Tackling Tradition 47: The Eternal Subordination of the Son (& Women)

The Eternal Subordination of the Son (& Women) is confuted by Matthew 22:34 - 40 & Romans 1:18 - 32.   


34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”  (Matthew 22:34–40, ESV)


God is the sum of His attributes.   God is infinite, eternal, & unchangeable in being, wisdom, power, justice, holiness, goodness, & truth.    God is love, & God commands us to infinitely, exhaustively, & perfectly, & meticulously love Him, then everyone & everything else, then ourselves —- in that order, everyday, all day, every hour of every day.  


Love like this fulfills the Law (Romans 13:8 - 10).   Love like this conquers fear related to guilt in the Judgment (1 John 4:17).


There is a sense in which God is His Law.  Since God is triune, this means that the Son puts the Father & Spirit before Himself when loving Them.  Likewise, the Spirit puts the Father & Son before Himself.   The Father puts the Son & Spirir before Himself.  

 

The Eternal Subordination of the Son infers that the relationship between the Father & both the Son & the Spirit is hierarchical.    


Think about how Complementarianism operates.   Complementarianism locks women out of the roles of elder &/or deacon in a local church.  Some Complementarians, like Doug Wilson’s followers, demote women from leadership in the hom by turning them into advisers & advocates — but real decision making (even in relation to their Voting Rights in the Civil Sphere) isn’t for them.  Rather,  the male leader, her husband, is tasked with this.   


What is happening in the background relative to the theology that does this?  Essentially, they suppress the truth about God’s image & authority then look to their own, & women (who desire to be ministers, assert their co-equality, etc) are said to abandon natural (ie subordinate) relations with men & men with each other (and women) if they dare embrace Egalitarianism.  (Romans 1:18 - 32),


On this view, women who desire to be elders in a local church are in sin regardless of the moral quality & General orderliness of their love for God, others, & themselves.  In order for this to happen, men are putting themselves ahead of women in the Ecclesiastical Sphere & working to ensure Male Hegemony. 


In the view of these men, men are analogous to the Father, women to the Son, & the Spirit to children, members of the local church, & people governed by the civil law.    The Eternal Subordination of the Son (& Spirit) goes hand in hand with Complementarianism in the home, church, &/or civil sphere.  It requires Male Hegemony, & where you find Male Hegemony of this sort, you will most certainly find Misogyny, both of which are incongruent with Matthew 22, Romans 13, & 1 John 4.      Ergo, the Eternal Subordination of the Son is confuted by Matthew 22:34 - 40.    This kind of love within God’s attributes & economy is co-equal, & since the 3 Hypostases that comprise & constitute the Holy Trinity love in co-equal, covenantal, infinite, exhaustive, meticulous, & perfect fashion economically, we must conclude that They are co-equal as to the immanent (ontological) Trinity as well. 


God requires us to love co-equally. Therefore, the 3 Hypostases we know as the Father, Son, & Spirit are co-equal as well.   


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