God the Son

God resting after creation – Christ depicted as the creator of the world, Byzantine mosaic in Monreale, Sicily.

God the Son (Greek: Θεός ὁ υἱός) is the second person of the Trinity in Christian theology. The doctrine of the Trinity identifies Jesus as the metaphysical embodiment of God the Son, united in essence but distinct in person with regard to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit (the first and third persons of the Trinity).

In these teachings, God the Son pre-existed before incarnation, is co-eternal with God the Father (and the Holy Spirit), both before Creation and after the End (see Eschatology). Son of God for some draws attention to his humanity, whereas God the Son refers more generally to his divinity, including his pre-incarnate existence.

Source of the term

The term "God the Son" is not found in the Bible,[1][2] but is a term found in later Christian sources.[3] By scribal error the term is in one medieval manuscript, MS No.1985, where Galatians 2:20 has "Son of God" changed to "God the Son".[4]

The term in English follows Latin usage as found in the Athanasian Creed and other texts of the early church:

The distinction holds true in other modern languages apart from English, for example:

Use of the term

The term "deus filius" is used in the Athanasian Creed and formulas such as Deus Pater, Deus Filius, Deus Spiritus Sanctus: Et non tres Dii, sed unus est Deus.[6]

The term is used by Saint Augustine in his On the Trinity, for example in discussion of the Son's obedience to God the Father: deo patri deus filius obediens.[7]

Jacques Forget (1910) in the Catholic Encyclopedia article "Holy Ghost" notes that "Among the apologists, Athenagoras mentions the Holy Ghost along with, and on the same plane as, the Father and the Son. 'Who would not be astonished', says he (A Plea for the Christians 10), 'to hear us called atheists, us who confess God the Father, God the Son and the Holy Ghost, and hold them one in power and distinct in order.' "[8] Saint Augustine in Sermon 90 on the New Testament says, "2. For hold this fast as a firm and settled truth, if you would continue Catholics, that God the Father begot God the Son without time, and made Him of a Virgin in time."[9]

The Augsburg Confession (1530) adopted the phrase as Gott der Sohn.[10]

In medieval art God the Son is depicted as Christ as here in The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch.

New Testament

Stained glass window of Jesus Christ, Peter and Paul Cathedral, St. Petersburg, Russia.

A manuscript variant in John 1:18 (Θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακεν πώποτε· μονογενὴς Θεὸς ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ Πατρὸς, ἐκεῖνος ἐξηγήσατο) has led to translations including "God the One and Only" (NIV, 1984) referring to the Son.[11]

But the term "Son of God" is used to refer to Jesus in the first gospel of Mark at the beginning in verse 1:1 and at its end in chapter 15 verse 39. Max Botner wrote, "Indeed, if Mark 1:1 presents the "normative understanding" of Jesus' identity, then it makes a significant difference what the text includes".[12]

Later theological use of this expression (compare Latin: Deus Filius) reflects what came to be the standard interpretation of New Testament references, understood to imply Jesus' Divinity, but with the distinction of his person from another Person of the Trinity called the Father. As such, the title is associated more with the development of the doctrine of the Trinity. Trinitarians believe that a clear reference to the Trinity occurs in Matthew 28:19, "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." John the Evangelist is understood to identify Jesus with the pre-existent Logos or Word, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."[John 1:1], and as the second person of the Trinity, "For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one." [1 John 5:7] [13]

Christian belief affirms that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God. [John 3:16][14] Jesus identified Himself in New Testament canonical writings. "Jesus said to them, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.' " [John 8:58][15], which some Trinitarians believe is a reference to Moses in his interaction with preincarnate God in the Old Testament.  "And God said to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM.' And He said, 'Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, "I AM has sent me to you." ' [Exodus 3:14][16]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Burnap, George Washington (1845). Expository lectures on the principal passages of the Scriptures which relate. Boston, Massachusetts: James Munroe and Company. p. 19. Retrieved 2015-01-18. There is no such phrase in the Bible, as 'God the Son,' or 'God the Holy Ghost.'
  2. ↑ Rhodes, Ron (2001). The Challenge of the Cults and New Religions: The Essential Guide to Their History, Their Doctrine, and Our Response. Zondervan, Michigan: Zondervan. p. 258. ISBN 0310232171. Retrieved 2015-01-18. Oneness Pentecostals argue that Scripture never indicates that Jesus' sonship is an eternal sonship. The term 'eternal Son' is never found in the Bible. Nor is the term 'God the Son' in the Bible.
  3. ↑ Hick, John (1993). The Metaphor of God Incarnate: Christology in a Pluralistic Age (2nd ed.). Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press. p. 31. ISBN 0664230377. Retrieved 2015-01-18. One notes that it does not aspire beyond the pre-trinitarian notion of 'Son of God' to the properly trinitarian idea of 'God the Son.'
  4. ↑ Ehrman, Bart D. (1993). The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies On The Text of The New Testament. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. p. 86. ISBN 9780195102796. Retrieved 2015-01-18. ... by adding precisely the words that had earlier been omitted, tov viov, but in the wrong place, making the text now read 'faith in God the Son ...' neither of the other expressions ('God even Christ,' 'God the Son') occurs in this way in Paul.
  5. ↑ Philip Schaff (1877b), The Creeds of Christendom.
  6. ↑ F. Donald Logan A history of the church in the Middle Ages Page 10 2002 "It was later to be summed up in the Athanasian Creed: Ita deus pater, deus filius, deus spiritus sanctus, Et tamen non tres dii, sed unus est deus. (Thus, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, Yet not three gods but one God."
  7. ↑ Luigi Gioia The theological epistemology of Augustine's De Trinitate 2008 "... the obedience of Christ on the cross is the obedience of God the Son to God the Father: 'what greater example of obedience' ... exemplum qui per inobedientiam perieramus quam deo patri deus filius obediens usque ad mortem crucis?"
  8. ↑ Jacques Forget (1910) in the Catholic Encyclopedia article "Holy Ghost"
  9. ↑ MacMullen translation 1888 http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/160390.htm
  10. ↑ The Augsburg Confession: a commentary Leif Grane, John H. Rasmussen – 1987 "GT: "Dass Gott der Sohn sei Mensch worden, geborn aus der reinen Jungfrauen Maria" (that God the Son became man, born of the virgin Mary)."
  11. ↑ John 1:18 in 16 versions
  12. ↑ Botner, Max (Jul 2015). "The Role of Transcriptional Probability in the Text-Critical Debateon Mark 1:1". Catholic Biblical Quarterly. 77 (3): 468, 467–480.
  13. ↑ "1 John 5:7". Biblia.com. Faithlife. Retrieved 20 July 2017.
  14. ↑ "John 3:16 | The New King James Version". Biblia. Retrieved 2017-06-21.
  15. ↑ "John 8:58 | The New King James Version". Biblia. Retrieved 2017-06-21.
  16. ↑ "Exodus 3:14 | The New King James Version". Biblia. Retrieved 2017-06-21.
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