Question: Is Jesus God’s Son? How could Allah, being one, have a Son? Some of the Christians raise the same question in the following way, 'Why can't God have a Son?' I want to know exactly, 'Can God Have A Son?' If He does, what does Son of God means in context described in the Bible? I want to also understand the difference between a Son of God and the only begotten Son of God in the Bible? Thanks in advance.
Answer: Greetings to you in Jesus wonderful and mighty name!
First of all, the Muslims objection to why Jesus cannot be the Son of God, is because of the following verse written in their Surah Al-An'am - 101 of Quaran which says, '[He is] Originator of the heavens and the earth. How could He have a son when He does not have a companion [i.e., wife] and He created all things? And He is, of all things, Knowing.' — Saheeh International
The assumption that is floated here in the above verse of Quaran is, 'How could God have a son when He does not have a companion?' is spoken only in a physical sense, but the Bible speaks about Jesus being the Son of God, which means 'Messiah' primarily in a spiritual sense for the world of humans, and also in a physical sense to the Jewish nation of Israel even before two thousand years. The simple logical question which easily buries the limited perspective of Quaran is, if God is all powerful, all knowing as the Quaranic verse describes above, and present everywhere, Why can't God have a Son? And that too in the way Bible describes Jesus as being born through a virgin, meaning, God's Spirit moving upon her and bringing the eternal Son from heaven and putting him in to a body of a baby to be born as a natural physical human, as Emmanuel, God with us (Isa 9:6). Remember dear people, the Son was not born but was rather given from heaven, but the child was only born on earth.
The question that we need to ask ourselves is, could the Lord of all the heavens and the earth, not have spiritual power enough to become a physical being which was created by Him? By no means we can ever limit the power of God by our unbelief, as all things are possible with Him, and the things which we see physically have been created by the spiritual word of His power, therefore it is God's pleasure to send His eternal Son to this earth to save humans from sin and hell fire (Luke 1:31-35, 37-37; Heb 11:3).
Do you know that God the Son was eternally alive, in the past, present and also will be in the future (Heb 13:8)? That means God the Son was self-existent, omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient even before he ever took the title of the Son of God to show the love of God to humanity, through the grand round table discussion in heaven that had happened between the three person of the Trinity before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4-5; 1 Pet:18-20; Rom 8:29; Job 38:4-6). The very word 'Son of God' was something assigned by Himself for his own mission, and for the vision of the Trinity to be fulfilled in His time (John 5:43; Heb 1:1-4; Gal 4:4). Therefore it is used in an anthropomorphic language to relate to human, so that they might be able to share the love of God and believe the true God who has created them in His own image (John 10:18; Gen 1:26-27; John 17:23).
In fact, the very first logical question Mary asked angel Gabriel was, how can I bear a son without knowing a physical man as I am not yet married but only engaged? This is the greatest of all miracle in the entire universe ever, because God himself chose to become a baby and be born as a human being in Jesus through the womb of Mary. God never ceased to exist, when he became a human in Jesus and that is why the word 'Immanuel', God with us was prophesied in the Old Testament, and came in to existence through the New Testament times when he became a human being (Isa 7:14; Matt 1:23)! The messiah of Israel is a sign to the world, that the Savior of the world from all sins have arrived to redeem them all, and give freedom to live with God in His Presence of eternal life forever and ever (Matt 1:21; Isa 54:5; 45:22; John 3:16). Hallelujah!
Quran 3:47 also supports and ascribes the virginity of Mary, revealing that "no man has touched [her]". 66:12 states that Jesus was born when the spirit of God breathed upon Mary, whose body was chaste. This is why I say, Quran has no coherence and contradicts the very words it has spoken previously in other places. In others words, it supports and speaks what it wants and where it wants, without any thought of contradictions that people will find in it to get confused by its lies.
The physical sense of the word 'son' should be taken in context and never be limited, but should be extended in to figurative, metamorphical and spiritual sense in context as the Bible does. If I say, I am a son of my country, does it mean my country had sex and gave birth to me? If we know English properly, we will say and understand this above sentence in context. But why is that when it comes to religious text, people are so adamant to say and understand it out of context? If we say, Gandhi was the father of India, does it mean Gandhi had to have sex with someone to produce India? By no means, but in context Gandhi was a freedom fighter who promoted non-violence struggle against the British to receive freedom for Indian people from them, so he was called as a father of the nation of India in context. In Ephesians, there is the phrase “sons of disobedience” referring to those who are allied with Satan. ‘Sons of disobedience’ simply means they are of the nature of disobedience spiritually. Could we take the meaning of this Ephesian Scripture to extreme to say that, Satan had sex physically with people to produce children on earth? That is the kind of foolishness that religious people who take the Scripture out of context promote.
GOD IS LOVE BECAUSE HE IS THREE IN PERSON BUT ONE IN ESSENCE OF HIS NATURE
"God is love" (1 John 4:8), which means God is already more than one person, but one in the nature of his character and essence. Jesus revealed that God is One, but three in person, meaning, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are all one God without any difference or change in opinion (Matt 28:18-20). God cannot be love residing in a single person, if He could not share it with others, how could He have the reason for his existence in Himself? Hence without out love he will be in need of it, which will disqualify him out of being a God.
Love creates a need to share it with atleast one other person. There is not a iota of need or care ever in the eternal existence of God. In other words, God is never in need of anything, in fact, if he has a need, he cannot continue to be a self-existent God whose very reason for existence is in himself (Num 23:19; Titus 1:2; Heb 6:18). Eternal life in itself is to know God through His love for us and coming in to a eternal relationship with Him just as He had been in Himself (John 17:3, 23). .
God is one in nature or essence of His Character! What does it really mean? It means even though there are three person revealed in the Bible, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit (Matt 28:19), yet they are all of the same essence of their Character. The Godness of the Godhead, remain intact within the three of them in the same way, but they are all one God (Php 2:6).
In other words, because we humans even though are the same as a human being 99.99 percentage all the time, yet that .01 percentage of difference makes a lot of unique identity to remain very much visible intact and stable enough to differentiate and be divided among humans physically. The same humans, when their Character is measured, each one is so different we cannot think how even two person can be one. But when it comes to God, His character is so much the same, that even though they are three in person, but they remain the exact replica of the other in Character. God's language is spoken in character, but our thinking of how God might be is based on physical appearance. Once we are on the journey to find God through the love of His character, only then we look beyond physical appearance in to the oneness of the character of God (John 17:23). Thus one God in whom love is shared is the real one, and all other are our own wild imaginations, fables and dim view of our self, and that God who created us can only be found through believing His love revealed in Christ Jesus as He always remains in perfection! Hallelujah! GLORY TO GOD!
This is the reason, the Bible reveals that we did not love God first, but He loved us and therefore He gave His only begotten Son to save us from sin (1 John 4:19). Sin has dimmed our view of God to our own wild imaginations (Isa 59:2), that is the reason, God has revealed Himself to all humans through His word which is the person of Jesus Christ His Son (John 1:14). Either we believe His Son to have life eternal, or have nothing at all to live without God in hell fire after we die physically by staying in unbelief of our own heart (Heb 3:12-14; 1 John 5:10-13).
HERE ARE THE MAIN DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SON OF GOD AND THE ONLY BEGOTTEN SON
1) The Son of God Raises Many Sons of God In Resurrection: When we say, son of God in the Bible, it speaks about all who believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior and Creator were given the rights to be the sons of God spiritually now and physically after our resurrection forever (John 1:12). Even Adam was a son of God before the fall in to sin through disobedience (Luke 3:38). But then after the fall, we only have sons of Adam and not sons of God (Gen 5:3).
God revealed His only begotten Son (i.e regarded after His resurrection in a new metaphysical body (Acts 13:32-34)), because God the Father in heaven raised up Jesus, so that we who are begotten by the Father's word may come to believe that God is pleased with our lives too, and that we too will rise up very soon in our metaphysical body just like Jesus did (1 Pet 1:23; 1 John 3:1-3).
2) Only The Son of God Was Raised From The Dead For The First Time To Live Forever, And All Others Follow Him: There are many sons that God calls to glory (Heb 2:10). In other words, all who have believed God in Christ Jesus to die and also live (John 11:25-26), will be raised from the dead to live on with God forever when He comes to take away the Church for Himself from the earth!
But there is only one and only begotten Son, who is the first one to be raised from the dead to live on forever (Rev 1:5). All the others will only follow him at the time of the Rapture (1 Thess 4:14-18).
3) The Son of God Was Brought From Heaven, We The Sons of God Are Born From Above: Jesus Christ being the Creator of all universe, was God's one and only unique begotten, brought in to the world by the Holy Spirit as God's Son from heaven by the birth of His inheritance (John 8:23; Luke 1:35; Col 1:13-18; Heb 1:5).
Jesus Christ as the first cause of all things and being the owner of this earth, have come to us His creations on earth (1 John 4:9), so that believing Him we might also likewise become begotten by our belief to share God's inheritance in and through Him (1 John 5:1, 18; Col 1:12; Eph 1:11, 18; Rom 8:17).
4) The Son of God Is The Creator, We The Sons of God Are Created: Jesus Christ died and suffered for us as God's only begotten son (John 3:16) and there can be none qualified in heaven, on earth and under the earth to take the spot of him, because He was God the Son before the foundation of the world in the plans of God (Rev 5:1-5, 6-7, 8-14). Only Jesus Christ is worthy of all the worship of both angels and humans alike because He was and is and is to come the God of all His creation. Hallelujah!
Now as sons of God being guided by the Holy Spirit (Rom 8:14), if we suffer in the flesh like Jesus in our earthly lives, we will be rewarded in glory as God's Son in our heavenly life afterwards (Rev 21:7). Remember, God has "begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Pet 1:3-5) and not apart from him, that is why He is the only begotten Son and we through Him are His sons, and not his only begotten sons, nor can ever be as we are His creation and He is the Creator! Jesus Christ is our Creator, and we are not our own creation, and cannot be one because we have only limited power that He has given us and not infinite power, wisdom and glory like the one and only God. The bottom line is, if we choose to share in Christ's suffering now, we will reign with Him then in our after life as the sons of God (2 Tim 2:12).
5) God The Son Became The Son of God, So That We The Sons Of Adam Could Become The Sons Of God: Just as announced by Angel Gabriel, Jesus is the one and only person who was born through Mary without any human intervention, who was "the holy thing which is begotten" and therefore He is the one and only who "shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35). The word comes from the Greek Christos, a translation of the Hebrew Messiah (John 1:41). Son of God will be the Anointed Son of God, that is why, John the Baptist confirmed to the whole nation of Israel, that He saw the anointing coming upon Jesus from heaven alighting as of a dove when he baptized him in the water (Matt 3:13-17; Luke 3:21-22; Mark 1:9-11; John 1:29-33, 34). Both terms come from verbs, which mean, “to anoint with sacred oil”; hence, as titles, they mean “the Anointed One.” These names for Jesus express the idea that God anointed Him to save His people from their sins and make them instead His sons (Matt 1:21; Rom 9:26).
The term "son of God" is used in the Hebrew Bible as another way to refer to humans who have a special relationship with God. In Exodus, the nation of Israel is called God's firstborn son. Solomon is also called "son of God". Angels, just and pious men, and the kings of Israel are all called "sons of God." But there can be the one and only anointed "Son of God" who will be the Messiah of Israel and also the Savior of the whole world (Luke 19:10). This is the confirmed God the Son in the Scripture of the Old Testament who became the Son of God in in the New Testament, thus fully revealed in Christ Jesus! Hallelujah!!! GLORY BE TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST!
6) MONOGENES : The Only One Of Its Kind In The Covenant With God And In Sharing The Same Divine Nature As God - The phrase “only begotten Son” occurs in John 3:16, which reads in the King James Version as, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." The phrase "only begotten" translates the Greek word monogenes. This word is variously translated into English as "only," "one and only," and "only begotten." So what does monogenes mean? According to the Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (BDAG, 3rd Edition), monogenes has two primary definitions. The first definition is "pertaining to being the only one of its kind within a specific relationship." For example, Isaac was the one and only Son of the covenant for Abraham (Heb 11:17). The second definition is "pertaining to being the only one of its kind or class, unique in kind." This is the meaning that is implied in John 3:16 (see also John 1:14, 18; 3:18; 1 John 4:9). John was primarily concerned with demonstrating that Jesus is the Son of God (John 20:31), and he uses monogenes to highlight Jesus as uniquely God’s Son—sharing the same divine nature as God—as opposed to believers who are God’s sons and daughters by adoption (Ephesians 1:5). Jesus is God’s “one and only” Son.
False teachers have latched onto this phrase to try to prove their false teaching that Jesus Christ isn’t God; i.e., that Jesus isn’t equal in essence to God as the Second Person of the Trinity. They see the word "begotten" and say that Jesus is a created being because only someone who had a beginning in time can be "begotten." What this fails to note is that "begotten" is an English translation of a Greek word. As such, we have to look at the original meaning of the Greek word, not transfer English meanings into the text. "Father" and "Son," descriptive of God and Jesus, are human terms that help us understand the relationship between the different Persons of the Trinity. If you can understand the relationship between a human father and a human son, then you can understand, in part, the relationship between the First and Second Persons of the Trinity. The analogy breaks down if you try to take it too far and teach, as some pseudo-Christian cults (such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses), that Jesus was literally "begotten" as in “produced” or “created” by God the Father [Certain points are repeated from : https://www.gotquestions.org/only-begotten-son.html].
7) The Sinless Son Of God Was Declared To Israel, But The Only Begotten Son Was The First To Be Raised From The Dead Declared To The Whole World : While the only begotten Son of God, is proved beyond doubt in the Bible as Jesus Christ, there needs to be a healthy discussion of it in the Church to keep the flock of God from being deceived (Matt 16:16; 24:4-5).
As the God the Son who lived in eternity past have come in to the time bound present as the Son of God, without a trace of doubt it is God who have testified from heaven during the baptism of Jesus that He as His beloved Son has lived sinlessly (Matt 3:17), that Jesus as the unique Messiah who has lived sinlessly, have pleased Him with his earthly life in perfect obedience through suffering (Heb 5:8), so that He could anoint him to be the one and only begotten Son of the Father during His resurrection after his death (Acts 13:33-35).
GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST AND PEACE TOWARDS HUMANS! Praise the Lord!
Much Blessings....
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