Kevin Giles vs. Fred Sanders on Eternal Subordination

The ff. are the 7 points (in his own words) that Kevin Giles made for rejecting any appeal to the immanent Trinity as the basis for either complementarianism or egalitarianism:

1.) The idea that the trinity prescribes human relations on earth is a very modern idea without historical precedence.

2.) The idea that the divine life in heaven prescribes human life and relations on earth is implausible. Where, we must ask, does God's perfect threefold relationship in heaven prescribe fallen human relations on earth? Nowhere in Scripture are we told to imitate divine, heavenly relations on earth. There is no biblical warrant for this idea whatsoever. Imitate Jesus? Yes. Imitate God's threefold relations in heaven? No.

3.) Specifically in regard to the man-woman relationship, to argue that the threefold divine relations in heaven prescribe the twofold man-woman relationship on earth, I think, is illogical.

4.) 1 Cor. 11:3 offers no convincing basis for this appeal to the Trinity.

5.) The idea of the Trinity speaks of the Father ruling over the Son is a denial of the full divinity of the Son and the unqualified lordship of Christ.

6.) To argue that the Son's eternal and necessary functional subordination does not imply ontological subordination is unconvincing.

7.) The idea of the Son as eternally subordinated to the Father is rejected by most contemporary Trinitarian scholars.

Kevin Giles Weighs In on the EFS Debate—From 10 Years Ago!

Click: The Evangelical Theological Society and the Doctrine of the Trinity

John Owen and the Monstrosity of an Impersonal View of the Holy Spirit

"Now, I say that this appearance of the Holy Ghost in a bodily shape, wherein he was represented by that which is a substance and hath a subsistence of its own, doth manifest that he himself is a substance and hath a subsistence of his own; for if he be no such thing, but a mere influential effect of the power of God, we are not taught right apprehensions of him but mere mistakes by this appearance, for of such an accident there can be no substantial figure or resemblance made but what is monstrous." (John Owen, Pneumatologia)

If the Holy Spirit is not a person but a mere outworking of the power of God, representing that power by a dove (a thing of the substance "bird" and subsisting as each instance of a bird with dove properties) would have been very, very weird and out of accord with how God has chosen to reveal the created order to His image-bearers.

Imagine running on a treadmill and the energy you expended burning up calories suddenly becomes a hamster??!! LOL.

Union with Christ Is Trinitarian

Marcus Peter Johnson in One with Christ: An Evangelical Theology of Salvation [Illinois: Crossway, 2013] explains:

To say that our union with Christ is Trinitarian means that by virtue of being incorporated into the life of Jesus Christ, we participate in the life, love, and fellowship of the Trinity. Because the Son is one with the Father, our being joined to the Son means we are joined to the Father. And because the Spirit exists as the bond of communion between the Father and Son, he brings us into that communion by uniting us to Christ. This staggering biblical revelation forms the personal foundation for all the benefits that constitute our salvation.[15]

The Trinity in Everything

To be Christian is to be Trinitarian. To be anything otherwise and still claim Christianity is to be in a state of damnable error and deception. In fact, the whole of created reality bears the stamp of the-One-and-the-Many as evinced in the universal-particulars relationship inherent in every created object. God's Trinitarian "seal of approval" is emblazoned on creation as it is on redemption.

Robert Letham, a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and teacher of Systematic and Historical Theology at Wales Evangelical School of Theology, explains how our whole being must possess an utterly Trinitarian thrust in terms of the expressions of our piety—in prayer, preaching, the worship service, and the Sacraments:

All Trinitarian Baptism is Valid—Hence, the Invalidity of Anabaptism

Christian baptism is not a baptism into a denomination, group, etc., but a baptism into the Christian faith, as grounded upon the ontological Trinity. This speaks of the universality (catholicity) of the true Church of Christ, marked by its confession of the Trinity, and that baptism in any of the different denominations, groups, etc. that have this Trinitarian confession is a valid baptism, as it is a baptism into the Trinity. Hence, Anabaptism (rebaptism) is definitely error of an egregious sort, if not utterly sinful (as absurd as regrowing foreskin for recircumcision!).

Dr. Francis Nigel Lee explains:

Christomonism and Prayer

Do you find yourself praying almost exclusively to the Lord Jesus Christ? If so, then you are unwittingly committing the error of Christomonism.

What is Christomonism? It is a de facto denial of the Trinity by virtue of the ignorance of the distinct roles that each Person of the Godhead plays in the economy of redemption. In the area of prayer, it manifests in the ignorance of the ramifications of the biblical model of prayer as outlined by Christ in the aptly named "Lord's Prayer".

Scripture reveals in its hallowed pages that prayer is chiefly directed to God the Father, through God the Son, and enabled by God the Spirit. There are only three instances in the whole of the New Testament that prayer was addressed explicitly to the ascended Christ, and these were peculiar cases, namely: Stephen's response to the vision of Christ just before dying a martyr's death (Acts 7:55—60), Paul on the Damascus road (Acts 9:4—6), and John in an apocalyptic vision (Rev. 22:20).

Now, I'm not categorically stating that it is wrong to pray to Christ or to the Holy Spirit, for praying to One is also to be in touch with the Others since God is united. But if we are to be faithful to Scripture, we must pattern our prayers after its clear teaching on the matter. Consider this: every true believer is united to Christ by faith, is part of His body, and is even now seated with Him in the heavenlies. Christ, as the one and only mediator between God and man, intercedes for us, as this is part of His role as the Redeemer of the elect. It is then the Holy Spirit's role to enable us to pray and to do so in accordance with the will of God by leading us to Scripture and illuminating our spirits to its truths. And it is the Father, whose ultimate will it was to enact the plan of redemption, who receives the glory in all of this.

This puts into clearer focus the intercession of Christ as it makes us see that the only kind of prayer that is acceptable to the Father is the kind made by His Son, and since we are in Christ, it is as if our prayers are Christ's prayers, hence we pray "in His Name". Of course, it is plain enough to see how ludicrous it would be for Christ to pray to Himself. Such is the wonderful, magnificent and awesome nature of His identification with His people.

Theology, Knowledge of Self, and Prayer

To define prayer as merely "talking to God" is deficient. To biblically plumb its depths, one must begin with God and how speech plays a key role in the interactions between the Persons of the Trinity, and how we as men made in God's image and likeness analogize these interactions in our communications with fellow men and God Himself.

To downplay theology is to shun prayer.

"     All speech originates with the Persons of the Trinity.
      God has made us persons in his image.
      Therefore God talks to us, and we talk to him.

Our knowledge of God as the Trinity, three Persons in one God, is the foundation for our understanding of ourselves as discoursing people and as praying people. The more we grasp what it is for God to be as he is, the more we will grasp what it is for us to be as we are. What God is and what we are will determine how the discourse between us is shaped. To the extent that our perceptions of either God or ourselves are distorted, so our perceptions of prayer will be similarly distorted."

- Graeme Goldsworthy, Prayer and the Knowledge of God, ch. 2, p. 37.

The Trinitarian Ground of Good

"Within the three religions that have a personal view of God...(Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), only Christianity truly provides robust grounds for values. And this is because of the Trinity. The Trinity allows us to see God interact with himself; it is a window into his character. For example, how do we know God is a loving God? Surely, we could point to the Incarnation, but that relies on something outside himself (the world) and God doesn't rely on the world for the way he is. In the Trinity, however, we see him actively loving within thee Godhead, but without being contingent on anything outside himself. Only the Trinity allows God to escape being arbitrary or relying on something or some standard outside himself. Islam's view of God as radically one fails on one or both of these problems and prevents it from providing a proper grounding of values. And the non-trinitarian view of Judaism fails for the same reason. The way we can have confidence in God's character and his promises is through the Trinity."

- Doug Powell (MA in Christian Apologetics, Biola University; contributor to the Apologetics Study Bible), Modern Reformation, Vol. 18, Number 7, November/December 2009, pp. 38—39.