Substance and Person: Two Key Terms

In this special episode of the Holy Joys Podcast, Johnathan Arnold offers a primer on two key terms in the doctrines of the Trinity and incarnation: "substance" and "person."

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_01 0:04

In our catechism, we learned that there are three persons in the one true and living God, and that those three persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are of the same substance or of one substance. And this language of substance and person is going to show up again, especially when we get to the section on the Son and His incarnation. The Son was made man for us and for our salvation. We're going to affirm again that the Son is of the same substance with the Father, as we confess in the Nicene Creed, and that Jesus Christ is one person with two natures or two substances. Because not only is he divine, not only does he have the divine substance, but in the incarnation he assumes the human substance. And so when we talk about the Christian doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, we inevitably run into these terms, substance and person. And this alone can cause us some confusion because these are not familiar terms for most of us. I was at the local millworks store pricing a door, and the sales rep kept using a term that I didn't understand. And for a while, I just played along until finally I felt so confused. I said, You keep using this term. Can you help me understand what you mean there? I'm not familiar with that. He explained it to me, and a few minutes went by, he used it again, and I realized I still don't get it. And so I said, I'm sorry, can you just explain that to me again? And finally, he drew a little illustration on a piece of paper and it clicked. And from that point forward, we were on the same page. It was really just a matter of learning the terminology. And no matter where you go or what you study, you're gonna have to learn new terms. In school, when we learned geometry or biology, we had to learn new terms to be able to make sense of what was being discussed. If I went to your job, whether you're an accountant or a carpenter, I would have to learn some new terms relevant to your occupation. And so we shouldn't think that we can study God, that we can study the triune God without having to learn some new terms. And that few are as important as the terms substance and person. These terms are part of the church's grammar. The words which the church throughout the world recognizes as the best words to use when confessing what scripture teaches and reveals about the Trinity. So what I hope to do tonight is work together towards a better understanding of these terms. Let's start out with the idea of a substance. So over here to my left is some paneling. And if I went up to that paneling and I knocked on it, and I said, What is that? You might say that's wood. And wood has certain attributes. It's hard, it's inanimate, it doesn't move on its own. It's not just gonna get up and walk across the room, it's unconscious, it isn't aware that we're talking about it. It is a hard, inanimate, unconscious substance. But let's pretend that my mom's dog Snickers snuck into the room, and I heard some movement under the seats, and I said, What is that? You might say, Oh, that's a dog. And dogs, too, are a particular kind of substance. The substance of dog has certain attributes. Unlike the wood, a dog is conscious. Snickers may know that we're talking about him if he hears his name. If we throw a ball across the room, he's aware of that and might run after it. Dogs have a body. It's a furry body. It's not like the human body, but it's a body nonetheless. And dogs are irrational. Dogs can't sit down and reason towards a conclusion. Alright, so so far we have two very different kinds of substances. Wood, it's unconscious, dog, which is conscious, has a body and irrational. But sitting in this room, there are numbers of human beings. And human beings are a different kind of substance. Human beings are also conscious, like animals. But we don't just have a body. We also have a soul or a spirit. There's both a physical, material part of the human substance, and there's an invisible, inmaterial part, the soul or spirit. Human beings, unlike the animals, are rational. Or at least we hope we are. We're capable of rationality. We're capable of sitting down and reasoning together. And human beings are also different from the animals because we are moral creatures. Now, I might say to Snickers, bad dog, but I'm not gonna say, Snickers, you need to repent of your sins. Or Snickers, you made an ethically poor decision, right? Because dogs are not moral. They're irrational, they're amoral. These differences between human beings and the animals bring us to this idea of the image of God. We are made in the image of God. Like God, we are rational and we are moral. But though we are like God in some ways, the divine substance is also very unlike us. God is conscious, God is a conscious being. God is a spirit, but God does not have a body. We learned earlier in the catechism that God is without body or parts. God is rational, but he is infinitely rational. God is moral, but he is morally perfect. He is goodness itself. And so now we've considered four very different kinds of substances. Wood is unconscious, dogs are conscious with a body, but irrational. Humans are conscious with a body and soul, rational and moral. God is a conscious spirit without a body, infinitely rational and morally perfect. And we could group these substances in different ways. On the one side, we have humans and God, both rational, because human beings are made in the image of God. But on the other hand, humans, like dogs and like wood, are created. Whereas God is an uncreated substance. God did not come into being or into existence. So when we talk about substance, we are talking about what something is. What is it? Wood. What is it? Human. What is it? Dog. What is it? God. That's why in the Westminster shorter catechism, it asks the question, what is God? And that may sound very impersonal. Why don't they say who is God? Well, because they're wanting you to describe the divine substance. The substance is what something is. God is an everlasting spirit without body or parts of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness. But here's the thing: when it comes to human beings, for example, I don't just want to know what you are. I want to know who you are. And that brings us to this second term. So if I asked you, who is your wife? And you said, well, my wife uh has a body and a soul. Uh, she's really a good person. She's very smart, very rational, very intellectual. We would all look at you funny, right? You'd be like, No, no, no, no, you're telling me what she's like or what she is, but I want to know who she is. And you would say, oh, Janet or Sarah or Jessica, that's who she is. You would give me her name. Now, would it make any sense to say, who is that wood paneling over there? Who is that wood? No, there is no person in that wood paneling. If I said, who is that dog, would that make any sense? Well, I think we'd like to think about our dogs as persons. We sometimes treat them that way, but no, dogs are not personal. We don't say who is your dog, we say what is your dog's name. But when it comes to human beings, human beings are personal, personal substances. For every human body that's conceived and born, we have a human person. And we could actually go a step further and say that we have one and only one person. Human beings are a monopersonal substance. So let me give you an example. Let's say we went to a mental health hospital, we might meet someone who sadly has multiple personality disorder. And that person switches between multiple personalities. Sometimes they might refer to themselves as Bruce and the next time as Karen. And we know that that person has a mental health struggle because it's impossible for a human being to be more than one person. That is a fact of the human substance. Now, here's the thing: Scripture reveals to us that the divine substance is not monopersonal, but tripersonal. There really are three persons in the one divine spirit. And there is nothing irrational or illogical or contradictory about that belief. Why would we think that the divine substance is identical to the human substance? Simply because each human substance is one and only one person doesn't mean that there must be one and only one person in the divine substance. And God has chosen to reveal to us that in God there are three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and that they really are three distinct persons. That is who God is. So just as when I ask you, who is your wife, you tell me Karen or Cindy. When we ask the question, who is God? The best answer is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Trinity isn't some weird, strange, confusing mystery that we just have to sign off on, like the terms and conditions on the computer. No, it's the answer to the question, who is God? The Trinity tells us who God is. What could be more important than that? And so when you hear Trinity, you ought to think, that's my God. That's who I love, worship, and adore. That's who saved me. That's the God of the gospel. This is why the Athanasian Creed says the Catholic faith is this. The faith that's believed by all Christians everywhere is this: that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance. We don't want to confuse the persons. The Father is not the same person as the Son. The Father is not the Holy Spirit. And we shouldn't confuse them. And then we don't want to divide the substance, right? We can't chop God up into three parts. God is without parts. And this is why heresies like modalism and partialism strike right at the heart of the Christian faith. So, first of all, modalism. Modalism sounds like one of those big, scary theological words, but it's actually, it's actually pretty straightforward. And I can give you a personal illustration of this. I used to work at a grocery store, and a Oneness Pentecostal came in, and he and his wife shopped there, very nice, very conservatively dressed. And one day we got talking about the Trinity, and he said, you know, I'm here with my wife. Right now, I am in husband mode. And he said, I just got off work, I was in employee mode, and I'm gonna go home and play with my kids, and then I'll be in father mode. But I'm just one person. So let's say this guy's name was John. So we've got John in father mode, John in husband mode, and John in employee mode, but there's just one John. But here's why that's such a dangerous way to think about God. Father John can't send husband John. And husband John can't pray to Father John. If he did, we'd think he was nuts. But we see that God the Father sends the Son and that the Son prays to the Father. They're not the same person. Think about Jesus' baptism. Jesus is in the water. So we have the Son of God in the water. We've got the voice out of heaven, this is my beloved Son, and we've got the Holy Spirit descending like a dove. So if we view God the way that this oneness Pentecostal does, then what we have is the Son of God in the water being baptized, while he is throwing his voice up into heaven to talk about how much he loves himself while he descends upon himself in the form of a dove. Right? That doesn't make any sense. And so this idea that God is sometimes in father mode, but then he came into the world in son mode, and then at Pentecost he showed up in spirit mode. This idea of modalism, what it does is it confuses the persons. You collapse the three persons into one, and now you only have one person instead of three distinct persons. Another illustration of this is water in three modes. So you've got an H2O molecule that can be solid, liquid, or gas. But when it goes from liquid to solid, it stops being liquid. And the father never stops being the father. The son never stops being the son, and the Holy Spirit never stops being the Holy Spirit. And then another dangerous belief, another heresy is this idea of partialism. And I think it's even easier to see why this is so problematic. Partialism says that the Father, Son, and Spirit are three parts of God. And a common illustration for partialism is the illustration of an egg, where you have a shell, a yoke, and a white, but yet you only have one egg. And the problem with that is that the shell is only one-third of the egg. It's only part of the egg. The yolk is only one-third of the egg, it's part of the egg. But the father, son, and spirit are not three parts of God. It's not as if the father is one third God, and the Son is one third God, and the Holy Spirit is one third God. So partialism chops God up into three parts like a big pizza. And we've already learned in our catechism that God is without parts, without body or parts. Another illustration for the heresy of partialism is a three-leaf clover. You've got three leaves but one clover. And the problem with that, of course, is that each leaf is only part of the clover. It's only one-third of the clover. Same thing with a flower that has a stem, leaves, and petals. The stem is only part of the flower. The leaves are only part of the flower. Whereas the Father, Son, and Spirit are not parts of God. And so we don't want to confuse the persons as with modalism, nor do we want to divide the substance as with partialism. Does anyone have any questions on this distinction that we make between substance and persons? Yeah, great question. So I said that the illustrations of an egg or a three-leaf clover or H2O are misleading. What illustration do I use? Well, let's think for a second. Eggs, clovers, and water molecules are all created substances. Why might we not be able to use created substances to illustrate something about the divine substance? That's right, because God is uncreated. God is holy, he's transcendent. We shouldn't expect God, the divine substance, to be exactly like anything he has created. Now, there are some attributes of God that can be illustrated by things in creation. Take his love, for example. Love is what we call a communicable attribute. It's something that God can share with his creation. He can make us loving. And so the Bible uses, for example, the illustration of a nursing mother to talk about God's tender and compassionate love. But there are other truths about God that cannot be shared or communicated. And one of those is his triune nature. There's no sense in which we can become triune. And so that cannot be illustrated by anything in creation. It's better to simply say what we believe, just simply teach what we believe, which is uh hopefully what I've been trying to do tonight. Is that helpful? Good, good. Uh any other questions? Yeah, so you work with children, right? And so it's going to be very easy to latch on to these kinds of illustrations because you want to make it simple for the kids. But I'm actually coming out in January with a kid's catechism. It's 52 questions and answers. I wrote it for little Adam when he was two years old. And I would say that the doctrine of the Trinity is the focus of that catechism. It opens by asking, who loves you more than mommy and daddy? Answer God. And then it goes on to say, How many gods are there? Answer one. Who is the first person in God? The Father. Who is the second person in God? The Son. Who is the third person in God? The Holy Spirit. Who created all things? God the Father. Through whom did God create all things? The Son and Spirit. Who did God send to save us? Jesus Christ. Who is Jesus Christ? God's only Son. Who gave baby Jesus to Mary? The Holy Spirit. Who else did God send to save us? The Holy Spirit. And so on and so forth. And these are the things that children need to know. And honestly, these are the things that adults need to know as well. Because we know that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit because of the gospel. It's because God so loved the world and sent his only Son, and because God sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost that we know God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If he has a son to send and a spirit to send, then he must be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And so this is the approach that I recommend with children. I hope that this teaching on the Trinity is helpful to you as you go back to the text of Scripture. Because you're going to run into verses like the one that Larry mentioned the other week, where Jesus says, I and the Father are one. And a modalist would say they're the same person. They're just showing up in two different modes. They're one person. But this language of substance helps us to say, no, Jesus is saying they are the same God, the same divine spirit. And you are confusing the persons. The Father and the Son are not the same person, but they are the same God, the same in substance. I also hope that this helps deepen your experience of Christian worship. We are immersed in the life of the triune God from day one because that's who God is. Gregory of Nazianz has said, when I say God, I mean Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The gospel that we preach is the good news that God sent the Son and the Spirit. When we respond to that gospel, we are baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. We come to church and we pray, our Father, in the name of Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit. We sing holy, holy, holy, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. And the more that we can become aware of how we are already immersed in the life of the triune God, the more rich and meaningful our Christian experience will become. Let's end with the glory of Patri. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. World without end. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Thank you for listening to the Holy Joys Podcast. Email your questions to podcast at holyjoys.org, and they may be featured on a future episode. Our labors for Holy Happy Church are supported by generous listeners like you. Please pray about partnering with us at holyjoys.org forward slash donate.