The CBE Scroll

Comment by jlp

October 2, 2008 @ 12:00 pm

http://kerussocharis.blogspot.com/

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Friday, September 26, 2008
Growing Semi-Arianism in the SBC and the Consequences for Women If Left Unchallenged

Comment by Don

October 3, 2008 @ 7:27 am

I find it incredible that this debate is happening. If the Son is in PERMANENT submission to the Father, this implies that their wills are different – any Messianic Jew will inform you that such a formulation is not monotheism.

Comment by Hubert Edgar

October 3, 2008 @ 12:36 pm

Isn’t eternal equality and eternal submission oxymoronic? Or just moronic, come to that.

The Son submitted to the Father because He found himself in the form of a human.(Philippians 2:8) He humbled himself before the Father’s will for Him to die for our sins and rise again to defeat death so we can be saved. Since He wasn’t a masochist, Jesus didn’t want to do this. He did because He is obedient to God’s will. Did part of God not want to save us? No. The Son did not want the pain and humiliation. He did not want to live “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” He was both Human and God. The God side ruled the human side.

Permanet submission would definitely require two conflicting desires and there is no such conflict in the one person, God.

Where would the Holy Spirit fit in such a Trinity?

Lastly, let me say that I’ve found heresy, including heresies I’ve held myself, often claim to be the most important doctrine. I have to say the doctrine stating the God of the Bible is the only true God has to be the most important doctrine. Even the two greatest commandments rest on this doctrine. While trinity is related to that doctrine, the doctrine does not stand or fall on the Son’s “eternal submission to the Father.” That doctrine is not really all that important a doctrine unless it’s being used as a basis for bullying others.

Comment by Emily

October 3, 2008 @ 2:02 pm

I think equating a Father/Son relationship to a Husband/Wife relationship is downright creepy. So many people mix these metaphors, these biblical images. Husbands and Wives are compared to Christ and the Church, not to the Father and and the Son.

Comment by Frank

October 3, 2008 @ 2:36 pm

The forthcoming debate on the Trinity is of great significance not only for egalitarians, but for all Christians concerned for the faithful and effective preservation and proclamation of the Christian faith. For the heart and essence of Christian doctrine is what it says about God. And the Christian doctrine of God is that the One Supreme Being that is God eternally exists as three persons who are coequal and coeternal. While they maybe distinguished in their relationships and in the actions they take in the works of creation, revelation and redemption, none is greater than the other, and all are united as one in heart, mind and will. And Christians believe this, as did Athanasius, because rationally consistent and coherent interpretation of the Scriptures leads to this conclusion. And any other view of God is inadequate.

Comment by faith

October 3, 2008 @ 9:09 pm

just a couple of questions and thoughts? if the subordination of women is really the issue, isn’t that kind of like viewing the trinity through the eyes of an agenda instead of first examining the trinity without agenda and then applying it?

why also is it assumed that because christ obeyed the father that christ is subordinate? one can obey another and not be subordinate to him or her. i can obey a person because i share his or her mission or purpose–submit because i believe in the cause or principle. then i am obeying out of shared heart, or unity not out of subordination. that obedience is then chosen freely because one shares in the mission not because there is some permanent order or chain of command.

further, it makes sense that the incarnate christ would rely on and follow the father because he is setting an example for us–showing us how to live in relation with God.

Comment by Larry S

October 4, 2008 @ 9:59 am

I’m curious about the long-term (eternal) implications of the view that the Son is forever (not just during the Son’s incarnation) subordinate to the Father.

Do those who hold this view about the Trinity also push their views about gender subordination (wife to husband) to the eternal state?

I haven’t heard anyone on the Comp side comment about this – just wondering.

Comment by Odysseus

October 5, 2008 @ 7:42 am

This is simply looking at the fall forward as the only right and permanent way of seeing the relationship between male and female. Furthermore, it only sees the ‘reversal’ of that act as fulfilled in the New Heavens and New Earth. It does not take into account that the New Creation BEGAN at the resurrection of Jesus. From that moment onward, women and men have been equals, at least, St Paul thought so. The relationship between them was restored that first Easter morning. It has been a failure of the church not to promote that equality. It is the WORLD that is trying its best to promote something that the church has since the resurrection of its King.

In other words, those opposed to this view of equality are looking at it through the wrong lens.
They need to go back to the beginning, not to Genesis 3.

Peace be with you.

OD

Comment by tiro

October 5, 2008 @ 2:17 pm

Is the debate going to be filmed. Will there be access to either a video or written review of it for those not attending.

Comment by Liz

October 6, 2008 @ 7:20 am

Good question Tiro….I’ll see what I can find out

Comment by Sue

October 6, 2008 @ 9:27 am

Larry,
In response to your question, the CBMW’ers believe that headship and submission will still apply eternally in heaven. The difference is that women in heaven will appreciate and enjoy being in submission. They write about this in their CBMW journal, the spring 2006 edition in an article called “Relationships and Roles in the New Creation.”

Comment by jlp

October 6, 2008 @ 4:44 pm

In response to your question, the CBMW’ers believe that headship and submission will still apply eternally in heaven. The difference is that women in heaven will appreciate and enjoy being in submission.

Boy are they going to be disappointed! :)

Comment by Larry S

October 6, 2008 @ 5:43 pm

Finally, the other side has really got me upset.

When i asked my question in this thread, one part of me said that the question was so bizare that it couldn’t be taken seriously.

Now there is a paper outlining that position http://www.cbmw.org/Journal/Vol-11-No-1/Relationships-and-Roles-in-the-New-Creation

does that mean that a slave in this life remains a slave in the eternal state, the peasant and the king…. ?

it hard to comment on this and stay within within the range of polite conversation.

Comment by Tom McCall

October 6, 2008 @ 7:49 pm

Just a quick note of clarification: this is *not* a debate about gender.

Thanks for your interest!

Sincerely,
Tom McCall

Comment by Larry S

October 6, 2008 @ 9:48 pm

thanks for the good reminder

blessings on the 9th, Dr. McCall

Comment by Sue M

October 6, 2008 @ 10:32 pm

For Ware and Grudem, this is a debate about gender. Others are mixed on their views of whether relations in the godhead are reflected in marriage.

I was chilled by noting in the article cited, # 87424 above that women uniquely are called to imitate Christ in Philippians 2. The splitting of authority and submission into male and female as eternal and permanent roles really makes it hardly worth living as a female. I’ve been there and done that.

Comment by jlp

October 7, 2008 @ 1:20 pm

For Ware and Grudem, this is a debate about gender.

Without the gender aspect, I doubt if Drs. Ware and Grudem would be advocating the eternal subordination of the Son. That’s why are involved in this issue.

Comment by Trevor

October 8, 2008 @ 12:32 am

Thanks for dropping by, Tom, and pointing out that this debate is not primarily about gender. I agree though, with the brief comments of Sue M (87427) and JLP (87428) that in the minds of Wayne Grudem and Keith Ware, the eternal subordination of the Son, very much extends to an argument in support of the eternal subordination of women, as is demonstrated by their prolific speaking and writing on the subject over many years.

While we all appreciate that the debate will not necessarily visit the gender issue, if some credence is gained in pointing up the error of interpreting that the Son is eternally subordinated to the Father it will go a long way toward freeing women of the scourge of the supposed biblically justified male supremacy. We offer you and Keith Yandell our prayerful support as you engage in this very significant event.

Comment by KM

October 8, 2008 @ 8:09 pm

Didn’t Chrysostom comment on this 1600 years ago?

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf112.iv.xxvii.html

“But the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.”
Here the heretics rush upon us with a certain declaration of inferiority, which out of these words they contrive against the Son. But they stumble against themselves. For if “the man be the head of the woman,” and the head be of the same substance with the body, and “the head of Christ is God,” the Son is of the same substance with the Father.
“Nay,” say they, “it is not His being of another substance which we intend to show from hence, but that He is under subjection.”
What then are we to say to this? In the first place, when any thing lowly is said of him conjoined as He is with the Flesh, there is no disparagement of the Godhead in what is said, the Economy admitting the expression.
However, tell me how thou intendest to prove this from the passage?
“Why, as the man governs the wife, saith he, “so also the Father, Christ.” Therefore also as Christ governs the man, so likewise the Father, the Son. “For the head of every man,” we read, “is Christ.”
And who could ever admit this? For if the superiority of the Son compared with us, be the measure of the Father’s compared with the Son, consider to what meanness thou wilt bring Him. So that we must not try all things by like measure in respect of ourselves and of God, though the language used concerning them be similar; but we must assign to God a certain appropriate excellency, and so great as belongs to God. For should they not grant this, many absurdities will follow.
As thus; “the head of Christ is God:” and, “Christ is the head of the man, and he of the woman.”
Therefore if we choose to take the term, “head,” in the like sense in all the clauses, the Son will be as far removed from the Father as we are from Him. Nay, and the woman will be as far removed from us as we are from the Word of God. And what the Son is to the Father, this both we are to the Son and the woman again to the man.
And who will endure this?

…Oh yeah, this is the same homily where Grudem wasn’t able to find the sentence, “For had Paul meant to speak of rule and subjection (or “chief” and “authority over”), as thou sayest, he would not have brought forward the instance of a wife, but rather of a slave and a master.”

http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/kephale.pdf

Comment by faith

October 9, 2008 @ 8:38 am

Are there any other theologians who take this position who are not part of the CBMW perspective?

It seems that from what i have been reading, those who adhere to the eternal subordination of the Son also adhere to the eternal subordination of women.

I would be curious to know if theologians who support the eternal subordination of the Son always support the subordination of women. Because if that is so… then it really is about gender and an anxious need to support the unequal position of women as subordinate forever.

It also bothers me that CBMW folks appeal to the character of God to justify their right to be over women. And I don’t care how one phrases it… being eternally under is not equal in worth.

Comment by Frank

October 9, 2008 @ 1:47 pm

The fact that they have tied the permanent subordination of women to men with the eternal subordination of the Son to the Father is precisely why they are blind to how heretical and dangerous their teaching on the Trinity really is. While Grudem and Ware may blather about “ontological equality and functional subordination,” as Giles points out, many others holding this position are going further and say the Son’s subordination is the expression of his being, not merely of his function.
If that is so, then the Son is ontologically inferior to God the Father and so does not, in any way, share in the deity of the Father, which is what Arius taught. And if the Son, as Arius taught, is a creature, however high, he cannot truly and fully know the Father, nor can he truly reveal the Father to us. And if he is not both God and human, he certainly cannot be the Mediator between God and humanity, as taught in the Book of Hebrews. Athanasius understood all this, and that is why he so strongly opposed Arius and his followers. If you have a wrong view of the Trinity, you are going to have a wrong view of Christ and the work of redemption, and a wrong view of the Holy Spirit and the work of sanctification.
And it just irks me that people think they can teach such heretical and dangerous views of the Trinity, and somehow think there won’t be worse repercussions to be faced later. So I’m praying for McCall and Yandell that the Holy Spirit will powerfully anoint them and that their presentation will be used of God to really wake people up and turn them around. So much is at stake.

Comment by Eclectic Christian

October 9, 2008 @ 1:54 pm

I remember challenging a seminary prof 17 years ago. He argued that because Men and Women are in a hierarchical relationship it must mean that the Trinity has a hierarchical relationship.

He was basing this on 1:Corinthians 11:3 “Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.”

I said to him, “Don’t you have this backwards?” You are basing your understanding of the relationship within the Trinity based on your understanding of human relationships. Shouldn’t we instead take our understanding of our human relationships from our understanding of the Trinity?”

I had believed that there was an equality within the Trinity, and so did not have a difficulty with an equality within human relationships.

Comment by jlp

October 9, 2008 @ 5:44 pm

To eternally subordinate the son to the father splis them into 2 separate beings. I thought the trinity was God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Comment by KarenT

October 9, 2008 @ 8:10 pm

I wonder if this debate on subordination in the trinity has anything at all to do with the recent best seller book called “The Shack”. William P. Young writes a beautiful picture of the egalitarian view of the headship – all seemingly outdoing the other with self abandoning love and service – putting the other first. The book is not the latest doctrinal statement on the trinity but rather one component of it is his personal view of how he sees the Godhead operating. He wrote this book to his children so that they would better understand his “out of the box” concept of how he sees God and His infinite love for his creation. “The Shack” has caused uproar in evangelical circles and many are calling it heresy.

Well known leaders of the evangelicalism are black- labelling the book and dissuading their congregants from reading it. The idea of seeing the trinity operating in full submission to each other is more than they are willing to consider. Once you remove the ranks and put all in a position to serve and be served you have full submission in operation. Jesus showed us the way to do this.

Philippians 2 tells us that He gave up complete God status to relate to us as human beings(vs.7) Then he was raised back to the throne where he is given the highest place and name(vs. 9).

There is much at stake for those in the position that they have put themselves in. I wonder if the debate is to clarify once again the Godhead to suit their purposes. After all, allowing the Godhead to operate in full submission with one another means that those that accept that model must do likewise. Those that accept the constant submission of one to another as a mandate for Christ-like-living go to the end of the line first – they must be last and least. When they are there they have nothing to lose. Those who would esteem themselves higher will have much to lose.

By the way, if you haven’t read “The Shack” yet I encourage you to. I don’t think that you will be disappointed.

Comment by jlp

October 10, 2008 @ 5:35 am

Is there any place in the Bible that shows the Trinity having separate wills, or ever disagreeing with each other?

Comment by faith

October 10, 2008 @ 7:46 am

Frank, this is a powerful point.

“If that is so, then the Son is ontologically inferior to God the Father and so does not, in any way, share in the deity of the Father, which is what Arius taught. And if the Son, as Arius taught, is a creature, however high, he cannot truly and fully know the Father, nor can he truly reveal the Father to us. And if he is not both God and human, he certainly cannot be the Mediator between God and humanity, as taught in the Book of Hebrews.”

That has hit me in a strong way… thanks for sharing it. This is a good argument for oneness and unity in the Godhead.

Comment by matt hustad

October 10, 2008 @ 9:32 am

After reading over all of these responses, it seems to me there is a great deal of anger and contempt going on here. I would just like to point out that it is not only men heading up the complementarian movement. So the question is: Let’s just assume this was the attempt of men to further suppress women, how do you get an overwhelming majority of these women who are married to these men committed to the same vision? I would suggest that some of you take the time to hear what some of these ladies are saying. Particularly, Nancy DeMoss in her True Woman ministry, and Susan Hunt in her book, “Women’s Ministry in the Local Church.” Let’s try to remember that, from a Biblical perspective, it is love for the weaker vessel (the Son and the wife) that motivates the leader (the Father and the husband), not power and oppression.
See what these women have to say. Look them up and actually read what they have written:
http://www.truewoman.com/?id=23

Comment by matt hustad

October 10, 2008 @ 9:35 am

P.S. Submissiveness to authority does not imply difference of will. That is why the will of Christ was to do His Father’s will. When they are in perfect unity, they are inherently the same. This is only possible by perfect love and perfect submission.

Comment by GJ

October 10, 2008 @ 10:38 am

After being drawn into a debate on hierarchy in the trinity, I was reading Philippians 2:8 and it jumped out to me that Jesus “became” obedient….and I understood (without doing any word study) it to mean that he hadn’t been “obedient” but was in that specific instance; that there wasn’t any hierarchy already in place. Any scholars’ opinions on that verse?

Comment by Frank

October 10, 2008 @ 1:24 pm

Has anyone heard how the Trinity debate at TEDS went last night? Will a video or printed transcripts of the debate be available. Please let me know.
Faith, thanks for recognizing how important a right view of the unity and diversity of the Triune God really is. And thank God for Athanasius, Augustine, John Calvin, and now, Kevin Giles, who have championed what the Scripture really teaches about God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. May their tribe increase.

Comment by Larry S

October 10, 2008 @ 1:55 pm

Matt re: your comment in 87441

Quoting: “Let’s try to remember that, from a Biblical perspective, it is love for the weaker vessel (the Son and the wife) that motivates the leader (the Father and the husband), not power and oppression.”

I’m curious, in what way is the Son (not in his incarnate state but in his glorified state)the ‘weaker vessel’ of the Trinity ?

Comment by Frank

October 10, 2008 @ 2:27 pm

I would like to make some additional comments in response to Mr Hustad (87441,87442). And in this response, I only mention matters pertinent to the Trinity debate. If others disagree, they can further comment. Now here is what I wish to point out for Mr Hustad’s information.
1. It is generally conceded, as a point of history, that the idea of the eternal subordination of the Son to the Father being the basis for the pemanent subordination of women to men was first suggested around 1970 by George W. Knight, an idea picked up and further developed by Wayne Grudem and made a key teaching of CMBW. Whether or not Nancy Demoss or Susan Hunt believe and teach this heresy about the Trinity is beside the point; it is well known how it originated, how it was developed, and who is propagating it.

2. If one really understood the teaching of the Nicene Creed, and the unity of the Eastern and Western Churches on what are heretical departures from the orthodox view of the Trinity, he would not make the absurd assertion that the Son is a “weaker vessel” and so is wise to submit to the Father. For it implies that in authority, power and wisdom, the Son is inferior to the Father. And that is a heresy condemned by both branches of the Church. At the Roman Council of 382 A.D., where the Nicene Creed was confirmed as authoritative and binding on all Christians, Bishop Damasus made 24 pronouncements regarding heretical departures from orthodoxy, among which are these: “If anyone denies: That the Son of God is true God, just as the Father is true God, having all power, knowing all things, and equal to the Father, he is a heretic;…that the Father,Son, and Holy Spirit have one divinity, authority, majesty, power, one glory, one dominion, one kingdom and one will and truth, he is a heretic.” It seems the views Mr Hustad are advocating certainly would not be accepted as orthodox by Bishop Damsus.

Comment by jlp

October 10, 2008 @ 2:38 pm

If the son is the weaker vessel, why didn’t the father come to earth to die for us instead of the son?

If the father is the stronger, then he should be the one who came to earth to die, not the son.

Comment by Historyloveralways

October 10, 2008 @ 2:54 pm

In all the discussions I’ve heard from those who believe in the eternal subordination of the Son – Jesus always ends up being downgraded in some way. He’s either weaker than God, or not to be worshipped as much as God or is somehow a second hand partner in God’s work. Yet the Bible is all about Him, it’s whole purpose for existence is to lead us to Him. It’s through him we are born again. It’s through Him we obtain eternal life.

Comment by Larry S

October 10, 2008 @ 6:49 pm

thanks Frank for that very informative and concise overview (87447). makes me want to review all the old creeds :)

it seems to me that Matt in 87741 with his comment about Jesus being the “weaker vessel” of the Trinity gives us a good example of why the doctrine of the Trinity is so important.

I was blessed this afternoon by listening to an old lecture by James Torrance on Gender Sexuality and the Trinity (via Podcast while i worked out).

Torrance stated that rather then doing theolgy about the Trinity people do mythology and read back into the Godhead their own human perspectives. That seems like what Matt is doing – reading back into the doctrine of the Trinity something that isn’t there.

Torrance also said something that resonated – The Triune God is not about gender (not a perfect quote – remember i was working out). He also pointed us back to Jesus – ‘when u have seen Me u have seen the Father’ Jesus reveals the Father to us.

Comment by Maureen

October 11, 2008 @ 12:29 am

Wow! There’s heaps of stuff on here to which I could make a comment, but time does now allow for that. I do want to say a big HEAR HEAR to comment (87449) made by Historyloveralways though. You are exactly right – the whole purpose of God’s plan, and our existence, is relationship with Him through Jesus.

So, I guess it is no real surprise then that satan would try to deceive Christians into downgrading Jesus’ place in the trinity and get them concocting and arguing about petty humanistic philosophies, which strip away all the power of the Spirit in the Body and do nothing to advance the Kingdom of God. The church really needs to wake up to what is going on in the spiritual realm, otherwise we will continue to be another limping, lifeless, prideful religion -repugnant to those we are meant to reach with the Gospel of God’s love.

KarenT, in response to your earlier post, I have just finished reading ‘The Shack’. I’ve never been one for Christian fiction myself, but I have to say that this book absolutely blew me away! If ever fiction could be the truth then this book is it. Like you, I encourage everyone to read it. I didn’t realize that it had caused such a stir among evangelicals in your country and the author is being labelled a ‘heretic’ -this can only be a good thing. In His time on earth the church thought Jesus was a heretic too because He, like this book, was offensive to human tradition, hierarchy and religious institution – still is, apparently!

I probably shouldn’t say this, because I have no right to criticize God’s annointed, but I really do wonder if any of the proponents of Trinity hierarchy and, for that matter, gender hierarchy ever genuinely humble themselves, in prayer, before the living God, because they just don’t seem to know Him at all.

Comment by Liz

October 11, 2008 @ 3:22 am

As one who was raised in the Jehovah’s Witnesses (even though my parents were believers) I am saddened/amazed that Christians are now saying some very similar things about the “Trinity” which of course is a bad word in JW circles.

It takes away the mystery of how God could come in the flesh and how Jesus is the ‘express image’ of the Father and many more examples like this.

I just remembered years ago there was a particular song that was banned in some churches because it suggested we praise or glorify the Holy Spirit. I remember thinking that if the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were the same, then what did it matter, but I must confess I wasn’t that clear about it at the time

Comment by Historyloveralways

October 11, 2008 @ 12:59 pm

I just remembered years ago there was a particular song that was banned in some churches because it suggested we praise or glorify the Holy Spirit. I remember thinking that if the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were the same, then what did it matter

Liz, I have always felt the same way – that to praise or glorify one member of the Trinity was to praise and glorify all three because they were one.

Comment by jlp

October 11, 2008 @ 3:12 pm

So does anyone know if the debate has been made assessible in some form over the internet?

Comment by Frank

October 11, 2008 @ 4:05 pm

JLP, I just received a CT Direct newsletter, 10/10/08 that gives an intial 2 page report and summary of the debate. The article,”Anathemas All Around,” seems to indicate it was quite a heated debate. However the details are sparse, but what I can discern from the text of the article, Grudem and Ware used the argument that the Father sending the Son and the Spirit proceeding from the Father confirmed the subordination of the Son and Spirit to the Father; that the divine Father/Son relationship is to be understood in terms of human father/son relationships which are hierarchical in nature; and arguments based on certain biblical texts which confirm the Son is subordinate to the Father.
As for McCall and Yandell, they showed how the Arians had used similar arguments; that there was no good exegetical or philosphical reasons for Christians accepting the semi-Arian view of the Trinity propounded by Grudem and Ware; and that their focus was predominantly on issues connected with the Trinity itself, not gender issues so crucial to their opponents. But this is the only news report on the debate that I am aware of at present.
Historyloveralways, I agree with you and so does M.E. Osterhaven, a Reformed theologian, who has written, “Scripture presents a unified message concerning God’s grace manifest in Jesus Christ and the Christian’s call to live unto him. That is the Bible’s single theme, and everything else drawn from Scripture must be related to that theme.”

Comment by jlp

October 12, 2008 @ 6:41 am

Thanks for the info, Frank.

My comment on Ware’s and Grudem’s remarks: Sons are only subordinate to their Fathers when they are little children. As they grow up they gradually gain more independence until they are no longer subordinate to their father.

Comment by Philana

October 12, 2008 @ 10:34 pm

Wasn’t Jesus raised and seated at the Right Hand of the Father, in that culture that is equality not submission, submission by Christ was only during the Incarnation.

Comment by Larry S

October 12, 2008 @ 11:01 pm

this looks like a useful overview of the debate

Anathemas All Around – Charges of heresy underscore stakes of debate over Trinity.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/octoberweb-only/141-53.0.html

Comment by Frank

October 13, 2008 @ 11:18 am

In my previous comment (87447), I stated that George Knight had proposed the idea of the eternal subordination of the Son to the Father “around 1970″; I double-checked and found it was actually in 1977, in a book on the NT’s teaching regarding the roles of men and women in the home and church. So I wish to acknowledge my error and correct it.
Also, for anyone interested in doing further study on the Trinity, I recommend the following books:
1. The Forgotten Trinity: Recovering the Heart of Christian Belief, by James R. White.
2. God in Three Persons: A Contemporary Interpretation of the Trinity, by Millard J. Erickson.
3. One God in Trinity: An Analysis of the Primary Dogma of Christianity, ed. Peter Toon.

Comment by Frank

October 14, 2008 @ 6:12 pm

CJ, you commented (87443)that when you read Phil. 2:8, it dawned on you that when it says Jesus “became obedient” that it refered to his relationship with the Father during his incarnation and earthly ministry, not his pre-incarnate relationship with the Father and the Spirit. Now I don’t remember the exact page number, but Giles points out that both Athanasius and Augustine, on the basis of John 1:1-18 and Phil. 2:5-11, argued that all other Scriptures speaking of the Son being obedient to the Father referred to his incarnation and earthly ministry, not his pre-existent nor post-ascension relationships with the Father and Spirit. So you see what the Spirit revealed to them to be the truth.

Comment by Kathryn

October 17, 2008 @ 1:06 pm

One might as well ask, does God dominate Himself? Scripture says “head of”, not “head over”. That’s a very important distinction.

Comment by Kathryn

October 17, 2008 @ 1:08 pm

I am using a public computer, and a word was deleted in my last comment. God does not rule over Himself. That would mean division in the Trinity.

Comment by Liz

October 17, 2008 @ 9:21 pm

Kathryn..I have inserted a word (hope it’s correct)

Comment by Frank

October 19, 2008 @ 4:04 pm

As some of you may recall from Kevin Giles’ book, Jesus And the Father,the nature of the language used to describe the Triune God, as well the tendency of some to identify the “Ontological Trinity” (the Triune God as the 3 Persons relate internally and eternally to each other) with the “Economic Trinity” (the Triune God as the 3 persons relate to the world in terms of creation, revelation and redemption), often cause difficulties in both communication and understanding in the debate on the Trinity. For example, the terms “Father” and “Son.” Often, the Scriptural meaning and significance of these terms is replaced by what is considered their main English meaning and significance. Consider what Millard Erickson says on this matter:

For us, living in a very different culture and nearly twenty centuries removed from New Testament times, it seems very natural to assume that the use of the term “Son” indicates subordination and derivation of being. This certainly is true of sons in relationhip to fathers in our experience…Warfield maintains, however, that this ins not quite the meaning of the word in the Semitic consciousness that underlies the statements of Scripture. Rather, the dominant factor in scriptural speech is “likeness.” Thus, whaterver the father is, the son is also. When the term “Son” is applied to one of the persons of the Trinity, therefore, it is his equality with the Father, rather than his subordination to the Father, which is being affirmed…That the Jews understood such of Jesus’ reference to the Father is seen in John’s explanation in John 5:18 (God in Three Persons, p 301).

Comment by Sarah

October 20, 2008 @ 11:17 am

I fielded a question from a Jewish friend recently. I explained that descriptions of Jesus as Son of God in the Bible served to identify him with God rather than indicate a secondary status (see . Heb. 3:1-6). His contemporaries understood this (John 5:18). Over the years, this has been a cornerstone of understanding the triune nature of God and it saddens me to see other Christians unwittingly undermine our witness to those who are confused about the Trinity by using the exact arguments I have heard from jw’s and others who deny Christ’s divinity. I know these believers don’t intend to, but they do every time they equate sonship with subordination.

Comment by Sarah

October 20, 2008 @ 11:45 am

I’m concerned about another aspect of this debate as well. A previous poster asked if all egals were on one side and all comps on the other in the discussion. The answer is no. Craig Keener, an egal, is an example. I believe he and at least one comp who disagrees with eternal subordination have cautioned against tying gender relations too tightly to the Trinity. Ware, Grudem, et.al have set inappropriate parameters in the debate by conflating the two and should be called on it rather than engaged on their terms. It is absolutely necessary to discuss the true nature of the Trinity and truly Biblical gender relations, but the idea that the relationship between the two is so fundamental as to determine orthodoxy (as Grudem has said) is a trap I don’t think we need to fall into.

Comment by Lolly

October 21, 2008 @ 6:32 pm

Somebody asked why do patriarchal women, i.e. Nancy Leigh DeMoss and others, support the patriarchal men? I’ll tell you why: because they have to. It’s that simple. I was raised a comp and so I know. When you’re taught most of your life that you have to believe a certain way or God will punish you, well then you’re going to go around telling everybody that that way is correct, aren’t you? You don’t dare to stop and think about it, because you don’t dare risk the wrath of God. And if you dare to have doubts, then you keep them quiet, otherwise you’ll be shunned, or worse. Pat Gundry makes that excellent point in her book “Woman Be Free”. Women who don’t conform the way they’re supposed to do are no longer “real women”–in other words, they’re not feminine enough. And of course, unfeminine women deserve whatever they get, don’t they? Let me be perfectly blunt with you: patriarchal women are just like the slaves of old. They learn really quickly how to do and say the right things to keep the master happy so that they can keep the “security” that he provides. I know. I lived that way for 20+ years.

I absolutely loved that “Jesus is a weaker vessel” quote. If I could frame one patriarchal quote, that would be it, because it just about sums up their worldview. God the Father is a “real man” because He did all that smiting in the Old Testament. Jesus, however, was a weakling, what with all that turning the other cheek stuff and just quietly going along with being killed. Of course, no patriarch will admit it, but every now and then they let it slip, as the “weaker vessel” quote shows. That’s why you have that whole ridiculous men’s movement that tries to make Jesus out as some sort of He-man. Dear heavens, we can’t worship some wimp who just, you know, sat around talking most of the time and preached about all that love and forgiveness, can we? That’s not very masculine!

And so you get that projected onto the Trinity. Jesus must be weak, like a woman, otherwise why would he need God to be in authority over Him? Why would He need to submit? Again, I’m going to be blunt. When I first heard this argument, the image that popped into my head was that of slavery. Making Jesus out to be eternally subordinate, and yet somehow happy about it (like women are supposed to be), makes Him sound like some kind of “happy negro” sitting around on the plantation porch, happy to be in slavery. Now, ask yourself, would you die for that person? I sure wouldn’t.

Somebody said that many patriarchs will be surprised when they get to Heaven. Yep. Just like a whole lot of slaveowners were surprised when the Yankees came through and all their “happy slaves” ran away…

Comment by Frank

October 22, 2008 @ 11:12 am

Lolly, I think most of us agree with your comment regarding the complementarian worldview and some of its false assumptions regarding the relationship of the Father and the Son, along with that of men with women. Another false view of the Triune God, which also seems widespread, is one described by Dr. Shirley C. Guthrie, a Presbyterian theologian:

“God is like a committee or board in which there is one big boss and two subordinates who go out to do what the boss orders: one God (the Father) and two “agents” of God (the Son and the Spirit) who are invested with divine power but are still less than God. This protects the oneness of God, but at the expense of suggesting that neither the Son nor the Spirit is really God-with-us, and that there might be a conflict between what the “top God” and God’s inferior “representatives” will and do (between the Father’s sovereign power over and above us, the Son’s self-giving love for us, and the Spirit’s intimate presence within and among us, for instance)” (“Who Is God?,” Christian Doctrine, Revised Edition, p.82)

Arius had a similar, regarding the Father as the monarche (“the sole monarch”), who alone possessed the fullness of divine power,authority, etc., while the Son and the Spirit, though the highest of created beings, were inferior to him and had their power and authority delegated to and regulated by him. And the view of the Trinity espoused by Grudem and Ware has the same fatal flaw.

Comment by Lolly

October 22, 2008 @ 3:52 pm

I should clarify my remarks. I should have written:

And so, because Jesus is seen as weak and not very masculine, you inevitably get that viewpoint projected onto the Trinity. It’s not that great a leap to imagine that since He was weak and passive here on earth, then He must be in Heaven, too. And since women are also supposed to be weak and passive here on earth, it’s also no great leap to associate Jesus with women and declare that we’re all supposed to be subordinate. It’s all part and parcel of a very frightening lie being pushed on women in the name of power and domination. In some senses it’s even worse than the slavery of the old days. Back then, the slaves believed that freedom would come someday, either physical (here on earth) or spiritual (when they died and went to Heaven). For patriarchal women there is no escape, ever. Not on earth and not in eternity. Somebody mentioned that this view of the Trinity is very close to what Jehovah’s Witnesses believe. Well, the view of women that goes with it is very close to what Mormons believe, also. And it’s also close to the Hindu/Buddhist idea of suffering for endless ages, although even they believe that they will escape eventually. In that sense, a Hindu or Buddhist could well look down on a patriarchal Christian and say that their religion is better. I’m sorry, but in addition to moronic, there’s another word for it: disgusting.

That reminds me. When the patriarchs say that women will be subordinate in Heaven, do they mean married women? As in wives will be subordinate to their husbands? Or do they mean all women to all men? Wouldn’t the former contradict Jesus’s words in Matthew 22:30, “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven”? How does the patriarchal crowd get around this?

Comment by Frank

October 23, 2008 @ 5:41 pm

In a previous comment (87498)I had indicated that, just as in the past, “the nature of the language used to describe the Triune God, as well as the tendency to identify the ‘Ontological Trinity’ with the ‘Economic Trinity’often caused confusion and misunderstanding” of this doctrine. And I indicated that designations, such as “Son,” had to be understood in terms of their biblical (Hebrew and Greek) meaning and significance, rather than their English meaning and significance.
Now, in agreement with Athanasius, Augustine, John Calvin, and a host of other theologians and biblical interpreters, I would also argue that because God is so far above us, all language about God, both that of Scripture and our theological explanations, must be understood metaphorically or analogically, if we are to avoid the absurdities that can result from woodenly literalistic definitions and interpretations of the Bible’s “God language.” Such as attributing certain “male” traits to the Father, and certain “female” traits to the Holy Spirit, because the Father is considered as being more masculine and the Holy Spirit as being more feminine. As Dr. Shirley Guthrie puts it:

At its deepest and best, traditional Christian theology has always remembered that according to the Genesis story of creation, both male and female human beings are created in the image of God. But it has also known that according to the Second Commandment, we are forbidden to make God in the image of any earthly creature: women and men are made in the image of God, but God is not made in the image of men or women. The reality of God is beyond everything we can conceive or even imagine (Isa. 55:8-9; 1 Cor. 2:9-13).
So how can we speak truly about God at all? The best theologians of the church have said that we can do so only when we remember that all our language about God is analogical or metaphorical language, language that expresses both the similiarity between God and human beings. Like male and female human beings, God is a living, acting, speaking, personal God who lives in relationship with other persons. But God’s personalness is different from that of the two kinds of persons we know; it is personalness that transcends the distinction between male and female human beings.
With respect to the doctrine of the Trinity, this means that when we speak about God as “Father,” when we speak about the eternal “Son” who comes to us in the man Jesus…, and when we speak about the “Spirit” who is the Spirit of the Father and the Son, we are not talking about the gender of God (for God is neither male or female). We are using analogical language from human experience to talk about the kind of relationship that exists between the members of the Trinity and between the Triune God and human beings–a relationship that is like the intimate relationship between parents and their children. Speaking of God’s relationship to us, the Brief Statement of Faith of the Presbyterian Church (USA) expresses this analogical understanding of God when it says that God is “like a mother who will not forsake her nursing child, like a father who welcomes the prodigal home” (Christian Doctrine, Revised Edition, pp. 74-75)

And because they refuse to use analogical language regarding the Triune God, complementarians, like the Arians before them, are engaging in idololatry, not the worship and proclamation of the true Triune God.

Comment by Cheryl

October 23, 2008 @ 6:54 pm

Our ministry has just finished producing a 2 DVD set on the Trinity called “The Trinity Eternity Past to Eternity Future Explaining Truth Exposing Error”. In the 2nd and 3rd sections, Bruce Ware’s teaching on the eternal subordination of Christ is documented and soundly refuted from scripture. His amazing admission that Jesus is not to be prayed to is a huge step away from the orthodox view of the Trinity where all members of the Trinity are equal in nature and in authority and will. I have placed an 8 minute compilation of preview clips of the 2 DVD set on to Youtube.com at http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=JLe-qF2nptA Bruce Ware’s audio quotes regarding the inferior “role” of Jesus that doesn’t allow him to be prayed to is very much like the doctrine of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and other cults who also downgrade Jesus. I think that many people will be astonished to hear Bruce Ware’s doctrine about Jesus. Listen here .

Comment by sarah

October 23, 2008 @ 8:51 pm

The Arians believed that the Son was created; in fairness, Grudem and Ware do not. They affirm that the Son is eternally God.

What they don’t seem able to conceptualize is distinction among the Persons of the Trinity that is non-heirarchical (hence accusations of modalism directed at those who disagree w/them). They are so wound up in their grand constructs of heirarchy and imagery that they apparently can’t see any other possible explanation for the evidence.

It reminds me of discussions with certain proponents of evolution where the existence of a specialized structure is considered self-evident proof of its evolutionary origin. They have viewed things through the evolutionary filter for so long that stepping outside the flawed interpretive matrix can be next to impossible. Objections aren’t viewed as incorrect – they’re seen as nonsensical.

Comment by Philana

October 23, 2008 @ 9:54 pm

“Community 101″ by Gilbert Bilezikian talks about this issue. It is very good, although the book is primarily on the biblical basis of small groups. He also ends up dealing with the Trinity and the issue of subordination comes up. Very good.

Comment by Frank

October 24, 2008 @ 11:53 am

Sarah, your are correct when you state (87529)that unlike Arius, Grudem and Ware deny the Son of God was created. However their commitment to the presupposition of a hierachical relationship among the members of the Triune God, which in turn is to be reflected in human male and female relationships, blinds them to the logical contradictions and implications of the argument that “the Son is eternally and ontologically equal with the Father, but eternally and functionally subordinate to the Father.”
It has long been believed and taught among the orthodox that as to their mutual Deity, if I may so express it, all three persons of the Triune God possess those attributes that make God to be God: e.g. omniscience, omipotence, ominpresence, immutability, etc. Otherwise, the divine person lacking these attributes must be, however high a being, less than and inferior to the One True, Supreme God. Arius, whatever else his faults, was a logically consistent and coherent thinker. If God the Father alone possessed all the necessary attributes of Deity, and the Son and the Spirit did not, then though in some sense “the image of God,” the Son and Spirit necessarily were created beings, inferior to the Father in essence, wisdom, power, authority, glory, and majesty.
So when Grudem and Ware argue that the Son is “eternally and ontologically equal with the Father, but eternally subordinate to the Father,” I say, “Nonsense!” I think Millard J. Erickson says it well: “[This] attempt to separate eternal subordination and superiority from inferiority seems to be a verbal distinction to which no real distinction corresponds. A temporal, functional subordination without inferiority of essence seems possible, but not an eternal subordination. And to speak of the superiority of the Father to the Son while denying the inferiority of the Son to the Father must be contradictory, unless indication is given of different senses in which these are being used. Without further elaboration and argument, this appears a meaningless concept” (God in Three Persons: A Contemporary Interpretation of the Trinity, p. 309). And nothing I have read convinces me that this concept of Grudem and Ware is not empty and void.
And as to non-hierarchical distinctions or differences among the three members of the Trinity, Grudem and Ware’s insistence that the word “difference” or “distinction” necessarily entails the connotation of “subordination,” will inevitably lead them to view and accuse everyone who disagrees with their defintion of terms, as well as their arguments, to be modalists or tritheists. Kevin Giles documents this quite well in Jesus and the Father: Modern Evangelicals Reinvent the Trinity. So in our arguments with them, we will have to define our terms and insist that our opponents stick with the standard definitions of those terms and refuse to recognize their peculiar innovations, for we are in a situation similar to that faced by Irenaeus when he argued with the Gnostic heretics of his day. When he defended the orthodox view of Christ as Son of God and Son of Man, the heretics argued, “Back to the Bible!” When he defended orthodox Christology from Scripture, the heretics argued, “Back to the Creeds!” And he constantly had to expose and refute their constant redefiniton and misuse of key terms in both the Bible and the Creeds. And here, again, I think Kevin Giles has served Christian well by exposing and refuting these tactics, as they are now being used by Grudem and Ware.

Comment by jlp

October 25, 2008 @ 10:58 am

Cheryl,

I really enjoyed your preview clip of the Trinity. It was very good.

I was shocked to hear what Bruce Ware had to say about praying.

Comment by Frank

October 25, 2008 @ 12:45 pm

I saw the preview copy of the Trinity DVD produced by Cheryl, and was really impressed by its quality, and so ordered a set myself. I highly recommend it to all concerned about today’s “Battle for the Trinity,” as one theologian has described the present Trinitarian controversy in the Evangelical churces. And though I was shocked and saddened by Bruce Ware’s “Father Only” on worship (Worship, as I understand is composed of adoration, praise, and thanksgiving through prayer, sermon, sacrament and song to the Triune God), I guess I wasn’t totally suprised. It just confirms what Robert M. Bowman, Jr. wrote about the interconnectedness of Christian doctrine and practice, especially in terms of the Doctrine of God:

The interconnectedness of all Christian doctrine can be seen when the focus is on the doctrine of God. What we think about God is obviously connected with what we think about revelation, Christ, and the Spirit. But we have also seen that our understanding of creation, salvation, the church, and the final judgment is bound up with our view of God.
The heart and essence of Christian doctrine is what it says about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If our God is too small–if we think of God as less than absolutely perfect, as lacking in knowledge, power, presence, or moral excellence–then we will not have absolute, implicit trust in him. If we think of the Son or the Holy Spirit as less than God, then we will fail to give them the honor each is due as fully and truly God. Nothing could be more important than what we think about God (Orthodoxy and Heresy: A Biblical Guide to Doctrinal Discernment, pp. 86-87)

If I remember right, Giles points out that Arius believed that in terms of their being, knowledge, power, and authority, the Son and the Spirit were not worthy of the honor and worship due to the Father, who alone was truly and fully God. And since Ware apparently does not accept that the Son and Spirit are truly and fully God in every sense that the Father is God, it is not too surprising he would argue against praying to Jesus or to the Holy Spirit. However, as Cheryl points out in her DVD, Ware does not address some other NT texts, such as Matt.11:25-30; John 14:12-14, Acts 7:54-60; and Acts 9:10-19, which, to my mind, clearly teach that there are those times and places in our lives as Christians when prayer to Jesus, as our Lord, Mediator, and Reconciler, are more appropriately offered up to the Son, as such, than they are to the Father. And I say this on the authority of 2 Tim. 3:16-17, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Moreover, on the same basis, since the Holy Spirit is sent by both Father and Son to be our Teacher, Counselor, Helper and Life-Giver, who helps us understand and apply the revealed plans and purposes of God, it is also appropriate, as the times and circumstances demand, to pray to the Spirit and ask for the wisdom, love, power, courage and determination to speak and act as ambassodors of Christ and God’s Kingdom. This certainly has been my practice of the last few years.

Comment by Cheryl

October 25, 2008 @ 6:50 pm

JLP,

Thank you for your comments!

Frank,

I also appreciated your kind remarks. In my long hours of research on the Trinity primarily on the information provided by Bruce Ware, I was thoroughly shocked at his lowering of the Lord Jesus to a position of eternal subordination without an opportunity to allow Jesus to have equal authority or equal use of his own will. It made me think that he believes that Jesus has a different will than the Father in his eternal Deity that must submit to the will of the Father. This cannot be.

We must not let the Deity of Jesus be controlled and lowered by those who have an agenda. When I communicated with Bruce Ware he was the one who brought up the women’s issue citing the eternal subordination of Jesus as proof that women were to be subordinated to men in the very act of God’s creation plan. I told Mr. Ware that even when I was a complementarian I did not believe that the Word of God was eternally subordinated to the Father with lesser authority and my being an egalitarian had nothing to do with how I saw the eternal Trinity. In my research I found that there was not even one time that Mr. Ware spoke or wrote on the Trinity that he did not bring women’s subordination into the talk. Funny that he accused me of giving too much authority to Jesus because of my belief about women when I never brought women into the conversation! His incessant tying in of the subordination of women speaks volumes about his agenda.

We as the body of Christ need to be aware concerning what is being done to Jesus and we need to loudly protest. When I hear that Dr. Ware is speaking to hundreds if not thousands of pastors at a time at pastors’ conventions and no pastor apparently stands up and protests how Jesus is being dishonored by the denial of his full authority, I am greatly saddened. Yet this is no reason to give up. We need to stand up for truth and say enough is enough. We will not hold back our dismay because a teacher is popular and highly esteemed. Truth is far more important than the man or woman who speaks a distortion of the truth.

Comment by Frank

October 26, 2008 @ 3:38 pm

On my latest comment (87533), I made a some typographical errors. In the first paragraph, the middle line reads ‘Ware’s “Father Only” on worship (Worship, as I understand is composed…)”; it should read ‘Ware’s “Father Only” worship teaching (Worship, as I understand it, is composed…”. So here I wish to make that clarification and correction.
Cheryl, I believe your experience is similar to that of many others, myself included. Long before I became a “non-hierarchical” complementarian, or egalitarian, I was a “non-hierarchical” Trinitarian. Something which our opponents cannot believe or comprehend.

Comment by Lolly

October 29, 2008 @ 5:50 am

I told Mr. Ware that even when I was a complementarian I did not believe that the Word of God was eternally subordinated to the Father with lesser authority…(87534)

As I stated above, I grew up comp, and yet I remember distinctly being taught that God the Father, Son, and Spirit were all co-equal within the Trinity. The people I knew as a child would be as horrified at what Ware is teaching as we are now. That’s one of the reasons that I’m convinced we’re near the end times. The Bible warns that even the church will go astray, and boy have they.

Comment by Cheryl

October 29, 2008 @ 11:53 pm

Frank,

“I was a “non-hierarchical” Trinitarian. Something which our opponents cannot believe or comprehend.”

This is certainly the problem – they are so convinced they are right that they cannot engage a mindset different than theirs.

Lolly,

“The people I knew as a child would be as horrified at what Ware is teaching as we are now. That’s one of the reasons that I’m convinced we’re near the end times. The Bible warns that even the church will go astray, and boy have they.”

The church is not the same church as when I was a child. I too believe we are near the end. I am just so grateful that there are many still out there who love the truth and have not bought into the lie that even goes so far as to touch the equality of Jesus in the eternality of the Trinity.

Even with all the deceptions that have come into the church, I am not prepared to give up on the church. I am prepared to occupy until he comes. This will take greater boldness as these issues are fought in the church. God help us receive a spirit of boldness.

Comment by Frank

October 30, 2008 @ 7:17 pm

Cheryl, I find I must agree with you about not abandoning the church, even though it is in what appears to some of us as a very sorry state. Perhaps some of us feel like Elijah: We feel have done our best to proclaim and practice the truth before our fellow “Israelites” and so have truly encouraged them to follow the Lord and his ways. Yet they have angrily rejected us and our message, and so we think the situation is hopeless. But we must remember that God is still in control, that he has preserved his chosen ones who “have not yet bowed down to Baal nor whose mouths have kissed Baal,” that and he still wants us to do all we can to win back those who have gone astray.
And that certainly is the message of Jude. He calls all faithful followers of Christ to stand fast and “contend for the faith that the Lord has once for all entrusted to us, his people” (Jude 3, TNIV); warns against us of the dangers posed by heretical teachers and their poisonous doctrine and practices (vv.4-19), and then goes on to explain what we must do to keep from falling into error ourselves, before we attempt to rescue those who have been or being taken captive by heresy (vv. 20-23). And so I encourage us all to read, meditate and act on Jude 20-23, as God leads each one of us, to live, speak and act the truth in love, doing what we can to rescue those who have been misled and so are in spiritual and moral danger.

Comment by Cheryl

October 31, 2008 @ 5:01 am

Frank, Amen!

Comment by Frank

November 1, 2008 @ 3:54 pm

Just the other day, I was reviewing the manuscript of my commentary on Jude when I was afresh reminded that the Scriptures use common divine names and titles for each of the 3 persons of the Triune God that not only confirm they are coequal and coeternal in their divine being and attributes, but which also should serve to restrain attempts to lower their divine status. And two of these names or titles are used of Jesus by Jude himself.
In verse 4, he says that the heretics pervert the Gospel of grace and that they “deny Jesus Christ, who alone is our Sovereign and Lord” (my translation). The Greek text, ton monon despotes kai kyrion hemon Yesun Christon arnoumenoi (literally, “the only Sovereign and Lord of us, Jesus Christ, they are denying”)by its grammatical construction, indicates that this is a denial of Jesus’ identity-rooted authority. That is, because they deny Jesus Christ is both depostes and kyrios, the false teachers also deny his authority over their teaching and life-style. But Jude is here affirming that because Jesus is indeed despotes and kyrios, he has universal authority over eveything and everyone.
In general usage, both in the Greek OT and in the NT itself, when kyrios is used of a human teacher, landowner, or ruler, it denotes both their superiority and their legal right to rule over the property and to exercise authority over people subject to them. But when used of God and Jesus, this word takes on even greater meaning and significance. This is because, in both the Greek OT and in the NT, Kyrios is used as the equivalent translation for Yahweh, the ineffable name of the Covenant God of Israel. And so Kyrios, as an equivalent translation of this divine name, comes to designate that Jesus, as well as the Father, is not only our Creator and Redeemer, who is ever present to watch over and care for us as his redeemed people, but that he also has the legal right, as Creator and Redeemer, to require our love, worship, and service.
But perhaps even more surprising is Jude’s designating Jesus, the Son, as despotes. In secular Greek, this name or title was used of both good and bad rulers, and it pointed to their natural, unrestricted and unquestionable power to do as they pleased, rewarding and punishing, preserving life or putting to death, as they saw fit. And most often in both the Greek OT and the NT, it is a title used for God the Father and designates his absolute power and authority as Creator, Ruler and Judge. Yet here, boldly and unapologetically, Jude identifies Jesus’ unity with the Father so as to say he also shares this absolute, divine power and authority to do as he pleases. This is a stumbling block for those who would make Jesus less divine than the Father, I would say.

Comment by Liz

November 1, 2008 @ 4:25 pm

Thanks Frank for pointing this out. There are just so many instances throughout the NT where names previously associated with God the Father are used to describe God the Son. There is a useful diagram which quotes many of these texts and I have often used it to show that these 2 persons of the Godhead are indeed ‘one’ in every sense of the word.

Comment by Liz

November 1, 2008 @ 4:27 pm

Also..I haven’t read much by those who teach subordination in the Godhead about the Holy Spirit but they could come dangerously close to the belief of groups such as JWs and Christadelphians who see the Holy Spirit as an impersonal force.

Comment by Frank

November 3, 2008 @ 12:09 pm

Liz, I agree with you that not much is specifically said by these people about the Holy Spirit as regards his full deity or coequality with the Father and the Son. Usually what happens, if you look at the history of the debate over the Trinity, heretics either regarded the Spirit as superior to the Son, or in the majority of the cases, as both inferior to both the Father and Son, since he is in the third rank of what they consider a hierarchical order.
And even when the coequality and coeterninty of the Father and Son had been agreed on by the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., there were church leaders, like Paul of Macedon, who thought the Holy Spirit was a creation of the Son and sent by him to empower believers. These heretics, who reasoned about the inferior status of the Spirit as Arius had reasoned about the Son, became known as Macedonians and were also fiercely opposed by Athanasius in the Eastern church and Damasus in the Western church.
And it was on the basis of shared divine titles, Jesus’ teaching that the Spirit was another counselor of the same kind (cf. John 14:16-17), the full participation of the Spirit with the Father and Son in the divine works of creation, revelation, and salvation–that Athanasius and others forcefully argued that the Spirit was the third person of the Triune God, coequal and coeternal with the Father and Son in every essential. As a consequence, the fourth clause of the Nicene Creed was revised and expanded in 381 A.D. to read as follows: “And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke through the prophets.” And it was this revised edition of the Nicene Creed that, at the Roman Council of 382 A.D., over which Damasus presided, was confirmed and ratified and which became the form of the Creed Christians in the West recite and affirm to this day.

Comment by Frank

November 6, 2008 @ 6:57 pm

I wonder if anyone else has received and read the latest issue of the Priscilla Papers, Vol.22, No.4? It contains some marvelous articles on the Trinity and the various issues connected with the current debate over this central Christian doctrine. And when I read Pam Morrison’s article, “The Holy Spirit, Neglected Person of the Trinity, and Women’s Leadership,” I was struck by her analysis, p.22, of what William Law said about how when churches divorce the Scriptures from the Spirit as their True Interpreter, they pervert the Scriptures, transforming them from a manual for solid Christian thinking and living, into a deadening legal and theological text. “Our Scriptures,’the letter,’ are God-inspired for our good, of course, and are provided for ‘teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training’ (2 Tim. 3:16), but, by themselves, without Spirit-quickening interpretation, the power to comprehend and to live them out, we can fall into legalism and dryness, into interpretations based upon wrong motives that do not give life.” And so I pray the Spirit will work in us who are now discussing the Trinity, and give us all a true and life transforming interpretation and application of this doctrine.
And it is with the above understanding that I have a fresh insight, I think, on 1 Cor. 12:7-11. If, as we believe, that the Father, Son and Spirit are of one heart, mind and will when cooperating in the works of creation, revelation, and redemption, then one of the logical implications of this passage is that not only does the Spirit gift and call men and women to ministry and leadership as “he determines,” but does so in full agreement with both the Father and the Son. How about that?

Comment by Nur-el-Masih Ben Haq

September 12, 2009 @ 4:24 am

PROOF OF THE DIVINITY OF JESUS From the Koran and the Bible and the Concept of TRINITY.

God began by choosing a chaste woman, Mary (Maryam). To qualify her, He necessarily exalted her in advance ABOVE ALL THE WOMEN OF CREATION, for birth is the women’s GREATEST pride and, yet Mary would EXTRA-ORDINARILY give the birth that is the GREATEST of all times. See Luke 1:28, 30:34, 41-44, 48-49, and 54-55. Also says Qur’an 3:42, “….O Mary! Allah has CHOSEN thee, and PURIFIED thee, and PREFERRED thee ABOVE ALL THE WOMEN OF CREATION”.

After that, God settled His soul (Ruh) inside His word (Kalimat) which he had put in the womb of Mary, who had been spiritually qualified as we have seen earlier. That was how Mary conceived Jesus. That was to enable the divine attribute have human features through her for the humans to understand Him better (Hence only Jesus is Biblicaly and Qur’anically declared as GOD’s WORD and GOD’s RUH (Spirit): John 1:1, 14:8:23, Phl. 2:5-8; and the Qur’an 4:171, 2:252 etc. (By implication, Jesus’ flesh is not actually biological but God’s Word; similarly, his life is not actually human’s but from God’s own as we will see more later).

Therefore, even after his humanly birth, Jesus was declared as much superior to angels and, in fact, God said, “Let ALL God’s angels WORSHIP him (Jesus)” (Heb. 1:6; 1Pet. 3:22; Mat. 4:11), as was Adam, of course, in Qur’an 2:30-34.

Thus, apparently, Jesus was a human, the rationality and aim of his humanized birth. See Rom. 8:3-6; Heb. 2:16-18. Also, says Allah according to Qur’an 6:9, “Had We appointed an ANGEL our messenger, We ASSUREDLY had made him LIKE A MAN SO THAT HE MIGHT SPEAK TO (associate with) MEN….”

Muslims often cite John 5:30-31; Mark 13:32-33 and John 1428 etc as disproofs of Christ’s divinity. But, logically, these verses, rather than disprove Jesus’ divinity, expressed the anticipated and expected demonstrations of the character that was Jesus-in-exemplary-typical-human-nature and , therefore , in accordance with God’s programme as stated in the Qur’an 6:9 and:-

(1) Phil. 2:6, “Who (Jesus) being in very nature God, did NOT consider equality with God something to grasp, 7 But made himself NOTHING, taking the very nature of a SERVANT, being made in human likeness 8, and found in appearance as a MAN, he HUMBLED himself and became OBEDIENT to the death, even death in the cross”

(2) Heb. 2:16, “For surely it is NOT ANGELS that he (Jesus) helps, but Abraham’s descendants. 17 FOR THIS REASON HE (GOD) HAD TO MAKE HIM (JESUS) LIKE HIS BROTHERS IN EVERY WAY in order that……” (Compare Qur’an 6:9)

(3) Rom. 8:3, “(Jesus)….in the LIKENESS OF A SINFUL MAN……….”
So, in the light of these verses, it should be clear that Jesus’ humanized acts did not mean that he was actually a human being (John 8:23) but were the divinely designs that were to make Jesus not unnecessarily scare the humans but, rather be their SOURCE OF INSPIRATIONS.

In other words, if Jesus were to act God-the-father again even when haven purposely transformed into a man, the transformation would logically be nonsense.
The Holy Bible reveals relationship between Adam and Jesus thus, “The FIRST Adam became a LIVING SOUL, the LAST Adam (Jesus) a QUICKENING SPIRIT”, 1 Cor. 15:45. Therefore, to understand the nature of Jesus more, we must go back to the Adam’s case.

Thus, when God breathed life into Adam (Qur’an 38:73-78 and Gen. 2:7), he (God) declared him His (God’s) own IMAGE/LIKENESS (Gen. 2:7) or His VICEROY (Qur’an 2:30). Also, according to Qur’an 28:37-38, 15:39-44; 17:61-62; 7:11-13 and 2:34, Allah instructed ALL the angels to WORSHIP Adam on the ground that He (Allah) had breathed something of His SpIRIT into Adam for a soul (see Heb. 1:2-6, for the same instruction in respect of Jesus). In fact, according to these Qur’anic verses, Satan’s curse and demotion are God’s reaction to his (Satan’s) refusal to prostrate himself before Adam.

Therefore, Biblically and Qur’anically Adam, whose flesh was made from just the sand (Gen. 2:7, Qur’an 28:72), was notwithstanding such GLORIOUS initially. And, logically, the glorious qualification came from what God breathed in him.

However, Adam did not pass Satanic test but sinned (that shows some relative weakness in him), thereby lost his INITIAL STATUS and therefore was ordered out of MOST EXALTED DWELLING, the Garden of Eden(Qur’an 7:19-24, Gen. 3:1-24). But Jesus passed all the Satanic tests (Mt.4:1-11, Heb. 4:15; Qur’an 19:19), which logically implies comparative superiority in him.

Therefore, the fact that SOIL is the comparative parent of Adam, who, again, could not pass Satanic test, sinned and was demoted; and Mary, the SUPERIOR among all women, is the comparative parent of Jesus, who, again, passed all the Satanic tests, did not sin and therefore was NEVER demoted, given that both Adam and Jesus got their souls unbiologically from God directly; it follows that whatever type of soul God gave Adam was originally INFERIOR to the one He gave Jesus. Thus Jesus would still have been superior to Adam even if he (Adam) had been able to defend his INITIAL STATUS, (and thus Jesus was very superior to the demoted Adam (and, by the way, EXTREMELY superior to Adam’s descendants including MUHAMMAD, whom Allah found STRAY: Qur’an 12:3, 93:6-8).

So if initially Adam, made from soil, was inter-alia, QUALIFIED to be God’s IMAGE/LIKENESS (Biblically) or GOd’s VICEROY and WORTHY OF A WORSHIP BY THE ANGELS OF GOD (Qur’anically), all because his soul was God-breathed, then Jesus, who has much greater of these qualifications and miraculousness (Bible, Qur’an 5:113), is logically divine.

Thus to Jesus’ divinity God did order the angels to worship; indeed, only divinity can be worshiped (Mt. 4:8-10; Qur’an 16:36; Heb. 1:2-6).

That was why when Jesus was asked to disclose God he said, “Have I been with you so long and yet you do not know me…? He who has seen me has seen the Father (God); how can you say, ‘show us the Father?..I do not speak on my (the human) authority, but the Father who DWELLS IN ME DOES HIS WORKS”, John 14:8-10.

That is why Jesus was Biblically likened to (or understood to be) The Great Spirit Priest, Melchizedek who (being a spirit), has no biological father, mother, genealogy and dates of birth and death, but remains an eternal priest; Heb. 7:1-3, (i.e. the genealogy and date of birth of the ever living Jesus were but symbolic as earlier seen).

And, that is why when Jesus accomplished his mission on the Earth naturally, he went back to where he came from, Qur’an 4:158, “God has raised him up unto HIMSELF”. See also John 6:28, 62, and Mk. 16:19. John 8:23.
Yes! Jesus is, according to both the Bible and the Qur’an, back to his origin, God.

This brings us to the issue of Trinity.

The TRINITY

The term ‘Trinity’ is not of Biblical origin but the concept is. Thus, as any Biblically foreign word, it is not necessary to employ it in particular in whatever situation. However, the word ‘Trinity’ is relevantly expressive, thus it was employed as a term by some Bible interpreters just because it was the best word that simply expressed the ONENESS of the Almighty God, His soul in a born human body, and His soul when , or as, not inside a body. Thus:

1. God-the-FATHER, means the ALMIGHTY God.
(Deut.32:6; Mt.5:48,6:9-14; 1Cor.8:4-6)

2.God-the-SON, means the SOUL-of-the-Almighty-God inside His (GOD’S) WORD, which was physically born as a human body. (Col. 1:15, 19; John 1:1, 14-18, 17:5; Phil. 2:5-7; Mt. 1:18; Isa. 9:6; John 14:10; Pls. 82:6)

3. God-the-HOLY-SPIRIT, means just SOUL-of-the-Almighty-God, i.e. when, or as, not inside any bodily form. (John 4:24; MK. 3:28-29; Job 33:4; Gen.. 1:2; Pls. 139:7-12; Hab 3:3; 2Cor. 3:17-18).

It is, therefore simplistic to think that Christian Trinitarian concept originated from paganism just because the pagans had “similar” doctrine before the word “Trinity” was employed by some Bible interpreters. Pagan “Trinity” differs from the Christian own in the sense that it has always referred to three entities whereas that of Christian referred to only one entity who acted in three ways.

Science also suggests the possibility of the Christian TRINITY. Thus: some matters can exist in many physically different capacities and chemically remain their exact selves nevertheless. See ALLOTROPY. Allotropy is the EXISTENCE OF AN ELEMENT IN MANY PHYSICALLY DIFFERENT CAPACITIES AND CHEMICALLY REMAINS IT EXACT SELF, just as Trinity is the EXISTENSE OF THE GOD IN THREE PHYSICALLY DIFFERENT CAPACITIES BUT SPIRITUALLY REMAINS HIS EXACT SELF. Of course, if matter can exhibit such a rare capacity as the allotropy, how much more can the creator himself do? Hence the exceptional ?allotropy?, the Trinity.

Therefore, those who think the TRINITY necessarily implies three Gods simply because 1+1+1=3 and not 1 are just simpletons, as science has once again, shown. You know, Christianity is a religion that makes you to think more about the complexity of life, reality, relativity, time and space etc.

Comment by Nur-el-Masih Ben Haq

September 12, 2009 @ 4:43 am

TRINITY: Islam initially recognized three Arabian Gods.

The Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, was born in a pagan community that believed in three Gods: Al-lat, Manat, and Uzza. Prophet Muhammad and, therefore, Islam initially declared it recognition of the deityship of these pagan Gods (or Goddess) via a supposed Allah’s revelation to Muhammad that, according to ‘hoarded’ Hadith, went thus:

Qur?an 53:13, ?And he (Muhammad) saw him (angel Gabriel) yet

Another time.

14. By the lote-tree at the furthest boundary.

15. Near unto which is the Garden of Abode.

16. When that which covers the tree does cover it.

17. The sight turned not aside, nor did it extend beyond the

Limit.

18. Indeed he saw some of the greater signs of his Lord

19. Have ye seen al-lat and Uzza?

20. And Manat the third one besides?

* These are the Exalted Gharaniq (Damsels)

* And verily their intercession (with Allah) is to be hoped

For?

When the pagan Arabs heard such a Qur’anic endorsement of their deities, they massively converted to Islam. But that the story of their conversion was so exaggerated that the Muslim refugees confidently returned home from Abyssinia (Ethiopia).

The returnee refugees and Muhammad himself were disappointed to discover that the story of the massive conversion was largely a hoax. The angry Muhammad then withdrew his recognition of the deityship of the Three Goddesses and blamed Satan for making him include in the recitation false words, ” *These are the Exalted Gharaniq. *And their intercession (with Allah) is to be hoped for”.

Thus Muhammad expunged these “Satanic Verses” (as they are now called by Muslim scholars) and replaced them with a supposed reaction from Allah:

21.”What! For you the *male sex, and for Him (Allah) the

Female?

22. Behold, such would be indeed a division most unfair!

23. These are nothing but names which ye have devised, ye

And your fathers?”

(*Allah supposedly rejected the pagans’ recognition of Him, at this stage, as being the father of the three goddesses) See Hadith al-Gharaniq al-Ula gotten from al-Waqidi, ibn Hantab, Abu Jaafar Ibn at-Tabari etc for details.

I know many Muslim readers would dismiss this as lies because must of these sensitive issues are hidden away from them. But whoever cares to do research on this or ask renowned Islamic scholars will be shocked to discover that the “Satanic Verses” scandal is a historical fact.

In fact , the nature of the early chapters of the Qur’an tends to confirm the historicity of the “Satanic Verses” scandal for, as Encyclopedia Britanica 15 page 342 puts it, “(In the Qur’an) strangely enough, there is NO REFERENCE TO THE ONENESS OF GOD (The premier Islamic doctrine now) in these early chapters. According to one tradition, on one occasion Mohammed even acknowledged the relative authorities of three goddesses: Al-lat, Manat and Uzza, but later on abolished the passage in which the reference occurred” said the Encyclopedia

Thus Islam’s belated attacks on Christianity with respect to the TRINITY is just a cover-up to this scandal of an attempt to “Trinitinize” the three pagan Arab goddesses which (the attempt) failed.

Christian TRINITY does not imply three Gods at all. It is a logical and scientific phenomenon that expresses the three major ways that personifies Himself.

The greatest Christian Law is the perfect belief in the oneness of God (Mk. 12:28-32; 1 Cor. 8:3-6; Jms. 2:18-21).

Since in the Old Testament time God demonstrated His kind of “spirito- allotropy”: (Let US, OUR image, OUR likeness, one of US: Gen. 1:26, 3:22, Jer. 23:23), and also Qur’an 2:1, 6:9 ete.

In fact not only Muslims — Jehovah Witness and the Jews too should realize that the concept of “God-The-Son” scripturally predated the times of Jesus Christ (Pls. 82:6; John 10:34-38); likewise “God-The-Father” (Deut. 32:6); and ?God-the-Holy-Spirit? (Job 32:4, Pls 139:7-12).

Comment by Jamie

September 13, 2009 @ 4:54 am

Those are very interesting comments, Nur-El-Masih Ben Haq.

You mentioned the equation: 1 + 1 + 1 = 3

The best I heard it described is that for the Trinity the equation is NOT 1 + 1 + 1 = 3 but rather:

1 x 1 x 1 = 1

It’s a kind of hyper reality I suppose, not ours. We see exponentiation in the Kingdom of God, such as those who have will be given even more and those who don’t have will have what they have taken away from them . . . This isn’t our (human) law of understanding or way of existence.

I think most regrettably some Christians (unconsciously, I assume) can’t fully accept Jesus IS God.

I know that sounds incredible, but at its heart I think that’s the problem. Some form of Arianism or Semi-Arianism from what I understand continues to spring up in the Church from time to time.

The Trinity is to me the greatest of all Christian mysteries . . . Therefore, it’s not easy to comprehend because of our limited minds and natures.

That doesn’t excuse however a basic, foundational, traditional understanding of our faith (most especially by those in leadership positions).

It just continues to amaze me that those who believe they are believing in what traditionally has been taught about the nature of God aren’t doing that yet think they are being ever so traditional . . . And then they go on and attack those for not holding on to the traditional faith??

Comment by Larry S

September 17, 2009 @ 11:33 am

“Therefore, the fact that SOIL is the comparative parent of Adam, who, again, could not pass Satanic test, sinned and was demoted; and Mary, the SUPERIOR among all women, is the comparative parent of Jesus, who, again, passed all the Satanic tests, did not sin and therefore was NEVER demoted, given that both Adam and Jesus got their souls unbiologically from God directly; it follows that whatever type of soul God gave Adam was originally INFERIOR to the one He gave Jesus. Thus Jesus would still have been superior to Adam even if he (Adam) had been able to defend his INITIAL STATUS, (and thus Jesus was very superior to the demoted Adam (and, by the way, EXTREMELY superior to Adam’s descendants including MUHAMMAD, whom Allah found STRAY: Qur’an 12:3, 93:6-8).”

These posts by Nur-el-Masih Ben Haq appear to be part of a larger conversation between Christian/Islamic theology and make for an interesting read.

However, I don’t believe orthodox biblical Christian thought would speak of God ‘giving’ Jesus a soul. I think Christian theology tends to focus on the eternal nature of Jesus who existed in perfect unity/equality with the Father before the existence of what we think of as time.

Perhaps other posters may wish to comment on the notion of God giving Jesus a soul.

Also the first post of has several declarative statements which I believe could be challenged or at least the term Soul seems quite odd. For example the NT texts cited to support #2 in my mind don’t speak of Jesus as the Soul of God.

2.God-the-SON, means the SOUL-of-the-Almighty-God inside His (GOD’S) WORD, which was physically born as a human body. (Col. 1:15, 19; John 1:1, 14-18, 17:5; Phil. 2:5-7; Mt. 1:18; Isa. 9:6; John 14:10; Pls. 82:6)

3. God-the-HOLY-SPIRIT, means just SOUL-of-the-Almighty-God, i.e. when, or as, not inside any bodily form.

—–
We egals get painted as unorthodox by our brothers/sisters on the comp side so it seems important to speak to this post – or at least ask for clarification. Please know I am not trying to be argumentative, merely pointing out what appear to be odd expressions.