بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

Question:

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:28 that Christ will be subject to God forever:

When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.

In light of this eternal subjection how can any Christian believe that Jesus is God?

Answer:

Since Sam references his two previous articles as answers, I too shall reference my responses to his articles as answers:

• Jesus says that the Father is greater than he is, proving that he is not God.
• Jesus said that all authority was given to him, … which means that Jesus cannot be God.

Shamoun says and I quote:

 this text in no way shows that the Lord Jesus Christ is inferior to God in terms of his Divine nature and essence, that Christ is an inferior Divine Being, a lesser god of sorts. It only shows that Christ, by virtue of his being the Divine Son of God, is subject or subordinate to the Father in rank and position.

Sam amazes me sometimes, he has the ability to use words but not comprehend their meanings. Examining the emphasis above, he says that in no way is it showed that Christ is an inferior God or a lesser god. Yet throughout his article he makes several statements contrary to this position:

“Yet there is a sense in which Christ is inferior in essence to the Father.”

“Christ’s subjection to the Father is also due in one sense to his having a nature which is inferior…”

“…a glorified human at that…”

“When Christ then became a man he not only added to his own Divine Person a nature which is vastly inferior to Deity…”

“Thus, the subjection is purely one of authority and position.”

As I have demonstrated previously, Christ’s nature is unGodly and in this response, I’d like to expand on that using Sam’s reasoning. His excuse is that Christ is lower in rank and authority than God the Father. Which is a problem, since by nature, God is Omnipotent (all powerful, fully authoritative), since Sam believes Christ is lower in Omnipotence than YHWH, then Christ cannot be a deity.

Since Christ by his very nature, lacks the authority/ power of God, and God is by definition Omnipotent, then Christ cannot be considered a deity. Using Sam’s own terms and definitions – I’ve easily disproved his reasoning and thereby negated his argument. He tries to squirrel his way out of his blunder by stating:

 that a person is subject to the authority of another without this making that one inferior in essence

How does he do this? By giving the following example:

Christ made himself subject to his parents by virtue of his being their Son.

This example works in my favour, as it demonstrates what I have been saying all along. The son (Christ) submits/ obeys his parents because they have attributes greater than this – they brought him into this world, he did not have the ability to bring himself, he needed to be birthed and thus concedes to the authority to the one who nurtured him for 9 months. His other example is even worse:

“Everyone must submit (hypotassesthoo) himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established.” Romans 13:1

Again, no one is equal to the authorities, they must obey the commands of the government. As such, in this very example, it negates any analogy of Omnipotent characteristics about Christ for this example means that the one subject to the government cannot by himself subject the government to his law, i.e. the submission is one way, not two way, because one lacks the authority + rank + power to command the other.

Obviously, no one will claim that Christians are inferior in value and essence simply because they are commanded to submit to each other.

Yet this is not the context of Ephesians 5:21, for that verse indicates that one must submit to the one who is greater in status and quality than either of them – God, it does not mean that the married couple is an equal deity to each other – as this is what Christ’s relation to the Father necessitates for Sam’s analogy to be accurate.

Sam simply has not proven that Christ is equal to God (the Father) in all aspects and since God’s nature is absolute, any change to that nature (even if mimicked), will render the other ‘deity’, to be a quasi-god or an inferior one as it lacks the very nature needed to be a God. There is a problem with all of Sam’s examples though, they solely focus on human to human relationships (see that of Pharaoh and Joseph). Yet, the questioner is focused on Christ’s equality with God, and whether or not he fits the title of Godship as he lacks full Omnipotence.

He lays out another example which seals the collapse of his reasoning:

But even here we need to be careful since Christ subjecting himself doesn’t mean he ceases to rule. Paul and the other NT writers clearly teach that Christ rules forever:

Christ will rule forever – but currently he does not, therefore since his rule is not eternal, but has a beginning – it is not absolute and therefore his rule does not substantiate itself to label himself as Omnipotent.

In conclusion, Sam cannot directly deal with the question. Each analogy he has given – falsifies his reasoning and negates Christ as being a deity. His word plays, emendations to translations and even appealing to the Greek – did not and cannot aid him. The logic is simple, and easy to grasp – Christ is not and cannot be a deity because he by being subject to a higher power is not Omnipotent and since God is absolutely omnipotent, he (Christ) is not God.

wa Allaahu ‘Alam.