Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 19:3 (Summer 2005)
Article: The Trinity in the Gospel of John: A Thematic Commentary on the Fourth Gospel
Author: William David Spencer

PP 19:3 (Summer 2005) p. 29

The Trinity in the Gospel of John:
A Thematic Commentary on the Fourth Gospel

Royce Gordon Gruenler

(Wipf and Stock 2005)

Reviewed by

William David Spencer

The 2005 appearance of Bruce Ware’s Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles, and Relevance marks a bold attempt to put subordinationist claims before the Evangelical Church in a popular and accessible form. Professor Ware writes:

An authority-submission structure marks the very nature of the eternal Being of the one who is three. In this authority-submission structure, the three Persons understand the rightful place each has. The Father possesses the place of supreme authority, and the Son is the eternal Son of the eternal Father (21). The Father gets top billing, as it were (51).

Equality in substance, but permanent stratification in roles is a position not even held by all complementarians, but is being put forward by an increasingly vocal constituency of scholars, many of whom are motivated by a concern for locating hierarchy in male and female relations in the exalted standard of the Godhead.

In light of this trend, historically-orthodox readers, disturbed by what appears to be sub-trinitarian views qualifying the “one God in three co-equal Persons,” will welcome the reappearance of one of the most important and least noticed statements of the mid-1980s “battle for the Trinity.” Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary New Testament Professor emeritus Royce Gruenler’s landmark study, so far ahead of its day, when published by Baker in 1986, was not intended to be a part of the gender debate. In fact, the author states explicitly: “[I] hope that my thematic emphasis on mutual servanthood will not be misconstrued as an egalitarian attack on levels of authority that are biblically described and mandated” (xiii). The presence of that disclaimer is why the conclusion that immediately follows is so compelling: “At the same time I express concern that overemphasizing the model of authority/submission may reintroduce the one-way subordinationism that troubled earlier discussion of the Trinity in the history of the church.” As he explains, “Using the language of Jesus in the fourth Gospel, that within the inner relationship of the eternal Triunity the Father always commands and the Son and Spirit always obey, that only the Father authoritatively speaks and the Son and Spirit always passively listen, but never the other way around, and that yet at the same time neither is principally inferior or superior to the other” is “a category mistake.” Once operating within this error, he concludes, “The best one could do under these circumstances to salvage Jesus’ claims of equality with the Father would...