Frank

I just finished reading through both postings by Mark, as well as their respective comments. And I’m wondering if I should abandon the line of argument I began in Comment #168 on this posting, and try another tack. I wanted to first talk about–in agreement with Cheryl, Gengwall and Susanna–that an honest appraisal of the lexical and documentary evidence revealed that whether kephale was understood as “head of” or “head over” depended on whether it was used the context of Christ as the Sustainer of his Body, the Church (cf. Eph. 4:14-16 and 5:25-30) or Christ the Victor over the powers of darkness (cf. Eph. 1:18-23 and Colossians 2:8-12). And as far as definitive lexical works are concerned, when I was trained to translate and exegete the Greek New Testament, if there was a conflict between Thayer or Bauer as to a word’s meaning or etymology, then the matter was to be resolved by consulting the Lidell & Scott English/Greek Lexicon. It is a shame that Lidell & Scott has become less appreciated and valued due to the complementarian influence.

In the discussions over how the complementarians use 1 Cor. 11:3 to “skew” the Trinity, I noticed that not once, either positively or negatively, did he refer to my earlier, two little “tomes” on the Trinity. I don’t know if that was because he was unwilling to interact with them, or because he didn’t consider them of any worth. And I still think he has to explain how the internal relationships between the Three Persons can only be differentiated or defined by their external and temporal roles as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier.

For the Father has always been the Father of the Son, but he became the Creator of all things; the Son has always been the Son of the Father, but he became the Savior of the world; the Spirit has always been the Spirit of God, binding the Godhead together in dynamic union and communion, but he became the Sanctifier. If the Father is above the Son and the Spirit because he is the Sender, and the Son and the Spirit are below the Father because they are the Sent, to whom were they sent before the creation that would result in this demotion of the Son and Spirit?

Well, I must go to bed. It’s 1:00 am and I need to sleep and then decide on how I should procede in this discussion. Good night and God bless you all. Amen!

Hello, everyone. I have read through this post and the comments made on it, at least twice, first to make sure I correctly the arguments and counter-arguments, and then to decide what are appropri ate comments for those points on which, like Cheryl, I have done some extensive research and writing and which are of concern to me in this discussion: the Trinity, the Prophetic Gift and Ministries in the NT Church, and the Order of Creation Restored by Christ and the Spirit in the Church. Though, I promise, gengwall, to do my best not to lead us down unnecessary bunny trails, which I dislike as well. And if I should misunderstand anyone else’s previous comments, please feel free to correct me. Now, to start my part of our on-going discussion on 1 Cor. 11:2-16, I begin with the following quote from Dr. John Trull, Prof. of Christian Ethics at New Orleans Baptist Seminary, regarding the use of kephale in both this passage and Eph. 5:21-33:

The second important but difficult word is “head” (kephale): “For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is head of the church, the body of which he is Savior” (5:23). Significant exegetical studies on the meaning of this word in the Greek language have raised questions about the uncritical equation of “head” with “authority.” After examining the claim that kephale was used in ancient Greek texts to mean “ruler or person of superior authority or rank,” several scholars have concluded, “There is no instance in profance Greek literature where a ruler or a hierarchy is referred to as ‘head’ such as ‘Alexander was the head of the Greek armies.'” Lexicographers also give no evidence of such a meaning.
The best illustration of the reluctance of the Greek language to render “head” as “authority” is in the Septuagint (LXX). In the 180 instances where the Hebrew word ro’sh (“leader, chief, authority”) appears, the normal Greek word used is archon (“ruler, commander”). In only seventeen places did the translators use kephale–five of those have variant readings, and another four involve a head-tail metaphor, which leaves only eight instances out of 180 times the LXX translators chose kephale for ro’sh. If “head” (kephale) did not normally mean “authority over” in Greek, what did it mean? The common Greek meaning of the word is “source, source of life, source of origin, exalted originator and completer.” In English we sometimes use “head” in this way when we refer to the head (source) of a river. In the seven passages in the New Testament where Paul uses kephale, the contexts of five of them (Col. 1:18; 2:10; 2:19; Eph. 1:20-23; 4:15) clearly point to this common meaning of “source.” The concept that “head” connotes a hierarchy with men in a role of authority over women rests largely on two passages: 1 Cor. 11:3 and Eph. 5:23. When we recognize the main meaning of kephale is “source,” it becomes clear that Paul is not establishing a chain of command–he is establishing origins. Rather than a “ruler” over the wife, the husband is the “source” or “beginning” of woman (made from the side of Adam), even as God is the “origin” of Christ (1 Cor. 11:3). “If you think ‘head’ means ‘chief’ or ‘boss,'” declared Chrysostom, “you skew the godhead!” (Cf. “Is the Head of the House at Home?,” CHRISTIAN ETHICS TODAY, Issue 9, Vol. 13, No.1, Feb 1997).

On the basis of this quote and several comments already, I will make the following observation:
1. It is the consensus of the biblical scholars and lexicographers, except Wayne Grudem and company, that it is an “uncritical” examination of the secular and religious documents available to us, including the Greek New Testament, that would lead one to assert kephale as a metaphor can either normally mean, nor only mean, “authority over.” As someone who has studied and translated several NT books and done commentary on them (i.e., 2 Peter, Jude and 1 John) in most cases, the decision on how to translate and exegete Gk words is not based simply on the basis of the semantic range listed in one or more lexicons (helpful as that may be to a point), but how they are actually used by the author and how they actually function in the context in which they are found. And here I think Cheryl and gengwall would agree with me.
2. Now some recent work done by NT scholars and lexicographers indicates that an additional meaning for kephale, when used as a military term, is “leader of.” But it is not used as a description of a far off commander who dictates orders to troops in the field. Rather, it speaks of the leader who willing and selflessly goes before the troops, neither demanding or expecting of them what he is not willing to do himself. For those who have served in the military like myself, we recognize that kephale, used in this sense, is referring to the “pointman,” usually the officer or sargent who, at great risk to himself, goes before and scouts all the dangers and opportunities ahead of them, then calls the troops forward to carry out the day’s mission.
3. And these same scholars and lexicographers, after examing all the evidence afresh, argue that kephale is “a living metaphor,” and though its semantic range may run from “Source” to “Leader,” how it actually is used and functions within a given context determines its primary meaning.

Well, I would like to say some more on this. But it is now 12:15 pm, and I need to eat some before I run on some necessary errands. So hopefully I will get back with you in the next day or two. Ciao!

Cheryl, I notice that no one has made a comment on this posting, either as it pertains to the specific relationship between husband and wife in Christ, or for that between Christian brothers and sisters in general. But the Apostle John, who loved Jesus and was close to him, does, I think, make an appropriate comment that applies to all Christians, whether married or single:

We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his live for us. So we also ought to love give up our lives for our brothers and sisters. If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion–how can God’s love be in that person? Dear children, let’s not merely say we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. Our actions will show that we belong to the truth, so that we be confident when we stand before God. Even if we feel guilty, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if we don’t feel guilty, we can come to God with bold confidence. And we will receive from him whatever we ask because we obey him and do the things that please him. And this is his commandment: We must believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as he commanded us. Those who obey God’s commandments remain in fellowship with him, and he with them. And we know he lives in us because the Spirit he gave us lives in us.
1 John 3:16-24, NLT

And all I have to say on this is that, in the US at least, there are many Christians who talk about knowing God and having a vital relationship with him through Christ and the Holy Spirit. But they fail to demonstrate it by a selfless, self-giving, sacrificial love towards others within and without their churches. As Paul says in 2 Timothy, they have an outward form of Christianity, but they either resist or reject the Holy Spirit and his work of renewal and transformation that would enable them live like Jesus did, the way God wants all of us to live. So their Christianity is dead and barren, nothing more than religious moralism. May God have mercy on us, bring us back to himself, and fill us afresh with the wisdom, love and power of Christ through the Holy Spirit. Amen!

Cheryl, I viewed the videos “Women on Trial” and thought the material was an excellent audio-visual presentation of the written material that is found in the various postings on your website regarding these same subjects. However, since I already agree with you on these matters, as far as “serving on the jury”–well, I will “disinclude” myself (if that is the proper legal term) from pronouncing a verdict I have already made in another “court” setting some time ago. Capish?

And what such a bewildering, wide range of other matters have been discussed: The “Battle of the Lexicons”; the LXX’s use of archon and kephale; how differences in Jesus’ discourses, as they appear in the four gospels, are to be explained and harmonized without falling into a “liberal methodology,” etc. At least it is bewildering for someone, like me, entering into the discussion at this date. It took me at least two hours to read this post and comments last night, and sometimes I just couldn’t follow the threads of argument. And so I don’t know if, at this point, I have anything substantial to add to what others have already said. So I think I’ll look at Mark’s guest post(s) and see if I can make any appropriate comments there.

Susanna, after reading your comments in 285, 287, and 289, I am so impressed, I am definitely going to get a copy of your book asap! Moreover, I don’t think I can add much more to this discussion on 1 Cor. 11:3 and its parallel in Eph. 5:23, than to quote Dr. John Trull, Prof. of Christian Ethics, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary:

In the seven passages in the New Testament where Paul uses kephale, the contexts of five of them (Col. 1:18; 2:10; 2:19; Eph. 1:20-23; 4:15) clearly point to this common meaning of “source.” The concept that “head” connotes a hierarchy with men in a role of authority over women rests largely on two passages: 1 Cor. 11:3 and Eph. 5:23. When we recognize the main meaning of kephale is “source,” it becomes clear that Paul is not establishing a chain of command–he is establishing origins. Rather than a “ruler” over the wife, the husband is the “source” or “beginning” of woman (made from the side of Adam), even as God is the “origin” of Christ (1 Cor. 11:3). “If you think ‘head’ means ‘chief’ or ‘boss,'” declared Chrysostom, “you skew the godhead!” (Cf. “Is the Head of the Household Home?” Christian Ethics Today. 1995, p. 44)

And of course, that was the main thrust of my discussion on the Trinity and 1 Cor. 11:3, although I wanted to tackle the Trinitarian issue first, before dealing with the man-woman relationship, on which I think everyone else has done a fine job.

However, in my studies, I did find some Greek scholars who argued that in Paul’s time, kephale was a “living metaphor,” and depending how it was used or functioned in certain contexts, might have the sense of “authority over.” But these same scholars firmly argue that in 1 Corinthians 11 and Ephesians 5 kephale cannot bear the meaning of “authority over.” I assume you would know this, Susanna and Cheryl, from your own studies. I only bring it up in case Mark would try to use this information, if he is aware of it, as an “ace in the hole,” as it were, in arguing his viewpoint.

Now, I hope the readers of my “little treatise” on the Trinity and the Subordinationist use of 1 Corinthians 11:3, which I began in Comment #280, will carefully note and remember the following: That in speaking of the Triune God’s eternal, interpersonal and communal relations as “self-giving, self-communicating, or self-affirming,” I do so not in a literal creaturely and material sense but rather in a spiritual anthropomorphic and analogical sense. For I agree with Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, Augustine and John Calvin that not only do the Scriptures themselves use such language to communicate meaningful and significant truth regarding the transcendant, Triune God that is accessible to the finite human mind, but that in our expositions of these same truths, our language must also be used anthropomorphically and analogically, so that these truths regarding the nature and works of the Triune God can be conveyed to our contemporaries in a meaningful and significant way. Otherwise, we will fall back into the old heresies long ago repudiated by the entire Christian Church.

For our present discussion, we will use 1 John 4:9-16 both as a bridge from the previous consideration of the vital link between the consubstantiality (homoousia) and coindwelling (perichoresis) of the Three Persons who are the Triune God, as well as a guide in our examination of some important aspects of our both having a relationship with the Triune God through Christ by the Spirit and in our truly knowing God in Christ and by the Spirit. However, I will not be giving any detailed exegesis per se, but only as such as suggested by main themes to be found in this text. Now 1 John 4:9-16, in the New Living Translation, reads as follows:

9 God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. 10 This is real love–not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to [so] love each other. 12 No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression through us. 13 And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him, and he in us. 14 Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be Savior of the world. 15 All who confess that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. 16 We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.

Now some things in this text, either as statement or implication, should be obvious to us: God’s love is an out-going love, a sacrifical love, a love for others outside of himself, which moved him, in order to save us who so much needed his redeeming and healing love, sacrificed what was nearest and dearest to his heart, his one and only Son, vv. 9-10. If we truly have been reconciled to God through Christ, and have truly experienced and understood the divine self-giving, sacrificial love that seeks the welfare of others, the proof that we live in God and God in us by the Spirit is manifested by our practicing the same kind of love among one another as those whom God has redeemed and made his own people through his beloved Son, vv. 11-13. And because we have experienced God’s redeeming, sacrifical love in Christ, and because this self-giving, self-sacrificing love is poured out in us and manifested through us by the indwelling Holy Spirit, we in self-giving, sacrifical love declare the good news of redemption and reconciliation through the Son of God, inviting others to join the life-giving fellowship of love that we know and delight in as those now in fellowship with the Triune God and he with us, vv. 14-16.

But what is the theological presuppostion underlying the exposition of the Gospel given by John in this text? I am convinced it is this: Before the Triune God could enter into a loving, self-communicating, self-giving, communal relationship which focused on the welfare of those outside of himself–if such a relationship with us were to be authentic and meaningful, it first had to be grounded in and flow out from a loving, self-communicating, self-giving of Oneself for the welfare of the Others within the Triune God himself. Thomas F. Torrance explains it this way:

The Gospel tells us that God does not choose to live for himself alone, for he has become man in order to seek and save the lost, to bring human beings into reconciling relationship with himself and to share his own divine fellowship with them. And so we learn that the one Being of God is the Being of the Father who did not spare his only Son but freely gave him up in atoning sacrifice for us, and is the Being of the Son who loved us and gave himself for us, and is the Being of the Holy Spirit who for our sakes brings us through himself into communion with the Father and the Son. God’s whole Being as three divine Persons is his Being for others beyond himself, but to his Being for others beyond himself, his Being with us in our human existence in time and space, there corresponds his Being for others within himself, for that is the eternal ground in God for what he is and promises in the Gospel to be for others beyond himself. The eternal ground in God from which there flows his communion-seeking love and grace toward us, is the Communion which the Father, Son and Holy Spirit have among themselves, and let it be repeated, really are. In the Holy Trinity himself, in the mutual indwelling of the three divine Persons, each Person is who he is as Father, Son, or Holy Spirit, in hypostatic and homoousial relation to the Others, and indeed through their one Being, in being who he is for the Others. The Father is not properly the Father apart from the Son and the Spirit, and the Son is not properly the Son apart from the Father and the Spirit, and the Spirit is not properly the Spirit apart from the Father and Son, for by their individual characteristics or distinctive properties as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, they exist in and through one Another and belong to and ever live for each Other. Each Person is intrinsically who he is for the other two. They coinhere in one Another by virtue of their Being for one Another and by virtue of the dynamic Communion which they constitute in their belonging to one Another. Hence in establishing communion with us through his Son and in the Spirit, God wants us to participate in this living Communion which as Father, Son and Holy Spirit he eternally is…The one triune Being of God is to be thought of, then, as essentially and intrinsically a mutual movement of loving self-communication between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, an intensely personal Communion, an ever-living and ever-loving Being, the Being for Others which the three divine Persons have in common (Cf. “One Being, Three Persons,” The Christian Doctrine of God, pp. 132-133).

Furthermore, I am convinced this understanding of the homoousion and perichoresis, as regards the Unity and Diversity of the Triune God and which has been championed by Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, John Calvin and Thomas F. Torrance, alone preserves both the Christological and Pneumatic core of the Gospel necessary for our truly knowing and having fellowship with the Triune God as a whole, and for our truly knowing and having fellowship with God the Father in particular. Stanley Grenz comments:

[That] God can only be known by a divine self-disclosure that occurs fully and ultimately only in Jesus Christ led the patristic thinkers to confess that Christ is consubstantial with the Father and to apply the same term to the Holy Spirit as well. In this manner, the term homoousion provided the Church with the theological key that could unlock and bring to explicit formulation the implicit trinitarianism of the New Testament. Because the incarnate Son and the Holy Spirit are of the very same being and nature as God the Father, Torrance argues, God has become truly knowable. More specifically, the concept of the homoousian means that “Jesus Christ is…not a mere symbol, some representation of God detached from God, but God in his own Being and Act among us, expressing in our human form the Word which he is eternally in himself, so that in our relations with Jesus Christ we have to do directly with the ultimate Reality of God.” (Cf. Stanley Grenz, Rediscovering the Triune God: The Trinity in Contemporary Theology, Fortress Press, 2004, p. 208)

Now if I may say so in a guarded way, as suggested earlier above, since the Three Persons of the One Triune God share not only the same divine Being and its attributes, then they must also share a common love-life and mindset, without violating their distinctiveness as the Three Persons. A love-life and mindset which the Holy Spirit himself possesses and participates in, every bit as much as the Father and the Son. And when the Holy Spirit comes to indwell those who confess Jesus as Lord and Savior, and we allow him to reproduce the love-life and mindset of Christ within us, what does he do among us, who form not only the Body of Christ, but also the Living Temple of God himself? He reproduces that mutual loving, that mutual self-communicating, that mutual self-giving for the welfare and full actualization others that marks the inner life of God himself and which he desires to be reproduced in his redeemed people. Moreover, he not only gifts and calls men and women to ministry to one another within the Church (Cf. 1 Jn 4:9-16 with 1 Cor. 12:1-13; Eph. 2:11-22; and Phil. 2:5-11), but because he is of one heart, mind and will with both the Father and the Son, he gifts and calls with their full approval and blessing. That is the truth of God in Christ Jesus.

And I hope what I have said thus far, not only encourages all my brothers and sisters in Christ, but especially those of my sisters who have been hurt by those who have denied their gifting and calling, charged them with being unfaithful to Christ and his Word, and of dishonoring the will and wishes of our Heavenly Father. Not only is this a diabolical lie, which falsely paints our Father as a stingy and overbearing tyrant towards his own daughters, but also denies our Lord’s own teaching on this very subject. For did not our Lord Jesus himself teach us this about the Father’s free and generous gift of love, the Holy Spirit, for all of us: “You fathers–if your children ask for a fish, do you give then a snake instead? Or if they ask for an egg, do you give a scorpion? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him” (Luke 11:11-13, NLT).

Cheryl, it looks like I’ll have to do one more “little treatise” to adequately with the past and present Anti-trinitarian and subordinationist use of 1 Cor. 11:3 itself. I hope you will pardon me and grant me a further dispensation to complete this task. But I wanted to give as full and positive exposition of the truly biblical and orthodox Doctrine of the Trinity as I could, before moving on to what will be a necessary, though not enjoyable critique. Thanks

I’m sorry it has taken me longer, than I originally intended, to make a response to Mark’s latest comments ( #228) of my critique of the ESS teaching. But as you well know, Cheryl, the responsibilities and demands of everyday life often put restraints on the time you can give to studying and preparing any kind of a presentation for a debate. And I am glad that you and a couple others have made some helpful and insightful comments in the mean time. Nevetheless, I will now try to give a final summing up and conclusion to what I have already said, hopefully giving Mark a sufficiently complete answer that will end on a positive note for all. Anyway, here we go.

Mark, I am very glad that, at least in principle, you agree with the Trinitarian teaching of the Athanasian Creed. I agree with it fully myself. Though not written by Athanasius himself, it clearly was written by someone who, in understanding the teaching of Athanasius, Gregory the Theologian, and Augustine, made a great effort to both clarify and expand on this teaching with the intent that no one would have any doubt as to what the Christian Church, as a whole, regarded to be the orthodox and authoritative Doctrine of the Trinity. However, I think it would be good to quote it in full, and then see what light it really sheds on our differences over the matter of “the Eternal Subordination of the Son.” The Athanasian Creed reads as follows:

We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, is all one: the Glory equal, the Majesty coeternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit. The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, the Holy Spirit uncreated. The Father infinite, the Son infinite, and the Holy Spirit infinite. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal. And yet they are not three eternals, but one eternal. As also there are not three uncreated, nor three infinites, but one uncreated, and one infinite. So likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son is Almighty, and the Holy Spirit is Almighty. And yet they are not three Almighties, but one Almighty. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. And yet there are not three Gods, but one God. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, and the Holy Spirit is Lord. And yet there are not three Lords, but one Lord. For as we are compelled by Christian truth to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord, so we are forbidden…to say “There are three Gods, or three Lords.” The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone, not made, nor created, but begotten. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son, neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding. So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits. And in this Trinity, none is before, or after, another. None is greater, or less, than another. But the whole three Persons are coeternal, and coequal. So that in all things, as was said before, the Unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity, is to be worshipped (Cf. James R. White, “The Trinity and Church History,” The Forgotten Trinity: Recovering the Heart of Christian Belief, Bethany House Publishers, 1998, pp. 190-191)

Now I agree with this teaching on the Trinity, not because Athanasius, Gregory the Theologian, and Augustine taught it, nor because it was codifed and ratified by both the ancient Greek and Roman Churches in 381 A.D. and 382 A.D. Nor do I believe it because it was later reaffirmed by Reformed theologians, such as John Calvin, John Gill, B.B. Warfield, and Thomas F. Torrance. Not at all. I believe it because I am convinced that it is the only rationally consistent and coherent explanation of what the Scriptures themselves teach about the One God who is Three Persons, and the Three Persons who are the One God. Yet, I would never argue that this explanation places God in such a tight-fitting box that anyone can ever say, “Well, we now know all there is to know about the Triune God, his works and his ways.” What it essentially does is set the boundries within which an orthodox exploration of the Triune God’s nature, works and ways can be conducted without falling back into old heresies abandoned long ago. And so having said that, let me now make the following observations on the Creed itself:

1. Clearly, the author(s) intent in writing this creedal definition of the Trinity so precisely was in order that the four great heresies, i.e. Modalism, Sabellianism, Arianism, and Subordinationism—which have again and again cropped up within the Church at various times and in various forms–may once and for all be expelled from the Christian’s mind as an acceptable way to understand both the Unity and Diversity of the Triune God. Wouldn’t you agree, Mark?
2. Note that while the distinction of the Three Persons is maintained throughout, it is never stated that the distinction is ever based on one divine Person possessing some divine attribute, whether in part or full, which is not commonly shared by the Three Persons, who equally and fully share the One Divine Being and all its attributes, such as Glory, Majesty, Infinity, Eternality, Lordship, etc. Therefore, may I ask how anyone can one derive from this Creed the concept of an eternal subordination of the Son to the Father, which is defined by those who teach it as a hierarchical ranking of the Father over the Son rests on the “fact” that the Father’s Lordship contains more power and authority than does that of the Son? Does this not clearly imply that the Father, because his attributes are fuller and greater in some sense to those of the Son, in some sense also possesses more Divine Being than does the Son?
3. Note also that the distinctions that are recognized to exist among the Three Persons are strictly defined in terms of their eternal, internal relationships: Fatherhood, Sonship, and Procession. The Father is the Father of the Son before all things, yet the Son is all the Father is as God, except he is not the Father. The Son, though “begotten” of the Father, as God is everything the Father is, except he is not the Father who begot him. And the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from both Father and Son, as God is everything that the Father and Son are, yet he is neither the Father nor Son from whom he proceeds. However, if we understand the Father’s begetting of the Son, and the Spirit’s procession from the Father and the Son such that they are in some sense “derived” from the Being of the Father alone and are dependent on him for their “deification,” possessing less glory, majesty, power, and authority than does the Father himself–have we not fallen back into the subordinationist heresy of Arius that this Creed refutes? After all, it was Arius who argued that the divine Father-Son relationship, if we are to truly understand it, must be analogous to the human father-son relationship, which he understood and defined in terms of Superior to Inferior. So how should we think about the “Father,” “Son,” and “Holy Spirit”? Here, again, I refer to the statement made by T. F. Torrance on this subject:

What then does it mean to think of the three divine Persons specifically as ‘Father,’ ‘Son,’ and ‘Holy Spirit’? This is a question that had been cropping up in the Church since the Arian controversy, when attempts were made to speak of divine Fatherhood and Sonship on the analogy of human fatherhood and sonship. While there is certainly a figurative or metaphorical ingredient in the human terms ‘father’ and ‘son’ as they are used in divine revelation, they are to be understood in ways that point utterly beyond all sexist connotations and implications. Both the generation of the Son and
the procession of the Spirit are incomprehensible mysteries which are not explicable through recourse to human modes of thought. Hence, as Athanasius and Gregory Nanianzen insisted, we must set aside all analogies drawn from the visible world in speaking of God, helpful as they may be up to a point, for they are theologically unsatisfactory and even objectionable, and so must of ‘Father’ and ‘Son’ when used of God as imageless relations. ‘Father,’ Gregory pointed out, ‘is the name of the relation in which the Father stands to the Son, and the Son to the Father, but such that it is an ineffable relation which exceeds and transcends human powers of imagination and conception,’ so that we may not read the creaturely of our human expressions of ‘father’ and ‘son’ analogically into what God discloses of his own inner divine relations. Hence, Gregory Nanianzen, like Athanasius, insisted that they must be treated as referring imagelessly, that is, in a diaphanous or ‘see through’ way, to the Father and Son without the intrusion of creaturely or sensual images into God. Thus we may not think of God as having gender, nor think of the Father as begetting the Son or of the Son as begotten after the analogy of generation or giving birth, with which we are familiar with among creaturely beings (Cf. “Three Persons, One Being,” The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being, Three Persons, T & T Clark, 1996, pp. 157-158)

Now at this point, as one whose own roots are in the Reformed and Baptist traditon, I want to address the idea, so common among hierarchical complementarians, that John Calvin both agrees with and in his Institutes of the Christian Religion also teaches that the distinctions of the Persons within the Trinity are necessarily to be understood as an eternal, hierarchical ranking due to one Person’s possession of a greater power, authority, or even function, in relation to the other two divine Persons. First of all, it ignores the fact, as B.B. Warfield, Kevin Giles and Thomas F. Torrance demonstrate from a careful study of his biblical and theological works, that not only did Calvin fully agree with the Trinitarian teaching expressed in both the Nicene-Constantinoplean and Anthanasian Creeds, but adamantly opposed every form of anti-trinitarianism and subordinationism of which he was aware, and which he perceived as a threat to orthodox belief. Secondly, in agreement with Athanasius and Gregory the Theologian, whom he quotes several times while discussing the Trinity in the 1559 revision and edition of the Institutes, Calvin argues clearly that both the Son and the Spirit, as well as the Father, are to be considered as autotheos, i.e. as “God in himself,” because each Person coequally and coeternally, both in their unity and in their diversity, fully share the one Being and its attributes that constitute the Triune God as God (Cf. Benjamin B. Warfield. “Calvin’s Doctrine of the Trinity,” Calvin and Augustine, P & R Publishers, 1956, pp. 251-284) Third, when pressed to give a basic definition of the what it is that actually distinguishes the Persons in their relations and activities, seeking to be faithful to both the teaching of Scripture and the Ecumenical creeds, Calvin stated: “The Persons are so distinquished by the Scriptures that they attribute to the Father the beginning of all activity, as fountain and source of all things; to the Son, wisdom, counsel and the actual dispensation of things to be done; and to the Spirit is attributed the power and efficiency of the action” (Cf. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 13.i.62). So, to put it in modern terms Calvin was saying, in effect, that the Scriptures distinguished the Father as Initiator, the Son as the Director, and the Spirit as the Executor of all the divine activities.

Perhaps it is this one statement in the Institutes, more than any other, that hierarchical complementarians gravitate to appeal for Calvin’s support for their novel doctrine of the eternal subordination of the Son in authority and function. But does Calvin’s statement above really teach what they asset it teaches? No, for the reasons we have already noted:

1. Calvin agreed with the teaching of the Early Church that the Triune God was to be understood not only as “One Being, Three Persons” (homoousia, treis hypostates), but also as three distinct divine Persons, but coequal and coeternal in Being, who also ever live within each other or coexist within one another in a self-giving, self-affirming, and self-nurturing communion and union that is necessary for maintaining both their Unity and Diversity as the One Triune God (perichoresis), which is taught in such texts as John 1:1, 18; 17:21-24, etc.
2. Calvin, on a number of occasions, confronted and opposed anti-trinitarian and subordinationist heresies; therefore, would we not judge him to be rationally inconsistent and incoherent to advocate a heresy he had earlier opposed and refuted?
3. Calvin was, among the Reformers, the one who argued most vigorously that the Father was autotheos, the Son was autotheos, and the Spirit was autotheos, because they fully and equally shared the One Divine Being and its attributes. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that he intended in this statement to teach or affirm a hierarchical or subordinationist ranking among the Three Persons, within the Godhead itself.

No, I think this must be understood in a relative sense, denoting how the three Persons relate and correlate with each other in the works of creation and redemption, rather than in their inward relations, which are to be understood primarily as mutual and reciprocal in nature (to be considered further below). I think the descriptive phrases “…the beginning of all activity,” “…the actual dispensation of things to be done,” and of the Spirit as the Agent who “has the power and efficiency of the action (s)” form the clues that clearly support this understanding of Calvin’s definition. For prior to their “new work” of creation and redemption, which had a “beginning” and were “outside” of the Triune God himself, what other “activities” could the three divine Persons have been engaged in, other than that of enjoying their mutual loving, self-giving and self-affirming Communion? And even if the Father were, in some sense, the Initiator in this inner Communion of the Trinity, how does that give him any greater power, authority, or function over the Son and the Spirit? If Son and Spirit are autotheos to the same degree as the Father, as Calvin had argued, would they not also possess the “ability” to initiate and reciprocrate a relationship with the Father? And if not, would they then not be less God, in that sense, than is the Father himself? I may be wrong, and I am willing to be corrected. But shouldn’t those who want to use Calvin to support ESS seriously consider these questions?

Now, in light of our examination of Calvin’s agreement with the Creeds, we need to further discuss the “coinherence, or coindwelling” (perichoresis) of the Three Persons, who are the One God. As they developed the homoousian formulation of the Trinity (i.e., “One Being, Three Persons”), that came to be enshrined in both the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, Athanasius and Gregory the Theologian also taught, on the basis of such texts as John 10:27-30. 14:8-11, and 17:21-24, the perichoresis, or “the eternal coindwelling, or coinexistence, or coinherence” of the Three Persons. For in their debating with the Arians, they became convinced and then argued that in order to more fully maintain and explain the Unity and Diversity of the Three Persons, then the perichoresis must be recognized and firmly held as both the logical and necessary collary of their sharing the one Being and all its attributes, as required by the homoousian formulation. However, since I don’t want to write what would turn out to be another long essay, I will instead quote Thomas F. Torrance’s “short” explanation of perchoresis, and then follow it with a brief comment or two. Here’s his “short” explanation on this subject:

It was undoubtedly Athanasius who in his elucidation of the dwelling of the Father and of the Son in one another provided the theological basis for the doctrine of coinherence. He did this by way of elucidating statements of Jesus to the disciples recorded by St. John, particularly, ‘I am in the Father and the Father in me’. He deepened and refined the concept of the homoousion which gave expression to the underlying oneness of in being and activity between the incarnate Son and God the Father upon which everything in the Gospel depended. As he understood it the homoousian pointed both to real distinctions between the three divine Persons and to their coinhering with one another in the one Being of God. For Athanasius this had to do not merely with a linking or intercommunication of the distinctive properties of the three divine Persons, which became known as communicatio idiomatium, but with a completely mutual indwelling in which each Person, while remaining what he is by himself as Father, Son or Holy Spirit, is wholly in the others as the others are wholly in him. Although Athanasius did not give us a specific term for coinherence, mutual containing, or perichoresis–that came later–its basic idea was already conceived in his refutation of the Arian disparagement of the Lord’s words, ‘I in the Father and the Father in me’, through their question, ‘How can the one be contained (xorein) in the other and the other in the one?’ Athanasius pointed out that this would be to think of the relation between the Father and the Son quite inappropriately in accordance with the way material things can empty into and contain one another. He went on to explain that when it is said ‘I am in the Father and the Father is in me’ we are to understand this reciprocal relation as one in which the whole Being of the Father and the whole Being of the Son mutually indwell, inexist or coexist in one another, which is thinkable only in relation to God himself and of which we learn only in God’s revelation of himself. In his Letters on the Holy Spirit to his friend Serapion, Athanasius showed that we must think of this coinherence as applying equally to the homoousial interrelations between the Spirit and the Son, and the Spirit and the Father, and thus to the whole Trinity, for unless the Being and Activity of the Spirit are identical with the Being and Activity of the Father and Son, we are not saved. For the great Patriarch of Alexandria, the Gospel of salvation as handed down from the Apostles and as expressed in the Nicene Confession depended entirely on the ontological connection between the saving life and activity of the incarnate Son of God and God the Father, which in turn revealed and imported the no less crucial ontological connection between the Holy Spirit and both the Son and the Father. Thus his stress upon the inner coherent relations of the Holy Trinity was particularly significant in upholding the bond between the soteriological and ontological understanding of the Faith inherent in the homoousion that had been central to the Nicene appropriation and interpretation of the Gospel (Cf. “Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity,” The Christian Doctrine of God, pp. 168-169)

Well, it’s getting late, and I am weary. Wrestingly with what the Scriptures and Creeds really say about the Unity and Diversity of the Three Persons, their unity and harmonious cooperation in the works of creation and redemption, and then seeking to accurately and appropriately link that with the issues connected with women in ministry and leadership that we have been discussing–well, it’s very demanding work, to say the least. And I really wanted to address the Trinitarian issues Mark brought up, maybe add to Cheryl’s comments on Christ’s humilation and exaltation in Phil. 2:5-11, which Mark also brought up, and one last thing about 1 Cor 11:3, which started my discussion on the Trinity. What do you think Cheryl? Should I write another comment for this post, or have I gone on long enough? I don’t want to wear out my welcome here.

I am very sad to hear about the latest development in the SBC under Paige Patterson’s leadership. But I guess it is not too surprising, considering Patterson’s long-standing campaign against Calvinists, charismatics and egalitarians, as I believe Wade Burleson has documented on his website. And there are so many good Christian men and women being harmed through these policies.

For example, I have a good friend who, at one time, was a theology professor at a SBC seminary in Brazil. He was both a Calvinist and an egalitarian, and he clearly saw how changes in SBC policy would eventualy result in his dismissal. This caused stress for both him and his wife, who was a psychological nurse, engaged in a ministry supported by their Brazilian church. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, they both resigned and returned to the US. He is now an adjunct professor at Gordon-Conwell of NC, and she is once again involved in ministry. But as far as I know, they are not attending a SBC church.

Cheryl, I think what you said about resisting the Spirit and his work often results in churches falling into a dead legalism is well documented in the history of the Church. Pam Morrison, in her Priscilla Papers article, “The Holy Spirit, Neglected Person of the Trinity, and Women’s Leadership,” examines how in times of renewal and empowerment by the Spirit, not is the Church marked by effective ministry to the needy world, but men and women equally share in ministry and leadership. But in times of decline and spiritual impotence, the Church often reverts to hierarchical and legalistic forms of ministry and leadership. She says, “The Apostle Paul cautioned that God ‘has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant–not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter kills but the Spirit gives life'”(2 Cor. 3:6) Our Scriptures, ‘the letter,’ are God-inspired for our good of course, and are provided for ‘teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training'” (2 Tim. 3:16) but, by themselves, without Spirit-quickening interpretation, the power to comprehend and to live them out, we can fall into legalism and dryness, into intepretations based upon wrong motives that do not give life” (Priscilla Papers, Vol. 23, No. 4, Autumn 2008) And surely this is what we see going on in the SBC and CBMW. May God have mercy upon us, and grant us all a true renewal and transformation of mind, heart and will by his Holy Spirit. Amen!

Having completed my errand, and now having the time to do so, I would like to complete my previous comment and add some to it, if I may. Torrance, in the comment above, referred to the orations of Gregory Nazianzen, also known as Gregory the Theologian, that gave the most powerful account of “the inseparable oneness of the divine Persons, and indeed the identity between the one ever living Being of God and the three coequal divine Persons.” He was referring to, of course, Gregory’s ORATIONS ON THE GREAT ATHANASIUS, both a commentary and expansion the Trinitarian teaching of Athanasius, in which he made these statements:

1. “No sooner do I consider the One than I am enlightened by the radiance of the Three; no sooner do I distinguish them that I am carried back to the One. When I bring any One of the Three before my mind I think of him as a Whole, and my vision is filled, and the most of the Whole escapes me. I cannot grasp the greatness of the One in such a way as to attribute more greatness to the rest. When I contemplate the Three together, I see but one Torch, and cannot divide or measure out the undivided Light,” ORATIONS, 40.41
2. “To us there is one God, for the Godhead is One, and all that proceeds from him is referred to the One, though we believe in Three Persons. For One is not more and Another less God; nor is One before and Another after; nor are they parted in will or divided in power, nor can you find here any of the features that obtain in divisible things; but the Godhead is, to speak concisely, undivided in being divided; and there is one mingling of Light, as it were of three suns joined to each other,” ORATIONS, 31.14

And it was this grand understanding of both the Unity and Diversity of the Divine Persons of the Triune God which led the author(s) of the Athanasian Creed, who I think better understood the teaching of Athanasius, Gregory the Theologian, and St. Augustine to write than we moderns, to write, “We are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord…And in this Trinity none is afore or after another, none is greater or less than another, but the whole three persons are coeternal, and coequal so that in all things, as aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped.”

Now, in light of this Ecumenical understanding of both the Unity and Diversity of the Three Persons who are the One True God, and the One True God who is the Three Persons, the question to be asked is this: Can anyone then teach that the distinctions between the Three Persons is simply constituted by and reducable to “roles” or “functions,” and not violate this understanding of the Trinity and fall back into heretical Subordinationism? I believe the answer is, “No, they cannot.” Here is why I think so:
1. Neither the Early Church nor any of the Ecumenical Creeds utilize the idea of “roles” or “functions” to affirm the distinctions or differences between the Divine Persons. In fact, it was the debate over one ousia, three hypostases vs. one substantia, three personae between the Latin and Greek theologians before the creedal ratifications of 381 A.D. and 382 A.D. that made this clear. Prosopon in classical Greek, of which the Latin personae was the equivalent term, primarily stood for the mask worn by actors to distinguish the various characters they played in the Greek drama. The Greek theologians felt prospon was an inadequate term to describe the Trinitarian persons, since it easily led to modalistic thinking. Therefore they promoted the term hypostastis which indicated an objective reality, having certain characteristics that could be perceived in thought, by the intellect. And so after some discussion with their Latin counterparts, it was agreed that hypostatis and personae would be used as equivalent terms, but would be defined by both to mean an objective reality, not a fictious role. And both ousia and substantia would be understood as the common divine essence or being fully and equally shared by each Person of the Triune God. This mutual understanding and agreement on how to understand and expound the Doctrine of the Trinity was necessary. For all agreed with Athanasius and Basil that the Three Persons could not be understood as three different appearances or modes of action in creation and redemption by God. Since God is eternal, God’s Triunity must also be eternal. So the Three Persons, if truly divine, must have real being without and before God’s actions in creation and redemption, since both creation and redemption are not eternal, but temporal in nature. So the various distinguishable temporal actions, operations, or “roles” of God in creation and redemption cannot be essential to the true eternal distinctions or differences between the Persons. If “roles” in creation and redemption were necessary for marking the true distinctions between the Three Persons, then none could be none of them could be said to be eternal, and so there would be a time when there was not a Father, not a Son, not a Spirit. Again, if “roles” or “functions” were necessary for distinguishing the Divine Persons, then there was a time when God was not triune or when the Persons, if they were at all, were not wholly God.
2. Now, just because the distinctions between the Father, Son and Spirit cannot be identified with or reduced to differing modes of action does not mean that God cannot serve in different roles in creation or redemption, or that certain tasks or operations may not be primarily associated with one or the other of the Divine Persons. However, the Early Church recognized that these distinctions in external action were not to be read back into the persons of the Trinity.
a. Gregory of Nyssa adamantly ruled out any “ranking” of the Three Persons either within the Trinity itself or in their working toward creation. Such ranking according to distinctive ministry, he argued, called into question the very unity of God: “If the Father is King, and the Only Begotten is King, and the Holy Ghost is the Kingship, one and the same definition of Kingship must prevail through this Trinity” (Cf. “Oration on the Holy Spirit,” Oration 41.9, NPNF, Vol. 5, pp. 320-321).
b. On this issue of “ranking,” Athanasius himself stated: “Inasmuch as there is in the Holy Trinity oneness of essence and equality in rank, who, then, would dare to separate either the Son from the Father or the Spirit from either the Son or the Father? Or who would be so rash as to say that the Trinity is dissimilar and of diverse nature within itself?” (Cf. Four Letters to Serapion, 1.20)
c. And in terms of the unity and diversity of their relationship in redemption and sactification, we have these testimonies:
1. St. Paul himself: “There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us” (1 Corinthians 12:4-6, NLT).
2. Athanasius: “There is a Trinity holy and perfect, acknowledged as God in Father, Son and Holy Spirit, having nothing foreign or external mixed with it…It is consistent in Itself, indivisible in nature, and Its activity is one. The Father does all things through the Word in the Holy Spirit; and thus the unity of the Holy Trinity is preserved; and thus there is preached in the Church One God, ‘who is over all, and through all, through the Word; and in all, in the Holy Spirit” (Cf. Four Letters to Seripon, 1.28).
3. Ambrose: “And as he who is blessed in Christ is blessed in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, because the Name is one and the Power one; so, too, when any divine operation, whether of the Father, or of the Son, or of the Holy Spirit is treated of, it is not referred only to the Holy Spirit, but also to the Father and the Son, and not only to the Father, but also to the Son and the Spirit” (Cf. “On The Spirit,” NFPF, Vol.2, 7:98).
4. Didymus: “Therefore, whoever shares in the Holy Spirit shares immediately in the Father and the Son. And he who has love from the Father has it from the Son and joined with the Holy Spirit. And he who has a share of the grace of Jesus Christ has that grace given by the Father through the Holy Spirit. For in all these things it is proven that the operation of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is the same. But those who have the same operation have the same substance, because those things which are homoousia in the same substance have the same operations and those which are of different substance and not homoousia are different and separate in operation” (Cf. On The Holy Spirit, 24, MC 3:116; PL 23:119).

Now, there are one or two more comments I would like to make, but I will do so later, for it is very late and I am very tired. But perhaps, Mark, by what I have said so far, you and others may begin to understand why I regard ESS as a destestable subordinationist heresy.

Hello, again, my friends. I have been busy and have just now gotten back to this discussion. Sorry to find that gengwall had to suffer through the swine, but I am glad that he has apparently recovered. And I pray no one else will get it; it is a nasty bug!

Now one of the things that has kept me busy is that, encouraged by Mark’s comments, I have done some review and further inquiry into the Doctrine of the Trinity. And so I may write a third article on this subject. However, though I do not wish to beat a dead horse to death, I will make a final, but brief response to Mark’s critique of my last comments ,#154.

1. Though we could go back and forth on the various, fine details of how Athanasius, Gregory the Theologian, Augustine, and Calvin argued that the One True God is eternally both One Being and Three Persons, and Three Persons and One Being, as one who has read their documents in some detail, I would say that all agree to the following statement regarding both God’s Unity and Diversity: “The Son is everything the Father is as God, except he is not the Father; the Father is everything the Son is as God, except he is not the Son; the Holy Spirit is everything the Father and Son are as God, except he is neither the Father nor the Son.” This statement, as it has been understood among orthodox Christians guards against modalism, tritheism, and subordinationism, yet does not confound the persons nor deny their distinctiveness. As Thomas F. Torrance says, “Each divine retains his unique characteristics as Father, Son, or Holy Spirit in a union without confusion, for the individual characteristics of each of the three Persons do not separate them, but constitute their deep mutual belonging together. There is no Son apart from the Father and Holy Spirit; and there is no Father apart from the Son and the Holy Spirit; and there is no Holy Spirit apart from the Father and the Son. Homoousially and hypostatically they interpenetrate each other in such a way that each Person is distinctively who he is in relation to the other two” (“Three Persons, One Being,” THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD: ONE BEING, THREE PERSONS, p. 145). Now, I believe this is shortest and clearest definition of both the Unity and Diversity of the One Triune God, as taught both in Scripture and the Ecumenical Creeds. My first, question to you, Mark, is do you or do you not agree with it?

2. Secondly, it must be pointed out that in the battle with the Macedonians, who denied the full divinity and equality of the Spirit with the Father, much as the Arians had denied the Son’s full divinity and equality, it was Athanasius and Gregory, not Basil, who had stood firm against any concept of “degrees of Deity” within the Godhead. “It was Gregory Nanianzen, especially in his ‘Five Theological Orations’ and his Presidential Oration delivered at the the Council of Constantinople in 381, who, following his theological hero Athanasius, provided Christian theology with the most influential teaching about the Holy Trinity. Unlike Basil, he had no hesitation in applying the homoousian to the Holy Spirit, and would have nothing to do with his fellow Cappadocians’ description of the divine Persons as ‘modes of Being’ (tropoihupzeos). Moreover, he dissociated himself from the element of subordinationism or ‘degrees of Deity’ implied in the way they related the Son and the Spirit to the Father as the ‘Principle’ (arche) or ‘Cause’ (aitia) of their Deity. Through his alternative conception of the divine Persons as timeless, beginningless, uncaused relations subsisting ineffably in the Blessed and Adorable Trinity, he gave us the most powerful account of the inseparable oneness of the divine Persons, and indeed between the one ever living Being of God and the three coequal divine persons: (Oops! My time is up and I must run an errand. I will complete this later.)

Mark, I apologize for the terseness of my previous comment. It was addressed more to Cheryl, Dave, Lin, and Kay who know me better than you do, and who understand where I am coming from. For on both Cheryl’s site and CBE’s The Scroll, I have previously demonstrated my knowledge of past and present Trinitarian controversies, and why I believe, contrary to what they say, Wayne Grudem and Bruce Ware are promoting a novel and dangerous form of Arianism, or Subordinationism. Now you may not agree with me, but on the basis of my own studies of the Trinity over the last two years, that is the conclusion I have come to, and that is why I so fiercely oppose them. However, I recognize that I need to clarifiy what you regard as my “apparent” misrepresentations, so you at least understand why I am taking this stance. So let me make the following points:
1. Now how, I don’t know how well versed your are in the disputes between the Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers with the Arians, but the one of main contentions made by Athanasius, Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and John Chrysostom against the Arians was that it was logically inconsistent and incoherent to argue that two persons, divine or otherwise, are essentially equal if, at the same time, one is in permanently and obligatorily in subordination to the other. Kevin Giles sums it up this way:

From the time of Athanasius, theologians have recognized that if the Son is eternally subordinate in his work, function or operations, it must mean he is eternally subordinated in being, essence, nature, person or subsistence. If the Son or any human being is a personal equal to another, they may choose to subordinate themselves to another; but when subordination is both permanent and obligatory, the personal inferiority of the subordinate is implied. If one party is always and necessarily subordinate to the other, the subordinate person must lack something the superior person possesses (Cf. “The Subordination of Christ and the Subordination of Women”, Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity Without Hierarchy, IVP, 2005, p.348).

So, if of necessity the Son is eternally subordinate to the Father in all things, and not by choice and for a limited time for a specific purpose, then he is inferior to the Father in being. By the same token, if women are, of necessity, permanently subordinate to men in all things–not by choice and for a limited for a specific purpose–then they are inferior to men in their essence or being. And so both the denials of the Son’s inferiority to the Father, and of women to men, as so often made by complementarian, are meaningless.
2. You accuse me of misleading people, twisting history to my own ends, because I argue that “the Arian heresy stemmed primarily from the roles of men and women.” If that is what you think I said or meant to say, you are incorrect. Nevertheless, there is evidence that 1 Cor. 11:3 was a text Arians later used to argue their case that the Son was inferior to the Father, using the “lesser to greater” analogy. Perhaps you are unaware that John Chrysostom (ca. 347-407 A.D.), a younger contemporary of Athanasius, Basil, and Gregory, addressed the Arians’ misuse of this text? Here’s what he said in one of his homilies:

“But the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor 11:3). Here the heretics rush upon us with a certain declaration of inferiority, which out of these words they contrive against the Son. But they stumble against themselves. For if “the man be the head of the woman,” and the head be of the same substance with the body, and “the head of Christ is God,” the Son is of the same substance with the Father. “Nay,” say they, “it is not His being of another substance which we intend to show from hence, but that He is under subjection.” What then are we to say to this? In the first place, when any thing lowly is said of him conjoined as He is with the Flesh, there is no disparagement of the Godhead in what is said, the Economy admitting the expression. However, tell me how thou intendest to prove this from the passage? “Why, as the man governs the wife, saith he, “so also the Father, Christ.” Therefore also as Christ governs the man, so likewise the Father, the Son. “For the head of every man,” we read, “is Christ.” And who could ever admit this? For if the superiority of the Son compared with us, be the measure of the Father’s compared with the Son, consider to what meanness thou wilt bring Him. So that we must not try all things by like measure in respect of ourselves and of God, though the language used concerning them be similar; but we must assign to God a certain appropriate excellency, and so great as belongs to God. For should they not grant this, many absurdities will follow. As thus; “the head of Christ is God:” and, “Christ is the head of the man, and he of the woman.” Therefore if we choose to take the term, “head,” in the like sense in all the clauses, the Son will be as far removed from the Father as we are from Him. Nay, and the woman will be as far removed from us as we are from the Word of God. And what the Son is to the Father, this both we are to the Son and the woman again to the man. And who will endure this? (“The Life and Work of St. John Chrysostom,” NPNF, IX, 3-23).

Now, it seems to me he is refuting a heretical view of Subordinationism that has many parallels to that advocated by Grudem and Ware. So compare what Chrysostom says about this text with what Grudem and Ware teach about it, and then draw your own conclusion.
3. Subordinationism, in all its forms, was a heresy condemned by both the Eastern and Western Churches. For example, at the Roman Council of 382 A.D., where the Nicene Creed was confirmed as authoritative and binding on all Christians, Bishop Damasus made 24 pronouncements regarding heretical departures from orthodoxy, among which are these: “If anyone denies: That the Son of God is true God, just as the Father is true God, having all power, knowing all things, and equal to the Father, he is a heretic;…that the Father,Son, and Holy Spirit have one divinity, authority, majesty, power, one glory, one dominion, one kingdom and one will and truth, he is a heretic.” And so however you may wish to deny it, the Subordinationism being advocated by Grudem and company is a new form of an old and deadly heresy. Advocated, I will add, for neither just nor good reasons. Here again, Kevin Giles has a pertinent comment:

In the Trinity, we are told, ontological equality and permanent role or functional subordination coexist without one canceling the other. If this is how the Trinity is ordered, the argument continues, the the Trinity justifies women’s permanent functional subordination. Furthermore, it is claimed that the differences between the sexes and the differences between the divine Persons can be preserved only if role differentiation–understood in both instances as the subordination of one party to another–is upheld. This argument seems to have persuaded many, but at this point two things should be noted. First, prior to the 1980’s no theologian had ever spoken of the Son’s subordination in “role” only. This use of the term, as well, as the idea of the permanent role subordination apart from personal subordination, came from the woman debate, where it appeared for the first time in the mid-1970’s. The language and reasoning that was invented to make an acceptable-sounding case for the permanent subordination of women was introduced into theological discourse about the Trinity and, in turn, the newly devised doctrine of the Son’s role subordination was used to support the doctrine of the role subordination of women. Second, this new doctrine of the Trinity, formulated by evangelicals opposed to the full emancipation of women, undermines the complete unity of person and work in the Godhead so clearly taught in Scripture. On this view, the works of the Son do not indicate that he is fully equal with the Father in divinity, majesty, power and authority. This novel doctrine of the Trinity makes the Son eternally subordinate to the Father in what he does. In his works he is less in power and authority (Cf. “The Subordination of Christ and the Subordination of Women,” Discovering Biblical Equality, pp.338-339).
4. Here I will only make two additional, but necessary comments on this matter. First, as regards how orthodox Christians are to think properly about the relationship between the Father, the Son and the Spirit. This matter, along with other Trinitarian concerns, was settled long ago by the Nicene Fathers, as T. F. Torrance explains:

What then does it mean to think of the three divine Persons specifically as ‘Father,’ ‘Son,’ and ‘Holy Spirit’? This is a question that had been cropping up in the Church since the Arian controversy, when attempts were made to speak of divine Fatherhood and Sonship on the analogy of human fatherhood and sonship. While there is certainly a figurative or metaphorical ingredient in the human terms ‘father’ and ‘son’ as they are used in divine revelation, they are to be understood in ways that point utterly beyond all sexist connotations and implications.Both the generation of the Son and the procession of the Spirit are incomprehensible mysteries which are not explicable through recourse to human modes of thought. Hence, as Athanasius and Gregory Nanianzen insisted, we must set aside all analogies drawn from the visible world in speaking of God, helpful as they may be up to a point, for they are theologically unsatisfactory and even objectionable, and so must of ‘Father’ and ‘Son’ when used of God as imageless relations. ‘Father,’ Gregory pointed out, ‘is the name of the relation in which the Father stands to the Son, and the Son to the Father, but such that it is an ineffable relation which exceeds and transcends human powers of imagination and conception,’ so that we may not read the creaturely of our human expressions of ‘father’ and ‘son’ analogically into what God discloses of his own inner divine relations. Hence, Gregory Nanianzen, like Athanasius, insisted that they must be treated as referring imagelessly, that is, in a diaphanous or ‘see through’ way, to the Father and Son without the intrusion of creaturely or sensual images into God. Thus we may not think of God as having gender, nor think of the Father as begetting the Son or of the Son as begotten after the analogy of generation or giving birth, with which we are familiar with among creaturely beings (Cf. “Three Persons, One Being,” The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being, Three Persons, T & T Clark, 1996, pp. 157-158)

Secondly, not only is this heretical component of hierarchical complementarianism based on a defective theological method, but it also rests on a false analogy that actually contradicts the very view these people are seeking to promote. So I both agree with and endorse the excellent expose’ and critique of this false analogy given by Rebecca Merrill Groothuis:

Unlike the subordination prescribed for women, there could be no subordination in the eternal Trinity that would involve one divine Person acting against his own preference or best judgment under orders issued from the contrary will of another divine Person. When the Father sent the Son, it was not along the lines of an earthly father who says, “Well, son, here’s what I’m going to have you do,” at which point the son learns what he better do or else. Rather, with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit of one mind on how to redeem sinful humans (as they always are on every matter), it was the Son’s will to go as much as it was the Father’s will to send him (Phil. 2:5-11). Moreover, in Christ’s own description of his earthly ministry, he states that the Father has given him all judgment and authority (Mt. 28:18; Jn. 5:21-27; 17:2). Even during his earthly incarnation, when Jesus did only the Father’s will (Jn. 5:30; 8:28-29), the relationship of the Father and Son was not at all like that of a husband and wife in a patriarchal marriage, where the husband holds final decision-making authority and is neither expected nor required to share this authority with his wife. Even if there were an eternal subordination of the Son to the Father, it would fail to model the key elements of the woman’s lifelong subordination to man. What would female subordination to male authority look like if it were truly analogous to the subordination of the Son to the Father? First, the authority of the man and the submission of the woman would not be decided or demanded by their different male and female natures. Second, there would never be an occasion in which the man’s will would or should overrule the woman’s will; the man therefore would “send” the woman to do only what was in accordance with her own will. Third, every husband would willing and consistently share all authority with his wife, acknowledging her full authority to make judgments and decisions on behalf of both of them. In short, the oneness in being of the divine Persons, which results in oneness of will, precludes invoking the Trinity as either illustrating or vindicating the doctrine of woman’s subordination to man (Cf. “Equal in Being, Unequal in Role,” Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity Without Hierarchy, IVP, 2005, pp. 330-331).

So, Mark I hope I sufficiently clarified what you regarded as “apparent” misrepresentation, or unclear and misleading statements; have given a clearer indication as to what I regard as the true, orthodox doctrine of the Trinity; and why I am a staunch opponent of what I regard as heretical teaching.

Well, it seems the discussion with Mark has gone to quite some length. And I’m sorry got to it much later than Lin did; I wish I could have commented on some of these points myself. But I think everyone–Dave, Kay, Gengwall, Pinklight, etc.–gave some good responses and challenges to his assumptions about roles being rooted in and determined by one’s maleness or femaleness, and his unwarranted insistance that kephale could only mean “authority over” in 1 Cor 11 and Eph 5. So the observations and comments I now make will be brief.
1. Lin, in comment #8, you mentioned a dispute among comp scholars as to whether or not Adam was with Eve though whole temptation or not. Well, I checked the NIV Interlinear Hebrew-English OT, the NIV, the NAB, and the NLT. All confirmed that Adam was there the whole time, allowed Satan to convince her that eating the fruit would make them both wise, and then took the fruit ate it, without ever rebuking, or even questioning, either Eve or Satan.
2. The insistence that kephale in 1 Cor 11:3 must mean “authority over” and not “source” so as to weigh an argument in one’s favor against his opponent’s is not something new. For it was used by the Arians to argue that since the man was in “authority over” the woman, because he was superior in being and function; therefore, since the Father was in “authority over” the Son, he was superior and the Son was inferior. And of course, Athanasius, Gregory the Theologian, Cyril , and others argued against this heretical understanding of the Father-Son and man-woman relationships. A destable heresy, I might add, that Wayne Grudem promotes in order to have a theological ground for the permanent subordination of women, while gutting the heart of the Gospel in the process. And so Dave, I have a far lower opinion of Prof. Grudem than you do for this very reason.

Well, I think that is all I wish to say on this posting. As I have already said, I think you all did a fine job in both responding to and challenging Mark.

Kay, it is amazing, isn’t it, that these so-called Bible teachers and scholars will affirm first, on the one hand, that the Holy Spirit can keep men from being deceived and led astray; but then, on the other hand, affirm that he can’t keep women from being deceived and led astray? But this teaching clearly goes against the Apostle John’s teaching regarding the Holy Spirit and his leading of all believers into the knowledge of the truth necessary for both salvation and godly living:

For the Holy One has given you his Spirit, and all of you know the truth. So I am not writing you because you don’t know the truth but because you know the difference between truth and lies…So you must remain faithful to what you have been taught from the beginning. If you do, you will remain in fellowship with the Son and with the Father. And in this fellowship we enjoy the eternal life he promised us. I am writing these things to warn you about those who want to lead you astray. But you have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within you, so you don’t need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spirit teaches you everything you need to know, and what he teaches is true–it is not a lie. So just as he has taught you, remain in fellowship with Christ.

1 John 2:20-27, NLT

And while this passage doesn’t go against what it says elsewhere in the NT about how both church ministers and Christian parents are responsible to teach us the basics of the faith from Scripture, yet it is the Spirit who remains our Teacher and Counselor, leading us into a deeper, richer and more practical knowledge of Biblical truth, without some slavish dependence on human teachers. Or so I understand this passage.

Cheryl, since you and gengwall have covered so many aspects of how complementarians, in a very contradictory fashion, treat Gen. 1:26-30 and 2:15-24, I don’t think there is much more I could add.
Yet I will make these two brief, though obvious, observations:
1. If it weren’t for the assumptions they make about 2 Tim. 2:12-15 as their intepretive lens, complementarians could not interpret these Genesis texts in the way they do. First of all, the rule of man and woman over the rest of creation is not only delegated to them both from God, but it is also a shared ruling between those who equally bear the image of God; there is nothing in Gen. 1:26-30 itself that would indicate that the man possesses more of the image of God than the woman, or that the man has been delegated more authority than the woman. This is obviously a foreign idea that complementarians have imposed on these texts from some other source; it does not naturally flow out of the text itself.

2. Maybe it’s because how some translations render katergo ezer (forgive my poor transliteration of the Hebrew) in Gen. 2:18. But if you carefully study Gen. 2:18-24, I think it becomes clear that God intended Adam to go through this process discovery and confirmation, so that he would learn 1) that there was no companion among the animals that truly corresponded to him and could be his partner and ally; and 2) to make him that much more appreciative of the companion whom God would provide, one just right for him. I think the following rendering brings this out well:

The LORD God said: “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him.” So the LORD God formed out of the ground various wild animals and various birds of the air, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them; whatever the man called each of them would be its name. The man gave names to all the cattle, all the birds of the air, and all the wild animals; but none proved to be a suitable partner. So the LORD God cast a deep sleep on the man,…took out one of his ribs, and…then built up into a woman the rib that he had taken from the man. When [God] brought her to the man, the man said, “This one, at last, is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; This one shall be called ‘woman,’ for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken.”
Gen. 2:18-24, NAB

How anyone can read this passage, and think Adam believed and regarded Eve as anything other than a wonderful companion and partner, given by God to be such from the beginning; well, all I can say is the teaching that he regarded her as his servant and lacky, contrary to the divine intention of this text, is just plain stupid!

Well, I guess I am in good company after all, Cheryl. It’s great to know there are so many members in our illustrious club! But all kidding aside, I appreciate the words of empathy and support. I think the hardest thing for me in those debates was that, among the Theonomists who opposed me, were some who had been fellow Bible college students and close friends up until that time. I can’t adequately express, in words, the feelings of betrayal and desertion I felt then

And you are correct Cheryl that, in contending for the truth, I argued and reasoned from the Scriptures to the best of my knowledge and ability. It amazed me that when I was disputing with them about the Law and the Gospel, the Theonomists never really interacted with what I had said nor demonstrated where I had failed to properly interpret the Scriptures. And yet in the second debate, as I look back now, they nailed me to the wall primarily because of my failure, as they saw it, to adequately deal with 1 Tim. 2:12-15. And on this point, as much as I might hate to admit it, they were right. I did not deal with certain key points of that text with the degree of consistency and thoroughness that Cheryl has done in her debate with Mike Seaver.

However, I learned my lesson; I learned to be more thorough and consistent in my study of different interpretations of texts, the biblical and rational basis of theological constructs, etc. So there’s nothing with making mistakes in our initial contending for truth, provided that we quickly recognize them, quickly correct them, and not repeat them in later presentations.

Thanks, Lin, for welcoming me into the club! Is the motto still, “We must enter the Kingdom of God with great difficulty, and everyone who seeks to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution,” which was given by Paul, the founder of our club? If so, then count me in; absolutely! And may I suggest the following as our club song:

GIVE ME THE WINGS OF FAITH TO RISE, by Issac Watts

Give me the wings of faith to rise
within the veil, and see
the saints above, how great their joys,
how bright their glories be.

Once they were mourning here below,
and wet their couch with tears;
they wrestled hard, as we do now,
with sins, and doubts, and fears.

I asked them whence their victory came;
they, with united breath,
ascribed their conquest to the Lamb,
their triumph to his death.

They marked the footsteps he trod;
his zeal inspired their breast;
and following their incarnate God,
possessed the promised rest.

Our glorious Lord claims our praise
for his own pattern given;
while the long cloud of witnesses
show us the same path to heaven.

Cheryl, I don’t know if the pain of the memories was the cause, if it was a confusion caused by failing memory, or just the vanity of the flesh trying to expressing itself, but I need to make a correction or two to my story. Though it is true I served two terms as Moderator, I was not Moderator when I took heat for my presentation on Egalitarianism; and I was not the only one threatened with a “heresy trial”; there were actually about seven of us that the Theonomists, who were also strong complementarians, wanted to eliminate because of our stance we stood as an obstacle in their attempt to take over and dominate the group. My presentation just happened to be the excuse they needed to make their power move. The end result was that our group, which we had hoped would accomplish so much, was disbanded. And I’m telling you this because when I came back later and reviewed what I first wrote, the Spirit impressed on me that I must acknowledge my errors and get the story straight, so that I would not appear to be braver than I actually had been, nor had been the only one who had suffered. I always want to be a man of truth, honesty, integrity and honor, never deceiving or misleading anyone in any way. So I hope you will forgive me my errors and accept this correction. Thanks.

Cheryl, you’re correct when you say that if you are convinced that some doctrine is the very truth of God’s Word, and you actively stand firm for it, it can be costly, in many ways. I know this from experience, not only in terms of the equality of men and women in Christ, but also in terms of the Law and Gospel controversy. And so let me tell you a little more of my own story. Some years ago, I was ordained and served as both a deacon and adult Bible teacher in a little Calvinistic Baptist; I also served two terms as Moderator of a group of Presbyterians, Christian Reformed, and Calvinistic Baptists gave presentations and discussed how the Gospel was to be applied to the intellectual, moral and socio-political issues of today. In the latter group, my historical premillennialism was tolerated, but when certain members started promoting Theonomy (i.e., the modern Christian was bound to observe the moral and civil law of the OT), I stood firm for the New Testament teaching that we are only bound by the Law of Christ, which involved our living by the teaching and example of Christ and his apostles, as illuminated and applied by the Holy Spirit (cf. Matt. 28:18-20; 1 Cor. 9:19-23). For this, many denounced me as an antinomian, a despiser of God’s Word, a liberal, etc. And then six months later, in a controversy about “women in the church,” I was the first to stand up and argue for the Egalitarian position. The negative response to this was even worse, with some wanting me to be removed as Moderator and to go through a “heresy trial,” such as they conducted in Presbyterian churches. And believe me, this wasn’t fun to experience or deal with. But not only was I committed to Christ and his Gospel, but faithfully living by the Reformation principles that I had thought we all agreed on and sought to live by: That Scripture is the final rule by which all Christian doctrine and practice is to be measured and judged; and that the Church is to constantly reform its beliefs and practices according to God’s Word, as so led by the Holy Spirit. However, I soon discovered that when you tried to apply this to the “set and preferred interpretation” of the majority, people didn’t like it and strongly resisted any call to renewal and reform. And Mike Seaver, in his case, may be facing a similar situation if he both changes his position and actively promotes the truth. So we shouldn’t be to harsh on him.

Dave and Cheryl, I did it! It took some time to edit and post my comments to the “Aussie Debate,” but I did it. Since I was one of the few Americans responding (Lin was the only other, as far I know) I began my posting with a little bio-sketch so that people would know who I was and why I was joining this conversation among Aussies and Canadians, whose countries were members of the former British Commonwealth. I may be a a “Semi-Canadian” (wink at Cheryl), but I didn’t want to offend any blue bloods. Ha, ha! Anyway, besides correcting spelling errors and restructering some sentences, the only thing I added was a further comment on what the orthodox view of the Trinity, as regarded the distinctions and interrelationships of the Divine Persons, was and that this is why all orthodox, evangelical Christians should recognize ESS as a deadly heresy and repudiate it. So if I have now stirred up a hornet’s by these additional comments on the Trinity, I’m sorry Dave. But as passionate as I am about Biblical equality, to which Cheryl will testify, I am more passionate in guarding the doctrine of the Trinity, whole and undefiled, firmly resisting those who twist and distort it in order to promote what I regard as a wicked and injust agenda.

Well, Cheryl, it is no trouble to support and encourage a fellow soldier of Christ, who shares my concern to uphold and guard the essential truths of the Christian faith, in whatever way I can. It flows from my understanding of Jude 3-4, and from my understanding of Richard Baxter’s dictum: “In essentials, unity; in disputable matters, liberty; but in all things, charity (love).” And I am glad you like my writing style though, like myself, you may have missed the typographical errors in the quotes you made: I wrote “Divine Person,” when I meant “Divine Persons”; “Western Chruch,” when I meant “Western Church”; and “bodly,” when I meant “boldly.” So next I write a little piece for you, not only will I maintain my pleasant and engaging style, but also better mind my p’s and q’s when it comes to grammar, syntax, and especially spelling!

Dave, other than what I have shared so far here, I am not sure what else to say. But I will review the debate posting, and make further comments there as I feel are appropriate. Also, if you’re going to put together a booklet containing our comments on the debate, and if you feel my comments so far are pertinent to the debate and will not result in “stirring up another hornet’s nest,” as we say here, please feel free to use them in your booklet. And may God bring about renewal and transformation, not only in the PCAus, but in all churches that truly desire to know, live by, and proclaim the Gospel of Christ in all its renewing and tranforming fullness. Amen!

Sorry I had to end my last comment so abruptly, but I had lost track of time when I realized I had to run an errand I could not put off until later. And so I would like to complete the few observations and comments I started to make earlier. But before I do that, I just want to say that in the debate, both Cheryl and Pastor Dave gave solid, rational arguments from Scripture that more than adequately answered Peter Barnes’ ojections to men and women fully sharing in ministry and leadership. And several comments made by Kathy and Paul were excellent as well. I had prayed for you both several times during the conference, that God would give you strength and wisdom in proclaming and defending the truth, and so from the evidence I would say my prayers, and the prayers of others, were answered. And with that, I will move on to my brief observations and comments.

1. Here I wish to make a further observation and comment on Mr. Barnes’s portrayal of Montanism. It bothered me that, by comparing them with certain Gnostic groups, Barnes not only wished to paint the Montanists as heretics but as sexual deviants as well, perhaps implying that any movement that calls for the spiritual renewal and reformation of the Church inevitably leads to heresy and sexual deviance. The Montanist movement was a prophetic movement that began as a call for the Church to return to the Apostolic faith of the NT, both in strictness of doctrine and moral purity of life, living and serving in the fullness of the Holy Spirit as had the NT church, tending to strict views regarding marriage, divorce and celibacy. In fact, it was these very emphases that won Tetullian over to be active Montanist himself. Concerning this, D. F. Wright has written, “Nothing strictly heretical could be charged against Montanism…Although none of its catholic opponents doubted the continuance of prophecy in the church, Montanism erupted at a time when consolidation of catholic order and conformity preoccupied the bishops. The prophets’ extravagant pretensions, while not intended to displace the emergent NT of Christian Scripture, were felt to threaten both episcopal and scriptural authority. Recognition of the Paraclete in the New Prophecy (i.e., Montanism) was their touchstone of authenticity” (“Montanism,” EVANGELICAL DICTIONARY OF THEOLOGY, pp. 733).
   And as Wright also points out, the developing, predominantly male episcopal church was hostile to Montanism not only because women were prominent in this movement, but also because it bodly criticized the church’s accommadations to the surrounding Greco-Roman culture, declaring the Church’s need to repent and prepare for the imminent Second Coming. So if Barnes wishes to use Christian history to illustrate his criticism of spiritual reform movements in general, and of egalitarianism in particular, let him do so with thoroughness, honesty and integrity. Indeed, whether we’re egalitarians or complementarians, may we all avoid prejudicial and selective use of historical materials.

2. I noticed, too, in the exhange between between Barnes, Cheryl, and I think Dave, on how the eternal subordination of the Son to the Father is the basis of the permanent subordination of women to men–which, from my own writings and comments on the Trinity I have shared here and on the CBE Scroll, I regard as and condemn as a modern form of Arianism–Barnes revealed either a sloppiness or inconsistency in his thinking about the distinctions between Trinitarianism and Christology.
   a. In an exchange about how this subordination implies a multiplicity of wills among the members of the Trinity, with one having the will of the subordinate Son to the will of the peeminent Father, which implies a difference in Being, leading to the error of tritheism or worse, Barnes countered Cheryl’s cricism with a brief reference to “Monothelitism” to establish his view of unity of substance and difference of will in one person. (Cheryl, if I misunderstood or interpeted what Barnes said or implied in using this argument, I hope you’ll correct me.) Strictly speaking, “monothelitism” is an issue of Christology, not of the Trinity. It was a heresy prodominant in the Eastern church during the seventh century, which taught that Christ had but one nature, a divine nature enclosed in flesh, therefore he had one will. The intial response to this heresy was to argue that in the incarnation, the human and divine natures were fused into a third, resulting in the view that Christ worked a combined divine-human energy. However, seeing the inadequacy of this view, and its complete contradiction to teaching affirmed at the previous Council of Chalcedon regarding “One Person, Two Natures,” Sophronius, Bishop of Jerusalem, called for and organized another Council at Constantinople to resolve this issue, After John of Damascus gave a fine exposition and defense of Christ as one in two natures with two wills, the Creed of Chalcedon was amended to read that Christ not only had two natures in one person, but that he also had two wills, with his human will being subject to his divine will. So this heresy, and the orthodox refutation and explantion of what it meant for Jesus Christ, as God Incarnate, having two natures and how these natures related to one another, neither bears directly on the relationship of the Father and Son within the Trinity, nor on the relationship between men and women.
   b. Maybe because he is so influenced by Wayne Grudem and his heretical view of the Trinity, Peter Barnes has forgotten that while the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons, in every other way, each is coeternal and coequal in Divine Being. And to so distinquish the Divine Person as to make the Father superior to the Son and the Spirit in will, power, authority and majesty is to fall back into the heresies of tritheism and subordinationism that were condemned by the Eastern Church in 381 A.D. and by the Western Chruch in 382 A.D. And the orthodox position, first set forth by Athanasius and Gregory the Theologian, remains the same, “All the Father is as God the Son is, except he is not the Father; all the Son is as God the Father is, except he is not the Son; and the Spirit is all the Father and Son are as God, except he is neither the Father nor the Son.” But that is all I will say on this for now. And again, if I misunderstood what Mr Barnes meant to say, I hope Cheryl will correct me. Well, now that I have gotten this off my chest, I look forward to Cheryl’s continuing dialogue with Mike Seaver.

Cheryl, I just went through the “Aussie” debate you had with Peter Barnes. I’m sorry the debate ended before I could make a comment or two on some points he made that piqued my interest.
1. Like you, I did a thorough study of the prophetic gift and ministry in both the NT and the Early Church. I noted that in his discussion on Irenaeus and the problems of Montanism, he failed to note that while Irenaeus was against the excesses of Montanism, Ireneaus did not deny men and women could pray and prophesy together, nor that the Holy Spirit still gave this gift and ministry to both men and women. In his dispute with fellow bishops who spoke against both John and Paul’s teaching on the Holy Spirit and his gifts as the cause of the Montanist movement, and who forbade those writings of John and Paul that promoted this “heresy” from being read in their churches, he charged these bishops with sinful overaction. The answer to this problem he argued, was not the suppression of the prophetic ministry by men and women in the orthodox churches, but in the strict enforcement of the Pauline guidelines laid down in 1 Cor 11-14. And for them to do otherwise was to sin against the Holy Spirit himself. After exposing and refuting the errors of the Montanists, here is what Irenaeus says about these anti-charismatic bishops:

Others, again, that they might set at naught the gift of the Holy Spirit, which in the latter times has been by the good pleasure of the Father, poured out upon the human race, do not accept the Gospel of John in which the Lord promised he would send the Paraclete; but set aside at once both the Gospel and the prophetic Spirit. Wretched men indeed, who in order not to allow false prophets set aside the gift of prophecy from the Church…These men cannot admit the Apostle Paul, either, for in his Epistle to the Corinthians, he speaks expressly of prophetical gifts, and recognizes [both] men and women prophesying in the church. Sinning, therefore, in all particulars, against the Spirit of God, they [i.e., the anti-charismatic bishops] fall into irremissible sin (AGAINST HERESIES, III, 11.9).

And it is also a know fact that later in his life, Tertullian, whom Elder Barnes would recognize as a orthodox Christian theologian, also became an active Montanist, who wrote one or two books defending the movement, prior to some members in the movement going extreme. My point here is, of course, you can find material in the early Christian writers that can be used either by a egalitarian or complementarian. The question is if it is quoted out of context or if it truly expresses the writer’s view on a given subject. Ooops! I have to run an errand. So I will close for now.

CLC, I pretty much agree with what you say in your comment regarding the limited application of the “shepherd” metaphor to elders (47). They are indeed to be mature mentors and guides. And as for my interpretation of “the gatekeeper and sheep-pen,” I hadn’t thought of the “atonement” problem for the elders; thanks for pointing that out to me.

Amos, I have reviewed both my comments and yours. And since this is Cheryl’s website, and not mine, I don’t want to take up unnecessary space discussing what I now perceive to be a difference of opinion regarding false leadership vs. true leadership. So I’m going to finish my part of this discussion with some short observations.
1. It may be that in the material I quoted from Dr. Norrington, I failed to make explicit my own understanding that both elders and congregational members are mutually accountable to each other, with the elders primarily being responsible to guide, disciple and equip the members, and the members being responsible to receive and yield to this guidance, discipleship and equipping as long as they’r ministers in training.
2. Paul specifically sent Timothy and Titus to replace fallen elders with elders who met the requirements we find in 1 Tim 3:1-13 and Titus 1:5-2:5. However, Amos, I get the impression from what you say, that unless they’re absolutely perfect, no one should be a leader nor are we to yield to their guidance or counsel in any way. Does that include Paul himself, who indicates in Phil. 3:12-14 that he is not absolutely perfect and needs to make greater progress himself? I may be wrong, but it seems you are promoting perfectionism, which is erroneous teaching, in my view. So is that what you are teaching?

CLC, I think I understand your concern that no Christian leader presume to take over the unique relationship that the Lord Jesus Christ has with his flock, the Church. However, I don’t think what Jesus said and what Peter said are necessarily contradictory. In fact, I believe that what Peter teaches actually flows out the commission that Jesus gave him in John 21:15-18, to which you yourself have already refered. In both texts, Jesus is regarded as the Chief Shepherd, Peter and the other elders he came to represent, as under shepherds. And the under shepherds are gifted and called by the Chief Shepherd, to represent him and carry out the commission he gave them all, again represented by Peter, “Feed my lambs and take care of my sheep,” on which Peter elaborates in 1 Peter 5:1-5. P. H. Davis explains it this way:

Rather than dominating his house church, then, the elder is to lead by example: “being examples to the flock”. This concept of leadership is common in the NT. Jesus often presented himself as an example (Matt. 10:24-25; Mark 10:42-45; Luke 6:40; John 13:16; 15:20). Paul could write, “Walk according to the example you had in us” (Phi. 3:17) and “We gave an example to you so that you might imitate us” (2 Thess. 3:9), or even “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1; cf. Acts 20:35). Other leaders were also expected to be examples (1 Thess. 1:6-7; 1 Tim. 4:12; Tit. 2:7; Jas. 3:1-2). In fact, one could well argue that, following the pattern of the ancient world and especially of Judaism, teaching and leading was for the NT basically a matter of example rather than of lecture or command. Being an example fits well with the image of “flock,” for the ancient shepherd did not drive his sheep, but walked in front of them and called them to follow (cf. THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PETER, Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990, pp.180f).

And as regards the parable in John 10:1-6, I don’t know how Cheryl or some others would interpret it, I briefly give you my take on it. I believe you would agree that in this parable. the Shepherd is the Lord Jesus; the flock of sheep is, of course, us Christians; and the thieves and robbers, according to the context, would refer to the Jewish leaders, who opposed Christ gathering his flock while trying to establish a flock of their own. But who or what does the gatekeeper and the sheep pen represent? Regarding this imagery, Merill C. Tenney writes,

The imagery of the first two paragraphs is based on the concept of the “sheep pen.” It was usually a rough stone or mud-brick structure, only partially roofed, if covered at all, or very often a cave in the hills. It had only one opening through which thge sheep could pass when they came in for the night. The pen served for the protection of the sheep against thieves and wild beasts. The thief, who would not have any right of access by the gate, used other means of entrance. He would not follow the lawful method of approach. “Thief” and “robber” are different in meaning. “Thief” (kleptes) implies subtelty and trickery; “robber” (lestes) connotes violence and plundering…The purpose of both was exploitation; neither was concerned for the welfare of the sheep (cf. “The Gospel of John,” THE EXPOSITOR’S BIBLE COMMENTARY, Zondervan, 1981, p. 107).

I believe the gatekeeper and the sheep pen represent the house church and the elder(s). Consider: The sheep are kept in a safe place where they are cared for and protected until their true Shepherd comes for them; the gatekeeper both knows the Sheperd and his sheep, and has a meaningful relationship with them both, but he never seeks to replace the Shepherd; and not only does he care for and feed the sheep, but does all he can to protect the sheep from thieves and robbers who would lure then away from the Shepherd and do them irreparable harm. So, on this basis, I believe there is perfect harmony between Jesus and Peter regarding how we are to understand the proper relationship between Christians, elders as gatekeepers, and Jesus as the True or Chief Shepherd. I don’t know if this resolves the problem for you, CLC, but that is how I would explain and reconcile these passages. I hope you find this helpful.

Amos, I am not quite sure what your objection to my view on elders as leaders is about. In my own study of the NT texts having to do with leaders in the church, not only titles but also their qualifications and functions, I came to the conclusion that “elder” designates the maturity and wisdom of the male and female leaders of the house churches; that “overseer” (episkopos) and “minister” (diakonos) describe the primary ways in which they function as leaders. Do you hold a different view regarding the relationship between bishops, elders, and deacons, and that is why you object?

Now I know that Roman Catholics and Episcopalians regard episkopoi (“bishops, overseers”) and presbyteroi (“presbyters, elders”) as different offices, with bishops being over elders, and then “deacons” (diakonoi) being under the elders. But I believe that this hierarchical view is a corrupted third century church tradition, not the teaching of the NT itself. And regarding Paul’s commands to both Titus and Timothy, the problems in Ephesus and Crete were due in large part to “fallen elders,” both men and women, who had to be replaced by other qualified elders who could be trusted to uphold Apostolic patterns of sound doctrine and godly living.

Therefore, as regards replacing defective leadership with qualified leadership, in the main, I agree with Gordon Fee: “Paul delegates Timothy, and apparently later Tychicus, to straighten out the mess in Ephesus created by false teachers, who in my view were elders who had gone astray. Timothy is not the ‘pastor’; he is there in Paul’s place, exercising Paul’s authority. But he is to replace the fallen elders with new ones who will care for the church and teach when Timothy is gone (1 Tim. 5:17-22; 2 Tim. 2:2; 4:9). The elders in the local churches seem to have been composed of both episkopoi (overseers) and diakonoi (deacons), who probably had different tasks; but from a distance there is little certainty as to what they were (except that episkopoi were to be ‘capable teachers,’ 1 Tim. 3:2” (“Laos and Leadership under the New Covenant,” LISTENING TO THE SPIRIT IN THE TEXT, p.141) However, on the basis of Phil. 1:1b, which is an anartharous construct, which means the verse can be rendered, “To all God’s holy people in Christ Jesus, together with the overseers who minister among you…,” I would not make such a rigid distinction between overseers and elders as might be suggested by Fee’s comment. But I’m not going to be dogmatic about it.

Are we to obey elders, if they are both qualified and if they fulfill the role the Lord Jesus gave them in the church? Well, what does the Scripture say? Here are the pertinent texts:
1. “Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in highest regard in love because of their work” (1 Thess. 5:12-13).
2. “You know that the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia, and they have devoted themselves to the service of the Lord’s people. I urge you, brothers and sisters, to submit to such as these and to everyone who joins in the work and labors at it” (1 Cor. 16:15-16).
3. “Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account. Do this so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no benefit to you” (Heb. 13:17).
4. “To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder and witness of Christ’s sufferings who will also share in the glory to be revealed: Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, watching over them–not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be;…not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away. In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders” (1 Pet. 5:1-5).

Now, if elders meet the qualifications that Paul and Peter lay down for those who would so serve in the church; are gifted and called by the Spirit, and recognized by the other elders and the congregation to be both fit and truly called to this ministry; and if they fulfill their role by bringing younger Christians to maturity, acknowledge their gifting and calling, and then train them to be competent ministers of Christ; should we hold them in the highest regard, yield to their authority as sheperds, and follow their lead as they follow Christ? Well, Amos, on the basis of all this, what would you say our proper response to the elders should be?

I hope that in my last comment, I did not give anyone the impression that either Dr. Norrington or myself deny the NT teaches that there are leaders in the church, both men and women, designated as “elders” and whose primary functions are described as “overseers” (episkopoi) and “servants, ministers” (diakanoi). For we do not disagree; but on this, the nature, function and limitations of leadership, we do agree as follows:

Whatever local leaders were required to do, Christians were to obey them and submit to them (1 Cor. 16:16; Heb. 13:17; 1 Pet. 5:5; cf. Phil. 2:29; 1 Thess. 5:12f). Taken out of context, this element of New Testament teaching might seem to imply an authoritarian leadership upon which the church was highly dependent. This interpretation, however, is counterbalanced by other evidence:
First, Jesus insisted that leaders should be servants (Mt. 20:25-28) and this point is taken up by Peter in the very passage where he urges subjection to elders (1 Pet. 5:1-5).
Second, throughout the epistles of Paul, we find an emphasis on mutual submission–and there is little evidence to suggest that leaders are exempted from this requirement.
Third, following Old Testament and later Jewish teaching, Christians were instructed to submit to the governing authorities (Rom. 13:1-7; Tit. 3:1; 1 Pet. 2:13-17. The verb used for submission here is hupotasso, the same as in 1 Cor. 16:16 and 1 Pet. 5:5 where submission to Christian leaders is in mind). The precise limits to this obedience are not worked out but the early Christians knew that, in the event of a conflict between their duty to God and to the state, they should obey God rather than men (Acts 4:19f, 5:29; Heb. 11:23; cf. Mt. 22:21). Here too they followed Old Testament precedent and later Jewish practice (Ex. 1:17; Dan 3:13-18, 6:10; 1 Macc. 2:22)….(TO PREACH OR NOT TO PREACH, p. 53)

And according to Ephesian 4:7-13, where Paul speaks of leaders or elders, not in terms of office or authority, but in terms of their Spirit-gifting and the purpose of that gifting, which is to bring believers to maturity, help them discover their own gifting and calling, and then train and equip them to be competent ministers of Christ–he calls such leaders as gifts to the Church, given by Christ himself for that purpose. On this, Norrington says,

Whatever we are to understand by local leadership in the New Testament, there is at least one and probably two gifts of leaders hip (e.g., Rom. 12:8; 1 Cor. 12:28) and it is, I suggest, as leaders exercised these gifts that Christians were to obey and submit to those leaders. This should not have resulted in an unhealthy form of dependence because little or no competition was involved. Even when Christians had the same gifts as their leaders, such trainee leaders could then be prepared for posts of leadership in their own or another house church (TO PREACH OR NOT TO PREACH, p.55)

So leaders who fulfill the gifting and calling the Lord Jesus gave them, which by word and example, is to prepare the rest of the congregation to be mature, wise, competent ministers of Christ–such leaders are to be respected and honored. But those who teach and practice heresy, who deny the gifting and calling of other Christians, and refuse to train and equip them to be competent ministers of Christ–to such leaders, our response must be, “No! In this case, you are out of line with Scripture and the Holy Spirit. Here we must obey God and stand firm against you and your false teaching and practice.” This is, I believe, the stance to take when the nature and function of Christian leadership is being perverted for worldly ends.

I have been reading an interesting book, TO PREACH OR NOT TO PREACH: THE CHURCH’S URGENT QUESTION, which challenges the centrality and authority of the “one man pulpit.” Throughout this book the author, David C. Norrington, demonstrates the following four points:

1. Today’s custom of making the sermon the “main attraction” of weekly gatherings has no clear NT support nor was it the norm for church gatherings of the first two centuries, which he amply verifies from both the NT and the writings of the Apostolic Fathers.

2. The regular weekly sermon did not become such a featured part of church life until about the third century–along with other non-biblical practices, such as the acquistion of elaborate buildings, and the adoption of hierarchical forms of leadership modeled on Greco-Roman institutions, resulting in the suppression and elimination of the “one another ministires” of 1 Cor. 12-14 by the mid-fourth century.

3. The NT paradigm was community oriented with a mutual effort to develop and exercise everyone’s gifts and skills–most of such group life taking place in house churches without the benefit, or distraction, of an ordained, professional clergy.

4. The traditional “sermon,” because it doesn’t allow interaction between the preacher and the congregation by means of questions and answers, is actually a poor teaching method and does little to foster spiritual growth among God’s people.

And he has some interesting things to say about mutual submission of the leaders to the congregation, as well as of the congregation to the leaders. I quote in part:

In some cases leaders were likely to defer to others:
1. Not all elders taught (1 Tim. 5:17). Where a plurality of elders existed, any non-teaching elder(s) present would submit to the authority of the teaching elder(s) in the area of teaching–or even to the authority of a teacher who was not an elder, if such existed.
2. Leaders would be required to acknowledge the gifts of others in their congregations and respond appropriately those gifts when exercised. For example, Earle E. Ellis suggests that “…the role of the prophet may overlap that of the elder as it does that of the apostle and the teacher, especially in certain teaching functions” (Cf. “The Role of the Christian Prophet in Acts,” APOSTOLIC HISTORY AND THE GOSPEL, p. 66).
3. Leaders were required to defer to the authority of their wives on occasions (1 Cor. 7:4).
4. Elders might have to answer to criticisms brought by members of the congregation (1 Tim. 5:19).
It is thus clear that submission and obedience to leaders in the New Testament is not absolute (Cf. TO PREACH OR NOT TO PREACH, pp. 53-54).

For those who hold the centrality and authority of the “one man pulpit” for congregational worship and ministry, this a very challenging book indeed.

Well, I think I have mentioned this before in passing on Mike’s site as well as here. But repeating the truth never hurts. And so I will speak it out here a bit more fully. The rigid distinction so often made by complementarians between prophecy as the “forth-telling” or the proclamation of God’s word to the congregation, and the teaching and instruction of the congregation on the basis of God’s Word already given, is not to be found in the New Testament itself. If anything, they are presented as different forms of “speaking God’s word” that overlap and complement one another as far as regards the instruction, encouragement and exhortation of God’s people.

For example, Silas and Judas, who ministered as prophets in the Jerusalem church, after the adjournment of the Great Council in Acts 15, were sent along with Paul and Barnabas to confirm the Message of God already given concerning the Gentile-Jew controversy: “We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you…Therefore we are send Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing” (Acts 15:24-27, TNIV). And then Luke records that after the letter was received and read by the church at Antioch, “Judas and Silas, who themselves were prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the believers,” which preaching and teaching confirmed the written message Antioch had received from Jerusalem.

But let me say a little more about Judas the prophet, which I think confirms the point I am making. Earle E. Ellis, in his book, PROPHECY AND HERMENEUTIC IN EARLIEST CHRISTIANITY, very convincingly argues that not only was the prophet Judas of Acts 15 the author of the Letter of Jude, but that the Letter of Jude is the primary example of what he calls “prophetic exegesis” of the OT, designed to show the typological and prophetic parallels between the dangers of the false prophets to Israel and the false prophets rising up in the Church, the intent being to warn, instruct and exhort believers to contend for the Gospel faith. Now if Judas, as a prophet, gave this kind of preaching in Jerusalem, why could not have Philip’s daughter’s, who prophesied among the people of the church in Caesarea, at times engaged in similar exegesis of the OT? No distinction is made between this man and Philip’s daughters, as far as the nature and function of their prophetic ministry is concerned.

Therefore, those who make this rigid distinction, and then deny women from either teaching or preaching God’s Word to the congregation, do not have NT support for their position. And so the burden of proof rests with them.

Hurray! I checked Mike’s website, and my comments were posted full and complete. Which is a relief. It seems like I always have to make two attempts to post them before they actually go through; still haven’t quite figured out why that is so. And thanks for your words of appreciation, Cheryl. However, whatever contribution I or others may make, we would never believe that your own knowledge and skill in proclaiming, defending and confirming the truth of the Gospel is “hardly needed anymore”! May the fullness of the Spirit of grace and truth always rest upon, and may your teaching always advance the cause of Christ, including your upcoming participation in the Australian “Blog” Conference. Amen!