§ 5. It is in Harmony with Scripture.
The Scriptures also speak of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. When they speak of the Father, they usually mean God as the Supreme Being. Matt. 11:25: “Jesus said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth.” As omniscient: “Of that day knoweth no man, nor the angels, nor the Son, but the Father only.” As omnipotent: “Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee.” As having life in himself, and as spirit: “They shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.” As the source of all power, life, and authority of the Son: “I came forth of the Father;” “the Father, which hath sent me;” “the works which the Father hath given me to do.” The apostle Paul says, “To us there is but one God, the Father;” and calls him “the God of our Lord Jesus;” also “the one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all.” The great order of the universe depends on him: “He has put the times and the seasons in his own power.” Christ will at last “deliver up the kingdom to God, the Father.” By Christ, “we have access in one spirit to the Father.” “All things were [pg 435] delivered” to Christ “of his Father,” whose will Christ always sought. Thus is the Father spoken of in the New Testament as the Source from which all things have proceeded, and the End to whom all things tend.
The Son (or Son of God) is spoken of in the New Testament as distinct from the Father, but intimately united with him. The Father gives power; the Son receives it. The Father gives light; the Son receives it. The Son does nothing but what he seeth the Father do. “The Father hath sent me,” he says, “and I live by the Father.” “I am not alone; but I, and the Father who sent me.” “The Son is in the Father, and the Father in him.” “No man cometh to the Father but by” him. He shows the Father to the world. The Father is glorified in the Son. He is in the bosom of the Father. The Father sent him to be the Saviour of the world. “He that hath the Son hath life;” “And in him is everlasting life.”
The Holy Spirit, which came after Jesus left the world (also called the Holy Ghost and the Spirit of God), is an inward revelation of God and of Christ. It teaches all things, comforts, convinces. It is a spirit of life, lifts one above the flesh, makes one feel that he is a Son of God, communicates a variety of gifts, produces unity in the Church, sanctifies, sheds the love of God into the heart, and renews the soul. The New Testament speaks of joy in the Holy Ghost, power of the Holy Ghost, and communion of the Holy Ghost.
According to the New Testament, the Father would seem to be the Source of all things, the Creator, the Fountain of being and of life. The Son is spoken of as the manifestation of that Being in Jesus Christ; and the Holy Ghost is spoken of as a spiritual influence, proceeding from the Father and the Son, dwelling in the hearts of believers, as the source of their life,—the idea of God seen in causation, in reason, and in conscience, as making the very life of the soul itself.
There are these three revelations of God, and we know of no others. They are distinct from each other in form, but the same in essence. They are not merely three names for the same thing; but they are real personal manifestations of God, real subsistences, since he is personally present in all of them. This view avoids all heresies, since it neither “divides the substance” nor “confounds the persons.” And these are really the two heresies, which are the most common and the most to be avoided. We think it can be easily shown that these are the great practical dangers to be avoided. To “divide the substance” is so to separate the revelations of God as to make them contradict or oppose each other: to “confound the persons” is not to recognize each as an independent source of truth to the soul.