AUGUST 4TH, 1933
[p. 400] AUGUST 4TH, 1933
Beloved Brother, — As promised, during our recent conversation, I now send you the following remarks on the tract entitled ‘The Divine Sonship of the Lord Jesus Christ’.
The tract is based upon the statement that ‘He is God in His eternal Nature. And His sonship, which subsists in that eternal Nature, must be itself eternal’ (page 5). There is also the further statement on the same page, ‘This sonship ... must subsist in His own eternal Divine Nature’.
Note the phrase ‘eternal Divine Nature’ — the last word written with a capital. Where is it obtained from? In the tract it appears (in several forms) something like 120 times applied to the Divine Persons as in absolute Deity. Scripture employs the expression “divine nature” but once (2 Peter 1: 4), to teach that believers partake of it. The tract uses the expression in a sense that is not scriptural, for otherwise it would make us partakers of Deity. Thus a scriptural expression used in the tract unscripturally is made the basis of its teaching! In this manifestly wrong way is the so-called eternal sonship of Christ sought to be maintained by the writer of this tract.
Of course the tract assumes to support its teaching by Scripture, and so, in part one, five passages are adduced from the gospel of John. The first is John 5: 21. Much that is said of this verse could be accepted if presented apart unscriptural intent indicated above. But there is nothing here to show the pre-incarnate sonship of Christ. The chapter teaches the personal equality of the Son with the Father, but also that, in sonship, He has taken a place of inferiority in subjection to the Father. The writer of the tract vainly endeavours to shut this fact out of verse 21, by saying, ‘Neither does the scripture say here that He receives this from the Father, as in verse 26’. Scripture need not always repeat itself; but on this matter of our Lord’s sonship it teaches throughout that, while He is personally equal with the Father, He has in it taken a subject place — the relationship of Son implying this. In John 5: 19, 20, that is to say, immediately preceding the verse quoted in the tract, this truth is stated in the plainest manner, but while verse 21 indicates our Lord’s deity, it cannot be used to deny the subject place He has taken as Son.
‘He exercises His own will because He is Son’ (page 6). Why ‘because He is Son’? The truth is that He exercises it [p. 401] as a Divine Person. Then we have stated the truth (?) assumed to be arrived at: ‘Here, then, is shown forth the sonship of Jesus as that in which lies the right and power in quickening of Divine Sovereignty’. Note, ‘Sonship ... that in which lies the right and power in quickening of Divine Sovereignty’. But the Father quickens, as the verse states, and sonship is not in Him. The Spirit quickens also. Scripture teaches that the right and power referred to lies in Divine Persons — in God — not necessarily in sonship.
The next Scripture brought forward is John 8: 14, the ‘tremendous significance’ of which, according to the tract, nothing could exceed. Like all statements of our Lord’s deity, it is of course of great importance; but in it the Lord points out His competency to witness of Himself, as He knew whence He came and whither He was going. His adversaries did not know. He is a Divine Person, saying later on, “Before Abraham was, I am”, and so knew whence He came. But the Lord’s words are not enough for the tract, for we read (page 6), ‘This marvellous conscious knowledge lies in His eternal Divine Nature’. The truth taught in the chapter is that the knowledge referred to speaks of His deity. Again (page 7), ‘Thus, His knowledge of His own eternal place with the Father lay in the holy consciousness of His Divine Nature’. Note here the use of ‘Divine Nature’ where Person should be employed — if indeed we are justified in speaking of Divine Persons in this way. To my mind the statement I quote is irreverent and presumptuous. How does the writer know that the infinite knowledge a Divine Person has lies in His ‘Divine Nature’? What divine nature is he speaking of? It cannot be that of which Scripture speaks (2 Peter 1 — enlarged on in 1 John 4) in which we have part. He must have in mind what God is essentially as in absoluteness. Does the writer know what this is? Certainly not; God’s form and essential Being are altogether beyond us. Nature is not essential being or form. This is true, even when applied to a creature. We speak of God’s nature being love, as seen in Christ, but this does not refer to His Form or essential Being; and we cannot say ‘love is God’.
‘For that Nature remained in His Incarnation ... though having united to it His holy sinless Nature as Man, in His ONE eternal Person’ (page 7). The reader will note the confusion of thought in this statement. In our Lord’s ‘ONE eternal Person’ two natures are united. Thus, according to this, in Person He is changed, whereas the truth of Scripture is incarnation; that is, a Divine Person becoming flesh whilst in Person He remains unchanged, for He says (in manhood), “Before Abraham was, I am”.
John 10: 30 is the next scripture under review — “I and the Father are one”. The Lord is asserting the perfect unity between the Father and Himself, applying this fact to Their service, having said that His Father was greater than all. But the tract must, as usual, introduce ‘Divine Nature’. The passage, like so many others, asserts the Lord’s deity, as the Jews understood (verse 33), but why base this on the ‘Divine Nature’, a misused expression as already pointed out? Page 8 says, ‘Thus, as the Son, He claims this oneness with the Father by virtue of that eternal Divine Nature which was His, even as it was the Father’s’. Where does He claim oneness with the Father ‘by virtue of that eternal Divine Nature which was His?’ The statement is gratuitous, and obviously, is made to fortify the unscriptural basis — ‘eternal Divine Nature’ — on which the teaching of the tract rests. The Lord, in the passage, claims oneness with the Father being a Divine Person, the Jews understanding by it that He made Himself God. In the presence of the foregoing consideration of what the tract calls ‘simple yet evident facts’, you will know how to regard the question asked at the bottom of page 7.
Of John 17: 5, the tract says (page 8), that the glory of which the Lord speaks is a condition proper to its (Godhead glory) manifestation on high. How does the writer know this? ‘He had the right’, the tract says (page 8), ‘being the Divine Son, to ask to be glorified again with that glory’. Why not say, ‘Being a Divine Person’? As a Divine Person He is God, which is manifestly greater than sonship.
‘His Person is not complete without that (Divine) Nature’, (page 9). Do not these constant references to the ‘Divine Nature’ indicate an obsession of spirit on the part of the writer? A Divine Person must be complete.
Again, ‘In that eternal Nature lay those ineffable affections. They had their source in that Nature’ (page 9). They had their source the Persons.
Much more could be pointed out as to the character of this pamphlet, but what I have written will show how unscriptural [p. 403] and misleading it is. It has a tinge of mysticism, and this very feature is calculated to deceive souls, especially when accompanied by apparently pious phrases. But its object is to discredit or deny the truth as to our Lord’s sonship which, through some years of patient enquiry in dependence on the Holy Spirit, and of conflict too, has been made plain to us, and is now “fully believed among us”. There is in it thus a challenge as to whether the Spirit of truth has His place amongst the saints, and whether such scriptures as John 8: 32 an 1 John 2: 27 apply today. Besides this there is latitudinarianism in the publication of this paper, as the persons responsible continue (nominally) in fellowship.
Affectionately yours in Christ,
James Taylor.