The Eternal Sonship of Christ
Some Evangelicals, such as John MacArthur, J. Oliver
Buswell, and the late Walter Martin, have been abandoning the Trinitarian
faith as defined by the First Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325). Their abandonment
of orthodox Trinitarianism consists in denying the eternal Sonship of Christ,
the doctrine that the second person of the Trinity was the Son of God from
all eternity. Instead, they claim that the second person of the Trinity
only became the Son of God at his incarnation. Apart from the incarnation
he was still God, but not the Son, just the second Person.
This teaching destroys the internal relationships
within the Trinity, because if the Son was not eternally begotten by the
Father then neither did the Spirit eternally proceed from the Father through
the Son. It also destroys the Fatherhood of the first person, since without
a Son there is no Father. Thus the fundamental familial relations among
the persons of the Godhead are destroyed and replaced by mere social relationships,
a bare existence of three persons in the Godhead. Prior to the incarnation,
there is no longer the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but simply
Number One, Number Two, and Number Three—the numbers themselves being an
arbitrary designation.
The Church Fathers who wrote the creeds had a different
view. They recognized that the Bible depicts the Son as having his identity
as the Son before his incarnation. In 1 John 4:9 we read, that "the
love of God was made manifest among us [in] that God sent his only Son
into the world, so that we might live through him." Thus, the second person
of the Trinity was already the Son when he was sent into the world.
The same truth is taught under a different analogy
in John 1:1,14 where we read, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God. . . . And the Word became flesh and
dwelt among us." Here the Word (i.e., the second person of the Trinity)
is pictured as having his identity as the Word from all eternity. Thus,
from all eternity the Word of God proceeded from God, just as speech proceeds
from a speaker; similarly,
a Son proceeds from his Father. Under both analogies,
whether as the Son of God or the Word of God, the second person of the
Trinity is depicted as eternally proceeding from the first person of the
Trinity.
Of special interest among the following passages
are those in which the early Christians wrote of God as Father prior to
the incarnation. Such passages imply the role of the second person as Son
before the incarnation, since as we have noted, without a Son there
is no Father.
Ignatius of Antioch
"Jesus Christ . . . was with the Father before
the beginning of time, and in the end was revealed" (Letter to the Magnesians
6 [A.D. 110]).
Justin Martyr
"Jesus Christ is the only proper Son who has been
begotten by God, being his Word and first-begotten, and power; and, becoming
man according to his will, he taught us these things for the conversion
and restoration of the human race" (First Apology 23 [A.D. 151]).
"God begot before all creatures a beginning, who
was a certain rational power from himself and whom the Holy Spirit calls
. . . sometimes the Son
. . . sometimes Lord and Word. . . . We see things
happen similarly among ourselves, for whenever we utter some word, we beget
a word, yet not by any cutting off, which would diminish the word in us
when we utter it. We see a similar occurrence when one fire enkindles another.
It is not diminished through the enkindling of the other, but remains as
it was" (Dialogue with Trypho the Jew 61 [A.D. 155]).
Irenaeus
"[The Gnostics] transfer the generation of the
uttered word of men to the eternal Word of God, attributing to him a beginning
of utterance and a coming into being . . . . In what manner, then, would
the Word of God—indeed, the great God himself, since he is the Word—differ
from the word of men?" (Against Heresies 2:13:8 [A.D. 189]).
Tertullian
"The Father makes him equal to himself, and the Son, by proceeding
from him, was made the first-begotten, since he was begotten before all
things, and the only-begotten, because he alone was begotten of God, in
a manner peculiar to himself, from the womb of his own heart, to which
even the Father himself gives witness: ‘My heart has poured forth my finest
Word’ [Ps. 45:1–2]" (Against Praxeas 7:1 [A.D. 216]).
Hippolytus
"Therefore, this sole and universal God, by reflecting,
first brought forth the Word—not a word as in speech, but as a mental word,
the reason for everything. . . . The Word was the cause of those things
which came into existence, carrying out in himself the will of him by whom
he was begotten. . . . Only [God’s] Word is from himself and is therefore
also God, becoming the substance of God" (Refutation of All Heresies
10:33 [A.D. 228]).
Origen
"So also Wisdom, since he proceeds from God, is
generated from the very substance of God" (Commentary on Hebrews [A.D.
237]).
Gregory the Wonderworker
"There is one God, the Father of the living Word,
who is his subsistent wisdom and power and eternal image: perfect begetter
of the perfect begotten, Father of the only-begotten Son. There is one
Lord, only of the only, God of God, image and likeness of deity, efficient
Word, wisdom comprehensive of the constitution of all things, and power
formative of the whole creation, true Son of true Father" (Declaration
of Faith [A.D. 265]).
Lactantius
"When we speak of God the Father and God the Son,
we do not speak of them as different, nor do we separate them, because
the Father cannot exist without the Son, nor can the Son be separated from
the Father, since the name of ‘Father’ cannot be given without the Son,
nor can the Son be begotten without the Father. . . . [T]hey both have
one mind, one spirit, one substance; but the former [the Father] is as
it were an overflowing fountain, the latter [the Son] as a stream flowing
forth from it. The former as the sun, the latter as it were a ray [of light]
extended from the sun" (Divine Institutes 4:28–29 [A.D. 307]).
Council of Nicaea I
"We believe . . . in our one Lord Jesus Christ
the Son of God, the only-begotten born of the Father, that is, of the substance
of the Father, God of God, light of light, true God of true God, begotten,
not made . . ." (The Creed of Nicaea [A.D. 325]).
Cyril of Jerusalem
"Believe also in the Son of God, the one and only,
our Lord Jesus Christ, who is God begotten of God, who is life begotten
of life, who is light begotten of light, who is in all things like unto
the begetter, and who did not come to exist in time but was before all
the ages, eternally and incomprehensibly begotten of the Father. He is
the Wisdom of God" (Catechetical Lectures 4:7 [A.D. 350]).
The Long Ignatius
"[O]ur God, Jesus the Christ, the only-begotten
Son and Word before time began, but who afterwards became also man, of
Mary the Virgin. For ‘the Word was made flesh’ [John 1:14]" (Letter
to the Ephesians 7 [A.D. 350]).
Athanasius
"When these points have been demonstrated, then
they [the Arians] speak even more impudently: ‘If there never was a time
when the Son was not, and if he is eternal and coexists with the Father,
then you are saying that he is not a Son at all, but the Father’s brother.’
O dull and contentious men! Indeed, if we said only that he coexisted eternally
and had not called him Son, their pretended difficulty would have some
plausibility. But if while saying that he is eternal, we confess him as
Son of the Father, how were it possible for him that is begotten to be
called a brother of him that begets? . . . For the Father and the Son were
not generated from some preexisting source, so that they might be accounted
as brothers. Rather, the Father is the source and begetter of the Son.
. . . It is proper for men to beget in time, because of the imperfections
of their nature; but the offspring of God is eternal because God’s nature
is ever perfect" (Discourses Against the Arians 1:14 [A.D. 360]).
Basil The Great
"What was in the beginning? ‘The Word,’ he says.
. . . Why the Word? So that we might know that
he proceeded from the mind. Why the Word? Because he was begotten without
passion. Why the Word? Because he is image of the Father who begets him,
showing forth the Father fully, in no way separated from him, and subsisting
perfectly in himself, just as our word entirely befits our thought" (Eulogies
and Sermons 16:3 [A.D. 368]).
Ambrose of Milan
"[The Arians] think that they must posit the objection
of his [Christ] having said, ‘I live on account of the Father.’ Certainly
if they refer the saying to his divinity, the Son lives on account of the
Father, because the Son is from the Father; on account of the Father, because
he is of one substance with the Father; on account of the Father, because
he is the Word given forth from the heart of the Father; because he proceeds
from the Father" (The Faith 4:10:132 [A.D. 379]).
Gregory of Nazianz
"He is called Son because he is identical to the
Father in essence; and not only this, but also because he is of him. He
is called only-begotten not because he is a unique Son . . . but because
he is Son in a unique fashion and not in a corporeal way. He is called
Word because he is to the Father what a word is to the mind" (Orations
30:20 [A.D. 380]).
Council of Constantinople I
"We believe . . . in one Lord Jesus Christ, the
only-begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages, light of
light, true God of true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the
Father" (The Nicene Creed [A.D. 381]) .
Council of Rome
"If anyone does not say that the Son was begotten
of the Father, that is, of the divine substance of him himself, he is a
heretic" (Tome of Damasus, canon 11 [A.D. 382]).
The Athanasian Creed
"The Father is not made nor created nor begotten
by anyone. The Son is from the Father alone, not made or created, but begotten.
. . . Let him who wishes to be saved, think thus concerning the Trinity.
But it is necessary for eternal salvation that he faithfully believe also
in the incarnation. . . . He is God begotten of the substance of the Father
before time, and he is man born of the substance of his mother in time.
. . . This is the Catholic faith; unless everyone
believes this faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved" (Athanasian
Creed [A.D. 400]).
Augustine
"In the way that you speak a word that you have
in your heart and it is with you . . . that is how God issued the Word,
that is to say, how he begot the Son. And you, indeed, beget a word too
in your heart, without temporal preparation; God begot the Son outside
of time, the Son through whom he created all things" (Homilies on John
14:7 [A.D. 416]).
Patrick of Ireland
"Jesus Christ, whom we . . . confess to have always
been with the Father—before the world’s beginning, spiritually and ineffably
[he was] begotten of the Father before all beginning" (Confession of
St. Patrick 4 [A.D. 452]).
Council of Constantinople II
"If anyone does not confess that there are two
generations of the Word of God, one from the Father before all ages, without
time and incorporeally, the other in the last days when the same came down
from heaven and was incarnate . . . let such a one be anathema" (Anathemas
Concerning the Three Chapters, canon 2 [A.D. 553]).
NIHIL OBSTAT:
I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004
IMPRIMATUR:
In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004
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