“In the 1980s, my doctoral dissertation adviser, D. Clair Davis, often said that Calvinism is so comprehensive that it is hard to get one’s mind and arms around it. He would then say, a bit tongue-in-cheek, that this comprehensiveness is one major difference between Lutheranism and Calvinism. Lutheranism could neatly bring all of its confessional statements under one cover in 1580 and call it The Book of Concord. But the Calvinistic faith is so rich that at least three families of confessional statements developed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: the English-Scottish family, the Dutch-German family, and the Swiss family–none of which contradicted the others but built on and complemented them” (“Preface” by Joel R. Beeke, Living For God’s Glory: An Introduction to Calvinism, xi-xii).

“Thus, he defines the oneness of God not in terms of the Father, but in terms of the whole Godhead. . . . While the eventual settlements would be due more precisely to the work of the three great Cappadocians, Athanasius’s contribution to the theology of the Trinity can scarcely be overestimated. His elaborations of the full deity of the Son and the Spirit in the one being of God, and of the revelations of the three in their mutual coinherence, were quantum advances in understanding and huge milestones on the path to a more accurate view of the Trinity. In addition, he rooted his Trinitarianism in his doctrines of creation and salvation, and turned discussion away from philosophical speculation and back to biblical and theological basis. These were no mean achievements” (Robert Letham, The Holy Trinity, 145).

“In love, the triune God chose the elect in Christ (Eph. 1:4). The Father so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son (John 3:16). Christ demonstrated His love for His Father by obeying His commands (John 14:31). In love, Christ offered His obedience and laid down His life for His bride (John 15:9; Rom. 5:8; 2 Cor. 5:14). All of these expressions of love occurs within the context of a covenant, whether in the pactum salutis or in its historical execution in the covenant of grace. Just as a watch does not function apart from its gears, union with Christ does not function apart from the gears of imputation. And just as the housing of the timepiece holds the watch face and gears together, imputation and union with Christ cannot function apart from the context of covenant, that which binds the one and the many” (J.V. Fesko, The Trinity and the Covenant of Redemption, 302).