"Eternal generation is eternal nonsense." Professor Nathaniel Emmons
There certainly is not a place in his [Jesus] testimony, or in the Bible, where by the Father is not meant the everlasting Jehovah. To this we do not think that any one will take exception. Nor is there a place where Christ ever taught that there is a Son who was born from eternity, or that there are three persons in one God, or that such a division of the Deity is possible. On the contrary, he asserts the truth of the first and great commandment, that "the Lord our God is one Lord," while to the young man who calls him good Master, he replies, "there is none good but one, that is God."
But if he never destroyed the unity of the Godhead by dividing it into persons, each one of whom is perfect Deity; and if, as we shall see hereafter, no other inspired writer ever did, then why should we believe that such a doctrine is true? If the Bible does not declare it, and if the Christian church never taught it until it became corrupted, why should we teach it? The doctrine of a Son by "eternal generation," and of a Trinity of persons from eternity, was not received and taught as the faith of the church until the fourth century; and that the church had already lost its purity and its spiritual power, and that it did, from that time, become more and more corrupt, is a fact in history known to all. Nor has it to-day the power which it once had, nor will it ever have again until it acknowledges and worships one God instead of three.
Christ has said that the Father was God; but he never said that any one else was. He tells us that the Son is a man, and he calls him the Son of man, and also the Son of God; but he never said that the Son himself was God. And we agree with Doctor Adam Clark, that the doctrine of the eternal sonship of Christ is a self-contradiction, and one of the greatest absurdities that the Christian church ever taught.
This learned commentator, speaking of this subject, in his note on Luke 1:35, says: "I reject this doctrine for the following reasons: 1st. I have not been able to find any express declarations in the Scriptures concerning it. 2d. If Christ be the Son of God, as to his divine nature, then he cannot be eternal; for Son implies a Father; and Father implies, in reference to Son, precedency in time, if not in nature, too. Father and Son imply the idea of generation; and generation implies a time in which it was effected, and time also antecedent to such generation. 3d. If Christ be the Son of God as to his divine nature, then the Father is of necessity prior, consequently superior to him. 4th. Again, if this divine nature were begotten of the Father, then it must be in time; i. e., there was a period in which it did not exist, and a period when it began to exist. This destroys the eternity of our blessed Lord, and robs him at once of his Godhead. 5th. To say that he was begotten from all eternity is, in my opinion, absurd; and the phrase eternal Son is a self-contradiction. Eternity is that which had no beginning, nor stands in reference to time. Son supposes time, generation, and a father; and time also antecedent to such generation. Therefore the conjunction of these two terms, Son and eternity, is absolutely impossible, as they imply essentially different and opposite ideas." (Clark's Com., vol. 5, p. 361.)
From this it will be seen that Doctor Clark, though he believed in a Trinity of persons, did not believe in the eternal Sonship of our Lord; nor do we believe that his arguments on this subject have ever been answered, or ever can be. And if it is absurd to say that the Deity in Christ was a Son born from eternity, is it not equally absurd to say that this divine nature was again born of a woman? That God the Son, who was begotten by the Father from eternity, and who, though begotten, was yet equal with him, was after this begotten again in time, and was born of Mary? Is it not, in fact, a monstrous doctrine to say that the Deity can be born of any one? If he can be, or if one person of the Deity can be born of another person, then God is not the one, undivided, self-existent, independent and eternal Being which we have taught that he is, and which the Scriptures declare him to be; nor is that part or person which was begotten and born, equal to the one by whom it was begotten. If we say that the one born is not equal, we deny his divinity; and if we contend that, though dependent, he is yet equal, we must bury forever our reason, and, at the same time, reject the teachings of the Bible.
Further, if we say that the Father is God, and that the Son is God, and that the one was begotten by the other, we either assert that the Son was begotten by himself, and is his own Father, and that the Father is his own Son; or else we believe in a plurality of Gods, and that one is inferior and subordinate to the other. For Christ has not only taught that the Son is dependent upon the Father, but that he is also in subjection to him. The Father commands, and the Son obeys. He is a man of sorrows doing the will of the Father, pleading with him earnestly in prayer, and obedient even unto death. The Father loves him because he keeps his commandments, and is ever submissive to his will; and lest it might be said that the subjection of the Son to the Father was only during the days of his humiliation on earth, the Scriptures teach (1 Cor. 15: 28) that it will be eternal.
Then if the Son is God, we must admit that there are at least two Deities, and that one is subordinate to the other. But if we say that the Son is a man, and that, while the Father is the divinity of our Lord, the Son is his humanity, then we have but one God, who is the Father of us all, and one Lord Jesus Christ, in whom, as the church teaches, there are two perfect natures — perfect God and perfect man. Whereas, on the supposition of three persons, only one of whom became incarnate, there is in Christ only a part of the Deity. He would have in him the whole nature of man, and only a part of the nature of God; or else he is a man in whom dwells only one of three Deities. And if this is unreasonable, as it is unscriptural, why should we believe it? Why not accept the testimony of Christ, and say that the Father is God, and that the Son, who labors and learns, prays and obeys, and suffers and dies, is the man in whom the Father dwells? Why insist that the Deity in Christ was the Son, when he declares it to be the Father, and has never spoken of any one else? To claim that there are two when he only speaks of one, and when all, in fact, agree that there is but one, would seem to do violence to our reason that we might reject the truth of God.
We close this part of the evidence with one more quotation from our Lord's testimony, which is certainly a very remarkable one, but upon which we will make no comment at present: "Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said ye are Gods? If he called them Gods, unto whom the Word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken, say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, thou blasphemest, because I said, I Am The Son of God?"
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