THE BIBLICAL ONTOLOGY: GROUNDING THE FAMILY

What are the theological foundations of the family? As St. Paul declared in doxological jubilee, speaking of the triune Majesty, the living and true God revealed in the cosmos, Canon, and Christ: “For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen” (Rom. 11:36). Since, according to scripture, history, and experience, the family is the central sphere of these “all things,” it follows that the family is rooted and deeply grounded in the nature of the holy Trinity.

Family: Rooted in the Nature of God

The family is rooted and grounded in the nature of the triune God. Human beings, individually and socially, are created in the imago Dei, the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:26—28; cf. Ps. 8, etc.). In addition to the constitutional aspects of human nature, e.g., being rational, moral, spiritual beings, etc., this imago has a profoundly relational dimension.

Trinity and Family

Man is made to reflect God’s nature and glory, in a creaturely sense, not rationally only but also relationally. This relational reflection is firstly and obviously Godward, vertically, as the temporal fulfillment of God’s originally-good purposes for humanity hung on Adam’s perfect and personal covenant-keeping obedience to YHWH’s law-word. Similarly, man’s interpersonal relationships are what they are as humans display God’s moral attributes toward each other and enjoy the gracious metaphysical common ground people enjoy between themselves, as God’s image bearers.

Less obvious to many Christians, however, is the second horizontal plane of man’s relational image reflecting function, which is to “replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over [it]” and to “dress” and “keep” the garden-temple that YHWH had planted and wherein he originally placed man, “eastward in Eden” (Gen. 1:28; 2:8, 15). So, the object of man’s relational reflection of the image of God is tripartite: Godward, and also toward both his fellows and the rest of the non-human creation.  

            Man’s divine mandate was to cultivate and expand the garden-temple, rule over it in a God-like way, and fill the earth with subsequent image-bearing progeny—man was not, is not  to be, nor ever will be “an island to himself” (Gen. 1:28). This is because God himself is not an “island”; he is not a monad, an abstract point of singularity, as he is idolatrously conceptualized of in Judaism, Islam, and the later German idealism that come out of the Enlightenment. Rather, God is tri-unity. God is both unity and plurality; he’s the ultimate One and the Many. God is one with respect to the “what” question; yet he is many—three to be exact—with respect to the “who” question. He is one in his essential nature, yet three, i.e., Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in the three co-equal, co-eternal, and co-glory-worthy persons. God is thus the ultimate and absolute Society or Community.

            As God created, ordered, and evaluated his creational works in the beginning, he pronounced that things—as they conformed and operated according to his law-word ordinances to reflect his glory—were “good” no less than seven times in Genesis chapter one. “Good” is God’s ordo rerum, his design and ordering of things. Nevertheless, in chapter two of Genesis, YHWH sees a moment in his creation that an aspect of his creation is “not good,” namely that man, God’s image-bearer, “was alone” (Gen. 2:18). Man as individual was insufficient to reflect God’s image and glory. This is not surprising, since in the nature of the Godhead, and therefore the nature of the case, aloneness is eternally impossible.

             God therefore created Adam his ezer-woman, his “help meet” (2:18). Eve was Adam’s co-equal in terms of her nature, dignity, and moral value, as she enjoyed an equal share in the honor, majesty and mystery of the divine image of her Creator. Similarly, in obedience to the culture-dominion mandate of Genesis 1:28, as Adam and Eve became “fruitful and multiplied,” they produced image-bearing progeny, according to the purposes of God. Man’s co-mission therefore requires a plurality of persons; it requires a micro-society, a family. Thus, the triune Majesty—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost—created humanity in his very image, to reflect both the unity and the plurality of the Godhead.  So, according to their very nature—human nature—each member of the human family, the father, mother, and child(ren), share equal dignity and value, according to their mutually equivalent participation in the imago Dei.                                  

Family: Multi-Personal Image-Bearing

            Apart from the necessity of the family as the uni-plural image-bearer, for sake of the realization of God’s purposes expressed in the cultural mandate (Gen. 1:28) there are manifold ways that the family reflects the image of the ontological Trinity (i.e., the a se Godhead, in and of himself, apart from any creature) in the ordinary rhythms of the family’s daily, covenantal life together. One such example comes by way of daily private family worship in the home.

            For eternity past each person of the Trinity has enjoyed the full communion, love,  and unmediated glory of the other two. This absolute spiritual love and unity is reflected, imaged, mirrored in a creaturely way, when the father, mother, and child(ren) come around the Word of God, listen to the voice of God, in the Spirit of God. In this harmonious fellowship and worship, the family reflects in glory and harmony of the intra-Trinitarian communion, love and fellowship, which is for the mutual good and honor of the others. Thus, being created in the image of God, the family subsequently reflects God’s nature through their private worship, revealing the love, harmony and sweet communion of the three persons of the triune God.

Steve Bishop's Wonderful Overview of the Doctrine of the Trinity

Dan Brown in his 2003 book The DaVinci Code claims that the Trinity was a fourth century invention. He wasn’t the first person to suggest this, but his book placed doubt regarding the historical origins of the Christian faith and the role of the Gnostic gospels.

All good errors are based on a partial truth. And Brown was partially right. There was a fourth-century council and there are gnostic gospels. There are many so-called gospels that didn’t make the cut and get into the canon of scripture. But not for the reasons that Brown maintains! I’ll leave aside discussions of the gnostic gospels – but let’s look at the Trinity, as it’s appropriately Trinity Sunday.

Despite writing a work of fiction Brown maintained that his book was based on fact. But what are the facts behind the Trinity? Is it really a fourth-century mash up?

It was in the fourth century that the council of Nicea affirmed the idea of God as Trinity. But they didn’t come up with the idea, they drew together and clarified Trinitarian beliefs. Beliefs that were held from the early days of Christianity.

The idea of a Trinity has always caused problems, the one time president of the United States Thomas Jefferson wrote of the “incomprehensible jargon of Trinitarian arithmetic”!

On one level it does sound ridiculous. How could three be one?

Please review Steve’s great primer/overview of this, our central doctrine, the holy Trinity.  What a fine way to move into Trinitytide.

The Trinitarianism of Ephesians 4:4-6, a Chiastic Creed

A few daring theologians in our day are carefully teasing out some of the “Trinitarian metaphysics” from especially certain creedal and doxological New Testament passage, not least Tom Wright and Peter Leithart.  This is not new, though.

St. Irenaeus, in Demonstration of Apostolic Preaching, quotes in part Ephesians 4:4—6, which reads:

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, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

From this text, he concludes, “...because ‘above all’ is the Father, and ‘through all’ is the Word—since through Him everything was made by the Father—while ‘in us all’ is the Spirit, who cries ‘Abba, Father,’ and forms man to the likeness of God” (I:5). 

Granted, within this creedal remark of St. Paul, Irenaeus picks up on the unmistakable Trinitarian formula, “One Spirit...one Lord (Jesus)...one God and Father.”  What is interesting, and certainly out of sorts with much of the rationalistic exegesis common this side of the Enlightenment, is that Irenaeus continues his Trinitarian reasoning throughout the following three prepositional phrases of verse six.  Before we dismiss Irenaeus’ exegesis as a byproduct of the old quadriga, the four-folded methodology, or some other highly subjective approach, judged through our modernistic rationalism, we should revisit St. Paul.

When we return to the text, we find an interesting chiasmus, which would point to the same conclusion that Irenaeus so naturally draws.  Look at the structure of this creed.

4:4       A. One Spirit

4:5              B. One Lord (Jesus)

4:6a                   C. One...Father

4:6b                   C. Over all

                   B. Through all

            A. In all

Granting that this text is likely a creedal formula, and that it is naturally structured in terms of a chiasm, I for one tend to think that Irenaeus’ Trinitarian conclusion is spot one.  It is further supported by the patristics’ hermeneutical key, the regulae fidei, the creedal Rule of Faith, which Irenaeus stresses in the early sections of the same work. 

Our ancient fathers in the faith did not pretend or deceive themselves into believing that they came to the text without any pre-drawn conclusions, much less without having a deep, deep precommitment.  Neither did they strive to recognize their precommitments so as to avoid them during exegesis, which all our hermeneutical textbooks caution us to do.  Rather the singular precommitment that ruled exegesis—sometimes for better or worse—was the regulae fidei, which matured into what we know today as the Apostle’s Creed.  For them, a robust Trinitarianism was the presupposition of all exegesis (and all of life), not merely its conclusion.  Perhaps we should put our fathers’ landmark back where we found it (Prov. 22:28).  Thankfully, some are.

The Practical Doctrine of the Trinity

Kevin DeYoung’s The Good News We Almost Forgot: Rediscovering the Gospel in a 16^th Century Catechism is a wonderfully pastoral yet theologically rigorous exposition and application of the Heidelberg Catechism for the church in the 21^st century.  Perhaps it is because we are of the same cohort, but I really enjoy Kevin’s subtle wit and humor, and his willingness to say (or write) what we believe to be true but didn’t think anyone else noticed it.  I’ll be honest; I was not expecting to find an application of doctrine of the Trinity to the perennial problem of the one-and-the-many or unity-diversity as I worked through this book.  With great clarity Kevin makes just such an application and shows its relevance to our contemporary culture.    

The Trinity matters for evangelism and cultural engagement.  I’ve heard it said that the two main rivals to a Christian worldview at present are Islam and postmodernism.  Islam emphasizes unity—unity of language, culture, and expression—without allowing much variance for diversity.  Postmodernism, on the other hand, emphasizes diversity—diversity of opinion, beliefs, and background—without attempting to see things in any kind of meta-unity.  Christianity, with its understanding of God as three in one, allows for diversity and unity.  If God exists in three distinct persons who all share the same essence, then it is possible to hope that God’s creation may exhibit stunning variety and individuality while still holding together in a genuine oneness (p. 52).

In this, Kevin is faithful to his Dutch Reformed heritage and the apologetic that flowed from it, not least in Cornelius Van Til’s thought.  In Common Grace & the Gospel Van Til stressed the importance of this application of the doctrine of the Trinity for apologetics. 

The God that the philosophers of the ages have been looking for, a God in whom unity and diversity are equally ultimate, the “Unknown God,” is known to us by grace (p. 9).

In the ontological trinity there is complete harmony between an equally ultimate one and many.  The persons of the trinity are mutually exhaustive of one another and of God’s nature.  It is the absolute equality in point of ultimacy that requires all the emphasis we can give it.  Involved in this absolute equality is complete interdependence; God is our concrete universal (p. 8).

Again, in The Defense of the Faith Van Til says,

Of the whole matter we may say that the unity and the diversity in God are equally basic and mutually dependent upon one another.  The importance of this doctrine for apologetics may be seen from the fact that the whole problem of philosophy may be summed up in the question of the relation of unity to diversity; the so-called problem of the one and the many receives a definite answer from the doctrine of the simplicity of God (p. 10).   

So, thanks to Pastor DeYoung for showing us a very relevant application of this most holy doctrine of ours!