[TruthTalk] Why the Eternal Sonship of Christ Matters to Me

[Jonathan Hughes]

Judy, When I was younger I used to like completing mazes.  It wasn't long before, either through someone telling me or through dumb luck, that I figured out that it was wiser to solve a tough maze by beginning with the end and working one's way back to the start.  It provided a different perspective by starting where one must end up in order to end up where one started.  Theology often provides this opportunity.  Too often I believe we start with the problem and work our way to the cure.  This process means that we go on to define the cure by the problem.  Evangelicals are most guilty of this when discussing sin.  Starting with sin and moving towards Christ is never the answer.  Starting with Christ and defining sin in the light of who He is, is the answer.  I would like to apply this concept (Using the cure to define the problem) to the discussion of the eternal sonship of Christ. I believe that there is a barometer built into Christianity that helps us to identify heresy.  I believe that that barometer is the Trinity.  When people deny the eternal sonship of Jesus Christ they are denying the Trinity.  I hold that the Trinity is the ground and grammar of our faith.  In other words we start from who God has communicated Himself to be in His divine self-revelation and speak of all things through that prism.  I believe along with the Nicene Fathers that God has communicated Himself as being Triune (Father, Son and Spirit).  There has been some discussion about the phrase 'Son of God' as being bestowed upon Jesus as a title.  While this is true we need to be careful with confusing the title 'Son of God' with who Jesus Christ is - The Son of God.  One is a title, the other who Jesus is inherently in His being.  What I give great umbrage to is when people deny not a title of Christ but who He was and is today in His being.  I hold that God is Father, Son and Spirit and has been for all eternity.  I hold that the Son and Spirit are eternally generated from the Father.  The reason I, and orthodoxy, disagree with you most Judy is because you are denying who God is and how He has revealed Himself to be.  You are saying that God is not Triune (Father, Son and Spirit).  This takes you outside of Christianity and aligns you with the Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, and Islam. We have given a number of scriptural references to God being eternally as He is described above (Father, Son and Spirit) especially focusing on the passages in John where the Father and Son speak of their relationship.  You also have supplied a few references that taken on their own could point towards Jesus becoming the Son of God only once He was incarnated.  If you take these scriptures (yours and ours) and throw them into a pot you get a scriptural logjam.  What needs to be done is to start with the cure: Jesus Christ.  Work out who He is in light of the Triune revelation.  Then focus on your problems with eternal sonship.  You will find that they have disappeared and you will now be able to exegete scripture in a way that brings glory to our Father and does justice to His self-revelation in Jesus.  Scripture can never be interpreted apart from the Person and Being of Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the fullest revelation of God to us, not scripture.  We need to take our scripture and align it underneath God.  To do otherwise is to be left with a disintegrating Bible, one where we just take a text and compare it to another text depending on what opinion we are attempting to prove at the time.  All of this is done apart from Jesus Christ.  We need to begin with the cure and then move onto our problems in interpreting the Bible. My hope is that you will allow God through scripture and through His revelation in Christ to begin to see God for who He is: Father, Son and Spirit.  I fear that if you do not you will continue to slide down the slippery slope of heresy.  It tends to snowball as one goes along.  Here is the progression that you are already making.  First, you deny the eternal sonship of Christ.  Secondly, you suggest that subordination exists in the Godhead.  (David Miller also does this but I believe David’s motives for accepting subordination are different then your own.  I believe David’s are him reading his view of relationships, especially between a man and a wife [headship] and applying them back onto God in His inherent Being).  Third, you begin to relate and promote Arian arguments.  The questions Arius asked are important questions.  It is also important that one understand why the Christian Church chose to follow Athanasius instead of Arius.  Please keep reading on this, preferably from a number of different sources.  If you want any suggestions please send me a private email.  Fourth, you begin to concentrate not on the Triune God but a modalistic God who works out His plan in different modes during different time spans.  The final step (one I do not believe you have made yet) is to disengage Jesus Christ from God altogether.  It is my prayer that you will move back towards the God of the Bible, the God of the church catholic, and the God of the historic Christian faith. 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