cybershark5886 said:
#2 & #3 These claims misunderstand the Father/Son relationship between Jesus and God the Father, and the use of "begotten". Jesus is clearly presented to have a unique Sonship in relation to the Father, the "only begotten", unlike our common son & daughtership as hiers of Christ, as adopted children of God by the Spirit in us who cries 'abba, Father'. Our most famous passage that deals with this is when God says in Psalm 2:7, "I will surely tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to Me, 'You are My Son, Today I have begotten You." In this case in the Psalm God is declaring a King to be an anointed son to rule, and does not in any way carry a literal birthing on that day of the king, but rather an innaguration for the King. The application of this passage in the NT also uses similar meanings.
i believe that there are a few strings of conflicting traditions in the nt concerning jesus' sonship. they seem to evolve from the earlier literature to the later literature. we see that esepcially with paul and the gospels in their sequential order:
paul --->mark--->matthew/luke/acts--->john. i believe paul and mark were most likely what we would call adoptionists (psa ii.7 supports an adoptionist viewpoint and it seems to have been construed this way very early).
paul makes that clear:
concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh,
who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord, (
rom i.3-4)
there's a notable contrast here. on the one hand we have jesus as a son of david because of his physical pedigree, and on the other we have jesus as the son of god as a result of his resurrection and 'according to the spirit of holiness'...not at all unlike
rom viii.15 &
gal iv.6.
mark begins his gospel with jesus' baptism where god declares to
jesus, not john the baptist or the crowd, as in the other gospels, that he was his son (
mk i.11). this indicates adoptionism. there would be no need for jesus to be told that he was the 'son' by god if he already was. in matthew it's a general declarative for the crowd's sake: '
this is my son...' as opposed to '
you are my son...'
luke just copies mark's wording verbatim here, although he records the whole crowd seeing the heavens open while in mark it is only jesus who sees the heavens open. in the johannine gospel the baptismal purpose is to assure the readers that john the baptist was not the messiah (
i.20) and that jesus was greater (
vs.30-34). john had a large following and was held by many to be the messiah (some small cults exist today that still believe it). the author of john felt the need to counter the rival baptist cult with the jesus cult by quoting john the baptist as conceding his own depreciatory status once jesus enters the scene.
there is also a conflict here because according to matthew
after john went to prison he sent his disciples to ask if jesus was the expected messiah because he obviously didn't know (
mt xi.2-3), but in the johannine gospel john the baptist's testimony is used to prove that jesus is the messiah and the son of god
before his imprisonment (
i.31-34;
iii.28). did he know (john)? or did he not know (matthew)? this is a legitimate contradiction which cannot be convincingly explained away.
anyway, mark's gospel continues to unfold jesus' messiah-/sonship until he is put to death by necessity of the divine will (
mk viii.33; although mark never tells us exactly
why jesus had to die) because he claimed to be the messiah/son (
mk xiv.61-62). this dual appellation of 'messiah/son of god' probably reflects, imo, the earliest tradition of what it meant to be the 'son of god', i.e. the messiah. this can be traced throughout all the gospels and in the pauline letters (
mt xvi.16;
xxvi.23,
mk i.1,
lk iv.41,
jn i.49;
xi.27,
xx.31,
2cor i.19,
gal ii.20). john's overall concept of sonship is metaphysical, however, and employs sapiental/logos theology despite its use of the older messianic tradition (cf.
enoch cv.2). john implies supreme divinity and equality with god when it speaks of jesus as a son, as has already been explored in previous posts.
In Acts 13:32-34 it says, "And we preach to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers, that God has fulfilled this promise to our children in that He raised up Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm, 'YOU ARE MY SON; TODAY I HAVE BEGOTTEN YOU.' "As for the fact that He raised Him up from the dead, no longer to return to decay, He has spoken in this way: 'I WILL GIVE YOU THE HOLY and SURE blessings OF DAVID." (NASB) Here Acts uses begotten in the sense of ressurection, in keeping with the theology of the NT that Christ was "firstborn from among the dead" (Colossians 1:18).
here in acts luke copies from another tradition not dissimilar to the pauline/markan adoptionism (although mark's is baptismal while paul's is resurrectional). this tradition may contradict lk i.35:
The angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.
luke interprets jesus' sonship in light of the mythical virgin birth, i.e. he is
literally the son of god. this is also how matthew views jesus' sonship (
mt i.21-22). there's no incarnation here, only the 'holy spirit/power of god' inseminating mary and thereby bringing the son of god into existence.
The other two instances of this Psalm verse being quoted in the NT are in Hebrews. In Hebrews 1:5-6 the superiority of the Son is shown in that it says, "For to which of the angels did He ever say, "YOU ARE MY SON, TODAY I HAVE BEGOTTEN YOU"? And again, I WILL BE A FATHER TO HIM AND HE SHALL BE A SON TO ME"? And when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says, "AND LET ALL THE ANGELS OF GOD WORSHIP HIM." (NASB) Here we also see worship ordered from the angels toward Christ, who incidentally in the OT worship no one but God alone, which to do otherwise would be rebellion and idolatry. Not to mention in verse 8 Jesus is ascribed as God, "But of the Son He says, "YOUR THRONE, O GOD, IS FOREVER AND EVER, AND THE RIGHTEOUS SCEPTER IS THE SCEPTER OF HIS KINGDOM." (NASB).
seeing psa ii.7 yet again in hebrews illustrates the flexible use of the ot by nt authors (one reason i reject ot 'prophecy' as invalid in the nt since it 'fulfills' these 'prophecies' indirectly through subjective pesher and midrash imterpretations). because of hebrews' higher christology in its exordium which is, like the gospel of john, rooted in sapiental/logos philosophy/theology, the author probably interpreted psa ii.7 as a protological act of god, i.e. before the world existed the son existed begotten from the father. this is emanist language (cf.
heb i.3 with
wis. sol. vii.25-26). the large part of early christian tradition seems to have found a place for jesus in this earlier jewish sapiental/logos tradition, where, e.g., sophia/chochma/wisdom proceeds from god in pre-existence (cf.
prov viii; esp.
vv.22-25).
the author also calls jesus the 'prwtotokon' ('first-born'), which, again, is borrowed from tradition (cf. philo
de confusione linguarum cxlvi;
de somniis i.215), although it could carry a messianic significance (cf.
psa lxxxix.27). the messianic significance is less likely, given the immediate context of the exordium (sapiental).
this protological context is also found in col i.15, where jesus is said to be the 'prwtotokoV of all creation'. this text was used to support the arian 'heresy' that jesus was created. eternal generationism or emanation may here be assumed and it may not; but i think this text is proof that the author of colossians believed christ was in some way conceptually lesser than god, because we see he is subsumed in 'creation', or at least associated with it. orthodox apologetics usually invoke the superlative understanding of the word 'prwtotokoV' here, i.e. christ is simply over all creation because he created it (vs.16). but that changes little. christ is still the '
first-begotten/-born' because he is the first being to come out/emanate from god, and all creation, in turn, was created 'in' him (greek: '
en'). they are after him and therefore lesser. but jesus would still be considered somewhat in the creation sphere, just as being the first-born from the dead (vs.18) means he was subsumed in the dead, and just as being the 'first-born of many [christian] brothers' means he is subsumed in the brothers (
rom viii.29; cf.
vs.17). to speculate anything else, imo, is inconsistency.
however, god isn't the 'first-born' of anything. a 'first-born' must originate from somewhere, and god the father is unbegotten and self-maintaining (a thought that the johannine gospel preserves; cf.
jn v.26;
vi.57) since jesus is the 'first-born' and the 'image' of god (cf.
2cor iv.4) he necessarily
cannot be god...not in the mind of the author of colossians at least.
col ii.9 could be interpreted as contradictory to my assertion, but again, here would be more unnecessary periphrasis if that were true. it would be simpler to say 'jesus is god in the flesh', but i think the meaning there is that jesus holds all the divine powers of god, as the embodiment of the attributes and nature of god. this is stated in polemic against the gnostic systems which were troubling colossae. gnostics believed in numerous divine 'aeons', various emanations of god (known as the 'monad') of which jesus was one (and wasn't even the highest). they collectively were called the plhrwma ('fullness', which is used in the verse). i think what the author is saying here (having previously asserted in i.16 that any and all of these 'aeons', or whatever powers may exist, were created in, through, and ultimately for him) is that this plhrwma/fullness of divine essence which was perceived to emanate from god, of which jesus was one aspect in gnostic thought, actually dwells completely in jesus. he's not one of them. he's greater than all of them and embodies what they falsely represent as the 'image of the invisible god' (i.15).
heb i.8 is disputed among scholars. some believe it refers to a 'divine throne' since 'qeos' is in the nominative and arguably the subject of the sentence, but i don't agree with that necessarily although it could be true. nevertheless, there are two factors to consider:
1) the psalm was originally addressed to an israelite king. the king was called 'god', but without the understanding that he
was god in some truly divine way (although that's not impossible to conceive; god-kings having existed in the old israelite monarchy isn't something to be ruled out; it existed in the surrounding cultures and is perhaps found here and in other places like
isa ix.6).
2) even if this implied deity (which i believe it does), the thought that this deity is on par with god is immediately curtailed by the phrase 'god,
your god'. jesus has a god and therefore jesus is subordinate to that god (cf. the subordination of
heb v.7-8). to invoke jesus' 'humble state' or to invoke his 'flesh' as an excuse for why he is said to have a god is just reading into the text. this entire pericope is about his exaltation, not his humility. there is no evidence that the author of hebrews or any other author of the nt viewed jesus as a strict division of two 'natures', with either 'nature' being randomly spoken of at any given moment without explanation or consistency. subordination passages just reflect the view of that author...not that he's speaking about one 'half' or 'side' of jesus at one point for no given reason. jesus is jesus. christ is christ. what's said of him applies to his whole being and person.
for angels to worship christ would not be idolatry. that is being assumed. the author had no problem with angels worshipping christ, which is why he takes his references out of context (possibly from a priorly compiled catena of messianic 'proof-texts' which he copied from) to apply them to christ. this midrashical style of interpretation is common both in the nt and in extra-biblical jewish literature from that era (and beyond).
The next verse in Hebrews that deals with it is Hebrews 5:5-6 which says, "So also Christ did not glorify Himself so as to become a high priest, but He who said to Him, "YOU ARE MY SON, TODAY I HAVE BEGOTTEN YOU"; just as He says also in another passage, "YOU ARE A PRIEST FOREVER ACCORDING TO THE ORDER OF MELCHIZEDEK." (NASB). Here, the context of being begotten is an innaugeration as High Priest, the beginning of the mediatory work of Christ, similar to the innaguration seen in Psalm 2:7. Also in the in close proximity of the context of both Hebrews verses is the idea of Christ's exaltation and appointment as mediator, Hebrews 1:3: "When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high", and Hebrews 5:9-10: "And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation, being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek." So with the three verses (from Acts and Hebrews) combined we these as applying to events in Jesus' life, namely the following ressurection, his exalation, and appointment as mediator. He was 'begotten' from the dead, 'begotten' to glory and exaltaion, and 'begotten' as appointed mediator between man and God. And at Jesus' baptism, the reference to "only begotten Son" can also be seen as the beginning of his appointment of redemption and anointing by the Spirit, which he completed when he said "It is finished". There are occasional references to begotten used elsewhere in Scripture but they all follow this pattern.
Thus using the "begotten" verse to prove that Jesus was created is incorrect and inconsistant with both the OT and NT uses of the word.
P.S. The preexistance of Christ can also be substantiated in the many verses that speak of his place in creation, especially in John 1:1-3 which I will have to demonstrate about the Logos as speaking of Jesus in #6.
nothing to really say here except to mention col i.15, where christ is definitely associated with 'creation' as the 'first-born' of it (although he existed before 'creation'). as the first-born of creation, he is not god. god and first-born are not interchangeable.
kind regards
~eric
