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Son
Holy Spirit
Distinctive Persons with
Distinctive Roles
The Ontological Trinity
Proposition 2:
God in Three Persons
• Summary:
– The distinction between the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit indicates differences in role and
relationship.
– These differences are most apparent to us in
what has come to be known as the economy
of the Trinity, or the Economic Trinity, where
economy refers to the activities of the different
members of the Godhead with respect to
creation and redemption.
Proposition 2:
God in Three Persons
• In addition, the differences in role and
relationship are not arbitrary or artificial or
even a product of the members’ activities;
• Rather, the differences in role and
relationship exemplified by the Economic
Trinity flow from the differences in role and
relationship that inhere in God as God.
Proposition 2:
God in Three Persons
• In other words, God has always
existed as three persons, eternally
before creation and redemption.
• This is what has come to be known
as the Ontological Trinity, or the
ontology of the Trinity, where
ontology refers to the being of God.
Proposition 2:
God in Three Persons
• We can say that the tri-personality of
God is an eternal, ontological reality
for the following reasons:
– God is immutable (he cannot change).
Therefore if he exists now as Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, he has always
existed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Proposition 2:
God in Three Persons
• We can say that the tri-personality of God
is an eternal, ontological reality for the
following reasons:
– The Father and the Son acted together as
Father and Son before time began.
• Eph 1:3: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the
heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before
the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and
blameless before Him.
Proposition 2:
God in Three Persons
• We can say that the tri-personality of
God is an eternal, ontological reality
for the following reasons:
– The Father and the Son acted together
as Father and Son before time began.
• John 17:5: Now, Father, glorify Me together with
Yourself, with the glory which I had with You
before the world was.
Proposition 2:
God in Three Persons
• We can say that the tri-personality of God
is an eternal, ontological reality for the
following reasons:
– The Father and the Son acted together as
Father and Son before time began.
• John 1:18: No one has seen God at any time; the only
begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has
explained Him.
• John 3:17: For God did not send the Son into the world to
judge the world, but that the world might be saved through
Him.
• Gal 4:4: But when the fullness of the time came, God sent
forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law.
Proposition 2:
God in Three Persons
• We can say that the tri-personality of
God is an eternal, ontological reality
for the following reasons:
– The Father and the Son acted together
as Father and Son before time began.
• Heb 1:1-2: God, after He spoke long ago to the
fathers in the prophets in many portions and in
many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in
His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things,
through whom also He made the world.
Conclusion
Conclusion
• Proposition 1: There is only one true and
living God.
• Proposition 2: God exists in three persons.
– The persons are self-conscious egos.
– The persons have different roles and
relationships in the very being of God (the
Ontological Trinity) that work themselves out
in the activity of God (the Economic Trinity).