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Danny André Dixon

Jesus is the Son of God

Lee Irons lays out a revealing summary of the number of times, and in what contexts the terms identifying Jesus as “the Son of God” in one form or another appear in five significant events detailed in the Gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. But none of the passages that Irons points to suggest any eternal ontological connection of Jesus to the Father.

I will stipulate the intimate language of Jesus in referring to God as “my Father” (Matt 11:27 || Luke 10:22) and similar implications in the parable of the wicked tenants where he understands himself to be the father’s (God’s) “beloved son” whom he calls “my son” (Mark 12:6 || Matt 21:37 || Luke 20:13); but these designations, while proving intimacy do not establish that the language exclusively proves his point.

“Son of God” Much More Than “Messiah”

The Holmesian game’s afoot, however, when Irons introduces 2 Sam 7:14 which, in my view, sets forth the expectation that “God’s Son” means functional messiah. He says there are “compelling arguments” against this view and he proposes to review the most compelling of them.

First, he says that there is a distinction between “Messiah” and “Son of God” in various passages, defining him as a certain kind of Messiah. He lists verses where the phrase “the Christ, the Son of God” appears (Matt 16:16; 26:63; Mark 1:1; 14:61; John 11:27; 20:31).

This is his argument against the admitted scholarly view of others that the two titles can be synonymous. He says, “Another way of interpreting the juxtaposition is to take the second title as adding precision and definition to the first title.” He quotes a scholar, Joel Marcus, but gives little argument at this point. What we want are the reasons for the conclusion drawn.

He says he provides “further evidence,” but it is really the same sort of argument. Irons tells us, “The baptism of Jesus is widely recognized as the moment when he was anointed by the Spirit in order to undertake his office as the Messiah,” and as G. E. Ladd says, “he was already God’s beloved Son and pleasing to the Father before he was chosen and appointed to be the Messiah.” But isn’t this begging the question? Jesus’ beloved Sonship as stated by God presumes before beginning that the term does not mean Messiahship based upon a widely recognized understanding that he was not Messiah until he was anointed. Consider that this splitting up and sequencing of events provides prophetic understanding that by his very birth Jesus was Messiah. 2 Sam 7:12–16 and its parallel application to Jesus in Heb 1:5 indicate that Jesus’ place in the lineage of David made him God’s Son. Every king in the Davidic dynasty was “son of God.” It is of Solomon that God says, “I will be his father, and he will be my son,” and the writer of the letter to the Hebrews applies this verse and others to the one who would be the Son. For what reason, then, should the accounts of the baptism of Jesus and the descent of the Holy Spirit be seen as anything other than simultaneous, and not antecedent or synonymous? It seems that Irons is suggesting that, from a prophetic standpoint (certainly understood fully later), it was not God’s intention that “son of God” would mean anointed king in the Davidic dynasty. Actually, it might be appropriate to ask if he thinks that any Son of God passage should be taken to mean “Messiah.”

Matthew 16:13–20 (|| Mark 8:27–30; Luke 9:18–21)42

In the account of Jesus’ conversation with his disciples, he asks them who they think he is. “Peter answered him, ‘You are the Christ’” (Mark 8:29). This is the unembellished answer also found in Luke’s account: “And Peter answered, ‘The Christ of God.’” Neither version seeks to make any ontological conclusions about Jesus’ identity. At this point, Peter simply recognizes Jesus as God’s Messiah. Yet the more embellished understanding in wording is given by Matthew: “Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’” (Matt 16:16). But note that Matthew does not even care to have Jesus make a statement about any implications of Peter’s observation. Does Jesus charge the disciples to tell no one that he was a certain kind of Christ, as in a Son of God sort of Christ? He certainly would have had a perfect opportunity to do so in the summation found in Matthew’s account. But no, he simply “charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.” (Matt 16:20). God’s king, beginning with Solomon in the Davidic dynasty, is called his “son.” Jesus, as the last anointed in the Davidic dynasty is called his Son. The anointed, the Christ, is God’s Son.

Compare the preceding with Luke’s account of Jesus’ interview with the Jewish leaders. David Garland aptly observes that they “ask two questions of Jesus, ‘If you are the Christ, tell us’ (Luke 22:67), and ‘Are you the son of God?’”43 But notice carefully, however, what is the precise wording of the second question: “You are then the Son of God?” (v. 70). The second question indicates that the first question is the same as the concluding one.44 There is nothing in the second question that sets it apart from the first.

The Meaning of Psalm 110:1

First, I would say that neither this passage, nor any others that Irons might have listed, is given to prove a negative, or as worded by Irons, to “exhaust” his identity. Psalm 110:1 is quoted or alluded to in the New Testament more often than any other passage from the Hebrew Scriptures. Irons crafts an answer to Jesus’ question to the Pharisees posed in Matthew’s version: “If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” Let’s look at the passage:

Jehovah saith unto my Lord, “Sit thou at my right hand,

Until I make thine enemies thy footstool” (ASV).

What is David doing in writing Ps 110:1? First of all he is pointing out that Jehovah is addressing one who prophetically was the psalmist’s (Jesus says David’s) lord. Jesus’ question is this:

How is David’s lord also David’s son?

Irons does not do this, but others have tried to suggest that the first Lord, Jehovah, is speaking also to a second one who is also Jehovah designated in this second place as Adonai. Actually, the second referent is the Hebrew Adoni or “my” (Heb. i) “lord” (Heb. adon), translated “my lord.” The point was that whoever the Messiah might be, he was David’s superior/lord, an idea that would have stumped the Jewish leaders who would not have expected the Messiah, a descendant of David, to be greater than David. Irons’s observation introduces a new figure into the equation of that particular discussion, namely, “Son of God” who must mean more than “son of David.” The point actually is “son of David” is not as important as his descendant who is David’s “lord.”

Jesus’ Calling God His “Father”

We get some more statistics in a footnote as Irons advises us that Jesus refers to God as his Father about fifty times, plus nineteen direct addresses as Father. There are about seventeen references in the epistles in which God is called “our Father.” Does that mathematical reality mean that our relationship with God is lacking as compared with that of Jesus? Should we negate any significance of Jesus’ reference to God as “Abba” in Scripture only once (Mark 14:36) since we can claim two epistolary references in which Christians address God as “Abba Father” (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6)? Why does our calling God “Abba” mean we do not share an intimacy with God? What is it about Jesus calling God “Abba” that means he is the only one with a “unique relationship to God”? Christians are God’s sons and daughters (John 1:12), but does our ability to call God “Abba” mean absolutely nothing as regards a unique relationship with God as, say, those who do not share citizenship as his people? Is it not true that all believers “have access to the Father by one Spirit” (Eph 2:18)? Christ’s mediating of our filial relationship as brothers and sisters to the one Father does not mean that our relationship with him is nothing. And drawing the conclusion that Jesus was “making himself equal with God” because he was “calling God his own Father” is clearly a specious argument created by the Jewish leaders in John 5:18. They themselves said, “The only Father we have is God himself” (John 8:41).

Jesus’ claim that God was his Father was misunderstood by the Jewish leaders, especially inasmuch as they inferred that he was claiming equality with God. Jesus went on later to finally address this misapprehension in John 10:30–33 pointing out that if they were hearing his claim to oneness with God to mean equality with God, they were sorely mistaken. He went so far as to address the misunderstanding taking it as far as it would go: He was willing to address their misconception that he was claiming to be equal to Almighty God. He argues, in fact, that were he even to claim to be theos (“god”), the designation would be no more inappropriate than the leaders of Israel being called theoi (“gods”), as in Ps 82:6 when God himself calls the judges of Israel “gods”—men who could even be called sons of God.45 And as we will see infra, while the Jewish leaders did attempt to try Jesus for claiming Messianic authority once they had him in their kangaroo court, they never again brought up the claim that he was equal with God after this, Jesus’ clear explanation and exegesis.

The Jewish Charge of Blasphemy

Irons seems to be incredulous that Jesus’ admission that he was the Son of God was an equivalent designation for Messiah for he believes claiming to be Messiah would not have caused the Jewish leaders to elicit the charge of blasphemy. He points out several passages of Scripture where a perceived claim to being equal with God was deemed to be a claim to equality with God deserving of death:

a. John 5:18—Note that the verse claims that Jesus was continually “breaking the Sabbath.” Jesus claimed that in healing the lame man at the Bethesda Pool, he was joining his Father in his continuing work. Some would see this as claiming a special exemption from keeping the Sabbath. But Jesus had already indicated that if it were good to act mercifully on behalf of an animal in misfortune on the Sabbath, then surely it was good to do the same for people. Thus it was “lawful to do good on the Sabbath” (Matt 12:12). The Jews had misunderstood God’s will regarding the Sabbath. By implication they were also wrong in assigning to him a claim to be equal with God.

b. John 8:58—I was puzzled at Irons’s mention of this verse. He lists it as evidence that Jesus was blaspheming. He does not, however, identify the blasphemy; he only quotes that Jesus claimed to be “[before] Abraham,” and gives the report that “they picked up stones to throw at him.” Perhaps Irons is leaving open the possibility of understanding egō eimi in the passage as meaning “I have been.” The translators of the NASB (1971) list as legitimate the alternate reading, “before Abraham came into being I have been.” This is very much like the Greek reading from the beginning of the testament of Job, which I mention in my opening presentation. The Greek here is remarkably essentially similar to the pseudepigraphal T. Job 2:1: “For I have been Jobab [Egō gar eimi Iōbab] before the Lord named me Job [prin ē onomasai me ho Kyrios Iōb].” That this text would say that Jesus preexisted Abraham does not, however, suggest that Jesus was equal to God. The created angels preexisted Abraham, and are even called “sons of God” (Job 1:6; 2:1; 1 Kgs 22:19–22; Ps 148:2, 5).

c. John 10:30–36—Here, I am keying in on Irons’s emphasis on verse 36 where Jesus asks his accusers if they are stoning him because he said he was God’s Son. Andreas Köstenberger has suggested that Jesus is using a qal wahomer rabbinic argument made from the lesser to the greater. Köstenberger writes: “Jesus’ point is that if Israel can in some sense be called ‘god’ in the Scriptures, how much more appropriate this designation is for him, ‘whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world’ and who truly is the Son of God.”46 Perhaps that is Irons’s point. But it isn’t a definite point. He is not arguing what the Son of God is.

d. John 19:7—The Jewish leaders argue that Jesus ought to die because he claimed to be the Son of God. Were they offended because it was Jesus who was making this claim? Was it because the claim was made at all? Or was it that the claim was that the association was being made with being God’s Son? And why was one of these (or something else) a problem? Irons doesn’t tell us.

e. Matt 9:3—Irons points out that blasphemy was assigned to Jesus because he claimed to do something that only God could do—forgive sins. But he fails to point out in the argument here that Matt 9:8 demonstrates, first, that the people marveled because such authority had been given. Irons has already admitted that Jesus was both human and divine while on the earth. While his alleged divine identity would have been masked from the people, the Father would not have been confused that the one who shared in his nature and identity—his co-God if you will—was in fact embodied as Jesus. As God there was nothing that the God part of Jesus lacked, so authority to forgive sins would have been something that Jesus already possessed. It also shows, second, that the power to forgive sins had been given to men—and here the man under consideration was Jesus. Is Matthew writing of the people’s perception or his own spiritually informed perspective about Jesus as a man and only as a man?

Jesus as the Revealer or Image of the Father

At this point I feel compelled to say that none of the observations that Irons makes negates an understanding of Jesus’ status as Son of God as Messiah. If Jesus had a heavenly preexistence, he would have knowledge of the Father that he could indeed uniquely communicate to others. Revelation is indeterminate regarding the period of time or the nature of the Son’s existence with the Father in heaven before his advent. So I am not one who thinks of Jesus as a “mere creature.” Certainly I share with Irons an understanding that there are humanly unknowable details about the relationship of the Father and the Son before he became the man Jesus. I implied as much in my first paragraph of this presentation. Yet Irons quotes John 14:9–10 without comment on what Jesus means when he tells Philip that to see him is to see the Father. We cannot even get an idea of what he means when, in the next sentence, he quotes Jesus who says, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). Jesus says in the same book that his disciples are to be “one” as he and the Father are one; and he adds that they in him and he in them share the same oneness (John 17:21–23).

The best picture of being “one” that is understandable (since Irons offers no commentary) is that Jesus is talking about unity of the believing community as they seek to have a better understanding of God’s nature and heart. Certainly Jesus is spoken of in exalted terms. In saying Jesus is “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15), however, is to admit that he is not the same as God. Jesus in an eikōn, a “likeness, image, or portrait,” of another. It is decidedly not the real thing. Even to describe Jesus as the charaktēr of God (Heb 1:3) is to present Jesus not as the real God, but as a stamp or an engraved likeness impressed into a piece of metal like Washington on a quarter or Jefferson on a nickel.

This is not to detract from what Jesus is, but it is to guard against saying what he is not—God himself. Jesus can communicate God, represent God, reveal God, imitate God, provide the highest pixel resolution of God possible on one’s computer or mobile device, but he is not God himself. Irons will, as we shall see, join Bauckham and use other terminology, but it means the same thing (or something polytheistically worse for Trinitarians if God and one who shares in his identity is another entity!). Irons cites Col 2:9 which states that the fullness of deity lives in Jesus in bodily form. Could anything be greater? Yet is it not true that Paul prays that each believer in Ephesus be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God also (Eph 3:19)? Does not Peter assure his readers that it is possible for them to participate in the divine nature (share in God’s identity?) and escape the world’s corruption caused by evil desires (2 Pet 1:4)?

Irons believes that all of this inheres in Jesus’ identity as God’s Son, but not because the Son is the Messiah, but rather because the Son comes from God. This is because he does not see that the penultimate revelation of God announced on the day of Pentecost is very great indeed: Jesus was formally proclaimed Lord and Messiah at that time. The Dan 7:13–14 prophecy that the Messiah (a Son of Man) would enter into God’s presence and receive authority, glory, and sovereign power, and that he would be worthy of universal worship, reigning over an eternal kingdom, was fulfilled. Irons indicates further in his essay an appreciation for certain aspects of this paragraph, particularly regarding Ps 110:1 and Dan 7:13–14. Darrell L. Bock makes clear that Jesus’ castigation of the Jewish leaders in the context of claiming for himself a place at the right hand of God coming against them in judgment is what pushed the Jewish leaders to the edge in condemning Jesus. Jesus also claimed to be the Christ, which, although it may not be the main reason for his condemnation, could not have been welcome, a claim coming from one whom they saw as being unworthy for a number of reasons.47

Preexistence and Incarnation

I have very little disagreement with this section of Irons’s essay I wonder, though, why Irons can speak of Jesus as preexistent Logos who “existed as a divine being distinct from God.” Although he seems to embrace the historic view of the Trinity as set forth in The Westminster Confession of Faith, he uses the word Trinity only twice and within only an inch or two of space of each reference to it, and has a very unconventional but apparently scholar-welcome (e.g., Richard Bauckham) conception of it. The references he gives from John’s Gospel and the Johannine epistles seem on-target (at least, I agree with his brief listing of them), and I can even agree that Phil 2:5–11 may very well be a very early statement of Christian understanding predating liberal scholarship’s erroneous view that the high Christology found in the Gospel of John is something developed and finalized well into the second century.

Two Tests of Ontological Deity

Creation

Without question Jesus is set forth in Scripture as being creator (John 1:3, 10; Col 1:16; 1 Cor 8:6).48 Irons examines the wording of all the passages emphasizing the all-inclusive language in which both “Paul and John go out of their way to eliminate any exceptions.” But note that, for example, Hebrews 2:8 says that “God has put all things in subjection under [Christ’s] feet. For in that he [God] put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him.” Someone might read Heb 2:8 without acknowledging Scripture as a whole and argue against the existence of any exception to those things that are put under Christ.

However, 1 Cor 15:27 shows that there is an exception to “all things” under Christ, saying: “When he saith all things are put under him [Jesus], it is manifest that he [God] is excepted, which did put all things under him.”49 The idea that is presented is that given certain things one would understand from prior knowledge based on other Scripture, some things are manifestly excepted. Leaving theological presuppositions aside before making lexicographical decisions permits taking the Greek word prōtotokos to pertain literally to birth order (as applied to Jesus in Col 1:15).50 Consider also Jesus’ affirmation that the Father granted that the Son would have life in himself (John 5:26). He also says in connection with his sending commission by God, “I live because of the Father” (John 6:57). Jesus came into being as first-born from (Gk. ek) God, and the rest of creation came into existence through the agency of (Gk. dia) Christ.

Aseity

Irons presents several examples of attributes of God which he says are tests of his ontological deity. Indeed, he joins Herman Bavinck in affirming aseity as what may be the primary attribute of God’s being. These are characteristics that only God has from himself. Then regarding John 5:26 he observes that God who has life in himself grants that status to Christ. One cannot have that which he has not obtained, so there is a logical problem with Irons’s understanding of the biblical phrase “has life in himself” as applied to Christ. John’s wording does indeed start from the perspective that life was something that the Father already had without consideration in the text of the origin of that life. So it is self-existent. But Jesus’ status as a living entity has a beginning. Christ’s nonexistence—when he did not have life in himself—changes from the point that the Father gave him life and certainly continues from that point forward. Irons lists Heb 13:8, which says “Jesus is unchanging, ‘the same yesterday and today and forever,’” and argues that the statement implies eternity.

Certainly “forever” can extend unendingly into the future. But it is an absurd idea that just because a status begun at a point in time yesterday continues to every yesterday past. Finally along this line Irons cites Heb 1:11–12, pulled from the Septuagint reading of Ps 102:25–27, where the Lord’s created heaven and earth are contrasted with his continuity into future eternity. The passage does not speak of this Lord’s eternal existence into both past and future. It identifies this Lord as having been the cause of the created order (discussion supra [v. 10] notwithstanding), predicts creation’s end (vv. 11–12a), and declares the Lord’s steady status from that point forward (v. 12b). The Logos, whose beginning was when he was given life by God (and as a consequence now has life in himself, John 5:26; 6:57), was God’s agent of creation, which has a fiery future (2 Pet 3:10–13). He is presently remaining and Scripture says he will remain into eternity future.

The Exaltation of Christ

Despite a number of problems considered above, Irons believes the Son’s ontological deity has been proven. He begins at Rom 1:4 where Jesus is “Son of God in power” modified by the Greek word horisthentos, which he translates as “marked out” or “declared” in keeping with standard lexicons and, he says, most English versions. The controversy is as simple as identifying whether Jesus as Son always had authority or was granted it. It has been my position that Jesus’ ability as a man to do miracles was authority given by God (Matt 9:8), subject to limitation (e.g., in Nazareth “he could not do any miracles,” Mark 6:5). All authority in heaven and on earth was given to him after his resurrection (Matt 28:18). And as Peter announces to Israel, God “has made him both Lord and Messiah this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36). These are not statements “sealing the deal” of Christ’s aseity. They are statements acknowledging that he was a being limited in his abilities by God who is ontologically superior to and apart from him.

Sovereign

Irons’s understanding of God is puzzling. Since reading his discussion I am amazed that he calls himself a Trinitarian. He holds that God the Father alone is the ultimate power in the universe (1 Tim 6:15). Yet he says God exalts Jesus to share that divine sovereignty with him. I note in an elementary way that one cannot exalt someone who already and always held the position to which he was raised. Irons is admitting there was a time when Jesus did not have the status he has now. Yet he says Jesus’ Sonship is eternal. This is a philosophical contradiction. While Irons does not see that a mere creature could be given that divine authority, I demonstrate in my opening essay that the idea was not foreign to the Jewish mind at the time Jesus lived. That the Jewish leaders had a particular problem with Jesus specifically seems to go without saying. But they seem to arbitrarily regard pretenders to the office of Messiah. And Jesus said enough at his trial to cause them to reject him.

Worship

Irons affirms that worship belongs properly only to the one true God. But worship is also reserved for anyone whom God has granted the authority. The angel Irons mentions in Rev 19:10 did not have that authority. Yet 1 Chron 29:20 tells us that David told the people, “‘Now bless Jehovah your God.’ And all the assembly blessed Jehovah, the God of their fathers, and bowed down their heads, and worshiped Jehovah, and the king.” That I agree with the various passages Irons lists indicating that Jesus was worshiped does not mean one should therefore conclude that only God can be worshiped. God has exalted Jesus to be worshiped. That is within his prerogative to do so.

The Divine Name

While God does not give his glory to others, he does tell the Israelites to listen to the angel that he had sent ahead of them: “Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is in him” (Exod 23:20–21). I agree with other verses Irons lists indicating that “in his exalted state” Jesus bears God’s name Jehovah (which he writes as “YHWH”). My argument has been that one who is exalted did not hold the position or bear the name earlier.

It is this phrase “participates in the identity of YHWH” that is so interesting. Irons has a chronological problem. I am compelled to call him out and have him clearly explain what he means by it. An angel bears God’s name in Exodus. Perhaps Irons believes it also shares in Jehovah’s identity. Is there a distinction to be made between angels and Christ? If Christ was exalted, what was he before that happened? Irons “hesitates to say Jesus is YHWH,” and he rejects modalism. It seems to me that Irons cannot escape some form of binitarian divine reality. Jesus is a second individual sharing in God’s identity. That makes Irons’s position polytheistic. Nor can he escape it by saying, even with me, that “Jesus is divine” based on the Greek in John 1:1. Angels are divine. Jesus, though not an angel, is divine. God is the ultimate and supremely divine One. Jesus is a divine other one.

A Divine Savior

I have little disagreement with Irons’s understanding that Jesus the Messiah is “our divine Savior.” The language is appropriate for the references he gives (Titus 2:13; 2 Pet 1:1). It is through him—Jesus as God’s agent—that he accomplishes our salvation. It is because God decided that Jesus was the one to accomplish this that makes it necessary, not that Christ had to be divine (although he was!).

42. For this analysis I am looking at Aland, Synopsis, which in the English has the RSV.

43. Garland, Luke, 900.

44. BDAG, 736, informs us that the Greek particle oun is “inferential denoting that what it introduces is the result of or an inference from what precedes so, therefore, consequently, accordingly, then.” See also Daniel Wallace who observes that the inferential conjunction oun “gives a deduction, conclusion, or summary to the preceding discussion.” Wallace, Greek Grammar, 673.

45. Literally, “sons of the Most high.”

46. Κöstenberger, “John,” in Beale and Carson, eds., Commentary, 465.

47. Bock, Blasphemy and Exaltation, 202ff.

48. But the affirmation of Heb 1:2 that the Son created “the world” is a bit more specious since aiōn in Heb 1:2 is more properly translated “age,” and many of the ancient sources for the rendering “the world” as a spatial concept may be more appropriately listed as “a segment of time as a particular unit of history.” See BDAG 32.

49. Kerrigan, Biblical Christ, 57.

50. BDAG 894. Also see Thayer who, although not without providing discussion to the contrary, specifically lists Col 1:15 as an instance of prōtotokos as appropriately applied to Christ as one “who came into being through God prior to the entire universe of created things.” See Thayer, Greek-English Lexicon, 555.