This ought to be at the front of my mind, of course, and Mike Ovey would be ashamed of my need to ask, but given that I never studied Christian Doctrine properly (!), I wonder if you could give this the once over for orthodoxy. I'm thinking of preaching this kind of thing on Sunday morning with as few big words as possible.
(1) The Son is ontologically and essentially equal to the Father
(2) The Son is enternally relationally subordinate to the Father. This relational subordination is both according to his nature as Son and voluntary.
(3) According to his human nature, the Incarnate Son is inferior to the Father.
This "equality but difference" provides a model for the submission of wives to husbands in marriage and of members to elders in the church.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
4 comments:
Looks ok to me, though I note that Letham prefers language of order within the Trinity rather than subordination (he thinks it more historical, iirc, and obviously it offers fewer hostages to fortune). How about the SOn always submits to the Father?
Looks OK to me too, FWIW. I've never thought about 3) before, but it seems to make sense. Not sure what it adds to your argument, though.
I wonder if (3), though true, may cloud the issue for some. Isn't it precisely because the eternal Son is eternally subordinate to the eternal Father that he is the appropriate member of the trinity to become incarnate. So the incarnation (in the way that it happened) is a consequence of the order in the trinity, not an essential part of it. If you're going to draw the application you suggest, I'd definitely want to firmly root it in (1) and (2) and only then, maybe, mention (3) with respect to application.
I'm not even sure if 3 is right. It is right in the sense that human nature is inferior to divine nature -but is it right to say that the Son is inferior -even with regard to a nature. It certainly has potential to be misheard -especially if we are saying -as Ros rightly does -that there is something appropriate about the Son eternally that makes him the right one to be incarnate. He is not eternally inferior to the Father.
Stick to describing the Son as being equal in nature and subordinate in role. Talk about what he does in his human nature.
Post a Comment