To Clarify Doctrine of Holy Trinity over against Eternal Functional Subordination of the Son

Official Workbook overture source text

5-37 
To Clarify Doctrine of Holy Trinity over against 
Eternal Functional Subordination of the Son 
WHEREAS, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod confesses the 
doctrine of the Holy Trinity according to the Holy Scriptures and 
the ecumenical creeds, especially the Nicene and Athanasian 
Creeds, that confess the Son as homoousios  with the Father, equal 
in power, majesty, and glory; and 
WHEREAS, Lutheran orthodoxy has consistently taught that 
distinctions within the Holy Trinity are grounded in the eternal 
relations of origin , namely, that  the Father begets, the Son is 
begotten, and the Holy Spirit proceeds, and not in eternal relations 
of authority and submission; and 
WHEREAS, The teaching commonly known as the Eternal 
Functional Subordination of the Son to the Father (EFS), asserts an 
eternal relation of authority and obedience between the Father and 
the Son within the immanent Trinity, thereby introducing 
subordination into th e Trinity, which the Scriptures and Lutheran 
Confessions assign to Christ only according to His assumed human 
nature; and 
WHEREAS, A recent ly published scholarly article, “Eternal 
Subordination of the Son: Arianism Past and Present,” ( Carl L. 
Beckwith, Concordia Theological Quarterly 89, no. 4 [Oct, 2025]: 
307–328) has further demonstrated that EFS is incompatible with 
the Lutheran orthodox doctrine of the Trinity; and 
WHEREAS, This same article exposes the chief proponents of EFS 
among evangelicals and further notes, in a documented footnote, 
that a book published by Concordia Publishing House  (CPH) 
(Matthew C. Harrison and John T. Pless, eds., Women Pastors? The 
Ordination of Women in Biblical Lutheran Perspective , [CPH, 
2008]), had at one time promoted or reflected this false teaching ; 
and 
WHEREAS, The Commission on Theology and Church Relations 
(CTCR) report, The Order of Creation (adopted 2022), treats a focal 
text for EFS proponents, 1 Corinthians 11:3, in a way that could be 
read ambiguously or misleadingly, insofar as the text’s reference to