As Christian thinkers continued to deal with various errors regarding the incarnation and the Trinity they eventually developed a formula called the “communication of attributes.” This expressed the idea that although Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully man, he is but one person. Because he is one person, and thus a single subject in both a psychological and grammatical sense, what is said about the person of Christ may logically be said about both God and man. For this reason it is always right to say that God was born, suffered, died and rose. But this statement is only right if we also affirm that while the Son is God, God is not only the Son but also the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Martin Luther developed this idea about the attributes even further. He wanted to stressed the communication of the attributes so profoundly that he insisted the human body of Christ possessed the divine attribute of omnipresence. This would […]

Modalism has a definite basis in Scripture, as do most false or deficient ideas about God. In the case of modalism appeal can be made to John 10:30 which says, “I and the Father are one.” And John 14:9 says, “He that has seen me has seen the Father.” Instead of seeing these verses as saying Christ is the second person in the Trinity, and thus a person who is in perfect communion with the Father, the modalist sees Christ and the Father as the same person but appearing in two different forms/modes. But John 10:30 uses the neuter hen in Greek, which means “one deity, one divine essence.” This point is missed by ordinary readers or by those who simply refuse to accept the doctrine of the Trinity because they cannot explain it to their own satisfaction. Jesus is not saying “I and the Father are one and the same person.” He is saying that he is one in essence with the Father and thus he stands in closest relationship with him.

Modalism sometimes arises because a […]

Modalism is a word unfamiliar to ordinary Christians. This is unfortunate in a way that I want to explain the next several days. The word modalism may not be widely known but the idea is the most common theological error among people who believe they are fully orthodox. Modalism, in brief, is the idea that the three persons in the Trinity are different modes of God’s activity rather than separate/distinct persons.

Subordinationism taught that the second and third persons of the Trinity were in a secondary relationship to God the Father. Modalism tended toward a denial of any distinction between God and Christ. It taught that there was one absolute God, and thus the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were three different modes (“forms”) of God. In this view God shows himself under three names just as an actor might wear three different masks to play three different roles (persona) in a play. The most common way that I hear this idea illustrated is […]