Jesus Is Son Of God

Son of God is a phrase and title that only appears in the New Testament.

The title Son of God carries the utmost gravity with it. In the gospels we mostly hear Jesus referred to as the Son of God by angels and demons, or by people who identify Him as such at the most critical times.

Son of God is the highest title that can be given, other than to be called God Himself. Unlike the title Son of Man, which Jesus used for Himself often, when anyone or anything identified Jesus as the Son of God, He warned them not to tell anyone who He was. This title is both the ultimate truth of who Jesus is, and the most intimate detail about Himself.

When Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness He tried to provoke Jesus to prove that He was the Son of God by asking Him to perform miracles. Jesus did not need to prove Himself to Satan, though, and instead showed His divinity by His true understanding of the word of God. And Jesus's authority as the Son of God over the spirit realm is made clear by both how Satan and demons identified Him as the Son of God, and how they obeyed Him whenever He commanded them to leave.

An interesting thing to note about many of the places in the Bible where Jesus is called the Son of God is that it is often also accompanied with the title The Christ, Christ Jesus, The Messiah, or even the King of Israel. It's almost as if the writers were trying to express something that they could not quite express in one title alone. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul all have instances of this compounding of titles. It's as if saying Son of God meant so much more to them than simply "begotten," so they had to clarify or emphasize their meaning or intention.

As I reflect on the depth of the meaning of the title Son of God I had a pretty deep thought - I'll try to keep it simple, just give time for each point to sink in...

God is still King and ruler of all, because Jesus is God - but the Kingly Authority has shifted from the law that God the Father sovereignly gave to Israel to the (life) blood that Jesus lovingly and sacrificially shed for us.

God the Father established a covenant with Israel based on their obedience to Him (Exodus 19:5-6), to which Israel agreed (Exodus 19:8). Their obedience was to be in accord with them perfectly following His law. Any mistakes they made in perfectly following God's law were to be atoned for by animal sacrifice.

But that system fell apart because the people could not perfectly follow the law, and even turned the atoning sacrifice into something that displeased God by their idolization of it.

So God established a new covenant, except this time it was for all the people on earth. The covenant was no longer that we have to perfectly follow God's law and make sacrifices for our mistakes. We do still have to obey the heart of God's law - although we will not be perfect at doing so. The new covenant is that we believe that Jesus made the atoning sacrifice for us - and all we have to do is be truly sorry (repentant) for our mistakes.

That, to me, explains why the title Son of God is often followed by another clarifying title. The authors probably had some form of that understanding when they were writing, and could not capture every implication by the title Son of God alone.

So, Jesus, as the Son of God, came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. He came to do away with an agreement (covenant) that was meant to show us that we cannot meet God's true expectations on our own. He came to establish an agreement (commitment) that shows us that God loves us anyways.