How can God have a Son?
‘How
can you Christians believe in a human god who eats,
drinks and sleeps? Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves?’ Mosques, TV programs and
magazines tell Muslims that Christians worship a weak human god. Some Muslims
therefore mock Christians and refuse to talk about this issue. Others, however,
want to ask questions and discuss with an open mind. If this is true of you,
then to you I direct this interview.
1. Where did
Christians get the idea that Jesus is the Son of God?
It is not a random idea that someone thought up. It is what the Word of God
says. When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary he said, “behold,
you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name
Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest (God)” (Luke
2. What does
‘the Son of God’ really mean?
Let’s think about how we use the word son (ÇÈä).
Once when I asked a friend where he was from, he replied, ‘I am the son of
You see, the name Son
of God does not mean that God had a wife. It does not mean that
God married Mary who gave birth to Jesus. That would truly be a blasphemy. The meaning is
far deeper. The prophets Abraham, Isaac, Moses, David and Isaiah would have
understood the true meaning of the phrase ‘the Son of God.’
What did the prophets of the Old Testament
say about the coming of Jesus Christ?
A prophet called Isaiah
foretold Jesus’ birth 700 years beforehand, saying, “For unto us a Child is
born (Jesus), unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon
His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). Isaiah says that the Child
“will be born to us,” thus affirming the
humanity of Jesus. But he also writes, “a Son will be given
to us.” Jesus was born of a woman - He was born to us, but His birth was
of divine origin - He was given to us.
Isaiah said that the Son who was to come
would be called:
Wonderful.
This word is generally used in Hebrew to refer to the miraculous work of God. A
miracle is something that is beyond the scope of human ability. In other words,
it is something only God can do.
Counselor.
His every instruction is wonderful. His opinions are extraordinary. His
recommendations are without a fault. His advice is phenomenal. He is the only
one worth listening to. Jesus is the wisdom of God. The promised Son would do
things that only God can do. Just in case we are in any doubt, Isaiah tells us
that this is a word he attributes to God: “This comes from the Lord of hosts,
who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in guidance” (Isaiah 28:29).
Mighty
God. This refers to the divinity and power of
the Child to be born. This Child is the one of whom the apostle John would say
780 years later, “In the beginning was the Word (Jesus), and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we
beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of
grace and truth” (John 1:1,14).
Everlasting Father.
This literally means “Father of eternity.” The rule of the promised Messiah knows no end. His government is like
that of a father. In Jesus we have a love that will not let us go. George Matheson, a devout Christian who lived
between 1842 and 1906, wrote about thislove in a hymn that Christians sing in many churches today:
O
Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee.
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in Thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.
Prince
of Peace. Jesus is the exclusive owner of peace. He
said, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you;
not as the world gives do I give to you” (Injil, John
So, long before a baby
cried in a manger in
3. Where does the Word of
God say that Jesus is God in human form?
There are many verses in the Word of God that state this fact. Here are three
examples: In his first letter to Timothy, Paul wrote, “God was manifested in
the flesh, seen by angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the
world, received in glory” (1 Timothy 3:16). Writing to a Church in Colosse (in Modern Turkey), Paul wrote, “In Christ all the
fullness of the Deity lives in body form” (Colossians 2:9). Again,
writing to another church, Paul said, “Let this mind be in you which was also
in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be
equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of
men” (Philippians 2:5-7).
As we saw in the
previous chapter, John, one of Jesus’ disciples, wrote this, “In the beginning
was the Word, …and the Word was God …And the Word
became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:1, 14).
4. But Jesus never calls Himself the Son of
God in the Bible…
Many Muslim friends
make this claim. But it is not true. Jesus called Himself the Son of God many
times. Here are some passages which prove it. One day Jesus asked His disciples
a question, “‘Who do you say I am?’ Simon Peter
answered, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus
answered and said to him, ‘blessed are you Simon for flesh and blood have not
revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven’” (Matthew 16:15-17). When
Jesus was arrested, the religious people who hated Him asked, “‘Are you then the Son of God?’ To this Jesus replied,
‘You are right in saying that’” (Luke 22:70). Immediately they accused Him of
blasphemy and asked for His crucifixion.
In other places Jesus spoke of God as ‘my Father,’ making clear that He is the
Son of God. He said, “My Father gives you true bread from heaven …All
that the Father gives to me will come to me and the one who comes to me
I will by no means cast out …And this is the will of Him who sent me, that
everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life,
and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:33,40).
Elsewhere, Jesus said to His disciples, “He who has seen me has the Father…do
you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in Me?”
(John 14:1-11).
Once, the Jews said to
Jesus, “‘If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.’ ‘I
told you , and you do not believe…My Father and I are
one,’” was Jesus' reply. Then the Jews picked up stones to stone Him. But Jesus
said to them, “‘Many good works I have shown you from
My Father. For which of those works do you stone Me?’
‘For good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy,
and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God,’ the Jews replied. Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in
your law, ‘I said, you are gods?’ If He called them
gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scriptures cannot be broken), do
you say of Him (Jesus) whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You
are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?” (John
10:22-36).
5. Did God cease to be God when He came in
the form of man?
No! When God spoke to Moses from the bush, did He stop being God? Of course not. God cannot be limited by anything. When God
revealed Himself in the form of a man, He was not limited by that humanity. He
continued to rule the universe. He continued to be what He always had been
(God), but in Jesus, He also became what He had never previously been (man).
Jesus Christ was not 50% God and 50% man. He was 100% God and 100% man. Fully God and fully man. The divine Person took upon Himself
a human nature. We really can't understand the mystery of how this happened.
But it is conceivable, certainly, that God has the power to add to Himself a
human nature and do it in such a way as to unite two natures in one Person.
Here is an illustration
to explain this: Imagine a brilliant light. Now imagine that the light is put
inside a glass. Does the glass stop the light shining? No! In fact, as the
light is reflected by the glass, it shines even more brightly. In a similar
way, when God became man in the Person of Jesus Christ, the body did not stop
Him being God. Jesus said, ‘I am the light of the world.’ God became what He
had never previously been (man) but He continued to shine and to rule the
universe. In this way, He revealed Himself to the world more clearly.
6. Why did God come in the likeness of men?
Why did God have to become man? What was the point? This is a very important
question. It is the heart of Christianity. To know the answer, we must go back
to the beginning of creation. We need to grasp what happened in the Garden of
Eden.
Adam and Eve were told
that the day they sinned, they would surely die. They ignored God and sinned,
not by mistake, but through deliberate disobedience. Their bodies were
eventually put in the grave. In one sense, Adam and Eve actually died the
very day they sinned against God. They died spiritually. At first they had
walked with God in a loving relationship, but when they disobeyed, sin formed a
barrier between them and their Creator. There was an infinite gap between them
and God. We call this spiritual death. It is because Adam was already
spiritually dead that he died physically several hundred years later.
As a result of what happened in the Garden of Eden, all of us are born with a
huge gap between us and God. By nature we are separated from God. It is our
disobedience which separates us. The prophet David wrote, “Behold, I was brought forth in
iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me” (Zabur, Psalm 51:5). Likewise,
Paul the apostle said, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”
(Injil, Romans
The prophet Isaiah
asked the question, “How then can we be saved?” He says, “We are all like an
unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like
filthy rags…and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away” (Isaiah
64:5-6).
What is the solution?
Is there any hope? Many people try to
bridge the gap by their own efforts. Some think they can get to God by being
good religious people. They hope that their good deeds will outweigh their bad
deeds enough to get them into paradise. But they never succeed. No one is
perfect. It is not even that their contribution ‘nearly but not quiet’ reaches
God. The reality is that we fall infinitely short of the requirements. We can
never reach God’s standard by our own efforts. No matter how righteous we try
to be, we are condemned by James
The question remains; what is the solution?
Once, when I was
sitting quietly, I saw a troop of ants marching up and down a wall. They were
trying to carry a grain of wheat to the top. But without
success. The grain of wheat was too heavy. The pull of gravity was
greater than their efforts! I pitied them. I wondered how I could help those
hopeless ants. If I had reached down with my hand, I might have squashed some
of them by mistake. They would have run away in fear. I could not help them.
The only way I could have helped them was by becoming an ant, while keeping my
human strength! Only that way could I help without terrifying them.
We are a bit like those
ants. We can never reach God by our own efforts and good works. The gravity of
our sin is too great. It is stronger than our efforts. Sin weighs heavily on
our shoulders. But God pitied us. To liberate us from the tyranny of sin, He
came in our likeness. He came as a man, but lived without sin. That was the
main difference between Him and us. Who can re-establish the broken
relationship between God and man? Surely, the only one who can bridge the gap
is One who is both God and man.
When Jesus died on the
cross, He died as our perfect human substitute. He took the punishment that we
deserve for our sin. He removed the barrier that separates us from God. How
could one man be the substitute for so many people? Since Jesus is also the
divine Son of God, His sacrifice was enough to cover the sins of all those who
believe in Him. To sin against the infinite God is to sin infinitely and
therefore to deserve infinite punishment. Left to ourselves we are lost. Only
Jesus, the infinite Son of God, was able to take that infinite punishment in
our place.
What is your answer to Jesus?
I hope this has helped
you to understand what the Holy Word of God means by calling Jesus ‘the Son of
God.’ I hope you now see that Christians do not blaspheme the Almighty God. I
pray that God, who loves the world so much, will help you to see this issue very
clearly. He wants to help you and set you free from the bondage of sin. His
desire is that you will also be saved from its consequences. God is so
concerned that He came to earth, taking the form of a man, so that you may know
Him personally and be reconciled to Him. Will you receive Him?