Redemption. Appendix 4 of The Companion Bible has this note `Elohim is God the Son, the living "Word" in a

Divine form to create' (John 1:1; Col. 1:15-17; Rev. 3:14); and later, with human form to redeem (John 1:14).

Dr. John Kaye, Bishop of Lincoln, said of the attitude of Clement of Alexandria:

`The whole tenor of the passage proves that Clement ascribed all the attributes of the Godhead to Christ: but

when He is spoken of as the Son, with reference to the Father, or as sent forth by the Father to conduct the

economy, the relation itself implies a certain subordination or inferiority'.

`Clement then dilates on the impossibility of describing God, or giving Him a proper name, "for whatever has a

name must have been generated or begotten" ... Before creation was, He was God, He was good; and on this

account He chose to be Creator and Father ... Inasmuch as the cause or beginning of anything is always most

difficult to be discovered, God, Who is the Beginning and Cause of existence to all things, can never be

described by words. You cannot apply to Him the terms, genus, difference, species, atom, number, accident,

subject of accident, whole, part, figure; nor can any name be properly or essentially given Him. When we call

Him One, or the Good, or Mind, or the Existent, or Father, or God, or Creator, or Lord, we do not profess to give

His name; but through inability to discover more appropriate terms, apply these honourable appellations in order

that the thought may have whereon to rest. These appellations do not simply express the Deity, but are

collectively indicative of the power of the Almighty. Names are given with reference either to some quality of

the thing named or to the relation to some other thing; but neither of these circumstances is applied to God'.

Clement of Alexandria seems to have seen the truth far more clearly than Athanasius whose creed so dominates

the mind of many.  `Economy, relations, subordination, inferiority'.  Here in a truer sense he distinguishes

`substance' from `person'.

Dr. Burton of Oxford wrote:

`It will be observed that the sense which the church has attached to the Son of God is strictly literal; by which I

mean that she takes the term Son in the same sense which it bears in ordinary language ... Whereas every other

hypothesis, not excepting the Arian ... uses the Son in a figurative or metaphorical sense ... What would be said

of a philosophical writer, who used the relative terms Father and Son, who spoke of the two Beings acting

toward each other, loving each other, as human fathers and sons, and yet expect his readers not to understand

these two Beings to be distinct and separate Persons?'

Bishop Burton also wrote: `The Father is not the true God without the Son or the Holy Spirit, and therefore to

call the Father the true God (John 17:3) does not exclude the Son'.

In the Old Testament we read `like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear Him' (Psa.

103:13) but the title here is `The LORD' Who is likened to `a father'. Rotherham's version is nearer to the original

and reads:

`Like the compassion of a father for his children'.

If any will quote Psalm 89:26 `Thou art my father, my God' he should remember that the language is prophetic

and actually applies to the future exaltation of Christ `I will make Him My Firstborn, higher than the kings of the

earth' (Psa. 89:27). Nowhere in the Old Testament is God revealed as `Father'; there the great Name of God is

It can be said without risk of denial, that God is not revealed as `Father' until the Word was made flesh and was

seen as `The only begotten of the Father' (John 1:14). The two titles Father and Son are relative terms, neither can

be true apart from the other. To speak of `the eternal generations of the Son' is to misuse language, and rob us of the

One Mediator `Himself Man Christ Jesus' (1 Tim. 2:5 R.V. margin). Those who invented the term meant well; they

were defending the Deity of Christ, but by their anxiety, they make Him for ever dependent, for ever derived, for

ever owing His existence to another, which immediately destroys His essential Deity, and if we use their language,

we shall be compelled to adopt the language of Cudworth and by giving supreme honour to the Father, and by

refraining from giving equal honour to the Son, we shall eventually find ourselves condemned by the words of John

5:23 :