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The best theological contours are forged in the fires of controversy. Thus the
origins of the concept in debates with Arminians and Socinians is no strike against it.
Swain tackles the fear that causal language in our analysis of the relationship
between God and the gospel involves an alien natural theology. False! The New
Testament uses causal language to describe this very thing (cf. Eph. 2:8-9). Moreover,
very different views emerge among theologians that use much causal language. So
causal language is “theologically underdeteriminate” (111).
Swain is very much in the stream of Turretin here. God’s will (Ps. 115:3) and
works (Ps. 19:1) please God as they do because of the eternal pleasure already possessed
by the Trinity. God’s will is ultimately indivisible, and yet because it concerns two
objects, it respects each object (God in se and God ad extra) in two different ways. He is
absolutely free with respect to his effects. The description of the Son’s will, as compared
with the Father’s, given by Turretin, deserves attention. What is emphasized by the Son
“restipulating” (117) what is promised to him? Is this to avoid the appearance of
Subordinationism?
Swain has to deal with a more serious objection from Letham. Essentially the
criticism is that covenantal arrangements between Trinitarian members leads us away
from orthodoxy. If the works of the Trinity are indivisible, then how does any
contractual arrangement between the Persons maintain the classical attributes? Here
we have distinct wills concurring. Swain draws back on statements by Owen and Brakel
that answer this definitively. First to Owen, this meeting of will is “not by a distinction
of sundry wills, but by a distinct application of the same will unto its distinct acts in the
persons of the Father and the Son” (122). Next to Brakel, “the one divine will can be
viewed from a twofold perspective” (122).
What is striking is just how aware the post-Reformation theologians were of the
various entailments of the doctrine. The potential dilemmas were explicitly anticipated.
So “the will’s unity” and “that will’s tripersonal manner of subsistence” are reconciled.
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Robert Sherman. K
ing, Priest, and Prophet, 47-115
Drawing on the metaphor of the foundation to a house - and after a good bit of
ground clearing about narrative and tradition working together - Sherman asserts a
Trinitarian theology of atonement. First, there are practical insights from the doctrine
of the Trinity to defend: 1. who the triune God is, 2. how the church came to experience
this God in salvation, 3. in what sense we are to image this God, 4. by its paradoxical
nature, that we will never “pin it down,” and 5. it clearly marks out the Christian God
from rival concepts. Next, Christ fulfilling the three offices links Trinity to atonement -
as opposing “a triple cure to sweep away this triple misery” (70). Sherman surveys the
development of this doctrine among the Reformed.
Chapter 3 traces the “trinitarian construal of salvation” (77) from the Scriptures.
The first way to see this is in the life of the early church, which was to “live in” the
Trinity. New Testament texts positioning the Trinity as the ground of practical action
show this. The divine Persons are the subject of “enabling, undergirding, or engaging in
the community’s life” (80). The church’s identity, motive to persevere, means of
discerning and receiving truth, are all rooted in the Trinity (1 Pet. 1:1, Jude 20-21, 1 Jn.
1:1-3, 13-15, Heb. 1:1-2, 3:3-4); and in Paul’s letters such formula covers greetings,
doctrinal descriptions, prayers, imperatives, doxologies, and benedictions.
The backbone of this thesis is that “the external works of the Trinity are
undivided,” yet the challenge is “where the work of one begins and that of another
leaves off” (87). The narratives of Luke-Acts, and especially John 13-17, begin to show a
definite order to the Trinitarian economy. A general rule is proposed: “the Father
initiates, the Son accomplishes, and the Spirit applies” (96). The accounts of Jesus’
baptism are crucial. There he is anointed as a Trinitarian act. Baptism and temptation
initiate a dual emphasis on Jesus acting as the Christ and the whole Trinity acting.
Key Terms: perichoresis, appropriation
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Robert Sherman. K
ing, Priest, and Prophet, 116-168
Now dealing with the royal office of Christ, Sherman begins with the data of both
Testaments. As King, Christ is achieving the Father’s victory in all things and over all
foes; and especially in the New Testament this is built upon the resurrection. The
Gospels’ post-resurrection narratives each invest Jesus with all authority under the
Father, which is only reinforced in the Epistles (cf. Phi. 2:9-11, Eph. 1:20-22, Heb. 1:3, 1
Cor. 15:23-28). Other texts are illuminating by way of contrast. Palm Sunday and Pilate’s
questioning become backdrops of redefining the royal office; but all the deeds of Jesus
serve as “enacted examples” (130) of the redefined kingdom. To the first church, the Old
Testament was the whole Bible. Sherman reviews the history to examine the nature of
the king as guardian of Israel’s justice, but all as servant of the LORD.
With biblical credentials firmly established, Sherman can get on with the form of
the doctrine. The ultimate King “redefines” reigning and ruling; and consequently we
New Covenant Christians, no less than Old Covenant Jews, cannot reduce the
implications to ethics or politics. Such was the post-Kantian tendency: to collapse the
spiritual into the ethical (154-56) and subsequently the “civilized” into “the kingdom.”
More doctrinal and pastoral implications follow. Christ’s reign “displays none of
the characteristics typically associated with worldly kingdoms” (143). Resources such as
money and might are of no avail here, but rather meekness.
Coming full circle, in the Son’s glory in humility, what kind of a Father
authorizes this? The most “Christ-like” aspects of the economy show the immanent
Trinity (148). He closes making his case that Christ’s royal work should come first: as in
king, priest, prophet. A victory was needed over the “cultural” fabric of sin - the dark
spiritual powers over it - before the other two atonement dimensions (priestly,
prophetic) will make sense.
Key Terms: p
raus
Question: Twice he cites “Deuteronomic editors” (134,139) - a vestige of form criticism?
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Robert Sherman. K
ing, Priest, and Prophet, 219-280
Christ’s prophetic office shows the Spirit’s initiative. Jesus reveals that the whole
Bible is about him and teaches with unprecedented authority. So he is both like and
unlike the prophets before him (Deut. 18:15-18), being the final Word (Heb. 1:1-2). Jesus’
prophetic role, and with it the whole inherited conception of Israel’s prophet, was
“assimilated” into his messianic role (223). Within the influence of the Spirit, both
Christ and the church are “instruments of the entire Trinity” (236). But we must never
enable the old error that Christ was merely a Teacher, especially not within a modern
pluralistic context. Such reduces the Word to worldly wisdom, the Christian life to
moralism, and the cross to an exemplary influence. His farming metaphor (250) makes
me think: How does this affect the order of teaching in the life of a church? Perhaps we teach
it simultaneously or in cycles. The King must overthrow the old city [for the Father], the
Priest then die like a seed on that soil (Jn. 12:24), and the Prophet reveal the new world
[by the Spirit’s power]. Sherman reflects that, “it is hard to imagine communicating this
multifaceted reality adequately in anything other than narrative form” (265).
His concluding thoughts draws out application from the Trinity’s diverse work of
atonement in Christ to pastoral ministry. This writing was an attempt to transcend any
one-dimensional view of the atonement: the three exercises of Christ’s offices being
“three ways” that atonement plays out in the gospel. None of the three can be viewed in
utter isolation. The remainder very helpfully applies to the pastor’s task: preaching,
counseling, conducting worship, etc. We ought to combine that Puritan-like sense of
where souls are at with a doctrine rich enough to shift in emphasis if one of the three
angles is proving to be a stumbling block.
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