The revealing of the Gospel is the work of the entire Holy Trinity.
The revealing of the Gospel is the work of the entire Holy Trinity.
§ 30. Whatever pertains to the manifestation of the Gospel is also correctly attributed to the entire Holy Trinity. It is true that the Son of God alone, who was going to assume the human nature into the unity of His person and was going to perform the work of redemption in [that nature], was established from the beginning as the messenger and interpreter of that Gospel decree. (For it is He who set forth in Paradise the First Gospel promise about “the woman’s Seed who would bruise the serpent’s head,” Gen. 3:15, and for this reason the Chaldaic paraphrase says, v. 8: “They heard the voice of the Word,” the Second Person of the Trinity. It is He who appeared to Abraham and to the other patriarchs and repeated the promise of the Messiah, and for this reason He is called “the Word,” John 1:1, the reason for which title is, among others, that “no one has ever seen God; the Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He Himself has told us” John 1:18. Irenaeus beautifully notes the use of the word “revealed” here and elsewhere in reference to Christ and writes, bk. 4, ch. 14: “Not only was this said in the future, as if the Word then would begin to reveal the Father when He was born of Mary, but was placed throughout every time in common. For from the beginning the Son, standing by, reveals His Father in His own image to all to whom the Father wishes, when He wishes, and how He wishes; and because of this, in and through all things there is one God the Father, and one Word, and one Son, and one Spirit, and one faith and salvation for all who believe in Him.” Nazianzen, Orat. 2 de Filio, also gives this reason, among others, as to why the Son is called the Word: “on account of the revelation.”) Nevertheless neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit should be removed from the work of revelation since “the works of the Trinity are undivided in regard to externals” since “the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father” (John 14:11); [also] since “the message that the Son has spoken is not His but the Father’s, who sent Him” (John 14:24); [also] since “the Son of God does not speak from Himself, but the Father, who dwells in Him, does His works and speaks” (John 14:10); and, finally, since “the Holy Spirit spoke through the mouth of the prophets” who repeated the promises of the Gospel (Luke 1:70); [and] since “the Spirit of Christ foretold the sufferings of Christ in the prophets” (1 Pet. 1:11).