Here is the third study in my new series on Hebrews.

Hebrews 1:2 Christ The Son of God

I mentioned in our last study that these opening verses are packed full of truth, and, while I’ve not done a scientific study of this, I think you’d be hard pressed to find another group of 3 verses in the whole of Scripture which contain quite so much truth and doctrinal statements about the person of Jesus.

In v1, our preacher contrasted the way God spoke in past days – through the prophets – to the way he has spoken in these last days – namely through his Son, and then he goes on to tell us 7 truths about the Son; very appropriate since the number 7 represents completion and perfection.

In fact, in these three verses he tells us 7 things about Jesus

• Heir
• Creator
• Radiance
• Exact imprint
• Sustainer
• Purifier
• Sat down

But for this study, let’s limit ourselves to reflecting on the fact that Jesus is the Son of God.  You are, I am sure, very familiar with the term ‘the Son of God’, but I wonder whether you have ever given much thought to that term; what does it mean and signify?

When the New Testament speaks of Jesus as the Son of God it is stressing 3 important truths

First – Jesus is God

We’re going to come back to this in future studies as look at “radiance….” and “exact imprint of his nature” in v3 which reinforce this truth.  But for this study, suffice it to say that  when we refer to Christ as the Son of God, we mean that he is of the same nature as God.

That’s actually much of the argument of Hebrews 1 which has a number of arguments about the superiority of the Son, especially over angelic beings; but they also feed into this opening truth about Jesus being God’s Son.

Look at v6: “Let all God’s angels worship him”; the Son is worthy of worship, therefore he must be God.  Verses 7-8 speaks of the Son’s eternal reign: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever”;  therefore he must be God, because only God is forever and ever.  And, just in case we were still in any doubt, the writer calls him God, quoting from Psalm 45

In verses 10-12, which are still speaking about the Son, notice there is another quote from a Psalm, this time 102, and these verses testify that the Son laid the foundations of the earth and the heavens are the work of his hands, so, since the Son created everything, he must be God.

So, right from the start, our preacher to the Hebrews is at pains in these opening verses of his sermon to emphasise the fact that Jesus is not a mere man or some high-ranking angel in human form.   He is truly man, but he is also truly God.

Second – Jesus is the Son of God

The term Son of God is also used to help us make sense of the unique relationship between the three persons of the Trinity.  The Father and the Son are one God, not two Gods, but the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father.  They have one divine nature.  Jesus himself testifies that “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30) and “I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (John 10:38 .

From all eternity, without any beginning, the Father has always had a perfect image of himself and a divine reflection or radiance equal to himself, namely, the Son. You will remember that when Jesus’ disciples saw him walking on the water and calming the storm on the sea of Galilee their response was that they, “worshipped him, saying “Truly you are the Son of God “ “; by which they meant, ‘you are God’. 

So the first thing we mean when we say, Jesus is the Son of God, is that he is God.

And the fact that Jesus is the Son of God highlights his unique relationship to the Father.  In Colossians 1:13, Paul speaks of how God “has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son”.  The AV has “his dear Son”; the NIV, “the Son he loves”, while the NKJV opts for, “the Son of his love”. Isn’t that a lovely expression?   Jesus is the Son of the Father’s love. You see, God has a unique and special love for Jesus as his Son.

You will remember that twice in the earthly life of Jesus, once at his baptism and once on the mount of transfiguration, God the Father broke in and said, “This is my beloved Son.”  And in Ephesian 1:6, Jesus is simply called God’s “loved one.”

So, when we call Jesus the Son of God, we should have in our minds the truth that he is God, and that there is a relationship of infinite and unique love between God the Father and God the Son that is different from all other loves. And the fact and reality and nature of that love should make us recoil all the more when we reflect on the fact that God spared not his own Son but gave him up for us all.

Third – Jesus is the Messiah, the anointed one.

Jesus’ sonship was also connected to his role as the chosen Messiah, the one prophesied and promised to bring salvation to men.  The term Son is often used to designate a chosen vessel for an important task.

In John 1:49, when Nathanael meets Jesus for the first time, Nathanael, who would have been steeped in the Old Testament writings and prophecies exclaims, “You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”

Before we leave this subject, we need to stress something of enormous importance, and correct two frequently occurring misunderstandings and mistakes.  First, this title does not mean that God the Father created God the Son, as is the teaching in Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormonism.    Some people struggle with the famous rendering of John 3:16, “the only begotten Son”.  Does that mean God begat Jesus in the way, for example, that the AV says Abraham begat Isaac?  Absolutely not.

What really matters is what the original Bible language says, and in the Greek, John 3:16 says that Jesus is the one and only; it is stressing the uniqueness of Jesus and the uniqueness of his relationship to the Father.  Personally, I think that the best thing to do with the word begotten is to make it forgotten.  It is very unhelpful.

Secondly, Jesus did not somehow become the Son of God at the moment of his earthly birth. The Bible describes him as the pre-existent Son of God whom the Father sent into the world.  He was as John tells us, “in the beginning with God” (John 1:2). In other words, he was there when time itself was created; he was there when beginning began.

Jesus is the Son of God, the son of the Father’s love and the anointed one; the one appointed from before time itself began to be the Saviour of the world, the one slain before the foundation of the world to make atonement for your sin and mine.

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