Ever since Mary exclaimed, “How can this be?,” humankind has wondered how Jesus of Nazareth could be the Son of God. Yet that fact is at the core of the story of Jesus’ birth. The angel Gabriel called Jesus the “Son of the Most High” and “Son of God” (Luke 1:32, 35).
Matthew’s account of the angel’s appearance to Joseph recounts the announcement that Mary “was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 1:18). The writer explains the events as fulfillment of the Isaiah promise that “a virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son and they shall call His name Immanuel, which translated means God with us.”
Mark begins his Gospel with the declaration of “Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1). In the parable of the vineyard (Mark 12:1–12), Jesus clearly indicates the unique relationship He has with the Father. Jesus is the son of the story. He is different from the Hebrew prophets of old. He is the Son of God.
The first words of John’s Gospel affirm Jesus as the Son of God. John wrote, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”
The harmonious testimony of the four Gospels is clear — Jesus is the Son of God.
Yet, from earliest days, mankind has echoed Mary’s initial confusion with its own expressions of “How can this be?” In the second century, a group called the Ebionites concluded that Jesus was a pious Jewish man whom God selected to serve as messiah. About the same time, a group known as the Dynamic Monarchians espoused the notion that Jesus was empowered at His baptism with special powers but He was not God.
Two centuries later, a teacher named Arius taught that Jesus was the first creature of God’s creation. He was like a demigod, more than man but less than God.
During the 16th century, a group called the Socinians embraced the virginal conception of Jesus, His sinless life and resurrection from the dead. But the Socinians rejected that Jesus possessed a divine nature. Another movement of the era rejected the idea of the Trinity. The conclusion of that position led inevitably to the teaching that Jesus was not the Son of God, that He could not possess the same nature as God the Father.
In our own time, famous theologians like Rudolf Bultmann have argued against Jesus as the Son of God. According to Bultmann, the concept of a divine man is a non-Jewish notion coming from a Hellenistic background. Others have taught that the idea of sonship means only complete obedience to the Father and that through obedience, Jesus demonstrated a unity of purpose with the Father.
Some modern-day denominations still cry, “How can this be?” when faced with the question of Jesus as the Son of God. Unitarians hold that Jesus is either a human being like all other human beings or He possesses special powers but Jesus is not the Son of God.
The teaching of Jehovah’s Witnesses about Jesus was explained this way by one theologian: “The group teaches that before his birth, Jesus existed as the created angel Michael, that from his birth to his death, Jesus had only a human nature and was not divine, and that after his nonphysical resurrection, he assumed his existence as Michael. Hence, Jesus went from angel to man to angel without ever being God.”
Despite these denials of the deity of Jesus Christ, which history has judged as heretical, the teaching that Jesus is the Son of God is a cardinal doctrine of Christianity. The believing church affirms that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Cor. 5:19).
The confession of the church is the proclamation of Colossians 2:9, “For in Him (Jesus) all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form.” Earlier (Col. 1:19) the apostle Paul wrote, “For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him.” The Bible specifically rejects the idea that Jesus was some sort of demigod or that He was given some special powers for a time. The New Testament teaches that Jesus embraced the fullness of deity.
Because Jesus is God incarnate, Jesus is the authentic revelation of God Himself. In John 14, the apostle Phillip asked Jesus to show the disciples the Father. Jesus responded, “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (v. 9). If one would know God, then one must know Jesus, the Son of God.
When Jesus told the paralyzed man let down through the ceiling by his four friends (Luke 5:17 ff) that “your sins are forgiven,” He was not speaking blasphemy.
The Pharisees rightly reasoned that only God can forgive sin (v. 21). But Jesus is God. In Him, all the fullness of God dwells, and He alone shows us the grace of God that is able to forgive sin. Jesus spoke the truth because Jesus can forgive sin. He is the Son of God.
And because Jesus is the Son of God, His promises of resurrection and of victory over death have the guarantee of God Himself (1 Cor. 15:23–26).
One Baptist theologian has written that “the deity of Jesus the Son of God is still central to Christian truth and to the Christian movement. Christian redemption stands or falls with the truth that Jesus is truly God.”
Despite the best efforts of man, we are no closer to understanding all the “hows” of the incarnation than were Mary and Joseph when the story began.
Just as they accepted and believed the testimony of the angels, so Christians today accept and believe the testimony of the Bible, God’s holy Word, that Jesus is the Son of God.
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