044. Chapter 6: The Son Of God.

Chapter 6 The Son Of God. As previously noted, the essential divinity of the Son is a necessary element in the doctrine of the Trinity. Hence this doctrine is vitally concerned in the question of the Sonship, and requires for it a ground in the divine nature. If the full sense of filiation is given in the miraculous conception of Christ, or in his Messianic offices, there is no truth of the Sonship sufficient for the doctrine of the Trinity. If, on the other hand, filiation respects the personality of the Son in a higher nature than the human, it must include the sense of an essentially divine Sonship. The indefiniteness of Semi-Arianism respecting the higher nature of the Son may properly rule it out of any issue on this question. As Arianism holds the Son to be a creation of God, it allows no true sense of filiation respecting his higher nature. Creation is not a mode of the truest filiation. Certainly Arianism cannot give the filiation of the Son in the sense of the Scriptures. It follows that the issue of this question, as it respects the nature of the Son, is solely between the divine sense of the Nicene Creed and the mere human sense of Socinianism. If there be a filiation of the Son in a higher sense than the latter, it must be in the full sense of the former. It thus appears that the filiation of the Son so vitally concerns the doctrine of the Trinity as to justify its treatment separately from the more direct question of his divinity. If, however, the Scriptures clearly give the higher sense of the former, so far they affirm the latter.