Thursday, August 14, 2014

War In Your Heart # 29

Victory Through the Victor (continued)

The Eternal Son

The Lord Jesus Christ was the Son of the Father, the living God.

2 John 3: Grace be with you, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father.

Matthew 16:16: Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

The Lord Jesus Christ was the only begotten Son of the Father.

John 1:18: No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

Five times in the New Testament we are told that He was "the only begotten Son," indicating that He was Son by a unique relationship. Jesus spoke of God the Father as "My Father," and the Father spoke of Jesus as "My Son" in a way in which no other could ever call God "Father," or the Father could ever call another "Son." In what way was this true?

Our Lord Himself told the Jews that His Sonship was a relationship inside the Godhead; that He was Son in His own divine nature and thereby claiming equality with God. The Jews so understood it, and it was because of this claim that they sought to kill Him.

John 5:17, 18: But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.

To this the Lord Jesus replied by claiming absolute oneness with God the Father, thus asserting again that His Sonship was due to a relationship withing the Godhead, which itself made Him equal with God.

John 10:36-38: Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God? If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not ... Believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.

To grant that Jesus Christ is "the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father" is to concede the next and final point, that He is the eternal Son. This is clearly proved in the connection made between John 1:1 and John 1:14, 18. He is the eternal Word.

Thus the eternal Word and the only begotten Son are identical. The One whom the Father sent was the Son of His love, in whom He was well pleased from all eternity; the One who came forth from the bosom of His Father solely to do the Father's will in restoring the Sovereignty of God's throne over the earth and over humanity, through the redemptive work of the Cross. He was the eternal Son; one with God the Father and God the Spirit ere He made the infinite stoop which liked Deity with humanity, to fulfill "the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will" (Ephesians 1:11). The Sonship of the Lord Jesus Christ was unique, divine and eternal.

~Ruth Paxson~

(continued with # 30

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