In this chapter, White concentrates on 6 basic themes to identify touchstones for Trinitarian doctrine found in the synoptic presentation of Jesus:
1. Eschatological ultimacy
White notes 5 distinct but potentially related themes in Jesus’ eschatological message that depict Jesus’ own life and mission as coinciding with the culmination of the eschaton. “There is a decisive indication in the synoptic gospels that Jesus of Nazareth took himself to be God’s ultimate eschatological emissary, one who was inaugurating the beginning of the end times in his own life, public mission, death, and exaltation” (71).
2. The Kingdom of God and the Messianism of Jesus
Jesus is a King and does inaugurate a Kingdom. But it’s paradoxical in nature: “Jesus’ actions are depicted as establishing the eschatological reign of God. However, in and through these actions it is the mystery of the inner life of God that emerges in the life and teachings of the Christ, and that is the true basis for the advent of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God at base, then, is the kingdom of the Trinity” (84).
3. Exclusive Sonship
A human being could be called a “son of God” for many reasons in the OT. But Jesus does use this term to show a unique relational identity to the Father. “The Son is wholly relative to his Father, and the Father is relative to his Son. The Son is the one who has been sent from the Father, and it is the Father, as the God of Israel, who reveals himself in the mission of his Son” (75). The baptism in the Jordan and transfiguration on Mount Tabor manifest this filial identity: “Re-read in a filial light, the end times consist in the perfect knowledge of God, manifest in the Son, and the kingdom of God is in fact the kingdom of the Father, instantiated by the sending of his Son” (76).
4. Pre-existence and Lordship
“Jesus speaks of himself at times as if he is one who had preexisted his historical era and who claims to have come into the world in virtue of a divinely appointed mission” (76).
5. Resurrection, divine epiphany, and worship
Paul suggests in Phil 2:5-11 & Rom 1:3-4 that “Jesus is fully recognized as the pre-existent Son and Lord only in light of his resurrection” (80). Mark – “truly this man was the Son of God” (centurion after death).
6. Spirit of the Father, Spirit of Jesus
1st sending, the Holy Spirit is sent upon the Son by the Father in the Baptism in the Jordan. Also conceived of the Holy Spirit. Jesus has the fullness of the Spirit. And at the same time, John the Baptist says that the Christ will baptize us with the Holy Spirit (Mark 1:8), 2nd sending at Pentecost. Jesus communicates this Spirit to others: “In the synoptic gospels there is already an inchoate theology of the inseparable operation of the three divine persons at work in the salvific deeds of Jesus, the efficacy of which continues on into the life of the Church in an especial way through the sending of the Spirit” (83).
Conclusion: Christological reevaluation of Old Testament Monotheism
The synoptic authors presuppose the truth of God’s revelation to Israel, that the Lord God of Israel is one. However, a new revelation of God emerges in the synoptics. The Lord God of Israel is one, but this God is also the Father, who has sent his Son and his Spirit into the world. This new teaching implies at least three mutually related ideas.
- Jesus’ unity with God the Father and the Holy Spirit: his authority is that of the Lord of Israel.
- Jesus’ real personal distinction from the Father and the Spirit. He is “the Son” in an exclusive sense, and his exclusive sonship distinguishes him not only from other human beings (he alone is the Son of God), but also from the Father and the Spirit (he is personally distinct from the Father and the Spirit even while he is somehow one with them).
- The mutual relationality of Jesus and the Father, and of Jesus and the Spirit, and corresponding to this mutual relationality, that of a seeming mutual indwelling. The Son is always identified in relation to the Father and vice versa. “All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son” (Matt. 11:27). Likewise the Son works in unity with the Spirit in his ministry and visible mission, as they both are sent forth from the Father.
Prodigal Catholic 