Theological Term of the Week: Modalism

modalism 
The unorthodox teaching that “there is only one person in God who represents himself in the roles of the three persons.”1 Rather than a Trinity consisting of three distinct persons who are coexistent, there is one person who reveals himself at different times in three different modes (or forms, roles, or manifestation). Also called Sabellianism. Modalistic monarchism and patripassionism are types of modalism.

• From scripture we see that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are distinct from one another and interact with each other: 

  And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:16-17 ESV)

• From the Athanasian Creed:

  25. And in this Trinity none is afore or after another; none is greater or less than another.
  
  26. But the whole three persons are coeternal, and coequal.
  
  27. So that in all things, as aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped.
  
  28. He therefore that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity.

• From Systematic Theolog by Robert Letham, pages 97-98:

  Until the early fourth century there were two potentially deviant tendencies affecting the church’s grasp of the Trinity. The first of these was modalism, which blurred the distinctions of the three persons. In the third century, Sabellius held that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit were merely ways in which the one God revealed himself, like an actor taking on different roles. He maintained that the only God, Father in the Old Testament, had become the Son in the New and sanctified the church as Holy Spirit after Pentecost. The three were successive modes of the unipersonal God. Consequently, Christ was merely an appearance of the one God but did not have any distinct identity of his own. With modalism, God’s revelation in human history as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit did not reveal who he is eternally, and so Christ gives us no true knowledge of God. Moreover, the effect was to undermine God’s faithfulness, for we could not rely on him is what he disclosed of himself in Christ did not truly reflect who he eternally is. Indeed, for those determined to maintain the unity of God and resist anything savoring of a dual or threefold god, there was a constant danger of regarding the Son and the Spirit as identical to the Father, as appearances of the one God at different times. Tertullian countered modalism in his book Contra Praxeas, calling those who held this position “monarchians,” who insisted that God’s rule (monarchia) was one. Later, Paul of Samosata was condemned on these grounds at the Council of Antioch in 268.

Learn more:

1. Theopedia: Modalism
2. Simply Put: Modalism
3. Got Questions: What is modalism?
4. Blue Letter Bible: Does the One God Have Three Different Modes?
5. Tabletalk Magazine: The New Adventures of Trinitarian Heresies

Related terms:

• adoptionism
• Arianism
• Trinity

1 From The Christian Faith by Michael Horton, page 997.

Filed under Trinity

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Sunday's Hymn: Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing

Come, thou Fount of ev’ry blessing,
Tune my heart to sing thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise,
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above;
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of God’s unchanging love.

Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Hither by thy help I’m come;
And I hope, by thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wand’ring from the fold of God:
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed his precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be;
Let that grace now, like a fetter,
Bind my wand’ring heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for thy courts above.

—Ro­bert Rob­in­son

Other hymns of worship songs for this Sunday:

• God Moves in a Mysterious Way at The Happy Wonderer 

Selected Reading, January 29, 2022

 

A few covid and politics free reading suggestions for you.

Bible Interpretation

Context Matters: Moses’ Shining Face
Why did Moses veil his face after he came down from the mountain with a shining face? What was going on? What can we learn from a careful reading of the text? I’d never heard this explanation, but it makes a lot of sense of the story as told to us in scripture. What do you think? (This isn’t a new piece, but I just recently found it.)

Christian History

Medieval Christian Brides
From Simonetta Carr, a look at the lives of three medieval Christian wives married off to unbelievers.

The biblical rule of not marrying unbelievers wasn’t always binding in the first centuries of Christianity, especially when it came to the nobility. Priority was given to political concerns and family alliances. And, at a time when rulers determined the religion of their people, church leaders encouraged the Christian wives who found themselves in high places to work toward the conversion of their husbands.

Marriage to an unbelieving husband was frequently viewed as a mission—missionary marriage, I guess.

Classic Fiction

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
I read a novel from each of the three Bronte sister authors in 2021. I’ve already linked to the first two—Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. I finished the Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Emily Bronte in December. I’d say it’s way better than Wuthering Heights, which was much too weird for me, and almost as good as Jane Eyre, which I highly recommended. It has some interesting themes—heavy drinking and domestic abuse, to name two. It also seems to promote universal salvation, which might annoy some of you, I suppose. I mostly ignored those parts.