Acts 9:20-31 | It's All About God's Son预览

Acts 9:20 tells us that “at once he [Saul] began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God.” Since the whole passage hinges on it, today we’re going to talk about what Acts means when it calls Jesus “God’s son.”

A lot of us have a knee-jerk understanding of what that means. Or maybe, we don’t think about it much at all. Just another title for Jesus that we’ve become overly used to that indicates in some way that Jesus is God. But then why not just call him “God”? Why call him “son”?

In the Old Testament, Israel is called God’s son. Specifically, his firstborn son. This stands behind the tenth plague of the Exodus. “This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, ‘Let my son go, so he may worship me.’ But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son” (Exod 4:22-23). It implies that all humanity can be thought of as God’s children, but out of all humanity, Israel stands in that special firstborn relationship, bearing the responsibility and blessing of the firstborn to inherit and manage God’s “estate.”

Which leads us to the messiah. There are many messiahs in the Old Testament. It’s just a word that means “anointed,” anointed for a special purpose by God, like things in the temple, priests, prophets, and kings. It’s the latter that gets special attention. Remember King David? When it comes to the Davidic line of kings, God tells the prophet, Nathan: “I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son” (2 Sam 7:12-14). And later, in Psalm 2 (a psalm about Israel’s kings): “He said to me, “You are my son; today I have become your father. Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.”

With every successive coronation after David, there was a hope that this king might be the one through whom God would rescue his people. This king, or messiah, would be representative of Israel – standing in their place and acting on their behalf. Israel’s kings failed in the task – either wicked or weak. But the prophets looked forward to a time when God would raise up a messiah, a “son,” who would not be weak or wicked, but righteous and powerful to save. One like Moses, who would rescue his people and establish his kingdom. This, of course, looms in the background of Acts 9, where in nearly the same breath, it tells us that Saul began to preach that Jesus is the Son of God and prove that Jesus is the Messiah.

There are other meanings too. Celestial beings, like angels, are called “sons of God.” And the Caesars of Rome called themselves “sons of a god” too. But maybe most interestingly, when people met Jesus, they saw there was something different – something more – more than just being a true Israelite, more than just being of the house and line of David, more than the emperors of Rome, and yes, even more than some kind of angelic being. They saw that Jesus shared something special with God himself. Something different than the rest of us. Like a son shares traits and DNA with his father, Jesus shares in the substance of God. Some, later in church history, would wonder if “Son of God” was supposed to mean that Jesus was created by God, like a father “creates” his offspring. But that misses the point (and is also not the case). Instead, the term directs us towards a special relationship. Just like a father and son share a special bond and relationship, so Jesus and his Father do too. Jesus is unique, and as God’s Son, possesses all the regnal right and authority to reign over God’s kingdom.

Saul came to see it. For him, it changed everything.

Much of the New Testament is about helping us see Jesus as God’s Son. Today, read a smattering of passages alluding to Jesus’s identity. Because at the end of the day, it’s all about him.