The Mystery of God, the Father, and Christ

Article 4 of 13 in the series “The Old Paths of Trinitarian Doctrine: Reading Edmund Calamy’s Thirteen Sermons.”

Calamy’s fourth sermon continues his reply to objections against the Son’s supreme deity. Its text is Colossians 2:2, where Paul desires believers to possess comfort, unity in love, and “all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ.”

That combination governs the sermon. The doctrine is a mystery, but it is a revealed mystery that produces assurance. It is incomprehensible in its manner, but not uncertain in its truth. And it must be handled in a way that strengthens comfort and love rather than dissolving the gospel into speculation.

Mystery Is Not an Escape from Evidence

Critics of Nicene doctrine sometimes accuse Trinitarians of appealing to “mystery” only after their explanations fail. Calamy answers that Scripture itself calls the gospel and the relations of Father and Son a mystery. Christians did not invent the category to protect a contradiction. God revealed truths that unaided reason could not discover and finite reason cannot exhaust.

A mystery is not nonsense. We can know that God is triune because he has spoken, even though we cannot know how the three persons subsist in the one undivided essence. The distinction between truth and manner is essential. The fact is revealed; the internal mode remains above us.

Nor does mystery abolish full assurance. Paul joins them. The “riches” of understanding do not consist in penetrating God’s essence but in being firmly established in what God has made known. Faith becomes unstable when it demands a kind of comprehension God never promised.

Christ’s Two Natures Must Govern the Difficult Texts

The principal objection considered in this sermon is that Jesus disclaims divine perfections. He says he can do nothing of himself, refuses a flattering use of the word “good,” and declares that the Son does not know the day and hour of the final judgment.

Calamy’s answer begins with the incarnation. The eternal Son truly assumed a finite human nature. That nature did not become omniscient, omnipresent, or incapable of ordinary human weakness merely by union with the Word. Christ can therefore speak and act according to his human condition without surrendering the divine perfections that belong to him as God.

This is not a device imposed upon one difficult verse. Scripture itself compels it. The same New Testament says that Jesus grew in wisdom and that he knows all things; that he was present in one place and that he is with his disciples always; that he died and that he possesses life in himself. The interpreter must confess both rather than allowing one class of texts to erase the other.

“Of That Day and Hour Knoweth No Man”

The most difficult example is Mark 13:32. Jesus says that no one knows the day and hour, “no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” Calamy rejects explanations that make Christ merely pretend ignorance or refuse to answer while actually saying something false. The ignorance must be real in the respect intended.

His solution is that the Son knows the day as God but does not know it according to the finite human understanding and mediatorial capacity being considered. Christ has a divine understanding that is omniscient and a human understanding capable of growth and limitation. The single person may truthfully speak from the condition of the nature in which the limitation exists.

Calamy knows the objection: if Jesus says simply that “the Son” does not know, does the statement not apply to the whole person? He answers that ordinary speech often predicates of a person what belongs according to one nature or condition. Scripture says the Lord of glory was crucified, though deity cannot suffer. It says the Son of Man came down from heaven, though his human nature did not pre-exist in heaven. Predication follows the unity of the person without confusing the natures.

This interpretation preserves both truthfulness and the whole biblical witness. To say that the eternal Word is ignorant would contradict the passages that attribute omniscience to him. To say that his humanity was omniscient would contradict his genuine human development. The incarnate Son is not half-God and half-man, but fully God and fully man.

“Why Callest Thou Me Good?”

When Jesus asks the rich ruler, “Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God,” he does not confess himself outside the divine goodness. He challenges the ruler’s shallow address. If the man regards Jesus as merely a human teacher, he has used a title whose full weight he has not considered.

The question presses toward Christ’s identity: do you understand whom you are calling good? The one infinite goodness is God. If Jesus properly possesses that goodness, the exchange confirms rather than denies his deity.

Calamy’s broader rule is useful. A question designed to expose a speaker’s inconsistency must not be turned into a denial of what the rest of Scripture affirms about Christ. The Lord often teaches by forcing his hearers to examine the implications of their words.

“The Son Can Do Nothing of Himself”

Calamy again insists upon reading the whole sentence. The Son can do nothing “of himself,” but whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. The text cannot mean that the Son lacks power, because it immediately assigns him every divine work of the Father.

The Son does nothing from an isolated or rival principle. Father and Son possess one divine will and operation. Their personal distinction never becomes competition. In his mediatorial office, the Son also carries out the Father’s commission in perfect obedience. Neither truth requires an inferior divine essence.

Full Assurance Depends upon the Identity of the Saviour

Calamy connects Trinitarian error to the entire structure of redemption. A subordinate, dependent, or deficient God would provide a subordinate salvation. If Christ is merely an exalted creature, his incarnation is no longer the infinite condescension of God, his obedience cannot possess the dignity required by satisfaction, and his priesthood becomes a metaphor rather than the act of the God-man.

Calamy puts the danger starkly: once Christ passes for a metaphorical God, people will soon accept a metaphorical priest and a metaphorical sacrifice. Low thoughts of Christ’s person inevitably reshape his work.

By contrast, equality between Father and Son supplies the ground for the covenant of redemption. The Father gives, the Son willingly undertakes, and the assumed human nature becomes the instrument of genuine obedience and suffering. The value of the satisfaction belongs to the dignity of the person who offers it.

Scripture Must Correct the Scheme

Calamy repeatedly warns against explaining plain texts away until Scripture says the reverse of what its words appear to say. Not every first impression is correct, and careful exegesis is necessary. Yet a theological system becomes dangerous when it habitually reduces the Bible’s highest descriptions of Christ to honorific exaggerations while treating every statement of humiliation as an exhaustive definition of his being.

The correct order is ministerial. Gather all the biblical testimony. Distinguish what Scripture distinguishes: person, nature, and office. Refuse a conclusion that makes inspired writers contradict one another. Allow the mystery to remain where revelation leaves it.

Truth Practised, Not Merely Defended

Calamy closes by insisting that orthodox notions alone will not preserve anyone. Truth held in unrighteousness can increase guilt. The promised path to steadiness includes doing God’s will: “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God.”

This does not make obedience the source of revelation. It recognizes that pride, ambition, and sinful desire distort judgment. The God who gives understanding also calls the learner to humility and holiness.

The mystery of the Father and Christ therefore gives assurance rather than scepticism. The believer need not comprehend the hypostatic union to trust the God-man. He needs the Word’s testimony that the one who humbled himself in our nature remains the true and sufficient Saviour.

Previous: Article 3, “Honour the Son Even as the Father.”
Next: Article 5, “Prayer, Obedience, and the Equal Honour of the Son.”