We have three more, including today, we have three more Sunday school lessons before the conclusion of this semester. And so we need to move quickly through some of the very fine details of the doctrine of the Trinity. Two weeks ago, we started our study of the Trinity by looking at the biblical foundations and having done a basic survey of biblical texts and why we affirm the unity and the Trinity of God, the oneness and the threeness of God. Now we move into what is the best way to express that? What is the best way to communicate the oneness and the threeness of God? And why does our confession of faith use the language that it uses? If you were flying a fighter jet, if you were in the Air Force and you were flying a fighter jet, depending on the enemy that you're facing, you would want to use different weapons. Depending on the engagement, you would want to use different weapons. Are you far away from the enemy? Are you near the enemy? What kind of countermeasures do they have? What is the best way to defeat them? You would choose your defense or your offense based on the enemy that you're facing. And so also throughout the history of the church, technical terminology for doctrines like the Trinity and many, many others often develops in response to something. And so specific words are chosen because they are the best offense or the best defense against certain errors. We, in the year 2024, are receiving the wisdom of the Church throughout the ages, which has chosen specific terminology for expressing these truths, and we want to be careful not to simply repeat the words, but to understand as best as we can what they said and why they said it. And this lesson will focus on the language of subsistences, not a word that we are accustomed to using in everyday speech, and so it requires more explanation. We want to look at the biblical source for this word, Not all words need to be found in the text of scripture, but there is a biblical basis for this word. We want to look at its historical use, why and how has the church used it, and then we want to see more on the why side, just why this word is so useful and precise for the expression of the doctrine of the Trinity. Next week, Lord willing, we will continue our study of the distinction of the persons. This lesson is part of communicating the distinction of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Next week, we'll continue looking at the distinction of the persons. And then in the third and final lesson of the semester, we'll look at the unity of the person. So we're starting really with the threeness and then moving to the oneness, not because that's the way it has to be done, but that's the way that we're going to proceed. And also because our confession of faith uses the word subsistence is basically at the beginning of its affirmation. So let's, I'm going to read to you chapter 2 and paragraph 3 of our confession, and then we will move through the content of the lesson. And I want to, I want to make you aware that there's a lot of very technical and precise things we're going to cover today, and we just don't have time to park on them. So you'll have to forgive me. I don't want to say, this is really hard, and then you check out and you stop paying attention. That's not what I mean. It's specific. It's not necessarily so difficult. It's just unknown or unfamiliar to us. So be prepared for, it's kind of a lot, but in a good way. All right, let's read chapter two, paragraph three. We confess, in this divine and infinite being, there are three subsistences, the Father, the Word or Son, and Holy Spirit, of one substance, power and eternity, each having the whole divine essence, yet the essence undivided. The Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father. The Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son. all infinite, without beginning, therefore but one God, who is not to be divided in nature and being, but distinguished by several peculiar relative properties and personal relations, which doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation of all our communion with God and comfortable dependence on Him. You see towards the end of this paragraph several peculiar relative properties and personal relations. That's what we're going to look at next week, which is really expressed in the words that the Father is of none, the Son is eternally begotten, the Holy Spirit proceeds, and those details will be next Lord's Day Sunday School lesson. But today we're going to focus on the initial statement that in the Godhead, in the unity of the divine being, there are three subsistences. Three subsistences. The Father, the Word or Son, and the Holy Spirit. One little wording clarification. In English, when we say Godhead, it's kind of a strange word, isn't it? It's a corrupted form of Godhood. So think about knighthood, which is being a knight. And so godhood is being god or divinity, but we have it in corrupted later English as the godhead, the deity, the divinity. So if you hear the word the godhead, think divine, divinity, that's what it is. It's a word that just sounds very strange, but has a fairly straightforward meaning. All right, that's not what this lesson is about, but because I used the word Godhead, I wanted to explain it. Let's get started with subsistences. The biblical source for the language of subsistences. This is not saying that the word subsistence begins with the Bible. It's saying that the Bible uses this word, and we can follow its example in the way that we speak about the Trinity. So where's this word found? We find it in Hebrews chapter one, in the beginning verses of Hebrews. where the writer says of the son that he is, and there are a number of different English translations of how this works out. I think that the ESV says something like the express image of his person. Is that the ESV? Anyway, it'll read something like that, that the son is the express image of the person of the father. And in Greek, it says, χαράκτερ της υποστάσεως αυτού, which means nothing to you when we read it in Greek. But in awkward English, that's just sort of anglicizing the Greek, it would say something like, the character of his hypostasis, that the son is the character of the father's hypostasis. And English translations, or everyone who translates this has to wrestle with how to render this. The character, the express image, we might use the word copy, but it's a sense of just like. The son is just like the father. But just like the father's what? Just like the father's hypostasis. Well, hypostasis can mean a number of different things. And so how you translate hypostasis is very important. And Thomas Manton has a very good explanation of the importance of this verse. So let's read this quote from Thomas Manton, who's commenting on Hebrews 1, the same passage here. He says, Christ is called the express image of his person. It cannot, it as in the word hypostasis, cannot be rendered or translated essence, but it must be translated subsistence. Four, if it were translated essence, then Arius would have carried the day. He would have prevailed in the debates. And Christ would only be homoousios, which I'll explain in a moment. And the Father's essence cannot properly be said to be impressed on the Son. since the very same individual essence and substance was holy in him, in the Son, as it was holy in the Father. And the Son cannot be said to be like, but now the express image. He's not just similar, but the very same thing of his subsistence. or as we now render it, person. This does provide, or it clearly communicates, it makes way for, the consubstantiality of the sun against Arius, and for the distinction of the subsistences against Sibelius. Okay, let's talk about this a bit. The sun, well, that should be a capital S, is, the express image of the fathers. Now he's saying we have two choices, essence or subsistence. The word hypostasis could carry either of those meanings, depending on how it's used. If the Son is the express image of the Father's essence, then what you get is an essence and an essence. Or a substance and a substance, which once you do that, they're not one God. They're two gods. Or there's one God and the sun is just like God. That's Arianism. That's Arianism, Patrick. That's the heresy of Arianism, to say that the sun is a being that is like God. that they have similar essences. That's the homoioousios, similar essences. And Thomas Manton is saying we cannot say that the son is the express image of the father's essence, an essence and then another one, another substance or another essence, but rather we can translate it subsistence or person so that what you get is a subsistence. and a subsistence of the one divine essence or the one divine substance. So we look at Hebrews 1 and we say, how should we conceive of, how should we understand in our minds the relationship of the Son to the Father? Well, it tells us The father is a subsistence, and the son is an exact other subsistence, like the father, but distinct. Distinct subsistences, but of the one divine essence. This does not destroy the consubstantiality the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son, and of course, the Holy Spirit. But when we talk about, in this divine and infinite being, there are three subsistences, it's coming from Hebrews chapter one, where we see that the Son and the Father relate to one another as subsistence and subsistence, nevertheless being one in substance or one in essence. And because, we'll talk about this more later, because the son and the father are two distinct subsistences, it's also a protection against modalism, where the father and the son are really just two presentations or two outward revelations of one being. No, they truly are two subsistences against the Sibelians, but they're not two different essences or substances against the Arians. So this is the biblical source of this language, but we can also examine its historical use, the second point in the outline. And we need to consider the Greek translation of the Old Testament and the way that the divine name, I am that I am, is rendered in Greek. In Exodus chapter three and verse 14, God says, he reveals his name, I am that I am. And in Greek, it is ego emi haon. I am the being. I am the one who is. And so the Greek church, based on this name of God, as well as Hebrews 1, would say that God is one usia, one being, the one who is, and yet three hypostases. That's English just sort of rendering the Greek words. God is one usia, one divine being, I am the one who is, and three hypostases, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And so therefore, because, Notice these bold and italicized words, homoioousias would be similar substances versus homoousias, the same substance. If you have one oousia and then another oousia, let me write this here. Then you end up with similar. similar substances. Arius said that the Father and the Son are similar usea, similar substances. We say no, but rather God is, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are consubstantial homoousios, the same divine being, the same divine substance. So in the Greek church, they will say that God is one in ousea, consubstantiality, but three in hypostases, a subsistence, and a subsistence, and a subsistence, or a hypostasis, and a hypostasis, and a hypostasis. And so in the Nicene Creed, we see the consubstantiality of the Son affirmed against the Arians when we say that Jesus is God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of the same essence as the Father. Homoousios, the same being, the same singular divine substance. and yet they are distinct hypostases or distinct substances. The Latin Church would describe, express the same truths in the language of substance and subsistence. Instead of usia and hypostasis, they're going to have essence or substance and subsistence. So a lot of equivalent terms describing the same things, but put together in particular ways to get orthodoxy versus heresy. So Latin church, substance and subsistence, or essence and subsistence. The Greek church, Housia, and hypostases, trying to express the truths of scripture in scripture language where possible, but also developing that further with the precision of terms that express the same truths. And that's what we're going to look at now. Why is subsistence such a precise and useful category or term to use in our confession and in theology? So we're going to run through a number of distinctions and to see how subsistence is used in those different distinctions. The first is we can make a distinction between abstract subsistence and concrete subsistence. Abstract subsistence is the way in which a given substance has its own existence, the way in which something is with relation to itself. And that's the way that the term subsistence is used in Chapter 2, Paragraph 1. We read months ago, maybe it was probably, it was last year for sure, that we said of God, whose subsistence is in and of himself. The way in which God has his own existence is in and of himself. This is God's aseity. That's abstract subsistence. The way in which a given substance possesses or has its own existence. That's not the way that the word subsistence is used in paragraph three. Paragraph three is using subsistence in the concrete sense, where a concrete subsistence is a particular substance existing in a particular way, or a subsistent, a thing that is, a particular substance existing in a particular way. And we're going to see that because there's only one divine substance, then the three subsistences are the divine substance being in three different ways. But the word subsistence is useful for getting at a particular substance being or existing in a particular way. In what way does this one divine being exist? In the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit, three subsistences. Now, we're developing things. We're filling our table with pieces that we can put together. So we have not yet composed. We are right now just posing, and then we'll compose. Second, we can distinguish between irrational and rational substances. Substances. An irrational substance would be a bird. A bird is a living thing, but it has no intellect. It does not have a thought process. Birds just tweet and eat. That's what they do. And they fly, which I've always been jealous of. But they're not rational. They're living beings. They are substances. But a bird is irrational. A rational substance would be a being with intellect, and those are only angels and men, whether righteous or unrighteous, whether fallen or unfallen. Angels and men have intellect, so they are rational substances in a way that your dog or your cat is not. Your dog may have a certain kind of personality, but it does not have intellect. Now, a person, is an individual substance of a rational nature. So now we're getting to the difference between a man, that's a rational substance, and Sam. a particular man, a person. A person would not just be a man, but it would be a particular man, or a woman, but a particular woman. A person is an individual rational substance, or a substance of a rational nature. So we have irrational substances, they have no intellect, and then rational substances, angels or men. A particular rational substance, or substance of a rational nature, would be a person. Sam is not Gautam, and Gautam is not Kirk. We are distinct persons. But I'm a man, and Gautam is a man, and Kirk is a man. But we're not the same man. We are rational substances of a rational nature, but individual ones, and so therefore we are persons. But then we have to further distinguish and say, okay, we are created persons, but there are in-created or uncreated persons. The divine substance is different from created substances. A human and a human and a human are three. We have the same substance in the sense of the same general nature of humanity, but we are three distinct men, despite all being men. The divine substance, there's only one. There's not divine substances, that's polytheism, but one divine substance. And you can't think of the divine being, the divine substance, as being the same way as created substances. And so therefore, a divine person is different from created persons. A divine subsistence is different from created subsistences. Nehemiah Cox said this. He said, in our conception of personality in the divine nature, we must separate from it whatsoever imperfection is seen in a created person. Every created person has a limited essence, distinct and distant from one another. But all the uncreated persons in the deity have the same immense, undivided essence, and are the one, eternal, immortal, invisible, only wise God. A human substance would be divided. if there were multiple persons. But the divine substance is immense without measure and indivisible because infinite, and so therefore there can be three persons or three subsistences in one divine substance because it's not like created substances. And therefore, divine persons or divine subsistences are not like created persons or created subsistences. If we take the concept of human personality and human substances, and then we import that into God, you're going to end up with tritheism. If the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three persons in the way that Kirk and Gautam and Sam are three persons, then we're three different, Understand, we would be three different deities. We would be three different gods because that's how human substances are. And then to account for our unity, you would have to come up with some kind of social unity. Well, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are united in some kind of purpose or society, social Trinitarianism. There's a term for these kinds of heresies because they're common. But you should not take human substances and human personality and import those concepts into God, because God is an infinite essence or an infinite substance, and therefore the three subsistences of the divine substance are not the same as human persons or human subsistences. Let's look at some definitions that theologians have offered of what a divine person or divine subsistence is. Thomas Aquinas said this, that a divine person is a relation subsisting in the divine nature. And I said earlier, we're gonna get into this next week more, what that means. But I just want you to see right now that each person is a distinct relation within the divine being, a relation subsisting. A divine person is a subsistence, a subsistent relation. the Father to the Son and the Spirit, the Son of the Father, the Spirit of the Son, et cetera. There are three relations. The way in which the divine nature exists, or the divine being exists, is as three subsistent relations. John Norton said, a divine person is the divine essence subsisting in a relative property. That's the same definition as Aquinas, just in slightly different terms. the divine essence subsisting in a relative property, three relative properties there. William Buchanus, a person is a subsistence in the divine nature which having relation to others is distinguished by some incommunicable property. That's exactly what our confession says. So it's subsisting relations that are distinguished by incommunicable properties, things that you can only say of one that you can't say of the other two. Again, what are those things? That's next week's lesson. But for now, we're seeing that the three persons of the Godhead, of the divine being, are three subsistences, three relations, subsisting in an infinite, immense divine being, and so we call them three persons because God is a substance of a rational nature, we might say. God's not just a principle. He's not just an idea or some law of, not physics, but some necessary law, he is a living, I am the being one, I am the living one, I am the being, I am that I am. And so the three persons are three subsistences, relations subsisting in the divine nature, Thomas Manton gives us five steps to completing the understanding of a divine person. A divine person is a substance, not an accident or attribute, so not whiteness on the wall, but the wall itself, not just a property of something, but the thing itself. A divine person is a substance, A divine person is a particular substance, not general, not deity or humanity, but a deity or a man, a particular substance. It is a living substance. A book is a substance, a rock is a substance, but they have no life. A rational substance, so not a tree. A tree is more alive than a rock, and an animal is more alive than a tree in certain ways, but they don't have intellect, they're not rational. They are substances, they are particular substances. They're living, but they're not rational. And a divine person is not part, not three parts of the divine being, but the complete whole, the whole divine substance subsisting in an incommunicable property of relation. So not just a part of something, but a complete whole. Now, Really, over the next three weeks, we're going to be posing more than composing, putting things on the table before putting them together. But what we've seen so far... is that Hebrews 1 calls the Son the express image of the Father's person, or the Father's subsistence. So the Father and Son are subsistence and subsistence, or person and person. We've connected this with the language of I am that I am in Exodus 3, 14 to account for the oneness, the unity of God, one divine being, three divine persons, or three divine subsistences, which are not three substances, but three subsistences of one divine substance. And we can further help ourselves by remembering that these subsistences are distinct and not divided. But there are different kinds of distinctions. The persons are distinct, not divided. In what way are they distinct? What kind of distinction is the distinction of the persons? And there's three options. Is the distinction of the persons a real distinction? Is the distinction of the persons a rational distinction? Is the distinction of the persons a modal distinction? And we're going to affirm the third one, but I'll walk you through all three briefly. Firstly, a real distinction is the distinction between one thing in actual being and another thing in actual being. The word real, think of reality. In high school literature class, they teach you a phrase. What's that? In the middle of things. A story that just starts in the middle of things happening. Res, Latin for a thing. That's where reality or real is coming from. A real distinction is a distinction between a thing and a thing. A real thing in existence and a real thing in existence. So for example, a cat and a cat. They're both cats. Why aren't they the same cat? because that's a real cat, a cat in actual existence, and another cat that's in actual existence. So they are really distinct as two different things. They may both be cats, but they're two different cats. They're really distinct. Secondly. we can make, in general, there is such a thing as a rational distinction, where you distinguish between two things, but the distinction does not exist in the thing itself, just in your mind. So for example, these pillars that support that part of the church building, that's where the original wall used to be, this was expanded, we have these round pillars. If I stand over here, I would say, that's the left side of the pillar, and that's the right side of the pillar. But George would say, no, that's the left side of the pillar, and that's the right side of the pillar. Who's right? Well, we're both right. Because in my mind, I can truly distinguish between the left and right side, but it's me, it's a rational distinction in my mind of the left and the right of the pillar. The left is not the right, and the right is not the left. But for George, it's the opposite thing. He perceives them in a different way. The left and the right is not in the pillar itself. It doesn't have a left and right side. But in my mind, I can distinguish left and right. So a rational distinction is how we conceive of the attributes of God, actually. Where in God, they're all one perfection, but in our minds, they are various. So we use rational distinctions in theology, but what we're saying is that the distinction of the persons is not a rational distinction. We're not saying the persons are really just one, but in our minds, they're three. No, there is a reality in God that we are affirming. But the distinction of the persons is not a real distinction. Because if the distinction of the persons was a real distinction, one thing an actual being, and another thing an actual being, and another thing an actual being, you'd have a being, a being, and a being. That would be three gods, not three subsistences of the one divine substance. So the true distinction of the persons, in which subsistence expresses perfectly, is a modal distinction. a modal distinction, which is a distinction between one thing and the manner or the mode of being of that same thing. So, for example, you could talk about heat, and the temperature is either hotter or cooler, would be a different mode of being of the same thing. Heat, but heat in different modes, or temperature in different modes. It's not a great example, but it's one thing in different ways. And the distinction of the persons is not between a substance and a substance and a substance, but it's between the one divine substance subsisting in three different relative properties, or in three different ways, none of the which is the same as the other two incommunicable properties. subsistence expresses this, the one divine being concretely subsisting in three different relations or relative incommunicable properties. Subsistence perfectly gets at this distinction. Let me jump ahead a little bit and someone will say, wait a second, that's modalism, Patrick. It's not modalism. Many people are unfamiliar with this level of distinctions, and so they think it's modalism, because they'll say, you're not fooling me. You just said the distinction of the persons is a modal distinction. What is modalism if not that? But modalism is actually something completely different. Modalism, a heresy to be rejected with all force, is the idea that the three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are not distinct in the divine being within God, they are just three outward modes of presenting God to the world. The one God presents himself in the mode of Father to the world. The one God presents himself in the mode of Son to the world. The one God presents himself in the mode of Holy Spirit to the world so that the threeness is just an outward distinction of revelation or presentation. But there's no true threeness in God. That's why it's a heresy. It destroys the doctrine of God. Modalism is about a threeness in mode outside of God. but a modal distinction of the persons is saying within the very being of God there is a threeness, a distinction of three as the one divine being subsists in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And they're not the divine being plus some mode. That's just the way God is. There's nothing more and nothing less. The divine essence is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God in three persons. And they're modally distinct as three different subsistences, three manners of being in the same thing. Now, this leads us to hurry along and to ask the question, why does our confession use subsistence, which is a change from the Westminster Confession, which uses person? The Westminster Confession will say, in this divine and infinite being, there are three persons, the Father, the Word, or Son, and the Holy Spirit. Why change to subsistence? And it's simply that there are pros and cons for each word. The pros of the word person are that we more naturally or intuitively understand it. Three persons, they are distinct, they're not the same. But the cons are we think of human persons. We think Sam, Gautam, Kirk, which you should not think of God like that. You should not think of three centers of consciousness, three minds, three substances. That's wrong. So person is more easily understood at first, more intuitively grasped, but it has all the baggage of human personality. Subsistence is not so easily grasped, it is not so intuitively understood. but it expresses, that's the con, but the pro is that it expresses all the precision of one divine substance being or subsisting in three different modes in the divine substance itself. So our confession uses the term subsistence not as a rejection of the word person, but because in a confession it's good to use your most precise terms. And the fact is in chapter eight, speaking of God the Son, it uses the word person. It calls Jesus Christ the second person of the Holy Trinity. So this is not a rejection of the term person. They have their pros and cons. Subsistence is a word that was commonly used in the day. It's not that the Westminster divines were rejecting it by not using it. It was a common word in the day, as you can see from the definitions that I've given to you. And it's extremely useful. So how do we express the distinction of the persons? There's more yet to be said. But we look at Hebrews 1. We see that the Son and the Father are both subsistences. We assert that they are both subsistences of the one divine essence. They are consubstantial. They are both I am that I am. They are not really distinct as a thing and a thing and a thing, but they are modally distinct as the one divine substance being in three different ways within itself, or that's just the way that it is. And so therefore, we affirm one divine substance or essence and three subsistences, the Father, the Word or Son, and the Holy Spirit. And subsistence is not an especially impossible to understand term. It's just not commonly used. In the abstract, it's the way in which a thing has its own being. So God has being in and of himself. I have my being of him and through him and to him. That would be my abstract subsistence. His being is assay. My being is not assay, but from God, de deo, if that's the right way. But concrete subsistence would be every single one of us. All existing things. But we are distinct substances. Whereas God is one divine substance, three subsistences in or of the divine substance. So let that all percolate into a beautiful Trinitarian cup of coffee. And recognize that this level of precision and these terms have developed over a long period of time. for the purpose of very carefully showing where errors are, as well as where the truth is, so that it can be protected and preserved. And why have they spoken in these ways? Again, just to conclude, this is against the Arians, who would say that the Son of God is simply like the Father. The Father is the one true God, and the Son is like Him. but not the same substance. And this would be against the Sabellians who would say, or Modalists, who would say that the Father and the Son are not distinct subsistences of the divine essence, they're just distinct modes of revelation, outward presentation of God to the world, but not a real threeness in God. So this preserves us against the error of the Sibelians or the modalists. This preserves us against the error of the Aryans. And we do well to follow this language carefully and use it precisely. Well, that concludes our lesson. Next week, we'll get into the relative properties and the further distinction, not further distinction, but further explaining the distinction of the person. So thank you for your attention.