Theology: The Doctrine of God

How do we know that Jesus Christ is God? How can God have a Son

By Dr. Paul M. Elliott
Many people, from Muslims to cult members to liberal churchmen, deny that Jesus is God. But Scripture leaves no question.

From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase

Many people, from Muslims to cult members to liberal churchmen, deny that Jesus is God. But Scripture leaves no question about the full deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, God the eternal Son.

Scripture's Declaration

Scripture declares that God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, existed from eternity, is God from all eternity, and is the Creator of all things (John 1:1-3, 8:58). He is spoken of as "the Son" as early as Psalm 2:12. The writer of Hebrews (1:8-13) cites three passages from the Psalms (45:6-7, 102:25-27, and 110:1) and says that they all address and describe "the Son," Jesus Christ.

Christ Before & After His Incarnation

Before His incarnation the Son was, according to Philippians 2:6, in the form of God (morphe, His outward appearance being in agreement with inward essence), and equal with God (isa, the same as). Jesus Himself claimed to be equal with God (John 5:19-31). In His incarnation, He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin, not of a human father (Isaiah 7:14, Luke 1:31-35, Matthew 1:20). The virgin-born Christ was given the name Immanuel, "God with us" (Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 1:23). In the incarnate Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead in a body (Colossians 2:9). He is fully God and fully man.

Declarations of Deity

Scripture repeatedly emphasizes the deity of the Son of God. It teaches Christ's deity in His names (e.g., Hebrews 1:8, John 20:28, Titus 2:13, Matthew 22:44, John 5:25). Scripture also teaches Christ's deity in His attributes. These include omnipresence (Matthew 28:20, John 14:23, Ephesians 3:17, Colossians 1:27, Acts 7:55-56); omniscience (e.g., Matthew 9:4, John 2:25, John 16:30); omnipotence (e.g., Matthew 28:18, Mark 2:5-10); immutability (e.g., John 8:58, Hebrews 1:12, 13:8); and the fact that He is life itself (e.g., John 1:4, 14:6; 1 John 5:11). Scripture further teaches Christ's deity by His works as creator of the universe (Proverbs 30:4; John 1:3); sustainer of the universe (Colossians 1:7, Hebrews 1:3); forgiver of sin (Mark 2:1-12); and performer of miracles (e.g., Psalm 146:8, John 9:32).

Only God is to be worshipped (Deuteronomy 10:20, Mathew 4:10, Acts 10:25-26), and Jesus said that He is to be worshipped just as God the Father is to be worshipped (John 5:23).

How Can God Have a Son?

One of the principal reasons that Muslims reject Christianity is that they cannot accept the idea that God could have a Son. The problem is that their concept of sonship is a naturalistic one - in order to produce a son, they say, God would have to engage in a sexual relationship with a wife. They consider this idea the worst sort of blasphemy.

But the Bible teaches that the sonship of Jesus Christ is relational, not naturalistic. God did not produce a son; God has always been the Son. Being born of the virgin Mary did not make Jesus the Son of God any more than it made Mary the wife of God. The purpose of the virgin birth of Christ was to facilitate the entrance of the eternally existent, sinless Son of God into the world in human form, to die for sinners.

Jesus was not born of a physical union between a man and a woman. At Gabriel's announcement of God's choice of Mary to be the mother of the Messiah, recorded in Luke chapter one, she could only say in wonderment, "How can this be, since I do not know a man [I am a virgin]?" (Luke 1:34). Gabriel gave God's answer to her - and to all men, sincere questioners as well as blasphemous deniers - in the next verse: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God...For with God nothing will be impossible" (1:35-37).

Mary, in submission to the supernatural nature of that which was about to take place, responded, "Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word." And Matthew records that Joseph, Mary's husband, "...did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife, and did not know her [kept her a virgin] till she had brought forth her firstborn Son. And he called His name Jesus" (Matthew 1:24-25).

The problem of every doubter and denier of the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, God the Son, is simple unbelief. God calls upon all men to have the same attitude that Mary expressed in words, and Joseph in deeds: "Let it be to me according to Your Word." As Paul puts it, "Let God be true but every man a liar" (Romans 3:4). But many Evangelicals today, along with the world's 1.5 billion Muslims, refuse to submit to God in this vital matter of doctrinal truth. This is especially ironic for the Muslim, since the very name of his religion - Islam - means "submission" or "surrender".

Jesus is the Son of God from eternity. Micah's prophecy of His birth in Bethlehem says that Jesus' "goings forth are from of old, from everlasting" - literally, "from the days of eternity." Jesus, referring to Himself as the Son of God the Father, said to the Pharisees, "Before Abraham was, I AM" (John 8:58). He is called "the Son" in the Old Testament before His incarnation (e.g., Psalm 2:7 and 12).

Jesus' own teaching in the Gospels speaks exclusively of the eternal relationship between the Son and the Father, never of sonship that had a beginning point, and never of sonship based on naturalistic conception and birth. The relationship between God the Son and God the Father is a relationship of subordination: "For I have come down from Heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of...the Father who sent me" (John 6:38-39). And on the night before He went to the cross, Jesus prayed, "And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with you before the world was" (John 17:5).

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