the stumbling block: the Son of God

Jesus is the Son of God, because God begat Him from the virgin Mary (Luke 1:35). He is the only begotten Son of God (John 1:14,18; 3:16,18), because He is absolutely unique. Who of humanity can say that not a man, but God is his Father? Herein lies the offense of Jesus’ claim!

Therefore, then, the Jews sought the more to kill Him, for He not only annulled the sabbath, but said His own Father also is God, making Himself equal to God. John 5:18

Jews also called God their Father (Mal.2:10), with this difference that they meant this metaphorically. They understood all too well that Jesus literally claimed to be the Son of God. This they viewed as blasphemy. Jesus:

… are you saying to Him Whom the Father hallows and dispatches into the world that ‘You are blaspheming,’ seeing that I said, ‘Son of God am I’? John 10:36

In an earlier conversation with the Jewish leaders, they insinuated that Jesus was born of fornication (John.8:41) and that He was a Samaritan (John.8:48). Whatever one thought, eventually, Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God became the reason for His death penalty:

The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to our law he ought to die, for he makes himself son of God.” John 19:7 (the gospel accounts are unanimous: Mat.26:63,64; Mark15:61,62; Luke 22:70,71)

Judaism saw Jesus’ pretension to be the Son of God, as blasphemy and gave him over, for that reason, to be crucified. For Islam in our days, the idea that God would have a Son is intolerable, also. The inscription in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem: “God has no Son”, is significant enough. Christianity officially acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God. But what is the value thereof, when this is precisely denied with other words? If there is one God and Jesus is the Son of God, then Jesus is not God. But such logic is in Christianity out of the question. Since the fourth century, the official doctrine is: Jesus is “God the Son”. This is a glass hard denial of the Biblical truth that “there is one God, the Father” (1Cor.8:6, John 17:3). It is also an erosion of the unique reason in which Scripture specifies Jesus to be the Son of God. To the virgin Mary it was said:

… “Holy spirit shall be coming on you, and the power of the Most High shall be overshadowing you; wherefore also the holy One Who is being generated shall be called the Son of God. Luke 1:35

Compare this with the statement in the Nicene Creed:

… The only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages…

Do you see how “Nicaea” made a concrete, historical, Biblical truth into an abstraction? According to them, Jesus already was the only begotten Son of God in a “previous life”. But Scripture does not know such. As human beings comes to be through the fusion of a sperm and an egg, so did the Son of God become (Gr. gennao) by “the power of the Most High” (=the Father), which overshadowed Mary. This is how “the word” became flesh (John 1:14). For so God had spoken, before. ——————————— translation: Peter Feddema

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