Wow, three responses at once, though only two questions

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dave Mullbock:
Being begotten as the Son of Man did not negate His pre-existense. Perhaps being begotten as the Son of God does not negate His pre-existense to that event. Only so much is revealed. What is revealed is that Jesus has always existed and yet is somehow the eternal Son.

Jesus, as a man, stands at the head of the human race as alone the Son of God. Perhaps a similar situation as He is also Michael.

---

That "eternal Son" you mean in a literal sense, then, given the rest of your first paragraph. Our doctrine uses the same wording, though rendering it non-literal with "God the eternal Son"....

Fascinating point you mention of Jesus as the true and only Son of God replacing the first Adam, a son of God. And, yes, "Michael" means "like God", doesn't it: but divine and therefore equal to God.

MM, you're inferring that I seem to think that the Son of God came into existent, but I never went that far. This isn't anywhere near it, from me...

quote:

---

As much as is revealed is that the Word, also Wisdom, of God was begotten as the Son of God, having been in God's person all along. There was no beginning to the Word's actual existence, just physical individuality. No that is a mystery

---

This concern we have with the Son's pre-existence and self-existence as God shouldn't burden us, since, as Dave has just posted, his divinity isn't at issue: it's his Sonship that's at issue.

"Everlasting Father" is a messianic title as new head of the human race, which is an everlasting title.

Thomas, Phil 2...your 'copy':

quote:

---

5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. 9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

---

Verse 7 is the kenosis doctrine which you rightly drew out, but verse 6 is establishing Jesus attitude as deity, too, surely. "Being in the form of God" does refer to his divinity concealed by his humanity on earth, granted - "form" having that meaning as well, but this verse also refers to his heavenly experience of thus personally standing next to God while also appearing divine, but not holding it to be sin to be equal with God - which Lucifer did commit sin by wanting to do (it's in the chapter of Lucifer's fall in Pat.&Pr., where this equality was debated between Lucifer and God's Son). A mental realisation he had previously experienced and so knew by faith, on earth, was God's will.

Given the Bible's portrayal of Jesus' begotten, divine Sonship, this previous, heavenly experience is also covered by him "being in the form of God", since he is not God the Father and yet appears divine. Thus robbery is possible in both situations, but not applicable. Yet, Lucifer committed attempted robbery, and war broke out in heaven over equality.

Jesus' human mindset was modelled on his divine attitude - facilitated by God's Spirit, which recognised his divine equality with his Father, God, who himself knew it to be true. Check it out in that Pat.&Pr. chapter mentioned above.

The NIV text states "who didn't consider equality with God a thing to be grasped", which in the heavenly setting means he never had it, while Lucifer wouldn't have sinned had he taken God's counsel that equality wasn't within his grasp.

Such are the deeper insights of Scripture when one accepts that "God gave his only begotten Son".

I fear I shocked Dedication with that comment... Apologies: I was paraphrasing the Adventist layman's challenge to Walter Veith over his problem with evolution, prior to Veith abandoning it.

Very simply she's not accepting the word "begotten" while it is printed in the Bible, nor is she accepting EGW's consistent teaching that Jesus is the eternal, literal Son of God.

The modern scholarship on "unique" for monogenes is flimsy if not mistaken, given "begotten"'s classical and consistent use in Bible translations into latin and modern languages. The traditional meaning has much more evidence for it, which is why it's in the Bible, today.

Thank-you for the welcome! I've been a member here for some time, just haven’t posted that much.


Colin wrote:
-------------------------------------------------
"it was the Son of God who came to the world in human form." That was Review and Herald August 6th 1908, also 9T 67-68.
=========================

There's no question in the fact that Christ is called the Son of God.
The question is "what exactly does that mean"?

In the passage you referred to, EGW is talking about Kellogg's pantheistic concepts that renders the Godhead as permeating all nature. -- i.e. God is in the trees, in the air etc.

She wrote:

• Again and again we shall be called to meet the influence of men who are studying sciences of satanic origin, through which Satan is working to make a nonentity of God and of Christ. {9T 68.1}
  The Father and the Son each have a personality. Christ declared: "I and My Father are one." Yet it was the Son of God who came to the world in human form. Laying aside His royal robe and kingly crown, He clothed His divinity with humanity,

EGW never agreed with any doctrines on the Godhead that robbed the individual members (the three great powers, as she calls them) of their individuality. Yet, even here she includes the text "I AND MY FATHER ARE ONE". Why did she include it here?

Could it be that she wanted to make it plain that while God and Christ each had their own personality, they were ONE God?

The passage is NOT asserting that Christ was "birthed" prior to being born in Bethlehem, (in fact you won't find an explicit statement like that anywhere in EGW's writings) rather it is asserting that Christ, and God were two distinct personages, yet ONE!


===================
Colin wrote:
"Son" is not literal but a term of endearment, like "Father", for us to understand a close connection as we would imagine a family, but they're not a family. Such is the explanation in vol.12 ABC: Handbook of SDA Theology.
====================

I'm really not here to defend any handbook.

I tried to address that point in my post #3 on this thread.

We know that Christ was "THE LAMB OF GOD" from the foundation of the earth. Yet, He didn't actually die upon the cross until a point in earth's time was reached.

God Himself is not limited to TIME -- the future and the present are all open to Him as "The present".

Thus, in the same way that Christ was the LAMB OF GOD, slain from the foundation of the world, (Rev. 13:8) so He is the Son of God from the foundation of the world.

Jesus became the "Son of God" at the head of the human race, just as Adam was "the son of God" (Luke 3:38) standing at the head of the human race. BUT Adam sold out his dominion over the earth, there in Eden. Christ, the Son of God and the Son of man, came to redeem that lost inheritance. And in Daniel 7:13-14 we see the Son of man being brought before the celestial court of heaven and given the dominion and the kingdom! And through Him the "saints" are given back the last dominion!

Yet, Christ is FAR GREATER than Adam --
John 1:1 tells us, not only was He with God, He was God!

====================
EGW also wrote in the Youth's Instructor in 1906 (I think; shall endeavor to find the reference) that with Bethlehem Jesus became Son of God "in a new sense".
====================

• In His incarnation He gained in a new sense the title of the Son of God. Said the angel to Mary, "The power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35). While the Son of a human being, He became the Son of God in a new sense. Thus He stood in our world--the Son of God, yet allied by birth to the human race. {1SM 226.2}

What could that "new sense" be?
Could it be that now IT WAS A LITERAL BIRTH, and previously it was not.


=========================
Colin wrote:
EGW definitely insisted on the Son being begotten of the Father before Bethlehem. Her view of Jesus' Sonship isn't what we believe today....
=========================

Where?

Yes, she uses the phrase in the same way the Bible uses it --
"God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son."

But I haven’t read in her writings any specific comment that there was a time when Christ was not, --that there was a heavenly birth, and Christ was born prior to creation.

She does make several comments that Christ is infinite and eternal, with God the Father from all eternity.

• YI.1900-06-21.002
  Christ is equal with God, infinite and omnipotent. He could pay the ransom for man's freedom. He is the eternal, self-existing Son.
  RH April 5, 1906, p. 8
  Christ was God essentially, and in the highest sense. He was with God from all eternity, God over all, blessed forevermore.

===========================
Colin writes:

Your comments on Heb 1:1-5 are interesting, in that Sister White draws more from it than you allow....The reference to Ps 2:7 cannot be restricted to the resurrection, even by the Apostle Peter - or even for Bethlehem (by Adventists). Ellen White's comments on it, as quoted in my posts of the 19th, from 8T 268, take that Bible text, indeed Heb 1:1-5, back to "the beginning"....
The quote:

• God is the Father of Christ; Christ is the Son of God. To Christ has been given an exalted position. He has been made equal with the Father. All the counsels of God are opened to his Son.

You read that as happening after the resurrection??...
=================================
Yes!

Hebrews chapter one shows Christ's re-entry into the heavenly realms after His life/sacrifice/resurrection on earth.

• Hebrews 1:3 "When he (Jesus) had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high"

When did He do that? Yes, after the resurrection!

• Hebs 10.12
  This man, (Jesus) after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;

And yes when Christ returned to heaven, still bearing His glorified human form, HE WAS EXALTED!

• Heb. 2.9
  Now, we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.
  
  Phil. 2:6 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:"

===================
Colin wrote:
Also the Son is portrayed as younger than the Father.
====================

But--
Infinity has no age.

We must go back to Christ's claim of being "I AM" in John 8:58

The grammatical structure of Christ's claim, sets a point of beginning for the existence of Abraham, but the present tense of the "I AM" predicates absolute existence for the person of Jesus, with no point of beginning at all.
This is why Jesus does ot use the imperfect tense "I was" for this would say only that the existence of the person of Jesus antedates the time of Abraham and would leave open the question as to whether Christ Himself had a beginning at some point.
BUT WHAT JESUS declares is the "I AM" which is independent of any beginning or end. Thus with the simple words Jesus testifies to the divine, eternal pre-existence of his person.

It is the title God claimed as His back in Exodus 3 -- it is a name emphasizing "his infinite nature".

Infinity is not measured by “how old”.


==================

Colin gives an interesting history—here’s just a snippet of it:

Why have the very latest translations of the Church Fathers' writings rendered monogenes as "begotten", and all the modern language translations before that have done the same.

=======================

Actually the "church fathers" -- if I'm not mistaken, came up with the "eternal generating" theory. So they used a word to support their theory.

Yet the theory that Christ is eternally generated by the Father goes totally against what we believe and is refuted by EGW --

• "He is the eternal self-existing Son," (YI June 21, 1900). {5BC 1136.12}
  
  "the life of Christ was unborrowed. ... In Him was life, original, unborrowed, underived.(ST Feb. 13, 1912). {5BC 1130.3}

So I'm not so sure we should count on them to come up with the right meaning.

=============
Colin writes:
Fear not about the begotten Son of God suffering loss off equality with his Father. No Adventist ever suggested it, so your well-read & instinctive reaction is mis-informed.
=============

My first comment however is not satisfied by your “assurance” for:
The great attribute of God is His "eternal presence" – infinity.
A pro-created Being is restricted to time and is lacking the eternal essence of Godhood.

And to take away His individuality and place Christ as only an attribute of God within God's mind to justify His claim of infinity, is boardering on theories that come from Gnosticism.

To say there was a time when Christ was not, is essentially saying He is not God, for His would then not be that eternal self-existing presence, but an existence that was not self-existing at all, but finally bestowed and limited in time.


==============
Colin writes:
As much as is revealed is that the Word, also Wisdom, of God was begotten as the Son of God, having been in God's person all along. There was no beginning to the Word's actual existence, just physical individuality. No that is a mystery.
===============

I have a major problem with that theory.

Firstly – Solomon is using “Personification” and is depicting “wisdom” as a woman. Personification is the representation of an abstraction as a person or by human form, (examples: kindness reached out her gentle hands and melted his heart) OR personification can mean the embodiment of an abstraction (a man who personified kindness).” (See Webster’s dictionary)
The deduction that since Christ is the personification of WISDOM, (as well as all the other attributes of God) that this means Proverbs is defining Christ’s origin before the incarnation, is a faulty deduction.
Proverbs personifies the attribute of WISDOM as a woman.
It is correct to say that Christ is the personification of WISDOM, (as well as all the other attributes of God)
But to say WISDOM is literally CHRIST, is not correct.

For instance, was Christ NOT AN INDIVIDUAL at creation?
Proverbs 8 says that when God prepared the heavens, Wisdom was there.
“When God put the water systems in place, Wisdom was there.
The creation of all things shows the wonderful wisdom of God.
God delights in wisdom and understanding, truth and uprightness.”
We know from scripture that Christ was not just a spectator at Creation, for John tells us that:
The Word [Jesus] was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. (John 1:1-3)

One of EGW’s BIGGEST concerns in understanding the Godhead, was that we NOT remove the individuality of the members of the Godhead. It appears this theory does remove Christ’s individuality and makes Him merely an attribute of God the Father.

Actually the above reasoning is very much in line with Greek thought. In Greek philosophy their term LOGOS, or “word” also meant “sense of reason” or “thought immanent in the supreme Godhead”. Platonic theorizing had developed quite a philosophy along these lines of the One transcended God, “Divine idea of all ideas”, the archetype of the universe, and the revelation or forthcoming, the clothing of thought, the manifestation of reason personified in the “bringing forth“ of “demiurges“. It was through these “demiurges” that the ideas from the mind of God were created into “matter” which of course the Gnostics considered as “evil” and the great God could not “soil himself” with this matter, so from His mind He projected agents, the Logos, etc. to do this work for Him.
This Greek philosophy was the “in” way of thinking back in the first centuries and we see their line of reasoning emanating from the schools of higher thought, especially from Alexandria were Gnosticism was strong.
John, however, begins his gospel with an emphatic declaration that Christ, The Word, is an absolute Eternal Being. In the beginning the Word was there. He does not say “in the beginning the Word was brought forth”. No, In the Beginning the Word WAS!


If being in someone’s thoughts means "we are in existence" would this not move us into the "spiritualistic" concepts that we are also eternal?
The Lord said to Jeremiah, “ Before I formed you in the belly I knew you; and before you came forth out of the womb I sanctified you. Jer. 1.5
God knew all of us before Creation. The breath of Life which was breathed into Adam is the breath of life in us all. Therefore are we to conclude that we are all eternal?
No, this type of reasoning is simply seeking to justify the rejection of all the quotes that say Christ is eternal. But by doing so he throws into question not only the clear statements that Christ is eternal, but the whole concept of eternal existence.

If Christ is not eternal as a "self-existing" Being, and to live eternally is only a mythical existance without personality, which can mean we are only on someone's mind, how can we even be sure that there is actual everlasting life in the future---?

In Hebrew, the word “son” in addition to the human “literal” sense, has the spiritual meaning of “moral kinship.”

So we see scripture asserting that all who believe God as Abraham did , are the true sons of Abraham. We have Paul calling Timothy his son, etc. We have Paul saying he has “begotten” fellow believers , who are now his sons, through the gospel . (1 Cor. 4:15)

The spiritual meaning was not dependant upon physical, literal reality. Thus, when Jesus announced He was the Son of God, they immediately recognized that as a claim to being God.

“John 10.33 The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. “

Greek thought, however, tended to give the word “son” the meaning of being “derived”. In what sense, then, they would ask, did Jesus derive His being from God? And this question did not relate primarily to His coming into the world as a man, but to His eternal being,

Colin, you seem to be implying that the expression "only begotten Son of God" means Jesus is somehow lesser than the Father. You also seem to be unwilling to say Jesus is God in the same sense the Father is God.

No ... Was your question from my comments on "did not count it robbery to be equal with God"? Equality isn't challenged here, but affirmed, also in my comments on it. As for Jesus being divine in the same sense as the Father, I was affirming this but pointing out that the Father is called 'God' while Jesus needs to be understood as a different individual when termed "God" as well. John 1:1 clearly distinguished the God and the Word, and "the Word was God" is equally translatable as "the Word was divine" - indicating same quality of divinity as God has, but being a different person. Same divinity, but not one person as 'God'.

What is implied by translating John 1:1 as "and the Word was divine" does the text an injustice. By writing the clause "kai theos ein ho logos" John's intent was to emphasize that, while Jesus was a distinct person from the Father, He was God in the same sense that the Father was.

If it read "kai ho logos ein theos", then the mere "the Word was divine" would be appropriate.

If it read "kai ho logos ein ho theos", the it would mean that Jesus and the Father are one and the same person.

Dave, despite our increasing agreement on this topic, you do me and injustice with

quote:

---

What is implied by translating John 1:1 as "and the Word was divine" does the text an injustice. By writing the clause "kai theos ein ho logos" John's intent was to emphasize that, while Jesus was a distinct person from the Father, He was God in the same sense that the Father was.

---

...since I wrote

quote:

---

John 1:1 clearly distinguished the God and the Word, and "the Word was God" is equally translatable as "the Word was divine" - indicating same quality of divinity as God has, but being a different person. Same divinity, but not one person as 'God'.

---

We look like we're talking passed each other while agreeing; yet, you suggest I differ.

I understand the Greek clause variations you posted, but my suggestion was per the comment from a pastor I personally received about how the text shows the Word to be divine while not the same person as God but yet himself with the full identity and status as God. Whether putting "theos" at the end of the clause would make a difference in the English wording is another matter. Given the need to differentiate between God and Jesus, describing Jesus as divine makes no difference in England to the theological point.

So, we actually agree...

I agree with Colin on the point of usage of "God". That is, we are used to speaking of "God the Father, God the Son" and "God the Holy Spirit." But as far as I aware, these expressions are not found in either Scripture nor the Spirit of Prophecy. "God" is reserved to refer to the Father alone, again as far as I'm aware. If anyone has any texts that say otherwise, I would like to see that. Given the dozens times the New Testament uses the formulation "God" and "the Lord Jesus Christ", I don't think it's right to take one text and give it a different usage then what we see elsewhere.

Especially I'd be interested in seeing if there are any statements in the Spirit of Prophecy which refer to Jesus as "God".

At any rate, we mean exactly the same thing ("we" being those holding to the trinity-type view) whether we say Christ is "divine" or Christ is "God". We are saying He has all the attributes of God, not that He is God the Father. Among the attributes of God is being self-existent and without beginning.