Nevertheless, while God’s authority is “absolute,” it also remains “personal.” Frame continues:
But this metaphysical absoluteness does not (as in non-Christian thought) force God into the role of an abstract principle. The non-Christian, of course, can accept an absolute only if that absolute is impersonal and therefore makes no demands and has no power to bless or curse. There are personal gods in paganism, but none of them is absolute; there are absolutes in paganism, but none is personal. Only in Christianity (and in other religions influences by the Bible) is there such a concept as a “personal absolute.”25
The Christian principle of authority (“the triune God in self-revelation”) thus identifies both the “who” and the “how” of divine authority. Regarding the “who,” this principle has a specific locus in Divine Persons. Ramm states that “in a very real sense all authority is at root personal. . . . Authority is the right and power of a person or persons to compel action, thought, or custom.”26 He is “God in three Persons”—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.27 As a result, any discussion of the Spirit’s “authority” must be built upon this notion of his divine Personhood. This implies that the Spirit has authority because (1) he is a Person (rather than a “force field” or “primal energy”; see Mark 3:29; Acts 5:3; Eph 4:30), and (2) he has a special kind of authority—namely, divine (see Acts 5:3–5; 1 Cor 2:10–12).
This principle also identifies “how” divine authority is expressed (but without explaining it). Ramm parts with many other theologians on this very point: “Most books on religious authority state that God is the final authority in religion. Here is where the discussion begins, and it begins with this question: How does God express His authority?”28 The obvious an-
swer is “by divine self-revelation.”29 The idea is that God does not need an intermediary to communicate his divine authority to others. Instead, it is revealed through the interrelated contributions of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In general, the Father is the author of divine revelation (establishing its final authority), the Son is the focus of divine revelation (establishing its content), and the Spirit is the revealer and executor of divine revelation (revealing God’s authority in the world).30
The Pattern of Authority
As mentioned earlier, the principle of authority in Christianity is associated with a pattern of authority, which is “designed for its practical and concrete expression and execution.” In other words, while “divine authority” is located in divine Persons and is revealed by God himself, the Christian “pattern of authority” expands this self-revelation into a full description of the means by which divine authority is revealed and executed. Ramm contends that divine revelation requires a specific pattern of delegation through which such execution occurs.31 We might say that divine authority is revealed through a specific pattern involving a delegated executive authority. In the Old Testament this pattern first includes the Holy Spirit and the prophets. The Spirit spoke the revealed word through the prophets to a particular generation of people. This was “the actual authority for the Old Testament believer.”32 This pattern later came to include a written word of revelation available for subsequent generations. As a result, divine author-
ity is delegated through a basic pattern involving Word and Spirit.33 This basic pattern tells us that what gets communicated is not just the content of authority through the Word of God but also, in a very real sense, the actual saying of authority through the Spirit of God. Divine authority, in other words, consists of the intimate association of content (from the mind of God) and rightful force (of a divine Person).
The NT, however, presents a radical focusing of this essential pattern. The center of divine revelation becomes the person and work of Jesus Christ. “Christ is the supreme object of the witness of the Spirit, and Christ is the supreme content of the Scriptures.”34 Ramm thus presents God’s indivisible “pattern” of authority in terms of these three interrelated elements of God’s self-revelation:
(1) Christ, who is the personal Word of God, the living, supreme revelation of God, and supreme depository of the knowledge of God (Col 2:3)
(2) The Holy Spirit, who conveys revelation, who delegates its authority, and who witnesses to its divinity
(3) The Sacred Scriptures, which are inspired by the Holy Spirit and therefore the document of revelation, which witness to Jesus Christ, and which are the Spirit’s instrument in effecting illumination.35
The Spirit’s Place within the Pattern of Divine Authority
This pattern of authority involves both objective and subjective factors. God’s objective revelation results in the written and authoritative Scriptures. Scripture possesses “delegated imperial authority and veracious authority in all matters in which it intends to teach.”36 The objective truth of the Word of God moves first from the utterance of the Father to Christ as his Supreme Revelation. Then,
[Christ] delegates His word to His chosen apostles, who complete their oral witness to the supreme Person of divine revelation with a written document, the New Testament. There is no decay of authority nor lessening of authority from the utterance of the Father to the written word of the Scripture.37
This pattern of authority also involves the subjective operation of the Spirit of God that parallels the objective revelation. The Spirit inspires the Scriptures and then illuminates this written revelation in the mind and heart of the believer. “Thus the objective Word of the Father, and the subjective ministry of the Spirit intersect in the heart of the believer to create a true knowledge of God and to call into being the Christian principle of authority.”38 The Westminster Confession proclaims the crucial importance of this intersection for the authoritative determination and discernment of truth in all things.
The Supreme Judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, are in whose sentences we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scriptures.39
In this work, the doctrine of the Spirit’s authority will be developed as an outworking of our “pattern of divine authority. The Spirit is involved in this pattern as an executor of Christ’s will in the world (John 15:26; 16:14–15). The Spirit’s involvement in the world has been described in the historic notion of the “economic Trinity.” Whereas the “immanent Trinity” is the perspective on God that explains who he is “antecedently and eternally in his own divine life,”40 the economic Trinity is the perspective that demonstrates the priority and distinctive role of each of the three Persons as they act in relation to us. In the economic Trinity we witness a subordination of authority—the Son to the Father, and the Spirit to the Son. This subordination certainly does not imply inferiority.