What does the Son represent in the Trinity?

We are speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ as “the Son,” and not of His distinctive glories as “the Son of David,” “the Son of Man” and “the Son of God,” nor even of Him as “the Son of the Father,” but rather of His deity as God the Son. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; yet there are not three Gods, but one God, “God is one” (Gal. 3:20; 1 Tim. 2:5, N.Tr.). Baptism is to the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” we are told in Matthew 28:19. This indicates for us the trinity of Persons in the Godhead, all of whom share in that supreme glory.

Jesus is the Son in the Unity of the Godhead

Here then we have the solid foundation of our Christian faith — the glory of the Person of the Son — an eternal Person, a distinct Person, a Divine Person, and an eternally distinct Person.

Love, life, and intimacy; every character of honour, glory, and might; subsist in the revelation of this relation. Jesus is truly the Son of God; He is also the Son of the LIVING God. He is truly the Son of the Father; He is also the Son of the Father's love. He is God's own Son—essentially the Son. He is the Son having life in Himself—the living, quickening One. Every honour due to the Father is due also to the Son. He is one with the Father; He is in the Father as the Father is in Him. Such realities could only be affirmed of a relation which is, in its very nature, inherently and essentially Divine; Divine, that is, as belonging properly to the absolute and eternal existence of God. Thus, indeed, is God revealed to us, in the Unity of the Godhead, yet according to the Holy Trinity of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

There is one expression in the verse which calls for a few more words which may serve to make the truth a little clearer to some. It is the word "Son." The term is descriptive of our Lord in His eternal relations with the Father, and Spirit, in the Trinity (Matt. 11:27). It is used sometimes also as designating Him in Incarnation, as for example: "The Father loveth the Son and hath committed all things into His hands" (John 3:35; "The Father loveth (philei) the Son, and showeth Him all things that Himself doeth" (John 5:20). It is also used in connection with His Manhood, and to this the passage we are dealing with applies. It is clear that what is predicated of the Person belong to His Manhood, but why is the term which is descriptive of Him in eternal Person used in connection with that which is proper to Manhood? Such a difficulty is only imaginary, for the Spirit who gives us scripture is Sovereign and is free to speak of Him as is proper for the bringing out of His glory.

"The law was given by Moses." It came, and made claims upon us. It made claims for the right reason that the law is a revelation of what the creature ought to be. As I gaze on the ten commandments I see what I ought to be. My conscience tells me that I am not it. Consequently I am condemned by the law. It naturally condemns me whenever I learn its spirit and its power. But what does the gospel do? It brings the revelation of what God is, not what man ought to be. The chapter we are looking at tells beautifully how God has come into this scene in the Person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It says, "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth." And who is that Word? The opening verse tells us, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." I want you to look at this, "In the beginning was the Word." Then the next thing is, that "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth." By "the Word" what am I to understand? The Eternal Word of God! It is Jesus — the Son of God entering into this scene and becoming a man. Men have said, "God was made flesh." Scripture does not say so. It says the "Word was made flesh;" and the reason is very simple. If I think of God as given to me in the Bible, I have presented to me the Triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. If I say "God was made flesh," then I should not express the truth, because the Father was never incarnate, and the Spirit of God was never incarnate; but the Son of God, the Word, "became flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth" (ver. 14). The Eternal Son has come into this scene, humbling Himself, and becoming a man, in order that, in the form of a man, He might reveal to us the heart and nature of God; and moreover, that God, in the condition in which He was found as a man, might find all He looked for in man. That is the charm of these beautiful words, "full of grace and truth." The law Moses might bring, but "grace and truth" came only by the Son of God.

H.A.I. — “God,” of course, is the Trinity — Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So when the Son as man is subject, it is to God as the Trinity.

The Godhead presents the three Persons as One, but we use the word Trinity to distinguish the three Persons in the Godhead. They are distinguished in this chapter. Whenever the source of things is in view, this is attributed to the Father. The active instrumental Agent who brings all into being is the Son, and the power to secure it all is in the Spirit. In Godhead the will of God is the will of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit; of that there can be no doubt. So we read in Genesis chapter 1 "Let us. In Hebrews 10 the Son has taken a subject place in Manhood in order to carry out that will, and in that place of subjection He says, "Lo, I come to do Thy will". So the source of this matter is in God; the doing of His will in sanctifying the company is by the work of Christ, and the witness of it is by the Holy Spirit.

In Scripture the name God is often used as embracing all three persons of the Trinity especially in the Old Testament. But in the New Testament the Father alone is often addressed as God, while the Spirit and the Son are not addressed as God in this way. For example, "And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father" (Gal. 4:6). This is not because of superiority in the Godhead, but rather because in the working out of the divine purposes the Son has taken His place as a servant and the obedient Man, and the Spirit takes the place as sent by the Father and the Son to glorify the Son. So in the place they have taken in the working out of the divine counsels they could not be called simply God in the way the Father is; though the Son is God and the Spirit is God, both coequal with the Father in deity.

In the very nature of things, what is true of One, is true of all Three as we have said, yet in the working out of the eternal plan, each takes His Own place in relation to the Others. The Father is He by whom every family in heaven and in earth is named; He worketh all things after the counsel of His Own will; He is above all, and through all and as to His children, is in you all. Eph. 3:15; Eph. 1:11; Eph. 4:6. The Son creates. John 1:3. Col. 1:16. Heb. 1:2; Redeems. Rom. 3:24; Eph. 1:7. Col. 1:14; He is also the Judge. John 5:22. By creation He brought in the platform upon which the plan would be wrought out. He became Man to cleanse it and put it on the stable basis of redemption and finally, He will put down all that is offensive and rebellious against God. The Spirit performs the subjective work, working for glory and adornment. His part in creation was to garnish it. Job. 26:13. His work in the saints is to array them in the beauty of Christ. Luke 15:22. Col. 3:12-14. To accomplish this, He uses the word of God. He takes up His abode in the believer and thus becomes the subjective power for spiritual instinct; intuition; inspiration; revelation; and illumination. In this way it is the Holy Spirit which qualifies the saints for service whether for conflict in the kingdom; Levitical service in the testimony; or worship in the sanctuary. He is the power which qualifies for all moral activities whether estimates, values or measures. See Note A.