The role-versus-nature distinction is a rescue. Whenever a text says Jesus is less than the Father you file it under role; whenever a text says he is equal you file it under nature. That’s unfalsifiable.

The distinction is an interpretation of the data, not a bare fact, and that should be admitted. But it is not arbitrary: the New Testament itself supplies it. Philippians 2 says Jesus had equality with God and took the form of a servant; John 17:5 has Jesus asking for the glory he had before the world existed; Hebrews 2 says he was made lower than the angels for a time. The texts present the subordination as something entered into, not as a permanent condition. That is the difference between a rescue invented to save a theory and a category the sources themselves use.