05.The Presbytery of the Trinity before man's fall

The Presbytery of the Trinity before man’s fall The Triune God is Himself a ’Presbytery’ - as can be seen at the ordination by the Father of the Son with the Spirit, at Christ’s own baptism. Mat 3:16f & Isa 61:1f. Indeed, from all eternity, that Son was always with the Father and with the eternal Spirit - before the world was. Jh. 17:1-5 & Heb 9:14. At the beginning of time, these Three Persons all acted together, as One Presbytery, in divine harmony - at the creation of the universe. Gen 1:1-3.

They again did so at the formation of the human family as His righteous image. Gen 1:26-28; Gen 5:1-4f; Ecc 7:29; Rom 2:14f; Eph 4:24-29.

After His incarnation and then His resurrection, the divine Messiah required (and still requires) God’s Triune Name to be impressed on the foreheads of His followers at their baptism by a Minister of His Presbytery. See Mat 28:16-20; Mark 16:14-16; Rev 7:2-9f; 22:4f.

Then, at His human ascension, the Spirit-anointed Son returned to His Father the Ancient of days - there to rule through His Elders, here and now on Earth as too in Heaven, even unto all eternity. Dan 7:13; Dan 9:25f and Rev 4:4to5:14 f. In Owen’s Works - Banner of Truth eds. 1968 & 1991 (XX:413) - he rightly recognizes what we shall call the fundamental Presbytery - viz. the Triune God Himself. "Here the sacred truth of the Trinity of Persons in the divine Nature or Essence openeth itself unto the creatures.... "All the natural and essential properties of that Being are absolutely and essentially the same; and all the operations of this divine Essence or Being...are undivided  as being the effects of one principle; one power; one wisdom.... In these actings of the Persons of the Trinity in such ways as firstly respect themselves or their operations ’ad intra’ where one Person is as it were the Object of the other Persons’ acting, the sacred truth of the plurality of Persons in...undivided Essence is gloriously manifested."

Owen states elsewhere (XXIII:43-45) that "the visible works of God...were designed for no other end but to declare in general the Nature, Being, and Existence of God.... In this Nature there are three Persons distinctly subsisting.... This, therefore, was designed unto manifestation and glory in the creation of man.... Therefore the first express mention of a plurality of Persons in the divine Nature, is in the creation of man....

"There were from all eternity personal transactions in the holy Trinity concerning mankind...which first manifested themselves in our creation.... ’God said, Let Us make man in Our image’ [Gen 1:26].... This is sufficiently evident, that the reporter of this story apprehended an unanswerable appearance of a plurality of subsistences in the Deity.... The ancients unanimously agree that a plurality of Persons...is here revealed and asserted."

Owen explains further (III:43,66f,102,285) that "from the foundation of the world, the Person of the Father was immediately represented.... He did withal give out promises concerning the peculiar exhibition of the Son...as also of the Holy Spirit.... Adam may be said to have had the Spirit of God [and indeed also to have known all three Persons of the Triune God].... The supernatural life of Adam in innocency...is that which the life whereunto we are restored by Christ doth answer."