THESIS 11
At all stages (in his incarnation, ministry, death, and risen glory) the priesthood of Christ is essentially Trinitarian. This thesis draws together what the previous thesis has stated under (2) and (3). No New Testament writer goes beyond Luke in his vision of the Trinitarian face of the whole story of Jesus: from his conception through the power of the Holy Spirit through to his sending (with the Father) of the Holy Spirit at the first Pentecost. The Spiritbearer becomes the Spirit-giver (Luke). The Letter to the Hebrews, the New Testament witness to the priesthood of Christ, is also thoroughly ‘Trinitarian’—not least by its biblical quotations. It treats the Scriptures not as the written word of God but as the spoken word of the tripersonal God. Where St Paul introduces quotations from the Scriptures with such rubrics as ‘it is written’ (e.g. Rom. 9: 13, 33; 11: 8), ‘the Scripture says’ (e.g. Gal. 4: 30), and ‘Moses says’ or ‘David says’ (e.g. Rom. 10: 19; 11: 9), Hebrews puts biblical texts into the mouth of either God (the Father) (e.g. Heb. 1: 5) or of the Son (e.g. 2: 12) or of the Holy Spirit (e.g. 3: 7–11). It is rare that anyone else is allowed to speak the words of Scripture, as Moses does in Hebrews 9: 19–20. Hebrews draws on the biblical texts for a Trinitarian doctrine—one might say, drama— in which the Father speaks to the Son and to us in the Son, the Son addresses the Father, and the Holy Spirit bears witness to us. Thus Hebrews expounds Christ’s priesthood within a kind of Trinitarian drama. Berulle, Condren, and Olier understood Christ’s priestly self-offering to the Father to have begun with the incarnation, even before he was born into the world. Their vision of the various ‘states’ in Christ’s priestly history included the Father from the outset. This portrayal of Christ’s priestly existence became clearly Trinitarian when the Holy Spirit entered their vision of the consummation of Christ’s sacrifice brought by his resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven.
THESIS 12
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