In every one of the important promises unfolded in the Old Testament Scriptures we find a place given to this essential fact that the One through whom God is working to His purposes, would be His Son.
In the promises made to Abraham concerning the land, it was dramatically shown to him that the seed through whom the promise would be fulfilled would be the Son of God. Isaac was a child of promise. It is foolish for the Jew to scoff at the idea of God having a Son, when the Jewish race owes its existence to the operation of Divine power, apart from which there would have been no Isaac and no Jacob and thus no twelve tribes of Israel. The parable was continue when Isaac was offered by Abraham at God’s command. His hand was stayed before Isaac was slain; and the Apostle Paul, writing to the Hebrews, 1:17-19, says, Isaac was “received in a figure from the dead. “When Isaac asked Abraham where was the lamb for the sacrifice, he said, ‘My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. “When Jesus was announced to Israel, John said,
“Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world.”
When Israel was established as a nation and asked for a king of their own, God still further unfolded His purpose. In the covenant of the throne we find the words concerning the seed of David, who should sit upon his throne for ever, “I will be his father and he shall be my son” II Samuel 7:14.
Under the guidance of the spirit of God, David says:
“The Lord said unto my lord, sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies”Psalm 110:1.
These words indicate that this descendant of David should for a time be with the Father in heaven, thence to return to earth to rule in the midst of his enemies, and occupy his throne in Zion, where David’s throne was established in the past.
The language used by David is very significant: “The Lord said unto my lord. “
Jesus quotes this in his argument with the Pharisees, when they had been tempting him. “I also will ask of you a question.” “What think ye of Christ? whose son is he?” “They say unto him, The Son of David” Matthew 22:42.
They were looking for a merely natural son of David to be his successor as the Messiah of Israel; but Jesus said, ‘How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying,
“The Lord said unto my lord, sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool.”
Why does David call his descendant ‘My Lord’? What gave him a higher status than David himself possessed? It was contrary altogether to usual Jewish practice, in which the father had superiority over the son. Jesus used the passage in connection with the subject of the paternity of the Messiah. His opponents were put to silence; they had no answer. The answer is to be found in the fact that the one who reigns on David’s throne, who is David’s descendant, would also be the son of God. Jesus claimed to be that Son of God.
The Pharisees could not evade the force of the argument; but they were not prepared to acknowledge that the Messiah must be Son of God, and thereby be led to acknowledge that Jesus was all he claimed to be.
That being established, let us look at some passages concerning the manifestation of God in a son, where we find a similar usage of language to that concerning angels. Following out the particular promise connected with David, we read in Isaiah 11:1;
“And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots.”
We quite understand that that has reference to a descendant of Jesse.
“And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.”
The prophecy continues:
“They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.”
The One who is described in the first verse as a rod, is now described as the root of Jesse.
How can one be at the same time the branch and the root: the offspring of Jesse and yet the source of Jesse? Jesus applies this language to himself in the Apocalypse when he says,
“I am the root and the offspring of David” Revelation 22:16.
Jesus is a descendant of David; but he is also the son of God and because of this relationship to God, because he is the manifestation of the Source of all power, features which belong to God are attributed to him.
Take now Isaiah 40:3;
“The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God … And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”
It was the custom in Eastern lands, before any monarch travelled along a road, that couriers should go in advance calling upon all to make due preparation in the clearing up of the roads. When John the Baptist received messengers from the authorities who asked him “Who are thou?” he answered,
“I am not the Christ. lam the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
He was the courier who went in front announcing the coming of the Lord our God.
How shall we understand language like this? Does it mean that the great Uncreate was about to appear in the midst of Israel? Not at all. But there was going to be a manifestation of God in the midst of Israel such as had never been before. Jesus “having by inheritance a more excellent name than the Angels”Hebrews 1:4, we should not be surprised if, after the style of description used in connection with angels, he is called ‘God.’
“Make straight in the desert a highway for our God– the way of the Lord. ” Jesus, who was thus announced, is to return to be Israel’s Messiah and they will be called upon to “behold your God” Isaiah 40:9. The cities of Judah shall have a ruler who will be a manifestation of God; for
“Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand and his arm shall rule for him: behold his reward is with him, and his work before him”verse 10.
In order that we may understand this clearly, let us look at another usage of words. In Exodus 21:6, concerning the branding of one who wished to accept life servitude with his master, we read:
“Then the master shall bring him unto the judges.”
The Revised Version rendering of the word ‘judges’ is ‘God’, with a marginal note the judges’. Again, in 22:8;
“If the thief be not found, then the master of the house shall be brought unto the judges” — Revised Version, “unto God.” Verse 28 says, “Thou shalt not revile the gods, nor curse the ruler of thy people.”
It is evident that the rulers of Israel were called gods. Mark the usage of this term in this connection. The rulers of the nation of Israel are called in the Word of God, ‘gods’. They were a theocracy — a nation governed by God through deputies, and because these rulers in this kingdom of Israel were God’s representatives ruling over His kingdom, the word ‘god’ is applied to the mortal rulers of the Kingdom of God. That being recognised, Psalm 132 is seen to be a vivid portrayal of the Lord’s contentions with the contemporary rulers of Israel.
“God standeth in the congregation of the mighty” (God — RSV) in the midst of the congregation of Israel.
“He judgeth among the gods” – the gods of Israel, the mortal rulers. He reproves them, “How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked?”
Verse 6 reads:
“I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.”
Jesus, quoting this in dispute with the authorities concerning his son-ship to God, said,
“Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, (and the scripture cannot be broken), say ye of him whom the Father bath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, lam the Son of God”
John 10:34-36. Psalm 132 is a prophecy of Jesus standing in the midst of Israel, reproving the rulers because they did not do justly.
The 45th Psalm is a prophecy of the marriage of the Lamb. The sixth verse says,
“Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre, Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, bath intertwined thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.”
Here we have a God who is Supreme, and yet one subordinate to Him, to whom the word God is also applied. Its application to Jesus is made in Hebrews 1:8;
“Unto the Son, he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever.”
There is a prophecy concerning God-manifestation in Isaiah 64 which is very interesting:
“O that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence.”
This language is reminiscent of what happened at Sinai when there was a manifestation of God through angelic beings; and there is an appeal that there should be another manifestation of God. Through whom? What is indicated by the words “at thy presence”? verse 2. The one in whom that ‘presence’ will be manifested is addressed in the fourth verse:
“For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither bath the eye seen, 0 God, beside thee, what he (the Eternal) bath prepared for him that waiteth for him.”
Here is a description of one who alone saw what God had prepared and the one who had that discernment is addressed as ‘0 God’.
Writing to the Corinthians, Paul applies the passage to the rulers of his day, who did not understand God’s purpose, and who crucified the Lord of Glory. But the followers of Christ did not share the ignorance of the rulers. “God bath revealed them (the things God has prepared for them that love him) unto us by his Spirit,” says Paul. The Christ-body shares the understanding of the Head, the Lord Jesus, who is called ‘0 God’ in Isaiah’s message, and who clearly and unerringly saw what God had prepared, and who endured the cross and despised the shame for the joy that was set before him.
If the rulers of Israel in this Divine usage of language are called gods, we should seek a right appreciation of this usage and recognise it in connection with Jesus. We have read in Isaiah 60, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. “
Turning to the first chapter of John, and bearing in mind the words of Isaiah, “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,” we read: “In the beginning was the Word.”
The word logos from which we get the word logic has to do with reason, thought — the word, an expression of a previous thought, as words reveal thought. In the first chapter of Genesis, ‘God said’: there is the word. “And it was done: there is power in the word. The word of God is effective to the accomplishment of His purpose.
That does not mean that the Word’ was a separate personality, for John in his first Epistle uses language very similar to this, saying “the life … was with the Father.” Must we give ‘life’ a separate existence and make it a person? No. Here is the figure of personification; and John says “the word was with God”; was with Him as life was with Him– an attribute of Him, because it was the thought, and the expression of the thought, of the Eternal. “And the word was God. “What does that mean? We should express it in modern English by using an adjective, and though a noun it has an adjectival value. The word was Divine. The purpose that God conceived in the beginning was a Divine purpose. It was a Divine thought. It was expressed in words in the revelation of His purpose.
The whole of the scheme partook of the character and of the attributes of God; but since man had sinned and transgressed, how and in what way is this purpose to be realised? We are told in the 14th verse that “The word was made flesh”— an incarnate word — the thought which had received expression in the revelation of God, now is embodied in human nature.
“The word was made flesh and dwelt (or tabernacles) amongst us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the father), full of grace and truth.”
“Tabernacled amongst us! “The word used by John is a cognate of that word used to describe the Glory in the Sanctuary … Just as God had dwelt in the midst of His people in the Tabernacle, and in the Temple, so God was then tabernacling in a man, in flesh, in Jesus Christ. John says, “we beheld his glory.” What is the glory seen in him? The moral attributes of the Eternal. ‘Show me thy glory.” Moses asked of God, and God answered,
“I will make all of my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee” Exodus 33:19.
In the proclamation of the name we are told 34:6, “And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.”
Here are the characteristics of God, and these are the expressions of His Name.
And now in Jesus we have the manifestation of the Father, and His glory revealed in a son, who was full of grace and truth”, full of all the qualities and attributes of God. At the end of his ministry one of his disciples said, “Shew us the Father. “
And Jesus replied: “Have I been so long time with you, and yet host thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me bath seen the Father” John 14:9.
“John bare witness of him, and cried, saying This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me. “He had his roots in the Eternal, Who exists from the beginning, and Who is the source of all. John, the gospel-writer, adds, “And of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace. “
The Jews had a grace in the Law, for God was gracious in giving them the Law: but they had a higher and fuller grace in the Lord Jesus Christ.
“For the Law was given by Moses; but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”
Notice the changes of the verbs. The law was given by or through Moses: he was the channel of something given; but it was embodied in Jesus. Grace and truth came and were established as fact in Him.
“The only begotten who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared God,” for man’s salvation, in order that the fullness and grace of God many be extended to all who will come into relationship with God. God is bringing many sons unto glory through this One who is the only begotten of the Father. This is the Father’s method, and the way He has brought about human salvation. Can we wonder that the names of God are given to the Son in the prophecies, and that those who at last attain to the Divine nature are themselves described as manifestations of the Name of God?
Even now we may be brought into relationship with His Name. Jesus said —
“Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
The Divine Name is expressive of God’s purpose, as is shown by the choice of the name meaning “I will be”in God’s communication to Moses, Exodus 3:14; R.V. margin. That name, given as a memorial for “a generation of the race,” required that God should be manifested in a son through the Holy Spirit, which is His power operative in bringing Jesus into being, Luke 1:35; and then operative in raising him from the dead and endowing him with the power of an endless life. The same spirit will be operative in changing those who are born of the spirit to likeness of nature to Jesus Christ, making them all equal unto angels. There will thus be manifest at the return of the Lord Christ, a new order of immortal beings, taken out of the human race, with Jesus the Son of God as their Head.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One