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whic h is quit e dist inc t from all monot heism, polyt heism or pant heism. The c entral
posit ion oc c upied by t he c ruc ified Christ is t he spec ific ally Christ ian element in t he
history of the world and t he doc t rine of t he T rinit y is t he spec ific ally Christ ian
element of the doctrine of God. Both are very closely connected. It is not the bare
trinitarian formulas in the New Testament, but the c onstant testimony of the c ross
whic h provides t he basis for Christ ian fait h in t he T rinit y. The most c onc ise
expression of the Trinity is God’s ac tion on the c ross, in whic h God allowed the Son
t o sac rific e himself t hough t he Spirit (B. St effen).
It is informative to examine Paul’s statements about Jesus’ abandonment on
the c ross in this c ontext. T he Greek word for “abandon” (paradidomi) has a
dec idedly negative c onnotation in the gospel stories of the passion, meaning
betray, deliver, give up and even kill. In Paul (Romans 1: 18–21), t his negat ive
meaning of paredoken is apparent in his presentation of God’s abandonment of
ungodly men. Guilt and punishment are c losely c onnec ted and men who abandon
God are abandoned by him and “given” up to the way they have c hosen for
themselves – Jews to their law, Gentiles to the worship of their idols and both to
death.
Paul introduc ed a new meaning into the term paredoken when he presented
Jesus’ abandonment by God not in the historic al c ontext of his life, but in the
esc hat ologic al c ont ext of fait h. God “did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for
us all; will he not also give us all t hings wit h him?” (Romans 8:32). In t he hist oric al
abandonment of the c ruc ified Christ by the Father, Paul perc eived the
esc hatologic al abandonment or “giving up” of the Son by the Father for the sake of
“ungodly” men who had abandoned and been abandoned by God. In stressing that
God had given up “his own Son”, Paul extended the abandonment of the Son to the
Father, although not in the same way, as the Patripassian heretic s had done,
insist ing t hat the Son’s sufferings c ould be predic ated on the Father. In the Pauline
view, Jesus suffered death abandoned by God. The Father, on the other hand,
suffered the death of his Son in the pain of his love. The Son was “given up” by the
Father and the Father suffered his abandonment from the Son. Kazoh Kitamori has
c alled t his “t he pain of God.”
The death of the Son is different from this “pain of God” the Father, and for
this reason it is not possible to speak, as the Theopaschites did, of the “death of
God”. If we are to understand the story of Jesus’ death abandoned by God as an
event taking place between the Father and the Son, we must speak in terms of the
T rinit y and leave t he universal c onc ept of God aside, at least t o begin wit h. In
Galatians 2:20, the word paredoken appears with Christ as the subjec t “...the Son
of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” According to this statement, then,
it is not only the Father who gives the Son up, but the Son who gives himself up.
T his indic at es t hat Jesus’ will and that of the Father were the same at the point
where Jesus was abandoned on the cross and they were completely separated. Paul
himself interpreted Christ’s being abandoned by God as love, and the same
interpretation is found in John (John 3:16). The author of 1 John regarded this
event of love on the cross as the very existence of God himself: “God is love” (1
John 4:16). T his is why it was possible at a later period to speak, with reference to
the cross, of homoousia, the Son and the Father being of one substanc e. In the
cross, Jesus and his God are in the deepest sense separated by the Son’s