12: The Trinity and the New Testament I Flashcards
What are NT phenomena relative to the issue of Jesus being YHWH?
- Jesus is exalted to the throne of God. Jesus included in the transcendent identity of God. (Eph 1:20-22)
- Jesus is sovereign over ‘all things’
- Jesus Christ is included in the NT Shema (1 Cor 8:6)
- Jesus is identified and exalted as YHWH (Phil. 2:9-11)
Where do we find the name YHWH as “Father” in the OT?
- It is rare
- Denotes covenant intimacy
- God as Father and the Davidic house (Ps. 2:7)
What is the relationship of YHWH to the triune God?
- the one God of the OT is to be equated with the Trinitarian God of the New
- in the OT he is speaking in the person of the Father, whose identity is fully revealed only in Jesus Christ
- God always speaks in and through one of his persons
What does it mean to call God “Father?”
- God is Father in the sense of the origin of a family of people.
- God is the father who provides for and protects his children.
- God as Father expects obedience and honor.
Although the fatherhood of God is primarily in relationship to the Son, it extends to the rest of humanity as well.
How is Jesus key in our understanding of the first person of the Trinity as “Father”?
- He is the way to know God.
- And Jesus’ way of addressing God focuses completely on God as the Father
What is the meaning of the word perichoresis?
- “dancing together”
- the interpenetration of the three persons
What is the Social view of the Trinity?
- 3 persons, each of whom is included in the identity of the one God.
What does interpenetration (perichoresis) safeguards against?
- safeguards against the polytheistic implications of trinitarianism
- Each person shares in the life and work of the other
What are four characteristics of perichoresis?
- Equality within the three persons
- Mutual submission
- Intimacy with one another
- Mutual deference
All under the monarchy of the Father.
What has been the Social Trinity contribution to anthropology?
The coalescing of theology with the philosophical conclusion that ‘person’ has more to do with relationality than with substantiality, to community than to the conception of the individual in isolation or abstraction.
What has been the Western tendency in articulating the nature of God?
- Through an analysis of one of the trinitarian persons.
- That person is then used as a starting point for the other two and as an anchor for the Trinity as a whole.
What is Calvin’s alternative to Monarchianism: Western modalism and Eastern subordinationsim?
- Calvin launches into a discussion of God as Triune, without speaking of his existence, essence or attributes.
- He insists that God is not truly known unless he is distinctly conceived as triune
- Calvin affirms both the distribution of divine activity as seen in the Creed and the interpenetration of divine action exemplified in the doctrine of perichoresis.
What does autotheos means?
- Each person is fully God.
Is reality perichoretic?
- All things exist in relationship to God as he creates, sustains and governs the world
- The creation is an order of things (creatures) in relationship, not simply a container of things
- As image-bearers, we are made for relationship with God, the world about us and other human beings. “Humankind is social kind.”
What is individualism?
- Western individualism teaches that we are what we are in separation from others, not in relationship to others
