Monday, June 29, 2026

It is the 29th of June 2026. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

 

Happy Monday! As we usually do, we will head to the mailbag and a question I got from a long-time listener… Ben in Lino Lakes, Minnesota. What can we say about that? “A Community with a Vision,” I see! On the Eastern side- outside of St. Paul…getting a little close with Wisconsin… now that’s in Anoka county…” the self-proclaimed “Halloween Capital of the World”- and birthplace of Garrison Keillor- patron saint of the Christian History Almanac.

 

Ben wrote: “I’ve been getting into the weeds of the modern complementarian/egalitarian debate, and I’ve found the discussion of the eternal functional subordination of the Son fascinating. Modern-day Arianism, I guess?”

 

Oh man… and stay with me… this was such a curious story, but ultimately a blip in the modern evangelical world- and I think there’s a lesson to be learned.

 

To oversimplify, George Knight published “The New Testament Teaching on the Role Relationship of Men and Women” in 1977. This is a flashpoint in that he proposes an eternal submission of the Son. That is, there is within the relationship between the father and son an eternal submissive state in which the son finds himself.

 

And Knight and others say “Yes, Jesus is eternally submissive but ontologically the same”- we’re cool with the Trinity, and Knight makes his arguments to say that complementarian theology- that which sees the roles of men and women as often radically different- with respect to their ability to serve churches in roles of authority…. This group said, “Being submissive to another does not change your worth, but it does in terms of how you can serve in the church.

 

Wayne Grudem- if you are one of any kind of generally evangelical, Reformed Baptist school and you’re around my age, his systematic theology was the Ur text.

 

So he defends this “Eternal Submission of the Soul” doctrine, which says that, from eternity, the Son has taken a subordinate place- a second place- to the Father. Why would this matter?

 

For 1700 years, Christians have had no clearer unifying document than we popularly call the Nicene Creed. It has no power in and of itself!

 

But- the purpose of the arguing and refining and fighting over the earliest creeds was the core phrase of the Nicene Creed- “For Us and For Our Salvation”- figuring out who God is, and how that can mean Father, Son, and Holy Spirit… It’s not a boutique doctrine for the super curious. It’s at the core of our very faith.

 

Is God faithful to us in the promise of his Messiah and his writing the wrongs such that the… redemption of all things is true…?

 

In Christ’s ministry of incarnation and humiliation, he had a human will- whatever he doesn’t assume (take on), he can not save. So he takes on the subordinate nature (as one of his two natures) and has to “obey” and say, “I don’t know, only the father does.” Almost everyone agrees that Christ is subordinate in his “earthly ministry”.

 

I’ll stay out of the weeds, but the “Eternal Submission” was modified by some to “Eternal Functional Submission”… fair enough.

 

The argument came down to the nature of God himself and the Trinity. We teach that God is one- we are monotheists. God comes to us in three persons- but these persons are of the same essence- there is not 3 Gods but 1 God… this is what the Creeds are laying out. Jesus is the Son of God.

 

So arguments against the Eternal Submission folk were that they were doing damage to the historic creeds in order to make a point in the service of an argument over women in ministry. It was argued that a doctrine of lesser importance was changing a doctrine of first-order importance.

 

Jesus had a human and divine will- in his humiliated state and the assumption of his human state- had a human will. He had to will obedience to his father, that in this state he has placed himself under, will his father's will instead of his own. But since the glorification of Christ, his will has been drawn into the singular divine will.

 

I’d suggest you read an entry on something called “divine simplicity” if you ever get confused about who does what and how… It’s a complicated issue, but it’s also why I’m thankful for the work the Creeds do to help us stay in the right lane.

 

Thanks for the question, as always Ben.

 

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and Psalm 47- let’s hit up the Scottish Metrical Psalter:

¹ All people, clap your hands; to God

with voice of triumph shout:

² For dreadful is the Lord most high,

great King the earth throughout.

³ The heathen people under us

he surely shall subdue;

And he shall make the nations

under our feet to bow.

⁴ The lot of our inheritance

choose out for us shall he,

Of Jacob, whom he loved well,

ev’n the excellency.

⁷ For God is King of all the earth;

with knowledge praise express.

⁸ God rules the nations: God sits on

his throne of holiness.

⁹ The princes of the people are

assembled willingly;

Ev’n of the God of Abraham

they who the people be.

For why? the shields that do defend

the earth are only his:

They to the Lord belong; yea, he

exalted greatly is.

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 29th of June 2026, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who thought a complementarian was someone who just always said nice things to whoever was preaching.. Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man always resisting the urge to say “technically Nicene-Constantinopolitan Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.