Re: [TruthTalk] The Mind of Christ

[Bill Taylor]

Thank you very much, Izzy. I apologize for not expressing the significance of my concern more clearly. You say that 'Jesus' existed with the Father prior to His appearance in physical form. My question for you is, was Jesus the Father's Son when he existed in this eternal pre-incarnate state with his "FATHER"?   Please do not misunderstand me: I am not arguing for an eternal physical Son. I am arguing for an eternal Son who became physical at a point in human history, a Son who embodied flesh to be "God with us," that we might know the heart of God, God for who he is, that we might more fully uphold in our worship and devotion this most central of truths: the eternal loving relationship between the Father and the Son and the Son and the Father in the Holy Spirit.    The significance of this is not to diminish the doctrine of the eternal Word (Joh 1) -- not at all, I very much embrace and uphold this doctrine. But I believe the Word can only rightly and truly be known as he has made himself known to us in the Son of God, Jesus Christ. To speak of the Word in any capacity other than the capacity which we know him in the Son, is to speak of him in abstraction and to rationalize him away from our understanding of him as God, the God who revealed himself to us in personal, relational existence as the Son of the Father. This pre-existent 'Jesus,' as you have identified him, can therefore only be known to us in the capacity in which he came to us in the incarnation of the Son of God, Emmanuel. We dare not chase away in our thinking of divine Sonship the idea of his eternal existence, for to do so is to cloud our ability to know God and to relate to him as he desires to be known -- in the way he has revealed himself to us as Son of the Father: "God ... has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds" (Hebrews 1.1-2).   And so the significance of this distinction -- and the reason why I am not straining gnats -- is in knowing or not knowing the eternal Word in personal, relational categories. To deny the eternal Sonship of Christ and to set in his place a rationally-static "Word" doctrine, is to depersonalize the relationship most central to the heart of God: the Father-Son relationship -- "that they may be one just as We are one" (Joh 17.22b). To say that the Son is not eternal is to say that this relationship is not the most important relationship of all eternity. It is to say that this relationship is not eternal. It is to say that God in eternity past was something other than he is in eternity present, now that he does have at his heart this Father-Son relationship. To deny the eternal Sonship of Christ is therefore to diminish and chase away this most important of doctrines -- the relational unity, which is the oneness of our God; either that or it is to deny the very importance of that relationship itself. Moreover, it is to introduce into our thinking the subtle necessity that God had to create in order to be fully, perfectly God: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.   I hope this is helpful. I pray the opportunity in coming days to go ahead and expand upon the importance of this most important distinction that I am drawing.   Bill     ----- Original Message ----- From: ShieldsFamily To: TruthTalk@mail.innglory.org Sent: Sunday, December 26, 2004 6:44 AM Subject: RE: [TruthTalk] The Mind of Christ BT: Two figures passed through the pieces in the ratification of the Abrahamic covenant. Neither of them was Abraham. Yet it was Abraham and Christ to whom the promises were made; but it was Christ alone by whom the covenant was fulfilled. The pre-incarnate Christ is therefore the only one who could represent the recipient in the ratification of the covenant. Jesus Christ is the Son of God. To jump ahead a bit, since we have established the relational status of the covenant, it is therefore entirely reasonable to conclude that one of the parties who passed through those pieces had to be the pre-incarnate Christ, the eternal Son of the Father; the other being the Father to the Son.   Bill, I have no problem believing that Jesus existed with the Father prior to His appearance in physical form on the earth.  He was in the fiery furnace.  He was probably one of the 3 �angels� with whom Abraham argued over sparing Sodom.  He was in many places in the OT.  However I do not understand what you are driving about �eternal Sonship�.  Have you explained this term? As I said, Jesus existed from eternity with the Father, and nothing was created w/o Him.  Whether or not He had a human physical body prior to His birth on earth, I can�t really say.  And I fail to see the importance of it.  When you see the Son you see the Father. They are One. So what�s your earthshaking point??? Izzy