They can call it the Nicene Creed, but the canons of the councils specify that the Creed of Nicaea and Constantinople cannot be altered.
I can add words to someone else’s essay, but that doesn’t make those words part of what they wrote.
Okay, but now it’s you picking and choosing when and where to go with the counsel of the global church when it comes to orthodoxy, so don’t fuss at the other person for throwing out what they don’t like.
No, it’s me being honest about how something got changed. If people can go about changing things but using the same name, then there is no orthodoxy.
Those indeed are the mathematical meanings. I’m not qualified to make any judgements about your application of them to the Trinity.
Merv
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- That’s all I needed. Looks like Omega has given his/her approval the remainder of my diagram. Someday we may find out who Omega is.
Come on. Don’t all the denominations that use the Nicence Creed use the version I posted? We’re long past the point of “someone changed something.” Orthodox is what the churches use. Yes, doctrines have changed over the years, and we don’t take the Church Father’s word on everything. We now think women are the image of God too, for example.
- LOL! Finally, my memory came back and I think I made all the changes to my original diagram that I wanted to make. So, here it is:
- Reading outer inscriptions first:
- The Creator and The Redeemer are not equal and They are equivalent.
- The Redeemer and The Regenerator are not equal and They are equivalent.
- The Creator and The Regenerator are not equal and They are equivalent.
- Inner inscriptions:
- The Creator is Yahweh/Yeshua.
- The Redeemer is Yahweh/Yeshua.
- The Regenerator is Yahweh/Yeshua.
- Note: ““Not equal” refers to two values or expressions that do not have the same value, indicated by the symbol ≠. “Equivalent,” on the other hand, means that two expressions represent the same relationship or value under certain conditions, even if they are not identical, such as in the case of equivalent fractions or equations.”
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Sonship is not incarnational, but relational, and that relationship is eternal.
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John 3:13 No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.
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John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
Jesus is not the image in the mirror because He is a manifested reflection, but because He does what the Father does. He carries out the Father’s will. So when you raise your arm, your image in the mirror raises their arm. When you smile, your image smiles back at you.
Jesus was doing the will of the Father well before men could see it.
- John 1:4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
Light that shines but is unseen is not manifest, but still shines none the less.
- John 1:10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
Being born of God, a child of God is about knowing, receiving and doing God’s will. You do not need to be visible, to be manifest to the world to be seen by God. That was all before verse 14:
- John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
Thank you, graft2vine. I truly appreciate your thoughtful response, and I understand why those verses seem to point to eternal Sonship at first glance. However, I believe a closer look—especially in light of the full context of Scripture—shows that Sonship is indeed incarnational, not eternal, and the language used in passages like John 3 must be interpreted through the lens of the incarnation and mission of Christ, not as proof of an eternal relational role.
John 3:13 says the Son of Man came down from heaven. But “Son of Man” is a title that refers to the incarnate Christ—not a pre-incarnate figure. Jesus uses that title to speak of Himself as Messiah, the One in whom both heaven and earth meet. The phrase “who is in heaven” reflects the divine omnipresence of the Spirit that indwelt Jesus—not that the human Son existed bodily in heaven prior to His birth. Remember, Son of Man is never used in Scripture to describe pre-incarnate existence—it is always tied to humanity.
As for John 3:16–17, the language of God “sending His Son into the world” does not require that Sonship existed before the sending. In fact, Luke 1:35 makes it clear that the Son would be called the Son of God because He was conceived by the Holy Ghost. Sonship is a role that begins with the incarnation, not before it. In biblical language, “sending” often refers to divine commissioning, not necessarily geographical relocation. For example, John 1:6 says, “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.” Obviously, John the Baptist didn’t preexist in heaven. In the same way, Jesus—who is the eternal Spirit manifested in flesh—was “sent” in His human identity once He was born.
So the Son wasn’t an eternal second figure in a divine relationship—the Son is God’s manifestation in time, the Word made flesh (John 1:14), who was called “Son” because of the incarnation, not before it. This preserves both the full divinity of Christ and the absolute oneness of God, as revealed in Scripture.
Sonship does not equate to incarnational. I agree that incarnational is not eternal, but Sonship is eternal as in it was both pre-incarnate and incarnate. The Word is the pre-incarnate Son. The Word was God. The pre-incarnate word became incarnate by being made flesh.
- John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
The same Word that was begotten of the Father was before John (pre-incarnate), before He was after (incarnate). John was born about six months before Jesus.
- John 1:15 John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.’ ”
No passage of Scripture should be interpreted through a narrow lens.
There is no but about it. If the Son of Man came down from heaven, He pre-existed His incarnation. This is reverse from everyone else that is born of flesh before they are born of Spirit. He is the only one begotten of the Father who is Spirit.
- John 3:6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Jesus refers to Himself as the Son of Man because that is His mission in being born of man, of flesh, to redeem mankind.
The begotten Son of Man is the same begotten Son of God.
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John 3:14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
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John 3:18“He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Jesus is of course speaking bodily on earth and at the same time is omnipresent in Heaven in Spirit form… as He was prior to His birth. His form changes, being incarnate, but he already had the name “Son of Man” in OT prophecy. He was resurrected bodily after His death.
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Dan 7:13 In my vision in the night I continued to watch, and I saw One like the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into His presence. 14 And He was given dominion, glory, and kingship, that the people of every nation and language should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and His kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.
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Dan 7:27 Then the sovereignty, dominion, and greatness of the kingdoms under all of heaven will be given to the people, the saints of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will serve and obey Him.’
We are the Body of Christ and His Body is in heaven as heaven comes down to earth.
It doesn’t say because:
- Luke 1:35 And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.
Again, Sonship is about doing the will of the Father. Its not about incarnation or who your real biological father is. Jesus calls the Pharisees children of the devil even though they are biologically children of Abraham.
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John 8:42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me. 43 Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. 44 You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.
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John 8:58 Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”
It would be good to review that entire chapter.
Yes, but you can’t commission someone that doesn’t exist.
I agree that the Son was not a “second figure” but was always the fullness of God. When we look at the word “of” it does not mean separate from but a part of.
- of - expressing the relationship between a part and a whole.
Its always about relationship and expressing the will of the Father as we see in the meaning of the word express.
- express - convey (a thought or feeling) in words or by gestures and conduct.
Before the Son was manifest in the flesh to convey the will (thoughts or feelings) of God in action or by “gestures”, He was conveying it in “words”, as the Word.
A son is of a father, a part of the whole of a father, but in the case of Jesus (the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Word of God, the I AM), it did please the Father for the Son to be His Whole person.
- Col 1:19 For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell,
Graft2vine, I appreciate your desire to uphold the eternal nature of God’s Word, but there’s an important distinction we must make: the Word (Logos) is eternal, but Sonship is not. Nowhere in Scripture does it say “the Son became flesh.” What John 1:14 says is “the Word became flesh.” The Sonship of Christ is directly tied to His incarnation, not a pre-incarnate identity as an eternal Son.
Luke 1:35 is clear: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee… therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” The Son is called the Son because of the incarnation—not because of a pre-existing filial relationship. To say the “Word is the pre-incarnate Son” is to impose a later theological framework onto the text. John 1:1–3 affirms the Logos was with God and was God—God’s self-expression, His divine utterance. The Word is not a title of relational Sonship until it is made flesh (John 1:14).
As for “begotten,” the Greek monogenēs means “only one of its kind,” not “eternally generated.” Hebrews 1:5 even says, “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee,” indicating a point in time—not eternity past. And John 1:15’s reference to the Word being “before” John reflects preexistence of deity, not preexistence of a separate Son-person. Jesus is indeed eternal as God, but Sonship began in time when the eternal God manifested in flesh (1 Tim. 3:16). So we must not conflate the eternality of the Logos with the temporality of the Sonship—they are related, but not synonymous.
You’re right that we should never interpret Scripture through a narrow lens—but we also shouldn’t interpret it through a detached lens, disconnected from the context in which God revealed Himself. When I say that passages like John 3 must be interpreted through the lens of the incarnation and mission of Christ, I don’t mean narrowing the Word—I mean rooting our interpretation in the very purpose for which God manifested Himself in flesh (John 1:14; Gal. 4:4). Jesus Himself consistently ties His Sonship to His mission—His being sent (John 3:17), His obedience (John 5:30), and His redemptive role (John 3:16)—all of which are temporal, not eternal dynamics.
We must let Scripture interpret Scripture, and when we do, we see that Sonship is described as beginning (Luke 1:35; Hebrews 1:5), not as an eternal identity between two co-equal divine persons. There’s nothing “narrow” about honoring the incarnation as the moment when the eternal God—who is Spirit—took on flesh and was called the Son of God. In fact, interpreting Scripture apart from the incarnation risks reading eternal relational roles into texts that were meant to reveal God’s redemptive act in time, not Greek metaphysical terminology. So yes, we should use the full lens of biblical revelation—but that includes letting the incarnation frame what “Son” truly means.
Indeed using the poster’s logic, it means he had a human body before His incarnation – since the claim is that “Son of Man” means the incarnate Christ.
Interestingly the argument you’re responding to is changing the meaning of a term to fit a preconceived notion. If “Son of Man” means the incarnate Christ, then that’s what it means, and the verse thus plainly says the incarnate Christ – i.e. fully God and fully man – is in heaven at the time of the statement.
That’s a fascinating verse. If you take the tenses seriously, Jesus is saying that as He stood there talking to them, at the ‘same time’ He was existing just as much back before Abraham.
Unless He was just invoking the Name from Exodus.
I think something is being left out of this discussion:
Now therefore, O kings, be wise;
be warned, O rulers of the earth:
Serve Yahweh with fear,
and rejoice with trembling;
Kiss the Son,
lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
In the overall structure of the Psalm, the Son is equated to the Messiah, and is made equal to Yahweh. This is definitely pre-Incarnation, so here we have the Son, the Messiah, a divine Person distinct from Yahweh yet also the same as Yahweh.
Given how necessary it is to disregard the plain meaning of terms, indeed to redefine them, to sustain this Oneness teaching, and how treating the terms as they stand in the text shows the eternality of the Son, plus how the Son already appears in the Old Testament, the teaching must be assessed as one that starts with an external premise and forces the text of scripture to fit it, and thus must be judged false.
This is a question, asking when was there a point in time when He said “this day, have I begotten thee”?
- Psa 2:7 I will proclaim the decree spoken to Me by the LORD: “You are My Son; today I have become Your Father.
We will see that the decree was made at the foundation of the world. It was proclaimed later.
Backing up a few verses in Hebrews:
- Heb 1:1 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, 2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; 3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
He (His Son) made the world. Also, we can see His Sonship is in connection with His glory and express image of His person, with creation, upholding all things and purging our sins, i.e. through His death and resurrection.
- John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
His death and resurrection, purging our sins is part of His glory.
- John 1:29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
The Lamb of God is the Son of God:
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30 This is He of whom I said, ‘After me comes a Man who is preferred before me, for He was before me.’ 31 I did not know Him; but that He should be revealed to Israel, therefore I came baptizing with water.”
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34 And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.” 35 Again, the next day, John stood with two of his disciples. 36 And looking at Jesus as He walked, he said, “Behold the Lamb of God!”
Again in Peter we see the Lamb known before the foundation of the world and His glory in the resurrection:
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1 Pet 1:19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or spot. 20 He was known before the foundation of the world, but was revealed in the last times for your sake.
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21Through Him you believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and glorified Him; and so your faith and hope are in God.
And again in Revelation not just known but also slain from the foundation of the world:
- Rev 13:8 All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
He is the firstborn from among the dead, begotten of Spirit. Love is of the Spirit:
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Col 1:13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, 14in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
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15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.
So, Sonship is not about being manifested in the flesh but being born of Spirit, raised from the dead. Jesus is the Son of God by being raised from the dead and we become joint heirs (as children of God) with Him.
- Rom 8:16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.
Jesus is the Lamb of God slain and the Son of God raised from the Beginning!
- Rev 21:6 And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.
Yes, that’s what I was getting at in saying Scripture shouldn’t be interpreted through a narrow lens.
A very good point!
Agree! I would say the Son is the Person (pre-incarnation) of Yahweh.
I was feeling kind of silly in defining the word “of” but it seemed needed to help get the point across.
The only real problem that I can see with the Oneness teaching is in denying the eternality of the Son. The problem with the Trinity on the other hand is that it uses the word “persons” as in there being three of them.
- Person - a human being regarded as an individual.
I noted that the Nicene creed does not mention persons or trinity but does confirm the eternality of the Son:
the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
My son David, born 1995, now graduating in theatre lighting will go to live in Ohio.
Does this mean David was in theatre lighting before he was born? No. He didn’t even have the name “David.”
So no, a sentence like this DOES not mean that any name or title used for them sometime after birth applies before they were born. This is just nonsense.
If it says they came down from heaven, then yes it means they had some sort of existence before they were born, but no it does not mean anything else used to identify them also applies to them before they were born.
“Person” is an unfortunate translation of the Greek. It’s a good example of words accumulating baggage when translated.
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Jesus does identify under different titles according to different tasks. He is Son of Man in showing us/teaching us how to live as humans. He is Lamb of God in taking the sins of the world away through His sacrifice. He is Son of God because He does the works according to the will of the Father, not because He was born or begotten of the Holy Spirit. He was working both before and after His birth, and the resurrection is His finished work. He then sends His Spirit to work in us. We likewise are sons of men but are also sons of God through Jesus.
Jesus is also the Word of God (written word), the Son of Man (living word), the Lamb of God (ultimate sacrifice), and another we haven’t mentioned is the Bread of God (giver of new life).
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John 6:27 Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.”
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33 For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
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38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. 39 This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. 40 And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”
You can definitley make a pretty good case for this. The word “Son” has caused all kinds of drama for Bible translators around the world, especially in Muslim contexts, because in many of the languages spoken in those regions, the semantic range of son is not nearly as broad as it was in Greek and Hebrew. Both those languages allow a number of figurative senses of “son” but in many languages it categorically implies biological progeny. There are different words for descendents or heirs or adopted sons. You can’t say things like “sons of Thunder” or “sons of hell” of “son of Man/Humanity” to designate a resemblance or belonging or things like “son of Abraham” to designate an ethnicity or religious affiliation. Son in the ANE was part of covenant language and Jesus as the covenant Son of God is very conceptually linked to the idea of anointing and chosenness and being the Messiah. Anointing happens at a point in time, it’s not an intrinsic characteristic, so if Jesus is God’s Son because God has chosen him to be the Christ, the anointed one, and the Incarnation makes God in Jesus “The Human One” (arguably a better rendering of the key term in English than Son of Man) and that title goes with his Messiah role, then sure, Jesus’ sonship begins at a point in time.
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This is one of the verses that causes me uncertainty in what to do with Jesus. Naturally, or subconsciously or whatever the word is, I tend to find ways to eliminate supernatural in general. Like as time has went by I tend so see the legendary stories, even those of Jesus, as mythicized. Like did Jesus actually walk on water or was it’s a symbolic story showcasing Jesus triumph over chaos and death. But as much as I want to detach magic from the stories, part of me believes it’s supposed to be understood literally. Jesus supernaturally walked on water and rose from the dead and healed people. That magical miracles did exist once upon a time.
Philippians 2:5-8
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he existed in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be grasped,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
assuming human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a human,
8 he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
I have a hard way of interpreting this as anything other than god somehow became man.
Could be that god guided him in a special way. Could be he was possessed by god/angel. Could be he was the literal son of god created supernaturally within the womb of Mary. But have a hard time taking it to mean something post birth.
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I wasn’t saying Jesus was not God incarnate. I was conceding you can have the pre-existing Second Person of the Trinity (or just the One God if you are Omega here) entering the relationship of “sonship” to God the Father at a point in time. Some Trinitarians argue the Son was always the Son and that relationship of sonship and fathering affects the Trinity ontologically, independent of creation and humanity, not just in the roles God takes on while interacting with humanity. But they also argue that the Father did not “create” the Son, so the analogy to biological/family relationships clearly breaks down at a point. So I think it’s helpful to try to understand what the idea of sonship was getting at in the ancient context if impregnating and bringing life into the world was not the point of this link to fathering in their minds.
“Today I have become your Father” (Psalm 2:7, Hebrews 5:5, Acts 13:33) was not about birthing a baby, it was about crowning a king, and it symbolized the king’s anointing or chosenness. That’s why I think Jesus’ “sonship” was possibly more about communicating his mission on earth to humanity than about communicating some ontological Trinitarian relationship.
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Absolutely, Christy—it is a very good question, and it gets us closer to the biblical understanding of “Sonship” in its ancient Near Eastern and Second Temple Jewish context.
In the biblical world, “sonship” was not primarily biological, but positional and functional—it signified inheritance, representation, and authority. A “son” bore the name, image, and authority of the father, often acting on his behalf. To be a “son of God” in Scripture doesn’t automatically imply pre-existence or biological origin—it means someone who has been appointed, anointed, or commissioned to act in God’s stead or reflect His character and purpose.
This is why Israel is called God’s “firstborn son” in Exodus 4:22—not because of divine genetics, but because of God’s covenantal relationship and role for the nation. Kings like David and Solomon were also called God’s sons (2 Sam. 7:14; Psalm 2:7), meaning they were chosen to rule under God’s authority. In this light, Sonship is a title of investiture, not a statement about pre-eternal existence.
When Jesus is called the Son of God, especially in texts like Luke 1:35 (“Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God”), it’s clear that Sonship begins in time—with the incarnation. It is the role God chose to reveal Himself through: the man Christ Jesus, born of a woman, filled with the Spirit without measure, carrying out the mission of redemption as the perfect representative of the Father.
So when we say the Son didn’t exist before Bethlehem, we’re not denying the deity of Jesus—we’re affirming that the eternal God, the Logos, existed and was made flesh (John 1:14), and in doing so, entered into the role of Son to fulfill the redemptive plan. It’s not about biology or pre-eternal familial hierarchy—it’s about manifestation, mission, and messianic identity.
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