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C.  A.  COATES REMARKS  ON  A  PAMPHLET by  A.  J.  Pollock ENTITLED  ' THE  ETERNAL  SON '
CAC's 'Remarks' below were also published – without AJP's statements – as 'The Personal and Mediatorial Glory of the Son of God'. It appears in CAC 29: 254-82, 'An Outline of John's Gospel'. Mr. Algernon J. Pollock – the author of the pamphlet which Mr. Coates answers with such cogency – was connected with the Glanton division of 1908.

I have no wish to enter into controversy on the great and holy subject of which this pamphlet treats,

• but a public charge of serious evil in doctrine concerning the Person of Christ, brought against certain brethren, puts upon all to whom it comes

• the responsibility of enquiring whether the charge of "levity", "folly", and "blasphemous", as applied to certain teaching, can be substantiated.

• "Thou shalt not accept a false report".

• (contained, as the "Foreword" to the pamphlet informs them, in the published notes of readings at Barnet in June, 1929)

• "means" that the Three Persons in the Godhead "are not distinguished for us in Scripture, and their relationship One to the Other is unrevealed".

• The readers are expected to accept this astounding statement without question, on the sole ground that Mr. P. says it is so.
  • For no evidence is produced to show that any one, either at Barnet or elsewhere, has given expression to such a foolish and unscriptural thought.

• The simplest reader of the Bible knows that it does carefully distinguish the Persons of the Godhead, both as known now, and as in the past eternity.

In keeping with the above statement there is a note at the bottom of the same page referring to the heretic Sabellius,

• and asserting that the teaching in the Barnet Notes is "pretty close to Sabellianism".

• Such a charge may have weight with persons who neither know what Sabellius taught nor what is held by the brethren to whom Mr. P. refers, but it will mislead no one else.

• Sabellius denied the Trinity; he refused the truth that there are Three distinct Personalities in the Godhead.

• The charge of Sabellianism, or approximation to that heresy, as brought against the brethren who were at Barnet in June, 1929, is so utterly groundless that
  • it could only be honestly brought by one who did not know what he was writing about.

• I am sorry that Mr. P. has permitted himself to give wide publicity to such a grave charge against brethren in the Lord.

• There is ample proof in the Barnet Notes, which Mr. P. had read, – to say nothing of much other printed ministry of the same brethren – that the charge is wholly false.

• Such statements only destroy confidence in the one who makes them.

On page 13 of the pamphlet we come to the "proof texts" which Mr. P. says "directly affirm the truth of the eternal Sonship of our Lord Jesus Christ".

• John 3: 17; 1 John 4: 9; and John 10: 36 are quoted.

That the Lord was here as the Sent One is oft-repeated in John's Gospel; indeed the word "sent" is a characteristic word of that Gospel, occurring many times.

• But it will be obvious to any careful reader that Scripture does not speak of the Lord as "sent" until He was actually here.

• Even such prophetic scriptures as Isaiah 42: 19 and Isaiah 61: 1 manifestly refer to Him as here.

• Let any reader look at the scriptures which speak of the Lord as being "sent", and ask himself if there is one of them that could apply to Him before He was actually here?

The glory of the Lord's eternal Person appears in a wonderful way in John's Gospel, perhaps more fully than anywhere else.

• Our spirits are impressed, as we read that Gospel, by many statements which bring out the Personal greatness and glory of the Sent One.
  • "He who comes from above is above all … He who comes out of heaven is above all", John 3: 31.

  • "My Father worketh hitherto and I work", John 5: 17.

  • "Before Abraham was I AM", John 8: 58.

  • "I and the Father are one", John 10: 30.

  • "All things that the Father has are mine", John 16: 15.

• Equality with God was really involved in such statements, as the Jews rightly felt.

• His Personal equality with God and the Father was essential to His Mediatorship.
  • Had He not been God, and a Divine Person co-equal with the Father, He would not have been great enough to take up the work which He came to do as the Sent One, the Obedient One.

• The essential truth of His Person is interwoven with His Mediatorship throughout John's Gospel.

• His Person is unchanged, whatever place, service, or relationship He might be pleased to take up for the effectuation of the purposes of divine love.

• He was with God in full equality from eternity for He was God. John 1: 1.

• He was with the Father as to presence and place eternally, having a Personality distinct from the Father but co-equal with Him.

But, as we have already said, He is often spoken of in John's Gospel as the 'Sent One', and this is clearly a mediatorial designation.

• The word "sent" implies a relative position which is not one of absolute equality. It implies authority on the part of the sender, subjection on the part of the one "sent".

• In the past eternity the glory of Divine Persons was equal, Their majesty co-eternal.
  • To think of our Lord as in Deity in the past eternity being in a place of subjection is derogatory to Him.

• It is assigning to Him an inferior or subordinate place in Deity, and this is not only contrary to Scripture, but it is inconceivable to any one who believes in His true and full Deity.

• In eternal Deity He was on absolute equality with the Other Persons of the Godhead.
  • But as the 'Sent One' He was under authority; He was in a subordinate relation to the One who sent Him.

Shall we be told, as Mr. P. suggests on page 13 of his pamphlet, that this is a "gloss" upon Scripture? Are the words of the Son of God in this very Gospel a "gloss"? Did He not say Himself,

• "Verily, verify, I say to you, The bondman is not greater than his lord, nor the sent greater than he who has sent him", John 13: 16.

• There is correspondence between the relations in which the bondman stands to his lord and those in which the sent one stands to the sender.

• If we do not clearly distinguish between the mediatorial glory of the Lord as the Sent One and the glory proper to His Person as in Deity from eternity we shall lose something of the true character of both.

• His mediatorial glory derives its lustre from His Personal glory, but to make His mediatorial glory the full measure of His Personal glory is really derogatory to Him.

• He was here as the Sent One to do the will of the One who sent Him. He disclaimed coming of Himself; He was the obedient One, carrying out His God-appointed mission here.

• The very word "sent" indicates His mediatorial place as in Manhood. How we delight to look upon Him and recognize Him as the Father's Sent One, the God-given Object of faith for "whosoever"!

"Wherefore coming into the world he says, Sacrifice and offering thou willedst not; but thou hast prepared me a body … Then I said, Lo, I come (in the roll of the book it is written of me) to do, O God, thy will", Hebrews 10: 5.

• All was written "in the roll of the book"; it had place in eternal purpose; but it is as "coming into the world" that He actually says, "Lo, I come … to do, O God, thy will".

• Obedience or subjection cannot be rightly connected with Him as in "the form of God"; they belong to the condition which the eternal One took up as coming into the world in a prepared body.

• And it is as taking this place that He is the Sent One of the Father. One has only to consider the many passages where the word occurs to see that this is its force.

• Not to see it is to fail in the apprehension of the mediatorial glory of the Son of God.

The more we contemplate the Son of God in His mediatorial position the more shall we perceive the infinitude and blessedness of the love of God expressed in the gift of such a Person.

• He has come within the range of men's apprehension as given by God in love to the world. John 3: 16. Nothing else could account for His being here.

• And inasmuch as men were sinners and under death He did not stop short of laying down His life for us. Love would have been ineffective if He had not done so, and this could not be when the love was God's love.
  • "Herein as to us has been manifested the love of God, 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 a propitiation for our sins", 1 John 4: 9-10.

• Our hearts engage themselves believingly and adoringly with the glorious Person of the Son of God; we view Him in holy Manhood, and going into death, and we perceive the love of God, for it was God who gave and sent Him.
  • John says, "And we have seen, and testify, that the Father has sent the Son as Saviour of the world", 1 John 4: 14.

• Before He was given and sent He was eternally God, but it is as the Son of God in Manhood that He is said to be given and sent.

• These words refer to Him in His blessed mediatorial character and position. Scripture uniformly presents the truth in this way.

Does this in any way obscure the thought of God giving and sending His Son?

• On the contrary, it brings out fully the wondrous and blessed fact that the love of God is made known to men in the only way in which it could be made known, that is, mediatorially in His beloved Son as Man on earth.

• The whole point of the statements of Scripture is to show that the love of God has come into tangible expression. It has been manifested.

• It could not be known by something taking place in the inscrutable depths of Deity, but it was known by the gift, mission and death of the Son of God.

• He was in the presence of Nicodemus when He spoke of Himself as given by God in love; He was before men's eyes all through John's Gospel as the Sent One. He was here by the gift of God, and all that He said or did was as the Sent One.

• And when the hour came for supreme expression to be given to the love of God, that love to men was so great that He did not spare the One who was so holy, so delightful to His heart, so beloved by Him, but delivered Him up for us all.

• These words, "spared not" and "delivered up", did not even apply to Him as in Manhood until the wondrous and solemn hour arrived for redemption to be accomplished.

• I would beg every reader to weigh carefully the statements of Scripture. This is no question of one or two isolated texts; it concerns the whole scope and bearing of the truth.

• If we have been accustomed to think otherwise, we shall gain spiritually by discarding our own thoughts, and the thoughts of even pious persons, and learning to think and speak as Scripture speaks.

On page 15 of the pamphlet John 17: 5, 24 are quoted as proving the eternal Sonship of the Lord Jesus.

• They do prove His pre-existence, and that He had glory along with the Father in eternity, and was loved by the Father.
  • But who could define the glory which attached to His presence and place with the Father eternally?

• There is an unrevealed depth about it, and about the glory which He has now along with the Father according to John 17: 5, which we cannot fathom.

• It is just the attempt to define, in a region where all is so transcendently great and glorious, that one dreads. One shrinks from going a hair's breadth beyond what Scripture says.

• That the holy Speaker in John 17 was addressing the Father as the Son in Manhood is beyond doubt.

• But to say that His glory in the past eternity was the glory of Sonship is more than the scripture says. It was a glory proper to His eternal Personality.

• He had a glory as in that place which He left in taking up His mediatorial place in Manhood.
  • Not for a moment ceasing to be what He was, but taking a new place which, by its very nature, had not the glory of His eternal place.

• It is not said that that place was the place of Sonship, or that the glory was the glory of Sonship, It was the place and glory of His eternal Person, but it is not defined by any Name,
  • as if God would engage us with the Person rather than with any relative Name or title.

• As to presence, place, and glory Divine Persons were together, co-equal and co-eternal. Does not this suffice?

• The transcendent glory of that place, and of Him who was in it, cannot be measured by His mediatorial titles. It belongs to the infinite depth and fulness of His ineffable Divine greatness.

He had the glory of Sonship when here, for He was saluted as Son when begotten, and at His baptism, and on the holy mount, when

• "He received from God the Father honour and glory, such a voice being uttered to him by the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight", 2 Peter 1: 17.

• There is no hint in Scripture of His ever leaving the glory of Sonship after having once had it.

• But He did leave the glory which He had along with the Father before the world was, and in John 17 He asked to be glorified with it as Man.

• It had been known to the Father and to Himself in the inscrutable glory of Deity. But He left that glory for a place and pathway of humiliation in which He completed the work given Him that He should do it.

A Divine Person could not remain in humiliation, but having come into that place He would not leave it by His own act, but as being glorified by the Father whom He had glorified in humiliation.

• He is now glorified as Man along with the Father, and the glory which He has with the Father is the same as He had in eternal Deity. This is more intimate and personal than the exaltation of Philippians 2: 9-11.

• There it is the public answer on the part of God the Father to the self-humbling and obedience unto death of Jesus Christ.
  • Every knee of heavenly and earthly and infernal beings shall bow to Him; every tongue will confess that He is Lord to God the Father's glory.

• But in John 17: 5 He asks to be glorified along with the Father with an original glory which was His along with the Father from eternity.

• The exaltation spoken of in Philippians 2 is not a return to an original glory, but the granting of a Name that shall be supreme in the whole sphere of good and evil.

• But John 17: 5 refers to an original glory which He had left in taking up His mediatorial service in humiliation, but with which He is now glorified along with the Father.

• It is the glory of His Personal place with the Father. Not a public or official glory, but one which pertains to Divine Persons in Their own sphere.

• What joy to the Father thus to glorify Him! To answer the completeness of His work by receiving Him, wholly apart from humiliation, in the fulness of His original glory as with the Father!

• For a brief space He had left it to be in humiliation here, but now He is with the Father as Man invested with the glory which was His originally as a Divine Person.

• This is more than the glory of Sonship, for He was glorified as the Son of God while He was here, both by the Father's voice and by the resurrection of Lazarus. John 11: 4.

The Father has glorified Him – John 17: 5 – so that it is, and will be, manifest to the intelligent universe that He is no less in Personal glory now than He was in the past eternity.

• His self-emptying in coming into a place of obedience, His taking a bondman's form, were publicly a descent from the proper and essential glory of His eternal place.

• But in being glorified as Man along with the Father He is known to have a Personal glory, and to have eternally a place and glory not one whit lower than that of the Father.

• So that He is to us now not only the exalted Lord, but the One whom we worship as
  • "over all, God blessed for ever".

• His Personal place and glory as in Deity will be known eternally, and will give its peculiar lustre to His eternal subjection. 1 Corinthians 15: 28.

• That blending of what is Personal with what is Mediatorial which we have seen to characterize the Gospel of John will be carried on through eternity.

We may now consider whether Mr. P.'s remarks on page 16 of his pamphlet are justified by Scripture.

• He says, "If there is a Father, there is a Son. If there is a Son there is a Father. The titles – Father and Son – are co-relative terms involving relationship".

• Then he adds on page 17, "the Persons were not brought into existence by the revelation, but the revelation revealed what already existed from all eternity".

• There could not possibly be any question of Divine Persons being "brought into existence". But Scripture is almost entirely occupied in bringing before us
  • how God has been pleased to be known by men at different periods, and how He is pleased to be known by men at the present time.

• At certain times God was pleased to be known by certain Names. Those Names gave character to the knowledge and faith of His people, nor could they go beyond what was made known of God in those Names.

• The Patriarchs did not know Him by the Name Jehovah, and no Old Testament saints knew Him by the Name of Father.

• His Name is how He is pleased to be known by men, and it has always been in keeping with what faith needed for its support at any particular time.

• We know Him now as the Father, but it would be misleading for us to say that He was always the Father. He was not so known by His saints of old; their whole knowledge of Him was formed by other Names.

• We cannot carry the Names Father and Son even back into the Old Testament. We find God known there as Elohim, the Most High, the Almighty, and Jehovah.

• We have a prophetic "decree" declared in Psalm 2 that the Messiah, Jehovah's Anointed, would be His Son, begotten by Him on a certain day.

• But the Father as a Name of revelation was held in reserve until there was a Divine Person here on earth as Man bearing the title of Son of God.

The peculiar blessedness of the present time does not consist only in knowing that there are Three Persons in the Godhead,

• but in seeing the wonderful place which Two of those Persons have taken so that God might be declared.

• One of those Persons became Man, so that, known in Manhood as the Son of God, He might declare God mediatorially.
  • Another of those Persons condescended to be sent by the Father and the Son, and to indwell those who believe.

• But the activities of the Son and the Spirit are both subordinated to the purpose of divine love that God should be known as the Father.
  • No one can read the Gospels or the Epistles without seeing that the thought of God is presented to us in the Father.

• The Son has made Him known mediatorially, and the Spirit is sent and given so that His love may be shed abroad in the hearts of believers, and that they may, as having the Spirit of Sonship, cry, "Abba, Father".

It is not that the Son or the Holy Spirit are subordinate in Deity. Such a thought would be grossly wrong.

• But they have been pleased to take a subordinate place in the economy of revelation.

• And that is why we do not get in Scripture such expressions as "God the Son", or "God the Holy Spirit",
  • but we do get habitually "God the Father".

  • "To us there is one God, even the Father", 1 Corinthians 8: 6.

• The Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and this in the most absolute sense.

• But the Son and the Spirit have been pleased to take a relative place which is not commensurate with Their full Personal glory, but which is essential to the accomplishment of the purposes of divine love.
  • The Son has been seen in Manhood in a subordinate and subject place, not acting by His own will, or speaking His own words, or doing His own works.

  • The Holy Spirit is also known as in a subordinate place, not speaking from Himself, but speaking "whatsoever he shall hear".

• And both the Son and the Holy Spirit rendering Their wonderful service in order to bring about the knowledge of God as the Father.

God was declared, and the Father's Name made known, by the Son as Man on earth, who was at that very time

• "the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father", John 1: 18.

• It was the relation in which God stood to Him, and God had never been Father in the same sense to any man before.

• It is quite beside the mark to say that "the Father was the Father before the Lord Jesus was born into the world".

• Of course there is no change in God; what He is now He ever was and ever will be. But He was not known to any man as Father until the Man was here who was
  • "called the Son of God".

• He was not known as such, nor could be.

• This is a question, not of what God is essentially in His inscrutable Being, but of how He is pleased to be known by men.

• When the Son was here as Man God was declared in the full height and glory of all that was possible for the creature to know; His Name as Father was made known.

• There is no further revelation to be made; all is out that can be made known of God. It has been well said, Who can speak after the Son?

• The Names Father and Son are ever presented in Scripture in relation to the divine mediatorial system.

• They belong to the sphere of revelation, and not to that of God's essential Being which no creature mind can ever know.

• We know God as the Father now, which no saints ever did before He stood in that relation to a blessed Man in this world, His own beloved Son.

The whole of the Lord's ministry amongst His own was to the end that they should recognize that the Father was the source of all that came out in, or was accomplished by, His mission here.

• The Father was the starting point from which He moved, the One by whom He was sent, and to whom He went when His mission was fulfilled.

• He would have His own to connect everything with the Father; it was His joy to say of them,
  • "Now they have known that all things that thou hast given me are of thee; for the words which thou hast given me I have given them, and they have received them, and have known truly that I came out from thee, and have believed that thou sentest me", John 17: 7-8.

• All this clearly views our Lord as in a mediatorial position.

The thoughts held in what is considered to be orthodox christendom are really derogatory to the Lord Jesus Christ.

• It is taught that His Deity was derived or communicated.
  • "The Son is His Father's equal, in that He is partaker of His nature: He is His subordinate, in that this equality is eternally derived", Liddon: On the Divinity of our Lord.

  • "Wherefore it necessarily followeth that Jesus Christ, who is certainly not the Father, cannot be a person subsisting in the divine nature originally of himself; and consequently, being we have already proved that he is truly and properly the eternal God, he must be understood to have the Godhead communicated to Him by the Father, who is not only eternally, but originally God".

  • "In that perfect and absolute equality there is notwithstanding this disparity, that the Father hath the Godhead not from the Son, nor any other, whereas the Son hath it from the Father", Pearson: On the Creed.

• It cannot be doubted, from other statements made by them, that these prominent divines held the true and eternal Deity of Christ.

• But, not distinguishing between terms applied to Him as in absolute Deity and those applied to Him in His mediatorial position in Manhood,
  • they have been betrayed into expressions which are in the highest degree questionable.

• For it is manifest that a deity which is derived and communicated, and therefore subordinate, is no Deity in any true sense, and this is a very serious matter.

• The Father is not "the Fountain of Deity" in the sense that the Other Persons in the Godhead were derived from Him by generation or procession, though this is commonly held by those reputed to be orthodox.

• What perplexities we avoid by cleaving to the simple, yet infinitely profound, statements of Scripture!

• And also by noting carefully the connections in which certain terms or titles are used by those who spoke and wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit of God.

Our knowledge of God as declared by the Son, and as known by the holy Name of Father, is dependent on the Incarnation.

• This has introduced a stupendous change; it has brought about an entirely new beginning in the knowledge of God, and is so presented in Scripture. 1 John 1: 1; 1 John 2: 13-14.

• And in connection with it the Father is known as the blessed Source of everything that came out mediatorially in the Son. It is the pleasure of Divine Persons that it should be so.

• And now that God is made known as the Father we can speak of Him by that blessed Name, and Scripture speaks of Him thus, even when referring to the past eternity.

• Divine Names and titles, when known, are used in Scripture to identify the Persons without necessarily meaning that they were so known in the conditions referred to. For instance,
  • "Christ" and "Christ Jesus" are used in speaking of Him in the past eternity, but we all know that He was not actually the Anointed Man then.

• We see a similar use of a Divine Name in the Old Testament. The Name Jehovah was not made known until Exodus 6,
  • but Moses, as knowing that Name, continually uses it throughout the book of Genesis in relating circumstances which took place long before God was known by that Name.

  • The one true God – Israel's Jehovah – was identified by the Name.

• SSo in the New Testament God is spoken of as "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" – Ephesians 1: 3 – who chose us in Christ "before the world's foundation".
  • Every thoughtful believer must realise that He could not be the God of Another co-equal Divine Person when both are viewed in absolute Deity.

• But as having come in flesh the Lord Jesus could not only say "My Father", but also "My God".
  • He was in the place of man relative to God, as He was also the Son in relationship to God and to the Father.

• "The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" is God as known in relation to the Lord Jesus Christ at the present time, but He is so named when the reference is to Him at a period when such a title could not apply.

• The Persons of the Godhead are eternally the Same, though in Divine wisdom they may be known now by Names which did not apply even in Old Testament times.

• And if they did not apply in Old Testament times, how can we say that they applied eternally when there was no revelation at all?

• The fact is that we only know Divine Persons as and when they are made known to us, and we speak of Them as we know Them.

• Divine Persons knew each Other and loved each Other eternally; this has been made known. But Names of revelation were certainly not needed within the sphere of Deity.
  • That is a region utterly beyond creature apprehension; and it is our wisdom to recognize that the greatness of God is unsearchable – Psalm 145: 3 – and to be content with the blessed light which has come to us in infinite love.

  • We shall find enough in it to engage and fill our hearts adoringly for time and throughout eternity.

• When Scripture speaks precisely of our Lord as in eternal Deity, with no reference to what is mediatorial, we are simply told that He was God, and that He subsisted in the form of God.

Mr. P. says that "the eternal life, which was with the Father, and has been manifested to us" was before time began. (Page 17.)

• How does Mr. P. know this? Certainly John did not tell him so.

• I have no doubt that eternal life was with the Father in the Person of the Son in Manhood, and as being there was manifested to the apostles.

• The scripture quoted does not prove what Mr. P. says it does. And where did Mr. P. learn that eternal life was a Divine Person?

• That God's Son as a glorified Man "is the true God and eternal life" is the truth of Scripture.
  • But to say that eternal life is a Divine Person is so unscriptural and untrue that one wonders how he ever came to write it.

On page 18 there are some remarks on our Lord's precious designation, "the Word".

• Mr. P. says that John 1: 1 says "that the Lord was the Word in eternity".

• Mr. P. may be assured that if John 1: 1 did say so, the brethren whom he criticises would fully believe and assert it.
  • But the language of Scripture is, "In the beginning was the Word".

• The very statement supposes that "the Word" is a designation which will be understood by those who read. John is evidently speaking of a Person known to those for whom he writes.

• What does the title mean? I do not suppose that JND's definition of the meaning of the word will be called in question.
  • He said, "Whatever expresses the mind is logos. Nous is the intelligent faculty: whatever expresses the thought formed in it is logos … Thus all that communicates the divine mind (the intelligible) is logos, and first of all Christ",
    Note to 1 Corinthians 1: 5 in New Translation.

• The mind of God has been fully communicated in Christ, intelligibly so, and this required intelligent beings to receive the communication.

Creation made known God's eternal power and divinity; these are invisible things, but they are apprehended by the mind through the things that are made.

• But the mind of God, what He is morally and in His nature, was not spoken in creation.
  • It was spoken in Christ incarnate, and it was known to the saints as having been spoken in Him.

• But in face of the enemy's efforts to obscure the truth they needed to know the eternal Personality and Deity of the Word. This was declared in simple but unmistakable language.

• He was from eternity; He was God; He was with God. His eternal Being, His Deity, His distinct Personality, His action as universal Creator, are established unquestionably.

• All this was true of Him whom we know as the Word. Is He not seen to be invested with ineffable divine majesty and glory?

• Is anything taken from Him by saying that the intelligible expression in Him of every divine thought was in Manhood, and that it awaited His incarnation to be expressed? And that the expression of it is involved in the very word Logos?

• The one other scripture in which the title "The Word" is applied to our Lord – Luke 1: 2 – manifestly refers to Him as having become flesh, and thus confirms what I have said.

• I think simple persons will fail to see that this is what Mr. P. calls it – a "barefaced denial of Scripture".

Hebrews 1 is quite in line with this. God having spoken to us in the Person of the Son is clearly in Manhood, but God is pleased to tell us that by the same Person He made the worlds.

• It is of the very substance of the faith that the Son – the very One who has been known and heard in Manhood – was the Creator. Scripture establishes this beyond question.

• But creation was brought into being by Him when He was in the form of God; it was long before God spoke in Him as Son in Manhood. But by the same Person He made the worlds.

No one that I know of asks Mr. P. to give up the "blessed knowledge" that there were Three Divine Persons in eternity "between whom was the outflow of love One to Another, and with whom were divine counsels as to how to bring man into the circle of those divine affections". (Page 20.)

• On page 20 Mr. P. says that a certain quoted statement "implies there is no revelation of any 'relative positions' between Divine Persons".

• The statement says no such thing. It deprecates that in speaking of the first, second, or third Persons of the Trinity it should be implied that "in eternity, or in the Deity as such, there could be any such relative positions. Each Person of the Deity, as we say, is co-equal, co-eternal, co-existent, albeit distinct".

• The reader will judge whether Mr. P. is justified in his remark.

On the same page we are told that the Scriptures speak of "the eternal Spirit", and we are asked, "Is not that a relative position?"

• The same question is repeated as to the statement, "In the beginning was the Word".

• Any one can see that each of these statements refers to Personality, and that nothing whatever is suggested as to "relative position".

• Mr. P. says further on this page that eternal life with the Father was "clearly in eternity", but this is what Mr. P. thinks, and not what Scripture says.
  • Or, if Scripture does say so, let him tell us where.

John 1: 18 is commented on in page 21, and it is asserted that the Son was ever "in the bosom of the Father".

• The statement of Scripture is that
  • "the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him".

• This brings out in the most precious way the intimate nearness to the Father, the unique place in the Father's affections, of Him who declared the unseen God.

• It was One in that relationship, in the enjoyment of that peculiar nearness, yet, withal, in Manhood, who declared God.

• It is a statement of what was true of Him when He declared God; it brings out to the full His mediatorial glory.

• Mr. P. says that to state things thus "withers the affections, and leaves the soul empty and cold".

• At any rate, it is exactly what John says, and millions have found their affections quickened and their souls warmed by contemplating it.

On page 22 we are told that "we have seen already that this ["only-begotten Son"] is a title belonging to the Lord Jesus from all eternity".

• But this is just what we have not yet seen to be established from Scripture.

• Hebrews 1 was written to assert the Deity of the Son, the Messiah, and, amongst other scriptures, Psalm 45 is cited to show that the King, the Beloved, God's Anointed One, is addressed prophetically as "O God".

• If "it was addressed to the Son then, a thousand years before the incarnation", as Mr. P. says, He was also then anointed with the oil of gladness above His companions, and had the queen standing by His side in gold of Ophir!

• But no one can read the Psalm without seeing that it is wholly prophetic of Messiah's glory, when as God's Anointed He will subdue His enemies and wield the sceptre of His kingdom in righteousness.

• It has been said to Him prophetically, but the things said to exist – such as the subjugation of enemies, the establishment of the throne, and the place of the king's daughter and the queen – are all obviously future.

• But the King of that glorious day is the blessed Person spoken of in Hebrews 1 as The Son.

• It is in Manhood that God spoke by Him, and it is as Man He set Himself down on the right hand of the greatness on high.

• It is as Man that He is addressed by God as His Son; as Man He will be brought into the habitable world as Firstborn, and worshipped by all God's angels; as Man He will have the millennial throne and sceptre.

• But that Man is God, and is addressed as God. His eternal Deity is unquestionable,
  • but the subject of Hebrews 1: 5-13 is the greatness and Deity of the Messiah – God's Anointed Man – as set forth in Old Testament scriptures.

If "only-begotten" as applied to the Lord is only "a term of strong endearment" (page 23), why should it not with equal propriety be applied to the Father, or to the Holy Spirit?

• Every Christian would resent such an idea.

• It is a term of strong endearment, but it is so because it expresses a unique relationship, of which Isaac's relationship to Abraham was a type.

• Isaac was Abraham's "only-begotten son" because he had no other son who was begotten in the same wonderful way – the child of promise and of resurrection power.

• One has only to recall the history to be assured of the reason why he should be called "only-begotten".
  • The Spirit of God would not take account of any other son of Abraham, for Isaac alone was "born according to Spirit", Galatians 4: 29.

• But Isaac was truly "begotten" by Abraham, and I think Mr. P. will have difficulty in producing a scripture to show that "begotten" does not mean "begotten".

• He says that "Scripture forbids its being used in the case of the Son of God in the sense of derivation, or generation". This is a bold statement in face of the plain scripture,
  • "Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee", Psalm 2: 7; Hebrews 1: 5; Hebrews 5: 5.

  • Is there no idea of generation in this scripture? Mr. P.'s statement is in direct opposition to what Scripture asserts.

• The word "begotten" is definitely used of the Son of God as born in time, and in no other sense is the word ever used of Him.

• As in eternal Deity He was underived, unbegotten, co-equal and co-eternal with the Other Divine Persons.

I may add, at this point, that the two great types of Christ as Son in the Old Testament are Isaac and Solomon.

• Isaac is, typically, Christ as the Son of His Father's love, begotten and conceived in a power altogether above nature; afterwards, in figure, offered up as a burnt-offering, and raised from the dead, to have a wife of His own kindred.
  • This is Christ viewed particularly, but not exclusively, as saints of the assembly know Him.

• Solomon is, typically, the Anointed King of glory, beloved by Jehovah – 2 Samuel 12: 24 – and having His kingdom established for ever – 1 Chronicles 17: 12-14; 1 Chronicles 22: 10.
  • This is particularly how Israel and the nations will know "the Son" when He takes the kingdom and the kings and judges of the earth are called upon to kiss Him. Psalm 2.

• Rich and full as is the spiritual teaching connected with these types – a teaching deeply valued by all lovers of Christ – it is manifest that they both clearly apply to Christ as Man, and not as in the form of God.

• They do not furnish any suggestion that He bore the title of Son when He was in Deity in the past eternity.

Mr. P. thinks that to speak of the Son having "a place of inferiority to the Father" is "false and offensive in the extreme".

• Has he forgotten that that blessed One
  • "was made some little inferior to the angels", Psalm 8: 5; Hebrews 2: 9?

• Is this precious statement of the Holy Spirit also "false and offensive"?

• Does not Mr. P. believe that He who subsisted in the form of God has taken a bondman's form? Is this a place of inferiority or not?

• Does He not repeatedly speak of Himself as the Servant doing the will of Another? Was it not the whole principle of His life here? Did He not say,
  • "My Father is greater than I?", John 14: 28.

• It is His glory that He should take such a place in self-emptying devotion. In the perfection of the place which He took He even said to Jehovah,
  • "Thou art the Lord: my goodness extendeth not to thee", Psalm 16: 2.

• No man ever gave God the place that He should have with man as He did.

• A Divine Person as Man must be perfect in the place and condition into which He has come in love and obedience, and He could say, "My God" as no other man ever could.

• God had the place with Him that it was right for God to have with Man.

• In becoming Man He did come into "a place of inferiority" relatively to God and the Father. No Christian with Scripture before him can doubt this.

The remarks (page 24 of the pamphlet) on "Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent", have been met by what has been said as to the force of the word "sent".

• On page 25 we are asked, "Are we to be told that the Lord was not The Anointed in the counsels of a past eternity?"

• Has any one told Mr. P. so? Everything that was true of Him as come in flesh, or that will ever be true of Him in glory, was true of Him in purpose and counsel from eternity.

• No intelligent believer doubts this. But was He actually Man, the Second Man, from eternity? If not, Mr. P.'s statements on this page do nothing to prove what he is attempting to prove.

We come to Melchisedec on pages 25-28, and Mr. P. says that we have in Hebrews 7: 3 "a very plain assertion of Eternal Sonship".

• We shall see whether it is so.

• Mr. P. admits that Melchisedec was a type of Christ as King and Priest, and that this type will be fulfilled in the millennial kingdom. I have no doubt that this is so.

• It is after his order, too, that Christ is now a Priest for ever as sitting at God's right hand until His enemies are put as footstool of His feet. Psalm 110.

• But let it be carefully noted that it is to the earth-rejected, throne-seated Man that Jehovah swears,
  • "and will not repent. Thou art priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec".

• It is the Son born in time according to Hebrews 5: 5, perfected through suffering – Hebrews 5: 9 – and now "a Son perfected for ever" – Hebrews 7: 28 – who is constituted Priest.

• He has not glorified Himself to be made a High Priest – Hebrews 5: 5; if He were on earth He would not even be a Priest at all – Hebrews 8: 4.

• But now as the glorified Man at God's right hand He is a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.

Does the scripture in any way suggest that Melchisedec was assimilated, as Mr. P. attempts to prove, to our Lord as in eternal Deity, when He was neither the millennial King nor the Priest?

• Is not the priesthood of Christ the subject of Hebrews 5 – Hebrews 8?

• The Deity of the Son having been fully established in chapter 1, the Spirit of God is now bringing before us His priestly office – an office which is conferred upon Him as Man exalted at God's right hand by the swearing of an oath by God.

• He is constituted a Priest in His own Personal right; He did not derive it from any ancestor, nor will He transmit it to any successor.

• It thus differs essentially from the priesthood as held by Aaron and his sons.

• It is the priesthood of the Son of God, an abiding priesthood,
  • "according to power of indissoluble life", exercised by One who "because of his continuing for ever, has the priesthood unchangeable", Hebrews 7: 24.

Now it pleased God to give in Melchisedec a remarkable type of this order of priesthood long before the law constituted men high priests.

• And it pleased Him that it should appear that it was a priesthood superior to any priesthood exercised by the sons of Levi, for in Abraham, Levi was made to pay tithes to a greater priest.

• It is said of Melchisedec that he was
  • "without father, without mother, without genealogy; having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but, assimilated to the Son of God, abides a priest continually".

• This refers to the fact that Scripture does not say that he had either father, mother, genealogy, beginning of days or end of life.

• The record of Scripture says nothing of how he came on the scene, or of how he departed; he is in Scripture
  • one "of whom the witness is that he lives".

• Scripture brings him before us as a living priest,
  • as one who "abides a priest continually".

  • He is "assimilated to the Son of God",

• particularly as holding his priesthood in the greatness and rights of his own person.
  • The Son of God is constituted Priest in His own Personal right.

• We know that He was God from all eternity, and this is ever present to our minds as we think of His Person, but He is Priest as having become Man.

It must be admitted that there is not a word in Hebrews 7 about His being "the Eternal Son".

• That He is eternal in Person is most sure, but neither this scripture nor any other that has been yet adduced, says that the title Son attached to Him in Deity in the past eternity.

• Hebrews 7: 3 is the last scripture that should be brought forward by those who want to prove that He is presented in Scripture as the Eternal Son of the Eternal Father,
  • for the first thing said of Melchisedec is that he was "without father".

• Does Mr. P. wish us to gather from Hebrews 7: 3 that the Son of God was "without father" in the past eternity, or as being in existence in Melchisedec's time? He calls our attention to "THEN" in large capitals.

• To apply "without father" to the Son of God comes strangely in a paper which is written to prove that He was ever under the title of Son with the Father.

• Indeed if we accept Mr. P.'s interpretation that "without father", etc., refers to Christ, the passage affords definite testimony against what he seeks to build on it,
  • for eternal sonship necessitates eternal fatherhood, and so "without father" could not apply to our Lord in such a relation.

• There is simply nothing whatever about "Eternal Sonship" in the passage. The "endless life" referred to in verse 16 is clearly life in resurrection.

"The eternal Spirit" being spoken of in Scripture is said (page 29) to authorize us to speak of the eternal Son.

• It would be interesting to know why, if Scripture says one thing, it entitles us to say something quite different?

• That we should be told that Christ "by the eternal Spirit offered himself spotless to God" – Hebrews 9: 14 – is a precious witness to our hearts of how everything in His public service, even to the offering of Himself to God, was done by the Holy Spirit.

• But how this can be supposed to prove that the title "Son" attached to Him in the past eternity will, I think, be difficult for most readers to understand.

No scripture could bring out more distinctly than Hebrews 9: 14 the place that Christ was in here as not acting by His own will, or by His own power as a Divine Person.

• His offering of Himself to God was the supreme act of His self-sacrificing devotion, but it was performed through the eternal Spirit, and was thus connected with the eternal thoughts of God.

• It stood in relation to what was in God's mind long before the types of the Old Testament set it forth in a figurative way. Compare 1 Peter 1: 20.

• "The eternal Spirit" was long prior to the offering of goats and bulls. The latter only sanctified to the purifying of the flesh, but what was done by Christ through the eternal Spirit effected what was in accord with the mind of God, and therefore was of an eternal character.

• It has long been recognized that the use of the word "eternal" in the epistle to the Hebrews contrasts what God has brought in now, through Christ and by His death, with what was known in Judaism.

The Spirit is not a Name of relationship like Father or Son. The Holy Spirit has not been manifested like the Son, or revealed like the Father;

• He remains in His eternal character as an unseen Spirit, and can therefore be spoken of as "the eternal Spirit".

• But Scripture does not speak of "the eternal Father", or "the eternal Son", because the Father and the Son are Names which give character to our present knowledge of God.

• They are Names which could only be known through the Incarnation. They give a character to the present time which no other period ever had.
  • The peculiar blessedness and supreme favour of the present time is that we know the Father as revealed in the Son.

• Let the saints of God watch diligently that they be not diverted from the apprehension of how Divine Persons are known now through the Incarnation of the blessed Son of God.

Then Mr. P. asks (page 30), "What refuge should we have, if there were no Father to send the Son; no Son to die on the cross as the Mediator between God and men, 'the man Christ Jesus'; no Holy Spirit, the only Power by which we can enter into the apprehension of divine things".

• His asking these questions, in this controversial pamphlet, seems to insinuate that the brethren whose teaching he denounces do not hold these things,
  • but he knows well that they hold them as fully and firmly as he does.

The statements of Scripture referred to on pages 30, 31, 32 of the pamphlet are very precious, but they give no evidence that the One they speak of bore the title of Son in eternity past. They do not bear at all on the question at issue.

On page 32 our attention is called to Proverbs 30: 4.

• This verse forms part of an utterance which is distinctly spoken of as a "prophecy", verse 1.

• It is, no doubt, a prophetic intimation of the Sonship of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it intimates, too, that He would be known as One who "ascended up into the heavens, and descended".

• Psalm 2 had probably already found its place in inspired Scripture before Agur's prophecy was uttered; at any rate it was another utterance by the same prophetic Spirit.

• And Proverbs 30: 4 no more proves that the title "Son" applied to Christ then than Psalm 2: 7 proves that He was the Son begotten, and anointed as King upon Zion, at the time when the Psalm was written.

• It would make nonsense of Scripture to assume that prophetic statements as to what Christ would be could be taken as setting forth facts subsisting as actualities at the time when they were written.

• As the enquiry, "what is his son's name?" I think we should be justified in saying that the same prophetic Spirit who inspired the question has answered it in Isaiah 9: 6
  • "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name is called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Father of eternity, Prince of Peace".

• At any rate it is obvious that there is nothing said in Proverbs 30: 4 about the past eternity.

• If there is, in an obscure way, a hint of any particular period in the passage, it is in the suggestion of ascending up into heaven, and descending. This would clearly refer to the Lord as incarnate, and not as in the past eternity.

On pages 34, 35 we come to the consideration of Proverbs 8. It is important to consider this scripture carefully.

• It is clear that Wisdom is personified here, and so also is Prudence.

• The thought of Wisdom being the Son is in no way suggested in the chapter, for Wisdom is personified as a woman. This is striking as being in a book which does give prominence to the thought of sonship in the saints.

• But Wisdom is always in the feminine; it is "her" and "she" all through. The son – "my son" – is to get wisdom; he is to say to Wisdom, "Thou art my sister"; Intelligence is to be his kinswoman. Proverbs 7: 4.

• Wisdom is viewed abstractedly as intelligence – Proverbs 8: 14 – and as that by which kings reign, and princes and nobles rule. She dispenses honour to those who love her, and fills their treasuries.

• Jehovah possessed her in the beginning of His way; she was set up from eternity, brought forth before the hills, and was present when Jehovah did the work of creation.

• The language used – "set up", "brought forth" – is clearly inapplicable to a Divine Person in eternal Deity,
  • but it is beautifully in keeping with the thought of Wisdom as a personified quality brought into being, and existing beside Jehovah, His hand-maid, as it were, in all His workings.

• She is not said to be created; that would make her a concrete entity; but she is "set up" and "brought forth" so as to be contemplated as possessed by Jehovah.

• It is obviously an abstract conception of Wisdom, but personified, so that it is represented as crying, instructing, loving, being loved, conferring benefits, and as rejoicing before Jehovah and in the habitable parts of His earth, and as having delights with the sons of men.

• In all this I have no doubt there was in the mind of the Spirit a certain reference to Christ, for it was He who would be God's Wisdom as well as His Power, even as the crucified One, and who would be
  • "made to us wisdom from God", 1 Corinthians 1: 24, 30.

• But to make Wisdom in Proverbs 8, to be definitely Christ Personally is going beyond what is written.

• Indeed, as we know, Christ the Son was really Jehovah the Creator in Proverbs 8, and Wisdom was with Him in all His works of old.

• To see this is manifestly to exalt Him infinitely; it is impossible for any one to say that it is a derogation from His glory.

I do not think that Proverbs 8 can be understood, consistently with the whole truth, except by seeing that

• it is the voice of Wisdom abstractedly viewed, but personified as a female who can speak, love, bestow favours, and have delights.

• It has pleased God to so present it, and it is for us to seek understanding as to it.

• It must be admitted by all that the thought of Son is simply not to be found there, Wisdom being personified as a woman.

• Proverbs 8 does not call her a Divine Person, and some of the language used precludes this thought of her.

We come, finally, on page 36 of the pamphlet, to Matthew 28: 19 as Mr. P.'s last scripture.

• "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost".

• One would like to ask whether Mr. P., when he baptises, changes the formula, and adds the word "eternal" to each of the sacred Names?

• Of course, if we are justified in adding to the Lord's own words, and then building a system of teaching on our additions, there is no more to be said.

• But devout persons will want something more than this as a foundation for what they hold in a pure conscience as the mystery of the faith.

This great utterance of our risen Lord brings the Three Persons of the ever blessed Trinity into view as They are known now through the Incarnation.

• Such a formula could not have been used in Old Testament times.

• It required that God should be known as the Father, and this was through Another co-equal Divine Person having come here as Man.

• And He who was here as Man had also spoken of Another co-equal Divine Person who would be sent from the Father and from Himself as a glorified Man, to abide with and be in those who should believe on His Name.

• That is, the whole scope of the truth as to God, as it has come to light through infinite grace and love by the incarnation of the Son, and as a result of His death and exaltation, is brought to all disciples now, and they are brought to it, in the sacred formula of Matthew 28: 19.

• Nothing could be more profound, and yet nothing more simple.

• The Father has been made known by the Son as a Divine Person in Manhood. The Holy Spirit is known as One sent by the Father and the Son.

• But if Christ had not been here as the Son in Manhood there could be no baptising to the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

• This is how Divine Persons are known now to us men through the Incarnation; the death, resurrection, and exaltation of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, being bound up with it.

• The whole point and force of the baptismal formula is that men are to be baptised to a Name which is now made known.

• Certainly there was no baptising in the past eternity, nor do we gain anything whatever by carrying back into eternity a formula
  • which derives all its significance from the supremely blessed and all-important fact that One Person in the Godhead has become, and remains eternally, Man.

The reader must judge whether Mr. P. has proved his case or not.

• It is obvious that some of his "proof texts" have no possible connection with the present subject of enquiry.

• He has not been able to bring forward any scripture that applies the title "Son", or "Son of God", to our Lord Jesus Christ as in Deity in the past eternity.

• Scripture teaches unquestionably that His Person is eternal, but it invariably attaches these Titles to Him, whether prophetically or actually, as in Manhood. This is, I believe, indisputable.

I have found the review of this great and holy subject to be profitable through the re-consideration of the precious scriptures to which Mr. P. refers.

• I trust that all who read this little paper may derive a like blessing. Apart from the thought of positive edification for the saints I should not have written it.

• I have neither desire nor ability for controversy, but everything that concerns the Personal and Mediatorial glory of the Son of God is of deep interest and is intensely profitable.

• I have sought to bring out what the Scriptures really say; this will, I trust, edify and enlarge, and make the Person of the Son of God, and His glory, greater and more precious in the heart of every reader.

C. A. C.

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