While I am not a big fan of Robert Millet (I find most of his material to be really superficial and he rarely engages in meaningful exegesis), the following listing of Scriptures is a rather useful collection of passages, mainly in the New Testament, of the subordination (mainly functional, but sometimes ontological) of the Son to the Father; what is also interesting is that it also shows that the Book of Mormon and other early revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants also teach such, disproving the thesis that early Latter-day Saint theology was that of Modalism:
The New Testament, especially the Gospel of John, clearly teaches that Jesus the Son is subordinate to God the Father. This is also the doctrine taught in the scriptures of the Restoration. Those scriptures teach the following:
· God the Father is greater than Christ (John 14:28).
· There is only one that is good, that is, the Father (Matthew 19:16-17).
· Jesus came to do the will of the Father in all things (John 6:38; 3 Nephi 27:13-14).
· The gospel or glad tidings is the “gospel of God,” meaning the Father (Romans 1:1; 15:16; 1 Thessalonians 2:2, 8; 1 Peter 4:17).
· The Father sent the Son to atone for all of humanity (John 3:16; 2 Nephi 2:8).
· Jesus came in his Father’s name (John 5:43).
· The Father sanctified the Son (John 10:36).
· Jesus had power given to him by the Father to redeem earth’s inhabitants from their sins (Helaman 5:11).
· The Father “raised [the Son] up from the dead, and gave him glory; that [our] faith and hope might be in God” (1 Peter 1:21).
· God the Father will also raise us from the dead (2 Corinthians 4:14).
· The Father, through the Son, is reconciling the world to himself (2 Corinthians 5:18-20; 2 Nephi 10:24).
· Christ is our Advocate and Intercessor, the Mediator between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5-6; D&C 45:3-5).
· God was in Christ, manifesting himself to the world (Hebrews 1:3; John14:9).
· Christ’s doctrine is not his, but the Father’s (John 7:16).
· Jesus works through the power of the Father (John 5:26, 57; Helaman 5:10-11).
· The Holy Ghost proceeds forth from the Father (John 15:26).
· We are born again by the power of God the Father (1 Peter 1:3).
· We are made perfect by the Father (Hebrews 13:21; 1 Peter 5:10).
· The Father sends the “earnest of the Spirit,” the Holy Spirit of promise, to certify us that we are on course to inherit eternal life (2 Corinthians 1:21-22; 5:5; Ephesians 1:13-14).
· The Father has committed all judgments to the Son (John 3:35; 5:21-22, 26-27; 2 Nephi 9:41).
· Christ loves, serves, and worships the Father (John 20:17).
· Christ worked out his own salvation by worshipping the Father; all men and women must do the same (D&C 93:12-13, 16-17, 19-20).
· Christ is the revealer of and the Way to the Father (Luke 10:22; John 14:6).
· Christ glorifies the Father (John 17:1, 4).
These scriptural passages affirm that the Son was and is subordinate to the Father. We obviously could now take the time—which we will not—to consider all the passages that state that the Father and the Son are one; that Christ received a fullness of the glory and power of the Father in the resurrection; and that Jesus possesses in perfection every divine quality, attribute, or endowment, just as his Father does. The point to be made here is that there is in fact a hierarchy among the members of the Godhead. (Robert L. Millet, “One Eternal God: The Latter-day Saint Doctrine of the Father and the Son” in Eric D. Huntsman, Lincoln H. Blumell, and Tyler G. Griffin, eds. Thou Art the Christ the Son of the Living God: The Person and Work of Jesus in the New Testament, [Provo/Salt Lake City: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University/Deseret Book, 2018] 12-25, here, pp. 13-15)
