Son of God (Christianity)

In the introduction to the Genesis flood narrative, Genesis 6:2 refers to "sons of God" who married the daughters of men and is used in a polytheistic context to refer to angels.[1][2]

In Exodus 4:22,[3] the Israelites as a people are called "my firstborn son" by God, using the singular form.

In some versions of Deuteronomy, the Dead Sea Scrolls refer to the sons of God rather than the sons of Israel, probably in reference to angels. The Septuagint reads similarly.[4]^: 147[5]

In Psalm 89:26–28,[6] David calls God his father. God in turn tells David that he will make David his first-born and highest king of the earth.[7]^: 45[4]^: 150

In Psalm 82:1–8,[8] the Biblical judges are called gods and the sons of God.[9]

Psalm 2 is thought to be an enthronement text. The rebel nations and the uses of an iron rod are Assyrian motifs. The begetting of the king is an Egyptian one.[7]^: 26 Israel's kings are referred to as the son of the LORD. They are reborn or adopted on the day of their enthroning as the "son of the LORD".[4]^: 150[10]

Some scholars think that Psalm 110 is an alternative enthronement text. Psalm 110:1 distinguishes the king from the LORD. The LORD asks the king to sit at his right hand.[11][12] Psalm 110:3 may or may not have a reference to the begetting of kings. The exact translation of 110:3 is uncertain. In the traditional Hebrew translations his youth is renewed like the morning dew. In some alternative translations the king is begotten by God like the morning dew or by the morning dew. One possible translation of 110:4 is that the king is told that he is a priest like Melchizedek. Another possibility is to translate Melchizedek not as a name but rather as a title "Righteous King".[13] If a reference is made to Melchizedek this could be linked to pre-Israelite Canaanite belief. The invitation to sit at the right hand of the deity and the king's enemy's being used as footstools are both classic Egyptian motifs, as is the association of the king with the rising sun. Many scholars now think that Israelite beliefs evolved from Canaanite beliefs.[7]^: 29–33[4]^: 150 Jews have traditionally believed that Psalm 110 applied only to King David. Being the first Davidic king, he had certain priest-like responsibilities.[14][15][16]

Some believe that these psalms were not meant to apply to a single king, but rather were used during the enthronement ceremony. The fact that the Royal psalms were preserved suggests that the influence of Egyptian and other near eastern cultures on pre-exile religion needs to be taken seriously. Ancient Egyptians used similar language to describe pharaohs. Assyrian and Canaanite influences among others are also noted.[7]^: 24–38

In 2 Samuel 7:13–16,[17] God promises David regarding his offspring that "I will be to him as a father and he will be to me as a son." The promise is one of eternal kingship.[7]^: 39–44

In Isaiah 9:6, the next king is greeted, similarly to the passages in Psalms. Like Psalm 45:7–8 he is figuratively likened to the supreme king God.[4]^: 150[18] Isaiah could also be interpreted as the birth of a royal child, Psalm 2 nevertheless leaves the accession scenario as an attractive possibility.[7]^: 28 The king in 9:6 is thought to have been Hezekiah by Jews and various academic scholars.[7]^: 28[19]

In Jeremiah 31:9, God refers to himself as the father of Israel and Ephraim as his first born son. Ephraim in Jeremiah refers collectively to the northern kingdom.[20]^: 43

The Book of Wisdom refers to a righteous man as the son of God.[4]^: 157

In the Book of Ecclesiasticus 4:10, in the Hebrew text, God calls a person who acts righteously his son. The Greek reads slightly differently; here, he will be "like a son of the Most High".[4]^{: 157–158}

According to the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus referred to himself obliquely as "the Son" and even more significantly spoke of God as "my Father" (Matthew 11:27 par.; 16:17; Luke 22:29). He not only spoke like "the Son" but also acted like "the Son" in knowing and revealing the truth about God, in changing the divine law, in forgiving sins, in being the one through whom others could become children of God, and in acting with total obedience as the agent for God's final kingdom.[54] This clarifies the charge of blasphemy brought against him at the end (Mark 14:64 par.); he had given the impression of claiming to stand on a par with God. Jesus came across as expressing a unique filial consciousness and as laying claim to a unique filial relationship with the God whom he addressed as "Abba".[72]

Even if historically he never called himself "the only" Son of God (cf. John 1:14, 18; John 3:16, 18), Jesus presented himself as Son and not just as one who was the divinely appointed Messiah (and therefore "son" of God). He made himself out to be more than only someone chosen and anointed as divine representative to fulfil an eschatological role in and for the kingdom. Implicitly, Jesus claimed an essential, "ontological" relationship of sonship towards God which provided the grounds for his functions as revealer, lawgiver, forgiver of sins, and agent of the final kingdom. Those functions (his "doing") depended on his ontological relationship as Son of God (his "being"). Jesus invited his hearers to accept God as a loving, merciful Father. He worked towards mediating to them a new relationship with God, even to the point that they too could use "Abba" when addressing God in prayer. Yet, Jesus' consistent distinction between "my" Father and "your" Father showed that he was not inviting the disciples to share with him an identical relationship of sonship. He was apparently conscious of a qualitative distinction between his sonship and their sonship which was derived from and depended on his. His way of being son was different from theirs.[54]

In the Gospel of John, Jesus is the eternally pre-existent Son who was sent from heaven into the world by God (e.g., John 3:17;[73] 4:34;[74] 5:24–37).[75] He remains conscious of the divine pre-existence he enjoyed with the Father (John 8:23,[76] 8:38–42).[77] He is one with the Father (John 10:30,[78] 14:7)[79] and loved by the Father (John 3:35,[80] 5:20,[81] 10:17,[82] 17:23–26).[83] The Son has the divine power to give life and to judge (John 5:21–26,[84] 6:40,[85] 8:16,[86] 17:2).[87] Through his death, resurrection, and ascension the Son is glorified by the Father (John 17:1–24), but it is not a glory that is thereby essentially enhanced. His glory not only existed from the time of the incarnation to reveal the Father (John 1:14),[88] but also pre-existed the creation of the world (John 17:5–24).[89] Where Paul and the author of Hebrews picture Jesus almost as the elder brother or the first-born of God's new eschatological family (Romans 8:14–29;[90] Hebrews 2:10–12),[91] John insists even more on the clear qualitative difference between Jesus' sonship and that of others. Being God's "only Son" (John 1:14–18, 3:16–18), he enjoys a truly unique and exclusive relationship with the Father.[54]

At least four of these themes go back to the earthly Jesus himself. First, although one has no real evidence for holding that he was humanly aware of his eternal pre-existence as Son, his "Abba-consciousness" revealed an intimate loving relationship with the Father. The full Johannine development of the Father-Son relationship rests on an authentic basis in the Jesus-tradition (Mark 14:36; Matthew 11:25–26; 16:17; Luke 11:2). Second, Jesus not only thought of himself as God's Son, but also spoke of himself as sent by God. Once again, John develops the theme of the Son's mission, which is already present in sayings that at least partly go back to Jesus (Mark 9:37;[92] Matthew 15:24;[93] Luke 10:16),[94] especially in 12:6, where it is a question of the sending of a "beloved Son". Third, the Johannine theme of the Son with power to judge in the context of eternal life finds its original historical source in the sayings of Jesus about his power to dispose of things in the kingdom assigned to him by "my Father" (Luke 22:29–30)[95] and about one's relationship to him deciding one's final destiny before God (Luke 12:8–9).[96] Fourth, albeit less insistently, when inviting his audience to accept a new filial relationship with God, Jesus – as previously seen – distinguished his own relationship to God from theirs.[54] The exclusive Johannine language of God's "only Son" has its real source in Jesus' preaching. All in all, Johannine theology fully deploys Jesus' divine sonship, but does so by building up what one already finds in the Synoptic Gospels and what, at least in part, derives from the earthly Jesus himself.[54]

The Ascension, Jesus returning to his Father – by Pietro Perugino (c. 1500), Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

In their own way, the Gospel of John, the First Epistle of John and Paul the Apostle maintain this distinction. Paul expressed their new relationship with God as taking place through an "adoption" (Galatians 4:5; Romans 8:15), which makes them "children of God" (Romans 8:16–17) or, alternatively, "sons of God" (Romans 8:14; (Romans 4:6–7). John distinguished between the only Son of God (John 1:14, 18; John 3:16, 18) and all those who through faith can become "children of God" (John 1:12; 11:52; and 1 John 3:1–2,10[97] and 5:2.[98] Paul and John likewise maintained and developed the correlative of all this, Jesus' stress on the fatherhood of God. In the Gospel of John, God is given the title of "Father" over 100 times. Paul's typical greeting to his correspondents runs as follows: "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the/our Lord Jesus Christ".[99] The greeting names Jesus as "Lord", but the context of "God our Father" implies his sonship.[54]

Paul therefore distinguishes between their graced situation as God's adopted children and that of Jesus as Son of God. In understanding the latter's "natural" divine sonship, Paul firstly speaks of God "sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful nature and to deal with sin" (Romans 8:3). In a similar passage, Paul says that "when the fullness of time had come God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law" (Galatians 4:4). If one examines these three passages in some detail, it raises the question whether Paul thinks of an eternally pre-existent Son coming into the world from his Father in heaven to set humanity free from sin and death (Romans 8:3, 32) and make it God's adopted children (Galatians 4:4–7). The answer will partly depend, first, on the way one interprets other Pauline passages which do not use the title "Son of God" (2 Corinthians 8:9; Philippians 2:6–11). These latter passages present a pre-existent Christ taking the initiative, through his "generosity" in "becoming poor" for us and "assuming the form of a slave".[100] The answer will, second, depend on whether one judges 1 Corinthians 8:6 and Colossians 1:16 to imply that as a pre-existent being the Son was active at creation.[101] 1 Corinthians 8:6, without explicitly naming "the Son" as such, runs:

There is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

— 1 Corinthians 8:6, New Revised Standard Version[102]

Calling God "the Father" clearly moves one toward talk of "the Son". In the case of Colossians 1:16,[103] the whole hymn (Colossians 1:15–20)[104] does not give Jesus any title. However, he has just been referred to in Colossians 1:13 as God's "beloved Son".

Third, it should be observed that the language of "sending" (or, for that matter, "coming" with its stress on personal purpose (Mark 10:45 par.; Luke 12:49, 51 par.) by itself does not necessarily imply pre-existence. Otherwise one would have to ascribe pre-existence to John the Baptist, "a man sent from God", who "came to bear witness to the light" (John 1:6–8; cf. Matthew 11:10, 18 par.). In the Old Testament, angelic and human messengers, especially prophets, were "sent" by God, but the prophets sent by God were never called God's sons. It makes a difference that in the cited Pauline passages it was God's Son who was sent. Here being "sent" by God means more than merely receiving a divine commission and includes coming from a heavenly pre-existence and enjoying a divine origin.[54] Fourth, in their context, the three Son of God passages here examined (Romans 8:3, 32; Galatians 4:4) certainly do not focus on the Son's pre-existence, but on his being sent or given up to free human beings from sin and death, to make them God's adopted children, and to let them live (and pray) with the power of the indwelling Spirit. Nevertheless, the Apostle's soteriology presupposes here a Christology that includes divine pre-existence. It is precisely because Christ is the pre-existent Son who comes from the Father that he can turn human beings into God's adopted sons and daughters.[105]

When in Matthew 16:15–15,[106] Peter states: "You are Christ, the Son of the living God", Jesus not only accepts the titles, but calls Peter "blessed" because his declaration had been revealed him by "my Father who is in Heaven". According to John Yieh, in this account the Gospel of Matthew is unequivocally stating this as the church's view of Jesus.[107]

In the Sanhedrin trial of Jesus in Mark 14:61,[108] when the high priest asked Jesus: "Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?" In the next verse, Jesus responded "I am". Jesus' claim here was emphatic enough to make the high priest tear his robe.[109]

In the new Testament Jesus uses the term "my Father" as a direct and unequivocal assertion of his sonship, and a unique relationship with the Father beyond any attribution of titles by others:[65]

• In Matthew 11:27 Jesus claims a direct relationship to God the Father: "No one knows the Son except the Father and no one knows the Father except the Son", asserting the mutual knowledge he has with the Father.[65]
• In John 5:23 he claims that the Son and the Father receive the same type of honor, stating: "so that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father".[65][110]
• In John 5:26 he claims to possess life as the Father does: "Just as the Father has life in himself, so also he gave to his Son the possession of life in himself".[65][111]

In a number of other episodes Jesus claims sonship by referring to the Father, e.g. in Luke 2:49[112] when he is found in the temple a young Jesus calls the temple "my Father's house", just as he does later in John 2:16[113] in the Cleansing of the Temple episode.[65] In Matthew 3:17 and Luke 3:22[114] Jesus allows himself to be called the Son of God by the voice from above, not objecting to the title.[65]

References to "my Father" by Jesus in the New Testament are distinguished in that he never includes other individuals in them and only refers to "his Father", however when addressing the disciples he uses "your Father", excluding himself from the reference.[115]

• Matthew 14:33, Matthew 16:16, Matthew 27:54, Mark 1:1, Mark 15:39, John 1:49, John 11:27, John 20:31, Acts 8:37, Acts 9:20, Romans 1:4, 2 Corinthians 1:19, Galatians 2:20, Ephesians 4:13, Hebrews 4:14, Hebrews 5:8, Hebrews 6:6, Hebrews 7:3, Hebrews 10:29, 1 John 3:8, 1 John 4:15, 1 John 5:1, 1 John 5:5, 1 John 5:10, 1 John 5:12, 1 John 5:13, 1 John 5:20, 2 John 1:3
• his (i.e. God's) son, in various forms: John 3:16, John 3:17, Acts 3:13, Acts 3:26, Romans 1:3, Romans 1:9, Romans 5:10, Romans 8:3, Romans 8:29, Romans 8:32, 1 Corinthians 1:9, Galatians 1:16, Galatians 4:4, Galatians 4:6, Colossians 1:13, 1 Thessalonians 1:10, Hebrews 1:2, 1 John 1:3, 1 John 1:7, 1 John 3:23, 1 John 4:9, 1 John 4:10, 1 John 4:14, 1 John 5:9, 1 John 5:10, 1 John 5:11

• Matthew 26:63–64, Mark 14:61–62, Luke 22:70, John 3:18, John 5:25, John 10:36, John 11:4, Revelation 2:18

• Matthew 7:21, Matthew 10:32, Matthew 10:33, Matthew 11:25, Matthew 11:26, Matthew 11:27, Matthew 12:50, Matthew 15:13, Matthew 16:17, Matthew 16:27, Matthew 18:10, Matthew 18:19, Matthew 18:35, Matthew 20:23, Matthew 25:34, Matthew 26:29, Matthew 26:39, Matthew 26:42, Matthew 26:53, Mark 8:38, Mark 14:36, Luke 2:49, Luke 10:21, Luke 10:22, Luke 22:29, Luke 22:42, Luke 23:34, Luke 23:46, Luke 24:49, John 2:16, John 5:17, John 5:19, John 5:43, John 6:32, John 6:40, John 8:19, John 8:38, John 8:49, John 8:54, John 10:17, John 10:18, John 10:25, John 10:29, John 10:37, John 12:26, John 12:27, John 14:2, John 14:7, John 14:20, John 14:21, John 14:23, John 14:31, John 15:1, John 15:8, John 15:10, John 15:15, John 15:23, John 15:24, John 16:10, John 16:23, John 16:25, John 16:32, John 17:1, John 17:5, John 17:11, John 17:21, John 17:24, John 17:25, John 18:11, John 20:17, John 20:21, Acts 1:4, Revelation 2:27, Revelation 3:5, Revelation 3:21

• Matthew 2:15, Matthew 3:17, Matthew 17:5, Mark 1:11, Mark 9:7, Luke 3:22, Luke 9:35, Hebrews 1:5, Hebrews 5:5, 2 Peter 1:17

• Luke 1:32, Luke 1:35

• Matthew 4:3, Matthew 4:6, Matthew 8:29, Mark 3:11, Mark 5:7, Luke 4:3, Luke 4:9, Luke 4:41, Luke 8:28

• Matthew 11:27, Matthew 24:36, Matthew 28:19, Mark 13:32, Luke 10:22, John 1:14, John 1:18, John 3:35, John 3:36, John 5:19–26, John 6:40, John 14:13, John 17:1, 1 Corinthians 15:28, Colossians 1:15, Hebrews 1:3, Hebrews 1:8, Hebrews 3:6, Hebrews 7:28, 1 John 2:22–24, 1 John 4:14, 1 John 5:12, 2 John 1:9

• The New Testament also contains six[116] references to God as "the God and Father" of Jesus.[117]
• Romans 15:6, 2 Corinthians 1:3, 2 Corinthians 11:31, Ephesians 1:3, 1 Peter 1:3, Revelation 1:6