The Grand Reenactment

What does the Bible mean when it calls Jesus the “Son of God”?

Without question, this is the hottest debated question in Christian history. Really hot, in fact, because some people have been literally burned at the stake for giving what others regarded as the wrong answer to this question.

I’d like to suggest that the only way to accurately answer the question is to zoom out and read the Bible for what it is—an epic narrative—rather than simply lining up individual Bible verses to prove one’s position on the subject. When we read the Bible as a whole, we discover that sonship is a major guiding theme.

For the most part, the sonship of Christ has been addressed through the use of extrabiblical interpretations of individual Bible verses, while overlooking their broader narrative context. My premise is that the answer to the question naturally emerges when we engage in an Old Testament reading of the New Testament—reading the New Testament in the light of the Old. As a primary example, what does John 3:16 mean?

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son . . .”

Those who take the position that Jesus is the Son of God in the sense that He was in some manner brought into existence by the Father, having previously not existed, look at this verse and reason as follows: 

We all know that a human father exists before his son and is the source of his son. The relationship between a father and a son is chronological: a father always predates a son. Therefore, if Jesus is called the “son” of God, He could not have always existed with the Father, but, rather, must have been brought into existence by the Father in some way at some point. We must conclude, then, that the Father alone is eternal God, and Christ is divine only in some lesser sense conferred upon Him by the Father.

This is all quite logical as an isolated piece of reasoning. The only problem is that when the New Testament calls Christ the “Son” of God, it has nothing like this in mind. The Bible is talking about something completely different than how and when Christ was brought into existence as a lesser divine being after the Father. Rather, the Bible is telling us a story that defines exactly what it means when it designates Christ as the Son of God. Let’s outline the gist of that story.

A Prophecy of Progeny

The Bible begins by introducing us to the first son of God in the story. His name was Adam. In Luke’s genealogy of Jesus, each person in the lineage is called the “son” of some human father, until we get all the way back to Adam, the first man, who is called “the son of God” (Luke 3:38). Adam was the “the son of God” in a primary sense, as the first person created by God, whereas all of us are sons and daughters of God by procreation. He was the first of his kind, the first human, from whom all the others would emerge. God created Adam in His own image, and Adam then proceeded to procreate in his own image (Gen. 1:27; 5:3). That was the divine plan in humanity’s creation. But then came the Fall (Gen. 3:1-5).

In response to the Fall, God promised to send an offspring into the world to save us:

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Gen. 3:15, NIV).

Notice that the promise of deliverance is set forth in the language of progeny. Two groups of people will be at odds throughout history. Eventually a special “offspring” will be born to conquer Satan and reverse the effects of the Fall. Adam, “the son of God,” failed in the face of temptation. But there will be born a Child who will crush the serpent. A second “Adam,” another “Son of God,” will take the stage of history and succeed where the first Adam failed (1 Cor. 15:45). From the outset God is addressing the sin problem in terms of progeny, family succession, and the eventual birth of a son. The God who made humanity intends to save humanity from the inside, from the strategic position of a “son of God” within the Adamic lineage.

Israel, My Son

God calls Abram and his wife, Sarai, out of Ur, their Babylonian homeland, and promises to establish a great nation through their genetic line, in which all the nations of the earth will be blessed (Gen. 12). The promise is called God’s “covenant” (Gen. 15), which is clearly an expanded version of the promise given in Genesis 3:15. The progeny plan is moving forward. When Abraham and Sarah give birth to Isaac, he is designated the “son” of “promise” (Gen. 21:1-7; Gal. 4:23). It becomes clear that the point is covenant, not chronology. The “firstborn” son is the designated channel through which the covenant promise is to be passed on from generation to generation. But in a narrative twist that emphasizes the spiritual nature of the plan, we soon see that the genetic firstborn isn’t always the covenant firstborn. Isaac is the secondborn son of Abraham, after Ishmael, but Isaac is the firstborn son of promise. Isaac marries Rebekah, and the promise passes to their son, Jacob, who is technically the secondborn son, after Esau. The transmission of the covenant promise is the underlying point God is pursuing, not birth order. What matters is that a line be established through which a new “son of God” will enter the human situation and conquer the serpent to reverse Adam’s failure. 

Jacob and his wives then bring forth 12 sons. Jacob’s name is changed to Israel, and his 12 sons and all their children become known corporately by the covenant name of their father, Israel. Israel goes into Egypt and becomes an enslaved people. God finally sends Moses to deliver Israel from Egyptian bondage. At this point in the story the progeny language initiated in Genesis 3:15 takes on an expanded application of sonship with regard to Israel as a nation:

“Israel is My son, My firstborn. So I say to you, let My son go that he may serve Me” (Ex. 4:22, 23).

Israel is now designated God’s “firstborn son,” singular. Israel is God’s firstborn nation-son. Israel, now liberated from bondage, grows, generation after generation, until a boy named David is born. David becomes the chosen king of Israel. In him Israel’s corporate identity is represented and takes on prophetic significance. Again, to convey the idea of succession, God employs the language of “son.” In Psalm 2 David sings of himself as God’s “son” and God’s “anointed,” while simultaneously singing prophetically of the coming Messiah. 

The God who made humanity intends to save humanity from the inside, from the strategic position of a “son of God” within the Adamic lineage.

As the story continues unfolding, David has a son, to whom he gives the name Solomon. True to His plan, God transfers the language of “son” to Solomon (1 Chron. 22:10).

The pattern is obvious.

Adam, the son of God, fails in His sonship role. God promises to initiate a lineage through which a son will come to rectify the matter. God establishes a people through whom the promise can be fulfilled, and a succession of sons unfolds from Abraham, the son of God, to Isaac, the son of God, to Jacob, the son of God, to Israel, the corporate son of God, to David, the son of God, to Solomon, the son of God, all to one grand end, which is the birth of the promised “offspring”— Adam’s replacement, who will rectify the Fall by being “the son of God” with covenant faithfulness. There is, therefore, a deliberate narrative bridge between the Old Testament and the New.

Jesus, My Son

The New Testament opens by reaching into the past in order to coherently launch into the future:

“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham” (Matt. 1:1).

When we open the New Testament, the first thing we’re told is that Jesus is none other than “the Son of David, the Son of Abraham,” and therefore the “Son of God” in their covenant lineage. The New Testament is simply picking up where the story left off in the Old Testament. Christ is the “offspring” of “the woman” promised to Adam and Eve in Eden. He is the “son” of “promise” typified in Abraham’s son, Isaac, and in Isaac’s son, Jacob, and in Jacob’s sons, Israel, and in Israel’s son, David, and in David’s son, Solomon.

Jesus is the Son of God in the sense that He fulfills the entire narrative plotline of the Old Testament by successfully living out the purpose God had for humanity all along. The moment that this dawns on us, we realize that the intent of the New Testament in calling Jesus “the Son of God” is to inform us, not about His ontological origins, but rather His narrative role. In designating Jesus as “the Son of God,” the New Testament is not attempting to tell us that long ago, in eternity past, God brought another divine being into existence by some mysterious birthing means, but rather that Jesus is God’s covenant Son as the climactic fulfillment of the entire Old Testament narrative.

Paul writes to the Romans with perfect awareness that the Sonship position of Jesus occurs within the narrative lineage of Israel and King David: 

“Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh,and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:1-4).

Jesus was “declared to be,” or “appointed” to be (NIV), “the Son of God” by virtue of two realities: (1) because He was born in the lineage of David and (2) because He was victorious over death because of His alignment with “the Spirit of holiness.” In other words, His character lined up with His lineage, which could not be said of David. Again this demonstrates that the New Testament is addressing, not the ancient ontology of Jesus when calling Him God’s Son, but rather His covenant identity in David’s genealogical lineage.

Now we can read John 3:16 for what it actually means within the narrative flow of Scripture.

For God: the covenant-keeping God of Israel

so loved: with the unfailing faithfulness of His covenant oath

the world: the entire Hebrew and Gentile population of earth that God told Abraham He would bless through his offspring

that He gave His only begotten Son: just as, through all the prophets, He promised He would, as foreshadowed in Isaac, Abraham’s “only begotten son” of promise, and as typified in David, God’s messianic son of the eternal covenant kingdom

Jesus is the Son of God in the sense that He fulfills the entire narrative plotline of the Old Testament by successfully living out the purpose God had for humanity all along.

The Grand Reenactment

As the covenant Son of God, the life of Jesus was a complete reenactment of Israel’s history. He passed over the same ground Israel traversed, and He was victorious in place of all their failures. The parallels between the two stories are deliberate and apparent.

In the Old Testament a young man named Joseph had dreams and went into Egypt to preserve his family, followed by Israel relocating to Egypt to escape certain death (Gen. 42; 45:5). In the New Testament another Joseph had dreams and then fled with His family into Egypt to escape certain death (Matt. 2:13-15).

When Israel came out of Egypt, God called the nation “My son” (Ex. 4:22). When Jesus came out of Egypt, God said, “Out of Egypt I called my son” (Matt. 2:15), drawing a deliberate parallel between Jesus and ancient Israel.

Israel passed through the Red Sea (Ex. 14:10-13). The apostle Paul says they were “baptized unto Moses . . . in the sea” (1 Cor. 10:2). Directly after being called God’s Son, Jesus was baptized as Israel’s corporate representative (Matt. 3:13-17).

Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years on their way to the Promised Land (Ex. 16:1-17). Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness, being tempted by the devil, before He began His earthly ministry (Matt. 4:1-11).

Ancient Israel was composed of the 12 sons of Jacob and their posterity (Gen. 35:22-26). Jesus deliberately called 12 apostles, from which emerged spiritual Israel (Matt. 10:1-4; Gal. 3:29; Eph. 2:19-22).

Moses went up Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments from God, and delivered them to Israel (Ex. 19; 20). Jesus preached the law on the Mount of Olives, during which He magnified the spiritual significance of the law and pronounced the Ten Blessings we call the Beatitudes (Matt. 5-7).

Israel was called by God to be “a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:6). The church that Jesus founded is called to be “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people” (1 Peter 2:9), composed of people from every nation (Rev. 7).

Finally, Moses lifted up the serpent on the pole in the wilderness and told the people to look and live (Num. 21:9). Jesus was lifted up on the cross, calling all to look upon Him and be healed of guilt and sin (John 3:14-17; 12:32; Heb. 12:1, 2).

It is apparent that when the New Testament calls Jesus the “Son of God,” it is doing so within the very specific framework of the larger biblical narrative. He was designated the “firstborn Son of God” in direct parallel to Israel’s covenant mission as God’s “firstborn son” (Ex. 4:22, 23; Rom. 8:29; Heb. 1:6). Having come to our world by means of incarnation, Jesus became the corporate embodiment of Israel, or God’s “firstborn [covenantal)]Son.” Everything that God promised through Israel was brought to pass in Christ. Clearly this is what the New Testament means when it calls Christ “the Son of God.”