Reference: Son of God
Easton
The plural, "sons of God," is used (Ge 6:2,4) to denote the pious descendants of Seth. In Job 1:6; 38:7 this name is applied to the angels. Hosea uses the phrase (Job 1:10) to designate the gracious relation in which men stand to God.
In the New Testament this phrase frequently denotes the relation into which we are brought to God by adoption (Ro 8:14,19; 2Co 6:18; Ga 4:5-6; Php 2:15; 1Jo 3:1-2). It occurs thirty-seven times in the New Testament as the distinctive title of our Saviour. He does not bear this title in consequence of his miraculous birth, nor of his incarnation, his resurrection, and exaltation to the Father's right hand. This is a title of nature and not of office. The sonship of Christ denotes his equality with the Father. To call Christ the Son of God is to assert his true and proper divinity. The second Person of the Trinity, because of his eternal relation to the first Person, is the Son of God. He is the Son of God as to his divine nature, while as to his human nature he is the Son of David (Ro 1:3-4. Comp. Ga 4:4; Joh 1:1-14; 5:18-25; 10:30-38, which prove that Christ was the Son of God before his incarnation, and that his claim to this title is a claim of equality with God).
When used with reference to creatures, whether men or angels, this word is always in the plural. In the singular it is always used of the second Person of the Trinity, with the single exception of Lu 3:38, where it is used of Adam.
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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was face to face with God, and the Word was God. He was face to face with God in the Beginning. read more. All things came into being through him, and apart from him nothing that exists came into being. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light is shining in the darkness, and the darkness has not overwhelmed it A man came into being, sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, that he might bear testimony concerning the Light??o that all men might believe through him. He was not the Light; it was to bear testimony concerning the Light that he came into being. The true Light, which enlightens every man, was then coming into the world. He was in the world, and through him the world came into being, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own creation, and his own folk welcomed him not. But to all who receive him, to them he has given the right to become children of God, even to those who trust in his name; who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and tented with us. And we gazed on his glory??lory as of the Father's only Son??ull of grace and truth.
For this reason the Jews continued to seek the more eagerly to put him to death, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was actually speaking of God as his own Father, thus making himself of God's equal. So Jesus answered them in these words. "In solemn truth I tell that the Son cannot do anything of himself, except what he sees the Father doing; for whatever he does, that the Son does also. read more. "For the Father loves the Son, and shows him every thing that he himself is doing. And greater deeds than these will he show him, that you may wonder. "For just as the Father raises the dead and makes them alive, even so the Son makes whom he will alive. "The Father indeed does not judge any one, but has given all judgment to the Son, "in order that all may honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor Son, does not honor the Father who sent him. "I tell you solemnly that he who listens to my messages and believes Him who sent me, has eternal life. He will not come under condemnation, but has passed out of death into life. "Solemnly I tell you that the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear shall live.
"I and my Father are one." The Jews again took stones with which to stone him. Jesus said to them. read more. "I have shown you many good deeds from my Father. For which of these are you going to stone me?" "We are not going to stone you for a good deed," answered the Jews, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, are making yourself God." "Is it written in your law," replied Jesus, "I said, You are gods? "If those to whom the word of God came are called gods (and the Scripture cannot be annulled), do you mean to tell me, whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world, 'You are blaspheming,' because I said, 'I am the Son of God'? "If I am not doing the deeds of my Father, do not believe me. "But if I am doing them, then though you believe not me, believe the deeds, in order that you may come to know and keep on clearly understanding that the Father is in me and I am in the Father."
this gospel is concerning his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of David's posterity in respect of his bodily nature, but was by his resurrection from the dead instated as Son of God, with power, in respect of his spirit of holiness.
For only those are sons of God who are led by God's Spirit.
All nature even is waiting with eager longing for the unveiling of the vision of God's sons.
But when the fulness of time was come God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem from captivity those under law, in order that we might receive our sonship. read more. And because you are sons, God sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, "Dear, dear Father!"
that you may become blameless and innocent, the sons of God, without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine like stars in a dark world,
Fausets
Applied in the plural to the godly Seth's descendants (not angels, who "neither marry nor are given in marriage," Lu 20:35-36), "the salt of the earth" heretofore, amidst its growing corruption by the Cainites.(See SETH.) When it lost its savour ("for that he also (even the godly seed) is become flesh" or fleshly) by contracting marriages with the beautiful but ungodly, God's Spirit ceased to strive with man, and judgment fell (Ge 6:2-4). In Job 1:6; 2:4, angels. In Ps 82:6 "gods ... sons of the Highest," i.e. His representatives, exercising, as judges and rulers, His delegated authority. A fortiori, the term applies in a higher sense to "Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world" (Joh 10:36). Israel the type was Son of God (Ex 4:22-23; Ho 11:1). Faith obeying from the motive of love constitutes men "sons of God" (Jer 3:4; Ho 1:10). Unbelief and disobedience exclude from sonship those who are sons only as to spiritual privileges (De 32:5; Hebrew).
It (the perverse and crooked generation) hath corrupted itself before Him (Isa 1:4), they are not His children but their blemish, i.e. "they cannot be called God's children but the disgrace of God's children" (Ro 9:8; Ga 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; 3:3,5; 1Jo 3:1-3; Ro 8:15; Ga 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 Pr 8:22 (Hebrew), "Jehovah begat (qananiy related to Greek gennaoo) Me in the beginning of His way (rather omit "in"; the Son Himself was "the Beginning of His way", "the Beginning of the creation of God", Re 3:14) from everlasting ... or ever the earth was ... I was by Him as One brought up with Him. I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him" (Pr 8:22-31; Joh 1:1-3).
The Son was the Archetype from everlasting of that creation which was in due time to be created by Him. His distinct Personality appears in His being "by God ... brought up with God," not a mere attribute; "nursed at His side"; "the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father"; to be "honoured as the Father" (Joh 1:18; 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; Ps 2:7; 45:6-7). His divine Sonship from everlasting was openly manifested by the Father's raising Him from the dead (Ac 13:33; Ro 1:4; Re 1:5). Nebuchadnezzar called Him "the Son of God," unconsciously expressing a truth the significance of which he imperfectly comprehended (Da 3:25).
The Jews might have known Messiah's Godhead from Ps 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 (De 6:4), and also the palpable woman-sprung humanity of Jesus. Their supposing John the Baptist to be Messiah (Lu 3:15) shows they did not expect Messiah or Christ to be more than man (Mt 22:42-45). To Jesus' question, "what think ye of Christ, whose Son is He?" the Pharisees answered not the Son of God, but "the Son of David," and could not solve the difficulty," how then doth David in the Spirit call Him Lord?" in Psalm 110, "Jehovah said unto my Lord" ('Adonay), etc., i.e. the Lord of David, not in his merely personal capacity, but as Israel's Representative, literal and spiritual. Jesus quotes it "Lord," not "my Lord," because Jehovah addresses Him as Israel's and the church's Lord, not merely David's.
Had the Pharisees believed in Messiah's Godhead they could have answered: As man Messiah was David's son, as God He was David's and the church's Lord. The Sanhedrin unanimously (Mr 14:64) condemned Him to death, not for His claim to Messiahship but to Godhead (Joh 19:7; Lu 22:70-71, "art Thou the Son of God?" etc., Lu 23:1; Mt 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 (Mt 16:17). The Jews thrice took up stones to kill Him for blasphemy
(1) in unequivocally claiming God to be peculiarly "His own Father" (idion patera): Joh 5:18. Again,
(2) in claiming divine pre-existence, "before Abraham was created ("began to be", genesthai), I am" (eimi): Joh 8:58-59. And
(3) in saying, "I and the Father are one" (hen, one "essence", not person): Joh 10:30-31,33.
The apostles preached His divine Lordship as well as Messiahship (Ac 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 De 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 De 18:15, etc., and so incurred the there foretold penalty of rejecting Him. His miracles they attributed to Satan's help (Mt 12:24,27; Mr 3:22; Lu 11:15; Joh 7:20; 8:48; Mt 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 (Lu 23:34; Ac 3:17; 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.
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"It is enough for the pupil to fare like his teacher, and the slave like his master. If they called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more, the members of his household.
When the Pharisees heard it they said, "It is only by the aid of Beelzebub, the Prince of the demons, that this fellow is driving out demons."
"And if I am casting out demons in the power of Beelzebub, in whose power do your sons cast them out? So they themselves shall be your judges.
"Blessed are you, Simon, Son of Jonah," said Jesus; "for flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven!
"What is your opinion concerning the Christ? Whose Son is he?" "David's," they answered. "How then, "he said, "does David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying, read more. "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand Until I put thine enemies beneath thy feet? "If David calls him Lord, how can he be his Son?"
But Jesus kept silence. Again the high priest addressed him, "I adjure you by the Living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God!" "I am He," Jesus answered; "yet I tell you that from this time on you will see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming upon the clouds of heaven." read more. Then the high priest tore his garments, saying. "He has spoken blasphemy! What further need have we of witnesses? For behold, now you have heard his blasphemy! "What is your verdict?" "He ought to die," they answered.
The Scribes also who had come down from Jerusalem, said, "He is Beelzebub," and, "He casts out demons by the power of the Prince of the demons."
"Did you hear his blasphemy? What is your verdict?"
And while the people were in expectation, and all men were debating in their hearts about John,
But some of them said, "It is by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that he cast out demons."
"but those who are counted worthy to reach that world and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage. "For indeed they cannot die any more; they are equal to the angels, and through being sons of the resurrection are sons of God.
Then they all said, "Are you then the Son of God." "What need we of further evidence? for we ourselves have heard it from his own lips."
Jesus kept saying, "Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." And they divided his garments among them, casting lots for them,
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was face to face with God, and the Word was God. He was face to face with God in the Beginning. read more. All things came into being through him, and apart from him nothing that exists came into being.
But to all who receive him, to them he has given the right to become children of God, even to those who trust in his name; who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
No man has ever seen God; God, only begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father??e has interpreted him.
"In very truth I tell you," answered Jesus, "that unless a man is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
"I tell you solemnly," Jesus answered, "that unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
For this reason the Jews continued to seek the more eagerly to put him to death, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was actually speaking of God as his own Father, thus making himself of God's equal.
"For the Father loves the Son, and shows him every thing that he himself is doing. And greater deeds than these will he show him, that you may wonder.
The crowd answered. "You have a demon! Who is trying kill you?"
In reply the Jews said to him, "Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan, and you also have a demon?"
"In solemn truth I tell you," answered Jesus, "that before Abraham came into existence, I am." Then they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the Temple.
"I and my Father are one." The Jews again took stones with which to stone him. Jesus said to them.
"We are not going to stone you for a good deed," answered the Jews, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, are making yourself God."
do you mean to tell me, whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world, 'You are blaspheming,' because I said, 'I am the Son of God'?
The Jews answered him, "We have a law, and by that law he ought to die, because he made himself out to be God's Son,"
"Therefore let the whole House of Israel know assuredly that Gods has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you have crucified."
"And now, brothers, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers.
"For those who dwell in Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor the utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him.
"how that God fulfilled it for us their children in raising up Jesus; as it is also written in the second Psalm, "Thou art my son, today have I become thy Father.
but was by his resurrection from the dead instated as Son of God, with power, in respect of his spirit of holiness.
For you have not received a spirit of slavery in order that you should once more be afraid; but you have received a spirit of adoption, in which we cry out, "My Father, my dear Father!"
That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as his posterity.
You are all sons of God through your faith in Jesus Christ.
to redeem from captivity those under law, in order that we might receive our sonship. And because you are sons, God sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, "Dear, dear Father!"
He is a visible image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;
and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the Ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and has loosed us from our sins in his own blood;
To the angel of the Church in Laodicea, write. These things says the Amen, the witness, faithful and true, the beginning of the creation of God.