January 31, 2006

• 10 Reasons The Son is eternally begotten

  DISCLAIMER: God the Son is CO-EQUAL with the Father and is NO WAY eternally subordinate to Him. They have ONE ETERNAL WILL, and that is why they are ONE GOD. The same goes with the Holy Spirit. He too, is a PERSON with all His attributes being infinite. He is infinitely powerful, for instance. Thus, he can’t be “less” divine than the Father and the Son. After all, if you are INFINITELY powerful, you cannot be “less” powerful than anyone.

  This raises a very important question.

  If the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are all equally God, then, what is the difference between them? If all Three are Sovereign, infinitely Just and Holy etc, how can we distinguish One from Another? What’s the difference between God the Son and God the Father?

  Can we distinguish God from God?

  Now, God the Father did not die on the cross. And the Christ did not manifest Himself at Pentecost. These are some of the ECONOMICAL differences between the Persons of the Trinity. Most people will agree with me on this. This is not the point of controversy. The real DISPUTE is whether or not these economical workings reflect something eternal about each Person.

  Christ was born of woman. Does it end there? Or is there something more? Is there a meaning behind why The Son was born of the woman and not the Father? Could it be that Christ is also eternally begotten, and His Virgin Birth reflects that? Likewise, the Holy Spirit proceeded at Pentecost after Christ had finished His work. Now, why is that so? Could it be that the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son?

  I believe that YES, there is a REASON why God the Father was not born of a virgin. It’s because He is NOT eternally begotten — the Son is!

  And since the Son is eternally begotten of the Father then we can DISTINGUISH Him from the Father. We CANNOT say that the Father is eternally begotten. It’s an incommunicable attribute of The Son. By “incommunicable” I mean that this attribute CANNOT be transferred to the Father or the Holy Spirit.

  If we want to define a person, we say that the person belongs to a particular group. But there must also be something about the person that distinguishes them from everyone else in the group. For instance, you are a human. So, by this definition we can distinguish you from animals and God. You don’t belong to the categories of either “animals” or “God”. But how can we tell the difference between you and all other humans? What makes you an individual? To answer this, we need to find something about you that no other human has. For example, we could point to the fact that in your lifetime, you have thought certain thoughts that no other human ever has. You have thought a certain combination of propositions that no one has ever thought. We thus distinguish humans based on the content of their minds.

  Back to Christ. He is obviously in the category “God”. He’s Sovereign, infinitely powerful, inf holy, inf just, inf merciful, inf loving, everywhere, all knowing and all wise. Christ is obviously God. But since the Father is also in the category “God”, we need something about the Son to distinguish Him from the Father. This is where the GLORIOUS TRUTH of the eternal generation must be preached. It is the ONE ATTRIBUTE that distinguishes the Son from the Father. It makes the Son and the Father individuals. (Again, the same goes for the Holy Spirit, too. He is the only member of the Trinity to ETERNALLY PROCEED. He, too, is an individual).

  So the difference between the Father and the Son is NOT that the Son is subordinate, inferior or less-God than the Father. Instead, the difference between the Father and Son is that the Father eternally begets the Son. Likewise, the difference between the Holy Spirit on the one hand, and the Father and the Son on the other, is NOT that the Holy Spirit is less-God. Rather, the Holy Spirit is distinguished by the fact that He eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son.
  
  10 REASONS THE SON IS ETERNALLY BEGOTTEN

  10.      Christ is “the only begotten Son,”(Jn1:18) “the only begotten of the Father,”(Jn1:14) who “was with God,”(Jn1:1) and “in the form of God, who thought it not robbery to be equal with God,” (Phi2:6) who was God, “in the bosom of the Father,”(Jn1:18)

  9.      Christ “CAME OUT FROM THE FATHER,” (Jn16:28) was sent of the Father, (1Jn4:14) in the Father, and the Father in Him, (Jn10:28) one with the Father, (Jn10:30) “the image of the invisible God,”(Col1:15) the Brightness of his Father’s glory, the express Image of His essence (Heb1:3).

  8.     Psalm 2:7. “I will declare concerning the statute of Jehovah: He said to Me, You are My Son. Today I have begotten You.” (Psa2:7). And what day? The day of eternity (which is one continued now) – Christ is eternally begotten.

  7.       “Jehovah possessed me” says the Messiah “in the beginning of His way, before His works. I was SET UP FROM EVERLASTING, from that which was before the earth. When there were no depths, I WAS BROUGHT FORTH…then I was at His side”(Prov8:22-24,30)

  6.       Proverbs 8 says that the Son “was brought forth”. The Targum, the Syriac, and the Septuagint versions give us the meaning of all the varieties of expressions which have the same meaning as the English word, “begotten”. Thus, this passage could be rendered, “When there were no depths, I was begotten.”

  5.      Christ is the “Son of the Living God”.

  4.      If the Son is not eternally begotten, there is nothing to distinguish Him from the Father.

  3.      Christ was not ashamed to defend His Deity by basing it on His Sonship. Throughout the gospels He argues that He is God, BECAUSE He is the Son of God. Since the Son eternally derives His essence from the Father, the Son is FULLY God. This indeed is the way Christ argues for His deity.

  2.    When we say that “Christ is the only begotten Son”, don’t we mean that this is an ETERNAL attribute of Christ? Why does the Scripture stress this doctrine? Why does it say over and over that Christ is the “only begotten of the Father” and “came out from the Father”? It must be that Christ is ETERNALLY begotten. That’s the WHOLE POINT of all those passages. They are EXALTING The Son as the ETERNAL SON begotten of the Father. If these passages are merely saying that Christ was born of a woman, what’s the big deal?

  1.    Christ’s “goings forth” from the Father “have been from of old, from the days of eternity.” Micah 5:2. ” And you, Bethlehem Ephratah … out of you He shall come forth to Me to become One ruling in Israel; and HIS GOINGS FORTH have been FROM OF OLD, from the days of eternity.” This passage is applied to Christ in Matthew 2:6.

  
  

  • 7:10 am
  • 2 Comments