of the filial relation in which our Lord felt Himself to stand to the Father comes out. And these passages must be considered In conjunction with the very numerous passages in which He who never speaks of God as " our Father," putting Himself In the same category with others who would then share with Him the filial relation, ^^ speaks of God either as ' the Father,' or appropriatingly as ' My Father.' There are over eighty passages of the former kind," and nearly thirty of the latter." The uniqueness of the relation Indicated Is brought out by the connection of the simple ' the Son ' with the emphatically unique * only begotten Son of God' (3^^"). Although, of course, the passage In which this Is most pointedly done may be the evangelist's and not our Lord's, the phrase ' Only begotten Son ' or even the term ' Only begot-
15 But in 2oi^ He speaks to Mary Magdalene of " My Father and your Father, My God and your God."
16 -35 4^21,23,23 ,19,20,21,22,23,23,26,36,36,36,37,45 g27, 37,44,45,46,48,57, 57, 65 816,18,27,28,38,38 iol5,15,17,29,30,32,36,38,38 ij41 1226,27,28,49,50 ijl.S ,^« J. 9,10,10,11, 12,13, 16,24,26, 28,31, 31 1-9.10,16,26,26 j 63,10,15,17,23,25,26,27,27,28 l628,32 171,5,11,21,24,25 igll 2ol7,21.
17 2I8 el7,18,43 632,40 g[19],19,19,49,54 iq18,26,29,37 j^2,7,20,21,23,28 jel,».15,23,24 26^''.
The Designations in John 197
ten ' applied to Christ, occurs nowhere else, except in John's own words (i^^-^^ i Jno 4^ cf. Heb 11^^), and that affords a reason for assigning the paragraph 3^^""^ to him. Such a passage as 5^^, however, makes per- fectly clear the high connotation which was attached to the constant claim of Jesus to be in a peculiar sense God's ' Son,' entitled to speak of Him in an appro- priating way as His ' Father.' The Jews sought to kill Him, remarks the evangelist, because of this mode of speech: "He called God His own Father {jtarkpa. 'idcov ), making Himself equal (Joov) with God." And indeed He leaves no prerogative to the Father which He does not claim as ' Son ' to share. There has been given Him authority over all flesh (17^), and the des- tinies of men are determined by Him (3^'^ 6^^) ; He quickens whom He will (5^^) and executes judgment on whom He will (5"). Whatever the Father does He knows, and indeed all that the Father does He does (5^^). He even has received of the Father to have life in Himself (5"^). Though He declares in- deed that the Father is greater than He (14"^), this must be consistent with an essential oneness with the Father, because He explicitly asserts that He and the Father are one (10^''), that He is in the Father and the Father in Him (10^^), and that to have seen Him was to have seen the Father (14^). It may be that some mysterious subordination of God the Son to God the Father is suggested in the declaration that the Father is greater than He (14^^), and many certainly have so interpreted It, constructing their doctrine of God upon that view. But it seems more likely that our Lord Is speaking on this occasion of His earthly state In which He Is not only acting as the Delegate of the
198 The Designations of Our Lord
Father and hence as His subordinate — the " sent " of the Father; but also in His dual nature as the God-man, is of Himself in His humanity, of a lower grade of being than God, without derogation to His equality with the Father in His higher, truly divine nature. If this be what He means, there is no contradiction be- tween the strong affirmations of His not merely equality (5^^) with God, but His oneness with Him (lO"^), His interpenetration with Him (10^^) as sharer in all His knowledge and deeds (14*^), and His equally strong affirmation of His Inferiority to Him (14-^), illus- trated as it is by numerous assertions of dependence on Him and of an attitude of obedience to Him.
Thus, so clear and pervasive Is the assertion of deity through the medium of His designation of Himself as
' Son ' and the use of this term of Him Sonship ^y ^^^ evangelist," that the chief point
of interest in the term rises above this assertion and concerns a deeper matter. Does the Son- ship asserted belong to our Lord in His earthly mani- festation merely; or does It set forth a relation existing between Him as a preexistent person and God conceived even in eternity as His Father? In other words, is the term ' Son ' a term of economical or of ontological relation? The question is not an easy one to determine. But, on the whole, it seems that It should be answered in the latter sense. The force of a passage like 3^^ (cf. 3^^ 5-°) — " God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son " — seems to turn on the intimacy