V. W. J. H. Lawrence.
No. 9.
All who have read the writings, or listened to the utterances of those who are active today in denying the Eternal Sonship of our Lord Jesus Christ, must have noticed that their evil notions are based on the utterly false supposition, that all sonship necessitates a state of inferiority in him who is son to him who is father. And when once this idea is seen to be false and untrue, the whole edifice of their teaching crumbles to pieces. They are like men who build their house upon the sand; for they have erected a temple of foolish and senseless ideas in which to enshrine this frightful dishonour against the Father and the Son, (John 5:23).
1. Now in all our considerations of revealed truth, the first thing to realise is, what is Divine may not be limited, or circumscribed by what is human; nor may Divine thoughts be interpreted merely by human reason; "God is love" (1 John 4:8, 16); and we understand what God is by what God does. God has given His eternal Son as the revelation of His eternal love.* A temporal son could not reveal an eternal love. What God is in Himself, He is eternally; and in that He is not limited by our perception of Himself. We cannot fathom the Divine Filiation; we ought not to suppose that we could; but this cannot set it aside. Rather is it a settled feature of the renewed mind, (Romans 12:2), that it recognises what is beyond controversy, (1 Tim. 3:16).
{*See "The Revelation of God in His Eternal Son." (Thynne & Co. London.)}
2. Also we have no right to impose upon the truths of Divine Revelation principles which are proved false in regard to the existence of the creature. For, in the Adamic race of which we form part, no son is inferior to his father. Indeed, no one man is, as a man, inferior to any other man. The brute creation is inferior to the creation of man; the Adamic to the Angelic; but not one man to another. This man excels in this thing; that in another; but this does not establish a principle of fundamental and fixed inferiority; for "God is no respecter of persons" (Acts 10:34). Take the instance of Moses, one of the greatest, if not the greatest, figure in human history. And this greatness is fourfold, at least, (a) morally, (b) intellectually, (c) in his activities, and (d) in his remains. Yet he appeared after many generations in the world's history. That is not inferiority; otherwise would degeneration, the result of successive inferiorities, have been complete long ere that. No! this
idea of sonship-inferiority is perhaps as puerile and as wicked a piece of nonsense as the mind of man in rebellion against the revelation of God has ever originated.
3. And if the notion be such a slight upon true fatherhood and true sonship among men, who shall measure the overwhelming dishonour done to the Father and the Son, by those who have forced this inane notion into the thrice-holy, infinitely-perfect, and all-blessed relations of the Godhead? But is Scripture silent as regards it? Surely not; "But Jesus answered them, My Father works hitherto, and I work. Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his own (idios) Father, making himself equal with God. (John 5:17-18). And in confirmation of the "equality" Paul uses the same expression when he desires to bring out the supreme down-stooping of the Son, (Phil. 2:6). And this equality is
further attested by the great fact that in the Scriptures the essential Divine attributes are affirmed of the Son no less than of the Father.
Could any wish for, or demand, a more definite Divine refutation of this stupid and evil doctrine? Sonship, far from implying inferiority, affirms the existence of a real equality.
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