Sect. 93The Doctrine of the New Testament on God the SonThe Doctrine of the New Testament on God the Son

I. The doctrine of the New Testament on the Son of God centres in the idea of His true and perfect Sonship: if true Son, He is of the same Essence as the Father; if of the same Essence as God the Father, He is God just as the Father is.

The texts treating expressly of the Divinity of the Son are chiefly found in St. John’s Gospel and in his First Epistle, especially in the introduction to chap. i. of the Gospel, and in three speeches of the Son of God Himself: (1) after healing the man who had been eight and thirty years under his infirmity (5:17 sqq.); (2) in defence of His Divine authority, in the continuation of His description of the Good Shepherd (10:14); (3) in the sacerdotal prayer after the Last Supper (17), in explanation of His position as mediator. Other classical texts are Heb. 1 and Col. 1:13–20.

II. The Filiation of the Son of God is a filiation in the strictest sense of the word—that is, a relation founded upon the communication of the same living essence and nature.

1. This first results from the manner in which the name “Son of God” is used in Holy Scripture. That name is, indeed, also applied to beings not of the same essence as the Father, in order to express an analogical sonship, based upon adoption, love, or some other analogy. In such cases, however, the name is used as a common noun, and never applied in the singular, as a distinctive name to any single individual, as it is applied to the Person called Word of God, Jesus, and Christ. On the other hand, this Person is distinguished, as being the Son of God (ὁ υἵος θεοῦ) and the only begotten (μονογενής) Son of God, from all creatures, even the highest angels and the beings most favoured by grace; so that His Sonship is given as the ideal and the principle of the adoptive sonship granted to men or angels. Hence, when applied to the Son of God, the term “Son” must be taken in its strict and proper sense, there being no reason to the contrary.

In illustration of these propositions, see, for instance, Gal. 4:7; Apoc. 21:7; Exod. 4:22. “For to which of the Angels hath He said at any time, Thou art My Son?” etc. (Heb. 1:5). The comparison of the real with the adoptive sonship is found in the beginning of the Epistle to the Hebrews and of the Gospel of St. John (see Heb. 1:1, 3, 5, 6; John 1:12). The Jews who did not acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah, considered it as arrogance on His part to call Himself “the Son of God” even in the weaker sense, but they treated His claim to be the Son equal to the Father as blasphemy (John 5:18), and demanded His death on that count (Matt. 26:63; Luke 22:66–71; John 19:7).

The difficulty which some find in John 10:35, 36, where, according to them, Christ claims no other sonship than that granted to creatures, vanishes if we compare Christ’s words with the accusation which He was repelling. The Jews had said, “We stone Thee because that Thou, being a man, makest Thyself God.” To this Jesus replies, “The fact of My being a man does not essentially prevent Me from being also God. And if God called His servants gods, à fortiori, the name must be given to the Man to Whom the Father has given power over the whole world, Whom He has constituted the Heir of His dominions, and Who, in the Psalm quoted, stands out as God before the gods. And if I call Myself the Son of God, it is because I claim to be that Heir of God Who, in the Psalm, is introduced as the Judging God.” Cf. Franzelin, De Verb. Incarn., th. vii.

2. The Filiation of the Son of God is further determined in its true character by the epithets which Holy Scripture gives it. The Son of God is called “True Son” (1 John 5:20); “the own (ἰδίος) Son” (Rom. 8:32); the “only-begotten Son,” unigenitus, μονογενής (John 3:16, and 1:14); “the beloved Son” (Matt. 3:17, and Col. 1:13); “the only-begotten Son Who is in the bosom of the Father,” and there alone beholds God (John 1:18); “the Son born of the Father” (Heb. 5:5, from Ps. 2:7); “ex utero genitus” (Ps. 109:3, in the Vulg.); “proceeding from God,” ἐγὼ γὰρ ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐξῖλθον (John 8:42). If sometimes the Son of God is called “First-born” among many brethren, or from the dead, or of all creatures, the sense is that the Son of God, as only true Son, is not merely begotten by His Father before any creature received existence, but that He also is the exemplar, the principle, and the last end of all beings (Apoc. 3:14), and especially of the adoption of rational beings into the Sonship of God. This idea is magnificently set forth in Col. 1:12–19, the classical text on the primogeniture of Christ: “Giving thanks to God the Father, … Who hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love; … Who is the image of the invisible God, the First-born of every creature: for in Him were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible: … all things were created by Him and in Him (εἰς αὐτόν): and He is before all, and by Him all things consist.” On the ground of this original primogeniture now follows the other: “And He is the Head of the body, the Church: Who is the Beginning, the First-born from the dead: that in all things He may hold the primacy, because in Him it hath well pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell.”

These passages fully show that the formal and proper reason why Christ is called Son of God is not His wonderful generation and regeneration as man. Texts which seem to imply this ought to be interpreted so as to agree with the above.

3. The reality and perfection of the Sonship is further described when the Son is presented as the most perfect image of the Father, reproducing the glory, the Substance the Nature and the fulness of the Divinity of the Father, equal to the Father, and a perfect manifestation or revelation of His perfection. “His Son … Who, being the brightness of His glory, and the figure of His substance, and upholding all things by the word of His power” (Heb. 1:3); “Who, being in the form of God, thought it no robbery to be equal to God” (Phil. 2:6; see also Col. 1:15, 20, and 2:9; John 14:9).

II. The Son of God is represented in the New Testament as God just as His Father is, all the names and attributes of God being bestowed upon Him.

1. The substantive nouns “God” and “Lord,” are given to the Person Who is also named the Son of God, in such a manner that nothing but the possession of the Divine Essence can be signified by them.

(a) The name “God,” Θεός, besides the express affirmation that “the Word was God” (John 1:1), is applied at least five times to the Person of God the Son: John 20:28 (ὁ θεός μου); Heb. 1:8, quoting from Ps. 44, where ὁ θεός renders the Hebrew Elohim; “Waiting for the coming of the great God and our Saviour” (Tit. 2:13); “That we may know the true God, and may be in His true Son: This is the true God, and life eternal” (1 John 5:20; also Rom. 9:5). These expressions are the more significant because in the New Testament the name ὁ θεός is exclusively reserved for God. Besides this, there are in the New Testament many quotations from the Old Testament in which texts undoubtedly referring to God, because the ineffable name Jehovah is their subject, are applied to Christ For instance Heb. 1:6 = Ps. 96:7; Heb. 1:10–12 = Ps. 101 (or 102 in the Hebrew); Mal. 3:1, quoted by Mark 1:2, Matt. 11:10, Luke 7:27. The explanation of the name Jehovah as “the First and the Last,” given in the Old Testament, is, in the New Testament, repeatedly applied to Christ, with the similar expressions, “Beginning and End,” “Alpha and Omega,” “Who is, Who was, and Who is to come” (Apoc. 1:17; 21:6; 22:13).

(b) The name “Lord” is more commonly given to the Son of God than the name God. When the Father and the Son are mentioned together, and the Father is called God, the Son is always called the Lord. The reason of this difference, after what has been said above, is not that the Son of God ought not to be called God as well as Lord. Where the Son is named Lord, He appears as manifesting in His Incarnation the dominion or sovereignty of God, Whose ambassador He is, and as the holder of a special sovereignty in His quality of Head of creation generally and of mankind in particular. On the other hand, God the Father, as the “unoriginated” holder of the Divine Nature, may be emphatically called God. Moreover, the way in which Holy Scripture applies the name of Lord to the Son of God, and the way in which it qualifies the same, clearly show that this name expresses in Christ a truly Divine excellence and dignity, just as the name God expresses the Divine Essence and Nature. Consequently, Lord in the New Testament is equivalent to Adonai in the Old. In the Old Testament the title “the Lord” had become a proper name of God; it would, therefore, never be applied without restriction and as a proper name to a person who did not possess the same Divine dignity. But no restriction is made; on the contrary, Christ is called “the only sovereign Ruler and Lord”—Dominator et Domimis, ὁ μόνος δεσπότης καὶ κύριος—(Jude 4); “the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:8); “the Lord of Lords and King of Kings” (Apoc. 17:14, and elsewhere). The sovereignty of the “Lord of all” necessarily extends to all that comes from God, and is the foundation of the unity of the Christian worship in opposition to the worship of many lords by the heathen (cf. 1 Cor. 8:5, 6).

2. Not only are the substantive nouns “God” and “Lord” given to the Son of God, but likewise all the predicates which express attributes proper to God alone, are stated of Him. Christ Himself (John 16:15) claims all such predicates: “All things whatsoever the Father hath, are Mine.” And again, “All things that are Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine” (17:10). “What things soever (the Father) doeth, these the Son also doeth in like manner” (5:19).

In detail, the Son is described as equal to the Father in the possession of that being and life in virtue of which God is the principle of all being and of all life outside of Him; in the possession of the attributes connected with such essential being and life; and particularly in the Divine dignity which makes God the object of adoration. “All things were made by Him [the Word], and without Him was made nothing that was made” (John 1:3; cf. Col. 1:16, 17; 1 Cor. 8:6; John 8:25). “As the Father raiseth up the dead and giveth life, so the Son also giveth life to whom He will.… For, as the Father hath life in Himself, so He hath given to the Son also to have life in Himself” (John 5:21, 26; 1 John 1:2, etc.).

The texts in which the Son is represented as the principle through Whom (per quem, διʼ οὗ) all things are made, and the Father as the principle from Whom (ex quo, ἐξ οὗ) all things are made, do not deny the equality of the Son with the Father, but point to the different manner in which the Son possesses the Divine Nature, viz. as principium de principio; that is, as communicated to Him by the Father. This remark also solves most of the apparent difficulties arising from texts where Christ seems to object to certain Divine attributes being given to Him, as John 5:19; 7:16; Matt. 20:28. In Mark 13:32 the question is not whether the end of the world is known to the Son of God, but whether the knowledge is communicable.

The eternity of the Son is indicated where He is said to have existed before the world (John 1:1; 17:5, 18; 8:58); His omnipresence by the assertion that He is in heaven and on earth; His omniscience by His knowledge of the hearts of men and His prevision of the future; His omnipotence appears in the miracles which He worked by His own power, and also in the forgiveness of sin; He proclaims Himself the sovereign Teacher, Lawgiver, and Judge when He says, “All power is given to Me in heaven and in earth” (Matt. 28:18; John 5:22).

3. If the Son of God is truly such, if He is God and Lord, if He possesses the attributes proper to God alone, Divine honour should certainly be paid to Him. We find Him laying claim to this honour, “that all may honour the Son as (καθὼς) they honour the Father” (John 5:23). And the Apostle declares that it is due: “In the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth” (Phil. 2:10). See Card. Newman’s Athanasius, i. p. 144. On the Divine attributes and works of Christ, consult Bellarmine, Controv. de Christo, l. i., c. 7, 8; Greg. of Valentia, De Trin. l. i. On His Divine dignity see Franzelin, De Verb. Incarn., th. v.; Knoll. De Deo, § 86.

III. The likeness of the Essence of the Son to that of the Father, implied in His Sonship and Divinity, necessarily consists in a perfect and indivisible unity of Essence. For there can be but one God, and the Son is spoken of as the God (ὁ Θεός), consequently as one with the Father. The same unity of Essence is formally affirmed by Christ: “I and the Father are one,” ἕν ἐσμεν (John 10:30). “Believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father” (ibid. 38). The unity could not be affirmed so absolutely if it did not refer to real identity of being; and the mutual immanence or περιχώρησις, of which the Saviour speaks (10:38) is only conceivable on the hypothesis of absolute identity of Essence and Nature.

IV. The whole doctrine on the Son of God is magnificently summed up in the prologue to the Gospel of St. John. The Evangelist represents the Second Person of the Trinity as He was before and independently of the Incarnation, viz. as He is in Himself. He is introduced as ὁ λόγος, Verbum, the Word, emphatically, in which the fulness of the Divine Wisdom is substantially expressed and personified, which, therefore, is one and the same substance with God, and not a new being. This Word is “with God”—that is, a Person distinct from the God Who speaks the Word; but, being the expression of His truth and wisdom, the Word is of the same Substance as the Divine Speaker. As a Person by Himself, but yet of the same Substance as God, the Word is “God” (θεός, without the article)—that is, possessor of the Divine Nature, and as truly God as the Divine Person of Whom and with Whom the Word is. As possessor of the Divine Nature, the Word is the principle of all extra-Divine existence, life, and knowledge, and therefore in Himself “the Life” that enliveneth all, and “the Light” that enlighteneth all. The Word existed “in the beginning”—that is, before any created thing,—and was Itself without beginning, like the Divine Wisdom of which It is the expression; and It existed, positively and eminently “in the beginning”—that is, before all creatures, of which the Word of Wisdom is the principle and which are made by Its power. The Word, therefore, is not created or made in time, but generated from all eternity out of the Wisdom of the Father as His only Word, and hence It is called “the only begotten of the Father” (ver. 14), Who indeed came down into the flesh with the plenitude of His grace and truth, but, at the same time, remained in the bosom of the Father (ver. 18).

V. It cannot be denied that the New Testament presents many difficulties against the Filiation, Divinity, and identity of Essence of God the Son. In general these difficulties arise from expressions used in a symbolical, analogical, or metaphorical sense, the true literal sense of which ought to be determined from the nature of the subject-matter; or they arise from the fact that the Son of God is commonly spoken of as God-man, and consequently is made the subject of many new attributes which could not be predicated of Him if He was only God. Other predicates, attributable to Him in virtue of His Divinity or of His origin from the Father, receive, as it were, a new shade or colouring when applied to the God-man, and are expressed in a way otherwise unallowable. In some passages, e.g. those relating to the sending of the Son by the Father, all the above causes of difficulties are at work. This Divine mission is entirely unlike human missions; it refers to the Person of the Son either before the Incarnation, or in the Incarnation, or to the functions of His human nature after the Incarnation. In the first two cases the mission is not an act of authority on the part of the Father, but rests simply on the relation of origin between Father and Son. In the last case only such an authority can be understood as is common to Father and Son over the human nature in Christ (cf. infra, § 108). The same reflections apply to all the texts in which the Son is said to “receive” from the Father, to obey Him, to honour Him, or, in general, to acknowledge that the Father is His Divine principle. Such texts admit of various interpretations, which accounts for the diversity of explanations given by the Fathers and the Theologians.