One God, Three Distinct Persons

Article 9 of 13 in the series “The Old Paths of Trinitarian Doctrine: Reading Edmund Calamy’s Thirteen Sermons.”

Calamy’s ninth sermon addresses the distinction within the one Godhead. His text is 1 Corinthians 12:4–6:

“Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.”

The passage names Spirit, Lord, and God—the Holy Ghost, the Son, and the Father—while presenting their operations within one divine work. Calamy uses it to show that unity does not erase distinction and distinction does not multiply deity.

The Persons Appear in Different Orders

Scripture does not always name the three in the same sequence. Matthew 28 gives Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. First Corinthians 12 begins with Spirit, proceeds to the Lord Jesus, and then names God. Elsewhere the Son comes first, followed by Spirit and Father.

Calamy draws a measured inference. If the order marked a scale of essential rank, one would expect the supposedly supreme person always to stand first and the lowest last. The variation is consistent with equality of nature and distinction of person.

The order can still be meaningful in a particular passage. Baptism follows the revealed order of Father, Son, and Spirit. A passage about gifts may begin with the Spirit. The point is that literary sequence cannot bear the weight of an eternal hierarchy.

One Person Is Not Another

Calamy’s first proposition is elementary and indispensable: the Father is not the Son; the Son is not the Father; the Holy Ghost is neither Father nor Son.

The Father did not become incarnate, suffer, die, or intercede. The Son does not beget the Son or send himself from the Father. The Spirit proceeds, is sent, glorifies the Son, and receives of what is Christ’s. These relations and acts distinguish the persons.

This rules out Sabellianism or any “three-named unity” in which one person merely appears under changing titles. Scripture’s dialogues, missions, love, testimony, and intercession cannot be reduced to a single person speaking and relating only to himself.

The distinction is not separation. The persons do not occupy parts of space, possess independent essences, or pursue separate plans. “Not the other” identifies a real personal distinction within the one undivided being.

The Distinction Serves the Economy of Salvation

Calamy’s second proposition asks what distinction is necessary to preserve Scripture’s account of redemption. The Father sends the Son to acquire salvation; the Son sends the Spirit to apply it. The Father requires satisfaction, the incarnate Son offers obedient suffering, and the Spirit unites sinners to Christ and sanctifies them.

These roles are not masks worn by one person. He who sends is distinguished from him who is sent. He who offers satisfaction is distinguished from him to whom it is offered. He who glorifies Christ is distinguished from Christ.

At the same time, redemption is the work of one God. The Father does not remain uninvolved in the Son’s act, nor does the Spirit apply a salvation external to himself. The undivided divine power operates according to personal order.

The economy therefore reveals the persons truly without exhausting their eternal relations. God’s saving acts correspond to who Father, Son, and Spirit eternally are; they are not temporary characters without foundation in God.

No Essential Perfection Distinguishes Them

Calamy’s third proposition guards equality. Father, Son, and Spirit are not distinguished by wisdom, holiness, power, eternity, or any other perfection essential to deity. If one person possessed more of a divine attribute, the others would not possess the whole divine nature.

Personal properties distinguish; essential attributes do not. The Father is Father, the Son is Son, and the Spirit is Spirit. Yet each is omniscient, omnipotent, eternal, and infinitely holy. The Son is not another God beside the Father, and the Spirit is not a third God.

This also explains shared divine works. Creation, providence, and salvation proceed from the one divine power. Scripture may particularly attribute a work to one person, but the attribution does not partition the essence.

The Divine Nature Is Not a Fourth Thing

If there is one essence and three persons, some object that four divine realities have been introduced: the essence plus Father, Son, and Spirit. Calamy rejects the arithmetic because the divine nature does not subsist separately from the persons.

There is no impersonal “Godhead” standing behind the Father, Son, and Spirit as a fourth bearer of deity. The one divine nature exists wholly and eternally in the three persons. Nor did deity first exist alone and later become triune. The triune mode of existence is not an addition to God.

This is why counting in God cannot simply repeat counting among creatures. Three human persons entail three human beings because each possesses a separate instance of human nature. Three divine persons do not entail three Gods because the divine essence is numerically one and indivisible.

Each Person Possesses the Whole Deity

Calamy’s fifth proposition states that the entire divine nature is in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and in each considered distinctly. No person possesses a fraction or share.

The Father is the one true God; the Son is the one true God; the Spirit is the one true God. This does not mean the Father is the Son. It means the predicate identifies the same indivisible essence in each personal subject.

Therefore no person is wiser, holier, stronger, or more eternal than another. Order does not become degree. The Father may be first in the revealed personal order without being first in a scale of deity.

More Distinct from Each Other Than from the Essence

Calamy uses a helpful if carefully limited expression: Father, Son, and Spirit are more distinct from one another than any is from the divine nature common to all. The persons have distinct names and relations; the essence and essential perfections are wholly the same.

This blocks both modalism and tritheism. Modalism makes the personal distinctions less real than Scripture makes them. Tritheism makes the common deity less numerically one than Scripture makes it.

The biblical confession must say both: each person is God, and the persons are not each other.

We Need Not Explain the Ground of Distinction

Calamy’s seventh and eighth propositions introduce restraint. Christians can be certain of the distinctions without conceiving the internal manner in which they subsist. Scripture does not give a mechanism of eternal generation or procession that finite minds can model.

He is wary of disputes over whether the distinction is “modal,” “essential,” “specific,” or “numerical” when those terms carry unstable meanings not supplied by Scripture. He does not reject all theological terminology. The word person remains useful if it signifies a real distinction without a separate essence. He rejects the pretence that choosing a term solves the mystery.

Historical disputes over hypostasis illustrate the danger. Greek and Latin speakers could use overlapping terms differently and then suspect one another of heresy. Definition must precede condemnation.

No Contradiction in Three and One

The doctrine does not say that God is three persons and one person, or three beings and one being, in the same sense. It says God is one in essence and three in person. A contradiction requires affirming and denying the same predicate in the same respect.

Calamy readily grants difficulty. What he denies is the right to convert inability to imagine into proof of impossibility. The incarnation, regeneration, creation, and the union of soul and body also exceed easy conception. Revelation would serve no purpose if it could tell us only what unaided reason already comprehended.

The proper response is confession with humility. Scripture reveals enough distinction to ground baptism, redemption, prayer, and communion. It does not invite creatures to map the internal being of God.

Calamy has now completed the doctrinal construction: Father, Son, and Spirit are each God; God is one; the three are really distinct without division. The next sermons ask whether this “old scheme” is genuinely ancient and whether it is preferable to the new subordinationist alternatives.

Previous: Article 8, “None Other God but One.”
Next: Article 10, “Ask for the Old Paths.”