Saturday, February 19, 2022

How Some (Latin/Creedal) Trinitarians Approach John 17: The Use of “Temple Theology”

 The following are taken from Colin Green’s God in 3D. I am reproducing them here so Latter-day Saints will have some appreciation for how some Trinitarians might approach John 17, esp. vv. 3, 11, and 22 (here, through the lens of “temple theology”):

 

THE INHERITED NAME

 

A question we might want answered is this: what more could Jesus mean in speaking of “the Name you gave me”? It was given to Jesus to embody the divine Name, the temple presence. But in what other manner did God give the Name to Jesus? It is as a personal name. We have already seen in Philippians and Hebrews that Jesus was given the Name: but Jesus said it too. Behind the title “the Name” a personal name lies—the name Yahweh. The one to whom the name “Yahweh” is given is Yahweh . . . This is not only before Jesus’ death but also afterwards (Phil 2:9). As the Son and heir of the Father, he inherits the Father’s name Yahweh (Heb 1:2-4).

 

“Glorify Your Son”

 

We come to the other phrase that might sound strange: Jesus prays: “Father, the time has come. Glory your Son, that your Son may glorify you” (John 17:1 NIV).

 

The key to understanding this Glory are in the story of Solomon’s temple, but also in Pentecost. Pentecost reveals that the Glory is a sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit. See the ways that the Holy Spirit figures in Jesus’ prayer:

 

·       When Jesus talks about the gift of the Glory to his followers (1;&22, this is the gift of the presence of the Holy Spirit. They become one in the Holy Spirit. That is why this gift makes them one.

·       When he says, “Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you,” this has a lot to do with the interaction between the Father and the Son in the Spirit of the Glory, the Holy Spirit. It does not happen without the Holy Spirit.

 

It also has a lot to do with what happens when the Glory enters the true temple. The Glory would usher Christ into his followers’ hearts at Pentecost—just as the Glory ushered the Name into Solomon’s temple.

 

It is not the first time Jesus has spoken this way. As we say in an earlier scene, Jesus said:

 

The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified . . . for his very reason I came to his hour. Father, glorify Your name! (John 12:23-28 NIV)

 

The timing of this, at this tense point in Jesus’ life, makes his words jar a bit. He was about to suffer a humiliating death and there is not much glorious for him in that, or so it may seem. But for Jesus, God’s Glory needed to be present in this part of his journey more than ever. His death at Calvary was a stepping=stone towards humanity becoming a temple.

 

The Glory was not just to be found in Jerusalem’s temple anymore. The glory was going with Jesus. He is the Name. And the Name and the Glory belong together.

 

Much of what Jesus speaks of in his payer comes through his knowing the Spirit of the Glory, the Holy Spirit. Jesus prays that the Father’s love will be in the disciples, and that he himself will be in them (17:26)—it is through the Spirit that he comes to be in them.

 

To verify this, we can turn again from John’s Gospel to John’s first letter, where he wrote this:

 

 . . . God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. (1 John 4:12-13)

 

So, it is when the disciples become temples of the Holy Spirit that Jesus’ prayer is answered.

 

Jesus’ words—“glorify your Son”—are not like the words of a vain selfish person such as one whom we might call a “glory-seeker.” If anyone though that, such is not the case here. What Jesus is saying has everything to do with being in the life and power of the Spirit of Glory. (Colin Green, God in 3D: Finding the Trinity in the Bible and Church Fathers [Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf and Stock, 2019], 130-32)

 

Jesus Was Sent as God’s Presence, the Name

 

When reading that Jesus speaks to “the one true God” and about himself as “Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (17:3), don’t be confused. This is not splitting off the one true God from Jesus, as if they are two gods. Not at all. In this Gospel, speaking about “God and Jesus “ is equivalent to speaking about “God and his Name.” Jesus talks all about coming from heaven as God’s temple presence. Jesus is the living embodiment of “the Name” (17:8). Just as the one true God put his Name in Solomon’s temple, so the one true God put Jesus as his Name among his people. So, as John keeps showing us, here is Jesus as God’s Name with his own Glory in the temple of his body (his tabernacle, with his Glory). Jesus is John’s God. The words “the one true God” and “Jesus Christ whom you have sent” needn’t be taken any other way.

 

It is no different really from the fact that the Holy Spirit is God, where we see that the Holy Spirit has God’s privilege of dwelling in God’s temple. The perfect verse to see this—1 Cor 16:9:

 

do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?

 

So, it is right to say that the Holy Spirit is from God, with a distinction between the Holy Spirit and God. But at the same time the Holy Spirit is what God is, dwelling in God’s temple. It’s just the same with Christ, sent from God, and dwelling in God’s temple as God. The one and only thing that makes proper sense of the Bible here is the Trinity, the three-in-one God of the temple.

 

The model for this is God, his Name, and his Glory in the Jerusalem temple. The Name is from God, placed in the temple as his dwelling place.

 

The disciples hear the point of Jesus’ prayer. Jesus is ready for the next stage of his journey, which makes possible their journey. He goes from “tabernacling” amongst his people—such that they see him and his Glory—to tabernacling in them, so that they know his presence within them. (Ibid., 127)