scholarly journals THE ETERNAL “SUBORDINATION” OF THE SON OF GOD?

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-64
Author(s):  
GERALD BRAY

The relationship between the Father and the Son in the Trinity can be described in terms of “eternal subordination,” but it is unhelpful to do so. The New Testament uses the language of subordination with respect to this relationship only in 1 Corinthians 15:28, and then with a very specific act in mind. The word also has Arian connotations that are best avoided. The submission of the Son to the Father is a voluntary act of mutual love, not something imposed or made inevitable by their personal identities. The divine analogy for the marital bond is that of Christ and the church, not of the Father and the Son.

2014 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-229
Author(s):  
Michael Straus

AbstractThis article takes as its springboard the well-known text of Psalm 2:7, in which the Psalmist – presumably David, king of Israel – refers to himself as a ‘begotten’ son of God by virtue of his Lord's decree. The article first explores various linguistic and theological options as to the identity of the ‘son’ to whom the passage refers; and analyses the relationship between that son and the one who is stated to have begotten him. In this context, the article addresses ways in which the passage more generally sheds light on the relationship between God and Israel, including through analysis of a number of fluctuating usages of singular and plural terms in the Old Testament to describe that relationship. Second, and against that background, the article examines texts in the New Testament which quote or refer to Psalm 2:7 to see whether they provide a better understanding of the nature of the relationship between the father and the son described in the Psalm; and further to see whether any enhanced understanding of that relationship reciprocally sheds light on the relationship of God the Father to God the Son as revealed in the New Testament. The article then seeks to determine whether these passages, taken as a whole, provide explicit, implicit, or proto-Trinitarian concepts in anticipation of those given fuller expression in orthodox Church doctrine. Finally, the article explores the concept of circumincession, or coinherence, John of Damascus’ highly abstracted and nearly poetic effort at the close of the Patristic era to provide an extra-biblical explanation of the relationship between the Father and the Son as well as the relationship among the three members of the Trinity. The article concludes by finding that his attempted articulation, and quite possibly all such efforts, will ultimately fail, leaving intact the mystery of the Trinity as one escaping, or rather surpassing, conceptual analysis.


Author(s):  
Његош Стикић

The intention of the author is to provide a more systematic, not exhaustive, insight into the mystical meaning, place, and role of virtue in the economy of salvation, based on the revelation recorded in the early Christian writing of the New Testament prophet and apostle Hermas – The Shepherd. The author locates the place of virtue in the realism of simultaneous and interdependent building of salvation (of man) and building of the Church as a unique (multidimensional) process. Like very few paternal writings, the Shepherd gives us an explicit conclusion that the virtues are the ones that “hold” and build the Church, “dressing” the faithful in the “clothes,” “powers” and Name of the Son of God. By “dressing” in virtues, Christians achieve that “in the likeness,” they are likened to Christ, thus becoming similar and compatible to each other, thus gaining, as a new genus, a one unique identity. That is why the Church, which is being built as the Tower of Salvation, is composed of a multitude, by repentance and virtue shaped and ennobled elects (stones), manifesting itself, thus, in a „monolithic“ building, monochromatic white, as from one carved stone. For this reason, the paper aims to re– evaluate the ontological connection of virtue with the Church (ecclesiology).


1997 ◽  
Vol 53 (1/2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Petrus J. Grabe

The Old Testament background for understanding the covenant motif in the New Testament - Part 1: Description of the question and analysis of the meaning of the word בְדִית* The concept of the covenant has once again become extremely relevant within the context of the debate on the relationship between the Old and New Testaments, as well as within the context, of the quest for determining the relationship between the Church and Israel. In this article the meaning of the word בְדִית* is discussed. It is argued that this concept has to be understood within the context of the semantic field in which it is used in the Old Testament. Certain facets of meaning in specific contexts in which בְדִית* occurs, are accentuated and discussed.  The Septuagint's translation of בְדִית*, as well as the translation of בְדִית* in the Vulgate and in some modem translations, is also discussed briefly.


1953 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-135
Author(s):  
Oscar Cullmann

The problem of the relationship between Scripture and Tradition is in the first place a problem of the theological relationship between the apostolic period and the period of the Church. All the other questions depend on the solution that we give to this problem. The alternatives—co-ordination or subordination of Tradition to Scripture—derive from the question of knowing how we must understand the fact that the period of the Church is the continuation and unfolding of the apostolic period. For we must note right away that this fact is capable of divergent interpretations. That is why agreement on the mere fact that the Church continues the work of Christ on earth does not necessarily imply agreement on the relationship between Scripture and Tradition. Thus in my thesis developed in Christ and Time as well as in my studies on the sacraments in the New Testament I came considerably nearer to the ‘Catholic’ point of view. In fact I would affirm very strongly that through the Church the history of salvation is continued on earth. I believe that we find this idea throughout the New Testament, and I should even consider it the key for the understanding of the Johannine Gospel. I would maintain, moreover, that the sacraments, Baptism and Eucharist, take the place in the Church of the miracles performed by Jesus Christ in the period of the Incarnation. And yet I am going to show in the following pages that I subordinate Tradition to Scripture.


Author(s):  
Roland Spjuth

In today’s ecclesiology, the notion of the Spirit and the church has been heavily influenced by a recent and broad retrieval of Trinitarian theology. In this article, I discuss this in relationship to baptist and evangelical traditions as it is represented by Stanley Grenz. His “theology for the community of God” demonstrates the fruitfulness of the Trinitarian retrieval for such traditions. However, the main argument in the article is that it also implies certain risks. According to the Baptist tradition, the central message of the New Testament is the invitation to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. As Kathryn Tanner and Karen Kilby have argued elsewhere, when the biblical challenge to be like Jesus Christ is turned into a more general exhortation to become an image of the Trinity, it often results in abstract ethics and an ecclesiology that focuses mainly on general exhortations to love and to live in community. In contrast, this article claims that the biblical notion of discipleship has greater possibilities to allow for a more substantial and more holistic account of the Church, one that reunites ecclesiology, ethics and the Spirit’s transformative work within liturgy, charismatic service and mission.


Author(s):  
A. G. Van Aarde

The foundation of the unity of the church in the New Testament and the quest for unity today Early Christendom was not an Unitarian movement, but in the New Testament there is a quest for unity. However, this unity was not juridically meant to be institutional of nature. The concern of this article is to argue that the unity of the church in the New Testament is Theologically, Christologically, Pneumatically and kerygmatically founded. Since the church is the household of God, the relationship similar to that of a family home will hold the church together. Building upon the foundation laid by the apostolic tradition the presbyters-bishops, like fathers taking responsibilty for a home, are to be providing the foundation of the unity of the church grounded on th e ir kerygma th a t the household of God is pneumatically united with the body of the crucified and risen Christ.


Author(s):  
Irina Gnevsheva ◽  

This paper examines one of the important translation technique’s features in the Maximus the Greek’s book circle. It is consistently described the various ways of transferring the Greek substantive infinitive to the Church Slavonic language there. In 1524, Maximus the Greek, in collaboration with his disciple Silvan, a monk of the Trinity-Sergius Abbey, translated Homilia of John Chrysostom into the Gospel of Matthew. The analysis of the linguistic material in the Homilia showed that when translating infinitive constructions, there is a tendency to unify, and the main method of transmission into the Church Slavonic language is calcification. The Greek orientation indicates the implementation of the strategy of the early grammatical reference of Maximus the Greek in the translation, and also it allows us to state the proximity of this work to the translations of the 14th century and to establish a connection with the Chudovsky and Athos versions of the New Testament.


2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Prince E. Peters

Paul uses the word ἑνότης twice in Ephesians (4:3, 13), and quite strangely, those are the only two places where the feminine noun features in the whole of the New Testament. In the two passages where they appear, they both relate to invisible unity, the unity of the Spirit that produces a common faith and knowledge of the Son of God – εἰς τὴν ἑνότητα τῆς πίστεως καὶ τῆς ἐπιγνώσεως τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ. Such unity suggests that ecumenism amongst Christian denominations is not only a possibility, it is also a necessity as far as we all profess one Christ. This unity is however far from ecclesiological unionism. Considering that the church appears weak from the outside when its diverse lines of doctrine, sacraments and ministerial ethics are emphasised. This suggests that a reasonable antidote would be the emphasis on the philosophy of unity amidst our diversity especially to the hearing of non-Christians.Contribution: This study makes firm the belief that Christianity is formed on divergent traditions that produced various strands of practices, which in turn produce different Christian sects and denominations, and a reverse is not possible. It then suggests a bonding in faith through the invisibility of henotic unity, which the pericope suggests. This will help the church to amass a stronger defence politically and structurally against rival religions and social organisations even in the midst of doctrinal differences.


Author(s):  
G. M.M. Pelser

Rudolf Bultmann’s demythologizing of the eschatology of the New Testament This article investigates Bultmann’s views on the eschatology of the New Testament as expressed respectively by Jesus, the earliest Christians, Paul, John and the churches of the post-apostolic period. It also pays attention to what Bultmann has to say about the secularisation of eschatology during the history of the church, and about the relationship history-eschatology. The conclusion is that although his program of demythologizing has far-reaching and dire consequences for the traditional end-time eschatological expectations of the church, much of it is to be evaluated positively. Much is also to be gained from his insights especially with reg a rd to his emphasis on the ex iste n tia l importance of the decision of faith, in the moment here and now, for authentic existence as the eschatological event.


Author(s):  
Gareth Crispin

This paper argues that a theology of accommodation can provide help to those wishing to integrate youth and children into an intergenerational local church. It will be demonstrated that God's accommodation to humanity is not only communicative, but behavioral, and that in the New Testament we see that this behavioral accommodation principle is normative for relationships within the church. Through an examination of 1 Corinthians 8–11:1, this paper demonstrates that those with authority and knowledge in the church are to accommodate those without, which almost invariably implies youth and children. Christians are to imitate Christ, and so as God accommodates in Christ, those with authority and knowledge follow suit.


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