Ferguson: By essence, we mean that God is one being, essence comes from the Latin verb esse,
"to be," so what we mean is that He is one being. When we speak about Him as being three Persons,
perhaps...I think the best way to understand this whole approach the early church had is this,
God has made us as His image and because we are His image there are things about our life as well
as about our world that reflect who He is and what Ge is like. And so we have this privilege of using
language that is terrestrial because we have no other language
that is legitimated by the fact that we are made as the image of God to speak about Him.
But when we use that language, in this sense there is this connection between us because we are
image, we are persons and we see in Scripture that there are so many statements about God made
that are what we would call "personal." What the early church was seeking to do when it
spoke in these terms was to use this language that is terrestrial to describe the celestial,
but use that language in a way that was open to and defined by God Himself
and not either by our experience of the vocabulary or our dictionary definition of the vocabulary.
So when we say that God is a Person, yeah, we are persons, but we are the
microcosm. We exist in bodily form, we exist on the earth, we understand that God is
also a Person. In other words, what makes us a person reflects that which is true of Him,
but it's not identical with what is true of Him and all of our language about God is like this.
It's always the language of those who are the analogy of God. And we use that language, we
have no other language to use, it's legitimated by the dynamic that we are made as the image of God,
but we are always recognizing He's given us this privilege of using that language
that enables us to know Him without totally comprehending Him, which is what those early
theologians also meant when they spoke about the incomprehensibility of God,
but at the same time insisted the wonder is the God we know is the incomprehensible God.
We don't know Him as he knows Himself, but we do really know Him who knows Himself.
So all of our theological language is of this order, legitimated by the fact that we are made
as the image of God. And this is why it's so important for us not to begin with ourselves
and then to impose that language on God, but to realize that God has imprinted Himself
into our lives, into our world, legitimating this vocabulary that's born in this world
but is a bridge to that world so that we may really know Him.
And all knowledge of persons is actually like that. Derek and I have been long time close
friends. We really know each other, but Derek is still incomprehensible to me. By which I mean….
Thomas: It is mutual.
Ferguson: I cannot fully understand who he is. Only he knows and he only knows
part of it, and yet I still know him. I still have this relationship of brotherly
affection and friendship and trust and in a way what we find in the knowledge of the Person of God
is that wonderfully magnified. We know Him, but the more we know Him the more we say,
"You are incomprehensible to me," just as I sometimes think, excuse me, going on about this,
but I sometimes think when I see a young man or young woman in front of me and the young man is
about to pledge himself forever and I can see in his eyes no man has ever known and loved a woman
the way I know and love this woman, and I'm kind of standing there thinking, "Come back
in two years' time son and tell me you had no idea who she was." And when you've been married
the length we've been married, you're still able to say yes, you need to say it with a smile,
but your wife is still incomprehensible to you.
That doesn't mean you don't know her, but you realize there are depths and mysteries
to this other person because I'm not that other person, how much more with the Lord
and it's wonderful when it's true of your wife because of the fellowship that you have with
her and it's even more wonderful of the Lord because He is even greater than your wife.
Parsons: I can't wait to go home and tell Amber that she's incomprehensible to me
and Dr. Ferguson said I could say that to her.
Ferguson: Amen.