Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve been going through lately the Watchtower booklet of “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” Currently, the Watchtower in our study is presenting arguments against the Trinity. Tonight, we’re going to look at the case of Jesus being God’s submissive servant.
To begin with, it’s important to note that a believer in the Trinity does believe that Jesus was a submissive servant to God. Thus, if the Watchtower wants to present this as evidence prima facie that Jesus is not ontologically equal to the Father, then it falls flat with just that statement. They do want to do a bit more as they want to show why that should be a problem for Trinitarianism. Let’s see if it is.
We are given a verse like John 5:19 where Jesus says he only does what he sees the Father doing. The Watchtower presents verses like this as if it would be a problem. What do they expect we think they should say if Jesus was ontologically equal to God?
“I do what I want and if the Father doesn’t want to do it, I do it anyway.”
“I come to teach my doctrine. What the Father teaches does not have to agree.”
“I did not come to do the will of my Father. I came to do my own will.”
Each of these would be highly contrary statements to both the doctrine of the Watchtower and Trinitarianism. They are not a problem for us however, nor do I think in themselves they would be one for the Watchtower. Trinitarians have never had a problem with Jesus doing the will of the Father and submitting to that perfectly in every angle. That’s what he was supposed to do in the life of a perfect man.
The Watchtower asks if the one who sends is superior to the one who is sent, but there is an equivocation here. When the centurion sends his servants to Jesus to ask him to come heal his sick servant, surely the centurion was superior to the servants, but in what way? Was the centurion superior in humanity or was he higher in rank? When a wife submits to her husband in a biblical way, is she doing so because she is inferior to her husband? (I would love to have a husband and wife couple use a superiority type argument like this and then get to ask the wife how inferior she is in humanity to her husband.)
The Watchtower assumes that lower in rank means lower in nature. That does not follow. The example that we have shown demonstrate that. Now to be fair, it could mean that. God is superior to the angels and the angels are described as servants. (Note that Jesus is also described as superior) That one has to submit to another is necessary to show superiority of essence, but it is not sufficient. Because there is submission, that does not prove that there is superiority of essence.
Because the followers of Jesus viewed him as God’s submissive servant, it does not rule out their viewing him as deity.
We shall continue next time.
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