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The Son didn't have life in himself???

Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 7:46 am
by 21centpilgrim
REading John 5 today and i guess this verse never stood out before

john 5:26 “For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself;

what are your guy's thoughts on this verse?

thanks

Re: The Son didn't have life in himself???

Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 12:14 pm
by 21centpilgrim
Eternal generation doctrine, seems to be the only place to go here.

-The doctrine of eternal generation essentially teaches that God the Father eternally and by necessity generates or begets God the Son in such a way that the substance (divine essence) of God is not divided. The Person of God the Son derives His deity from this generation. In other words, there is a communication of the whole, indivisible substance of the Godhead so that God the Son is the exact representation (or express image) of God the Father. There is still one divine essence that eternally exists in two persons through eternal generation. Reformed theologian Louis Berkhof states the doctrine of eternal generation in this way:

It is that eternal and necessary act of the first person in the Trinity, whereby He, within the divine Being, is the ground of a second personal subsistence like His own, and puts this second person in possession of the whole divine essence, without any division, alienation, or change. (Systematic Theology, pg. 94).-

So the whole 'begotten not made'- Nicene Creed, how can anything be begotten and not made or created? Can any answer be fabricated and then just tagged with 'divine mystery' upon it?

Is the doctrine of eternal generation comunicated in scripture, or is it a necessary conclusion in people minds?

Re: The Son didn't have life in himself???

Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 2:06 pm
by backwoodsman
21centpilgrim wrote:john 5:26 “For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself;

what are your guy's thoughts on this verse?
I'd say it refers to Christ in His human capacity. He was never referred to as the Son before the incarnation, and when He took human form He emptied Himself (Phil. 2:7) of those attributes incompatible with human form.
Eternal generation doctrine, seems to be the only place to go here.
I've never seen a need to go beyond Scripture into complicated doctrines to explain things we don't completely understand; in fact it seems unwise to do so.

Re: The Son didn't have life in himself???

Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2018 5:59 pm
by Paidion
Eternal generation doctrine, seems to be the only place to go here.
No. It's not the only way to go. The single generation of the Son, as the Christians of the first two centuries taught, fills the bill! They taught that He was begotten "before all ages, the first of God's acts." It is my view that this begetting marks the beginning of time. So in "begetting" or "generating" the Son as His first act, He gave the Son to "have life in Himself."

Re: The Son didn't have life in himself???

Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2018 12:13 pm
by 21centpilgrim
Thanks Paidion, I guess I meant 'the only way to go' to be more along the lines of the popular treatment of the passage.
What you offered makes more sense to me and completely viable with, as you say, the early church.