What is the ontological Trinity?

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The ontological Trinity addresses who God is in His eternal being — the truth that within the one Godhead there are three distinct, co-equal, co-eternal divine Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The word "ontological" comes from the study of being itself, so the ontological Trinity describes the Trinity as God eternally is in His own nature — in contrast to the "economic Trinity," which describes the roles each Person takes in the work of salvation. Morrish's Bible Dictionary defines the Trinity concisely: A word only used to convey the thought of a plurality of Persons in the Godhead. This was revealed at the baptism of the Lord Jesus. The Holy Spirit descended 'like a dove' and abode upon Him; and God the Father declared "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." That the Father is a distinct Person and is God is plainly stated, as in John 20:17. Many passages prove that the Lord Jesus is God: one will suffice: ".... in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life." 1 John 5:20. That the Holy Spirit is a Person and is God the following passages clearly prove: Gen. 1:2; Matt. 4:1; John 16:13; Acts 10:19; Acts 13:2, 4; Acts 20:28; Rom. 15:30; 1 Cor. 2:10. The three Persons are also named in the formula instituted by Christ in baptism. Matt. 28:19. Yet there is but one God. 1 Tim. 2:5. Morrish's Bible Dictionary Three Persons, each fully God — yet one God. That is the ontological core. J. G. Bellett explores these eternal relationships with particular depth. He insists that the Persons in the Godhead are not merely different modes or aspects of one Person, but are truly related — and that these relationships are eternal, not something that began at the incarnation: If there are Persons in the Godhead, as we know there are, are we not to know also that there are relationships between them? Can we dispense with such a thought? Is there not revealed to faith, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit; the Son begotten, and the Spirit proceeding? Indeed there is. The Persons in that glory are not independent, but related. Nor is it beyond our measure to say that the great archetype of love, the blessed model or original of all relative affection, is found in that relationship. J. G. Bellett He warns sharply against Modalism — the idea that Father, Son, and Spirit are simply different names for the same Person: Can I be satisfied with the unbelieving thought, that there are not Persons in the Godhead, and that Father, Son, and Spirit are only different lights in which the One Person is presented? The substance of the gospel would be destroyed by such a thought, and can I be satisfied with the unbelieving thought that these Persons are not related? The love of the gospel would be dimmed by such a thought. And he presses the question: was the Son always the Son? His answer is emphatic: It was once asked me, Had the Father no bosom till the Babe was born in Bethlehem? Indeed, fully sure I am, as that inquiry suggests, He had from all eternity. The bosom of the Father was an eternal habitation, enjoyed by the Son, in the ineffable delight of the Father — "the hiding-place of love," as one has called it, "of inexpressible love which is beyond glory; for glory may be revealed, this cannot." Nothing can satisfy all which the Scriptures tell us of this great mystery, but the faith of this: that the Father and the Son are in the glory of the Godhead; and in that relationship, too, though equal in that glory. Bellett also highlights the baptismal formula of Matthew 28:19 as the formal declaration of the ontological Trinity: We are baptized "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." This carries with it the formal declaration of the mystery of the Godhead; the Son being a divine Person (in the recognition or declaration of this sentence), as is the Father, and as is the Holy Ghost. H. H. Snell, writing in The Bible Treasury, traces the eternal Godhead of the Son through Hebrews 1-2: In Hebrews 1 - 2, THE SON is remarkably brought before us; in chapter 1 as to His eternal Godhead, and in chapter 2 as to His manhood. Yet not exclusively so in either chapter, for how could this blessed One, who is both God and man in one person, be divided? H. H. Snell He emphasises that "father" and "son" are relative terms — each implying the other — and therefore the Son's relationship to the Father is as eternal as God Himself: Not only did He most truthfully say, "Before Abraham was I am," but He was before anything was which is made, for it is said of Him, "by whom also he made the worlds." We read elsewhere also that He had glory with the Father before the world was, and, father and son being relative terms, we find here His eternal Sonship most plainly revealed. relative terms And when this old creation passes away, the Son will remain unchanged — proof that His deity is not derived but essential: "Thou, LORD, in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the earth; and the heavens are the work of thine hands; they shall perish, but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment, and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed; but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail." Can there be a clearer testimony to the eternal Godhead of the Son? An article in The Bible Treasury on "The Holy Ghost in Person" opens by naming all three Persons as equally divine: Each of the divine persons in the eternal Godhead has, in connection with Christianity, obtained a blessedly distinctive expression, which never previously had any place in the revelations made to faith. The Father has been Himself revealed; the Son, as man, risen from the dead, has been glorified in heaven; and the Holy Ghost has for eighteen centuries been a dweller in the house of God upon earth, and in each member of the body of Christ. F. W. Grant draws out the ontological force of John 1:1 — three clauses, each carrying a distinct truth about the Son's being: "The Word was with God" — a distinct Person; "and the Word was God" — a divine Person; "and the same was in the beginning with God" — always personally distinct, as always in communion with the Father. F. W. Grant And he notes that the demand for equal honour between Father and Son is itself the strongest possible assertion of ontological equality: "That all men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father" (John 5:23) is the most emphatic assertion of equality; which Thomas' "my Lord and my God" (John 20:28) yields Him, with full recognition on his part of the truth of his too tardy faith. equal honour William Kelly, commenting on Genesis 1, notes that even in the plural noun Elohim with its singular verbs, and in the activity of all three Persons in creation, we see the Trinitarian shape of God's being: One God is the Creator; still, all the persons in the Godhead recognised; God the Father in all the above passages; by Jesus Christ (Eph. 3:9; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2; John 1:5, 10); by the Spirit (ver. 2). William Kelly The ontological Trinity, then, is the truth that God is — in His very being and from all eternity — three distinct Persons sharing one divine essence. This is not something God became when He chose to create or to redeem. It is what He eternally is. The Father has always been Father; the Son has always dwelt in the Father's bosom; the Spirit has always proceeded. They are co-equal in glory and co-eternal in majesty, yet personally distinct — not three Gods, but one God in three Persons. These eternal relationships of love within the Godhead are, as Bellett puts it, "the great archetype of love, the blessed model or original of all relative affection." Everything God does outwardly — in creation, redemption, and the indwelling of believers — flows from who He eternally is within Himself.

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