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Jesus, the Divine Son of God

Charles Lee Irons

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the famous nineteenth-century New England Unitarian minister and father of transcendentalism, was a confessed non-Trinitarian. He dismissed the deity of Christ as the post-apostolic church’s “noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus.”1 My interlocutors, Dixon and Smith, while no doubt differing with Emerson on many points, presumably would agree with him here. In this essay, I take up the challenge of demonstrating that the deity of Christ is not an exaggeration, but the sober claim of Jesus himself and a core part of the apostolic proclamation.

Thesis and Definition

Before I attempt to sketch the biblical case for the deity of Christ, I need to explain more carefully what I mean by it. The terms “deity” or “divine” can be used in different senses. When the founder of Rome died, he was hailed as “the divine Romulus”2, but the ancient Romans did not view Romulus as an eternally preexistent, divine being. He was regarded as an ordinary man who, because of his greatness as the founder of Rome, was taken up into heaven to join the pantheon of the gods after his death—a strictly postmortem affair called apotheosis. But this is not at all what the church means when it confesses the deity of Christ. Indeed, the church could not mean that without abandoning monotheism. Rather, the church confesses that Jesus Christ is eternally divine and belongs on the divine side of the Creator-creature distinction. He is not a man who became a god, but the Son of God who became man.

It is important to set the ontological deity of Christ within a broader web of doctrines defined with increasing precision by the church in the first four ecumenical councils. The following statement encapsulates the church’s historic understanding of the person of Christ:

The Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance and equal with the Father, did, when the fullness of time was come, take upon him man’s nature, with all the essential properties, and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin (The Westminster Confession of Faith VIII.2).

The historic Christian doctrines of the Trinity and the incarnation are interconnected and inseparable. I will be focusing on just one (extremely important) part of the web. By “the ontological deity of Christ” I mean that his career has three stages. First, he is the eternally preexistent Son of God, possessing the same divine nature as the Father; there never was a time when he did not exist as the divine Son.3 Second, he became man (“took upon him man’s nature”) when he was born of the Virgin Mary, and so in his earthly ministry he was the Son of God incarnate, both divine and human. Third, after he completed his redeeming work as the incarnate Son and Messiah, God exalted him at his right hand and gave him divine honor fitting for one who is eternally divine. I believe this is what the New Testament teaches, and that is what I will try to show in what follows.

Jesus is the Son of God

The apostles confessed and proclaimed that Jesus is the Son of God. Next to “Christ” and “Lord,” it is one of the most common christological titles in the New Testament. It occurs in various forms: “my Son,” “the Son,” “the Son of God,” “his Son,” and so on. Some variant of the title appears twenty-two times in Matthew, eleven times in Mark, fourteen times in Luke, twenty-seven times in John, seventeen times in Paul’s epistles, twelve times in Hebrews, and twenty-four times in the epistles of John. The designation occurs in every New Testament author except James and Jude. We cannot examine all of these instances, but as seen in Table 1, there are five key moments in the earthly life of Jesus as recorded in the Synoptic Gospels where the declaration of Jesus’ status as God’s Son is made. Actually, only Matthew has the “Son of God” title in all five, but even Mark and Luke record these five events even if they use the explicit title less consistently.

Table 1. Five Significant “Son of God” Moments in the Synoptic Gospels4

	Matthew	Mark	Luke
The Baptism of Jesus	3:17	1:11	3:22
Peter’s Confession	16:16	[8:29]	[9:20]
The Transfiguration of Jesus	17:5	9:7	9:35
Jesus before Caiaphas	26:62–66	14:61–64	22:67–71
The Centurion at the Crucifixion	27:54	15:39	[23:47]

Whether it is the voice of God the Father from heaven saying, “This is my beloved Son” at Jesus’ baptism and transfiguration, or Peter confessing, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” or Jesus before the high priest Caiaphas being charged with blasphemy and condemned to death because he claimed to be the Son of God, or the centurion at the scene of the crucifixion confessing, “Truly this was the Son of God!”—in all five key moments, the declaration of Jesus’ divine Sonship has the aura of being utterly significant and decisive.

But it was not limited to what others said of him. Jesus understood himself to be “the Son of God” as well. There are three passages in the Synoptic Gospels that make this extremely likely from a historical point of view. The first is the one where Jesus is reported as praying to the Father: “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Matt 11:27 || Luke 10:22).5 The second is Jesus’ implicit self-reference in the parable of the wicked tenants: “He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son’” (Mark 12:6 || Matt 21:37 || Luke 20:13). The third is the statement in the eschatological discourse of Jesus, “But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mark 13:32 || Matt 24:36). Even scholars who do not accept the authenticity of Jesus’ more explicit claims to divine Sonship in the Gospel of John are prepared to accept the authenticity of these three sayings in the Synoptic Gospels.6

“Son of God” Much More Than “Messiah”

“Son of God” has a fair claim to being central to Jesus’ identity, both in his own self-consciousness and in the apostolic proclamation concerning Jesus. But what does it mean? Does it mean that a man named Jesus was God’s “Son” in a functional sense, i.e., that he was a merely human, Davidic messiah? This is a plausible interpretation of the title, given that it was part of the biblical (2 Sam 7:14; Ps 2:7; 89:26–27) and early Jewish (4Q174; 4Q246) expectation that the messiah would be called God’s Son.7 Many New Testament scholars interpret the “Son of God” title in that functional or messianic sense. But there are others who have mounted compelling arguments for taking “Son of God” as meaning something far more than that he is the hoped-for human king from the line of David. Let us review the most compelling arguments.

Distinction Between “Messiah” and “Son of God”

The “Son of God” title cannot be reduced to “Son of David” or “Messiah” because it is used to explain what kind of Messiah he is. The phrase “the Christ, the Son of God” occurs six times in the Gospels (Matt 16:16; 26:63; Mark 1:1; 14:61; John 11:27; 20:31). The way the two titles, “the Christ” and “the Son of God,” are juxtaposed can be interpreted in different ways. It might mean that the two titles are synonyms. But another way of interpreting the juxtaposition is to take the second title as adding precision and definition to the first title. “The second title, ‘the Son of God,’ far from being a synonym for ‘the Messiah,’ indicates what sort of messianic expectation is in view: not the Messiah-Son-of-David, nor the Messiah as the son of any other human being, but rather the Messiah-Son-of-God.”8

Further evidence that the two titles, “Son of God” and “Messiah,” are not equivalent can be found in the account of the baptism of Jesus. At the beginning of his public ministry, immediately after being baptized by John, the voice from heaven declared: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11; cp. Matt 3:17 || Luke 3:22). 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. But according to the heavenly voice, he was already God’s beloved Son and pleasing to the Father before he was chosen and appointed to be the Messiah. Therefore, “sonship and messianic status are not synonymous. Rather, sonship . . . is antecedent to messiahship.”9

Jesus’ Question to the Pharisees

Jesus himself said that his identity is not exhausted by calling him the son of David. He asked the Pharisees, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They responded that the Messiah is “the son of David.” But Jesus asked, “How is it then that David calls him Lord,” quoting Ps 110:1. “If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” (Matt 22:41–46 || Mark 12:35–37 || Luke 20:41–44). Matthew’s version of the story cries out for the obvious answer. Yes, he is the son of David, but that cannot be all he is, for what ancestor calls his descendant “Lord”? In response to Jesus’ rhetorical question (“Whose son is he?”), “there can be little doubt that Matthew and his readers would have supplied the answer, ‘the Son of God,’ and Mark may well have expected his readers to do the same.”10 On this reading the title “Son of God” must mean more than “son of David,” otherwise Jesus’ argument would make no sense.

Jesus’ Calling God His “Father”

Jesus characteristically spoke of God as his “Father” in a way that no merely human messiah could have.11 It is probable that Jesus used the Aramaic word Abba (Mark 14:36). The fact that Jesus addressed God as Abba made an impression on the first disciples and the very Aramaic word was treasured by the early church. This form of divine address, having limited parallels in Judaism, captures the heart of Jesus’ unique relationship to God.12 Jesus’ distinctive application of the term in prayer to God bespeaks a daring degree of filial intimacy with God indicative of his self-consciousness as God’s unique Son. It is true that Jesus also taught his disciples to call God “Father.” At first, this may seem to compromise the uniqueness of his relationship to the Father, but on further reflection it does not. He spoke of “my Father” and of “your Father” when speaking to the disciples, but never of “our Father” in a way that would include himself along with the disciples. Jesus spoke of his unique relationship with the Father (“no one knows the Father except the Son”) and went on to add that as the unique Son he mediates that filial relationship to others (“and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” [Matt 11:27 || Luke 10:22]). God is Jesus’ Father in a special way distinct from the way in which he is the disciples’ Father. The Jewish leaders understood that by calling God “his own Father” (patera idion) in that special sense, he was making himself equal with God (John 5:18).

The Jewish Charge of Blasphemy

Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God could not have been a mere messianic claim, since it was so provocative that it elicited the charge of blasphemy on the part of the Jewish leaders. This point receives particular emphasis in the Gospel of John:

• John 5:18: “This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.”

• John 8:58–59: “Before Abraham was, I am.” So they picked up stones to throw at him.

• John 10:30–36: “I and the Father are one.” The Jews picked up stones again to stone him. Verse 33: “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.” Verse 36: “Do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?”

• John 19:7: “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God.”

Many scholars regard these statements in the Gospel of John as retrojections of the later conflict between the synagogue and the church leading to the parting of the ways. But the charge of blasphemy is not only found in the Gospel of John. It is also recorded in all three Synoptic Gospels in two separate but highly significant pericopes:

• Matt 9:3 || Mark 2:7 || Luke 5:21: “This man is blaspheming” (because he forgave the sins of the paralytic and only God can forgive sins).13

• Matt 26:63–66 || Mark 14:61–64 || Luke 22:67–71: “He has uttered blasphemy . . . he deserves death” (because he claimed that he was the Son of God, that he will be exalted at God’s right hand in fulfillment of Ps 110:1 and Dan 7:13, and that he will come in the clouds of heaven to judge his judges).14

In the Jewish context of Jesus’ day, claiming to be the messiah would not have provoked the charge of blasphemy worthy of death. Simon bar Kosiba was a false messianic claimant (AD 131–135), but rather than being charged with blasphemy, one rabbi accepted his claims and the other rabbis simply mocked him without calling for his death.15 Apparently, there was something about Jesus’ claim to being “the Son of God” that was regarded as much worse than being a false messiah, something blasphemous that urgently demanded his execution. As the Gospel of John explains the reaction of the Jewish leadership, they thought he deserved death “because he has made himself the Son of God” (John 19:7). It is also likely that the worship of Jesus as divine was one of the concerns that prompted Saul the Pharisee to be actively engaged in zealous and violent persecution of the first Christians.16

Jesus as the Revealer or Image of the Father

Jesus as God’s Son is far more than a functional agent sent by the Father. He is, in his own person, the perfect revelation of the Father. He is this because only he knows the Father perfectly, just as the Father knows him; he is therefore uniquely qualified to reveal the Father (Matt 11:27 || Luke 10:22). If Jesus is a mere creature, how could he know the Father perfectly? God himself is incomprehensible to the creature. When Philip asked him, “Lord, show us the Father,” Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” (John 14:9–10). Jesus said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).

The self-consciousness of Jesus as God’s Son who knows and reveals the Father leads the New Testament authors to speak of Jesus in exalted terms. Paul hailed Jesus as “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15; cp. 2 Cor 4:4). The author of Hebrews confessed that “he is the radiance (apaugasma) of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Heb 1:3). It is no wonder that the church fathers took up this theme and made it one of their key arguments for the deity of Christ. Basil the Great wrote, “The whole nature of the Father is manifest in the Son as in a seal . . . . In himself he reveals the Father in his entirety.”17 Contrast the biblical teaching with that of James D. G. Dunn, who wrote that Jesus “was as full an expression of God’s creative and redemptive concern and action as was possible in flesh . . . . There was much more to God than could be seen in and through Jesus.”18 The New Testament writers would never speak that way. Paul did not say that some aspects of God could be seen in Jesus, but that “in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Col 1:19; cp. 2:9). He is the perfect revelation of the Father. To see the Son is to see the Father.

Preexistence and Incarnation

We have seen that Jesus’ most fundamental identity is that he is the Son of God. We have surveyed the arguments for viewing his identity as Son not in a merely functional/messianic sense, but in a sense that goes much deeper, approaching something ontological in terms of his unique relationship with the Father, a relationship that was so scandalous it provoked the Jewish leadership to charge Jesus with blasphemy. In this section, I now argue that the Sonship of Christ is not something that began at some point in his earthly existence but in fact goes back to his pre-incarnate state. In other words, the New Testament teaches that before Jesus’ earthly career as a man, he existed as the Son of God.19

Preexistence in the Johannine Literature

The majestic Prologue of John’s Gospel teaches the preexistence of Christ. It begins by stating that in the beginning, the Word (the Logos) existed as a divine being distinct from God the Father (John 1:1–3). “He was in the beginning with God” (v. 2). In fact, he was with God prior to creation (v. 3). The Prologue then moves forward to the incarnation, stating that “the Word became flesh and dwelled among us” (John 1:14). The preexistence-incarnation motif is found throughout the Gospel of John. Jesus repeatedly speaks of his mission as one who “came or descended from heaven” (John 3:13, 31; 6:38, 42, 62). He says that the Jews do not know the Father who sent him, but “I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me” (John 7:29). “I came from God and I am here,” and “before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:42, 58). Jesus even speaks of a divine action of “consecration” that took place prior to his coming to earth: he is the one “whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world” and therefore he has the right to say, “I am the Son of God” (John 10:36).

In addition, there are several passages where Jesus speaks of three phases of his existence: the time before he came into the world, his earthly ministry, and the time when he goes back to the Father. For example, he says, “I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father” (John 16:28). Jesus expands on his three-stage career in his high priestly prayer just before he goes to the cross:

“Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you . . . . I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed . . . . Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:1, 4–5, 24).

There is only one center of consciousness, one “I” of the Son, as he speaks of his relationship with the Father as a man and as he looks back upon his preincarnate life with the Father “before the foundation of the world.” It strains credulity to interpret these straightforward vignettes of the pretemporal, interpersonal relationship between the Father and the Son as mere poetic hyperbole of a personified divine attribute.

The Epistles of John also imply preexistence when they speak of Jesus’ incarnation. The apostolic truth is set in contrast with error. Only prophetic spirits that confess that “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh” are to be recognized as from God (1 John 4:2; 2 John 7). The coming of Christ in the flesh, that is, his incarnation, presupposes his preexistence.

Preexistence in Paul

Some would set aside the Johannine preexistence texts as late, but there is one text in Paul that places this belief much earlier. I am referring, of course, to Phil 2:5–11. The first half of this early Christian hymn or creed speaks of Jesus’ decision not to regard equality with God as something to be used for his own advantage. It goes on to say that he emptied himself and took the form of a servant, being found in the likeness of men. There are many technical exegetical questions that would need to be examined to do justice to this passage, but for my purpose, I will simply observe that New Testament scholarship has reached a firm consensus that real, personal preexistence is predicated of Jesus in this text. James D. G. Dunn has attempted to argue for ideal or metaphorical preexistence by appealing to a so-called “Adam Christology,” but his exegesis is not persuasive.20 Specific dispositions of mind and acts of will are predicated of the preexistent one, a self-conscious decision not to use his equality with God as something for his own advantage, and his voluntary act of humbling himself by becoming a man, viewed as the starting point of his obedience. These actions imply a real center of consciousness and will in Christ that cannot be explained away as mere poetic hyperbole or metaphor. If they were mere metaphor, how could they be used as an example for believers? “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (v. 5 KJV). The fact that this is stated so clearly in a pre-Pauline hymn pushes the origin of belief in Christ’s preexistence back to the earliest period of the primitive church, within the first decade after Jesus’ resurrection.21

There are several other important passages that some scholars accept as teaching the preexistence of Christ, such as the “I have come” texts and the “sending” texts, particularly the ones which speak of Christ’s being “sent into the world,” which are even more explicit.22 Last but not least, the Epistle to the Hebrews is acknowledged by most scholars as having a very high Christology, including a preexistence-incarnation motif.23

Two Tests of Ontological Deity

There may still be some apprehension at this point. Jesus may be the Son of God in a unique sense that transcends the categories Judaism had for its messianic expectation. He may even have existed as a glorious “divine” being (in some sense) prior to his becoming a man. But does divine Sonship mean ontological deity in the sense of being eternally part of the divine being? Surely this is a “noxious exaggeration” if there ever was one! But that is precisely what I believe the New Testament teaches. I proceed now in the next stage of my argument to show that Jesus as God’s eternal Son belongs within the being of the one God by showing that he passes two critical tests of ontological deity according to biblical monotheism.

Creation

The first quality that sets ontological deity apart from all else is creation, the opus proprium Dei.24 Only the true God is the Creator of all things. The false gods are those who “did not make the heavens and the earth” (Jer 10:11; cp. Ps 96:5). YHWH is not like the worthless idols, precisely because he is the one who formed all things (Jer 10:16; 51:19). By definition, no creature can be the Creator of all things. With that presupposition in place, we must reckon with the astonishing implications of the New Testament’s identification of the preincarnate Son as the one through whom God created all things:

“All things (panta) were made through him (dia + gen.), and without him was not any thing made that was made . . . . He was in the world, and the world (ho kosmos) was made through him (dia + gen.), yet the world did not know him” (John 1:3, 10).

“Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things (ta panta) and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom (dia + gen.) are all things (ta panta) and through whom we exist” (1 Cor 8:6).

“For by him (en + dat.) all things (ta panta) were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things (ta panta) were created through him (dia + gen.) and for him” (Col 1:16).

“. . . in these last days [God] has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom (dia + gen.) also he created the world (hoi aiōnes)” (Heb 1:2).25

The phrase “all things” (panta or ta panta) is a comprehensive term that embraces all of created reality in distinction from God the Creator. Paul defines “all things” as “things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible” (Col 1:16). The invisible things include angelic beings, as is made clear by the next phrase, “whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.” Other terms that comprehend all of creation are the singular ho kosmos (John 1:10) and the plural hoi aiōnes (lit. “the ages,” Heb 1:2), both rendered “the world.” John 1:3 is even more emphatic: “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing (oude hen) made that was made.” Both Paul and John go out of their way to eliminate any exceptions. All created things, without exception, received their existence and came into being through Christ. These passages do not state that “the Son created the rest of creation, but that he created all that was created. This excludes the Son from the created order.”26 By assigning the Son a mediatorial role in creation, the New Testament places him on the divine side of the Creator-creature distinction and makes him an eternally preexistent divine being along with God the Father and therefore part of the divine being.27

Aseity

Aseity is the second test of ontological deity. If the first test is a work of God, the second is an attribute of God. In fact, aseity may be the primary attribute of God’s being.28 To possess aseity means that one is a se, a Latin phrase which means that one has one’s being “from oneself” and not from another. Only God has aseity. His name is “I am who I am” (Exod 3:14). All created reality is from God and dependent on God, but God is not dependent on anything outside of himself. The New Testament predicates aseity, and therefore ontological deity, of Jesus. The Father has granted the Son to have “life in himself” (John 5:26) and therefore he possesses the uniquely divine attribute of aseity. Jesus is unchanging, “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb 13:8), in contrast with the entire realm of created reality which is contingent, corruptible, and perishable: “They will perish, but you remain . . . . You are the same, and your years will have no end” (Heb 1:11–12, quoting LXX Ps 102:25–27).29 Further demonstrating his aseity or independence from any created thing, we read that he “upholds all things by the word of his power” (Heb 1:3), and “in him all things hold together” (Col 1:17). If the entire created realm (“all things,” ta panta) depends on him, then he cannot depend on anything in the created realm, and is therefore distinct from and independent of the created realm, which necessarily determines his ontological status as divine.

The New Testament accepts the monotheistic assumptions inherited from the Old Testament and Judaism. It accepts the basic divide in reality between all that is created and God himself, who is utterly distinct from creation. And yet in the areas of creation and aseity, the New Testament places Jesus on the divine side of the Creator-creature distinction. Christ as God’s Son shares ontological deity with his Father in a way that is perfectly consistent with monotheism.30

The Exaltation of Christ

At this point, the ontological deity of the eternal Son has been proven. Yet the New Testament has still more to say to “seal the deal.” The ontological deity of the eternal Son receives explosive confirmation from the Father’s exaltation of his obedient, incarnate Son. As pointed out earlier, the New Testament envisions the Son as having a three-stage career: (1) the preincarnate state of the Son, with God the Father before and at creation, (2) the first phase of his incarnate state, that is, his earthly ministry, and (3) the second phase of his incarnate state, that is, his exaltation at God’s right hand. The first and the third states are closely related. In fact, Aquila H. I. Lee has convincingly argued that the exaltation of Christ was one of the key factors that led the primitive church to the belief in his eternal preexistence.31 Some have attempted to argue for a two-stage Christology that eliminates the preexistence phase. But this would mean that a human being has been exalted to a position of divine honor that does not properly belong to him according to his ontological nature. In other words, they argue for the deification of a mere man, a belief that would be more at home in a polytheistic context (recall the ancient Romans’ belief about the apotheosis of Romulus after his death). But the exaltation of Christ, with its implication of divine status, cannot be interpreted as an apotheosis. Such a construction would be conceptually and theologically impossible within the context of an early Christian movement composed of Jewish believers raised in and committed to the strict monotheism inherited from Judaism. Therefore, the exaltation of Christ must be interpreted along different lines. Rather than viewing his exaltation as an apotheosis, we must view his exaltation is the manifestation and confirmation of his identity as the divine Son of God. Paul speaks of this as his having been “marked out (horisthentos) Son of God in power . . . by his resurrection from the dead” (Rom 1:4).32 There are several features of the exaltation of Christ which demonstrate that his divine honors in the state of exaltation are appropriate based on his ontological deity as the preexistent Son.

Sovereignty

There is only one ultimate power in the universe—only one sovereign, one king. God is “the blessed and only sovereign” (1 Tim 6:15). Thus it is remarkable that the exalted Lord Jesus shares the divine sovereignty with the Father. In fact, it was his own Father who granted him to sit at his right hand until his enemies are made the footstool of his feet in fulfillment of Ps 110:1. This crucial Old Testament verse is quoted or alluded to some twenty-two times in the New Testament with reference to Jesus. Jesus’ exalted position at God’s right hand and his consequent authority and sovereignty over all things are astonishing. No mere creature could be given that divine authority as Lord of all creation. The exalted Lord Jesus received the divine sovereignty from the Father (Matt 28:18), not as a temporary gift granted to a mere creature, but because he is the firstborn, that is, the rightful heir, of all creation through whom all things were created (Heb 1:2–3; Col 1:15–16).

Psalm 110:1 is not the only Old Testament prophecy fulfilled in the exaltation of Christ. Ps 8:6 is also combined with Ps 110:1 and quoted in reference to Christ’s exaltation, for “God has put all things (ta panta) in subjection under his feet” (1 Cor 15:27; cp. Eph 1:20–22; Phil 3:21). There is also the key passage in Dan 7:13–14 that Jesus himself alluded to before the high priest at his trial. More specifically, the prophecy concerning the “Son of Man” in Daniel says that “his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away” (Dan 7:14), using language that is applied to YHWH’s kingdom (Ps 145:13; Dan 4:34). Recall that it was precisely Jesus’ claim to be that coming “Son of Man” coming in the clouds of heaven with the glory of his Father that scandalized the Jewish Sanhedrin and led to their call for his execution on the charge of blasphemy.

Worship

Worship belongs properly only to the one true God in biblical monotheism. In his indictment of the pagans for their idolatry, Paul essentially defines idolatry as an “exchange” in which they “worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Rom 1:25). Similarly, when John, the seer of the apocalypse, fell down to worship the angel, the angel rebuked him and said that worship must be given to God alone: “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God” (Rev 19:10; cp. 22:8–9).

And yet the New Testament, which was largely composed by men brought up within and committed to strict Jewish monotheism that abhorred the worship of any creature, recorded, as if it were perfectly natural, the fact that the exalted Lord Jesus is to be worshiped as divine. By far the most important text in this regard is the second half of the pre-Pauline hymn or creed (Phil 2:9–11) that we examined earlier under preexistence. The conclusion looks ahead to the day when all sentient creatures will worship Jesus as Lord. God highly exalted him “so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow . . . and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father” (vv. 10–11). It is not merely that we have isolated instances here and there of people expressing their reverence for Christ by prostrating themselves before him. Rather, the Father himself has exalted him to his own right hand and calls all sentient beings to bow the knee and worship him as Lord. The striking thing is that this language is taken from LXX Isa 45:23, which is part of Isaiah’s anti-idolatry polemic. This Old Testament passage, one that is “among the most fervent expressions of God’s uniqueness,” has been “adapted (and apparently interpreted) to affirm Jesus as supreme over all creation.”33

The worship of Jesus in not only found in Paul. It is also found in other New Testament writers. The Gospel of John presents Jesus as claiming that the Father has given all judgment to him “that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father” (John 5:22–23). The author of Hebrews writes: “And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, ‘Let all God’s angels worship him’” (Heb 1:6, quoting LXX Deut 32:43). The book of Revelation pictures all creation worshiping Christ: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” (Rev 5:12–14; cp. 22:3).34

The Divine Name

God does not share his name with creatures. “I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other” (Isa 42:8). There is no god besides YHWH (Isa 45:21–22). And yet, according to Philippians 2:10, God has highly exalted his obedient Son Jesus at his right hand as the one who bears the divine name. In addition to Phil 2:10, there are numerous New Testament passages which demonstrate that Jesus, in his exalted state, is viewed as bearing the divine name, YHWH in Hebrew or Kyrios in Greek.35 For example, Joel 2:32 (“Everyone calls upon the name of YHWH will be saved”) is quoted twice in the New Testament in its Septuagint form, where YHWH has been rendered Kyrios, now applied to the exalted Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 2:21; Rom 10:13). The fact that the New Testament interprets Old Testament Kyrios texts like Isa 45:23 and Joel 2:32 as fulfilled in the exaltation of Jesus to the status of universal Lord indicates that he bears the divine name and thus participates in the identity of YHWH.36

Does this mean that Jesus is YHWH? I hesitate to say that Jesus is YHWH, which would seem to verge on modalism. Rather, I would say that, by virtue both of his ontological status and of his exaltation, Jesus bears the divine name and is thus shown to be included in the identity of YHWH.37 If “YHWH” denotes the person who reveals himself in the Old Testament as the God of Israel, it is best to say Jesus is the Son of YHWH. Because he is his eternal Son, he shares in the identity or nature of the God of Israel.

“YHWH” is basically the name of the Father, but it is a name (unlike the name “Father”) that the Father can share with his exalted Son (Phil 2:9–10). This is because the name YHWH itself does not mean “Father” but “I am who I am” (Exod 3:14). It does not differentiate his personal quality but his essential nature. The granting of the divine name, YHWH, to the Son is legitimate, appropriate, and fitting because the Son shares the Father’s ontological divine nature. Thus, when the Son is exalted, he receives the divine name, YHWH, because it is fitting in terms of his ontological status. His receiving the divine name shows that he shares in the identity of YHWH.

The same situation obtains with respect to the name “God” (ho theos). I hesitate to say “Jesus is God,” nor would I say “Jesus is not God.” Instead, I prefer to say, as the New Testament says, that “Jesus is the Son of God.” Although it is possible to construe it in a valid sense, I am cautious about the statement “Jesus is God,” because the name “God” (with the definite article, ho theos) most frequently and properly refers to the Father. “Jesus is God” could be taken to mean “Jesus is the Father,” which would be modalism. On the other hand, following John 1:1, we have strong precedent for saying that “Jesus is divine” (theos as anarthrous qualitative predicate nominative).38

Words express meaning not by reference alone, but by sense and reference.39 A word’s sense is not the same thing as the extralinguistic reality that it refers to. The words “YHWH” and ho theos are typically used in Scripture to refer to the Father, and very rarely if at all to refer to the Son. Yet, because their sense is such that they indicate deity as a generic concept, the terms can be applied to the Son because of his deity. Yet when the words are applied to the Son, there is usually something in the context which distinguishes him from the Father and which shows that the terms are being used qualitatively to underscore that they share the same identity or nature.

A Divine Savior

Why is it important that Jesus be the divine Son of God? The reason, in a nutshell, is that the accomplishment of redemption depends on it. The Bible teaches that there is only one God, YHWH, the God of Israel, and that this one God has a Son through whom he created all things and through whom he redeems. Redemption is patterned on creation. Just as creation is the work of God the Father through the preincarnate Son, so redemption is the work of God the Father through the incarnate Son. Earlier, I quoted 1 Cor 8:6 as one of the crucial New Testament passages which affirm that Christ is the divine intermediary of creation. But its final line affirms that Christ is also the intermediary of the new creation: “and we [believers live] through him.”40 Christ’s mediatorial role in creation prepares the way for and is the basis of his mediatorial role in redemption. It is no accident that redemption is pictured as a new creation (e.g., 2 Cor 5:17; Col 3:10). Just as God created through his divine, preincarnate Son, so God saves his people and brings about the new creation through his divine, incarnate Son, and both mediatorial activities place Jesus on the divine side of the Creator-creature distinction. No wonder he is called “our (great) God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13; 2 Pet 1:1), that is, “our divine Savior Jesus Christ.”

It is not only the objective accomplishment of redemption (new creation) that had to be by a divine person, the divine Son of God incarnate. It is also the subjective response to redemption that requires a divine person to be the object of saving faith. The fact that God has put Christ forward as the object of faith (Rom 3:25) requires that he be ontologically divine. Paul expresses the personal nature of faith in the divine Messiah in these terms: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20). We are saved by “calling on the name of the Lord” (Rom 10:13; Joel 2:32). Such absolute trust in Christ, calling upon him for salvation, is a form of worship that should only be given to a divine person, not to a creature no matter how exalted. As Charles Hodge wrote, “The man should tremble, who ventures to say: I believe in Jesus Christ our Saviour, unless he believes in his true and perfect Godhead, for only on that assumption is he a Saviour or an object of faith.”41

In conclusion, it was not the post-apostolic church, in a desire to exalt Jesus more and more, that indulged in unwarranted “exaggeration” about the person of Jesus. It was Jesus himself who claimed to be the Son of God in an absolutely unique way. Indeed, so provocative were his claims, the Jewish leadership recoiled in horror and had him put to death on the charge of blasphemy. But God raised him from the dead and vindicated his claim to be the Son of God. Millions of ordinary Christians throughout history have confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, exalted at God’s right hand as sovereign Lord over all creation, and have put their faith and trust in him as their divine Savior and have worshiped him as such.

1. From his 1838 address to the Harvard Divinity School graduates. Emerson, Nature, 126.

2. Livy, History of Rome, 1.16; 5.24

3. Contra Arius, who said “there was a time when he did not exist” and “before he was brought into being, he did not exist” (as quoted by Athanasius, Against the Arians 1.5 [NPNF2 4.308–9]). See Williams, Arius, 95–116.

4. The three verses in brackets do not actually contain the “Son of God” title.

5. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version.

6. R. Brown, Introduction to New Testament Christology, 88–89.

7. On the Qumran “son of God” texts, see Fitzmyer, Dead Sea Scrolls, 41–72.

8. Marcus, “Mark 14:61,” 130.

9. Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 163–64.

10. France, Mark, 484–85.

11. The New Testament depicts Jesus as speaking of God as “my/his Father” approximately fifty times (there are a couple of textual variants) and as directly addressing God as “Father” nineteen times.

12. Jeremias, Prayers of Jesus, 11–65. Jeremias’s argument has been subjected to criticism by scholars such as Geza Vermes, James Barr, and James D. G. Dunn, but others have rehabilitated it in a more nuanced form. See R. Brown, New Testament Christology, 86–87; Witherington, Christology of Jesus, 216–21; Lee, From Messiah to Preexistent Son, 122–36.

13. Johansson, “‘Who Can Forgive Sins.’”

14. “To the Jewish leadership he has claimed a level of equality with God that is seen as blasphemous . . . making it apparent that more than a pure human and earthly messianic claim is present.” Bock, “What Did Jesus Do,” 202, 205.

15. Rabbi Yohanan ben Toreta is recorded as mocking Rabbi Akiba for being so gullible as to accept Simon’s claims, saying, “Akiba! Grass will grow on your cheeks before the Messiah will come!” (y. Ta’anit 4.5 as quoted by Marcus, “Mark 14:61,” 127–29).

16. Hurtado, How on Earth, 34.

17. St. Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius 2.16–17 (ET: DelCogliano and Radde-Gallwitz, St. Basil of Caesarea: Against Eunomius, 152–53). Cp. Athanasius, Against the Arians 1.20–21 (NPNF2 4.318).

18. Dunn, Did the First Christians, 143, 145.

19. Recent scholarly defenses of the preexistence of Christ include Lee, From Messiah to Preexistent Son; McCready, He Came Down from Heaven; and Gathercole, Preexistent Son.

20. Dunn, Christology in the Making, 98–128. Good critiques of Dunn’s interpretation of Phil 2:5–11 may be found in Hurtado, How on Earth, 98–101; Lee, From Messiah to Preexistent Son, 305–8; McCready, He Came Down from Heaven, 73–80. “Dunn’s conclusion that Paul did not believe in the preexistence of Christ has persuaded very few.” Hagner, New Testament, 400 n11.

21. Hengel, Between Jesus and Paul, 30–47.

22. Jesus’ “I have come” pronouncements: Matt 5:17; 9:13 (= Mark 2:17; Luke 5:32); 10:34–35 (= Luke 12:51); 20:28 (= Mark 10:45); Luke 12:49; 19:10. See Gathercole, Preexistent Son. Coming or being sent “into the world” texts: John 1:9; 3:17, 19; 6:14; 10:36; 11:27; 12:46; 16:28; 17:18; 18:37; 1 Tim 1:15; Heb 1:6; 10:5; 1 John 4:9.

23. Heb 1:1–14; 2:5–18; 5:5–8; 7:3; 10:5–7. See Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel, 233–53.

24. The exclusive/peculiar work of God. Hengel, Son of God, 72.

25. As many scholars recognize, these passages are undoubtedly shaped by the Jewish tradition of reflection on the mysterious figure of Wisdom in Prov 8:22–31. Wisdom, the “master workman” at God’s side, the intermediary of creation, is now seen to be the eternally preexistent Son of God. Hengel, Son of God, 72.

26. McCready, He Came Down, 82. “If He be a creature, how is He at the same time the Creator of creatures?” (Athanasius, Circular to the Bishops of Egypt and Libya 14 [NPNF2 4.230]).

27. Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel, 26–30, 238.

28. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2.124.

29. Cp. Athanasius, Against the Arians 1.58, 36 (NPNF2 4.327, 340).

30. Several New Testament scholars dub this “christological monotheism,” e.g., N. T. Wright, Richard Bauckham, and Larry Hurtado.

31. Lee, From Messiah to Preexistent Son, 280–81.

32. Translation mine. Although horisthentos can be rendered “appointed,” the meaning “marked out” or “declared” (see BDAG horizō and most English versions) is also possible in extra-biblical Greek and is more appropriate here. Paul’s framing device, “concerning his Son” (“being placed . . . outside the bracket”) implies that the Son did not become the Son at his resurrection, but was the Son even before his birth: “ . . . concerning his Son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh,” i.e., “so far as his human nature is concerned” (Cranfield, Romans, 1.58–60). The “in power” modifier is also crucial, since it shows that the resurrection did not make him Son for the first time but powerfully exhibited what was true of him all along. Besides, as we have seen, the Gospels are explicit that he was the Son of God prior to his resurrection, going back (at least) to the Father’s declaration at his baptism, “You are my Son.”

33. Hurtado, How on Earth, 50.

34. Bauckham, “The Worship of Jesus,” in Climax of Prophecy, 118–49.

35. See Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel, 182–232, for an examination of many other New Testament texts where the divine name (Kyrios/YHWH) is applied to Jesus.

36. Rowe, “Romans 10:13.”

37. Bauckham’s formulation in Jesus and the God of Israel, 24–25, 130.

38. Wallace, Greek Grammar, 266–69.

39. Silva, Biblical Words, 102–7.

40. Ciampa and Rosner, First Corinthians, 384.

41. Hodge, “Religious State of Germany,” 520.