All the Persons of the Godhead Are God
The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. Hence, there is
one being, one reality. There are not three Gods, but only one. Christian faith is
not tri-theistic. The Father is the one and only God, so likewise are the Son and
Holy Spirit. Thus the Father is totally God, the Son is totally God, and the Holy
Spirit is totally God: there is no depth, width, or breadth of the divine reality that
is not fully Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Godhead, accordingly, is not
something lying behind (or out of which comes) the being of Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit. Hence, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the same essence. To use the language
of the Nicene Creed (A.D. 325), they are homoousios.Thus Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, while differing personally, do not differ essentially. The whole undivided essence belongs to each of the three persons. To use the Latin
expression, they are una substantia, "one substance"; they are "consubstantial."
There is some danger that such terms as essence and substance imply that God is
impersonal. However, the intention is simply to say that the concrete being of
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the same: they are identical in being.
Hence, whatever may be said about the Father begetting the Son and the Spirit
proceeding from the Father is not to be understood as if the Son and Spirit
receive their essence or being from the Father. What is begotten and proceeds is
not essence but personhood. The begetting and proceeding are eternal; hence the
relationship is one that inheres within the one divine reality. This is sometimes
referred to as the perichoresis (or "coinherence") of the persons, so that the three
persons are said to be in and to interpenetrate one another. Each of the persons
accordingly contains the whole of the Godhead and is the one undivided God.
Another way to describe this oneness of the Triune God is to understand it as
a superpersonal union of three Divine persons-the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit-of such an intense kind that there is only one God. Since love is the
essential nature of God, and love (iagape) means self-giving to another, then
God is within Himself such a totality of self-giving that Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit are united as one God. As one writer has put it: "God is within Himself not
sheer unity but a complex and manifold being, the union and communion of
three Divine persons." Hence, the technical language of perichoresis takes on
living significance in the supernatural union of love.
Since Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the same in essence or being, they are
each to be worshiped and honored as the one God. The Creed of Constantinople
(A.D. 381), which affirmed the full deity of the Holy Spirit (Nicea had already
done this in relation to Jesus Christ), speaks of "the Holy Spirit ... who is
worshiped and glorified together with the Father and the Son." Also they have
the same attributes. Whatever is said of God-for example, that He is infinite,
eternal, holy, loving, all-powerful, all-knowing-applies alike to Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. Finally, they are one in works: the one and same God is at work
in creation, redemption, and empowerment. What the Father does, the Son does,
and the Holy Spirit does. Or, to put it a bit differently, there are no works of the
Father that are not also works of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. All the works of
the Triune God are indivisible.
This is highly significant for the Christian life....