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11

FROM THE FATHER ... TO THE FATHER

Let us begin with the answering of a question.  For Jewish monotheism, what is missing from the equation, "God minus the world = "?  The answer is obviously God. God is always God whether or not there is a world.  For pantheism the answer is "nothing at all" since God is the world and the world is God; and for panentheism the answer is "God without his/her Body" – not really God at all!

For Christianity, which confesses that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God in (everlasting) human nature, the completion of the equation, "The Holy Trinity minus the created universe = ?" is not straightforward.  The Second Person of the Trinity in becoming incarnate has made his very own, and his own unto all ages, created, human nature.  Further, because of his union with mankind through the incarnation and by the very fact that he has a human nature, the Son has drawn into the most intimate communion with the Father in and by the Holy Spirit all those who believe on his name.  Thus the completion of the equation cannot be answered as simply as it can in non-Trinitarian monotheism (Judaism, Islam, Unitarianism).

This puzzle and its related observations lead us on to consider how the Holy Trinity is portrayed in the Scriptures in relation

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to the cosmos and to mankind.  There is a movement out from God in creation, salvation, and revelation into the world, and a movement back toward and into God in worship and service.  In this "descent" and "ascent" the Holy Trinity is present, active, and revealed, and this conception of the living God is called by theologians the economic Trinity (economy being God’s ordered relation to the world).

The Old Testament makes it clear that YHWH is the Creator of the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1–3; Isa. 42:5).  He creates and sustains the cosmos by his creative word/wisdom and his powerful breath or Spirit: "By the word of YHWH the heavens were made; and all their host by the breath of his mouth" (Ps. 33:6).

Three New Testament writers build upon this teaching concerning the word and wisdom of YHWH found in both the canonical and deuterocanonical books within the Septuagint as they develop their Christology.  Jesus is the personal Word and Wisdom of God.

First of all, in the prologue of John’s Gospel there are these statements:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made (1:1-3).

The whole of creation is included in one broad sweep as it is said that the Father created through (not "by") the Word, who is the Son.

In the second place, in Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae there is this teaching:

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By the prepositions in and through Paul communicates the agency and participation of the Son in the creation of heaven and earth.  In another place, Paul presents the activity of Christ in the sustaining and maintaining of the creation: "There is. . . one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist" (1 Cor. 8:6).  Further, God’s plan is "for the fullness of time to unite all things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth" (Eph. 1:10).  Here the movement is toward God, what shall be when Christ's redeeming work is totally completed.  Finally, the writer of Hebrews, making use of the description of Wisdom in the Septuagint, wrote:

In these last days he [God] has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.  He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power (1:2-3).

Here Christ is presented as active with the Father in both the creating (through him) and the upholding of the universe.

In none of these texts is there a mention of the Holy Spirit.  However, it is surely right to assume that his presence and activity were taken for granted.  For the first Christians the biblical (O.T.) teaching concerning the Spirit’s activity in creation was revealed by God and could not be set aside.  Thus the Father through the Son [the Word] and by the Holy Spirit [the breath of his mouth] is the Creator and Sustainer of the universe.

Under the old covenant YHWH descended into his creation in a variety of ways – for example, in theophanies, sending angels, and placing his word in the mouths of prophets and sages.  The new covenant was established to replace the old (1) by the descent and incarnation of the Word, who is the Son of the Father, and (2) by the descent of the Holy Spirit, sent by the Father and by his Son.  Salvation which presupposes the created order and thus occurs within creation is from the Father, through the Son, and by the Spirit.

The Lucan narratives of the conception and birth of Jesus

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assume and proclaim that God sent his own Son to become man; to achieve this miracle of Incarnation he sent his own Spirit to Mary so that she could and would conceive Jesus.  The message is clear – YHWH is active as Creator again, creating a new epoch, order, and creation through his Son, who is Immanuel, and by his Spirit, the Life Giver.

At the beginning of Acts, Luke presents the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the assembled apostles and disciples.  Now the new creation is beginning to take practical shape.  The Son has descended and ascended and he has poured out his Spirit, who is the Spirit of the Father, upon his own disciples.  Through this anointing and indwelling Spirit, the Lord Jesus will always be with his disciples on earth until the end of the age; and salvation from God will be proclaimed in his name throughout the world.

Speaking of the descent of the Son, Paul wrote: "When the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law" (Gal. 4:4-5).  Here is Incarnation to achieve redemption.  The Lord Jesus Christ who was "rich" (in heavenly glory) for the sake of man and his salvation became "poor" (in earthly humiliation) so that, through his poverty, poor sinners might become rich (1 Cor. 8:9).  The descent of the Son from the heaven of heavens into the world of sin and shame followed by his glorious exaltation back to the heaven of heavens is powerfully dramatized by Paul in Philippians 2:5-11.  Here the Son sets aside his eternal privileges and position with the Father and descends into the evil world for the salvation of mankind.  To achieve this he becomes a servant and dies on a cross.

Paul’s writings assume that the Holy Spirit has descended and is present as the Spirit of Christ in the churches and within individual lives.  He is present because many are confessing, "Jesus is Lord," and this is only possible by the presence of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:3).  Evidence of spiritual gifts given by the exalted Lord through the Spirit abound in the congregations (1 Cor. 12).  Believers know that God has sent the Holy Spirit for they experience the Spirit of the Father and the Son in their hearts as they cry out, "Abba, Father" (Gal. 4:6).  In his own

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ministry as he proclaimed "Christ and him crucified," Paul knew that his speech was "in demonstration of the Spirit and power" and not in the wisdom of men (1 Cor. 2:1-5).

For the apostle to the Gentiles the work of salvation was the work of the Father, his Son, and his Spirit.  As he explained to Titus, his son in the Faith: "When the goodness and loving kindness of God [the Father] our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit, which he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior" (Titus 3:4-6).

At the beginning of his letters, Paul usually wrote, "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (e.g., Rom. 1:7).  This is the downward movement from God the Father and from (through) his Son.  The presence and work of the Holy Spirit is not stated but is assumed – by the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit grace and peace become realities in the souls of believers.

In explaining the redemption and salvation of the Holy Trinity, Paul developed the theme of justification and made great use of it in his letters to Rome and Galatia.  Here is an extract from his presentation of justification to the Romans.

Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God [the Father] through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings . . . because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us (5:1-5).

Justification is being placed in a right relation with God the Father on account of the saving work and merit of Jesus Christ. Justification is therefore the gift from the Father through the Son and by the Spirit, and it is a gift which is received by faith.  Those who are declared righteous for Christ’s sake have open access by grace to the Father to commune with him through Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit.  Further, the effect of being declared righteous and placed in this right relation with the Holy Trinity is that believers live joyfully and righteously; and this

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they do through the presence of the Holy Spirit in their hearts and through the love which he brings – the same love for and by which the Father sent his Son and Spirit to the church in the world.

Caught up in prayerful adoration of the Holy Trinity, Paul wrote these words at the beginning of Ephesians.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.  He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved [Son].  In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us (Eph. 1:3-8).

He continued by blessing God because "you. . . were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it" (vv. 13-14).

The gracious, saving work of God in space and time is traced back here, as Paul engaged in holy contemplation, to the purposes of the Father before the creation of the world.  Yet the movement for the salvation of man is the same as elsewhere in Paul’s writings – the Father (in his transcendent, eternal glory) through the Son (by the shedding of his blood) and in by the Holy Spirit (the living guarantee of the fullness of the life of the age to come).

In earlier chapters, we have paid careful attention to what is said in the Gospel of John concerning the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Paraklete).  Here what we need to notice is the theme of the Father sending his Son into the world and the Father with his Son sending the Holy Spirit into the world.

The prologue declares that the only Son comes into the world from the Father and that grace and truth (salvation and revelation) come through him.  As Incarnate God, he is "the

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Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (1:29).  And in the much quoted words of John 3:16-17: "For God [the Father] so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him."

The sending and giving of the Spirit by the Father and the glorified Son to the disciples is given much emphasis in John 14–16, as we noted in chapter 9.  The Paraklete comes from the Father in the name of the Son: he brings the virtues of the Son to the disciples and continues the mission of the Son in the hostile world.  Yet already in John 3:1-8 it was made clear that the same Spirit, who alone causes spiritual birth into the kingdom of God, is the Holy Spirit who is "from above," that is, from the Father.  There is salvation only for those who believe in the Son and are "born of the Spirit" and thus "born from above."

In 1 John it is made clear that the fellowship of Christians is not only with each other "but is with the Father and the Son"; further, this is because they have "an anointing from the Holy One" which abides in them.

By this we know that we abide in him [God] and he in us, because he has given us of his own Spirit.  And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world.  Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.  So we know and believe the love God has for us (4:13-16).

God the Father sent his Son into the world and gives his Spirit to those who believe in his Son in order that they may abide in God.

The movement from the Father through the Son and by the Spirit is well expressed in the opening words of 1 Peter: "To the exiles of the Dispersion. . . chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you" (1:1-2).  Here the emphasis is not upon the Father sending the Son (which is assumed), but upon the electing love

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of the Father as the basis for the application of the atoning blood of Jesus, his Son, and the sanctification wrought by the Holy Spirit in believers.

After making it clear that God the Father had sent his Son, Jesus Christ, into the world and that this Son is superior to angels and Moses, the writer of the letter to the Hebrews portrayed Christ as the new High Priest offering the unique sacrifice to establish the new covenant:

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.  For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God [the Father], purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God [the Father] (9:11-14).

Here in what we have called the "descent" the Son becomes the Priest and Victim in order to fulfill and bring to an end the sacrifices offered under the Mosaic covenant.  Thereby he opened up "a new and living way" (10:20) to the Father.  Thus already the "ascent" is included in this description of the "descent" – the Son pours out his blood that man might serve the living God with a clear conscience.

In sending his visions to the seven churches John wrote: "Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness ... and the ruler of kings on earth.  To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever" (Rev. 1:4-6).  Here the Trinity in heaven is presented (in the symbolic language of the seer) as facing the faithful on earth to bless and to keep them.

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The four Gospels were not written merely to provide information concerning Jesus and satisfy curiosity as to his identity.  They were written with an evangelistic purpose – to declare the Gospel of the Father concerning his Son, Jesus Christ, so that Jew and Gentile would believe in Jesus as Lord and Christ and receive God’s salvation.  The purpose of the Gospels is to cause men to turn from sin and idolatry to trust, serve, and worship the Father through his Son and by his Spirit.  So while they certainly assume and powerfully declare the "descent," practically speaking they were written to make the "ascent" possible by providing the content of the good news of Jesus, in and by whom alone we know and come to the Father.  In fact, we could say that everything in the New Testament was written in order to make possible the "ascent" from earth into the "new heaven and earth" and from this evil age into the glorious age of the kingdom of God.

To be saved by God into his everlasting kingdom of grace, it is necessary to be united in the Spirit to Jesus Christ and be presented or brought to the Father by this divine agency.  Such an "ascent" out of sin into friendship with God is stated with clarity and power in the letter to Ephesus, where the apostle is discussing the unity of Jew and Gentile in Christ and before God.

Now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near [to God] in the blood of Christ.  For he is our peace, who has made us [Jew and Gentile] both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility ... that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end.  And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father (Eph. 2:13-17).

The last words are very important: "Through Christ we have access in one Spirit to the Father."  Here is the basis of both salvation and worship.  Then he continues:

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So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit (2:19-22).

Here is a powerful picture of a living temple centered on Christ, indwelt by the Holy Spirit and made not of stones of granite but of apostles, prophets, and all true believers, both Jews and Gentiles.  The temple rises from earth toward heaven, which is its goal.  This divine household is built upon the saving work of Jesus Christ, energized and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Christ, and is oriented toward the Father.

Hebrews contrasts that to which the Israelites were brought by the old Exodus through the Red Sea with that to which Christians are brought through the new Exodus of the cross and resurrection of Jesus.

For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers entreat that no further messages be spoken to them.  For they could not endure the order that was given, "If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned."  Indeed so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, "I tremble with fear" (Heb. 12:18-21).

The writer is recalling what is recorded in Exodus 19 and Deuteronomy 9.  He continues:

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The "ascent" into the new creation is clearly only possible because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who is the Mediator of the new covenant.  "For Christ has entered. . . into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf" (Heb. 9:24).

Knowing what the Father through the Son and in the Spirit has done in establishing the new covenant, Christians ought to respond wholeheartedly.  Because they know that the way to God is now wide open unto those who believe, they ought to respond in worship and service.  Thus the writer of Hebrews declares:

Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way which he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water (10:19-22).

And in terms of practice he wrote:

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he [the Father] who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near (vv. 23-25).

As they wait for the Parousia of Christ, the Day of the Lord, Christians are to ascend to the Father in spirit by offering him the sacrifice of good works and the corporate activity of spiritual worship.  This theme naturally leads us on specifically to the "ascent" in prayer.

Salvation has three tenses in the New Testament. By the unique, sacrificial, atoning death of Jesus Christ salvation is procured once for all and forever. We are saved by the expiatory and

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propitiatory death of the Lord Jesus.  Once a person believes in Jesus and confesses that he is Lord, then he enters into salvation – he is being saved from sin and into the life of the Holy Trinity.  Salvation is for him "already" experienced, but it is "not yet" fully realized.  He knows that he is still a sinner in a mortal, sinful body.  However, he will certainly enjoy the fullness of salvation when, after the Parousia of the Lord Jesus Christ, in his resurrection body and with all the saints he beholds the glory of God the Father in the face of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The New Testament has a lot to say about the privileges and duties of those who are being saved from this evil age into the fullness of salvation in the life of the age to come.  Within these privileges and duties we find worship and prayer. In such holy activities, the church on earth is united in the Holy Spirit with the Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Father, and High Priest in heaven: her worship ascends to the Father within the worship and prayer offered unceasingly by Jesus to the Father.  Is not Christ at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us?  And is not the Holy Spirit interceding from within our hearts? (Rom. 8:26, 34)  And will not this continue until the end of the age when Christ shall come again to judge the living and the dead?

Speaking as a Christian to Christian believers, Paul told the church in Philippi: "We are the true circumcision, who worship God in spirit, [or "worship by the Spirit of God"] and glory in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh" (Phil. 3:3).  Here is Paul’s simple theology. Because of Jesus Christ (who he is and what he has done and is doing), worship ascends in the Holy Spirit to the Father.

Worship (prayer) is not only thanksgiving, praise, and worship, it can also be petition and intercession.  Thus Paul made this request of the church in Rome – a church he had not yet visited: "I appeal to you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf, that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, so that by God’s [the Father’s] will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company.  The God of peace be with you all.  Amen" (Rom. 15:30-33).

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In writing to the church in Colossae, Paul expressed the "ascent" in simplicity: "Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him" (Col. 3:17).  And Paul told the church in Rome: "I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God [the Father], which is your spiritual worship" (Rom. 12:1).

First Peter is clear that, as those who are chosen by the Father, redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, and being sanctified by the Holy Spirit (1:1-2, 19), Christians are placed in such a privileged relation to God that they have a joyous duty both to proclaim the Gospel and to offer spiritual sacrifice in worship and service.

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s [the Father’s] own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.  Once you were no people but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy (1 Peter 2:9-10).

And recalling Psalm 118:22 and Isaiah 28:16, which refer to Christ as the chief cornerstone of God's new temple, Peter wrote:

Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by men but in God's [the Father’s] sight chosen and precious; and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God [the Father] through Jesus Christ (2:4-5).

The assembled local church, as the holy priesthood, offers its worship, prayer, and service in the Holy Spirit to the Father through Christ the High Priest.

In his very short letter Jude told his fellow Christians, whom he addressed as "those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ" (v. 1) to "build yourselves up on your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit . . . wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life" (vv. 20-21).  His letter ended with a doxology which points to the "ascent" of the

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faithful to the Father: "Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you without blemish before the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and for ever.  Amen" (vv. 24-25).

In fact, there are many doxologies in the New Testament, most of which (as we would expect) are addressed to the Father. This is true of the powerful doxologies provided by Paul in Romans 11:33-36 and 16:25-27, as well as that of Peter in 1 Peter 1:3-5 and those of John in his Revelation (e.g., 4:11).  Yet there are also doxologies to Jesus Christ – had he not said, "that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father"? (John 5:23)  Here are two:

Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity (2 Peter 3:18).

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever.  Amen (Rev. 1:5-6).

Then there is the brief Aramaic prayer, Maranatha (1 Cor. 16:22) meaning "the Lord is coming" or "our Lord come," which points to the highest honors and true worship being offered to Jesus Christ as YHWH.  Mention also ought to be made of the Old Testament expression "calling upon the name of the Lord" (Rom. 10:12-17; 1 Cor. 1:2) as further evidence of prayer to Jesus Christ.

So the church, the bride of Christ, invokes her Lord, giving him the honor which is his due and moves in, with, and through him to render her worship to the eternal Father.  In this movement of "ascent" the Spirit is wholly present, but invisible and often anonymous.  In the New Testament there is no example of prayer being offered directly to the Holy Spirit.  This practice came later after the dogma of the Trinity had been clarified and the divine personhood of the Holy Spirit clearly established as a truth of the Faith.

Direct addressing of the Holy Spirit in liturgy is, however,

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rare.  When it is found, its presence is as significant as its rarity (e.g., the Veni, Creator Spiritus at ordinations).  It is important to note that while the Father is made known to the church by the Son, and the Son is made known by the Holy Spirit, there is no fourth divine Person to make the Spirit known in the church.  This is because he is the locus (as the Son is the agent) of both the "descent" and the "ascent" of God's economy.

If we look at what are called the two Gospel sacraments – baptism and the Lord’s Supper – we see clearly in them the recognition and proclamation of the "descent" and the active participation in the "ascent."  As the sacraments of salvation, they symbolize what the Gospel proclaims and teaches.

In submitting to baptism in the apostolic age, the repentant sinner was committing himself (through the active work of the invisible Holy Spirit) to the Lord Jesus Christ and to the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.  He was entering the "ascent" because he had received the message of the "descent" and been changed by it.  The act of being dipped, immersed, washed, or sprinkled with water pointed to cleansing and forgiveness through the blood of Jesus Christ and identification with Christ in death, burial, and resurrection.  Baptism placed him in a new relation to God and to fellow Christians and pointed him in one direction only – to the service and praise of the Father through the Son in and by the Spirit in this age and the age to come (see e.g., Gal. 3:26-27; Rom. 6:1-11; Col. 2:11-12; Titus 3:5-7).  So even if it was the case that the first baptisms were "in the name of Jesus" (Acts 2:38) and only later "in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit" (Matt. 28:19), they were Trinitarian from the beginning for they presumed, symbolized, and participated in the great movement, the missio Dei, from the Father and to the Father.

In coming to the table of the Lord and receiving sacramentally the body and blood of Jesus, Christians proclaimed the Lord Jesus Christ, who had died for them, who was now exalted in heaven, and who would come in glory to judge the world (1 Cor. 11:23-34).  It was, therefore, entirely in accord with this central

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theme of the Lord’s Supper that it soon came to be called "the Eucharist" – from eucharisteo meaning to give thanks.  (An interesting statistic is that Paul mentions the subject of thanksgiving more often, line for line, in his letters than does any other Hellenistic author!)  In the fellowship of the meal and in receiving Christ’s body and blood sacramentally, Christians were united in and by the Spirit with Christ to the Father.  They participated in the "ascent" as they partook by the presence of the Spirit of the future feast of the kingdom of God of the age to come – the Messianic banquet.

This structure is clearly found within the early liturgies of the church in both the East and West.  Both daily prayer and the Sunday Eucharist were offered to the Father in and by the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ.  And worship was offered in this way because of the clear recognition and celebration of the fact that all things come "from the Father by and through the Son and in and with the Holy Spirit" to man.

Because of the need to defend the Faith and set forth the clear, ecciesial doctrine of the Trinity as defined by the ecumenical councils, the Liturgies were later fine-tuned to include the developed doctrine of the Holy Trinity.  Thus, for example, the shorter Gloria became the praise of the immanent Trinity and the economic Trinity, "Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit ..." instead of the earlier praise of the economic Trinity alone, "Glory be to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit ..." Here we see from the fourth century onward what has been called the ontological Trinity replacing the economic Trinity.  Because heresies arose in the early church and keep on arising in the modern church, it seems that the church must always use metaphysical and ontological statements in order to ground the biblical, functional affirmations on a firm base.

The Second Council of Constantinople in 553 provided both a statement of the doctrine of the Trinity in biblical, functional terms (the economic Trinity) and in metaphysical terms (the ontological Trinity).

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whom everything exists, and one only Holy Spirit, in whom everything subsists (cf. 1 Cor. 8:6; Rom. 11:36; Eph. 4:5-6).

If anyone does not confess the one nature or essence, the one force and power of the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit, the consubstantial Trinity and one divinity, which must be adored in three hypostases or persons, let him be anathema.

The Latin translation of the original Greek rendered hypostaseis as subsistentiae, subsistences.

In order to preserve the biblical theology of the economic Trinity (from the Father through the Son and in the Holy Spirit; to the Father through the Son and in the Holy Spirit), which is fundamental to the maintenance of authentic Christian faith and worship, the confessing of the orthodox dogma of the ontological Trinity is absolutely necessary.  Yet teachers and preachers need to be clear as to the difference between, and the necessary union of, the economic and the immanent (or ontological) Trinity.  This theme will be developed in the next chapter.

Bradshaw, P.F. The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship. London: SPCK, 1992.

Martin, Ralph P. The Worship of God. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982.

Percival, Henry R., ed. The Seven Ecumenical Councils. Vol. 14 of the Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers. New York: Scribner’s, 1900.

Toon, Peter. Proclaiming the Gospel Through the Liturgy. Largo, Fla.: Prayer Book Society of the Episcopal Church, 1993.

------ Which Rite Is Right? Swedesboro, N.J.: Preservation, 1994.

Vagaggini, Cyprian. Theological Dimensions of the Liturgy. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical, 1976.

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