With the Bible, we joyfully affirm that Jesus is fully God. In the previous steps, we explained that this means that Jesus is equally and eternally God. With the Father and the Holy Spirit, Jesus is all the divine attributes. He does God's exclusive work. He bears God's saving name. In this step, we will consider the biblical truth that Jesus is God the Son. He is a distinct person of the one, triune God.
Matthew Barrett once again helps us here:
The Trinity is not made up of three parts called Father, Son, and Spirit, but the Trinity is three persons. Each person does not possess part of the divinity (one-third each), nor does each person make up a part of God, as if you must add up the persons to end up with the total essence of God. Instead, each person equally and fully shares the one, undivided essence and the one divine essence wholly subsists in each of the three persons. And since God’s essence and attributes are identical (God is his attributes), each person wholly shares every attribute.
(Matthew Barrett, None Greater, 85)
Barrett goes on to explain that we can distinguish each Person of the Trinity “by what the creeds and confessions of the church down through the ages call eternal relations of origin: The Father eternally generates the Son...and the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son” (Matthew Barrett, None Greater, 85). Thus, with Augustine, we can affirm that the Father is not the Son nor the Holy Spirit. Neither is the Son the Father or the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is neither the Son nor the Father: Jesus is God the Son. Consider how his truth ought to shape our understanding of the gospel:
Even for Christians, overlooking Jesus is easier than falling off a log, it seems. We instinctively think of God, life, grace, reality with rarely a pause to have Jesus shape what we mean by those things. We can even have a “Christian worldview” and find Jesus is but an interesting feature in its landscape; we can even have a “gospel” and find Jesus is just the delivery boy who brings home the real goods, whether that be salvation, heaven or whatever. But that must change if we are to take seriously the fact that he is the beloved Son.
First, if there is nothing more precious to the Father than him, there cannot be any blessing higher than him or anything better than him. In every way, he himself must be the “very great reward” of the gospel (Gen 15:1). He is the treasure of the Father, shared with us…
Second, his sonship–his relationship with his Father–is the gospel and salvation he has to share with us. That is his joy. As the Father shares his Son with us, so the Son shares his relationship with the Father.
(Michael Reeves, Rejoicing in Christ, 21)
Reeves provides two ways that Jesus's unique identity as God the Son shapes our understanding of the gospel. What are they?
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God the Son is the Word of God
In the beginning was the Word...
The NT clearly teaches that God the Son is the Word of God, the perfect image of the Father who reveals and represents him perfectly. While these text may be familiar to you, do not skim over them. Slow down and consider the great wonder contained in each one.
27 “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. 28 Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
—Matthew 11:27-30
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
—John 1:1-5
No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
—John 1:18
5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” 8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” 9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.
-John 14:5-11
24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. 25 Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
—John 17:24-26
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
—Colossians 1:15
The Word of God in the OT
And the Word of God is not limited to the NT. Stephen Wellum¹ summarizes the OT teaching on the Word of God:
God's Word is "active and powerful in creation."
God's word "reveals and redeems."
"God saves, delivers, and judges through his word."
Consider how Psalm 29 identifies the voice of the LORD with the LORD:
(1) Read Psalm 29; (2) Highlight lines about the LORD with YELLOW; (3) Highlight lines about the voice of the Lord with BLUE. (We have done v.5 for you as an example.)
The psalmist identifies the LORD with his voice. Yet, he also personifies “the voice of the LORD.” We see both sides of this coin most clearly in v.5: “The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars; the LORD breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.” In the first line, David describes “the voice of the LORD” as the distinct subject of the verb. Yet in the second line, David identifies “the voice of the Lord” acting as the LORD acting. Together, this line prepares us well for the NT teaching that Jesus is the Word of God: who is a distinct person of the Godhead and is fully God.
Provide two or three other examples of OT texts that prepare us for the NT revelation that Jesus is the Word of God. Explain each example in a few sentences.
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The NT revelation that Jesus is the Word of God is essential. Michael Reeves helps us begin to understand why in a quotation that we read in the first lesson of this course: What is it like in eternity? What’s there? For millennia, the human imagination has groped and guessed, peering into the darkness. And in that darkness it has dreamed of dreadful gods and goddesses, of devils and powers, or of space and ultimate nothingness. Staggered by immensity, we are left terrified of what might be. If there is a God behind it all, what is he like? Jesus. That is the Christian answer. He is like Jesus Christ…Jesus is the Word. He is one with his Father. He is the radiance, the glow, the glory of who his Father is.
(Michael Reeves, Rejoicing in Christ, 13-15)
The NT reveals that Jesus is the Word of God. How does this revelation along with the OT background help you answer the question: “Who is Jesus?”
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God the Son is the Beloved and Only Begotten of the Father
As God the Son, Jesus existed eternally as the beloved treasure of the Father. We must not lose sight of this reality: "For eternity, the Son was cherished, telling of a God of bottomless love" (Michael Reeves, Rejoicing in Christ, 22). Do you see then how Jesus’s fully divine identity as God the Son revolutionizes our understanding of God and the gospel?
Remember Genesis 22 and the non-sacrifice of Isaac. In Genesis 22:2, the LORD says to Abraham: "Take your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac." As Abraham's beloved son climbs the mountain with the wood upon his back, Abraham reassures him with faith in the LORD: "God will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son" (Gen 22:8). Indeed, God would provide. The lamb that took the place of Abraham's beloved, one and only son was a mere sign, pointing us to the Lamb whom God provided. For us, the Father provided his Son, his one and only Son, whom he eternally treasured and loved. He met our rage and rebellion, our sin and our straying, with love, a love that resulted in the true Father providing his true Son so that we might live in him (John 3:16). Truly, his love and faithfulness stretch to the heavens. Truly, he has given us the immeasurably great gift of the Son, not because we deserved him or earned him, but because he loves us.
So, we can joyfully declare with Paul:
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
—Romans 8:31-32