The Baptist Faith And Message Article II: God (Part 2)

R. Dwain Minor   -   June 23, 2021

Last week we left off at the statement concerning the Trinity in the Baptist Faith and Message Article 2. So, that is where we will begin today.

Here is Article 2 from the Baptist Faith and Message.

II. God

There is one and only one living and true God. He is an intelligent, spiritual, and personal Being, the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe. God is infinite in holiness and all other perfections. God is all powerful and all knowing; and His perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures. To Him we owe the highest love, reverence, and obedience. The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.

The statement that we will discuss today is the last sentence. But first I’d like to discuss why we have that last sentence and where it comes from.

Athanasius And The Fight Over The Doctrine Of The Trinity

Athanasius is a name that you likely have not heard of, but his influence over the Church is profound in a very good way.

Athanasius was the chief deacon assistant to the Bishop of Alexandria during a dispute concerning the Trinity. Arius, a pastor from Lybia stated that,

“If the Father begat the Son, then he who was begotten had a beginning in existence, and from it follows that there was a time when the Son was not.”

The Council rejected this and found it to be heretical, but Arianism spread everywhere there was Christianity. That’s hard to believe from where we are today, but it happened. And it is a warning to Christians that lets us see just what can happen when bad theology is allowed to live. In 321 he was denounced as heterodox for his teaching.

Athanasius was there, essentially as a secretary. But it was Athanasius who understood this was a really big deal and led the fight against Arianism for the rest of his life. Athanasius was exiled five times for challenging a belief that had captured so many in his day, but was obviously wrong. And he earned for himself the nickname, “Black Dwarf” because a lot of people hated him and he was a short, dark-skinned Egyptian.

This all came to a head around the time that Emperor Constantine was converted. This split in Christianity troubled him and so he ordered for their to be a Church Council on the matter. 1,800 bishops were invited to Nicea, but only 300 came. They discussed, fought, and argued through the matter. And fought, is the right word to use. It was at this Church Council that St. Nicholas punched Arias in the face, which helps you to see that the discussion got a little heated. Out of this heated debate came The Nicene Creed.

“We believe in one God the Father All-sovereign, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible;

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, Begotten of the Father before all the ages, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father, through whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from the heavens, and was made flesh of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man, and was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried, and rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures, and ascended into the heavens, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father, and cometh again with glory to judge living and dead, of whose kingdom there shall be no end;

And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and the Life-giver, that proceedeth from the Father, who with Father and Son is worshipped together and glorified together, who spake through the prophets:

In one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church:

We acknowledge one baptism unto remission of sins. We look for a resurrection of the dead, and the life of the age to come.”

And every statement of faith that has discussed the Trinity has looked back at this statement as Orthodox. Any deviance from this statement is seen to be outside of the bounds of Christian orthodoxy.

Here is the statement that we are most concerned with in the BFM 2000 that attempts to summarize the Bible’s teaching on the Triune nature of God.

“The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.”

Last week we emphasized that God is the “one and only living and true God” and then went on to discuss some of His attributes. Today we will discuss how God reveals Himself to us as Triune.

Eternal Triune

Eternal is always existing, but it is also more than that. God has always existed as He is now. And God is unchanging.

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1:17 ESV)

He is not dependent upon anyone.  And the declaration here is that God has always existed as the Triune God. In other words, there has never been and never will be a time when God exists other than Triune.

The specific statement here is that God has always existed as Triune. God has always existed as one God in three persons.

God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.

There are three different things told to us about this in Scripture that we have to keep together. We will never fully understand how this works, but we can hold to these three ideas and gain some understanding of the Trinity.

Wayne Grudem does a good job explaining this here.

“In one sense the doctrine of the Trinity is a mystery that we will never be able to understand fully. However, we can understand something of its truth by summarizing the teaching of Scripture in three statements:

1. God is three persons.
2. Each person is fully God.
3. There is one God. “

Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 231

Another great summary is found in James White’s Book, “The Forgotten Trinity”. In it he says the same things.

“Within the one being that is God, there exists eternally three coequal and coeternal persons, namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” (James White, “The Forgotten Trinity”, 1998, Bethany House Publishers, p. 26.)

Notice that the same three foundations are there. White just lists them in a more traditional order. And then he goes on to call them the three foundations of the Trinity.

At this point I would like to recommend this book to you. “The Forgotten Trinity” is the best book out there that I know of that takes all the pertinent passages concerning the Trinity and discusses them. Here it is. So, if you’re wanting to dig into the Doctrine of the Trinity, this is a great starting point.

These three things are all revealed in God’s Word. So, we hold on to these three truths. Any attempt to downplay or ignore one of those three truths actually pushes us into the realm of the heretical thinkers in Church history’s past. So, let’s look at Scriptures from each of these three foundations.

There is Only One God

We discussed monotheism, or the fact that there is only one God last week. But here is the passage of Scripture we most often use to think through that.

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5 ESV)

Another declaration from the Lord comes from Isaiah 45:21-22. There are many declarations of God being the only God in Isaiah, but this one will be our focus here.

“Declare and present your case; let them take counsel together! Who told this long ago? Who declared it of old? Was it not I, the LORD? And there is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me. “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.” (Isaiah 45:21-22 ESV)

The simple fact of the matter is that there is one God. And that is why the statement on God from The Baptist Faith and Message begins with this declaration when it says, “There is one and only living and true God”.

Foundation one, there is only one God. Or, as the BFM 2000 puts it, “There is one and only living and true God” is found throughout the pages of Scripture. It is the first thing that we, as people who hold to the truthfulness and authority of God’s Word must believe about the Trinity.

There Are Three Divine Persons

Now, this is where things start to get complicated. But since God is Spirit and does not exist as we do, then the one essence or being is fully found in each person of the Trinity.

First, it is obvious throughout all of Scripture that God the Father is a divine person. One text that may be seen to show this is John 17:24.

“Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17:24 ESV)

Here you have Jesus praying to the Father, which is but one of the many, many texts that would show that God the Father is God.

Second, there are many statements in Scripture that prove that God the Son is Himself God as well. The most obvious one for our purposes here is John 1:1-2.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” (John 1:1-2 ESV)

We find out later in the chapter that the Word was God the Son, Jesus Christ Himself. (John 1:14) God the Son was there in the beginning, was with God, and was God. This statement is just about as clear as it can be made. God the Son is God.

Another very clear instance is Thomas’s confession near the end of the Gospel of John.

“Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:24-29 ESV)

Thomas saw the resurrected Lord and proclaimed “My Lord and my God!” It is clear that Thomas believed that Jesus was God. It is not always the case that people say the right thing, but Jesus emphasized the fact that Thomas believed rightly.

In Titus Paul states this at the end of his letter.

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12 training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” (Titus 2:11-14 ESV)

Paul calls Jesus, “our great God and Savior”, which is clearly a statement of the deity of Jesus Christ. It simply doesn’t get much clearer than that folks.

There are many passages of Scripture that can be quoted here. Jesus did many things on Earth that only God could do, therefore there is a plethora of evidence to Christ’s deity. But I will quote from Paul again from Colossians.

“See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.” (Colossians 2:8-10 ESV)

In Jesus Christ, “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily”. B.B. Warfield was correct when he stated that this passage teaches that

“the very Deity of God, that which makes God God, in all its completeness, has its permanent home in Our Lord, and that in a ‘bodily fashion,’ that is, it is in Him clothed with a body.” (B.B. Warfield, quoted in “The Forgotten Trinity” by James White, 1998, Bethany House Publishers, p. 86)

So, not only does Scripture say that God the Father is God, but it also says that God the Son is God.

Before looking at the texts of Scripture I want to briefly state that there is less evidence for the deity of the Holy Spirit than of God the Son. There is a very good reason for there being less focus on the Holy Spirit within the pages of Scripture.

“There is a reason why the Holy spirit does not receive the same level and kind of attention that is focused upon the Father and the Son: it is not His purpose to attract that kind of attention to Himself. Just as the Son voluntarily chose to take the role of Suffering Servant so as to redeem God’s people, so, too, the Spirit has chosen to take the role as Sanctifier and Advocate of the people of God. But since it is the Spirit’s role to direct the hearts of men to Christ, and to conform them to His image, He does not seek to push Himself onto the forefront and gain attention for Himself.” (James White, “The Forgotten Trinity”, 1998, Bethany House Publishers, p. 139)

This makes complete sense. But please not, this does not mean that the Holy Spirit is inferior to Christ. It is only a difference of function. White goes on to say,

“Some take this as evidence of inferiority, but as we have noted before, difference in function does not indicate inferiority of nature.” (James White, “The Forgotten Trinity”, 1998, Bethany House Publishers, p. 139)

Now, let’s look at the passages of Scripture.

Let’s begin by saying that the Holy Spirit is a person. God the Holy Spirit is not an “it”. The Holy Spirit is a “He” that works personally throughout the pages of Scripture. One instance of that which is near and dear to the believer’s heart is Romans 8:16 and Romans 8:26.

“The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, … Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” (Romans 8:16 & 26-27ESV)

This text is definitely a comfort to believers. But the reason it is such a comfort is because God the Holy Spirit is a person who brings comfort to us by giving us assurance and interceding for us in our weakness.

And Jesus called the Holy Spirit, “the Helper” in John 15:26. We understand from this text that it was by the work of the Holy Spirit that we have the New Testament.

“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about me.” (John 15:26 ESV)

And it is through God the Holy Spirit that the people of God are given spiritual gifts.

“All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.” (1 Corinthians 12:11 ESV)

And the book of Acts is filled with instances of God the Holy Spirit directing the people in the spread of the gospel. (Acts 8:29, 13:2, 15:28, and 16:6-7)

The most obvious text that allows us to see the deity of the Holy Spirit is Acts 5. There Ananias and Sapphira lied about having sold a piece of property and given all the proceeds to the Church. Peter tells Ananias that he lied to the Holy Spirit, who is God.

“But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, and with his wife’s knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles’ feet. But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.” When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last. And great fear came upon all who heard of it.” (Acts 5:1-5 ESV)

Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit and when doing so they were lying to God because God the Holy Spirit is God.

In 2 Peter, Peter again attributes deity to the Holy Spirit when describing how the Scriptures were written.

“For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Peter 1:21 ESV)

The writers of Scripture were speaking from God, because God the Holy Spirit was carrying them along. Their words are God’s Words because God the Holy Spirit was moving them to write what they were writing.

The last thing that I should note here is that all three persons of the Trinity are mentioned together repeatedly in the pages of the New Testament. It is sometimes called the Trinitarian formula and is often interjected at the end of a statement or one of the letters. The most prominent one is in the Great Commission.

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” (Matthew 28:19 ESV)

We see here the reason that we baptize in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We do so because God is Triune.

Another instance of this formula is found in 2 Corinthians.

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” (2 Corinthians 13:14 ESV)

And Paul does this again in the Letter to the Ephesians.

“There is one body and one Spirit–just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call–one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Ephesians 4:4-6 ESV)

And one last, very important, text should be noted here. And it happens at the baptism of Jesus. There, in that moment, all three “persons” of the Trinity are there. The Father spoke, the Son was baptized, and the Spirit descended upon the Son.

“And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:16-17 ESV)

There, in that momentous event, all three persons of the Triune God are present.

What I want you to see here, in this rather lengthy section, is that God the Father is God, God the Son is God, and God the Holy Spirit is God.

Now, I will throw yet another wrench into the cog before we move on because I think that it is the right time to do so. James White brings this out well in his book, “The Forgotten Trinity”.

“Many people, when they hear of “three persons,” visualize three men standing side by side. Yet this is not at all what we are talking about when we speak of “person.” But then again, does “subsistence” mean anything to most of us? What we are talking about are personal distinctions in the divine Being. We are talking about the “I, You, He” found in such passages as Matthew 3, where the Father speaks from heaven, the Son is being baptized, and the Spirit descends as a dove. While trying to avoid the idea of separate individuals, we are speaking of the personal self-distinctions God has revealed to exist within the one, indivisible divine essence. Theologians speak of these subsistences as being marked by particular “incommunicable attributes.” What we mean is that you can tell the Father from the Son, and the Son from the Spirit, by how they related to each other, and by what actions they take in working out creation, salvation, etc….these distinctions do not lead to a division in the one Being that is God.” (James White, “The Forgotten Trinity”, 1998, Bethany House Publishers, p. 26.)

So, when we say “persons” or as the older statements said, “subsistences”, we are not talking about Bob, Jim, and Jon. Because God is spirit, He exists in a way that none of us are familiar with and have an incredibly hard time relating to. But because God has revealed that he exists as Three Persons we believe it.

This is the second foundation of our discussion on the Trinity. The first is that God is one and this truth is declared well in the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 when it says, “there is one and only one living and true God.” And the second foundation is that there are three divine persons. The Baptist Faith and Message states this as well when it says, “the eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes”.

The Three Persons Are Coequal and Coeternal

The third foundation is that the three persons of the Trinity are coequal and coeternal. This is why The Baptist Faith and Message states that the Eternal and Triune God is “without division of nature, essence, or being.”

I believe that the Second London Baptist Confession can come and help us out a bit here. It was a lengthier and more detailed statement of faith that was a predecessor of the first Baptist Faith and Message. Therefore, we can gain some insight from what is meant in this area. This is from the 1689 London Baptist Confession 2:3.

In this divine and infinite Being there are three subsistences, the Father, the Word or Son, and Holy Spirit,27 of one substance, power, and eternity, each having the whole divine essence, yet the essence undivided:28 the Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father;29 the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son;30 all infinite, without beginning, therefore but one God, who is not to be divided in nature and being, but distinguished by several peculiar relative properties and personal relations; which doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation of all our communion with God, and comfortable dependence on Him.
27 1 John 5:7; Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14
28 Exod. 3:14; John 14:11; I Cor. 8:6
29 John 1:14,18
30 John 15:26; Gal. 4:6

What this basically gets down to is that within the Divine Being there are three “subsistences” or “persons” that are fully God.

Because of how difficult this is to think through I have some visual aids from Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology that people replicated and were floating around on the internet.

This means that the Triune God is NOT divided equally into three parts. A simple online search will reveal that this mistake is quite common when local churches attempt to simplify the Doctrine of the Trinity. God is NOT divided like Figure 14.1.

Figure 14.1, our first wrong example.

This is the problem with illustrations such as the 3 leaf clover. If you were to take away one leaf of the clover then it would no longer be a 3 leaf clover and  the leaf that was taken off would not itself be a three leaf clover. The same problem comes up with the illustration of the apple or other fruit, the tree, and a lot of other illustrations. God is not divided into parts. That is why the BFM 2000 says that God is “without division of nature, essence, or being”. So, do not think of God as figure 14.1.

We would also add that there is NOT something added to the nature of God by the different persons of the Trinity. So, again, we see that 14.2 is wrong.

Figure 14.2, our second wrong example.

It is not that something is added to the divine nature when the personalities are added. The personalities of the three persons are not something added to the divine nature. God is complete in Himself, therefore there is nothing added to the nature of God.

It is also NOT that we just have different viewpoints and thus see different persons as we see in Figure 14.3.

This is the perspective of some rather famous people today that are horribly wrong on the Doctrine of the Trinity. Oneness Pentecostals would fall into this category. Again, this is NOT correct.

Figure 14.4 is a better illustration. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all within the Divine being of God. God is not split up into parts. As Wayne Grudem put it,

Grudem discusses this image in his Systematic Theology and says,

“There are three distinct persons, and the being of each person is equal to the whole being of God.” (Wayne Grudem, Ibid p. 255)

This means that God is not split up into parts. Each person of the Trinity has the entirety of the Divine Essence. Grudem states it well when he says,

“We cannot say, for example, that the Father is more powerful or wiser than the Son, or that the Father and Son are wiser than the Holy Spirit, or that the Father existed before the Son and Holy Spirit existed, for to say anything like that would be to deny the full deity of all three members of the Trinity.” Wayne Grudem Ibid p. 248

So, all that God is can be found in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. As the Baptist Faith and Message put it there are three persons within the Trinity “without division of nature, essence, or being.”

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

Now, the last thing to note is the relationship. “The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”.

What do we mean by “begotten” when speaking of the Son? In other words, how can we say that God the Son has always existed, but also say that the Son is begotten? Usually begotten has to do with giving birth.

“We use the term begotten of the relationship of the Father and Son. The Son is eternally begotten by the Father. The Father is begotten by no one. Automatically we place this relationship within time and think of the Father originating the Son at a point in time. Most definitely not. The term as we use it here speaks of an eternal, timeless, relationship. It had no beginning, it will have no ending. It has always been. C.S. Lewis likened it to a book that is lying on top of another. We say the top book owes its position to the bottom one. It wouldn’t be where it is without the one on the bottom. Now, if you can, imagine this relationship as always having been.” (James White, “The Forgotten Trinity”, 1998, Bethany House Publishers, p. 173)

Now, we might call this “eternal sonship” and it helps us to understand why God the Son calls God the Father His Father. And it also explains why Jesus is called “the only begotten son”.

Conclusion

As I typed the word, “conclusion”, I wondered how I was going to land this plane. It’s not as if I brought some sort of Earth-shattering clarity to the topic of the Trinity that can be summarized in a closing paragraph. But, I do believe that we have done well to set the boundaries of what is believed in the Doctrine of the Trinity. And I believe that is what the Baptist Faith and Message has done well.

There is one and only one living and true God. He is an intelligent, spiritual, and personal Being, the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe. God is infinite in holiness and all other perfections. God is all powerful and all knowing; and His perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures. To Him we owe the highest love, reverence, and obedience. The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.

And so my closing is simply this. I believe that we do well to remember the statement on the Trinity that is found in the Baptist Faith and Message. We teach the Trinity and look back to the BFM 2000 to see the boundaries that we are to remain within. And so we allow only those things within that statement to be taught concerning the Trinity in our church. That is, at its heart, what it means to say that our church’s beliefs are those found in the BFM 2000.

Is this a bit beyond my comprehension? Yes, God is. But this is found in Scripture, therefore we are to believe it and to teach it.

R. Dwain Minor