Traditional Heresies Concerning the Triune God

The Truth Refuting Adoptionism

The Son was God in eternity past as the preincarnate Word (John 1:1). In incarnation, though He was most certainly a man, He retained His Godhead absolutely. In fact, the human child Jesus was also named Emmanuel, meaning “God with us” (Matt. 1:23). In addition, Christ identified Himself to the unbelieving Jews as “I am” (John 8:24) which, according to Exodus 3:14, is a particular name of Jehovah implying His self-existence and ever-existence. In resurrection, He was worshipped as God (John 20:28). Furthermore, He is called the Alpha and the Omega (Rev. 22:13), titles ascribed only to God (Rev. 1:8). Hence the processes of incarnation, human living, death, and resurrection never compromised the Son’s full, uninterrupted possession of absolute Deity from eternity past.

Christ was begotten the Firstborn Son of God in resurrection. Though this aspect of Christ’s resurrection may be unfamiliar to many, it is nonetheless essential to the defense of His Deity. Intrinsically, the resurrection of Christ was actually a birth to Christ (Acts 13:33). Christ was the only begotten Son of God in eternity, yet in time He was born of Mary in His incarnation, and He was born yet again in resurrection. “When Christ was born of Mary, He was born as a man, and His humanity had nothing to do with God’s sonship. Strictly speaking, the human part of Jesus was not the Son of God but the Son of Man” (Witness Lee, Conclusion, 793). In incarnation, He came in the likeness of the flesh of sin (Rom. 8:3), which flesh was part of the old man in the old creation. How then could His humanity be considered part of the Son of God? The key is found in Romans 1:4: in resurrection, Christ according to the flesh was designated the Son of God according to the Spirit of holiness. “Jesus’ divinity is the Spirit of holiness, having the divine power and the divine element to transform Jesus’ humanity” (Witness Lee, Crystallization, 9). In the resurrection of Christ, His divinity with its divine element and power sanctified, transformed, and uplifted His humanity into the divine sonship. Through such a process, He was designated, begotten to be God’s firstborn Son, possessing both divinity and “sonized” humanity.

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