Bible Encyclopedias
Son of God

(1) At the Baptism. "And Jesus being baptized, forthwith came out of the water: and lo, the heavens were opened to him: and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon him. And behold a voice from heaven, saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:16, 17). "And there came a voice from heaven: Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased" (Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22).

(2) At the Transfiguration. "And lo, a voice out of the cloud saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye him" (Matthew 17:5; Mark 9:6; Luke 9:35). Though Rose admits that the words spoken at the Baptism need not necessarily mean more than what was suggested by the Old Testament, viz. Son of God is equal to the Messias, still, as the same words were used on both occasions, It is likely they had the same meaning in both cases. The Transfiguration took place within a week after St. Peter's Confession. And the words were used in the meaning in which the three disciples would then understand them; and at the Baptism it is probable that only Christ, and perhaps the Baptist, heard them, so that it is not necessary to interpret them according to the current opinions of the crowd. Even so cautious a critic a the Anglican Professor Sanday writes on thee passage: "And if, on the occasions in question, the Spirit of God did intimate prophetically to chosen witnesses, more or fewer, a revelation couched partly in the language of the ancient Scriptures, it would by no means follow that the meaning of the revelation was limited to the meaning of the older Scriptures. On the contrary, it would be likely enough that the old words would be charged with new meaning--that, indeed the revelation...would yet be in substance a new revelation.... And we may assume that to His (Christ's) mind the announcement 'Thou art my Son?' meant not only all that it ever meant to the most enlightened seers of the past, but, yet more, all that the response of His own heart told Him that it meant in the present.... But it is possible, and we should be justified in supposing--not by way of dogmatic assertion but by way of pious belief--in view of the later history and the progress of subsequent revelation, that the words were intended to suggest a new truth, not hitherto made known, viz. that the Son was Son not only in the sense of the Messianic King, or of an Ideal People, but that the idea of sonship was fulfilled in Him in a way yet more mysterious and yet more essential; in other words, that He was Son, not merely in prophetic revelation, but in actual transcendent fact before the foundation of the world" (Hastings, "Dict. of the Bible").

Testimony of Jesus Christ

(1) The Synoptics. The key to this is contained in His words, after the Resurrection: "I ascend to my Father and to your Father" (John 20:17). He always spoke of MY Father, never of OUR Father. He said to the disciples: "Thus then shall YOU pray: Our Father", etc. He everywhere draws the clearest possible distinction between the way in which God was His Father and in which He was the Father of all creatures. His expressions clearly prove that He claimed to be of the same nature with God; and His claims to Divine Sonship are contained very clearly in the Synoptic Gospels, though not as frequently as in St. John.

"Did you not know, that I must be about my father's business" (Luke 2:49); "Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doth the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. Many will say to me in that day: Lord, Lord, have not we prophesied in thy name, and cast out devils in thy name, and done many miracles in thy name? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me you, that work iniquity" (Matthew 7:21-23). "Everyone therefore that shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 10:32). "At that time Jesus answered and said: I confess to thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones. Yea, Father; for so hath it seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered to me by my Father. And no one knoweth the Son, but the Father: neither doth any one know the Father, but the Son, and he to whom it shall please the Son to reveal HIM. Come to me, all you that labour, and are burdened, and I will refresh you" (Matthew 11:25-30; Luke 10:21, 22). In the parable of the wicked husbandmen the son is distinguished from all other messengers: "Therefore having yet one son, most dear to him; he also sent him unto them last of all, saying: They will reverence my son. But the husbandmen said one to another: This is the heir; come let us kill him" (Mark 12:6). Compare Matthew 22:2, "The kingdom of heaven is likened to a king, who made a marriage for his son." In Matthew 17:25, He states that as Son of God He is free from the temple tax. "David therefore himself calleth him Lord, and whence is he then his son?" (Mark 12:37). He is Lord of the angels. He shall come "in the clouds of heaven with much power and majesty. And he shall send his angels" (Matthew 24:30, 31). He confessed before Caiphas that he was the Son of the blessed God (Mark 14:61-2). "Going therefore, teach ye all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost... and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world" (Matthew 28:19, 20).

The claims of Jesus Christ, as set forth in the Synoptic Gospels, are so great that Salmon is justified in writing (Introd. to New Test., p. 197): "We deny that they [Christ's utterances in the Fourth Gospel] are at all inconsistent with what is attributed to Him in the Synoptic Gospels. On the contrary, the dignity of our Saviour's person, and the duty of adhering to Him, are as strongly stated in the discourses which St. Matthew puts into His mouth as in any later Gospel.... The Synoptic Evangelists all agree in representing Jesus as persisting in this claim [of Supreme Judge] to the end, and finally incurring condemnation for blasphemy from the high-priest and the Jewish Council.... It follows that the claims which the Synoptic Gospels represent our Lord a making for Himself are so high...that, if we accept the Synoptic Gospels as truly representing the character of our Lord's language about Himself, we certainly have no right to reject St. John's account, on the score that he puts too exalted language about Himself into the mouth of our Lord."

(2) St. John's Gospel. It will not be necessary to give more than a few passages from St. John's Gospel. "My Father worketh until now; and I work.... For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things which he himself doth: and greater works than these will he shew him, that you may wonder. For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and giveth life: so the Son also giveth life to whom he will. For neither doth the Father judge any man, but hath given all judgment to the Son. That all may honour the Son, as they honour the Father" (v, 17, 20-23). "And this is the will of my Father that sent me: that everyone who seeth the Son, and believeth in him, may have life everlasting, and I will raise him up in the last day" (vi, 40). "Father, the hour is come, glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee.... And now glorify thou me, O Father, with thyself, with the glory which I had, before the world was, with thee" (xvi, 1, 5).

(3) St. Paul. St. Paul in the Epistles, which were written much earlier than most of our Gospels, clearly teaches the Divinity of Jesus Christ, and that He was the true Son of God; and it is important to remember that his enemies the Judaizers never dared to attack this teaching, a fact which proves that they could not find the smallest semblance of a discrepancy between his doctrines on this point and that of the other Apostles.