Danny André Dixon
Jesus is the Son of God
Lee Irons lays out a revealing summary of the number of times, and in what contexts the terms identifying Jesus as “the Son of God” in one form or another appear in five significant events detailed in the Gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. But none of the passages that Irons points to suggest any eternal ontological connection of Jesus to the Father.
I will stipulate the intimate language of Jesus in referring to God as “my Father” (Matt 11:27 || Luke 10:22) and similar implications in the parable of the wicked tenants where he understands himself to be the father’s (God’s) “beloved son” whom he calls “my son” (Mark 12:6 || Matt 21:37 || Luke 20:13); but these designations, while proving intimacy do not establish that the language exclusively proves his point.
“Son of God” Much More Than “Messiah”
The Holmesian game’s afoot, however, when Irons introduces 2 Sam 7:14 which, in my view, sets forth the expectation that “God’s Son” means functional messiah. He says there are “compelling arguments” against this view and he proposes to review the most compelling of them.
First, he says that there is a distinction between “Messiah” and “Son of God” in various passages, defining him as a certain kind of Messiah. He lists verses where the phrase “the Christ, the Son of God” appears (Matt 16:16; 26:63; Mark 1:1; 14:61; John 11:27; 20:31).
This is his argument against the admitted scholarly view of others that the two titles can be synonymous. He says, “Another way of interpreting the juxtaposition is to take the second title as adding precision and definition to the first title.” He quotes a scholar, Joel Marcus, but gives little argument at this point. What we want are the reasons for the conclusion drawn.
He says he provides “further evidence,” but it is really the same sort of argument. Irons tells us, “The baptism of Jesus is widely recognized as the moment when he was anointed by the Spirit in order to undertake his office as the Messiah,” and as G. E. Ladd says, “he was already God’s beloved Son and pleasing to the Father before he was chosen and appointed to be the Messiah.” But isn’t this begging the question? Jesus’ beloved Sonship as stated by God presumes before beginning that the term does not mean Messiahship based upon a widely recognized understanding that he was not Messiah until he was anointed. Consider that this splitting up and sequencing of events provides prophetic understanding that by his very birth Jesus was Messiah. 2 Sam 7:12–16 and its parallel application to Jesus in Heb 1:5 indicate that Jesus’ place in the lineage of David made him God’s Son. Every king in the Davidic dynasty was “son of God.” It is of Solomon that God says, “I will be his father, and he will be my son,” and the writer of the letter to the Hebrews applies this verse and others to the one who would be the Son. For what reason, then, should the accounts of the baptism of Jesus and the descent of the Holy Spirit be seen as anything other than simultaneous, and not antecedent or synonymous? It seems that Irons is suggesting that, from a prophetic standpoint (certainly understood fully later), it was not God’s intention that “son of God” would mean anointed king in the Davidic dynasty. Actually, it might be appropriate to ask if he thinks that any Son of God passage should be taken to mean “Messiah.”
Matthew 16:13–20 (|| Mark 8:27–30; Luke 9:18–21)42
In the account of Jesus’ conversation with his disciples, he asks them who they think he is. “Peter answered him, ‘You are the Christ’” (Mark 8:29). This is the unembellished answer also found in Luke’s account: “And Peter answered, ‘The Christ of God.’” Neither version seeks to make any ontological conclusions about Jesus’ identity. At this point, Peter simply recognizes Jesus as God’s Messiah. Yet the more embellished understanding in wording is given by Matthew: “Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’” (Matt 16:16). But note that Matthew does not even care to have Jesus make a statement about any implications of Peter’s observation. Does Jesus charge the disciples to tell no one that he was a certain kind of Christ, as in a Son of God sort of Christ? He certainly would have had a perfect opportunity to do so in the summation found in Matthew’s account. But no, he simply “charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.” (Matt 16:20). God’s king, beginning with Solomon in the Davidic dynasty, is called his “son.” Jesus, as the last anointed in the Davidic dynasty is called his Son. The anointed, the Christ, is God’s Son.
Compare the preceding with Luke’s account of Jesus’ interview with the Jewish leaders. David Garland aptly observes that they “ask two questions of Jesus, ‘If you are the Christ, tell us’ (Luke 22:67), and ‘Are you the son of God?’”43 But notice carefully, however, what is the precise wording of the second question: “You are then the Son of God?” (v. 70). The second question indicates that the first question is the same as the concluding one.44 There is nothing in the second question that sets it apart from the first.
The Meaning of Psalm 110:1
First, I would say that neither this passage, nor any others that Irons might have listed, is given to prove a negative, or as worded by Irons, to “exhaust” his identity. Psalm 110:1 is quoted or alluded to in the New Testament more often than any other passage from the Hebrew Scriptures. Irons crafts an answer to Jesus’ question to the Pharisees posed in Matthew’s version: “If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” Let’s look at the passage:
Jehovah saith unto my Lord, “Sit thou at my right hand,
Until I make thine enemies thy footstool” (ASV).
What is David doing in writing Ps 110:1? First of all he is pointing out that Jehovah is addressing one who prophetically was the psalmist’s (Jesus says David’s) lord. Jesus’ question is this:
How is David’s lord also David’s son?
Irons does not do this, but others have tried to suggest that the first Lord, Jehovah, is speaking also to a second one who is also Jehovah designated in this second place as Adonai. Actually, the second referent is the Hebrew Adoni or “my” (Heb. i) “lord” (Heb. adon), translated “my lord.” The point was that whoever the Messiah might be, he was David’s superior/lord, an idea that would have stumped the Jewish leaders who would not have expected the Messiah, a descendant of David, to be greater than David. Irons’s observation introduces a new figure into the equation of that particular discussion, namely, “Son of God” who must mean more than “son of David.” The point actually is “son of David” is not as important as his descendant who is David’s “lord.”
Jesus’ Calling God His “Father”
We get some more statistics in a footnote as Irons advises us that Jesus refers to God as his Father about fifty times, plus nineteen direct addresses as Father. There are about seventeen references in the epistles in which God is called “our Father.” Does that mathematical reality mean that our relationship with God is lacking as compared with that of Jesus? Should we negate any significance of Jesus’ reference to God as “Abba” in Scripture only once (Mark 14:36) since we can claim two epistolary references in which Christians address God as “Abba Father” (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6)? Why does our calling God “Abba” mean we do not share an intimacy with God? What is it about Jesus calling God “Abba” that means he is the only one with a “unique relationship to God”? Christians are God’s sons and daughters (John 1:12), but does our ability to call God “Abba” mean absolutely nothing as regards a unique relationship with God as, say, those who do not share citizenship as his people? Is it not true that all believers “have access to the Father by one Spirit” (Eph 2:18)? Christ’s mediating of our filial relationship as brothers and sisters to the one Father does not mean that our relationship with him is nothing. And drawing the conclusion that Jesus was “making himself equal with God” because he was