Address—C. Hendricks
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Denied the eternal sonship of Christ.
Which is quite common today. There are those that teach this error, this terrible error.
In the camp.
There were those that were of brethren circles that introduced it.
Some years ago.
And.
Then there are other errors.
We will look at his person and what what constitutes the doctrine of Christ.
To begin with, let's turn to Matthew 22, Matthew chapter 22.
And verse 41.
While the Pharisees were gathered together.
Jesus asked them, saying, What think ye of Christ?
Whose son is he?
They say unto him, the son of David.
He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand.
Till I make thine enemies thy footstool.
If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? And no man was able to answer him a word?
Neither dost any man from that day forth ask him any more questions while the Lord quoted. You can keep your place here, but I'm coming right back, He quoted from the 110th Psalm.
And I want to just read that first verse.
The 110th Psalm verse one a Psalm of David. So this is David speaking, the Lord said unto.
My Lord.
So here you have the Lord Jehovah speaking to Davidde Lord.
Sit down at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. This is the passage that the Lord Jesus coded. He asked them the question and He was addressing the Pharisees. He was addressing those who were of the strictest sect of the Jews religion, the fundamentalists of the day, those that should have known who Christ is.
And so he asks them what thinking of Christ? They were used to asking him questions and and he's silencing them with his answer. But this time he asked them a question. What think he of Christ? Whose son is he?
And they answered, The Son of David. You remember earlier in this gospel, the blind man cried out, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me.
That was the right answer. He was the son of David.
But then the Lord asks them.
How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit down at my right hand.
Till I make thine enemies Thy puts to it, David, call him Lord.
How is he his son?
Now this is the mystery of the person of Christ being able to answer that question. And the last verse of the chapter is very remarkable. No one, no man was able to answer him a word.
Neither dost any man from that day forth ask him anymore questions.
In John's Gospel, the Lord Jesus said, Except you believe that I am, you believe not that I am. You shall die in your sins.
I think of the poem I don't know at all, but I know the 1St 2 lines, 1St 2 stanzas.
What think you of Christ is the test to try both your state and your scheme? You cannot be right in the rest unless you think rightly of Him.
As Jesus appears to your view as he is beloved or not, so God is disposed to you.
And mercy or wrath is your mutt.
That states it very correctly, doesn't it?
If we're wrong as to who he is, If we're wrong as to that.
We have.
We have erred on the very foundation. The 11TH Psalm says, If the foundation be destroyed, what shall the righteous do?
Christ is the foundation. He is the rock.
So he asked them this question.
David called him Lord. How can he be his son?
Well, he's David's son is man. He's David's Lord as God.
And they didn't seem to know. These Pharisees should have known that the Christ who had come was God, God over all, blessed forever. They couldn't answer the question. You have it again in another 22nd chapter, and that's in Revelation. Turn to it, please. Revelation 22, last chapter.
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In the Bible.
Revelation 22, verse 16.
I, Jesus, have sent my Angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David the Bright and Morning Star. As the root of David, He was Davidde, Lord, as the offspring of David, David's son.
He is both the Son of God, David's Lord, and the Son of Man.
David's son. David's offspring.
As the root, he was David's Lord.
We find this truth all throughout Scripture. I will refer to one more passage, Romans 1.
Romans chapter 1 You can trace it through at your leisure. How many times this this doctrine of Christ?
Consisting of his Godhead and his manhood.
Are presented together Romans one Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.
Which he had promised before by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning His Son. I want to make this comment whenever the scripture speaks about his about the Lord Jesus as the Son of God.
It's always his personal glory.
As God, God the Son, the Son of God, yes, the Son of God became a man. He came into this world and he died.
The Son of God, Galatians 220 who loved me and gave himself for me. But the Son of God always sets before us the glory of his Person, a glory which was eternal, never became the Son, never became the Son. You see the temporal sonship doctrine.
That when he became a man, he became the son.
And when he became a man, God became the Father.
You see, this doctrine, this heresy, this awful teaching, denying the Eternal Sonship, involves striking at fundamental truth. Its fundamental error is what it is.
His Godhead, that he is God, the Son of God. You could ask at Jehovah's Witness who Jesus is and he will say he's the Son of God.
But he doesn't mean by that He is God the Son.
He doesn't mean by that.
He is God the Son. He means something else. He means He was the first created being and then He created everything else.
Does a brother in our Silver Springs assembly?
Greg Beneventis, his name. He was saved out of Jehovah's Witnesses.
And he loves to use their New World Translation in confounding them. He used to go around as one of their missionaries, propagating the errors of Jehovah's Witnesses. Now he defends the faith.
In John One, in our translation King James, it says all things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made.
Mr. Darby's translation and the New World Translation of Jehovah's Witnesses, they read almost identically, and it reads, all things came into being through him.
And not one thing came into being without him that has come into being.
And then he would read that verse to them, and he'd say, did he create himself?
Because that verse says that nothing has come into being without him. And if he was the first created being, then God created him without him. And that's of course contradicted by the scriptures, their own scriptures, and it confounds them.
Well, the denial of the eternal sonship doesn't necessarily mean that those that do that deny that he is God, as the JW's do.
But they deny the relationship between the Father and the Son, that it's an eternal relationship, a very serious error.
All right, let's read this Romans 1/3 concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Which was made of the seed of David. That's his humanity, according to the flesh.
He is the son of man, son of David.
And declared this to be the Son of God with power. That's his deity, the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness.
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By resurrection from the dead, he raised, Lazarus. He raised.
Others in the Gospels.
And he said, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up, speaking as the sun.
The eternal Son, he raised himself from the dead.
Only God could do that, and so he was.
God and very men now turn to second John, if you will. Second Epistle of John.
Where we have the doctrine of Christ spoken of.
And it's striking that this epistle is addressed to a sister.
And her children the elder unto the elect lady, and her children whom I love in the truth he says.
3rd John was addressed to the well beloved Gaius the elder, unto the well beloved Gaius, whom I love in the truth, and he commends Gaius in three John for being hospitable and opening his home to the travelling brothers that came around.
And he warns this sister in second John about.
Those that are deceivers and antichrists who don't bring the doctrine of Christ, and that she is responsible to know the difference.
To know who the Lord Jesus is and to reject those that are not true to Him.
It says in verse seven of second John many deceivers are entered into the world who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. Now I want to correct this just a little bit. It sounds like in our King James translation that the confession is that.
Such a person named Jesus Christ came in the flesh. Now you can ask just about anyone out there, whether they're saved or not, if there was such a personage as Jesus Christ in this world, and they'll say yes. Our calendar is dated from his birth.
That's not what John is. That's not what John means. Let me read. Let me reread that verse. I'm going to leave out one or two words and you'll notice the difference. Many deceivers are entered into the world who confess not Jesus Christ.
Come in flesh.
The point that John is making is the confession of the person who came in flesh.
The person who came existed before he came in flesh.
It would be silly to talk about any of us coming in flesh. That's the only way we can come. We're simply creatures. We're simply men and women and boys and girls. We come in flesh. That's the only way we can come. But here's the confession of a person who existed before he came in flesh.
As God, it's the confession of his deity and his humanity that he is God the Son and man as well. He came in flesh.
While there are many deceivers, he says, entered into the world that do not make this confession.
That do not own his person. That He is very God and very man. That God was manifest in the flesh. That the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. John 114.
But he says in verse 9.
Whosoever he says at the end of verse 7, this is a deceiver and an Antichrist.
One who does not confess the full person of Christ, the full doctrine of Christ, The doctrine of Christ involves his deity. It involves his humanity. Attack him in either the one or the other, and you have.
Attack the doctrine of Christ. You don't hold it properly, which is the most serious thing, as we'll see as we read on here.
A very A brother from North Carolina told me this.
And when he told it to me, I said, Are you sure you heard him right? He said absolutely, I heard him right.
I won't mention the man's name, the very famous preacher in Atlanta, GA, I'll say that much.
And he has a very large congregation of thousands.
And he was dealing with the question, Could Jesus have sinned?
And he said.
I don't know, We'll have to wait and see. And he's the.
Is the leader of hundreds, More than hundreds? Thousands. I don't know. We'll have to wait and see. There's a man out here in California. You probably know whom I'm Speaking of.
That denies that he's the eternal Son.
That says that he didn't become son until he became a man.
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And this company of brethren, the Raven brethren, I will name them.
They have developed through James Taylor's heterodox teachings, that he wasn't son until he was born in time, nor was he the word until he was born in time. Nor did he.
Dwell in the Father's bosom until he was born in time.
Terrible errors and God wasn't the Father until Christ was born in time. These are all offshoots of the heterodox teachings of these men.
I was talking to a sister and a brother about this subject and the sister said how could they? How could such intelligent men not see the truth?
Christ's eternal sonship. How could they? She just couldn't understand. He couldn't grasp it. And I said to her, I said, well, maybe, maybe you don't know the treachery of your own heart.
Because we are all capable of falling into these mistakes and errors. These men that have fallen into these errors and that hold them even today are remarkable men and very gifted men.
But involved in very serious error and I know three young men that used to be with us and they've left us for the Raven Company. I think they're more spiritual than we are.
If the foundations be destroyed, what shall the righteous do?
If we don't hold fast to the person of Christ, you can look at everything else and it really doesn't make that much difference.
If you don't hold the foundation of our faith.
Christ said to Peter, Well, he said to his disciples, Who do men say that I, the Son of Man AM? I'm quoting Matthew 16 And they said, Some say that thou are John the Baptist, or Elias, or Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. But whom say ye that I am?
Peter said Thou art the Christ.
That's his manhood, that's what he came to be, the Christ, the anointed, the prophet, the priest, the king, and then he says the Son of the living God, That's his deity.
That's the doctrine of Christ involving the confession of His manhood and His.
Deity, blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my father, which is in heaven.
Then he says he gives him a new name. He was Simon. Now he gives him the name Peter.
A still he says, Thou art Peter still. And on this rock he had just confessed the truth of Christ's person, the Christ, the Son of the living God.
And he says on this rock I will build my church. So the church is built upon that foundation.
The Church is the pillar and ground of the truth to uphold that foundation, to hold that uphold that truth beyond anything else.
Well, he holds this elect lady and her children, John the Apostle writing to her in second John. He holds her responsible for knowing who the Lord Jesus is. He says in verse 9.
Whosoever transgressive.
And abideth not in the doctrine of Christ. The doctrine of Christ is what we had in verse 7.
That Jesus Christ has come in flesh, the person God become a man. That's the doctrine of Christ. And he says whosoever transgresseth in the new translation.
It's not a translation difference.
Between Mr. Darby and the King James, it's a Greek text difference. I looked it up.
He renders it. It's a different Greek word, Whosoever goes forward.
And abides not in the doctrine of Christ.
Goes forward.
So let me explain what that means.
I was passing out tracts in Chicago a long time ago when I was a young man.
On the elevated platform Loyola right there, there's a theological seminary. It's turned modernistic now. They used to be sound, but they're not anymore. Like so many have gone that way. And I got to talking to this professor. He got on the train and he sat next to each other and he asked me what I believed. And I told him I believe in that. Jesus is God.
Part of the Trinity, Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.
That he became a man who was born of a virgin, died a vicarious sacrificial death on the cross, rose bodily from the dead lives, ascended and glorified in heaven. Spirit of God is down here forming the Church and the all sufficiency of the Bible. And I went over the fundamentals.
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Of what we believe and hold so dear.
And he smiled at me and he said that's nice, but now you have to go on to the deeper things. And that's what John is talking about in verse 9. Whosoever goes forward, it's what is called development.
And abides not in the doctrine of Christ.
Hath not God? That's a solemn word.
Hath not God now? I didn't say that John wrote it.
John wrote it under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Whosoever goes forward and abides, not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God, but he that abideth in the doctrine, he hath both the Father and the Son.
Both the father and the son.
So the test.
As to where we really stand is do we hold and abide in?
The doctrine of Christ, that he is very God.
And very man, the eternal Son.
And.
A holy man.
You can attack him either on the divine side of his person or the human side of his person.
Either one of those attacks.
Denies does not abide in the doctrine of Christ.
This man in Georgia that couldn't answer the question, could Jesus have sinned? He said. I don't know. We'll have to wait and see.
Does he really know who Jesus is?
When the Angel said to Mary, you are going to have a son, she said, how shall this be seeing I know not a man.
The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall over shadow thee. Wherefore also that holy thing.
Which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. Notice the precision of scripture doesn't say shall become the Son of God.
He never became the Son of God. He was always the Son of God.
That's his eternal person.
God the Son, the Son of God.
And the father.
And from all eternity, the Trinity, Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Why did the Seraphim in Isaiah 6?
Cry holy, holy, holy. Why three times?
Because there's three persons in the Trinity, The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Why do we read so often? Lord God Almighty, there we have the Trinity again.
Trinity again in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. In the beginning, God Elohim. That's a Hebrew word for God in the plural.
Created as in the singular, a plural subject with a singular verb. It's not grammatically correct, but it sets forth the truth. God is 1 and yet consisting of three persons. In the English language, the singular is 1, the plural is 2 or more. Not so in Hebrew. In the Hebrew they have a singular 1A dual 2 and a plural three or more.
So Elohim being in the plural couldn't be just two.
And has to be at least three or more. And we know it's three, the father.
The Son and the Holy Spirit.
Well, verse 10, instruction to this elect lady and her children, the children in the family of God should know who Jesus is. This is foundation truth. If there come any unto you Christian teachers that come to your home purportedly under the guise of being a Christian teacher and bring not this doctrine. He's not talking about a worldling that's coming to her home. They don't bring the doctrine of Christ. They're not supposed to. They're not expected to.
Because they don't believe he's talking about a professing Christian here. A teacher can either come any unto you and bring that this doctrine, the doctrine of Christ. Receive him not into your house, neither bid him Godspeed. Don't greet him.
For he would biddeth him Godspeed, his partaker of his evil deeds.
If we are not true to His person and refuse, all that sullies His glory, either on the divine side or the human side.
Deny His eternal sonship you did you touch the divine side of His person?
Saying that Jesus could have sinned, you touch the human side of his person.
They argue, of course they have their arguments.
This man that teaches that in California, he teaches that sonship implies inferiority.
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Does it? Scripture teaches just the opposite. Scripture teaches that it implies equality, not inferiority, but equality. But he reasons from this false premise to the fact that he couldn't have been inferior in the Godhead. Therefore he couldn't have been Son in the Godhead.
Turn back to Mark 12 verse or two.
Gospel chapter 12.
He began to speak unto them by parables. A certain man planted a vineyard, and set in hedge about it, and digged a place for the wine fat, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country. And at the season he sent to the husband and a servant, that he might receive from the husbandmen of the fruit of the vineyard. And they caught him and beat him, and sent him away empty.
And again he sent unto them another servant, and at him they cast stones, and wounded him in the head, and sent him away shamefully handled.
And again he sent another, and him they killed, and many others, beating some and killing some. Now notice this having yet therefore one son is well beloved.
He sent him also. He was the son before he sent him.
He didn't become sung on being sent.
This is the air, they said.
He sent him also last unto them, saying They were reverence, my son. But those husbandmen said among themselves, This is the heir they know, they knew who he was.
Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours. And they took him.
And killed him and cast him.
Out of the vineyard. But he was the son before he was sent, not after he was sent as the error.
Would make it. I turned to John 5 please. John's Gospel, chapter 5.
Now this is a verse that shows that sonship does not imply inferiority. On the contrary, it implies equality.
In John 5.
We have the case of the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda.
And in verse 15, the man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus which had made him whole. And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus and sought to slay him because he had done these things on the Sabbath day?
Now notice verse 17 that Jesus answered them. My Father worketh hitherto.
And I work. That was a simple statement, but it was so to them. To the Jewish leaders, it was blasphemy.
A man on earth daring to call God my father.
And I check this out, I have a computer New Testament.
Many of you may have it, and I put in the expression my father.
And I went through the whole New Testament.
There's only one man that ever uses that expression.
That's the Lord Jesus.
No apostles ever speak of God as my Father.
He taught his disciples to pray our Father, which art in heaven.
Hallowed be thy name, but no mortal ever uses the expression my father.
Only the Lord Jesus, only the eternal Son.
And when he said my father, the Jews understood he was claiming.
To be equal with God.
And So what does it say?
Jesus answered them. My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.
Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his father. Mr. Darby reads that God was his own father.
Making himself equal with God.
Not inferior to God, but equal with God. To the Jewish mind, for a man to call God my father was blasphemy.
And so they sought to kill him because he was making himself equal.
With God.
In addressing him as my father.
No, sonship is not inferiority, it is equality. And when he claimed to be the son?
He was claiming equality with the father, as he does in Return to it in chapter 10.
Chapter 10.
Now here in these two passages, I'm going to look at now in the 10th chapter, and then we'll follow it with the 14th chapter. We have the doctrine of Christ when you put the two together.
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In verse 30 of chapter 10, he said I.
Verse 29 My father, which gave them me, is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my father's hand. I and my father.
Are one. And again the response was the same, that then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.
Because he said I and my father are one, There's only one meaning that you can attach to that, that sentence that he is claiming equality with the father.
I and my father are one, but that's only half of the doctrine of Christ. That's his deity. Turn to the 14th chapter.
Where you have the other side of the truth.
In Sean, 14.
Verse 27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
You have heard how I said unto you, I go away.
And come again unto you.
If you loved me, you would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father.
For my father.
Is greater than I. That's his humanity.
As man, he could say my father is greater than I. He took a position when he became a man.
He laid aside his.
The form of God.
And assumed the form of a servant.
So he who could say as to his deity, as to his eternal sonship, I am my Father, are one.
Can say now as to the place that he took in humanity. My father is greater than I. I remember talking to a Hindu, a young man. His parents were Hindus and he was a professing Christian.
And the passage that troubled him the most.
Was in Mark's gospel. Let's look at it in Mark's gospel.
Chapter 13.
In Mark's Gospel chapter 13.
In verse 30, the Lord says, Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass till all these things be done. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
But of that day and that hour.
Knoweth no man.
No, not the angels which are in heaven.
Neither the son.
But the father?
And he couldn't understand.
How that could be there? How come? How can he know everything?
Because he is God.
And yet not know the day.
Nor the hour.
Well, this comes in the Gospel of Mark.
This is only found in the Gospel of Mark. Mark presents him as the perfect servant, and the scripture says the servant knoweth not what his master doeth, so it's in keeping with his being the servant in manhood.
Took upon him the form of a servant. He came down. It's in keeping with that position that he took that he doesn't know.
But in keeping with his eternal sonship, of course, he knows.
How can no and not know?
Well, this is the mystery of his person.
It's a mystery that you and I will never understand. We'll believe it. We rejoice in it, as the poet says to his darkness, to my intellect, to sunshine, to my heart.
I can enjoy what I cannot fathom.
How can it say in the 121St Psalm that of Jehovah he neither slumbers nor sleeps?
But in the Gospels there is the Lord Jesus asleep on a pillow in the boat, with the waves raging round about. And they awoke him and said, Master, carest thou not that we perish? And he stood up, the sleeping man.
That's his proper humanity.
God doesn't sleep. He never slumbers nor sleeps. But that man who slept was indeed God and man in one person. Can we fathom that?
No, we can't.
Never be able to. I don't. That's a mystery, it says in John. In Matthew 11 it says no man knoweth the Son but the Father.
No qualifying clause to that. Neither know if any man. The Father, saved the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him. The Son reveals to us the Father. He is simply the adorable God.
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But the father only knows the son.
The father only.
Knows the son of the name of the son. Can comprehend. I can't remember just how it goes.
But he knows.
He only can understand how the divine inhuman are united in the person.
Of the sun.
So this.
Hindu boy, he couldn't understand.
How he didn't know the hour.
Well, I told him that was because he was man.
Perfect servant here. It was proper for him that way. There are many things. How could he hunger?
How could he grow weary?
Jehovah is neither weary. He never goes weary.
He doesn't hunger.
As God.
But man.
The man hungered.
He grew in wisdom and stature with God and men.
It says in the 147th Psalm about Jehovah God. His understanding is infinite. He doesn't have to learn anything, He knows everything.
But the Lord learned.
He acquired.
He grew.
He made progress because he was a true man. We may not be able to put these things together properly, Understand.
None of us can understand God manifest in the flesh.
The incarnation.
There's a pamphlet that I have.
And the title is very striking.
And it's a beautiful pamphlet refuting Taylorism.
And the title is.
Sonship by incarnation or the incarnation of the Sun?
It's one or the other.
The truth is the incarnation of the Sun.
Sonship by incarnation is the lie of Satan.
He never became the Son by being Incarnate.
But the Sun became Incarnate.
Son became man. The Son entered his own creation, and never does it say in scripture that he was created. Even as to his body, it says a body. Hast thou prepared me?
Not created.
He's the creator.
And the Spirit of God avoids using that.
With respect to him.
Let's turn to John's Gospel chapter 1 now. There's some beautiful expressions there.
John's Gospel, chapter 1.
We start with the first verse. In the beginning was the Word. Now these tailor brethren, they, they deny that the word was eternal. We have a hymn. We don't have it in our hymn book, but a beautiful hymn says Eternal Word, Eternal Son. The Father's constant joy. All that thou art, and all thou hast done shall all our tongues employ Eternal Word. Eternal Son, in the beginning was the Word.
The beginning of anything that had a beginning, the word was.
Never began. He never came into being. He was there.
He was there.
In the beginning was the word that speaks of His eternal being.
And the Word was with God that speaks of his distinct personality.
He was with God the Father.
And the word was God that speaks of his proper deity. So in that one short sentence, we have his eternal being, we have his distinct personality, and we have his proper deity.
And then it says the same he that won the word was in the beginning with God.
There were some that say yes, he was with God when he became a man, but this says no in the beginning. Back then in the eternal past, he was with God.
In the beginning.
With God and then that verse I've already commented on, all things were made by Him or all things came into being through Him.
And without him, not one thing has come into being which has come into being without him.
So he couldn't have been created. He was the creator. He brought everything into being. Now, as I speak to you, I'm using words.
The most remarkable thing I was out in the backyard before leaving for on this trip and some dogs were barking.
And I just said to myself, that's all you can do is bark. That's all you can do is bark. They can't form a word.
Can't express themselves except they wag their tail to show that they're happy. But all they can do is yap, yap yap and every creature.
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Except man.
Man knows how to talk, and when the first man was created, he was created with a full full vocabulary.
So that God could commune with him.
And so that he could commune with his wife.
The Curse of Tongues hadn't come in yet.
There was only one language.
And God gave them that language, and he gave them the ability.
I have thoughts in my mind.
My tongue forms the words.
Vocal cords are needed, a palate, tongue, teeth and all that to form the words, and they go forth and you hear those words.
Then they go into your mind, into your brain, and it translates them into an intelligent message.
What is in my mind is now in your mind. You understand what I'm saying, and I use words, and the Lord Jesus is called the Word.
He's the one that expressed who God is. He's the one that revealed the mind of God.
So that now we know what was in God's mind for us, because he came to make it known to us. He's called the Word.
That's talking to this one brother and he's he's bought this, this Raven Heresy. I call it Raven because it's a Raven company.
And he says, he said to me, I said you in, in my very presence when I was in your home, you denied that Jesus is the eternal Son. He said, no, I I believe that he is, he is an eternal person.
I said, Larry, that's not the issue.
It's not that he's an eternal person, but that he's the eternal Son, that his sonship is eternal, that the relationship that he had with the Father never began.
It was always there. He was always the son. He never became the son.
And.
That teaching of theirs.
They say.
That we can't define. This is what Mr. Taylor taught. We can't define the relationship between the persons of the Godhead.
Before time. They're inscrutable. They're unknowable.
And then he goes on to define them.
To define what's undefinable and I said to Larry.
I said.
You don't know God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That's only the relations that they have, these persons of the Trinity.
After the Lord became a man.
You don't really know what God was like or who he is before that.
In other words, he said. But he it happened in time.
Yes, it happened in time. What else could it happen? What else could he reveal himself to his creatures except it be in time? His creatures didn't begin to exist until time started.
Before time started, there was only God. And who was that God?
Well, when Paul went to Athens, he saw an inscription to the unknown God, and I said to him, I said, you have an unknown God.
You don't know who God is.
The Lord came to earth in time to reveal to us who God is from all eternity past, not just in time.
He is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The baptismal formula in Matthew 28 says baptizing them in the name, not names, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. One name, one God, three persons. But we know who those persons are. Yes, revealed in time, but not revealed by the prophets, revealed by the Eternal.
Son.
Who lay in the Father's bosom from all eternity never left it. Never entered it either. He was always there.
Mr. Bell, it puts it so beautifully in his the Son of God, the hiding place of love.
The hiding place of love.
The Father's bosom. So we go to verse 14 of John 1. And the Word was made flesh, or became flesh, and dwelt among us.
This person, the Word, the eternal Word, became flesh, became a man, dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory.
Glory as of the only Begotten of the Father, as Misty did. Mr. Darby renders it more precisely, the glory as of an only Begotten with a Father.
The glory that He beheld was an eternal glory.
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A glory that never began in Psalm 2X13, Hebrews 1 and Hebrews 5.
And it says, Thou art my son.
This day have I begotten thee.
Whenever it points to a point in time, this day have I begotten thee. That was his being, becoming a man begotten in time.
Into manhood when he was born.
But when it speaks of the only begotten, it's a timeless expression.
It's an expression that refers to him as partaking of the same essence and substance.
As the father.
Did you understood this in Genesis 1? It said.
This animal will begat after his kind, this one begat after his kind, this one begat after his kind. You'll never find 2 cats getting together and producing a dog, or dogs producing a mouse or something like that. Dogs produce dogs and cats produce cats, and men produce men. Everyone produces after his kind. And if God has an only begotten Son, he is of the same substance and essence and kind.
As God Himself, and that's the force of only begotten.
Our modern translations only bring out the side of the love that was between the persons in it, certainly in the expression, by rendering it my only dear Son, or something like that. You can't get away that you can't eliminate that word begotten, because it brings out that He was of the same substance as the Father.
The only begotten Son.
And so this says we beheld his glory. The glory is of an only begotten with the Father.
A special, unique place that he had with the Father from all eternity past, Something he never entered into, but was always his full of grace and truth.
John bear witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake. He that cometh after me is preferred before me, for he was before me.
John was older than the Lord Jesus, six months older. He was born before he was, but he said he was before me.
He had a sense of the person that he was talking about here.
And of His fullness have all we received in grace for grace, or grace upon grace.
But the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Now verse 18, a very powerful verse. No man hath seen God at any time.
The only begotten Son.
Which is in the bosom of the Father.
He hath declared him. Now there's a problem in this verse that we don't see in English.
It's in that little word in.
The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father in the Greek I would have expected, and I wrestled with this for a long time, till the Lord gave light on it. I would have expected that it would have been the Greek word en.
In, that's what it means.
But it's not. It's ice EIS which means into or unto or for translated those three ways. And but you can't translate it that way in this passage. The only begotten Son which is into the bosom of the Father. That doesn't make any sense. Or the only begotten Son which is unto the bosom of the Father or for the bosom of the Father. You have to render it as our translators have render it.
In the bosom of the father, but it doesn't mean that he was in the father's bosom. Bosom stagnant.
But it's the it's the preposition that speaks of motion ice.
And it brings before us the beautiful thought.
Of the flow of affections.
Between the father and the son.
I think the hymn writer and the son to the Father, the hymn writer in the 127th hymn where it starts out, how blessed a home, the father's house.
Over to home, the son who knows talking about the father's house. But I like to think of this now in terms of the father's bosom.
Because that was his home from all eternity past.
And he never left it.
He only all His love, and brings us as His well beloved to that bright rest above, dwells in His bosom.
Know if all that in that bosom lies and came to earth to make it known that we might share his joys. And again the next verse.
Or at a home again. I'm thinking of it now. I'm making an application to the Son and the Father's bosom, their fullest love.
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Flows through its courts of light and that's why I believe ice is used, because it's the flow of affection.
Between the Father and the Son, and the son and the father.
Now the Ravens teach because it's ice. It says that he entered the father's bosom when he became a man.
Absolutely wrong.
Doesn't mean that at all. He never entered it. He was always there, as we sing in our hymn. 27 Son of God, thy Father's bosom ever was thy dwelling place.
His delight in him rejoicing one with him in power and grace.
Oh, that wondrous love and mercy thou its lay thy glory by and for us. It's come from heaven as the Lamb of God to die.
So it says their fullest love flows through its courts of light. The sun's divine affections flow throughout its depth and height. And I believe that though it's not written for the Father's bosom, but I believe it expresses what we have in verse 18 of our chapter, the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father.
He hath declared him.
The only one that could declare him, the only one that could really declare the Father, is the one that was there with the Father from all eternity.
How could he declare him if he just entered his bosom when he became a man?
That makes no sense.
It's a place that he knew.
Perfectly and infinitely perfectly from all eternity.
The Father's bosom. So you see, the denial of the eternal sonship is very serious.
It really involves denying the Trinity.
It involves the nine that we can really know who God is from all eternity past Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If he wasn't the Son for all eternity, but God wasn't the Father from all eternity.
Very serious error. Turn to John 16. There's a beautiful verse there that proves again the eternal sonship of Christ.
John 16.
Verse 27.
For the Father himself loveth you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came out from God.
Now notice verse 28. I came forth from the Father.
He was the father when he came forth from him.
And him come into the world.
Again, I leave the world and go to the Father. He came forth from the Father, came into the world. Now he's going to leave the world and go back to the Father.
That's clear. That's simple language.
These brethren have invented a way of interpreting Scripture.
Which is real heresy. We are to rightly divide the word of truth. I've got one minute, so let me turn to one more passage. Hebrews 5. Hebrews 5 is another beautiful passage that brings before us the force of sun.
In verse 8.
Verse 7. Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, This is when it was in the garden of Gethsemane. I take it with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard, and that He feared, though He were Son, though He were a Son.
The indefinite article A is not in the original. The Greek language doesn't have an indefinite article. It's added and supplied by the translator when needed.
Sometimes it's needed. I think it's better without it here, but it doesn't affect the teaching that I'm bringing. Before us, though, he were son, that's what he was.
Yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.
Now it doesn't say and nor does it mean because he became Son, he learned obedience. No, that's not what it says, says just the opposite. It says though he were Son, in spite of the fact that he was Son, he learned obedience. As Son he never obeyed.
He commanded and it stood fast. He spoke and it was done. He was the supreme Commander. Everyone obeyed him. But then he laid aside that form of God and took upon him the form of a servant. And now he learns the cost.
Of obedience.
By the things which he suffered though he were son is what he ever was.
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In spite of the fact that He was Son, the Eternal Son, he came into a new position and learned obedience.
By the things which he suffered. Well, there are many more scriptures we could turn to on this beautiful subject of the Eternal Sonship.
How wonderful to know who he is, how important to know who he is. The Church is founded. He is the rock.
If we go wrong there.
Then what else matters?
The foundations be destroyed.
What shall the righteous do?
Let's sing 301 in closing.
301.
Oh blessed Lord.
What hast thou done? How vast a ransom given? 302 Excuse me.
Thank you.
Thyself of God, the eternal Son.
The Lord of earth and heaven.
302.
Someone raised the tomb, please.
His gracious love.
Despaded from.
His soul.
And what it stood to bear.
When casing.
My thy face.
And.
And glory.
Come by grace.
How happy we.
Know thy name.
And trust thy faith over.
Just one comment before we pray. I was thinking of the how happy we who know thy name.
Trust thy faithful word to the Philadelphian.
I has kept my word and not denied my name.
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His name is the only begotten Son of God.
If we believe on the name of the only begotten Son of God, we have eternal life.
But Philadelphian does not deny.
His name? Spray.