The Son of God

Start with a question If you wanted to know who someone is, you might ask them. So let's ask: what title did Jesus use for Himself most clearly? And is there a title He is never recorded using?

What Jesus claimed Let's be clear about what Jesus claimed. The Gospels do not present a mere human prophet; they present a divine Being. But notice the exact words He used.

Jesus said that God was His Father. His hearers understood it, and they were ready to kill Him for it. Notice what is not recorded. No Gospel writer says that Jesus called Himself "God the Son." The title He used, and the title His hearers used, was "Son of God."

What the Father said The Father's voice is heard from heaven in the Gospels. Twice the words are: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17; 17:5). God the Father did not say, "This is my co-equal peer." He said, "This is my Son."

What others said

1. John the Baptist: "I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God." (John 1:34)
2. Nathanael: "Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel." (John 1:49)
3. Peter: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." (Matthew 16:16)
4. Martha: "I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world." (John 11:27)
5. The disciples in the boat: "Of a truth thou art the Son of God." (Matthew 14:33)
6. Paul, immediately after his conversion: "He preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God." (Acts 9:20)
7. Even the demons: "Jesus, thou Son of God most high." (Luke 8:28)

8. A Roman soldier at the cross: "Truly this was the Son of God." (Matthew 27:54) And at His trial: "Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am." (Mark 14:61–62)

Why it matters John tells us why he wrote his Gospel: "that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name" (John 20:31). And: "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God." (1 John 4:15) Belief in Jesus as the literal Son of God is tied to eternal life.

Dismantling the "Metaphor" Defense

This is true as far as it goes. The Jews did hear "Son of God" as a claim to divinity. A Trinitarian doesn't deny that the Son is divine. So the question is not whether "Son of God" means divine. It does. The question is whether it means only that, or whether it also describes where He came from.

If "Son" is just a title for a role, or a metaphor for an eternal co-equal peer, why did His hearers hear a claim about origin and nature? In the ancient world, a literal son shared his father's nature.

Look at how Jesus answered the Jews in John 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."

Jesus uses three verbs here: proceeded forth, came, and sent. The first two are about where He came from. He was not just playing a role; He was speaking of His literal origin. Even the Trinitarian theologian John Gill acknowledged that "proceeded forth" in this context refers to the Son's literal generation from the Father.

If Jesus' sonship to the Father is merely a metaphor, then He was not claiming anything new. The Israelites also called themselves "sons of God" (Exodus 4:22; John 8:41). If Jesus just meant "I am the Messiah-King" in a metaphorical sense, there would have been no blasphemy. The Jews would not have wanted to kill Him.

But they did want to kill Him. "Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him... The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God." (John 10:31-33)

Jesus did not say, "You misunderstood, I was just speaking in a metaphor." He anchored His claim to equality directly in His Sonship: "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?" (John 10:36)

The Jews clearly understood that the claim of Jesus to be the Son of God was literal. They understood He was making Himself Divine and equal with God; and for that they wanted to kill Him. If Jesus' sonship is a metaphor, the Jews at His day would not have considered it blasphemy.

The Theological Cost of a Metaphor As The Indwelling Hope highlights, if the Sonship is a metaphor, the gospel becomes a divine role-play. If Jesus is not the literal Son, then the Father is not the literal Father. And if the Father and Son are just masks worn by a single being, or titles for co-eternal peers who never actually had a beginning, the literal, agonizing sacrifice of John 3:16 loses its weight.

When the Bible says God "gave" His "only begotten" Son, it is speaking of a literal, familial relationship. The Father literally gave up His own heart, His own nature, and His own life, which He had placed in His literal Son. A metaphor cannot save you. Only the literal, begotten Son can impart the Father's life to us.