Authority: Doctrine of the
Sonship of Christ
1 Corinthians 11:3 NASB
“But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man
is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.” This issue in this verse
is authority. This is indicated by the use of the word KEPHALE [kefalh] which is translated “head.” The word has two
meanings. The first is the literal head that sits on top of your neck and the
other meaning, the metaphorical meaning, came to mean authority or leadership.
This is further emphasized in verse 10: “Therefore the woman ought to have {a
symbol of} authority on her head, because of the angels.” There is a lot of
speculation as to what that last clause means but what it refers to is that authority
is the foundational issue in the angelic conflict. It was the angel Lucifer who
rebelled against God in eternity past and led a revolt against Him amongst the
angels. The issue was authority, In the garden of Eden
the issue was, again, authority; whether Adam and Isha
would obey God and follow His authority even in the midst of the temptation
that was offered. So in salvation and in sanctification the issue is recovering
our orientation to the authority of God in every area of life, and this involves
all areas of social life, including marriage; that there are role distinctions.
This is not something that
was introduced after the fall. The real problem here has to do with
understanding this relationship between Christ as the second person of the Trinity
and God the Father, that there is clearly an authority relationship here
indicated by the terminology of headship, and that the Father is the authority
over Christ. We know from every passage of Scripture that teaches about the
deity of Christ that He is undiminished deity. There is no inequality between
Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, and God the Father, the first
person of the Trinity. When we come to this passage, though, the issue that is
often raised is: Does that headship begin in time at the incarnation when the
second person of the Trinity takes on true humanity; does it begin at some time
in eternity past in relationship to the plan of salvation; or does it relate in
some way to Jesus Christ’s role as the one who executes the plan of the Godhead
in terms of human history? These are three options that are given. If any of
these three options are taken then Christ’s authority is something that is
secondary, it is not related to the very nature of the Godhead. If Christ is
under the headship or the authority of God the Father from eternity past, and
as the second person of the Trinity if Jesus Christ is always and forever under
the authority of God the Father, this doesn’t mean that he is less equal than
God the Father but that authority is something that is inherent in the very
structure of reality because it is inherent in the Godhead itself.
These are two important
distinctions that are made. If we take the first option, that somehow the
headship of God the Father over Christ is limited to the plan of salvation or
human history and the incarnation, then it has serious implications. Because
then the argument would be that once the believer is truly sanctified this
aspect of authority relationship, the authority of the male over the female
becomes secondary and it is used to rationalize away the meaning of these
passages. So we have to look at the Scriptures to understand this relationship
between the second person of the Trinity and the first person of the Trinity to
see of this authority relationship is eternal or if it is something that is
simply related to the plan of God. This relates to the meaning of the term “Son
of God.”
There are two options given
to the meaning of the term “Son of God.” One is that this is a title that is
related in some sense to His incarnation. It may be applied to the birth of Christ, it may be applied to the inauguration of His
ministry under John the Baptist when God announced: “This is my beloved Son in
whom I am well pleased.” That same announcement is made again at the Mount of
Transfiguration. It is also applied to the resurrection and then it is applied
in the future in the kingdom. Now this is one of the important things we have
to realize. The term “Son of God” is applied at each of these points in the New
Testament—to the conquest, when He comes back as the reigning King of kings and
Lord of lords; it is applied in Hebrews chapter one to the resurrection of
Christ; it is announced by God the Father at the Mount of Transfiguration when
He is transformed into His divine glory that flashes forth and is witnessed by
Peter, James and John; at His inauguration with John the Baptist, again God the
Father announces: “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.” Is that
the starting point? Or when Gabriel announces to Mary that she is going to give
birth to a savior and he will be called the Son of
the Most High? Are these the staring point of is being the Son of God or is He
as He has always been, the Son of God? In other words, does he become the Son
of God or has he always been the Son of God?
One important things to note: If He becomes the Son of God, if there
wasn’t a time when he wasn’t the Son, He was just the second person in the
Trinity, then there was a time when the Father wasn’t the Father. Are these
terms inherent or are they simply functional descriptions that come about in
history? If they are inherent then what they demonstrate is that the term Son
of God shows that Jesus Christ is eternally in an authority relationship with
God the Father. And the point is to show that in the Trinity itself
there is perfect equality of relationship but there is an authority
relationship and each has distinct roles to fulfil, not simply in relationship
to human history but because of the very nature of the Trinity itself.
What does “Son of” mean? When we think of “son of” we
think of physical generation and something that is finite, offspring or
descendant of. But this phrase also has the meaning of “the order of.” The
meaning is not limited to physical offspring. For example, in 1 Kings 20:35: KJV
“And a certain man of the sons of the prophets said unto his neighbour in the
word of the LORD…” This man is talking about the fact that his father
is a prophet. It is talking about him being in the order of the prophets. He
belongs to the prophets. It is saying something about the organization to which
he is a part. He is of the order of the prophets. The same type of phrase is
used again in Nehemiah 12:28 NASB “So the sons of the singers were
assembled from the district around Jerusalem, and from the villages of the Netophathites.” The sons of the singers
is not talking about men whose fathers were singers, it is talking about
a designated group, they were the order of the singers. So when we look at the
phrase “Son of God” it has this idea—the order of God or the order of deity, a
claim to full undiminished deity. In Jewish usage the term “son of” indicates
equality and identity of essence or nature—for example, if you were in the sons
of the prophets they were all prophets, they all shared of the same office, the
same ability—and did not imply essential or ontological subordination or
inequality. Furthermore, the term “son of” indicates the essential character of
someone. This was a standard Hebrew idiom. Acts 4:36 NASB “Now
Joseph, a Levite of Cyprian birth, who was also called Barnabas by the apostles
(which translated means Son of Encouragement).” That says something about
Barnabas’s character. He was someone who was very encouraging in the life of
people. Furthermore, James and John were called the sons of thunder because
that characterized their volatile, strong natures. Then in Galatians 3:7 NASB
“Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham.”
This is not talking about physical descendants of Abraham,
it is talking about the genuine spiritual sons of Abraham and who are
characterized by Abraham’s faith. Ephesians 2:2 NASB “in which you
formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of
disobedience.” This is talking about all unbelievers, they are characterized by
disobedience because they are unregenerate, they have a sin nature which they
operate on and which is always oriented towards independence and
rebelliousness. John 17:12 NASB “While I was with them, I was
keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not
one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be
fulfilled.” This is a reference to Judas Iscariot. So the term does not mean
descendant, it does not mean generation, it has to do
with the essential character or classification of an individual.
The phrase “Son of God”
had a strong meaning of kingship. This phrased doesn’t just pop up in the New
Testament, it has a history behind it from the Old Testament so we have to
understand the Old Testament context if we are going to understand this term.
Son of God relates, as we will, see to divine royalty. So it is not simply a
phrase that indicates the deity of Christ but it also indicates His royalty.
The first time we run across the phrase “son of” in terms of the son of David
is in the passage related to the Davidic covenant in 2 Samuel 7:14ff. There God
is speaking to David in relationship to his heir to be known later as the
greater son of David. ““I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me;
when he commits iniquity [ref. to Solomon], I will correct him with the rod of
men and the strokes of the sons of men,
Psalm 2:1 NASB “Why
are the nations in an uproar And the peoples devising
a vain thing?
We have to do some study
here to understand what is happening in this particular verse. The first thing we
have to do is look at the meaning of the word “begotten.” The New Testament
word that is used here is more instructive than the Hebrew word. The Hebrew
word is some form of yahad
which has to do with giving birth. The Greek word is MONGENES [monogenhj], a compound word: mono
= only; genes = generation, or
kind. We use the word genus when
we talk about a certain category of species, and that is the same etymological
root here, and it has the idea of one of a kind, something that is unique. It
is not talking about birth per se. So
when we read in John 3:16 NASB
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son,” it is His
unique Son, a one-of-a-kind Son, not uniquely-born Son because as we will see
the term only-begotten has to do with the fact that Jesus Christ is said to be
eternally begotten. This is how it was stated sp precisely in the early creeds
of the church—the Nicene Creed, the Council of Ephesus, and finally in the Chalcedonian Creed.
1) The term monogenhj in the New Testament is used nine times. It is used
of the widow’s son, her only son, in Luke 7:2; of Jairus’s
only daughter in Luke
2) In the Old Testament it is used nine times in
translating the Hebrew word Yahad, and each time it refers to an only child, and twice
it refers to Isaac as he unique son of Abraham. What about Ishmael? Under
ancient Near-Eastern law the son born of the slave woman did not have the same
rights as the son of the wife, so there is the distinction there.
3) The conclusion from an analysis of the use of this
word is that the expression only-begotten refers not only to the only child but
it also refers to the status of the child, that this is a distinct
one-of-a-kind child. We see that with Isaac. When we talk of Jesus as the
only-begotten of God we are not talking about His physical birth or
incarnation, we are talking about His unique relationship to God the Father
that goes throughout all of eternity.
When we come to Psalm 2:7
we have the Hebrew word yalad
which is the qal stem is: “Today I have begotten You.
a) there is a synonymous parallelism in the text itself, and
in Hebrew poetry they don’t rhyme words, they rhyme ideas. If you have two
stanzas in a verse the first stanza may be married in the second stanza, and
that is called synonymous parallelism. If the two stanzas stand opposite of each
other, that is called antonymic parallelism. Sometimes the second line expands
the first line, and that is called emblematic parallelism. Here we have
synonymous parallelism and the first line talks about the decree of the Lord
and the second line indicates the content of that decree. It is parallel: ‘You
are My Son’ is parallel to ‘Today I have begotten You.
b) The decree here is not a reference back to the eternal
decree of God in eternity past but to the declaration in context. What is His
decree? “Today I have begotten You.” This is not a
reference to the divine decrees.
c) This day, today, refers to the day of the declaration
and coronation of the King, which does not occur until the second coming.
d) This verse is quoted in the New Testament in Acts
13:33-34 in reference to the resurrection of Christ. That does not mean that is
when he is crowned but it is when He is resurrected He is declared at that time
provisionally that He is the King. That is when he has victory over death. It
is not talking about the incarnation in Acts 13, but the resurrection.
Psalm 2:8 NASB “‘Ask
of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your
inheritance, And the {very} ends of the earth as Your possession.
The conclusion from all of
this is that the term “son” comes out of a background in the ancient Near East of the heir to the king ruling and subduing the earth.
As time went by after the Davidic covenant it became clear that Solomon did not
match up, Rehoboam certainly failed, Joash, Asaph, all of the kings of Israel failed to measure up to
the promise of God, so there was no ideal king who could fill these shoes. Two
psalms were written that showed this.
Psalm 45 looks forward to
the ideal king: v.6 “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of uprightness is the scepter
of Your kingdom.” This verse is picked up in Hebrews
chapter one by the writer of Hebrews to indicate the eternality of the throne
of the Messiah. But remember, it does not begin until the second coming. Psalm
45:7 NASB “You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You With the oil
of joy above Your fellows.” The King that is coming is no longer viewed as
simply a human king but is addressed in v. 6 as God and referred to in v. 7 as
in a unique relationship to God. So the question is who can be the ideal king.
All of the descendants of David have failed, only God Himself could fulfil this
role of being the perfect King.
How does this work itself
out? Psalm 110:1 NASB “The LORD [Yahweh] says
to my Lord: ‘Sit at My right hand Until I make Your
enemies a footstool for Your feet.’” In this particular passage that David is
writing we have to ask the question: Did David have any higher human authority?
No, the only higher authority than David was God. So David’s Lord, the ADONAI there, has to refer to someone who is complete deity.
This is a reference to that mysterious king figure in Psalm 45 who is also seen
as being fully God. This is the one who is told: “Sit at My right hand Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.” The
point is that by looking at Psalm 45 and Psalm 110 what we see is that these
two themes of sonship and kingship are interrelated. When Jesus comes into
history in he incarnation and he picks up the term Son
of God it is not a term that was invented at that time, it indicates His
incarnation and the beginning of His life. It is a term that is loaded with meaning.
He is saying: “I am a King, I am David’s son, and I am deity.” He is claiming
to be God’s ordained King over all of the creation.
“Son of God” has a strong
meaning for kingship and it is specifically tied to the Messianic King, the son
of David. Then, when we connect this to Daniel 7 we see that it also is tied to
the phrase Son of Man. Son of Man emphasizes His humanity; son of David indicates
His royalty in relationship to Israel; Son of God indicates His eternal deity. So
these three titles are interrelated and interconnected and all refer to the
same person.
So now the question: When
did Jesus become the Son of God? As we have seen, the options that people go to
are the incarnation, the public presentation by John the Baptist, or later at
His coronation. However, as we have seen, the term Son of God relates to Christ’s
essential deity and not to generation. It has to do with an eternal title: that
He is for all eternity the Son of God. There never was a time when the second
person of the Trinity was not the Son of God. For example, we are told that the
Father sent Him. Was the Father the Father when he sent Him? Of course he was. When
he sent Him it was before the incarnation. So of the Father was the Father
before the incarnation then the Son was the Son before the incarnation. So
Jesus Christ, then, is said to be the eternal Son of God is passages such as
Galatians 4:4; Romans 8:3; Colossians 1:13-17. The eternal Son of God becomes
the Son of God in relationship to His humanity at the incarnation, but the term
Son of God relates primarily to His deity, not to His humanity. Son of Man
indicates His humanity. The term Son of Man indicates His role in salvation but
the term Son of God describes His relationship to the Father throughout all
eternity. So throughout all eternity the Son of God is fully God. The Son of
God is equal to the Father, yet the Son of God is also subordinate to God the
Father in terms of the authority structure within the Trinity.
The conclusion is that
when we come to 1 Corinthians 11:3 and we see that the head of Christ is God,
that tells us that throughout all of eternity there is an authority structure
within the Trinity and God the Son is under the authority of God the Father.
This means that authority is not something that God placed into human society
in order to deal with problems from sin, but that authority was present before
the fall, there was an inherent authority structure in God’s created order when
he created the man first and then created the woman from the side of man. This
is reflected even in the eternal relationship of the Godhead.
One of the problems that people
have with authority is they think that authority itself is wrong because it is
abused. The reason it is abused and distorted is because those who are in
authority are fallen creatures and sinners. But whenever we violate authority,
even when that authority is wrong or we think it is wrong, it is a victory for
Satan in the angelic conflict. This is why the Scriptures make the point both
here and in 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Peter 2 that the woman is to recognized the
authority of her husband because of the angels, because this has a testimony in
the angelic conflict. It has to do with role distinction and it doesn’t have to
do with essence.