Precision in Explanation
“Rightly dividing” the Bible requires a lot of hard work. Anytime you explain or describe something, you need to use specific words to avoid confusion or misrepresenting the truth. A doctor needs to be precise when diagnosing an issue. He also needs to be clear when explaining what’s wrong with their loved one to the family. We often need to use words not found in the Biblical text to explain the meaning. Heretics can take a Bible verse and use it from its immediate context but apply different definitions to Bible words or ignore the context of the totality of Scripture to redefine the meaning of one passage. For example, when Jesus Christ, in the cry of dereliction, says, “My God my God why hast thou forsaken me,” The ancient Arians explained that passage and its immediate context by saying Jesus must not be truly God. Arianism, which denies Christ’s deity, came to that conclusion from the Bible, wrongly divided. They did not consider what the Bible teaches about the Trinity to guide their interpretation of a passage.
In our theological reflection, we must take the passage in its immediate context while, at the same time, not separating it from the entirety of Scripture and the context of God’s revealed Word. Theology is crucial because the “Scriptures cannot be broken.” By defining our words carefully, we can explain what the Scripture means and avoid mishandling God’s Word. Historically, men use words, coin phrases, and apply terms with precise theological meanings to explain what God says about Himself in the Bible. Using extra-biblical words like Trinity or Greek and Latin phrases with their theological definitions (subsistence and essence) to define what we mean is nothing more than being exact with Scripture. Those who deny the ability to define the Words of Scripture take a high and loose view of it. It also gets you into trouble because any man can take a Bible verse and develop crazy ideas.
As Peter Bolt wrote, “…there are some things that should never be illustrated. As with the Trinity, given the unique nature of the cross, analogies simply do not exist. We understand the cross, not by finding some contemporary illustration that clinches the deal, but by listening carefully to the biblical context in which it makes sense. This may leave us with some unexplained mysteries, but, even so, we shall be closer to the truth when we live with the rough edges of God’s Word than when we try to impose the smooth lines of our own fancy illustrations.”
The historical, Scriptural truth is there is one God in three persons, and all three persons of the Godhead are uncreated and co-eternal and of the same substance. That explains what the totality of Scripture teaches about the Trinity. So, if your interpretation of a passage can confound the persons or divide the essence of the one God, then you’ve gone outside the bounds of historical, scriptural, orthodox, trinitarianism. Like I said, it’s hard work.