-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Son of God
- Thread starter Katzpur
- Start date
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
Katzpur said:
You do realize that all of these possibilities are to the exclusion of orthodox . Trinitarianism...
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
Katzpur said:
As an orthodox Christian, I'd have to go with "Son of God" as expressive of Jesus' divinity and oneness with the Father and the Holy Spirit, who are perfectly unified as Yahweh.
Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
Hmmm. Not only did I not realize that, I don't even understand what you're saying. I'm guessing that means your vote is "neither." If I'm right, what you you believe is meant by the phrase "Son of God"?angellous_evangellous said:You do realize that all of these possibilities are to the exclusion of orthodox Trinitarianism...
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
Katzpur said:
In the social world of the NT and its theological context, I think so.
(I know that the language of sonship supports orthodoxy...)
I'm not sure.
(... but I'm not sure how much it undermines it in this case)
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
Katzpur said:
Ask a specific question and I will explain it to you... theology is meaningless if it's not understandable. High convolution is a red flag for horse dookie - like when people only talk in metaphors that they don't explain...
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
Katzpur said:
Which part did you not understand? If you didn't understand it, maybe someone else didn't, either.
EDIT: I can add wikipedia and other links to define terms that I've used...
Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
I've just heard some Christians here on RF state that since the Father and the Son are "one," Jesus' sonship is not to be understood as actually describing His relationship with His Father. That's something that doesn't make sense to me since I interpret this phrase literally. Mary was literally Jesus' mother? Was God the Father literally Jesus' Father? To me, the answer is "yes."
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
angellous_evangellous said:
What I mean is that the social world of the New Testament supports the interpretation of "Son of God" as referring to the unity of Father and Son. The "social world" is the unique bonds between people: family members, community leaders, and other people in the ancient society that created and received the New Testament. The relationship between father and son was very close, so close that many believed that immortality was achieved through their sons. Sonship preserved the economic and legal fabric of ancient societies - both Hebrew and Roman.
Personal identity also included sons. That is, sons and fathers (as well as others) included one another when they said "I" or "me."
Nevertheless, Roman and Hebrew law allowed for the killing of sons under certain circumstances. This undermines the family unity outlined above, but a father may consider himself dead after he kills his son, and kill himself realizing that their seed is dead.
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
Katzpur said:
The relationship with Jesus and the Father have been a difficulty for orthodoxy for centuries. It's not an easy thing to understand or discuss.
á¼Î»Î®Î¸ÎµÎ¹Î±
Jesus set me free!
When you say "literal," do you mean that the Father sired Him the way men sire their scions? :no: Jesus was always God and when Mary became pregnant it wasn't the way my mother did! Mary was still a virgin when she gave birth.
Last edited:
philip_antislam
New Member
it doesn't matter how we think but how bible thinks!
son of God is a person that has a close relationship with God and has some of God's attributes.
for example a true christian is indeed son of God:
Yet to all who received him(=Jesus Christ), to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. John 1:12
many people think that Jesus is son of God because he is coessential with god. but this would not be true because kings of Israel , Christians , angles and ... were also called son of God.
without any doubt Jesus was coessential with God but I think that the phrase "son of god" is not an evidence to prove this doctrine.
as a result (I think) in Christology the human nature of Jesus was son of God and not his divine nature. ( his divine nature is God the son , the second person of holy trinity)
Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
No, I'm not talking about the means by which He was conceived. The scriptures aren't at all specific in telling us that; they do tell us, however that Mary was a virgin. Still, she was Jesus' "literal" mother. I'm wondering if God was Jesus' "literal" Father. I realize that He existed as God prior to His birth, but since I don't believe that the Father=the Son, I am wondering what other Christians believe their relationship to be.ἀλήθεια;1233408 said:
Dunemeister
Well-Known Member
"Son of God" does not denote divinity. In the Hebrew scriptures, David is called the Son of God. The phrase eventually began to be a title for the kings of Israel. In Isaiah, the people of Israel taken as a whole are called "Son of God." In both cases, whether it's talking about the king or the people of God as a whole, it means "God's representative."
This must be taken as the background when we think of how this title was used of Jesus. In John 1:49, Nathanael exclaims ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ He's thus operating within the mindset of a Jewish person in first century Palestine who had been raised on this sort of language. We thus see that this title is (what we would call) POLITICAL, not (what we would call) religious. Nathanael was saying that Jesus had demonstrated himself to be the king of Israel. In the context of the Messianic expectations surrounding Jesus, this is tantamount to saying he was the king of the whole cosmos. Them's fightin' words, for Herod (not to mention Caesar) didn't like competition.
As the church contemplated this, over the decades they began to turn "Son of God" into a divine title and oppose it to "Son of Man". Here the church got off the rails and demonstrates how far they had deviated from their Jewish roots. Since gentiles had begun to outnumber the Jews so much by that time, this development went unchecked. Thankfully, scholars have begun to correct this, but it hasn't made it, by and large, to the Christian mainstream.
This must be taken as the background when we think of how this title was used of Jesus. In John 1:49, Nathanael exclaims ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ He's thus operating within the mindset of a Jewish person in first century Palestine who had been raised on this sort of language. We thus see that this title is (what we would call) POLITICAL, not (what we would call) religious. Nathanael was saying that Jesus had demonstrated himself to be the king of Israel. In the context of the Messianic expectations surrounding Jesus, this is tantamount to saying he was the king of the whole cosmos. Them's fightin' words, for Herod (not to mention Caesar) didn't like competition.
As the church contemplated this, over the decades they began to turn "Son of God" into a divine title and oppose it to "Son of Man". Here the church got off the rails and demonstrates how far they had deviated from their Jewish roots. Since gentiles had begun to outnumber the Jews so much by that time, this development went unchecked. Thankfully, scholars have begun to correct this, but it hasn't made it, by and large, to the Christian mainstream.
Jordan St. Francis
Well-Known Member
Katzpur,
To begin with, no Christian believes that "the Father= Son".
Again, as in another thread, I see the problem of the Father's corporeality lurking behind this question. As far as we are concerned, the Father does not have a body and so to say in what sense the Father is Christ's father is certainly not an easy question. Certainly, if by literal, you mean a role for the semen of God the Father, then we would say certainly not, because we deny such a thing. This is the mystery of the Virgin being conceived "by the power of the Holy Spirit"- by the agency of his Holy Spirit the pre-existent, eternal Word was united to the nature of man through the body of the Virgin.
Beyond the incarnation, the eternal Word, the Son, is understood to be eternally begotten of the Father "Light from Light, true God from true God" as it were, involving no material aspects. So "fatherhood" can not be in the strict literal sense as we understand among human relations here. Rather, I suppose we must say that the Father is the eternal ground of the Godhead, the principle to which the Son's own existence is relative- perhaps something like the eternal self-communication of the Father, as his Word.
To begin with, no Christian believes that "the Father= Son".
Again, as in another thread, I see the problem of the Father's corporeality lurking behind this question. As far as we are concerned, the Father does not have a body and so to say in what sense the Father is Christ's father is certainly not an easy question. Certainly, if by literal, you mean a role for the semen of God the Father, then we would say certainly not, because we deny such a thing. This is the mystery of the Virgin being conceived "by the power of the Holy Spirit"- by the agency of his Holy Spirit the pre-existent, eternal Word was united to the nature of man through the body of the Virgin.
Beyond the incarnation, the eternal Word, the Son, is understood to be eternally begotten of the Father "Light from Light, true God from true God" as it were, involving no material aspects. So "fatherhood" can not be in the strict literal sense as we understand among human relations here. Rather, I suppose we must say that the Father is the eternal ground of the Godhead, the principle to which the Son's own existence is relative- perhaps something like the eternal self-communication of the Father, as his Word.
Last edited:
simon kole
Member
jesus is the only begotten son of (sired by) God, which is why he is divine, of the same nature as his divine father. he is a son by familial relationship.