The sonship of Christ

“When we use a prooftext method that is not careful to notice context, we have no choice but to fill in the gaps with speculations that are not inherent to the text. In other words, we have to make stuff up.”

Chapter Three

A PROPHECY OF PROGENY

The biblical story opens with God creating Adam and Eve.

They are the first human beings.

All other humans come from them.

There is an immediately evident pattern to the narrative: creation, procreation.

God created Adam and Eve in God’s “own image” and then Adam, with no small amount of help from Eve, “begot a son in his own likeness, after his image” (Genesis 1:27; Genesis 5:3).

And this Adam fella, well, he is the first “son of God”

in the biblical narrative, and he’s the initial character in

the story that gives meaning to the Sonship identity that is woven throughout the rest of the Bible. When we skip forward in the narrative to the New Testament, the deliberate intent of the “son” theme becomes evident. In Luke’s genealogy of Jesus, each person in the lineage is called the “son” of some human father, until we get all the way back to Adam, the first man, who is distinguished from all the others like this:

. . . Adam, the son of God. Luke 3:38

Do you see what just happened? The New Testament deliberately loops all the way back to the opening of the biblical story in order to tell us who Jesus is, and it does so by telling us who Adam was. There’s Adam, and there’s Jesus. And these two figures constitute the premise of the entire biblical story, as we will see with greater and greater clarity as we proceed.

From the outset of the story, God has a “son,” and his name is Adam. God has a daughter, too, and she forms a vital thread of the story, as well, which will soon become evident. For now, we are interested in tracing the biblical thread of “son” in order to comprehend the Sonship of Jesus.

According to Luke, Adam is the “the son of God” in a more foundational sense than any of the human beings that follow him.

Why?

Well, quite simply because he is the first of his kind, the first human, from whom all others will emerge and receive their identity.

Adam and Eve were created.

Everyone else was procreated.

That’s how the biblical story begins.

Adam was the head of the human race, from whom all of humanity would receive their “likeness.” Beginning with him, the “image” of God was to be passed on from generation to generation, creating an ever-widening circle of human beings with the capacity to love like God loves, living in God’s “image” or “likeness.” That was the divine plan in humanity’s creation. There was to be a succession of sons and daughters who would pass on God’s image. Again, for clarity:

God created Adam and Eve in God’s “own image” (Genesis 1:27).

Then Adam “begot a son in his own likeness, after his image” (Genesis 5:3).

What a wonderful plan!

But right here the story makes a tragic shift. An interruption was imposed upon the plan:

 an interruption we call the Fall of humanity

 an interruption in which the fallen angel, Lucifer, deceived humanity into believing God is arbitrary, restrictive, untrustworthy, and self-serving (Genesis 3:1-5)

 an interruption that nearly effaced the “image” of God from “the son of God,” thus disrupting the capacity of God’s son to transmit God’s image from generation to generation

And because there was an interruption, an intervention was needed:

 an intervention that would have to happen from the inside of the human situation

 an intervention that would offer a new way forward with a new starting point

 an intervention that would come in the form of a new “Son of God” to replace Adam, a new head of the human race who would reestablish God’s “image” in humanity

Directly after the Fall, the Creator issued a prophecy in the form of a threat to Satan and a promise to humanity:

I will put enmity between you (Satan) and the woman (Eve and her progeny), and between your offspring and hers; He (the coming offspring) will crush your head, and you will strike His heel. Genesis 3:15, NIV

Don’t miss the point.

The promise of deliverance is set forth in the language of progeny or offspring. Two groups of people will be at odds down through history. A spiritual lineage will issue forth from Satan, waging war against God and His people, while a spiritual lineage will issue forth from the woman, through which a special “offspring” will one day be born to conquer Satan and reverse the effects of the Fall. Adam, “the son of God,” failed in the face of temptation, in his encounter with Satan. But a new Son will be born to the fallen race, and He will crush the serpent rather than yield to him. A second “Adam,” a new “Son of God,” will take the stage of human history and succeed where the first Adam failed.

We see, then, that from the outset of the story God is addressing the sin problem in terms of family succession, promising the eventual birth of a child. The God who made humanity intends to save humanity from the inside, from within our very own genetic realm, from the strategic position of a “Son of God” who will be born within Adam’s lineage in order to redeem Adam’s fall.

Once we have this initial piece of the biblical storyline clearly established in our minds, everything else along the way begins to make sense with profound clarity.

This is about to get really good. I’ll be waiting for you in the next chapter.

“When we read the Bible as an unfolding narrative—as the big story it actually is—with key characters played out in an overarching, intentional plot line, the meaning of the Sonship of Christ becomes unmistakably evident.”

Chapter Four

ISRAEL, MY SON

Already, the story has a distinct shape and we are beginning to see where it’s going. With the first prophetic promise of Genesis 3:15 before us, the stage is set for the grand narrative arc of Scripture to unfold. What God does next is not surprising at all, given the key features of the story’s first episode. He proceeds, of course, to take the steps necessary for the fulfillment of the promise.

And how does He do this?

Well, exactly as we would expect now that we are tuned into the story: by establishing a genealogical line through which the promised child, the new Son of God, may be born to the world.

So God calls Abraham and his wife Sarah out of Ur, their Babylonian homeland, and promises to establish a great nation within their genetic line, through which all the nations of the earth will be blessed (Genesis 12). God calls the promise His “covenant” (Genesis 15), and it is clearly an expanded version of the promise given in Genesis 3. Covenant emerges to view as the defining characteristic of the divine operation as the progeny plan moves forward, just as God vowed it would. So we are not at all surprised when Abraham and Sarah eventually give birth to Isaac and he is identified in Scripture as the “son” of “promise” (Genesis 21:1-7; Galatians 4:23).

It is crucial to notice that the story now begins to center on a succession of sons. At this point, the concept of primogeniture emerges in the narrative—the birthright of the “firstborn” son (Genesis 27:19, 32; 43:33; 48:14-18). The firstborn son is the channel through which the covenant promise is to be passed on from generation to generation. But—and this is hugely significant—in a narrative twist that emphasizes the spiritual nature of the plan, we soon see

that the genetic firstborn isn’t always the covenant firstborn.

Isaac is the second born son of Abraham, after Ishmael, but Isaac is the firstborn son of promise.

Isaac then marries Rebekah and the promise passes to their son, Jacob, who is the second born son, after Esau, and yet he occupies the covenant position of the firstborn son.

The underlying goal God is pursuing is the transmission of the covenant promise. God is not fixated on exact birth order, but rather on moving the covenant promise forward. What matters is that a line is established through which the new “Son of God” may enter the human situation and conquer the serpent from the inside, from the strategic position of human nature, thus reversing Adam’s fall in the course of the victory.

The storyline unfolds toward its grand end goal, in brief, like this:

Abraham and Sarah have a firstborn covenant son they name Isaac.

Isaac and Rebekah have a firstborn covenant son they name Jacob.

Jacob’s wives bring forth twelve sons. Jacob’s name is changed to Israel. Then, oddly—or not so oddly within the overarching narrative—Jacob’s twelve sons and all their children become known corporately by the covenant name of their father, Israel. God now has a corporate people, a nation. Israel then goes into Egypt and becomes an enslaved people. God eventually sends Moses to deliver Israel from Egyptian bondage, and—pay attention now—God instructs him to tell Pharaoh something rather specific:

Israel is My son, My firstborn. So I say to you, let My son go that he may serve Me. Exodus 4:22-23

Israel, the nation, is now designated as God’s “firstborn son,” singular. At this point in the story, the progeny language initiated in Genesis 3:15 takes on an expanded application of corporate Sonship with regards to Israel as a nation. In what sense is Israel God’s firstborn son? The answer is evident when we recall the promise to Abraham:

In you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Genesis 12:3

Israel is God’s firstborn nation-son with the intent that, through the witness of Israel, many other nations will become nation-sons of God, as well. Again, we see that the position or role of the “firstborn son” has nothing to do with birth order. It has to do with the conveyance of the covenant to all the nations of the earth. Israel is the spiritual channel through which God intends to incorporate all nations into the Sonship status that was lost by Adam. Isaac, Jacob, and then Israel, were all “firstborn” in a positional sense or in a functional sense, not in a chronological sense.

It is at this point in the biblical narrative—when Israel is designated as God’s firstborn son—that God assumes the role of “Father” in relation to Israel. Rebuking Israel for their unfaithfulness to God, Moses said,

Is He not your Father, who bought you?

Has He not made you and established you? . . .

They provoked Him to jealousy with foreign gods;

With abominations they provoked Him to anger.

They sacrificed to demons, not to God,

To gods they did not know,

To new gods, new arrivals,

That your fathers did not fear.

Of the Rock who begot you, you are unmindful,

And have forgotten the God who fathered you. Deuteronomy 32:6, 16-18

Moses tells Israel:

God is “your Father.”

God “begot you.”

God “fathered you.”

Now, with Israel taking on the role of God’s only begotten son among the nations, God takes on the role of Father to Israel. For the first time in the biblical narrative, God now employs the language of birthing. He “begot” Israel as His chosen people among the nations. Israel, as God’s only begotten son among the nations, is chastised because he has “forgotten the God who fathered” him, a fathering and birthing that occurred when God delivered Israel from Egyptian bondage. Israel was turning to the “gods” of the other nations and thus denying the God who fathered him. As God would later say through Jeremiah, “I am a Father to Israel, and Ephraim is My firstborn” (Jeremiah 31:9). The other nations are under the authority of their demon gods (Deuteronomy 32:17), but Israel is God’s chosen people, called out from among the nations to be God’s only begotten son, through whom all the other nations will be blessed.

As with the Sonship role, the fatherhood of God is grounded in the Old Testament narrative and is tightly connected with Israel’s calling as the people through which the Messiah will enter the world. If we want to understand what the New Testament means when it calls God “Father,” we must allow the story itself to tell us what it means. When we do that—when we think in theological obedience to the narrative of the Bible—it becomes evident that there is a sense in which God is our Father and the Father of Jesus, and there is a sense in which God cannot ultimately be confined to fatherhood, which we will explore later in this study.

A consistent picture is building as we simply follow the biblical narrative where it leads. We’re on the edge of our seats at this point as the implications of Sonship begin to form in our minds. By letting the story itself guide us, we are about to understand the Bible on a whole new level. It only gets more astounding from here, so watch, ever so carefully, what happens next.

“There’s Adam, and there’s Jesus. And these two figures constitute the premise of the entire biblical story.”

Chapter Five

DAVID, MY SON

Israel, God’s “firstborn son,” now liberated from bondage, grows as a nation, generation after generation, until a boy named David is born.

You may have heard David’s story as an isolated inspirational tale with cute lessons about conquering personal “giants” that stand against your professional success (Goliath) with your five personality strengths (your five smooth stones), but it’s more than that. David’s story is, quite profoundly, the seamless continuation of the Bible’s big covenant narrative.

David is, in fact, the next son of God in Scripture’s Sonship saga.

He becomes the chosen king of Israel and, in him, Israel’s corporate identity is now represented. The Sonship identity now takes on a more detailed prophetic significance. The birth order ideal is upset, yet again, because David is not the firstborn son of his father, Jesse, but rather the last-born (1 Samuel 16:10-11).

Again, it is the historical continuance of the covenant that matters, not chronological birth order. With David God reaffirms the covenant promise He made to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Israel, and David then becomes an expanded prototype of the coming Messiah.

Watch this.

In order to convey the idea of succession, Scripture again invokes the language of “son.” In Psalm 2:1-7, David sings of himself being “begotten” as God’s “son,” while simultaneously singing prophetically of the coming Messiah, in whom all God has promised to the world through Israel will be fulfilled:

Why do the nations rage,

and the people plot a vain thing?

The kings of the earth set themselves,

and the rulers take counsel together,

against the Lord and against His Anointed (Messiah in Hebrew) . . .

Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion.

I will declare the decree: the Lord has said to Me,

“You are My Son, today I have begotten You.”

Who is David singing about?

Well, he is singing about himself in the immediate, local historical sense. David is the anointed king of Israel. But he is also singing prophetically about the ultimate, universal anointed king of Israel, namely Jesus Christ. We know this to be the case because the New Testament makes this prophetic connection (Acts 2:25-36; 4:25-28; 13:33; Hebrews 1:5).

In Psalm 89:19-29, David portrays himself as God’s “firstborn” son through whom His “covenant shall stand firm,” while again foretelling the coming of the Messiah:

Then You spoke in a vision to Your holy one,

And said: “I have given help to one who is mighty;

I have exalted one chosen from the people.

“I have found My servant David;

With My holy oil I have anointed him,

With whom My hand shall be established;

Also My arm shall strengthen him.

“The enemy shall not outwit him,

Nor the son of wickedness afflict him.

“I will beat down his foes before his face,

And plague those who hate him.

“But My faithfulness and My mercy shall be with him,

And in My name his horn shall be exalted.

“Also I will set his hand over the sea,

And his right hand over the rivers.

“He shall cry to Me, ‘You are my Father,

My God, and the rock of my salvation.’

“Also I will make him My firstborn,

The highest of the kings of the earth.

“My mercy I will keep for him forever,

And My covenant shall stand firm with him.

“His seed also I will make to endure forever,

And his throne as the days of heaven.”

Again, we naturally ask, of whom is David singing?

Who is the holy one?

Who is the exalted one chosen from the people?

Who is the one who cries out, “You are my Father,” to whom God responds, “I will make him My firstborn”?

Who is the highest king of the earth, in whom God’s covenant will be established forever?

David, of course, and yet more than David!

At this point in our journey, knowing what we know, simply reading these two Psalms of David should flip a light on in our minds. These Old Testament passages are vital for grasping the story as it continues into the New Testament, specifically regarding what the New Testament means when it calls Jesus God’s “firstborn son” and God’s “only begotten son.” These psalms of David are the origin of the terminology, along with the earlier passages we’ve noted regarding Israel’s Sonship. In fact, as we will discover, the New Testament specifically quotes these two Psalms to inform us of the covenant identity of the Messiah.

Therefore—and this is crucial—it is here in the Old Testament narrative that we need to look to interpret the terminology of Sonship when we encounter it in the New Testament.

And we will do just that, shortly.

For now, we simply need to notice, in the interest of our future enlightenment, that David portrays himself, as well as the coming Messiah, as “begotten” by God and as God’s “firstborn son,” not in a literal chronological sense, but in a positional, narrative sense. David is God’s covenant son in a succession of sons, all leading up to the messianic Son who will cry out to God, with a newly realized Sonship fidelity, “You are my Father.” And He is the One who will “endure forever.”

The point is simple, but super important: King David does not step onto the biblical stage in a narrative vacuum. He emerges in the middle of an unfolding saga. Adam, the son of God, forfeited his Sonship position. God promised to get it back by giving the human race a new Genesis with a new Son of God who will succeed where Adam failed. The coming offspring of the woman will faithfully occupy His vocation as the