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Also, " But now, O Lord, thou art
our father; we are the clay, and thou
our potter, and we all are the work of
thy hand" (lsaiah 64:8). The beauti–
fu l
analogy
was accepted by every–
one. The
idea
of thinking of God as
Fatherlike
was everyone's doctrine.
Jt was much like today.
Hastings'
Bible Dictionary
says: " ... Jesus
taught His followers to
think of
themselves as
sons of God." The
common thought of the day was not
what Jesus had in mind when He
taught them to pray, " Our Fa–
ther... ." Neither did Jesus at any
time in His life teach His followers to
conjure up the nice spiritual feeling
of thinking of themselves "as if' they
were sons of God!
What stirred people up was that
Jesus literally meant what He said.
And what He said was, " I and
my
Father are
one"
(John 10:30). That
i"s' what triggered the charge of blas–
phemy! That is what drove His listen–
ers to attempt to stone Him!
And people have not changed in
two thousand years. People still get
stirred up and snort, "Blasphemy!"
when they hear a follower of Jesus
Christ and His Father say that he
literally believes Jesus' prayerful
statement to His Father, spoken on
that day He was sacrificed for us,
when He said, "Holy Father, keep
through thine own name those whom
thou hast given me, that
they
may be
one,
as we are"!
(John 17:11.)
Jesus the Only Begotten
The apostle John, explaining about
Jesus Christ, the Word of God,
pointed out that He was God from the
beginning and had always existed be–
fore His human birth (John 1:1 ). John
went on to point out that everything
that we see around us in creation was ·
made by that One we call Jesus (John
1:3). And further, that God was made
ftesh and dwelt with human beings on
the face of the earth-referring to
Him as "the only begotten of the
Father" (John 1:14, 18).
That Jesus Christ was and is the
Son of God is a cardinal point of
doctrine upon which all Christianity
rests. No one who calls himself a
Christian can at the same time deny
that Jesus Christ was and is the Son
of God.
January
1980
One who had been God became
man! That Jesus of Nazareth, "who,
existing in the form of God [ASV],
did not cling to his prerogatives as
God's equal [Phillips]: but emptied
himself [of his glory] [ASV
&
Cony–
beare] and took upon him the form of
a servant, and was made in the like–
ness of men: and being found in fash–
ion as a man, he bumbled himself,
and became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross [KJV]."
(Philippians 2:6-8- several transla–
tions are used here to make the
meaning of the original Greek more
clear in today's language.)
Tbat same Jesus who was God, yet
also was witb God from tbe begin–
ning, was also the One who con–
founded His fellow countrymen by
saying, "Before Abrabam was,
1
am"
(John 8:58). And by explaining to
them that He was both the Lord of
and yet also the son of David (Mat–
thew 22:41-46), Jesus Christ was ac–
tually telling them that God had be–
come a human being. This was the
same Jesus who emptied Himself of
the glory of being God (John 17:5)
and became a human being, fteshly,
subject to death.
That God could become a human
being, subject to death, subject to all
of the manifold temptations of physi–
cal man (as Christ was) was and is
totally unacceptable to Jewish think–
ing-so they rejected outright the
claim of Jesus of Nazareth that He
was the Son of God. Now, before you
judge that rejection too harshly, Jet
us remember that the vast majority
of those who call themselves Chris–
tian reject outright as biasphemy and
consider unthinkable the fact that
human beings can become God! So
we have on the one hand a great body
of people who deny that God can
become man and, on the other hand,
a greater body of people who deny
that man can become God!
In fulfilling the prophecies which
Iooked forward to the coming of the
Son of man, the Messiah in His first
coming, His humble, rejected-of-men
coming, Jesus became the only be–
gotten Son of His Father in heaven.
He fulfilled what Isaiah prophesied
( Isaiah 7:14). What so many of the
other prophets looked forward to as
well- that is: a human baby was
formed by the power of the Spirit of
God·(Matthew 1:18) in the womb of
a virgin, and so was the only human
being who ever had or ever will have
the Father in heaven be the One who
engendered Him in the womb. I n this
way Jesus is the only begotten Son of
God the Father.
Jesus the Firstborn
Regeneration-new birth-being be–
gotten- being born again into the
Kingdom of God are all principies
with which every Bible scholar is fa–
miliar. Jesus explained to Nicodemus
that in order to gain God's Kingdom
human beings have to be born again.
He very patiently explained to him
that it was. nota physical rebirth that
He was talking about, but a newborn
Spirit being (John 3, especially verse
3). There are so many scriptures go–
ing over the details of this doctrine as
Jesus explained it to Nicodemus that
it is difficult to pick any one to ex–
plain this spiritual change, regenera–
tion, new birth. Yet of any chapter in
the Bible, perhaps Romans 8 best
explains how it is that human beings
become the Sons of God in every
sense of that expression.
This chapter begins by showing
that as physical human beings with
carnal minds in our present fteshly
state we cannot obey the laws of God
and please Him. First of all, we have
to have a sacrifice to pay for the sins
wbich demand our death, and then
receive a new mind, a changed mind,
a spiritually, rather than a physi–
cally, oriented mind so that we can
begin to think and act and live like
God our Father in beaven, or as Paul
better puts it, "For as many as ar.e
led by the Spirit of God, they are the
sons of God" (Romans 8:14).
The Father's Spirit, God tells us,
joins with our spirit and proves to us
that we are the sons of God (verse
16) .
Jt
goes on to show that by join–
ing His Spirit with ours, God does
not immediately bring us into His
Kingdom, His Family, but that we
have to live through experiences,
which in many cases are painfu!, to
develop character, to bring us to ma–
turity (Matthew 5:48) so that we can
finally be born as the sons of God.
Comforting advite is given to show
us that despite all the trials and diffi-
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