Messianic Trinity

My apologies for not posting this prior to Holy Trinity Sunday. Perhaps it could have been helpful in preparing a sermon, in my dreams at least. What follows below is an abstract of the 30 page paper I wrote for my doctrine of trinity course. I constructed a doctrine of God based on N.T. Wright's assessment of Jesus' own messianic discernment within the symbolic categories of Second Temple Judaism. I figure if Jesus could know who God is and who God was calling him to be without the aid of Aristotle, why can't we do the same?

Wright says that Jesus discerned God calling him to end Israel's exile by inaugurating the kingdom of God, yet this task could only be done by God in person. In other words, Jesus understood himself and his ministry as doing and being for Israel and the world that which scripture says only God can do and be. Not only did Jesus say he was doing God's work of inaugurating the kingdom, he specifically claimed that he embodied God's kingdom.

For the exile to end, i.e. for Jesus to be the messiah, three events had to happen. First, God must be enthroned in Zion as Israel's king. (I change what Wright calls 'enthronement' to the term 'shema', because this prayer indicates Israel's creational-covenantal God rules the world.) Second, God's glorious presence, known as shekinah, must return to the properly built Temple. And third, the historical age of shalom must begin. Jesus' messiahship took on this triadic form.

Each of these events corresponds to a distinct actor. For example, Jesus claims to be God's son -- a messianic title indicating representation for all of Israel. He challenges the Temple cult by forgiving sins, particularly the sin of covenantal infidelity that causes Israel's exile, and fulfills this role by submitting to crucifixion. The resurrection validates his claim, thus affirming his attempt to replace the symbol of Temple with himself. He is the shekinah in the properly built Temple. Secondly, Holy Spirit is associated with the new life of resurrection (cf. Ezek. 37 and Rom. 8). St. Paul calls God's spirit "the Spirit of Sonship", i.e. the messianic spirit. Because Jesus' resurrection defeats death -- the ultimate weapon of Isreal's true enemy causing their exile, i.e. evil itself -- the historical age of shalom has begun. Together, the shekinah and shalom reveal God rules on earth as in heaven, a.k.a the shema. Jesus names Israel's God, whom he is sent to reveal in person, "Father". Unified in Jesus' messianic mission the Son of God, the Spirit of Sonship, and their Father end Israel's exile and inaugurate the kingdom of God.

At this point however, it seems that we would have to conclude that either Israel's one God acted in three masks or that there are three gods acting. These are the two basic heresies which the church eventually ruled against by defining the doctrine of God in terms of hellenistic philosophy. Yet the earliest Christians like Paul (not to mention Jesus himself) held firmly, without the aid of Aristotle or Plato, to both core beliefs of God's oneness and of God's eschatalogical rule through Jesus.

We must remember that God's oneness is God's rule (the shema). In other words, God is the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is the fulfillment of covenant. Therefore, who God is is the fulfilment of covenant: shema, shekinah, and shalom in person. What unifies these three distinct character-events is covenantal faithfulness, tsedaqah.

Jesus fulfills covenantal faithfulness through death and resurrection. Likewise, self-emptying kenosis and exaltation by another are the means of tsedaqah within the messianic trinity. The Son can only be God's glorious presence within the Temple by finding his own identity beyond himself in the Father; giving up his claim to divinity he receives what is already rightfully his from the divine Spirit. Similarly, the Spirit of Sonship cannot be of the messianic tri-unified God w/o being "of Sonship", i.e. of Jesus, and the Spirit cannot be shalom in the world unless the Father grants his own divine and eternal peace. Finally, the Father cannot be present to rule unless he remains hidden while the Son and Spirit actualize his reign. His identity is in his Son and his eternal peace is in their Spirit. Each of the three character-events of the messianic trinity empty themselves and receive exaltation from the others. Thus they fulfill the covenant of God's kingdom even prior to incorporating the world into it.

We can summarize this idea of messianic trinity by answering the following questions basic to any construction of the Christian doctrine of God:

1. How can we speak of threeness in God? The character-events of triadic messiahship differentiate the three necessary entities of God's kingdom: shekinah, shalom, and shema. In their bond of tsedaqah each gains its unique identity in relation to the other two.
2. How are these three divine? We first know Jesus is divine through his vocation that challenged the Temple and led to his death, through his resurrection that confirmed he is the properly built Temple, and through his ascension that reserves his right to judge who constitutes the returned-from-exile-Israel until the culmination of shalom beyond death. Witnessing these three exile-ending activities reveals that Jesus is God in person. Once we know the human Jesus is divine, we also know that the three messianic character-events embodied in him are divine.
3. How can we speak of oneness in God? God is the kingdom of God, the fulfillment of God's covenant. The three divine character-events are unified by the bond of God's covenantal faithfulness, tsedaqah.
4. Could God ever reveal less than or more than these three character-events? Not if Jesus is the messiah.

That's a lot to take in for one blog entry. If this has peaked your interest, feel free to request a copy of my paper for a more detailed accounting. I was pleasantly surprised to have received an 'A' on it from my professor, so I know it successfully defended this concept of messianic trinity to at least one contemporary Aristotilian Thomist.