THE DIVINE TRINITY

General Doctrine

THESE three, the father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are the three essentials of the one God, like the soul, the body, and operation in man. (TCR n. 166)

At this day human reason is bound, as regards the Divine Trinity, like a man bound with manacles and fetters in prison; and may be compared to a vestal virgin buried in the earth, because she has put out the sacred fire; when yet the Divine Trinity ought to shine as a lamp in the minds of the men of the church, for God in His Trinity and in its unity is the All in all in the sanctities of heaven and the church. (TCR n. 169)

Every one acknowledges that these three essentials—the soul, the body, and operation, were and are in the Lord God the Saviour. That His soul was from Jehovah the Father can be denied only by Antichrist; for in the Word of both Testaments He is called the Son of Jehovah, the Son of the Most High God, the Only-begotten. The Divine of the Father is therefore, like the soul in man, His first essential. That the Son whom Mary brought forth is the body of that Divine soul, follows from the fact that nothing but the body conceived and derived from the soul is provided in the womb of the mother; this therefore is the second essential. Operations form the third essential, because they proceed from the soul and body together, and the things which proceed are of the same essence with those which produce them. That the three essentials, which are the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are one in the Lord, like the soul, body, and operation in man, is very evident from the Lord’s words,—that the Father and He are one, and that the Father is in Him and He in the Father; likewise that He and the Holy Spirit are one, since the Holy Spirit is the Divine proceeding out of the Lord from the Father. (TCR n. 167)

From the Lord’s Divine Human itself proceeds the Divine truth which is called the Holy Spirit; and because the Lord was Himself the Divine Truth, when He was in the world He Himself taught the things which were of love and faith, and at that time not by the Holy Spirit; as He Himself teaches in John: “The Holy Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (vii. 39). But after the Lord even as to the Human was made Jehovah, that is Divine Good,—which was after the resurrection,—He was then no longer Divine Truth, but this proceeded from His Divine Good. That the Holy Spirit is the Divine truth which proceeds from the Lord’s Divine Human, and not any spirit or any spirits from eternity, is very manifest from the Lord’s words in the passage cited, that “the Holy Spirit was not yet.” And then it is manifest that a spirit himself can­not proceed, but the holy [effluence] of a spirit, that is, the holy [effluence] which proceeds from the Lord, and which a spirit utters. From these considerations now it follows that the whole Trinity is perfect in the Lord, namely, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and thus that there is one God,—and not three, who, dis­tinct as to person, are said to constitute one Divine. The reason why they were called the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the Word was that men might acknowledge the Lord, and also the Divine in Him. For man was in so thick darkness,—as he also is at this day,—that otherwise he would not have acknowledged any Divine in the Lord’s Human; for this to him would have been above all faith, because entirely incomprehensible. And moreover it is a truth that there is a Trinity; but in one, namely, in the Lord. And it is acknowledged too in the Christian churches that the Trinity dwells perfectly in Him. The Lord also taught plainly that Himself was one with the Father (John xiv. 9-12); and that the holy [truth] which the Holy Spirit speaks is not His, but the Lord’s, in John: “The Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, … shall not speak from Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear He shall speak: … He shall glorify Me, for He shall take of Mine, and shall proclaim it unto you” (xvi. 13, 14). That the Comforter is the Holy Spirit is declared in John xiv. 26. (AC n. 6993)