What is the Godhead?

Godhead, the prominent word in this passage, is a word of our English tongue, adequately expressive of the original noun, theotees, and has been used during the past six centuries in the various successive English translations of this verse.

The suffix, head, indicates the presence and embodiment of all the essential qualities and attributes of God indeed, God Himself. It is allied in origin to the suffix, hood, found with a similar significance in words like manhood, mother-hood, priesthood, Godhood (occasionally), implying in each case all the status, ability, dignity, necessary to being so-and-so.

Thus, manhood comprehends everything that is proper or essential to a man, and that distinguishes a man from every other order of beings. And, in like manner, Godhead signifies God in the absolute nature of His Being, comprising all that He is in Himself, and in none beside Himself.

So we must be careful in using the terms, first, second and third Persons in the Trinity, not to think there is any difference in importance. The Father is God; the Son is God; the Spirit is God—the Spirit equal in nature and substance to the Father and the Son. If the three Persons of the Godhead are each of them God, it does not follow that there are three Gods. That were impossible. There can be only one God, supreme and unique. Orthodox Christendom believes in three Persons in the Godhead, yet one God, indivisible and unique—the three Persons in the Godhead with one will, one purpose, each sharing to the full every thought and desire and purpose in the minds of the others. We may not, nay cannot, comprehend this. It is a mystery hidden in the Godhead, yet the Godhead is pleased to reveal Itself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Thus we see that there could be no full revelation of God, but through the Son by the Spirit, and thereby of the Father. The 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.

When I say it is by necessity of nature, I do not mean that the divine nature, in which the divine Persons subsist, distinguishes Them; for that nature is one and common to Them all. The nature of the Son is the same with that of the Father; and the nature of the Spirit the same with that of the Father and the Son; and this nature, which They in common partake of, is undivided; it is not parted between Them, so that one has one part, and another a second, and another a third; nor that one has a greater and another a lesser part, which might distinguish Them, but the whole fullness of the Godhead is in each.

But if God is one in Essence, there are within that Essence, or Substance, three Persons, each standing in relation to the other as Father, Son and Spirit. Essence gives us an impersonal thought by which we can understand that He fills all space and permeates the universe with life, glory, and majesty. Eph. 4:6. "Heaven is My throne." Ps. 11:4. Acts 7:49. As such there is one mind, purpose, will and plan, hence, what is true of One, is true of all Three. This explodes for ever what speculative theology has pre-supposed namely, a conflict within the Godhead. To raise a moral question like that would be equal to saying, that God can be at variance with Himself.

It is a thousand pities that this should be so, for the sacred words have a tremendous import. The verse is one of the few where all the three Persons of the Triune God-head are named, the Holy Spirit being God equally with the Father and the Son. Not three Gods in one Person, but one God existing in three Persons.

It may not be inappropriate in this place to refer to the word, divinity, as distinguished from Godhead or Deity, with which, however, it is sometimes confounded. Both the latter are, as already noted, faithful translations of the Greek word, theotees, which occurs only in Col. 2:9. This word means "Godhead in the absolute sense" (J.N.D.), and is distinct in meaning from theiotees, occurring in Rom. 1:20, which signifies the character of God, rather than God Himself.

The word in Romans is applied by the apostle to what may be observed of God in the works of nature — His creatorial majesty, might, and wisdom. These attributes are included in His theiotees, divinity, but are not His Essential Being. On the other hand, all the fullness of the theotees dwells in Christ bodily.

Again, it is notorious that θειότης (from θεῖος, divine), here translated "Godhead" in the Authorized Version, has a wholly different force from θεότες (from Θεός, God) in Colossians 2:9. In the latter case it would quite fall short of the apostle's object to predicate divinity of the person of Christ: all the fulness of the Deity, or Godhead in the strictest sense, he says, dwells in Him bodily. In the former case, there is no such distinct personality supposed, but the more general sense that man may gather of a nature not creaturely but creatorial as evidenced in His works, the fruit of His power. It is a real, though the lowest, kind of testimony.

Persons in the Godhead. — The Father's voice was heard in response to the request of His Son. Different Persons in the Godhead there are. In the Gospels that is made plain. At the Lord's baptism the three were distinguished. Here we have the Father and the Son. The multitude on this occasion were witnesses of the Father and the Son being distinct Persons. The voice of the former was heard. The latter interpreted its bearing. Public attestation, therefore, was given to the Son. He spoke. All could hear what He said. An answer came at once from heaven. The Father was taking note of that which was passing on this little globe, insignificant in size compared with those vaster heavenly bodies moving around us in space. The Father was near at hand. He answered at once. One God there is. There cannot be two supreme Beings. This was the mission of Judaism to maintain (Deut. 6:4). Three Persons there are in the Godhead, perfectly distinct from one another. This is part of the Christian man's creed to confess. And these are called in Scripture the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost (Matt. 28:19).

In further proof of my assertion that the writer of this booklet is wrong in his apprehension of God, I would show that he is not clear of Tritheism however much he may protest against it. It is clear to those who give themselves to these things that certain words may be rightly used when speaking of God as ONE which could not rightly apply when speaking of any One Person in the Blessed Trinity. For example we speak rightly of God as Eternal, Infinite, Omnipotent and so on. It is clear that we cannot speak of three Infinite, or three Omnipotent [*]Beings. This is another plain proof of the writer's confusion in these things. He speaks on page 6 of three infinite, co-equal, co-eternal Persons. Is this the way the denial of our Lord's pre-Incarnate Sonship is supported? Three Infinite Persons leads to absurdity. Nor is it a slip, for on page 3 he speaks of each of the Beings in the blessed Trinity as "self-existent." I would ask if it is possible for the Person who speaks thus to be clear of Tritheism. Three self-existent Persons, if words mean anything, is three Gods.