by Sam Waldron | Dec 14, 2011 | Systematic Theology
The Latin filioque is derived from two words. Filioque = que (and) filio (son). Thus, the filioque refers to the phrase, “and the Son.” Augustine is the Father of the filioque, the distinctively western interpretation of the procession of the Spirit. The Council of Constantinople (381) affirmed simply that the Spirit proceeds from the Father. Emphasizing the unity of God, Augustine affirmed that the Spirit proceeded from both the Father and the Son (filioque). This was, according to Augustine, because the Father has “given to the Son that the same Spirit should proceed from Him.” This teaching tended to emphasize the unqualified deity of the Son.
During the Medieval period when the Eastern and Western halves of the Church were drawing apart, the most important bone of contention as to doctrine was the controversy over the filioque. In 589 at the Synod of Toledo (in the west) the word, filioque, was added to the Nicene Creed. It would now be read in the West that “the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.” This addition to the creed was offensive to many in the East.
Actually, in my opinion the difference between the East and West on this issue has been vastly inflated both then and now. Filioque was more an excuse to divide than a real reason to divide. Why do I affirm that the difference between East and West on this issue has been wrongly inflated? I say this because Augustine and premier Eastern theologians like John of Damascus (d. after 750) actually approached very closely to each other’s position on this issue.
As we have seen, Augustine did not teach that the Spirit from the Father and Son equally. What he actually said was that the Father has “given to the Son that the same Spirit should proceed from Him.” In this formula primacy and monarchy of the Father in the procession of the Spirit is maintained.
Quite similarly, John of Damascus in his definitive presentation of the Eastern doctrine of the Trinity taught that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. Though he rigidly rejected all subordinationism, he thought of the Father as the source of the Godhead. Yet one could say on the basis of his formula that the Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son.
Of course, the Western and Eastern views have been and may be understood in quite contrary ways. The Western view may be presented as presenting two ultimate sources for the procession of the Holy Spirit. The Eastern view may be presented as if the Spirit proceeds from the Father in a direction quite divorced from the person and work of the Son. Each of these extremes tends to heresy and, in fact, have been used in the interests of heresy. The extreme Western view denies the primacy of the Father in the Trinity and moves in the direction of Egaliarianism and Modalism. The extreme Eastern view seems to divorce the Son and Spirit and has been used (by Inclusivists like Clark Pinnock) to teach that the Spirit may be active where the Son is not known.
The best theologians of both East and West (Augustine and John of Damascus) have actually interpreted this issue in a way that has moved in the direction of rapprochement. They have understood the procession of the Holy Spirit, in spite of the filioque, in ways that are quite similar. I do not believe that this issue needs to be as divisive as it has become, just so long as the extreme views on either side are avoided.
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.
by Sam Waldron | Dec 7, 2011 | Systematic Theology
As I write this, it is December 6, and it has been just about one month since my last blog on the Trinity. It has been more months than that since some of you kindly responded to various posts in this blog series. My apologies are extended to each of you who responded with comments. I have read and thought about your comments, and in this blog and the following will respond to some of their concerns. The only thing that extenuates my tardiness is a very busy semester of teaching and travel. Tonight is the final for the Doctrine of Christ and Salvation at MCTS and next week are my finals at KWC. Thus, a little mental space has been cleared to return to the subject of the Trinity.
Several of the comments that were made in past months had to do with the doctrine of the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit. In this and my next blog I take up that important topic.
In this blog, I will answer the question, What is the proof for the doctrine of the spiration or procession of the Holy Spirit?
The proof text usually cited here is John 15:26: “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me.” Often this is dismissed as simply a reference to the economic Trinity and to the sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. While this is certainly the reference of the first clauses of the verse, it is not so certain that it is the reference the words, who proceeds from the Father. This is because Jesus speaks of the Spirit proceeding from the Father not in the future tense (which He uses in the first two and last clauses of the verse), but in the present tense. This strongly suggests that this procession is not identical to His sending from the Father by the Son. It is possible and even likely that this present tense is (like the use of the I am in John 8:58) an eternal present and speaks of the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit.
The true strength of the doctrine of the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit is, however, based on the analogy with the eternal generation of the Son. This is true in several respects.
(1) The eternal sonship of the second person of the Trinity rests on an eternal relationship of derivation by way of generation from the Father. The names, Son and Word, find their true basis in the eternal derivation of the second person of the Trinity from the first. Similarly, the names, Spirit of the Lord or Holy Spirit, must also reflect not merely an economic relationship in redemption, but an eternal relationship. Thus, the name, Spirit, suggests to us that He is the person who is eternally breathed out or spirated by the Father. He is not generated for this would make Him a second son, but He is breathed out and in this mysteriously different way derives His person from the Father.
(2) The analogy of eternal generation also teaches us that the economic Trinity reflects the eternal Trinity. The historical sonship of Christ and His role in redemption reflects and is appropriate to His eternal sonship and role in the eternal Trinity. Everything that has been said by way of support of the eternal generation of the Son supports the idea that the economic Trinity reflects the eternal Trinity. But if this is so, then the role of the Spirit in redemption as sent by the Father (and the Son) must also reflect the eternal procession and role of the Spirit in the eternal Trinity. Just as Son speaks of the place and role of the second person in the eternal Trinity, so also Spirit must speak of such a place and role.
(3) Finally, the analogy of the eternal sonship and wordship of Christ allows us to argue that the place of the Spirit in the work of creation reflects His eternal role in the Trinity. If we are to find in God’s speaking in Genesis 1:3 the eternal Word of God—as John’s reference to creation John 1:1-3 suggests—then we must surely find in “the Spirit of God moving over the surface of the waters” a reference to the person of the Holy Spirit also. The Spirit occupies a subordinate (but necessary role) in redemption as the one who applies redemption and actually brings light to the night of our souls. Thus, also in creation He is the one who in response to the Father’s speaking actually causes light and life to arise in the darkness and the deep.
Granted, if one can reject the multiplied evidences for the eternal generation of the Son in my previous blogs, then he will find nothing impressive in the arguments brought forward here. On the other hand, if one appreciates the weighty Scriptural reasons to credit the Nicene doctrine of eternal generation, then, I think, he will find more than adequate reason by way of analogy to credit the doctrine of eternal procession.
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.
by Sam Waldron | Nov 9, 2011 | Systematic Theology
Millard Erickson has warned that in some way the doctrine of the eternal functional subordination of the Son will lead to Arianism. We have seen that there are clear boundaries which set the Nicene doctrine of eternal generation at odds with all forms of Arianism. Eternal generation is the explicitly the reason that the Son of God is “begotten not created” according to the Creed. The same Creed confesses that Christ is “very God…being of one substance with the Father.” Furthermore, we have seen that much different than Arianism the subordination of the Nicene Creed has to do with personal roles and a Platonic hierarchy of being.
Why does Erickson despite this historical evidence fear Arianism to be the outcome of the theology he opposes? He insists that attributing a kind of authority to the Father and subordination to the Son in the inter-personal working of the Godhead means that the Father has a different attribute of authority than the Son at this point. Frankly, Erickson should know better than to make such a charge. Basic and essential to the entire Trinitarian tradition is the fundamental distinction between the personal properties of the persons of the Godhead with regard to one another and the attributes of the essence of the Godhead in opposition to created reality. The monarchy of the Father and the eternal generation of the Son are personal properties not essential attributes. Nobody claims that the deity of the Son is less sovereign over creation than the deity of the Father. The authority and subordination under discussion has only to do with the interpersonal relationships of the Trinity.
But if eternal generation is in no danger historically of lapsing into Arianism, there is a danger in Erickson’s Egalitarian Trinity. It is the ancient error of Modalism. By Modalism I refer to the doctrine also known as Sabellianism and Patripassianism which teaches that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are simply three roles played by one and the same divine person.
I am not, of course, accusing Erickson of Modalism. But without the personal distinctions signified by the monarchy of the Father, the eternal generation of the Son, and the eternal procession of the Spirit there is no scriptural or other way of distinguishing the three persons of the Trinity from one another. Steve Wellum confirms this:
“As noted above, every orthodox formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity must preserve both the unity of God’s nature as well as the threeness of person.In attempting to do so, the church has drawn a distinction between “nature”and “person”with “person”referring to, as Calvin stated it many years ago, “a subsistence in God’s essence, which, while related to the others, is distinguished by an incommunicable quality” (Institutes 1.13.6). This entails that each person of the Godhead has specific properties unique to him that distinguishes him from the others, otherwise modalism would result.”
On Erickson and the Egalitarians view one is left with a triplet Trinity of three neutered persons who are exactly alike so far as we know from Scripture. It does not take any imagination to see how such an inconsequential distinction of three persons would lose significance. It is not far-fetched to think that such an inconsequential and inexplicable distinction between three exactly identical persons would tend directly over time to the error of simply not thinking of a Trinitarian God, but a God not too different from that of the Unitarian God of Modalism!
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.
by Sam Waldron | Nov 2, 2011 | Systematic Theology
Hudson Taylor tells the story of the agonizing leaving of his mother at the dock on his first missionary trip to China. Composed till the last moment, she at the last let out a shriek of agony embodying the motherly loss she felt at the sacrifice of her son for the cause of missions in China. Taylor remarks that it was in that moment that she understood better than ever before the great sacrifice proclaimed in the gospel.
This is the pinnacle of the argument for the eternal generation of the Son of God.
Deny this doctrine—deny eternal sonship—and you empty the gospel of no small part of its glory. Think for a moment of how the biblical statements the love that was resident in the Father sacrificing His Son for us.
John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
Romans 8:32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?
1 John 4:9-10 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Samuel Miller remarks: “In all these passages, it seems to be implied, if I can construe language, not only that the Father had a Son, before he was sent, who was infinitely beloved, but that in the original counsel and determination to send this glorious Personage to be the Savior of sinners, there was a real and immeasurable exercise, if I may so speak, of paternal feeling, put to an unparalleled test, and exercised to an extent incomprehensible to creatures.” Miller proceeds to argue that this emphasis of Scripture is deceptive and empty, unless the Son was a genuine Son to the Father when He was given. Eternal generation provides the basis in the Trinity for this genuine sonship and the paternal love of the Father for the Son. Without eternal generation this love is ungrounded and unexplained.
What happens to this love if the eternal father-son relationship in the Trinity is denied? If it is simply one arbitrary person giving another arbitrarily chosen person because of an artificial covenantal arrangement, what becomes of the pathos of a Father giving His Son for our salvation? It is destroyed and with it much of the glory of the gospel! What is ultimately at stake in the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son is one of the glories of the gospel!
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.
by Sam Waldron | Oct 26, 2011 | Systematic Theology
It is well-known that the personification of wisdom in Proverbs 8:22-31 played a significant role in the development of the early church’s Christology. In fact, this use of Proverbs 8:22 became problematic because of the mistranslation the Hebrew verb in that verse. The LXX translated the verse: The Lord created me as a beginning of His way for His works. So common was the use of this passage to teach Christology that the Arians often quoted Proverbs 8:22 against the orthodox.
I will not argue in this blog post that the personification of wisdom in Proverbs 8:22-31 is a direct reference to Christ or the Son of God. I will argue that its language is so frequently and pervasively applied to Christ in the New Testament that its statements about the origin of wisdom are significant in the biblical argument for eternal generation.
The first step in this argument is the plain fact that the New Testament repeatedly describes the Son of God as the Wisdom of God.
There is a Lucan theology of the wisdom of God which comes to its highest expression in Luke 11:49-51:49 “For this reason also the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and some they will persecute, so that the blood of all the prophets, shed since the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the house of God; yes, I tell you, it shall be charged against this generation.” Here the words of Jesus are said to be uttered by the wisdom of God.
There is a theology of the wisdom of God in 1 Corinthians in which Jesus is several times identified as the wisdom of God. For example 1:24 affirms: “but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
Don’t overlook as well 1 Corinthians 2:7-8: “but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory; the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory…”
Paul’s letter to the Colossians is widely thought to utilize concepts from Proverbs 8 in its high Christology. It is not surprising, then, that it also contains the following sentiments:
Colossians 1:28 – 2:3 “We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ…attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
Such passages suffice to show that there is clearly a wisdom Christology in the New Testament. It is not surprising, therefore, that there is a remarkable series of similarities between the statements of Proverbs 8:22-31 about wisdom and statements the NT makes about eternal Son of God.
(1) Both wisdom and the Son of God exist in the beginning—from eternity—before God brought about creation. Cf. Proverbs 8:22-26 with John 1:1-2.
(2) Both wisdom and the Son of God are active with God in the creation of the world. Cf. Proverbs 27-30 with John 1:3; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2.
(3) Both wisdom and the Son of God exist in a warm personal relationship with God the Father. Cf. Proverbs 8:30-31 with John 1:1: “and the Word was with (toward; has friendly personal relations with) (the) God.”
(4) Both wisdom and the Son of God also have a special interest and delight in the world. Proverbs 8:31 states of wisdom that he rejoices “in the world, His earth, And having my delight in the sons of men.” The New Testament teaches that just as all things were created through the Son of God, so all things were created for Him—as His inheritance (Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2).
It seems high-handed insensitivity to the Scriptures to dismiss as coincidence (1) the obvious identification of Christ as God’s Wisdom in the NT and (2) the obvious parallels between the Wisdom of God in Proverbs 8:22-31 and the NT. But if this is the case, then we must not fail to notice a further parallel and one emphasized in Proverbs 8:22-31. The simple fact is that Proverbs 8 teaches that the Wisdom of God is eternally generated! And it does this using a great richness of language. Three verbs are used to describe the origin of wisdom.
In Proverbs 8:24-25 the verb meaning to bring forth by means of childbirth is used. Literally, the verb means to writhe in the agony of child birth: “When there were no depths I was brought forth, When there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, Before the hills I was brought forth.”
Proverbs 8:23 uses a word that simply means to set up or establish. Wisdom eternally established by God: “From everlasting I was established, From the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth.”
Proverbs 8:22 contains the troublesome verb that was translated created by the LXX. This verb means literally to acquire, get, or purchase. Its first use in the OT is with reference to childbirth in Genesis 4:1 where Eve says that she has “gotten” or “produced” a man for the Lord. This is likely how it should be translated in Proverbs 8:22: “The LORD possessed me at the beginning of His way, Before His works of old.”
There are here then three clear references to what we can only call the eternal generation of wisdom. It is difficult to resist the feeling that behind, for instance, the phrase the only begotten from the Father in John 1:14 is the concept of the eternally generated wisdom of Proverbs 8.
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.
