MARCH 5TH, 1931
MARCH 5TH, 1931
BELOVED BROTHER, — In reply to your letter I may say, in the first place, that the question raised in regard to the expression “the eternal Son”, as applied to our Lord, is not at all a question as to His Deity, or His eternal personality. The dear brethren are all, thank God, perfectly clear as to these great and vital matters of revelation and of faith. The Son was [p. 192] eternally God (John 1: 1), and subsisted in the form of God (Philippians 2: 6); before Abraham was He was “I am”, John 8: 58. Whatever inscrutable blessedness and glory and power belongs to the Godhead belongs in the fullest and most absolute way to Christ; He is “over all, God blessed for ever”, Romans 9: 5.
But the question is raised as to whether Scripture ever uses the expression “the eternal Son” in speaking of Christ, or whether He is ever called the Son when spoken of as subsisting in the form of God? If Scripture does so speak the question would be settled at once for all who own its authority. But if we find the Son, or the Son of God, spoken of in many scriptures as sent, or given, or as coming down from heaven to do the will of the One who sent Him, or as sanctified by the Father and sent into the world, or as the only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father declaring God, we see that in many scriptures, at any rate, the designation applies to Him viewed as in a mediatorial position. Now is there any scripture which speaks of Him as the Son when there is clearly no reference to what is mediatorial but to His eternal place in Deity?
We know that He existed eternally in the form of God, in a character of Being which we, as creatures, have no power to apprehend. It is infinitely beyond us in ineffable majesty and greatness, “whom no man has seen, nor is able to see”, 1 Timothy 6: 16. We cannot connect the thought of “begotten”, nor any idea of derivation, or relative inferiority, or posteriority, with One who is in the inscrutable glory of Godhead. He was God, in all the incomprehensible and unsearchable greatness which that holy Name conveys.
I desire to write with much self distrust, and with great reverence, knowing that these subjects are thrice-holy. And I hold myself ready to be corrected in every way by Scripture.
We know the Godhead as revealed, and only so, and in the economy of revelation divine Persons have been pleased to be known in the terms of a relationship known to us as men — a relationship created, I have no doubt, in view of God’s purpose so to reveal Himself. In the economy of revelation there is a certain subordination of both the Son and the Spirit; both are regarded as sent and given, and as taking up services committed to Them. Son is a relative term, and it implies a certain positional difference which Scripture never loses sight of. Now, so far as I have been able to trace, Scripture [p. 193] does not carry back this relative and positional difference into the essence of Deity, or what is spoken of as “the form of God”. We are brought by Scripture into presence of the profound and majestic fact that “the Word was God”. As such He is incomprehensible by creatures. We have to recognise that there are depths which are beyond us, and to be thankful that we can know divine Persons as and when revealed. The Persons are eternal, but the names by which we know Them belong to the economy of revelation.
Divine Persons were known to Themselves alone in the past eternity, known in mutual affections, for God is love, but known in a way that Persons in Deity alone could know each other. According to divine good pleasure One of those Persons — now known to us through revelation as the Word and the Son — created the universe. It was in the form of God that He did so, for “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. Scripture does not say that He created as Son, but John 1, Colossians 1, and Hebrews 1 make known to us that the One whom we know as the Word, and as the Son of the Father’s love, the One in whom God has spoken Son-wise, was the Creator — God of Genesis 1, Psalm 102: 25, and many other scriptures. Creation was an act incomprehensible to creature minds, but it is a matter of revelation, and is understood by faith.
All that Christ was in His eternal Personality gave unique character to that blest name of Son by which we know Him, and hence we can well understand that “no one knows the Son but the Father”, Matthew 11: 27. A relationship is now revealed between divine Persons which is apprehensible by us. That precious name of Son gives character to the revelation of God, for He is made known as Father. But it also intimates the relationship into which God purposed to bring men, through infinite grace. “God sent forth his Son ... that we might receive sonship”, Galatians 4: 6. He has predestinated us to be conformed to the image of His Son, Romans 8: 29. The Son of God will be eternally the Firstborn among many brethren. So that His name or title as Son would appear to be connected with eternal purpose rather than with His place in essential Deity. Certainly none but One who was God in the most absolute sense could have taken that Name so as to bring to men the revelation of God in love, that, in result, holy myriads might be secured to be in the place and [p. 194] relationship of sons eternally. As Son, too, He will be in the subject place eternally, 1 Corinthians 15: 28; one could not speak of God, as such, being “placed in subjection;” it brings out in a striking way the relative place taken by the Son mediatorially.
There is a sweet mutuality in the affections of a father and a son, but those affections are not exactly co-equal. It is evident that the terms used of the Father and the Son cannot be transposed. One is the Sanctifier, the Sender, the Giver; the Other is the Sanctified, the Sent, and the Given; He comes at the Father’s behest, and in His own devotion, to do the will of the One who sent Him. All this has to do with the form which divine revelation has taken; it has to do with what is mediatorial.
In absolute Godhead there could not be any precedence or any relative inferiority. The glory of divine Persons, as such, was equal, Their majesty co-eternal. We do not safeguard the personal greatness and glory of Christ by connecting with Him as in eternal Deity thoughts which in Scripture are connected with Him viewed mediatorially. Our attention is now being called to the difference between what is mediatorial and what is connected with the eternal Personality of Christ as in Deity. It is, I believe, of the Spirit to establish our faith in His eternal greatness and majesty as God. It is the divine answer to all the diverse and multiplied efforts of the enemy at the present day to obscure His ineffable and divine greatness as in absolute Godhead.
When we see that He is the Son and the Word as having taken a mediatorial place it magnifies before our hearts the perfection and grace of the revelation which has come to us. We are bowed in adoration as we contemplate His glory. We get a deepened sense of the condescending gentleness in which grace and truth have come to us. In the light of what He was eternally all that He is as the Son and the Word becomes more glorious than ever in our eyes. God grant that it may be so!
All that can be made known of God to creatures such as we — and all that creatures redeemed, renewed, and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, can know — is revealed to be our present and everlasting glory and joy. We need not desire to go into matters which are not revealed.
No doubt the expression “the eternal Son” has often been [p. 195] used with a godly intention to denote His eternal Personality, and one would be very jealous that a sense of this should not be weakened. But we gain greatly by recognising how things are presented in Scripture, and particularly those great and infinitely precious things which relate to the holy Person of our Lord and Saviour.
He had glory with the Father before the world was; He was loved by the Father before the world’s foundation. But He spoke of this to the Father in connection with the unfolding of those purposes of divine love which He had come into manhood to effectuate.... His was the unique glory of giving effect to all that had been purposed from eternity for love’s full satisfaction and rest. His eternal personality was essential to this, but it was a glory that stood in relation to the purpose of divine love concerning men. He would give effect through His incarnation, death and resurrection, and as a result of His being glorified as Man along with the Father, to all that was in God’s eternal purpose. We know Him as the Son come forth from with the Father, and now glorified as Man with the Father, but the glory given to Him thus can be beheld by His own. It is not of a character which is in unapproachable light, or which no man has seen, nor is able to see.
All that is pleaded for is that we should keep within the limits of Scripture, and that we should regard divine names and titles as they are presented to us, and that we should remember that the greatness of God is unsearchable. One would not care to assert anything of divine Persons that Scripture did not support.
With much love in the Lord Jesus,
Yours affectionately in Him,
March 5th, 1931.