If Jesus is not divine, He cannot be the Christ; if He is
not human, He cannot be our Savior.[i]
One of the most important statements on the Incarnation is
the Creed of Chalcedon (AD 451). All Christendom – Roman Catholic, Eastern
Orthodox, and Protestant – affirms the Chalcedonian formula that Jesus Christ
is both God and man.
The creed says, in part: “We all with one voice confess our
Lord Jesus Christ to be one and the same Son, perfect in divinity and humanity,
truly God and truly human, consisting of a rational soul and a body, being of
one substance with the Father in relation to his divinity, and being of one
substance with us in relation to his humanity, and is like us in all things
apart from sin.”
Jesus as the only begotten
“Begotten” term is highly misunderstood. The misconception
of this term makes people think either Jesus is the directly created being (as
JW states) or he was born with sexual union like us (Muslims believe).
The actual Greek Word is “Monogenes” with two union: Mono +
genos i.e. kind or type. Monogenes has two definitions:
1.
“Pertaining to being the only one of its kind
within a specific relationship." This is its meaning in Hebrews 11:17 when
the writer refers to Isaac as Abraham’s "only begotten son" (KJV). Despite
having more than one son to Abraham, but Isaac was the only son he had by Sarah
and the only son of the covenant. Therefore, it is the uniqueness of Isaac
among the other sons that allows for the use of monogenes in that context.
2.
"Pertaining to being the only one of its
kind or class, unique in kind." This is the meaning that is implied in
John 3:16 (see also John 1:14, 18; 3:18; 1 John 4:9). John was primarily concerned
with demonstrating that Jesus is the Son of God (John 20:31), and he uses
monogenes to highlight Jesus as uniquely God’s Son—who shares the same divine
nature as God—as opposed to believers who are God’s sons and daughters by
adoption (Ephesians 1:5). Jesus is God’s “one and only” Son.
However, here the bottom line is that terms such as
"Father" and "Son," descriptive of God and Jesus, are human
terms that help us understand the relationship between the different Persons of
the Trinity. If we can fathom the relationship between a human father and a
human son, then we can fathom, in part, the relationship between the First and
Second Persons of the Trinity. The analogy makes Titanic to sink if we try to
take it too far and teach, as some pseudo-Christian cults (such as the
Jehovah’s Witnesses), that Jesus was literally "begotten" as in
“produced” or “created” by God the Father.
Hence, the word actually means ‘One of its kind’. The
apostle John, who takes great care to clarify the deity of Jesus, wants us to
know that while Jesus is the Son of God, His Sonship is an eternal, one-of-a-kind
relationship with God the Father. Believing sinners are “begotten” in the sense
that we are born again, or made spiritually alive through the regenerating work
of the Holy Spirit. Our sonship is through adoption; Christ’s Sonship is by the
very nature of His eternal relationship with the Father.
Jesus as Son of God
ISCKON claims Krishna is Father of Jesus, JW believes Jesus
as a created being and Muslims believe Allah doesn’t have a partner to have a
Son. But what was the meaning of Son of God? The doctrine of eternal sonship of
Jesus states that Jesus has always existed as eternal Son in relationship with
eternal Father.
We normally think of father-son relationships requiring
procreation, with the father existing before his child. Yet, the word “son” as
it’s used of Jesus in Scripture aims more at describing similarities between
two eternal persons. Just as a human father enjoys a relationship with a human
son, so God the Father enjoys an eternal relationship with His divine Son.[ii] Col. 1:13-17, 1 John
4:9-10, 14, 1 John 3:8, etc. are Biblical cases for Jesus’ eternal Sonship.
To add more, in Jewish context, Son of something or someone
is to mean Manifestation of someone or something. E.g. John 17:12. It means
exact radiance or representation. Jesus, who was indeed eternal Son in trinity
relationship, could exactly manifest God the Father. Father and Son terms
aren’t used in a way of need of a partner in sexual union but as a relational
term. As the doctrine of trinity, both Father and Son have same essence and
nature. Jesus was the only Son of God who himself was God and could manifest
God.
Next, Son of God also carries significance that God is not
just an impersonal force that rules the universe (like in Monism/advaita
Vedanta Hinduism-Para Brahman) nor he is someone who doesn’t have any
interaction with this world (like Islamic position on Allah and also Deism) but
God wants a relationship with us and interacts with us. This was the reason
Jesus taught to address God as Father and he came to give us right to be his
children. The curtain of the temple tore apart during Jesus’ death depicts the
end of distance between man and God.
Hence, today we have been accepted and adopted because of
our elder brother Jesus. Just as C.S. Lewis said He became man to enable us to
become God’s children. We may not fathom Jesus’ incarnation and nature from our
finite mind but we can surely accept what the scripture clearly conveys about
him. Whatsoever, we are blessed and must be thankful to our mighty God who
loved us so much that he became one of us and enabled access to himself. Jesus,
the only unique Historic figure, in whom both Divine and Human united!
[i] https://mbcpathway.com/2021/04/21/the-doctrine-of-the-incarnation-2/,
accessed on 6/19/2021, 7:30 pm
[ii] https://mbcpathway.com/2021/03/23/jesus-as-the-only-begotten/,
accessed on 6/19/2021, 10:50 pm
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