Notes

Chapter 1

1. In this chapter I will use ‘God’ and ‘Father’ virtually interchangeably.

2. I will refer to the author of the first Gospel as ‘Matthew’, though the Gospel does not explicitly identify its author.

3. For further discussion on the OT in Matthew see Brandon D. Crowe, The Obedient Son: Deuteronomy and Christology in the Gospel of Matthew, BZNW 188 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012), pp. 6–27.

4. See Richard Bauckham, God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999).

5. W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison Jr., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Matthew, ICC, 3 vols. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988–97), vol. 1, pp. 263–264.

6. See further Brandon D. Crowe, ‘The Song of Moses and Divine Begetting in Matt 1,20’, Bib 90 (2009), p. 52.

7. See Joel Marcus, The Way of the Lord: Christological Exegesis of the Old Testament in the Gospel of Mark, SNTW (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1992), pp. 73–74; D. A. Carson, ‘Matthew’, in F. E. Gaebelein (ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke, 12 vols. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984; repr. 1995), vol. 8, p. 109. Thus the language would entail the premise that the Son existed before the incarnation. Cf. Geerhardus Vos, The Self-Disclosure of Jesus: The Modern Debate About the Messianic Consciousness, ed. J. G. Vos, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953; repr. Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R, 2002), p. 186.

8. See Richard J. Bauckham, ‘The Sonship of the Historical Jesus in Christology’, SJT 31 (1978), pp. 245–260; cf. Geerhardus Vos, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr. et al., 5 vols. (Bellingham, Wash.: Lexham, 2012– ), vol. 1, pp. 52–53.

9. In the parallel passage in Luke 10:21 Jesus rejoices in the Holy Spirit, bringing the trinitarian aspects even more clearly to the fore.

10. Cf. Joshua E. Leim, Matthew’s Theological Grammar: The Father and the Son, WUNT 2.402 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015), pp. 83–87.

11. See Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. John Bolt, tr. John Vriend, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003–8), vol. 2, pp. 270, 272; Vos, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 1, p. 80.

12. Note the aorist egeneto in Matt. 11:26, combined with a phrase that is not always obvious in English translations (emprosthen sou), which seems to denote the immediate presence of God (cf. BDAG, ‘ἔμπροσθεν’, p. 325, §1.b.β [cf. §1.b.δ]; Matt. 10:32–33). Could we have here an allusion to the eternal, trinitarian plan of salvation often known as the pactum salutis or Covenant of Redemption? See also Luke 2:49; 22:29; John 17:4; Diogn. 9.1; and historically Zech. 6:13; Vos, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2, pp. 84–92; Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3, pp. 212–216.

13. Vos, Self-Disclosure, p. 147.

14. For other relevant texts see Davies and Allison, Matthew, vol. 2, pp. 509–510; Leim, Matthew’s Theological Grammar, pp. 139–147.

15. So John P. Meier, The Vision of Matthew: Christ, Church, and Morality in the First Gospel (New York: Crossroad, 1991; repr. Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2004), p. 100; Charles L. Quarles, A Theology of Matthew: Jesus Revealed as Deliverer, King, and Incarnate Creator, EBT (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R, 2013), pp. 169–170.

16. Meier, Vision, p. 108.

17. Cf. ibid., p. 109;Vos, Self-Disclosure, p. 180.

18. Cf. Leim, Matthew’s Theological Grammar, pp. 166–173.

19. On which see Simon J. Gathercole, The Preexistent Son: Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), pp. 236–238.

20. Cf. Matthew W. Bates, The Birth of the Trinity: Jesus, God, and Spirit in New Testament and Early Christian Interpretations of the Old Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 47–54.

21. Notice the parallels to the authority of the Father in 11:25.

22. Cf. J. Gresham Machen, The Virgin Birth of Christ (New York: Harper & Row, 1930; repr. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985), p. 140.

23. Sinclair B. Ferguson, The Holy Spirit, Contours of Christian Theology (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1996), p. 43.

24. The divine passive is also used in 1:16, 18, 20.

25. On the glory cloud as a manifestation of the Holy Spirit see Meredith M. Kline, ‘The Holy Spirit as Covenant Witness’ (ThM thesis, Westminster Theological Seminary, 1972), pp. 5–26; Meredith G. Kline, Images of the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980), pp. 15, 29; Vern S. Poythress, The Manifestation of God: A Biblical Theology of God’s Presence (forthcoming), chs. 5, 16–17, 43.

26. See Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2, pp. 270, 305–306.

Chapter 2

1. From the early twentieth century to about 1970 the dominating view was that Mark presented a divine Christ. After that the majority view changed and Mark’s Jesus was seen as being merely a human being, albeit an exalted one. It seems, however, that the opinion is about to change again, for several recent studies have argued that Mark portrays a divine Christ. For a survey see Daniel Johansson, ‘The Identity of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark: Past and Present Proposals’, CBR 9 (2011), pp. 364–393.

2. For a survey and critique see J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 3rd ed. (London: Longman, 1972), pp. 13–29.

3. Twofold and threefold patterns may have existed side by side, or, for that matter, a personal understanding of the Spirit could have developed before Jesus was understood in divine terms, a view seldom (if ever) considered.

4. Mark’s primary interest appears to lie with Jesus and his relationship to God and less so with the Spirit. But this should not surprise us, as Mark seems to have written a Jesus biography of the ancient type. See Richard A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004). Had Mark written epistles to early churches, more directly addressing the situation after the believers’ experience of the Spirit, like Paul did, the evidence might have looked slightly different.

5. Gordon D. Fee, Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2007), pp. 586–593.

6. Cf. Arthur W. Wainwright, The Trinity in the New Testament (London: SPCK, 1962); Larry W. Hurtado, God in New Testament Theology (Nashville: Abingdon, 2010).

7. See e.g. Novatian, De Trinitate.

8. E.g. Wilhelm Bousset, Kyrios Christos: Geschichte des Christusglaubens von den Anfängen des Christentums bis Irenaeus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1913; rev. ed. 1921); Maurice Casey, From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God: The Origins and Development of New Testament Christology (Cambridge: James Clarke, 1991).

9. E.g. Larry W. Hurtado, ‘Devotion to Jesus and Second-Temple Jewish Monotheistic Piety’, in idem, How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God: Historical Questions About Earliest Devotion to Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), pp. 31–55; Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity (Milton Keynes: Paternoster; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), pp. 94–106.

10. Mark 7:3–4 is usually cited as evidence.

11. Translations of Scripture in this chapter are my own.

12. Rikk E. Watts, Isaiah’s New Exodus and Mark, WUNT 2.88 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997), pp. 57–90.

13. On the importance of the beginning of literature in antiquity see e.g. D. Earl, ‘Prologue-Form in Ancient Historiography’, ANRW, vol. 1.2, pp. 842–856, esp. 856.

14. On the significance of this aspect of the doctrine of the Trinity see Robert W. Jenson, Systematic Theology, vol. 1: The Triune God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 42–60.

15. On the general influence of Isaiah on Mark see Watts, Isaiah’s New Exodus and Mark.

16. Four highly significant questions for early Christians are raised in dialogues between Jesus and his opponents: the relationship to the emperor (and the state), the question of the bodily resurrection, Jewish monotheism and the identity of Jesus.

17. Deut. 6:4 is omitted from the Synoptic parallels. On allusions to the Shema in the NT see Bauckham, Jesus, pp. 94–106. For a recent discussion of Deut. 6:4 see Erik Waaler, The Shema and the First Commandment in First Corinthians: An Intertextual Approach to Paul’s Rereading of Deuteronomy, WUNT 2.253 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), pp. 98–114, 123–133.

18. Cf. Waaler’s conclusion: ‘In Mark, this is given in a purer form than in many earlier Jewish texts’ (Shema, p. 220). Waaler finds three elements in the scribe’s response: (1) confession to God’s oneness, (2) denial that there is any other, and (3) the statement of no exceptions.

19. See ibid., pp. 106–114, 154–181, 448–451, and U. W. Mauser, ‘Eis Theos und Monos Theos in biblischer Theologie’, in I. Baldermann, E. Dassmann and O. Hofius (eds.), Einheit und Vielfalt biblischer Theologie (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1986), pp. 71–87.

20. See below.

21. Joel Marcus, ‘Authority to Forgive Sins upon the Earth: The Shema in the Gospel of Mark’, in C. A. Evans and W. R. Stegner (eds.), The Gospels and the Scriptures of Israel, JSNTSup 104 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), pp. 196–211.

22. Joachim Gnilka, ‘Zum Gottesgedanken in der Jesusüberlieferung’, in H.-J. Klauck (ed.), Monotheismus und Christologie: Zur Gottesfrage im hellenistischen Judentum und im Urchristentum (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1992), pp. 144–162; see p. 151: ‘The oneness of God is at stake (Die Einzigkeit Gottes steht auf dem Spiel).’

23. Bauckham, Jesus, pp. 107–126. Bauckham includes a table of the occurrences of the terminology in Jewish writings 250 bc – ad 150.

24. Ibid., pp. 116–122.

25. Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), p. 36; Bauckham, Jesus, pp. 7–11.

26. This may explain the low number of studies of ‘God’ in Mark, though more likely it reflects the general neglect in the NT scholarship (see Hurtado, God in New Testament Theology, pp. 9–10). The following studies should be mentioned: John R. Donahue, ‘A Neglected Factor in the Theology of Mark’, JBL 101 (1982), pp. 563–594; Gnilka, ‘Gottesgedanken’; P. Danove, ‘The Narrative Function of Mark’s Characterization of God’, NovT 43 (2001), pp. 12–30; Jack Dean Kingsbury, ‘“God” Within the Narrative World of Mark’, in A. A. Das and F. J. Matera (eds.), The Forgotten God: Perspectives in Biblical Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002), pp. 75–89; C. Drew Smith, ‘“This Is My Beloved Son: Listen to Him”: Theology and Christology in the Gospel of Mark’, HBT 24 (2002), pp. 53–86; Gudrun Guttenberger, Die Gottesvorstellung im Markusevangelium, BZNW 123 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004); Ira Brent Driggers, Following God Through Mark: Theological Tension in the Second Gospel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007).

27. See the section on Jesus below.

28. Jack Dean Kingsbury, The Christology of Mark’s Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989), pp. 80–85.

29. Hurtado, God in New Testament Theology, p. 19, summarizing Kingsbury’s conclusion in ‘Narrative World’.

30. Cf. Matthew (forty-four times).

31. The heading of this section, ‘God the Father’, is thus not primarily prompted by the topic under discussion, but by the evidence in Mark.

32. Huios theou is missing in some early manuscripts (e.g. א, *, Θ). The view that they were inserted at a later stage, defended by e.g. Peter M. Head, ‘A Text-Critical Study of Mark 1:1’, NTS 37 (1991), pp. 621–629, has recently been challenged by Tommy Wasserman, ‘The “Son of God” Was in the Beginning (Mark 1:1)’, JTS 62 (2011), pp. 20–51.

33. See e.g. the survey in Jacob Chacko Naluparayil, ‘Jesus of the Gospel of Mark: Present State of Research’, CBR 8 (2000), pp. 191–226.

34. On the importance of the title see Kingsbury, Christology, pp. 173–176; Edwin K. Broadhead, Naming Jesus: Titular Christology in the Gospel of Mark, JSNTSup 175 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), p. 123.

35. Cf. e.g. Broadhead, Naming Jesus, pp. 116–120.

36. For a full study of all the significant passages that present Jesus in the role of Israel’s God see Daniel Johansson, ‘Jesus and God in the Gospel of Mark: Unity and Distinction’ (PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 2012).

37. Mal. 3:1 addresses a similar situation to that of Isa. 40:3, focusing on the event the messenger prepares. The messenger is also identified as Elijah in Malachi (4:5), and Mark makes it clear that John the Baptist fulfils the promise of his coming (cf. Mark 1:6 with 2 Kgs 1:8; Mark 9:12–13). Cf. Watts, New Exodus, pp. 86–87.

38. See further Daniel Johansson, ‘Kyrios in the Gospel of Mark’, JSNT 33 (2010), pp. 101–124.

39. These texts are listed in Bauckham, Jesus, pp. 186–188, 219–221. On this phenomenon in Paul see David B. Capes, Old Testament Yahweh Texts in Paul’s Christology, WUNT 2.47 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992).

40. William Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ (London: SCM, 1998), pp. 103–104, has suggested that this Christian phenomenon has an antecedent in Jewish messianism. Horbury refers to 1 En. 52.6 and 4 Ezra 13.3–4, which use language from biblical theophany passages (Pss 97:5; 104:32; Mic. 1:3–4) to describe a reaction to the presence of the messianic agent. However, unlike Mark, these are not introduced by a citation formula and neither passage includes the divine name YHWH or any of its substitutes and applies this to the messianic figure. These passages merely use images and language that the biblical literature uses for YHWH, whereas Mark explicitly cites passages about YHWH with reference to Jesus, seeing the fulfilment of these in Jesus and applying the divine name to Jesus.

41. Some scholars argue that the passive form of the verb implies a passivum divinum (divine passive), which would mean Jesus is announcing God’s forgiveness. Apart from the fact that the context ascribes the forgiveness to Jesus, there are several Hebrew/Aramaic texts that use the passive expression in an active sense, including texts with God as speaker. See Otfried Hofius, ‘Jesu Zuspruch der Sündenvergebung: Exegetische Erwägungen zu Mk 2,5 b’, in Neutestamentliche Studien, WUNT 132 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), pp. 38–56, esp. 50–52.

42. Despite the Marcan text’s stating unambiguously that God alone forgives sins, several scholars have contested this, instead suggesting that Jesus acts in the capacity of priest, prophet, Messiah or the angels. With the exception of the Angel of YHWH, the biblical and early Jewish literature, however, ascribes forgiveness to God alone. See Daniel Johansson, ‘“Who Can Forgive Sins but God Alone?” Human and Angelic Agents, and Divine Forgiveness in Early Judaism’, JSNT 33 (2011), pp. 351–374.

43. Note that Mark seems to ascribe a greater fear to the disciples after than before the storm (4:41; cf. Jon. 1:5, 10).

44. E.g. Gen. 1:1–10; Exod. 14:21–31; Pss 77:15–16; 106:9; 107:23–32; Isa. 50:2; Jon. 1. For a survey see e.g. Reinhard Kratz, Rettungswunder: Motiv-, traditions- und formkritische Aufarbeitung einer biblischen Gattung (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1979), pp. 27–78; Wendy Cotter, Miracles in Greco-Roman Antiquity: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 1999), pp. 138–142.

45. E.g. Sir. 43.23–26; 1 En. 101.4–9; 1QHa XI, 1–18; XIV, 22–24; b. B. Meṣ. 59b; y. Ber. 9.13b.

46. Jon. 1; y. Ber. 9.13b.

47. See texts in Kratz, Rettungswunder, pp. 79–94; Cotter, Miracles in Greco-Roman Antiquity, pp. 132–137.

48. Thus clearly in 2 Maccabees, but also implied in passages where this attribute is used to demonstrate YHWH’s superiority over other gods.

49. See e.g. m. Ber. 9.5; Sipre Deut. 31 – 32. Cf. Rikk E. Watts, ‘Mark’, in G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson (eds.), Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), p. 217.

50. Birger Gerhardsson has traced this phenomenon in Matthew. See ‘Monoteism och högkristologi i Matteusevangeliet’, SEÅ 37–38 (1972–3), pp. 125–144, esp. 135–141. For an earlier discussion of this kind of devotion to Jesus in all three Synoptic Gospels see S. Aalen, ‘Jesu kristologiske selvbevisshet: Et utkast til “jahvistisk kristologi”’, TTKi 40 (1969), pp. 1–18.

51. Gerhardsson has, in a number of studies now collected in The Shema in the New Testament (Lund: Novapress, 1996), tried to demonstrate that the rabbinic interpretation of Deut. 6:5 went back to the first century ad and was known at least to Matthew. The interpretation of ‘all your strength’ as referring to all one’s property is attested already in Sir. 7.30–31. This kind of piety is illustrated by the poor widow (Mark 12:42–44), who gives her whole life (ton bion autēs) to the temple.

52. Mark 4:17; 8:34–35, 38; 13:9, 13.

53. Ps. 44:22; Dan. 3, 6; lxx Dan. 3:41; 1 Macc. 1.63; 2.50; 2 Macc. 6.30; 7.9, 23, 30; 3 Macc. 7.16; 4 Macc. 9.8; 10.20; 12.14; 16.18–21, 25; 17.20.

54. E.g. his raising of the dead, walking on water, the transfiguration, his return on the day of YHWH, the healing miracles and his acting in divine roles in parables.

55. Mark 1:8, 10, 12; 3:29; 12:36; 13:11.

56. Mark 1:23, 26–27; 3:11, 30; 5:2, 8, 13; 6:7; 7:25; 9:17, 20, 25 (twice).

57. Mark 14:38 refers to humanity (or Christians) in general, whereas 2:8 and 8:12 refer to Jesus’ spirit. However, it cannot be excluded that the latter two are references to the Holy Spirit, with whom Jesus has been endowed in a special way.

58. The placing of three references in the introduction may suggest that the Spirit has a more prominent role in Mark than is otherwise suggested by the remaining three references. See e.g. Morna D. Hooker, The Gospel According to Saint Mark (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1991), pp. 51–52; Emerson B. Powery: ‘The Spirit, the Scripture(s), and the Gospel of Mark: Pneumatology and Hermeneutics in a Narrative Perspective’, JPT (2003), pp. 184–198, esp. 187.

59. Wainwright, Trinity, p. 202. Mark does not tell us about the fulfilment of this promise, although a passage such as 13:11 seems to suggest that all believers will have the Spirit in the future. This should further warn us against pressing the impersonal character of the Spirit in 1:8 too stridently. For in 13:11 what has been given to the disciples through baptism now speaks (a personal quality) through them.

60. I take hōs peristeran adjectivally, referring to the Spirit rather than the descent.

61. The preposition is eis, and may in this context mean both upon and into.

62. This statement is similar to passages such as Acts 5:3 and Eph. 4:30, where the Spirit is lied to and caused to grieve.

63. Wainwright, Trinity, p. 200.

64. Powery, ‘Spirit’, p. 190, argues for a connection between 12:36 and 13:11.

65. A further argument for the personal being of the Holy Spirit may be offered by Mark’s numerous references to evil spirits. These undoubtedly seem to have a personal character (e.g. Mark 5:1–20), and it is reasonable to see an analogy between these and the Holy Spirit. See Wainwright, Trinity, p. 30, with reference to Kenneth E. Kirk, ‘The Evolution of the Doctrine of the Trinity’, in A. E. J. Rawlinson (ed.), Essays on the Trinity and the Incarnation (London: Longmans, Green, 1928), p. 187.

66. Wainwright, Trinity, pp. 200–204.

67. Cf. e.g. Acts 2:4; 11:12–16.

68. Just as in the other NT writings.

69. Isa. 32:15; 44:3; Ezek. 36:26–27; 37:14; Joel 2:28–32.

70. An exception is Robert H. Gundry, Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), pp. 38–39, 45, who argues that the fulfilment takes place in Mark’s narrative world in Jesus’ teaching and mighty works.

71. This is similar e.g. to Acts 2:33.

72. Cf. Joel Marcus, Mark 1–8: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 27 (New York: Doubleday, 2000), p. 284.

73. Though Jesus never explicitly identifies himself with the second lord, this is clear from the context in Mark.

74. Craig A. Evans, Mark 8:27–16:20, WBC 34B (Nashville: Nelson, 2001), p. 311.

75. Jesus’ promise appears in a number of variants in the Synoptic Gospels. Luke records both this (Luke 12:12) and one in which Jesus himself promises to give the proper words to the disciples (Luke 21:15; cf. Matt. 10:19).

76. Johansson, ‘Kyrios’, pp. 101–124.

77. Mark 1:3; 2:28; 5:19; 7:28; 11:3, 9; 12:9, 11, 29 (twice), 30, 36 (twice), 37; 13:20, 35.

78. See e.g. W. R. Stegner, ‘The Use of Scripture in Two Narratives of Early Jewish Christianity (Matthew 4.1–11; Mark 9.2–8’, in C. A. Evans and J. A. Sanders (eds.), Early Christian Interpretation of the Scriptures of Israel: Investigations and Proposals, JSNTSup 148 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), pp. 98–120.

79. H.-P. Müller, ‘Die Verklärung Jesu’, ZNW 51 (1960), pp. 56–64; Simon S. Lee, Jesus’ Transfiguration and the Believers’ Transformation: A Study of the Transfiguration and Its Development in Early Christian Writings, WUNT 2.265 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), p. 14.

80. Cf. Lee, Transfiguration, pp. 34–35.

81. Darrell L. Bock, Blasphemy and Exaltation in Judaism and the Final Examination of Jesus, WUNT 2.106 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), pp. 188–189.

82. The parallel usage of the verbs empaizein and oneidizein in the immediate context (15:29–32) suggests that the primary meaning of blasphēmein is ‘insult’, but Mark probably also wished to signal to his readers that the one who was accused of blasphemy is in reality the one who is blasphemed.

83. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven; following after the one on the cross is necessary for salvation (8:34–38; 10:45).

84. The latter is overlooked by Wainwright (Trinity, p. 251).

85. Jenson, Systematic Theology, p. 111.

86. Wainwright, Trinity, p. 251.

87. For this terminology see Bauckham, Jesus, pp. 18–59. Smith, ‘Beloved Son’, p. 86, speaks of a ‘christological theology’ and a ‘theological Christology’ in Mark. Cf. Gnilka, ‘Gottesgedanken’, p. 152: ‘We are in the early stages of a christological-theological process of reflection [Wir stehen an den Anfängen eines christologisch-theologischen Reflexionsprozesses].’ Jesus ‘determines . . . the concept of God in the Gospel in a unique way. One could even say – and this anticipates Johannine thought – that for Mark Jesus in a certain sense is the revealed God [bestimmt . . . das Gottesbild des Evangeliums auf unverwechselbare Weise. In einem bestimmten Sinn wird man sogar sagen können – und das bereitet johanneisches Gedankengut vor –, dass für Markus Jesus der Offenbarer Gottes ist]’ (p. 154).

88. Thus I think the evidence is somewhat stronger than did Wainwright, who nevertheless judged that Mark was aware of ‘the threefold nature of the divine revelation’ (Trinity, pp. 251, 266).

Chapter 3

1. I will focus on the narrative and its emphases as a complete unit rather than attempt to determine possible sources or developments, and will not be investigating any perceived differences between the theological outlook of Luke and the historical Jesus. See Simon Gathercole, ‘The Trinity in the Synoptic Gospels and Acts’, in G. Emery and M. Levering (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Trinity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 55. (I would like to thank Merryn Weaver, Rob Smith, Brian Tabb, Andy Naselli, Stephen Wellum and my wife, Alayne Thompson, for feedback on an earlier draft of this chapter.)

2. Ibid., p. 56. Note also the reference to only one God in 5:21.

3. Unless stated otherwise, Bible quotes in this chapter are from the esv.

4. Luke 4:22, 36; 5:21; 7:19–20, 39, 49; 8:25; 9:18, 20.

5. Robert L. Mowery, ‘Lord, God, and Father: Theological Language in Luke-Acts’, in SBL 1995 Seminar Papers 34 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995), p. 85.

6. Of course not every use of the term ‘lord’ (kyrios) refers to God (e.g. 19:33, ‘owners’). It is the context that helps us determine the meaning of a term. Cf. C. Kavin Rowe, Early Narrative Christology: The Lord in the Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), pp. 31–77. Rowe’s work is a healthy corrective to a supposedly ‘low’ Lucan Christology (and a supposedly ‘low’ use of the vocative ‘Lord’ in Luke). See now also Richard B. Hays, Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness (Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2014), pp. 55–74.

7. Mary is still in need of a Saviour (1:47).

8. Cf. Ps. 65:5 (lxx 64:6); Isa. 12:2; 45:21.

9. C. Kavin Rowe, ‘Luke and the Trinity: An Essay in Ecclesial Biblical Theology’, SJT 56 (2003), pp. 1–26.

10. Ibid., pp. 21–22.

11. In this context Simon moves from calling Jesus ‘master’ before the miraculous catch to ‘Lord’ after the display of Jesus’ sovereign power (5:5, 8).

12. In the historical context clearly Peter and the disciples had a way to go before they grasped the full implications of this. Nevertheless, grappling with the significance of these actions and declarations of Jesus formed part of their struggle to answer the question ‘Who is this?’ (8:25).

13. Cf. Mark 5:19, where ‘Lord’ is used. The following parallels are unique to Luke’s Gospel.

14. My translations. The words ‘glorifying’ and ‘thanking’ as present tense participles are paralleled in 17:15–16.

15. Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom of God may be added here too, but space does not allow for detailed treatment of this major theme. E.g. the kingdom is Jesus’ (22:30) and conferred by him (22:29), yet is God’s kingdom (22:16, 18; and throughout Luke) and conferred by the Father (12:32).

16. The word used here for ‘worship’ (proskyneō) occurs only in these two locations in Luke’s Gospel.

17. Rowe, ‘Luke and the Trinity’, p. 22.

18. Cf. D. A. Carson, Jesus the Son of God: A Christological Title Often Overlooked, Sometimes Misunderstood, and Currently Disputed (Nottingham: Inter-Varsity Press; Wheaton: Crossway, 2012), p. 13.

19. Ibid., p. 95.

20. Cf. ibid., passim.

21. Cf. Robert H. Stein, Luke, NAC (Nashville: B&H, 1992), pp. 85–86, for a brief summary of the exegetical issues involved in 1:35. Cf. a similar construction in 2:23. Note that Luke’s historical account (1:1–4) is nothing like later Greco-Roman biographies with legends of gods having sex, etc.

22. Though, as noted above regarding Jesus’ use of Ps. 110, the OT also anticipated more than a merely human messiah.

23. Simon J. Gathercole, The Preexistent Son: Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), p. 285.

24. Cf. ibid. pp. 238–242, and the references above to God’s ‘visitation’ in Luke’s Gospel.

25. The combination of zēteō (seek) and to apolōlos (the lost) reflects the description in Ezek. 34:16 lxx of the divine mission to seek the lost (cf. also Ezek. 34:4, 11, 22; Luke 15:4, 6).

26. See also qualifications regarding Jesus’ ‘father’ in 3:23 (Jesus was the son, ‘as was supposed’, of Joseph), and in the inadequate observation of 4:22 (‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’). Thus 2:48 is not an unguarded contradiction in Luke’s infancy narrative but is a deliberate indicator of Jesus’ unique relationship with God, his Father.

27. See Stephen J. Wellum, ‘The Deity of Christ in the Synoptic Gospels’, in C. W. Morgan and R. A. Peterson (eds.), The Deity of Christ (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), p. 82, for the following discussion (though Wellum is referring to the parallel in Matt. 11:27). See also the studies of Brandon Crowe (on Matthew) and Scott Swain in this volume.

28. Cf. Luke 6:36; 11:13; 12:30; esp. 15:11–32 (not included in the list of sixteen references to God as Father), which is dominated by references to the character of the forgiving Father in the parable.

29. Mowery, ‘Lord, God, and Father’, p. 87.

30. Scott Harrower neglects 10:22a in his attempt to claim that 10:22 teaches that the Father is subordinate to the will of the Son (Scott Harrower, Trinitarian Self and Salvation: An Evangelical Engagement with Rahner’s Rule [Eugene, Ore.: Pickwick, 2012], pp. 109–114).

31. On the ‘Spirit of the Lord’ see below on Acts 16:7. The ‘power of God’ in 22:69 is a circumlocution for God. On the ‘power of the Lord’ (5:17) as Christological see Rowe, Early Narrative Christology, pp. 92–98. Luke 11:20 has ‘the finger of God’ (reflecting God’s power in Exod. 8:19) where Matt. 12:28 has ‘the Spirit of God’. See also Acts 10:38.

32. These are contrasted with simply speaking ‘a word against the Son of Man’, which will be forgiven (12:10a). The distinction between ‘speaking a word against’ and ‘blaspheming’ is either momentary versus permanent rejection, or acting in ignorance versus hardened opposition (cf. Stein, Luke, p. 348). The passive voice in ‘will be denied’ (v. 9) and ‘not be forgiven’ refers to God’s action.

33. We see the humanity of the Son also when he, understandably (revealing the awfulness of the judgment ahead), asks if it is possible for the cup of wrath to be removed, yet willingly agrees with the Father’s will (22:42). Similarly, it is to the Father that he entrusts his spirit on the cross (23:46), having just promised that the criminal on the cross will be with him that day in paradise (23:43).

34. Though, as we have seen above, everything Jesus does he does as the one person of the divine-human Son. Cf. Wellum, ‘Deity’, p. 76, n. 42. Cf. also John Owen, The Works of John Owen, ed. W. Goold, 16 vols. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1965–8), vol. 3, p. 162: ‘Whatever the Son of God wrought in, by, or upon the human nature, he did it by the Holy Ghost, who is his Spirit, as he is the Spirit of the Father.’

35. For expanded discussion of this see Alan J. Thompson, The Acts of the Risen Lord Jesus: Luke’s Account of God’s Unfolding Plan, NSBT 27 (Apollos: Inter-Varsity Press; Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2011).

36. Gathercole, ‘Trinity’, p. 62. Rowe argues that this is ‘God’s reversal of the human rejection of Jesus’ (Early Narrative Christology, p. 195). Thus Jesus’ identity as Lord continues, though this is something all Israel should now ‘know for certain’ (Acts 2:36).

37. Cf. ‘calls upon the name’ in 2:21 (see also 9:14, 21; 22:16). See below on 7:59.

38. Cf. the phrase cheir kyriou in e.g. Num. 11:23; Isa. 41:20; 59:1; 66:14. In the NT the phrase is used only by Luke (Luke 1:66 [Yahweh]; Acts 11:21; 13:11 [probably the Lord Jesus in view of 13:12]).

39. See above on Luke 5:22; 7:39–40; 9:47; 11:17. See also below on Acts 1:24; 15:8.

40. In addition to 2 Chr. 6:30 see also Prov. 15:11; 21:1–2.

41. The only other use of ‘Lord’ in Acts 1, apart from 1:21, 24, also refers to Jesus (cf. 1:6).

42. God is described as a ‘heart knower’ in 15:8.

43. The same term, epikaleō (call upon), is used regarding ‘the Lord’, Yahweh, in 2:21.

44. The verb ekcheō (poured out) in 2:33 deliberately recalls the reference to Joel 2:28 in Acts 2:17–18.

45. The ‘word of the Lord’ is a common expression in the OT for God’s word (e.g. Gen. 15:1; Isa. 40:8).

46. Cf. Luke 3:16; 24:49; Jesus will ‘baptize with’ or ‘send’ the Holy Spirit.

47. I.e. ‘chosen/appointed’ (procheirizomai) is used for God in 22:14 and Jesus in 26:16. A different phrase (skeuos eklogēs, ‘chosen instrument’) is used in 9:15.

48. In Acts the object of faith is most often the Lord Jesus (9:42; 10:43; 11:17; 14:23; 19:4; 22:19; 24:24; 26:18). God is the object of faith in 16:34 and 27:25.

49. The genitive tou idiou (one’s own) is understood here as a term of endearment referring to the Son. On the options see Steve Walton, Leadership and Lifestyle: The Portrait of Paul in the Miletus Speech and 1 Thessalonians, SNTSMS 108 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 91–98.

50. On the significance of these verses for the kingdom in Acts see Thompson, Acts, pp. 103–108. The language of ‘you will be my witnesses’ (v. 8) reflects the wording of Isa. 43:12; 44:8 (that Yahweh, the Lord, is the only Saviour).

Chapter 4

1. Unless stated otherwise, Scripture quotations in this chapter are from the nrsv.

2. See Morna D. Hooker, ‘The Johannine Prologue and the Messianic Secret’, NTS 21 (1974–5), pp. 40–58.

3. Note that Jewish allusions to creation frequently use the words ‘in the beginning’ or ‘the beginning’ in allusion to Gen. 1:1 (Masanobu Endo, Creation and Christology: A Study on the Johannine Prologue in the Light of Early Jewish Creation Accounts, WUNT 2.149 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002], pp. 206–207).

4. See esp. Peder Borgen, ‘Observations on the Targumic Character of the Prologue of John’ and ‘Logos was the True Light: Contributions to the Interpretation of the Prologue of John’, both in idem, Logos Was the True Light and Other Essays on the Gospel of John (Trondheim: Tapir, 1983), pp. 13–20, 95–110.

5. These are studied and compared with the prologue to John in Endo, Creation and Christology.

6. Ps. 33:6a, ‘By the word of the Lord the heavens were made.’

7. Endo, Creation and Christology, pp. 163, 210.

8. 2 Bar. 14.17; 48.8; 54.3.

9. Philo’s ideas about the Logos were strongly influenced by Stoic and especially Middle Platonic notions. Thomas H. Tobin, ‘The Prologue of John and Hellenistic Jewish Speculation’, CBQ 52 (1990), pp. 252–269, argues that the prologue to John belongs within the same sphere of Hellenistic Jewish speculation, such that John’s Logos is comparable with Philo’s. I do not think the parallels are sufficiently distinctive to establish the case.

10. See the table in Endo, Creation and Christology, p. 163.

11. 2 En. 33.4; Wis. 9.1–2.

12. That the Word was ‘with God’ in the beginning (John 1:2) could reflect Prov. 8:30 (cf. also Wis. 9.9), but it could be John’s own attempt to elucidate the relationship between God and his Word.

13. See e.g. John Painter, The Quest for the Messiah: The History, Literature and Theology of the Johannine Community, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993), pp. 145–147.

14. Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity (Milton Keynes: Paternoster; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), pp. 9–10.

15. E.g. Sir. 42.21; 2 En. 47.3–5; 4 Ezra 3.4; 6.6.

16. Bauckham, Jesus, pp. 16–17.

17. This use of pros is unusual but not unparalleled (Matt. 13:56; Mark 6:3; 9:19; 14:49; Luke 9:41).

18. The personal pronoun (‘he’ rather than ‘it’) is unavoidable in English, even though in the Greek it is not unequivocally clear at this stage that the Word is personified or personal.

19. Colwell’s rule (named after E. C. Colwell) states that predicate nouns that precede the verb usually lack the article.

20. D. A. Fennema, ‘John 1.18: “God the Only Son”’, NTS 31 (1983), pp. 124–135, here 128–129.

21. My tr. I prefer this punctuation to the alternative reading that takes ho gegonen with the following verse, ‘what has come into being in him was life’. But the difference is not of great significance for the present argument.

22. See esp. Gerard Pendrick, ‘Monogenēs’, NTS 41 (1995), pp. 587–600.

23. For detailed discussion see Fennema, ‘John 1.18’; Elizabeth Harris, Prologue and Gospel: The Theology of the Fourth Evangelist, JSNTSup 107 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), pp. 101–109. For the view that theos is not original see James F. McGrath, The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in Its Jewish Context (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009), pp. 65–66.

24. In my view this is the meaning of the first person plural in v. 14, contrasted with ‘we all’ (all Christian believers) in v. 16.

25. This phrase is not likely to mean ‘a father’s only son’ (nrsv), for which one would expect ek, not para. If para theou is taken with doxan, the meaning is ‘glory such as an only son receives from his father’; if with monogenous, the meaning is ‘glory as of an only son coming from his father’. For the former meaning, cf. 5:44; for the latter meaning, cf. 6:46; 7:29; 16:27–28; 17:8. See John Henry Bernard, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. John, ICC, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1928), p. 23. The use of hōs with the anarthrous nouns suggests the indefinite sense ‘glory like that of an only son from a father’. But it is possible to understand hōs as specifying the glory, ‘glory of the kind that the only Son receives from the Father’ or ‘the glory that is unique to the only Son from the Father’. See Edwyn Clement Hoskyns, The Fourth Gospel, ed. Francis Noel Davey (London: Faber & Faber, 1947), p. 149.

26. This is not to deny that throughout the Gospel narrative Jesus is the ‘Word’ in the sense that he reveals God.

27. Cf. Mark Stibbe, ‘Telling the Father’s Story: The Gospel of John as Narrative Theology’, in John Lierman (ed.), Challenging Perspectives on the Gospel of John, WUNT 2.219 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), pp. 170–193, here 175: ‘the God/Logos distinction is redefined as a Father/Son distinction’.

28. Marianne Meye Thompson, The God of the Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), pp. 50–51, 70–71.

29. John A. T. Robinson, The Priority of John (London: SCM, 1985), p. 380.

30. Ibid., pp. 380–381; cf. Piet Schoonenberg, The Christ, tr. Della Couling (London: Sheed & Ward, 1972), pp. 80–91, emphasis original.

31. Robinson, Priority, p. 389.

32. Ibid., pp. 393–394.

33. Keith Ward, Christ and the Cosmos: A Reformulation of Trinitarian Doctrine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp. 56–57.

34. Ward is careful to say he is offering ‘an interpretation of John from within my own very different historical context’ (ibid., p. 63) and ‘not, of course, suggesting that this is the one correct interpretation’ (p. 64).

35. This is the argument of Karl-Josef Kuschel, Born Before All Time? The Dispute over Christ’s Origin, tr. John Bowden (London: SCM, 1992).

36. Note that only in these two passages is Jesus called ‘Jesus Christ’ (1:17; 17:3). In my view Thomas L. Brodie, The Gospel According to John: A Literary and Theological Commentary (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 508–511, pushes correspondences between the prologue and ch. 17 too far, but certainly establishes a relationship.

37. Cf. 8:38.

38. In Wis. 8.3 it is said of Wisdom that ‘the Lord of all loves her’, following reference in 8.2 to Solomon’s love for Wisdom, personified as a beautiful woman he wishes to marry. But in John 17:24, in the context of Jesus’ personal address to the Father, one can scarcely reduce the meaning of ‘loved me’ to ‘God loved [i.e. set high value on] the Word.’ It is not that sort of love that Jesus wishes to be in his disciples (17:26).

39. During Jesus’ earthly life this relationship seems to be expressed by the reverse formulation: God is ‘with’ Jesus (8:29; 16:32).

40. See Richard Bauckham, The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple: Narrative, History, and Theology in the Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), pp. 250–251; Gospel of Glory: Major Themes in Johannine Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015), pp. 32–34.

41. See the full study in Erik Waaler, The Shema and the First Commandment in First Corinthians, WUNT 2.253 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008).

42. See also 3:35; 13:3; 17:2.

43. (1) 6:35, 41, 48; (2) 8:12; cf. 9:5; (3) 10:7, 9; (4) 10:11, 14; (5) 11:25; (6) 14:6; (7) 15:1.

44. (1) 4:26; (2) 6:20; (3) 8:24; (4) 8:28; (5) 8:58; (6) 13:19; (7) 18:5–6, 8. For a fuller discussion of these sayings see Bauckham, Testimony, pp. 243–249. The definitive study is Catrin H. Williams, I Am He: The Interpretation of ’Anî Hû in Jewish and Early Christian Literature, WUNT 2.113 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000). See also David M. Ball, ‘I Am’ in John’s Gospel: Literary Function, Background and Theological Implications, JSNTSup 124 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996). The two series of ‘I am’ sayings, with and without predicates, are connected in that Jesus’ identification with God (the absolute sayings) is the basis for his role as Saviour (the sayings with predicates).

45. In every case the nrsv helps English readers to recognize the resemblance between all these sayings by giving the literal translation ‘I am’ in a footnote.

46. E.g. Jerome H. Neyrey, An Ideology of Revolt: John’s Christology in Social-Science Perspective (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), pp. 213–224.

47. This is argued by Ball, ‘I Am’; Williams, I Am He.

48. E.g. James F. McGrath, John’s Apologetic Christology: Legitimation and Development in Johannine Christology, SNTSMS 111 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), chs. 4–5.

49. Sjef van Tilborg, Imaginative Love in John, BibInt 2 (Leiden: Brill, 1993), pp. 25–28.

50. William R. G. Loader, ‘John 5,19–47: A Deviation from Envoy Christology’, in Joseph Verheyden, Geert van Oyen, Michael Labahn and Reimund Bieringer (eds.), Studies in the Gospel of John and Its Christology: Festschrift Gilbert van Belle, BETL 265 (Leuven: Peeters, 2014), pp. 149–164.

51. Cf. 1:4, ‘In him was life’.

52. Thompson, God, p. 79, emphasis original. In my view Thompson’s emphasis on the dependence of the Son on the Father for life is one-sided. The Son is dependent on the Father for everything.

53. Note esp. 8:28, where Jesus’ identification with God (‘I am he’) is accompanied by his dependence on the Father (‘I do nothing on my own’).

54. This issue requires much fuller discussion; see e.g. Charles Kingsley Barrett, ‘“The Father is Greater Than I” John 14.28: Subordinationist Christology in the New Testament’, in idem, Essays on John (London: SPCK, 1982), pp. 19–36; Craig S. Keener, ‘Is Subordination Within the Trinity Really Heresy? A Study of John 5:18 in Context’, TrinJ 20 (1999), pp. 39–51; Thompson, God, pp. 92–98; Christopher Cowan, ‘The Father and Son in the Fourth Gospel: Johannine Subordination Revisited’, JETS 49 (2006), pp. 115–135; Andreas J. Köstenberger and Scott R. Swain, Father, Son and Spirit: The Trinity and John’s Gospel, NSBT 24 (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2008), pp. 114–127.

55. We should be careful to follow the outlines of the way the Gospel actually depicts the Father–Son relationship, which does not conform in every respect to the relationship of human fathers and sons in the ancient world. A key difference is the fact that both Father and Son are eternal. In a restricted sense the Son’s position resembles that of a son who has inherited his father’s status and estate at the latter’s death. In the Gospel the Father gives everything to the Son while remaining the living source.

56. The Gospel’s very frequent assertion that the Father sent the Son is often taken as requiring a notion of the Son’s obedience within the immanent Trinity, but this sending occurs on the very boundary between the immanent and the economic Trinity.

57. On this theme see Bauckham, Gospel of Glory, pp. 9–13, 36–41; David Crump, ‘Re-examining the Johannine Trinity: Perichoresis or Deification?’, SJT 59 (2006), pp. 395–412. The term perichoresis was used by the Greek Fathers to refer to the ‘in-one-anotherness’ of all three trinitarian persons and has been taken up by modern trinitarian theologians such as Jürgen Moltmann. The neglect of this theme by both Thompson, God, and Köstenberger and Swain, Father, Son and Spirit, seems to me a serious omission.

58. For the Father’s love for the Son, agapaō is used six times, agapē once (15:10) and phileō (which in John is synonymous with agapaō) once (5:20). Only once is Jesus said to love the Father (14:31), but this reference shows that his whole life of obedience to the Father is grounded in his love for the Father.

59. The reciprocity distinguishes it from Pauline language such as ‘in Christ’. That John’s ‘in one another’ language refers to mutual love is clear especially from 15:4–10 and 17:26. In 14:23 a different, though parallel, image is used.

60. Cf. Daniel B. Stevick, Jesus and His Own: A Commentary on John 13–17 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), p. 157: ‘What we love never stands altogether outside us.’

61. Bauckham, Gospel of Glory, pp. 34–36; Francis Watson, ‘Trinity and Community: A Reading of John 17’, IJST 1 (1999), pp. 168–184, here 171.

62. Note the love of the Father for the world (3:16) and the love of Jesus for his disciples (13:1, 34; 15:9–10; etc.).

63. John 1:32–33; 3:5–8, 34; 6:63; 7:37–39; 20:22. In addition, in the light of 7:38–39, we should probably take ‘the living water’ of 4:10–14 to symbolize the Spirit, while the ‘water’ of 19:34 is probably also a symbol of the life-giving Spirit, just as the blood in that passage identifies Jesus’ death as a sacrifice.

64. E.g. 1 Sam. 11:6; Job 33:4; Ps. 104:39.

65. Isa. 40:7; 44:3; Ezek. 37:1–10; 39:29.

66. Had John wished to make explicit reference to the Spirit in the prologue, he could have done so in 1:12–13.

67. John 20:22 echoes Gen. 2:7.

68. This point is made by Thompson, God, pp. 175–177.

69. See e.g. Kenneth Grayston, ‘The Meaning of PARAKLĒTOS’, JSNT 13 (1981), pp. 67–82; Gary M. Burge, The Anointed Community: The Holy Spirit in the Johannine Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), pp. 6–31; Andrew T. Lincoln, Truth on Trial: The Lawsuit Motif in the Fourth Gospel (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2000), pp. 113–114.

70. The term is paralleled at Qumran, but is also an instance of a standard formation (‘Spirit of’ + an abstract term) used to specify a particular form of the Spirit’s activity (e.g. Deut. 34:9; Isa. 11:2; Zech. 12:10; Rom. 8:2; 2 Tim. 1:7; Heb. 10:29).

71. Thi Tuong Oanh Nguyen, ‘The Allusion to the Trinity in Jesus’ Understanding of His Mission: A Theological Interpretation of ΠΕΜΠΩ and ΑΠΟΣΤΕΛΛΩ in the Fourth Gospel’, in G. Van Belle, M. Labahn and P. Maritz (eds.), Repetitions and Variations in the Fourth Gospel: Style, Text, Interpretation, BETL 223 (Leuven: Peeters, 2009), pp. 257–294, here 292–293, argues that the references to the Paraclete in 14:15–17 and 14:26 form an inclusio linking the Paraclete with the passage about the coming of Jesus and the Father.

72. Andrew T. Lincoln, The Gospel According to Saint John, BNTC (London: Continuum, 2005), p. 396.

73. Köstenberger and Swain, Father, Son and Spirit, p. 135.

74. Thus he gives glory, but he does not receive it.

75. Crump, ‘Re-examining’, p. 409. The point is well taken, but neglects the fact that the Son too ‘engages the world head-on’ out of the love for the world he shares with the Father.

Chapter 5

1. Cf. Gordon D. Fee, Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1996), p. 39.

2. Unless otherwise indicated, translations are taken from the niv. Italics normally indicate emphasis added.

3. E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), p. 509.

4. ‘God’, theos in Gk., almost always refers to God the Father in Paul’s letters. See the references to ‘God’ in the three texts that open this chapter: 1 Cor. 12:6; 2 Cor. 13:14; and esp. Eph. 4:5 (‘one God and Father of all’). Cf. Eph. 1:17: ‘the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father’, and Eph. 5:20, ‘God the Father’. Two possible exceptions appear in Rom. 9:5 and Titus 2:13, where theos may refer to Christ.

5. A divine passive is where God is the implied agent performing the action with a verb in the passive voice.

6. Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Paul and His Theology: A Brief Sketch (Englewood, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1989), p. 30.

7. N. T. Wright, ‘Monotheism, Christology, and Ethics: 1 Corinthians 8’, in idem, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), p. 129. It is indeed remarkable how often Paul’s trinitarian reflections have a basis in the OT.

8. See 1 Cor. 1:4–7, 2:4–5, 12 and 6:19–20 (cf. also 2 Cor. 1:21–22), where salvation is predicated either explicitly or implicitly on the threefold work of the triune God. Gordon D. Fee, ‘Christology and Pneumatology in Romans 8:9–11 – and Elsewhere: Some Reflections on Paul as a Trinitarian’, in J. B. Green and M. Turner (eds.), Jesus of Nazareth: Lord and Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), pp. 312–331.

9. E.g. note God’s establishment of his Son over all other powers in Ps. 2, and in Ezek. 36:23–27 his sanctification of his name by the cleansing and sanctification of his people by the Spirit so that they no longer profane his name among the nations but, rather, obey him from the heart. See Roy E. Ciampa and Brian S. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians, PNTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), p. 245, n. 96.

10. Cf. also the trinitarian structure of the prayer in Eph. 1:17: ‘I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.’

11. Cf. Paul Fiddes, ‘Participating in the Trinity’, PRSt 33 (2006), p. 382: ‘Foremost among practical experiences of participation in which talk of God as triune comes alive is that of prayer. The New Testament portrays prayer as being “to” the Father, “through” the Son and “in” the Spirit.’

12. BDAG, p. 876.

13. Cf. Brian S. Rosner, ‘Known by God: The Meaning and Value of a Neglected Biblical Concept’, TynB 59 (2008), pp. 207–230.

14. Gk. synantilambanomai. Cf. BDAG, ‘συναντιλαμβάνομαι’, p. 965, ‘come to the aid of, be of assistance to’. The role of the Spirit here is comparable to the Advocate/Comforter (Gk. paraklētos) in John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7.

15. Gordon D. Fee, ‘Paul and the Trinity: The Experience of Christ and the Spirit for Paul’s Understanding of God’, in Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall and Gerald O’Collins (eds.), The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 53, emphases original.

16. Cf. C. Kavin Rowe, ‘The Trinity in the Letters of St. Paul and Hebrews’, in Gilles Emery, O. P., and Matthew Levering (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Trinity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 49–51.

17. A. Katherine Grieb, ‘People of God, Body of Christ, Koinonia of Spirit: The Role of Ethical Ecclesiology in Paul’s “Trinitarian” Language’, AThR 87 (2005), pp. 225–252.

18. It is no accident that two of these three qualities appear in the fruit of the Spirit in Gal. 5:22 ( ‘joy’ and ‘peace’).

19. Cf. Rowan Williams, ‘Interiority and Epiphany: A Reading in New Testament Ethics’, Modern Theology 13.1 (1997), p. 42: ‘Generosity, mercy and welcome are imperatives for the Christian because they are a participation in the divine activity; but they are also imperative because they show God’s glory and invite or attract human beings to “give glory” to God – that is, to reflect back to God what God is.’

20. Miroslav Volf, ‘“The Trinity Is Our Social Program”: The Doctrine of the Trinity and the Shape of Social Engagement’, Modern Theology 14 (1998), p. 417.

21. Michael Thompson, Clothed with Christ: The Example and Teaching of Jesus in Romans 12.1–15.13, JSNTSup 59 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991), pp. 78–82.

22. Ibid., p. 85.

23. I would like to thank Chris Porter for help in research for this chapter and Scott Harrower for helpful suggestions on an earlier draft.

Chapter 6

1. For a recent defence of the view that Hebrews is a trinitarian work see Nathan D. Holsteen, ‘The Trinity in the Book of Hebrews’, BibSac 169 (2011), pp. 334–346; see also C. Kavin Rowe, ‘The Trinity in the Letters of St Paul and Hebrews’, in Gilles Emery, O. P., and Matthew Levering (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Trinity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 41–54.

2. On the sermonic genre of Hebrews see Jonathan I. Griffiths, Hebrews and Divine Speech, LNTS 507 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014), pp. 16–24.

3. Holsteen’s more broad-ranging study of the Trinity in Hebrews likewise draws attention to these two important themes and develops them briefly (‘Trinity’, pp. 342–344).

4. English Scripture quotations are taken from the esv, except in cases where alternative renderings of individual words or phrases are required in order to elucidate points of exegesis.

5. For further exploration of this point see Griffiths, Divine Speech, pp. 42–48.

6. Hebrews is made up of a series of expositions of biblical texts and themes, each of which ends with an exhortation (‘Therefore, let us . . .’). Observing the exhortation that concludes a given section of exposition helps the reader to identify the central concern(s) of the writer in that section of exposition. See ibid., pp. 28–35.

7. See Deut. 33:2 lxx, Jub. 1.27, 29; 2.1; 6.22; 30.12, 21; 50.1–2; Josephus, Ant. 15.136.

8. Here the focus is on the angels’ status as ‘ministers’ in God’s service and under his authority.

9. D. A. Carson has recently drawn attention to the fact that (in the light of 2 Sam. 7:14 esp.) the appellation ‘son’ could be applied to the Davidic king in the OT without carrying the necessary implication of ontological sonship. Similarly, the Davidic king could be referred to in a ‘hyperbolic’ way as a ‘god’ (see 1:8) without actually implying his divinity (D. A. Carson, Jesus the Son of God: A Christological Title Often Overlooked, Sometimes Misunderstood, and Currently Disputed [Nottingham: Inter-Varsity Press; Wheaton: Crossway, 2012], pp. 13–62). This is a necessary reminder that the kingly OT texts of Heb. 1 had significant levels of application to historical Davidic kings within their original context (a fact often largely overlooked in Christian exegesis of them).

10. This summary represents a fairly broad scholarly consensus concerning the intended audience of the discourse. The introductions to most major commentaries on Hebrews outline and engage with this basic position.

11. George B. Caird, ‘The Exegetical Method of the Epistle to the Hebrews’, CJT 5 (1959), pp. 44–51, here 49.

12. See Motyer’s analysis of the OT hermeneutic operating in Heb. 1. Building upon Caird’s observations, he highlights the writer’s interest in the tensions between OT texts within their original historical context ‘which allow him . . . to assert that Jesus is the fulfilment, the answer to the puzzle’ (Stephen Motyer, ‘The Psalm Quotations of Hebrews 1: A Hermeneutic-Free Zone?’, TynB 50 [1999], pp. 3–22, here 21).

13. The writer’s treatment of other OT figures and institutions parallels this approach to the Davidic monarchy to some extent. Melchizedek is important as a historical anticipation and prefigurement of the Son, not because Jesus will reflect him, but rather because Melchizedek ‘resembles’ the Son of God (7:3). The Son is the prior and fundamental reality to whom Melchizedek is a partial witness. The tabernacle in the wilderness preceded the new covenant in historical terms, but is only a ‘copy and shadow’ (8:5) of the heavenly sanctuary where Jesus, the high priest of the new covenant, now serves as priest. Thus the OT structure was a reflection of, and witness to, the more fundamental heavenly reality, which is connected to Christ’s ministry in the new covenant.

14. Heb. 1:3b–4 has made reference to the ascension/enthronement of the Son, and the OT quotation in 1:6 is prefaced by the words ‘when he brings the firstborn into the word [oikoumenē], he says’. In 2:5 the term oikoumenē will refer explicitly to the ‘world to come’ that has been subjected to the Son. This is the world into which he came when he was ‘crowned with glory and honour’ (2:9). The writer’s mention of this ‘world to come’ as being that ‘of which we are speaking’ (2:5) ‘explicitly takes up 1:6 and suggests that they both speak of Christ’s return to the divine realm after his death and resurrection’ (Peter T. O’Brien, The Letter to the Hebrews, PNTC [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Nottingham: Apollos, 2010], p. 69); see also Ardel B. Caneday, ‘The Eschatological World Already Subjected to the Son: The Οἰκουμένη of Hebrews 1.6 and the Son’s Enthronement’, in Richard Bauckham et al. (eds.), A Cloud of Witnesses: The Theology of Hebrews in Its Ancient Contexts, LNTS 387 (London: T&T Clark, 2008), pp. 28–39.

15. As Ken Schenck has already observed in ‘God Has Spoken: Hebrews’ Theology of the Scriptures’, in Richard Bauckham et al. (eds.), The Epistle to the Hebrews and Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), pp. 321–336, esp. 334–335.

16. There is not scope here to consider the exegetical questions surrounding the description of the ‘first’ and ‘second’ tabernacle. For a detailed treatment of these descriptors see David Gooding, ‘The Tabernacle: No Museum Piece’, in Jonathan Griffiths (ed.), The Perfect Saviour: Key Themes in Hebrews (Nottingham: Inter-Varsity Press, 2012), pp. 69–88.

17. The ‘present age’ is best understood to be the same as the ‘time of reformation’ (9:10) and as referring to the present era of fulfilment, which was ushered in ‘when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come’ (9:11). So Harold W. Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989), p. 241; see further the discussion there.

18. So e.g. Cockerill: ‘“the Holy Spirit” as the inspirer of Scripture is even now “revealing” the inadequacy of the old order through the biblical description of its limitations. The pastor claims no esoteric divine disclosure. What he has to say is drawn from the plain biblical description of the old order understood in light of its fulfilment’ (Gareth Lee Cockerill, The Epistle to the Hebrews, NICNT [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012], pp. 380–381).

19. So e.g. O’Brien (Hebrews, p. 312, emphases original): ‘The phrase, the Holy Spirit was showing by this, signifies more than a recognition of the Spirit’s role in the inspiration of the scriptural text, although this may be presupposed . . . Rather, the author is claiming special insight from the Holy Spirit into the meaning and purpose of these OT provisions in light of their fulfilment in Christ.’

20. The verb dēloō can mean either to ‘reveal’ something that was not previously known or to ‘explain’ or ‘clarify’ something (BDAG, ‘δηλόω’, p. 222).

21. For a thorough treatment of the theme of perfection and the case that it is to be understood vocationally see David G. Peterson, ‘Perfection: Achieved and Experienced’, in Jonathan Griffiths (ed.), The Perfect Saviour: Key Themes in Hebrews (Nottingham: Inter-Varsity Press, 2012), pp. 125–145; Hebrews and Perfection, SNTSMS 47 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).

22. Cf. e.g. Jesus’ growth in wisdom in his youth (Luke 2:40, 52).

23. O’Brien, Hebrews, pp. 111–112.

24. Ibid., pp. 485–486; Peterson, Hebrews and Perfection, p. 162.

25. In 2:13b–14 Christian people are described as ‘children’ given by God to the Son. Cockerill’s comment here is judicious: ‘There is no contradiction between God’s people being Christ’s “children” and God’s “sons and daughters.” The Greek word for “children” [paidia] is often used as a general term for younger people with a close relationship to and respect for the one addressing them as “children.” Thus Christ’s calling them his “children” preserves the uniqueness of the Son, affirms his solidarity with the “sons and daughters,” and suggests that they are in need of his assistance’ (Hebrews, p. 145).

26. Mackie argues that the ‘Son’s conferral of family membership’ on his people provides the basis for the call for them as siblings to ‘vocalize their commitment to and identification with the Son (4:14; 10:23)’ through the ‘sacral act of confession’ as they draw near to the divine presence (Scott D. Mackie, Eschatology and Exhortation in (Footnote 26 cont.) the Epistle to the Hebrews, WUNT 2.223 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007], p. 217); see also his ‘Confession of the Son of God in Hebrews’, NTS 53 (2007), pp. 114–129. According to this view, the shared experience of sonship would not only provide the basis for the addressees to hear God speak to them, but also for them to respond to God and thus participate in a two-way conversation. Mackie’s suggestion certainly coheres with the exegetical findings of this present study, although it must be accepted somewhat tentatively because the response of ‘confession’ is nowhere in the text linked explicitly to a status of shared sonship for the addressees.

27. The designation ‘Father of spirits’ distinguishes God from his people’s human ‘fleshly fathers’ (12:9a).

28. Cockerill, Hebrews, p. 398; Peterson, Hebrews and Perfection, p. 138; O’Brien, Hebrews, p. 324. Attridge, who finds that ‘[t]he precise import of this phrase is difficult to determine’, is nonetheless quick to dismiss any trinitarian understanding here: ‘Trinitarian speculation . . . is not involved. Hebrews’ references to the Spirit are too diffuse and ill-focused to support a Trinitarian theology in this context’ (Hebrews, p. 250). However, the fact that references to the Spirit are scattered through the discourse (without the Spirit’s receiving sustained attention at any one point) could indicate equally that the writer had a coherent theology of the Spirit that he assumed his addressees would share and that he did not need to defend or develop.

29. The numerous attempts to identify a precise biblical or traditional background that the writer intended to evoke here generally fail to convince. For an overview of such proposals see Martin Emmrich, ‘“Amtscharisma”: Through the Eternal Spirit (Hebrews 9:14)’, BBR 12 (2002), pp. 17–32. Emmrich’s own proposal that the writer here reflects a traditional association (esp. in rabbinic literature) between an anointing by the Spirit and the priestly office is intriguing, but again lacks sufficient evidence from within Hebrews to establish it conclusively.

30. O’Brien, Hebrews, p. 325.

31. Ellingworth emphasizes this, suggesting that although the term ‘eternal’ ‘usually has temporal overtones in Hebrews . . . what is probably more important in this context is that it denotes the Godward side of reality, that which is “not of this creation”’ (Paul Ellingworth, The Epistle to the Hebrews: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Carlisle: Paternoster, 1993], p. 457). Cf. Attridge, Hebrews, p. 251.

32. Paul shows evidence of a similar understanding in 2 Cor. 4:17–18, where the eternal realm is not simply the abiding realm, but also the unseen realm: ‘For this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.’ On the conceptual overlap between the unseen and the eternal in Greek thought see Plato, Phaedo 79a; and Margaret E. Thrall, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 2 vols., ICC (London: T&T Clark, 1994–2000), vol. 1, pp. 355–356.

33. Presumably the work of the Spirit includes the action of raising Christ from the dead to the place of glory at the Father’s right hand. It is often noted that the writer does not speak directly of the resurrection of Christ as a distinct event. He is very clear on the fact that Christ did indeed die (2:9; see 9:12, 17) but now remains alive for ever (7:16, 24), and so the resurrection is assumed. In his theology, resurrection and ascension are bound together, and it is probably a natural implication of 9:14 that the Spirit is the agent of the resurrection/ascension of Christ (cf. Rom. 1:4; 8:11; 1 Peter 3:18).

34. Cf. esp. 12:28. Believers ‘have come’ already to the divine presence in the heavenly Jerusalem (12:22–24) and so are able to ‘serve’ (latreuein, 12:28) before him, even while here on earth, through everyday acts of godly obedience (13:1–17).

35. See brief discussions and further references in Emmrich, ‘Amtscharisma’, p. 17; William L. Lane, Hebrews 9–13, WBC 47B (Nashville: Nelson, 1991), pp. 234–235.

36. I am grateful to my colleague Tim Ward for his kind help in providing feedback on a draft of this chapter.

Chapter 7

1. Unless otherwise noted, all translations in this chapter are from the esv.

2. See Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), pp. 270–272.

3. See Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. John Bolt, tr. John Vriend, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003–8), vol. 2, pp. 269–273.

4. Jas 3:9 is probably another example of the Granville Sharp rule.

5. The absence of the Greek article before theou makes it unlikely that Jas 1:1 has in view only one divine person.

6. For options on how to take the genitive construction ‘Lord of glory’ see Ralph P. Martin, James, WBC 48 (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1988), pp. 59–60.

7. 1 Peter 4:14; cf. Meredith M. Kline, ‘The Holy Spirit as Covenant Witness’ (ThM thesis, Westminster Theological Seminary, 1972), pp. 5–26; Meredith G. Kline, Images of the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980), p. 15.

8. I will refer to the author of 1 and 2 Peter as ‘Peter’, who is the purported author of both epistles. However, it makes little difference for the present argument whom one posits as the historical author(s) of these epistles. The trinitarian contours of both epistles remain.

9. So Thomas R. Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude, NAC 37 (Nashville: B&H, 2003), p. 54; J. Ramsey Michaels, 1 Peter, WBC 49 (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1988), p. 11.

10. On the OT background see Brandon D. Crowe, The Message of the General Epistles in the History of Redemption: Wisdom from James, Peter, John, and Jude (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R, 2015), pp. 12–13.

11. Cf. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2, pp. 269–270.

12. Ibid., pp. 319–320, 334; Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude, p. 57.

13. See Edmund P. Clowney, The Message of 1 Peter: The Way of the Cross, BST (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1988), p. 72.

14. So Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude, pp. 74–76.

15. Ibid., p. 73.

16. Ibid., p. 107.

17. Cf. Michaels, 1 Peter, p. 205.

18. See ibid. pp. 264–265.

19. See also ibid. pp. 238–239; Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude, pp. 208–210.

20. Wallace, Greek Grammar, pp. 270–277. Note similar constructions refer to one person in 2 Peter 1:11; 2:20; 3:18.

21. As noted earlier in this volume, Saviour is a divine title in the OT.

22. See Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude, pp. 294–295; Gene L. Green, Jude and 2 Peter, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), p. 186.

23. Crowe, Message of the General Epistles, pp. 64–69.

24. See Richard J. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, WBC 50 (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1983), p. 165.

25. Cf. Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude, p. 390; Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, p. 325.

26. Cf. Crowe, Message of the General Epistles, pp. 65–68; Kline, Images, p. 29. See also Vern S. Poythress, The Manifestation of God: A Biblical Theology of God’s Presence (forthcoming), chs. 5, pp. 16–17, 43.

27. Cf. John R. W. Stott, The Letters of John, 2nd ed., TNTC 19 (Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1988), p. 63.

28. Cf. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2, pp. 160–164.

29. Cf. Stephen S. Smalley, 1, 2, 3, John, WBC 51 (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1984), p. 10.

30. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2, pp. 259, 318–319.

31. Cf. Richard N. Longenecker, The Christology of Early Jewish Christianity, SBT 2.17 (London: SCM, 1970), pp. 136–141; Colin G. Kruse, The Letters of John, PNTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), pp. 197–198; Robert W. Yarbrough, 1–3 John, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), p. 319.

32. So Kruse, Letters of John, p. 153.

33. See ibid., pp. 124–125, 153–154; Stott, Letters of John, p. 132; Christopher D. Bass, That You May Know: Assurance of Salvation in 1 John, NACSBT 5 (Nashville: B&H Academic), p. 114; contrast Yarbrough, 1–3 John, p. 195.

34. Cf. Robert Letham, The Holy Trinity: In Scripture, History, Theology, and Worship (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R, 2004), p. 67.

35. Cf. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2, p. 312.

36. Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994), pp. 647–649.

37. See D. A. Carson, ‘The Three Witnesses and the Eschatology of 1 John’, in Thomas E. Schmidt and Moisés Silva (eds.), To Tell the Mystery: Essays on New Testament Eschatology. Festschrift for Robert H. Gundry, JSNTSup 100 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994), pp. 216–232.

38. Though the baptism of Jesus is not recorded in John, the testimony of John the Baptist regarding the Spirit’s descent and remaining on Jesus probably refers to Jesus’ baptism.

39. Stott, Letters of John, p. 181. Moreover, the Spirit also seems to testify to the reality that Jesus Christ was sent from God (4:1–6), further underscoring the trinitarian contours of 1 John.

40. The SBL Greek NT also reads Iēsous.

41. So several English translations, including esv, net, nlt. Alternatively, see niv, nrsv, hcsb, nasb.

42. See variously Simon J. Gathercole, The Preexistent Son: Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), pp. 36–40; Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, p. 49; Tommy Wasserman, The Epistle of Jude: Its Text and Transmission, ConBNT 43 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2006), pp. 262–266; Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude, pp. 444–445.

43. See Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, p. 113.

44. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2, p. 312.

Chapter 8

1. For further discussion of this difficult issue see G. K. Beale and Benjamin L. Gladd, Hidden but Now Revealed: A Biblical Theology of Mystery (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014), pp. 257–259.

2. Richard Bauckham rightly proposes that the background to Jesus’ divinity is rooted in Jewish monotheism – Christ is to be identified with the unique person of the Lord himself (Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament’s Christology and Divine Identity [Milton Keynes: Paternoster; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008]). I augment this proposal in that the OT does indeed contain some enigmatic texts that anticipate what later biblical authors would develop into a robust doctrine of the Trinity.

3. Unless otherwise noted, all biblical references are from the niv.

4. References to ‘God’, unless otherwise noted, refer to the ‘Father’, first person of the Trinity.

5. E.g. G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), pp. 181–183.

6. The term didōmi (to give) takes on a semi-technical use in Revelation, particularly in chs. 6–21. In most of the occurrences God is either the explicit or implicit subject of the verb. Oftentimes God’s enemies are ‘given’ (implied subject with the passive voice) authority to execute some form of judgment (6:2, 4, 8; 7:2; etc.). This observation is significant in that the verb is connected to God’s unmatched, sovereign power. Therefore the visions contained within the Apocalypse have been disclosed by God, who possesses unrivalled wisdom and power.

7. For more discussion of mystery in Daniel see Benjamin L. Gladd, Revealing the Mysterion: The Use of Mystery in Daniel and Second Temple Judaism with Its Bearing on First Corinthians, BZNW 160 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008), pp. 20–43.

8. The verb ‘to reveal’ (glh) appears eight times, referring to God’s ‘disclosing’, ‘mysteries’ (2:19, 28–30), ‘deep and hidden things’ (2:22) and a visionary ‘message’ (10:1).

9. Beale, Revelation, pp. 1124–1126.

10. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations from the lxx are taken from the nets.

11. Grant R. Osborne, Revelation, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), p. 52.

12. David E. Aune, Revelation 1–5, WBC 52A (Dallas: Word, 1997), p. 15.

13. E.g. Dan. 2:45b says, ‘The great God has shown [esēmane] the king what will be at the end of the days, and the vision is precise, and the meaning of it trustworthy’ (nets).

14. According to The Apocalypse Group at the Society of Biblical Literature, ‘“Apocalypse” is a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world’ (John J. Collins, ‘Introduction: Towards the Morphology of a Genre’, Semeia 14 [1979], p. 9, italics original).

15. Richard Bauckham rightly adds, ‘For John it seems that Jesus is the source, not the intermediary, of revelation . . . for John Jesus belongs with God as the giver [of revelation], while the angel belongs with John as instrument’ (The Climax of Prophecy: Studies in the Book of Revelation [New York: T&T Clark, 1993], p. 135).

16. Cf. 4Q381 f76_77.13; T. Reub. 2.1–3; T. Sol. 8.1.

17. John J. Collins, Daniel, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), p. 144.

18. See Gen. 41:8, 24; Exod. 7:11, 22; 8:3, 14; 9:11.

19. Note that the Theo version of the lxx reads ‘extraordinary spirit’ (pneuma perisson). The same formula appears once again in Dan. 6:3 [6:4 mt], ‘he [Daniel] possessed an extraordinary spirit [rûaḥ yattîrāh]’. Both versions of the lxx follow suit; the og reads ‘holy spirit’ (pneuma hagion) and Theo, ‘extraordinary spirit’ (pneuma perisson).

20. E.g. Stefan Beyerle, ‘Daniel and Its Social Setting’, in John J. Collins and Peter W. Flint (eds.), The Book of Daniel: Composition and Reception, VTSup 83 (Leiden: Brill, 1993), pp. 205–228.

21. Note also that John appears to develop Matthew’s expression (‘whoever has ears, let them hear’ [Matt. 11:15; 13:9, 43]) by explicitly inserting the Spirit’s role (Beale, Revelation, pp. 236–239; Bauckham, Climax of Prophecy, pp. 92–117).

22. In the letter to the church in Sardis the Son of Man is portrayed as ‘him who holds the seven spirits’ and the ‘seven stars’ (3:1). This indicates the close relationship between Christ’s message and the Spirit’s role in enabling the churches and their representatives (i.e. the ‘stars’) to understand and apply its message.

23. Bauckham, Climax of Prophecy, p. 161.

24. In Rev. 13:18 John hints once more at the Spirit’s role in understanding the visions: ‘This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast’ (cf. 17:9). This resembles the book of Daniel’s insistence that only those who possess God’s ‘Spirit’ grasp divine wisdom.

25. The unique title the ‘seven spirits’ (1:4; 3:1; etc.) may also correspond to the seven letters of Revelation in chs. 2–3. The significance is that Revelation’s message, as a whole, is tied to the Spirit’s role in enabling and applying its truths to believers.

26. G. K. Beale, The Use of Daniel in Jewish Apocalyptic Literature and in the Revelation of St. John (Lanham: University Press of America), pp. 154–228.

27. The lxx (og) confirms that the son of man has divine qualities: ‘I was watching in a vision at night, and, behold, as [hōs] a son of man came on the heavenly clouds, and as [hōs] the Ancient of Days he was present, and the attendants were with him [autō; {this figure}].’ According to v. 9, Daniel sees the Ancient of Days taking his seat on the throne. A few verses later, in v. 13, the prophet sees another figure described ‘as’ or ‘like’ ‘the son of man’. Is this figure angelic? The remainder of the verse answers in the negative, for another title is then given to this figure: ‘like the Ancient of Days’. According to the og there exists only one figure in v. 13; the son of man is also ‘like the Ancient of Days’. Seyoon Kim rightly puts the pieces together: ‘We must conclude that the heavenly figure “like a son of man” is described also as having been ‘like the Ancient of Days’ . . . That is, Daniel saw, besides the Ancient of Days, a heavenly figure “like a son of man and like the Ancient of Days” (The ‘Son of Man’ as the Son of God, WUNT 30 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1983], p. 23). The inference is that the og interpreted the son of man as a divine figure. The identification of autō with son of man furthers this interpretation in that the lxx sees angels ministering or worshipping the son of man.

28. 1 Enoch presents a Son of Man figure as pre-existent: ‘he [the Son of Man] was concealed in the presence of (the Lord of the Spirits) prior to the creation of the world, and for eternity’ (1 En. 48.6, emphasis added). This text and others like it (cf. 1 En. 62.7–9) cast this son of man figure as existing before creation. Perhaps 1 Enoch developed this notion by understanding that the son of man in Dan. 7:13 was a divine being (according to the og and implied by ‘coming with clouds’, which elsewhere is a portrayal of God) who first had a heavenly existence before coming to earth to reign. Though this pre-existent figure is not largely developed in the OT or Judaism, there exist some general precedents for this notion. For further discussion of how Judaism in general and early Christianity developed a pre-existent notion of the coming end-time ruler (Son of Man, Son of God, Messiah, Lord) see Simon J. Gathercole, The Preexistent Son: Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006).

29. Beale, Revelation, pp. 313–316.

30. Ibid., p. 368.

31. Bauckham, Climax of Prophecy, pp. 434–435; Beale, Use of Daniel, pp. 229–248.

32. For further allusions to Dan. 7 see Bauckham, Climax of Prophecy, pp. 424–425.

33. Unbelievers ‘worshipped’ the beast by exclaiming, ‘Who is like the beast? Who can wage war against it?’ (13:4). The first rhetorical question is an allusion to Exod. 15:11, where Moses and the Israelites celebrate Yahweh’s inimitable act of delivering them from the chaotic waters of the Red Sea and destroying the Egyptians. Here in Rev. 13:4 unbelievers mimic this adoration, thus underscoring the corrupt worship of a false god.

Chapter 9

1. See Brevard Childs, ‘The Sensus Literalis of Scripture: An Ancient and Modern Problem’, in Herbert Donner (ed.), Festschrift für Walther Zimmerli zum 70. Geburtstag (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977), pp. 80–93.

2. See Thomas Albert Howard, Religion and the Rise of Historicism: W. M. L. De Wette, Jacob Burckhardt, and the Theological Origins of Nineteenth-Century Historical Consciousness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

3. See Raymond C. Van Leeuwen, ‘Scribal Wisdom and Theodicy in the Book of the Twelve’, in L. G. Perdue, B. B. Scott and W. J. Wiseman (eds.), In Search of Wisdom: Essays in Memory of John G. Gammie (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993), pp. 31–49.

4. The hesitation to identify the centre of the OT’s theological witness is warranted.

5. Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, vol. 1, tr. S. Pines (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), vol. 1, p. 61.

6. In classical trinitarian terms God’s essence and existence are coterminous. For creaturely realities where the two are distinguished, existence occurs because of an external cause. Such cannot be the case with God because no external agent brings about his existence. See Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Prima Pars, q. 3, art. 4.

7. Francesca A. Murphy, God Is Not a Story: Realism Revisited (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

8. Gilles Emery, O. P., ‘Trinity and Creation’, in R. Van Nieuwenhove and J. Wawrykow (eds.), The Theology of Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), p. 68. Emery also states, ‘The procession of the Word and that of the Spirit are not only the source of creation; they extend their influence to the entire divine economy’ (p. 67).

9. The secondary literature on this subject is voluminous. Readers may find helpful the essays in M. T. Dempsey (ed.), Trinity and Election in Contemporary Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011). Especially instructive is the interlocution between Matthew Levering and Bruce McCormack in their respective readings on Aquinas and the relation between the processions and missions of the Trinity. Matthew Levering, ‘Christ, the Trinity, and Predestination: McCormack and Aquinas’, in Dempsey, Trinity and Election, pp. 244–276; Bruce L. McCormack, ‘Processions and Missions: A Point of Convergence Between Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth’, in B. L. McCormack and T. J. White, O. P. (eds.), Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth: An Unofficial Catholic–Protestant Dialogue (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), pp. 99–126.

10. Unless stated otherwise, Bible quotations in this chapter are from the nrsv.

11. See Rainer Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period, vol. 1: From the Beginnings to the End of the Monarchy, OTL (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), pp. 27–32.

12. Benno Jacob’s classic commentary on Exodus claims, ‘The two periods of history were not distinguished through the knowledge of one or another Name of God, but through two distinct aspects of God revealed in each period’ (Benno Jacob, The Second Book of the Bible: Exodus, tr. W. Jacob [Hobokon: KTAV, 1992], p. 146). Similarly, Francis Turretin asserts, ‘In this sense, he says that he had not been known to the patriarchs by his name Jehovah (Ex. 6:3), not as to the signifying word (for the contrary is evident from the book of Genesis), but as to the thing signified’ (Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, tr. G. M. Giger, ed. J. T. Dennison Jr., 3 vols. [Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R, 1992–7], vol. 1, p. 185). See also Christopher Seitz, ‘The Call of Moses and the “Revelation” of the Divine Name: Source-Critical Logic and Its Legacy’, in C. Seitz and K. Greene-McCreight (eds.), Theological Exegesis: Essays in Honor of Brevard S. Childs (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), pp. 145–161.

13. The niv unfortunately leaves onomos untranslated in its rendering of the text’s dynamic sense.

14. Richard Muller recounts Calvin’s comments on Ps. 8, where he prioritizes the relational/revelational character of the divine name over subtle speculations regarding God’s essence. For Calvin, God is known primarily by his works. ‘It [God’s name] ought rather to be referred to the works and properties by which he is known than to his essence.’ Calvin’s prioritization of the relational/revelational emerges from a Reformed emphasis on the applicability of doctrine and exegesis. Calvin is happy enough to affirm, for example, the traditional metaphysical understanding of the inseparability of God’s essence and his existence. But he does so when such claims flow organically from the exegesis of Scripture itself, i.e. Calvin’s comments on the name Jehovah in Ps. 83:18 (Richard Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725, 2nd ed., 4 vols. [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003], vol. 3, p. 251).

15. Benjamin Sommer, The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 38.

16. Ibid., p. 39.

17. Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, vol. 1, tr. D. M. G. Stalker (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1962), p. 287.

18. Herman Bavinck, The Doctrine of God, tr. W. Hendriksen (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1997), p. 257.

19. Luther understands Jacob’s desire to be alone as indicative of his pressing need to pray.

20. Gerhard von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972), p. 320.

21. Sommer, Bodies, p. 41.

22. Ibid.

23. The incommunicability of the Tetragrammaton to creatures became a matter of some consequence in Protestant orthodoxy’s reaction to Socinianism. If the Tetragrammaton is predicated on the mal’āk of the OT, then by necessary conclusion the angel must be an uncreated angel and not a created one, a ‘prelude to [Christ’s] incarnation’ (Turretin, Institutes, vol. 1, p. 185). See also, Muller, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3, pp. 259–260, 264.

24. Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 31–40; see also David Yeago, ‘The New Testament and Nicene Dogma: A Contribution to the Recovery of Theological Exegesis’, ProEccl 3 (1994), pp. 152–164.

25. Well worth pursuing is YHWH’s special provenance as it pertains to creation and redemption and the ‘fittingness’ of the Word and the Spirit as agents of YHWH’s single will to create and redeem. I thank my colleague Carl Beckwith for making this point clear. On this point see Boris Bobrinskoy, The Mystery of the Trinity: Trinitarian Experience and Vision in the Biblical and Patrisitic Tradition, tr. A. P. Gythiel (Crestwood: Saint Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1999), pp. 31–49.

26. Muller, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 4, p. 303.

27. The danger of identifying YHWH as the divine essence is the introduction of the fourth member into the Trinity, to wit, the essence as an independent transcendent agent. Paul Hinlicky identifies this danger and rightly steers clear of it when he claims, ‘I would argue that there is no divine essence existing apart transcendentally causing things in general, which may or may not be connected to its own real presence in the Son and blessing in the Spirit as the eternal Father. If that is so, the divine essence is the Father of the Son and breather of the Spirit’ (emphasis original). To speak of YHWH as the divine essence is to speak of the divine essence as Father, Son and Holy Spirit in their eternal processions (Paul R. Hinlicky, ‘Quaternity or Patrology’, ProEccl 23 [2014], p. 52). Aquinas’s understanding of the persons of the Trinity as ‘subsisting relations’ avoids the danger of isolating the divine essence from the personal relations in their distinction. Relation in God is the divine essence (Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Prima Pars, q. 29, art. 4).

28. See Gilles Emery, ‘Essentialism or Personalism in the Treatise on God in St. Thomas Aquinas?’, in idem, Trinity in Aquinas (Ann Arbor: Sapientia, 2003), pp. 165–208.

Chapter 10

1. An earlier version of this chapter appeared in Credo Magazine (Apr. 2013), pp. 26–33. See http://www.credomag.com/the-magazine/archives/the-trinity-and-the-christian-life-why-a-triune-god-makes-all-the-difference (accessed 21 Nov. 2015). For more detailed elaboration of the doctrine of the Trinity see Scott R. Swain, ‘Divine Triunity’, in Michael Allen and Scott R. Swain (eds.), Christian Dogmatics: Reformed Theology for the Church Catholic (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, forthcoming).

2. All translations in this chapter are from the esv.

3. See Martin Luther, The Three Symbols or Creeds of the Christian Faith, in LW, vol. 34, pp. 216–218.

4. Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 1, ed. James T. Dennison Jr. (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R, 1992), p. 253.

Chapter 11

1. See Robert Daly, S. J., ‘Eucharist and Trinity in the Liturgies of the Early Church’, in Khaled Anatolios (ed.), The Holy Trinity in the Life of the Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014), pp. 15–38.

2. ‘For if there were no unity, nor the Word the own Offspring of the Father’s Essence, as the radiance of the light, but the Son were divided in nature from the Father, it were sufficient that the Father alone should give, since none of originate things is a partner with his Maker in His givings; but, as it is, such a mode of giving shews the oneness of the Father and the Son. No one, for instance, would pray to receive from God and the Angels, or from any other creature, nor would any one say, “May God and the Angel give thee;” but from Father and the Son, because of Their oneness and the oneness of Their giving. For through the Son is given what is given; and there is nothing but the Father operates it through the Son; for thus is grace secure to him who receives it’ (Athanasius, Against the Arians 3.12 [NPNF2 4:400]).

3. For more detail on this general development see Carl R. Trueman, The Claims of Truth: John Owen’s Trinitarian Theology (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1998). Owen’s works are available from Banner of Truth, ed. W. Goold, in 16 vols. (Edinburgh, 1965–8). Hereafter Works.

4. Works 2.6.

5. Ibid., p. 9.

6. See Trueman, Claims of Truth, passim.

7. Works, vol. 2, pp. 11–14.

8. Ibid., p. 18.

9. Ibid., p. 19.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid., p. 21.

12. Ibid., p. 23.

13. Ibid., pp. 47–48.

14. Ibid., pp. 51–52.

15. Ibid., pp. 83–91.

16. Ibid., pp. 81–82.

17. Ibid., pp. 82–83.

18. Ibid., p. 92.

19. ‘It is only a bosom friend unto whom we will unbosom ourselves. Neither is there, possibly, a greater evidence of delight in close communion than this, that one will reveal his heart unto him whom he takes into society, and not entertain him with things common and vulgarly known. And therefore have I chose[n] this instance, from amongst a thousand that might be given, of this delight of Christ in his saints’ (ibid., p. 119, emphases original).

20. Ibid., p. 221.

21. Ibid., p. 226.

22. Ibid., p. 237.

23. Ibid., pp. 240–241.

24. Ibid., p. 255.

25. Ibid., p. 257.

26. Ibid., pp. 257–258.

27. Ibid., p. 249.

28. Ibid., pp. 269–270.

Chapter 12

1. English translations are taken from the esv.

2. The classic treatment of the distinction between eternal processions and temporal missions is Augustine’s De Trinitate, bks. 5 and 15. For modern discussion of the relation between the two see Travis E. Ables, Incarnational Realism: Trinity and the Spirit in Augustine and Barth (New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013), pp. 180–185; Scott R. Swain, The God of the Gospel: Robert Jenson’s Trinitarian Theology (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2013), pp. 191–193.

3. Reformed theology, since at least the time of Franciscus Junius’ De vera theologia (1594), has employed a distinction between theologia archetypa and theologia ectypa to make an important point about God’s knowledge of himself and our knowledge of God: ‘This [true] theology is either archetypal, i.e., the wisdom of God himself, or ectypal, i.e., wisdom informed by God’ (W. J. van Asselt, ‘The Fundamental Meaning of Theology: Archetypal and Ectypal Theology in Seventeenth-Century Reformed Thought’, WTJ 64 [2002], p. 327). Archetypal theology is original, direct, infinite and exhaustive. Ectypal theology, on the other hand, is finite, derivative and mediated, and so always partial and incomplete (see 1 Cor. 13:12). F. Junius, A Treatise on True Theology, tr. D. C. Noe (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2014), pp. 103–120. It is most likely, as Amandus Polanus suggested, this distinction is a variation of the distinction between theologia in se and theologia nostra used by Duns Scotus in his Lectura librum primum sententarium, Opera Omnia XVI (Civitas Vaticana, 1950– ), prol., q. III, lec. iv (Van Asselt, ‘Fundamental Meaning’, p. 322).

4. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 2, art. 3.

5. Augustine himself admitted this (Augustine, De Trinitate 15.6 [10]).

6. D. A. Carson, ‘Matthew’, in F. E. Gaebelein (ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, 12 vols. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), vol. 8, p. 277.

7. ‘The Son is not only the organ of revelation but is himself a mystery to be revealed; the knowledge of the Father and the knowledge of the Son are two sides of the same mystery, which is now revealed, and so the Father and the Son in fellowship with one another are both subject and object of revelation’ (Ned B. Stonehouse, The Witness of Matthew and Mark to Christ [London: Tyndale, 1944], p. 212).

8. John of Damascus, The Orthodox Faith 2.2 (PG 94:864–865; NPNF2 9:18).

9. ‘For God is said to have life in Himself, not only because He alone lives by His own inherent power, but because He contains in himself the fulness of life in Himself and quickens all things’ (John Calvin, Commentary on John, in D. W. Torrance and T. F. Torrance [eds.], Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries, 12 vols. [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961], vol. 4, p. 131).

10. John Webster, ‘Life in and of Himself: Reflections on God’s Aseity’, in Bruce L. McCormack (ed.), Engaging the Doctrine of God (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), p. 113.

11. CD, II/1, p. 303.

12. ‘Historically, terrible problems have developed with concepts of transcendence and immanence. The transcendence of God (His exaltation, His mysteriousness) has been understood as God’s being infinitely removed from the creation, being so far from us, so different from us, so “wholly other” and “wholly hidden” that we can have no knowledge of Him and can make no true statements about Him. Such a god, therefore, has not revealed – and perhaps cannot reveal – himself to us’ (John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God [Phillipsburg: P&R, 1987], p. 13).

13. R. T. Mullins, ‘An Analytic Response to Stephen R. Holmes, with a Special Treatment of His Doctrine of Divine Simplicity’, in T. A. Noble and J. S. Sexton (eds.), The Holy Trinity Revisited: Essays in Response to Stephen Holmes (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2015), pp. 88–91.

14. Christoph Schwöbel, ‘Where Do We Stand in Trinitarian Theology? Resources, Revisions, and Reappraisals’, in Christophe Chalamet and Marc Vial (eds.), Recent Developments in Trinitarian Theology: An International Symposium (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014), p. 70.

15. Carl F. H. Henry, ‘The Hidden and Revealed God’, in idem, God, Revelation and Authority, vol. 2: God Who Speaks and Shows. Fifteen Theses, Part One (1976; repr. Wheaton: Crossway, 1999), p. 47.

16. T. F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), p. 81.

17. ‘Lectures on Romans’ (1515–16), in LW, vol. 25, p. 366.

18. ‘The Bondage of the Will’ (1525), in LW, vol. 33, p. 139 = WA, vol. 18, p. 685.14–17.

19. Jerome, Commentary on Matthew, tr. Thomas P. Scheck, Fathers of the Church 117 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2008), p. 137.

20. Gabriel Fackre, The Doctrine of Revelation: A Narrative Interpretation (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997), p. 29.

21. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Remythologizing Theology: Divine Action, Passion, and Authorship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 260.

22. Scott R. Swain, Trinity, Revelation, and Reading: A Theological Introduction to the Bible and Its Interpretation (London: T&T Clark, 2011), p. 6, emphases original.

23. Christoph Schwöbel, ‘God as Conversation: Reflections on a Theological Ontology of Communicative Relations’, in J. Haers and P. De Mey (eds.), Theology and Conversation (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2003), p. 51. See also Colin E. Gunton, The Christian Faith: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), p. 10: ‘In the theology of creation, therefore, language of mediation by God’s Word enables us to speak both of God’s free involvement with his creation and, ultimately, in Christ, of his equally free and sovereign identification with a part of it.’

24. Vanhoozer, Remythologizing, p. 212. Karl Barth challenged the tendency to rush too quickly to a view of speaking that is more personal or powerful than acting: ‘The Word of God does not need to be supplemented by an act. The Word of God is itself the act of God’ (CD, I/1, p. 143).

25. Schwöbel, ‘God as Conversation’, p. 45.

26. T. F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1992), p. 19.

27. Ibid., p. 23.

28. T. F. Torrance, The Ground and Grammar of Theology: Consonance Between Theology and Science, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2001), p. 165.

29. Ibid., p. 40.

30. T. F. Torrance, Reality and Evangelical Theology: The Realism of Christian Revelation (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1999, repr.), p. 23, emphasis original.

31. David A. Höhne, Spirit and Sonship: Colin Gunton’s Theology of Particularity and the Holy Spirit (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), p. 46.

32. Ibid., p. 45.

33. Institutes 1.9.3. Translation from John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, tr. Ford Lewis Battles, 2 vols., LCC 20 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1960), vol. 1, p. 95.

34. Torrance, Reality, p. 23.

35. ‘Only God’s word disambiguates God’s deed’ (Vanhoozer, Remythologizing, p. 213). On this issue see also John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Word of God (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R, 2010), pp. 3–11; Samuel G. Craig, ‘Benjamin B. Warfield’, in B. B. Warfield, Biblical and Theological Studies, ed. Samuel G. Craig (Philadelphia: P&R, 1968), p. xx; D. B. Knox, ‘Propositional Revelation the Only Revelation’, RTR 19 (1960), pp. 1–9.

36. CD, I/1, p. 304.

37. Ibid., p. 296 (emphases original).

38. ‘God Himself in unimpaired unity and also in unimpaired distinction is Revealer, Revelation and Revealedness’ (CD, I/1, p. 295). ‘The question of revealer, revelation and being revealed corresponds to the logical and material order both of biblical revelation and also of the doctrine of the Trinity’ (ibid., p. 314).

39. Barth and Brunner clashed dramatically in the mid 1930s over the issue of Natural Theology and just how much of God’s purposes can be read off the structures of creation and human society without direct recourse to Christological categories. In 1934 Brunner published a little booklet entitled ‘Nature and Grace’ (Natur und Gnade [Tübingen: Mohr, 1934]). Later that year Karl Barth published his reply, ‘No!’ (Nein! Antwort an Emil Brunner [Munich: C. Kaiser, 1934]).

40. Emil Brunner, The Divine–Human Encounter, tr. A. W. Loos (London: SCM, 1944), p. 53.

41. CD, I/1, p. 137.

42. Ibid., p. 138.

43. Colin E. Gunton, A Brief Theology of Revelation (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), p. 118.

44. Swain, Trinity, Revelation and Reading, p. 8.

45. John Owen, Pneumatologia or A Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit (1674) reprinted in The Works of John Owen, ed. W. Goold, 16 vols. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1965–8), vol. 3, p. 65.

46. CD, I/1, p. 383 (punctuation added).

47. Ibid., p. 140.

48. Frame, Knowledge of God, p. 12.

49. Paul Ricœur, ‘Toward a Hermeneutic of the Idea of Revelation’, HTR 70 (1977), pp. 1–37.

50. Gunton, Revelation, pp. 21, 31.

51. An expanded paraphrase of Barth’s early challenge to the liberal theology in which he was raised (Karl Barth, ‘The New World in the Bible, 1917’, in idem, The Word of God and Theology, tr. A. Marga [London: T&T Clark, 2011], p. 25).

Chapter 13

1. William F. Arndt and Wilbur A. Gingrich. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), pp. 723–724.

2. Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, 2 vols. (New York: United Bible Societies, 1988), vol. 1, p. 540.

3. See Thomas F. Torrance, ‘The Christian Apprehension of God the Father’, in Alvin F. Kimel Jr. (ed.), Speaking the Christian God: The Holy Trinity and the Challenge of Feminism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), pp. 120–143.

4. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 1.1.1 – 1.3.3.

5. Ibid. 4.1–4.

6. Ibid. 5.1–14.

7. Ibid. 6.1–4.

8. Ibid. 7.1–5.

9. See I. John Hesselink, Calvin’s First Catechism: A Commentary. Featuring Ford Lewis Battles’ Translation of the 1538 Catechism (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997), pp. 44–53, whose discussion of this early writing of Calvin demonstrates its congruity with his more developed expression in the 1559 Institutes.

10. Robert Letham, The Holy Trinity: In Scripture, History, Theology, and Worship (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R, 2004), pp. 59–60.

11. Ibid., pp. 59–60; Kevin J. Bidwell, The Church as the Image of the Trinity: A Critical Evaluation of Miroslav Volf’s Ecclesial Model, WEST Theological Monograph (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2011), p. 239.

12. Here is the characteristic Cappadocian teaching on the Father as the fountain of deity, although it was not confined to the Greeks; see e.g. Augustine, De Trinitate 2.1.3, 4.20.T; Lewis Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 178–187; Calvin, Institutes 1.13.18, 20, 25.

13. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 31.14 (tr. from NPNF2 7:322).

14. John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith 1.8 (tr. from NPNF2 9:2:6), emphasis added.

15. My tr. The words abba (Aramaic) and patēr (Greek) both mean ‘Father’. Hence Jew and Gentile are on the same footing. That abba, contrary to popular preaching stemming from the influence of Joachim Jeremias, does not mean ‘daddy’ has been established by James Barr, ‘Abba Isn’t Daddy’, JTS 39 (1988), pp. 28–47.

16. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel According to St. John (IX–XXI), tr. T. Randell, LFC 48 (London: Walter Smith, 1885), p. 481; cf. 484 (PG 74:477).

17. Calvin, Institutes 1.13.18, tr. from John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, tr. Ford Lewis Battles, 2 vols., LCC 20 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1960), vol. 1, pp. 142–143. Hereafter ‘Battles’.

18. Ibid. 3.1.4 (Battles, vol. 1, p. 541).

19. See Dumitru Staniloae, The Experience of God: Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, vol. 1: Revelation and Knowledge of the Triune God, ed. and tr. Ioan Ionita and Robert Barringer (Brookline, Mass.: Holy Cross Orthodox, 1994), pp. 248–249.

20. Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit 26.62 (PG 32:184; tr. from NPNF2 8:38), emphasis added.

21. See Athanasius, Letters to Serapion on the Holy Spirit 1.33 (PG 26:605–608), for a similar explanation.

22. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 31.28 (PG 36:164–165; tr. from NPNF2 7:326–327).

23. Letham, Holy Trinity, pp. 66–67; F. F. Bruce, Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews: The English Text with Introduction, Exposition and Notes (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1964), p. 205.

24. A. M. Ramsay, The Glory of God and the Transfiguration of Christ (London: Longmans, 1949), pp. 91–100.

25. John Thompson, Modern Trinitarian Perspectives (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 99–101.

26. John Owen, Of Communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Each Person Distinctly, in Love, Grace, and Consolation (1657), reprinted in The Works of John Owen, ed. W. Goold, 16 vols. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1965–8), vol. 2, pp. 29–30.

27. Cyril of Alexandria, St. John, pp. 496, 536, 538.

28. See Robert Letham, The Work of Christ (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1993), pp. 106–123.

29. Owen, Of Communion with God, 2.8–9, emphases original.

30. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration on Holy Baptism 40.41 (PG 36:417; tr. from NPNF2 7:375).

31. Gilles Emery, O. P., The Trinity: An Introduction to Catholic Doctrine of the Triune God, tr. Matthew Levering (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2011), pp. 175–194.

32. Anselm, De Fide Trinitatis et de Incarnatione Verbi 3.27–37 (PL 158:276–284). See Jasper Hopkins and Herbert Richardson, ed. and tr., Anselm of Canterbury (Toronto: Edwin Mellen, 1975–6); Letham, Holy Trinity, pp. 222–223.

33. From the hymn ‘At the Name of Jesus’, written by Caroline Noel.

34. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Holy Spirit (tr. from NPNF2 5:324).

35. Staniloae, Experience of God, p. 255.

36. Owen, Of Communion with God 2.9–17.

37. Ibid., pp. 18–19, emphases added.

38. Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, tr. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), vol. 1, pp. 315, 320.

39. See Basil of Caesarea, Holy Spirit 26.62 (PG 32:184; tr. from NPNF2 8:39); Athanasius, Serapion 1.33.2 (PG 26:605–608).

40. Sergius Bulgakov, The Orthodox Church (Maitland, Fla.: Three Hierarchs Seminary Press, 1935), p. 122.

41. Hilary of Poitiers claimed that God cannot be known except by devotion. Origen held that theologia and eusebeia (piety) mutually condition each other. Prosper of Aquitaine coined the seminal formula legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi (the rule of prayer establishes the rule of faith – and vice versa).

42. The English language has suffered impoverishment in this matter. Many words have lost their force. There are three aspects to sin in this context. First is the reality of sin, committed in thought, word or deed, or in omission. Second comes the objective guilt that this entails. Third is the penalty of sin. ‘Pardon’ can be issued to one convicted of a crime but this does not of itself remove the reality of what has been done. The penalty is removed or curtailed but the guilt remains and the criminal action cannot be effaced. ‘Remission’ merely suspends part of the sentence but does nothing about the guilt or the deed. ‘Forgiveness’ is something notoriously difficult for us to give; as C. S. Lewis remarked, we may find ourselves needing to forgive seventy times seven for the same offence; C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1958), pp. 24–25, who remarks, ‘there is no use in talking as if forgiveness is easy . . . the work of forgiveness has to be done over and over again’. The point is that while God forgives, our understanding of forgiveness is easily shaped by the problems we find ourselves facing with it. To my mind, the best word to use, the one that most encapsulates what happens before God, is ‘absolution’, from absolvere, meaning to acquit, justify, dispose of (Oxford Latin Dictionary, ed. P. G. W. Glare [Oxford: Clarendon, 1996]). It covers not only the penalty of sin but also its guilt and, more than that, creates the situation where the offence is effectively removed from all consideration on the part of God (Ps. 103:10–14; Mic. 7:18–19).

43. John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans, 2 vols., NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959–65), vol. 2, p. 58; C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, 2 vols., ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1975–9), vol. 2, pp. 533–534; Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans, PNTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), pp. 389–390; James D. G. Dunn, Romans 9–16, WBC 38B (Dallas: Word, 1988), p. 620.

44. Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church, vol. 1: The Biblical Period (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), pp. 186–187.

45. Ibid., p. 184.

46. See my article ‘The Necessity of Preaching’, Ordained Servant (Oct.– Dec. 2013), http://www.opc.org/OS/Ordained_Servant_2013.pdf (accessed 24 Nov. 2015).

47. See the discussion by John H. Leith, ‘Calvin’s Doctrine of the Proclamation of the Word and Its Significance for Us Today’, in Timothy George (ed.), John Calvin and the Church: A Prism of Reform (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1990), pp. 210–212.

48. Calvin, Institutes 4.1.5 (Battles, vol. 2, p. 1017).

49. WSC 88; contra Owen, Of Communion with God, who focuses on individual worship, with the ministry of the church effectively as a back up.

50. Peter Toon, Our Triune God: A Biblical Portrayal of the Trinity (Wheaton: BridgePoint, 1996), p. 234.

51. See Letham, Holy Trinity, p. 375.

52. Lukas Vischer (ed.), Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ: Ecumenical Reflections on the Filioque Controversy (London: SPCK, 1981), p. 10, emphasis original.

53. Staniloae, Experience of God, pp. 248–249.

54. The all-night vigil service, the third hour in Isabel Florence Hapgood, Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church, 3rd ed. (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Syrian Antiochene Orthodox Archdiocese of New York and all North America, 1956), p. 43 (language modernized).

Chapter 14

1. LW, vol. 24, p. 364.

2. English translations are taken from the esv.

3. Surah 3:54; 4:88; 8:30; 14:4; 16:93. The nature of faith in Allah is naturally affected by this, as the first Caliph of Islam, Abu Bakr, showed in his response to an assurance that he would have a place in paradise: ‘“By Allah!” he said, “I would not rest assured and feel safe from the deception of Allah, even if I had one foot in paradise”’ (Khalid Muhammad Khalid, Successors of the Messenger, tr. Muhammad Mahdi al-Sharif [Beirut: Dar al-Kotob al-Ilmiyah, 2005], bk. 1, p. 99).

4. Jean-Jacques von Allmen, Preaching and Congregation, tr. B. L. Nichols (Richmond, Va.: John Knox, 1962), pp. 7–8, emphases original.

5. The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA), pt. 1, Book of Confessions (Louisville: Office of the General Assembly, 1999), 5.004, my emphasis.

6. T. H. L. Parker, Calvin’s Preaching (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1992), pp. 1–53. In his previous work The Oracles of God (London: Lutterworth, 1947), pp. 45–64, Parker also argues for how robustly trinitarian Calvin was in his theology of preaching.

7. Ibid., p. 26.

8. Ioannis Calvini opera quae supersunt omnia, ed. G. Baum, E. Cunitz and E. Reuss, Corpus Reformatorum 29–87 (Brunswick: Schwetschke, 1863–1900), 53.266, my emphasis.

9. Ibid. 26.66–67.

10. Parker, Calvin’s Preaching, p. 29.

11. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, tr. Ford Lewis Battles, 2 vols., LCC 20 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1960), 1.13.2 (vol. 1, p. 120). Hereafter ‘Battles’.

12. ‘Preface to Olivétan’s New Testament’, in Calvin: Commentaries, ed. Joseph Haroutunian, LCC 23 (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1958), p. 64.

13. Institutes 1.2.1 (Battles, vol. 1, p. 40, emphasis mine).

14. Ibid. 2.6.1 (Battles, vol. 1, p. 341).

15. Ibid. 12.2 (Battles, vol. 1, p. 465).

16. Ibid. (Battles, vol. 1, pp. 465–466).

17. Ibid. 3.1.1 (Battles, vol. 1, p. 537).

18. Ibid. 1.3 (Battles, vol. 1, p. 540).

19. Ibid. 4.15.6 (Battles, vol. 2, p. 1308).

20. John Calvin, Commentary on Harmony of the Evangelists, tr. William Pringle, 3 vols. (repr. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), vol. 3, p. 387 (on Matt. 28:19), emphases mine.

21. ‘Preface to Olivétan’s New Testament’, pp. 65–66.

22. Ibid., p. 69.

23. Ibid., p. 70.

24. Ibid.

25. Charles Gore, ‘Our Lord’s Human Example’, CQR 16 (1883), p. 298, my emphases.

26. Institutes 3.2.8 (Battles, vol. 1, pp. 551–552).

27. Ibid. 1.5.9 (Battles, vol. 1, p. 61). Following Rom. 10:10, Calvin held that ‘the seat of faith is not in the head, but in the heart. Yet I would not contend about the part of the body in which faith is located: but as the word heart is often taken for a serious and sincere feeling, I would say that faith is a firm and effectual confidence, and not a bare notion only’ (John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans, ed. and tr. John Owen [repr. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003], p. 393 [on Rom. 10:10]).

28. Institutes 1.2.1 (Battles, vol. 1, p. 39).

29. Ibid. 3.2.41 (Battles, vol. 1, p. 589). Edward Dowey observed that, whether ‘discussing the encounter with God in creation or Scripture, Calvin always uses the term “knowledge” in conjunction with the love or hatred, mercy or wrath of God, as well as man’s total response in trust or fear, obedience or disobedience’ (Edward A. Dowey Jr., The Knowledge of God in Calvin’s Theology [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994], p. 24).

30. Institutes 2.8.11 (Battles, vol. 1, pp. 367–368).