THE
SONSHIP OF CHRIST.
202
IN June, 1929, an enquiry was commenced as to the truth concerning the
sonship of our Lord Jesus Christ, following on certain remarks at a
reading at Barnet, alluding to 2 Corinthians 1:19, which were as follows:–
EXTRACT FROM
“THE DIVINE STANDARD OF SERVICE”
Conference
at Barnet, 1929.
Reading on 2 Corinthians 2.
Ques.
Referring to the Son of God, would it be the Son as begotten in time,
or would it suggest resurrection? He was “marked out Son of God
in power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by resurrection of the
dead” (Rom. 1:4), or would it be His eternal sonship?
J.T.
I do not know that there is such a term in Scripture as eternal sonship.
“Son of God” is a question of a Person. The Son of God is
announced in Scripture after the Lord Jesus was here. In Luke it says,
“The holy thing also which shall be born shall be called Son of
God.” That is what Luke says, meaning that that should come out
in Him in due course. Jesus asserts His relation as Son at the age of
twelve in saying, “My Father’s business,” but the
Father’s voice announcing it is at His baptism.
Ques.
You believe He was the Son in eternity?
J.T.
What the Scriptures say is, ”In the beginning was the Word.”
It does not say “the Son.” “In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1),
that is to say, His eternal personal existence is stated. He was there
personally in the beginning. To go so far as to give Him a personal
name or designation then, is going beyond Scripture it seems to me,
but that the
203
Person was there is the great point. To give Him a name is
another matter, but the Person was there. It is the foundation of Scripture
that He was a divine Person and so was there in the beginning. Now Luke
says that He “shall be called Son of God,” and He says Himself
at the age of twelve years, “Did ye not know that I ought to be
occupied in my Father’s business?” There is a plain intimation
of His relation with God. There is the assertion of His relation with
His Father as Son at the age of twelve years, and then God Himself calls
Him Son as He was thirty years old: “Thou art my beloved Son,
in thee I have found my delight.” That is what He was here. Luke
presents Him in that way; and John speaks of His sonship only after
He is said to have become flesh.
E.J.M.
“God... at the end of these days has spoken to us in the person
of the Son,” Heb. 1:1.
J.T.
Quite. It was a divine Person, and that Person was the Son, but in a
mediatorial position; it is in that way He speaks. The speaking was
by Him, as in manhood. I am sure we should be most careful as to applying
to Christ as “in the form of God” designations given to
Him as in man’s form.
G.J.E.
When the Son of God is mentioned in Scripture is it not always in manhood?
J.T.
I know of no other way in which He is so spoken of in Scripture than
in manhood, but that in no way detracts from the fact that He was a
divine Person and was there in the beginning. I believe many assume
that the revelation of God and the form of God are
equivalent, but this is to ignore that it is expressly stated that no
one has seen God at any time, that He dwells in unapproachable light,
whom no man has seen, nor is able to see. This was written after
God is said to have been declared by the only-begotten Son.
Ques.
Does the title “Son of God” stand in
204
regard to God’s faithfulness to His Old Testament promises?
J.T.
It does. It has to be borne in mind that the divine personality of our
Lord is properly based on the statement, “In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” He
is a divine Person and that underlies the fact that He is capable of
representing God. As Man the designation “Son” undoubtedly
regards Him in this light, but to make it apply to Him as “in
the form of God” is another thing entirely.
Rem.
I thought that in incarnation He took up in new conditions a relationship
that had ever existed in eternity and that as the Son of God it was
the relationship in a new condition.
J.T.
I think you are asserting too much in saying the relationship “had
ever existed.” It does speak of the glory He had with the Father,
but to give the thing a name is, I believe, going beyond Scripture.
That the Person was there and that He was God is the
point. I believe many have in their minds a fixed conception of the
form of God. That is, they think they can bring the infinite
and unknowable within their finite comprehension. But we have the declaration
of God, of His nature and attributes, and that is in “the only-begotten
Son, who is in the bosom of the Father”; God is now working in
that connection in His own Son. Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus preached
Him among the Corinthians. While God is thus brought within our range
in a Man, owned as Son of God—the title shewing who He
is—there is infinity in the Person—what is beyond us. “No
one knows the Son but the Father.”
M.W.B.
Is your point that it had to wait for revelation before the title “Son”
could be disclosed?
J.T.
That is how Scripture presents it to us. He is called Son in manhood.
So Paul was not moving in Corinth on the low level of man’s mind,
but on
205
the high level of what God was doing. God is operating in His Son, His
own Son, and that is what was preached...
Rem.
I was wondering if Scripture would bear out that He is the Son in Deity,
and the same Person Son of God in time and humanity.
J.T.
But you will run across difficulties if you begin to analyse things
like that, because the Son, without any modification, is said not
to know certain things; Mark 13:32. You have to bear in mind that Scripture
is dealing with a mediatorial system of things. Christ has come within
the range of men to speak to men, but to attempt to give Him a name
before He became Man is going beyond Scripture, it seems to me. Taking
up a mediatorial position as Son we can understand the references to
subjection, obedience, etc.
W.R.P.
You would not carry the title “Word” into what He was in
Deity.
J.T.
No. He had acquired that name among the saints. So in Hebrews 1 you
get a variety of the glories of Christ mentioned, but they are all taken
from the statements of saints, that is, they are all taken from the
Psalms, as if God loves to bring in the saints to establish the great
truth of the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. But like “Son,”
“the Word” implies His deity, for only a divine Person could
reveal—it is a question of speaking the mind of God.
ALTHOUGH it is perfectly clear from Scripture and is uncompromisingly
held by all who love Him, that the Lord is, and has been eternally,
God, see for instance John 1:1; Romans 9:5; Revelation 22:13 (compare
Isaiah 48:12, 13 as to “the first and the last“), yet the
expression “the eternal Son“ does not appear in Scripture,
and in the course of the
206
enquiry into the truth which the above-quoted remarks at Barnet provoked,
it became clear that it is only as having become incarnate that the
Lord is spoken of as Son, and that for us to assume to carry back into
time prior to the incarnation, or into the conditions of absolute Deity,
titles and relationships that have only come into view consequent on
the incarnation, is to go beyond what Scripture warrants, and results
in our unconsciously attributing to the Lord, in His personal glory
as in the Deity, a place that is subordinate or secondary, He being
thus robbed in our minds of His full glory personally as equal in the
Godhead with the Father and the Spirit. If the truth as to the Person
of Christ is fully held in our hearts, the glory of the incarnation,
and of the relative positions taken up by the Persons of the Godhead,
in order that God might be known in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Spirit, becomes greater to us, and promotes an
increased spirit of worship.
The following
letters by Mr. C. A. Coates will be of interest as setting out the truth.
March 5th, 1931.
BELOVED BROTHER,—In
reply to your letter I may say, in the first place, that the question
raised in regard to the expression “the eternal Son,” as
applied to our Lord, is not at all a question as to His deity, or His
eternal personality. The dear brethren are all, thank God, perfectly
clear as to these great and vital matters of revelation and of faith.
The Son was eternally God (John 1:1), and subsisted in the form of God
(Phil. 2:6); before Abraham was He was “I am” (John 8:58).
Whatever inscrutable blessedness and glory and power belongs to the
Godhead belongs in the fullest and most absolute way to Christ; He is
“over all, God blessed for ever” (Rom. 9:5).
But the question
is raised as to whether Scripture
207
ever uses the expression ”the eternal Son “in speaking of
Christ, or whether He is ever called the Son when spoken of as subsisting
in the form of God? If Scripture does so speak the question would be
settled at once for all who own its authority. But if we find the Son,
or the Son of God, spoken of in many scriptures as sent, or given, or
as coming down from heaven to do the will of the One who sent Him, or
as sanctified by the Father and sent into the world, or as the only
begotten Son in the bosom of the Father declaring God, we see that in
many scriptures, at any rate, the designation applies to Him viewed
as in a mediatorial position. Now is there any scripture which speaks
of Him as the Son when there is clearly no reference to what is mediatorial
but to His eternal place in Deity?
We know that
He existed eternally in the form of God, in a character of being which
we, as creatures, have no power to apprehend. It is infinitely beyond
us in ineffable majesty and greatness, “whom no man has seen,
nor is able to see” (1 Tim. 6:16). We cannot connect the
thought of “begotten,” nor any idea of derivation, or relative
inferiority, or posteriority, with One who is in the inscrutable glory
of Godhead. He was God, in all the incomprehensible and unsearchable
greatness which that holy name conveys.
I desire
to write with much self-distrust, and with great reverence, knowing
that these subjects are thrice-holy. And I hold myself ready to be corrected
in every way by Scripture.
We know the
Godhead as revealed, and only so, and in the economy of revelation divine
Persons have been pleased to be known in the terms of a relationship
known to us as men—a relationship created, I have no doubt, in
view of God’s purpose so to reveal Himself. In the economy of
revelation there is a certain subordination of both the Son and the
Spirit;
208
both are regarded as sent and given, and as taking up services committed
to Them. Son is a relative term, and it implies a certain positional
difference which Scripture never loses sight of. Now, so far as I have
been able to trace, Scripture does not carry back this relative and
positional difference into the essence of Deity, or what is spoken of
as “the form of God.” We are brought by Scripture into presence
of the profound and majestic fact that ”the Word was God.”
As such He is incomprehensible by creatures. We have to recognise that
there are depths which are beyond us, and to be thankful that we can
know divine Persons as and when revealed. The Persons are eternal, but
the names by which we know Them belong to the economy of revelation.
Divine Persons
were known to Themselves alone in the past eternity, known in mutual
affections, for God is love, but known in a way that Persons in deity
alone could know each other. According to divine good pleasure One of
those Persons—now known to us through revelation as the Word and
the Son—created the universe. It was in the form of God that He
did so, for “in the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth.” Scripture does not say that He created as
Son, but John 1, Colossians 1, and Hebrews 1 make known to us that
the One whom we know as the Word, and as the Son of the Father’s
love, the One in whom God has spoken Son-wise, was the Creator-God of
Genesis 1; Psalm 102:25, and many other scriptures. Creation was an
act incomprehensible to creature minds, but it is a matter of revelation,
and is understood by faith.
All that
Christ was in His eternal personality gave unique character to that
blest name of Son by which we know Him, and hence we can well understand
that “no one knows the Son but the Father,” Matt. 11:27.
A relationship is now revealed between divine Persons which is apprehensible
by us. That
209
precious name of Son gives character to the revelation of God, for He
is made known as Father. But it also intimates the relationship into
which God purposed to bring men, through infinite grace. “God
sent forth his Son... that we might receive sonship,” Gal. 4:6.
He has predestinated us to be conformed to the image of His Son, Rom.
8:29. The Son of God will be eternally the Firstborn among many brethren.
So that His name or title as Son would appear to be connected with eternal
purpose rather than with His place in essential Deity. Certainly none
but One who was God in the most absolute sense could have taken that
name so as to bring to men the revelation of God in love, that, in result,
holy myriads might be secured to be in the place and relationship of
sons eternally. As Son, too, He will be in the subject place eternally,
1 Cor. 15:28; one could not speak of God, as such, being “placed
in subjection”; it brings out in a striking way. the relative
place taken by the Son mediatorially.
There is
a sweet mutuality in the affections of a father and a son, but those
affections are not exactly co-equal. It is evident that the terms used
of the Father and the Son cannot be transposed. One is the Sanctifier,
the Sender, the Giver; the Other is the Sanctified, the Sent, and the
Given; He comes, at the Father’s behest, and in His own devotion,
to do the will of the One who sent Him. All this has to do with the
form which divine revelation has taken; it has to do with what is mediatorial.
In absolute
Godhead there could not be any precedence or any relative inferiority.
The glory of divine Persons, as such, was equal, their majesty co-eternal.
We do not safeguard the personal greatness and glory of Christ by connecting
with Him as in eternal deity thoughts which in Scripture are connected
with Him viewed mediatorially. Our attention is now being called to
the difference between what is mediatorial
210
and what is connected with the eternal personality of Christ as in Deity.
It is, I believe, of the Spirit to establish our faith in His eternal
greatness and majesty as God. It is the divine answer to all the diverse
and multiplied efforts of the enemy at the present day to obscure His
ineffable and divine greatness as in absolute Godhead.
When we see
that He is the Son and the Word as having taken a mediatorial place
it magnifies before our hearts the perfection and grace of the revelation
which has come to us. We are bowed in adoration as we contemplate His
glory. We get a deepened sense of the condescending gentleness in which
grace and truth have come to us. In the light of what He was eternally
all that He is as the Son and the Word becomes more glorious than ever
in our eyes. God grant that it may be so!
All that
can be made known of God to creatures such as we—and all that
creatures redeemed, renewed, and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, can know—is
revealed to be our present and everlasting glory and joy. We need
not desire to go into matters which are not revealed.
No doubt
the expression “the eternal Son” has often been used with
a godly intention to denote His eternal Personality, and one would be
very jealous that a sense of this should not be weakened. But we gain
greatly by recognising how things are presented in Scripture, and particularly
those great and infinitely precious things which relate to the holy
Person of our Lord and Saviour.
He had glory
with the Father before the world was; He was loved by the Father before
the world’s foundation. But He spoke of this to the Father in
connection with the unfolding of those purposes of divine love which
He had come into manhood to effectuate... His was the unique glory of
giving effect to all that had been purposed from eternity for love’s
full satisfaction
211
and rest. His eternal Personality was essential to this, but it was
a glory that stood in relation to the purpose of divine love concerning
men. He would give effect through His incarnation, death and resurrection,
and as a result of His being glorified as Man along with the Father,
to all that was in God’s eternal purpose. We know Him as the Son
come forth from with the Father, and now glorified as Man with the Father,
but the glory given to Him thus can be beheld by His own. It is not
of a character which is in unapproachable light, or which no man has
seen, nor is able to see.
All that
is pleaded for is that we should keep within the limits of Scripture,
and that we should regard divine names and titles as they are presented
to us, and that we should remember that the greatness of God is unsearchable.
One would not care to assert anything of divine Persons that Scripture
did not support.
With much
love in the Lord Jesus,
Yours affectionately in Him,
C.A.C.
November 25th, 1933.
MY DEAR BROTHER,—I
have looked over the paper in connection with the truth of our Lord’s
Sonship which you left with me on Thursday. The different scriptures
referred to have all been fully examined during the course of the enquiry
into this great subject, and the matter published upon it should be
carefully read by any one who wants help. I cannot take up every statement
in the paper (this would mean writing a pamphlet) but I send a few remarks.
As to “Thou
art my Son; I this day have begotten thee,” Psalm 2:7, I quite
agree that it must be interpreted in the light of the New Testament
quotations. These, however, concur in referring it to
212
Christ as incarnate. In Acts 13:33 the promise is fulfilled in the raising
up of Jesus, “as it is written,” etc. This is the raising
up of Jesus as God’s Son begotten in time; it does not refer to
His resurrection. His resurrection is spoken of in verse 34 but not
in verse 33. In Hebrews 1:4 He inherits a name, and verse 5 shows that
it is the name of Son. He could not be said to “inherit”
a name which belonged to His essential Being as in Deity. Hebrews 5:5
is the priesthood of Christ, which is clearly taken up in manhood. So
that when we examine the context of the quotations we find that they
definitely establish the truth that the Son begotten refers to Him as
incarnate.
Colossians,
Hebrews, and John’s gospel do say plainly that the Son was the
Creator. But it is clear that they were all written after the Son had
been here as Man, and had become the Object of faith to many thousands.
Such were now divinely taught by these inspired writings that the Son
in whom God had spoken to men, and on whom they had believed, was no
less than the divine Person who created all things. It is a Person now
known and believed on as the Son of the Father’s love who was
the Creator, the One in whom we now have redemption, the forgiveness
of sins, this necessitating His humanity and death. He did not have
the kingdom, nor had the saints redemption in Him, nor was He the image
of the invisible God, until He became Man. But as knowing all that He
is and has brought to pass by coming into manhood, we are also permitted
to know that long before He became Man, or the saints had redemption
in Him, creation was brought about in His power. It is clearly looking
back from how He is known now, subsequent to incarnation, to state what
was accomplished in His power and through Him long before He became
Man. Not at all saying that the title by which we know Him now applied
to Him then. It is
213
evident that the kingdom, redemption, headship of the body, firstborn
from among the dead, cannot be carried back into eternity. But He in
whom these things are now substantiated was from eternity and was the
Creator. It is the Spirit looking back from the standpoint of how we
know Him now to what was true of Him as creating long before. All this
enhances His glory, and in no way derogates from it.
“Life
in Him eternal and uncreated... brought to light when the Lord Jesus
came here... Old Testament saints... all... had life... the thing was
in eternity in the Person of the Son.” I cannot follow what is
in the writer’s mind in making these statements, but so far as
I understand them he does not seem to distinguish between what belongs
to Deity and is incommunicable, and that which is in divine purpose
for man.
As to Galatians
4:4; 1 John 4:9, 14, it will be obvious, upon careful consideration,
that the whole mission of the Son of God is in each case in view. It
is in each case the object in view in sending that is stressed—that
He might redeem, that we might receive sonship, that we might live through
Him. “His Son” in Galatians is the One announced as glad
tidings; that is, the thoughts of God as to men are set forth in Him.
“The fulness of the time” evidently refers to the making
known those thoughts, in contrast to the “child” state in
which the people of God were as under law. But then this necessitated
the Son of God being here as “come of woman, come under law”;
it is One in the place of man who was sent forth to redeem, and whose
Spirit has now been sent out into our hearts. It is clearly not eternal
Deity that is dwelt upon, but One, who was indeed eternally divine,
now viewed as in the relationship of Son in view of our receiving sonship.
No scripture brings out more plainly than this one does that the title
Son of God is relative to divine thoughts as to
213
men, and that those thoughts are secured through a divine Person coming
into that relationship in manhood.
1 John 4:9
is similar. It is the manifestation of the love of God as
regards us. It refers to what has actually come under the eyes
of men in the Son of God as manifested here. We do not live through
Him as in pre-incarnate Deity, but through Him as the only-begotten
Son of God. John’s gospel is written that we might “believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might
have life in his name.” He was sent in love by God to that very
end. Nothing could be more simple or precious.
1 John 4:14
confirms this. “And we have seen, and testify, that the
Father has sent the Son as Saviour of the world.” The apostles
could testify this as having actually seen the Son here as sent by the
Father. They did not see something that happened before He
was here, but they saw Him here as Saviour of the world, and knew that
the Father had sent Him to that end.
It is a mistake
to say that Nebuchadnezzar recognised Him as Son of God. He said, “the
appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.” He simply
meant he was like a supernatural Being. What could a heathen king know
of the Son of God?
With much
love in the Lord to yourself and your dear wife,
Yours affectionately in Him,
C.A.C.
The following ministry that has appeared can also be referred to: “Names
of Divine Persons,” by Mr. J. Taylor, included in the book entitled
“Divine Names”; “The Personal and Mediatorial Glory
of the Son of God,” by Mr. C. A. Coates.
215
Both these books can be obtained from the publishers of this book.
It may be
remarked that the truth which the Holy Spirit has now brought out in
clearness had been in the minds of many, at any rate as a subject of
enquiry, for a long time prior to 1929, and in this connection it is
of interest to note that as long ago as 1898 Mr. F. E. Raven wrote the
following letter:–
November 23rd, 1898.
As to what
you refer to my point was that it was permitted to us to know divine
Persons AS and WHEN revealed and only so. In view of that revelation
the Son has taken a new place relatively, that is, of inferiority to
the Father, coming to do the will of God, though of course there would
be no change morally or in affection. The names under which we know
divine Persons, that is, Father, Son and Holy Ghost are, I judge, connected
with this position, and I doubt if we are allowed to enter into the
eternal relation of divine Persons apart from this revelation. No one
knows the Son but the Father. What I think led me to it was a fear lest
in our minds we should almost insensibly give to the Son a place of
inferiority (save as regards revelation) in our thoughts of the Godhead,
which could not be right. The point is to be within the limits of Scripture
and not trading on what is merely orthodox.
F.E.R.
*
* *
|
