as the Father, that is, I shall rule with Him in equal power and majesty… . Thus Christ goes out of this temporary hovel into the infinite heaven, out of this dungeon into His great, glorious kingdom, where He is much greater than before. Formerly He was the poor, miserable, suffering, and dying Christ; now, however, being with the Father, He is the great, glorious, living, almighty Lord over all creatures.” (St. L. VIII:477 f.)26