SON OF GOD
878
SOX OF GOD
of G<h1 or have received from him the adoption, that they become members of the kingdom (John i, 12. 13; iii, 3, 5; Cial. iii, o, etc.); ami the ii\>inl is conferred ujKin them, not wiih a kind of secrecy and reserve, but in the full plenitude of grace, and expressly as the spirit of sonship or adoption, leading them to cry in a manner altogether peculiar, "Abba, Father" (Kom. viii, l.i). As compared with this higher stage of sonship, those who lived in earlier times, while they enjoyed the realitv, scarcely knew how to use it. In the tone of their spirits and tlie nenend environments of their condition they approached nearer to the state of ser- vants than that of sons. See Abba.
2. S«.»N <»K (Jor>, in its special application to Jesus Christ, Even in Old-Test. Scripture, and with respect to the participation of sonshij) by the common mem- bers of the covenant, there was, as already stated, a narrowing of the idea of sonship to those in whom it was actually, realized. But within that narrow circle there was a narrower still of which divine sonship was predicated, anil this in connection with the family of David, the royal house. Even in the tirst formal an- nouncement of God's mind on the subject, when the prophet Nathan declared so distinctly that David's son bhould also be God's son, and that the throne of his son's kingiloin should be estal)lished forever (2 Sam, vii, 14-10), there was an elevation of the idea of .sonship beyonil what h.td yet been given in the revelations of God to his people. The king on the throne of Israel in Davitl's line was to be in the most emphatic sense God's son — combining, therefore, nn-alty and sonship — and this associated with actual perpetuity. Could such things be supposed to have their full accomplishment in a son who had about him only the attributes of hu- manity? Must not the human, in order to their real- ization, be in some peculiar manner interpenetrated •with the divine? Thoughts of this description could scarcely fail to occur to contemplative minds from the consideration of this prophecy alone; but other and still more explicit utterances were given to aid their contemplations and render their views in this respect more delinite. For David himself in I'sa. ii speaks of the future God -anointed king of Zion as so anointed and (lestined to the irreversible inheritance of the king- dom, just becauso he was Jehovah's son and had a right to wield Jehovah's power and exercise his sovereignty to the utmost lw)unds of the earth. This seemed to be- speak for him who was to be king by way of eminence an es,sentially divine standing; and in I'sa. xlv he is ailiiressed formally as (rod, whose throne should be for ever and ever. The same strain was caught up at a later period by Isaiah (vii, II), where it is said of the child one day to be born in the house of David of a virgin that he should be Immainiel ((Jod with us), and, again, iji ix, (!, that the child so singularly to be given shoidd be called " Wonderfid, l'ounsell<ir, the Jlighty (lod (literally, the (iod-hero), the lu-erlasting Father, the Prince of Peace"— epithets which had been unmeaning, or at least extravagantly hyperbolical, if the destined Iwarer of them had not been possessed of utrictly iliviiie attributes. So, also, in the pro|)het ^li- cah, the contemporary of Isaiah, it is affirmed of the future ruler of Israel, whose birth was to throw a pe- 'ciiliar glory around the little town of lUthlchem, that his goings-forih have been from old, from everlasting (v, 2). It is but to give a specilic application to these prophecies, and to many besides that spoke of the glo- rious powers and prero>,'atives of Ilim who should come as th<' angel or messenger of the covenant to redeem his |Hoplc and rectify the affairs of the divine king<lom, when at the iM-tjiniiing of the (Jospcl ura the birth was announced of one who shoidd be called the .Son of the llighi'Ht, and wlio shoulil sit on the throne of David (I.uke i, :12) ; ami when this same |)erson, as soon as he had li<t,'un to manifest himself to the i)eople, was ac- knowlf.li;i-,| ns at once " the King of Israel and the Son of God" (John i, 49).
Nothing, however, can be more clear from the records of New-Test, Scripture than that the Jews, while they expected a Messiah who sliouUl be king of Israel, were all but unanimous in the rejection of the idea that he should be possessed of a nature essentially divine. They could scarcely doubt that he was to enjoy in a very peculiar manner the favor and help of God so as to occupy the very highest rank among God's messen- gers to men; but there is no evidence that they carried tlie matter higher (Schcittgen's proofs [/^e Me.^sia, vol, iii] to the contrary are insufficient); and, accordingly, whenever our Lord made declarations which amounted to an assumption of proper divinity, he was always met by an uncompromising opposition, except within the circle of his immediate discifiles. Once and again, when he spoke in such a way as to convey the impression that (iod was his own (l(^(oc) Father — Father in a sense that implietl equality of nature — the Jews proceeded to deal with him as a blasphemer (John v, 18; viii, 59; X, 30-33). When assuming the divine prerogative of forgiving sins, they charged him in their hearts with blasphemy (Matt, ix, 3) , but, so far from desisting from the claim, he appealed on the spot to what should have been regarded as an incontrovertible proof of his right to maintain it — his power and capacit\' to perform an essentially divine work. When at a later period he challenged them to reconcile their belief in tlie fact as to the Christ being David's son with David's own rec- ognition of him as his Lord, they were unable to meet it (Luke XX, 41-44), plainly because they were unpre- pared to allow any strictly divine element in the con- stitution of Christ's person. Finally, when driven from all other grounds of accusation against Jesus, they at last found their capital charge against him in his con- fession that he was the Son of the living God (Matt. xxvi, 63-6(5). In all the passages referred to, and very specially in the last, it admits of no doubt both that Jesus claimed a really divine character and that his adversaries rejected the claim and held the very mak- ing of it to be a capital crime. Jesus knew perfectly that they so understood him, and yet he deliberately accepts their interpretation cif his words, nay, consents to let the sentence pronounced against him run its course rather than abandon or modify the claim to di- vinity on which it was grounded. The conclusion is inevitable on both sides: on the side of the Jewish au- thorities that the idea of divine sonship was utterly ab- horrent to their view of tlie expected Messiah, while in the mind of Jesus it was only as possessing such a sonship that the real characteristics of the Messiah could be found in him. Stier, however, has conclusively shown (Wotch of the Lord Jesii.'!, on John ix, ot!) that the title ''Son of God" was not a mere equivalent for " Messiah."