What is the economic Trinity?
Writers in this collection use the phrase "the divine economy" for something specific: the place each Person of the Godhead takes in carrying out one shared plan — in creation, in redemption, and in bringing us to God. The questions it raises are sharp: if the Father sends and the Son obeys and the Spirit is given, does that make one greater than another, and did the plan itself create these relationships?
One Work, Three Distinct Parts
Scripture never divides God's work into three separate projects. It does show a settled order in how the one work is carried out.
F. B. HoleTo God the Father belongs initiative. All purpose, counsel, direction are His. To God the Son belongs administration — the carrying out of the divine purpose whether in creation, redemption, or judgment. To God the Holy Spirit belongs the all-pervading energy that, acting always in perfect harmony with the Father's counsels and the Son's administration, produces the desired effects, whether on matter in creation, or on the souls and finally the bodies of the saints in connection with redemption.
Different Places, Equal Persons
The moment we speak of one Person taking a lower place, care is needed. The plan belongs to all three, and no arrangement inside it changes what each One is.
James McBroomCare is needed here. When we speak of the place of subordination taken by the Son in relation to the Father and the Spirit, or of the place the Spirit takes in relation to the Father and the Son, we might lose the balance and allow something that works against the unity of the Godhead. Whatever place Each takes, whether of authority or of subordination, the eternal co-equality remains the same. While Scripture connects purpose with the Father, it is always the purpose of the Godhead. That is to say, the whole scheme is from Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Hole draws the line in a single sentence, separating what the Son is by nature from the position He took:
F. B. HoleWe distinguish, therefore, between what the Lord Jesus was and is essentially — equal with God, and what He became relatively — subordinate to the Father's will.
Revealed, Not Invented
Some have argued that "Father," "Son" and "Spirit" are working titles adopted for the purpose of saving us. Commentators here reject that firmly: the plan displayed relationships that were already there.
W. H. WestcottThe Christian revelation makes clear these previously unrevealed relationships. It is not that the revelation of them made them exist. God was God before He was revealed to be God. If we say there was no relationship of Son before the incarnation, then there was no relationship of Father before the incarnation, for whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either, 1 John 2:23.
Known Only Through the Son and the Spirit
If God had never acted toward us in this order, we would never have known Him in this way. The order of the work is also the order of the revelation.
The Christian's FriendGod could not be known in Old Testament times. He had not come out, and man could not go in. Now God is revealed in three Persons, and this could not be true until the Son had come. The Son declares the Father, and the declaration is made good in us by the indwelling of the Spirit. God is known.
The Economy at Work in Prayer
This is not a diagram for specialists. Every believer who prays moves along the very order described above — and moves along it backwards, from the Spirit through the Son to the Father.
J. N. DarbyIn this verse we see the way in which we draw near to God, the order of the Spirit in the heart being the reverse of the order of grace. The Father acts by the Son, the Son in us by the Spirit, and since we now have the Spirit, it is by the Son that we address the Father. I cannot pray to God without the truth of the Trinity being shown; it is not an abstract doctrine, but enters into the practical relationships of every day.
Asked why prayer is not normally addressed to the Spirit, the same writer answers from position, not from rank:
J. N. DarbyIt is not any question of the Person or dignity of the Holy Spirit that keeps Him from being the One addressed in prayer, but the place He holds in the divine economy... The Holy Spirit is a divine Person and, in the unity of the Godhead, adored and worshipped. He is the immediate agent of all that God does. But His place in the divine ways is not objective in the same way — He is divine and personal, but in God's ways not so objective.
Summary
- Economy — the word describes the place each divine Person holds in God's ways, not a ranking of who is greater.
- Counsel — purpose belongs to the Father, the carrying out to the Son, the effective power to the Spirit, yet the whole scheme is from all three.
- Equality — the Son's subordinate place is what He became relatively; what He is essentially is equal with God.
- Reality — the plan revealed the relationships of Father, Son and Spirit; it did not create them.
- Access — the order runs down to us in grace and back up in prayer: by the Spirit, through the Son, to the Father — so the Trinity is daily practice, not theory.