In the
following, Trinitarian apologist James White admits (rather gleefully) that the
Trinity was not part of Old Testament theology; instead, it was with the
Christ-event. This would mean that the highest revelation of God, a doctrine
that is central to one’s orthodoxy, was not revealed for thousands of years
(God being one being and three persons hardly necessitates the second person
becoming Incarnate, especially as that was eternally predestined in God’s
decree in White’s theology . . . )
When we ask, “How was the Trinity revealed to
us?” many answers are given. Some would assert that it is revealed in the Old
Testament in the scattered allusions to the deity of Christ is the use of the plural
pronoun “us” with reference to God (Genesis 1:26). But Warfield was right in
noting,
The Old Testament may be likened to a chamber
richly furnished but dimly lifted; the introduction of light brings into it
nothing which was not in it before; but it brings out into clearer view much of
what is in it but was only dimly or even not at all perceived before. The
mystery of the Trinity is not revealed in the Old Testament, but the mystery of
the Trinity is not revealed in the Old Testament; but the mystery of the Trinity
underlies the Old Testament revelation, and here and there almost comes into
view. Thus the Old Testament revelation of God is not corrected by the fuller revelation
which follows it, but only perfected, extended and enlarged. (B.B. Warfield, “The
Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity,” The
Works of Benjamin B. Warfield [Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1981], II:141-142)
So when was it revealed? Many insist it
developed over time “in the consciousness of the church,” so that the Trinity
does not become “doctrine” until well into the church age. But this is to
confuse men’s knowledge and understanding of God’s revelation with
the revelation itself. The Trinity as a doctrinal truth has always been true. But when did it become
knowable to men? What “revealed” it
to the human race?
The answer to the question is simply the
Incarnation and the coming of the Holy Spirit. That is, the Trinity is revealed
by the Son coming in the flesh and the Spirit descending upon the church. Therefore,
the Trinity is not revealed in the Old Testament, or even in the New Testament,
but rather in between the testaments,
in the ministry of Christ and the founding of the church. These events are
recorded for us in the New Testament, but they took place before a word of the
New Testament was written. Warfield again puts it well:
We cannot speak of the doctrine of the
Trinity, therefore, if we study exactness of speech, as revealed in the New
Testament, any more than we can speak of it as revealed in the Old Testament.
The Old Testament was written before its revelation; the New Testament after
it. The revelation itself was made not in word but in deed. It was made in the
incarnation of God the Son, and the outpouring of God the Holy Spirit. The
relation of the two Testaments to this revelation is in the one case that of
preparation for it, and in the other that of product of it. The revelation itself
is embodied just in Christ and the Holy Spirit. This is as much to say that the
revelation of the Trinity was incidental to, and the inevitable effect of, the
accomplishment of redemption. It was in the coming of the Son of God in the
likeness of sinful flesh to offer Himself a sacrifice for sin; and in the
coming of the Holy Spirit to convict the world of sin, of righteousness and of
judgment, that the Trinity of Persons in the Unity of the Godhead was once for
all revealed to men. (Ibid., 144)
. . . This explains why we don’t find a
single passage that lays out, in a creedal format, the doctrine of the Trinity.
(James R. White, The Forgotten Trinity:
Recovering the Heart of Christian Belief [2d ed; Minneapolis, Minn.:
Bethany House, 2019], 165-66)
