01.03. Eternal Sonship Proof of God's Love

Dronsfield ESOF: 03 Eternal Sonship Proof of God’s Love ETERNAL SONSHIP THE PROOF OF GOD’S LOVE

We have been considering the Eternal Sonship as the supreme proof of the Lord’s Deity. Now we would bring out the second important thing that Eternal Sonship demonstrates — namely the infinite love of God.

"God so loved the world. . ." How much? So much that He gave His only begotten Son. There is nothing that shows His love more.

But, of course, those who teach temporal sonship do not deny the infinite love that has ever existed between those Divine Persons that they say are now known as the Father and the Son. The Scripture is plain, "Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world" (John 17:24). But though this love is not denied, the demonstration of it is denied.

How weak John 3:16 would sound if the words "only begotten Son" were omitted, and the words "Divine Person" put in their place! Over and over again the love of God is measured by the fact that He gave His Son. He that delivered up His Own Son for us all, shall He not freely give us all things? (see Romans 8:32). No gift can be as great as that. In the very first mention of love in the Bible, the supreme sacrifice that the Father made in giving His Son is brought before us: "Take now thy son, thine only son ... whom thou lovest ... and offer him . . . for a burnt offering." (Genesis 22:2). The love of the Father for His Son comes first, and typically the love of Christ for His Church is the second mention of love in the Scriptures (Genesis 24:67). The main point of the parable of the wicked husbandmen (Mark 12:1-9) is that after the lord of the vineyard had sent his servants (prophets), he sent his son. "Having yet therefore one son, his well-beloved, he sent him last unto them, saying, ’They will reverence my son’." Does this look as though the one sent only became his son when he was sent? The objection is made, "It is only a parable". We acknowledge that a parable is not usually an allegory, but one cannot get away from a parable’s main point in this way. The whole meaning of the parable stresses that the lord of the vineyard had sent the one he valued most because it was his well-beloved son.

We feel that it was terrible presumption to deny the validity of this demonstration of love to say, as it were, to the Father that His Son only became such after He had entered the world. We ask reverently, may this not have given great offence to both the Father and the Son? Is this not an explanation of the strange madness that splintered that company? Were they given up to be defenceless before the onslaughts of Satan? We urge earnestly that the seriousness of this error be not underestimated.