David > Is
this phrase, "my Father is greater than I" applicable only at this point in
time when he was of the flesh (created a little lower than the angels), or
is it applicable for eternity past too? The eternal sonship doctrine would
imply that it is applicable in eternity past, . . .
Easy, David, not so fast. It was the servant heart
of the Father whom the Son came to reveal: "He who has seen me has seen the
Father." That is the same servant heart whom he shared with God throughout
eternity. Hence "equal" is the right word. In becoming human he took upon
himself the flesh of a servant, not because that revealed something other than
the heart of God, but because it was humanity's servant class that best
exemplified that heart. Please revisit my post of 12-24-04, concerning the
kenosis of Phi 2:5-11. I will quote from a portion of
it:
Paul writes in verse 6 that the Son did not regard his equality with God something to be used for his own advantage. With this definition in tow we can now begin to grasp the meaning of ... the kenosis (emptying).... In becoming Emmanuel, the Son of God came to bear and disclose the heart of God, to the Jews first and then to all humanity (Joh 10.38). In all he did he came to show the world what God was really like. He did this not in overwhelming power and blinding glory, as the Jews expected. No, his was not to overwhelm his creation. The heart of God is humble. Ours is the only God in the universe who stoops. Every other "God" demands that humans climb their way to him. Our God stoops to meet us where we are. When he came to show us who he was, our God looked up to us from a position of servitude. Our God is a humble God.In this passage we see that the Son did not consider his equality with God something to be exploited. This one who, before becoming human, possessed divine equality did not regard that status as something to take advantage of; instead he emptied himself of the glory he had shared with his Father and interpreted his status as a vocation to obedient humiliation and death. At any point of his earthly ministry he could have grasped at, or taken advantage of, or exploited his glory, his power, his equality, the honor he deserved, but in so doing he would not have been demonstrating the heart of his Father: "He who has seen me has seen the Father." No, the Son did not divest himself of divinity in the kenosis, the taking on of human form; instead he maintained and demonstrated divinity via the path of humbling service, even unto death. We read in verse 11 that this pleased the Father, who exalted this Godman, his Son Christ Jesus to the glory that had previously only been exercised in divinity. Thus it was in the exaltation that Christ established his Lordship, indeed a human being becoming equal with God the Father, over humanity and all creation.
I guess I know you well enough to know that this
will not be convincing, nor the end of this :>) I do hope it is helpful
in that I find this to be consistent with the servant heart of God, as
demonstrated throughout the NT and Scripture as a whole. The Son did not
become less than God in his service to humanity, indeed quite the opposite: in
service he came to reveal the heart of God: "Then Jesus said to them, 'When
you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I AM (ego
eimi), and that I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father taught
Me, I speak these things'" (John 8.28).
Bill
