(Genesis 1:26; Luke 3:38).
Having fallen into sin, the son of God, Adam, transferred his rightful “dominion” over the earth to Satan (Genesis 1:28; Luke 4:5-6).
God then promised to redeem Adam’s fall by the birth of a child through the womb of a woman, a second Adam, a new son of God, and thus to save humanity from within our own genetic realm (Genesis 3:15).
The promise of a new son of God was then proclaimed to Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 12:1-3). The outworking of this promise is literally the entire point of the Old Testament story, and its fulfillment in Christ is literally the whole point of the New Testament (2 Corinthians 1:20).
The covenant couple—Abraham and Sarah—give birth to Isaac, who is identified in Scripture as the “son” of “promise” (Genesis 21:1-7; Galatians 4:23). The story clearly centers on a succession of sons. At this point, the concept of primogeniture emerges in the narrative—that is, the birthright of the “firstborn” son drives the story forward (Genesis 27:19, 32; 43:33; 48:14-18). The firstborn son is the channel through which the covenant promise is to be passed on from generation to generation.
Isaac and Rebekah have a son, in the succession of covenant sons, whom they name Jacob. Jacob’s twelve sons become a nation and are corporately called by God, “My son, My firstborn” (Exodus 4:22-23). God also tells them, I “begot you” to a covenant purpose distinct from all the other nations (Deuteronomy 32:18). And it is right here that we have the origin of the language and concept of God’s only begotten son. Understood in context, this phrase means God’s unique covenant son, not in some sort of mystical sense, as if God literally birthed Israel into existence, but rather that God brought forth Israel as a nation for His covenant purpose. Likewise, this language does not indicate that God literally birthed Christ into existence as a secondary deity sometime in eternity past, but rather that Christ was born to the world within the covenant lineage of the human procreation process.
Next in the narrative—through the lineage of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Israel—David is covenantally “begotten” as God’s “son” and thus is a type of the coming Messiah (Psalm 2:1-7; 89:19-29). Following David in the covenant lineage, Solomon is also designated by God as “My son” (1 Chronicles 22:10).
When we read the whole story, the point and meaning of Scripture’s sonship language could not be clearer.
Finally, just as promised, the long-awaited Messianic Son of God is born of a woman into the world. As the New Testament opens, we are told explicitly that He is the long-awaited “Son of David,” “Son of Abraham,” and, as such, “the Son of God” (Matthew 1:1; 2:15; 3:17; 4:3). We are also told, just as explicitly, that He is none other than God Himself in the flesh (Matthew 1:23; John 1:1-5; 1 Timothy 3:16). Jesus is the Son of God in the covenant sense, as the fulfillment of the entire Adamic, Abrahamic, Davidic narrative. The story never probes His ontological,2 metaphysical3 origins, beyond informing us that He is none other than God, eternal God, in the flesh.
While Cottrell feels compelled to affirm that Jesus is the Son of God, he is apparently unaware of the overall scheme of biblical thought on the matter, so he cannot make sense of the truth he rightfully affirms. He is loyal to what the Bible says in a few stand-alone verses, but he overlooks what the Bible says as a whole regarding the Sonship of Christ. As a result, he unwittingly ends up with a lesser God begotten by a greater God. The Bible does not, in fact, teach that Christ began to exist as the divine Son of God at some point in eternity past, but rather that God Himself began to exist as the covenant Son of God, or the second Adam, at the point of His incarnation.
James White
In 1868, James White wrote along the exact same lines as Loughborough, Bates and Cottrell:
Jesus prayed that his disciples might be one as he was one with his Father. This prayer did not contemplate one disciple with twelve heads, but twelve disciples, made one in object and effort in the cause of their master. Neither are the Father and the Son parts of the “three-one God.” They are two distinct beings, yet one in the design and accomplishment of redemption. James White, Life Incidents, p. 343, 1868
Again, the underlying concern is evident: the Father and the Son each possess distinct personhood. Clearly, modalism was the version of the Trinity doctrine James White and the other pioneers were resisting. They believed that the relationship between God the Father and God the Son was real, and they were endeavoring to protect that truth for significant theological reasons. If the Father and the Son were merely projected modes of expression emitting from a single being, then the entire relational dynamic between them that we read about in the Gospels is a meaningless fiction.
But even as James White and other pioneers were pushing back on the modalism view of the Trinity, James White himself sought common ground with trinitarians:
The S. D. Adventists hold the divinity of Christ so nearly with the Trinitarians that we apprehend no trial here. James White, The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, October 12, 1876
Clearly, while the pioneers found it absurd to view the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as one being projecting three persons, they believed in the divinity of Christ. James White was trying to make this clear. A little less than a year later, he moved deeper into the subject. While Loughborough, Bates, and Cottrell were positioning themselves against modalism, James White felt the need to affirm the divinity of Christ and, in the process of doing so, he coined some helpful terminology that would later inform the thinking of his wife, Ellen. Watch what he says here:
We may look upon the Father and the Son before the worlds were made as a creating and law administering firm of equal power. Christ did not then rob God in regarding himself equal with the Father. Sin enters the world and the fall occurs. Christ steps out of this firm for a certain time, and takes upon himself the weakness of the seed of Abraham, that he may reach those who are enfeebled by transgression. With his divine arm our adorable Redeemer has hold of the throne of Heaven, and with his human arm he reaches to the depths of human wretchedness, and thus he becomes the connecting link between heaven and earth, a mediator between God and man. James White, The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, November 29, 1877
This is a phenomenal development of thought, especially given the historical context in which James arrived at it. Here we see a preliminary effort to enlarge the frame regarding the Adventist doctrine of God. Until this point, James and his fellow Advent pioneers had only been insisting on the distinct personhood of Christ alongside the Father. Now, James is reasoning further forward to work out the implications of what that distinct personhood means if Jesus is, Himself, divine.
James White offers three insights, which, although still in their first phase of development, are quite brilliant:
1 He suggests that the persons we now know as the Father and the Son should be seen as both existing before Creation, and that in their pre-creation coexistence they should be seen as “a creating and law administering firm of equal power.” Hold onto this language, because it will show up again in the later writings of Ellen White. For now, it is helpful to simply notice that James White was already, at this early stage of the movement, discerning the two beings as “a firm of equal power” existing together prior to Creation and the Fall—not as Father and Son, which are post-creation roles, but as a “firm of equal power.”
2 Then James paints a chronological picture for us. He suggests that one of the beings that existed within the “firm of equal power” underwent a transition of position: “Sin enters the world and the fall occurs,” he explains, and then “Christ steps out of this firm.” This is an early and groundbreaking perception within the Advent movement. James perceived that Jesus Christ—the divine person we know in redemption history as the Son of God—was nothing short of “equal” with the divine person we know within redemption
