Are there Levels of Authority Within the Trinity? (EFS, ESS, ERAS)

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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00:00

You got your life jackets on? You better, because today we're going into the deep waters.

00:05

Conversation with a Calvinist begins right now.

00:26

Welcome back to Conversation with a Calvinist.

00:28

My name is Keith Bosky, and I am a Calvinist, and I am joined today by my friend Rashad Hendricks, and we're going to be talking about the subject of subordinationism.

00:39

Hi, Rashad.

00:39

How are you doing today? Hey, brother.

00:41

How are you? And I'm also a Calvinist.

00:44

Yes.

00:45

Awesome.

00:46

Awesome.

00:46

Sometimes I have non-Calvinists on, and I have to make that distinction, but I am glad to be joined today by another Calvinist, so praise the Lord.

00:53

Oh, yeah.

00:53

Amen.

00:54

Thank you, brother, for having me.

00:55

I appreciate it.

00:56

Absolutely.

00:57

And I wanted to mention to the audience part of what has brought this about.

01:02

I was asked several weeks ago if I would be willing to record my book on the Trinity as an audio book, and the book that I wrote about 10 years ago was called God in Three Persons, and it's not a long book.

01:16

It's less than 100 pages, so it's relatively short, but it gives a biblical and historical presentation of the doctrine of the Trinity, and it is available.

01:26

If anybody's interested, you can go to our church website, sgfcjax.org books, and you can find it there.

01:33

It's for free if you want to download the PDF and the audio book that's been recorded by me, or you can go and order a hard copy from our publisher.

01:42

So, in conjunction with that book, what I have decided to do is I asked Rashad to come on today to talk about the subject of subordinationism, because I didn't really get into that in the book.

01:56

The book is an entry-level, very basic presentation of the doctrine of the Trinity for, I would say, not necessarily new Christians, but Christians who are not familiar with the historical arguments, and maybe not able to articulate the doctrine of the Trinity as well as they might like to.

02:15

The book gives you a very easy-to-present, very easy-to-understand presentation of the doctrine of the Trinity, and so that's what it's about, but I am aware, and I know Rashad is aware of a more recent controversy that has been going on, especially within Reformed circles, about the question of subordinationism, and more specifically the question of how the Son and the Father, and we could even say the Holy Spirit, but particularly between the Son and the Father, the relationship between the Son and the Father in the ontological Trinity as opposed to economic Trinity, and let me just very quickly explain what that means.

03:00

We talk about ontology, we're talking about the being of God, His nature, His essence.

03:06

When we talk about economic Trinity, we're talking about the functional Trinity, particularly how God functions in relation to His creation, and so when we talk about the ontological Trinity, we usually say God is one in essence, He is three in person, and those three persons are co-equal, co-eternal, and when we say co-equal, we mean literally they are equal, but subordinationism says there is within the being of the Trinity a form of subordination, a form of greater than and less than, and so I've asked Rashad to come on today, and he is one who has studied this subject and has a lot to say, and I want to go ahead and ask you, brother, as I've sort of given a basic understanding, can you give us some of the ways that people describe this? I know that there's EFS, ESS, and those, can you describe the different ways people use the term in case maybe the listeners heard it differently? Yeah, brother, of course, so I think that a few years ago when this debate that you mentioned 2016, I think everybody would trace it back to that year, the quote-unquote Trinity debate, so initially I think a lot of us heard it referred to as the eternal subordination of the sun, or you may have seen the acronym ESS, and then you still will see that, but it looks like after that point it kind of went to eternal functional subordination, or the acronym as you mentioned EFS, and more recently at least what I've seen is that you've seen it referred to as eternal relations of authority and submission, or you'll see the acronym ERAS, so that's kind of what you will see mostly it referred to today, ERAS, eternal relations of authority and submission.

05:01

And do you think that the changing of the nomenclature is because of a refining of what they're trying to say? Oh, well, you'll see that this was my contention, I would agree with that, but I also believe that when you see something referred to as the eternal subordination of the sun, immediately you will see red flags pop up in everybody's head for the very reason that you listed.

05:31

We know that the sun is equal with the father in all ways and the spirit.

05:36

When you hear something referred to as eternal subordination, that word subordination kind of takes a negative connotation to a lot of us.

05:45

So it went to, as I mentioned earlier, functional subordination, where we're talking about just, you know, in function or how they relate to one another, and but the word subordination is still there, so more recently you see eternal relations of authority and submission.

06:02

It's a little bit of a softer play on those former ways that they announced it.

06:10

Yeah, and they drop the word subordination.

06:13

Right, right, right.

06:14

So when you hear eternal relations of authority and submission, okay, well, I can kind of, you know, I can kind of get that.

06:21

Let me listen to see what you're saying.

06:23

So yeah, subordinationism, you hear that word, that's, wow, wait a minute, subordinate, but then you get to eternal relations of authority and submission.

06:34

That sounds a little soft.

06:36

Yep, and when we think about God, you know, we have to consider the fact that we remain monotheists, as even though we're Trinitarian monotheists, not Unitarian monotheists, we are Trinitarian, and so we have to consider at least that God is God always, and so when someone starts saying, well, God is subordinate to Himself, or God is subordinate within Himself, that begins to take on a question of the very nature of what we believe God is, and what we're talking about, and so it is important, I think, that we clarify our terms, and I'm actually glad that there's an attempt to clarify, even though I may still disagree with what they're saying, they at least recognize the faulty use of certain terms, so, and when I say they, let me be clear, and I think you'll agree with me, Rashad, but I'll throw this back to you.

07:34

Would you agree that there are some people who are on the side of we'll say ERAS, that would remain within the covering of orthodoxy, while there are others who would be going outside of the umbrella of orthodoxy? Would you agree with that? Yeah, I would agree with that.

08:01

Yeah, some of them you could look at and clearly say, well, that's a heterodox view, you know, historically, no, they don't fit into orthodoxy, or what we would consider to be orthodox from a historical standpoint, they're outside of it, but then you have some who, they may not be fully orthodox, if I can use it in that way, but we need to have a little bit more of a conversation to kind of really keep drilling down into what you're, what you're saying, so yeah, I would never put a blanket statement out there about anybody who may hold to ERAS or internal relations of authority submission, but the discussion needs to be had to really not, you know, drill down into the nuts and bolts of what they're actually getting at.

08:47

Okay, so you used a word, I'm going to ask you to define it for our audience, you used the word heterodox.

08:54

Now, most of us are familiar with orthodoxy and heresy, orthodoxy being that which is an alignment, the word orthos being in a line or straight, that which is in a line with proper theology, and then of course heresy is that which is outside of orthodoxy, but heterodox is, I know how I use that term, how do you define that when you say something is heterodox, or how do you think people understand that? Right, I think the simplest way to understand that is something that won't necessarily damn someone or something that's not considered damnable heresy that you could rightly point out and say you are outside of the historical standards of the faith, you are outside what the Bible declares someone who was saved by Christ to state or believe.

09:47

Oh, you mean like infant baptism? Yeah, exactly, yeah.

09:52

No, no, I'm laughing because I'm going to get a lot of people who don't like that.

09:56

Yeah, well, maybe they don't like it, but I mean, listen, it's not a damnable, you know, it's nothing damnable, you know, you may not agree with it, but okay, that's fine, those are our brothers, but yeah, heterodoxy, nothing that would damn someone as we would use the word heresy, just it may be outside of normal orthodox or accepted orthodoxy historically.

10:21

Okay, from a historical perspective, we would say that subordinationism seems to be at least in part a semi-Aryan view, because the idea is that the father is greater than the son in his godhood, and therefore, like Arius said, the son is a created god.

10:44

Now, we have to be clear, they're not saying the son is created, but they are saying that he's lesser in some form or fashion that he is submitting to, and I've heard some people call eternal subordination semi-Aryan.

11:01

Now, that may be, again, I'm not trying to be unfair, I'm just stating some statements that I have read and seen.

11:08

What are your thoughts on that, that it's a semi-Aryan view? Do you think that's too harsh? Because we know Aryanism is a tremendous heresy, so what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, yeah, I've seen that also thrown around, and I would personally be very, very careful to use that.

11:25

One thing that I keep in mind whenever we have these debates or discussions about the nature of the Trinity, first of all, we have to understand that we're finite people, you know, attempting to understand as much as possible, though we won't fully be able to, we're attempting to understand an infinite being.

11:45

So, it would behoove us to be very graceful in how we conduct ourselves with one another when we're discussing these things.

11:54

So, I would personally be hesitant to use the semi-Aryan viewpoint.

12:01

Now, I will say that it comes from that line historically, but it doesn't rise to the level of Aryanism, and I don't believe that it rises to semi-Aryanism, but it is something that needs to be discussed and talked about and debated and pored over, as we've seen historically in the church.

12:24

But I would definitely not rise it to that level, me personally.

12:29

I want to make sure that I'm being graceful, you know, and not just throwing out charges for something that I may not necessarily see.

12:39

But it is an error, and it does need to continue to be debated and discussed.

12:45

Okay.

12:46

I have a few things here that I brought in my notes, and I want to just, and I know you probably have a few things as well.

12:53

So, I want to just begin, as I was looking through, I found some things actually from Wayne Grudem himself.

13:00

This is, Wayne is, most of you who are listening to this would probably, if you are familiar with Wayne Grudem, you would be familiar with his systematic theology.

13:09

I remember when I first became a Calvinist, which would have been, there was about a two-year period of study between 2004 and 2006, and during that time, everybody was telling me, oh, you got to read Wayne Grudem.

13:22

You got to read, sorry, you got to read Wayne Grudem.

13:28

And I've read, I've not read his systematic theology completely, but I have read portions of it, and of course, there are some parts that I think are helpful.

13:40

Some parts, of course, I don't agree with.

13:42

He tends to be more of a continuationist.

13:44

I tend to be more of a cessationist.

13:46

So, obviously, there's some differences there.

13:49

But overall, a lot of people have gleaned many good things from him, and so this is a man who has at least had a fairly decent amount of respect within Calvinistic circles.

14:04

However, on this issue, he does seem to be taking the position that some of us would say is the wrong position, which is the functional subordination or the E-R-A-S position, and I want to just say one of the things, and this is from his systematic theology.

14:23

This is on page 250.

14:25

He says, eternal relations of submission and authority after discussing how the persons of the Trinity acted in history.

14:34

Oh, I'm sorry.

14:34

Excuse me.

14:34

I'm reading the wrong thing.

14:35

He said specifically, this is a direct quote, these relationships, talking about the relationships of the Father and of the Son and of the Spirit, are eternal, not something that only occurred in time.

14:46

The reason why I bring that up is because I think you and I would agree that in the Incarnation, there was a form of submission.

14:55

Would you agree with that? 100 percent.

14:58

That's the rule.

15:00

Yeah.

15:01

It's about the Incarnation.

15:02

That's right.

15:03

So, we would say that in the Incarnation, Christ is sent.

15:08

He is given a mission, and his mission, he says specifically, is to do the will of him who sent me.

15:18

So, he speaks of the Father as the one who is giving him his marching orders, and he's fulfilling what the Father has commanded, and he says, in a sense, he's doing it under the power of the Spirit, because we remember, of course, the story of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

15:33

Jesus says, you see me do these miracles, and you can speak against me, but when you apply what I'm doing to the devil, you're blaspheming the Holy Spirit, because it's the Spirit through whom this power is being exercised.

15:45

So, we see the Trinity at work in the works of Christ, but yet there seems to be at least a distinguishable way of saying, okay, we have the Father sending the Son.

15:56

We have the Son doing the work of redemption.

15:58

We have the Spirit doing the application of redemption through the process of regeneration and indwelling, and so in all of that, we could see, as what we discussed earlier, is the economic Trinity, the distinctions within the three persons, but you would say, and I think I would agree, but I want to make sure I'm saying it correctly as you would, would you say, Rashad, that that only applies after the incarnation or within the process of incarnation? This is not something that applies to God in eternity.

16:34

Yeah, I would agree with that wholeheartedly, and I think even from the very beginning, I think you hit on it a little bit when you talked about how we are monotheists, and I think from the very beginning of Scripture, we see that.

16:49

We see it in Deuteronomy with Ishmael, you know, hero is with the Lord, our God is one.

16:54

So from the very beginning, we are being made to understand that fact that God is one.

17:01

The being of God is one, one being, one will that the three persons share, but when you get to the incarnation, this changes the game, you know, because of the uniqueness of Christ.

17:15

You know, there's never been anyone like Christ, past, present, or future.

17:21

Why? Because He has two natures.

17:25

Christ has two natures united in one person, human nature and divine nature, and so now when we see that, we are, we have to distinguish whenever we discuss Christ, whenever we look in the gospel passages, whenever we see certain things, we have to distinguish if we want to make a biblical exegesis, and what I mean by that is when you look in the gospels, you see evidences of the dual language used to reference Christ in the gospel.

17:55

So you see Him referred to, or you see His humanity highlighted when you look at passages like John 11, 35, where it says He wept, you know, John 4, 6, where it says that He was tired, Luke 2, 52, where it says He increased in wisdom and stature, you know, this is mind-blowing.

18:14

Yeah, yeah, I've thought about that passage a lot, that He increased in wisdom and stature.

18:19

This has to be speaking of His humanity, obviously not His divinity.

18:24

Yep, right, right.

18:25

So we're made to distinguish, and then you even, it's more, in Mark 4, 38 through 40, you see Him sleeping, you know.

18:33

How? We see in the Old Testament where God doesn't sleep or slumber.

18:37

Matthew 8, 10, you see Him be astonished and amazed and marvel at things.

18:42

You know, how is it that God in human flesh is amazed and marveled? He knows all things.

18:48

He's ordained and decreed all things.

18:51

But on the other hand, in the gospel passages, you see how He forgave sins.

18:56

Well, how is that possible? A mere man can't forgive sin.

19:00

You know, He knew what was in man's heart.

19:03

You know, He healed infirmities of people who had illnesses and infirmities from birth.

19:09

He knew the future.

19:11

He casted out demons.

19:12

He commanded demons.

19:13

You know, these are not things that mere man could do.

19:16

So I bring that up just to say that whenever we read about Christ in the New Testament, you could even carry it on an epistle.

19:25

In fact, we have to.

19:26

You know, in order to be good biblical exegetes, we must distinguish when we look at Him.

19:32

Why? Because He's unique in that He has two natures.

19:36

And if you want to understand the text properly, you would do that.

19:40

Okay, so we would say, or you would say then, and I think I would agree with you, I'm just making sure we're saying the right thing, that the submission of Christ is in regard to His humanity? Yes, the submission is in regards to His humanity.

19:56

We would all agree with that because you will see some of the brothers who hold to E-R-A-S admit that.

20:03

Okay.

20:04

The only error there with them is that they say that that is a reflection of something that we see eternal.

20:10

Gotcha.

20:11

And it's not the case.

20:14

And so as you were saying that, it reminded me specifically of the Carmen Christi, you know, in Philippians 2, which tells us that He submitted Himself in that sense.

20:24

He humbled Himself by becoming a man and taking on the death and the cross and those things because that was something that He voluntarily did as the second person of the Trinity.

20:38

I do want to go back though, you made a statement and it talks about the function.

20:44

You said three persons, but one will.

20:48

Expand on that a little bit when you talk about three persons and one will.

20:51

So when Jesus talks about doing the will of Him who sent me when He's on the earth, are you addressing then His human will in relation to the Father's will? I just want to clarify that statement.

21:06

Yeah, that's fine.

21:07

Yeah, absolutely.

21:08

Good question, brother.

21:09

I think that when you see Him reference the Father's will, I think you could properly understand that as being the divine will, the single divine will.

21:18

I think you see an example of that in the Garden of Gethsemane, which nearly brings me to tears every time I read and when you say, when Christ says, well, not my will, but your will be done.

21:30

Now you would look at that and you would see some people say, well, see there, look, you know, He's saying that He has a will separate from the Father.

21:39

So it's three different wills in the Godhead, which is tritheism.

21:43

I think you mentioned that in your audio book.

21:46

So again, if you want to be good biblical exegetes, we must distinguish.

21:50

So when we see Christ reference my will as opposed to the Father's will, well, then we could take that to mean that He's referencing His human will, bringing it into subjection to the one single divine will.

22:05

So when we see that in the Garden of Gethsemane, that's how we ought best understand that His human will being in subjection to the one divine will.

22:16

Okay.

22:16

And this is actually something that comes to a point that I have made, and I would maybe be saying it a little bit differently and hopefully would not be myself falling into error.

22:31

But this is when I've been asked the question, because I gave a talk at Tim Stewart's church.

22:39

You know Tim, Pastor Tim? I don't.

22:43

He's a counterculture Baptist church.

22:45

He's on the West side.

22:46

Sweet, sweet brother.

22:48

And he had, they used to do a, it was like a monthly theology event that they would have, and they'd have different speakers come in and talk about things.

22:56

Well, this was many years ago, and him and John Sweat, I've had John Sweat on the show.

23:01

I don't know if you know John Sweat.

23:02

He was, him and John were doing this monthly theology gathering.

23:06

And basically what happened was he said, well, I want you to come talk about the Trinity.

23:11

So I did, and I basically gave an overview of what I had.

23:13

Oh, nothing.

23:14

No big deal.

23:14

Just come talk about the Trinity.

23:16

Well, he knew that that was something that I had written on.

23:21

So he asked me to come and I did.

23:24

And we, and I talked about the Trinity.

23:26

Well, afterwards he gave about a 20 minute time of question and answer.

23:31

And that was the first time I remember.

23:33

And again, this was years ago.

23:38

This was somebody asked the question of, the question of subordination.

23:43

They didn't say the word subordinationism, but basically it was the question of, is the father and the son relationship in eternity? Does that make the father and the son on two different levels? Does that put the father above the son or the father in the sense greater than the son? Because of those very titles.

24:02

And in fact, that's one of the arguments that Wayne Grudup makes is even in the titular examples of father son, you have the example of the greater and the lesser or the, or the, or the, the, the, the one who is in a sense subordinate to the other.

24:17

And so it was a good question.

24:19

And, and my answer, and again, this may be overly simplistic, so you know, I I'll let the listener be the judge, but my answer was when we think of the father and the son, we cannot think that either one of them has any imperfections.

24:38

And therefore we cannot think of the father and the son ever wanting something different than the other in, in, in their divine nature, because the father and the son have a perfect nature.

24:52

And therefore, if the father desires, the son will also desire because it's the, it's the perfect thing to desire and therefore sub subordinationism in that sense, in my, in my mind becomes unnecessary because it's not as if one has to submit to the other, because there's never a time where either one would have a difference of thought or opinion or desire because there's, and I, this is what you were saying with the one will there's one perfect desire, one perfect will.

25:21

And if either one of them were to say something wrong, he would cease to be God or think something wrong or desire something.

25:27

Right.

25:28

I know that sort of, that's where it gets kind of janky because you start thinking, well, yeah, well, all the analogies break down at some point, especially when you're talking about the Trinity.

25:36

So yeah, that's not.

25:37

Yeah.

25:37

But, but the idea of one having an imperfect desire, because that, because part of the idea of submission, like if I think of submission between myself and my wife or myself and my children, and that's something that's often brought up is the, is the connection between the father and the son and the husband and the wife.

25:58

I don't know if you've, if you've seen that, but it's in that book.

26:04

Yeah.

26:04

Yeah.

26:05

Yeah.

26:06

The, the, the, the, the, the connection is you got God, the father, God, the son, while they're equal, but still in a relationship of subordination in the same way, the, the husband and the wife are equal, but still in the same position of subordination.

26:19

The problem with that is that there's a necessity of subordination with the husband to the wife, because the wife could desire something that is, that is opposed to her husband.

26:29

And therefore the husband has to have the authority to, to, to lead in such a way.

26:36

And she has to have the responsibility to submit in such a way, because there could be a conflict of will, but because within the Godhead, there cannot be a conflict of will.

26:46

I think that at a certain point, this argument becomes almost a, you know, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Because it, it, there cannot be, and tell me if you think that's too simple, that there cannot be a distinction within, you know, that.

27:03

Yeah.

27:03

Well, it's the unity of the will, you know, I mean, it's a real, I mean, it's a real unity, you know, and I know a lot of people liking the Trinity to a community where you have these three persons who are kind of just all they're spending in a circle and they all have different wills, they all just happen to agree.

27:24

But no, it's something much more than that.

27:27

You know, it's greater than that.

27:28

The unity with the Trinity is because the three share the one divine will, you know, and they will, like you said, they, it's not possible for them to will anything differently from the other person, because they share that one divine will.

27:44

And so you could take that to say, you know, there, there'll never be an instance where we would ever have an authority or a submission relationship in the one divine will for numerous reasons.

27:56

Well, how can you have an authority submission in a one device, it's just one will.

28:02

What is the one will submitting to, you know, what is the one will in subjection to? Can God be a subjection to himself? You know, and so you will also see in the, in the Grudem book, you will see in some stuff written by Bruce where, where the father gets final authority, you know, and I think that's very problematic.

28:27

The father's receiving some greater authority than the son, but we're talking about the one being of God.

28:35

So yeah, when you impose those humanly analogies onto the divine being, it's going to break down, the one you just mentioned, and it's going to break down hard into error.

28:47

The one you mentioned about the father being like the husband and the son being like the wife and the Holy Spirit being like kids.

28:56

Yeah.

28:57

And he admits in there, well, this is not stated explicitly in the Bible.

29:01

And I'm not saying that anything has to be explicitly stated in the Bible because doctrines that we hold to may not be explicitly stated in the Bible.

29:10

But for those purposes there, I think that's very telling, you know, we just can't draw that, that we can't draw that out of the text.

29:17

You know, that's not a good.

29:19

Yeah.

29:19

It still has to come, still has to come from the text.

29:21

I agree with that.

29:22

It has to be good and necessary inference, right? Yeah.

29:26

Yeah.

29:26

Yeah.

29:27

Amen.

29:28

Yep.

29:29

All right.

29:29

So I was looking at an article from the Gospel Coalition, which is not my favorite publication, just to be clear, but sometimes, you know, they'll, you know, even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while.

29:42

So, but this is, the Gospel Coalition put out an article on this subject and they were just distinguishing between men like Bruce Ware and who hold to EFS and like Kevin Giles, who denies EFS.

30:00

And they were discussing Augustine and they were discussing a quote by Augustine.

30:07

And let me see if I can get it here.

30:09

Both of them, both of them hold that this quote affirms their position.

30:15

Let me see here.

30:17

The distinction of persons is constituted precisely by the differing relations among them, in part manifested by the inherent authority of the father and inherent submission of the son.

30:30

I'll say that again.

30:31

The distinction of persons is constituted precisely by the differing relations among them, in part manifested by the inherent authority of the father and inherent submission of the son.

30:44

So that's the quote by Augustine and both men are saying this affirms my side.

30:50

And I know you're not looking at it.

30:51

So it might be a little unfair to ask you to, but I think that's part of the issue is we're all looking at the same data.

31:02

We're all looking at the same things, the same quotes, and yet we're coming to different conclusion.

31:07

It's almost like the Calvinist-Arminian debate, you know, we have to say, you know, I know some Calvinists who would say, well, the Arminian just isn't reading his Bible.

31:16

Well, I would say he's misunderstanding it, but I'm not going to say he's not reading it.

31:20

You know, I want to be fair to my Arminian brothers and say, you know, I think they're missing some things in the translation or understanding, but I'm not going to belittle their integrity and saying they're not trying.

31:33

God is the one who opens our eyes to truth.

31:35

God is the one who helps us understand.

31:38

But just hearing that quote, was there anything in it that jumped out at you as you were listening to that quote by Augustine? Yeah, I know a lot of them, a lot of those brothers will read, they will read those quotes and use it as fuel for their position, but I think you, I think in a lot of those quotes, and I haven't read that from Augustine, so I can't speak specifically on that, but just to hear the word manifest, you know, when we think of that word manifest, we think of something that comes to fruition, something that comes to being, or something that happens in the economy.

32:15

So I can understand why Kevin Giles, who wrote a fantastic book on this whole thing that we're talking about anyway, so I can understand why he would adopt that statement as confirmation or support for his position because of that usage of the word manifest.

32:33

And like we talked about earlier, I mean, all of us would agree, ERAS proponents and opponents, that there is submission.

32:44

So we could very, yeah, I can understand why they would look at that as support, and I can understand why Giles would look at it for support, but what we need to nail down is, is this submission eternal? Is this an eternal reality within the being of God, or is this something that is just made manifest, using Augustine's word, made manifest by the incarnation? And that's what we would say.

33:14

I think the word that Bruce Ware would key in on is the word inherent.

33:18

So it's like two words, right? Like we would say the manifest is what makes the distinction because it's manifested in time.

33:28

But somebody like Ware or Grudem would see that and they would say, well, yeah, but it's inherent.

33:35

So it's not just in the manifestation, but it is in the nature.

33:38

If I say something's inherent in something, that means it's in its nature.

33:42

And so, yeah, I could see how both sides would grab onto that quote by Augustine.

33:48

And so I want to...

33:51

But even with that, if I could please just jump in quickly.

33:53

No, please, please.

33:54

Yeah, yeah.

33:54

But even with that, when you hear the word inherent, I would agree with that also, because it would be inherent with its human nature.

34:01

Gotcha.

34:01

And I think that's one of the things that we lose sight of.

34:05

Again, and I hate to keep harping on it, but I think it is upon us to just to understand that Christ was made like us in each and every way, except without sin.

34:19

So whatever is true of humanity now is true of him.

34:24

Again, except without sin.

34:25

I want to keep saying except without sin.

34:28

I don't want to be...

34:28

No, no, no, I get it.

34:31

I would say maybe, and I hope you wouldn't disagree with this, but maybe I would say it slightly different.

34:39

I would say everything that was true of Adam is true of Christ when he was created.

34:44

Yeah, because I think that sums up the seeing part.

34:48

Yeah, exactly.

34:49

Because Adam was created without sin.

34:50

Jesus came into the world without sin.

34:52

And that's why he's called the second Adam or the last Adam.

34:56

We have the opportunity to see a new and better Adam in the person of Christ.

35:02

All right.

35:03

So moving along, looking at Wayne Grudemann in a paper I found of his, he has 10 arguments, or rather, no, 12 arguments.

35:14

We're not going to go through all of them, but I do want to just hear your thoughts and sort of how you would respond if somebody said these to you.

35:22

If somebody said, here's why I hold to E-R-A-S.

35:26

Here's why I hold to eternal relationship or eternal relations and submission in the Father and the Son.

35:32

The first one, and I think we've already addressed this, but again, this is you and me at a coffee table at Starbucks, and I'm not, but I'm saying in that in this conversation, I'm the E-R-A-S advocate.

35:47

You're the advocate of full equality in the Godhead in eternity.

35:53

And so we're having this conversation and I say this, Rashad, the Father's authority and the Son's submission is indicated in the names Father and Son.

36:04

That's his first argument, that the very name Father and Son, which we would agree, I think, is an eternal designation, not just, you don't believe in, yeah, we don't believe in incarnational sonship.

36:18

Okay, because I was interested to find out years ago, and I think you probably know this, that MacArthur held to that for a time, that MacArthur held to what was known as incarnational sonship, but now holds to the view of eternal sonship.

36:32

And I always use that as an example of how a good, solid theologian can change if he is presented with good, solid reasons.

36:40

And so MacArthur is an example to all of us in that, being willing to make that change.

36:46

Okay, so we both hold to eternal sonship.

36:49

Yes, without question.

36:50

Okay, so how does eternal sonship, because this is essentially, I think, the heart of the argument, how does that not then indicate eternal distinction and submission? Yeah, well, I think the trouble that you run into taking that position would be that you're saying that the Father has a different quality about himself than the Son does, in saying that the Father has greater authority than the Son.

37:17

But the scriptures tell us that God has all authority, power, might, he's almighty.

37:22

So when you start breaking it out to these different levels of authority within the Godhead, then that betrays the scriptures of God being almighty.

37:33

So how can we have different authorities? Is he almighty? Is he not? If you hold that position on one hand, you can say he is, on the other hand, you can say, well, no, because you're saying that the Son has a lesser authority, and the Spirit has an even less authority.

37:49

I feel kind of bad because it's almost like we're relegating the Spirit.

37:53

We don't even talk about the Holy Spirit anymore.

37:56

Yeah, it's like it's like the philoquy clause never happened.

38:01

Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly.

38:03

And so, you know, and going further from there, you know, that's the other part of the argument, I think, is what distinguishes the person, you know, because you just said that the ERAS proponents would say, well, see, he's a father, he has fatherly authority, the Son is distinguished because he's a son, he has lesser authority, he submits, and then the Holy Spirit submits to them both, since he's breathed out by both, and he's just kind of does whatever they say, you know, each.

38:32

But historically, that's not the case.

38:34

And even more importantly, biblically, that's not the case.

38:36

What we know is that what distinguishes is the eternal relations of origin, how we will say that the Father is unbegotten God, the Son is begotten God, and the Spirit proceeds from them both.

38:53

That is what distinguishes the person.

38:56

It has nothing to do about some assumed levels of authority that we can kind of just grasp from our creation and apply it back.

39:07

But that is what truly distinguishes the the persons of the Trinity.

39:12

So I would say, just to sum that up, if that was posed to me, well, is God almighty or not? Is he all authoritative or not? You know, he either is or he isn't.

39:24

And they're Trinitarians, so they would have to say yes.

39:27

I say, well, where do we have room then for different levels of authority within the Godhead? It's not there.

39:34

Yeah, and you did make an important distinction there when you talked about Christ being begotten.

39:40

We do make a distinction of God the Father is neither begotten nor created.

39:46

The Son is begotten, not created.

39:50

This is Nicene Orthodoxy defining the difference between the beginning of the Son and generation.

39:56

We would say he's not generated or created as we would think of him not existing at a certain point of time and then existing, which is, of course, the Arian view, which is that Christ came into being, was created by the Father to be the creator of the world.

40:13

And then, of course, the Spirit proceeding.

40:18

We think about the term begotten God, you know, that one of the, I forget the text, but there's a text where the textual variant says, you know, in the King James, it says only begotten Son, but in the more modern text, because of the textual variant, it says the only begotten God.

40:35

We hear the word begotten God, that rings in our ears as really powerful and strange, but yet that's what the Orthodox position has been, that Christ is begotten but not created or not made, begotten not made.

40:50

John 1, 18, yeah.

40:52

No one has seen God at any time.

40:53

The only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, he is explained.

40:58

Yes, absolutely.

40:59

Amen.

41:00

All right, so we're going to just a couple more of these Wayne Gruden ones, and I don't know if you brought something you wanted to share today, some quotes or anything, but I don't want to overlook those, but let me ask you a couple.

41:10

Oh, no, no, that's all.

41:11

Yeah, you, this is good.

41:13

Yeah.

41:13

Okay.

41:14

I didn't want to bring too many quotes.

41:17

No, I got you.

41:17

I got you, but I think anything we share today will be helpful.

41:21

So here is another one.

41:24

Again, there are 12, we're not going to go through all 12, but the second one, the argument of Gruden is that the Father's authority and the Son's submission is evident prior to creation, and the argument that he uses, because I've just got the 12 here, but I remember reading through in the paper, the argument that he uses is that the Son is sent before the foundation of the world.

41:51

He refers to the cross as an action that happened before the foundation of the world and the Son being sent before the foundation of the world.

41:58

And he would say, see, it's not tied to the incarnation, but actually precedes the incarnation in time because this, and again, I'm trying to be as fair as I can to his argument.

42:09

So I'm not making, I'm not agreeing with him.

42:11

I'm just trying to make his argument as I believe he would say, that you have the Son prior to the incarnation acting on the will of the Father.

42:21

And so that's proof that it's not only within the confines of the incarnation.

42:29

So what do we, how do we respond to that? Yeah.

42:32

And I think that's getting down to something else about the missions, you know, how, how we see, I mean, it's still a comment, you know, how we see God revealed in his creative works.

42:46

It was more properly, it could be termed a doctrine of appropriations, meaning that certain works of the Trinity terminate on a certain person in a specific way.

42:57

So, which is why we see the Son sent to die.

43:01

You know, the Father didn't die on the cross.

43:03

Spirit didn't die on the cross.

43:05

The Son, it was determined that he would be the one down the cross.

43:09

The Father, he elected, it was determined that he would be the one who elected and the Spirit regenerates and seals.

43:15

So you see certain works attributed to certain persons of the Trinity in a specific way, but it's still the economy in view.

43:24

You know, we still, we just don't see it in the Old Testament, this eternal relation of authority and submission within the Godhead, you know, but we can only see from the economic standpoint, you know, how things are revealed to us in the missions of the persons of the Trinity.

43:45

So yeah, again, you know, if you don't understand that what distinguishes the persons is what we mentioned before, how the Father is unbegotten God, the Son is begotten God, the Spirit proceeds.

44:00

As the scriptures declare, we're going to have trouble whenever we try to fit our view into what we want it to be.

44:09

Gotcha, gotcha.

44:11

And when we think about that, even prior to creation, when it's referring to the Father and the Son and the cross, when it says, you know, he is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world, even though that is outside of time in the sense of prior to time being a thing, prior to the creation of time, we're still looking at it, as you said, in an economic sense, because it's still in relation to what will happen.

44:44

This is not something that's happening within the Trinity, distinguishable from creation, but in relation to creation.

44:53

So we're still looking at something that relates to creation, even if it happened before the world was created in the sense of in the mind of God or in the plan of God, it's still there.

45:03

And I'm glad you did say what you did, because when we talk about things like patripassionism, which is the idea that the Father died on the cross, that puts a flattening out of the Trinity where we're not able to distinguish.

45:18

And then so like, one of the things I often, you know, I know that there are passages that talk about Christ being within us, but specifically we talk about the Holy Spirit indwelling us.

45:29

Jesus says, I go away, the Spirit will come, you know, the comforter.

45:34

And that is the one who actually is our empowerment, our indwelling is the person of the Holy Spirit.

45:41

And would you agree with me that Christ in the incarnation still resides as God and man today? Yes, absolutely.

45:54

Yeah.

45:54

And I think we can see an illusion, well not an illusion, I think we see it in the text, 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Corinthians 11.

46:04

And ironically, 1 Corinthians 15 is a text that the ERAS proponents will use to buttress their support about how, you know, Christ will be subjected to God and everything will be all in all.

46:20

Again, the economy is in view.

46:21

You know, the context of that passage is about the resurrection and Christ being the first fruit of many who will come.

46:28

Well, the being of God can't die.

46:31

So automatically you know that you're discussing his humanity.

46:36

Once again, the we distinguish.

46:38

So when you look at that passage, you can look at it as Christ being exalted as the federal head over all the ones that he has redeemed and placed right there, seated right there at the right hand of God.

46:50

Again, that has nothing to do with his deity.

46:52

He has always been God.

46:54

He has always reigned.

46:56

He never stopped reigning at any point in time, even while he was on earth.

47:00

But according to his humanity, that's a reality.

47:04

So yeah, even today he resides as the God-man, interceding on behalf of his people.

47:10

He didn't just die and jettison his flesh.

47:13

If he just jettisoned his humanity, we're not redeemed.

47:17

Who's interceding for us? You know, who understands and was tempted in all ways as we were yet without sin? Well, he just came and put on a human suit and died and rose up.

47:30

I'm like, I'm out of here.

47:31

No, no more humanity for me.

47:32

No, he will forever be the God-man to intercede for his people.

47:37

Yeah, and that's interesting because that's number 10.

47:40

What you just addressed actually comes in.

47:42

His argument number 10 is the father's authority in the son's submission is giving the son authority to rule over the nations.

47:49

That's talking about what you were talking about in the first Corinthians passage.

47:52

But that's interesting that they would cite that because that's actually a very common passage used by the Jehovah's Witnesses because their argument is Christ isn't inherently authoritative over the nations, but he must be given that authority because they are seeing Christ in his humanity as being his, that's his nature.

48:13

They don't see the God nature.

48:16

And so, yeah, it's interesting that that's one of the arguments.

48:23

And you went right there.

48:24

And the next one too, the father's authority in the son's submission after the final judgment and for all eternity.

48:30

So they would say that the son is not only in submission to the father before creation, obviously eternity doesn't have before and after, but you understand what I'm getting at.

48:40

Eternity past, we have the son is in submission to the father in eternity past, and the son is in submission to the father in eternity going forward.

48:50

And they're making that argument based on the first Corinthians passage and other passages like it that talk about what's going to happen in the future.

48:59

And again, looking at that from that perspective, I would say Christ was incarnate and he is the God man even now, and I believe will be the God man forever because he will live forever with us and we will have him with us.

49:21

So that's a, so the economic sense of the Trinity continues on because his flesh continues on.

49:32

Yep, yep, you got it because you got to, we distinguish, that's what they said back in the early church, and that's how it just came down.

49:41

We, I mean, and I've said it before a thousand times, but we have to distinguish or else we'll go wrong somewhere.

49:52

Yep, we have to make as, and again, I'm quoting Dr.

49:57

White, but he says, you know, well, no, maybe it isn't Dr.

50:01

White.

50:02

One of the guys I listened to, he says, you know, as it is a, no, it was Sproul, it was Dr.

50:06

Sproul, he says, as it is a woman's prerogative to change her mind, so it is the theologian's prerogative to make distinctions.

50:14

Yeah, I miss him.

50:18

Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely.

50:19

So did you, did you happen to have anything that you brought today that you wanted to add to the conversation before we begin to maybe draw this up? I have one thing we're going to end with, but I want to throw it to you real quick.

50:31

Yeah, I think we've already kind of touched on a little bit of it, and you mentioned this passage earlier, Philippians 2, about the assuming of the human nature, and I think Hebrews 5 is another important passage where the language is intentional.

50:48

It says that he became obedient, you know, so he became something that he never was before.

50:56

That's a good point.

50:57

So if, listen, here's the fact, and this is what I tell people, you know, what is special about the incarnation if Christ just was coming to do what he was made or supposed to do? If he was already eternally obedient and in eternal subjection to the Father, well, he didn't do anything special.

51:19

He just did what he was supposed to do, you know, but what makes the incarnation of God so special is that he became what he was not, you know, he became obedient, you know, he suffered and bled for his people, you know, he redeemed his people, raised on the third day, seated at the right hand of the Father.

51:38

He became something that he was not, and that is what makes the incarnation so special.

51:46

It's not special if he was doing what he was supposed to do because he's just a son who just, you know, under the authority of his Father.

51:53

There's nothing special about the incarnation.

51:55

He did what he was supposed to do.

51:56

I mean, do we get props for doing what we're supposed to do, you know? So, I mean, he did what he became what he was not, and that is submissive and obedient to the Father, and I think even from the very beginning, and I hope you see how this ties in, the creator-creature distinction.

52:21

I think that is something that is very important to the conversation, and I've been just, this is something that I've been pondering for a little while here since this thing has been going on.

52:30

Genesis 1-1, what does it say? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

52:34

Boom.

52:34

Automatically, we're introduced to an authority-submission relationship.

52:39

We were created by this divine being whose nature is not like ours.

52:45

You know, Psalm 50 talks about how God will crush his enemies, there'll be none to deliver.

52:53

What does he say in that passage in Psalm 50? You thought that I was like you.

52:57

You know, in Acts 14, verse 15, Paul and Barnabas, the people there were starting to liken them to Zeus and Hermes, and he said, wait a minute, we're men of like nature as you.

53:10

So, when you look back at Genesis 1-1, see that you were created by God.

53:14

Genesis chapter 2, he creates man, and what does he do after he creates man? He commands them.

53:21

Creator-creature distinction.

53:25

God is other.

53:26

We are in a whole other class from him.

53:31

And so, to posit any type of authority-submission relationship within the Godhead where it only resides with the creator and his creatures is something that we really need to be careful of.

53:42

The only authority-submission relationship that we are in is creator and creature.

53:48

The creator commands, demands, the creature submits.

53:51

We cannot find authority-submission within the one single divine being.

53:59

It's just not there.

54:01

It is not proper to him.

54:03

You know, it belongs between the creator and the creature.

54:08

And so, yeah, brother, I just hope this discussion continues to go on.

54:13

It's worthy.

54:14

You know, it's about the Trinity.

54:15

We're, like you mentioned at the beginning, at the outset, this is deep, deep waters.

54:21

But it's worthy and it's rewarding, you know, to see God for how he truly is and to see how, you know, he is other.

54:29

I mean, he does not have a nature like us.

54:31

How amazing is that? You know, he is our authority.

54:35

We submit to him.

54:37

That is not a reality within the divine being.

54:39

And that is why you see in Hebrews 5 and Philippians 2 about how Christ became, he became like us.

54:47

He lived the law perfectly in thought, deed, action, whatever you want to see.

54:52

He did that for his people.

54:54

Amen.

54:55

And he submitted himself to God because as far as it goes with humanity, humanity is in that relationship with God.

55:03

God is not an authority-submission relationship with himself.

55:07

It's just not found in the text.

55:11

So it's more than I can say on that, but that's really it from my standpoint.

55:15

You hit on a lot of the stuff, so I'm glad we were on the same page with that.

55:19

Amen.

55:20

That sounded like you're getting into preaching mode.

55:23

Man, that was, yeah, it's something near and dear to me, man.

55:27

And I know even those brothers who hold the ERAS are seeking to honor God, just like we're seeking to honor God.

55:35

But just like we see with church history, debates went on and on and on over the centuries.

55:40

And I just hope this one continues, you know, because it's worthy.

55:45

We're talking about God, so.

55:48

Amen.

55:49

Well, I'm going to draw us to, unless you have something else I want to draw us to.

55:53

I'm good, brother.

55:54

Yeah, I've talked enough.

55:55

No, no, no.

55:56

I appreciate it.

55:57

Like I said, I enjoyed that part a lot.

56:00

I want to mention here, this is from the OPC.

56:04

Now, the OPC is Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

56:06

Now, we don't agree with everything they have to say.

56:09

Again, they're out there sprinkling babies.

56:12

But they address this issue in a paper that they published, and it was available on their website.

56:20

So as I was doing a little digging around, I found it, and I really liked it.

56:24

And I just want to read a portion of the end of their paper.

56:28

Now, this is available at opc.org.

56:31

You can just look it up on the subject of the Eternal Submission.

56:35

But it says this.

56:37

We of the OPC hold that the Word of God clearly teaches the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that there is no such thing as degrees or levels of deity, and that all attributes of God belong equally to all three persons of the Trinity.

56:52

We believe that the Father, Son, and Spirit have one nature or substance, and that they have one power and authority, referencing the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553.

57:02

The problem is this.

57:05

If authority over the Son is an essential, not an incidental, attribute of the Father, and subordination of the Father is an essential, not an incidental, attribute of the Son, then something significant follows.

57:17

Authority is a part of the Father's essence or nature, and subordination is part of the Son's essence and nature.

57:23

And that would mean that the essence of the Father is different from the essence of the Son.

57:29

But we profess that though there are three distinct persons of the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, yet the persons are not separate, are without parts, and are one in essence, are the same being, all sharing the same divine perfection.

57:49

And so I think I would affirm that.

57:52

I think you would as well.

57:55

Yeah, and that gives some clarity bringing what we have talked about to a good finality.

58:02

Well, Rashad, I want to thank you again for being with us today, and you are a member of a church here in Jacksonville, which is far enough away from mine that I'll let you advertise it.

58:14

Where are you at church, brother? Where's your church? In Grace Community Church in Mandarin.

58:19

My pastor is Justin McKitterick.

58:21

We're over there off Hood Road, right up the street from where we live now, as we move from over by the airport.

58:29

But so yeah, we're over there.

58:31

Lots of great people.

58:33

I love it.

58:34

I love everyone there.

58:35

Blessed to be there.

58:36

All right.

58:37

Well, if you are in Jacksonville and you're in that area of town, look up that church, Grace Community Church, and go find Rashad and shake his hand if you want to visit over there.

58:46

But if you're on the north side closer to us, come visit us at Sovereign Grace Family Church.

58:51

And again, Rashad, I want to thank you.

58:53

I want to thank you and your family for giving you to me for this hour, giving you to our audience for this hour.

58:58

We appreciate you giving your time and your talent to us as God has given that to you.

59:04

Thank you, brother.

59:05

I appreciate it.

59:05

I'm humbled to be here.

59:07

Thank you so much.

59:08

Yes, sir.

59:09

And again, audience, I'm sure that this was a lot to take in today, a lot to think about, and I'm sure you may have some additional questions.

59:16

If you have questions, please feel free to send them to me at calvinistpodcast at gmail.com.

59:22

Also, if you're interested in getting the book, God in Three Persons, you can access that again on the website sgfcjacks.org books.

59:31

You can get it in PDF form.

59:34

You can get it as an audio book, or you can order a hard copy.

59:38

And again, I want to thank you for listening today to Conversations with a Calvinist.

59:43

My name is Keith Foskey, and I've been your Calvinist.

59:46

May God bless you.