How can Jesus be both the Son of God (John 1:34; 3:36) and God Himself (John 1:1; 20:28)? To the casual reader, this seems implausible. Nonetheless, the Bible is consistent, presenting both as realities. Consequently, both realities are true at the same time or else the Bible is incorrect about one of the most significant issues in its pages. Great are the implications if the Bible is in error on this point.
One reason, I believe, we find these two ideas to be difficult to justify is that we misunderstand the intended frame of reference. We generally consider Jesus’ sonship as anthropomorphism. In other words, God is using the human idea of sonship – an aspect of human experience with which we are quite familiar – to explain the relationship He has with Jesus. In the typical understanding, we perceive that God is simply borrowing the idea of sonship in order to make clear to humanity how He operates. The problem with this (aside from simply being an incorrect perspective) is that the primary aspect of human sonship implies the beginning of one’s existence. Yes, even in human sonship the ideas of identity, inheritance, and rights of relationship are communicated, but still the aspect of beginning seems the most basic element. If we are to believe the Biblical data about Jesus, we understand He has no beginning and no end (John 1:1-2; 8:58; Revelation 21:6; 22:13). Our difficulty comes from misunderstanding the metaphor’s frame of reference.read more
