She's Making a List: Reading Romans 8 As a Trinitarian

When I read passages the New Testament, I like to keep track of what is said about the three persons of the Trinity, particularly noting what the passage teaches about the roles each has in salvation (thinking, of course, of salvation as the whole shebang from God’s foreknowing right through to glorification and the consummation of all things.)

Here is Romans 8:26ff:

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And here’s a quick list of what this passage tells us about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Father (or “God” as Paul often refers to the Father)

• searches hearts (27)
• wills, purposes (27, 28)
• works things together for good (28)
• calls (29, 30)
• foreknows (29)
• predestines (29, 30)
• justifies (30, 33)
• glorifies (30)
• is for us (31)
• gave up the Son (32)
• gives us all things with Christ (32)
• loves us (39)

The Son

• is the image we are conformed to (29)
• is the firstborn of many brothers (29)
• was not spared, but was given up (32)
• died (34)
• was raised (34)
• is at the right hand of the Father (34)
• intercedes for us (34)
• loves us (35)

The Spirit

• helps us in our weakness (26)
• intercedes for us according to the will of God (27)

Doing lists like this helps me see that there’s really nothing that could make sense of the way scripture speaks of the work of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit except that the one God exists as as Trinity. Yes, this is a doctrine that is difficult to understand and yes, our language is inadequate to explain it, but a careful reader of scripture cannot deny that the Trinity is there, implicit in so much of what the apostles teach us about the work of God in history and in our lives. That God is Trinity is underlying it all: God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit; each person is fully God; there is one God.

As J. I Packer says, “All non-Trinitarian formulations of the Christian message are by biblical standards inadequate and indeed fundamentally false…”