Thank you, @LM77 Liam, for interesting statements which take apart the arguments of ESS. The problem is that it does not mention the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity, the Spirit of Love Who is the only Source of Christian morality and practice, not submission. The Trinity is about more than the Father and the Son. When you lose the Trinity, you lose the Spirit also.
The issue is not egalitarian or submission, it is love or obedience. Love is the only Christian way and it cannot be based on submission.
@Mervin_Bitikofer, Bro. Mervin, with all due respect, this statement seems to indicate that you are missing something important here. While it is clear that Jesus suffered extreme physical pain on the Cross, the evidence indicates that this was not the half of it.
We know that the whole crucifixion process was planned to be humiliating and dehumanizing, so that created intense spiritual and psychic pain. Just to see all those people, who received Him as the Messiah less then a week ago turn against Him with anger and hatred and scream for His death.
Certainly how must Jesus have felt when He saw His disciples, men into whom He had invested so much, discouraged, scattered, and lost? Why did Jesus cry out, “My God, My God, Why have You forsaken me?” I am glad that I am not a Roman Catholic, because we need to take Jesus down from the Cross, although I am sure there is still pain as long as there long as humans sin.
@Daniel_Fisher ,yes, as a soldier you submit to orders, but as a human you have freewill. However as God Jesus cannot submit to anything or anyone., and yet some say that as God the Son Jesus submitted to the Father.
Did Jesus submit to the Father when He went to the Cross? No. He went of His own free will. Of course He has some qualms, but that was not because they disagreed on the need for salvation, but because of the price of salvation. In other words the Son and the Father were in basic agreement about what needed to be done, but the cost was very high.
If an officer is expressing his/her free4will only when she/he agrees with the orders, they have a conditional freewill, which is not really free, which is true of all of us, but not of Jesus/God.
The Christian motive is Love, not enlightened self interest. Why bring it into the conversation. If the child is not loved and the gift was a bribe of some sort, the child could well reject it. In other words really love is the only sufficient motive. The response of the child is secondary. Self interest sounds as if you have a vested interest in redefining Christian morality.
What makes you think that is true? How can self interest not be selfish?