"In the fifth chapter of Revelation the apostle tells us that as he looked through a door in heaven he glimpsed something of the triumphant outcome of God's overruling of the fearful events of world history. Two things riveted his attention: a scroll and a lamb. The scroll was the book of human destiny sealed and firmly held in the hand of God. When no one in heaven or earth was able to open the scroll and look inside, John wept bitterly. Then he was told that the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, had gained the power to break the seals and open the scroll. John turned to see the Lion, the mighty power of God, but what he saw standing in the midst of the throne of God was a Lamb with the marks of sacrifice upon him who took the scroll from the right hand of God, and when he did so a new song was heard to break out in heaven:
You are worthy to receive the scroll and break the seals, for you were slain and by your blood you have redeemed for God a people of every tribe and language a nation and race. You have made them a royal house of priests for our God, and they shall reign on earth. This was echoed by countless angels singing' Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and riches, wisdom and glory and praise.
This surely means that the atoning passion of Christ must for ever be allowed to govern our understanding of God in all his creative, providential and redemptive relations with us. Is that not why we cannot but think of passion and serenity, passibility and impassibility as interpenetrating one another in the ultimate nature of God? And is that not how we continue to worship him?
Just as the whole undivided Trinity was involved in redemption so the whole undivided Trinity is worshipped in our celebration of the Eucharist. The liturgy of the Church was aboriginally and intrinsically trinitarian, so that it is not surprising that it was out of the sacramental worship of the Church in Baptism and Eucharist shaped by the inspired witness of the apostles handed down to us in the Scriptures of the New Testament, that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, One God Three Persons, came into explicit formulation."
The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons. Thomas F. Torrance. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996) pages 255-56.
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The theology of Thomas F. Torrance is thoroughly trinitarian. This book, along with The Trinitarian Faith (1988) distilled a lifetime of dogmatic reflection into a mature statement of why the doctrine of the Trinity is of defining importance for Christian faith. The Christian Doctrine of God is both dogmatic and doxological theology, carefully argued from primary sources with doctrinal precision and considerable passion, and shaped from within his own experience of God in Christ as believer, minister and scholar. It's not an easy read, not much of Torrance is – nor was it intended to be. This is confessional theology from within the academy, a summative statement by one of Scotland's greatest theologians whose dogmatic and ecumenical work spanned decades, and reached across the major divisions of Christian tradition.
As Torrance confessed in the Preface, "the truth of the Holy Trinity is more to be adored than expressed." The last page of this book, quoted above, demonstrates this same fusion of doctrine and doxology was an unbroken thread running through the book; compelled to express what is inexpressible, analysis gives way to adoration, and dogmatic exertion merges with prayer and worship. That's how Torrance 'did' theology; he was a theologian for whom prayer was an essential predisposition to faith seeking understanding.
Torrance lived through some of the most momentous historical events of his century. The Second World War, the Cold War and nuclear deterrence, a growing ecological crisis, and in the late 20th Century the confrontation of East and West completely realigned with the collapse of communism in 1989 with all the instability and rebuilding that followed. Against a background of such anxiety and adjustment, late in his own life, Torrance completed the writing of The Christian Doctrine of God. He was providing for the Church a doctrine of God adequate to the multiple contemporary challenges facing an endangered world, and as continuing foundation and guide to the mission and future of the Church.
In 1959 Torrance published a book of sermons, The Apocalypse Today. The book of Revelation was a text that, throughout his vocational life, provided Torrance with a view of human history where God is always on the horizon. His closing words include a text that has Advent woven throughout. The Lion and the Lamb, the Root of David, the mystery of human history and God's ultimate purpose of redemption which would include people from "every tribe and language a nation and race."
The incarnation, life, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension and glorification of Jesus is a chain reaction of divine purpose, a defining revelation of how God is to be encountered, thought and worshipped as the Triune God of grace. Torrance is surely right to insist on this story of God's atoning passion, revealed in Jesus Christ, as the governing reality of our deepest Christian reflections about God, leading inevitably to worship, and the singing of the new song.
Or, to put all that in Advent terms:
True God of true God,
Light of light eternal,
Lo, He abhors not the virgin's womb;
Son of the father,
Begotten not created
O Come, let us adore Him…
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