What is the Godhead?
Scripture uses the word "Godhead" only a few times, and each time it points to what God is in Himself rather than to what He does. The question behind the word is simple to ask and impossible to exhaust: what is God, can He be known, and where do we look?
The Word Itself
Commentators explain "Godhead" by the ordinary English words built the same way — manhood, motherhood, priesthood — each covering everything proper to being that thing.
William J HockingSo manhood covers everything that is proper or essential to a man, and that marks a man off from every other order of beings. In the same way, Godhead means God in the absolute nature of His Being, taking in all that He is in Himself, and in none beside Himself.
Behind the single English word stand two different Greek words, and the difference matters. (Modern translations bring this out: Colossians 2:9 reads "the whole fullness of deity", Romans 1:20 "His eternal power and divine nature".)
William J HockingBoth are faithful translations of the Greek word theotees, which occurs only in Colossians 2:9. This word means "Godhead in the absolute sense" (J.N.D.), and is different in meaning from theiotees, which occurs in Romans 1:20 and signifies the character of God, rather than God Himself.
Three Persons, One Godhead
Writers draw a careful line between two terms that are often blurred, and they tie the distinction to how the Bible speaks of God's work.
George DavisonThe Godhead presents the three Persons as One, but we use the word Trinity to distinguish the three Persons in the Godhead… 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.
Because that one will is shared, the popular idea of a Father set against the Son collapses.
James McBroomAs such there is one mind, purpose, will and plan, so what is true of One is true of all Three. This explodes for ever what speculative theology has assumed, namely a conflict within the Godhead. To raise a moral question like that would be the same as saying that God can be at odds with Himself.
Beyond the Creature's Reach
Whatever we learn of God, something remains that no created mind can enter. The Lord's own words about the mutual knowledge of Father and Son set the boundary.
William J HockingThere is a mutual and intimate knowledge between the Father and the Son in the Godhead, which is necessarily infinite in character and measure. In this full and personal acquaintance with Each Other, no creature can possibly share, either by right or by capacity. There could be no give and take between the Creator and the creature.
What Creation Shows — and What It Cannot
Creation carries a real message about God, but a limited one.
J Wilson SmithWhat is invisible in the Creator should be, and is, seen — seen clearly, understood by the things that are made — even His eternal power and Godhead. Not His grace, or truth, or love, but infinite power and design, so much so that people are left without excuse… It does not reveal what He is in Himself — His nature — but to anyone except those who are wilfully blind, it is evidence enough that a Creator-God exists.
That limit rules out every attempt to model God with our hands. Paul told the people of Athens as much, and one writer sees the same principle pictured in the ark of the covenant, made of pure gold with no ornament.
F. B. HoleIn Paul's address to the Athenians he said that "we ought not to think that the Godhead is like gold, or silver, or stone, shaped by art and man's design" (Acts 17:29). In keeping with this, art and man's design were completely shut out of the ark.
The Fullness Dwelling in Christ
The one verse that uses the strongest word puts the whole of Deity in a Man. Commentators read it as Scripture's guard against any idea of a lesser Christ.
J. N. DarbyHe is called God before He came into the world (John 1), and after He came into the world — "God with us." He created all things, and "by him all things consist"; He is to be worshipped as the first and the last, Alpha and Omega — which is the express title of the Almighty, King of kings and Lord of lords, the Ancient of days. And in case we should think Him some inferior God, we are told that all the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in Him bodily (Col. 2:9).
The result is not only that God is shown, but that we are brought near.
William J HockingIn Him all the fullness of the Godhead has come down to us — bodily; and in Him we have the completeness we need for our acceptance before God! The incarnate Son is therefore our perfect Mediator between God and man; in Him God is presented, and in Him man is accepted!
Summary
- Definition. Godhead means God in the absolute nature of His Being — all that He is in Himself, and in no one else.
- Distinction. Godhead holds the three Persons as One; Trinity is the word used to distinguish Father, Son and Spirit — one mind, one will, never in conflict.
- Limit. The knowledge Father and Son have of each other is infinite, and no creature can share in it.
- Hint. Creation announces eternal power and divine nature, leaving people without excuse, but it never tells us what God is in His nature — and it forbids gods of gold, silver or stone.
- Fullness. What creation only hints at dwells bodily in Christ: God fully presented, and man fully accepted, in one Person.