# 4. The Son of God
“The holy offspring that shall be born of you shall be called the Son of God." "To us a child is born; to us a son is given, and the government shall be on his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." "This is my Son, the beloved, in whom I delight." "This is my Son, the beloved, listen to him." "No one has ascended into heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven," or whose dwelling is in heaven. "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son; the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." "No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has made him known." "Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel." "Glorify me with your own self, with the glory I had with you before the world was." "In him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead1 bodily," or substantially. "He is the first and the last." "All things were created by him and for him." "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that has been made." "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory: the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."
So speak the Divine oracles of the supreme Deity and excellence of the author and perfecter of the Christian system. "By him and for him" all things were created and made; and "he is before all things, and in him all things hold together." But "he became flesh." Who? He who existed before the universe, whose mysterious, sublime, and glorious title was the Word of God. Before the Christian system, before the relationship of "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" began, his rank in the divine nature was that of the Word of God. Wonderful name! Intimate and dear relationship! The relationship between a word and the idea it represents is the closest of all relationships in the universe: for the idea is in the word — and the word is in the idea. The idea is invisible, inaudible, unintelligible, but in and through the word. An idea cannot exist without an image or a word to represent it — and therefore God was never without his word, nor was his word without him. "The Word was with God, and the Word was God" — for a word is the idea expressed — and thus "the Word became flesh," became "the radiance of his glory" and "the exact representation of his being," so that "he who has seen the Son has seen the Father also."
While, then, the phrase "Son of God" denotes a temporal relationship, the phrase "the Word of God" denotes an eternal, unoriginated relationship. There was a Word of God from eternity, but the Son of God began to exist in the days of Augustus Caesar. "You are my Son; today I have begotten you." He was by his resurrection from the dead declared to be the Son of God with extraordinary and divine power and evidence. The Word incarnate or dwelling in human flesh is the person called our Lord and Redeemer, Jesus Christ — and while, in the system of grace, the Father is the one God, in all the supremacy of his glory — Jesus is the one Lord in all the divine fullness of sovereign, supreme, and universal authority. The Lord of Shem, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is the God and the Lord of Christians: for "the child" that has been born to us — and "the son" that has been given, according to another prophet, came from eternity. "His origins are from ancient times, from everlasting."2 Such is the evangelical history of the author of the Christian system as to his prior nature and relationship in the Deity or Godhead.
He became a true and proper Son of Man. "A body you prepared for me." But the "me" was before "the body." He dwelt forever "in the bosom of the Father." "I came forth from God," said "the Incarnate Word." Great beyond expression and "without controversy, great is the mystery — the secret of godliness." "God was manifested in the flesh." "He who has seen me has seen the Father also." The Son of Man was and is the Son of God — "Emmanuel, God with us." Blessed be his name! The one God in the person of the Father has commanded all people to worship and honor the one Lord, as they would honor the one who sent him: for now in glorifying the Son, we glorify the Father who sent him and who dwells in him. "Do you not know that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me?" Thus spoke our Lord Jesus Christ.
1: The Apostle here used the word Theotees. Col. 2:9, which is found only once in the New Testament. We also have Theiotees, Rom. 1:20, from the same Apostle, also found only once, translated "Godhead." We also have Theios, Theion, three times; once in Acts 17:29, translated divinity, and by Peter, (2 Pe 1:3-4), twice, once in connection with power and once with nature. "His divine power" — "a divine nature." "The fullness of the Deity," or Godhead, indicates all divine excellence — all the perfections of God. The term Deity refers to the divine nature, state, or being of God. "The fullness" of that divine nature is here contrasted with an empty and deceitful philosophy, (verse 8,) and the term bodily added shows that God is in Christ not as he was in the tabernacle or temple, symbolically, but substantially, literally, and truly.
2: Micah 5:2.