The Confessing Seventh-day Adventist

Christians who sincerely trust in Jesus have been justified (declared righteous) by God by virtue of the imputed merits of Christ’s righteousness. This is TRUE justification, not a sham pretense. Consequently—legally—we are perfect in Christ because God declares it to be so—but it’s simultaneously true that we are still sinful.

What I teach about the Lord Jesus Christ—the radical paradigm that I just cited precedent for—is that the Son of God is actually subordinate to His Father but that the Father declares Him to be equal nevertheless.

Here are some details to back up my thesis:

http://www.everythingimportant.org/Godhead

How do you like the new synthesis?

How perfectly does the Son represent the Father? What is the will of the Father in the way we receive His Son?

The Father has made the exalted nature of Christ fully known. The Son should be regarded as equal with the Father. Their natures are the same. The word of the Son is to be obeyed as readily as the word of the Father. Wherever the presence of His Son is, it is as if the Father is present. To worship the Son is to worship the Father. The Son represents the revealed will and mind of God so perfectly that He is rightfully called the word of God (John 1:1).

On the basis of John 1:1 many assert that Jesus ranks exactly equal with His Father. Opinions vary. I believe the exposition of the distinguished Greek scholar, William Barclay on John 1:1. See The Daily Study Bible —The Gospel of John vol.1 III. [Revised Edition ISBN 0-664-21304-9]:

Finally John says that “The Word was God”. There is no doubt that this is a difficult saying for us to understand, and it is difficult because Greek, in which John wrote, had a different way of saying things from the way in which English speaks. When the Greek uses a noun it almost always uses the definite article with it. The Greek for God is ‘theos’, and the definite article is ‘ho’. When Greek speaks about God it does not simply say ‘theos’; it says ‘ho theos’. Now, when Greek does not use the definite article with a noun that noun becomes much more like an adjective; it describes the character, the quality of the person. John did not say that the Word was ‘ho theos’; that would have been to say that the Word was identical with God; he says that the Word was ‘theos’ —without the definite article— which means that the Word was, as we might say, of the very same character and quality and essence and being as God. When John said ‘The Word was God’ he was not saying that Jesus is identical with God; he was saying that Jesus is so perfectly the same as God in mind, in heart, in being that in Jesus we perfectly see what God is like.

Many refer to Phil 2:6. He existed in the form of God, but did not regard it as a thing to be grasped. (Phil 2:6). This verse clearly proves that Jesus is in the God class.

The Greek word translated form is very interesting. Check your favorite lexicon. (Strong's number is 3444). The word is morphe (pronounced mor-fay'). It simply means: 1. the form by which a person or thing strikes the vision; 2. external appearance. 3. kind.

This same word also appears in Philippians 2:7 and Mark 16:12, clearly demonstrating its meaning.

"emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men" (Philippians 2:7).

"Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country" (Mark 16:12).

Morphe in no way proves that Jesus is as great as His Father is.

Consider Revelation 1:1:

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John. Rev 1:1.

Note the chain of command. God gives Jesus Christ a revelation. Christ makes it known by sending his angel. The recipient is John, a high ranking Apostle. This Apostle was to share it so that all of Christ’s servants would know what must soon take place.

At this point I will refine my proposition, for the sake of argument. The Father knows the end from the beginning but the Son only knows all possible futures with perfect comprehension plus all that the Father reveals to Him. (I’m not suggesting that the Father is keeping secrets from His Son. I’m simply saying that the Father knows the exact details of the future whereas the Son only has a general outline).

Any questions?

Well Eugene, I disagree with the thesis of yours. I believe Jesus declared himself to be equal to the Father, and the Father declared him to be equal to Himself. I also do not believe that the declaration of Jesus as being the Word is an abstraction or idea like William Barclay states. I know he believed that the Word was the mind of God and that there is a very technical explanation of his use of the Word to represent Jesus to the Greek and to the Jewish. I believe this Word is the word the Father spoke through which all things were created.

First off, I reject that that William Barclay agrees with your point. For example, he says that the accurate rendering for John 1:1 is "What God was the Word was" and "The Word was as to his essence essential deity". Later on in the book Many Witnesses, One Lord, he states "It means that the God of redemption and the God of creation are one and the same; it means that the love which is in creation is in redemption also." Then he also states somewhere else "That God could in any sense take upon himself a body was to the Greek incredible."

I still have quite some doubts on William Barclay because he is a liberal evangelical, but I think he does believe that Jesus is God.

OrthodoxLegion wrote:Well Eugene, I disagree with the thesis of yours. I believe Jesus declared himself to be equal to the Father, and the Father declared him to be equal to Himself.

I don’t know what you mean by your use of the word equal.

OrthodoxLegion wrote:I also do not believe that the declaration of Jesus as being the Word is an abstraction or idea like William Barclay states. I know he believed that the Word was the mind of God and that there is a very technical explanation of his use of the Word to represent Jesus to the Greek and to the Jewish.

I can’t defend Barclay because I’m only aware of what he teaches from short snippets that I see quoted on the internet. That’s where I got my quote.

OrthodoxLegion wrote:I believe this Word is the word the Father spoke through which all things were created.

I assume you mean that God created the universe through Christ (Ephesians 3:9, Colossians 1:16). I agree.

OrthodoxLegion wrote:First off, I reject that that William Barclay agrees with your point. For example, he says that the accurate rendering for John 1:1 is "What God was the Word was" and "The Word was as to his essence essential deity".

Please forgive me for writing in such a clumsy manner. I didn’t mean to suggest that William Barclay agrees with my synthesis but I do assume that he agrees with my quote. Permit me to clarify: I believe the exposition of the distinguished Greek scholar, William Barclay on John 1:1 as presented in The Daily Study Bible —The Gospel of John vol.1 III. [Revised Edition ISBN 0-664-21304-9], — the lengthy paragraph already quoted.

But you do bring up an interesting point. Barclay seems to be saying something different in Many Witnesses, One Lord:

Let us now turn to the Prologue, the first 18 verses of the Fourth Gospel to see what John has to say about Jesus as the Logos. We find that he has five things to say.

1. He tells us what Jesus personally was. He begins with a brief statement which provides the translator with a problem not far from insoluble in the English language. “The Word”, say both the AV and the RSV, “was God” (John 1:1). Moffatt is one of the few modern translators who dare to depart from that rendering. “The Logos”, he translates, “was divine.” In a matter like this we cannot do other than go to the Greek, which is theos en ho logos. Theos is the Greek for God, en for was, ho for the, logos for word. Now normally, except for special reasons, Greek nouns always have the definite article in front of them, and we can see at once here that theos the noun for God has not got the definite article in front of it. When a Greek noun has not got the article in front of it, it becomes rather a description than an identification, and has the character of an adjective rather than of a noun. We can see exactly the same in English. If I say: “James is the man”, then I identify James with some definite man whom I have in mind; but, if I say: “James is man”, then I am simply describing James as human, and the word man has become a description and not an identification. If John had said ho theos en ho logos, using a definite article in front of both nouns, then he would definitely have identified the logos with God, but because he has no definite article in front of theos it becomes a description, and more of an adjective than a noun. The translation then becomes, to put it rather clumsily, “The Word was in the same class as God, belonged to the same order of being as God”. The only modern translator who fairly and squarely faced this problem is Kenneth Wuest, who has: “The Word was as to his essence essential deity.” But it is here that the NEB has brilliantly solved the problem with the absolutely accurate rendering: “What God was the Word was.”

John is not here identifying the Word with God. To put it very simply, he does not say that Jesus was God. What he does say is that no human description of Jesus can be adequate, and that Jesus, however you are going to define it, must be described in terms of God. “I know men,” said Napoleon, “and Jesus Christ is more than a man.” —William Barclay; Many Witnesses, One Lord, 1963, pp. 23, 24.

I do not know any Greek. But if I had to judge this quote by faith alone, based on my synthesis, I’d say that the translation “The Word was in the same class as God, belonging to the same order of being as God” is accurate. I believe Barclay is calling it clumsy only because it’s a long sentence with too many words. I believe that the rendering: “What God was the Word was” is misleading because it suggests “ALL that God was the Word was.” That’s placing the “arrow” backwards. In other words, I don’t believe that the Greek is saying, “God was in the same class as the Word, belonging to the same order of being as the Word.” I believe the arrow points in the opposite direction. “The Word was in the same class as God, belonging to the same order of being as God.” “The Word was as to his essence essential deity.” But that’s precisely the point of my earlier quote from The Daily Study Bible.

OrthodoxLegion wrote:Later on in the book Many Witnesses, One Lord, he states "It means that the God of redemption and the God of creation are one and the same; it means that the love which is in creation is in redemption also." Then he also states somewhere else "That God could in any sense take upon himself a body was to the Greek incredible."

I agree with these statements wholeheartedly. That’s not a good basis for proving that I’m wrong about something.

Eugene,

What I meant by the term of equal is that Jesus declares himself to be in the same level of being or as great as the Father, and the Father declares him to be too.

What William Barclay is stating is that Christ is indeed in the same level of being as the Father.

There is another Jesuit like William Barclay, John L. McKenzie, a person who has also studied the greek of John 1:1, whom I would like to quote:

"He knows the Father and reveals Him. He therefore belongs to the divine level of being; and there is no question at all about the Spirit belonging to the same level of being."

McKenzie is saying that Christ is no subordinate but belongs to the same level of divine being to which the Father belongs, and the same with the Holy Spirit. It is very simple to conclude that he is not talking about their divinity overall as angels would be considered divine too, but that they are in the same level of divinity.

OrthodoxLegion,

From what you're saying, I don't believe that you understand my thesis. The fault is entirely mine. Arguments require that the issues be clearly established first. You've heard of Luther's 95 theses. For your convenience I've summarized my synthesis into a short number of postulates. We may also disagree on a number of unstated assumptions. (For example, I don't quote scholars as proof of what is true unless the contention is over who is saying what). Please tell me which of my propositions are provably false and therefore Biblically inadmissible.

The Godhead is a heavenly trio of three living persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19, 3:13-17, 2 Corinthians 13:14, Ephesians 4:4-6, 1 Peter 1:2 and Revelation 1:4,5).

• The Father is all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and is invisible to mortal sight.
  
• The Son is all the fullness of the Godhead manifested (Colossians 2:9 cf. John 1:1). He is the express image of His Father (Hebrews 1:3 cf. Colossians 1:15).
  
• The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and the Son (Romans 8:9). This is an enlightening and sanctifying power. It is a distinct Person, a free, working, independent agency (John 14:16-17, 15:26, 16:13-15). The Comforter that Christ promised to send after He ascended to heaven, is the Spirit in all the fullness of the Godhead.

The Scriptures teach that there is but one God, the Father (1 Corinthians 8:6-7).

In Scripture, the word God is always a reference to a singular being and never means the Trinity.

Individually, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are of infinite rank. Mathematically, infinities come in different sizes.

In Scripture, the Father is preeminent (1 Corinthians 15:24, 1 Timothy 1:17). There are a huge number of Bible verses that say that the Father is God. (Consider the challenge of reading my short list). There are a few verses that say that Jesus is God and there are very few verses that say that the Spirit is God.

So you are saying that the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are three different persons, very great, infinitely great, but not as great as the Father for infinities come in different sizes and the size of the Father's infinity is much greater?

Yes.

In essence, Christ is the word of God (John 1:1). His form is the very form of God (Philippians 2:6). He is "the image of God" (2 Corinthians 4:4) and "the image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1:15). "He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature" (Hebrew 1:3). In rank, Christ is all the fullness of the Godhead that can be manifested to finite creatures (Colossians 2:9). The greatness of the Father is incomprehensibly greater than that.

I already presented one simple illustration of the comparative loftiness:

Christ knows perfectly the infinite past, the present and all possible futures. This attribute is positively conceivable. It's what you expect from the definition of "essential deity." The Father transcends that with an unfathomable greatness comparable to unresolvable paradoxes like predestination and foreknowledge verses free will.

Our God has heaven and earth at His command, and He knows just what we need. We can see only a little way before us; "but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." Hebrews 4:13. Above the distractions of the earth He sits enthroned; all things are open to His divine survey; and from His great and calm eternity He orders that which His providence sees best.

Here's a second illustration:

And the Father Himself, who sent Me, has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form. John 5:37.

No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. 1 John 4:12.

No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. John 1:18.

He who has seen Me has seen the Father. John 14:9.

It's clear from these verses that Jesus is not God. It's equally clear that Jesus in John 14:9 is speaking of Himself as a perfect representative of the Father.

Why is the Son such a perfect representative of the Father? For starters, no one has seen the Father except the Son.

It is written in the prophets, "And they shall all be taught by God." Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me. Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father. John 6:45-46.

We need to realize that there are limitations in human language. It's clear that Jesus taught using parables. Scripture is replete with precise communication based on comparison and illustrative analogies. I believe in the metaphor that Jesus is the Father's only begotten Son. This metaphor is full of meaning. To me it says that the Father is greater than the Son yet the Son is in the same class as God, belonging to the same order of being as God.

I understand your thesis now and it is pretty hard to prove incorrect. You believe they are equal in the sense that they are infinite and eternal, but the Father's infinity and eternity is greater than the Son's or the Spirit's. To you the word "equal" means in the same level of your definition of eternity. To me the word equal means exactly equal even if you measure their inifity or eternity.

OrthodoxLegion wrote:You believe they are equal in the sense that they are infinite and eternal,

I did not specify in what sense the Father and Son are equal. I spent considerable effort in justifying the Scriptures that say that the Father is truly greater than the Son.

OrthodoxLegion wrote:To you the word "equal" means in the same level of your definition of eternity.

Where in the world do you get that idea?

OrthodoxLegion wrote:To me the word equal means exactly equal even if you measure their infinity or eternity.

All I said was, "Individually, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are of infinite rank." Infinite simply means not finite. Things that are infinite are similar but not necessarily equal. When I used the analogy from math—that infinities come in different sizes—I was merely illustrating how divine things could be absolutely infinite yet unequal in rank. Forget math. Why not deal with all the Scriptures that I've listed that say exactly the same thing?

I'll start with this verse:

“You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I” (John 14:28).

Well, Jesus was speaking at a time when he had done as stated in Philippians 2:6-7: "Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men". Then Jesus can be justified by saying that the Father is greater than Him. The Son had even become "lower than the angels" in order to acts as the Savior of mankind (Heb 2:9).

A Commentary on Philippians 2:6

I'm delighted that you brought up Philippians 2:6. It's a wonderful confirmation of my thesis.

The NASB offers this translation:

who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped

The NIV is similar. A very literal translation is:

who, being in the form of God, thought not robbery to be equal to God

The meaning of Philippians 2:6 depends on understanding two things: the phrase "the form of God" and the Greek word harpagmos (translated, robbery).

The word form is morphe (pronounced mor-fay'). In this instance, Scripture gives us the definition. (I'm presupposing that the meaning of words and usage according to Scripture, in context, determines doctrine and that our own doctrine and interpretation does not decree the meaning of words).

The word rendered form \~morfh\~ morphe, occurs only in three places in the New Testament, and in each place is rendered form, Mark 16:12; Philippians 2:6,7. In Mark it is applied to the form which Jesus assumed after his resurrection, and in which he appeared to two of his disciples on his way to Emmaus. "After that he appeared in another form unto two of them." This "form" was so unlike his usual appearance, that they did not know him. The word properly means 1. the form by which a person or thing strikes the vision; 2. external appearance. You agree with this for Mark 16:12 and Philippians 2:7. The word form does not suggest that the appearance is the true revelation of the object itself. The form merely participates in the reality.

Consider reading my thesis carefully. A divine and infinite Being can have the form of God and have all the essential qualities of Deity and yet not be God. The Septuagint makes use of the term morphe in such passages as Judges 8:18, where it describes Gideon's brothers as having the "form" of princes. Or in Isaiah 44:13 where the craftsman is described as making idols in the "form" of a man. Clearly, an idol in the "form" of a man is not equally great as a man. True exegesis reaches this irrefutable conclusion: "The form of something" refers to appearance, likeness and similarity. It is never a reference to exact equality.

Now consider harpagmos. The basic idea of the word ([Greek: harpagmos] in Philp. 2:6) is that of seizing what one does not possess. —F. F. Bruce, Answers to Questions, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1972, p. 109.

The New English Bible makes use of both of these impressive summations in their translation of Philippians 2:6.

"For the divine nature was his from the first; yet he did not think to snatch at equality with God" (Philippians 2:6, NEB).

I offer an even better translation. "Christ, who was nearly God, did not think of grasping at equality with God."

If you think about it, every Trinitarian translation of this verse that attempts to be literal is empty of content. See KJV and NKJV. It is nonsense to translate Philippians 2:6 to mean God didn't think it robbery to be equal to Himself.

Well, I disagree with your definitions of "form". To me in this verse the word "form" means the nature and essence of God. To be "in the form of God", and to be "equal with God", signify the same thing, the one is explanative of the other, and this is equality.

To me when it says, "thought it not robbery to be equal with God" it meant that it was not a thing to be anxiously retained.

So to me the interpretation of this passage is that Christ before his incarnation was equal with God.

It seems like you obtained your commentary from Albert Barnes to support your statement, yet he says that "Paul regarded the Redeemer as equal with God". His conclusion is what I stated earlier, "The 'fair' interpretation of this passage, therefore, is, that Christ before his incarnation was equal with God."

Orthodox L,

The only support I claim is a golden principle called the grammatical-historical method of Biblical interpretation. If I see a respectable gem of truth that needs to be to rescued from its companionship with error, then expect that I will take up an extraordinary sword to sever the erroneous entanglement and set that gem in the framework of truth.

The aim of the grammatico-historical method is to determine the meaning required of Scripture by the laws of grammar and the facts of history. The grammatical meaning is the simple, direct, plain, ordinary, and literal sense of the phrases, clauses, and sentences. The historical meaning is that sense which is demanded by a careful consideration of the time and circumstances in which the author wrote. It is the specific meaning which an author’s words require when the historical context and background are taken into account. Thus, the grand object of grammatical and historical interpretation is to ascertain the specific usage of words as employed by an individual writer as prevalent in a particular age.” — (Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Toward An Exegetical Theology, p. 88).

All scholars believe that grammatical-historical exegesis is the standard, not the opinion of Albert Barnes. Your comment is sufficiently shameful and might debase anyone who repeats it. Yet, it doesn’t matter (2 Corinthians 13:8). Anyone who refuses to be moved the meaning of words and phrases as used in the Bible is a powerful advertisement for reasonable exegesis. Here’s my proof. Find a newsgroup or forum where literary geniuses hang out. Post my riddle of the obese Trinitarian and see if anyone can guess what you’re talking about. Riddle: How is it possible that an obese woman “thought it not robbery” to weigh 500 pounds over her ideal weight? Answer: She thought that 500 pounds “was not a thing to be anxiously retained.” I believe they will all say, “thou speaketh gibberish.”

I like what The New International Commentary on the New Testament says on Philippians 2:6, especially their footnotes:

“Not harpagmon did Christ consider to be equal with God.” … “A closer look at harpagmon will aid the discussion that follows.

“The difficulties are two: its rarity in Greek literature; and where it does appear it denotes ‘robbery’, [53] a meaning that can hardly obtain here. [54] This means that scholars have been left to determine its meaning on the basis either (a) of (perceived) context, or (b) of the formation of Greek nouns, or (c) of finding parallels which suggest an idiomatic usage. Also involved is the question as to whether ‘equality with God’ was something Christ did not possess but might have desired.”

“53. The noun is formed from the Greek verb […], which means to ‘snatch’ or ‘seize,’ usually with the connotation of violence or suddenness.

“54. Since it makes very little sense at all (despite the KJV, and those who have tried to comment on the basis of this translation). J.C. O’Neill argues against Hoover that ‘robbery,’ which is ‘near nonsense,’ seems ‘to be the only choice left’, whose counsel of despair is then to emend the text.” —Gordon D. Fee, Paul’s Letter To The Philippians, pp. 205-206.

I'm sorry because I haven't provided a response. I'm barely 16 (so I go to high school) and had a lot of homework so I didn't have time. A lot of what you said is going over my head, so let me look more into it and I'll try providing a response shortly. Thanks.