What does it mean that the Son is the second Person of the Trinity?
Christians speak of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as three Persons in one God, and the Son is normally counted second in that order. The phrase raises two questions at once: where does such language come from, since the Bible never uses it, and does calling the Son "second" place Him below the Father?
Why we use the word "Person"
The word is a borrowed tool, not a quotation. One writer explains why he keeps using it anyway, and what in Scripture forces the word on him:
J. N. DarbyThe word "Trinity" is not found in Scripture; the expression "justified by faith only" is not found in Scripture; yet I need not justify them to you as human expressions of essentially fundamental truths. I have no better words... So with the word "Person" applied to the Godhead. It is not scriptural; but I have no better word for One who sends, is sent, comes, goes away, wills, distributes, and does distinctive acts.
The word carries a danger
Human "persons" are separate individuals with separate plans. Carried straight across, that picture wrecks the very truth it is meant to protect:
A. J. PollockIn human language when we speak of a person, we think of separate entity, separate existence, separate will, different characteristics, thoughts and plans peculiar to each person, not shared with any others. Carry that human thought into the subject before us, and the truth of the Trinity is entirely perverted and lost. Instead of the Trinity—Father, Son and Spirit, ONE God—we should have three Gods, an absolute impossibility, for there can only be one God, unique and incomprehensible.
"Second" is order, not rank
Numbering has to start somewhere. One writer traces the order back to the words used at baptism, and warns against the conclusion people draw from it:
A. J. PollockWe are accustomed to speak of the first, second and third Persons of the Holy Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Doubtless the formula for baptism has led to this order, and the wisdom of it can be easily seen. But we must be very careful not to place the Persons in our minds as in order of importance. There have been some of late who have put dishonour on our blessed Lord by declaring that He, the Son, was in the nature of things inferior to His Father, and that in face of the Scripture, "That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father" (John 5:23).
That same verse is read as setting the two side by side in the honour due to them. If the Father is honoured as infinite and eternal, the Son must be honoured in exactly those things:
Greg QuailThe Lord Jesus was Son of the Father from eternity past, implying His place of dignity and unity and fellowship with the Father... "All men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father" (John 5:23). We honour the Father as One who is infinite, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, eternal. Therefore the Son is to be honoured precisely in those things.
Distinct in acting, one in will
The distinction is real — one sends, another is sent — yet it never becomes division:
J. N. DarbyThe full revelation of the one God is only thus - Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. This, this only, is what the one God is, one identity of will and being, so that they are essentially one and one only, yet distinct in willing and acting (and we can distinguish them in willing and acting: hence we commonly speak of persons), yet never willing or acting but in the common will and unity of nature.
He was the Son before He was sent
Some have argued that Christ became the Son only when He was born into the world. Commentators in this collection reject that, and they make the sending itself the proof:
Leslie M. Grant"The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world" (1 John 4:14). Was He the Son before He was sent? Certainly He was. Some have denied this... Then was God not the Father before He sent His Son? If God was Father, then it follows absolutely that Christ was the Son... The Lord Jesus answers this plainly and unquestionably in John 16:28, "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world." He makes His coming forth from the Father distinct from His coming into the world.
Only the Son became man
The three are one God, but they are not interchangeable. One of them, and only one, took manhood:
W. TrotterThere was no incarnation of the Father, as of the Son. He abides in unmanifested Godhead; and, only in the Son, who stooped to "come down from heaven" and be here a Man upon earth, is the Father to be seen.
Summary
- Borrowed word. "Person" and "Trinity" are not Bible words. They are kept because Scripture shows One who sends, One who is sent, and One who wills and distributes, and no better word exists.
- Guarded word. Human persons are separate beings with separate wills; import that idea and you end up with three Gods instead of one.
- Not a rank. The order first, second, third follows the wording used at baptism. It marks sequence, never importance.
- Equal honour. The Son is to be honoured as the Father is honoured — in the very things that make the Father God.
- Son before sent. He did not become Son by becoming man; the Son who was already with the Father came into the world, and He alone became man so that God could be seen.