Son of God

 November 29, 202

Today is the first Sunday of Advent, the season of the Christian year designed to prepare us not only for Christmas, but even more, to prepare us for Christ’s second coming at the end of time. The Creed is divided into three sections that reveal its Trinitarian purpose. It is quite fitting that as Advent begins, we now come to the second part which deals with the person and work of Jesus Christ.

It is interesting that the bulk of the Apostles' Creed centers on the person and work of Jesus Christ; after all, it is (apart from the Scriptures themselves) one of the primary documents of the Christian faith. After distinguishing which god we worship (the Father Almighty), the Creed speaks of Jesus Christ as Lord, which designation as we noted two days ago, is far more demanding of us than any of the modern counterparts in contemporary government. But three little words slip in almost imperceptibly: "his only Son." It is a common error to associate this phrase with the words that follow concerning the conception and birth of Jesus, but when the Bible and the Creed speak of the Sonship of Jesus Christ, they are not speaking of something that happened in time, as if the Second Person of the Godhead became "the Son" upon his birth to the Virgin Mary. Not at all! Christ is eternally the Son of God. In Isaiah 9:6 we read, "Unto us a child is born, a Son is given." The wording is specific: the Son is not born; he is given. That is because the Son is eternally who he is; he didn't suddenly become the Son upon the birth of the child Jesus.

Sonship in Biblical time indicated primarily two things: identity and authoritative inheritance. Ancient Hebrew didn't have adjectives like ours. One didn't say for example, "That man is devilish." Instead it would be said that "he is a son of the devil." In the same way, a godly man would be called a "son of God." So when in John's Gospel Philip asks Jesus to show them the Father, Jesus replies, "he who has seen me has seen the Father." Why? Because Jesus is the Son of God, i.e., like his Father.

We tend to think of the terms "Son of God and Son of Man" in almost the reverse of their original intent. As Son of God, Jesus the man showed us in human flesh what God is like. "Son of Man" however, has its roots in Daniel where that designation refers to divinity. It only remains to examine that word his "only" Son. That is where we might say divinity kicks in. Jesus Christ in human flesh uniquely reveals the Father to us; no one else can even come close to the revelation we see in him. Again, as Jesus told Philip, "If you've seen me, you've seen the Father." 

People have all kinds of ideas about God. Some are pretty imaginative, many are completely inaccurate; only one gets it right, and that's Jesus, because as St. Paul says, in him the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily (Colossians 2:9). Those are pretty lofty words, but nothing less will do. It’s tempting to think of him at this time of year only as a little baby, but this child was and is, Lord of all, God in the flesh, the Son given to us so that we might experience God as his Father, and ours.