The Son was the Word that took on the flesh and blood of a human being. The Word was distinct from the Father. With all due respect you are assigning to the spiritual beings of the Father, Word and Holy Spirit inappropriate limitations that apply to physical beings. That is natural. We have no experiential understanding of spirits, and certainly not of the Spirits.@FreeInChrist @mikesw
I added Mike with you since he agreed with you.
As the Son, Jesus did not exist "before" he was conceived in Luke one's account, which is God's testimony to us when He begat His Son, Jesus Christ. Your understanding paves the way for Jesus being the eternal Son of God which is an impossibility, or words have no meaning. Your understanding makes Jesus less than God and destroys/denies his eternality. I have already went over this in details in the beginning of this thread or one similar to this one.
I ask you and Mike ~ "Can true Divinity be deprived or propagated? The very thought of this in a positive way is blasphemy against the God of the holy scriptures. What is real Divinity of the Most High God? The following attributes have ever been conceived as essential to it: Self-existence, Infinity, Independence, Omniscience, Omnipotence, Omnipresence, Immutability, eternal both ways, and Infinite in every way possible that is imaginable to the human mind."
Another question: "How can eternal generation of the Son of God be accepted as biblical truth, and for those still holding such doctrine still contend that Jesus Christ is self-existence and independent"? Which is a main truth of being God of the holy scriptures. You have a serious hole in your understanding of the Godhead. Those who reject Jesus being God know this more than you do, and know they have you over a barrow. That's one reason why you can never prove them to be wrong in their doctrine (which they are) yet your dotrince truly gives them life to their corruption of the Godhead.
When stripped of all artificial verbiage, the naked question returns: Is Jesus Christ absolutely, eternally independently, underived, the very Supreme and eternal God, that the word of God declares him to be?
We say, yes he is! That is why we must reject eternal generation in any way presented to us by men who profess to be wise.
We can easily prove that this is an impossibility and a contradiction of terms used in the eternal Sonship defense. I have said this many time, but it is worth repeating:
The Eternal Sonship is a dogma that is discredited logically by self contradiction. To contend that Jesus was eternally begotten is a manifest contradiction of term. We ask: can an object begin and not begun? No. The saying within itself is most absurd. Why do not people consider this, and understand it? Acts 28:25-27 is the answer.
Please consider carefully: Eternity is that which has no beginning, nor stands in reference to time~Son supposes time, generation, and father; time is also antedent to such generation~therefore, the conjunction of the two terms: Son and eternity~is absolutely impossible as they imply different and opposite ideal. Words must have meaning, or else, how can we communicate with each other on a level where we can understand each other? I understand eternity and I also understand the word son, and so do my readers, and we should know how to use each word properly, without confusing the meaning of either.
This is a given, since God is a Spirit, that's who God IS! Genesis 1:1 is God period! Without any qualifications. God was not a Father in the sense of begetting a Son in the matter in which Jesus was begotten until Luke one's testimony. If so, prove it with scriptures. Who is the eternal mother of His Son? It is vain man talking without scriptural verses to support them.
Jesus was one with God in His deity in his Eternal Divine nature being in the bosom of God from everlasting as the Alpha and Omega of all things.
John 1:18
“No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.”
John 1:1
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
The Word was with God, as far as his eternal Divine nature goes as being the One true God that inhabits eternity. The scriptures does not say the Son was with God, the ONE and True God is the Eternal Spirit that created all things who had a Son in time as we know time around two thousand years ago, per the testimony of God which we believe in.
He chose his people from before the foundation of the world and loved us in Christ, yet we too were born in time, and certainly are not eternal accept in God eternal purposes that He would do by creating.
2nd Timothy 1:9
“Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,”
The eternal Sonship position destroys Jesus' Deity as the One True God that created all thing which he was!
And all of God's children said: Amen, and Amen.
When the Word, the Spirit, took on the flesh and blood of a human being, the Spirit, the Word, did not cease to exist. Human beings have a spirit given them by God. Jesus had a spirit that was the Word. That Word was and is eternal.