Who is in control? As humans, we are often consumed by this question. We rebel against authority, desperately trying to become our own authority. Rebels without a clue I guess you might say. The whole concept that the leader or boss is more valuable or special than everyone else saturates our culture. Does this affect how we view the issue of authority in the Trinity? You bet it does.
We left off last time promising to discuss the issue of subordination in the Trinity. A few select passages of Scripture will be awfully tough to dismiss on this. First, consider 1 Corinthians 11:3, “But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of the wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.” Now, I am not touching the man/woman part in this blog and perhaps not in this lifetime as I highly value self preservation. Anywho, “the head of Christ is God” means what exactly? I am glad you asked. “Head” is obviously figurative, and most of the time that Paul uses this illustration, it carries the connotation of authority (like the head of a company).
I get that this is a powderkeg because of the “husband/wife” connection. If we say head means authority, what are the implications for a Christian marriage? Unfortunately, we can’t just ignore evidence because of implications for other issues. It is true that “head” can also be used figuratively for “source” (like the head of a river). You can find lots of amazing articles and arguments on the authority/source discussion, but for now, I personally see 1 Corinthians 11 speaking of authority not source. Even if we go with the “source” option, we will find other passages to discuss this.
1 Corinthians 15:28 says, “When all things are subjected to him (God), then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.” The context here is discussing the 2nd coming and the final judgment of God. Not only then does the New Testament speak of God and Jesus separately, having different “roles”, but it also speaks of an authority structure within the Trinity. How can Jesus be God but be under God? How can God be His own “head”? This is really getting confusing now!
There are two main options I can give you to understand this. The first is called incarnational subordination (you think I am making that up right? I wish…). This means that during His incarnation, Jesus voluntarily placed Himself under the authority of God the Father. After His resurrection, He was exalted back to His rightful place of equality with God as seen in Philippians 2:9-11. This explanation fits well with the view that much of what Christ in His incarnation serves as a model for us in our relationship to God. Jesus shows us how even He can submit to the will of the Father with words like, “Not my will, but yours be done” right before His arrest and crucifixion (Luke 22:42).
The other explanation is our whole was of looking at the Trinity needs a serious overhaul. Perhaps the whole way that God revealed the Trinity to us as man says more about Him than it does about “modeling” a righteous life. The Trinity shows us that relationship. love, and unity is an intrinsic part of God’s character and nature. Even without us humans, God has these things within Himself as Father, Son, and Spirit. Authority does not have anything to do with value. Within the Trinity, we are shown that different roles and subordination are not negative things but how God works together within the Trinity to perfection.
We can’t really finish these last thoughts until we discuss the Holy Spirit. Whew! Finally, we are to a part of the Trinity that no one in the church ever argues about… the Holy Spirit, right?
The Bible Nerd 
Dear Dr. Ellis (well, you might as well be),
So I keep reading the OT and many times its like somebody saw a part of God but not his body, or somebody spoke face to face with God (and im not talking about the figurative examples, but when it is generally meant to say that they locked eyes on at least a portion of God), yet we also read God had no body and we cant see him and live. I suppose the answer (besides that they are figurative, but there are some clear that don’t seem to be that way) is that these are theophanies, however they aren’t presented as such and it is the norm by labeling the person they are seeing as “YHWH” and not “angel of the lord” etc., so my question is, who is Moses actually seeing (cleft of the rock)? And that leads me to my second question, I understand that right now Jesus is in his glorified body, but what was he before the incarnation, even more so, before time began and only the trinity existed what was his form? Was it God the father (who is invisible), the Spirit (who is invisible) and then Jesus in the flesh? Or did he not have flesh until he came here and dwelt among us (John 1:14 or 16?)? If not, then what was his body like before the incarnation, was it the same Jewish body he came in 2,000 years ago? So was Jesus just a spirit before his incarnation? Also what is EMC squared? Thanks cowboy!
Jason, good questions. Let me try to tackle the parts about Jesus’ body first since that is on my mine from the blog. John 1 states the preexistence and equality of Jesus with God. As the passage flows, John states in verse 14 to say “The Word became flesh”. By this, I would infer that Jesus had no “body” before His incarnation. Recall that Philippians 2 describes the incarnation as a “change” for Jesus, from “who though he was in the “form” of God” (other translations read though “the very nature”) to “being found in human flesh”. If I put these two together alone, I would say before the incarnation, Jesus was like God, spirit only without any corporeal nature (body so to speak).
You mention that now Jesus has His glorified body. What Scriptures do you base that view on? Of course, when Jesus resurrected from the dead, he was like Lazarus in that his physical body came back to life. He could still show Thomas the wounds in His hands. Even if Jesus has a resurrected, “new” body, it wasn’t what He was in when he rose from the dead and appeared to them until His ascension in Acts 1. I ask you this, because I don’t think there is enough NT clear passages that say Jesus still has some type of a “body”. In fact, Paul is vague on what we will have in 1 Cor. 15 when we are resurrected. Our current body is like “a seed” to what we will have. I tend to lean more toward Jesus returning to pure spirit form upon His ascension. Revelation is mostly figurative, so we can’t use that as evidence (or Jesus’ new body looks like the Son of Man, a slain lamb, a king with tattoos, etc… You can’t say when he appeared to Paul that He appeared having some kind of body, as God can appear as anything. Not sure if there is enough to say one way or another personally.
The angel of the Lord is definitely odd. Some view the “angel of the Lord” as a way that OT Jews described theophanies, but I completely reject this. As we can see from the OT and Hebrews 1 -2, God (and Jesus) would never allow or want the Bible to infer they are “angels”. The issue comes in that the “angel of the Lord” is like a prophet, in that it serves as God’s mouthpiece often. So, when it speaks, the Bible says occasionally, “The Lord said”.
What did Moses really see? Exodus just says that Moses is only allowed to see the “back” of God (His glory to be more specific. I think God never wanted idolatry, so he is very careful to never present himself fully as a man as He knew what the Israelites would do with that. Like Ezekiel’s vision in chapter 1, you see legs and then it just gets really bright after that. I would say that God is spirit only, but can appear as anything in a theophany. Take Elijah for example, God does different phenomena, but then comes in the silence. God comes as a whirlwind to Job. Does he appear as a man in the OT before Jesus incarnation? Now that is a fun question. Some view the commander of the army of the Lord in Joshua as a theophany, others see the third “man” who appeared to Abraham beside Sodom and Gomorrah as one. Others say if God appears as a man, it is always Jesus, even before the incarnation. We just can’t say in my opinion.
I wouldn’t over “literal” these theophanies, beyond the literal truth that God speaks and appears to man. He is immanent. Thanks again for the questions. Hit me back if this doesn’t scratch the itch.
Sean
Good stuff, thanks so so much for taking the time to respond, I’m very grateful for that. As for where do I get the idea that Jesus has a glorified body, or even a body at all for that matter, after the ascension. Well;
-1 Cor 15:35-49 in its entirety lend support, especially since in 44 it tells the Christian what his body will be after the resurrection, “it is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body.” – the same body that i sown (dies) is raised.
-We see that Jesus, post resurrection, did have a body, but there was something different (it was glorified), he walked through walls, his disciples didnt recognize him at first, but at the same time he did still bear his marks, and his disciples did eventually recognize him.
– Before I get to why I think he currently still has a body, I still would feel the burden of proof would have to be on the one who says he is’nt currently in bodily form.
-Col 2:9, speaking in the present tense says “for in him all the fulness of deity dwells in bodily form”. -1 Tim 6:16 calls Jesus, in the present sense a man as he also in the presnt sense is our mediator (if we say he stopped being a man, then we would have to say that he also stopped being our mediator, but on the contrary, this passage is talking about what is going on NOW, after the resurrection. It says Jesus’ alone posses immortality, 1 Tim 2:5 “There is one mediator between God and man, the MAN Jesus Christ”…
In closing, I guess Ive always assumed that Jesus was in his resurrected body, and now that I really think of why I believe that a few things come to light;
1. I see nothing to make me think that he isn’t dwelling bodily
2. However, their isn’t great proof that he necessarily is (except the fact that the present tenses of the passages that indicate Jesus is a man, those being written after his accession)
3. It is not as clear as I thought though
4. It seems that the Gnostics would have had a field day if Jesus didn’t have a post resurrection body and use that for fodder that flesh was evil.
4. Perhaps it is not that important (but still I desire to know as much as I can about my savior and so I long to know all that i am able and this is a honorable search/discussion).
5. Lastly, I still wish we were having the sovereignty of God discussion, because I was too busy during those days to post my thoughts 🙂
Thanks again my man!
Jason, I am not saying definitively one way or another whether Jesus still has a body, glorified or not. I just hear people teach that he absolutely does, when I feel the Scriptures are less than clear on this. The body that Jesus has upon resurrection is no different than Lazarus’ body after he was resurrected. He still had flesh, the scars from his wounds were still there, he still ate and had to walk places, etc…
So, you will ask how does he just appear with the disciples coming through locked doors? You don’t think he could have done that any time he wanted before the cross? Remember the fun story when Jesus walked on water? Jesus had mastery over creation the WHOLE time he was on earth, before and after the cross. Even if Jesus has a glorified body now, He wouldn’t have received it until the Ascension in Luke 24/Acts 1.
So, let’s look at 1 Corinthians 15. The main point Paul wants to make here is that Christians should believe in resurrection from the dead. The Greek Christians struggled with this (also the Thessalonians) due to their worldview and past mythology. He says basically we are idiots if we don’t believe in bodily resurrection and say we are Christians (I am paraphrasing here). Then later in the chapter, Paul briefly describes what kind of body believers will have in the resurrection. First, he doesn’t mention Jesus at all here. He doesn’t say we will have the same “body” as Jesus. Next, he never really fully describes the new “body”, other than to say it is “spiritual” and the flesh body we have now is just a “seed” to what we will have there. That isn’t much to go on. 1 Thessalonians doesn’t really describe the resurrected bodies at all. Paul says we will be “changed”, so it is not like what we know.
I am not going out on a limb and saying we don’t have anything that resembles a physical body in heaven, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t either. We just don’t have enough to go on. How will we eat the Marriage Supper of the Lamb if we don’t have bodies you ask? Well, we can have the whole literal/figurative prophecy discussion, but I am hoping we all don’t live in a giant cube city in heaven. Way too modern artish for me.
As for the Colossians passage, Paul’s point was more about whether Jesus was EVER fully God and Man due to the proto Gnostics doubting Jesus was divine or that he was really a man. His point is not about Jesus’ current condition. It could be that since Jesus had a body in the incarnation, he can always be described in that way in the Bible, even though he currently doesn’t have one… or He has his glorified body which Paul is thinking of. However, we are back at not knowing really what that means. The gloried body may actually not be a “body” in the way we think of one at all!
Is 1 Tim. 6:16 the right reference? I didn’t see anything there about your point? 1 Tim 2:5 Paul’s point isn’t about whether Jesus is still a man as we think of it (with a body), but rather that Jesus became our mediator as a man when he died on the cross. That is what provided us with mediation. Remember, Jesus became a man, he wasn’t always so, so it is not too much to think that Jesus “changed” again upon the ascension. It doesn’t void the mediation, because the mediation is based on his sacrifice on the cross, not on his being a man. Otherwise, he could have just become a man and skipped the cross.
My point wasn’t to challenge your view in whether Jesus has a glorified body or not, but rather as the old inductive guy, to challenge you to always base your beliefs upon the Bible. If as you say, you find after searching, that neither view seems too clear from the Bible, you know how strong your view should or shouldn’t be. Like your challenge about the Trinity, our challenge in the church is to define the foundational truths from the ones where we can’t be certain about.
Don’t feel shy about asking questions or stating your views on God’s sovereignty. My idea about the blog is that people can sign on at any time, read any of the articles, and comment or ask questions. Comments aren’t date sensitive! Ask away or hit me with some truth!
Sean