Transcript

Hi folks, welcome back to The Original Church.

Today we're talking about something called the doctrine of appropriation.

And this is another follow-up video to one of my earlier videos on the doctrine of the Trinity.

The doctrine of appropriation is one of these doctrines that flows from the doctrine of the Trinity and supports it.

Now, before we get started, I have to make one clarification.

When we use the word appropriation in the way I'm using it here, I don't mean it in the same way that you might think when you hear of something like cultural appropriation.

Cultural appropriation is kind of taking something from one culture and applying it where it doesn't belong in a way that's inappropriate, right?

So we're not really using the word quite in that sense, but we are using it in the sense that there are some terms that are appropriate for describing the Trinity and the persons of the Trinity.

And then there are some ways of describing the persons of the Trinity that are not appropriate.

And so when I get into talking about the doctrine, you'll see what we mean by appropriating this or that term to the persons of the Trinity to describe and explain the doctrine of the Trinity.

So let's get into it.

Okay, so all doctrines that have to do with the Trinity You have to balance the unity of God, that God is one, with the distinction of the three persons of the Trinity.

And you can't talk about the distinction of persons in any way that diminishes the oneness of God, but you also can't talk about the oneness of God in any way that diminishes the threeness, the distinction of persons.

So there's always this balance of unity and distinction.

And if you're doing it right, you're maintaining that balance of unity, one God, one God only, but distinction, three persons.

Having said that, though, the unity is always primary in a certain sense.

In other words, the distinction of the three persons always exists sort of under the umbrella of the unity of substance.

And so, yes, there is threeness in God, but that exists under the umbrella of the oneness Because the oneness of God has to take a certain priority, in a sense, so that we never lose the fact that we only believe in one God, there is only one God, and this is not any form of polytheism, right?

So here it is.

Here is the doctrine of appropriation.

The doctrine of appropriation says this.

Anything you can say about one person of the Trinity, you have to also be able to say that about the other two persons of the Trinity, or about the Trinity in general.

And anything you can say about the Trinity in general, you have to also be able to say that about any one of the three persons of the Trinity, with a few very important exceptions.

So, the basic doctrine of appropriation affirms and emphasizes the unity of God, that there is only one God.

But there are exceptions that define and clarify the distinction of persons, that clarify that the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, the Spirit is not the Father, etc. Now, before we get to that, there is one thing I have to point out.

There is a heresy that emphasizes the unity of God so much that it loses all the distinction.

This heresy conflates all three persons into one, so that it conceives of God not as three persons in one substance, but as one person with three names.

Now if you've done your homework, you know that this heresy is called modalism, and it is alive and well today in some Pentecostal movements, sometimes called oneness Pentecostalism.

But it is also alive and well in some otherwise Trinitarian communions that accidentally wreck the Trinity in the name of equality.

So anytime you hear the Trinity named as creator, redeemer, and sustainer, that is a form of modalism.

Let me explain what I mean by that.

The point of modalism is that what modalism does is it basically says that in the incarnation, the Father became the Son, that there is really no distinction between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that the Father became the Son, and then the Son became the Spirit.

And so then what happens is the Son of God is reduced to nothing more than the Father in disguise, like God the Father wearing a skin suit.

Now, the problem with this is that it diminishes or really denies the real humanity of Jesus.

And to diminish the humanity of Jesus is to break the bond between him and us, right?

The Word became flesh, not the Father appeared in a fleshy suit, but the Word, the Logos, the second person of the Trinity became truly human.

And this is an important distinction.

But what modalism does Modalism says, okay, if God is one person with three names, then the names have to do with function or activity or mode of existence.

Mode of existence, this is why it's called modalism.

So the modalist assumes that when God is in the mode of being creator, you can call him the Father.

When God is in the mode of being savior or redeemer, you can call him the Son.

When God is in the mode of being the sustainer, you can call him the Holy Spirit.

But here's the problem.

When you do that, you make the erroneous implication that only the first person of the Trinity is the Creator, only the second person of the Trinity is the Savior, etc. And that's not correct.

So anytime you hear the Trinity cast as Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer, In a sense, trying to make distinctions between the persons of the Trinity by job description, that is actually a form of the heresy of modalism.

Because, again, it implies that the Son is not also Creator, the Father is not also Savior, but we know this isn't true.

Look at the Old Testament.

The Father is a Savior.

Look at the Exodus.

Look at the New Testament.

All things were created through the Son.

He is the agent of creation, so he is also creator.

And so this brings us back to the doctrine of appropriation.

So all that stuff about modalism, that's heresy.

That's not correct.

The doctrine of appropriation says, no, you cannot make distinctions between the three persons of the Trinity by job description.

Why not?

Because Anything you can say about one person of the Trinity, you have to be able to say about the other two persons of the Trinity, or about the Trinity in general.

And if not, then you're lapsing into a form of polytheism where you have a God of creation, a God of salvation, etc. We don't want that.

We want to be able to say all three persons of the Trinity are creator.

All three persons of the Trinity are savior.

All three persons of the Trinity are sustainer.

And so this is the doctrine of appropriation.

Anything you can say about one person of the Trinity, you also have to be able to say about the other two persons of the Trinity, because at the end of the day, this is one God.

And so this is a doctrine that, among other things, is actually meant to refute modalism, right?

So again, anytime you hear somebody do a benediction or, God forbid, a baptism in the name of Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer, well, by the way, that's not a valid baptism, but they are also breaking the rule of appropriation.

And so that is a heresy.

God is not one person with three names, where the names are job descriptions.

But remember the doctrine of inseparable operation, and I have a video on that, so check that out.

The doctrine of inseparable operation says that all three persons of the Trinity are involved in all divine activity.

So you cannot make distinctions of the persons of the Trinity by job description, right?

So ironically, what modalism tries to do, describe the persons of the Trinity distinctly by job description, that's the one thing you can't do when you are describing the persons of the Trinity, because Anything you can say about one person of the Trinity, you have to be able to say about the other two persons of the Trinity, or about the Trinity in general.

And all of this, inseparable operation and the doctrine of appropriation, are all extensions of the doctrine of consubstantiality.

I have a video on that too, so check out my video, What Does Consubstantial Mean?

And you'll see what I mean when I talk about the doctrine of consubstantiality, that all three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are all one divine substance.

Okay, so, anything you can say about one person of the Trinity, you can say about all three persons of the Trinity.

All three persons of the Trinity are Creator, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

All three persons of the Trinity are Redeemer, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, etc. But then if that's the case, what are the distinctions between them?

How is it that there are three persons and that the Father is not simply the same as the Son or the Son is simply the same as the Holy Spirit?

I mean, the modalists think that they are.

So how is it that we can say as Trinitarian Christians that The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, and yet all three are one God.

Well, this is where we get to the exceptions to the rule of appropriation.

So the doctrine of appropriation says that all three persons of the Trinity can be described in all the same ways with these very specific exceptions.

So here they are.

Here are the exceptions.

Anything you can say about one person of the Trinity, you can say about the others except this.

First of all, only the Father is unbegotten.

Another way to say this is only the Father is ungenerated or uncaused.

The Father has no origin to his existence.

The Father is unbegotten.

On the other hand, the Son is begotten.

And even though the Son does not come along later in time or anything like that, the Son still has a kind of origin to his existence, which is the Father.

So the Son is begotten of the Father.

Or we say the Son is generated.

Specifically, we say eternally generated, because again, it's not a chronological thing.

It doesn't happen in time.

But you see the distinction.

Only the Father can be described as unbegotten, Only the Son can be described as begotten.

Also, only the Son can be described as incarnate, because only the second person of the Trinity actually became human.

Sure, inseparable operation, all three persons of the Trinity were involved in the incarnation, but only the second person of the Trinity actually became human.

And finally, the one that applies to the Holy Spirit is a little bit more complicated.

Only the Holy Spirit proceeds.

That is a complicated topic.

If you want to see my video on the filioque and go deeper on that, you certainly can.

Otherwise, you don't have to worry about it for now.

But these are the exceptions to the rule.

Only the Father is unbegotten, only the Son is begotten, only the Son is incarnate, and only the Holy Spirit proceeds.

Those four words are the only exceptions to the doctrine of appropriation.

Now, yeah, obviously there are names for the second person of the Trinity that apply only to the Son, like Jesus, Christ, the Word.

There are a few others.

And so, you know, if we had more time, we could nuance this.

But apart from those, for the most part, there are only four terms that apply to a specific person of the Trinity and only that person, right?

Only the Father is unbegotten.

Only the Son is begotten and incarnate.

Only the Holy Spirit proceeds.

Other than that though Any term that you can use to describe one person of the Trinity must also apply or be appropriate to the other two persons of the Trinity or to the Trinity in general.

But these four specific exceptions to that rule, those are the terms that describe the distinction or the difference between the persons.

This is why the Father is not the Son, because the Father is unbegotten and the Son is begotten.

This is why the Son is not the Spirit, because the Son is incarnate and the Spirit proceeds.

And so you get the idea.

And so in what we call the development of doctrine, As time goes on, the doctrine of the Trinity is more and more clarified leading up to the Council of Nicaea and then the Council of Constantinople, these councils in the 4th century that gave us the Nicene Creed.

In the time leading up to the Nicene Creed, all of these supporting doctrines fall into place in the ongoing clarification of the bigger, most important doctrine of the Trinity.

And so this doctrine of appropriation is just one of those supporting doctrines that develops to help us understand the bigger doctrine of the Trinity.

And that's how it was in the original church.

Thanks for joining me.

Hey, thanks for watching.

Well, you know the drill.

Subscribe, notifications, blah, blah, blah.

But if you liked this video, please share it.

And if you want more, consider getting one or more of my books.

Or better yet, join me and the original church community on Locals.com.

There you can comment and interact with the rest of us.

I hope to see you there.