4 - Trinitarian life
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Summary
Christ is the key, we have seen, to human nature, and to the sort of grace human nature was made to enjoy. But Christ is also the key, I want to show now, to the trinity and its significance for us. Christ is the key to understanding this second set of topics because of the peculiar character of the human life he leads. Because he is the Word, Jesus Christ displays in his human life the relationships that the Word has to the other members of the trinity; as a human being he leads, in short, a trinitarian way of life.
The life of the Word is constituted by its dynamic relationships with the other members of the trinity from which it is inseparable; the Word has no life apart from the other two. In becoming incarnate the Word therefore extends this same pattern of trinitarian relationships into its own human life so as to give it shape according to that pattern. The description of Jesus' human life, which the New Testament offers, becomes in this way the basis for understanding both what the relationships within the trinity are like and what they are to mean for us as new organizing principles of human living.
This meaning of the trinity for us brings the discussion of previous chapters to its appropriate next step. Although the preoccupations of earlier chapters might seem to have nothing to do with the present one, they lead into it.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Christ the Key , pp. 140 - 206Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009
References
, The Eternal Son: A Theology of the Word of God and Christology, trans. (Huntington, Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor, 1978), p. 401.Google Scholar
, “Gender,” in , , , and (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Anglican Studies (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
, Summa Theologica [Theologiae], trans. Fathers of the Dominican Province, 5 vols. (Westminster, Maryland, Christian Classics, 1948), vol. i, Q43, a2, ad3, p. 220:Google Scholar
, “On the Trinity,” trans. and , in and (eds.), Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. ix, Second Series (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 1994)Google Scholar
, “Against Eunomius,” trans. , , and , in and (eds.), Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. v, Second Series (Peabody, Massachusetts, 1994)Google Scholar
, “Four Discourses against the Arians,” trans. and , in and (eds.), Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. iv, Second Series (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1957)Google Scholar
, Narratives of a Vulnerable God: Christ, Theology, and Scripture (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox, 1994), p. 53; and the whole of chapter 3.Google Scholar
, Systematic Theology, trans. , 3 vols. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1991), vol. i, pp. 268–9.Google Scholar
, “The Holy Spirit in Greek Patristic Thought,”Scottish Journal of Theology 7 (1954), p. 365, citing Basil's Epistle 38 on Hebrews 1:3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, The Letters of Saint Athanasius concerning the Holy Spirit, trans. (London: Epworth, 1951), Epistle 1, p. 94.Google Scholar
, Tractates on the Gospel of John 28–54, trans. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1993)Google Scholar
, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1998).Google Scholar
, “On the Incarnation of the Word,” trans. , in and (eds.), Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. iv, Second Series (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1957)Google Scholar
, Commentary on the Gospel according to John, trans. (Oxford: James Parker, 1874), Book 12, chapter 17, p. 657 (John 20:17).Google Scholar
Calvin's Commentaries: The Gospel according to St. John, trans. , 2 vols. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1993).
, The Mystery of the Trinity; trans. (Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1999);Google Scholar
; “The Trinitarian Implications of Luke and Acts,”Heythrop Journal 7/1 (1966), pp. 18–32;CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, Tractates on the Gospel of John 55–111, trans. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1994)Google Scholar
, On the Holy Spirit, trans. (Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1997), chapter 19, section 49, p. 77; see also chapter 16, section 39, p. 65.Google Scholar
, “Against Heresies,” trans. and , in and (eds.), Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. i (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1989), Book 3, chapter 17, sections 1–2, p. 444.Google Scholar
, “The Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and his Relation to the Son, as the Basis of our Deification and Adoption,” in (ed.), Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ: Ecumenical Reflections on the Filioque Controversy, (London: SPCK, 1981), p. 179.Google Scholar
, Deus Trinitatis: The Doctrine of the Triune God (Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 42, 138, 148, 154–5.Google Scholar
, “Jesus – Flesh and Spirit: An Exposition of Romans 1.3–4,” Journal of Theological Studies 24/1 (1973), pp. 52–6.Google Scholar
, “Exposition of the Orthodox Faith,” trans. , in and (eds.), Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. ix, Second Series (Peabody, Massachusetts, Hendrickson, 1994)Google Scholar
, Theology and the Church, trans. (Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1980), p. 29Google Scholar
, “An Address on Religious Instruction,” trans. , in (ed.), Christology of the Later Fathers (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1954), section 2, pp. 272–3.Google Scholar
, Divine Meaning: Studies in Patristic Hermeneutics (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1995), pp. 267–8.Google Scholar
, “On the Trinity,” trans. and , in (ed.), Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. iii (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1956)Google Scholar
, Theo-Drama, vol. iv (The Action), trans. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1994), p. 364.Google Scholar
, Theo-Drama, vol. iii (Dramatis Personae), trans. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992), p. 521.Google Scholar
, “Orations,” trans. and , in and (eds.), Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. vii (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1983)Google Scholar
God against Religion: Rethinking Christian Theology through Worship (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2008)
, Tractates on John 11–27, trans. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1988)Google Scholar
, I Believe in the Holy Spirit (The Complete Three-Volume Work in One Volume), trans. (New York: Crossroad Herder, 1999)Google Scholar
, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1976), pp. 57–8.Google Scholar
, “The Indwelling of the Holy Spirit in Christ,”St. Vladimir's Seminary Quarterly 28 (1984), pp. 61–2.Google Scholar
, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. , ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), vol. ii, Book 4, chapter 17, p. 1360.Google Scholar
, Theological Dimensions of the Liturgy, trans. and (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1976)Google Scholar
, The Place of Christ in Liturgical Prayer (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1989).Google Scholar
and , Prayers of the Eucharist: Early and Reformed (New York: Pueblo, 1987), pp. 104–13.Google Scholar