162 Mark,

To put him in context is to show how he was responding to Arian claims that Jesus was an intermediate being between the absolute God and mankind, thus he was less God and subordinate. Athanasius strongly rebuked this showing how Jesus was equally divine.

This is the essence of the ESS debate – that Jesus as the eternal Word in the Trinity is not less than any of the other members of the Trinity in His Godhood. Power and authority is one of the essentials of the Godhead so saying that Jesus in the Trinity has less than full and complete authority would mean that Jesus is somehow less than fully God in His essence. It is not just a matter of “roles” but of essence since His will is said in ESS to be not equal with the Father’s will so that the will of Jesus is in subordination to the Father’s in the Trinity.

To test this out all we need to do is to take the current material being written by Bruce Ware in his book Father, Son & Holy Spirit relationship, roles & relevance. Ware takes the essence of God and divides this essence into a higher authority, higher will, higher worship for one member of the Trinity thus a lower authority, subordinate will and lower worship for Jesus. Because of the lowering of the essentials of God in the eternal Word, Jesus is no longer considered as one that we are to pray to since the Father has the complete and only “role” of hearing and answering prayer and the supreme one in the Trinity. When remove Jesus’ full Deity and lower Him to a lower essence no longer capable or hearing and answering prayer and having a will that in opposition to the Father’s will in the Trinity, leaves Jesus to be nothing less than a subordinate being who is not completely equal in will, authority or action (prayer) as the Father. This is a resurrection of an ancient heresy that we should reject.