His identification as the Son of God is supported in Scripture by many unquestionable testimonies. Matthew 16:16 in answer to the Lord’s question, Peter responded, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Matthew 3:17 “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” declared the voice from heaven at his baptism,
and again at the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:5).
“Of a truth, thou art the Son of God,” confessed the disciples when they saw Him
still the troubled waves of a stormy sea. (Matthew 13:33).
Luke 1:35 clearly states, “That holy thing which
shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God,” announced the angel
Gabriel to Mary. John the Baptist testified, “I saw, and bare record that this
is the Son of God.” (John 1:34).
There are many other references to the His divine Sonship.
John 3:16-18; John 9:35-38;
John 11:27; Mark 1:1;
Acts 9:20.
Even the powers of Darkness recognized and obeyed Him. Demons said to Him, “What
have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? Art thou come hither to torment
us before the time?” (Matthew 8:29). “The Father
send the Son to be the Savior of the world,” wrote John (I
John 4:14,15). “Whosoever shall confess the Jesus is the Son of God, God
dwelleth in him, and he in God.”
In one sense the Bible teaches that all men are children of God—not in the
family sense, but in the sense that God made all mankind. God is the Father of
all mankind. He made us, and He also created us; He made the elements out of
which He made us. But in the family sense, God is the Father of only those who
believe on Jesus Christ, the Son of God. “As many as received him, to them gave
he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name (John
1:12).
No man ever became a child of God until first he realizes that he is not a child
of God, but a sinner. There are only two kinds of people in the world—the
children of God, and the children of Satan. “That which is born of the flesh is
flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said
unto thee, ye must be born again,” said the Lord to Nicodemus (John
3:6-7). Satan is the god of this world and the lord of the flesh. Jesus
told the unbelieving Jews who claimed Abraham as their father “Ye are Abraham’s
seed…but…ye are of your father the devil” (John 8:37-44).
By this He meant that if they were true children of Abraham—that is, spiritual
children of the covenant, those who had entered into the spiritual heritage—they
would recognize Him and reverence His Word instead of seeking to kill him.
Anyone who does not recognize Jesus Christ as Savior and reverence Him as Lord
and the Son of God is a child of the devil. All men are saints or sinners,
children of God, or children of the devil; there is no middle ground.
You do not need to die and have some church council declare you a saint. The
moment you were born again, you became a saint in the eyes of God. If you are
not a saint, you are not a child of God, but a sinner, and hence a child of the
devil. Every man is in bondage to one of two forces—the force of sin, or the
force of light. Either Christ is your Master, or Satan is your Lord. The Bible
makes it very clear that “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate
the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the
other” (Matthew 6:24).
When you are born again, you become a child of God. However, you are not a
begotten child of God. Jesus Christ is the “only begotten” of the Father (John
3:16). We are born of the Spirit; He was begotten of the Spirit. When we
speak of His identification as the Son of God, we mean something entirely
different from what we mean about the rest of mankind—even about those who have
been saved. His was indeed a unique Sonship.
Liberalism teaches that Jesus Christ simply realized His divinity and Sonship,
and that all we need to do is recognize our sonship and try to live as a child
of God. That is a false doctrine. Jesus Christ did not just realize His divinity
and Sonship. He knew Who He was. “I and my Father are one,” He emphatically
stated. He knew He was Deity. He is the One Who from the beginning as with God (John
1:1-3), who claimed to be God (John 10:30)
and who “thought it not robbery to be equal with God” (Philippians
2:6). Some men say, “I think He was just a good man. I do not believe
that He was God in any special sense.” If He is not God, He is not a good man,
but one of the worst frauds who ever lived. He claimed to be God; and any man
who is not what he claims to be is a liar. If Jesus Christ is not, in truth, the
Son of God, none of us are, and never can be children of God; for our sonship of
the Father depends upon His being the unique Son of God.
If Jesus Christ was just a good man, then we have absolutely nothing to base our
religion on. We have no salvation, we have no hope, and we have no redemption.
We have absolutely no reason to be in any church.
Beware of men who speak of the divinity of Jesus. Whoever uses that terminology
is either a modernist, or one who has come under the influence of modernistic
books. And this modernistic approach to Scripture is of Satan, not of God. The
correct phrase is “the deity of Christ.” There is a difference. He is not just
divine; “He is Very God of Very God, One with God, co-eternal with the Father.”
The body that died on the cross was a human body, yet it was the body wherein
Deity was incarnated. God dwelt in that flesh. In Heaven today, Jesus Christ has
human body. It is a body that was without sin, but which became sin for us and
on the cross of Calvary paid the penalty of our sin. This virgin born Son of God
in the flesh is our only hope of salvation and our great assurance of
glorification. The fact that there is a body in heaven is all the proof we need
that someday we, too, will have a body in heaven. Our vile bodies will be
changed like unto His glorious body (Philippians 3:21),
“And so shall we ever be with the Lord” (I Thessalonians
4:17)
I John 5:20 sums it up “We know that the Son of God
is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true,
and we are in him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true
God, and eternal life.”
God’s Word speaks; and where God speaks, let all men be liars. We stand with God
and upon God’s Word.