Volume 22, Issue 50 (December 27, 2020)
The Son of God
By Kyle Pope
The Bible records an awe-inspiring event, when Jesus took Peter, James, and John up onto a mountain (probably Mount Hermon) and was transfigured before them speaking to Moses and Elijah (Matt. 17:1-8). When Peter presumptuously proposed to build three booths honoring Jesus equally with these great figures from the Old Testament, the voice of God the Father spoke forth from the cloud declaring, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!” (Matt. 17:5, NKJV). This was the second time heaven made such a declaration. The first occurred following Jesus’s baptism when God the Father declared simply, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17). Before the transfiguration, Peter, made a similar declaration confessing to Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16). This identification of Jesus as the Son of God is a profound and important revelation that man must understand and accept.
In Scripture we see others identified as “sons” of God. For example, angels are identified as “sons of God” (Job 1:6; 2:1) as well as those faithful to God (Gen. 6:2, 4). In Christ those who obey the gospel (Gal. 3:26-27) and those who are “sons of the resurrection” (Luke 20:36) are considered “sons of God.” However, it is a different thing when one is identified as “the Son (singular) of God.” This is seen in the demand of the High Priest at Jesus’s trial, “tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God!” (26:63).
This distinction roughly equates to the English use of the definite article “the” as opposed to one of many (i.e., “a son of God”). Koine Greek had no indefinite article “a” or “an” and often did not use the definite article as we do in English. The context determines if the sense is definite or indefinite. For example, in the confession of the centurion at the cross and the apostles after Jesus calmed the storm, the sense was clearly definite, that Jesus is “the Son of God” (theou huios) but there is no definite article (14:33; 27:54). On the other hand Paul declared “the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God” (ton huion tou theou)—with the definite article (Rom. 8:19). In Paul’s words, while the meaning is definite in the sense of separation (i.e., those who are saved) it is not teaching that the saved will be Deity as is true of “the Son of God.”
The divine declaration “this is my beloved Son” echoes the Messianic pronouncement of Psalm 2:1-12. This Psalm connects God’s “Anointed,” i.e., His Messiah or Christ (christou—in the Greek Old Testament), with His “Son.” The Holy Spirit reveals, “The LORD has said to Me, ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten You’” (Ps. 2:7). The Psalm ends with the command, “Kiss the Son” (Ps. 2:12). This clearly connects the promise of a Messiah with One who was the Son of God in a special and specific sense. A manuscript from Qumran, 4Qflorilequium (4Q174) makes it clear that this was not an interpretation that Christians read into the text—Jews from the first century connected Psalm 2 with Messianic expectation. Herbert Bateman sums all of this up succinctly:
What then can we conclude from God’s declaration of Jesus as “Son” at the baptism and again at the transfiguration? First, both include a divine declaration to or about Jesus from Psalm 2:7. In keeping with first-century Jewish expectations for an Anointed One, we can safely say “Son” in Psalm 2:7 was seen as another way to refer to “the Christ” or God’s chosen king (549).*
The Law of Moses had promised that a prophet would appear to Israel like Moses. They were commanded, “Him you shall hear” (Deut. 18:15). This command is echoed in the divine voice proclaimed on the mountain—“Hear Him!” Although Peter, James, and John alone heard these words, God’s voice resounds to all the earth, Jew and Gentile alike. Jesus Christ is the Prophet “like” Moses whom all the earth must hear. The Law promised:
I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him (Deut. 18:18-19).
To refuse to hear the One whom God declared from heaven, “Hear Him!” is an act of defiant rebellion, for which God will require judgment.
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* Bateman, Herbert W. IV. “Defining the Titles ‘Christ’ and ‘Son of God’ in Mark’s Narrative Presentation of Jesus,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 50.3 (Sept. 2007): 537-559.
