Pastor, thank you for this. I appreciate the notes on dating and female roles... It seems that a lot of these answers are simply biblical answers without adding traditional American thinking into the mix.
The Patriarchy that is from eternity pasan will go on into Kingdom come is, "I do the will of my (Heavenly) Father"
The will of the Father is that the Son would do His will. The will of the Son is to do the will of the Father. And their wills, distinct though they are, cannot be anything but perfectly in accord with the goodness of the Father. So there is no variableness or shadow of turning among the persons of the Godhead.
So there is the eternally subordinate Son of God, but no Eternal Subordination of the Son, because the verb form of "subordinate" never did, and never will, apply to Him.
What did the Father say to do? His son, Jesus, has told us all that his Father gave Him to say to us. So, we know tongo into all the world, baptizing, making disciples, teaching them to observe all He has commanded us.
If not for that One who did the will of his Father, even unto death on a cross, we would be condemned to hell forever.
It's important to distinguish between Christ's subordination to the Father from the eternal Son's subordination. The issue revolves around whether or not we agree with the standard understanding of will (per the hypostatic union) as deriving from nature and nature synonymous with Being. So if the persons of the trinity have different wills, then it implies they have different natures and are not the same being. Submission is not possible without a difference of wills, otherwise there is simply complete agreement. You don't submit to yourself, but you submit to a higher authority.
ESS was invented in the 80s/90s as a response against feminist attacks on marriage by attempting to preserve the equality of a woman to her husband by connecting it to the equality of the Son and the Father. However, the Scripture does not connect marriage to the Trinity. The only passage that seems to do so says that man is the head of woman, CHRIST the head of man, and God the head of Christ. But Christ is specifically a reference to the incarnate 2nd person with his human nature, and thus can't prove that the eternal Son eternally submits to the father. Ephesians 5 does not connect marriage to the trinity but connects it to Christ and the Church. The main issue with ESS is that it improperly roots marriage in the Trinity, mixing what is created with what is eternal, and sets up the issue I began with, that following the logic to the conclusion leads to denying the unity of the Trinity by inserting a difference of wills which leads to a multiplicity of beings.
The non-ess position is that the Son and Father from eternity past had the same unified will and the Son did not 'submit' in His choice to enter into the plan of salvation, His submission came after He was incarnate, as Hebrews 5 says: "he learned obedience." I hope this helps.
It's important to distinguish between Christ's subordination to the Father from the eternal Son's subordination. The issue revolves around whether or not we agree with the standard understanding of will (per the hypostatic union) as deriving from nature and nature synonymous with Being. So if the persons of the trinity have different wills, then it implies they have different natures and are not the same being. Submission is not possible without a difference of wills, otherwise there is simply complete agreement. You don't submit to yourself, but you submit to a higher authority.
ESS was invented in the 80s/90s as a response against feminist attacks on marriage by attempting to preserve the equality of a woman to her husband by connecting it to the equality of the Son and the Father. However, the Scripture does not connect marriage to the Trinity. The only passage that seems to do so says that man is the head of woman, CHRIST the head of man, and God the head of Christ. But Christ is specifically a reference to the incarnate 2nd person with his human nature, and thus can't prove that the eternal Son eternally submits to the father. Ephesians 5 does not connect marriage to the trinity but connects it to Christ and the Church. The main issue with ESS is that it improperly roots marriage in the Trinity, mixing what is created with what is eternal, and sets up the issue I began with, that following the logic to the conclusion leads to denying the unity of the Trinity by inserting a difference of wills which leads to a multiplicity of beings.
The non-ess position is that the Son and Father from eternity past had the same unified will and the Son did not 'submit' in His choice to enter into the plan of salvation, His submission came after He was incarnate, as Hebrews 5 says: "he learned obedience." I hope this helps.
Pastor, thank you for this. I appreciate the notes on dating and female roles... It seems that a lot of these answers are simply biblical answers without adding traditional American thinking into the mix.
The Patriarchy that is from eternity pasan will go on into Kingdom come is, "I do the will of my (Heavenly) Father"
The will of the Father is that the Son would do His will. The will of the Son is to do the will of the Father. And their wills, distinct though they are, cannot be anything but perfectly in accord with the goodness of the Father. So there is no variableness or shadow of turning among the persons of the Godhead.
So there is the eternally subordinate Son of God, but no Eternal Subordination of the Son, because the verb form of "subordinate" never did, and never will, apply to Him.
What did the Father say to do? His son, Jesus, has told us all that his Father gave Him to say to us. So, we know tongo into all the world, baptizing, making disciples, teaching them to observe all He has commanded us.
If not for that One who did the will of his Father, even unto death on a cross, we would be condemned to hell forever.
It's important to distinguish between Christ's subordination to the Father from the eternal Son's subordination. The issue revolves around whether or not we agree with the standard understanding of will (per the hypostatic union) as deriving from nature and nature synonymous with Being. So if the persons of the trinity have different wills, then it implies they have different natures and are not the same being. Submission is not possible without a difference of wills, otherwise there is simply complete agreement. You don't submit to yourself, but you submit to a higher authority.
ESS was invented in the 80s/90s as a response against feminist attacks on marriage by attempting to preserve the equality of a woman to her husband by connecting it to the equality of the Son and the Father. However, the Scripture does not connect marriage to the Trinity. The only passage that seems to do so says that man is the head of woman, CHRIST the head of man, and God the head of Christ. But Christ is specifically a reference to the incarnate 2nd person with his human nature, and thus can't prove that the eternal Son eternally submits to the father. Ephesians 5 does not connect marriage to the trinity but connects it to Christ and the Church. The main issue with ESS is that it improperly roots marriage in the Trinity, mixing what is created with what is eternal, and sets up the issue I began with, that following the logic to the conclusion leads to denying the unity of the Trinity by inserting a difference of wills which leads to a multiplicity of beings.
The non-ess position is that the Son and Father from eternity past had the same unified will and the Son did not 'submit' in His choice to enter into the plan of salvation, His submission came after He was incarnate, as Hebrews 5 says: "he learned obedience." I hope this helps.
It's important to distinguish between Christ's subordination to the Father from the eternal Son's subordination. The issue revolves around whether or not we agree with the standard understanding of will (per the hypostatic union) as deriving from nature and nature synonymous with Being. So if the persons of the trinity have different wills, then it implies they have different natures and are not the same being. Submission is not possible without a difference of wills, otherwise there is simply complete agreement. You don't submit to yourself, but you submit to a higher authority.
ESS was invented in the 80s/90s as a response against feminist attacks on marriage by attempting to preserve the equality of a woman to her husband by connecting it to the equality of the Son and the Father. However, the Scripture does not connect marriage to the Trinity. The only passage that seems to do so says that man is the head of woman, CHRIST the head of man, and God the head of Christ. But Christ is specifically a reference to the incarnate 2nd person with his human nature, and thus can't prove that the eternal Son eternally submits to the father. Ephesians 5 does not connect marriage to the trinity but connects it to Christ and the Church. The main issue with ESS is that it improperly roots marriage in the Trinity, mixing what is created with what is eternal, and sets up the issue I began with, that following the logic to the conclusion leads to denying the unity of the Trinity by inserting a difference of wills which leads to a multiplicity of beings.
The non-ess position is that the Son and Father from eternity past had the same unified will and the Son did not 'submit' in His choice to enter into the plan of salvation, His submission came after He was incarnate, as Hebrews 5 says: "he learned obedience." I hope this helps.