Individual Personalities and the Gospel

One of the aspects of biblical revelation that has received quit a bit of attention in the Reformed church during the last Century and a half is that of God’s use of human personalities, languages and contexts in the inspiration of Scripture.1 There is, in this human element, a beautiful diversity found within the unity of the Divine revelation of the whole of the Scripture. While much has been written on this (and I’m certain that more will be written) one of the truths about personality that has not often been emphasized is the fact that God uses different personalities in the church today–even as He did in the apostolic days. In his Reformed Dogmatics: Holy Spirit, Church and New Creation, Herman Bavinck made the following important observation about human personality and the saving work of Christ:

Regeneration does not erase individuality, personality or character, but sanctifies it and puts it at the service of God’s name. The community of believers is the new humanity that bears within itself a wide range of variety and distinction and manifests the richest diversity in unity.1

Before entering in on the subject of personality it will be helpful for us to note that there are two fundamental errors in how believers view one another in the church in regard to personality. The first has to do with having an expectation that all believers must fit a certain personality caricature. This may come in the form of an expectation that all believers should have a soft spoken, reserved personality; or, it may reside in a stereotype of an outspoken and socially fearless person. A second error with which we are confronted has to do with being dismissive about the nature of sin in the personality. Just as effortlessly imposing a personality expectation on others, we can as equally write off sinful characteristics as being merely part of a personality–thereby nullifying Bavinck’s observation that God takes a human personality, “sanctifies it and puts it to the service” of His name. Because this is a subject of enormous breadth, it will help us to limit our consideration to the biblical data regarding the personality of the Savior and the Apostles. By so doing, we will be better suited to navigate through this difficult yet important subject.

The Savior

It is right for us to start with a consideration of the Son of God for the mere fact that Jesus was the only man who lived a perfect life to the end. His personality, while uniquely crafted to Himself, was nevertheless a personality untainted by sin. Jesus appeared at times to be introverted and at other times to be extroverted. He manifested the characteristics of wisdom outlined in the Proverbs in each and every situation in which He found Himself. His words and His actions always came with perfect wisdom and uprightness. He was not a man who vented all His feelings (Prov. 29:11); neither was He a man who “hid hatred” (Prov. 10:18). He was seen to be the wise man who “spared his words” and who was “of a calm spirit” (Prov. 17:27-28) as well as the wise man who “opened his mouth in the gate” (Prov. 24:7). He was never impulsive so as to “exult folly” (Prov. 14:29); but He never “isolated himself” and so sought His own desire (Prov. 18:1). There were times when Jesus was so warm and affectionate that His own disciples felt comfortable enough to lean back on His breast (John 13:25; 21:20); while at other times Jesus was driving the money changers out of the Temple with a whip of chords (John 2:15) in righteous anger. He always knew when to speak a soft word (Prov. 14:1), and always knew when it was time for hard words (Prov. 27:5). He perfectly embodied the best characteristics of an introvert and an extrovert. There were times when he was boldly engaging the multitudes and times when He was pulling away and hiding Himself. It seems to me that Jesus had the most balanced personality of anyone born from the fall of Adam to the consummation. There is a great need for this subject to be explored more deeply. Three of the richest studies on aspects of the subject of the inner life of Christ are B.B. Warfield’s “The Emotional Life of Our Lord,” William Blaikie’s Glimpses of the Inner Life of our Lord and Robert Law’s The Emotions of Jesus.

The Apostles

When we move from Jesus to those He chose to minister side by side with Him, we discover that Jesus appears to have paired the disciples up according to their personality types. Whether it was putting Simon the zealot with the doubtful Thomas, or outspoken Peter with warm and affectionate John, Jesus paired strengths and weaknesses to bring balance to the band of disciples. Peter needed John, even though there were times when he was jealous of John’s affectionate personality in relation to Jesus (John 21:21).

Of course, when we start thinking about the personality of the disciples recorded in the Gospels, our minds are almost involuntarily drawn back to Peter. There was absolutely nothing mysterious about the personality of the one who functioned as a “chief-among-equals” in the Apostolic band. We see all the flaws of a Simon Peter, but we also stand amazed at his boldness and readiness of mind to confess, follow and lay down his life for the sake of Christ. In the introductory section of his volume on Simon Peter, Hugh Martin cited August Neander’s History of the Planting and Training of the Christian Church by the Apostles in which Neander made the following statement about Peter’s personality and how it was sanctified for use in God’s kingdom:

What Peter became by the power of the divine life was in a measure determined by his natural peculiarities. A capacity for action, rapid in its movements, seizing with a firm grasp on its object, and carrying on his designs with ardor, was his leading characteristic, by which he effected so much in the service of the Gospel. But the fire of his powerful nature needed first to be transformed by the flame of divine love, and to be refined from the impurities of selfishness, to render him undaunted in the publication of the Gospel. By the natural constitution of his mind, he was indeed disposed to surrender himself at the moment entirely to the impression which seized him, without being turned aside by those considerations which would hold back more timorous spirits, and to express with energy what would move many minds; but he was easily misled by a rash self-confidence to say more, and to venture more, than he could accomplish; and though he quickly and ardently seized on an object, he allowed himself too easily to relinquish it, by yielding-to the force of another sudden and powerful impression.2

The Lord used Peter’s personality for the unique purposes that he had for him. Peter–and not John–was the one who led the way in bringing the Gospel to the Jews in the early years of the New Covenant church (as is seen in the first half of the book of Acts). In part, Peter’s personality made him a more suitable choice–though that personality had to be greatly sanctified by the Holy Spirit. It was the same Peter who had cowardly denied Jesus outside of the High Priest’s courtyard, who–after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit–boldly professed Him within the palace where the Savior had been tried.

The other leading figure in the evangelization of the world had an equally bold personality. The apostle Paul was a type-A personality, driven to succeed and uncompromising in his principles. It was this personality that–prior to his conversion–had led him to zealously persecute the church of God, and yet, which–after his conversion–was employed in the greatest church planting movement the world has ever seen. Paul was aware of his own personality and how it was used both against and for the Kingdom of God.  Geerhardus Vos  gave us a glimpse into the mind of the apostle Paul and the admiration he had for Isaiah’s sanctified personality. Vos explained:

Paul seems to have felt something of the congeniality of Isaiah’s mind to his own. He quotes from him often and not seldom with that fine spiritual insight which penetrates beyond the surface meaning of a passage into the innermost mind of the author and divines the subtle shade of his momentary thought and feeling. “Isaiah is very bold” (Rom. 10:20), he exclaims with evident appreciation of a noble trait exemplified to a high degree in his own character.

Paul also had a tenderness about him. Derek Thomas made the following astute observation about Paul’s tears before the elders in Ephesus:

I don’t often associate Paul with outward emotions. He’s type-A; he’s always right; he has an opinion about everything; and woe betide you if you cross him as John Mark learned; but there’s a tenderness about the Apostle Paul; there’s an affection about him; there’s a sense in which there is a very real, tangible bond here between a minister and his elders. I think that it would be safe to say, that in our Presbyterian polity, few things are as important as our relationship with our elders.

Whatever else we may say about personalities in the church, the following seem to be in accord with the clear teaching of the Apostles:

1. We must embrace who God made us and pray that God will sanctify and use us according the strengths of our individual personalities. 

While Peter and Paul had bold, type-A personalities, Barnabas–by way of contrast–was more even-keeled. Barnabas does seem to have had a conflict-loving personality. His desire to make peace may have been part of his natural disposition that–once sanctified further by the Gospel and the Spirit of God–was instrumental in introducing the newly converted Paul to the fledgling church. It is certainly that which led him to settle in to second place as the son of Encouragement. Everyone needed a Barnabas, but not everyone had the uniquely crafted personality of Barnabas. If Barnabas had Peter or Paul’s personality he certainly would have been leading the way on the evangelistic frontier of the world. In the words of Sinclair Ferguson, Barnabas was a man who learned  ”Played Second Fiddle Well.”

2. We must guard against sinful abuses of our personalities. This is where the Proverbs are so helpful. Each of us has uniquely crafter personalities. Generally our greatest personal strengths will also be our greatest weaknesses because of sin. Whether we are an extrovert who dominates conversations, or an introvert who keeps quite when we ought to open our mouths, all of us need to diligently search the Scriptures, carefully examine our personalities and prayerfully ask God to sanctify and mature us in the Gospel. 

3. We must seek to benefit others in the church through our God-given, Gospel-sanctified personalities. Finding our place in the church is one of the most important things we could do. There is nothing worse or more damaging than someone trying to fill a role that they have neither been called or equipped to fill. If God has given you a more retreating personality, church planting is probably not the best fit for you. If God has given you a more type-A, Alpha-male personality being a number 2 or 3 guy on staff at a church is probably not the place where you should be. There may be value in moving from the broad categories of introvert/extrovert and type-A/type-B to the more careful delineations of such personality tests as the “Myers-Briggs” type indicator (In which I fall closest to the ENTJ description) or the Kolbe index to help you think through these things. Knowing who we are and where we should be used is extremely valuable to greater fruitful service in the church.

4. We must embrace the fact that we need others in the church. Our Lord Jesus knit us together into a body of believers with all the strengths and weaknesses of different personalities. While Christ had a personality perfectly sanctified by the presence of the Holy Spirit in His life and ministry, we–by way of contrast–will always have imbalanced and sin-tainted personalities. We need to learn to bear with one another and pray for one another. I am sure that Simon Peter probably got some eye rolls from members of the church, but when he was arrested “constant prayer was made for him by the church.” The church needs extroverts and introverts, those who have a sort of natural boldness and those with a natural gentleness–all sanctified by the word and Spirit of God. It is far to easy to like people who are like us and to grow frustrated with those whose personalities are different than ours.

1. Several of the more helpful works on this subject are E.J. Young’s “The Human Writers of the Scripture” from Thy Word is Truth, B.B. Warfield, “The Divine and Human in the Bible,” in Selected Shorter Writings,2:546 and Warfield’s The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (London, 1959); Paul Wells “The Doctrine of Scripture: Only A Human Problem” in

Christ According to the Flesh and Spirit

There has been something of an intramural debate*–over the past Century and a half–concerning Paul’s use of the sa??/p?e?µa (i.e. flesh/Spirit) distinction in relation to the Person and work of Christ in Romans 1:3-4. The old school, represented by Warfield, Hodge, Cranfield et al, held that Paul was merely referring to the two natures of Christ when he declared that He was “the seed of David according to the flesh” and “declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of Holiness through the resurrection of the dead.” Warfield explained his understanding of these verses when he wrote:

This is fundamentally, then, how Paul preached Christ – as the Son of God in this supereminent sense, and therefore our divine Lord on whom we absolutely depend and to whom we owe absolute obedience. But this was not all that he was accustomed to preach concerning Christ. Paul preached the historical Jesus as well as the eternal Son of God. And between these two designations – Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ – he inserts two clauses which tell us how he preached the historical Jesus. All that he taught about Christ was thrown up against the background of His deity: He is the Son of God, our Lord. But who is this that is thus so fervently declared to be the Son of God and our Lord? It is in the two clauses which are now to occupy our attention that Paul tells us.

If we reduce what he tells us to its lowest terms it amounts just to this: Paul preached the historical Christ as the promised Messiah and as the very Son of God. But he declares Christ to be the promised Messiah and the very Son of God in language so pregnant, so packed with implications, as to carry us into the heart of the great problem of the two-natured person of Christ. The exact terms in which he describes Christ as the promised Messiah and the very Son of God are these: “Who became of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was marked out as the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead.” This in brief is the account which Paul gives of the historical Christ whom he preached.

Of course there is a temporal succession suggested in the declarations of the two clauses. They so far give us not only a description of the historical Christ, but the life-history of the Christ that Paul preached. Jesus Christ became of the seed of David at His birth and by His birth. He was marked out as the Son of God in power only at His resurrection and by His resurrection. But it was not to indicate this temporal succession that Paul sets the two declarations side by side. It emerges merely as the incidental, or we may say even the accidental, result of their collocation. The relation in which Paul sets the two declarations to one another is a logical rather than a temporal one: it is the relation of climax. His purpose is to exalt Jesus Christ. He wishes to say the great things about Him. And the two greatest things he has to say about Him in His historical manifestation are these – that He became of the seed of David according to the flesh, that He was marked out as the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead.

In contrast to Warfield’s ontological view, Geerhardus Vos explained the redemptive-historical view in the following way:

The analogy, and its bearing upon our problem become most clear when the passage, Rom. 1.3-4, is somewhat closely analyzed. Here we read that Jesus was ???s?e?t?? ???? ?e?? e? d??aµe? ?ata p?e?µa a???s???? e? a?astase?? ?e????. The clause stands in parallelism to the one in vs. 3: ?e??µe??? e? spe?µat?? daß?d ?ata sa??a. It will be noticed that the following members correspond to each other in the two clauses: ?e??µe???————???s?e??; ?ata sa??a————?ata p?e?µa a???s????; e? spe?µat?? daß?d————e? a?astase?? ?e????. The reference is not to two coexisting states in the make-up of the Savior, but two successive stages in his life. There was first ?e?es?a? ?ata sa??a, then a ???s???a? ?ata p?e?µa. The two prepositional phrases have adverbial force, yet so as to throw emphasis on the result no less than on the initial act: He became, as to his sarkic (fleshly) existence, and He was “of the seed of David.” The ???s???a? Paul refers to is not an abstract determination, but an effectual installation, with bestowal of the requisite energy pertaining to the new state. Paul seems to avoid the repetition of ?e??µe???, not so much for stylistic reasons, but because it might have suggested, even before the reading of the sentence to the end could correct this, that at the resurrection the sonship of Christ, as such, first originated, whereas his actual meaning is that the sonship ?ata d??aµ?? there began to enter into operation. By the twofold ?ata the manner of each state of existence is contrasted, by the twofold e? the sphere of origin of each. As to the one He was “from the seed of David,” as to the other He was “out of resurrection from the dead.” The resurrection (both of Jesus and believers) is therefore according to Paul the entering upon a new phase of sonship characterized by the possession and exercise of unique supernatural power. That this should apply to Christ’s body alone, or to the exertion by Chris of somatic power on the bodies of believers alone, while not here expressly denied, is in itself highly implausible.

The above interpretation does not, of course, imply that Paul denied the supernatural conception of Jesus by the Spirit. Precisely because speaking of the pneuma-state in the absolute eschatological sense, he could disregard here the previous Spirit-birth and the Spirit-endowment at the baptism.2

Following Vos’ exegesis, the late John Murray also held that Romans 1:3-4 was teaching two progressive stages in the redemptive-historical experience of Jesus. He helpfully explained what the shift in the two stages of experience meant in the life of Jesus–and for believers–when he wrote:

Just as “according to the flesh” in verse 3 defines the phase which came to be through being born of the seed of David, so “according to the Spirit of holiness” characterizes the phase which came to be through the resurrection. And when we ask what that new phase was upon which the Son of God entered by his resurrection, there is copious New Testament allusion and elucidation (cf. Acts 2:36; Eph. 1:20–23; Phil. 2:9–11; 1 Pet. 3:21, 22). By his resurrection and ascension the Son of God incarnate entered upon a new phase of sovereignty and was endowed with new power correspondent with and unto the exercise of the mediatorial lordship which he executes as head over all things to his body, the church. It is in this same resurrection context and with allusion to Christ’s resurrection endowment that the apostle says, “The last Adam was made life-giving Spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45). And it is to this that he refers elsewhere when he says, “The Lord is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:17). “Lord” in this instance, as frequently in Paul, is the Lord Christ. The only conclusion is that Christ is now by reason of the resurrection so endowed with and in control of the Holy Spirit that, without any confusion of the distinct persons, Christ is identified with the Spirit and is called “the Lord of the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18). Thus, when we come back to the expression “according to the Spirit of holiness”, our inference is that it refers to that stage of pneumatic endowment upon which Jesus entered through his resurrection. The text, furthermore, expressly relates “Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness” with “the resurrection from the dead” and the appointment can be none other than that which came to be by the resurrection. The thought of verse 4 would then be that the lordship in which he was instated by the resurrection is one all-pervasively conditioned by pneumatic powers. The relative weakness of his pre-resurrection state, reflected on in verse 3, is contrasted with the triumphant power exhibited in his post-resurrection lordship. What is contrasted is not a phase in which Jesus is not the Son of God and another in which he is. He is the incarnate Son of God in both states, humiliation and exaltation, and to regard him as the Son of God in both states belongs to the essence of Paul’s gospel as the gospel of God. But the pre-resurrection and post-resurrection states are compared and contrasted, and the contrast hinges on the investiture with power by which the latter is characterized.3

John Skilton, in his outstanding 1996 WTJ article “A Glance At Some Old Problems in First Peter,” appealed to the redemptive-historical take on Romans 1:3-4 for arriving at a conclusion on the difficult exegesis of 1 Peter 3:18-20 :

Readers of the NT have been puzzled at times by statements that seem to indicate that our Lord has become something that he already had been before. For example, in Matt 28:18, Jesus says: “All power has been given unto me in heaven and on earth.” The reader asks, “Did he not have all power previously?” In Acts 2:36, Peter says: “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made that same Jesus whom you have crucified both Lord and Christ.” One inquires, “Was not Jesus both Lord and Christ already?” Other verses raise similar questions. The answer to these questions will be found in a right understanding of 1 Pet 3:18. At the close of that verse Peter writes:?a?at??e?? µ?? sa??? ???p????e?? d? p?e?µat?. Here we have a balanced structure that contributes substantially to the interpretation. For example, in their tight parallelism we expect both sa??? and p?e?µat? to be used in the same way. Mounce claims that the translation in the NIV, “in the body…by the Spirit,” has two faults:

First, the words “body” and “spirit” are parallel and should be translated in the same manner (both are in the dative case and the NIV’s “in the body…but…by the Spirit” is misleading). Second, the capital S on “Spirit” interprets the word to mean the Holy Spirit. In other words the clause is made to say that Jesus died physically but was resurrected by the Holy Spirit. While this theology is certainly orthodox, it is not what the text actually says. Flesh and spirit represent two spheres of existence or two successive conditions of Christ’s human nature…

…Marked off in 1 Pet 3:18, as in Rom 1:3–4, would be two successive stages in our Lord’s messianic work. These different stages are reflected also in such verses as Matt 28:18 and Acts 2:36, which were mentioned earlier. The second stage, introduced by the resurrection, was “one all-pervasively conditioned by pneumatic powers.” The p?e?µat? in 1 Pet 3:18 accordingly refers not only to the resurrection, but also to the state of power that followed it.4

While Warfield’s position falls entirely within the realm of the analogy of Scripture and analogy of faith, it does not do full justice to the exegetical construct of Romans 1:3-4. Much more satisfying is the explanation provided by Vos, Murray, Skilton, Gaffin et al. Understanding the sa??/p?e?µa (i.e. flesh/Spirit) distinction in redemptive history helps us understand more of what we have as believers living in the new age (i.e. the age of the Spirit).

1. B. B. Warfield, “The Christ That Paul Preached,” in The Person and Work of Christ (ed. Samuel G. Craig; Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1950), 73-90.

2. Geerhards Vos The Pauline Eschatology (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1961) n. 10 pp. 155-156. For a continued treatment of this passage see Vos’ chapter, “The Eschatological Aspect of the Pauline Concept of the Spirit” in the Princeton Seminary Biblical and Theological Studies p. 228ff.

3. John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964) 6.

4. John H. Skilton, ”A Glance At Some Old Problems in First Peter,” (Westminster Theological Journal 58:1 (Spr 96) p. 6

*See Lee Irons 10 posts defending Warfield’s position.

The Greater Parts of Scripture?

Sometimes in the name of zeal for biblical fidelity we can inadvertently correct others where no correction is needed. I’ve had the infelicitous experience, on numerous occasions, of being corrected for something for which I ought not to have been corrected. I have also been the culprit of such uninformed action. I have many times made assertions about certain portions of Scripture (e.g. certain chapters in Genesis, Romans, Galatians and Hebrews) being greater than others. On numerous occasions, well-meaning Christians have fired something back along the lines of, “Every portion of Scripture is important. We shouldn’t say one is greater than another.” Not long ago, I happened across a statement by J. Gresham Machen, in one of his sermons in God Transcendent, in which he explained how is it altogether right to insist that some parts of Scripture are greater than others. Machen wrote:

Some chapters of the Bible are certainly greater than others, and it is by no means derogatory to the authority of Scripture to recognize their special greatness. The doctrine of plenary inspiration does not mean, as its opponents often represent it as meaning, that all parts of the Bible are equally valuable–it only means that all parts of the Bible are equally true. Even the least valuable parts of the Bible have, indeed, their place. Lovers of poetry love the level lines of Shakespeare; so we Christians cherish the great level, prose chapters of the word of God. Even in the level pathways of Scripture we can walk with God and learn of Him. But then when we have passed through such a stretch in our reading of the Bible, where distinct scenes are concealed, suddenly we emerge sometimes as we read, as upon the brow of some hill, and discern before us with wondering eyes a wide, free prospect of the world and destiny and human duty. And there, through the great expanse stretched out before, may be seen a narrow path that leads over hill and dale until in the dim distance it loses itself in the mysterious brightness of the city of God.1

In addition to what Machen wrote, the first chapter of the Westminster Confession of Faith seems to suggest something similar when the Divines reflect on the clarity of the different portions of Scripture. When they speak of those places in Scripture that reveal “those things that are necessary to be known, believed and observed for salvation” they surely have in mind what we mind call “the greater parts of Scripture:”

All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all:yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.2

Believing fully that “all Scripture is God-breathed and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16) and that no word that God has spoken will “return to Him void, but it shall accomplish what He pleases and it shall prosper in the thing for which He sent it” (Isaiah 55:11), I must admit that find myself in agreement with Machen: “Some chapters of the Bible are certainly greater than others.”

1. J. Gresham Machen God Transcendent (Wm. B. Eerdman’s: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1949) p. 116

2. Westminster Confession of Faith 1.7

The Theological Greatness of Jonathan Edwards

1. The glory that Christ there appeared in was so divine and admirably excellent, and had such a bright and evident appearance of divinity, such an admirable and ineffable semblance of the infinitely glorious perfection of God, his awful majesty, his purity, and infinitely sweet grace and love, as evidently denoted him to be a divine person. The apostle says, “He received from the Father, honor and glory:” the term is doubled and varied thus to signify the exceeding excellency of the glory.

There was doubtless an inward sight, or lively sense of heart, of Christ’s spiritual glory that accompanied Peter’s sight of the visible glory of Christ. There was an ineffable beauty, majesty, and brightness in his countenance, that held forth and naturally represented the excellencies of his mind, his holiness, his heavenly meekness, and grace, and love, and that majesty that spake his union with the Deity, and by the influence of the Spirit of God accompanying, excited in Peter, and the other two that were with him, a great sense of those perfections, and their immense excellency, adorableness, and sweetness. And the Spirit of God doubtless accompanied the word of God, that Peter and the other then heard, so that that word was spiritually understood, and believed; so that Christ’s glory then was manifested to the disciples three ways: by the rays of light, it was exhibited to their eyes; by the voice, it was declared to their ears; and by the Spirit, to their souls. The last was the most convincing and certain evidence to them of Christ’s divinity.

This glory of Christ, that the apostles then saw, both the outward glory and the spiritual glory, that the outward glory had a semblance of, did most remarkably appear to be such as exceedingly became the only-begotten, dearly beloved, and infinitely lovely Son of God. Therefore, the apostle John, who was another eye-witness of it, speaking probably with special reference to this, John i. 14. says, “We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” It exhibited not only the divine greatness in the majesty of which the apostle Peter in this place especially speaks, but the divine grace and love in the sweetness of it.

2. This glory that appeared in the person of Christ, did exactly resemble that excellent glory, that the apostle speaks of, out of which the voice came, ver. 17. For there was there in the mount an external glory, as a visible symbol of the presence of God the Father, and by which he was represented; as well as an external glory in God the Son, viz. that bright cloud that overshadowed them. There was a glory in that cloud that the apostle calls an excellent glory. When it is said in the evangelists that a bright cloud overshadowed them, it is not meant such a light or white cloud as shines by a cast of light upon it from some shining body, such as are some clouds by the bright reflection of the sun’s light; but a cloud bright by an internal light shining out of it, which light the apostle calls an excellent glory. It probably was an ineffably sweet, excellent sort of light, perfectly differing from and far exceeding the light of the sun. All light is sweet, but this seems to have been immensely more sweet than any other that ever they had; impressing some idea which we cannot conceive, having never seen it, as we can conceive of nothing of light more than we have seen ; we could have conceived of no such light as the light of the sun, had not we seen it, nor of any colour, blue, red, green, purple, nor any other. God doubtless can excite other ideas of light in our minds besides any of those that we have had, and far exceeding them; a light affording sweetness and pleasure to the sight, far exceeding all pleasure of the grosser and inferior senses. Therefore, Peter the apostle, that writes this epistle, was exceedingly delighted with it in the time of it, which made him say, “It is good for us to be here;” and made him talk of building tabernacles, and thinking of spending the rest of his days there; and he still (though now old and near his end, verses 13, 14.) retains a lively sense of the exquisite gloriousness and pleasantness of that light, when he expresses himself as he does here, calling it the excellent glory. And there probably was an exact resemblance between the glory that the disciples saw in Christ’s face, and that which they saw in this cloud, which declared him to be the Son of God; for they saw him to be his express image.

9 Traces of the Doctrine of the Trinity in the Old Testament

In chapter 3 of his Reformed Dogmatics (vol. 1), Geerhardus Vos set out 9 “traces of the doctrine of the Trinity…in the Old Testament.” Among the most noteworthy observations are those concerning the “Angel of the LORD” and the personification of Wisdom in the Proverbs:

1. The distinction between the names Elohim and Yahweh. Elohim is God as He works among both Israel and the heathen by creation and providence. Yahweh is God as He has made Himself known by theocratic guidance and revelation. Compare Genesis 1:1 with 2:4. Where God reveals Himself, He therefore bears another name, that is, one knows Him in that respect not only more than elsewhere but also as another.

2. The plural form of this name Elohim (see Eloah).

Since Peter Lombard many have found a proof for the Trinity in this form. For example, Luther, but not Calvin. Elohim, however, is used of Father and Son (see Psa 45:8); the name also appears for people and idols (Exod. 22:8, 1 Sam 28:13). The plural is to be understood intensively, as “heavens,” “waters” are extensive. It points to the inexhaustible fullness of God, and is therefore a pluralis majestatis in the deeper sense of the word.

3. The concept of the angel of the Lord ???????? ???????.

Concerning this are the following hypotheses:

a. The Angel of the Lord is a finite spirit, a created angel. Thus Augustine, Jerome, and later Kurtz and Delitzsch. This Angel, they say, can speak as if He were God, as the messenger speaks ex persona for the one who has sent Him and is identified with Him. However, how could such a messenger receive religious honor for the one who sent Him? Judg 6:11, 18, 22–23.

b. The Angel of the Lord is the Logos, the second Person of the Trinity. Thus Irenaeus, Tertullian, and later, Lutheran and Reformed dogmaticians (Calvin hesitates at some places, yet seems to choose 1 above), Hengstenberg. Some assume that the Logos has personally united Himself for a time with a created being.

c. The Angel of the Lord is not a person but only an impersonal appearance of God, a momentary entering of God into the sphere of the visible. ???????? is to be understood as an abstract noun.

We accept the interpretation under 2 since only it does justice to all the givens. Additionally, however, we also note:

a. Those who shared in this appearance did not have a clear and distinct concept of the doctrine of the Trinity.

b. The Angel, the Messenger, was uncreated, the eternal Logos, but the visible form in which He revealed Himself was created, and the Logos was not personally united with it, as He was with the human nature assumed later.

The grounds for this interpretation are as follows:

a. The Angel speaks with God’s authority (Gen 16:13).

b. He is addressed as God (Gen 16:13).

c. He does divine works (Exod 23:20).

d. He has divine attributes (Gen 16:8).

e. He accepts divine honor (Josh 5:14).

f. He is distinguished from a created angel, Exodus 33, where the Angel of the Presence is distinguished from an ordinary angel (Isa 63:9; Deut 4:37).

g. His name alternates with the name Elohim (Zech 12:8).

h. The concept of Chokma, ???????, “wisdom,” as it appears in Proverbs 8:22 and following and Job 28:12–27. Here wisdom is personified, so that it becomes objective for God Himself and yet it stands in the closest relation to Him. It is the image of His thought, the perfect imprint of His inner existence—within Him and outside of Him at the same time. In the Prologue of the Gospel of John such things are said of the Logos.

4. To the word of God in the Old Testament are also ascribed divine attributes (e.g., Psa 33:4; Isa 40:8; Psa 119:105).

5. The doctrine of the Spirit of God in the Old Testament. The Spirit is the principle of the natural, rational, reasonable life of the world and thus represents the self-conscious immanence of God. He is also the Spirit of revelation. Finally, He is also the Spirit who lives with each believer (see Pss 51:13; 143:10). The Spirit acts as a person standing objectively vis-à-vis God (Isa 63:10; 48:16).

6. Old Testament passages in which God speaks of Himself in the plural. The church has always had a Trinitarian conception of these passages. The following are diverging sentiments:

a. It is a pluralis majestatis as the Oriental rulers used of themselves. There are no antecedents for this in Scripture. Only relatively late does something like this appear (Gen 20:15; cf. Ezra 6:8).

b. It is a pluralis communicationis by which God includes Himself together with the angels (cf. Isa 6:8); thus Philo, also the younger Delitzsch. However, in Gen 1:26 one cannot attribute an active part in creation to the angels.

c. It is a pluralis of self-generation, in which the subject considers and addresses Himself as object, so that the appearance of a plurality arises. See Hitzig. This is unproved, see Gen 2:18; Psa 12:5.

7. Old Testament passages where more than one person is expressly named; Pss 45:6–7; 110:1. Heb 1:8–9 shows that these passages must be understood in this way.

8. Passages that speak of three persons; Num 6:24–26; compare 2 Cor 13:14; Psa 33:6; Isa 61:1; 63:9–10.

The Shepherd for the Sheep

“The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing” (Psalm 23:1). This amazing truth is ultimately fulfilled in the Good Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ. Only in Him is all that is promised to us fully realized. For all the Psalmists declaration to become realizations for us, Jesus had to lay down His life for the sheep (John 10:11). Consider the following ways that Psalm 23 is fulfilled for us in the Good Shepherd:

Jesus had to lack everything for His sheep.Instead of rest in green pastures, He had no place to lay His head (Matthew 8:20).Instead of still waters, He was baptized with the wrath of God (Luke 12:50).Instead of a restored soul, His soul was poured out unto death (Isaiah 53:12).Instead of being led in right paths, He was lead as a sheep to the slaughter and offered Himself as a propitiation so that God might be proved righteous (Acts 8:32, Romans 3:25-26).Instead of fearing no evil in the dark death valley, He was made evil Who knew no evil and sorrowed unto death as He contemplated the darkness of death that would utterly consume Him (2 Corinthians 5:21, Mark 14:34-36).Instead of having God with him as His comfort, God forsook Him, pouring out His just wrath upon Him (Matthew 27:46).Instead of having a rod and a staff to comfort Him, the rod of the Father was pleased to crush Him (Isaiah 53:10).Instead of having a table spread before Him, He hungered in the wilderness and thirsted unto death (Luke 4:1-2, John 19:28).Instead of having His head anointed with oil, He wore a blood-soaked crown of thorns (Matthew 27:29).Instead of having a cup that overflows, He drank the cup of the wrath of God to the dregs (Isaiah 51:17, Matthew 26:39).Instead of goodness and mercy pursuing Him all His days, wrath and torment pursued Him unto death (Isaiah 53).Instead of dwelling in the house of the LORD, He was banished from the dwelling of the LORD as the unclean and cursed one (Galatians 3:13)

Jesus had to lack everything as He Himself became the Lamb Who was slain (Revelation 5:6, 12). He did all of this on behalf of stubborn, sinful, hell-deserving sheep who rebelled against Him. This is the best news in the world! All who know this Good Shepherd by grace through faith will lack no good thing, for He will provide for them, protect them, comfort them and satisfy them fully – He will be all and all to them now and forever and ever:

“Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 7:15-17).

6 Subtle Ways to Hold on to Self-Righteousness

In his volume of printed sermon on Romans: Chapters 2:1-3:20,  Martyn Lloyd-Jones pointed out that there are 6 ways that we, like the unbelieving Jews of Paul’s day, can subtly hold onto a supposed self-righteousness. Reflecting on the teaching of Romans 2:1-11 Lloyd-Jones wrote:

(1) “Sin introduces, or can introduce, a prejudice into our listening to the Gospel, or into our reading of the Gospel. …we come to the Scriptures, pick out what we like and do not notice what we do not like. This is exactly what these Jews had done…

Some of us, sometimes, tend to read the Scriptures, not so much to be enlightened and to be taught, as to confirm our own theories, our own ideas, and our own prejudices. Now, I want to make that a universal statement. We are all guilty of it.

(2) So many tend to make us put ourselves into special categories and compartments. That is the outcome of the first, is it not? ‘I am a Jew. He is a Gentile.’ We are all given those labels….We tend to put ourselves into categories and compartments and then, of course, we go on doing what I have already been saying—we find statements in Scripture to confirm us and to buttress our position.

(3)  ‘Quite right,’ we say, ‘These abominable sins!’ We see them as we walk along the streets…we read about them in the newspaper, and we are impatient with those people, we feel they all ought to be blasted out of existence. We see it so clearly as it applies to others, but never in the case of ourselves. We tend to be blind to our own sins.

(4) We are all experts at running away from [the doctrine of justification by faith only]…we run away from the doctrine of justification by faith only when we rely upon anything or anyone except the Lord Jesus Christ and His perfect work. I do not care what it is! If you rely on your country, if you say, “I must be a Christian, I was born in…—a Christian country,’ if you are relying on that kind of thing, you are denying justification by faith, as the Jews did. If you are relying on the fact that your parents were Christians or saints; if you have any reliance upon your birth and ancestry; of if in any way you are relying on any form of moralism, on your good life, and your respectability, and your good works; if any of these things is true of you, you are denying justification by faith.

(5) [When we] separate doctrine from life. The Jew, you see, did not take daily living into consideration at all, either in the case of the Gentile or in his own case…the Jew seemed to say, ‘It does not matter what I do. I am a Jew, and because I am a Jew I am alright. As for the Gentile, of course…’ That is separation of doctrine and life, and it is a terrible danger and a most subtle one. It does not matter whether you have little doctrine or much doctrine, it is equally dangerous.

(6)  Lloyd-Jones concluded his argument by saying that there is “a persistence with which we tend to defend ourselves. We start with one position,” he wrote, “then the argument knocks it down, and we jump to another. The Jews started with the position that they were Jews then they relied on the goodness and mercy of God, then on the law, then on ceremonial. we will clutch at any straw. “