Jesus: The Son of God, Uncreated

We have to understand biblical terminology the way it was intended. For example, Jesus is called “Son of David.” This does not imply that Jesus was literally David’s son. King David had lived 1000 years earlier. David had been His father in the same way that Abraham is the father of the Jewish people.

However, Abraham can also be our father in another sense – spiritually – as Jesus reflected:

• “Our father is Abraham!” they [Jesus’ opponents] replied. “If you were Abraham’s children,” Jesus told them, “you would do what Abraham did. But now you are trying to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do this! You’re doing what your father does.” (John 8:39-41)

According to Jesus, being a “son of Abraham” was also a spiritual matter, as was being the son of the Devil:

• You are of your father the Devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and has not stood in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of liars. (John 8:44) 

Once again, being a son of the Devil wasn’t a matter of physical sonship but of spiritual. Jesus’ opponents had demonstrated that they were of the same spirit as the Devil.

Understanding the various ways that a term can be used in the Bible is important. One anti-Trinitarian wrote:

• If Jesus is the “Son of God,” then it means that God had given birth to Jesus, meaning that He isn’t eternal and isn’t God.

However, such an interpretation isn’t in keeping with the various contexts where this term appears, especially those where the “Son” is clearly portrayed as God, for example:

• [God] hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds; who being the effulgence of his glory, and the very image of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. (Hebrews 1:2-3) 

Only God the Son can uphold “all things by the word of his power” and also be the “effulgence of his glory.” Therefore, being the Son of God need not suggest that Jesus was created or birthed.

Mark equates the coming “the Son of God” with a passage from Isaiah 40:3 prophesying the coming of “Yahweh”:

• The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Even as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, Who shall prepare thy way. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make ye ready the way of the Lord, Make his paths straight. (Mark 1:1-3) 

Mark understood that the “Son of God” was God Himself! Therefore, the term “Son of God” need not be understand as implying that this “Son” had a beginning in time.

A biblical term can have many usages like an English term. When we look up a word in the dictionary, we find that it has multiple usages. The same thing pertains to Greek and Hebrew words.