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Translating the Greek 'prosopon' with the English 'person' does lop off a portion that Bible word's meaning.
It is difficult to see that it is always the wrong portion, though. As will be seen, the Bible uses 'prosopon'
of the Father and the Spirit. We do not commonly use 'person' to mean
'face.' But given that the Bible says that "God is a Spirit"
(John 4:24), it is not clear that 'face' is an improvement. Here is the
first entry in Webster's definition of 'face': "The front part of
an animal's head..." (Webster's International).
Face to Face
Attentive Bible readers are aware that God has more than one 'face', or 'prosopon'. There is a face of God
which no man can see and live: "But He said, 'You cannot see My face ['prosopon' LXX]; for no man shall see Me,
and live.'" (Exodus 33:20).
Yet many have seen God and lived: "So Jacob called the name of the
place Peniel: 'For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.'" (Genesis 32:30).
There is a face of God which no man can see and live. Yet many have seen
God and lived. Does the Bible contradict itself? That cannot
be! Some, like Daniel, have seen similitudes and visions in the night,
but others are plainly stated to have encountered the LORD Himself, face
to face:
"So the LORD spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. And he would return
to the camp, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle." (Exodus 33:11);
"Not so with My servant Moses; He is faithful in all My house. I speak with him face to face, Even plainly,
and not in dark sayings; and he sees the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid To speak against My servant
Moses?'" (Numbers 12:7-8);
"But since then there has not arisen in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to
face ['prosopon kata prosopon' LXX]..." (Deuteronomy 34:10).
Thus, there is a face of God which no man can see and live. Yet
prophets and patriarchs have seen God and lived. Jacob not only saw Him face to face: "So
Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: 'For I have seen God face to face ['prosopon pros
prosopon' LXX], and my life is preserved.'" (Genesis 32:30), - but even wrestled
with Him! Not Jesse Ventura-style body slamming but 'Queen for a
Day' crying jags fired the competition:
"He took his brother by the heel in the womb,
And in his strength he struggled with God.
Yes, he struggled with the Angel and prevailed;
He wept, and sought favor from Him.
He found Him in Bethel,
And there He spoke to us -
That is, the LORD God of hosts.
The LORD is His memorable name." (Hosea 12:3-5).
Knowing that there is a face of God which no man can see and live, we are
thus forced to conclude that there is another face of God which one can
see and live with safety: "For it is the God who commanded light to
shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of
the knowledge of the glory of God in the face ['prosopon'] of Jesus Christ." (2 Corinthians 4:6).
This word, "prosopon," is the word the earliest writers employed to say, in Greek, 'One
God in three persons.' The Latin term 'persona' is the correlative term to 'prosopon': "Nor was
the word 'person' in use only among the Latins, for the Greeks, perhaps to testify their agreement, taught that there are
three 'prosopa' in God." (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book I, Chapter XIII, 2.).
The face of God seen by prophet and patriarch cannot be the Father, because
Jesus tells us so:
"Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen
the Father." (John 6:46);
"And the Father Himself, who sent Me, has testified of Me. You have neither heard
His voice at any time, nor seen His form." (John 5:37).
So: prophets and patriarchs encountered God: God Himself, in person, not
represented in vision or dream; yet they did not encounter God the Father.
Whom did they encounter? God the Son! The pre-incarnate
Logos: "...the image of the invisible God." (Colossians 1:15).
Prosopon: the Father and the Son
The Bible uses the word 'person,' the Greek 'prosopon', both of the Son, and also of the Father.
The Bible talks about the "person" of the Son: "To whom ye forgive any
thing, I forgive also: for if I forgave any thing, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it
in the person ['prosopon'] of Christ..." (2 Corinthians 2:10 KJV).
'Prosopon' is also used of the Father:
"And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us
from the face ['prosopon'] of him that sitteth on the
throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb..." (Revelation 6:16);
"Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say
unto you, tthat in heaven their angels do always behold the face ['prosopon'] of my Father which is in
heaven." (Matthew 18:10);
"Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing
may come from the presence ['prosopon'] of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached
to you before..." (Acts 3:19-20).
"For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are
copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to
appear in the presence ['prosopon'] of God for us..." (Hebrews 9:24).
...and also of the Son:
"These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence ['prosopon'] of the Lord
and from the glory of His power, when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those
who believe, because our testimony among you was believed." (2 Thessalonians 1:9-10).
So Bible readers who speak of 'the person of the Son' and 'the person of the Father' are not departing from Biblical usage.
Prosopon: The Holy Spirit
Parallelism, the repetition of the same thought, differently expressed,
in sequence, is of common occurrence in the Old Testament. If these are
instances of equivalent parallelism, then 'prosopon' is also used of the Holy Spirit:
"Cast me not away from thy presence ['prosopon' LXX]; and remove not thy holy Spirit from me."
(Psalm 51:11).
"Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? and whither shall I flee from thy presence ['prosopon' LXX)?"
(Psalm 139:7).
A similar Hebrew word, paniym, occurs in Ezekiel 39:29: "Neither will I hide my face ['paniym'] any
more from them: for I have poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord GOD."
Express Image
"God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers
by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all
things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express
image of His person ['hypostasis'], and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by
Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high..." (Hebrews 1:3).
In the half century after Nicaea, the catch-phrase "One substance ['ousia'] in
three subsistences ['hypostases']" came into favor amongst Greek theologians. T. F. Torrance credits
Didymus of Alexandria [c. 310 - 395 A.D.] with this formula: "He [Didymus
of Alexandria] may well have been the first theologian to have used the
formula, 'mia ousia, treis hypostaseis' [one substance, three hypostases]..." (The Trinitarian Faith, p.
323). The term itself had been used before: "Origen in turn
writes: 'We have learned to believe in three hypostases, the Father and
the Son and the Holy Ghost."" (In Joan, XIV, 28., Abbe Felix
Klein, The Doctrine of the Trinity, p. 89). Like 'prosopon', this word is also Biblical, occuring in Hebrews 1:3.
The "brightness" and "express image" of Hebrews 1:3 delineate a relation between "God" (the Father)
of verse 1 and "His Son". An "express image" is numerically distinct from its original, though
differing in no particular feature. Much as 'Oneness' Pentecostals fondly hope to nudge these
relations toward the incarnation, making 'the flesh' the express image of 'the Spirit' (however
that may be done), the Bible's "through whom also He made the worlds" closes that door, making it
plain the "Son" under discussion is the eternal Son, present at the Day of Creation.
The 'God' of Hebrews 1:1 is God the Father, as we know from His being placed in relation to "His
Son." 'Theos' [God] and 'kyrios' [Lord], wedded together in
the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) as the two common titles of
the living God, find themselves neatly sorted out in the New Testament, dispensed respectively to
Father and Son: "For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are
many gods and many lords), yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things,
and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom
we live." (1 Corinthians 8:5-6). To those unfamiliar with this New Testament usage, the
Jehovah's Witnesses and the 'Oneness' Pentecostals plug 'Father-onlyism' as the Bible way. Yet
one might with equal justice base 'Son-onlyism' on Hebrews 1:8, where it is "the Son"
called "God": "But to the Son He says: 'Your throne, O God, is forever and ever...'",
or 'Holy Spirit-onlyism' on Acts 5:4, where it is the Holy Spirit called "God": "...You
have not lied to men but to God." Common sense dictates that, where "God" is placed
in relation to another who is known to be God, like "His Son", "God" is understood specifically of Him
who bears that relation: in this case, God the Father.
The understanding of the Greek theologians that there is more than one
'hypostasis' in God may have arisen through close study of Hebrews 1:3.
An 'exact imprint' is numerically distinct, though substantively identical,
to its examplar:
"The apostle, calling the Son of God 'the stamp of the Father's hypostasis'
[Heb. 1:3], doubtless assigns some subsistence to the Father wherein he
differs from the Son. For to consider hypostasis equivalent to essence...would be not only
uncouth but also absurd. For since the essence of God is simple and undivided, and he
contains all in himself, without portion or derivation, but in integral perfection, the Son
will be improperly, even foolishly, called his 'stamp.' But because the Father, although distinct
in his proper nature, expresses himself wholly in the Son, for a very good reason it is said that he
has made his hypostasis visible in the latter. In close agreement with this are the words
immediately following, that the Son is 'the splendor of his glory'. Surely we infer from
the apostle's words that the very hypostasis that shines forth in the Son is in the Father.
From this we also easily ascertain the Son's hypostasis, which distinguishes him from the
Father...Indeed, this is not a distinction of essence, which it is unlawful to make manifold.
Therefore, if the testimony of the apostle obtains any credence, it follows that there are in
God three hypostases." (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book I, Chapter XIII, 2).
This use of 'hypostasis' by Greek theologians provoked controversy in the West. The Greeks diagnosed the problem
as the "poverty" of the Latin language: "We use in an orthodox sense the terms one Essence and three Hypostases,
the one to denote the nature of the Godhead, the other the properties of the Three; the Italians mean the same, but, owing to the
scantiness of their vocabulary, and its poverty of terms, they are unable to distinguish between Essence and Hypostases, and
therefore introduce the term Persons, to avoid being understood to assert three Essences. The result, were it not piteous,
would be laughable. This slight difference of sound was taken to indicate a difference of faith." (Gregory Nazianzen,
Oration 21:35). The 'poverty' problem was this: the Latin 'substance' shares an etymology with 'hypostasis',
literally 'standing under,' and is consequently an attractive choice for the translator. Except 'substance' had already been
spoken for: it was the common rendering of 'ousia', which means 'being' or 'essence'. But all acknowledged that
three 'ousia's' was tritheism. The solution can run in either of two directions: either kick 'ousia' upstairs,
translating with a form of 'esse' ['to be'] (as 'ousia' is a form of 'einai', 'to be'), namely 'essence',
reserving 'substance' to correspond with 'hypostasis'; or else leave 'substance' to correspond to 'ousia',
translating 'hypostasis' as 'subsistence.' The contention over terms rose to this degree: "...there was a danger of
the whole world being torn asunder in the strife about syllables." (Ibid.)
To Each His Own
How did 'hypostasis,' which means 'subsistence' or 'instantiation,' come to be treated as functionally equivalent
to 'person'? Those Greek theologians who preferred 'hypostasis' to 'person' were liberal-minded enough to grant to
each his own: "...thus we are regenerated, acknowledging the Unity in the Essence and in the undivided worship, and the
Trinity in the Hypostases or Persons (which term some prefer.) And let not those who are contentious on these points utter
their scandalous taunts, as if our faith depended on terms and not on realities. For what do you mean who assert the three
Hypostases? Do you imply three Essences by the term? I am assured that you would loudly shout against those who do
so. For you teach that the Essence of the Three is One and the same. What do you mean, who assert the Three
Persons? Do you imagine a single compound sort of being, with three faces, or of an entirely human form? Perish
the thought! You too will loudly reply that he who thinks thus, will never see the face of God, whatever it may be."
(Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 42, 16.) Though 'hypostasis' does not mean 'person,' those who preferred to say 'hypostasis'
said it at the same time as those who preferred to say 'person;' to each his own.
Men and Angels
Pet-food commercials employ 'person' as roughly equivalent to 'human being,'
but the same cannot be said of 'prosopon.' Angels too have 'faces':
"And all that sat in the council, looking stedfastly on him, saw his
face ['prosopon'] as it had been the face ['prosopon'] of an angel." (Acts 6:15 ).
And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his
face ['prosopon'] was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire:..." (Revelation 10:1 ).
Even the theophanic 'Angel of the Lord,' who is God Himself, has a 'face':
"And when Gideon perceived that he was an angel of the LORD, Gideon said, Alas, O Lord GOD! for because I have
seen an angel of the LORD face to face ['prosopon pros prosopon' LXX]." (Judges 6:22 )
In contemporary American English, 'person' is dwindling down to meaning 'human being'. This is the first definition in
Webster's: "person,...An individual human being;..." (Webster's International). In the
Bible, 'prosopon' is applied not only to angels, but even to inanimate objects:
"But there rose a fountain out of the earth, and watered the whole
face ['prosopon' LXX] of the earth." (Genesis 2:6).
Because 'prosopon' comes from 'pros' 'ops,' 'about the eyes,' its extension to the interface of
inanimate objects would seem to be by metaphor.
Persona
Tertullian, writing in Latin, employed the term "personae" of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Tertullian wrote 'Against Praxeas' after 213 A.D., which is after Hippolytus had written 'Against the Heresy
of One Noetus' in Greek. Some readers take Tertullian's reference to "him
whose agency God was pleased to employ" as a fulsome circumlocation
for himself:
"Praxeas' tares had been moreover sown, and had produced their fruit
here also, while many were asleep in their simplicity of doctrine; but
these tares actually seemed to have been plucked up, having been discovered
and exposed by him whose agency God was pleased to employ. " (Tertullian,
Against Praxeas, I.).
That seems unlikely, given his own testimony that he had recently gone
to school with the Holy Spirit on this topic:
"We, however, as we indeed always have done and more especially since we have been better instructed
by the Paraclete, who leads men indeed into all truth, believe that there is one only God, but under the following dispensation,
or oikonomia, as it is called, that this one only God has also a Son, His Word, who proceeded from Himself, by whom
all things were made, and without whom nothing was made." (Against Praxeas, II.)
I think it likelier he was referring to Hippolytus, who had written 'Against the Heresy of One Noetus' at the first
outbreak of this heresy. But while he cannot claim originality for the term, Tertullian was a careful writer mindful of the
Latin word's meaning. 'Persona' was a term with legal implications. Legal consequences had built up upon
the base of the word's literal foundation of a 'mask' distinguishing a
character in a drama, thus, a person:
"persona, a mask, esp. as worn by actors in Greek and Roman drama.
TRANSF., (1) role, part, character, person represented by an actor...(2) in gen., the part which anyone
plays...(3) a personality, individuality, character." (Cassell's Latin Dictionary)
These legal implications clustered around the idea that a 'person' is one competent to give legal testimony. Is this
implication accurate when talking about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? Most
emphatically!: Three Witnesses.
Thrice Holy
Aptly the triune God taught Moses to bless the children of Israel,
"The LORD bless you and keep you,
The LORD make His face ['prosopon' LXX] shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The LORD lift up His countenance ['prosopon' LXX] upon you,
And give you peace." (Numbers 6:24-26).
"Restore us, O God;
Cause Your face ['prosopon' LXX] to shine,
And we shall be saved!...
Restore us, O God of hosts;
Cause Your face ['prosopon' LXX] to shine,
And we shall be saved!...
Restore us, O LORD God of hosts;
Cause Your face ['prosopon' LXX] to shine,
And we shall be saved!" (Psalm 80:3-19).
Who are the 'God-people'?
One hears from 'Oneness' Pentecostals the barbarous yawp, 'God-people'.
This unholy expression comes from the contemporary English usage
of employing 'people' as an all-purpose plural of 'person'. But it ain't!
To the dictionary, 'person' and 'people' are two altogether different
words, with completely different etymologies! The
English 'person' is the Latin 'persona', the plural
of which is 'personae': "persona (personae)...C. A
person, personage, character" (A Latin Dictionary
for Schools, Charlton T. Lewis). The English
'people', by contrast, comes from the Latin
'populus', the plural of which is 'populi':
"populus (populi), I. Prop. A. a people, nation; B.
I. In Rome, the whole body of citizens, people...2.
The citizens...B. A multitude, host, crowd, throng,
great number...the public." (A Latin Dictionary,
Charlton T. Lewis). The plural of 'person' is
'persons', the plural of 'people' is 'peoples'.
Sample sentence: 'The peoples of the Balkans
must learn to live in harmony.'
Separate or Distinct?
"In over 20,000 references about God in Scripture we get to know all
we need to know about the subject. If we will take the Bible literally
as to what it says about Him, as we do with other things the subject will
be very clear; but if we make God a mystery, ignore the plain statements
of Scripture about Him, and refuse to believe the many descriptions of
God given by those who have seen one, two, and three separate persons called 'God,' then we will remain
in ignorance." (Finis Dake, The Dake Anotated Refrence Bible, p. 290 (280)).
If 'a' is in 'b' and 'b' is in 'a', in what sense can 'a' and 'b' be "separate"?:
"Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?"
(John 14:10).
This is why tradition denies that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are 'separate' persons:
"Since as Jerome remarks, a 'heresy arises from words wrongly used,'
when we speak of the Trinity we must proceed with care and with befitting
modesty; because, as Augustine says (De Trin. i, 3), 'nowhere is error
more harmful, the quest more toilsome, the finding more fruitful.' Now,
in treating of the Trinity we must beware of two opposite errors, and proceed
cautiously between them - namely, the error of Arius, who placed a Trinity
of substance with the Trinity of persons, and the error of Sabellius, who
placed unity of person with the unity of essence.
"Thus, to avoid the error of Arius we must shun the use of the terms
diversity and difference in God, lest we take away the unity of essence;
we may, however, use the term 'distinction' on account of the relative
opposition...But lest the simplicity and singleness of the divine essence
be taken away, the terms 'separation' and 'division,' which belong to the
parts of a whole, are to be avoided...Hence Hilary says (De Trin. vii):
'It is sacrilege to assert that the Father and the Son are separate in
Godhead.'" (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, First Part Q. 31, Article
2).
'Separate' is wrong, 'distinct' is Biblically accurate.
Divisibility into parts, a characteristic of the
material universe, is not to be looked for in God. Thus a word like 'separate' which, taken
literally, proposes division into parts, is malapropos: "separate, v.t....To disunite, to
divide..." (Webster's International, 1965). "The words Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
certainly indicate a real distinction, not allowing us to suppose that they are merely epithets by
which God is variously designated from his works. Still they indicate distinction only, not
division." (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book I, Chapter XIII, 17).
To go back to the Latin roots of these words, 'distinguo' means to "mark off". When you
take a magic marker and label 'a' and 'b', you are 'distinguishing' a from b. 'Separo' means
to "disjoin, sever". When you take a meat cleaver
and divide 'a' from 'b', you are 'separating' them. So 'distinct'
is appropriate to the persons of the Trinity, whereas 'separate' is not.
Individuals
"The Father is called God, the Son is called God, and the Holy Spirit is called God.
As individual persons each can be called God and collectively they can be spoken of as one God because of their
perfect unity. The word God is used either as as a singular or a plural word, like sheep." (Finis Dake,
The Dake Annotated Reference Bible, p. 490 (280)
Are Father, Son and Holy Spirit 'individuals'? What is an 'individual'?:
"individual...[from L. individuus, indivisible - in, not, and dividuus,
divisible. DIVIDE.] Subsisting as one indivisible entity or distinct
being..." (Webster's International, 1965).
This Latin word corresponds to the Greek 'atomos': "individuus (in/divido), indivisible, atoms...an
atom." (Cassell's Latin Dictionary). Though modern-day 'atoms' splinter into a plethora of sub-atomic particles,
the original concept of an 'atom' is that it's the smallest unit of divisibility.
If God is comprised of 'individuals,' then God can be divided into parts.
But that God is perfectly simple: that is, that He cannot be divided into parts,-- follows from His necessary
and eternal existence:
"God being a Spirit, we learn that he is a simple and uncompounded
Being, and does not consist of parts, as a body does; his spirituality
involves his simplicity: some indeed consider this as an attribute of God;
and his spirituality also: and, indeed, every attribute of God, is God
himself, is his nature, and are only so many ways of considering it, or
are so many displays of it. However, it is certain God is not composed
of parts, in any sense...If God was composed of parts he would not be 'eternal',
and absolutely the first Being, since the composing parts would, at least,
co-exist with him; besides, the composing parts, in our conception of them,
would be prior to the compositum; as the body and soul of man, of which
he is composed, are prior to his being a man...all which is inconsistent
with the eternity of God...nor would he be 'immutable', unalterable, and
immortal; since what consists of parts, and depends upon the union of them,
is liable to alteration, and to be resolved into those parts again, and
so be dissolved and come to destruction." (John Gill, Body of Divinity,
Of the Simplicity of God).
If God were comprised of parts, then He would exist neither eternally nor
necessarily...as He certainly does: "For thus says the High and Lofty
One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and
holy place..." (Isaiah 57:15).
God-Beings
The Nicene Creed asserts that Father and Son are 'homoousios,' meaning, of one substance, essence, or being:
This, too, is denied by Finis Dake, who finds multiple "beings"
in God:
"There is more than one Jehovah and more than one God as individuals, but they are one Jehovah and
one God in unity, thus expressing the truth of 3 separate and distinct persons, beings, or individuals
in the Divine Trinity....Since there are 3 persons or beings, then the only way they can be one is in
the sense of unity, as prayed for in Jn. 17:21-23." (Finis Dake, The Dake Annotated Reference Bible, p. 394 (235).)
Three "beings" is three ousia's: tritheism.
Sabellius
While modern-day 'Oneness' Pentecostals abhor the word 'person', Sabellius,
the most widely known of the modalists, was willing to use the orthodox
terminology of One God in three persons ('prosopa'):
"Not long ago, indeed quite recently, a certain Sabellius
came to the fore, and from him the Sabellians get their name...A close analogy may be found in the
body, soul and spirit of man. The body is as it were the Father; the soul is the Son; while the
Spirit is to the Godhead as his spirit is to a man. Or take the sun: it is one substance, but it
has three 'prosopa', light, heat, and the orb itself. The heat...is (analogous to) the
Spirit; the light to the Son; while the Father himself is represented by the actual substance.
The Son was at one time emitted, like a ray of light; he accomplished in the world all that
pertained to the dispensation of the Gospel and man's salvation, was then taken back into heaven,
as a ray is emitted by the sun and then withdrawn again into the sun." (Epiphanius, Adv. haerese,
lxii.I, quoted p. 38, Documents of the Christian Church, Henry Bettenson).
Incidentally, does all this talk about stuff being 'emitted', then 'taken back' sound unfamiliar, perhaps
even...unbiblical? Well, it ought to! It's technical terminology
from Neoplatonic philosophy. Sabellius
would seem to have been of that persuasion.
The sun analogy has proven popular among orthodox trinitarians. Here is Jonathan Edwards' take on the sun analogy:
"There are two more eminent and remarkable images of the
Trinity among the creatures. The one is in the
spiritual creation, the soul of man. There is the
mind, and the understanding or idea, and the spirit
of the mind as it is called in Scripture, i.e., the
disposition, the will or affection. The other is in
the visible creation, viz., the Sun. The father is
as the substance of the Sun. (By substance I don't
mean in a philosophical sense, but the Sun as to
its internal constitution.) The Son is as the
brightness and glory of the disk of the Sun or that
bright and glorious form under which it appears to
our eyes. The Holy Ghost is the action of the Sun
which is within the Sun in its intestine heat, and,
being diffusive, enlightens, warms, enlivens and
comforts the world. The Spirit as it is God's
Infinite love to Himself and happiness in Himself,
is as the internal heat of the Sun, but as it is
that by which God communicates Himself, it is as
the emanation of the sun's action, or the emitted
beams of the sun.
"The various sorts of rays of the sun and their beautiful colors do well represent the Spirit.
They well represent the love and grace of God and were made use of for this purpose in the rainbow after the flood,
and I suppose also in that rainbow that was seen round about the throne by Ezekiel (Ezek. 1:28; Rev. 4:3) and round
the head of Christ by John (Rev. 10:1), or the amiable excellency of God and the various beautiful graces and virtues
of the Spirit." (Jonathan Edwards, An Unpublished
Essay on the Trinity).
To make the sun analogy acceptable to the orthodox requires only a more
astronomically accurate understanding of it. Justin Martyr, years
before, had heard it and rejected it...on the strength of the assumption
that the sun, like a small-town merchant, rolls up his awning and closes
up shop at night, withdrawing his rays into himself:
"...as they say that this power [the Word] is indivisible and inseparable
from the sun in the heavens; as when it sinks, the light sinks along with
it; so the Father, when He chooses, say they, causes His power to spring
forth, and when He chooses, He makes it return to Himself..." (Justin
Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, CXXVIII).
But even Ptolemaic astronomy had the resources to realize the sun's
rays are not "withdrawn" when the sun shuts down for the night; rather, the sun shines always, we
only turn away from his unfailing brightness at night. So understood in astronomically
accurate fashion, this analogy speaks of the eternal Son and Spirit, not intermittent
'emanations' 'withdrawn' back to their source.
It was the willingness of Sabellius to employ the orthodox terminology
of 'One God in three persons' which pushed the Post-Nicene Greek theologians
towards using 'hypostasis', 'subsistence', in place of 'person':
"For merely to enumerate the differences of Persons is insufficient;
we must confess each Person to have a natural existence in real hypostasis.
Now Sabellius did not even deprecate the formation of the persons
without hypostasis, saying as he did that the same God, being one in matter,
was metamorphosed as the need of the moment required, and spoken of now
as Father, now as Son, and now as Holy Ghost." (Basil, Letters, 210:5,
To the Notables of Neocaesarea).
"We distinctly lay down that there is a difference of Persons; but this
statement was anticipated by Sabellius, who affirms that God is one by hypostasis, but is described by
Scripture in different Persons, according to the requirements of each individual case; sometimes
under the name of Father, when there is occasion for this Person; sometimes under the name of Son
when there is a descent to human interests or any of the operations of the oeconomy; and sometimes
under the Person of Spirit when the occasion demands such phraseology." (Basil, Letters, 214:3,
To Terentius).
"The distinction between ousia and hypostasis is the same as that between the
general and the particular; as, for instance, between the animal and the particular man.
Wherefore, in the case of the Godhead, we confess one essence or substance so as not to give
a variant definition of existence but we confess a particular hypostasis, in order that our conception
of Father, Son and Holy Spirit may be without confusion and clear... On the other hand those
who identify essence or substance and hypostasis are compelled to confess only three Persons, and,
in their hesitation to speak of three hypostases, are convicted of failure to avoid the error of
Sabellius, for even Sabellius himself, who in many places confuses the conception, yet, by asserting
that the same hypostasis changed its form to meet the needs of the moment, does endeavor to
distinguish persons." (Basil, Letters, 236:6, To Amphilochius).
Bible Terminology
Bible-believers dislike using extra-biblical terminology: "If anyone
speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God..." (1 Peter 4:11). When
Hippolytus wrote, in Greek, of 'one God in three persons,' the accusation
he was using extra-biblical terminology would have been incomprehensible.
As we've seen, the Bible freely applies 'prosopon' to God. 'Prosopon' means what 'person' means...and then some.
There is no one-word English translation for 'prosopon' suited for all instances. English translators are obliged to render this
one word by a variety of English words: 'face,' 'presence,' 'person.' So
'one God in three persons' may appear to an English reader as unbiblical.
How it appears to readers of Tagalog or Lithuanian I couldn't say; the
New Testament, after all, is written in Greek, and the early church argued
in Greek. Nevertheless, if one must have an alternative which 'works' in
English translation, may I suggest the catch-phrase 'one God in three witnesses'? Father and Son are corroborating witnesses:
"It is also written in your law that the testimony of two men is true.
I am One who bears witness of Myself, and the Father who sent Me bears
witness of Me." (John 8:17-18).
The Holy Spirit corroborates their testimony:
"But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father...He
will testify of Me." (John 15:26);
"And we are His witnesses to theses things, and so also is the Holy
Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him." (Acts 5:32).
God is Not a Man
"God is not a man, that He should lie Nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and
will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?" (Numbers 23:19).
"I will not execute the fierceness of My anger; I will not again destroy
Ephraim. For I am God, and not man, the Holy One in your midst; and I will
not come with terror." (Hosea 11:9).
The English word 'person' has increasingly come to be synonymous with 'human
being.' Although God took on human nature in the incarnation, in His own
nature He is not a man. As we've seen, the word used by the earliest writers
to say 'God in three persons' is applied in the Bible to God the Father
as well as the Son. Given that 'prosopon' is used of God the Father, is it not self-evident that the word cannot
be limited to meaning 'human being'? This oddity of contemporary English
has already facilitated heresy in the case of Finis Dake and should be
guarded against.
The Face of God
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06440 paniym paw-neem’ pl. (but always as sing.) of an unused noun
AV-before 1137, face 390, presence 76, because 67, sight 40, countenance 30, from 27, person 21, upon 20,
of 20, ...me 18, against 17, ...him 16, open 13, for 13, toward 9, misc 195; 2109
1) face
1a) face, faces
1b) presence, person
1c) face (of seraphim or cherubim)
1d) face (of animals)
1e) face, surface (of ground)
1f) as adv of loc/temp
1f1) before and behind, toward, in front of, forward, formerly, from beforetime, before
1g) with prep
1g1) in front of, before, to the front of, in the presence of, in the face
of, at the face or front of, from the presence of, from before, from before
the face of
(Online Bible Dictionary)
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It might seem to some readers that this word and its correlate 'prosopon' combine such heterogeneous meanings
that no conclusion can be drawn from their use. God does not speak to man by concocting a divine Esperanto, but employs
existing human languages. Still, God does not select the words He uses at random, nor are these meanings unconnected by
a common thread. Believers are commanded to seek God's face: "...if My people who are called by My name will humble
themselves, and pray and seek My face ['paniym'] and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven,
and will forgive their sin and heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7:14). To turn one's back is to reject, to turn one's
face to enter into relation: "For they have turned their back to Me, and not their face. But in the time of their
trouble they will say, ‘Arise and save us.’" (Jeremiah 2:27). God-seekers pray for God's face to turn their
way: "Turn us again, O God of hosts, and cause thy face ['paniym'] to shine; and we shall be
saved." (Psalm 80:7). If the concept of God's "face" is so ridiculous as to earn the raucous mockery
of the 'Oneness' Pentecostals, why then do believers pray for these things?
In Southeast Asia where villagers are menaced by man-eating tigers, they
draw a little face on the back of a farmer's shirt. A tiger will not attack
a man who is looking at him, whereas a man whose back is turned is easy
prey. A crude sketch with two eyes, a nose, and smile is sufficient to
convince the tiger, or so the villagers think. Those who thought this is
what was in view when the Bible speaks of the face of God wandered into
error: "Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the
glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and
creeping things." (Romans 1:22-23). The children of Israel encountered the word of God face to face: "The
LORD talked with you face to face ['paniym'] in the mount out of the midst of the fire..." (Deuteronomy 5:4),
but not the villagers' smiley-face: "Take ye therefore good heed unto
yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the LORD
spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire:..." (Deuteronomy
4:15).
To be 'in your face' is to be in your presence. The people of God travel in His company: "And because he loved
thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and brought thee out in his sight ['paniym'] with
his mighty power out of Egypt;..." (Deuteronomy 4:37). But not only do the people meet God face to face, there are
face to face interactions within God: "For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the
figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence ['prosopon'] of God for
us:..." (Hebrews 9:24). There is thus a relation or interface within God, as well as between God and His people.
Since the Bible says so, in so many words, what is the problem in believing it?
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