Though the Christian faith is grounded in the belief that Christ is the ultimate revelation of the Father, I contend that Christ’s life, ministry, and teachings are intelligible only within the framework of the history of Israel as recorded within the Old Testament. Christ himself drew on the sacred texts of Israel, and the earliest records we have of the incarnate life of the Son interprets him within this framework, sometimes by clear citation formulas — “Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet” (Matt. 1:22) — and sometimes through less direct allusions, as when Matthew depicts Jesus as the new Moses. This fact prompts me to hold two principles. First, what I have elsewhere called the inspiration principle requires that we see these biblical texts as exceeding merely human records. If these texts are necessary to understand God’s self-revelation in the Son, and if true human knowledge of God must participate in the archetypal knowledge that God has of himself, then Christians must take it as an article of faith that these texts participate in God’s knowledge by inspiration. Second, the fact that Jesus must be interpreted within the context of these older texts prompts a canonical principle. Again, if these books are necessary in understanding Jesus, then they must be included in theological analysis and thus rendered as canon, while other texts that are not equally important in interpreting Christ within his historical context are excluded from having equal authority. Only the canon is fully normative in theology.

A dogmatic account of the Trinity thus begins with the affirmation of the Bible as Scripture — a specific canon of texts viewed as uniquely communicating God’s knowledge of God in a manner appropriate to human knowledge.

D. Glenn Butner Jr., Trinitarian Dogmatics, 5-6.