Theological Term of the Week

eternal sonship
The teaching that the second person of the Trinity has existed eternally as the Son, so that the relationship between God the Father and God the Son has always been an eternal Father-Son relationship.

• From scripture: 
  

  He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. (Colossians 1:15-16 ESV)

  …but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. (Hebrews 1:2 ESV)

• From the Belgic Confession:

  Article 10 That Jesus Christ is true and eternal God.

  We believe that Jesus Christ, according to his divine nature, is the only begotten Son of God, begotten from eternity, not made nor created (for then he should be a creature), but co-essential and co-eternal with the Father, the express image of his person, and the brightness of his glory, equal unto him in all things. He is the Son of God, not only from the time that he assumed our nature, but from all eternity, as these testimonies, when compared together, teach us. Moses saith, that God created the world; and John saith, that all things were made by that Word, which he calleth God. And the apostle saith, that God make the worlds by his Son; likewise, that God created all things by Jesus Christ. Therefore it must needs follow, that he, who is called God, the Word, the Son, and Jesus Christ, did exist at that time, when all things were created by him. Therefore the prophet Micah saith, His goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. And the apostle: He hath neither beginning of days, nor end of life. He therefore is that true, eternal, and almighty God, whom we invoke, worship and serve.

• From A Defense of the Eternal Sonship of Christ by David Dunlap:

What saith the Scriptures? God’s word must be the final authority for all we teach and believe. In regard to these errors, do the scriptures teach that the Lord Jesus Christ was the eternal Son of God before the incarnation? The answer must be resounding YES. The Old Testament is full of statements which verify His Sonship. Isaiah states, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given…” (Isa. 9:6). In another place Agur writes, “Who has gathered the wind into his fists? Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is His name, and what is His Son’s name, if thou canst tell” (Prov. 30:4).

The Scriptures teach that it was not at the incarnation that Christ became the Son, but that He was always the Son of God. …

The Son created the world. Both Colossians 1:13-19 and Hebrews 1:2 state that the Lord Jesus Christ is the eternal Son, before His incarnation, when He created the worlds.

The Father sent the Son - Time and again the scriptures state that the Father sent the Son. Since the Father sent the Son, it must follow that the Lord Jesus Christ was the eternal Son before He came into the world. (Isa. 9:6; John 3:17)

…

The Son had a relationship with the Father from eternity past. “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world … and go to the Father”

Learn more:

1. Got Questions.org: What is the doctrine of eternal Sonship and is it biblical?
2. Theopedia: Eternal Sonship of Jesus
3. Sam Waldron: A Defense of the Doctrine of the Eternal Sonship of Christ
4. John Gill: Eternal Sonship of Christ
5. J. C. Philpot: The Eternal Sonship of the Lord Jesus Christ

Related terms:

• adoptionism
• Arianism
• deity of Christ
• eternal generation of the Son
• Trinity

 Filed under Trinity.

Do you have a term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.

Theological Term of the Week

mortification
The believer’s lifelong fight against sin with the goal of victory over it; the Christian’s active putting to death of self and sin.

• From scripture: 
  

  For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

  Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. (Colossians 3:3-10 ESV)

• From the Second Helvetic Confession:

  Chapter XIV

  Of Repentance and the Conversion of Man

  … We also disapprove of those who think that by their own satisfactions they make amends for sins committed. For we teach that Christ alone by his death or passion is the satisfaction, propitiation or expiation of all sins (Isa., ch.53; I Cor. 1:30). Yet as we have already said, we do not cease to urge the mortification of the flesh. We add, however, that this mortification is not to be proudly obtruded upon God as a satisfaction for sins, but is to be performed humble, in keeping with the nature of the children of God, as a new obedience out of gratitude for the deliverance and full satisfaction obtained by the death and satisfaction of the Son of God.

• From Eighteen Words by J. I. Packer:

This is our aim; so to drain the life out of sin that it never moves again. We are not promised that we shall reach our goal in this life, but we are commanded to advance towards it by assaulting those inclinations and habits in which sin’s presence is recognized. We are not merely to resist its attacks. We are to take the initiative against it. We must seek, in Owen’s phrase, ‘not a mere disappointment of sin, that it be not  brought forth … but a victory over it, and pursuit of it to a complete conquest’; not merely the counteraction, but the eradication of it. Killing, so far as we can compass that, is the end in view.

• From A Discourse of Mortification by Stephen Charnock:

Let us labour to mortify sin. If we will not be the death of sin, sin will be the death of our souls. Though the allurements of sin may be pleasant, the propositions seemingly fair, yet the end of all is death, Rom. v. 21. Death was threatened by God and executed upon Adam; death must be executed upon our sins, in order to the restoration of the eternal life of our souls. Love to everlasting life should provoke us, fear of everlasting death should excite us to this, the two most solemn and fundamental passions that put us upon action. ‘Why will you die?’ was God’s expostulation, Ezek. xxxiii. 11; Why should thou, O my soul, for a short vanishing pleasure, venture an eternal death? should be our expostulation with ourselves. This would be a curing our disease, bringing our soul into that order in part which was broken by the fall; by this the power of that tyrant that first headed and maintained the faction against God would be removed, and the soul recover that liberty and life it lost by disobeying of God. This would conduce to our peace. We have then a sprouting assurance when we are most victorious over our lusts: after every victory, God gives us a taste of the hidden manna, Rev. ii. 17. Unmortified lusts do only raise storms and tempests in the soul; less pains are required to the mortification of them than to the satisfaction of them. Sin is a hard taskmaster; there must be a pleasure in destroying so cruel an inmate. Gratitude engages us; God’s holiness and justice bruised Christ for us, and shall not we kill sin for him? An infinite love parted with a dear Son, and shall not our shallow finite love part with destroying lusts? We cannot love our sins so much as God loved his Son: he loved him infinitely. If God parted with him for us, shall not we part with our sins for him? He would have us kill it because it hurts us; the very command discovers affection as well as sovereignty, and minds us of it as our privilege as well as our duty. And to engage us to it, he hath sent as great a person to help us as to redeem us, viz, his Spirit; he sent one to merit it, and the other to assist us in it and work it in us, who is to bring back the creature to God by conquering that in it which hath so long detained it captive.

Learn more:

1. Sinclair Ferguson: The Practice of Mortification
2. Greg Herrick: “Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers” - An Outline, Exposition and Summary
3. A. W. Pink: The Doctrine of Mortification
4. Christopher Love: The Mortification of Sin
5. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Mortification of Sin (mp3)

Related terms:

• repentance
• sanctification

Filed under Salvation.

Do you have a term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.

Theological Term of the Week

transcendence
The term used to describe God’s independence and distinction from creation, and his control over it.

• From scripture: 
  

  For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

  neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.

  For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

  so are my ways higher than your ways

  and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9 ESV)

• From Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem:

  The teaching of Scripture about the relationship between God and creation is unique among the religions of the world. The Bible teaches that God is distinct from his creation. He is not part of it, for he has made it and rules over it. The term often used to say that God is much greater than creation is the word transcendent. Very simply,  this means that God is far “above” the creation in the sense that he is greater than the creation and he is independent of it.

• From Salvation Belongs to the Lord by John Frame:

When Scripture uses the “up there” language, theologians call it transcendence….

…[S]ome theologians have misunderstood God’s transcendence. They think it means that God is so far away from us that we cannot really know him, so far that human language can’t describe him accurately, so far that to us he’s just a great heavenly blur without any definite characteristics. This concept of transcendence is unbiblical. If God is transcendent in that way, how can he also be near to us/ Furthermore, according to the Bible we can know definite things about God. Despite the limitations of human language, God is able to use human language to tell us clearly and accurately who he is and what he has done.

Learn more:

1. Theopedia: Transcendence of God
2. Gotquestions.org: What does it mean that God is transcendent?
3. J. Hampton Keathley, III: What God Is Like
4. Bruce Ware: Beholding the God of Merciful Holiness: Transcendence, Immanence, and Ministry (mp3)

Related terms:

• aseity
• immanence
• sovereignty of God

Filed under God’s Nature and His Work.

Do you have a term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.