Review of articles on eternal Sonship

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 2004.

Warmest greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I have received from you a number of articles:

• Did the Reformation go far enough?—pp. 1–12; hereafter referred to as REF. 1.

• Did the Reformation go far enough? being a 'Brief Summary Version' of above—pp. 1–3; hereafter referred to as REF. 2.

• Jesus Christ: Eternal Son or Everlasting Father?—pp. 1–7; hereafter referred to as ESEF.

In addition, you have sent:

• Facsimiles of Adam Clarke's New Testament Commentary and Critical Notes, Vol. 1—title page plus pp. 360–361.

I gather that your purpose in sending me these articles is to induce me to comment on the main views they express and on the arguments used to support those views. I shall therefore try to oblige you. I shall not attempt to discuss everything, for the first three articles are very repetitious.

Preliminary Remarks

It is truly good to come across people nowadays who have an interest in the doctrine of the Trinity, for in that subject we are dealing not merely with what God has said or done but of what God is in himself. To be interested in understanding the Trinity, however, is an awesome occupation. We must go about it with our shoes off our feet in a heart attitude of worship and humility.

In dealing with this topic we need also to help each other, lest in our zeal for the Lord we put our hands to the ark and attempt to uphold the Lord's honour by arguments which, upon analysis, prove to be fallacious; lest, indeed, we say anything untrue, unfitting or unworthy about the divine persons. In what follows, it is not my purpose to criticize the author himself. His articles evidence his love for the Lord, his determination to be loyal to him and his zeal to uphold his honour. But when it comes to the author's arguments, I must and will criticize these in order to test all things and hold fast to that which is good; all the while recognizing that some of my own statements and arguments may not themselves be sound.

The question of the use of non-biblical terms

The use of the term 'Trinity'

In various places the author rebukes and denounces the use of non-biblical terms in the discussion of the Godhead:

The title 'Eternal Son' is never used in Scripture [and therefore] is using it a clear case of 'adding' to God's words, risking His reproof, being ashamed before Christ at His possibly imminent coming, and being found of Him to be untruthful at His Judgment Seat? (REF. 1, p. 3, second paragraph)

The argument with Arius¹ revolved around certain key texts of Scripture, and ... his opponents were forced to adopt the non-Scriptural philosophical term homoousios ... in order to exclude his views. (REF. 1, p. 9)

In referring to Christ as 'Eternal Son', 'eternally generated', or 'eternally begotten', expressions never used by the Holy Spirit in inspiring Scripture—is it not clearly adding to God's words and risking His reproof? (REF. 2, p. 3, fourth paragraph)

Similar warnings occur in ESEF at the bottom of page 1. This raises a question in my mind. After delivering these warnings against the use of non-biblical terminology, why does the author himself use non-biblical terminology to refer to the Godhead?

For instance at REF. 2, p. 1 opening paragraph, referring to the name of God I AM THAT I AM, the author states that this 'surely proves that all Three Divine Persons of the Triune Godhead are co-self-existent'.

Similarly at REF. 1, p. 10 Section 13 reference is made to 'the even more crucially important doctrines concerning the glorious Divine Persons of the Trinity, which this study has attempted to identify'.

It should be noted here that the author uses the words 'the Trinity', apparently with approval; yet Trinity is not a biblical word. It occurs nowhere in either Old Testament or New Testament. It may be retorted that Trinity is a safe word to use, because it refers to something that is explicit in holy Scripture in verses that mention the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, such as Matthew 28:19.

My response would be to say that that is perfectly true. I am not complaining against the term 'Trinity'; but I am observing that it is a non-biblical word. It is understandable that early theologians should have used a non-biblical word, for they, like us, faced with all the things that holy Scripture says about the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, tried to think through the implications of what is written, and to determine how they might speak properly about the Godhead in the light of all that Scripture says. In doing so, they invented the term 'Trinity'. Athenagoras and Tertullian were among the first of the theologians to use this expression. I say again, I have no objection to it; but I repeat that the author rebukes all non-biblical terms and forbids us to use them, lest we be ashamed before Christ at his coming. Why then, I ask, does the author himself use non-biblical terms?

The term 'Trinity', though all Christians use it, is itself imprecise, because the term could be used of three separate individuals. For instance, in British political terminology, the prime minister, the foreign secretary and the home secretary are a trinity of three political figures; but they are a trinity of separate individuals. When, however, the early theologians invented the term 'Trinity' to describe the Godhead, they did not mean it to imply a trinity of three separate individuals. They meant it to refer to three persons within the one Godhead, all of whom share the same nature. The three of them are but one God; and that is why theologians later preferred to use the term 'Triunity' rather than 'Trinity'.

The use of the term 'Person'

The author also uses the more important term Person when he talks about the 'glorious Divine Persons of the Trinity'. 'Person' is, of course, a non-biblical term, and among the theologians it has a very precise significance. The author presumably knows it is a non-biblical term, and yet he uses it.

What then is meant by the term 'person'? The author appears not to tell us—at least not in these three articles. But, in speaking about the term 'Son', both in New Testament Greek and in modern English, he insists time and time again, as we shall presently see, that the word must be given its primary meaning. What, then, is the primary meaning of the term 'person'? As I say, the author does not tell us.

We must, however, be very careful to understand what this word means. In modern English, the term 'persons' can be used in the plural as an equivalent of the term 'people'. Thus we can say that there were in a cathedral three thousand people, or three thousand persons. And here the word person refers to a separate, individual human being. It would be very important to notice that, when theologians talk about the three persons in the Godhead, they do not mean three people and they do not imply that there are three Gods.

What then does the word person mean when applied to the Godhead? Tertullian was one of the earliest theologians to use the term. In the Latin language that he used, persōna carried the meaning 'mask'. In the ancient theatres of his day the actors on the stage wore masks, which indicated to the audience the character that each actor represented or portrayed. Tertullian therefore suggested that the names Father, Son and Holy Spirit represented the three characters, or functions, in which the Godhead revealed itself to us.

It was not altogether a happy term, because it easily got perverted into Sabellianism, which taught that there is only one God, who sometimes acts as a Father, sometimes as a Son, and sometimes as the Spirit. Just as one and the same human being could be on different occasions a husband to his wife, a father to his children, and a high court judge to the general public. These different terms do not indicate distinct persons but simply names for the different functions of the one person. I cannot here develop in detail the history of the way the term 'person' developed its meaning over the centuries. The meaning that finds most favour nowadays goes back to Augustine, who suggests that the term 'person', when used of the three Persons of the Godhead, indicates not function so much as relationship. This is what many nowadays believe, and I among them. 'Person' therefore is a word denoting three distinguishable relationships within the Godhead; it being added that these relationships are not simply labels put upon abstract concepts like relationship, but are substantive in the sense that the Father loves the Son, and of course the Son loves the Father, and they do so in the Holy Spirit.

We have to be very careful about using human analogies to describe the transcendent Godhead, but we can at least perceive what Augustine meant when we consider the analogy he used. He suggested that a man might contemplate his own mind, and then also be interested in the thoughts of his own mind; though, in another sense, the man's mind and the man himself and the thoughts of that mind all form the one human being, though they can be distinguished, each one of them, as real existing entities.

The use of the Greek philosophical term 'homoousios'

At REF. 1, pp. 8–9 Section 11, the author quotes From Nicaea to Chalcedon² p. 62, Professor Young's account of Athanasius's attempt to refute the heretical doctrines of Arius:

The argument with Arius revolved around certain key texts of Scripture, and ... his opponents were forced to adopt the non-Scriptural philosophical term homoousios (of the same substance) in order to exclude his views.

From this quotation it would appear that the author wishes his readers to get the impression that the use of this non-Scriptural term is, to say the least, regrettable. And then in the next paragraph the author goes on himself to state:

Unable to refute the arguments of Arius from Scripture (e.g. Proverbs 8), Athanasius was reduced to using a 'fudge', i.e. the non-Scriptural, philosophical term homoousios, by adding the words 'of one substance with the Father'.

So now the use of the non-Scriptural word homoousios is a 'fudge', which obviously is an unworthy device for a Christian theologian to use. But the author goes further, and with a rhetorical question seems to suggest that the very term homoousios, if applied to the divine persons, is a contradiction in terms, and hence a complete nonsense: 'Does God, who is a Spirit (John 4:24), have "substance"?'

Apparently the author expects his readers to reply 'of course not', for he seems to be taking the word 'substance' here to carry one of the meanings that it has in modern English; i.e., a material substance. Indeed, a very strong piece of material, so that a beam in a house made of wood or concrete could be described as 'substantial, made of a solid material'. Substance in this sense would, of course, be the opposite of Spirit, which by definition is non-material, non-physical. It would be nonsense then to describe God, who is Spirit, as having substance in this sense.

But this is not the meaning that the Greek term homoousios had for early Christian theologians, nor even for the Greek philosophers. The word is made up of an adjective, homos, meaning 'same', and a noun, ousia, meaning 'being', or 'basic, essential nature'. The combination means 'of the same being', or, 'basic nature as'. As applied to the members of the Trinity it means that each and every one of them is 'of the same being', or 'of the same basic nature'. There are, of course, three distinct persons in the Godhead. But there are not three gods: the three persons constitute the one God. One person is not more God or less God than either or both of the other two persons. All three are of the same being, of the same nature.

And this is what the author himself believes about those he refers to as the 'Glorious Divine Persons of the Trinity'. He certainly would agree that the eternal Word was of the same being and nature as the other two persons in the Godhead. Homoousios therefore is a good and true term.

Why then does he go on to appear to contradict this when he adds: 'Not only is the philosophical term "homoousios" non-Scriptural, but there is no support in Scripture for such a concept!'? (REF. 1, p. 9 second paragraph).

This is very confusing for the reader; but reading and rereading the context suggests that the author's train of thought developed as follows:

1. The author was faced with the statement of the Athanasian Creed, that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only-begotten Son of God, begotten from the Father before all ages, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father.

2. He held that the idea that the Word was 'generated', or 'begotten of the Father', would contradict the 'truth of the full, self-existent Deity and true eternality of the Word'. He therefore rejected the whole concept.

3. The author then understood Athanasius to be claiming that the Word's being of the same nature and being (homoousios) as the Father was the result of his being begotten of the Father, just as a child's human nature is the result of his being begotten of a human father.

4. He then seems to have concluded inadvertently that the Greek word homoousios in and of itself means 'of the same nature as [the Father] BECAUSE BEGOTTEN FROM THE FATHER'. But that is not so. In and of itself the word simply means 'of the same nature as'. In and of itself, it says nothing as to how that state came about. It certainly does not deny the full, self-existent deity and true eternality of the Word and of the Holy Spirit. Far from it: it asserts that all three persons of the Triunity are of one and the self-same basic nature and being, even though they bear distinct names.

The author concludes his remarks on homoousios by stating:

While the homoousios concept does not, like Arianism, reduce the Word to a mere 'creature', it still denies the truth of the full, self-existent Deity and true eternality of the Word and the Holy Spirit.

This statement is inexact to the point of being untrue. There are thousands of believers, and I among them, who accept that the persons of the Triunity are all homoousios—the author himself does—and they do not begin to accept that their belief logically denies or belittles the full deity and eternality of the Word and the Holy Spirit.

But are we not here beginning to fall into the trap of 'striving about words to no profit' (2 Timothy 2:14)? No, not necessarily. In all serious conversation, and supremely when we talk about the divine persons, we have a duty not to speak carelessly. Moreover, in our attempt to learn, understand and teach God's truth about himself, we must always be fair. It is not helpful to denounce opponents for using non-biblical technical terms, and then use non-biblical technical terms ourselves. The real point at issue with non-biblical technical terms is whether they truly and exactly express biblical truth. And if we think we have reason to question someone else's terms, we should first make sure that we understand exactly what that someone means by those terms. It does not help the cause of truth if we denounce someone for using a technical term without realizing that this term actually expresses what we ourselves believe. And it goes without saying that, if we ourselves use non-biblical technical terms, we ought first to be sure we know what those terms mean, and then to define their meaning for our readers as precisely as we can.

The distinctive names of the persons in the Triunity of the Godhead

Christ's own use of the term 'Son of God'

It is evident from Scripture that, while the persons of the Godhead are all of the same nature and together form one God and not three independent Gods, each carries a distinctive name which the other two do not carry. An obvious example of this is the so-called trinitarian formula of baptism, which our Lord laid down: 'baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit' (Matthew 28:19). Many serious theologians, however, would advise us to distinguish, on the one hand, the names which the divine persons have used of themselves in dealing with us in the course of creation and redemption; and, on the other hand, the names that are appropriate to what the divine persons are within themselves and ever were before the creation of the universe, and independently of it.

The author however goes further. He maintains that the names, Father and Son, are names which the first two members of the Godhead acquired only at or after the incarnation of the Word. He does not thereby deny that the Second Person of the Trinity carried eternally the distinctive name, 'the Word' (see John 1:1). But he does deny that the Second Person of the Trinity eternally carried the distinctive name, 'the Son'. He asserts that the Word of God received the title 'Son of God' only and not before the Word became incarnate. And similarly he denies that the First Person of the Trinity carried the title of 'Father' in relation to the Son of God before the incarnation of the Word. In REF. 1, p. 7 first paragraph, he refers to Gabriel's annunciation to Mary (Luke 1:26–38), and states that Gabriel

refers to Christ's father David but carefully avoids using the divine name 'Father'—using the rarely used Divine Name 'the Highest' instead ... The statements that the 'Holy Thing' to be born shall be called 'The Son of God' and 'the Son of the Highest' are both in the future tense and also avoid the use of the Divine Name 'Father'—for no one becomes a father until his first child is born. Not until Christ had been born of the Virgin Mary was God the Father mentioned; hence, not until the Incarnation was Christ, by the miraculous, intermediary role of the Holy Spirit, supernaturally begotten of a Divine Father and a human Mother, so was then as Man named both Son of God and Son of Man ... Hence, we have no Scriptural authority for using the Names 'God the Father', or 'Son of God' for Christ as applying to them prior to the Incarnation ... The attempt to project Christ's Sonship and the existence of a Divine Father-Son relationship back into Eternity past ... is thus seen to be a non-Scriptural concept of early post-Apostolic theologians to fit in with their preconceived, pagan monotheistic concept of God derived from philosophy, Logos-theology, and The Proverbs 8 Theory.

Now, these statements will sound very strange to many believers, and not least for this reason. There are many places where the New Testament uses the term Son of God in such a way that it seems to imply that our Lord was the Son of God before he entered this world by incarnation. The author himself admits that this is the fact; but he accounts for it by suggesting that in these places the New Testament, strictly understood, does not mean what it appears to say. He maintains that it is using a kind of linguistic shorthand, such as we commonly use in everyday conversation.

To use one of the author's own illustrations, for instance, someone can say, 'I knew the Queen when she was a little girl' (cf. REF. 1, p. 8 second paragraph). Hearing that, we know immediately what the speaker means; though, of course, we realize that when she was a little girl she was not yet queen. We can similarly say, 'I knew Mrs Smith when she was a little girl'; though, of course, when she was a little girl she was not Mrs Smith, for she had not yet married. Therefore, the author maintains that, when the New Testament uses the term Son of God in such a way as it appears to imply that he was the Son of God from all eternity, the New Testament is using this kind of linguistic shorthand. It is using his earthly title as Son of God to refer to a time when he was not yet the Son of God.

This analogy, however, is not necessarily valid. For in this analogy it is someone else, and not the Queen herself, who is talking about the Queen 'when she was a little girl'. It is someone else who is talking about Mrs Smith 'when she was a little girl'.

But let us take another model. Here is the Queen talking about herself, and she is talking to her mother, the late Queen Mother. The Queen says to her mother, 'Mother, I, as your daughter, remember the love you showed me in the family home when I was a girl'. Of course, she was not the queen when she was a little girl, but she was her mother's daughter; and we should note at once the difference between the term 'queen', which is the title of a function, and the terms 'mother' and 'daughter', which describe a relationship. The relationship between that mother and her daughter existed before the daughter was queen, and continued on after she became queen. In other words, she did not become the daughter of her mother only after she became queen.

Now let us listen to our Lord Jesus himself:

Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee ... And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was ... Father ... [those whom] thou hast given, I will that, where I am, they also may be with me; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father ... (John 17:1, 5, 24–25)

This is not someone else talking about the Son of God. This is our Lord himself talking, and he calls himself the Son. Moreover, he shows himself fully aware of the glory and the love he enjoyed in eternity past before the foundation of the world, and he explicitly refers to that love as the love of the Father for the Son before the foundation of the world. And likewise he describes the glory as the glory which he had with the Father before the world was.

It would seem to me perilous in the extreme to say that our Lord's words here to his Father do not mean what they appear to say: that he is using imprecise language; that he is employing a kind of linguistic shorthand; and that, if he had to speak exactly, he would not have used the terms 'Father' and 'Son' because, so the author claims, before the foundation of the world the Father was not the Father and the Son was not the Son, and the love which he enjoyed was not that of the Father to his Son. But this is what the author's theory would have us believe about the words that our Lord used in personal conversation with his Father at this most sacred time in his history.

At this stage my comment on this would simply be that, if we follow our Lord's own words and speak of his relationship with God before the foundation of the world in the very terms which our Lord himself uses, namely, 'the Father' and 'the Son', we shall at least not have to fear that we shall be ashamed before him at his coming, nor reproved and found to be untruthful at his judgment seat, as the author suggests we shall (REF. 1, p. 12 paragraph 3).

Other Scriptural uses of the term 'Son of God'

Now we must consider another place where Scripture refers to our Lord as 'the Son of God', namely Hebrews 7:1–3. The writer tells us that the inspired record of Melchizedek in Genesis 14 has been carefully constructed so that even the omission of certain information about Melchizedek is significant. Melchizedek in the record has 'neither beginning of days nor end of life, but [has been] made [to resemble] the Son of God.' To the normal reader the resemblance is obvious: the Son of God in reality had no beginning of days nor end of life. In other words, as Son of God he is eternal; and it is in this aspect that the Melchizedek in the Genesis record was made to resemble him.

But the author will not have it so; for, while he believes that the Word was and is eternal, he maintains that the Son of God, strictly so called, did have beginning of days, since he only became Son of God at his physical birth in the incarnation. We can only conclude then, if the author is right, that the inspired writer to the Hebrews unfortunately speaks very inexactly when he says that Melchizedek, 'having neither beginning of days nor end of life, [has been] made to resemble the Son of God'.

The 'Son of God' as an agent of creation

Now we must consider Scriptures that state that the Son was God's agent in creation:

God ... has at the end of these days spoken to us in his Son ... through whom also he made the worlds; Who being the effulgence of his glory, and the very image of his substance, and upholding [the universe] by the word of his power ... (Hebrews 1:2–3)

But to the Son he says ... 'Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hands ...' (Hebrews 1:8, 10)

... the Father ... who delivered us ... and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love ... who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; For in him were all things created ... all things have been created through him, and unto him; And he is before all things, and in him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; [that He might become first and pre-eminent in all things]. (Colossians 1:12–18)

These three Scriptures tell us explicitly and in detail that God created the universe in, through and for the Son. That Son, Colossians 1:17 states, 'is before all things'. Not was before all things, though that is true, but is. Timelessly, eternally he is and ever will be before all things; and the 'all things'—the universe—hold together in him. Moreover, just as he is the firstborn, the absolute heir and sovereign Lord of all creation, so he is the head of the church: he who is the firstborn from the dead, so that in all things he might become first and supreme.

These Scriptures, moreover, are all consistent in their usage of the term 'Son' in referring to the one who was the agent in the creation. But, in spite of Scripture's repeated statement, the author will not have it so. His words are:

The clear implication of these facts and the use of Huios in Hebrews 1:2 is that Christ did not become Son until His Incarnation and we should accept this—even if He is named as Son when Scripture refers to His pre-incarnate existence. (ESEF, p. 3 third paragraph).

This is very strange, particularly when it comes from the pen of a believer, who a page or two earlier writes:

... attempting to add to or subtract from the meanings of the words the Holy Spirit has chosen to use in Scripture would be equally reprehensible—we dare not try to change the meanings of the words of Scripture to suit our preconceived views ... (ESEF, p. 1 last paragraph).

In Hebrews 1:8, 10, the Holy Spirit states that in Psalm 102:25–27, written centuries before the incarnation, God says to the Son: 'Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth'. How, we may ask, does our dear brother dare to claim that the Holy Spirit is talking inexactly here: that God could not have said these things to and about the Son, because the Son was not the Son before the incarnation? The author attempts to justify his daring by suggesting that God was using a kind of linguistic shorthand of the sort we use when we say, 'I knew the Queen when she was a girl'. But we have already seen how invalid that analogy is when applied either to God speaking direct and personally to the Son, or to the Son speaking direct and personally to the Father.

The reason that the author thus changes and reinterprets the words that the Holy Spirit uses in Scripture is that the author has a theory—he refers to it as 'facts'—and, as he puts it, 'we should accept this—even if He [Christ] is named as Son when Scripture refers to His pre-incarnate existence' (ESEF, p. 3 third paragraph)!

But a doctrine about the persons of the Trinity that is based on the presupposition that the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and the inspired apostles repeatedly speak imprecisely, and potentially misleadingly, when they speak to and about the Son and the Father, thereby destroys its own cogency.

When was the 'Son of God' sent into the world?

Next comes the question: when was the Son of God sent into the world?

Consider the following statements by the Lord:

My Father gives you the true bread out of heaven to eat, for the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world ... I am the bread of life. (John 6:32–33, 35)

The straightforward meaning of these statements is surely indisputable: as the true bread of life, our Lord came down from heaven. At least that is what the Jews understood the Lord to be saying—'for they complained ... because he said I am the bread which came down from heaven ... How does he now say, I have come down from heaven?' (John 6:41–42). It is also made explicitly clear that it was his Father who gave the Lord out of heaven to be bread and to give life to the world (see John 6:32).

But now consider this further statement: 'I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me' (John 6:38). Here, the Lord Jesus states not merely the fact that he had come down from heaven, but also the purpose for which he came down from heaven, which was 'to do the will of him that sent me'. From this it is also clear that the Father sent him from heaven; just as John 6:32 says the Father gave him from heaven, and sent him to do the Father's will; and that he, for his part, willingly came down from heaven to do that will.

But our dear brother the author vigorously denies this for two reasons.

The author's first reason for denying that the Father sent the Son from heaven

He seems to feel that any suggestion that Christ was sent down to earth by the Father would violate Christ's full, self-existent deity and equality with the Father. In REF. 1, p. 11 last paragraph, he summarizes 'the serious errors resulting from the influence of pagan philosophy'. Numbers 3 and 4 of these serious errors are:

The concept that Christ was sent down to Earth by the Father—rather than coming down of His own volition and then sent forth 'into the world' by the Father as a mature Man, after 30 years on Earth.

The full, self-existent Deity, eternality and equality with the Father of the Holy Spirit and Christ, and His Incarnational Sonship are in effect denied, and His begetting and sending wrongly dated.

The author obviously feels these things deeply; but his reasoning is fallacious. The fact—for it is a fact, our Lord himself states it—that the Father sent him from heaven does not deny his full, self-existent deity. This we can see, if we consider the sending of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is of the same being, or basic nature, as the other two persons of the Triunity: he is no less God than they; he is eternal (see Hebrews 9:14). And yet our Lord spoke of the Spirit being sent by the Father and by himself, the Son (see John 14:26; 16:7). Neither the Father nor the Son thinks that the Spirit being sent violates in any way his full deity. Moreover, it is not the case that the Holy Spirit had already come into the world, and only subsequently was sent by the Father and the Son to the believers. Inspired Scripture explicitly says that the Holy Spirit was sent forth from heaven (see 1 Peter 1:12).

If then, being sent from heaven by the Father and the Son did not in any way detract from the Spirit's full deity, neither did the Son being sent from heaven by the Father detract from his full deity. Neither does the fact that the Father sent the Son to do the Father's will conflict with the fact that the Son came of his own volition. For Psalm 40:7–8 prophesied what the attitude of the Son would be as he came into the world: 'Then said I, Lo, I have come; in the volume of the book it is written of me: I delight to do thy will, O my God'. And the inspired writer to the Hebrews quotes this Psalm and assures us that this was the Saviour's attitude when he came into the world (see Hebrews 10:5–9).

The author's second reason for denying that the Father sent the Son from heaven

Herein was the love of God manifested among us, that God has sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:9–10)

And what this 'sending into the world' means can be gathered from our Lord's own words: 'I came out from the Father, and have come into the world: again I leave the world, and go to the Father' (John 16:28).

In saying 'I leave the world, and go to the Father', our Lord is talking of his death, resurrection and ascension into heaven. He is not saying that he is leaving the hurly-burly of public life and retiring to the privacy of his home in Nazareth or to some solitary desert place in order to have communion with his Father. Similarly then, in saying 'I came out from the Father, and have come into the world', he is not saying that he came out from communion with the Father in some desert place and has entered the busy world of public life. He is talking about his coming from his Father's presence in heaven, and entering our world through his incarnation and earthly life. This then is what believers all down the centuries have taken these verses in 1 John 4, and many others, to be saying: the Father sent the Son down from heaven into our world.

But the author denies that this is what they are saying. For, understood this way, they would imply that our Lord was the Son of God before he was sent into our world; and it is the author's major contention that our Lord was not the Son of God before he entered our world; that he did not become the Son of God until his incarnation, and, what is more, his sending by the Father into the world did not take place until the beginning of his public ministry thirty years later. The author writes:

We need to establish not only when Christ was 'begotten' as Son of God, but when He was 'sent' into the world. Claims that His being 'sent' as 'Son into the world' (1 John 4:9) ... prove that He was Son pre-incarnately are unsustainable ... It was only after being on earth for 30 years, the Holy Spirit's descent upon Him, and the Father's accreditation at His baptism and His temptation, that Christ claimed to have been 'sent' (Gr. apostello—' to send forth') by applying Isaiah 61:1–2 to Himself; i.e., by quoting 'He hath sent me', adding 'This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears ...' (Luke 4:18–21; emphasis added). Deuteronomy 18:15, 18; Acts 3:22, 26; Luke 7:16 and Matthew 15:24 prove that He was first 'raised up' as the promised Prophet, then 'sent forth' 'into the world'—strictly, only to Israel! He said (John 17:18; 20:21) that He was sending His disciples 'into the world' on their mission, as mature men who had been on earth for many years, just as His Father had sent Him 'into the world' on His Divine Mission, i.e. as a mature Man who had been on Earth for many years. Neither He nor Scripture ever say that He was 'sent' down from heaven—His coming down from heaven is always portrayed as His acting of His own volition, e.g. John 1:14; 3:13, 31; 6:33 and Philippians 2:7. (REF. 1, pp. 7–8)

Some of the details in this quotation are surprising. For example, as proof that our Lord was not sent down from heaven by the Father but came down of his own volition, the author references John 6:33, but overlooks John 6:32 where our Lord says that the Father gives him as the true bread from heaven, and John 6:38 where he says that he came down from heaven to do the will of him who sent him.

Again, the author seems to imply that, when at Nazareth our Lord said 'Today this Scripture has been fulfilled'—i.e. 'He has sent me to proclaim ...'—he meant 'today' for the first time and never before. How then should we understand Luke 4:15: 'He taught in their synagogues' all round Galilee before he came to Nazareth? Did he preach there without being sent?

But the author's main point is stranger still. His theory demands ex hypothesi that, in spite of the terminology Scripture itself uses, any mention in Scripture of Christ being sent by the Father must refer to his being sent out on his public ministry at the age of thirty; it cannot rightly be thought to apply to anything prior to that. His theory also demands that the phrase 'into the world', when used in connection with Christ being sent into the world, or with Christ coming into the world, must always be taken to mean his entry into the busy world of men's social, political, commercial and religious life at the age of thirty. It must not be taken to mean his entry or his being sent into the world in the sense of being born on our planet earth in the manger at Bethlehem.

The test of the author's theory against Scripture

So let us test the demands of the author's theory against what Scripture says.

We have already considered our Lord's statement in John 16:28: 'I came out from the Father, and have come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father'. We found that, in this context, 'come into the world' must refer to his birth into our world; and 'leave this world' must refer to his death, resurrection and ascension. But this is not an isolated instance. For consider next, John 7:28–29, 33–34. In John 7:28 and John 7:29, Christ speaks about where he came from; in John 7:33–34, he speaks about where he is going to. Let's take verses 33–34 first:

Yet a little while and I am with you, and I go unto him that sent me. You shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, you cannot come.

Where, then, was he going to? The answer: 'to him that sent me'. Where was that? Not to the Jewish diaspora in various other countries of this world, as some Jews imagined (see John 7:35–36). Not to anywhere at all in this world, but to the Father in heaven. How can we be sure about that? Because, in John 13:1, Scripture says so: 'Jesus, knowing that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world to the Father ...'. And again in John 14:2–3: 'In my Father's house are many rooms ... I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go ... I will come again, and will receive you unto myself; that where I am, there you may be also'.

Quite clearly then, where his Father's house was, and still is, is nowhere in this world but in heaven. And there, of course, was the Father: Christ was going to the Father. But notice how Christ describes him, 'I go to him that sent me' (John 7:33).

But when did the Father send him? And where was he sent from? The answers are given in John 7:28–29, where Christ himself declares where he came from:

You both know me, and you know where I come from; and I have not come of myself, but he that sent me is real, whom you do not know. I know him, because I am from him, and he has sent me (John 7:28–29).

If, when Christ speaks of 'going to him that sent me', he means he is going to the Father in heaven, then, when he says that he has come from the one who sent him, he must be saying that the Father sent him from heaven.

But can we be sure of this? Yes, because at that same Feast of Tabernacles he repeated what he had earlier said to them in the verses we have just studied:

He said therefore again unto them, I go away, and you shall seek me, and shall die in your sin: whither I go, you cannot come. The Jews therefore said, Will he kill himself, that he says, Whither I go, you cannot come? And he said unto them, You are from beneath; I am from above: you are of this world; I am not of this world ... he that sent me is true; and the things which I heard from him, these speak I unto the world. (John 8:21–23, 26)

So our Lord is saying quite clearly that he came from above, and that the Father sent him from above; so that what he had heard with the Father he could speak to the world. And in confirmation of this, we have the earlier statement:

He that comes from above is above all: he that is of the earth is of the earth, and of the earth he speaketh: he that cometh from heaven is above all. What he has seen and heard, of that he bears witness; and no one receives his witness. He that has received his witness has set his seal to this, that God is true. For he whom God has sent speaketh the words of God ... (John 3:31–34)

And as for what the term 'come into the world' means, let us listen to our Lord himself as he stands before Pilate and witnesses the good confession: 'To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth' (John 18:37).

I am not denying, of course, that, when the time came for our Lord to leave the obscurity of Nazareth and begin his public ministry, God himself identified him as his 'beloved Son'. What is more, God, who sent John to baptize with water, had given John a sign by which he might recognize that Jesus was the one who would baptize people in the Holy Spirit. That sign was that John would see the Spirit descending upon the Lord Jesus and abiding upon him; and John gives it as his testimony: 'And I have seen, and have borne witness that this is the Son of God' (John 1:34). Nor do I deny that after his baptism he was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil (see Matthew 4:1); and from there he returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee, taught in the synagogues throughout that whole region, and subsequently came to Nazareth, and declared, 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me ... he hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives' (see Luke 4:14–18). But to claim that Scripture indicates that our Lord was not sent into the world by the Father until the age of thirty, is contrary to what the Scriptures themselves say.

We must, of course, observe what Scripture says of the child Jesus: how he advanced in 'wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men' (Luke 2:52). But in what progressive stages the babe, and then the infant, and then the child, and then the grown man came to the full awareness of his God-given mission—this we are not told. But, at the same time, looking back on our Lord's life from his incarnation to his ascension, the apostles were in no doubt that, right from the very start, God sent him as our Saviour. Joseph and Mary were told that when the child was born they had to name him Jesus, 'for he shall save his people from their sins' (Matthew 1:21); and the very night he was born, an angel informed the shepherds, 'there is born to you this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord' (Luke 2:11). And we may be sure that the angel did not say this of his own initiative; he had been sent by God to make the announcement. It would therefore be difficult to think that our Lord did not know the significance of his own name, Jesus, until at thirty years old he was sent out by God to preach.

We may therefore say with confidence that, right from his birth onwards, it was true: 'This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners' (1 Timothy 1:15). And likewise, we may cite the words of John the apostle and know them to be true of Christ right from his birth onwards:

Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God has sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:9–10)

The meaning of the terms 'Son of God' and 'firstborn'

The central element in the author's theory is what he and others have called 'the incarnational Sonship' of our Lord. That means that the title 'Son of God' is not to be thought of as applying to him as a person of the Trinity before his incarnation. The claim is that that title is never used of him in Scripture before his incarnation. It does not, therefore, indicate a relation between the Second Person of the Trinity and the First Person of the Trinity. In other words, according to the author, the title 'Son of God' does not denote the Son's eternal relationship with the Father, for throughout eternity he was not the Son of God and therefore the Father was not the Father. As Creator, it is true that God was the Father of mankind. But if we can allow our minds to go back to before there was any creation, then the author is saying that the First Person of the Trinity was not Father in any sense at all; and the Second Person of the Trinity was not the Son of God. He was the Word of God eternally, but he did not become Son of God until his incarnation. It follows that the term 'Son of God' is not a relational term; i.e., it does not indicate a relationship between Father and Son in the eternal sense.

Incidentally this means, of course, that we must now ask what distinctive name should be given to the First Person of the Trinity. The Third Person of the Trinity has the distinctive name of 'the Spirit', or 'the Spirit of God', or 'the Holy Spirit'; and Hebrews 9:14 describes him as 'the eternal Spirit'; and thus we know that the term 'Spirit of God' is rightly used of the Third Person of the Trinity from all eternity.

Likewise we are told in John 1:1–2 that the term 'the Word' is rightly used of the Second Person of the Trinity from all eternity; for in the beginning the Word already was, and the Word was with God—thus indicating a relationship between the Word and God—and the Word was God.

These titles therefore, 'the Word' and 'the Spirit', are distinctive names within the Godhead. While all three persons of the Godhead are equally God, not all three persons are referred to as the Spirit. The Spirit is the distinctive name given to one of the persons only. Similarly, the title 'the Word' is not given to all three persons of the Godhead; it is the distinctive name of one of them. But if we ask what the distinctive name given to the First Person of the Trinity was from all eternity, we find that the author is unable to tell us what that distinctive name was. Exodus 3:14 tells us that the name of God is i am, indicating his eternal self-existence. But the name i am belongs to all three persons of the Godhead, as the author constantly reminds us. Nor if we come to the creation is it possible to say that the distinctive name of the First Person is 'the Creator', for all three persons of the Godhead were involved in the creation. If then we ask what the distinctive name of the First Person of the Trinity was before the incarnation of our Lord, the author cannot tell us.

The majority Christian view over the long centuries is that the Bible indicates that the distinctive name of the First Person of the Trinity has eternally been the Father, and indicates a relationship between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. But the author holds that this traditional view is contrary to Scripture.

The major basis for the author's interpretation of the term 'the Son'

The main Scripture on which the author bases his interpretation of the term 'the Son' is Luke 1:26–35, and in particular verse 35, where the angel says to Mary 'The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee: therefore also that which is to be born shall be called holy, the Son of God'.

Here everything turns on what is meant in this context by 'the Son of God'. To settle what this term means, the author points out that the Greek word for 'son' is huios, and he insists that the word as used in Luke 1:35 must be understood in its primary sense, and not in any metaphorical sense. He further insists that huios = son signifies the relation of offspring to parent. He then defines the primary meaning as 'male offspring ... descendant ...' and he further claims that, in the two hundred or so New Testament references to our Lord Jesus Christ as Son, it is very clear in each case that its primary meaning—i.e., 'male offspring ... descendant ...', is intended by the Holy Spirit.

As we have said, the crucial Scripture in this context is Luke 1:34–35. Mary's response to the initial announcement by Gabriel was to question, 'How shall this be, seeing I have no husband?'. Gabriel's reply was, 'The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee'. In other words, this is how it shall be brought about. 'Therefore', said Gabriel, 'that which is to be born shall be called holy, the Son of God'. In other words, so the author claims, Gabriel is giving the reason why Jesus is to be called the Son of God: because he was produced by the operation of the Most High God upon Mary. Gabriel was announcing, therefore, that the 'holy thing' to be born of Mary would be the 'male offspring', the 'descendant' of 'the Highest', and therefore 'shall be called the Son of the Highest ... the Son of God'.

The author also asks us to notice that, in making this announcement, Gabriel used the future tense, 'shall be' in both cases—that is, in reference both to the term 'Son of the Highest' and to the term 'the Son of God'—thus implying that these were not his names at the time when Gabriel made his announcement. He believes this confirms that there are no unambiguous mentions of a divine Son of God prior to his birth. The title Son of God would only belong to Christ at and after his birth, for the simple reason that the very term Son of God means that he had been born of Mary as a result of the power of God operating in her.

The author also argues that this is why the name 'God the Father' is never used in Scripture prior to Christ's birth, for no one becomes a father until his first child is born. He realizes, of course, that many scholars and theologians would claim that the Hebrew term bēn and the Greek term huios are used for Christ as Son not in the primary but in the metaphorical sense. But he claims that this argument is unsustainable. His ground for saying this is that 'the metaphorical use of son is obviously only meaningful because it derives its significance from the primary meaning of the word'! Further, a metaphorical father precedes his sons, who become his sons later in time! That Mary would conceive and bring forth a son is clearly to be taken literally, not metaphorically. He would be her male offspring. The author argues that Gabriel's reference to Christ being given 'the throne of his father David' shows that he would be 'the male . . . descendant', the Son of David in the primary and not the metaphorical sense (see Matthew 1:1; also see Matthew 22:41–46).

That the latter title is to be taken in the primary sense is confirmed by 2 Samuel 7:12 where Yahweh, through the prophet Nathan, tells David 'I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom ... for ever'. That the 'seed', i.e. Christ, would proceed out of David's bowels—his internal organs—could hardly be more literal and physical! If the Holy Spirit used huios in its primary sense for Christ as Son of David, would it not be quite untenable to claim that he used it only metaphorically for him as Son of God? Hence, the argument goes, Son is definitely used by Gabriel in the literal, basic, primary sense, and not the metaphorical sense. Surely it is indisputable that when huios or bēn are used for Christ as Son, they are to be understood in their primary sense, that is, meaning 'male offspring ... descendant'—whether in his post-incarnational titles of Son of God, Son of the Highest, Son of David, or wherever Son is used of him in either the New Testament or Old Testament.

Comments on this theory

It is to be noticed here that this argument is basically a linguistic argument; for it is claimed that the word Son in these contexts must be understood in its primary sense, and not in any metaphorical sense. Quite obviously, the author considers that the only two possible ways of understanding the word is either to take it literally, or to take it metaphorically. But linguistically, of course, the matter is not quite so simple.

Let us take as an example the everyday meaning of the English word 'office'. Would it be true to say that everywhere the term office is used, it must be understood in its primary meaning? If so, we should have to ask what is meant by the term 'primary' in speaking of the meaning of this term?

The word office comes originally from the Latin word officium, and in Latin that word already meant different things. Originally it meant 'a voluntary service done for someone else'. In some contexts it eventually came to indicate 'duty'; that is, a service that one 'owed' to someone else. A voluntary service and a duty, of course, have in some contexts opposite meanings; and therefore, to ascertain what these words mean in any one context, one has to consider what the context is. In other words, it is context that determines the specific meaning of a term.

Again, in modern English we can use the word office of a position or a function that someone occupies or fulfils. Thus we speak of the office of home secretary, or say that So-and-so holds the office of foreign secretary. But we can also use it in modern English of the room in which a person works.

These then are all connotations of the word office, and it must be obvious that if we insisted that the term should always and in every context be given its primary meaning, we should have first to ask what we mean by the term 'primary'. Do we mean the original meaning that the word carried, or do we mean the meaning of the word in the majority of cases where it is used? And if we picked on any one meaning as the primary meaning, and insisted that in every place where it is used it must have this primary meaning, it would surely lead to much confusion.

If we are to use an argument based on semantics and linguistic principles we must make sure that we have understood clearly the principles of semantics, and then we should define our terms.

But perhaps this example will seem far from the usage of the term Son of God in Scripture. So let us now turn to Scripture and see in what senses it actually uses the term, son of God:

• Job 1:6; 38:7. The angels are referred to as 'sons of God', which incidentally is the reason why Hebrews 1 goes to great lengths to point out that, when Christ is termed 'Son' [of God], his sonship is of a very different order to that of the angels, and infinitely superior to it. The angels, of course, were created by God through the agency of 'the Son of [the Father's] love' (Colossians 1:12–16). What, then, is the meaning of the term sons of God as applied to angels? Are we to insist here on its primary sense, and say that the angels were the male offspring and descendants of God? Obviously not! In the first place, we have no grounds for thinking that the angels are either male or female, and they were certainly not begotten of God. They certainly did not come out of his 'bowels' (cf. 2 Samuel 7:12). God created them out of nothing.

• Luke 3:38. Adam is said to have been the 'son of God'. To see that this is so, one will have to start reading this passage from verse 23 onwards. In what sense, then, is the term son of God used in connection with Adam? Are we to insist that the term son must be here understood in the primary sense: that Adam was the 'male offspring and descendant' of God? Obviously not! Are we to think that he was begotten by God? No, for we are told in detail how Adam came to be. Genesis 1 and 2 tell us that he was made, or created by God; not that he was begotten by God. Hebrew Scripture is insistent that man was not an emanation from God, as Hinduism or neo-Platonism teach. Adam was made of the dust of the ground, and God then breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Adam then was not a male offspring or descendant of God; he was a mere creature.

• John 1:12. Believers today are said by the New Testament to be children of God, since they have been born of God. Believers are also said to be sons of God by adoption: 'But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons' (Galatians 4:4–5). And again, talking of the glorious future of the children of God, Romans 8:23 says, 'even we, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption [our placing as sons], the redemption of our body'.

Would it be right then, to insist that our being born as the children of God must be taken in the physical, literal, and what the author calls the primary sense of the term—we are children of God physically, by physical generation? Obviously not! Being born of God does not mean that we are male descendants of God. John 3, talking of the same process, indicates that we have been born of the Spirit. It is a spiritual birth. Of course, it is nonetheless literal, in the sense of real, because it is a spiritual birth, but it is not a physical birth.

It is similar with the term 'adoption as sons' when applied to believers, whether now or at our future glorification. The word 'adoption' in adoption of sons, as used in ancient Roman families in the times of the New Testament, indicates the father's public acceptance of a male child as his legal son and heir. And the same term, when applied to our future glorification, reminds us of the time when God will display his people before the whole universe in their full glory, with bodies like our Lord's spiritual body, forever incorruptible.

With these examples before our minds, how can we adhere to the author's linguistic thesis, that the word son in Scripture, and particularly when applied to our Lord as Son of God, must be understood in its primary sense, and not in any other sense? The author's answer, I imagine, would be that the account of our Lord's birth given in Luke chapter 1 indicates here at least that his birth was a physical birth, and therefore the term Son of God must be understood in the physical sense. He was the male offspring, descendant of God in what the author calls the primary sense—that is, the physical, literal, and not the metaphorical sense.

Obviously we must return to Luke's record of Mary's virginal conception and the birth of our Lord, and examine it more closely. But before we do that, let's pause to consider another title that is given to the Lord Jesus in the New Testament, to ask what it means when applied to him and whether it always carries its basic meaning.

The meaning of the term 'firstborn'

The basic meaning of the term 'firstborn' is the first son to be born to a father. In the Hebrew of the Old Testament, Reuben is said to be Jacob's firstborn son (see Genesis 49:3). But it implied more than simply being the first son to be born: being the firstborn meant having the primacy and pre-eminence over all the other sons. In addition, the firstborn had special benefits and rights, known as the birthright, or the right of primogeniture as we might call it. Hence the mere term firstborn normally carried these additional connotations.

But then, in Hebrew thinking and practice, the honour and pre-eminent position of the one born first, along with the material benefits, could be taken away from the son who was actually born first and given to some other son or sons who were not actually and literally born first.

As an example we may cite Reuben again. Though he was and always remained Israel's firstborn, the other connotations of the term, the 'birthright', the primacy and pre-eminence, were taken away from him as a result of his sin. The birthright was given to the sons of Joseph; while the primacy, pre-eminence and supremacy were given to Judah, 'who prevailed above his brethren, and of him came the prince' (1 Chronicles 5:1–2).

It is easy to understand therefore, how in Hebrew the term firstborn came to be used in some contexts not in its basic physical sense—i.e. born first, but in its connotational sense of primacy, pre-eminence, supremacy. When, for instance, Isaiah speaks of 'the firstborn of the poor' (Isaiah 14:30), he does not mean the first son to be born to a poor father. He means those who are supremely poor (cf. 'the firstborn of death' in Job 18:13).

In Exodus 4, within the space of two verses, 'firstborn' is used first in its connotational sense, and then in its basic sense. Says God to Pharaoh, 'Israel is my son, my firstborn' (Exodus 4:22). Now, Israel as a nation was not the first nation to arise on earth; it was in fact a latecomer among the nations. But in God's eyes and purposes, Israel was the nation that carried the birthright and was destined to hold the primacy, the pre-eminence and supreme position, among all the other nations (cf. Exodus 19:5). But in the very next verse in Exodus 4, God uses the term firstborn in its basic sense. Because of Pharaoh's obdurate defiance of God, God says to him: 'I will slay thy son, thy firstborn' (Exodus 4:23). He meant the son who was physically born first in Pharaoh's family, along with all the firstborn sons in all the other Egyptian families.

Similarly, David was not the first son to be born to his father, Jesse (see 1 Samuel 16:6–13); and when he became king he was not the first king to sit on his nation's throne, let alone the first king ever to sit upon a throne anywhere in the world. Yet talking of David in Psalm 89:19–37 God says, 'I will also make him my firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth' (Psalm 89:27). Here obviously it is the connotation—supreme, pre-eminent—that carries the intended meaning.

From this we learn to distinguish between a word's basic meaning on the one hand, and its connotation(s), which may carry the intended meaning in other contexts. It would not be good exegesis to insist that a term like son or firstborn must always and in every context carry its basic meaning.

Now consider the title firstborn as applied to the Lord Jesus. In Luke 2:7 it is used of Christ in its basic meaning: '[Mary] brought forth her firstborn son'. The Lord Jesus was literally and physically the first child that Mary bore.

At Colossians 1:18, Christ is called 'the firstborn from the dead'. Here already a certain tinge of metaphor has crept into the term. His resurrection was certainly a physical thing. His body was a material body that had flesh and bone. But this resurrection was not a birth in exactly the same sense as was his birth to Mary.

At Colossians 1:15 the Son of God's love is said to be 'the firstborn of all creation'; and here, if we were to insist that the term 'firstborn' must carry its basic meaning, we should run straight into heresy. Firstborn of all creation does not mean that Christ was the first being in the whole universe to be created. The angels were created but he was not created. He was not even the first of all the other creatures to be created: he was not a creature at all.

Colossians 1:16 immediately goes on to explain in what sense the term firstborn is used here. For it does not say simply that in him all things were created, but in him were 'the all things'—Greek: not panta = all things, but ta panta = the all things; and 'the all things' is the Greek for the whole created universe and everything within it. He himself was not within it. He created the universe: he did not create himself, nor did anyone else create him. According to Colossians 1 then, the Son of God's love in relation to God is the exact representation and manifestation of the invisible God. In relation to the created universe he is the firstborn in the connotational sense: he is the one who has priority over it because he created it, and he is before all things (Colossians 1:17). And not only priority, but pre-eminence, supremacy and dominion.³ And since the firstborn of the whole of creation is, says the verse, not was, but is eternally before all things; and since creation took place before the incarnation, the title firstborn proclaims his pre-existence.

Some implications of the author's explanation of the incarnation

The author's explanation of the incarnation rests on two basic propositions, as we saw from his statements quoted above:

1. That the term 'Son' in the phrase 'Son of God', must here and everywhere else be understood in its basic—he calls it 'primary'—physical sense.

2. That the term 'begotten', when applied to the Son of God—e.g. 'the only begotten Son of God'—must likewise be understood in its basic, physical sense. Just as God promised David that he would set up David's seed after him, which would proceed out of his bowels and obviously must be understood in the literal, physical sense; and that God would be a father to David's son, and David's son would be a son to God; so God's begetting of his Son through Mary must be understood in this same literal and physical sense. Mary's child therefore is to be called the Son of God in the literal and physical sense, because the begetting was literal and physical. The term Son of God means that Christ was the male offspring and descendant of God in the literal and physical sense. Consequently, the term Son of God, strictly speaking, refers solely to Christ's physical human being and human nature.

Of course, to speak of God's Son coming physically out of God's bowels, as David's sons came out of his, would be highly inappropriate and grossly improper; and the author believes nothing so crude. But here is his description of the physical processes involved in the conception and birth of God's Son: the description is taken, the author tells us, from a sermon by a godly pastor who actually adheres to the 'orthodox' doctrine:

That dear, godly young woman [i.e. Mary] ... was supernaturally impregnated with a Seed—not taken from a man, but created by Almighty God—and it was the Holy Spirit who implanted that Seed into the womb of Mary ... The Seed did not come from a man, it came from the creative power of Almighty God—that is the Virgin Birth you see! That Seed was put into that woman by God, supernaturally, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Well, certainly we must all agree that God prepared a body for the Lord Jesus, for Scripture tells us so (see Hebrews 10:5). But according to the author's understanding of this suggested process, this seed, though supernaturally created by God and supernaturally implanted, was nevertheless human seed, such as God created in Adam, for the result was the birth of the Son of God; and this title, the author insists, denotes simply and solely Christ's human body and nature.

If this is indeed the truth of the matter, then it certainly reduces the requirements for the reception by us of eternal life. For now, '[These signs] are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in his name' (John 20:31), means only, 'that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, a physical human being with a human body and human nature'.

It would also mean that, although Jesus was and still is the Son of God, his sonship was of a lower order than ours. For we are children and then sons of God by a spiritual birth, begotten not physically but spiritually. By contrast, the Son of God became Son of God by a physical birth which, though supernaturally produced, was still only physical.

These implications, I confess, seem to me to be very serious indeed. But two further questions arise:

1. How does the author know that his description of the physical processes that went on in Mary's womb describes what actually happened? Matthew tells us simply, 'the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: ... she was found with child of the Holy Spirit ... for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit' (Matthew 1:18, 20). Luke's account says simply 'The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee [Mary], and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee' (Luke 1:35). Nothing is said in Scripture about God creating a special seed supernaturally and the Holy Spirit implanting this seed supernaturally as a substitute for the contribution of a human father. The Holy Spirit has told us nothing about the actual physical processes involved. He allows the sacred mystery of the virgin birth to remain a holy mystery. The author's explanation is plainly conjecture, which he adds to the Holy Spirit's words. Is there not a danger here that the author is doing what he constantly warns us not to do; namely, adding to the Spirit's words?

2. But a still more serious question arises: how does the author know that his explanation tells us all that went on in Mary's womb at the incarnation? If all that went on merely produced Christ's human body and nature, which is what he says the term Son of God means, then when did the eternal Word become flesh? Did that not happen until after the Son of God (in the author's sense) was born? And if so, how long after?

These are not irrelevant and unimportant questions: an ancient heresy called adoptionism taught that at first Jesus was simply a human being, and only some time later was adopted by God as his divine Son. Some modernists teach this still.

We know, of course, that the child in Mary's womb, while yet unborn, was already a human being. And we know from Psalm 139:13–16 that God watches over the growth of the as-yet-unborn child in the womb. And we know that God said of Jeremiah 'before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee' (Jeremiah 1:5).

I ask therefore, with the deepest reverence, was not the child in Mary's womb already the Word become flesh, and not simply a human being that only sometime later became God incarnate? If this is so, then the term Son of God, as applied to Mary's child, did not refer simply to his human nature; it was already the divinely given name of the God-man.

Who, after all, is Jesus? People, even believers, often speak as if there were two persons in Jesus. One person was human; the other person was the Word, who was eternally God and never ceased to be God, but came and dwelt in Christ. And they further speak as if on some occasions the human person did and said various things, and on other occasions the divine person did and said things. But this will not do. When God dwelt in the Old Testament tabernacle, he did not become the tabernacle. But when the Word came into our world, he did not merely inhabit a body of flesh: he became flesh.

Jesus was not two persons in one body. He was, and still is, one person with two natures. He certainly is truly human, but he is simultaneously God. Christ came of the Jewish race according to the flesh, but he is simultaneously '[God] over all, blessed for ever' (Romans 9:5).

In Titus 2:13–14 Scripture speaks of our Lord's future appearance. The term 'appearance' used here (Greek = epiphaneia) is not used in the New Testament of God the Father, but solely of Christ. The best manuscripts describe that appearance as being 'the appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ'; not as 'the appearance of our Great God and of our Saviour Jesus Christ', as though referring to two persons. Our Lord Jesus is not two persons. He is one person with two natures. He is simultaneously God and man. He is our great God and Saviour.

Moreover, here at Titus 2:13–14, Paul tells us that it was this 'great God and Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, in order to redeem us'. The New Testament never says that God died for us; but if the one who died for us was merely man and not simultaneously God, then none of us is saved. It would not be possible for a mere man to take away the sin of the world. So if in Titus 2, Paul says it was our great God and Saviour who gave himself for us at Calvary, there can be no doubt what Paul meant by the term Son of God, when he says in Galatians 2:20, 'The Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me'. He was not referring simply to the giving of Christ's human body and nature for him. He was referring to the eternal Word made flesh, the Son of God, that is, the God-man.

Some Further Observations

Remarks taken from the author's Appendix: a sermon by William Romaine

The godly and greatly respected William Romaine was one of the leaders of the eighteenth century Evangelical Revival. We honour his memory. He followed the interpretation that Calvin put upon the distinctive names of the three persons of the Trinity. According to this interpretation, the terms 'Father', 'Son' and 'Holy Spirit' are names which the persons of the Godhead agreed among themselves to adopt when they set about the work of the redemption of mankind. Those names were designed to indicate not their inherent nature, but the distinctive offices which they would sustain in their redemptive operations towards us. Hence these names are said, in technical language, to be the names of the 'economic' Trinity. As a Calvinist, Romaine also talks about a covenant of grace that the divine persons made between themselves before creation, in which they distributed among themselves these economic functions, and the name appropriate to each function.

This account of the making of this covenant and of the distribution of functions and names owes more, perhaps, to reverent imagination than to explicit Scripture; but we need not stay to discuss that here. It is one of the implications of this theory of the economic Trinity, that the names it uses of the divine persons simply tell us of their divine offices towards us in the course of our redemption; but they do not necessarily tell us anything about what the persons of the Trinity were eternally in themselves and in their eternal interpersonal relations. To put it another way, there was little or nothing in the persons of the Trinity in themselves that answers to the names which they adopted for the purposes of our redemption.

We should also remember that Romaine was reacting against the claim of Origen and his followers, that the Second Person of the Trinity was of the same nature as the First Person, because the Second Person was begotten by the First Person before the universe was created; hence the names Father and Son.

With these preliminary remarks, let us listen to Mr Romaine's explanation, which the author has taken from a sermon titled 'The Self-Existence of Jesus Christ', 1755:

According to the plan of this covenant one of the divine Persons agreed to demand infinite satisfaction for sin, when mankind should offend, and to be the Father of the human nature of Jesus Christ, and our Father through him; and therefore he is called God the Father, not to describe his nature, but his office. Another of the divine Persons covenanted to become a Son, to take our nature upon him, and in it to pay the infinite satisfaction for sin, and therefore he is called Son, Son of God, and such like names, not to describe his divine nature but his divine office.

Comment on Romaine's view of an 'economic' Trinity

Our first comment should perhaps be—and this is not said in any hypercritical spirit—that this quotation shows how easily all of us confuse each other by giving our own different meanings to the same technical and semi-technical terms. So in what follows, let me try to explain what I mean by the technical terms I use.

I believe that all three persons of the Trinity are of the same nature, and I mean by that their essential being: each of them is God. Each is homoousios with the other two. And I believe this because Scripture indicates that each divine person is God, and not, or not simply, because of the names of Father, Son and Spirit which they bear. For the ascription of deity to the Holy Spirit, see Exodus 34:34: 'Moses went in before the lord' = Hebrew, Yahweh = Greek Kyrios. And then 2 Corinthians 3:17, 'Now the Lord [= Kyrios = Yahweh] is the Spirit'. I agree with Romaine, therefore, that the names of Father and Son do not necessarily describe the nature of these divine persons.

But when Romaine states that these names indicate not nature but office, it seems to me that his statement falls short of what Scripture says:

1. Firstly, Scripture says that the only begotten Son is in the bosom of the Father (see John 1:18)—he is so, eternally; not merely he was so, i.e. before his incarnation. Moreover, he is in the bosom of the Father; that is, in the most intimate fellowship with the Father. Note the term Father: this intimate fellowship between the Son and the Father is not describing an office; it is describing a relationship. It is because of that permanent relationship between the Son and the Father that the Son was able to 'declare', to 'tell out fully', to 'exegete' the Father. I find it impossible to believe that this intimate relationship between the Father and the Son only began from the incarnation onwards. That the Son functions towards us as the image of the invisible God—that is, as the perfect representation and manifestation of God—is precisely because of his eternal relationship to God, as Son with the Father.

2. Secondly, Galatians 4:5–6 announces that we are sons of God by adoption. That is not an expression of our office, but of our relationship and status with the Father. Our office is expressed by terms such as 'servants'. Moreover, Scripture adds this: 'And because you are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, "Abba, Father"'. It is because God has placed the Spirit of his Son in our hearts that we can enjoy and express the reality of this relationship with his Father. Even in human relationships, when a child addresses his parent as Dad, he is not expressing an office, but a relationship. But if the term Father, made known to us in his Son, does not answer to anything eternal in the character of God, then we have no ground for believing that our Father-child, Father-son relationship with him will be eternal.

3. Thirdly, we come to something strange in Romaine's explanation of the meaning of the term Father as used of God: it means, 'He agreed ... to be the Father of the human nature of Jesus Christ, and our Father through him'. But if the term Father, when used in connection with the Son, means no more than that God became the father of the human nature of Jesus Christ, then the term Father in relation to us cannot mean anything more than, through Christ God has become the Father of our human nature. Similarly, God's sending forth of 'the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying "Abba, Father"' signifies nothing more than we have now received from the Father physical human life and nature! Which is very strange—since, according to the Greek grammar of this passage, it is the Spirit who does the crying. Can it really be true that, while that which is born of flesh is flesh, and only that which is born of the Spirit can enter the kingdom of God, nevertheless 'being begotten of water and of the Spirit' means simply receiving a human body and human nature?

How consistent is the author's logic?

To reiterate, throughout his papers the author repeatedly insists on two, among other, basic points:

1. The term Son (Greek huios) when applied to Christ must be understood in its simple, primary, everyday meaning: physical male offspring; male descendant.

2. The title Son of God, therefore, cannot be applied to the Second Person of the Trinity before his incarnation. The reason is that the term in its simple primary sense would imply that the Second Person of the Trinity had a beginning. To say that he was eternally the Son, and that the First Person of the Trinity was eternally the Father, would be a contradiction in terms. Even if used metaphorically, the terms Father and Son would imply that the Father was in some sense the source of the Son, or had some kind of priority over the Son; and that in turn would imply that the Son had a beginning of some sort. This then would deny the eternality and self-existence of the Second Person of the Trinity.

But suppose we were to use the same arguments that the author uses in connection with the title Son, and apply them to that other title that is given to the Second Person of the Trinity in Scripture, namely, the Word, what would happen? The result would be such that neither the author nor any other true believer would accept.

The meaning of the title 'the Word'

We should first argue that the meaning of this title 'the Word' (Greek = the Logos) must be nothing other than the primary sense of Logos, namely the simple meaning it carries in ordinary everyday Greek. The trouble is that the term logos in Greek has a whole array of meanings and connotations that have developed out of the basic meaning, 'something spoken'.

But suppose we limit ourselves to the New Testament. Logos occurs there some hundreds of times in various senses: 'saying', 'preaching', 'mere word in contrast to power', 'the word of God', or 'of the gospel', a 'reckoning', etc. Which of these meanings ought we to apply to the title, 'the Logos'?

The author would not have us consider the meanings that the Greek philosophers or the Jewish rabbis gave to the term logos; so let us refrain from doing so. Let us try to decide which of the many meanings and connotations of the term logos in the New Testament is the simple primary meaning of the term when used of Christ. This is difficult, for the title 'the Logos' (as distinct from just 'logos') only occurs three or four times in the New Testament.

But the author cannot object if we use the same kind of philosophical logic which he uses in connection with the terms Father and Son. We must not use these terms, he argues, for the pre-incarnational persons. 'Son' would imply that the Father was the source of the Son, or had some priority of existence over the Son!

Very good. But a saying, discourse or word cannot exist by itself. A word cannot exist until it is thought, or spoken, or written by someone. If the Second Person of the Trinity is to be called the Word in the ordinary, everyday, simple meaning of the term, then we must ask: Who spoke this Word? Whose Word was it? Undeniably, the speaker of a word has priority over the word spoken.

In Revelation 19:13, our Lord's name is called 'the Word of God'. In that case, then—to use the author's kind of logic—the Word has his source in God. On such ground as this, the author denies that the title, Son, can be used of the Second Person before the incarnation. But he cannot argue on this ground that the title, the Word, is only applied to Christ after the incarnation. Nor does he wish to do so. He believes in the eternal Word. But why this inconsistency? If his arguments would be unsound when applied to the Word, they are unsound when applied to the Son.

But stronger arguments arise when we consider exactly what Scripture says of the Word: 'All things were made through him' (John 1:3), i.e., through the Word. This tells us explicitly that the Word was God's agent in creation; and this is how Scripture elsewhere speaks of the role of the Second Person of the Trinity in the work of creation (see Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:2): God was the originator; the Word was the agent.

Now, in everyday life in our world, the originator of a project has at least a logical, if not an actual and temporal, priority over the agent whom he uses to achieve his project. But when it comes to the interrelationship of the divine persons before and at creation, we must be careful before we insist that the distinctive names of the three persons are subject to exactly the same inferences being drawn from them, as those same names would be in our day-to-day human experience (though the author apparently rejects this last point).

And there is another point. The author so emphasizes the self-existence of the three persons that sometimes he is in danger of seeming actually to believe in three independent, self-existent Gods. The fact is that each is self-existent because each is Yahweh; but there is only one Yahweh, not three self-existent Yahwehs. Moreover, though each person is distinct, yet Scripture indicates that each person is involved in the work of the other two.

For example, Scripture says that God created the world (see Genesis 1:1); the Son was the agent (see Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:2); and the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters (see Genesis 1:2). At the cross, God delivered up his Son for us all (see Romans 8:32); the Son gave himself up for us (see Galatians 2:20), as an offering and a sacrifice to God (see Ephesians 5:2); and through the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God (see Hebrews 9:14).

The words 'begotten' and 'only begotten'

According to the author, the Greek verb gennaō in Scripture must always and invariably refer to physical birth: it cannot be thought to be used in any metaphorical sense. Hence, when Acts 13:33 quotes Psalm 2:7, 'Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee', it cannot refer to Christ's resurrection, as many scholars have thought and still think: it must refer to Christ's birth through Mary.

Now, it is true that many other scholars hold that it does not refer to Christ's resurrection; they tend to equate it with the divine acclamation of Christ at his baptism, when a voice out of heaven proclaimed, 'Thou art My beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased' (Luke 3:22). But the author cannot accept this interpretation, because Christ's baptism was not a physical begetting or birth. To refer the begetting to Christ's baptism would imply that it was a metaphorical begetting, and that would break the author's basic linguistic rule.

But if the author's interpretation is right, it would imply that at the actual birth—'Today, I have begotten thee'—God said all of the following, not to Mary through the angel Gabriel, but to the new-born infant:

I will declare the decree: the lord said unto me: 'Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee. Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel'. (Psalm 2:7–9)

This interpretation might well seem unlikely in itself; but in addition we surely have to consider the fact that in the psalm it is the Messiah himself who speaks: 'I will declare the decree, the lord said unto me ... today I have begotten thee'. This raises the question: when did the Messiah, the Lord Jesus, declare this?

The best answer to this question will be the one that observes the position at which Messiah's declaration occurs in the dramatic thought flow of Psalm 2, and the stage in his argument at which Paul cites the declaration in his sermon in Acts 13.

The place of the declaration in Psalm 2

1. Psalm 2:1–3: first comes the rage of the nations and their kings against the Lord and against his anointed.

2. Psalm 2:4–6: next we have God's response to this rage against his anointed, and God's announcement of his installation of his king upon his holy hill of Zion.

3. Psalm 2:7–9: there then follows the anointed king's declaration of God's decree, stating the terms of the installation and the consequences that will flow from it:

Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee. Ask of me and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.

4. Psalm 2:10–12: finally, the inspired psalmist calls upon the kings and judges of the earth, in the light of the installation of the anointed and the certainty of his coming judgment, to kiss the son, i.e., to repent and make their peace with him before he executes that judgment.

The New Testament's interpretation of this psalm

1. Acts 10:38. This refers to the anointing of Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, and to the fact, now in the past, that after the anointing Jesus had gone about doing good. The anointing took place at the beginning of his public ministry (see Luke 3:21–22; 4:1, 14, 18). Acts then goes on to tell how the Jews slew Jesus and hanged him on a tree. But God raised him from the dead; and he is ordained of God to be the Judge of living and dead (Acts 10:39–42).

2. Acts 4:25–30. Here the early Christians actually quote Psalm 2:1–2. They cite the rage of the rulers against God's anointed as having been especially vented at the crucifixion; and now they appeal to God to empower them, the believers, to do miracles through the name of Jesus, now, of course, risen and ascended.

3. Acts 13:33. Here again Psalm 2 is quoted, this time by Paul in the course of a sermon in the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch. He cites simply verse 7: 'Thou art my Son; today have I begotten thee'. This verse, we remember, is the verse which we mentioned at the beginning of our discussion, where we pointed out that it cannot be a prophecy of Christ's birth. The issue at stake is whether it is a prophecy of God's acclaim at Christ's baptism, or whether it is a statement of the risen Christ at his ascension, installation, and enthronement. The order of the four parts in Psalm 2 would tend to the view that it was a statement by God's anointed at his installation, and had to do with the announcement of his coming worldwide reign and execution of judgment. But at what point does Paul introduce it in his sermon?

a. Acts 13:23–25. The coming to Israel of the Saviour, prepared for and introduced, by John the Baptist.

b. Acts 13:27–28. The crucifixion brought about by the Jewish people and their rulers in concert with the Roman Pilate: i.e. once more, the rage of the rulers against the Lord and his anointed, as Psalm 2 puts it.

And now, if Paul is following the order of contents of the Psalm, we should expect him to conclude this part b. of his sermon with an equivalent of God's response to the rage of the people. And that is what in fact we find in Acts 13:30–31: 'But God raised him from the dead: and he was seen many days of those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses unto the people'.

Again, if Paul is following the order and contents of Psalm 2, we should expect his sermon to have two more elements:

c. Some equivalent of the declaration of the divine decree at the installation.

d. Some equivalent of the appeal to the raging rebels to be reconciled to God and his king, to 'kiss the Son' before he rises up to judge the unrepentant.

It is easy to see that Paul has an equivalent of element d. In Acts 13:38–39 he pronounces God's offer of justification, forgiveness and peace through Christ; and follows it in Acts 13:40–41 by a warning of coming judgment on those who continue to despise and reject God and his anointed.

But what about the intervening verses 13:32–37: do they contain an equivalent of the decree at the installation? Why yes, of course; for Paul now cites three passages from the Old Testament. The first is from Psalm 2, and is in fact the Messiah's declaration of the decree: 'Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee' (Acts 13:32–33). The second and third quotations are from Isaiah 55:3: 'I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David'; and from Psalm 16:10: 'You will not let your holy one see corruption'.

All three quotations, says Paul, were prophecies and promises of God's raising up of Jesus. The second and third are explicitly said by Paul to have been fulfilled in the raising up of Jesus from the dead. agapētos What, then, does the raising up of Jesus in the first prophecy refer to and when was that fulfilled? Some scholars think that, since the second and third quotations refer to God's raising Jesus from the dead, it is better to take the first quotation as referring to God raising up Jesus, and acclaiming him as his Son at his baptism. And maybe that is the true explanation. If so, in the famous statement, 'today I have begotten thee', 'begotten' still does not refer to Christ's physical birth. It is what the author would refer to as a 'metaphorical begetting'.

But in the light of the order of contents in Psalm 2, and of the order of Paul's argument in his sermon, it is more likely that the first quotation also refers to Christ's resurrection, installation and enthronement. 'Thou art my Son, this day I have begotten thee' would then match the statement of Romans 1:3–4:

Concerning his Son ... who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh; and declared to be the Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by his resurrection from the dead.

In this case, both the first quotation, and the second and third quotations, would refer to Christ's resurrection: the first quotation to the fact of his resurrection as declaring his divine Sonship; the second and third quotations as explaining the nature of Christ's resurrection. Unlike Lazarus's resurrection, after which Lazarus eventually returned to corruption, the resurrection of Christ was such that he would never see corruption.

But on this explanation, the statement, 'thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee', still does not refer to Christ's physical birth at his incarnation, any more than it does on the other possible explanation given above. The resurrection of Christ's body was as physical as the birth of his body was. But it was not a physical begetting.

And in this connection, we might cite what Peter says of believers: 'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who ... begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead' (1 Peter 1:3). God's begetting of us was not a physical begetting either.

The term 'only' in 'only begotten'

In Greek the term is monogenēs, and its basic meaning is 'only one of its kind'. It is used in this sense of an only son (Luke 7:12), or of an only daughter (Luke 8:42). The Hebrew equivalent of 'only' in this sense of an only child is yāḥîd. But this word has many connotations. A parent, for instance, tends to have special affection for an only child: yāḥîd, therefore, can carry the connotation 'specially beloved'. For other connotations see Genesis 22:2, 12: 'only one'; Jeremiah 6:26: 'only son'; Proverbs 4:3: 'only beloved'; Psalms 22:20; 35:17: 'darling'.

In the sentence 'Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest' (Genesis 22:2), 'thine only son' represents the Hebrew yāḥîd; and so does 'thine only son' in verse 16. When the Jews in Alexandria translated Genesis into Greek about 280 BC, they rendered the phrase, 'thine only son whom thou lovest', by 'the beloved one whom thou lovedst' (Genesis 22:2). Here, 'the beloved one' represents yāḥîd. Similarly, in verse 16 they rendered yāḥîd by 'the beloved one' (Greek: agapētos).

We do not know, of course, in what language the voice from heaven spoke at Christ's baptism. But in Matthew's Greek it reads, 'This is my Son, the beloved one (Greek agapētos = Hebrew yāḥîd).

In Hebrews 11:17, however, when the writer speaks of Abraham offering up Isaac, he uses as the equivalent of the Hebrew yāḥîd, the Greek word monogenēs. This Greek word in this context certainly means 'only' son, for Isaac was the only son to whom God had spoken the promise, 'In Isaac shall thy seed be called': Isaac was 'the only one of its kind', 'the one and only'. But to translate monogenēs here as 'only begotten' would not be exactly true to the historical fact, for Abraham had begotten another son, Ishmael, before he begat Isaac.

Since, then, Hebrews 11:17 is referring to Genesis 22:2 and 16, it could be that monogenēs in Hebrews 11:17 is meant to be the equivalent of the Hebrew yāḥîd, which certainly means 'only one', and can indicate an only son or daughter; but by itself it has no element of 'begetting' in it. Strictly speaking, even monogenēs in Greek has no element of begetting in it: it means an 'only one of its kind'. That is why, when monogenēs is used of God's Son, the Lord Jesus, translators nowadays tend to use the term [God's] only Son, or [his] one and only Son, rather than the term only begotten Son.

But for a fuller and more satisfactory discussion of this term see:

• The entry yāhid in R. Laird Harris; Gleason L. Archer, Jr; Bruce K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, Chicago, Moody Press, 1980, Vol. 1, pp. 372–373.

• The entry 'only begotten' in W. E. Vine, An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, London, Oliphants, 1978 (23rd impression), p. 140.

Finally, in light of the author's remark, 'Further, it seems that little has changed today' (ESEF p. 7, line 5) it would be helpful to read:

• Thomas F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being, Three Persons, Edinburgh & New York, T. & T. Clark, 1996 (ppb. 2001), p. 48.

• D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, IVP, Leicester, England, 1991, pp. 342–344, 358.

¹ A Libyan ascetic, whose teachings, which emphasized God the Father's uniqueness and Christ's subordination under the Father, made him a primary topic of the First Council of Nicaea.

² Frances M. Young with Andrew Teal, SCM Press, London, 1983, 2010.

³ Cf. J. B. Lightfoot, Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians and to Philemon, London and New York, Macmillan, revised edition, 1890, pp. 144–155.