The author of the article states ,”Although it makes me uncomfortable, I can’t get away from the nagging feeling that Jesus is appealing to a truth that is higher and deeper and, dare I say, truer, than scripture. My evangelical and inerrantist roots cringe at putting those last three words together: “truer than scripture.” And yet it’s there in black and white that, in service of some deeper truth, Jesus does make a significant change to scripture.” This individual displays gross negligence in hermeneutical awareness. Christ fulfilled the law, he didn’t change it. Quibbling over words says some, essential distinctions say I. The deeper truth is covenantal fulfillment of God’s promise, rather than….something, whatever this gentleman is proposing.

To give a brief overview, the above-mentioned post is speaking about changing the Bible. His premise is that Jesus changed the Bible, therefore there are things that can be truer than scripture. As a Pastor, he is pondering the question of what he would change in the Bible and how would it look if we changed scripture.
There is much to think about and respond to here for those of us who are servants of the Lord in the preaching ministry. The author of the article states

“Although it makes me uncomfortable, I can’t get away from the nagging feeling that Jesus is appealing to a truth that is higher and deeper and, dare I say, truer, than scripture. My evangelical and inerrantist roots cringe at putting those last three words together: “truer than scripture.” And yet it’s there in black and white that, in service of some deeper truth, Jesus does make a significant change to scripture.”

This individual displays gross negligence in hermeneutical awareness. Christ fulfilled the law, he didn’t change it. Quibbling over words says some, essential distinctions say I. The deeper truth is covenantal fulfillment of God’s promise, rather than….something, whatever this gentleman is proposing.

“As a pastor in the 21st century, I find myself asking a critical question about Jesus’s handling of the Shema: Do we get to change scripture like he did?”

Again, I would say Jesus didn’t change scripture. There was nothing wrong with the Shema to demand a shift, rebranding, or distance from the Shema. Jesus here extends and furthers (towards an eschatological goal) the law. He’s preparing and signaling a tie back into Jeremiah 31, connecting how he will fulfill the requirements of the Old Covenant and establish the fuller New Covenant. Does this author think that the same God-man who said Matthew 5:18, meant to “change” the law?
17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Mt 5:17–20)
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Written by Richard B. Gaffin Jr. and David B. Garner |
Tuesday, May 10, 2022
The adopted sons’ predestined sharing by resurrection in a human nature like that of the glorified firstborn Son rests on and derives from the adoptive significance of the Son’s own resurrection, when by the Spirit he was effectively declared/appointed what he was not previously (in his human nature), “the Son of God in power” (Romans 1:4).

Abstract
This article responds to the recent article by Joshua Maurer and Ty Kieser, “Jesus, ‘Adopted Son of God?’ Romans 1:4, Orthodox Christology, and Concerns about a Contemporary Conclusion.” While we commend these authors’ desire to promote orthodox Christology, we correct their misreading of our own positions, particularly our view regarding the adoption of the divine Son according to his human nature, an adoption essential for the perfecting of the Son in accomplishing the salvation applied to believers. We conclude with an important pastoral observation concerning the adoption of the Son for the adoption of believers.
We appreciate the evident concern for orthodox Christology in the article by Maurer and Kieser, “Jesus, ‘Adopted Son of God?’”1 We assure readers that we share this concern. Also, we appreciate the tone of the article and take at face value their saying that they are not accusing those whose views they critique—including us—of heresy (p. 328, n. 53). However, despite this distinction intending to de-escalate, an unavoidable conclusion remains, even though the authors do not choose to draw it: If the positions they attribute to us are in fact ours, then we are guilty of serious heresy and in fundamental violation of our ordination vows as ministers of the gospel.
The whole of the article seeks to show that our views are “incompatible with orthodox Christology” (p. 328) and “unlike the affirmations of orthodox Christianity” (p. 332, emphasis original). Having made these general assertions, they specify our alleged kinship with particular heresies:

Adoptionism. “The only possible means to affirm Jesus’s adoption is to deny that Jesus was the Son of God before the resurrection” (p. 327), and Gaffin and Garner argue for “a change in Jesus according to his divine nature” (p. 331).
Nestorianism. Gaffin and Garner “incline toward affirming two sons, two persons” (p. 331); “the only way to speak of filial progress is to introduce a second Son” (p. 332); and “the implication here is that the ‘eternal Son’ and ‘economic Son’ are distinct persons, two Sons” (p. 332).
Kenotic Christology. “These accounts could appeal to some version of Kenoticism” (p. 331, n. 70).2

It is difficult to see how the quotations they selected, let alone the fuller body of our writings, could possibly be aligned with the Christological errors they attribute to us. We are disappointed by the massive misreading of our work that has led to the alien views imposed upon us.
Where the authors get untracked and are wrong in their basic assessment of our views is signaled in the final, summarizing sentence of their opening paragraph: “Paul, they suppose, spoke of the eternally divine Son’s ‘adoptive divine sonship’” (p. 320). Put in quotation marks yet without any indication of a source, “adoptive divine sonship” presumably highlights their own representation of the basic view they are intent on critiquing as erroneous: that the Son’s divine nature is not immutable but changes.
“Adoptive divine sonship” occurs multiple times in characterizing our views: in the introduction (1 time), in section 1.1. in relation to Gaffin (3 times, in two of which “adoptive” is italicized) and in section 1.3 in relation to Garner (1 time in the body, 1 time in n. 26; in each occurrence “adoptive” is italicized).
Suffice it to say, at no place have we ever spoken or written of “divine adoptive sonship” or of “Jesus’s acquiring of divine sonship.”3 As an encapsulation of our view we reject such language as thoroughly misleading.
In what follows, we reply further to Maurer and Kieser’s critiques. Gaffin responds first to the authors’ critique of his view. Then Garner addresses their assessment of his position and offers some observations about issues related to orthodox Christology raised by their article. Finally, together we offer concluding remarks concerning some pastoral implications of adoption.
1. Response from Gaffin
Maurer and Kieser summarize my view of Jesus’s sonship as follows in their article:
We see evidence of something like this alteration of the Son in Gaffin’s argument that Romans 1:4 “teaches that at the resurrection Christ began a new and unprecedented phase of divine sonship. The eternal Son of God … has become what he was not before.” Gaffin assigns this change to the “eternal Son” and his “divine sonship” (rather than his humanity) and thereby seems to fall into the ditch of a Son whose divinity changes. (pp. 330–31)4
This quotation and the conclusions the authors draw from it prompt several observations.5
First, this is what I actually wrote in The Centrality of the Resurrection: “Verse 4 teaches that at the resurrection Christ began a new and unprecedented phase of divine sonship. The eternal Son of God, who was born, lived, and died κατὰ σάρκα, has been raised κατὰ πνεῦμα and so, in his messianic identity (of the seed of David), has become what he was not before: the Son of God in power.”6 Further, to reinforce what is meant by these two sentences, I directly appended this footnote from Geerhardus Vos: “‘From resurrection-beginnings, from an eschatological genesis dated the pneumatic state of Christ’s glory which is described as sonship of God ἐν δυνάμει.’”7
To say that there is a considerable difference between the way Maurer and Kieser have quoted me and what I wrote is an understatement. I have puzzled over what prompted them to elide the material they did (italicized for easy reference above) and without any indication why they had done so. Presumably, it is to find an instance of the notion of “adoptive divine sonship” they are concerned to critique as erroneous and unorthodox.
However, in the second sentence of what I wrote, the relative clause they elided (“who was born…”) is not there as dispensable filler material that can be ignored without drastically changing the meaning of the sentence as a whole. Nor can “the Son of God in power” be omitted as they did without removing the specific bottom-line conclusion of both sentences taken together. The elided material is essential to the meaning of the two sentences. The way the authors have quoted me so substantially changes what I wrote that they do not simply obscure its meaning, but give it a sense it does not have.
At the end of the excerpt quoted above, Maurer and Kieser append footnote 67: “Gaffin shows that he is aware of, and willing to, predicate particular attributes to Jesus according to one nature and not the other (Gaffin, Centrality, 105). Yet, he (curiously) does not make these same qualifications for adoption” (p. 331).
To this I can only say that what they find “curiously” to be the case is because in quoting me (see above) they have deleted from their consideration the relative clause in the second sentence. There “…born, lived, … died, … raised, …, (of the seed of David)” are true and can only be true of Christ, the eternal Son of God, according to his human nature, not his divine nature. The sense of the sentence, particularly when it is read within its immediate and the broader context of the book, is accurately restated by substituting “according to his human nature” for the relative clause: “The eternal Son of God, according to his human nature, has become what he was not before: the Son of God in power.” The two sentences, properly cited and read, do not by any stretch of sound reasoning provide evidence of attributing change to the deity of the Son (rather than his humanity), or, as the authors think, of seeming “to fall into the ditch of a Son whose divinity changes” (pp. 330–31).
In Romans 1:3–4, there is indeed a change in view for God’s Son, a change that is at the heart of the gospel, a change without which there is no gospel (note how these verses connect with vv. 1‒2 and that the gospel is a primary focus of vv. 1‒4). That change is this: In his human nature the eternal Son of God, the person of the divine Son, “for us and for our salvation” (Nicene Creed), having persevered in his state of humiliation (v. 3), entered his state of exaltation (v. 4).
The authors’ concern for orthodox Christology is commendable. Their misreading of my view is regrettable.
2. Response from Garner
2.1. Adoptive Divine Sonship Predicated upon Eschatological Sonship
As previously noted, Maurer and Kieser designate our positions with the formula “adoptive divine sonship”—a phrase likely drawn from Michael Peppard.8 Whoever is the source, the quotation deserves attribution. More pertinent to my response here, however, is the unorthodox theological baggage toted in the phrase, since Peppard rejects the pre-existent sonship of Christ and openly aligns himself with the adoptionism of James D. G. Dunn.9 Just as Maurer and Kieser do with Gaffin, they impose the phrase and its objectionable theological baggage upon me.
The authors write, “He [Garner], like Gaffin, understands Romans 1:3–4 ‘is an epochal designation of historically attained sonship rather than an ontological one concerning the hypostatic union.’”10 Then, deploying their refrain of choice, Maurer and Kieser draw the following conclusion: “This means that Jesus’s adoptive divine sonship is, therefore, properly predicated only to this ‘eschatological’ sonship” (pp. 324–25, their emphasis).
In this quote, as in the one from their note 67, referenced in Gaffin’s response above, the writers here employ a grammatically strained formulation of a matter predicated “to” something rather than “on” or “upon” something.11 If what they mean here is that Christ’s divine sonship is predicated upon his adoption, the response is an emphatic no to such Christology from-below argumentation. Jesus is the divine Son from eternity past and remains ever so. He does not and cannot acquire, obtain, mature into what he already is eternally as “very God of very God” (Nicene Creed), the only-begotten Son of God.
Jesus’s divine sonship does not derive from his incarnational experience or eschatological sonship, formulations more reflective of Pannenberg than of Paul. Contrary to Maurer and Kieser, who seek to demonstrate that I make Christ’s divine sonship contingent upon his resurrection, I openly contend precisely the opposite: Christ’s human sonship experience is only properly predicated upon his antecedent divine sonship.
In fact, the chapter in Sons in the Son from which the selected quotation comes begins with an extensive treatment of the deity of the Son of God.12 I affirm the tried, tested, and trusted Christological creeds of Nicaea and Chalcedon, and applaud the brilliant summation of orthodox Christology in the Westminster Confession of Faith chapter 8. In this same chapter of Sons in the Son, I further counter the heterodox and heretical Christology from-below paradigms, which predicate any notion of divinity upon his humanity. Instead, “the Son of God is ‘very and eternal God’ who took ‘upon him man’s nature. Christ’s divinity lies antecedent to his humanity.”13
Maurer and Kieser further misconstrue my view when they degrade my approach to Christ’s eternal sonship: “As Garner admits, ‘this sending does not create sonship, but presupposes it’” (p. 333). As the structure, argument, and tone of Sons in the Son unequivocally manifest, never do I “admit” the eternal sonship of Christ. Mere admission of Christ’s divinity strikes the protological and doxological heart of faithful Christology. As I make explicit, “The Logos asarkos precedes and qualifies the Logos ensarkos.”14 For this reason, the sentence immediately following their chosen quote from Sons in the Son cites Herman Ridderbos affirmingly: “The divine glory of Christ, even already in his pre-existence with the Father prior to his redemptive revelation, determines and underlies the Pauline Christology.”15 It is the divine Son that became incarnate, not a human son that became divine. This theological priority we must celebrate and effectuate, and never moderate or merely tolerate.
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How should we wage battle in the war on lies? As in everything, we must follow Jesus’s lead. First John 3:8 tells us, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” Jesus came to destroy the work of the Devil, and the work of the Devil is spreading lies. Our part in this war is similar: we must labor to destroy the Devil’s work by resisting lies. That’s why our motto should be “Live not by lies.”

For the past decade, we’ve been living in what many scholars and cultural observers call the “post-truth” age.
The Oxford Dictionary—which named “post-truth” its word of the year in 2016—defines this term as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”
While skepticism toward truth claims is nothing new, the past two decades have been distinguished by several factors that amplify the post-truth phenomenon. Social media’s rise has created echo chambers where misinformation can spread rapidly and unchecked. The decline in the influence of traditional information gatekeepers—such as established media outlets, universities, and religious institutions—has led to a fragmentation of shared narratives. And the increasing polarization of society has made many people more likely to accept information that confirms their existing beliefs, regardless of its factual basis.
This post-truth age poses profound challenges for Jesus followers. How does the church proclaim the gospel in a world where all truth claims are viewed with suspicion? How do we engage in meaningful dialogue when emotional resonance often trumps logical argument? And perhaps most critically, how do we maintain the integrity of our witness when the very concept of objective truth is under assault?
Truth, Lies, and the Devil
Before we can answer such questions about the post-truth world, we should first answer the question Pontius Pilate asked Jesus: “What is truth?” (John 18:38).
The best definition of truth, and one presupposed by Scripture, is that which corresponds to God’s reality. As philosopher J. P. Moreland explains, according to the correspondence theory of truth, “truth is a matter of a proposition (belief, thought, statement, representation) corresponding to reality.” Christians have a special relationship to truth since, as Scripture tells us, the ultimate reality—the most really real thing of all—is Jesus (John 14:6).
The opposite of truth is untruth or lies. When we say something is a lie, we mean it doesn’t correspond to reality. And if it doesn’t align with reality, it doesn’t align with the ultimate reality—Jesus. If it doesn’t correspond to reality, it’s in opposition to Jesus.
A lie is making an untrue statement or acting in such a way as to leave a false or misleading impression, especially with the intent to deceive someone who is deserving of the truth (and there are few situations where hearers are not deserving of truth [e.g., Josh. 2:4]). A lie is in opposition to the truth, and thus in opposition to Jesus. Post-truth is the phenomenon where public opinion is shaped more by unreality than reality, by lies rather than objective truth.
John Mark Comer notes that “the problem [today] is less that we tell lies and more that we live them; we let false narratives about reality into our bodies, and they wreak havoc in our souls.” In this post-truth world, we’re in the latest stage of what Comer calls the “war on lies.”
We’re both in a war on lies and with the one who started the war—the Devil. In John 8:44, Jesus says about the Devil, “He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
The Devil has many things he can do, many ways he can harm humans, such as demonic possession and affliction. But his most powerful and effective tools are often more subtle. In 1836, John Wilkinson wrote, “One of the artifices of Satan is to induce men to believe that he does not exist.” A corollary for our age is that a primary artifice of the Devil is to induce men to act as if objective truth doesn’t exist.
The most effective means the Devil has of introducing evil into this world is to tell lies and encourage humans to spread them. That’s why there’s a war between truth and lies—and why everyone must choose a side. We either choose to side with reality and Jesus or we choose to side with Satan and lies.
If you side with Satan, you’ll be enslaved by lies. If you side with Jesus, then as John 8:32 tells us, “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Those are our only two options.
To be effective in this war on lies, we must know what we’re fighting against, have a strategy for engagement, and develop tactics to implement our strategy.
Four Fronts in the War
There are numerous battle lines within this war, but four are primary.
1. Emotional Untruth
As a manifestation of the post-truth phenomenon, this occurs when people prioritize their feelings, intuitions, or emotional responses over objective facts or empirical evidence. At its core, emotional untruth reflects the human tendency to trust our gut feelings and personal experiences more than abstract data or expert opinions. This can be particularly powerful when the emotional response is tied to deeply held beliefs, personal identities, or traumatic experiences.
Emotional responses aren’t inherently negative or irrational, as they can often serve as valuable intuitive guides, especially in individual social situations. However, problems arise when we allow our emotions to consistently override factual information, leading to decisions or beliefs disconnected from objective reality.
2. Narrative Untruth
This refers to the phenomenon where people accept or believe something because it fits into a compelling storyline or explanation, regardless of its factual accuracy. This type of post-truth thinking capitalizes on the human tendency to make sense of the world through stories. We are, by nature, storytelling creatures, and we often find it easier to understand and remember information when it’s presented in a narrative format.
Narrative untruth’s power lies in its ability to provide a sense of coherence and meaning to complex or chaotic events, to offer simple explanations for difficult problems, and to reinforce existing beliefs or worldviews.
This can be a particularly seductive type of lie because it often contains elements of factual truth interwoven with speculation, exaggeration, or outright falsehoods. This mixture can make it challenging to distinguish between fact and fiction, especially when the narrative aligns with one’s preexisting beliefs or desires.
Unsupported conspiracy theories are the most obvious type of narrative untruths. But an even more common form, especially on social media, is the oversimplified or distorted narrative of current events. These narratives take complex social, political, or religious issues and reduce them to simple, emotionally charged stories that often vilify one group while glorifying another.
For example, a complex debate about how to respond to a political issue might be reduced to a meme portraying one political faction as purely evil and the other as entirely virtuous. Or a nuanced social issue might be boiled down to a viral video that presents only one perspective, ignoring important context and alternative, biblically valid viewpoints.
These narratives spread rapidly through likes, shares, and comments, often reaching millions of people before fact-checkers or more balanced perspectives can catch up. The danger lies in their ability to shape public opinion and even influence real-world actions based on incomplete or distorted information.
3. Tribalistic Untruth
The philosopher Richard Rorty once claimed that “truth is what your contemporaries let you get away with saying.” He was suggesting truth is a social construct influenced by the norms, beliefs, and power structures of a given time and place. A corollary to this claim is “tribal truth”—that truth becomes what your tribe lets you get away with saying.
An individual’s “tribe” is the “in-group,” the group a person belongs to and feels a strong sense of identification with.
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