God The Son

by L. Bowman | Category: General | Feb 1962

The truth that the relationship of the Lord Jesus as Son to the Father preceded incarnation lies at the foundation of everything pertaining to His Deity. This is asserted in some of the most familiar scriptures. To quote one, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son" (John 3.16). This begetting is a profound mystery to the human mind, for although He is begotten, yet He is without beginning. Being God, and having come from God, He came with a knowledge of God. As God the Father is eternal, so is God the Son. The Lord Jesus was the Son of God before time began, and in His essential Being He was God. In this relationship He was ever Son with the Father, and was His delight. The marginal reading in John 1.18, R.V., is worthy of note, "God only begotten " used of Him who is the Word. "The Word was God" (John 1.1) and "We beheld His glory, glory as of the Only Begotten from the Father" (John 1.14) combine to point out One who is at once God and Son.

The three Persons of the Godhead, while they are distinct, are not independent, but related. He who was, the Gift of God had His dwelling-place in the bosom of the Father, with a glory which was that of One who was the only begotten Son. He, the Son, was the Creator of all. God hath sent His Son into the world "that we might live through Him" (1 John 4.9). This was that Life Eternal which was with the Father. "God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath the life" (1 John 5.11, 12). Who can measure the love of God in not withholding His own Son who was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him? How much we lose in the apprehension and joy of this precious mystery if we should seek to ignore this fact! Who but One occupying such a relationship could reveal the secrets of the Father's heart and all the purposes of His grace?

With regard to His divine nature He is the eternal Son of God, but at His incarnation He became what He was not before-the personal manifestation of Deity in the flesh. "Without controversy great is the Mystery of Godliness; He who was manifested in the flesh ..." (1 Timothy 3.16). "The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1. 14). It is the same Person with the same relationship, but now Man as well as God. On three different occasions His Sonship during His life on earth was divinely attested; firstly by the angel to Mary before His birth: "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee: wherefore also that which is to be born shall be called holy, the Son of God" (Luke 1.85); secondly at his baptism by John: "Lo, a voice out of the heavens, saying, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3. 17); and thirdly, on the Mount of Transfiguration, "A voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is My Son, My Chosen: hear ye Him" (Luke 9.35). Thus His Person, His ministry, and His dominion each receive divine recognition. This fact is also verified by divine decree in Romans 1.4, Psalm 2.7, Acts 13.88, Hebrews 1.2. In Colossians 1.18 it states that He is the "Firstborn from the dead; that in all things He might have the preeminence," while the next verse states, "For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fulness dwell." The R.V. margin reads "For the whole fulness of God was pleased to dwell in Him." This rendering appears to be more emphatic in bearing testimony to the Deity of the Lord.

The invisible God whom no man hath seen was to be known in His love only through and as seen in the Son. Those thoughts of God which He, the invisible God, purposed to reveal to creation were made known through "the Word" of Him who was the mouth of God. The audible and visible "form" of Him who is "the Word", "being the effulgence of His glory" (Hebrews 1.8), was the image of the invisible God, the very impress of the substance of the unseen God. "For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2. 9). As He said to His disciples "All things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you " (John 15.15).

This cannot be said of, nor can it be shared with, any created being. Whatever likeness exists between God and man (Genesis 1. 26), "likeness" is not identity. "The likeness of sinful flesh" does not mean identity with sinful flesh. Our Lord was never merely like God, He was and is God - of the same nature as the Father, of one nature with God, for He is " the Word " and " the Word was God." As "the Word became flesh" our Lord was both God and Man in one Person.

It was in anticipation of the finished work on the Cross, that He prayed to His Father the words, "And now, 0 Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own Self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was" (John 17.5). So He was exalted to sit on His Father's right hand till His enemies be made the footstool of His feet. He will appear again on the earth-the Heir of all things, King of kings and Lord of lords, whose dominion is an everlasting one, and of His kingdom there shall be no end. The One who was despised down here, shall on this same earth be Lord of all, and the scene of His past humiliation shall yet be the scene of His majesty and power, with this difference, that whereas His glory at His first advent was veiled, when He comes to reign His glory will be unveiled, and seen not merely by the eyes of faith, but by every creature.

Every eye will now behold Him Robed in glorious majesty.

L. Bowman | Feb 1962
General