The Church
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 61, No. 1 – Fall 2018
Editor: W. Madison Grace II
By Fred Sanders. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016. 256 pages. Paperback, $24.99.
Exegetical over-reaching of premodern interpreters has often tainted the authority and respectability of the doctrine of the Trinity among contemporary theologians. Conscious of the apparent difficulties for Christian theology, Fred Sanders—professor of theology at Biola University—aims to “make our knowledge of the Trinity more secure by ordering our language about it more accurately” (185). A key component of such revision, which also serves to govern the book’s outline, is that “the manner of the Trinity’s revelation dictates the shape of the doctrine” (19). According to Sanders, revelation of the triune God is located in the historical missions of the Son in the incarnation and the Spirit at Pentecost. It was the early church fathers’ awareness of the theological claims of Scripture, particularly in the gospel narratives, that led them to read the economy of salvation “retrospectively” as the authoritative revelation of the divine life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Recapitulating this well-trodden path, Sanders guides readers into the theo-drama of Scripture to reconsider the nature and form of the doctrine of the Trinity.
Chapters one through five explore the self-gifting of the triune God in the missions of the Son and Holy Spirit, thereby laying the revelatory foundation for the doctrine of the Trinity. Chapter one situates Trinitarian dogma in the realm of worship; to speak of the triune God is “essentially a spiritual exercise… a doxological movement of thought that gives glory to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” (19). Chapters two and three introduce the nature of the triune God’s self-disclosure. Although the doctrine of the Trinity is not “presented to us in a formulated state,” it is nonetheless revealed in a “direct, intense, and personal way” (39, 40). God’s self-witness incorporates “salvific actions” and “explanatory words.” In the New Testament, the “eternal conversation” of the triune God extends outward in the “self-interpreting” economic missions of the Son and Spirit. Chapter four establishes the canonical unity of the biblical text, which serves as a presupposition of Trinitarian theology. The doctrine of the Trinity, Sanders argues, “arises from the totality of Scripture rather than from a congeries of scattered texts” (104). The unity of the Old and New Testament also exhibits a unified narrative that reveals the “agency of the triune God” (105).
Chapter five considers the internal triune relations of origin. The missions-processions scheme (as opposed to the more enigmatic idiom of the economic and immanent Trinity) provides the primary conceptual framework for distinguishing the triune persons. The triune missions and processions must be distinguished—the former terminating in time while the latter in eternity—without severing the link between God’s external and internal acts.
Chapters six through eight further specify the relationship between God’s triune self-disclosure and Holy Scripture. The historical missions are foundational for the New Testament canon, which “receives” and “presupposes” divine revelation. Sanders identifies three aspects of Trinitarian doctrine in New Testament. The Scriptures present (1) raw data in speaking of the Father, Son, and Spirit. The data occurs alongside (2) “patterned reflection” which puts (3) “pressure” on the interpreter to develop distinctions among the persons while maintaining unity. Sanders’ ruminations on the unveiling of the Trinity in Scripture are insightful and carefully nuanced. In chapter eight, Sanders discusses prosopological exegesis of the Old Testament—a favored interpretive practice of early Christian communities—and endorses a recovery of this hermeneutic in the Church today. Sanders’ exposition of Scripture in preceding chapters is limited to the New Testament—a methodology which corresponds to the qualitative difference between triune revelation before and after the economic sending of the Word and Spirit. It is, however, unfortunate that Sanders does not initiate this recommendation by realizing the dogmatic potential of the testimony of the prophets. Nonetheless, the study promotes further rereading of the Old Testament to clarify its distinct contribution to Trinitarian dogma.
The Triune God bridges Christian dogmatics, theological method, and hermeneutics. The dogmatic location of revelation, for instance, is a crucial part of Sanders’ “seismic retrofitting” of the doctrine of the Trinity (180). In its widest signification, divine revelation embraces inscripturated revelation. Verbal revelation, Sanders argues, upholds the unity of God’s being and act, and is therefore necessary for the flourishing of Trinitarian theology. However, revelation is properly restricted to “the actual historical sending of the Son and the Spirit in the incarnation and Pentecost” (185). Sanders thus distinguishes, without separating, God’s triune revelation in the historical missions and the written attestation to those missions. Such an approach accords with the biblical witness, for “God did not first describe the Trinity’s eternal processions and then display them in missions” (94). This instructive construal serves to curtail interpreters’ heightened expectations to discover a formulated doctrine of the Trinity in the Bible. Theology proper must “generate” a corresponding theology of revelation which in turn governs and shapes bibliology and scriptural reading. Holy Scripture proceeds from the domain of the Word and Spirit. Sanders remarks, “The Trinity is in the Bible because the Bible is in the Trinity” (44).
Theological reading yields a doctrine of the Trinity by tracing the text’s witness to the immanent processions of the Son and Spirit revealed in the economy. In this process, theological discourse remains transparent to the particularity of the biblical writings. When overburdened, linguistic idioms sever the link between revelation and Trinitarian theology. As a result, the biblical basis of the doctrine of the Trinity is undermined. In contrast, according to Sanders’ approach (which comes to view in the exegetically-focused chapters 6–8), the doctrine of the Trinity emerges as an interpretative gloss on the biblical narrative (e.g. Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan). These brief exegetical readings are particularly illuminating and prompt further interpretive work in this mode. Moreover, Sanders overcomes a prevalent criticism against classical Trinitarian teaching by offering a portrait of the triune God deeply rooted in scriptural exegesis.
In grounding all human divine knowledge in the Word and Spirit, The Triune God successfully provides a “more secure footing” for Trinitarian theology (22). The volume may serve as an introductory textbook on the doctrine of Trinity for both undergraduate and graduate classes. That said, Sanders does not present a comprehensive historical or systematic account of the Trinity. Rather, he calls the church to ground the doctrine in the “intentional self-revelation of God” (106). The deity of the triune persons provides the theological anchor which unites the eternal processions and temporal missions. The Son, as God, and the Holy Spirit, as God, are truly “God’s self-gift in the economy” (151).
