[UntoHim]

Great points Raptor! I can see you are thinking out loud here and that makes for some very interesting discussion.

I have always found it quite "telling" that the Lord Jesus referred to the God of the Old Testament (YAHWEH, Jehovah, Kurios) as "Father", and referred to himself as "the Son" - Son of Man or Son of God. Also, one need not look further than the famous verse "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son". I don't think it's much of a stretch to understand this verse in terms of "For God the Father so loved the world". A plain reading of the text surely implies that a son is subservient to his father, and therefore the Father is the one sending the Son. So we can plainly see that the Son of God was indeed subservient to God the Father before the incarnation.

Another passage that I think would dovetail into this dynamic would be in 1 Corinthians 15 - Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.

In context, I think one could easily understand "that God may be all in all" to mean "that God the Father may be all in all". But I can also see how one could interpret this phrase to mean "that the Godhead may be all in all". In any case, there does seem to be a clear subservience of the Son to the Father, at least administratively.

So where does all this leave us with modalism and the orthodox, historical teaching/doctrine/understanding of the Trinity? I'm not sure I know the answer to this one, but I'm ready and willing to learn from others.
-