Theos Also Encloses Son and Spirit

I haven’t read Malcolm Yarnell’s new book Word yet (second volume in his Theology for Every Person project from B&H), but he shared this excerpt from it at Lifeway and I just wanted to pass it along. There is a key move here I want to commend.

Yarnell, who has read deeply in systematic theology, makes this look easy. And I do think there’s a wonderful kind of common sense in the way handles the ideas here. See for yourself:

First, we must learn to confess that the one Lord God is the Father. Most scholars agree that when theos is used in the New Testament, the term typically refers to the Father. Karl Rahner concluded from his studies of the use of theos in the New Testament that the term does not merely sometimes indicate the Father. Rather, the New Testament use of ho theos “signifies the First Person of the Trinity” without exception. “God,” therefore, always refers to the Father.

However, theos also encloses the identity of the Son and the Holy Spirit with the Father. Diminishing the identification of God as Father is improper. To diminish him is to pervert the truth of the Trinity. Rahner restated a classic theological distinction from this profound reality: On the one hand, “the word and concept ‘God’ signifies the Person to whom the divine nature is proper.” On the other hand, “‘God’ can stand for each of the three Persons who possess this nature, or again ‘God’ can stand for all three Persons together.”

Simple as that. When you find the word “God” in the New Testament, you should (almost) always let it carry your mind to God the Father, that is, to the one who sent the Son, that is, to the first person of the Trinity. But if the Bible also persuades you that exactly two other persons are divine alongside the Father, then it is perfectly natural to extend the word “God” to each of them. In fact, if you were asked about whether the Son is God, you would rightly recoil at the idea of saying no.

Much more could be said! But I’m trying to preserve the easy fluency with which a Christian teacher like Yarnell (quoting Rahner, whose writing is usually much more difficult) can write on this subject. “Theos also encloses the identity of the Son and the Holy Spirit with the Father.”