Subordination within the Trinity
- The perfect equality of the Son with the Father, and, at the same time, the subordination of the Son to the Father, are to be equally maintained only by the doctrine of the Divine Sonship. Deny this, and the Son might as well be the first as the second person in the Godhead, and the second as well as the first. The Father might have been sent by the Son without incongruity, or either of them by the Holy Spirit. These are most absurd and repulsive conclusions, which the doctrine of the Sonship avoids, and thus proves its accordance with the Holy Scriptures.
A Complete System of Christian Theology: A Concise, Comprehensive, and Systematic View of the Evidences, Doctrines, Morals, and Institutions of Christianity.
- This is the reason why the second object of the Christian religion, in subordination to God, is Jesus Christ, the Mediator of this restoration, after the Father had made him Christ [the Anointed One] and had constituted him the Lord and the Head of the church, so that we must, through him, approach to God for the purpose of performing [acts of] religion to him; and the duty of religion must be rendered to him, with God the Father, from which duty we by no means exclude the Spirit of the Father and the Son.
Complete Works of Arminius.
- Notwithstanding that the Father, Son, and Spirit are the same in substance, and equal in power and glory, it is no less true, according to the Scriptures,
(a.) That the Father is first, the Son second, and the Spirit third.
(b.) The Son is of the Father (ἐκ θεοῦ, the λόγος, εἰκὼν, ἀπαύγασμα, τοῦ θεοῦ); and the Spirit is of the Father and of the Son.
(c.) The Father sends the Son, and the Father and Son send the Spirit.
(d.) The Father operates through the Son, and the Father and Son operate through the Spirit.
The converse of these statements is never found. The Son is never said to send the Father, nor to operate through Him; nor is the Spirit ever said to send the Father, or the Son, or to operate through them. The facts contained in this paragraph are summed up in the proposition: In the Holy Trinity there is a subordination of the Persons as to the mode of subsistence and operation. This proposition again adds nothing to the facts themselves.
Systematic Theology. By Hodge
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