Is Jesus God or God's Son? by David K. Bernard Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript) Kind: teaching Scripture: 1 Timothy 3:16, Luke 1:35, Isaiah 45:5, Isaiah 45:9, Deuteronomy 6:4, John 1:1-14, Galatians 4:4, Romans 5:10, Mark 2, Hebrews 1, John 20:28, John 20:30-31, 1 John 5:20, Titus 2:13, 2 Corinthians 5:19, Colossians 4:4, Colossians 1:15, John 14:9-11, Isaiah 9:6, Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 1:23 Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--is-jesus-god-or-gods-son Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page. Free to copy and share with attribution. ------------------------------------------------------------ the short answer is Jesus is the son of God but we can also say Jesus is God I.E as manifested in the flesh so let me give you scripture for this Luke 1 35 gives you a scriptural definition of the meaning the term Son of God uh in Luke 1 35 the angel Gabriel speaking to Mary the mother of Jesus before he was conceived and here's what the angel said in uh the new King James the holy spirit will come upon you and the power of the highest will overshadow you therefore also that Holy one who is to be born will be called The Son of God you see the word therefore somebody said um when you want to know when you see the word therefore you ask what it's there for uh it's it's there to give you the definition of the Son of God so Gabriel says the holy spirit is going to overshadow you and cause you to conceive miraculously that's the Virgin conception therefore the child that will be born is going to be called The Son of God in other words Jesus is called the Son of God not because he's a second person are not his eternal name is son but Jesus is called the Son of God much like you and I are sons of our father no earthly father no human caused the conception of Jesus but God caused the conception by a miracle by overshadowing Mary by his spirit so that baby that was born a Mary was literally the son of Mary but that baby was also actually the son of God so it as it had its most most basic just like my son is my son because I cause conception so Jesus is the son of God because God caused the conception that's what it means now there's also what you might call a metaphorical application which is very important as well is that throughout scripture the term son of is used to mean has the nature of has the characteristics of because a human son you know inherits genetic um resemblances from the father and also growing up in the father's home through culture adapt it gets a lot of the maybe the mannerisms so it's very common if you see a boy that's very likely he's going to look like his father and you can tell the resemblance or he's going to act like his father you could say yeah he acts just like his father so that's why in the the New Testament uh the Middle Eastern culture the term son of became a synonym or a metaphorical expression of saying you bear the likeness of you look like you act like and so Barnabas his name literally mean the son of consolation the son of comfort because he bore that nature he was that kind of a person or Jesus Calling James and John when they got angry and wanted to kill people he called them sons of thunder or when Jesus was rebuking a certain unbelieving Jews he calls them and that he called him sons of the devil not literally but you bear the nature up and so we can say the term Son of God as related to Jesus means first of all he was conceived by God's spirit second of all it means he Bears God's likeness now we are called sons of God by creation and by New Birth and we do bear God's likeness to some extent at least we hope so but we don't bear God's perfect likeness but Jesus was unique and Not only was he like God in many ways he bore the exact representation he expressed the love of God as no one else he demonstrated the power and authority of God is no one else he demonstrated the glory of God when you read the gospels you see he was unique and so the Bible speaks of him as the only begotten son of God which we often look at begotten again referring to the conception but as the Greek Scholars tell us that word used there can also mean unique or one of a kind and so we can say while all of us who are born again are sons of God in a limited sense Jesus is the unique only begotten special One of a Kind Son of God in the absolute sense because he Bears the perfect likeness of God he reveals the perfect character of God but if you're an Old Testament student you'll know from Isaiah and there are many passages but in Isaiah especially starting with say verse chapter 44 45 46 God says there's no one like me there's no one beside me there's no one before me there's no one after me I will not give my glory to another so if you find this Jesus Christ who is the perfect Son of God he's exactly like God in every way but then you already know God says no one is like me no one is perfectly like me no one is my equal so I think that's Isaiah 45 5 and 45 9. no one is like me no one is equal to me well here's someone who is like God and everybody who's equal to God what does that mean he is God so indirectly and and also let's go back to that literal concept can God beget little Gods so so can a spirit birth another spirit no that's that's foreign we don't think of angels procreating and bearing little baby Angels um and of course we have Deuteronomy 6 4 hero Israel the Lord our God is one Lord the Lord is one and throughout the Bible God is one he's alone he's unique so when you look at the literal conception it couldn't mean that God is generating a baby God and that would be a contradiction in terms because God is eternal so how could you have a new God who's not eternally it wouldn't be God how could you have a baby God that's not fully God so if you're looking at the literal conception it can only be according to the flesh which will indicate Son of God means manifested in the flesh if you look at the metaphorical meaning again he's exactly like God in every way he is God the only way he's different is because he has flesh so both of those definitions which I've derived directly from scripture itself lead us to understand that when you say Jesus is the son of God what you're actually saying is Jesus Is God manifested In the Flesh as first Timothy 3 16 says as John 1 1 through 14 says now let me be very careful to Define this when you use the term son as related to Jesus then it always refers to the Incarnation it's always referring to a point in time when he was conceived so Galatians 4 4 when the fullness of the time was come God sent forth his son made of a woman made under the law so the son is not Eternal but made of a woman made in the time of the law and so the term Eternal son never appears in scripture it's the only begotten son and the son always relates to human flesh so for example Romans 5 10 speaks of the death of his son you can't think of God dying in the sense can God's spirit cease to exist poof it's gone can God become permanently unconscious or temporarily unconscious no when you think of death that can only relate to humanity so my point is the term son always has reference to the Incarnation always includes reference to the flesh and to time now some Oneness people jump too far and say okay father equals Spirit or God flesh son equals flesh that's not what I'm saying I'm not saying the sun is the flesh only I'm saying the son is God as he is manifested in the flesh so for example Mark chapter 2 says the son of man has power on Earth to forgive sins are we saying the flesh forgives sins no we're saying God forgive sins but in that case it wasn't praying to God as an invisible spirit in heaven it was God who healed the paralyzed man who was able to say right there in the flesh your sins are forgiven so God In the Flesh forgave sins or Hebrews chapter 1 talks about the the Angels worshiping the son the son is addressed as God so it's okay to address the son as God when you're not saying the flesh is God but you're saying God as he is Manifest in the flesh is still God okay with that in mind then when the Bible says Jesus is the son of God you could substitute in your thinking Jesus Is God manifested In the Flesh now does that sound strange no um we actually have scripture for this so let's look at John the Gospel of John chapter 20 and verse 28. so this is the story of the resurrected Christ he appears to Thomas who didn't believe before and he says okay go ahead and touch me and here's what Thomas confessed John 20 and 28 Thomas answered said to him my Lord and my God so going back to your original question can you say Jesus is God yes Thomas did it and Jesus here's here's the answer Jesus said to Thomas because you've seen me you believe blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed so this is not presented as an aberration like Thomas making a mistake or making an expression of surprise no he was making a confession as a Jew who believed Deuteronomy 6 4 hear o Israel the Lord our God is one Lord you are my Lord you are my God he wasn't saying you're a second Lord as second God he was saying you are the god of Israel you are my Lord you are my God now if Jesus truly wasn't that he should have rebuked him everybody else in scripture every man every Angel who was falsely worshiped they always said don't worship me worship God but Jesus accepted this and said you're blessed and also bless are those who haven't seen but believe and that's us we've never seen Jesus in the flesh but we confess him as my our Lord and our God and then John under this grace of the spirit he records this so so Thomas confessed it Jesus accepted it John as the another disciple believed it in the early church obviously did and then then John explains in verse 30 and 31 and truly Jesus did many other signs of the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the son of God and that believing you may have life in his name so for John this climactic moment you are my Lord you are my god well that shows Jesus is the son of God now if Son of God means second person in the Trinity or lesser deity or second deity that wouldn't really fit because after all the doctor the Trinity had been invented the terminology of the Trinity three persons was still 200 years in the future Thomas couldn't have been thinking that way when he said God he would have been thinking in the Jewish way the Old Testament way the only scriptures they had were the Old Testament and so then for John to say and I wrote this so you'll believe that Jesus the son of God in other words John is saying when you call Jesus God you understand he's the son of God or that makes perfect sense with my definition when you call Jesus God you recognize he's God manifested In the Flesh now John does this again in first John chapter 5 verse 20. I'll give you that as well so you can see another witness of the same thing the end so that was the climax of The Gospel of John there's one more chapter which is kind of an epilogue but that's really the climactic moment where John has been leading you through the whole book as the reader so you'll get to this point that you believe Jesus Is My Lord and my God and therefore you believe Jesus is the son of God so that's the point of the whole the whole point of the book and so in in his epistle first John he does the same thing at the very end the last two verses uh or the the second to last yes the last two verses first John 5 20. and we know that the Son of God Has Come now think about it um that means god manifests in the flesh and has given us to understand that women know him who is true which he's referring more generally to God and we are in him who is true and in his son Jesus Christ this is the true God and eternal life so he say this this son Jesus is the true God and then he says little children keep yourselves from Idols or false gods amen so when we put it all together we see Jesus is the son of God meaning God manifests in the flesh which means yes you can say Jesus is god well if that sounds shocking I just read to you John 20 28 he's God first John 5 20. he's God Titus 2 13 we're looking for the appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ second Corinthians 5 19 God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself so all these are statements that Jesus is God Colossians 4 4 Christ is the image of God for six the glory of God is revealed in the face of Jesus Christ Colossians 1 15 Jesus is the image of the invisible God John 14 9-11 Jesus said if you've seen me you've seen the Father the father dwells in me um we I think we've already mentioned First Timothy 3 16 God manifests in the flesh here's a good one a prophecy what which everybody understands relates to Jesus Isaiah 9 6. unto us a child is born unto us a son is given the government shall be upon his shoulder his name shall make a wonderful counselor the Mighty God the Everlasting father the Prince of Peace So the child and the son is more than a human child and son he's also the Mighty God the Everlasting father Isaiah 7 14 says he will be called Emmanuel which means in the Hebrew as Matthew 1 23 tells us God With Us so yes we call Jesus the son of God what he when we want to emphasize his true human identity as God manifests in the flesh but that means when we really understand what Son of God means we can actually cut to the Chase and say Jesus is God now why does the New Testament say son of God more because it's coming from the point of view of his flesh all the disciples they met Jesus as a man and they knew him as a human before they understood he was God whereas we two thousand years later we never met Jesus In the Flesh so so our first encounter is praying to Jesus or hear him preaching about Jesus so we start he's got and we have to be convinced that he was really a man the disciples started he was really a man they had to be convinced he was God so the way they do that is he's the son of God a true man perfect man exactly like God conceived by God when you put all that together what that means is yes he is God and that's what we say today