What is the doctrine of eternal Sonship and is it biblical?

What is meant by the Eternal Sonship is, not that a Divine Person, in becoming flesh became the Son of God, but that the One we know as the Lord Jesus Christ, had always borne to the First Person of the Godhead, the relation of Son to the Father; that there never was a moment in the past eternity when He was not the Son, and that this relation was as necessary in the mystery of the Godhead as the Divine Existence itself.

Special attention is drawn to Hebrews 1:8: "Unto the Son He says, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever." This verse unquestionably teaches a Sonship in deity for ever and ever. It is sometimes said that the words "Eternal Son" do not occur in Scripture, in order to question the truth they contain. This is mere slavery to words. A Divine Sonship is a Sonship which belongs to Christ's deity: a Sonship which belongs to deity means a Sonship pre-existent before the Incarnation, and is thus exactly equivalent to an eternal Sonship. Hebrews 1 proclaims the Divine Sonship of Christ, and this is the gold of the ephod.

The truth of the Eternal Sonship is presented to us in John 1:18, where the Son as the Only-begotten is found in the bosom of the Father. It ever was, and ever is, and ever shall be His own unique place in relationship with the Father. Many other Scriptures, such as John 16:28; John 17:5, 24; Colossians 1:13-16, and Hebrews 1:2 settle the matter for every believer subject to the Word of God.

There are a number of passages we can turn to that show the Lord Jesus was Son before the incarnation. In Hebrews 1 we read: "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds" (Heb. 1: 1-2). It was by the Son, as such, that the worlds were made. Creation is also attributed to the Son in Colossians chapter 1, though there He is presented as the Son of the Father's love. Paul and Timothy give thanks to the Father, "Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son (Darby gives here, "the Son of His love")... Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For by Him were all things created" (Col. 1: 12-16). We have then, before the incarnation, the One who is the Son, God's Son, the Son of the Father's love.

We must remember, while speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ as subsisting now in glory in abiding Manhood in the relationship of Son of God, that His Sonship did not commence with His Incarnation. Scripture teaches us the Incarnation of the Son, NOT Sonship by Incarnation. He brought into Manhood that relationship in which He had eternally subsisted. There were relationships, with the affections proper to them, in the Godhead before time began, and which shall continue when time has ceased to be. Those relationships and affections are eternal. The Scripture which has helped to confirm me in the truth of the eternal Sonship of our Lord Jesus is John 17:24, "Father … Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world." This is the love of the Father for the Son; He speaks of that love being set on Him before the world was brought into being. It seems almost superfluous to have to say that we cannot have the love of relationship without the relationship.

John, in his Epistle, speaking of eternal life, tells us that the life that has been manifested in the Son down here is such a life as was "with the Father" — a life lived in eternity in the enjoyment of relationships between Divine Persons. The One who had lived this life throughout eternity "with the Father" was, for this very reason, the only one who could exhibit this life down here amongst men. Into this life we are brought — not indeed in the relationships of the eternal Son with the Father, but in the relationship of sons with the Father, the place and relationships in which Jesus was seen as Man down here. The statements of John imply, as a truth beyond question, that the Father was the Father, and the Son was the Son before Incarnation. Otherwise the words of John have neither force nor meaning.

It is not that the Scriptures fail to teach the Eternal Sonship to the simple believer, but the wording must be twisted round to fit in with the new "thoughts of men which are vain." Such expressions as those quoted above do not describe a supposed isolated act in the past, but an eternal and essential relation existing between the Father and Son (see, e.g., John 5:26); and the "Procession of the Spirit" an eternal relation between Him and the other Divine Persons (John 15:26). It was not a solitary act which supervened, but a condition which necessarily existed in the Divine Being. The Son is necessarily the Brightness (lit. outshining) of the Divine glory, as the photosphere may be regarded as a necessary condition of the Sun's existence.

What then is the meaning of the Son having "life in Himself" as the gift of the Father? If "life in Himself" is life that never had a beginning, then the giving is clearly from all eternity. It means that there never was a moment when in the Godhead the Father was not bestowing, and the Son was not receiving "life in Himself." So that at any point it could be said, "For as the Father has life in Himself; so has He given to the Son to have life in Himself." It is life flowing from all eternity from the One to the Other in the essence of the Godhead. How true are the words of the old divine, "The Father from all eternity gives it, the Son from all eternity receives it." "Eternal generation" is a true idea, though we must be careful not to argue from the natural to the Divine. This is the great mistake that has been made. The manner of the Divine is beyond our understanding.

But the objection will at once be raised, "If God has begotten a Son, there must have been a time when the Son was begotten, and therefore He has a beginning". This is quite wrong reasoning, for the right implication is exactly the opposite. If an eternal Father, without beginning nor end, begets a Son, that Son also must have neither beginning nor end; else He is not a True Son according to the Father's essence. God's nature is infinite, therefore His Son's nature is infinite.

We must abandon all reasoning from the finite. Every finite creature begets a finite creature with a beginning, but the Infinite begets the Infinite with no beginning. The word "Only Begotten" does not imply carnal or low thoughts of begetting, but implies equal nature. This is what the ancient orthodox teachers called "The Eternal Generation of the Son". The begetting is not an event of the past, however distant.

The denial of the pre-incarnate Sonship of our beloved Lord is an effort to place shutters upon the windows of revelation, which look on His glory in the eternal past. But "no prophecy of scripture is of its own interpretation" (2 Peter 1:20, W.K.), and having in mind the revelation of the Absolute Deity of the Son made in other parts of scripture, we believe that the concurrent truth conveyed in this stanza of the Psalm is that the Speaker did not begin to be the Son at His incarnation, but that His Sonship was unimpaired by His humiliation. The Eternal Sonship, blessed be God, was true in the beginning, is now, and ever will be. The Son is the revealed Name expressive of His essential nature in the Deity and not only of His mediatorial office between God and man.

Begetting or generation is associated in scripture with incarnation of the Son, but is never attributed to the Holy Spirit, Who did not “become flesh.” The much-used term, “eternal generation,” applied to the Son is without scriptural warrant, for how could the Deity of the Son be derived from Another? or, how could the Eternal Sonship be bestowed by generation? But being the Son from all eternity, when born of the Virgin Mary, He could be called the Son of the Highest (Luke 1:32).