Son of God

SON OF GOD

A peculiar appellation of Christ, expressing his eternal relationship to the Father, Psa 2:7 Dan 3:25 Luk 1:35 Joh 1:18,34 . Christ always claimed to be the only-begotten Son of the Father, Mat 4:3 8:29 27:54 Joh 3:16-18 ; and the Jews rightly understood him as thus making himself equal with God, Joh 5:18 10:30-33.

Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

SON OF GOD

A term applied in the Scriptures not only to magistrates and saints, but more particularly to Jesus Christ. Christ, says Bishop Pearson, has a fourfold right to this title.

1. By generation, as begotten of God, Luk 1:35.

2. By commission, as sent by him, Joh 10:34; Joh 10:36.

3. By resurrection, as the first born, Act 13:32-33.

4. By actual possession, as heir of all, Heb 1:2; Heb 1:5. But, besides these four, many think that he is called the Son of God in such a way and manner as never any other was, is, or can be, because of his own divine nature, he being the true, proper, and natural Son of God, begotten by him before all worlds, Joh 3:16. Rom 8:3. 1Jn 4:9.

See article GENERATION ETERNAL, and books there referred to.

Fuente: Theological Dictionary

Son of God

Second Person of the Blessed Trinity; Jesus Christ the Redeemer: “Indeed thou art the Son of God” (Matthew 14), “Thou art Christ, the Son of the Living God” (16).

Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary

Son of God

IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

The title “son of God” is frequent in the Old Testament. The word “son” was employed among the Semites to signify not only filiation, but other close connexion or intimate relationship. Thus, “a son of strength” was a hero , a warrior, “son of wickedness” a wicked man, “sons of pride” wild beasts, “son of possession” a possessor, “son of pledging” a hostage, “son of lightning” a swift bird, “son of death” one doomed to death, “son of a bow” an arrow, “son of Belial” a wicked man, “sons of prophets” disciples of prophets etc. The title “son of God” was applied in the Old Testament to persons having any special relationship with God. Angels, just and pious men, the descendants of Seth, were called “sons of God” (Job 1:6; 2:1; Psalm 88:7; Wisdom 2:13; etc.). In a similar manner it was given to Israelites (Deuteronomy 14:50); and of Israel, as a nation, we read: “And thou shalt say to him: Thus saith the Lord: Israel is my son, my firstborn. I have said to thee: Let my son go, that he may serve me” (Exodus 4:22 sq.).

The leaders of the people, kings, princes, judges, as holding authority from God, were called sons of God. The theocratic king as lieutenant of God, and especially when he was providentially selected to be a type of the Messias, was honoured with the title “Son of God”. But the Messias, the Chosen One, the Elect of God, was par excellence called the Son of God (Ps. ii, 7). Even Wellhausen admits that Ps. ii is Messianic (see Hast., Dict. the Bible”, lV, 571). The prophecies regarding the Messias became clearer as time went on, and the result is ably summed up by Sanday (ibid.): ” The Scriptures of which we have been speaking mark so many different contributions to the total result, but the result, when it is attained, has the completeness of an organic whole. A Figure was created — projected as it were upon the clouds–which was invested with all the attributes of a person. And the minds of men were turned toward it in an attitude of expectation. It makes no matter that the lines of the Figure are drawn from different originals. They meet at last in a single portraiture. And we should never have known how perfectly they meet if we had not the Old Testament picture to compare with that of the Old Testament. The most literal fulfilment of prediction would not be more conclusive proof that all the course of the world and all the threads of history are in one guiding Hand.” The Messias besides being the Son of God was to be called Emmanuel (God with us) Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, Prince of Peace (Isaiah 8:8; 9:) (see MESSIAS).

IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

The title “the Son of God” is frequently applied to Jesus Christ in the Gospels and Epistles. In the latter it is everywhere employed as a short formula for expressing His Divinity (Sanday); and this usage throws light on the meaning to be attached to it in many passages of the Gospels. The angel announced: “He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High… the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:32, 35). Nathaniel, at his first meeting, called Him the Son of God (John 1:49). The devils called Him by the same name, the Jews ironically, and the Apostles after He quelled the storm. In all these cases its meaning was equivalent to the Messias, at least. But much more is implied in the confession of St. Peter, the testimony of the Father, and the words of Jesus Christ.

Confession of St. Peter

We read in Matt., xvi, 15, 16: “Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven.” The parallel passages have: “Thou art the Christ” (Mark 8:29), “The Christ of God” (Luke ,ix,20). There can be no doubt that St. Matthew gives the original form of the expression, and that St. Mark and St. Luke in giving “the Christ” (the Messias), instead, used it in the sense in which they understood it when they wrote, viz. as equivalent to “the incarnate Son of God” (see Rose, VI). Sanday, writing of St. Peter’s confession, says: “the context clearly proves that Matthew had before him some further tradition, possibly that of the Logia, but in any case a tradition that has the look of being original ” (Hastings, “Dict. of the Bible”). As Rose well points out, in the minds of the Evangelists Jesus Christ was the Messias because He was the Son of God, and not the Son of God because He was the Messias.

Testimony of the Father

(1) At the Baptism. “And Jesus being baptized, forthwith came out of the water: and lo, the heavens were opened to him: and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon him. And behold a voice from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:16, 17). “And there came a voice from heaven: Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22).

(2) At the Transfiguration. “And lo, a voice out of the cloud saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye him” (Matthew 17:5; Mark 9:6; Luke 9:35). Though Rose admits that the words spoken at the Baptism need not necessarily mean more than what was suggested by the Old Testament, viz. Son of God is equal to the Messias, still, as the same words were used on both occasions, It is likely they had the same meaning in both cases. The Transfiguration took place within a week after St. Peter’s Confession. And the words were used in the meaning in which the three disciples would then understand them; and at the Baptism it is probable that only Christ, and perhaps the Baptist, heard them, so that it is not necessary to interpret them according to the current opinions of the crowd. Even so cautious a critic a the Anglican Professor Sanday writes on thee passage: “And if, on the occasions in question, the Spirit of God did intimate prophetically to chosen witnesses, more or fewer, a revelation couched partly in the language of the ancient Scriptures, it would by no means follow that the meaning of the revelation was limited to the meaning of the older Scriptures. On the contrary, it would be likely enough that the old words would be charged with new meaning–that, indeed the revelation…would yet be in substance a new revelation…. And we may assume that to His (Christ’s) mind the announcement ‘Thou art my Son’ meant not only all that it ever meant to the most enlightened seers of the past, but, yet more, all that the response of His own heart told Him that it meant in the present…. But it is possible, and we should be justified in supposing–not by way of dogmatic assertion but by way of pious belief–in view of the later history and the progress of subsequent revelation, that the words were intended to suggest a new truth, not hitherto made known, viz. that the Son was Son not only in the sense of the Messianic King, or of an Ideal People, but that the idea of sonship was fulfilled in Him in a way yet more mysterious and yet more essential; in other words, that He was Son, not merely in prophetic revelation, but in actual transcendent fact before the foundation of the world” (Hastings, “Dict. of the Bible”).

Testimony of Jesus Christ

(1) The Synoptics. The key to this is contained in His words, after the Resurrection: “I ascend to my Father and to your Father” (John 20:17). He always spoke of MY Father, never of OUR Father. He said to the disciples: “Thus then shall YOU pray: Our Father”, etc. He everywhere draws the clearest possible distinction between the way in which God was His Father and in which He was the Father of all creatures. His expressions clearly prove that He claimed to be of the same nature with God; and His claims to Divine Sonship are contained very clearly in the Synoptic Gospels, though not as frequently as in St. John.

“Did you not know, that I must be about my father’s business” (Luke 2:49); “Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doth the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. Many will say to me in that day: Lord, Lord, have not we prophesied in thy name, and cast out devils in thy name, and done many miracles in thy name? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me you, that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:21-23). “Everyone therefore that shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 10:32). “At that time Jesus answered and said: I confess to thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones. Yea, Father; for so hath it seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered to me by my Father. And no one knoweth the Son, but the Father: neither doth any one know the Father, but the Son, and he to whom it shall please the Son to reveal HIM. Come to me, all you that labour, and are burdened, and I will refresh you” (Matthew 11:25-30; Luke 10:21, 22). In the parable of the wicked husbandmen the son is distinguished from all other messengers: “Therefore having yet one son, most dear to him; he also sent him unto them last of all, saying: They will reverence my son. But the husbandmen said one to another: This is the heir; come let us kill him” (Mark 12:6). Compare Matt., xxii, 2, “The kingdom of heaven is likened to a king, who made a marriage for his son.” In Matt., xvii, 25, He states that as Son of God He is free from the temple tax. “David therefore himself calleth him Lord, and whence is he then his son?” (Mark 12:37). He is Lord of the angels. He shall come “in the clouds of heaven with much power and majesty. And he shall send his angels” (Matthew 24:30, 31). He confessed before Caiphas that he was the Son of the blessed God (Mark 14:61-2). “Going therefore, teach ye all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost… and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world” (Matthew 28:19, 20).

The claims of Jesus Christ, as set forth in the Synoptic Gospels, are so great that Salmon is justified in writing (Introd. to New Test., p. 197): “We deny that they [Christ’s utterances in the Fourth Gospel] are at all inconsistent with what is attributed to Him in the Synoptic Gospels. On the contrary, the dignity of our Saviour’s person, and the duty of adhering to Him, are as strongly stated in the discourses which St. Matthew puts into His mouth as in any later Gospel…. The Synoptic Evangelists all agree in representing Jesus as persisting in this claim [of Supreme Judge] to the end, and finally incurring condemnation for blasphemy from the high-priest and the Jewish Council…. It follows that the claims which the Synoptic Gospels represent our Lord a making for Himself are so high…that, if we accept the Synoptic Gospels as truly representing the character of our Lord’s language about Himself, we certainly have no right to reject St. John’s account, on the score that he puts too exalted language about Himself into the mouth of our Lord.”

(2) St. John’s Gospel. It will not be necessary to give more than a few passages from St. John’s Gospel. “My Father worketh until now; and I work…. For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things which he himself doth: and greater works than these will he shew him, that you may wonder. For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and giveth life: so the Son also giveth life to whom he will. For neither doth the Father judge any man, but hath given all judgment to the Son. That all may honour the Son, as they honour the Father” (v, 17, 20-23). “And this is the will of my Father that sent me: that everyone who seeth the Son, and believeth in him, may have life everlasting, and I will raise him up in the last day” (vi, 40). “Father, the hour is come, glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee…. And now glorify thou me, O Father, with thyself, with the glory which I had, before the world was, with thee” (xvi, 1, 5).

(3) St. Paul. St. Paul in the Epistles, which were written much earlier than most of our Gospels, clearly teaches the Divinity of Jesus Christ, and that He was the true Son of God; and it is important to remember that his enemies the Judaizers never dared to attack this teaching, a fact which proves that they could not find the smallest semblance of a discrepancy between his doctrines on this point and that of the other Apostles.

———————————–

LEPIN, Jésus Messie et Fils de Dieu (Paris, 1906); also Eng. tr. (Philadelphia); ROSE, Studies on the Gospels (London, 1903); SANDAY, Hist. Dict. Bible

C. AHERNETranscribed by Scott Anthony Hibbs

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIVCopyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, July 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia

Son of God

This expression occurs, and even with some frequency, in the plural before it is found in the singular; that is, in the order of God’s revelations it is used in a sense applicable to a certain class or classes of God’s creatures prior to its being employed as the distinctive appellation of One to whom it belongs in a sense altogether peculiar. It seems necessary, therefore, in order to obtain a natural and correct view of the subject, that we first look at the more general use of the expression, and then consider its specific and higher application to the Messiah.

1. SONS OF GOD viewed generally. We first meet with this designation in a passage which has from early times been differently understood. It is at Gen 6:14, where, in reference to the growing corruption of antediluvian times, it is said, The sons of God (bene Elohim) saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all whom they chose (that is, having regard only to natural attraction). And again, There were giants in the earth (literally, the nephilim were on the earth) in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare [children] unto them, these were the mighty men (the heroes, ) who were of old, men of renown. The sons of God in these verses, say many of the Jewish interpreters, were persons of quality, princes and nobles, and. the daughters of men they married were females of low birth as if the climax of disorder and corruption in the Bible sense were marrying below one’s rank! Such a view carries improbability in its very front, and is without any support in the general usage of the terms. In the Apocryphal book of Enoch, then by many of the fathers, and in later times not a few Catholic and Lutheran theologians (including among the last. class Stier, Hofmann, Kurtz, Delitzsch), the sons of God is a name for the angels, in this case, of: course, fallen angels; who they think form the only proper contrast to the daughters of men. In other passages, also, angels are undoubtedly called sons of God (Job 1:6; Job 2:1; Job 38:7; Dan 3:25) and sons of Elim, or the Mighty (Psa 29:1; Psa 89:7). There are, however, other passages in which men standing in a definite relation to God, his peculiar people, are so called. Israel, as the elect nation, is called his son, his first born (Exo 4:22); but within this circle a narrower circle still bore the name of his sons, as contradistinguished from those who corrupted themselves and fell away to the world (Deu 32:5); and those who had backslidden, but again returned, were to be designated sons of the living God (Hos 1:10). Also in Psa 80:17, Israel in the stricter sense, as the elect seed, is named the son whom God (Elohim) made strong for himself. There seems no reason, therefore, for supposing that the expression sons of God should be understood of angels any more than of men. Its actual reference must be determined from the connection, and in the case under consideration angels are on various accounts necessarily excluded. For

(1) the procedure ascribed to. those sons of God choosing beautiful women for wives and marrying them cannot, without the greatest incongruity, be associated with angelic natures, among which there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage (Luk 20:35-36). Even carnal intercourse between such parties was impracticable; but the actual taking of wives (the, term, used being that uniformly employed to denote the marriage relationship) is still more abhorrent to the ideas set forth in Scripture as to the essential distinctions between the region of spirits and the world of sense.

(2.) If a relation of the kind had been possible, it would still have been entirely out of place in such a narrative, where the object of the historian manifestly is to trace the progress of human corruption-implying that the prominent actors in the drama were men, and not beings of another sphere. Hence, immediately after the first notice of the angels of God marrying the daughters of men, the Lord says, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh (Gen 6:3); as if the whole quarrel were with the partakers of flesh and blood.

(3.) The moral bearing and design of the narrative also point in the same direction, which undoubtedly aimed at presenting, from the state of things which drew on the Deluge, a solemn warning to the Israelites against those heathen marriages which brought incalculable mischief on the covenant people.

(4.) In like manner, the allusion of our Lord to the marrying and giving in marriage before the Flood as things which were going to be repeated after the same fashion before the second advent (Luk 17:27) requires them to be understood of earthly relationships, otherwise the allusion could have furnished no proper parallel to the state of things anticipated in the last days, and would have been beside the mark. (See Stosch, De Filiis Dei [Lingae, 1749]; Quintorp, ibid. [Rost. 1751]; Scholz, Ehe d. Sohne Gottes, etc. [Ratisb. 1866].)

We are therefore decidedly of opinion that by Sons of God in the narrative of Genesis is meant, as the great body of the best interpreters have understood it, a select class of men on earth, those who belonged to the line that had maintained in a measure the true filial relationship to God (the Sethites). Though fallen and sinful, yet, as children of faith and heirs of promise, they were the spiritual as well as natural offspring of one who was originally made in God’s image, and who still through grace could look up to God as a father. From this select class the Cainites were cut off, the unbelieving and godless spirit they manifested showing them to be destitute of the childlike spirit of faith and love; whence Adam and Eve, by reckoning their seed only through Seth, had in a manner disowned them. Alienated from God, the offspring of Cain were merely sons of men, and their daughters might fitly be called in an emphatic sense the daughters of men, because knowing no higher parentage.

But the other class contained members of a family of God on earth; for, if in that olden time there were pious men, who, like Enoch and Noah, walked with God, or who, even if they did not stand in this close, priestly relation to God, made the divine image a reality through their piety and fear of God, then these were sons of God (Elohim), for whom the only correct appellation was sons of Elohim,’ since sonship to Jehovah was only introduced with the call of Israel (Keil). The name in question, sons of God, was made prominent at the critical time when it was on the eve of becoming altogether inapplicable in order the more distinctly to show how willing God was to own the relationship as long as he well could, and how grievous a degeneracy discovered itself when the distinction belonging to them as God’s elect began practically to be obliterated by their ungodly alliances with the world. It is impossible here to enter into the collateral arguments urged by those who oppose the view given in the text and understand by sons of God the fallen angels. They are chiefly two. They conceive the nephilim (q.v.), the men of gigantic energy, or superhuman might, mentioned in Gen 6:4, to be the product of those unnatural connections, and a proof of it. But the text speaks of the nephilim as being on the earth before the improper marriages in question were formed; and it is not at all clear that the gibborim, or mighty men subsequently referred to, were the same or similar persons (see Keil, On Gen 6:4). The other line of support is derived from the supposed reference, in Jdt 6:7, to the wickedness of the fallen angels in a lustful and fleshly direction, as. if they left their proper habitation to mingle in the pollutions of sensual indulgence here; but this is quite a fanciful interpretation. The sensuality and defiling of the flesh spoken of have reference, not to them, but to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, who indulged in wanton and rebellious courses like the angels, but in these took, of course, a different direction. Going after fornication, or strange flesh, implies, as Keil remarks, a flesh of one’s own ( ), which the angels had not.

It was thus plainly in reference to men’s moral state and relationship that the epithet sons of God was applied to some before the Deluge; and so was it ever afterwards. In a mere physical sense, as having derived their being from God, men are not in Scripture designated his sons; though there is an approach to it in the appropriation by Paul of a passage from a heathen poet (We are also his offspring, Act 17:28), in order to give it a higher application. Israel, when about to be called out of Egypt, or when actually delivered. was called collectively the son of Jehovah, or, in the-plural, sons (Exo 4:22-23; Deu 14:1; Hos 11:1); and this because they were by special election and privilege called to be a holy people unto Jehovah their God, and Jehovah had chosen them to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth (Deu 14:2; Exo 19:5-6). In this sense .are to be understood all the passages which speak of God as the Father, the Former, or Begetter, of Israel (Deu 32:18; Jer 2:27; Isa 64:8; Mal 1:6; Mal 2:10). The sonship they indicate is one of a moral or spiritual nature, having its origin in the free grace of God. and its visible manifestation in the peculiar relation of Israel to the knowledge, service, and blessing of Jehovah. They are also called God’s first born, because the distinction thus conferred upon them was not to, be theirs exclusively; they only took precedence of others, and received their place and privileges in order that through them all the nations of the earth might be similarly blessed.

But from the manifest failing, on the part of the great body of the people, to fulfil their calling and destiny, the sonship was again, as it were, denied of the collective Israel, and limited to the better portion of them. The one had not the marks of true children (Deu 32:5), and the other alone could properly call God Father, or be owned by him as sons (Jer 3:4; Hos 1:10). And even in their case all was imperfect, and could not but be till the time of reformation, when God’s purpose of grace reached its full development, and the partakers of it attained to a far higher position in the gifts and blessings of the divine; kingdom. From that time it was formally as the regenerate, those who have been born again of God or have received from him the adoption, that they become members of the kingdom (Joh 1:12-13; Joh 3:3; Joh 3:5; Gal 3:5, etc.); and the Spirit is conferred upon them, not with a kind of secrecy and reserve, but in the full plenitude of grace, and expressly as the spirit of sonship or adoption, leading them to cry in a manner altogether peculiar, Abba, Father (Rom 8:15). As compared with this higher stage of sonship, those who lived in earlier times, while they enjoyed the reality, scarcely knew how to use it. In the tone of their spirits and the general environments of their condition they approached al; nearer to the state of servants than that of sons. SEE ABBA.

2. SON OF GOD, in its special application to Jesus Christ. Even in Old- Test. Scripture, and with respect to the participation of sonship by the common members of the covenant, there was, as already stated, a narrowing of the idea of sonship to those in whom it was actually realized: But within that narrow circle there was a narrower still of which divine sonship was predicated, and this in connection with the family of David, the royal house. Even in the first formal announcement of God’s mind on the subject, when the prophet Nathan declared so distinctly that David’s son should also be God’s son, and that the throne of his son’s kingdom should be established forever (2Sa 7:14-16), there was an elevation of the idea of sonship beyond what had yet been given in the revelations of God to his people. The king on the throne of Israel in David’s line was to be in the most emphatic sense God’s son combining, therefore, royalty and sonship and this associated with actual perpetuity. Could such things be supposed to have their full accomplishment in a son who had about him only the attributes of humanity?

Must not the human, in order to their realization, be in some peculiar manner interpenetrated with the divine? Thoughts of this description could scardely fail to occur to contemplative minds from the consideration of this prophecy alone; but other and still more explicit utterances were given to aid, their contemplations and render their views in this respect more definite. For David himself in Psalms 2 speaks of the future God-anointed king of Zion as so anointed and destined to the irreversible inheritance of the kingdom, just because he was Jehovah’s son and had a right to wield Jehovah’s power and exercise his sovereignty to the utmost bounds of the earth. This seemed to bespeak for him who was to be king by way of eminence an essentially divine standing; and in Psalms 45 he is addressed formally as God, whose throne should be for ever and ever. The same strain was caught up at a later period by Isaiah (Isa 7:14), where it is said of the child one day to be born in the house of David of a virgin that he should be Immanuel (God with us), and, again, in 9:6, that the child so singularly to be given should be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God (literally, the God hero), the Everlasting Father the Prince of Peace epithets which had been unmeaning, or at least extravagantly hyperbolical, if the destined bearer of them had not been possessed of strictly divine attributes. So, also, in the prophet Micah, the contemporary of Isaiah, it is affirmed of the future ruler of Israel, whose birth was to throw a peculiar glory around the little town of Bethlehem, that his goings- forth have been from old, from everlasting (5:2). It is but to give a specific application to these prophecies, and to many besides that spoke of the glorious powers and prerogatives of Him who should come as the angel or messenger of the covenant to redeem his people and rectify the affairs of the divine kingdom, when at the beginning of the Gospel era the birth was announced of one who should be called the Son of the Highest, and who should sit on the throne of David (Luk 1:32); and when this same person, as soon as he had begun to manifest himself to the people, was acknowledged as at once the King of Israel and the Son of God (Joh 1:49).

Nothing, however can be more clear from the records of New Test. Scripture than that the Jews, while they expected a Messiah who should be king of Israel, were all but unanimous in the rejection of the idea that he should be possessed of a nature essentially divine. They could scarcely doubt that he was to enjoy in a very peculiar manner the favor and help of God so as to occupy the very highest rank among God’s messengers to men; but there is no evidence that they carried the matter higher (Schottgen’s proofs [De Messia, vol. 3] to the contrary are insufficient); and, accordingly, whenever our Lord made declarations which amounted to an assumption of proper divinity, he was always met by an uncompromising opposition, except within the circle of his immediate disciples. Once and again, when he spoke in such a way as to convey the impression that God was his own () Father Father in a sense that implied equality of nature the Jews proceeded to deal with him as a blasphemer (Joh 5:18; Joh 8:59; Joh 10:30-33).

When assuming the divine prerogative of forgiving sins, they charged him in their hearts with blasphemy (Mat 9:3) but, so far from desisting from the claim, he appealed on the spot to what should have been regarded as an incontrovertible proof of his right to maintain it his power and capacity to perform an essentially divine work. When at a later period he challenged them, to reconcile their belief in the fact as to the Christ being David’s son with David’s own recognition of him as his Lord, they were unable to meet it (Luk 20:41-44), plainly because they were unprepared to allow any strictly divine element in the constitution of Christ’s person. Finally, when driven from all other grounds of accusation against Jesus, they at last found their capital charge against him in his confession that he was the Son of the living God (Mat 26:63-66). In all the passages referred to, and very specially in the last, it admits of no doubt both that Jesus claimed a really divine character and that his adversaries rejected the claim and held the very making of it to be a capital crime. Jesus knew perfectly that they so understood him, and yet he deliberately accepts their interpretation of his words, nay, consents to let the sentence pronounced against him run, its course rather than abandon or modify the claim to divinity on which it was grounded. The conclusion is inevitable on both sides: on the side of the Jewish authorities that the idea of divine sonship was utterly abhorrent to their view of the expected Messiah, while in the mind of Jesus it was only as possessing such a sonship that the real characteristics of the Messiah could be found in him. Stier, however, has conclusively shown (Words of the Lord Jesus, on Joh 9:36) that the title Son of God was not a mere equivalent for Messiah.

The mistake of the Jews respecting the person of Christ did not come of itself; it sprang from superficial views of the work of Christ. The national king of Israel, such as they had come to anticipate in the Messiah, might have been a mere man only specially assisted by God. There was nothing in the contemplated office which lay above the reach of human capacity or prowess, and it could not appear otherwise than blasphemy to associate with it an incarnation of Deity. Had they seen the more essential part of the work to lie in the reconciliation of iniquity, and laying open, through an atonement of infinite value and a righteousness all perfect and complete, the way to eternal life for a perishing world, they would have seen that unspeakably higher than human powers were needed for the task. Misapprehending the conditions of the great problem that had to be solved, they utterly mistook the kind of qualifications required for its solution, and remained blind to the plainest testimonies of their own Scriptures on the subject. They alone saw it who came to know Jesus as the Savior of sinners, the Redeemer of the world; and their testimony to his divine character was, like his own, explicit and uniform. If, as has been well said gathering up the substance of their statements and our Lord’s own on the subject if the only begotten and we beloved Son of God, who always was, and is to be, in the bosom of the Father, in the nearness and dearness of an eternal fellowship and an eternal sonship; who is the manifestation, the expression, the perfect image of God, such a reflection of his glory and express image of his person that whoever has seen the Son has seen the Father also; who is the agent and representative of God in the creation and preservation of the material and the spiritual universe, in the redemption of the Church and the reconciliation of the world and the government of both, in the general resurrection of the dead and the final judgment of men and angels, in all divine attributes and acts, so that he is manifestly the acting Deity of the universe if he is not God, there is no actual or possible evidence that there is any God (Dr. Tyler, in Bibl. Sacra for October, 1865). SEE SONSHIP OF CHRIST.

Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

Son of God

The plural, “sons of God,” is used (Gen. 6:2, 4) to denote the pious descendants of Seth. In Job 1:6; 38:7 this name is applied to the angels. Hosea uses the phrase (1:10) to designate the gracious relation in which men stand to God.

In the New Testament this phrase frequently denotes the relation into which we are brought to God by adoption (Rom. 8:14, 19; 2 Cor. 6:18; Gal. 4:5, 6; Phil. 2:15; 1 John 3:1, 2). It occurs thirty-seven times in the New Testament as the distinctive title of our Saviour. He does not bear this title in consequence of his miraculous birth, nor of his incarnation, his resurrection, and exaltation to the Father’s right hand. This is a title of nature and not of office. The sonship of Christ denotes his equality with the Father. To call Christ the Son of God is to assert his true and proper divinity. The second Person of the Trinity, because of his eternal relation to the first Person, is the Son of God. He is the Son of God as to his divine nature, while as to his human nature he is the Son of David (Rom. 1:3, 4. Comp. Gal. 4:4; John 1:1-14; 5:18-25; 10:30-38, which prove that Christ was the Son of God before his incarnation, and that his claim to this title is a claim of equality with God).

When used with reference to creatures, whether men or angels, this word is always in the plural. In the singular it is always used of the second Person of the Trinity, with the single exception of Luke 3:38, where it is used of Adam.

Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary

Son of God

Applied in the plural to the godly Seth’s descendants (not angels, who “neither marry nor are given in marriage,” Luk 20:35-36), “the salt of the earth” heretofore, amidst its growing corruption by the Cainites.(See SETH.) When it lost its savour (“for that he also (even the godly seed) is become flesh” or fleshly) by contracting marriages with the beautiful but ungodly, God’s Spirit ceased to strive with man, and judgment fell (Gen 6:2-4). In Job 1:6; Job 2:4, angels. In Psa 82:6 “gods … sons of the Highest,” i.e. His representatives, exercising, as judges and rulers, His delegated authority. A fortiori, the term applies in a higher sense to cf6 “Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world” (Joh 10:36). Israel the type was Son of God (Exo 4:22-23; Hos 11:1). Faith obeying from the motive of love constitutes men “sons of God” (Jer 3:4; Hos 1:10). Unbelief and disobedience exclude from sonship those who are sons only as to spiritual privileges (Deu 32:5; Hebrew).

“It (the perverse and crooked generation) hath corrupted itself before Him (Isa 1:4), they are not His children but their blemish,” i.e. “they cannot be called God’s children but the disgrace of God’s children” (Rom 9:8; Gal 3:26). The doctrine of regeneration or newborn sonship to God by the Spirit is fully developed in the New Testament (Joh 1:12-13; Joh 3:3; Joh 3:5; 1Jo 3:1-3; Rom 8:15; Gal 4:5-6). The Son of God, Antitype to Israel, is co-equal, co-eternal, co-essential (consubstantial) with the Father; by eternal generation (Col 1:15), “begotten far before every creature” (Greek), therefore not a creature. So Pro 8:22 (Hebrew), “Jehovah begat (qananiy related to Greek gennaoo) Me in the beginning of His way (rather omit “in”; the Son Himself was “the Beginning of His way”, “the Beginning of the creation of God”, Rev 3:14) from everlasting … or ever the earth was … I was by Him as One brought up with Him. I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him” (Pro 8:22-31; Joh 1:1-3).

The Son was the Archetype from everlasting of that creation which was in due time to be created by Him. His distinct Personality appears in His being “by God … brought up with God,” not a mere attribute; “nursed at His side”; “the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father”; to be “honoured as the Father” (Joh 1:18; Joh 5:20). Raised infinitely above angels; “for to which of them saith God, Thou art My Son, this day (there is no yesterday or tomorrow with God, His “today” is eternity from and to everlasting) have I begotten Thee?” and “Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever” (Hebrew 1; Psa 2:7; Psa 45:6-7). His divine Sonship from everlasting was openly manifested by the Father’s raising Him from the dead (Act 13:33; Rom 1:4; Rev 1:5). Nebuchadnezzar called Him “the Son of God,” unconsciously expressing a truth the significance of which he imperfectly comprehended (Dan 3:25).

The Jews might have known Messiah’s Godhead from Psa 45:6-7, and Isa 9:6, “a Son … the mighty God, the Everlasting Father”; (Isa 7:4) Immanuel “God with us”; (Mic 5:2) “whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.” The Scripture-asserted unity of God was their difficulty (Deu 6:4), and also the palpable woman-sprung humanity of Jesus. Their supposing John the Baptist to be Messiah (Luk 3:15) shows they did not expect Messiah or Christ to be more than man (Mat 22:42-45). To Jesus’ question, “what think ye of Christ, whose Son is He?” the Pharisees answered not the Son of God, but “the Son of David,” and could not solve the difficulty,” how then doth David in the Spirit call Him Lord?” in Psalm 110, “Jehovah said unto my Lord” (‘Adonay), etc., i.e. the Lord of David, not in his merely personal capacity, but as Israel’s Representative, literal and spiritual. Jesus quotes it “Lord,” not “my Lord,” because Jehovah addresses Him as Israel’s and the church’s Lord, not merely David’s.

Had the Pharisees believed in Messiah’s Godhead they could have answered: As man Messiah was David’s son, as God He was David’s and the church’s Lord. The Sanhedrin unanimously (Mar 14:64) condemned Him to death, not for His claim to Messiahship but to Godhead (Joh 19:7; Luk 22:70-71, “art Thou the Son of God?” etc., Luk 23:1; Mat 26:63-66). So contrary to man’s thoughts was this truth that, Jesus says, not flesh and blood, but the Father revealed it to Peter (Mat 16:17). The Jews thrice took up stones to kill Him for blasphemy

(1) in unequivocally claiming God to be peculiarly “His own Father” (idion patera): Joh 5:18. Again,

(2) in claiming divine pre-existence, cf6 “before Abraham was created (“began to be”, genesthai), I am” (eimi): Joh 8:58-59. And

(3) in saying, cf6 “I and the Father are one” (hen, one “essence”, not person): Joh 10:30-31; Joh 10:33.

The apostles preached His divine Lordship as well as Messiahship (Act 2:36). His acknowledged purity of character forbids the possibility of His claiming this, as He certainly did and as the Jews understood Him, if the claim were untrue; He never would have left them under the delusion that He claimed it if delusion it were. But the Jews from Deu 13:1-11 (some thought Jesus specially meant, “if the son of thy mother entice thee,” for He had a human mother, He said, but not a human father) inferred that His miracles, which they could not deny, did not substantiate His claim, and that their duty was to kill with holy zeal One who sought to draw them to worship as divine another beside God. They knew not that He claimed not to be distinct God, but One with the Father, One God; they shut their eyes to Deu 18:15, etc., and so incurred the there foretold penalty of rejecting Him. His miracles they attributed to Satan’s help (Mat 12:24; Mat 12:27; Mar 3:22; Luk 11:15; Joh 7:20; Joh 8:48; Mat 10:25).

Men may commit awful sins in fanatical zeal for God, with the Scriptures in their hands, while following unenlightened conscience; conscience needs to be illuminated by the Spirit, and guided by prayerful search of Scripture. The Jews ought to have searched the Scriptures and then they would have known. Ignorance does not excuse, however it may palliate, blind zeal; they might have known if they would. Yet Jesus interceded for their ignorance (Luk 23:34; Act 3:17; Act 13:27). Deniers of Jesus’ Godhead on the plea of God’s unity copy the Jews, who crucified Him because of His claim to be God. The Ebionites, Cerinthians, and other heretics who denied His Godhead, arose from the ranks of Judaism.

The arguments of the ancient Christian apologists, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, etc., against the Jews, afford admirable arguments against modern Socinians; the Jews sinned against the dimmer light of the Old Testament, Socinians against the broad light of both Old and New Testament The combination in One, the Son of God and the Son of man, was such as no human mind could have devised. The Jews could not ascend to the idea of Christ’s divine Sonship, nor descend to the depth of Christ’s sufferings as the Son of man; so they invented the figment of two Messiahs to reconcile the seemingly opposite prophecies, those of His transcendent glory and those of His exceeding sufferings. The gospel at once opposes the Jews’ false monotheism by declaring Christ to be the coequal Son of God, and the pagan polytheism by declaring the unity of God.

Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary

SON OF GOD

Like a number of biblical expressions, son of God may have different meanings in different parts of the Bible. Adam is called the son of God, because he came into existence as a result of the creative activity of God (Luk 3:38; cf. Act 17:28; Heb 12:9). Angels are sometimes called sons of God, probably in reference to the fact that they are spirit beings (Job 1:6; Job 38:7; Dan 3:25). The nation Israel was Gods son, for God adopted it as his own (Exo 4:22-23; Rom 9:4). In a similar but higher sense, Christians are Gods sons, again through Gods gracious work of adoption (Rom 8:14-15; Gal 4:5-6; see ADOPTION).

In Old Testament Israel, the Davidic king was considered to be Gods son, for through him God exercised his rule over his people (2Sa 7:14; Psa 2:6-7). The promised Messiah would also be Gods son, for he would belong to the Davidic line of kings. That Messiah was Jesus. But Jesus was more than Gods son in the messianic sense. He was Gods Son in the sense that he was God. He did not become the Son of God through being the Messiah; rather he became the Messiah because he was already the pre-existent Son of God (Mat 22:42-45; Joh 1:34; Joh 1:49; Joh 20:31; see MESSIAH).

Eternally the Son

God is a trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, all of whom are equally and eternally God (see TRINITY). Although Jesus is the Son, that does not mean that he was created by the Father or is inferior to the Father. On the contrary, he has the same godhead and character as the Father (Mat 11:27; Joh 1:1; Joh 1:14; Joh 1:18; Joh 5:26; Joh 8:18-19; Joh 10:30; Joh 10:38; Joh 14:9; Heb 1:1-3; 1Jn 2:23; see WORD), has the powers, authority and responsibilities of the Father (Joh 3:35-36; Joh 5:21-22; Joh 5:43; Joh 13:3), and has the thought and purpose of the Father (Joh 5:17-20; Joh 5:30; Joh 8:16; Joh 8:28-29; Joh 14:10; Joh 14:24; see FATHER).

The relation between Jesus (the Son of God) and his Father is unique. It should not be confused with the relation between believers (sons of God) and their heavenly Father. In the case of Jesus, the sonship is eternal. The Father and the Son have always existed in a relation in which they are equally and unchangeably God. This is a relation that no created being can share (Joh 1:18; Joh 5:37). In the case of believers, they become sons of God only through faith in Jesus. God makes them his sons by grace. Jesus was never made the Son of God. He always has been the Son (Joh 8:18-19; Joh 17:1-5; 1Jn 5:11-12).

Jesus was careful, when talking to believers, to make a distinction between my Father and your Father (Mat 5:16; Luk 2:49; Luk 12:30; Joh 20:17). Believers are not sons of God in the same sense as Jesus is the Son of God. Nevertheless, believers become sons of God through Jesus, the Son of God (Mat 11:27; Joh 1:12-13; Rom 8:16-17). Through Christ they come into a close personal relation with God the Father, and can even address him as Abba as Jesus did (Mar 14:36; Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6; see ABBA).

The Sons mission

As the Son of God, Jesus shares in the deity and majesty of the Father; yet he is also humbly obedient to the Father. Although he existed with the Father from eternity, the Son willingly took human form to fulfil his Fathers purposes for the salvation of human beings and the conquest of evil (Rom 8:3; Gal 4:4-5; Heb 2:14-15).

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the Son of God added humanity to the deity that he already had. His entrance into human life involved the supernatural work of God in the womb of the virgin Mary, so that the baby born to her, though fully human, was also the unique Son of God (Luk 1:30-31; Luk 1:35; Luk 2:42; Luk 2:49; see VIRGIN).

The earliest recorded words of Jesus indicate that even as a child he was conscious of his special relation with the Father (Luk 2:49). The Father reaffirmed this special relation at some of the great moments of Jesus public ministry (Mat 3:17; Mat 17:5; see BAPTISM; TRANSFIGURATION). Because the Son and the Father existed in this special relation, Satan tempted the Son to act independently of the Father. He tempted Jesus to use his divine powers contrary to the divine will (Mat 4:3; Mat 4:6).

There was often a difference between the way believers spoke of Jesus sonship and the way Jesus himself spoke of it. Believers usually spoke of it in relation to Jesus divine person and his unity with the Father (Mat 16:16; Joh 20:31; Col 1:13; 1Jn 2:23; 1Jn 4:15). Jesus also spoke of it in this way, but in addition he emphasized the meaning of his sonship in relation to his earthly ministry and complete submission to his Father (Mar 13:32; Joh 4:34; Joh 5:19; Joh 7:16; Joh 8:28; Joh 8:42; cf. Heb 5:8).

The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world, and the Sons obedience to this mission meant that he had to suffer and die (Joh 3:14-16; Joh 12:27; Rom 5:10; Rom 8:32; 1Jn 4:9-10; 1Jn 4:14). The Son completed that work, being obedient even to death (Joh 17:4; Php 2:8), and God declared his total satisfaction with the Sons work by raising him from death (Rom 1:4).

However, the mission that the Father entrusted to the Son involved more than saving those who believe. It involved overcoming all rebellion and restoring all things to a state of perfect submission to the sovereign God (Joh 5:20-29; 2Co 5:19; Eph 1:10; 1Jn 3:8). That mission extends to the whole universe, and will reach its climax when the last enemy, death, has been banished for ever (1Co 15:25-26). The conquering power of the Sons victory at the cross will remove the last traces of sin. The Son will restore all things to the Father, and Gods triumph will be complete. God will be everything to everyone (1Co 15:24; 1Co 15:28).

Acknowledging the Son

One sign of the work of God in peoples lives is their acknowledgment that Jesus Christ is the Son of God (Mat 11:27; Mat 16:16-17; 1Jn 5:10). It seems that in the early church, an open confession of Jesus Christ as the Son of God was a formal declaration that a person was a true believer (Act 8:37; Heb 4:14; 1Jn 2:23; 1Jn 4:15).

Even Jesus opponents recognized in his works and his teaching a claim to deity. For this they accused him of blasphemy and in the end crucified him (Mat 26:63-66; Mat 27:42-43; Joh 5:18; Joh 10:33; Joh 10:36; Joh 19:7). God, however, demonstrated dramatically that Jesus was his Son by raising him from death and crowning him with glory in heaven (Rom 1:4; Eph 1:20; Heb 4:14; cf. Joh 6:62; Joh 17:4-5). One day the Son will return to save his people and set in motion those events that will lead to Gods final triumph (1Th 1:10; Tit 1:13). (See also JESUS CHRIST; SON OF MAN.)

Fuente: Bridgeway Bible Dictionary

Son Of God

SON OF GOD.As the word Christ, which was at first a title, has come to be a proper name, this change being, indeed, accomplished even in the NT, so the title Son of God is now appropriated to the Second Person of the Trinity; and the ordinary reader of the Bible assumes this to be the meaning wherever he finds the phrase. He has only, however, to read with a little attention to perceive that this is an assumption which ought not to be made without inquiry, because in Scripture there are many sons of God. (1) The angels are thus designated, as when in the Book of Job (Job 38:7) it is mentioned that at the dawn of creation the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. (2) The term is applied to the first man, when, in Luke 3, the genealogy of the Saviour is traced back to Adam, who, it is added (Luk 3:38), was the son of God. And, if the general scope of Scripture may leave it questionable whether the same high title can be applied to all the first mans descendants, the authority of our Lord may be claimed, on the ground of the parable of the Prodigal Son, as deciding the question in the affirmative. (3) The Hebrew nation collectively is frequently thus designated, as when, in the land of Midian, Jehovah sent Moses to Pharaoh with the message: Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my firstborn, and I say unto thee, Let my son go (Exo 4:22 f.). Whether, according to Scripture usage, it was applicable to individual Israelites, is not so clear, but probably it was; for not only did the Jews, in speaking to Jesus, claim, We have one Father, even God (Joh 8:41), but Jesus Himself said, Let the children first be filled (Mar 7:27). (4) It was a title of the kings of Israel. Thus, in Psa 89:26 f., an ancient oracle is quoted in which Jehovah says of King David, He shall cry unto me, Thou art my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation; also I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth. Similarly Jehovah says of King Solomon (2Sa 7:14), I will be his Father, and he shall be to me a son. (5) In the NT the title is conferred on all who believe in the Saviour. Thus, in the Prologue to the Gospel of St. John, it is said, But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name (Joh 1:12); and, in his First Epistle, the Evangelist exclaims, Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God (1Jn 3:1).

It would require some investigation to determine what is the reason for the bestowal of this lofty title in each of these cases, and in all probability the reasons might be different in the different cases. In the case of the angels, the relation suggested may be that of the Creator to His creatures; and this notion may cover also the application to men in general, who were made in the image of God. The application to the nation of Israel refers undoubtedly to the choice which the grace of God made of the Hebrew people from among all the nations of the earth; and In the Jewish kings this grace reached its climax. In the case of Christians, the reasons are obvious in the texts quoted in reference to them. It is usual to lay all the emphasis on the sentiments entertained by God towards those honoured with this title, as if it expressed solely His choice of them; but Nsgen (op. cit. infr.) contends that in all cases at least some reason for the designation must lie in the qualities or history of the person designated; and this is a contention which seems to have common sense on its side.

It will thus be seen that the son of God was a phrase much in use in the world before it was attached to our Lord; and the question naturally arises, from which of its anterior uses it was that its transference to Him took place. In all probability it was from the fourth mentioned abovethat is, its application to the Jewish kings. If the application to the nation culminated in that to the kings, so the application to the kings culminated in Him who was to be the fulfilment of the regal idea in Israel. That is to say, the term is, in the first place, politico-Messianic. But it does not follow, as is too often assumed, that this is its only sense. On the contrary, in all the deeper passages where it occurs, whether in the Synoptics or in Jn., it points strongly to the personal qualities of Him who bears it, and to an intimate relationship with Him whose Son He is said to be. The political title rests upon personal qualities and experiences; He is not the Son of God because He is the Messiah, but, on the contrary, He is the Messiah because He is the Son of God. That is to say, the term is ethicoreligious. But it does not follow, as is often assumed, that because it is official-Messianic and ethicoreligious it is not also physical or metaphysical. On the contrary, the closeness of the ethicoreligious relation may be such as to demand a metaphysical relationship of an intimate and peculiar kind between Father and Son. It seems to be strangely forgotten in many quarters that ethical intimacy is, in all cases, limited by the closeness of metaphysical relationship; the limitation of the intimacy between a dog and a man, for example, is due to the lack of metaphysical unity between them, whereas the closeness of sympathy and intimacy possible between a woman and a man is due to their metaphysical oneness. There is no reason whatever why all the three kinds of relationship indicated above should not be united; in point of fact, they often are. The kingship of a king, for example, may be, first, official, he being actually the reigning monarch; secondly, personal, he possessing the ethical qualities which become and secure his position; thirdly, physical or metaphysical, because he is of the blood royal, and has in his composition the hereditary instincts of long descent. In like manner the Messiahship of Jesus may rest on a spiritual and ethical relationship to God; but this may be of so intimate a kind as to demand a peculiar relationship to the Father physically or metaphysically; and in all the Gospels there is reference, more or less, to all the three.

1. The Synoptics.In the Synoptics Jesus does not, of His own motion, call Himself in so many words the Son of God. But the title is applied to Him in about twelve passages in Mt. and fully half that number each in Mk. and Lk., and in several of these eases He treats this application in such a way as to show that He adopts it. On several occasions (six times in Mt., once in Mk., thrice in Lk.) He denominates Himself the Son in such a way as to prove unmistakably that He regards Himself as the Son of God; and many times in all three Gospels (over a score of times in Mt., thrice in Mk., nine times in Lk.) He in the same way refers to God as His Father. (The quotations in detail will be found on p. 86 of Stalkers Christology of Jesus, mentioned below in the List of Literature).

(1) Beyschlag observes (NT Theol. i. 68) that the occurrence of the term in the mouths of others shows that it has its roots in the OT and was already current in Israel, and therefore, that for the sense in which Jesus applied it to Himself we must go back to the OT. It is also usual to state that it is employed in the pseudepigraphic literature of the period between the OT and the NT as a synonym for the Messiah. If, however, the only two passages of this sort supplied by Dalman (op. cit. infr.) be referred to, it will be found that this notion rests on a very slender basis. If the Textus Receptus of Mar 1:1 be correct,the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,it would be rash to limit the Evangelists intention to the Messiahship; but the reading is suspected. In Luk 1:35 the reason why Jesus is to be called the Son of God is supplied in the memorable statement to Mary, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee. This is a physical explanation of the term, which it is rather surprising never to find elsewhere. The nearest approach to it in the Gospels would be the exclamation of the centurion at the Cross, Truly this was the Son of God (Mar 15:39); but it is dubious what a heathen may have meant by such an observation.

Still more dubious, one would suppose, must it remain what the demoniacs intended by calling Jesus by this title, though it is usually taken for granted that they must have used it in the Messianic sense, because they also sometimes acknowledged Him as the Messiah. When Satan, in the Temptation, played with the title, he was obviously referring back to the voice which, at the Jordan during the Baptism, recognized Jesus as the Son of God; but how much that voice intended, or how much the Tempter understood of what it meant, might require considerable discussion.

When they that were in the ship on the occasion when Jesus stilled the tempest and rescued St. Peter from the sea, came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God (Mat 14:33), the most natural interpretation may be that they were acknowledging Him as the Messiah. If they were, they anticipated, in a remarkable manner, the subsequent confession at Caesarea Philippi; and this raises a doubt which may incline us to understand their language rather as an involuntary recognition of the Divine in Jesus, occasioned by the sight of a remarkable miracle.

Undoubtedly the most convincing case for the identity of meaning in the terms the Messiah and the Son of God is the confession of the Twelve, through the lips of St. Peter, at Caesarea Philippi; because, whereas St. Matthew reports them as confessing, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God (Mat 16:16), the other two Evangelists omit the second phrase (Mar 8:29, Luk 9:20). Now, it is argued, they could not have omitted this, had it contained a momentous addition to the acknowledgment of the Messiahship; against which the only caveat that can be hinted is that there are many examples to prove that it is perilous to rest much on the silence of one or more of the Gospels.

Another passage which is confidently appealed to as demonstrating the identity of meaning between the two terms, is the demand addressed by the high priest to Jesus, on His trial, to say whether He were the Christ, the Son of God. Yet, in reporting this incident, St. Luke excites doubt as to the identity, because he represents Him as being asked first simply if He were the Christ; but when He wound up His reply with the imposing words, Hereafter shall the Son of Man sit on the right hand of the power of God, they proceeded, Art thou, then, the Son of God? and the affirmative answer to this second question seems to have shocked and irritated them far more than the answer to the first, occasioning a tempest of rage and insult in all present, with a unanimous agreement that He had been guilty of blasphemy (Luk 22:69). H. J. Holtzmann, who writes with extraordinary feeling on this subject, recently, in a review in the Theologische Literaturzcitung, declaring it to be a shame that Protestant scholars should even doubt the identity, affirms that the blasphemy can only have been found in the fact that a man belonging to the lower classes, one openly forsaken of God and going forward to a shameful death, should have dared to represent himself as the object and fulfilment of all the Divine promises given to the nation; but the blasphemy is far more obvious if the claim to be the Son of God was understood to mean more than even Messiahship.

From the foregoing examination of the passages in the Gospels where the phrase is used of Jesus by others than Himself, it will be perceived that there is considerable variety of meaning and application; it certainly is Messianic, but it is not uniformly or exclusively so.

(2) When we turn to the passages in which Jesus speaks of Himself as the Son, or calls God His Father, the oflicial-Messianic element is almost entirely absent, the language being that of intimacy and confidence. Here and there, indeed, there may be Messianic associations involved, as when Jesus promises to the Twelve that, in the day of the full manifestation of the Kingdom, they shall sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Mat 19:28), or when He predicts that on the judgment-day He will appear in the glory of His Father and of the holy angels (Mar 8:38); but, as a rule, one might read the greater number of these sayings without being reminded that they proceeded from the lips of one claiming to be the Messiah. The consciousness to which they give expression is that of a personal relationship, as when, in Gethsemane, He prays, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt; and, farther on, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done (Mat 26:39-42); or when, on the cross, He cries, Father, forgive them: for they know not what they do; and, farther on, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit (Luk 23:34; Luk 23:46).

The climax of this ethicoreligious sentiment is reached in the great saying of Mat 11:27, || Luk 10:22 All things are delivered unto me of my Father; and no man knoweth the Son but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. In recent times this passage has attracted great attention, not a few looking upon it as the profoundest utterance of Jesus in the Synoptics. Holtzmann, indeed, hesitates between such a decision and a suggestion of Brandts that it is a cento, put into the mouth of Jesus, of words borrowed partly from other Scripture and partly from the Apocrypha; but by Keim it has been reverentially interpreted, and scholarship has, on the whole, knelt before it as expressing the innermost mystery of the consciousness of Jesus. The words were spoken at a crisis, when He was roused out of deep depression at the apparent failure of His mission, by the return of the Seventy, bringing a joyful account of the results of their labours. In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes; even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight (Mat 11:25 f.). Then followed the words already quoted. The first of them, All things are delivered unto me of my Father, may be best understood, as is suggested by Ltgert (op. cit. infr.), of the Messianic dominion in its widest extent, as it had been promised in prophecy from of old; while the next words, For no man knoweth the Son but the Father, etc., express the consciousness of His own right and ability to fill this position, because He has all the resources of the Divine nature to dispense to those who come to Him. This is why He proceeds immediately to say, Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Mat 5:28). The mood in which He was consisted of a joyful uprising within Himself of the consciousness of all He was able to do for those who trusted Him; and this was due to His intimate and perfect union with Deity.

Most scholars, however, hasten to add that this sonship was purely ethical, and was not different from that to which He was prepared to introduce His disciples. He showed, it is remarked, the true pathway to this position, and the one by which He had reached it Himself, in such sayings as the following: Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you; that ye may be sons of your Father which is in heaven; for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust (Mat 5:44 f.). Certainly this sonship of Jesus is ethicoreligious, and this indicates the pathway by which the disciples of Jesus may participate in His sonship; but that His sonship and theirs are in all respects identical is contradicted by the unfailing usage of Jesus in speaking of God as my Father and your Father, but never as our Father. Of this difference Holtzmann makes light in the same way in which he lays down the wholly unsupported assumption that Jesus prayed the Lords Prayer with the disciples, including the fifth petition; but the fact is a radical one; and the conclusion to which it points is not without other confirmation.

Thus, in the parable of the Wicked Husbandmen, the owner of the vineyard, after sending servant after servant to negotiate with the labourers, sends his own son, Mk. adding his well-beloved, by whom Jesus obviously intends Himself. Of course, it may be said that the Messiah was different from all the prophets, and that this difference may be indicated by the difference between a son and a servant; but the analogy would be closer if a more intimate and personal relationship were assumed.

One of the most striking passages pointing in the same direction is one that, at first sight, seems to point the opposite way. In Mar 13:32, speaking of a date in the future, Jesus says, But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Naturally this has been often quoted as a conclusive disproof of the orthodox doctrine of the Sonship of our Lord, and it has been one of the chief occasions for the invention of the kenotic theories, as they are called, of His Person; but, on the other hand, it is one of the clearest indications of a consciousness superior to mere humanity, for it places the speaker above both men and angels so obviously, that even Holtzmann, in an unwonted outburst of concession, exclaims: This is the single passage in which the Son, while opposed along with the angels to the Father, appears to become a metaphysical magnitude (NT Theol. i. 268).

The inference appearing to follow from the passage just quoted is that Jesus was a Being above both men and angels, but inferior to God. But a more profound and true knowledge is supplied by the most impressive passage of all on this subject in the Synopticsthe words of Jesus with which the First Gospel concludes: All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world (Mat 28:19 f.). The close resemblance will be noted between the opening words of this statement and the opening words of the saying in Mat 11:27, already commented on. The promise, Lo, I am with you alway, has likewise a parallel in Mat 18:20 Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. But the association of the Son with the Father and the Holy Ghost is the most remarkable expression in the Synoptics of the self-consciousness of Jesus. How much it implies is a problem for dogmatic theology; but it is enough to remark here that it undoubtedly runs up into the ontological or metaphysical. Of course, its authenticity as a saying actually proceeding from Jesus has been fiercely disputed, and in certain quarters the air is affected of treating it as beyond dispute an addition to the actual words of Christ; but its place in the ordinance of baptism connects it closely with the Author of that rite; and there is no reason for rejecting it which would not, at the same time, imply the rejection of the whole section of the life of our Lord which follows His death on the cross.

2. The Fourth Gospel.When we turn from the Synoptics to the Fourth Gospel, we are immediately conscious of being in a different atmosphere and at a different altitude, and the effect is at first bewildering. Instead of a studied reticence on the subject of who and whence He was, such as we encounter in the previous Gospels, Jesus places this subject in the foreground, and instead of letting His higher claims escape only at rare intervals and in the society of His chosen friends, He proclaims them to all and sundry, and, as one might say, from the housetops. This raises many questions as to the origin and purpose of this Gospel, which cannot be fully discussed in this place; but it may be said that, if both representations are to be accepted as historical, we must conceive the words of Christ as having ranged over a wider area than is usually assumed. If in His mind there were circles of thought as diverse as those of the Synoptics and the Fourth Gospel, there must have been ample spaces round both circles, in which the outer elements of both might touch and blend. There is a tendency, due to the preoccupation of study, to narrow the life of Christ down to what has been actually recorded; but this is in many ways misleading, and it is mistaken. It is certain that the acts recorded of Him are only a few stray flowers thrown over the wall of an ample garden; and it is not unreasonable to infer that the same is true of His words.

As, however, we grow accustomed to the new environment in the Gospel of St. John, we begin to perceive that the figure which stands in the midst is not so different as it appears at first sight from the one we have just been studying. He is still the Son of Man as well as the Son of God, though the proportion in which these names occur is reversed. The way in which He here calls Himself the Son and God His Father is exactly similar to the usage in the Synoptics, only He has these terms far more frequently on His lips. Not a few of the most astonishing statements He makes about Himself are substantially anticipated in the verse of an earlier Gospel so frequently referred to, Mat 11:27. He does not hesitate, even in Jn., to say my Father is greater than I (Joh 14:28), or to speak of God as my God (Joh 20:17). We have here the same three elements in the sonship as formerlythe theocratic. Messianic, the ethicoreligious, and the physical or metaphysicalonly they may be mingled in somewhat different proportions. The Messianic we see in its most unmistakable form in the testimonies of the Baptist (Joh 1:34), of Nathanael (Joh 1:49), of Martha (Joh 11:27), and of others; but the boundaries of the other two will require more careful investigation.

Two things are newthe description of the Son as only begotten Joh 1:14; Joh 1:18, Joh 3:16; Joh 3:18), and the claim to pre-existence on the part of Jesus.

(1) The adjective describes the unique Sonship of Jesus. St. John is not unaware that there are other sons of God. So far from it, his Gospel opens with the great statement, already quoted, But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name (Joh 1:12); and in his First Epistle he exclaims, Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is (1Jn 3:2); but such are not sons of God in the same sense in which Jesus is the Son of God. Wherein, then, does the uniqueness consist? It cannot lie in the ethicospiritual region; for it is there that in this respect Jesus and those who receive Him are one, except in degree of intimacy with the Father. Most assume that it lies in Messiahship; and, no doubt, in being the Messiah, Jesus is unique. Even Weiss takes it for granted that this is where it lies, contending again and again that nothing metaphysical is suggested. This, however, is a mere piece of dogmatism; for the uniqueness might quite as well lie in this quarter. In fact, the verbal idea in the adjective rather suggests it; and it is very significant that St. John treats the claim of Jesus to Sonship as involving equality with God. In Joh 5:18 we read, Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said that God was his Father, making himself equal with God; and in Joh 10:35 The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not, but because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God, this being because He had stated, I and my Father are one (Joh 5:30).

The force of this is turned aside by Wendt with the assumption that these notes are from the pen of a redactor, who, both here and elsewhere, has wrought confusion in the record emanating from the disciple whom Jesus loved. Beyschlag takes the bull more boldly by the horns with the suggestion that these remarks of the Jews arc quoted as evidences of their perversity and stupidity, the sayings of Jesus on which they were comments not having implied at all what they supposed. But it may be left to everyone to say whether or not this is a natural manner of reading St. Johns narrative. At all events, as a historical statement, it is of the utmost importance that by the contemporaries of Jesus His claim to be the Son of God, put forward as it was by Him, was interpreted in this way.

(2) The passages in which Jesus claims pre-existence are fourJoh 6:62 What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before?; Joh 8:58 Verily I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am; Joh 17:4-5 I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do; and now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was; and especially, Joh 17:24 Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me, that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me; for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world; to which may be added Joh 16:28 I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world; again, I leave the world, and go to the Father. In all these cases, not excepting the last, the leaving of the worldsurely a real, historical eventis put in the plainest terms in opposition to His entry into the world, which must, therefore, be equally a real, historical event.

Beyschlag attacks the pre-existence with vigour, and displays remarkable ingenuity in explaining it of an ideal existence in the mind and purpose of God. Thus, before God thought of Abraham, He was thinking of Jesus, who was anterior and superior in the Divine plan. But, after the laborious analysis is over, these great sayings draw themselves together again and stare the reader in the face as a united and coherent aspect of the self-consciousness of Jesus. Wendt applies to these texts his favourite device of showing that what is said of Jesus, and is supposed to imply something superhuman, is also applied to others of whom nothing superhuman can be predicated. Thus, if Jesus (Joh 8:38) says to the Jews, I speak that which I have seen with my Father, He adds, And ye do that which ye have seen with your father, explaining, further on, Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do (Joh 5:44); and the argument is, that if this implies that Jesus pre-existed with God, it must imply also that the Jews with whom He was contending had pre-existed with the devil. But how futile this kind of argumentation may sometimes be, is shown when the statement of St. Paul, that the saints shall judge the world (1Co 6:2), is used to take all the greatness and solemnity out of the statements of Jesus as to the position which He is to occupy at the Last Day as the Judge of the quick and the dead. Wendt habitually reduces the great sayings of Jesus to the lowest possible terms, and then assumes that this must be the meaning in every case. But the reader wearies of such a process: he feels that surely Jesus cannot have put the minimum of significance into His words on all occasions; or, if so, how is He to escape the charge of employing big language to express small ideas, or confusing His hearers with enigmas which might easily have been cleared up, had He only uttered a few plain words of explanation? Holtzmann gives up the attempt to read a commonplace meaning into words like these. Such sayings, according to him, are not genuine words of Jesus: they are utterances of Christianity rather than of Christ, and of Christianity after it had passed through the mind of St. Paul (op. cit. infr. ii. p. 433). But the situation is in all probability the reverse: the deep resemblance between the Christology of St. John and that of St. Paul, which undoubtedly exists in spite of superficial unlikeness, is due rather to what St. Paul learned from the older Apostle either directly or through the knowledge and ideas of the beloved disciple being diffused in the atmosphere of that age; while the consent on this great subject, not only of these two but of the primitive Church as a whole, may be traced back without hesitation to the tradition of our Lords own testimony to Himself.

The witness of Jesus to His own pre-existence is not confined to the texts just quoted, remarkable as these are, but pervades the whole mass of His words in the Fourth Gospel, and forms the presupposition of all the rest of His utterances about Himself. It is by commencing at this starting-point and following this clue that the student finds everything expanding before him as he goes on, and all the various ideas arranging themselves in their places on the right hand and on the left.

Whether there be any analogy to the consciousness of Jesus at this point in what some of the ancients believed about this life being a reminiscence of a life preceding, or in what some of the modern poets have hinted about human beings trailing clouds of glory from an antecedent home, may be left to everyones own judgment; but Jesus habitually spoke as if He were conscious of having had an anterior existence, where He had seen and heard what He repeated during His earthly life, and had received commandment how He should afterwards act. Thus to Nicodemus He says (Joh 3:11-13), Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven. In the great intercessory prayer He says to His Father (Joh 17:8), I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. Cf. also Joh 6:46-62, Joh 7:28-29, Joh 8:23; Joh 8:26-27; Joh 8:38, Joh 12:49, Joh 14:31, Joh 15:15, Joh 17:8.

Out of this pre-existent state Jesus was conscious of having been sent into the world. This recalls the mission of the prophets of the OT, who, though not haunted by any reminiscence of a previous state of existence, yet were all profoundly conscious that they had been chosen and ordained to do a particular work at a particular time; some, like Jeremiah, being told that even from the womb they had been destined to. their peculiar vocation. With this prophetic consciousness that of Jesus was in close analogy; yet the references to it suggest a deeper mystery. Corresponding with this sending on Gods part is a coming on the part of Jesus Himself; and in some of the passages in which He says, I am come, there is the same suggestion of something weighty and more than usually significant. Not infrequently both conceptions are blended, as in Joh 6:38 I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me; or Joh 7:28-29 Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am; and I am not come of myself, but he that sent me is true, whom ye know not; but I know him; for I am from him, and he hath sent me; or Joh 8:42 If God were your Father, ye would love me; for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. Cf. Joh 5:23-24; Joh 5:36-38, Joh 6:44, Joh 7:16; Joh 7:33, Joh 8:16; Joh 8:18; Joh 8:26; Joh 8:29; Joh 8:42, Joh 9:4, Joh 10:36, Joh 11:42, Joh 12:44; Joh 12:49, Joh 14:27, Joh 15:21, Joh 16:5, Joh 17:8; Joh 17:18; Joh 17:23, Joh 20:21; also Joh 6:33; Joh 6:38, Joh 7:14, Joh 9:39, Joh 10:10, Joh 16:27-28.

The object or purpose for which He was thus sent and came into the world is expressed in a great variety of forms, all of which, however, are more or less suggestive of the dignity and uniqueness of Him of whom they are predicated, though of course some make this impression more than others. Thus He comes to reveal the truth and to glorify God thereby. So He said to Pilate, To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth (Joh 18:37). In His great High-Priestly prayer He says to the Father, I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do; again, I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world; and again, I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it; that the love where with thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them (Joh 17:4; Joh 17:6; Joh 17:26). So illuminating and comprehensive is this revelation, that He calls Himself the light of the world (see Joh 8:12, Joh 9:5, Joh 12:36; Joh 12:46). Sometimes He comes to judge. He even goes so far as to say, The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son (Joh 5:22). Sometimes He comes to save, as in Joh 10:9 I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture; or Joh 12:47 I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. But oftenest His mission is to give life, this being expressed in a great variety of forms. Thus, in Joh 10:10, He says, I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. Sometimes the opposite alternative is tragically suggested, as in the well known Joh 3:16, where to perish stands in contrast with life; or in Joh 8:51 Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death, where death awaits those who do not receive life from Christ. Frequently the adjective eternal is joined with life. It is a peculiarity of the Fourth Gospel to conceive of eternal life as capable of being enjoyed even in the present world; but it also comprehends the future, and this is sometimes the ruling idea. The intimate connexion of Jesus Himself with the bestowal of this life is extremely significant. Thus, in Joh 5:26, He claims, As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself. At the grave of Lazarus He exclaimed, I am the resurrection and the life; be that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. The communication of natural life is interchanged with that of spiritual life; in Joh 5:21, for example, He says, As the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will; and farther on, at Joh 5:25, it is added, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. The personal share of Jesus in all this is further indicated in His claim to be the bread of life (Joh 6:27; Joh 6:32-33; Joh 6:47; Joh 6:51), and to give the water of life (Joh 4:10; Joh 4:14, Joh 7:37-38). In view of such sublime statements, the term Messianic is frequently used in a way that is a delusion and a snare. What explanation of such pretensions is it to say that He who made them differed from other men and prophets by being the Messiah? The possession of no office whatever is able to make a mortal capable of such functions: there must be something far above the competency of mere man in any one who can be the subject of such predicates. In Cur Deus Homo Anselm develops the argument that, the Person being such as He was, the work must be Divine; but the logic tells equally in the opposite direction: the work being such, the Person must be Divine.

Some of these works are, however, invisible, because spiritual, and some belong to the distant future. Hence Jesus could not show Himself in the act of doing them. But He did works, which all could see, that were signs and guarantees of these. He healed the blind, in order to prove that He was the organ of revelation; He raised the dead, in order to prove that He would be the Lord of the resurrection at the Last Day. So He Himself interpreted His miracles; and He appealed confidently to their evidential power, If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not; but, if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works; that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in him (Joh 10:37-38; see also Joh 1:48, Joh 4:16, Joh 8:18, Joh 10:25, Joh 11:4; Joh 11:15, Joh 14:11, Joh 17:23-24; Joh 17:26.

All the time, however, whilst doing His works on earth, He was in uninterrupted communion with His Father in heaven, actually speaking of Himself once (Joh 3:13) as in heaven, if the reading can be trusted. Such expressions have been used to break down the testimonies to His pre-existence, as if none of these might mean any more than such an ideal presence elsewhere. But this is a distinct aspect of His testimony to Himself, and there is no inconsistency between the two. His doctrine, His words, His works He knew to be all the Fathers (Joh 7:16, Joh 8:26, Joh 14:10; Joh 14:24, Joh 5:19-20). He could say, He that sent me is with me; the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please Him (Joh 8:29). With the most touching navet He spoke of the Fathers love to Him and His own love to the Father (Joh 10:17, Joh 17:23-24; Joh 17:26). He strives for language strong enough to express the unity between His Father and Himself (Joh 6:36, Joh 10:38, Joh 14:10, Joh 17:21). At last the climax is reached in the utterance which brought down on His head the charge of blasphemy, I and the Father are one (Joh 10:30).

Though, however, thus united with God on earth, He longs for return to the other world, which is His true home. To this He often refers, not infrequently connecting the thought of going thither with that of having come from the same place; and what could be more natural? Thus, in Joh 8:14 He says, Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true; for I know whence I came and whither I go; but ye cannot tell whence I come and whither I go: and in Joh 16:28 I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world; again, I leave the world, and go to the Father. See also Joh 6:62, Joh 7:33-34, Joh 8:21, Joh 13:33, Joh 14:2; Joh 14:12; Joh 14:28, Joh 16:5; Joh 16:7, Joh 10:16, Joh 17:11; Joh 17:13, Joh 20:17.

Such is a slight sketch of the Christology of Jesus as presented by St. John. Not every statement is expressly connected with the Son of God in so many words; but this is the phrase that embodies all these various elements. The summits of the testimony are such verses as Joh 5:23; Joh 5:26, Joh 8:58, Joh 10:15; Joh 10:30, Joh 11:4; Joh 11:25, Joh 12:45, Joh 13:31-32, Joh 14:6-7; Joh 14:9, Joh 13:14. Longer passages specially worthy of consideration are Joh 3:10; Joh 3:21, Joh 5:19; Joh 5:47, Joh 6:35; Joh 6:40, Joh 8:42; Joh 8:47, Joh 15:17. In one passage He deals directly and deliberately with the charge that, in calling Himself the Son of God, He was making Himself equal with God. Here was an opportunity of disclaiming anything of the kind, and explaining, as many are now forward to do for Him, that the question was only of function and character, not of nature. He did, indeed, refer to some who, in the OT, were called gods on account of function alone; but He set His own claim above theirs as supported by a far higher reason: If he called them gods unto whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken, say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God? (Joh 10:35 f.). And He goes on to affirm, The Father is in me and I in him (Joh 5:38). It is true that it is arguable whether in these words only function is referred to, but the point is that something deeper is not only not excluded but suggested. Those who believe that all such expressions have reference to superiority of function and character, but not of nature, have no difficulty in finding words by which this distinction can be made perfectly intelligible. Why then did Jesus, when thus directly challenged, not find such words? The numerous sayings quoted in the foregoing paragraphs amply prove that, in speaking of His own origin and the source of His authority, He habitually used language of dazzling splendour and magnificence. Was this an exaggerative manner of expressing what was ordinary, or was it an effort to body forth in human speech what was too glorious to be expressed? The halo round the head of the Son of God is not an invention of primitive Christianity or ecclesiastical councilsfor whatever excesses of superstition or dogmatism these may be answerablebut is due to the consciousness and the testimony of Jesus Himself; and by the character of Him who was meek and lowly in heart, as well as by the conviction of His power to save wrought by centuries of experience into the mind of Christendom, the acknowledgment is demanded that it is not an exhalation from beneath, but an emanation from the eternal throne.

Literature.The relevant portions of the works on NT Theology by Weiss, Beyschlag, H. J. Holtzmann, Stevens, Bovon; also of Wendts Teaching of Jesus, Dalmans Words of Jesus, Nsgens Gesch. Jesu Christi, and Beyschlags Christologie des NT. See also Grau, Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu; Nsgen, Der Menschen-und Gottessohn; Gore, Bampton Lectures and Dissertations; Stevens, The Johannine Theology; Weiss, Der Johanneische Lehrbegriff; Ltgert, Die Johanneische Christologie (1899) and Gottes Sohn und Gottes Geist (1905); Stalker, Cunningham Lectures, The Christology of Jesus2 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] (1900); F. W. Robertson, Serm. ii. 136, 235; P. Brooks, Law of Growth, 346.

James Stalker.

Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels

Son of God

Son of God. This title is continually given to the Lord Jesus Christ, and as appropriated by him it is a full proof of his divinity. Luk 1:32; Luk 22:70-71; Rom 1:4. The title was applied to Adam, who had no human father. Luk 3:38. And there is a sense in which other men, as the creatures of God’s hand, and still more as received into his reconciled family by adoption, may be called God’s sons. Hos 1:10; Joh 1:12; Act 17:28-29; Rom 8:14; Gal 3:26; Gal 4:5-7; 1Jn 3:1-2. But it was evidently with a much higher meaning that our Lord is termed “The Son of God.” For the Jews rightly judged that by the assumption of this title he laid claim to equality with God, and, regarding it as blasphemy, and a breach of the first commandment, they determined to put him to death. Joh 6:17-18. In fact, it was on this charge that ultimately they condemned him. And that it was not in the lower and common sense that Christ claimed God as his Father is evident from the fact that he did not correct the Jews’ opinion; which most unquestionably be would have done, bad they been under a mistake in supposing him to have broken the great commandment of the law. See Jesus Christ.

Fuente: People’s Dictionary of the Bible