JESUS THE SON OF GOD
When we think of the fact that God is a God of grace, mercy, and love, we need to see all of these things personified in Jesus Christ. He is the grace of God, the mercy of God, the salvation of God.
Jesus is the “Son of God,” which means that He is “God the Son.” He is as much God as God the Father. No one understands all of the mysteries of the Trinity, but we know that one God, the true God, consists of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19; 2 Corinthians 13:14).
Jesus is the “Word of God” who was “with God in the beginning” (John 1:1, 2). Jesus is not a glorified angel. He is not a created being of any kind. He is the eternal God. He shares the same divine nature that His Father has.
God the Father, “who at various times and in different ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets” now speaks to us through “His Son, whom He made heir of all things, and through whom He also made the worlds.” Jesus is the “brightness of His glory” and the “exact image of His person,” and He “upholds all things by the word of His power.” The Son of God also “purged our sins” and then “sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:1-3). All of these facts highlight the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, and the fact that He is the true and only Son of God.
Matthew’s Gospel begins with an affirmation concerning the deity of Christ. He quotes from Isaiah the prophet and applies it to Jesus, calling Him “Immanuel,” meaning “God with us” (Matthew 1:23). God is with us because the Son of God/God the Son came to live among us as a human being.
Similarly, the apostle John opens his gospel by asserting, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). The Word of God is a reference to Jesus. He was with God and He was God. He was with God the Father and He was God Himself.
We know this because of verse 14 of John chapter 1: The Word became flesh and lived among us. Jesus did not “become” the Son of God. He “became” flesh and blood. He was not “created” to be the Son of God. He is eternal, as John reveals in the opening verse. The deity of Christ—the fact that He is the Son of God—is His nature and His being. It was not something given to Him.
He is equal with God the Father and has possessed all of the fullness of deity throughout all eternity. Paul wrote that Christ, “though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:6-7). He emptied Himself of His prerogatives of equality with the Father when He became a man, which means He possesses equality with God. There are mysteries here that we will never understand fully in this life, but that does not mean that we cannot know about these facts and appreciate them.
The entrance of God’s Son into the world is the very foundation of the Gospel. The most famous verse in the Bible makes this clear: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). God gave whom? His Son. The very Son of God was given by God the Father to save us. And Jesus willingly came into the world to save us.
The Son of God is the perfect revelation of God the Father. “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father,” Jesus said (John 14:9). Think about the truth behind that statement. If we want to know what God is like, then Jesus is where to look. He reveals everything about God that we need to know.
So the title “Son of God” does not speak of or point to a secondary role as far as His deity and eternality are concerned. On the contrary, it affirms His oneness with the Father, His equal deity, and His power and authority upon the earth. Indeed, He is what this world and all that is in it is all about.
The disciples who spent time with Him and knew Him best, knew who He was: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). To declare this of someone of whom it was not true would be blasphemy. But Jesus accepted the statement, and even expected it, because it is true.
To believe in the Son of God means to entrust your life to Him, to trust Him alone for your salvation, to exalt Him as Lord of your life, and to have peace and joy through that faith in Him (1 John 3:19-20). When you affirm that you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, which is the confession upon which salvation and being a part of the body of Christ are based, then you are saying “amen” to everything Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit claimed about Him.
Bryan Dewayne Dunaway
