5. The Son of God
THE NORMAL USE OF THE TERM “SON”, IN SCRIPTURE as everywhere else, is to denote a male child. There are hundreds of examples in the Old Testament, and it would be superfluous to cite passages. Less usual and more interesting for our present inquiry is the fact that the term may be used metaphorically. Thus the aged Eli called to Samuel, “Samuel, my son” (1 Sam. 3:16), and King Saul more than once referred to “my son David” (1 Sam. 26:17, 21, 25). A related usage is that which we see so often in Proverbs wherein the teacher addresses his pupil in this way: “My son, keep my words and treasure up my commandments with you” (Prov. 7:1). The general proposition may be laid down: “A son honors his father, and a servant his master” (Mal. 1:6). Perhaps from this kind of reasoning we are to understand the use when a man describes himself as the son of someone to whom he is not related, presumably to indicate submission and perhaps affection. King Ahaz did this when he tried to enlist the help of Tiglath-pileser; he sent a message beginning, “I am your servant and your son” (2 Kings 16:7). Or it may figure in a claim to superiority, as in the words attributed to Pharaoh: “I am a son of the wise, a son of ancient kings” (Isa. 19:11).
Since the Hebrew language is not as strong in adjectives as some languages, a frequent substitute is “the son of—.”1 Thus “brave men” may be called “sons of valor” (Deut. 3:18), while “an evil man” is “a son of wickedness” (Ps. 89:22). People in trouble are “sons of affliction” (Prov. 31:5). “Son” may be called in to help in indications of time, as when we find that Noah was a “son of five hundred years” (Gen. 5:32) or in the regulation that “a son of eight days” is to be circumcised (Gen. 17:12). People worthy of death may be called “sons of death” (1 Sam. 26:16). It is perhaps in this area that we should understand the reference to the “Day Star, son of Dawn” (Isa. 14:12).2 It is the star we see in the early morning.
All this prepares us for some element of metaphor when “son” is used in the Old Testament in relation to God. Occasionally the term is used of the angels (Job 1:6; 38:7), presumably because of their closeness to God and the way they do the will of God. A second way of using the concept is seen when the nation is regarded as a unit, for example when God says, “Israel is my firstborn son” (Exod. 4:22; this is followed by “Let my son go …”). This is a way of bringing out God’s love and care for his people. The first-born son was regarded with special affection in a typical family, and that is the way Yahweh sees Israel. In this strain also Jeremiah tells us that the Lord asked, “Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he my darling child?” (Jer. 31:20).3 Such passages bring out the truth that God has a deep love for his people, a love that may be expressed in terms of family connection. It also implies that those loved in this way will respond with affection and obedience. Thus “Let my son go” is followed by “that he may serve me” (Exod. 4:23), and not long after “Is Ephraim my dear son?” we find, “Set up waymarks for yourself, make yourself guideposts.… Return, O virgin Israel” (Jer. 31:21–22).
A third use is when God’s love is exercised towards an individual. Thus the word of the LORD came to David, saying with respect to Solomon, “He shall be my son, and I will be his father” (1 Chron. 22:10).4 There can be no doubting that these words indicate both a depth of love for Solomon and the thought that the young man was commissioned to do an important work for God, the building of the temple. Both love and service are involved. The Israelites did not think their king was a demigod as was the case with a number of nations in antiquity, but this passage shows that in the case of Solomon at any rate there was a specially close relationship to Yahweh. There is no reason for doubting that later kings applied the same kind of thinking to their own situations and that they thought they were God’s sons.
Another reference to a king as God’s son comes in Psalm 2: “I will tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to me, ‘You are my son, today I have begotten you’ ” (Ps. 2:7). This psalm clearly refers to the accession of an Israelite king, and “today” indicates that the time of his enthronement is in mind. The New Testament writers paid a good deal of attention to this psalm and saw it as pointing forward to Christ, and indeed as finding its fulfilment only in him (cf. Acts 4:25–26; 13:33; Heb. 1:5; 5:5).5 It certainly makes use of language that is not easy to apply to any Israelite king of whom we have knowledge and that we see reaching its fulfilment in Jesus Christ.
There is thus some Old Testament preparation for the New Testament use of the expression “the Son of God”, although in the nature of the case there can be no exact parallel. But these Old Testament passages point us to the truth that “son” may be used to bring out something of the love and esteem God has for his people. There is also the thought that that love should be returned and that the loved one should respond with obedience and service. From another point of view Psalm 2 in particular uses language that the church has always seen as applying in its fulness only to Christ.
The Only Son
When we turn to John’s Gospel, we should first notice a little peculiarity of John’s usage. He employs the word huios in the normal way for a son in an ordinary family (e.g., 4:46), and he uses it also of Christ as the Son in the heavenly family. But although he uses the word “Father” for the Father of us all (cf. “your Father”, 20:17, and the claim of the Jews in 8:41), he never uses “son” for the other members of the heavenly family. This is not so elsewhere in the New Testament. Paul, for example, uses huios quite freely for the human “sons” of the heavenly Father. But whenever John uses “son” with respect to the heavenly Father, he always means Christ. For the human members of the family he prefers to use tekna, “children” (e.g., 1:12). In this unobtrusive way he makes a distinction between believers and the Christ. We may certainly claim membership in the heavenly family; John insists on that. But we must bear in mind that our sonship is not the same as that of Christ. His relationship to the Father is special.
John brings out the uniqueness of that relationship by referring to Christ as God’s “only” Son, for example when he says, “God so loved the world that he gave his only (monogenē) Son” (3:16). The adjective monogenēs has sometimes been understood in the sense “only-begotten”, but we should bear in mind the fact that it derives from gen—, the stem of ginomai, not gennaō (one n, not two); it is “only-being” rather than “only-begotten”. But it certainly points to uniqueness. It may be used of an only child (Luke 7:12; 8:42; 9:38), but perhaps we see more of its distinctiveness when we notice that it is used of Isaac as Abraham’s “unique” son (Heb. 11:17). Isaac was not Abraham’s only son, for he had many sons (Ishmael, Gen. 16:11; the sons of Keturah and of his concubines, Gen. 25:1–6). But Isaac was unique: he was the son given to Abraham and Sarah as the result of the promise of God. The people of God were to be descended from him and not from any of the other sons of Abraham.
That Jesus Christ is God’s monogenēs then means that he is “Son of God” in a unique way. Others may be called “sons of God”, but they are not “sons” in the same sense. They are sons in some such sense as Solomon was, but when he uses the term of Jesus John is not saying the same thing as was the writer of 1 Chronicles when he used the term of Solomon. He is saying that no one else stands in the same relationship to God the Father as does Jesus Christ. Christ is the Son of God not only in the sense that he is the object of God’s love, but also in the sense that his being is bound up with the being of the Father.
This is seen also in the fact that John tells us that the gift of the Son shows, not simply the love of Jesus, but the love of God. If the Father and the Son were two completely separate beings, then the death of Jesus might show us the love of the Son, but it would scarcely show us the love of the Father. That it shows us the love of the Father means that in some sense the Father and the Son are one; the act of the one is the act of the other.
We might perhaps deduce this also from the further statement about the fate of unbelievers. The person who does not believe in Christ, John tells us, “has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (3:18). The condemnation that stands over against eternal life must be viewed as the most serious of all condemnations, and that it comes about because of a wrong attitude to the Son shows clearly that the Son is possessed of a superior dignity. His position is that of deity.
Believing “in the name” means, of course, believing in all that the name stands for. In biblical times “the name” stood for the whole person and somehow summed up the whole person. To believe in Jesus’ “name” thus means to believe in him as the one who came from God, taught the things of God, died in the service of God, and rose in the power of God. In the Prologue we find that those who are members of the heavenly family are those who “believe in his name” (1:12), and when John first speaks of Jesus in Jerusalem he says that many believed in his name because they saw the signs he was doing (2:23). And at the end we learn that this whole Gospel was written so that people might believe, and “believing have life in his name” (20:31).
The most frequent use of Jesus’ “name” comes in passages dealing with prayer. Jesus tells his followers that he will grant “whatever you ask” in his name (14:13); it is important that here it is Jesus, not the Father, who will answer the prayer and, further, that this answering means that “the Father will be glorified in the Son” (ibid.). Jesus repeats the promise immediately (14:14); it is clearly important. But prayer may also be to the Father in the name of the Son (15:16); thus it is interesting that Jesus urges his followers to live fruitful lives in order that they may have this kind of prevailing prayer. We generally think of the importance of praying in order that we may live fruitfully. This way of putting it makes it clear that prayer is very important in itself. Prayer to the Father in the name of the Son will surely result in our receiving what we ask (16:23). Throughout the Son’s life on earth the disciples had not prayed in this way, but now this is the way they should pray so that their joy may be filled full (16:24). Jesus looks forward to the day when they will pray like this (16:26).
Sometimes “the name” is used in connection with the service Jesus’ followers will render. People will persecute them “on account of (his) name” (15:21). From another point of view Jesus speaks of the sheep hearing the voice of their own shepherd (10:3), which surely refers to more than animal husbandry. His own followers know his voice, whereas the world does not. And it is important for their service that in due course the Father will send the Holy Spirit, and he will send him “in the name” of Jesus (14:26).
Already in his Prologue John has a striking statement about the Word in which he makes use of this adjective. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” he writes, “and we saw his glory, glory as of an only one with the Father, full of grace and truth” (1:14). The glory that is proper to one with a unique relationship to the Father must be supreme glory indeed. We have had occasion to notice that John often uses the concept of glory in the sense of “humble glory”, the glory of someone who is entitled to a high place but who leaves that in order to render lowly service. We need not doubt that this is the meaning here, but we should notice further that the glory in question is described as that of one uniquely related to the Father.
That it is full of grace and truth underlines this. It is curious that John uses the term “grace” four times only (all in the Prologue), for the concept of grace runs through his whole Gospel. One who is “full of grace” is thus one who is supremely important. We must add the same when “truth” is added to “grace”, for truth is another of the important ideas in this Gospel.
John has one further use of monogenēs, namely when he says that no one has ever seen God and adds either that “only God” or “the only Son” has declared him (1:18).6 The textual problem is interesting, but most recent scholars, it would seem correctly, hold that “God” is likely to have stood in the original text.7 Whichever we read, John is ascribing a unique place to the Word. It is he and he only who has brought people to know God as he really is. The Word is said here to be “in the bosom of the Father”, and however this be understood it points to the closest possible relationship to the Father.
From all this it is clear that when John uses monogenēs of Christ he is ascribing to him a unique relationship to the Father, a relationship shared by no one else. In the passages we are about to consider, John uses the term “Son” to indicate that relationship, and this is the term theologians generally use to bring out Christ’s uniqueness. Others may be “sons of God”, but in the full sense there is only one “Son of God”. It is this unique Son of whom John writes and in whose hands is the final destiny of us all.
The Son of God
John does not have the expression “the Son of God” very often.8 We find it in many manuscripts early in the Gospel when the Baptist says, “I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God” (1:34). Some significant manuscripts, however, have “God’s Chosen One” (so NEB, JB), and since scribes would be more likely to alter this reading into “the Son of God” than the reverse procedure, it is not unlikely that it is original. Whichever reading we adopt, these words come as the climax of a passage in which the Baptist explains that Jesus is the one who came after him but was really before him, a way of explaining that Jesus was greater by far than he. He goes on to say that, although he did not know him, he had come baptizing people in water in order that in due course this great one should be made manifest to Israel. He goes on to say that he saw the Holy Spirit coming down on him in the form of a dove and staying on him. He says again that he did not know him but that he who sent him to baptize in water had told him that the one on whom he saw the Spirit descending and remaining was the one who would baptize in Holy Spirit. It is after this explanation that the Baptist concludes: “And I have seen, and have borne witness that this is the Son of God (or, God’s Chosen One)” (1:30–34).9 Clearly the lengthy buildup to the saying is a way of underlining the importance of the one to whom the title is applied. The Baptist is making it clear that Jesus is someone very special: he is giving the title all the meaning he can put into it.10
There is another “Son of God” passage in this first chapter, namely when the guileless Nathanael, having found that Jesus knew of his experience under the fig tree (whatever that was), immediately responds with, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God, You are the King of Israel” (1:49). No more than the Baptist does Nathanael explain what he means by “the Son of God”, but the circumstances call for a full content for the expression. Jesus has just astonished an initially sceptical man (1:46) with a display of knowledge both of Nathanael’s character (“truly an Israelite in whom there is no guile”, 1:47) and of some important experience the man had had (1:48). So when he hails him as “the Son of God”, he is saying something significant. We see this also in the fact that he joins with it “the King of Israel”. If we are inclined to play this down a little after “the Son of God”, we should bear in mind that for Nathanael it was probably something of a climax.11 For him no title could be higher than “the King of the Jews”.
But at the time this Gospel was written its believing readers would undoubtedly regard “the Son of God” as the more significant, and they would do so in the full light of Nathanael’s experience. What Jesus had done on the occasion when he met this man was more than any mere earthling could possibly do, be he King of Israel or of any other kingdom. It showed that he stood in a relationship to God such that no created being could possibly share in it, and thus put a profound meaning into “the Son of God”. It is perhaps worth noting that John’s account of Jesus’ encounter with those who were to become his followers ends on the same note as the account of his baptism in the Synoptic Gospels—he is hailed as God’s Son (Matt. 3:17; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22). Early in all four Gospels the point is made firmly.
We have already noticed a further use of the title when John tells us that those who believe have life, while anyone who does not believe “is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (3:18). With this we may take Jesus’ words, “an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live” (5:25). The addition of “and now is” to “an hour is coming” seems to show that Jesus is referring to the present and is speaking of the life that he gives here and now to the spiritually dead. But he goes on say that all who are in the tombs will hear his voice; they will come out for the resurrection of life or of condemnation (5:28–29). That he gives life now and that at the end of the age he will call people from the grave into their final state show plainly that his divinity is to be taken seriously.
The term comes up again in a dispute Jesus has with the Jews in which they attempt to stone him (10:31) because, they say, he is making himself God (10:33; later they will repeat the accusation before Pilate, 19:7). Jesus quotes Psalm 82:6 to point out that the term “gods” may sometimes be used of men, and goes on, “of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world do you say, ‘You are blaspheming’, because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?” (10:36).12 We should not take this passage to mean that Jesus is simply classing himself with other men. He specifically says that the Father sanctified him and sent him into the world. And if there is no other passage recorded in which Jesus specifically said, “I am the Son of God”, yet this was clear from his general claims and the way he had spoken of his relationship to the Father. He does not think he should be stoned for what he said, but he certainly claims to stand in a unique relationship to the Father.
A little later we find Jesus saying that the sickness of Lazarus was not with a view to death but “for the glory of God, so that the Son of God should be glorified through it” (11:4). In the narrative leading up to the raising of the dead man John records Martha’s matchless confession, “Lord, I have believed that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who comes into the world” (11:27), a confession that matches pretty well John’s declared aim in writing his book (20:31). When this confession is taken also in the light of the fact that the words are recorded in the context of calling back Lazarus from the dead, we should see yet once more that John is giving expression to the full deity of the Christ.
The Son
As our discussion has shown, John uses the expression “the Son of God” a number of times. But he prefers to say simply “the Son”, and the way he uses this expression shows that he means much the same as when he uses the fuller “the Son of God”. The shorter expression points us to the closeness of the tie that binds Christ to the Father, just as the longer one does.
John may record sayings that stress the closeness of the two.13 Thus we read, “the Father loves the Son, and has given all things into his hand” (3:35), where both the love and the giving of “all things” are important. The Father’s love is spoken of again in 5:20, this time linked with knowledge, for the Father has shown him all the things that he himself does. It would be possible to speak of the Father’s love for created beings (we have his love for “the world” in 3:16), but the gift of all things and the conveying of the knowledge of all that the Father does lift these passages out of those that may apply to people such as we are. They show us that the Son is to be understood on a higher plane.
It follows from this that the life of the Son is closely bound up with that of the Father. Indeed, Jesus says, “I and the Father are one” (10:30). We should not read too much into “one”, for the word is neuter, not masculine; it means “one thing”, not “one person”. It is worth bearing in mind that Paul can say in similar fashion, “he who plants and he who waters are one” (1 Cor. 3:8). For that matter John records the prayer in which Jesus asks that his followers “may be one as we are” (17:11). In both these passages we have the same neuter “one” as in 10:30. But if we must not push the expression too far, we must not minimize it either. It certainly does speak of a close unity, and it is significant that Jesus begins with “I and the Father”; who else could link himself with God in this way? Moreover, we must bear in mind that the Jews would not have regarded a statement that Jesus was conforming his will to that of the Father as blasphemy, but they did regard these words as blasphemous,14 as the immediately following words show (vv. 31–33). He is claiming a unity with the Father closer than any unity that others can claim.
Elsewhere that unity is clear when Jesus says that he can do nothing of himself, only what he sees the Father doing, and adds that whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise (5:19). This leads us on to the thought that the Son gives life to whom he wills, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life (5:21). This is not unlike the later statement that the Son gives freedom (8:36). People are naturally caught up in slavery to sin, which is their handicap through life and the cause of condemnation when they die. But the Son came to deliver people from this predicament: he gives freedom now, and he gives life in the world to come. We get the same thought from another angle when we read, “He who believes on the Son has life eternal; but he who disobeys15 the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (3:36). It is our attitude to the Son that is finally decisive: if we believe in him we have life, whereas if we do not, we can look forward only to the wrath of God.
This truth may be expressed in another way. The Father, we read, “has given all judgment to the Son” (5:22); he “has given him authority to execute judgment because he is the Son of man” (5:27).16 Jewish writings do not ascribe the function of final judgment to the Messiah; this is a teaching we find for the first time in the New Testament.17 John is thus not enunciating a commonplace; he is giving new and distinctive teaching. It is teaching, moreover, that makes it clear that the Son has a high dignity. To be the one who determines the eternal destiny of all the race is to have a very high position indeed.
This high dignity is to be seen also in the honor accorded the Son. Indeed, Jesus says that judgment is given into his hands “in order that all may honor the Son even as they honor the Father.” To this is added the rider, “He that does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him” (5:23).18 This is typical Johannine doctrine. The Father and the Son are to be considered together: the honor given the one must be given to the other, and anyone who fails in his duty to the one fails also in his duty to the other. The Jews were ready to give honor to the Father, but their failure to recognize what the Father was doing in the Son meant that they were failing in their rendering of honor to the Father. They did not see him as the one who in the person of his Son came to earth to live in lowliness and to bring salvation to all who believe. That God was in Christ is very important for our understanding of the nature of the Father as well as that of the Son.19 If in fact God was not incarnate in Christ, then in the last resort when people had gone astray in sin God in effect said, “I’ll send someone to bring them back.” If God was incarnate in Christ, he said in effect, “I’ll go myself.” There is all the difference in a God who saves sinners himself and a God who asks someone else to do this. That surely is what is in mind when we read, “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). We cannot put full meaning into the love of God if in the end God leaves the task of salvation to someone else. We must see this behind the words of John 5. When people refuse to give the Son the honor they give the Father, they are not only coming short in the honor they ought to be giving the Son but they are also coming short in the honor they ought to be giving the Father.
We have had occasion to notice that the concept of glory in the Fourth Gospel is complex and that there is an unexpected emphasis on lowliness associated with it. But for our present purpose we should notice that the Father and the Son are associated in glory as in honor. Thus Jesus tells the disciples that they may pray with confidence, for “whatever you ask in my name, this will I do, in order that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (14:13). It is striking that he says that he himself will answer their prayers, and it is important to realize that the purpose of this is not that the Son should be glorified, but that the Father should be glorified. He will be glorified in the Son, it is true, but it is the Father who will be glorified in what the Son does. The glory of the two is inseparable.
This comes out again in Jesus’ prayer on the eve of the passion when he says, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son, in order that the Son may glorify you” (17:1). With the cross in immediate view there is something of the humble glory concept here, the idea that true glory is to be seen in taking the lowly place.20 But the important thing for our present purpose is the linking of the Father and the Son, and that in terms of glory. Jesus looks to the Father to glorify him in order that he may glorify the Father: in some sense the two glories are one; they are bound up with one another.
The Sending of the Son
“God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through him” (3:17). The thought that the Son has been “sent” into the world is a very important one for John. He does not very often explicitly connect the sending and the title “Son”, but the idea that Jesus has been sent is very frequent and “the Father who sent me” is an expression that recurs (5:37; 6:44; 8:16, etc.). We also read often of “him who sent me” (6:38; 7:16; 12:44, etc.). John uses both pempō and apostellō in such expressions, and seems to put little difference between them. Some have argued that one of these verbs means “send with a special commission” while the other refers to the general idea of sending, but unfortunately there is no agreement as to which does which.21 We should take this as another example of John’s habit of using synonyms without any great difference of meaning. It is the thought that God has “sent” the Son that matters, not any precise differentiation between various words for sending.
And as we noticed at the beginning of this section, the sending of the Son has to do with salvation. John is clear that there are those who do not believe and whose ultimate fate is loss, but he makes it clear that in sending the Son it was not God’s purpose to bring condemnation. He sent the Son so that people might be saved. John applies the concept of sending to others than the Son, such as the Baptist (1:6, 33) or the disciples (4:38; 13:20), but in the overwhelming majority of cases “sending” means that the Father has sent the Son. And John is much more interested in this concept of mission than is any other writer: he uses both verbs for sending more often than in any other book in the New Testament.22
For our present purpose it is important to notice the references to Jesus as having been sent “into the world” (3:17; 10:36; 17:18). The clear implication in each case is that he has been sent from heaven,23 and thus that heaven is his proper abode. John does not explicitly say “sent from heaven”, but he does say “sent” and he does say that Jesus came from heaven (3:13, 31; 6:33, etc.). Throughout his Gospel he is telling us that Jesus cannot be understood simply as another earthly person. He has a special relation to the Father, a special commission from the Father, and he has come to this earth from heaven. This is to recognize that he has a very special place, a place appropriate to the only Son of God and to him alone.
If it is true that he was sent from heaven, it is also true that he will return there. Thus Jesus tells the Jews, “I am with you still for a little while, and I go to him who sent me” (7:33). On another occasion in the course of a discussion he contrasted himself with the Jews: “I know where I came from and where I am going, but you (emphatic) do not know where I came from or where I am going” (8:14). Even if they look for him they will not be able to find him, for they simply cannot come where he is going (8:21–22). As he introduces the narrative of the upper room John tells his readers that Jesus “had come out from God and that he was going to God” (13:3), and in the discourse that follows there is a good deal of emphasis on the thought of his going away.24 John goes on to say that as Jesus contemplated death he said, “Now I am going to him who sent me” (16:5), which is further explained as, “I am going to the Father” (16:10). It is impossible to interpret this discourse as though Jesus meant that his death and its sequel were to be no more than what happened to any man when he died. The whole passage clearly assigns to Jesus a destiny quite unlike that which the rest of the race faces. Jesus is one with the Father in a way that they are not.25
The Son and Life
There is a difficult saying in the discourse about the Son in John 5 in which Jesus says, “As the Father has life in himself, so also he has given to the Son to have life in himself” (5:26). It is the consistent teaching of the Bible that the Father is the source of all life: “with thee is the fountain of life” (Ps. 36:9). All other life is contingent. We have our existence, but, important as that is to each of us, it is alas true that everything would go on much as it is without us. The universe managed before we made our appearance, and it will doubtless survive our deaths. But we cannot say that about the life of God. His life is not contingent, but necessary. “The Father is self-existent”, as Goodspeed translates 5:26 (JB prefers “is the source of life”). Augustine put it this way. God “does not, as it were, borrow life, nor, as it were, become a partaker of life, of a life which is not what Himself is; but ‘hath life in Himself,’ so that the very life is to Him His very self.” He proceeds to give an illustration from light. We do not have physical light within ourselves, but require an external source of light: “since you remain in darkness when the candle is withdrawn, you have not light in yourselves.”26 So it is with life. We do not have life within ourselves. But God does. His relationship to life is not the same as ours.
What John is telling us is that the Son has the same “self-existent” life as does the Father. It is not separable from that of the Father, for it is the gift of the Father. But it aligns the Son with the Father over against all creation.27 The point is important for John, and he brings it out early in his Prologue when he says of the Word, “in him was life, and the life was the light of men” (1:4). Later when Jesus speaks of himself as “the bread of life” and says that he “gives life to the world” (6:33), he is claiming to be the source of life for all the race. It is much the same when he says that he is the light of the world and that anyone who follows him “will have the light of life” (8:12). If anything, he goes beyond even that when he says that he is himself “the life” (11:25; 14:6). The relationship of the Son to life is not the same as that of all created beings, and this tells us something significant about the being of the Son. He belongs with God.
We should probably add here a reference to Jesus’ words on the occasion when he told some of the Jews that to commit sin was to be sin’s slave. He went on, “Now the slave does not remain in the house for ever; the son remains for ever” (8:35). In the context Jesus is contrasting any son with any slave. A slave has no rights. He may in fact remain in the same household all his life, but he has no guarantee. At any time he may be sold and transferred to another place. But a son of the house remains a son, whatever he may do. John is probably moving on to another meaning, as he so often does. He is surely thinking of the Son as well as a son when he says, “the Son remains for ever.” In a fuller sense than any earthly son the Son of God remains forever; he is superior to the ravages of time. From another angle John is bringing out the truth that the relationship of the Son to the passing of time is not that of all the rest of us. We are creatures of time and our bodies are destined for decay. But he is Lord over time, and he “remains for ever.”
John’s teaching on the sonship of Jesus is thus very significant. It draws attention to the Lord’s kinship with the heavenly Father, a kinship not shared with others. The Jesus of Saint John claims to be God’s Son in a way that nobody else can claim, and this claim is central for an understanding of New Testament Christianity. John sees clearly that Jesus is more than an inspired man and that this “more” is the significant thing. He shares the very nature of God.28
1. For this construction see A. E. Cowley’s revision of E. Kautzsch, Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar (Oxford, 1910), p. 418.
2. John Mauchline comments, “the term, from a verbal root meaning ‘to shine brightly’, means the morning star, which is particularly bright throughout the Near East; it fades out before the rising sun” (Isaiah 1–39, London, 1962, p. 140).
3. J. A. Thompson comments, “Yahweh’s reply to a cry of repentance is to assure Ephraim of his deep longing that Ephraim should return to him. The thought of this verse is strongly reminiscent of Hos. 11:1–4, 8–9. The terms of endearment are different but the love is the same, my dear son, a child in whom I delight or ‘my darling child’ ” (The Book of Jeremiah, Grand Rapids, 1980, p. 575).
4. James D. Newsome, Jr., says, “one cannot escape the conclusion that the Chronicler’s view of history included the declaration not only that God stood in a close supervisory relationship to Israel’s history in the past, but also that he would do so in the future” (JBL 94, 1975, p. 210). H. G. M. Williamson, however, holds that “although this verse may have contributed to messianic formulations, it should not itself be so interpreted” (1 and 2 Chronicles, London and Grand Rapids, 1982, p. 155).
5. Cf. Derek Kidner, “A greater, however, than David or Solomon was needed to justify the full fury of these threats and the glory of these promises” (Psalms 1–71, London, 1973, p. 50).
6. BAGD give the meaning “an only-begotten one, God (acc. to his real being), or a God begotten of the Only One.”
7. See the note in Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (London and New York, 1971), p. 198.
8. But S. E. Johnson can say, “ ‘Son of God’ is the title of Jesus most characteristic of the Gospel of John” (IDB, IV, p. 412). He probably includes passages referring to “the Son”.
9. Dom John Howton argues that both the Baptist and Nathanael used the expression “the Son of God” and that in reporting this “St John was not … disturbing the order of events, that he reports fact and not his own interpretation of the fact in thus reproducing the words of the Baptist to whom the title already meant something; and that the remainder of the Gospel then helps to bring out and underline the implications inherent in the early confession. On the one hand St John wanted to show the comprehensiveness of the title as used by these early followers, and, on the other hand, at the same time to underline its inadequacy, in the sense understood by John and Nathanael, and to give its meaning a content far fuller than they could have imagined” (NTS 10, 1963–64, p. 227).
10. Raymond E. Brown accepts the view that the meaning is “God’s chosen one”, and finds in the expression an echo of Isa. 42:1. Of the passage 1:19–34 he says, “When we look back on the wealth and depth of the material contained in the intervening verses, we appreciate John’s genius at incorporating a whole christology into one brief scene” (The Gospel according to John (i–xii), New York, 1966, pp. 66–67).
11. Cf. Raymond E. Brown, “His kingdom does not belong to this world (xviii 36); and his subjects are not Jews but believers. It is Nathanael, the genuine Israelite, who hails him; and therefore ‘the King of Israel’ must be understood as the king of those like Nathanael who believe. In this sense, this title is climactic in the series of titles that we have seen” (The Gospel according to John (i–xii), p. 87).
12. Oscar Cullmann remarks, “The fourth evangelist certainly appeals to an old tradition here when he sees the ‘blasphemy’ not in the messianic claim but in Jesus’ claim (veiled though it may be) to sonship. His messianic claim was really offensive only to the Romans. To the Jews, on the other hand, the claim to sonship in the particular form represented by Jesus’ self-consciousness gave the most offence, for they correctly interpret Jesus’ claim to be ‘Son’ as identification with God: ‘… you, being a man, make yourself God’ (John 10.33)” (The Christology of the New Testament, London, 1959, p. 302).
13. Martin Hengel comments, “The danger of ditheism was also averted, for the Son was involved in a complete union of action and love with the Father (John 3.35; 8.19, 28, 40; cf. 1.18; 10.30; 17.11, 21–26)” (The Son of God, London, 1976, pp. 91–92).
14. Cf. E. C. Hoskyns, “the Jews would not presumably have treated as blasphemy the idea that a man could regulate his words and actions according to the will of God” (The Fourth Gospel, London, 1947, p. 389).
15. There is discussion about the meaning of apeithōn. The structure of the sentence is such that we would expect “he who does not believe” (cf. JB, “refuses to believe”). BAGD sum up the position: “since, in the view of the early Christians, the supreme disobedience was a refusal to believe their gospel, ἀ may be restricted in some passages to the mng. disbelieve, be an unbeliever. This sense, though greatly disputed (it is not found outside our lit.), seems most probable in J 3:36.…” Probably our discussion of the exact meaning is somewhat academic, for the rejection of the gospel surely involves both unbelief and disobedience.
16. Some hold that we should understand this in the sense “a son of man” and take the meaning to be that Jesus can execute judgment because his humanity is real; he knows human life and is qualified to be our judge. But this seems a slender qualification for such an important function; after all, this could be said of every member of the human race. It is much more likely that we should see here an example of Colwell’s rule (JBL 52, 1933, pp. 12–21), that when the predicate precedes the verb (as it does here) it should be taken as definite unless the context positively excludes this. It is “the” Son of man, not “a” son of man, that is meant.
17. Cf. SBk, “According to the Rabbinic view it is exclusively God who will judge the world.… In Rabbinic literature there is no passage which unam-biguously places the judgment of the world in the hand of the Messiah” (II, p. 465).
18. Ernst Haenchen stresses the connection with judgment: “if the son is the almighty world judge, then Christians will take care not to withhold appropriate honor to this powerful figure” (John, I, Philadelphia, 1984, p. 251).
19. Cf. D. Moody Smith, in Christ, the Word, “the God who creates the world now saves it from its evil and folly.… The God who creates through his Word also reveals himself and saves through the same Word” (John, Philadelphia, 1976, p. 25).
20. Walter Lüthi emphasizes this: “He has shown the splendour of His Father’s glory in the blind and lame, in lepers, in the rich and the poor, and even in the dead. The world is corrupt, groping in darkness and ignorance, and choked with indifference or hatred towards God and His cause, and the name of God is abused daily.… He glorifies God by establishing the commandments of His Father in Heaven, wherever He passes in this sordid world, and by respecting the will of God even to the point of dying on the Cross” (St John’s Gospel, Edinburgh and London, 1960, p. 236).
21. Thus B. F. Westcott takes apostellō as conveying the notion “of a special commission” and pempō as denoting “nothing more than the immediate relation of the sender to the sent” (The Gospel according to St. John, Grand Rapids reprint, II, 1954, p. 358; K. H. Rengstorf makes a similar distinction in TDNT, I, pp. 398ff.). But E. A. Abbott thinks that “apostellō means ‘sending away into the world at large,’ but pempō ‘sending on a special errand’ ” (Johannine Vocabulary, London, 1905, 1723g). See further 
22. John uses apostellō 28 times (next is Luke with 25) and pempō 32 times (Luke has it ten times). He employs the former verb for the Father’s sending of the Son 17 times out of 28, and the latter 24 times out of 32. Clearly what is of central significance for him is the mission on which the Father sent the Son.
23. James D. G. Dunn goes so far as to say, “where in the Synoptics the language properly denotes a sense of divine commissioning … here the thought is explicitly of the Son as having been ‘sent (from heaven) into the world’ ” (Christology in the Making, London, 1980, p. 56).
24. Discussing the passage John 13:31–14:31 C. H. Dodd says, “The whole dialogue, indeed, is dominated by the ideas of going and coming. Verbs expressing these ideas (hypagein, poreuesthai, erchesthai) occur at least fourteen times, with Christ as subject; and the longest passage without direct reference to going and coming is not more than five verses. This dialogue in fact is occupied with the interpretation of the death and resurrection of Christ” (The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, Cambridge, 1953, p. 403).
25. C. F. D. Moule says that “the Johannine school” in common with certain other New Testament writers held that Jesus belongs “in a category other than that to which the believer hoped to belong at the end. Jesus is exalted to God’s right hand, he is uniquely one with the Father and close to him, and he is the origin and the active initiator of all that the believer may hope—derivatively and by dependence on him—to become. This distinction between the divine, creative initiative and human response and dependence and creatureliness seems to be clear” (The Origin of Christology, Cambridge, 1977, p. 103).
26. On the Gospel of St. John, NPNF, I, vii, p. 126.
27. F. Büchsel draws attention to 1 John 4:14, “The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world”, and reasons, “by His sending He who was already the Son became the Saviour, so that there is no room for doubt that the pre-existent Lord was already the Son” (TDNT, IV, p. 741, n. 16). The Son before his being sent to this earth already had the same nature as the Father.
28. Oscar Cullmann ends his treatment of this subject with these words: “In conclusion we can say that the Gospel of John as a whole penetrates more deeply than Matthew and Luke into the ultimate mystery of Jesus’ consciousness of sonship as we believed we could and should infer it from the Synoptics. Although John openly proclaimed what the historical Jesus only referred to with veiled allusion, he very impressively expressed, in their very solidarity, the two sides of Jesus’ Son-consciousness: obedience and oneness with the Father” (The Christology of the New Testament, p. 303).