There are some remarkably profound questions in the Bible. These questions are provocative and the correct answers are essential to the Christian faith. The most significant question in the Bible was asked by Jesus of his disciples:
Who do people say the Son of Man is? (Matthew 16:13).
There is no shortage of public opinions about who Jesus Christ is (or was). When Jesus first asked this question, it is apparent that the public didn’t really know what to think about Him. Most agreed that we was most likely a preacher like the Hebrew prophets – Elijah, Jeremiah, or even John the Baptist raised from the dead. Early first century rumors suggested that Jesus was the bastard child of a Jewish woman who was raped by a Roman soldier. Was Jesus an ancient sage, magician, or a charlatan? Was Jesus confused, misguided, or demented as his family believed? (Mark 3:21). Or, was Jesus demonized and insane as some of the Jews believed? (John 10:20). Two thousand years later the masses remain uncertain as to the identity of Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus pressed the issue with his disciples:
But who do you say that I am? (Matthew 16:15).
This becomes an important question. After all, what we believe about Jesus – who he is and what he is – is primary to the Christian faith. It is not an exaggeration to suggest that the salvation of humanity depends on our answer to this question. In a moment of Spirit inspired revelation, Simon Peter exclaimed,
You are the Christ, the Son of the living God! (Matthew 16:18).
Peter’s confession is the rock – the foundation stone – of the Christian faith. Even so, we are often tempted to misunderstand who Jesus is. So, what does it mean to say that Jesus is the Son of God?
In the Old Testament, the term “sons of god” often refers to the host of angels, that is, spirit-beings created by God (1 Kings 22:19; Job 1:6; 38:7; Psalm 103:20; Daniel 4:13; Zechariah 1:10). One of the early misunderstandings about Jesus was to believe that He was an angelic being. This led the writer of Hebrews to declare that Jesus is “the radiance of [God’s] glory and the exact representation of [God’s] nature … having become so much better than the angels” (Hebrews 1:3-4 emphasis added).
Was Jesus a demigod? It was common in the ancient Greco-Roman world to believe that the gods sometimes descended from Mt Olympus to copulate with humans. The offspring of such sexual unions were demigods – half human and half god. There were dozens of demigods and demigoddesses in Greek mythology. For example, Hercules was the son of Zeus and a human female. The demigods were superhuman, even godlike, but they were mortal and limited in power. This way of thinking about the gods was totally foreign to the ancient Hebrews. The God of Abraham and Moses, Yahweh, is not gendered – Yahweh is neither male nor female. There are no gods and goddess in Hebrew theology: “Hear, Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!” (Deut 6:4). Furthermore, there is no suggestion whatsoever that Yahweh ever copulated with a human. The conception of Jesus in the womb of Mary was not a sexual act, but an act of creation in which the Holy Spirit overshadowed the womb of Mary (Luke 1:35).
The key to understanding how Jesus Christ is the Son of God is found in the words of John 3:16 which declares that Jesus is the Father’s only begotten Son. The Greek term monogenḗs (translated as only begotten) means unique, or incomparable. Jesus’ relationship to the Father is unique. The Son is uniquely and eternally begotten of the Father, eternally with God and eternally God (John 1:1).
How can this be? How can Jesus, born of Mary, be the eternally begotten Son of God? How can a human be god? The answer, affirmed in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, is that Jesus Christ is the union of God and human – fully God and fully human (John 1:14). Jesus Christ is a single person with two natures – one who and two whats. To say that Jesus is fully God is to insist that he shares the same divine substance, attributes, and power of the Father. To say that Jesus is fully human is to insist that he possesses a human body, spirit, and will.
The union of God and human in the person of Jesus Christ means that Jesus is the union of uncreated God and created human, eternal God and mortal human born in time. The union occurs in such a manner that the divine and human natures are mutually shared, but uncompromised.
Sometimes we are tempted to misunderstand the nature of the divine-human union in Christ. Nestorius, the Bishop of Constantinople (428-431), suggested the Jesus Christ is the union of two persons – one divine, one human. This Nestorian view is common in Pentecostal preaching. The litany goes something like this: As a man Jesus was tempted, as God he overcame the devil. As a man Jesus was hungry, as God he fed the five thousand. As a man Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus, as God he cried out, “Lazarus come forth!” As a man Jesus suffered and died on the cross, as God he was raised from the dead!
So, what’s the difference? The Nicene view, that Jesus Christ is the union of divine and human natures, means that God shares human weakness and that humans can share in God’s glory. In Christ, God has shared in human suffering and death. In Christ, humans share in God’s life (Hebrews 2:18; 4:15; 1 John 3:2-3; Romans 6:3-5). The Nestorian view, that Jesus Christ is the union of divine and human persons, suggest that God has not shared human weakness, and humans cannot share God’s life. The Nestorian view does not faithfully reflect the apostles’ doctrine.
So, how does the Nicene view preach? It goes like this: The divine/human Christ was tempted by the devil, and he overcame the devil. The divine/human Christ became hungry, and he is the bread of Life who fed the five thousand. The divine/human Christ wept at the death of Lazarus, and he cried out, “Lazarus come forth!” The divine/human Christ suffered and died on the cross, and he was raised from the dead, ascended to heaven, and reigns as King of kings and Lord of lords!
