Journal: Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry
Volume: JBTM 21:2 (Fall 2024)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous

Book Reviews

Three in One: Analogies for the Trinity. By William David Spencer. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2022. 242 pages. Paperback, $19.99.

In Three in One, William Spencer analyzes images for the Trinity by highlighting the good, warning about the misleading, and suggesting what each image can teach about God’s nature (5). Spencer is Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Theology and the Arts at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary’s Boston campus. He holds degrees from Rutgers (BA), Princeton Seminary (MDiv and ThM), and Boston School of Theology (ThD).

Spencer is interested in how one explains the inexplicable Trinity (8). He stresses that “God is so totally other that our Creator is beyond our comprehension” (5, 36). His approach is to describe the Trinity in illustrations that are qualified so as to make helpful connections without adding confusion (42). Next, Spencer answers the question: Did Jesus use images to teach about God? Even though it baffled his disciples, Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables (Matt. 13:10, 35). Jesus was a master orator who used puns, personification, hyperbole, and synecdoche to speak about himself and God. Jesus used images from everyday life: carpentry, fishing, farming, shepherding, cooking, family, finance, and governing.

Spencer then focuses on the images of light and the sun. He notes that “the emphasis here is the sun as source and its properties as distinct but unified with it” (79). Jesus is the light of all people and the light that shines in the darkness (John 1:4). He then concentrates on the image of light in Hebrews 1:3. The writer of Hebrews identifies the Son of God as “the radiance” of God’s glory. This image implies that “God the Father is like the sun in the sky. Jesus, as God-Among-Us, is like the radiance of the sun, entering our midst giving us life and new life, illuminating us with God’s knowledge, and lighting the right path so our feet will not stumble” (100). Spencer summarizes that “a proper understanding of Hebrews 1:3’s lesson of light underscores this truth: like comes from like” (126).

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Next, Spencer analyzes images that move and change. The water images (like water-ice-steam) are “attractive, kinetic, living, and vibrant, but at the same time they suggest that their modes are not permanent” (132). This leads to a heresy known as modalism, “making God one being in three roles rather than one being in three distinct persons” (137). The water image does “provide an illustration of shared equality, showing t...