Suicide and Salvation: What does NT Wright say?

Summary

Episode Summary: Suicide and Salvation: What Does NT Wright Say?

Ask NT Wright Anything
Host: Mike Bird
Guest: Tom Wright
Release Date: May 25, 2025

In this poignant episode of Ask NT Wright Anything, host Mike Bird engages with renowned theologian Tom Wright to delve into deeply sensitive and complex topics: suicide and salvation, the nuances of baptism, and the biblical foundations of the Trinity. Through thoughtful dialogue, the episode offers listeners profound theological insights intertwined with pastoral care.

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1. Suicide and Salvation

Timestamp: [02:01]

The episode opens with Mike introducing a heart-wrenching subject: suicide. He presents two listener questions—Andrew Mason's inquiry about why God allows suicide and Kay Hills' concern about the eternal fate of a born-again Christian who commits suicide.

Tom Wright's Response ([04:03]):

Tom Wright approaches the topic with both theological depth and compassionate empathy. Acknowledging the tragic nature of suicide, he broadens the discussion to the broader existential question of why God permits suffering and evil. Wright emphasizes that the occurrence of tragic events, including suicide, is part of the "much stranger and darker" world God has created. He asserts that tragedies aren't orchestrated by God but are a consequence of human free will and the brokenness of the world.

"The answer seems to be that God's world is a much stranger and darker place... God wants us to be grown up and responsible and take responsibility for who we are and what we do."
([04:45] Tom Wright)

Wright further explores the spiritual dimensions, suggesting that even in the depths of despair, God's love remains unwavering. Referencing Psalm 139 and the crucifixion of Jesus, he posits that God's grace can reach individuals even in their most hopeless moments.

"I see the arms of Jesus wrapping around such a person with love and consolation and tenderness... When Jesus said, 'My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?' That is precisely how many suicides feel."
([09:30] Tom Wright)

He concludes with a hopeful outlook on eternal life, asserting confidence that those who have a relationship with Christ will ultimately be part of the new creation.

Mike Bird's Reflection ([11:21]):

Mike complements Tom's thoughts by urging listeners who may be struggling with mental health to seek support, emphasizing that "the light of joy of heaven's brightness can still shine upon you."

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2. Baptism: Infant vs. Believer's Baptism

Timestamp: [13:58]

The conversation transitions to baptism, sparked by Landon Camp's question about the necessity of believer's baptism for someone baptized as an infant but who only embraced faith as an adult.

Tom Wright's Insights ([16:23]):

Tom Wright navigates the intricate balance between infant and believer's baptism. Drawing parallels to Jewish traditions, he underscores the theological significance of recognizing God's love from the very beginning of life.

"It seems to me to deny baptism to a child that has known that incarnation of the love of God from the first minutes... would be foolish."
([17:45] Tom Wright)

Wright discusses the symbolic and communal aspects of baptism, highlighting that it represents the death and resurrection of Jesus and integrates the individual into the faith community. He addresses the misconception that infant baptism is mere ritualism by emphasizing its deeper theological underpinnings.

"Baptism is not actually about me pinning my flag on God's map. Baptism is something that the whole church does to celebrate the fact that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the means of God's rescuing of people for the new creation."
([22:10] Tom Wright)

He also touches upon the practical challenges and theological debates surrounding re-baptism, advocating for clarity and understanding within the faith journey.

Mike Bird's Participation ([24:30]):

Mike shares his involvement in a project discussing dual baptism practices, advocating for mutual respect between traditions that uphold both infant and believer's baptism. He references initiatives that aim to bridge the theological divides by recognizing baptism as both a familial and personal act of faith.

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3. The Doctrine of the Trinity: Biblical Foundations and Development

Timestamp: [27:16]

Jason Loren poses a critical question regarding the biblical legitimacy of the Trinity doctrine and its historical development within the early church.

Tom Wright's Explanation ([27:16]):

Tom Wright delves into the intricate origins of the Trinity, debunking the notion that it is merely a philosophical construct imposed on Christianity. He elucidates that while the term "Trinity" itself is Latin and not found in the New Testament, the foundational concepts are deeply rooted in biblical texts.

"In Matthew's Gospel, Jesus says, 'Baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.'... it's the Father, the Son, and the Spirit all together."
([28:30] Tom Wright)

Wright references key New Testament passages, including the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19, Paul's letters (e.g., Galatians 4:6-7; 1 Corinthians 12), and the Johannine writings, to illustrate the triadic relationship inherent in the early Christian understanding of God. He emphasizes that the early church was actively engaged in defining this doctrine to maintain a monotheistic faith amidst diverse philosophical and pagan influences.

"The Spirit is not just one aspect of this now spiritual being called Jesus... we necessarily differentiate."
([33:10] Tom Wright)

He highlights that the development of the Trinity was a response to understanding the complex nature of God's revelation through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, ensuring the doctrine remained faithful to the scriptural narrative without succumbing to heretical distortions like tritheism or modalism.

Mike Bird's Commentary ([34:30]):

Mike appreciates Wright's articulation, noting that the Trinity is an exercise in biblical hermeneutics rather than a simple proof-text doctrine. He recommends further reading to explore the interplay between scriptural exegesis and doctrinal formulation.

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Conclusion

As the episode wraps up, Mike Bird previews the next discussion, which will tackle other challenging topics such as abortion and theological contradictions within Paul's letters. The dialogue between Mike and Tom in this episode not only addresses profound theological questions but also offers solace and guidance to listeners navigating their faith amidst life's complexities.

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Notable Quotes:

• Tom Wright ([04:45]): "The answer seems to be that God's world is a much stranger and darker place... God wants us to be grown up and responsible and take responsibility for who we are and what we do."

• Tom Wright ([09:30]): "I see the arms of Jesus wrapping around such a person with love and consolation and tenderness... When Jesus said, 'My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?' That is precisely how many suicides feel."

• Tom Wright ([17:45]): "It seems to me to deny baptism to a child that has known that incarnation of the love of God from the first minutes... would be foolish."

• Tom Wright ([22:10]): "Baptism is not actually about me pinning my flag on God's map. Baptism is something that the whole church does to celebrate the fact that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the means of God's rescuing of people for the new creation."

• Tom Wright ([28:30]): "In Matthew's Gospel, Jesus says, 'Baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.'... it's the Father, the Son, and the Spirit all together."

• Tom Wright ([33:10]): "The Spirit is not just one aspect of this now spiritual being called Jesus... we necessarily differentiate."

---

This episode serves as a testament to the enduring relevance of NT Wright's theological perspectives, offering listeners both intellectual stimulation and heartfelt comfort.

Transcript

[Tom Wright]

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[Mike Bird]

Hello and welcome to the Ask NT Write Anything podcast, the program where we answer your questions about Jesus, Bible and the life of faith. I'm Mike Bird from Rilley College in Melbourne, Australia.

[Tom Wright]

And I'm Tom Wright from Oxford in England.

[Mike Bird]

And as we look at some questions this week, I've got to offer a little bit of a warning. We're going to start off with a very sensitive one, a very difficult one. And that is the tragic topic of suicide. I can imagine that every person, every family who might listen to this podcast will know someone or know of someone who has taken their own life. And every suicide is a tragedy. But it's one of the things we do have to address, at least in a pastoral way, in a theological way, and then ask, what does the Bible say about this? And what do we say on the basis of the Bible? So, Tom, I'm going to read a couple of questions we have. The first one is from Andrew Mason in Newcastle, the United Kingdom, where he asked this I once led an RE lesson with six classes of Year 7 pupils in a middle school. To end each lesson, I did a guerrilla Christian section and Let them put questions into a tub. And I drew random ones to try and answer without any warning. I got the question, why does God let people commit suicide? Try answering that question with no time prep. I know what I said. What's your answer? So this is addressed, Tom, but we've got a very similar question. This is from Kay Hills in Tunbridge Wells, United Kingdom. And Kay asks, do you go to heaven if you commit suicide and you are a born again Christian? Now, Tom, this is obviously a very tragic topic. I can imagine this would be perhaps disturbing from some listeners whose lives have been touched by the tragedy of suicide. But how do you answer those questions, Tom? Why does God allow it? And what happens to a Christian who takes their own life?

[Tom Wright]

Yeah, these are obviously hugely tragic questions. And people ask them when they've been affected in their family or whatever, or close friends by somebody who's taken their own life. It's happened once in my own family, in my own memory, and I remember still the shock. I know where I was when I got the phone call which said, et cetera, et cetera. It is a terrible and a terrible thing. So I'm fully up for. Yeah, this is one of those horrible things that happens. The way that the two questions are phrased, though, isn't actually about suicide itself. It's about what we say around the edge, as it were. And the first one, why does God let that happen? Is part of the much, much larger question of why is there evil and suffering in God's world at all? Why does God let people die in car accidents? Why does God let somebody, perfectly ordinary person who goes on a walk in the hills, fall off a cliff and be killed that way? And the answer doesn't seem to me likely to be that actually we all ought to stay in very safe environments where we would never drive cars and never climb hills. The answer seems to be that God's world is a much stranger and darker place. And it isn't that God is pulling puppet strings and just making people do certain things and making sure they don't go anywhere dangerous. God wants us to be grown up and responsible and take responsibility for who we are and what we do. And sometimes extraordinary things, nasty things happen for which there is no obvious explanation. And we just have to say, lord have mercy, I don't know why this has happened. Please, will you bring some good out of it? But at the moment we are just in the state of shock and grief. And I'm sure that's so. Of course, when there are wars and rumors of wars when we're recording this, that there are worse developments going on in Ukraine, in Gaza, around the world. And the question why does God allow suicide? Is simply one part of why does God allow Russia to invade Ukraine? Why does God allow Hamas to attack Israel and Israel then to totally overreact in Gaza, et cetera, et cetera. So granted that that is a major question, then the other question was when somebod does this, will they go to heaven? And I want to say, well, the phrasing of that implies that the point of Christianity is for somebody's soul to go to heaven. Whereas in the New Testament, as I and others have argued, the point is actually for God to come and be with his people in the new heavens and new earth. So that the question should be rephrased, will that person be in the loving presence of Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit, until the time when God makes new heavens and new earth and raises us from the dead? Or in other words, is committing suicide to commit an unpardonable sin so that you would actually lose your salvation? Now the questions then, like the question of why does God allow something? The questions of sin and salvation, and can a genuine Christian, the questioner talked about somebody who is actually born again, a full on Christian, can such a person lose their salvation? Those are much bigger questions than just the question of suicide. But about suicide, I want to say this. As a pastor, I know that there are many, many human situations where people really do come not just to the end of their tether, but off the edge of the end, so that there is just seems to be no hope. And sometimes that depression can itself be cumulative so that people are depressed about being depressed and then they can't sleep and then their bodies aren't getting rest and regeneration, so that they are in a situation where actually some sort of intervention would be ideal. But often they shut themselves away, literally or metaphorically, so that even friends and family can't get to them. And then they feel there is no hope. The world would be better off without me. And I'm thinking of real people that I know when I'm saying this. And it seems to me in that case for a Christian to turn around and say, oh, that was very wicked, God would never forgive you for doing that is just victim blaming, which as I think we've learned these days is a very bad and cruel thing to do. Now there may be some people who deliberately or half deliberately play with deadly games or engage in practices which might well lead to death in a sort of devil May care fashion, and if they die, they die well, so what? This world is just a mess anyway. Now, I'm not saying that God then thinks, oh well, what a shame, et cetera, but for many, many people who commit suicide, this is the result of a very serious, what we probably should call an illness, of some sort of depression, of anxiety, of worry, of feeling a failure. And that in such cases I see the arms of Jesus wrapping around such a person with love and consolation and tenderness. And I think of Psalm 139, if I climb up to heaven, thou art there. If I go down to hell, thou art there also. There are people who really do seem to go down into the pit, into a personal Hades, and please God, will they discover that God is there too. And in Jesus, who descended into hell, and that's a whole other question what we mean by that. Jesus is able to receive them, to rescue them, to console them, to refresh them. And if they belong to him in the first place, then I would say to raise them from the dead at the time when all tears will be wiped away. So I do not know why, but God has made the world in such a way that horrible tragedies do occur. But I do know that the love of God in Christ has gone down to the absolute depths. When Jesus said, my God, my God, why did you abandon me? That is precisely how many suicides feel when they just feel totally abandoned by humans, by God, nothing left to hope for. Now Jesus, of course, goes on to say, into thy hands I commend my spirit. That's the his final words in Luke's gospel. But I think we shouldn't then soften the quote from Psalm 22 in Matthew and Mark, why did you abandon me? And so I think I want to say Jesus on the cross and in his descent into hell has come to the place where the suicide ends up in order then to hold onto them. And if they have known him and loved him even partially or muddledly, and were all muddled to a lesser or greater extent, then I think Jesus and in the power of his spirit will look after such a person. And we will find when we are raised from the dead into the new creation, that they will be with us in, as I say, the place where there are no more tears.

[Mike Bird]

Yeah, that's a great thought, Tom, that God's grace can reach people even when they get to that pit, even when they get to the depths of Hades, as it were. That's a good thought. I think one thing we should mention, if people are in their own personal slow of despond. If they really are struggling with mental health and they're having thoughts of self harm, you really should reach out to someone. Talk to a pastor, a chaplain, a work colleague, a dear family member, or there's various hotlines you can call as well. And no matter how bad it feels, it is still possible for the light of joy of heaven's brightness to shine upon you. I think. On that note Tom, we're going to take a break but when we come back we're going to talk about baptism and possibly re baptism and also whether the Trinity is biblical. So we'll be back in a moment. If you've shopped online, chances are you've bought from a business powered by Shopify. You know that purple shop pay button you see at checkout? The one that makes buying so incredibly easy? That's Shopify. And there's a reason so many businesses sell with it. Because Shopify makes it incredibly easy to start and run your business. Shopify is the commerce platform behind 10% of all e commerce in the U.S. sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com promo. Go to shopify.com promo Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile.

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[Mike Bird]

Well, welcome back here@ask NTWRiteAnything. We're still answering your questions and and we've got a good one here, Tom, about the topic of baptism. This is from Landon Camp in Lubbock, Texas and he's got a Question about Baptism Is Believers Baptism required after infant baptism if a person comes to faith in Jesus Christ as an adult, having not been part of it before? This question deals with infant baptism and believer's baptism, and I have grown up in a faith tradition that practices believers baptism. However, listening to your previous thoughts on baptism has caused me to understand why many traditions practice infant baptism in instances of cultural Christianity where some may have been baptized as infants but other than that have never truly practiced their faith. Would believers baptism be appropriate when coming to the faith again, or perhaps even for the first time in a devoted manner? For example, one of my good friends was baptized as a baby in the Catholic Church. However, his family, being disillusioned by the scandals that rocked the Catholic Church, quit attending Mass and never really practiced their faith when my friend was growing up, up to the point that in college I, as an Evangelical Protestant, knew more about Catholicism than my Catholic friend. In college, I ended up studying the Bible with my friend for several years and ended up baptizing him as he came to faith and accepted Christ. This all occurred before I encountered any of your thoughts on baptism. I have faith that my friend is indeed in Christ, but I wonder what Tom thinks about situations like these. Is believers baptism appropriate for those who have been baptized as infants but were part of families who never really practiced their faith but were mainly culturally Christian? Well, this is a good one, Tom, about Do you re baptize people as adults when they were baptized as infants and as Anglican ministers? We both come across this question frequently about the validity of infant baptism, but this one's a little bit more complicated, particularly if the idea of the family not fully participating in the faith is also another issue that makes you want to rethink it.

[Tom Wright]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And this is a question obviously that I've met really throughout my life from quite an early age with Christian friends who came from different traditions. And there's certain amount of demystification to be done here because the phrase believer's baptism implies teenage plus, as it were believer's baptism. Whereas I remember being with a cousin of mine when he and his wife were expecting their first child. They were a bit slower than Maggie and me getting off the ground in terms of having children. We'd already got four children and they were having their first, and my cousin's wife asked me, how old does a child have to be before a child can be aware of the love of God? And I think she was expecting me to say maybe 6, 7, 8, something like that, and I said about five minutes and she looked shocked. And I said, you will find if the birth is healthy and if all goes well, that within five minutes your eyes and that child eyes will be locked onto one another as the child is feeding. And that with that look you are telling the child that they are loved, that they are accepted, that they are a precious gift from God. And if you hold the child's gaze and you can do that with a newborn, the child can respond and is responding to the love of God which is coming through you, through your look. And it seems to me to deny baptism to a child that has known that incarnation of the love of God from the first minutes, I think that would be foolish. In other words, the believer doesn't necessarily for me mean the articulate believer, somebody who can recite the catechism or the creed or whatever, and many churches have said before confirmation, you must learn the catechism. And that too becomes a ritual where people know how to rattle it off and it doesn't actually mean what it ought to mean, and so on. So I think the church has always been aware, and this would be so for the RO Catholic Church as well as for so called Baptist churches, of the need to make real for oneself at each stage of human maturing, that acceptance of the love of God, which ideally and in a loving family is there right from the very early days, even though of course the child can't articulate it. But you know, this goes on through one of the questions that wasn't asked but is related to. This is what I think about children receiving communion, baptized children receiving communion at quite an early age. I remember being at the communion rail with one of my own children who was maybe three or four at the time. And when the communion came round, the child tried to put out her hands. And I said, no, no, no. And she said, but I love Jesus too. And I thought, well, I'm not in a position to say no, no, no, you don't, you're not old enough to love Jesus. And it was in that context that I and many others came to believe that actually in the context of a family of faith, it is perfectly appropriate for a child to receive under appropriate family constraints and within a church that knows what it's doing, et cetera. So all this to say that it seems to me that those who've said, oh no, these people were baptized when they were far too young to know about it. And anyway, that was all just a sham because it was old fashioned ritualistic Christianity which didn't actually touch the heart at all. Well, of course the trouble is every church has that danger. Every Baptist church has that danger. If somebody goes to a Baptist Sunday school and then all their friends are getting baptized at age 14, 15, 16 or whatever, natural to think, okay, I'll go along with them. But that too, as every Baptist pastor will tell you, doesn't mean that all those people are then going to be staunch, solid Christians for the rest of their lives. Baptists have pretty much the same problem with post baptismal fall off that we do in the Anglican Church and that Roman Catholics do in their church, et cetera, et cetera. So that it seems to me that what we're looking at is the whole package. The whole package is that baptism is not actually about me pinning my flag on God's map. Baptism is something that the whole church does to celebrate the fact that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the means of God's rescuing of people for the new creation which he's making. When I baptize a child or an adult, but I'm thinking of one of my grandsons that I baptized just a few years ago, what we're doing is this is the whole church celebrating that story of the dying and rising of Jesus which is what According to Romans 6, baptism is all about. And applying it to this particular person, the death and resurrection is your salvation as well. And now welcome to this family of faith in which you are going to be brought up. There'll be many twists and turns, many opportunities to walk away. And interestingly, we can see already In Corinth, in First Corinthians 10, Paul facing exactly this question that he talks about the Israelites coming out of Egypt with Moses. They were all baptized into the Red Sea, baptized into Moses. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink. In other words, they had their equivalent of baptism and the Eucharist. And Paul says, but watch out, because God wasn't pleased with a lot of them and they were overthrown in the wilderness. Be careful. Let the one who thinks they stand take heed lest they fall. And so Paul is addressing exactly the same question that we have to address now. Because of all sorts of muddles in churches, in society, in different traditions, in student life, when people come from a different context, et cetera, it's very often the case that somebody suddenly comes to a new and vibrant sense of a faith which was at best latent before, if it was there at all. And then somebody seeking to do the says, you should now be baptized. It's a wonderful thing. And sometimes they go through that sometimes they are aware that they are implicitly renouncing what happened to them when they were children. If they were baptized as children, sometimes they're unaware that there would be a problem about that. It seems to me though that if somebody has been baptized as a child, whatever is then done to them as a teenager or 20 something or whatever isn't actually baptism. It may be helpful. It may be a means of grace, it may be a sense of, okay, I'm making this real for myself, but baptism only happens once. And so we have to avoid thinking that, oh well, what happened as a child really doesn't matter because actually I believe that God can and does reach out in grace and with the sign of Jesus, death and resurrection. I would be very loath to say that even if it's done without the family really knowing what's going on, there's actually. It didn't mean anything. No. When that symbol is there, the God of creation and covenant is active and preaching the gospel through that symbol, not only to the child, but to the whole congregation. So I think you can see where this is going. It's a problematic one. And I wouldn't myself get too cross about it. If a teenager gets re baptized, I just would say, let's actually be clear. You were baptized, you are now making this real for yourself and you did it in a vivid way which might be misunderstood, but now let's move forward from there with the death and resurrection of Jesus as the basis for your whole life.

[Mike Bird]

Yeah, Tom, this is very pertinent to me because I was recently involved in a project where a number of theologians came together to discuss dual baptism as an option for churches where we recognize that both infant baptism and believers baptism are both trying to do something that's quite right and that's to acknowledge the child has been born into a family of faith and with the promises of the gospel before them. But at the same time there comes a point as to where that that child has then got to make the faith their own. And the debate of course is, you know, where do you put the water? And you know, Baptists and believing traditions and can still have infant dedications and Anglicans and Lutherans will still have confirmations. So it's like we need to say, look, let's recognize this child is born into, into a church family and they need to appropriate for themselves. We just have slightly different emphases or reasons for where we put the water. But yeah, myself, Tony Lane and some others, we put out a statement of this, some Months ago, talking about maybe there is sort of mutual equivalence that we could respect.

[Tom Wright]

And. And I think you can sense the Jewish traditions in the back of this, that when a male child is born, the child is circumcised on the eighth day, but then at the age of probably 12, they become bar mitzvah. They take on themselves responsibility for being part of the people, of the Torah, of the commandment. Now, I'm not saying that baptism is exactly the equivalent of circumcision or that confirmation is exactly the equivalent of bar mitzvah, but it's interesting that in that system as well, there's that sense that you're making real for yourself something that was promised when you were very young.

[Mike Bird]

Well, we've got time for one more question. This question comes from Jason Loren from Colorado Springs. Beautiful place, Colorado Springs. Ever been there, Tom?

[Tom Wright]

Yes, I am.

[Mike Bird]

And his question is about how biblical is the doctrine of the Trinity or how did it develop? So this is what Jason asks. How did the doctrine of the Trinity develop in the early church? Was it quickly adopted as a unanimously held Christian belief, or was it contentious? He says, thanks. I always enjoy your many insights and thoughtful explanations. So, Tom, I mean, I've gone through the New Testament for everyone. You know your wonderful translation. I did not see the word Trinity in there anywhere in the translation. So is this a bunch of philosophical gobbledygook that's been imposed on the Christian faith, or can we really think of the biblical roots of the Trinity? And if it is biblical, why did it take some four centuries for the church to reach a consensus on what should be a very basic idea? The Christian doctrine of God.

[Tom Wright]

Yeah, yeah. It's a great question, and it's one we meet in different guises, because some people have indeed said, oh, well, of course, the early church knew nothing about this later theory, and it took four centuries and a lot of Greek philosophy. So we can go back behind that and just talk about a simple Jesus preaching a simple Gospel or whatever. And that's certainly wrong. What we do find is not the technical word Trinity, which is actually a Latin phrase, a Latin word, rather than an early church Greek word. But what we find is a description of Jesus and of Jesus activity and of the results of Jesus activity, which in various key passages falls into three moments, if you like. The most explicit one is at the end of Matthew's Gospel, where Jesus says, all authority has been given to me. Go therefore into all the world, baptizing them and teaching them to observe all that I've commanded. Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Now, I don't know when exactly Matthew's Gospel was written. Some would put it as early as the 50s or 60s, some would put it as late as the 80s or 90s. But it's certainly there by the time we get the so called Apostolic Fathers at the end of the first and early second century. And Matthew, quite clearly that's the baptismal formula baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And in the name they are being plunged into this reality which the name signifies and points to. And the reality is the whole life of God there summarized as Father, Son and Spirit. It's a bit of a surprise in Matthew because Matthew has not said it like that before. And the Spirit indeed plays very little role in Matthew's Gospel or indeed in Mark or Luke, just one or two occasions. So it's not been a major theme. It does become a major theme, of course, in John's Gospel, particularly in the so called Farewell Discourses, John 13:17, where Jesus has these very powerful, enigmatic, mysterious sayings about I will not leave you desolate, I will come to you, the Father and I will come to you, I will send my Spirit to you. And it's as though we see already a three formed reality, which it's as though John is resisting any sense of simply turning this into a formula, as though Jesus were to say, by the way, you need to believe that there are three persons and one God. It's that Jesus is talking about the dynamic relationship between the believer and this extraordinary kaleidoscopic reality that we are now coming to know as the God of whom Jesus says, I and the Father are one, the God who sends the Spirit and the Spirit who turns out to be Jesus himself, coming in the form of or in the person of the Spirit. And the word person there is similarly complicated. So it doesn't then surprise me when in Paul we get two or three passages which are very explicit, I think, for instance, about Galatians 4:417, where Paul is warning the Galatian Christians about the danger of a lapse back into what he sees as some form of, or something rather like paganism. And he says, because what matters is when the time had fully come, God sent forth his son born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those under the law. And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying abba, Father, so you're no Longer slaves, but sons. And if sons, then heirs through Christ. And then he says, but you're in danger of going back to something which is the equivalent of paganism. Now put that whole package together. Galatians 4 actually 1 to 11. And Paul seems to me to be saying, you either have something like a triune God, the God who sends the Son, and the God who sends the Spirit of the Son, or you have some form of paganism. You're going back to some sort of keeping days and months and seasons and years and hoping that that'll work out. And so this revelation of God in the Gospel comes in this triple form. And you find something similar at the beginning of 1 Corinthians 12, when Paul is talking about spiritual gifts. And he says that there are varieties of gifts, but the same Lord. There are varieties of working, but the same Spirit, there are varieties of operation, but it's the same God works all in all. And the fascinating thing about that is that at the very moment when Paul wants to say it's all basically the same thing, he says it in those three different ways. And it's as though he is there teasing us to say it's all the same. And it always comes out threefold like this. So that when I then see the early church going out into the pagan world and saying, we are like the Judeans in that we believe in one God, but we now know who this one God is. He's the God we see in the person of the Son, and he's the God who is active in our lives and in our communities through His Spirit. And I remember old Stephen Neill saying at one point, the Christology is a doctrine about God. The Trinity is a doctrine about Jesus, which sounds paradoxical until you realize that it's because of the uniqueness of Jesus as a fully human being who is also the embodiment of the One who we call Yahweh in the Old Testament. That becomes very clear in the Gospels. But it's because of the uniqueness of Jesus. Jesus does not then collapse back into just being one aspect of God. And the Holy Spirit is not just one aspect of this now spiritual being called Jesus, that the uniqueness of Jesus as the one who is both fully human and fully divine demands that we also speak about the Father, who in that sense is not a human being, and the Spirit, who in that sense is not a human being. In other words, we necessarily differentiate. That's the challenge which the New Testament then puts as the church goes out in the second century now the New Testament is written within a Jewish world where there is one God. And this monotheism stands over against paganism and dualism alike. But they are discovering that Jesus is the human embodiment of the God who had promised to come back to dwell with his people, and that the Spirit of Jesus is the one who then comes to indwell them and make Jesus present, as Paul says, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through Faith in Ephesians 3. So that the elements of what then are formulated as trinitarian theology are all there in the New Testament. We have to watch out in case we then substitute a rather mechanical formula for the vivid narratival reality which is what we find in the New Testament. And it's what we need in our hearts and in our lives and in our churches.

[Mike Bird]

That's a good way to put it, Tom, because I think we've got the ingredients for a trinitarian doctrine in the New Testament. I mean, the Trinity, it's a doctrine, it's an exercise in biblical hermeneutics. It's not a proof text. And if you're looking for a proof text, you're going to get disappointed. But what the early church was doing was trying to look at what the Bible said, that there is one God, that this is God, is known to us as the Father, as the Son, and in the Spirit. And then what type of language do we use to describe this, this tripersonal God that doesn't fall into the heresies of tritheism or collapsing them all together in modalism? And it took them a while to fight the. To find the right language, the right analogies, and a way that kind of matched what Scripture said that corresponded to their worship, but didn't run aground of these errors. So it was really the search for a coherent pattern of exegesis that will enable them to make sense of their doctrine of God. I think that explains the development of finding within those ingredients for Trinity a language, a grammar that explains what's there without falling into the two extreme errors.

[Tom Wright]

And which, as you say, is meant to function as not a substitute for Scripture, but as a spur to go back to Scripture and make sure that we're reading it without getting unbalanced this way or that.

[Mike Bird]

Yeah. I think the two best things I've read on this is Wesley Hill's book on Paul and the Trinity. And also Brandon Smith did a great book on the Trinity and the Book of Revelation. So if you want to know how you bridge exegesis and doctrine, Wesley Hill's book and Brandon Smith's books are the ones I would be going to. But that's all the time we have for today. We've covered a lot, some, you know, some very sensitive topics of suicide, re baptism and the Trinity. But we can't get enough of your questions. So Please go to askntirite.com Send us your questions about Jesus, the Bible and the life of faith. And in our next episode, we're going to look at some more controversial questions. We're going to touch on the difficult topic of abortion. Does God forgive the devil? And does Paul contradict himself between Romans 8 and Galatians 4? That's what we'll have on our next episode of Ask NT Write Anything. Until then, I'm Mike Burn.

[Tom Wright]

And I'm Tom Wright.

[Mike Bird]

And we look forward to seeing you joining us on the next episode of Ask NT Write Anything until then, God bless you all.

[Sam]

Sam.