1 Sam 16:14 – ‘Now the Spirit of the LORD had turned away from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD tormented him.’
[See also: 1 Sam 18:10 – ‘An evil spirit from God rushed upon Saul and he prophesied within his house.’]
Bergen describes this as a very unusual form of expression.
It could equally be translated, ‘troublesome’ spirit.
It was a condition which (as Bergen notes) Saul himself was unable to deal with. …
Key texts include:
John 6:38 “I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me.”
John 14:28 “You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I am.”
…John 17:3 “Now this is eternal life—that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent.”
Perusing the 2nd edition of Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology (Zondervan Academic, 2020), I was struck by his complaint that his (and Bruce Ware’s) position on the Eternal Submission of the Son has been ‘seriously misrepresented’ by Aimee Byrd (in her book, Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, published earlier in 2020 by Zondervan).
Byrd, writes Grudem,
…‘falsely claims that Bruce Ware and I, in advocating the doctrine of “eternal relations of authority and submission,” are making a serious doctrinal error because “this doctrine teaches that the Son, the second person of the Trinity, is subordinate to the Father, not only in the economy of salvation but in his essence,” and we are therefore “unorthodox teachers that are not in line with Nicene Trinitarian doctrine.”’
The literature (especially online literature dating from 2016 onwards) is huge.
Here, however, is a selection.
Books
Bird, Michael F. and Harrower, Scott (eds). Trinity Without Hierarchy. Kregel, 2020.
Byrd, Aimee. Recovering From Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Zondervan, 2020. (Not primarily about ESS, but of some relevance, given Byrd’s involvement in the debate)
Butner, D. Glenn, Jnr: The Son Who Learned Obedience: A Theological Case Against the Eternal Submission of the Son. Pickwick, 2018.…
Morton Smith:
There is an order in the mode of subsistence of the Three Persons, which cannot be reversed, and properties that cannot be interchanged, an order of relationship. This is not to be construed as subordination, however. These distinctions between the Persons are not distinctions of essence, but of person. They are “the same in substance, equal in power and glory.” The essence of God involves infinite, eternal, and unchangeable being and perfection. The fact that we recognize each of these persons as deity implies that there can be no subordination of essence.…
1 Corinthians 15:28 ‘When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will be subjected to the one who subjected everything to him, so that God may be all in all.’
Donald MacLeod refers to the ‘formidable difficulty’ contained in these words.
‘They seem,’ he writes, ‘to teach blatant subordinationism: the Son himself will be subject to the Father. Does this not place him very clearly on the side of creation rather than on the side of the Creator?’…
Here are extracts from a paper given by Dr Kevin Giles at the plenary forum on the Trinity at the Evangelical Theological Society annual conference, 15th November, 2016 at San Antonia. The other speakers were Dr Bruce Ware, Dr Millard Erickson and Dr Wayne Grudem; Dr Sam Storms presided.
Giles’ main focus was on the Nicene Creed. In fact, although he mentioned the Bible (or Scripture) over fifty times, and insisted on its primacy, he made relatively little actual appeal to the biblical text itself.…
Matthew 2:13-23
“I’ve finally worked out why Christmas is so popular,” announced the sceptic to the preacher, at the end of a carol service.
“It’s because Christmas is all about a baby. And a baby threatens no one.”
Try telling that to King Herod!
A man wracked with insecurity. On hearing from the Magi that a new king had been born, he made up his mind to eliminate the threat.
Joseph, however, was warned by an angel. …
Trinitarian orthodoxy teaches that the members of the Godhead are equal in nature but distinct in their roles.
In the recent debate about the doctrine of the eternal subordination of the Son, critics are in danger of over-emphasising the first of these, whereas advocates are at risk of placing too much stress on the latter.
This is not, of course, the only area in theology where a tension has to be maintained between two (or more) truths that human reason cannot fully reconcile. …
Eternal subordination of the Son ought to be (but is not always) distinguished from the heresy of subordinationism.
Subordinationism has been defined as,
‘A doctrine that assigns an inferiority of being, status, or role to the Son or Holy Spirit within the Trinity.’ (R. C. and C. C. Kroeger, “Subordinationism,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 1st and 2nd editions)
This, however, is a little too broad, because (setting aside the word ‘inferiority’) it implies that any kind of subordination is to be regarded as heresy.…
