Trinity and incarnation - 27 September 2011 |
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Some gems from Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol 3, p. 275.
“Only the theistic and trinitarian confession of God’s characteristic essence opens the possibility for the fact of the incarnation.” In other words, if God were not triune, then he could not have become man. But why not?
“For here God remains who he is and can yet communicate himself to others.” The doctrine of the Trinity teaches that God the Father gives all that he is to the Son by begetting the Son, and the Father and the son give all that they are to the spirit by breathing the spirit. Yet in begetting the Son, the Father does not become other than he is. He retains possession of the divine essence (the thing that God “is”) even in the act of begetting the Son. And, of course, it is precisely by causeing the son to exist as Son that the Father retains his distinctive identity as Father. After all, if you have a Son, you necessarily must have a Father.
So the triune God can remain who he is and yet communicate himself to others. And in the incarnation he does precisely this – remaining who he is (God), God the Son comes-to-be (i.e. comes-to-exist) as a man.
“God’s trinitarian essence is the presupposition and condition for the incarnation of God.”
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Posted by Steve Jeffery · Topics: Minister's Blog