Hi Judy,
What follows below is an article/sermon by
John MacArthur. He used to hold the position you espouse below but after much
study changed his mind and affirmed what scripture says about Jesus Christ. I
think you will find it interesting.
REEXAMINING
THE ETERNAL SONSHIP OF JESUS CHRIST
by
John F. MacArthur
1939 - present
Near the end of his life, Augustine of Hippo meticulously reviewed
everything he had ever published. He wrote an entire catalogue of his own
works, a painstakingly annotated bibliography with hundreds of revisions and
amendments to correct flaws he saw in his own earlier material. The book,
titled Retractationes, is
powerful evidence of Augustine's humility and zeal for truth. Not one of his
earlier publications escaped the more mature theologian's scrutiny. And
Augustine was as bold in recanting the errors he perceived in his own work as
he had been in refuting the heresies of his theological adversaries. Because he
reviewed his works in Chronological order, Retractationes
is a wonderful memoir of Augustine's relentless, lifelong pursuit of spiritual
maturity and theological precision. His forthrightness in addressing his own
shortcomings is a good example of why Augustine is esteemed as a rare model of
both godliness and scholarship.
I've often wished for the opportunity to review and amend all my own published
material, but I doubt I'll ever have the time or the energy to undertake the
task. In this day of electronic recordings, my "published" material
includes not just the books I have written but also nearly every sermon I have
ever preached--about 3,000 of them so far. It's far too much material to be
able to critique exhaustively the way I wish I could.
Not that I would make sweeping or wholesale revisions. Throughout my ministry,
my theological perspective has remained fundamentally unchanged. The basic
doctrinal statement I subscribe to today is the same one I affirmed when I was
ordained to the ministry almost 40 years ago. I am not someone whose
convictions are easily malleable. I trust I am not a reed shaken in the wind,
or the kind of person who is naively tossed about by various winds of doctrine.
But at the same time, I do not want to be resistant to growth and correction,
especially when my comprehension of Scripture can be sharpened. If more precise
understanding on an important point of doctrine demands a change in my
thinking--even if it means amending or correcting already-published material--I
want to be willing to make the necessary changes.
I have made many such revisions over the years, often taking measures to
delete erroneous or confusing statements from my own tapes, and sometimes
even preaching again through portions of Scripture with a better
understanding of the text. Whenever I have changed my opinion on any
significant doctrinal issue, I have sought to make my change of opinion,
and the reasons for it, as clear as possible.
To that end, I want to state publicly that I have abandoned the doctrine
of "incarnational sonship." Careful study and reflection have
brought me to understand that Scripture does indeed present the
relationship between God the Father and Christ the Son as an eternal Father-Son relationship. I
no longer regard Christ's sonship as a role He assumed in His incarnation.
My earlier position arose out of my study of Hebrews 1:5, which appears
to speak of the Father's begetting the Son as an event that takes place at
a point in time: "This day have I
begotten thee"; "I will
be to him a Father, and he shall
be to me a Son" (emphasis added).
That verse presents some very difficult concepts. "Begetting"
normally speaks of a person's origin.
Moreover, sons are generally subordinate
to their fathers. I therefore found it difficult to see how an
eternal Father-Son relationship could be compatible with perfect equality
and eternality among the Persons of the Trinity. "Sonship," I
concluded, bespeaks the place of voluntary submission to which Christ
condescended at His incarnation (cf. Phil. 2:5-8; John 5:19).
My aim was to defend, not in any way to undermine, Christ's absolute
deity and eternality. And I endeavored from the beginning to make that as
clear as possible.
Nonetheless, when I first published my views on the subject (in my
1983 commentary on Hebrews), a few outspoken critics accused me of
attacking the deity of Christ or questioning His eternality. In 1989 I
responded to those charges in a plenary session of the annual convention
of the Independent Fundamental Churches of America (the denomination that
ordained me). Shortly after that session, to explain my views further, I
wrote an article titled "The Sonship of Christ" (published in 1991
in booklet form).
In both instances I reemphasized my unqualified and unequivocal
commitment to the biblical truth that Jesus is eternally God. The
"incarnational sonship" view, while admittedly a minority
opinion, is by no means rank heresy. The heart of my defense of the view
consisted of statements that affirmed as clearly as possible my absolute
commitment to the evangelical essentials of Christ's deity and eternality.
Still,
controversy continued to swirl around my views on
"incarnational sonship," prompting me to reexamine and rethink
the pertinent biblical texts. Through that study I have gained a new
appreciation for the significance and the complexity of this issue. More
important, my views on the matter have changed. Here are two major reasons
for my change of opinion:
1. I am now convinced that the title "Son of God" when applied to
Christ in Scripture always
speaks of His essential deity and absolute equality with God, not His
voluntary subordination. The Jewish leaders of Jesus' time understood this
perfectly. John 5:18 says they sought the death penalty against Jesus,
charging Him with blasphemy "because he not only had broken the
sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with
God."
In that culture, a dignitary's adult son was deemed equal in stature
and privilege with his father. The same deference demanded by a king
was afforded to his adult son. The son was, after all, of the very same
essence as his father, heir to all the father's rights and privileges--and
therefore equal in every significant regard. So when Jesus was called
"Son of God," it was understood categorically by all as a title
of deity, making Him equal with God and (more significantly) of the same essence as the Father.
That is precisely why the Jewish leaders regarded the title "Son of
God" as high blasphemy.
If Jesus' sonship signifies His deity and utter equality with the Father,
it cannot be a title that pertains only to His incarnation. In fact, the
main gist of what is meant by "sonship" (and certainly this
would include Jesus' divine essence) must pertain to the eternal
attributes of Christ, not merely the humanity He assumed.
2. It is now my conviction that the begetting spoken of in Psalm 2
and Hebrews 1 is not an event that takes place in time. Even though at
first glance Scripture seems to employ terminology with temporal overtones
("this day have I
begotten thee"), the context of Psalm 2:7 seems clearly to be
a reference to the eternal decree of God. It is reasonable to conclude
that the begetting spoken of there is also something that pertains to
eternity rather than a point in time. The temporal language should
therefore be understood as figurative, not literal.
Most theologians recognize this, and when dealing with the sonship of Christ,
they employ the term "eternal generation." I'm not fond of
the _expression_. In Spurgeon's words, it is "a term that does not
convey to us any great meaning; it simply covers up our ignorance."
And yet the concept itself, I am now convinced, is biblical. Scripture
refers to Christ as "the only begotten of the Father" (John
1:14; cf. v. 18; 3:16, 18; Heb. 11:17). The Greek word translated
"only begotten" is monogenes.
The thrust of its meaning has to do with Christ's utter uniqueness.
Literally, it may be rendered "one of a kind"--and yet it also
clearly signifies that He is of the very same essence as the Father. This,
I believe, is the very heart of what is meant by the _expression_ "only
begotten."
To say that Christ is "begotten" is itself a difficult concept.
Within the realm of creation, the term "begotten" speaks of the origin of one's offspring. The
begetting of a son denotes his conception--the point at which he comes
into being. Some thus assume that "only begotten" refers to
the conception of the human Jesus in the womb of the virgin Mary. Yet
Matthew 1:20 attributes the conception of the incarnate Christ to the Holy
Spirit, not to God the Father. The begetting referred to in Psalm 2 and
John 1:14 clearly seems to be something more than the conception of
Christ's humanity in Mary's womb.
And indeed, there is another, more vital, significance to the idea
of "begetting" than merely the origin of one's offspring. In the
design of God, each creature begets offspring "after his kind"
(Gen. 1:11-12; 21-25). The offspring bear the exact likeness of the
parent. The fact that a son is generated by the father guarantees that the
son shares the same essence as the father.
I believe this is the sense Scripture aims to convey when it speaks of
the begetting of Christ by the Father. Christ is not a created being
(John 1:1-3). He had no beginning but is as timeless as God Himself.
Therefore, the "begetting" mentioned in Psalm 2 and its
cross-references has nothing to do with His origin.
But it has everything to do with the fact that He is of the same essence
as the Father. Expressions like "eternal generation," "only
begotten Son," and others pertaining to the filiation of Christ must
all be understood in this sense: Scripture employs them to underscore the
absolute oneness of essence between Father and Son. In other words, such
expressions aren't intended to evoke the idea of procreation; they are
meant to convey the truth about the essential oneness shared by the
Members of the Trinity.
My previous view was that Scripture employed Father-Son terminology anthropomorphically--accommodating
unfathomable heavenly truths to our finite minds by casting them in human
terms. Now I am inclined to think that the opposite is true: Human
father-son relationships are merely earthly pictures of an infinitely
greater heavenly reality. The one true, archetypical Father-Son
relationship exists eternally within the Trinity. All others are merely
earthly replicas, imperfect because they are bound up in our finiteness,
yet illustrating a vital eternal reality.
If
Christ's sonship is all about His deity, someone will wonder why
this applies to the Second Member of the Trinity alone, and not to the
Third. After all, we don't refer to the Holy Spirit as God's Son, do we?
Yet isn't He also of the same essence as the Father?
Of course He is. The full, undiluted, undivided essence of God belongs
alike to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is but one essence; yet He
exists in three Persons. The three Persons are co-equal, but they are still
distinct Persons. And the chief characteristics that distinguish between
the Persons are wrapped up in the properties suggested by the names Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Theologians have labeled these properties paternity, filiation,
and spiration. That such
distinctions are vital to our understanding of the Trinity is clear from
Scripture. How to explain them fully remains something of a mystery.
In fact, many aspects of these truths may remain forever inscrutable,
but this basic understanding of the eternal relationships within the
Trinity nonetheless represents the best consensus of Christian
understanding over many centuries of Church history. I therefore affirm
the doctrine of Christ's eternal sonship while acknowledging it as a mystery
into which we should not expect to pry too deeply.
END OF ARTICLE
Copyright
© 1997 by John F. MacArthur & Grace To You
All Rights Reserved
Sermon by John F. MacArthur
Grace Community Church
13248 Roscoe Boulevard
Sun Valley, California 91352
(818) 909-5500
Web site: http://www.gracechurch.org
From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Judy Taylor
Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2004
11:31 PM
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] The Mind
of Christ
jt: He was the Word of God from the
foundation of the world.
He became a son at the incarnation when
God provided Him a body.
He was begotten, not made and His blood
was/is the eternal blood
of the New Covenant which is non
sectarian in spite of the fact that
He was born under the law of Moses to a
young Jewish girl -
He was the Son of the Father, the Word who was with God and
was God "in beginning," and when he appeared in a flesh
body, he had Jewish blood running through his veins. Bill
jt: Actually He was
the Word of the Father, who, in the fullness of time, appeared among us in a
flesh body.
I AM attempting to get rooted
in That Mind! Was Messiah a Greek or Hebrew? - slade
jt: Slade and Lance, is there any good
reason why we can not forget about both Greek and Hebrew
mindsets and begin to focus upon and
discuss "the mind of Christ"? jht
