Weird Ideas: God's Son, Our LordSample

Calling Jesus the Son of God is akin to calling him God. That’s how the chief priests and religious leaders of Jesus’s day understood it, and they wanted to kill Jesus for his blasphemy.

When early Christians called Jesus the Son of God, they were saying “We believe Jesus is God himself!” In God’s son, we see God. The Bible is filled with instances showing Jesus calling God his father and the Father calling Jesus his son. We see examples of Jesus doing what God did and bringing about what God had promised. We see Jesus acting with authority over the created world and supernatural world. We see him acting with authority to speak like God, reinterpreting what God had said, doing what God alone is authorized to do, and receiving what God alone is due.

More than a moral teacher and more than a prophet meant to lead us back to God, Jesus is God in the flesh. Here among us. Come down from heaven. Showing us the very nature and character of who he is. To love us. To rescue us. To gather us to him. Theologians call this the incarnation. It’s the heart and soul of the Christian faith. It’s how God came to save us. He did it personally.