We shall try to understand the Divinity of Jesus Christ from the title 'Son of God' applied to him, basing ourselves on biblical texts as well as from the teaching of the Church. No study on Jesus Christ could claim authenticity without trying to understand this very important title, which has evoked mixed reactions from people of different persuasions and beliefs. The various reactions may be the result of unbelief, ignorance, a vague understanding of the concept of God , lack of proper understanding the doctrine on Trinity, fear of compromising on the belief that there is only one God, etc. It is, therefore, of utmost importance to present the concept of Son of God and its identification with the Word of God manifested in Jesus Christ for the purpose of giving a fair chance to those who would like to believe and yet are prevented by opaque concepts on the subject. It should serve the believers to renew their faith and the non-believers to be open to belief in the one true God. This effort should be counted as an attempt to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that is identified with himself, to the present world we are living in.
Our method is to understand the title 'Son of God' with the aid of Linguistic Analysis whereby specific use of words in language determines their meaning. For this purpose, we shall examine a few prominent uses of the concept especially in the Bible and try to arrive at the meaning from various uses. For this purpose the Old Testament use, the New Testament use, the Church usage and the present use shall be considered. We shall discuss the Old Testament use of the 'Son of God' from a New Testament perspective, where the fuller meaning of the uses in the Old Testament is possible to be elucidated. It does not mean that the earlier form of its use was pointless as it served a purpose at the time and yet contained in itself implications for later realization. This view of ours should be of assistance in understanding the Old Testament in its own right as well as in its fulfillment in The New Testament.
"You are gods"
This method was actually used by Jesus himself in understanding many prophecies, events, passages in the Old Testament as they foretold about him and his mission. An example concerning our present topic can be seen in the Gospel according to John 10: 34, where Jesus refers to Psalm 82:6 in defending himself from the charge of blasphemy leveled against him by the Jews. The Jews wanted to stone Jesus in accordance with the injunction given in Leviticus 24:16 where it is said : "Whoever utters the Name of the Lord shall be put to death : all the community shall stone him; alien or native, if he utters the Name, he shall be put to death". This being the word of God, the Jews could not be faulted if they thought that Jesus was to be stoned since he made himself equal to God, a greater sin than just pronouncing the name of God. Where they went wrong was in their failure to correctly understand the word of God, which was explained by Jesus quoting Psalm 82:6 that is no less word of God than Leviticus 24:16. Thus we have an instance of the right interpretation of the Scriptures, not by single words or phrases but by the sense underlying the passages concerned for which other passages too might be of help.
Jesus defended his innocence by citing the passage of Psalm 82:6 where God Himself calls human beings gods or sons of the Most High just because the word of God was delivered to them. Since Scripture cannot be set aside and the word of God has to be true always, we must come to the conclusion that there is a sense in which ordinary mortal human beings can be called gods. If that is so, Jesus argues, how could they charge him with blasphemy whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world? It is presupposed by the Evangelist in this argument that the believers knew about the relationship of Jesus to the Father as the Word of God whereas for the Jews of Jesus' time, the argument may not have had its full weight as they had a different perspective of the whole issue. This means that the Evangelist may have adapted the argument of Jesus to suit the situation of the faithful, whereas Jesus himself may have put forward the point differently to convince the Jews about the legitimacy of his claim to be one with God. Some scholars believe that the "you are gods" in Psalm 82:6 should be taken as metaphorical and therefore no real sense of identification with God may be seen in the verse. This view cannot be accepted since Jesus built up his argument for being equal to God from the same verse. If the verse means no more than metaphorically, Jesus himself could not be anything more than Son of God metaphorically. Here we have a very important sense in which the title 'Son of God' was used already in the Old Testament. It refers to our relationship with the word of God and the manner in which it is graded depending on our intimacy with the same word of God. (To be continued).
Our method is to understand the title 'Son of God' with the aid of Linguistic Analysis whereby specific use of words in language determines their meaning. For this purpose, we shall examine a few prominent uses of the concept especially in the Bible and try to arrive at the meaning from various uses. For this purpose the Old Testament use, the New Testament use, the Church usage and the present use shall be considered. We shall discuss the Old Testament use of the 'Son of God' from a New Testament perspective, where the fuller meaning of the uses in the Old Testament is possible to be elucidated. It does not mean that the earlier form of its use was pointless as it served a purpose at the time and yet contained in itself implications for later realization. This view of ours should be of assistance in understanding the Old Testament in its own right as well as in its fulfillment in The New Testament.
"You are gods"
This method was actually used by Jesus himself in understanding many prophecies, events, passages in the Old Testament as they foretold about him and his mission. An example concerning our present topic can be seen in the Gospel according to John 10: 34, where Jesus refers to Psalm 82:6 in defending himself from the charge of blasphemy leveled against him by the Jews. The Jews wanted to stone Jesus in accordance with the injunction given in Leviticus 24:16 where it is said : "Whoever utters the Name of the Lord shall be put to death : all the community shall stone him; alien or native, if he utters the Name, he shall be put to death". This being the word of God, the Jews could not be faulted if they thought that Jesus was to be stoned since he made himself equal to God, a greater sin than just pronouncing the name of God. Where they went wrong was in their failure to correctly understand the word of God, which was explained by Jesus quoting Psalm 82:6 that is no less word of God than Leviticus 24:16. Thus we have an instance of the right interpretation of the Scriptures, not by single words or phrases but by the sense underlying the passages concerned for which other passages too might be of help.
Jesus defended his innocence by citing the passage of Psalm 82:6 where God Himself calls human beings gods or sons of the Most High just because the word of God was delivered to them. Since Scripture cannot be set aside and the word of God has to be true always, we must come to the conclusion that there is a sense in which ordinary mortal human beings can be called gods. If that is so, Jesus argues, how could they charge him with blasphemy whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world? It is presupposed by the Evangelist in this argument that the believers knew about the relationship of Jesus to the Father as the Word of God whereas for the Jews of Jesus' time, the argument may not have had its full weight as they had a different perspective of the whole issue. This means that the Evangelist may have adapted the argument of Jesus to suit the situation of the faithful, whereas Jesus himself may have put forward the point differently to convince the Jews about the legitimacy of his claim to be one with God. Some scholars believe that the "you are gods" in Psalm 82:6 should be taken as metaphorical and therefore no real sense of identification with God may be seen in the verse. This view cannot be accepted since Jesus built up his argument for being equal to God from the same verse. If the verse means no more than metaphorically, Jesus himself could not be anything more than Son of God metaphorically. Here we have a very important sense in which the title 'Son of God' was used already in the Old Testament. It refers to our relationship with the word of God and the manner in which it is graded depending on our intimacy with the same word of God. (To be continued).
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