The Trinity: One Essence, Three Persons, No Division

What does it mean to worship a God who is both one and three? In this foundational systematic theology episode, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb tackle one of Christianity's most essential yet mysterious doctrines: the Trinity. Moving beyond vague notions of "threeness" and "oneness," they explore the technical language of the early church—ousia, hypostasis, and perichoresis—and explain why these terms matter for everyday faith. From practical prayer patterns to avoiding common heresies like modalism and tritheism, this episode equips believers to think clearly about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Whether you're teaching children, leading prayer, or simply seeking to love God more faithfully, understanding the Trinity transforms how we relate to the persons we worship.

Key Takeaways

• The Trinity is one divine essence (ousia) shared by three distinct persons (hypostases): The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three separate gods, nor are they merely modes or masks of a single person. They share a single, indivisible divine nature while remaining distinct persons.
• The persons of the Trinity are distinguished by their eternal relations, not by subordination: The Father is unbegotten, the Son is eternally begotten of the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father (and the Son). These relational distinctions do not imply hierarchy, authority, or rank within the Godhead.
• Perichoresis describes the mutual indwelling of the persons: The Father is fully in the Son, the Son fully in the Father, and the Spirit fully in both. There is no "part" of the divine nature that one person possesses and another lacks.
• The inseparable operations of the Trinity: All external acts of God (creation, redemption, sanctification) are performed by all three persons in perfect unity. The Father acts, the Son accomplishes, and the Spirit applies—yet they never act separately.
• Prayer should reflect Trinitarian structure: While we may address prayers to any person of the Trinity, the biblical pattern is to pray to the Father, through the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit. This intentional structure helps prevent confusion and heresy.
• All analogies for the Trinity ultimately fail: Water/ice/steam, egg shells/whites/yolks, and other common illustrations inevitably lead toward modalism or tritheism. Analogies can help us understand what the Trinity is not, but they cannot capture what it is.
• Understanding the Trinity is essential for salvation: While perfect comprehension is impossible, a willingness to embrace what Scripture reveals—that God is one essence in three persons—is necessary for biblical Christianity. Rejecting the Trinity means rejecting the God of the Bible.

Expanded Explanations One Essence, Three Persons: The Core of Trinitarian Theology

The doctrine of the Trinity begins with two fundamental truths held in tension: God is one, and God is three. The technical term ousia (essence or substance) describes the fundamental divine nature that makes God who He is. This single, indivisible essence is not divided among the Father, Son, and Spirit like a pie cut into three pieces. Rather, each person is the full divine essence. The Father doesn't possess one-third of deity; He is fully God. The same is true of the Son and the Spirit.

The term hypostasis (person or subsistence) describes the three distinct "instances" of the divine nature. These are not merely roles or modes that God adopts at different times, but eternally existing persons who relate to one another. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father—yet all three share the same divine nature perfectly and completely. This mystery cannot be reduced to human categories or illustrated by created things, but it is the clear teaching of Scripture and has been affirmed by the universal church for nearly two millennia through creeds like the Nicene Creed.

Perichoresis: The Dance of Divine Persons

The concept of perichoresis (from Greek, meaning "to dance around" or "mutual indwelling") captures the profound interpenetration of the three persons of the Trinity. This is not merely that they cooperate closely or share attributes—it's that each person fully indwells the others in a way that transcends any created analogy. Jesus Himself taught this reality when He said, "I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me" (John 14:10).

This mutual indwelling means there is no "overlap" in a Venn diagram sense, where three circles intersect in the middle and the common area represents "God." Rather, if we were to use a visual representation, the three circles would need to be perfectly superimposed, occupying the exact same space. The Father is not "part" of the Godhead—He is the Godhead, and so is the Son, and so is the Spirit. This preserves both the full deity of each person and the absolute unity of the divine essence. Understanding perichoresis protects us from thinking of the Trinity as a committee of three separate beings or as a single actor wearing three different masks.

Praying to the Father, Through the Son, by the Spirit

While Scripture permits addressing prayers to any person of the Trinity (we see Stephen praying to Jesus in Acts 7:59), the dominant New Testament pattern is clear: believers pray to the Father, through the mediation of the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit. This structure is not arbitrary legalism but reflects the economy of redemption and helps maintain theological clarity.

Praying this way guards against accidentally conflating the persons—thanking the Father for dying on the cross, or thanking Jesus for dwelling in our hearts (which is the Spirit's particular work). It also shapes our understanding of how the Trinity functions in salvation: the Father initiates and decrees, the Son accomplishes and mediates, and the Spirit applies and empowers. Adopting this pattern in both public and private prayer doesn't restrict the Spirit but rather honors the distinct roles each person plays while celebrating their perfect unity. It's a practical discipline that reinforces sound doctrine and protects us from unintentional heresy.

Memorable Quotes

No sooner do I think about the one than my mind goes to the three. And no sooner do I go to the three than my mind returns to the one. - Gregory of Nyssa (quoted by Tony)

The Father doesn't just have the divine nature. The Father is the divine nature. And the son doesn't just have the divine nature. The son is the divine nature and likewise the spirit. - Tony

You can't be a heretic on accident... A heretic is somebody who knows what the church teaches and knows what the historical understanding of the Bible is and willfully rejects that. - Tony

Full Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Tony Arsenal: Welcome to the Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Tony.

[00:00:03] Jesse Schwamb: And I'm Jesse hey brother.

[00:00:05] Tony Arsenal: Hey brother.

[00:00:07] Jesse Schwamb: What's going on, Tony?

[00:00:08] Tony Arsenal: Not much.

Not much. Just enjoying a nice, relaxed Sunday evening. How about yourself?

[00:00:14] A Confession About a Board Game

[00:00:14] Jesse Schwamb: So I have a confession.

[00:00:15] Tony Arsenal: You have a confession? Okay.

[00:00:17] Jesse Schwamb: This is an important confession. It's weighing heavy on my heart. So my wife and I last evening had this great opportunity to get together with some friends, some wonderful Reformed people, and we played a game,

[00:00:31] Tony Arsenal: all right?

[00:00:32] Jesse Schwamb: And it was a board game.

[00:00:34] Tony Arsenal: Oh no.

[00:00:35] Jesse Schwamb: And I have to confess to you, it was the Joel Olsteen, your Best Life Now board game.

[00:00:41] Tony Arsenal: Oh my goodness. Please tell me you're bringing that up here when you come for Christmas

[00:00:45] Jesse Schwamb: and. Uh, it was horrible. Like aside from the really poor theology, of course, I don't even know if you can call it theology, because it was just so downright awful.

[00:00:54] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.

[00:00:55] Jesse Schwamb: Not only that, but the gameplay, like, aside from the fact that it's straight up like idolatrous prosperity gospel, like it's incredible how thorough that is throughout the game. Not only that, but if you set that aside, which is a lot, I, granted the gameplay itself was horrid. Like, it, it, most of the game didn't make sense that it even comes with like a little tiny mirror so that you can look at yourself and at one point in the game say promising and affirming things to yourself about yourself.

[00:01:26] Stinger: Wow.

[00:01:27] Jesse Schwamb: It, it's incredible. So we had a really fun time because we definitely had a great opportunity to redeem it in some ways by speaking the truth to each other. But it is a horrid game, like in every conceivable sense. It's ironic, I guess, that. This game that's all about prosperity Gospel, uh, was really, really awful to play in its own right.

And disappointingly, I didn't win any treasure. I just checked. And my cars that are sitting in the driveway are still like the old, like, no BMWs, nothing like that. My teeth aren't any wider and I don't have any more money, so whatever.

[00:02:03] Tony Arsenal: Wow. So I have two thoughts. First of all, I think it's absolutely perfect that a Joel Olsteen game one doesn't make any sense and two isn't any fun.

That seems like it fits perfect with Joel Olsteen. And secondly, I feel like the, the rule should be the first person to claim that they've won actually wins the game.

[00:02:22] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that actually would make more sense. Yeah. Like there was a, there was a winner. But it was even confusing at the end, what you win.

'cause you actually write down like, uh, like an immediate goal, which we just like made like super idolatrous things. So we definitely didn't like play this game for real. But, um, I was curious. Like, I wanted to give it, I wanted to put myself into it, like as much weight as I could. I mean, really we're, we're here to help everybody, so I figured I'll, I'll take one for the team.

Wow. I haven't read that book Your Best Life now, but I've got a pretty decent idea of how like, just downright confusing and awful. The whole thing is. So they're even like, there's even, you get a certain number of like, I think it's like two, like faith cards and these cards are to play if for some reason you do not want to, or you can't complete a challenge in the game.

And like even the faith cards, like these half faith cards are just Joel Olstein quotes.

[00:03:14] Tony Arsenal: Wow.

[00:03:15] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. There, there's no scripture in this bad way whatsoever. But it was absolutely hilarious 'cause the company was fantastic in which, which we played it with. And so we had a really good time. But there's nothing like sitting in a group of people holding up a tiny mirror and the car challenging you to say like affirmative things about what you like on your face.

[00:03:33] Tony Arsenal: So, so did you purchase this game or did these, these friends of yours?

[00:03:36] Jesse Schwamb: No, uh, these friends of ours purchased it, but it was because we had talked about it and um, that's hilarious. I was actually really tempted to myself just to see what this thing was like because it was only $10. So I feel like this was like a decent investment and one taking that off the market from somebody else who might actually try to play that seriously.

[00:03:55] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.

[00:03:56] Jesse Schwamb: Uh, and also because it was just a good time.

[00:03:59] Tony Arsenal: So I used to have a Joel Olsen game that I would play. Um, I would, I used to like get my oil changed and my tires changed and stuff. At the local Walmart. We had a Walmart that had like a auto center in it. And so when I was waiting for my car, uh, I would walk over to like the book section and the game I would play is I would pick up a Joel Olsteen book and I would randomly flip to a page, uh, and I would randomly flip to pages until I found something heretical.

And I think like the record of how many flips that I got to before I found something heretical was like four or five. So it was a pretty, pretty quick bounce to heresy.

[00:04:39] Jesse Schwamb: That's outstanding. The, you would love this game then, because it's just straight up, like out of the gate, straight idolatry. Like it is, like name it and claim it.

So you're right, it is totally ironic that you actually have to win this game by achieving something when really you shouldn't have to achieve anything. You just right. Name it and it's yours.

[00:04:59] Discussing the Trinity

[00:04:59] Tony Arsenal: So speaking of heresy, we are, uh, talking about the Trinity tonight, right?

[00:05:05] Jesse Schwamb: Yes. We are heresy abounds. So,

[00:05:07] Tony Arsenal: uh, this is your spoiler alert.

Jesse and I are probably going to say something on accident tonight that is heresy, because that's what's happens when you talk about the Trinity.

[00:05:16] Jesse Schwamb: That's very true.

[00:05:17] Understanding the Doctrine of the Trinity

[00:05:17] Tony Arsenal: So, spoiler alert, so the, the doctrine of the Trinity, this is, uh, this is entry two of our systematic theology episodes. Uh, we're doing systematic theology at the first, uh, recording of the month, which may or may not be the first, uh, Wednesday of the month when it releases with the first recording.

So, um, the Trinity is, is a doctrine that is absolutely at the center of Christian faith, right? But it's also a doctrine that like 95% of Christians have no real comprehension of. Would you, you think that's a fair, fairly accurate number?

[00:05:54] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, absolutely. Because I think a lot of times we get bogged down in the sense that it's mysterious, so therefore we don't spend a whole lot of time really involving ourselves in trying to understand what we can or, or making clarification about things.

[00:06:08] Tony Arsenal: Right. So the, the, the general kind of perspective that Christians that I run into at least have is there's some sort of vague awareness of threeness and there's some sort of vague awareness of oneness and exactly how that threeness and oneness works, uh, and interplays with each other. That's where people kind of get confused.

So, um, we're gonna try to talk, um, you know, this is a huge topic and we are not a super long shown. We don't want this to be a super long show. So we're gonna do kind of the big picture flyover of the doctrine of the Trinity, and then we're gonna try to come in for a, uh, landing on some real practical kinds of things that you can take away after listening to this.

And we'll really help with your devotions to the, the persons of the Trinity that we serve and love and worship.

[00:06:54] Jesse Schwamb: Right on. I'm stoked. Let's do it.

[00:06:55] Tony Arsenal: So let's, let's put you on the hot, hot seat and we didn't plan this. Jesse doesn't know I'm gonna do this. Why don't you give me a definition of the Trinity.

[00:07:04] Jesse Schwamb: This is already way better than the Joel Osteen game.

[00:07:07] Tony Arsenal: This should be another, this should be another game that we play is, is, um, orthodoxy or heresy. And we'll have like the Trinitarian analogy of edition,

[00:07:17] Jesse Schwamb: uh, so many games that you and I need to create.

[00:07:20] Tony Arsenal: Yes. So hit me with the definition.

[00:07:22] Jesse Schwamb: So when I think of, uh, the Trinity, of course the first thing that comes to my mind is like the Portman two, if you will, of those two words, try unity.

So we are in some respects, speaking of three in oneness. And for me it's always been honestly simplest definition. God is one essence in three persons.

[00:07:42] Tony Arsenal: Sure. So that is the best short definition that we can give. Now, even that, and you'll see when you study the Trinity, is no matter what you say, and no matter how you phrase it, you're going to be sliding off of the rails one direction or another.

Exactly. So talking about the Trinity is this constant, um, tightrope walk of trying to talk about the threeness of God and trying to talk about the oneness of God and to hold those two realities, intention. And Calvin, uh, in institutes, I don't have the exact quote in front of me, but he says that he was reading a passage in Gregory of NSIs, who was one of the, the Cappadocian fathers we're not gonna get into the history, but, um, the Ca Ocean Fathers were, um, were bishops in what's now modern day Turkey.

What's called Cappadocia. Um, and they did a lot of work in the, uh, fourth century, uh, on the Trinity. And he has this passage where he says, no sooner do I think about the one than my mind goes to the three. And no sooner do I go to the three than my mind returns to the one. And that's really the balance that we need to strike as we talk about the Trinity, is we need to always be, um, we're never going to be able to land in sort of the sweet spot.

And that's not because the sweet spot doesn't exist, but it's because we are limited creatures with no experience, no direct experience with, um, an a three person sharing a single nature or a single nature that is, um. Is, is personalized in three persons. Um, everything that we see, and we'll get into what these terms mean, but everything that we see and everything we experience is one nature, one person.

Um, and that, that correlation is absolute in creation. Um, but now we look at God and God is radically different, which we shouldn't be surprised, right? That God is radically different than creation.

[00:09:32] Technical Terms in Trinitarian Theology

[00:09:32] Tony Arsenal: So, um, the, the discussion of the Trinity gets really technical, so I'm gonna try to stay sort of on the edges of that technical field, but we have to understand some technical terms first, and this, if we can stick with these terms.

Um, and know what these terms mean. Use them in their proper way and understand how they relate to each other. It goes a tremendous different, uh, tremendous distance towards keeping us kind of on that middle path of, of, of orthodoxy. So the, the first term that we have to understand is the Greek word usia.

Now, the Greek word I, I'm gonna try to stick with the Greek terms because when we translate into English, we get all sorts of weird stuff going on. So the Greek word usia kind of refers to that fundamental underlying substance or underlying thing, or underlying, um, sort of the metaphysical reality that makes a thing what it is.

So I have a human nature and that human nature makes me human. And Jesse has the same kind of nature. It's a different, it's a separate nature, but it's the same kind of nature, and that also makes him human. And so the things that we share in common, um, we share in common because of our human nature. And that's what the Greek word usia means.

Um, um, sorry, I have a cold. So we're gonna be lots of sniffling tonight. We can't avoid it. Um, the, the Greek word that now represents kind of the threeness of God is the Greek word esis. And that word, um, refers to kind of individual instances of a given nature. So I'm an, I'm a hypothesis. Jesse's a hypothesis.

Um, my wife in the other room is a hypothesis. And we have to be careful because this gets translated and understood as person in kind of modern terminology. And when we think of a person, we are thinking of something that's rational. We're thinking of a human person that has intellect and will and emotions and those kinds of things.

But in the original kind of philosophical use of these terms, a, a hypostasis is not necessarily rational. So I have a lamp on a desk next to me, and there's a certain kind of nature to a lamp, right? There's certain attributes that a lamp has in order to be a lamp. Now this lamp is a hypothesis of the lamp usia.

Now I know that that's a weird thing to think about, but in the way that these terms are used, in the original, um, the original philosophy and theology of, of the trinity is a rock, a horse, a lamp. All these things are hypothesis. The sort of, um, the, the mental features, the rational features, those are important in discussing the Trinity, but they're not, um, they're not unique to a person.

Um, they're, they come from the nature. And so we'll see that that interplays in a sort of a, an interesting way later. Does that make sense so far? Are you tracking with me?

[00:12:22] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I'm with you. That makes sense. I mean, in some ways we're just making sure it's helpful to throw these terms out there because, uh, one you may come across them and two, all we're trying to do is essentially catalog, create some type of hierarchy, almost like genus species in a really rough way, trying to understand and break down chronologically, uh, how all these.

[00:12:40] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, absolutely. And so those, those two terms, um, roughly speaking, the usia is the way that God is one. The way that the divine nature is unified is called an usia. The way that the persons are united to each other, the way that they are not representing three gods, but are still one God. That's the usia.

That's how we're still monotheists instead of trius, is that the father, son in spirit share a single simple usia. And we talked about simplicity in our last podcast, but basically an indivisible usia, um. Now the way that we talk about God and we talk about the threeness of God. That's what we mean when we say hypothesis.

So the way that the persons are distinguished from each other, the way that we talk about the diversity that exists within God. Now we're talking about diversity, not division, not dis, um, distinction, not separation. Those things are really important. Um, and then there's a final term that, that we have to remember, and it's called Persis.

And what Persis essentially is, is Persis, is how we understand and maintain that the, the single divine nature is not divided amongst the persons. Um, that, that, that single indivisible nature remains a single nature instead of being sort of subdivided into three natures. And Calvin, um, actually puts it really kind of beautifully when he explains this.

Um, he's, it's in, uh, institutes, um, book One is that. Chapter 13, um, section 19, and it says in each hypothesis the whole nature is understood. The only difference being that each has his own peculiar, subsistence, the whole father is in the son, and the whole son is in the father as the son himself also declares.

I am in the father, and the father is in me. So what, what Calvin is getting at, and this is sort of previewing some of the questions that came up when we, when we kind of sneak peek to this episode in different Facebook groups is a lot of people will look at the Trinity and they'll sort of think, uh, they'll think in terms of like a Venn diagram, right?

You've got three circles and you know, one's labeled father, one's labeled son, and one's labeled spirit. And where they overlap in the middle, that's kind of where people envision the divine nature is where the person's overlap. And that is fundamentally the wrong way to think about it. So, um, when we talk about the whole father being in the son and the whole son in the father, basically what that's saying is that the overlap.

Is the whole divine nature. So, uh, the father doesn't just have the divine nature. The father is the divine nature. And the son doesn't just have the divine nature. The son is the divine nature and likewise the spirit. And so when we talk about the father being the divine nature, the son is also divine nature.

And so there's no, there's nothing outside of, um, the father that the son possesses, right? It's not like there's some attribute or some feature that the son has, that the father is not, there's not some, um, property that the son or the spirit has that the father and son aren't. Um, and when we have that Venn diagram, it leads us in the wrong direction.

So this perichoresis, um, the word, if you break the word down into component parts, it's kind of this dancing around each other, but technical from a technical language perspective, it's more the inner penetration of the person's, the person's kind of, um. They interpenetrate each other, they're in each other.

They're, they're not separable. You can't see a distinction. Um, and that's really important for us to maintain too.

[00:16:16] Jesse Schwamb: We need a sound effect for like, when Heresy's mentioned, like some, some guy just yelling heresy.

[00:16:21] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, there we go. Like a buzz. I get like a taboo buzzer from, from that game.

[00:16:25] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, exactly. I, yeah, I totally agree.

So if I were like to try to summarize it without the technical language, we're essentially trying to communicate that, once again there's that, which is a fun word to say honestly. And you should use. As often as you can, but there's one, and it's almost better to use the Greek word than essence because it's more comprehensive, right?

It has a really stronger, more full meaning, but one essence. But these three subsistence essentially, so the Venn diagram, if you take that, you'd have to collapse it on itself so that all three circles were on top of each other essentially.

[00:16:57] Tony Arsenal: Right. And if we're talking about the divine nature in each, each circle represents a, a person and their nature, then it actually can't even be three circles, even if they're on top of each other.

[00:17:07] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly.

[00:17:07] Tony Arsenal: Um, and that's, that's where we get with, you know, this mystery of the Trinity is, you know, I am an, I'm an usia and, and since I'm a concrete usia that actually exists, I'm a hypothesis. Um, you are an usia. That is a hypothesis. Um, now you and I don't share a single nature. We have, we have natures that are of the same species or the same genus.

Right? Right. We're in the same category. When we're talking about the Trinity, that's not what we're saying. We're not saying that the father, the son, and the spirit are just, um, beings of the same category. We're actually saying something that there's a much more fundamental unity in their persons than that.

Um, and that's important because if we start to say, um, you know, there are some analogies that we use in the early church where it's like Peter, James and John. That's an analogy for the Trinity. They all share a common humanity, but they're three distinct persons. The problem with that is that they don't actually share a common humanity.

They, they all, yeah. That's, that's tri theism, right? That's three gods. It's not, it's not Trinity. Um, the other side of the, the equation is in the West particularly, they tended to use, um, examples that lean towards too much unity. Right. So they talked about, um, the psychological model of the trinity, where it's like, well, God is like one mind, and you know, your mind has will intellect and um, and emotion or, or you know, whatever the different, the different components of your mind are, yet it's still one mind.

Well, the problem with that is that, um, now we're collapsing the persons in on themselves. So they're just sort of features or aspects of a single reality that's modalism or humanitarianism. Right? More heresy. So, um, before we, before we go forward too much further.

[00:18:48] The Nicene Creed and Its Importance

[00:18:48] Tony Arsenal: Um, I wanna just read the Nicene Creed.

So without getting into too much history, um, the, the Nicene and Creed was formulated, um, first in 325, and then it was amended and updated, um, at, in 381 at the Council of Constantinople. So when we talk about the nice and creed, we're actually talking about the creed that was kind of signed off on at, at the, uh, first Council of Continental Noble.

And the reason this creed is so important is because it represents the, um, kind of the earliest complete ecumenical creed that was signed off on and endorsed and used by the entire church. And it's been used by the entire church for 1700 years with basically, uh, basically no modification. Now that's a really big deal that, that there hasn't been changes, there hasn't been too much controversy once things settled in.

That we've been able to confess this creed together, um, is, is really significant. So I just wanna read it and we're not gonna spend a lot of time diving into the specifics of each, um, each clause or anything like that. But, um, this, I'm getting this off Wikipedia. It looks like it was a, a translation from, uh, Philip Shaft's work.

Um, and it says, we believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God, begotten of the Father, before all worlds light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made being of one substance with the Father by whom all things were made.

Who for us and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, he was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate and suffered and was buried. And the third day, he rose again according to the scriptures and ascendant into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father.

From then he shall come again with glory to judge the quick and the dead. His kingdom shall have no end. And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets in one holy, Catholic and apostolic church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dad and in the life of the world to come. Amen. Now, you'll also just note in the section on the Holy Spirit, um, I'm reading what was the original creed in the West? Um, in probably the seven or eight hundreds, they added the, what's called the Philly Oaky clause so that we affirm in the West generally that, um, the, the spirit proceeds from both the father and the son.

And that brings us, um, I think to kind of our next, uh, our next thing that we have to talk about is now that we've sort of identified how the persons are unified and how, how they're identical in terms of their essential nature. Every attribute that we talked about with, uh, with the father when we talked about theology proper, every attribute that the father is, the son is also, and the spirit is also.

And it's not just that they have the same attributes. Um, the Athe Nation Creed says it really beautifully where it has this sequence in the middle where it says not, it says the father is, uh, omnipotent. The spirit is son is omnipotent. The spirit is omnipotent, yet there's only one omnipotence. Um, and what it's saying is that the, the father's omnipotence is the same power that the son possesses.

It's not that the father and the son just both have the same level of power. It's that the power of the father is the power of the spirit and the power of the son. And so we, we've kind of established this unity. And this, um, the oneness. But now people will often look at that and say, well, so how do we know that the sun is the sun?

Could the, could the sun, could the spirit have been incarnate and been the sun instead? You know, are the persons interchangeable? And the answer is no. Um, and the reason for that is this section here where we get in the creed, where it talks about the son being the only begotten, and then the spirit proceeding from the Father.

And I'm just gonna read, um, uh, just, uh, one article outta the Westminster Confession chapter two, article three in the unity of the Godhead. And they use the word Godhead, um, kind of synonymous with divine nature. So in the unity of the divine nature, there's three persons of one substance, power, and eternity.

So there's that unity again, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, the Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding. The son is eternally begotten of the Father and the Holy Ghost is proceeding from the Father and the Son. And so what we're talking about here is, um. The way that we distinguish and can tell the, the persons apart.

And the way that they are distinguished and different from each other is in how they relate to each other. So there's nothing different about their essential nature. They are a single nature. They share that single nature. They're ex absolutely identical in every way in terms of what they are. The way that they distinguish themselves from each other is how they relate to each other.

So the, the second person of the trinity relates to the first person of the Trinity as a son. Um, and now we have to be careful because when we think about that in, um, our context, we look at our, what it means to be a son in our context. That implies a beginning. It implies a dependence. It implies, um, you know, that one person is of a greater rank or a greater authority than the other.

And none of those things are true in, um, in the top. When we're talking about the father, the father. You know, we, we recognize a certain order of persons in the Trinity, but we don't recognize, uh, a level of authority within the trinity in, in eternity past. So the, the son and the father and the spirit don't outrank each other.

It's not like the father is really in charge and the son submits to him eternally, and the spirit submits to both of them eternally. Um, there's an ordering of persons but not a submission. And there's a whole controversy brewing right now about whether or not that's the case. And, um, there's lots of stuff that's been written, but the simple answer is that, um, the idea that the father is sort of like the head of the Trinity in terms of like authority and that the son and the spirit are submissive or subordinate to, um, the father.

That is a, pretty much a brand new theology that was never really even conceived of in the church. And when it was, it was dismissed as heresy, right? It was called Subordinationism, or Arianism or Origin. There are all these different names for it. But people like Wayne Gruden and Bruce Ware, Owen Straton, um, and a whole host of reformed evangelical guys, um, have postulated this primarily to support their views on gender roles in the church.

Um, and just hands down, they are not reflecting the historic Christian tradition. So we will probably do an episode in the future, um, about complementarianism and egalitarianism, and we'll talk about the EFS controversy a little bit at that point. We might even do a whole episode just on the EFS controversy, but, um, historic, nice seen Orthodox Christianity does not affirm a hierarchy of rank or of authority in the Trinity.

Um, what's called add intra or, um, in eternity past or in the essence of what God is, there's no ranking. There is an ordering, like we said, but not a ranking.

[00:25:59] Jesse Schwamb: And we go back to the Westminster and the Nice and Creed primarily because this is a complicated subject and the language matters and it does have actual implications.

I think some people have this tendency to think, well, it's, it's just words and we're doing our best to describe it. But the bottom line is it's so prone to error because it's both at the same time. It can be straightforward in just saying that there's one essence and three subs, but then there's this problem where we get into this tension between distinguishing and separating.

We wanna distinguish the roles, but we'd be careful not to separate them. Or we go the other route and we just collapse everything into one.

[00:26:36] Tony Arsenal: Right?

[00:26:36] Jesse Schwamb: So the language is important and those two documents in particular are really good at helping to shape, provide like a construct where you know you're gonna have like a nice little boundary in which to play and kind of if you want deeper investigation, those are good resources.

Um, to start. So let me ask this, Tony, in terms of what we've been talking about and what you presented, um, where does the rubber start to meet the road for us?

[00:26:59] Practical Implications of the Trinity

[00:26:59] Jesse Schwamb: I mean, where does this start to impact how we actually obey and worship God?

[00:27:05] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, and that's, that's a great question. And we talked about, um, you know, last week we, or last time we did a systematic, uh, episode, we talked about how we were talking about the father.

You know, we didn't start off with discussing sort of this abstract nature, and the reason for that is that we don't worship. An abstract unpersonal or, or, uh, impersonal nature, right? We worship the father through his son, through the mediation of his son and by the power of his Holy Spirit. And so the first thing that we, when we really grasp the Trinity, as much as our finite, limited minds can, is it drives us to relationships with persons rather than sort of this abstract kind of out there impersonal floating up above us.

God. Um, which is, I know for, for myself, speaking for myself, that was kind of the way I understood God. Um, you know, when I was a baby Christian, there was the Father and I knew like there's the father, the Son, and the spirit. And I knew that like the father was up there somewhere, but I didn't really feel like I related to the father.

But Jesus, Jesus was my homeboy, right? Um, Jesus was the one I prayed to. Jesus was the one that I asked into my heart, and then there was like this Holy Spirit thing. And I didn't really understand, like, well, I don't really get, if, if Jesus lives in my heart, then what's, what's this Holy Spirit? I don't really understand that.

Um, and so the, the father ends up being this kind of distant, um, maybe personal but distant kind of deistic thought. And when we really grasp the Trinity, what we recognize is that the father loved the world so much that he gave his only son. Right? That's John three 16. We wanna put some scripture or verses to this, is that when we look at that passage in context, it's not, um, God in abstract.

It's not some impersonal divine thing out there. It's the father loved the world. That so much that he gave his only begotten son so that no one would perish, but would have eternal life. Um, and then when we, you know, when we get progress further in, in the New Testament, um, you know, with the gospels, we kind of, the, the spotlight zooms in on the Father and then how the father is working in, in the world through the agency of his son.

And then when Christ returns and he sends the Holy Spirit at Pentecost in Acts, we start to see how the Holy Spirit moves. And the Holy Spirit is the personal presence of the Lord in our lives. Now, that's not to say that the Holy Spirit isn't a person in and of himself, but the presence of the Holy Spirit is the way that Christ, um, at least for now, uh, fulfills his promise that he would be with us till the end of the earth because Jesus is not sitting in the room with me according to his humanity.

Right. Exactly. He has chosen to, um, chosen to be personally present primarily as a localized human person. Uh, that's his, his personal presence with us is the same way that he was personally present with his apostles, or in a similar way, I should say. And his presence was the presence of the Father the same way or a similar way.

The spirit's presence in our life is the presence of both the father and the son in our lives now. So the Trinity is really how we relate to, um, to God, how we relate to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. We can only ever be Trinitarian, right? We only ever relate to God because of the Holy Spirit, and we can only ever have the spirit in our life because Christ purchased our righteousness in order to make us a, a viable place for the Holy Spirit to dwell.

Does that kind of get out what you're looking for there?

[00:30:35] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I think that's right on. And it's a wonderful reality that. We have truth represented in a person and not just an idea, right? Not just like some kind of concept to which you can grant intellectual ascent, but this idea that, because there's a lot of confusion on this.

Even when I speak to people sometimes, or we're just having casual conversations about the trinity, or to whom do we pray or where is Jesus, you know, we have a lot of like, just colloquial, kind of common, not always thoughtful language in how we describe Jesus being present with us. And, and he's not, and we actually much prefer it that way because he's forever gonna be identified with humanity, which means that he like eyeballs, blood vessels, hands, feet, like he's in a physical place, right?

In a space and in some kind of real reality based, uh, place. And that means then that he's given us this, the spirit, like you said, essentially to indwell us with his presence. But he's not like here with us. Like he's not in the room.

[00:31:32] Tony Arsenal: Right.

[00:31:33] Jesse Schwamb: And, and we should love that because he's forever chosen to identify himself with humanity.

Yeah.

[00:31:39] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead.

[00:31:41] Exploring Christology and the Omnipresence of the Son

[00:31:41] Tony Arsenal: Um, we'll, we'll talk about it a little bit more when we get to Christology in a couple weeks. Um, what we're not saying is that the sun is no longer omnipresent or that the sun Right. You know, we're not saying that. Um, there's a doctrine in Reformed theology called the Extra Calvinistic Come.

And what that is roughly speaking is that the son is personally present in two ways. He's personally present in all times, all places, um, omni, presently, whatever that means. Um, he's personally present that way, but so is the father and we don't directly exactly experience or, um, perceive that, um, ever. I mean, I've never in any time that I've ever thought been able to personally perceive the presence of the father.

Um, that's largely because the father is in corporeal. We can't sense him. None of our faculties are equipped to do that, and Christ is present in this room with me in that way, in a way that my faculties are not equipped to perceive. He's also personally present in a local way, in, uh, in body, in, in heaven.

Um, so he's not present with us in a way that we can perceive. Now, we'll talk about how those things matter when we get to next week.

[00:32:53] The Holy Spirit's Indwelling Presence

[00:32:53] Tony Arsenal: The Holy Spirit, however, in dwells us in a way that our faculty still can't perceive, but in a way that changes us. So we may not feel it or sense it or know it. Um, you know, we don't, we might get the Holy Spirit goosebumps once in a while, but that's probably more a matter of adrenaline and emotion than it is, um, any sort of real sense of the divine.

But the Holy Spirit is present in a way that changes us, that we understand and know. Um, the, the father and the Son is not present in the same way. They're present in the, in the Holy Spirit, but not in that same personal way. And, and we're getting into all sorts of mystery here.

[00:33:28] Jesse Schwamb: Right. And that, that's what's tough is, is trying to make sure that we can distinguish but not separate and then again, not co-mingle too much.

So it's that we're not appreciating like the economy of the Trinity, the different roles, uh, that they have in terms of the plan of salvation, the working outta salvation. That's, that's a whole nother conversation.

[00:33:45] To Whom Do We Pray?

[00:33:45] Jesse Schwamb: But one of the things that, uh, often comes up, and I think you and I have talked about this before, but so how does that impact, like to whom do we pray?

Sure. Because that's like a, a big question. A lot of times we have the Trinity and sometimes we just start praying and we're well intentioned and we're going all over the place and you know, we find that we either we're addressing the different persons or we're not. Sometimes, you know, people are just not sure who should I address my prayers to.

[00:34:09] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And so I think, um. We'll, we'll do this kind of in backwards order. So I think that as Christians, and some people will disagree with that, and this is fine. As Christians, we are permitted to address our prayers to any one person of the Trinity. Um, we can pray to the Holy Spirit, we can pray to Jesus, we can pray to the Father.

We can also pray, I think, to kind of collectively to the three persons. And we may, we may address God. And what we're doing when we address God kind of in air quotes, is we're addressing the three persons collectively. So just like I might stand in front of, um, I might stand in front of a group of people and I might address them as a single.

I might use singular language when addressing a group of people. Um, we also can address God and be addressing the Father, son, and Holy Spirit as persons. Um.

[00:34:58] The Biblical Pattern of Prayer

[00:34:58] Tony Arsenal: In that way, I think that the biblical pattern that we see in the New Testament, and I would actually argue probably in in the Old Testament, and especially in the Psalms, is to pray to the Father by the mediation of the Son, which is why we talk about praying in Jesus' name is because he's our mediator and we do so by the power of the Holy Spirit.

And I use that, that sort of pattern, um, religiously, and I don't mean that in like a pejorative sense, but I use that pattern every single time I pray. And here's why is I'm sure that we've all been in a circumstance where somebody is praying and they start out praying to the father, and then they sort of subtly and unknowingly shift to praying, uh, to thanking the father for coming and dying on the cross and for, for living in our heart.

And then they get to the end of the prayer and they say in your name. Amen. Right? And so what we've done is we've confused and conflated the, the roles that each person plays in the economy of salvation. Um, at best we just confuse the rules. Un unwittingly, at worst, we're actually kind of picturing a single God or a single person who's doing different things at different times.

And that's modalism. So there's our heresy alert again. Um, so for my own prayer life, um, and like when I pray publicly, I'm very intentional to be addressing my prayers to the father. To be closing my prayers saying in the name of Jesus Christ. And I also say, and in the power of your Holy Spirit. And the reason I do that is because it helps me from getting confused, right?

Um, and I pray, I pray publicly in church almost every week. And, um, I don't wanna be a subject of confusion for other people. Right. So I'm praying that way and I'm, I'm, I'm not, I'm not a teacher, um, in the church when I'm praying, but I'm praying that way in order to, you know, kind of have it be caught by the other people that are there.

And, you know, my last church there was actually a, a guy who, um, I noticed. You know, after being with him in Bible study for like six months, he started praying the same way. And it was just really, kind of, kind of heartwarming to see like this person's prayers are clearer and less likely to be confusing because he's picked up on this pattern that the, the Bible itself gives us, right?

The New Testament. Paul closes a lot of his letters in these Trinitarian prayers. Um, so I think that's the pattern in the New Testament. But we do have examples of, I think Steven in Acts when he's, you know, he looks up into heaven and he, he prays to Jesus. So I think that's permissible, right? Um, I can't think of any explicit instances in, in the Bible where someone prays to the Holy Spirit, but I can't imagine that if it's appropriate to pray to the Father and the Son, that it somehow would be inappropriate to pray to the Spirit.

But from a pragmatic standpoint, I just think it makes sense for us to be intentional, um, to pattern our prayers after the dominant, you know, the dominant pattern in the Bible, and then also in a way that that shapes our Trinitarian theology as we pray as well.

[00:37:52] Jesse Schwamb: Absolutely. It's just a really great habit to get into because it keeps us mindful and cognizant of those things.

Mm-hmm. And like I said, so I don't think it's, we, it's wrong to, to pray to Jesus, but to do so with like a very focused mind. Right. When you're doing that, so that again, you're appreciating the distinction of the persons and again, their role at v