There is "a time to keep silence", we read in Ecc’l.3, "and a
time to speak." When the glory of our Blessed Lord is being assailed,
and error pressed upon us as the truth, in a plausable manner, it
is surely "a time to speak".
A number of our readers have received some papers through the mails, within
the last few months, which present the old and most destructive error of
denying to our God the Glory of being Father in eternity, and to
our Lord of being Son in eternity. We believe it well to refute
this with all vigor and godly fear.
We will quote a few lines from papers that we have personally received.
In one which is undated and unsigned (although it seems that the last
page or pages may be missing which would account for the lack of
a signature), it is stated:
"Thus the Fatherhood and Son ship have not been eternal…..Until "The Word became
flesh’ when Deity assumed Fatherhood and Son ship, there was neither Father nor
Son, as such….The Persons who are now Father and Son did not become
such until incarnation, when God begot His only Son!" From another article, dated
August 2,1958, and signed by the author, we quote the following lines:"If
we ‘search’, we shall find no ‘Father & Son’ apart from Manhood and
redemption." Again, "He became Son at incarnation." Let the reader judge for himself
the abhorrent character of such assertions, in the light of the following scriptures,
and accompanying remarks – words of truth, surely.
F. W. Grant, in his excellent pamphlet, "The Crowned Christ", also in Help
& Food 1896-7, devotes a chapter to "The Eternal Son." On page 18,
he adds that:
"One direct text of scripture outweighs all possible arguments; here surely if anywhere,
where we know nothing but by revelation. And it is given as proof
of the greatness of divine love, in one of the most familiar texts
to all of us, that "God so loved the world, that He gave
His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have
eternal life" (John 3:16). This by the Lord Himself; while the apostle who
records it, preaches upon it in his epistle:"Herein was manifested the love
of God toward us, because God 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 to be the
propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:9,10).
"The depth of this love is shown then in this, that the Father
sent His Son into the world for us:it is perfectly plain then
that Christ was the Son before He came into the world. The appeal
to our hearts is simple, who know in ourselves, though fallen, something of
what a father’s love is. And if we look back to the time
when God was pleased to show in Abraham’s case something of the reality
of sacrifice, we feel it as a trial beyond nature when we hear
the measured words, every word in agony, "Take now thy son, – thine
only son, – Isaac, – whom thou lovest; and go into the land
of Moriah, and offer him up there a burnt-offering upon one of the
mountains I will tell thee of" (Gen. 22:2).
"….How could we do without those precious words "Son" and "Father", back of
all dispensations, all economic display, to show what is the nature of God
in itself eternally, – the absolute verity of that which has now been
revealed?
"He is not "love" for an occasion, however great may be the occasion.
Nor is the Son become Son for display, however glorious. The Father had
no beginning as the Father; nor the Son therefore as the Son. If
otherwise, then after all we have not a revelation of eternity, nor of
God as He is, but only as He is pleased to become –
a very different thing. Thank God, it is not so. We know how
God dwelt in love eternally:we have the Object of that love made
known to us; we are made to know, not eternal silence in the
House which now has such glorious music for returned prodigals, but a communion
into which we are now admitted, and are privileged in our measure to
become partakers." (page 21,22). J. G. Bellett, in his book entitled, "The Son
of God", writes most tenderly, yet unequivocally on this sacred theme in chapter
one, page 10:
"Nothing can satisfy all which the Scriptures tell us of this great mystery,
but the faith of this – that the Father and the Son are
in the glory of the God-head; and in that relation too, though equal
in that glory… Can the Son be honoured even as the Father (John
5:23), if He be not owned in the Godhead?…The understanding which has been
given us, has been given us to know "Him that is True", as
being "in Him that is True, even in His Son Jesus Christ;" and
to this it is added, "this is the true God, and eternal life."
"But still further. I ask, can the love of God be understood according
to Scripture if this Sonship be not owned? Does not that love get
its character from that very doctrine?"
And here, Mr. Bellett quotes John 3:16 and the other verses from 1
John that Mr. Grant uses in his remarks. Then he (Mr. Bellett) continues:
"Does not this love at once lose its unparalleled glory, if this truth
be questioned? How would our souls answer the man who would tell us,
that it was not His own Son whom God spared not, but gave
Him up for us all? How would it wither the heart to hear
that such an one (see Rom. 8:32) was only His Son as born
of the Virgin, and that those words, "He that spared not His own
Son," are to be read as human, and not as Divine? (page 13,14).
J. N. Darby, in his synopsis of the Epistle to the Colossians, chapter
one, verse 16, points out, in his usual pithy style of expression, that:
"It was in the Person of the Son that God acted, when by
His power He created all things, whether in heaven or in earth, visible
and invisible. All that is great and exalted is but the work of
His hand; all has been created by Him (the Son) and for Him.
Thus, when He takes possession of it, He takes it as His inheritance
by right. Wonderful truth, that He who has redeemed us, who made Himself
man, one of us as to nature, in order to do so, is
the Creator. But such is the truth." A few pages further on, he
remarks that:"The Son is also the name of the proper relationship of
His glorious Person to the Father before the world was. It is in
this character that He Created all things. The Son is to be glorified
even as the Father.., In the Epistle to the Colossians that which is
set before us is the proper glory of His Person as the Son
before the world was. He is the Creator as Son. It is important
to observe this." (page 13,15).
Those of our readers who have access to these writings are invited to
read in full that from which these excerpts have been taken, and by
all let the Scriptures be searched to see whether these things be so
(Acts 17:11).
One who loves the Lord, and knows his place as a member of
His Body, which is the Church, cannot be indifferent or neutral on this
subject.
May God have mercy on the writer of this abhorrent teaching whose papers
we have recently received in .the mail, and deliver him from it, granting
"the obedience of faith". And may the fresh consideration of this glory of
the Godhead enlarge our hearts in worship and spiritual understanding.
FRAGMENT In meditation upon so fruitful a theme as in the above, Oh
may we realize more distinctly what He is to us, and, as it
were, crown Him with His many crowns. "And upon His head were many
crowns. (Rev. 19:12). Ed.
FRAGMENT
He knows; He loves; He cares!
Nothing — this truth can dim.
He gives the very best – to those
Who leave the choice with Him.