More
scriptural evidence for the heresy
rampant on this forum. Taken from
http://www.middletownbiblechurch.org/doctrine/sonship.htm
The
Eternal Sonship of Christ
1)The
Doctrine of Eternal Sonship
The
doctrine of eternal Sonship
declares that the Second Person of the triune Godhead has eternally
existed as
the Son. His Sonship had no beginning. There was never a time when He
was not
the Son of God. There has always been a Father/Son relationship in the
Godhead.
Sonship is not merely a title or role or function that Christ assumed
at some
point in history, but it involves the essential identity of the Second
Person
of the Godhead. He is and has always been the true, proper, actual Son
of God.
2)The
Denial of Eternal Sonship
Those
who deny eternal Sonship teach
that Christ became the
Son at
some point in history—at His incarnation, at His baptism, at His
resurrection
or at His exaltation. Most who deny eternal Sonship say that He became
the Son
at His birth (at the incarnation), and that prior to Bethlehem He was
not the
Son of God. They do not deny His deity or His eternality, but they deny
His
eternal Sonship. Some teach that the term “Son of God” means
“subservient to
God, less than God, inferior to God.” They believe that Christ's
Sonship is
external, extrinsic, and extraneous to the real, true, proper, and
essential
essence of who Jesus Christ really is. Thus they teach that Sonship was
merely
a role or a title or a function that Christ assumed at the incarnation.
They
also teach that the Father became the Father at the time of the
incarnation.
Those
who teach this view would
include Ralph Wardlaw, Adam Clarke, Albert Barnes, Jimmy Swaggart,
Finis J.
Dake (Dake's Annotated Reference
Bible),
Walter Martin (author of Kingdom
of the
Cults). Popular Bible teacher John MacArthur, Jr. for many
years
denied the doctrine of the eternal Sonship of Christ, but he has
changed his
position and now embraces this doctrine.
3)The
Defense of Eternal Sonship
(Biblical
Evidence
Showing That Christ Was the Son of God Even Prior to Bethlehem):
a) The
Bible
clearly teaches that it was “the Son” who created all things, thus
strongly
implying that Christ was the Son of God at the time of creation (Col.
1:13,16;
Heb. 1:2).
b) The
Bible
teaches that the Son has eternally existed in the bosom of the Father.
John
1:18 translated literally from the Greek says this: “No man hath seen
God at
any time; the only begotten Son, THE
ONE EVER
BEING (existing) IN THE BOSOM OF THE FATHER, He hath
declared Him.”
c) The
many
passages which speak of the Father SENDING the Son all imply that
Christ
existed as the Son prior to His mission (1 John 4:10,14; John 20:21;
Gal. 4:4;
etc.).
d) The
parable of
the vineyard owner (Mark 12:1-12) points to Christ as being the Son
prior to
His coming into the world. In the parable, the son of the vineyard
owner was
the son long before he was sent on his mission.
e) God
gave His Son
(John 3:16), implying that Christ was God's Son before He was given.
God the
Father did not give One who would become His Son, but He gave One who
already
was His Son.
f) Christ
had
a relationship to the Father prior to the incarnation. John 16:28
teaches that
Christ came forth from the Father,
strongly implying that there was a Father/Son relationship before He
came into
this world. John 17:5,24 also indicates that there was a Father/Son
relationship in the Godhead even before the creation of the world.
g) The
One who
existed as the Son of God became the Son of David at the time of the
incarnation (Rom. 1:3-4). The incarnation is when God became a man, it
is not when God became
the Son. He was God's
Son from all eternity.
h) Even
in the Old
Testament period we find evidence that God indeed had a Son, such as
Proverbs
30:4 and Psalm 2:7-12 (compare also Daniel 3:25; Isaiah 9:6).
i) Melchisedec
was a type of the Son of God because He was “without father, without
mother,
without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life”
(Heb. 7:3).
As to His humanity Christ did have a mother, a genealogy, beginning of
days, an
end of His life (He died!), etc. His divine Sonship, however, has
nothing to do
with human parents, human lineage, human birth, or time measurements.
It is an
eternal Sonship.
4)
The
Meaning of the Term “Son of God.”
The
important significance of this
word is basically threefold:
a) A
son is a
separate person from his father (see the clear distinction between the
Father
and Son as seen in John 5:19-22 and John 6:38-39).
b) A
son is the
heir, not the servant, of his father. In contrast to his father’s
servants, a
son is his father's heir (see Matthew 21:33-39; Luke 15:11-32; Gal.
4:7; Heb.
3:5-6) In Hebrews 1:2-14 Christ is set forth as Son and Heir, whereas
the
angels are called servants (ministers). Thus subservience to one’s
father is not
associated with the Biblical idea of Sonship, and the term “Son of God”
does not mean
“subservient to God.”
c) A
son has the
same nature as his father. To say that the Son of God has the same
nature as
God the Father is to say that Son is God (absolute deity). He is God
(absolute
deity) just as the Father is. The Jews knew that when Jesus said he was
the Son
of God He was claiming to have the same nature as God and to be equal
with God
(see John 5:17-18; John 10:33,36; Matthew 26:63-66). Since the
_expression_ “Son
of God” indicates absolute deity and since Christ has always been
deity, we can
conclude that Christ has always been the Son of God. A person who
claims that
Christ became the Son of God at the incarnation and therefore was not
the Son
of God before His incarnation, should also deny the pre-incarnate deity
of
Christ in order to be consistent.
5)
The
Meaning of Psalm 2:7.
Psalm
2:7 does not militate against the eternal Sonship of Jesus Christ. It
does not refer to a
time when Christ became
the Son of God through a begetting
act of God. Instead it refers to the day of Jesus’ resurrection when
God
brought Him forth from the womb of the earth and thereby publicly
decreed that
He is who He always was—the Son of God (see Acts 13:33 and Romans
1:3-4). The
declaring of God's decree in Psalm 2:7 will take place at the close of
the
great tribulation and will be Jesus’ way of asserting that He is the
legitimate
ruler of the world who has the right and authority to take over the
earth.
Recommended
for further study:
