From time to time we have to consider the overwhelming subject of the Godhead, and

two aspects of it relating to the Lord Jesus Christ are constantly coming to the fore,

namely His Deity and His Sonship.  We state straight away that, concerning God

unconditioned and limitless, we know nothing. We are shut up completely to what He

has been pleased to reveal of Himself in the holy Scriptures. Then again we must

remember our very limited powers of comprehension and that, however advanced we are

spiritually, we can now only see partially as in a mirror (I Cor. 13: 12) which often

creates for us a puzzling problem. This being so, we approach the subject in real humility

and dependence upon the power of the Holy Spirit, Whose main object is to reveal and

exalt the Lord Jesus (John 16: 7, 14).

That the Scriptures reveal the one God in a threefold capacity as Father, Son and Holy

Spirit is true for all who have eyes to see and minds that are unbiased. In his Institutes of

Theology, the theologian Dr. Chalmers states that this, when viewed as separate

propositions is abundantly plain, but it is when we seek to bring them together and

attempt their reconciliation that the problems start.

This is certainly true concerning the Deity and Sonship of Christ and the subject has

been made increasingly difficult by some of the creeds. If ever there was a need to be

accurate and to keep within the bounds of the Word of God it is in respect of the Deity

and Sonship of Christ. Once we exceed or detract from what God has written concerning

Himself we get into an uncharted ocean and are completely lost. We have dealt with the

Deity of Christ in the booklet The Lord Jesus Christ, God or only man?. We now wish to

consider His Sonship.

There are those who believe in `the eternal Sonship of Christ', but when one seeks

plain Scriptural basis for such doctrine, we find it is conspicuously lacking. We are

treated to theological statements such as `the eternal generations of the Son' (attributed to

the early Fathers), but these words are meaningless and no one who uses them ever

attempts to explain them. We never find such expressions as `the eternal Son' or `the

eternal Father' in the Bible, and we should expect them there if they were true. Sonship

in relation to human beings is invariably connected with the thought of being begotten

and this thought is definitely connected with the Son of God when He became incarnate.

He was begotten by the Father through the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. The angel

who appeared to the virgin Mary said to her:

Note that the Son of God was not His name before His birth, but the future child that

was to be born. Through this miraculous birth, He would be called the Son of God. On

this point we should carefully note the quotation from II Sam. 7: 14 given in Heb. 1: 5: