The doctrine of the eternal sonship of our Lord Jesus Christ is vital. To hold or teach error concerning this divine truth is most solemn. We beseech our readers to carefully consider the following letter written by our late brother Walter Potter. It is simple and clear in its presentation of the fundamental truth of the personal glory of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ.
Mr. Darby once wrote: “I hold it vital to hold the sonship before the worlds. It is the truth.”
We would recommend a careful reading of “The Son of God” by J. G. Bellett, as also being most helpful in presenting the glorious truth of His eternal sonship and Godhead glory.
Ed.
Dear brother, If the eternal sonship of the Lord Jesus be denied and He only was Son in time, then God had no eternal Son to give and to send into the world as the measure and expression of His love to us.
To deny eternal sonship is to say that He was not in relationship as Son until He was born into this world. It is not His deity which is in question, but His relationship in it namely, His being everlastingly the “only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father.” As eternal Son, He was the supreme Object of the Father’s love. According to this doctrine which denies His eternal sonship, the Father had no “only begotten Son” to give and send into this world, if He was not Son until born of a woman.
We read of beholding His glory, as that of an only begotten of the Father, and of His being the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, declaring Him (the Father) and that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Is this the Son in time and manhood only?
The love of God toward us and the measure of it is seen in His sending His only begotten Son to us and for us. It was this only begotten One He gave. This, may we not say, is the glory of the gospel of His grace.
I am aware that some have a difficulty as to the word “begotten” in connection with the eternal sonship of the Lord. There is, of course, no thought of beginning, as used of the Lord, as the only begotten. It is the expression of what He is to the Father’s heart, as the Son of His love His only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father. I think this is more clearly seen when translated “an only begotten.”
It is said of Abraham that he offered up his “only begotten son.” Yet Ishmael was as much begotten of him as was Isaac, but Isaac was the son of his love. It is also said, “Thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest.” This is why the Lord Jesus is spoken of and speaks of Himself as “the only begotten Son... in the bosom of the Father.”
It is what He is, and ever was, as the object of God’s love. In Luke 20:1313Then said the lord of the vineyard, What shall I do? I will send my beloved son: it may be they will reverence him when they see him. (Luke 20:13) we read, “I will send My beloved Son.” How could He do this if He had no beloved Son to send? Again and again we read of God sending His Son. How could He do this, if He had no beloved Son, we ask again?
“Neither came I of Myself, but He sent Me.” Is this limited to His incarnation and sonship in time and manhood? Is the Son of John 5 limited in this way, and to this? Is God sending His Son and sparing not His own Son (Rom. 8), His sonship in time only?
It is not a question of His being Son in time: we know He certainly is this. “Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee.” This refers to time His being born of a woman. “That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” tells us this. We read of the “book of the generation of Jesus Christ.” As the only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father, there could be no generation. This place of the “only begotten” is His relative place in the eternal Godhead Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
This I take to be the relative places of the Deity, and there He has this place of eternal and beloved Son. Give Him not this place, and we have lost Him as the eternal Son of God, and in our thoughts and faith have taken from the Father the eternal object of His love and delight, and, as such, the object of that bosom we have lost.
And from the Son we have taken the joy of being that object, and He is such no longer to our souls. We no longer think of and adore Him as ever the Son in the bosom of the Father.
“I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.” Is this sonship in time only? “Father... glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee.” Is this too only sonship in time?
In the gospel of John is it not His sonship in deity and manhood? In Colossians 1, is it not as the Son of the Father’s love by whom and for whom all things were created? So also Hebrews 1.
May we have grace to “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.”
W. Potter