Is God the Father Also the Son?
by David K. Bernard
Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript)
Kind: teaching
Scripture: John 14:10, Deuteronomy 6:4, Galatians 4:4, Luke 1:35, John 1:1, John 1:14, 1 Timothy 3:16, 2 Corinthians 5:19, Malachi 2:10, Isaiah 63:16, Deuteronomy 32:6, Mark 2, John 10:30, John 20:28, 1 John 5:20, Colossians 2:9

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--is-god-the-father-also-the-son
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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Yes. This is absolutely crucial to understanding the doctrine of god the doctrine of Christ and therefore to accurately understand and express the oneness concept. Even oneness people sometimes don't fully grasp this and certainly people who are not oneness they commonly misunderstand this. So we start as one people believing there's absolutely one God. Deuteronomy 6:4. So we're not open to the idea that there are multiple persons in an abstract godhead.

Rather god is a personal being who is revealed in Jesus Christ. Uh so we don't understand that there could be three centers of consciousness or three persons of God but there's one personal God. So from that point some people just say well you just say the father is the son is the spirit but no there is a significance in these terms and it's actually essential to understand this from one's perspective. So when we say the father that's a term of relationship. Uh the bible does speak of god the father. He's in relationship to us. He created us so he's the father of all humans by creation.

He redeemed the believers. So he's the father of all of us believers in a second sense through the new birth or alteratively through adoption. You can look at these are two different analogies of saying we as believers have a special relation with God. And then there's yet another uh significance which comes into the New Testament prominently. God is the father of the child born of Mary. So uh Jesus was not conceived by Joseph or any other earthly man but God by a miracle the spirit of God overshadowed his mother Mary and caused her to conceive. Uh and so Jesus was born of a virgin. So he was a true human inheriting human identity from Mary but also he had he was truly God because God caused the conception.

And you can see so the scriptural definitions of the son and I'm giving you the background here. The Bible never one time says God the son as if son were term of deity, eternal deity. It never says the eternal son. It speaks of the only begotten son. The son was born in time. Galatians 4:4, not in eternity. In fact, the scriptural definition of the son is found in Luke 1:35 when the angel Gabriel spoke to Mary and said, "The Holy Spirit will overshadow you." You know, the power of the highest will come upon you. the Holy Spirit will overshadow you. Therefore, and so that word therefore shows the logical connection.

Therefore, the holy one who will be born of you will be called the son of God. So Jesus is not called son of God because he's an eternal second person whose eternal name is son. He's called the son of God because as a human he was conceived by God. So just as my son is called my son because I'm the agent of conception. So Jesus is called God's son because God is the agent of conception. So God doesn't make baby gods. God God doesn't multiply himself into different gods but God caused that child to be born. Now that child to be born was actually God himself incarnate.

So God came in that child. And you see this in John 1:1. The word was with God. The word was God. verse 14, the word became flesh. Uh you also so see this in 1 Timothy 3:16, God was manifest in the flesh. You see it 2 Corinthians 5:19 to which God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. So when we say father, we're speaking of the one true God in personal relationship with us, our creator, um the the the origin of our life. And you actually see Malachi 2:10. Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us all? So that's a term of relationship.

When we say son, we're referring to God as he is manifested in the flesh. So the son is a true human being in whom God dwelt. So therefore when you understand this uh the term father is not prominent in the old testament for god. It is used occasionally uh Isaiah 63:16 our father is our redeemer. Uh so again not two persons but the same one who created us is the same one who redeems us. Um and Deuteronomy 32:6 God is called the father of the nation of Israel because he established Israel as a nation. Uh but the term father is not prominent for God in the Old Testament.

It becomes prominent in the New Testament to distinguish father and son. So here's the significance particularly in the New Testament. The term father speaks of God in his transcendence. God above and beyond us. God who is the omniresent spirit who created us, who fills the universe. Okay. The term son is usually the true human being in whom God came and whom God dwelt. So the only thing to understand from one is perspective. These are not two persons of God. These are not divisions of God in two parts. But this is the one God who is everywhere, who's transcendent, who rules the universe, who directs the angels, but also came in flesh as Jesus Christ.

But the terms father and son then become very important to protect and and announce the genuine authentic humanity of Jesus Christ. So that's why you find this distinction. It's not a distinction of eternal divine persons, but it's a distinction of God in his transcendence versus God coming in the flesh. So, it's trying to protect the true humanity of Jesus Christ. I will hasten to add, which I think we dis discuss in another uh podcast, that the term son doesn't mean flesh only. It means God coming in the flesh. So, for example, in Mark 2, the son of man has power on earth to forgive sins.

Are we saying because Jesus was human, he has power to forgive sins? No. But we're saying the son of man on earth. So, you know, you could pray to God, the invisible omnipresent spirit, and ask for forgiveness. But that wasn't what was going on in Mark 2 when Jesus healed the paralyzed man and forgave his sins. It was on the spot in the flesh. Jesus God manifest in the flesh. So he was able to forgive because he was God. Who can forgive sins but God but he did so from the perspective of be standing there as God incarnate in the flesh. So the significance of son is it always relates to the incarnation always relates to God as he is manifest in the flesh.

So there's one God. The one God is our father in in relationship to us. the one God came in flesh as a son of God. But we don't want to confuse the categories or confuse the terms. If we say the father is the son, it's like we're saying God is flesh. It's it's like we're saying eternal God was eternal flesh, which would be false. So the more accurate thing is is not to say the father is the son. So people that accuse us, you're modalist, you believe there's just one god who changes roles, who changes masks, you know, that was an an accusation against some ancient uh teachers, which we actually don't have the records of those ancient teachers.

So I I think even that was a mischaracterization, but certainly it's a mischaracterization of us. We're not saying there's one God who changes roles or changes mask. So that would be saying the father is the son. We're not saying that. We're saying the father came in flesh as the son. So for example in John 10:30 Jesus said I and my father are one. Why didn't he just say I am the father. Well if I can put it this way because he was more than the father. So look at the context. He's talking to unbelieving Jewish leaders. He says I this man that you see you admit you acknowledge you know I'm a man.

You're talking to me and the father. You believe in the father. You worship the father. You believe in one god. You think of the father as the omnipresent spirit who dwells in heaven that you can talk to. So you see no connection. You see they're two different entities not related to each other. I this man you're talking to and the father whom you worship in heaven are not two as you suppose. I and the father are one and the same. And they understood that that was a claim of deity. Now, if you think about it in the first century, they weren't saying, "Oh, so you're the second person that you claim to be the second person of the Trinity.

How crazy is that?" They didn't even have the concept of a Trinity. They didn't even really have a concept of a second God. They're all Jews. Jesus is Jew. It wasn't open for discussion that there could be multiple deities or even persons. They didn't have that terminology or concept of persons in the later trinitarian sense. So, when Jesus said, "I and my father one," they saw that as a claim of deity. He's not just saying he gets along with God or he he is united with God as a good man. He's claiming to be God. But for them to process that, they couldn't have said, "Oh, he's claimed to be part of the Trinity.

Oh, he's claimed to be a second person." No, those categories weren't even available to them. And and even had they thought of him, they wouldn't have thought of Jesus in that category. So basically what they're saying, you're claiming to be the one God. And so they took up stones to kill him. And of course Jesus being a little ironic says well for which of my good works are you killing me you know and they said not for your good works but because you being a man make yourself God. So they understood his claim but couldn't accept it. Of course they got it backwards. He wasn't a man who was trying to make himself God.

He was God who made himself man. So the term son of God refers to God as he is manifested in the flesh. And as one as believers, we must preserve that distinction between father and son. Not of two persons, but of God in transcendence versus God in flesh. That's the only way we can understand the New Testament. And so that's why I don't say the father is the son because that's confusing the categories. That's like like saying a man is God, a flesh is spirit. We wouldn't say that. But we say God came as a human. The spirit of God came in human identity, came in human flesh.

And you can see uh John 20 28 the climax of the whole book. So all through the book, John is giving you signs of who Jesus really is. And if you carefully think it through, I don't have time to go through it, but he gives specific miracles and specific sayings that only God could fulfill. Only God could uh create food to feed 5,000. Only God could turn water into wine. Only God could raise Lazarus from the dead. Only God for could forgive sins. And on and on and on. So the disciples were gradually coming to an awareness and presumably the readers who are reading John are gradually coming to an awareness.

But the climax comes when Jesus arose from the dead. That puts it all together. There could be no other explanation. If a man can raise himself from the dead, he has to be more than a man. And so when Jesus appeared to Thomas who had not believed that this could happen, uh when Thomas actually saw the resurrected Christ in John 20 and verse 28, he said, "My Lord and my God." So as a Jew, knowing here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Deuteronomy 6:4, there's only one Lord. There's only one God. There can't be a second Lord, a second God. Again, no concept of multiple persons or multiple centers of consciousness or trinity.

He's confessing Jesus as the one God of Israel, his God. And Jesus accepted that designation said, "You're blessed, Thomas, but also blessed are those who haven't seen yet believe." So, this is the climax of the whole gospel of John. John has constructed the whole book to bring the reader to the same uh revelation and acknowledgement of who Jesus is. But then it's interesting when and and and John 20 is really the climax of the book. There's one more chapter. It's an epilogue. But here is the the uh the teaching part of the book reaching its main point here. So after relating that Thomas said Jesus is my Lord and my God.

Then John said,"I wrote all these things that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, and that the son of God and that believing you might have life through his name." In that context, when he said son of God, he meant God manifest in the flesh. Otherwise, it doesn't even make sense. If son of God means a second person or son of God means a human, then you're defeating the whole point or or just a human. Here's the confession. You are the one Lord and the one God, the God of Israel, my God. And John says, okay, I wrote that you would understand Jesus as the son of God.

In that context, he's saying, I wrote this so you would know Jesus is God but manifest in the flesh. If you just said Jesus God, people would be puzzled. You mean that man is the invisible spirit? That's impossible. But the man is the invisible God in the flesh as a human. And so you could see that John is working with this definition. The son of God means God manifests in the flesh. If it was anything else, I wrote this so you know Jesus is the second person. Well, wait a minute. There's a big disconnect. He Thomas just said he's the one God, the only God, and he's a Jew.

That's all he believes in. So where does this second person come from? Where where does that suddenly intrude in the text? Where where do you get that? That's a leap of logic. that's not there. So you can see obviously or if son of God just means a man, well he's God. So I wrote this so you know he's just a man. Uh so and then one more place first John same author the very end of that book u the second to last verse 1 John 5:20. And we know that the son of God has come and has given us understanding that we may know him who is true and we are in him who is true in his son Jesus Christ.

So if you stop there you might think okay there's God and then there's a son of God but then the last statement this and others try to say say he referring right back to his son Jesus he is the true God and eternal life. So he says, "I wrote this that you know Jesus the son of God that you know God who is true and his son Jesus actually he is the true God." Uh and so he brings it back around. Uh so to answer your question, it's actually not a a problem. It's essential for oneness people to have a distinction between the father and the son.

It's essential because that's the only way you can establish the authentic humanity of Jesus Christ. The only thing we would say is father and son do not represent two different persons in the godhead as if there could be anything in the godhead. U instead the godhead is in Jesus. Colossians 2:9 all the fullness of God the godhead dwells in him bodily. So they're not two centers of consciousness. They're not two divine persons, but there is a real there's a the one God that we know from the whole Bible and Jesus Christ, an authentic human being in whom God dwells. So actually, he is the true God manifested in the flesh.