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By the divine missions, the Father’s sending of the Son and the Father and Son’s sending of the Holy Spirit, we get a glimpse of God in His inner self. The Father sends the Son because He eternally begets the Son; the Son is eternally from Him. The Father and the Son send the Spirit because They eternally breathe forth (or spirate) the Spirit; the Spirit is eternally from the Father and the Son. Because the missions are an extension in time of the processions (eternal generation of the Son and eternal spiration or procession of the Spirit), however, we understand that the missions occur by an action of God outside Himself, an exercise of His power into creation.
Here we must consider the doctrine of inseparable operations. By this term, we mean that any work that God does outside Himself is a work common to the three persons of the Trinity. In other words, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all do the same work. We see distinctions between Them not in that each does a different part of that work but in that each does the same work in a particular order and according to His unique personal property. A work of this kind may terminate or reach its end on a particular person, but this does not mean that it is the work of only that person.
Let us consider a frequently cited illustration of this principle in the baptism of Jesus. When John the Baptist baptized the Son, the voice of the Father was heard, and the Spirit descended in the form of a dove (Matt. 3:13–17). The Son’s appearance, the Father’s voice, and the Spirit’s descent all result from something God does outside Himself in bringing about a created effect: the anointing of the Son, the soundwaves of speech, the appearing of a dove. Because the work of the three persons is common, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together bring about the anointing, the sound, and the image. Yet each work finds its termination or end in one of the persons. So Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all produce the created effect that is the audible voice of the Father, but only the Father’s voice is heard. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all active in the baptism, but only the Son is baptized. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all produce the image of a dove, but only the Spirit’s presence is seen.
Because Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are identical in power, every exercise of that power by one must also be an exercise of that power by the others as well. God’s external works are indeed great, each being performed by all three persons.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
The doctrine of inseparable operations is an important principle confessed by the church fathers and by orthodox Protestant theology. Without it, we cannot truly maintain the equality of the persons in all the divine attributes, and thus we introduce separate gods or make one person less than the others. The greatness of each of God’s works belongs not to only one of the persons but to all three.