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.
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.\par
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.
"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; 1Jn 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 (
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" (
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" (
(2) in claiming divine pre-existence, cf6 "before Abraham was created ("began to be",
(3) in saying, cf6 "I and the Father are one" (
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.
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.
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 man’s 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 Nösgen (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 above—that 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 Stalker’s 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 Evangelist’s 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 Brandt’s 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 Lütgert (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 Lord’s 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 Synoptics—the 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 formerly—the theocratic. Messianic, the ethicoreligious, and the physical or metaphysical—only 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 new—the 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
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. John’s 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 four—Joh 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 world—surely a real, historical event—is 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 Lord’s 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 everyone’s 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 God’s 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 Father’s (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 naïveté He spoke of the Father’s 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 councils—for whatever excesses of superstition or dogmatism these may be answerable—but 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 Wendt’s Teaching of Jesus, Dalman’s Words of Jesus, Nösgen’s Gesch. Jesu Christi, and Beyschlag’s Christologie des NT. See also Grau, Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu; Nösgen, Der Menschen-und Gottessohn; Gore, Bampton Lectures and Dissertations; Stevens, The Johannine Theology; Weiss, Der Johanneische Lehrbegriff; Lütgert, 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.
By: Kaufmann Kohler, Emil G. Hirsch
Term applied to an angel or demigod, one of the mythological beings whose exploits are described in Gen. vi. 2-4, and whose ill conduct was among the causes of the Flood; to a judge or ruler (Ps. lxxxii. 6, "children of the Most High"; in many passages "gods" and "judges" seem to be equations; comp. Ex. xxi. 6 [R. V., margin] and xxii. 8, 9); and to the real or ideal king over Israel (II Sam. vii. 14, with reference to David and his dynasty; comp. Ps. lxxxix. 27, 28). "Sons of God" and "children of God" are applied also to Israel as a people (comp. Ex. iv. 22 and Hos. xi. 1) and to all members of the human race.
Yet the term by no means carries the idea of physical descent from, and essential unity with, God the Father. The Hebrew idiom conveys nothing further than a simple expression of godlikeness (see Godliness). In fact, the term "son of God" is rarely used in Jewish literature in the sense of"Messiah." Though in Sukkah 52a the words of Ps. ii. 7, 8 are put into the mouth of Messiah, son of David, he himself is not called "son of God." The more familiar epithet is "King Messiah," based partly on this psalm (Gen. R. xliv.). In the Targum the 
of Ps. lxxx. 16 is rendered 
(= "King Messiah"), while Ps. ii. 7 is paraphrased in a manner that removes the anthropomorphism of the Hebrew: "Thou art beloved unto me, like a son unto a father, pure as on the day when I created thee."
The Pious as Sons of God.
The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha contain a few passages in which the title "son of God" is given to the Messiah (see Enoch, cv. 2; IV Esdras vii. 28-29; xiii. 32, 37, 52; xiv. 9); but the title belongs also to any one whose piety has placed him in a filial relation to God (see Wisdom ii. 13, 16, 18; v. 5, where "the sons of God" are identical with "the saints"; comp. Ecclus. [Sirach] iv. 10). It is through such personal relations that the individual becomes conscious of God's fatherhood, and gradually in Hellenistic and rabbinical literature "sonship to God" was ascribed first to every Israelite and then to every member of the human race (Abot iii. 15, v. 20; Ber. v. 1; see Abba). The God-childship of man has been especially accentuated in modern Jewish theology, in sharp contradistinction to the Christian God-sonship of Jesus. The application of the term "son of God" to the Messiah rests chiefly on Ps. ii. 7, and the other Messianic passages quoted above.
The phrase "the only begotten son" (John iii. 16) is merely another rendering for "the beloved son." The Septuagint translates 
("thine only son") of Gen. xxii. 2 by "thy beloved son." But in this translation there is apparent a special use of the root 
, of frequent occurrence in rabbinical literature, as a synonym of 
("choose," "elect"; see Bacher, "Die Aelteste Terminologie der Jüdischen Schriftauslegung," s.v.); the "only begotten" thus reverts to the attribute of the "servant" who is the "chosen" one.
It has been noted that the Gospel of John and the First Epistle of John have given the term a meta-physical and dogmatic significance. Undoubtedly the Alexandrian Logos concept has had a formative and dominant influence on the presentation of the doctrine of Jesus' sonship in the Johannean writings. The Logos in Philo is designated as the "son of God"; the Logos is the first-born; God is the father of the Logos ("De Agricultura Noe," § 12 [ed. Mangey, i. 308]; "De Profugis," § 20 [ed. Mangey, i. 562]). In all probability these terms, while implying the distinct personality of the Logos, carry only a figurative meaning. The Torah also is said to be God's "daughter" (Lev. R. xx.). At all events, the data of the Synoptic Gospels show that Jesus never styled himself the son of God in a sense other than that in which the righteous might call themselves "sons" or "children" of God.
The parable of the faithless husbandmen and the vineyard (Mark xii. 1 et seq.) certainly does not bear out the assumption that Jesus described himself as the "son of God" in a specific theological sense. The parable recalls the numerous "son" stories in the Midrash, in which "son" is employed just as it is here, and generally in similar contrast to servants. If these considerations create a strong presumption in favor of the view that the original gospel did not contain the title, the other Synoptics do not veil the fact that all men are destined to be God's children (Matt. v. 45; Luke vi. 35). The term is applied in Matt. v. 9 to the peacemakers. God is referred to as the "Father" of the disciples in Matt. x. 29, xxiii. 9, and Luke xii. 32. Several parables illustrate this thought (Luke xv. 11 et seq. and Matt. xxi. 28 et seq.). Much has been made of the distinction said to appear in the pronouns connected with "Father," "our" and "your" appearing when the disciples are addressed, while "my" is exclusively reserved to express the relation with Jesus, and then, too, without the further qualification "who art [or "is"] in heaven" (see Dalman, "Worte Jesu," pp. 157, 230). But in the Aramaic this distinction is certainly not pronounced enough to warrant the conclusion that a different degree or kind of sonship is conveyed by the singular pronoun from what would be expressed by the plural. In the Aramaic the pronoun would not appear at all, "Abba" indiscriminately serving for the apostrophe both in the prayer of a single individual and in the prayer of several.
The title occurs with a distinct theological significance in Rev. ii. 18 and xxii. 13, as it does in the Pauline documents (Rom. i. 3, 4; viii. 3, 4, 32 [Jesus is God's
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).
IN THE OLD TESTAMENTThe 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 TESTAMENTThe 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. PeterWe 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
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 God’s son, for God adopted it as his own (Exo 4:22-23; Rom 9:4). In a similar but higher sense, Christians are God’s sons, again through God’s 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 God’s son, for through him God exercised his rule over his people (2Sa 7:14; Psa 2:6-7). The promised Messiah would also be God’s son, for he would belong to the Davidic line of kings. That Messiah was Jesus. But Jesus was more than God’s son in the messianic sense. He was God’s 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 Son’s 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 Father’s 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 Son’s 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 Son’s 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 Son’s victory at the cross will remove the last traces of sin. The Son will restore all things to the Father, and God’s 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 people’s 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 God’s final triumph (1Th 1:10; Tit 1:13). (See also JESUS CHRIST; SON OF MAN.)
Another reference for Jesus Christ, signifying Jesus’ relationship to God the Father (see Matthew 3:17; Hebrews 10:29; 1 John 4:15).
—New Believer’s Bible Glossary
This is a title of Jesus. It implies His deity (Joh 5:18) because the title is one of equality with God. In the OT it was figuratively applied to Israel (Exo 4:22). In the NT it is applied to Christ (Luk 1:35). It has many facets, for example: It shows that He is to be honored equally with the Father (Joh 5:22-23). That He is to be worshiped (Mat 2:2; Mat 2:11; Mat 14:33; Joh 9:35-38; Heb 1:6); called God (Joh 20:28; Col 2:9; Heb 1:8); prayed to (Act 7:55-60; 1Co 1:1-2).
Term used to express the deity of Jesus of Nazareth as the unique divine Son.
Jesus’ unique sonship is antithetical to concepts of sonship popular in the ancient world. In Hellenism, people believed a man could be a “son of the gods” in many ways: in mythology, by cohabitation of a god with a woman whose offspring was imagined to be superhuman; in politics, by giving generals and emperors high honors in the cult of Roman emperor worship; in medicine, by calling a doctor “son of Asclepius”; and eventually by ascribing to anyone with mysterious powers or qualities the title or reputation of “divine man.”
The Term in the Old Testament
In the OT, certain men who lived before the time of Noah (Gn 6:1–4), “the angels” (including Satan, Jb 1:6; 2:1), and other heavenly beings (Pss 29:1; 82:6; 89:6, rsv mg) are called “sons of God.” Israel as a people was the chosen son of God. This corporate sonship became the basis of Israel’s redemption from Egypt: “Israel is my first-born son” (Ex 4:22; cf. Jer 31:9). Corporate sonship was the context for focus on personal sonship in the divine sanction of David as king: “I will be his father, and he will be my son” (2 Sm 7:14). David’s “adoptive” sonship was by divine decree: “I will proclaim the decree: . . . ‘You are my son; today I have become your Father’ ” (Ps 2:7); and it was the prophetic prototype of the “essential” sonship of Jesus, David’s royal son (Mt 3:17; Mk 1:11; Lk 3:22; Acts 13:33; Heb 1:5; 5:5). Other messianic prophecies ascribe divine names to the Davidic Messiah: “Immanuel” (Is 7:13–14) and “Mighty God, Everlasting Father” (Is 9:6–7). These are fulfilled in Jesus (Mt 1:23; 21:4–10; 22:41–45).
In the Gospels
Jesus’ identity as the Son of God is revealed in the Gospels in three distinct ways.
The first is his eternal, personal sonship. Jesus’ personal sonship is revealed in Peter’s confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16) and in Jesus’ identification of himself at his trial: “ ‘Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?’ . . . ‘I am,’ said Jesus” (Mk 14:61–62). In both instances, the issue is his personal being or essence, his eternal identity.
Long before Creation, even from eternity, the Father and the Son enjoyed fellowship with each other. We know this because the Bible tells us so—but not in any great detail. For the most part, the Scriptures are silent about the premundane scene. And yet there are a few verses that lift the veil slightly and give us a glimpse into that sublime, divine relationship that always existed between the Father and the Son.
Of all the books in the Bible, the Gospel of John has the most to say about the relationship between the Father and the Son. It is from John’s inspired pen that we read from the outset, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This is a rather flat rendering. The Greek conveys something more picturesque: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was face to face with God, and the Word was himself God.” Imagine, the Word, who was the preincarnate Son of God, was face to face with God. The expression “face to face” translates the Greek preposition pros (short for prosopon pros prosopon, “face to face,” a common expression in koine Greek.) The expression signifies intimate fellowship. The Father and Son enjoyed such an intimate fellowship from eternity. How they must have delighted in each other!
After the Son of God became a man and began his ministry on earth, he referred to the relationship he enjoyed with the Father before the foundation of the world. Jesus spoke of what he had seen and heard together with the Father before coming to earth (see John 3:13 and 8:38). Jesus longed to return to that glorious sphere. In his prayer before going to the cross (in ch 17), he asked the Father to glorify him with the glory he had with the Father before the world was (v 5). Jesus wanted to recapture his primordial equality with the Father—something he had willingly relinquished for the sake of his Father’s plan (see Phil 2:6–7). As he prayed to the Father, a wonderful utterance escaped from his lips: “Father, . . . you loved me before the foundation of the world” (Jn 17:24). God’s Son, the unique Son, was the single object of the Father’s love.
The second aspect of Jesus’ sonship is his nativity sonship. The nativity of Jesus is traced to the direct, spiritual paternity of God. Jesus is the Son of God because his incarnation and birth into the human race was created by the Holy Spirit. In Matthew, Jesus’ conception “is of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 1:20). He is to be named “Jesus” (meaning Yahweh is salvation) “because he will save his people from their sins” (v 21), and “Immanuel” (God with us) because he is himself the Son of God in human flesh (v 23). In Luke, Jesus’ conception was by the Holy Spirit and the power of the Most High (Lk 1:31, 35), so Jesus was called “the Son of God” (v 35). If the father of Jesus had been the man Joseph, he would have been called “Jesus, the son of Joseph.” Luke’s teaching clearly means that since the Spirit of God was the father of Jesus, this son of the virgin Mary is properly called “Jesus, the Son of God.”
The third aspect is his messianic sonship. Jesus is the Father’s Son and representative, whose earthly mission is to establish the kingdom of God. At his baptism, he began his mission with the Father’s coronation: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Mt 3:17; cf. Ps 2:7). Jesus received a similar pronouncement from heaven at his Transfiguration (Lk 9:35). As the messianic Son, Jesus perfectly completed the redeeming work given him to do by his Father.
In the New Testament Epistles
Paul spoke of the essential, ontological sonship of Jesus—not as an isolated fact, but in the context of his redemptive work. It was as God’s Son that Jesus took human nature (Rom 1:3) and as “the Son of God” that he was resurrected and enthroned in power (Mt 28:18; Rom 1:4; 1 Cor 15:28). The Incarnation is spoken of as “God sending his own Son” (Rom 8:3; Gal 4:4) for humanity’s redemption, a redemption that was accomplished “through the death of his Son” (Rom 5:10; 8:29, 32). As a consequence, believers can have “fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor 1:9), and they can live by faith in “the Son of God” (Gal 2:20). Paul’s first preaching was “that Jesus is the Son of God” (Acts 9:20); this was later expounded by Paul in the light of Psalm 2:7 (see Acts 13:33).
In Hebrews, Jesus is “the Son,” who is God’s “firstborn” and personal “heir,” who is creator and sustainer of the universe, and who is the “radiance of God’s glory” (Heb 1:2–12; 3:6; 5:5). As the Son, he is the final and eternal High Priest who ascended to heaven and whose mediatorial work remains perfect forever (4:14; 6:6; 7:3, 28). In 1 John 4 and 5, belief in Jesus as the incarnate Son of God is essential for salvation; disbelief comes from the spirit of the Antichrist.
See also Christology; Jesus Christ, Teachings of; Messiah; Son of Man.
Aquifer Open Bible Dictionary © 2026 Mission Mutual, an adaptation of the Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary © 2023 Tyndale House Publishers. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.