Tag Archives: Matthew Barrett

“The triune God is not a means to an end” by Scott Swain

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“Classical Protestant theologians spoke of two foundations of the church’s doctrine and life. They identified Holy Scripture as the cognitive foundation, the supreme source and norm of all the church is called to believe and to practice, the foundation of ‘the truth, which accords with godliness’ (Titus 1:1).

In addition to this cognitive foundation, they identified the triune God as the ontological foundation of the church’s doctrine and life. As all things are ‘from’ and ‘through’ and ‘to’ the triune God in the order of being (Rom. 11:36), so, they judged, all things are from and through and to the triune God in the order of theological understanding and Christian living.

The doctrines of creation and providence, the person and work of Jesus Christ, the church and sacraments, salvation and last things– each of these doctrines rests on the doctrine of the triune God for its meaning and significance, and the life of godliness that builds on these doctrines directs us to the triune God as our supreme good and final end.

The confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Father’s Spirit-anointed Son, is the foundation of the Christian confession (Matt. 16:16; 28:19; Mark 12:1-12; Eph. 2:20).

For this reason, the doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation of Christian teaching and living. Without the doctrine of the Trinity, there is no Christianity.

One of the major missteps recent trinitarian theology took was to suggest that the Trinity is only meaningful insofar as we can demonstrate its usefulness for various practical, social, and political ends.

But this is to get things utterly backwards.

The Trinity does not exist for our sake or for the sake of our agendas.

The triune God is not a means to an end. We exist for Him (1 Cor. 8:6).

The Trinity is an end in Himself (Rom. 11:36).

Therefore, studying the Trinity– seeking better to know and understand, to cherish and adore, to worship and serve the triune God– needs no justification beyond itself.

The reason for studying the triune God is not to bend the Trinity to our various social programs.

The reason for studying the triune God is to bend our minds, wills, actions, and communities to the Trinity, confident that, in doing so, we will discover in Him both the reason for our existence and the fullness of joy (Ps. 16:11; John 15:11; 17:13).”

–Scott R. Swain, “Foreword,” in Matthew Barrett, Simply Trinity: The Unmanipulated Father, Son, and Spirit (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2021), 13-14, 15-16.

“There is a single story to be told because there is a single divine Author” by Matthew Barrett

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“The whole of Scripture stands united by a single and primary author: God.

Rather than a collection of man’s highest thoughts about God, the Christian Scripture is God’s self-communication to humanity about who He is and what He has done to redeem a lost race in Adam.

Inspiration guarantees that the canon’s many stories tell one story; there is a single story to be told because there is a single divine author, who has declared Himself to be its architect and creator.

He is not only the main actor in the drama of redemption but the drama’s scriptwriter.

Presupposed is a striking reality: it is because the story of Scripture has one divine author that His divine authorial intent is embedded throughout Scripture’s storyline.”

–Matthew Barrett, Canon, Covenant and Christology (New Studies in Biblical Theology; Vol. 51; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2020), 16-17.

“There is none greater than this God” by Matthew Barrett

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“This book is meant to fill the house with good theology proper, the type that will keep the demons away for good (Matt. 12:45).

That means dispensing with the modern theologian’s agenda to create a God in our own image, a God whose immanence has swallowed His transcendence, a God that can be controlled by the creature because He is not that different from the creature.

But it also means filling the house with a biblical understanding of God as the One who is, as Isaiah said, ‘high and lifted up’ (Isa. 6:1), whose attributes remain undomesticated. He is the God Jeremiah confessed, saying, ‘There is none like You, O Lord; You are great, and Your name is great in might,’ (Jer. 10:6).

There is none greater than this God, not because He is merely a greater version of ourselves but because He is nothing like ourselves.”

–Matthew Barrett, None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2019), xvi.