Son of God

If I speak to you about "the Son of God", you know of Whom I speak. That would be Jesus. Interestingly, in His lifetime, the first ones recorded to recognize Him as such were Satan and the demons. In Matthew 4 we read of His temptation in the desert. Twice Satan says, "If You are the Son of God ..." Later, demons from the Gadarenes cried out, "What have you to do with us, O Son of God?" (Matt 8:29) (right after Jesus had calmed the storm and His disciples had marveled saying, "What sort of man is this that even the winds and sea obey Him?" (Matt 8:27)). It wasn't until Jesus walked on water and stilled a storm that His disciples finally figured out, "Truly you are the Son of God." (Matt 14:25-33).

Jesus Himself alludes to the phrase in His conversation with Nicodemus. "Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God." (John 3:18). Sure, He's referring to Himself in the third person, but we know who "the Son of God" is, right? Because we just read "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16). Yes, that's the "Him" in Whom we are to believe.

That "only begotten Son" phrase has been a problem for some time. The arch-heretic, Arius, used it to argue that Jesus was clearly not God the Son but merely God's son (notice the shift to lowercase "s") because He was begotten. The Jehovah's Witnesses agree. He was limited in time, new on the scene, a mighty prophet, but not God Incarnate. But the word there is interesting. It is μονογενής. ("Thanks, Stan, clears it right up.") Okay, monogenēs. ("Again, Stan, a veritable font of useless knowledge.") Okay, let's try this. It is a two-part word. The first you recognize: mono. "One." Got it. Clear enough. The second you should also recognize: genēs. It is rooted in the verb "to generate" or "to cause to be", but we use it as the source of our word, "genus". The word, then, can be used to speak of an only child, but it also refers to "only" or, most accurately, "one of a kind". Thayer's defines it as "single of its kind, only".

Jesus, then, is the only Son of God. He has no beginning or end (Heb 7:3). Demons fear Him. He is beloved by the Father (Matt 3:17). It was the claim of deity for which they sought to kill Him (John 19:7). By calling God His Father, He made Himself equal with God (John 5:18). He is the Son to whose image we will be conformed (Rom 8:29). Paul writes,

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross. (Col 1:15-20)

That is a lot of superlatives. That is the Son of God.

Jesus is the Son of God. By hostile witness (Satan and his minions), by witness of His followers, and by witness of His Father, Jesus was God Incarnate, the Son of God, the image of the Father. He told Philip, "Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father." (John 14:9). This is our God, the Second Person of the Trinity, God in Flesh, the image to which we will be conformed, the One who deserves our worship.