Who is the Son of God Series: Part 2
By: Mishelle Hill
Intro
“Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” I John 5:5
Friends, I write to you so that you may have knowledge and believe what is written about the Son of God. Overcoming the world is to overcome even all the things we hate about society and culture.
To preface, “God” is a blanket term for supreme being, and is commonly used across different religions and even non-believers. When you use the term God to anyone, people recognize and can associate the word with a being who created the universe and can live outside of time, among many other things give or take.
Creation
So, take this a step further, we find out that there is an existence of God through the things we see and experience in our everyday lives. In Romans, it is written that we have evidence of God through what is created:
“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, “Romans 1:20 NKJV
And to reiterate from the last part about Hebrews 1:2 “But to us living in these last days, God now speaks to us openly in the language of a Son, the appointed Heir of everything, for through him God created the panorama of all things and all time.”
Morality
We know that God exists simply because there is an existence and difference between good and bad. Ask yourself this question: do you consider yourself to be good or bad?
If you answered the question with good, then, try to explain why you are good in your own words. Maybe it’s because you gave to the poor a lot in your life, or you look out for people close to you without expecting much in return, or you have never done so much as gotten a speeding ticket. To be upfront, you might have even abstained from pork and kept an odd number of laws, idk… lets say, about 613 laws.
If you answered the question with bad, then try to explain why you are bad in your own words. Maybe you feel that you didn't measure up to someone's standard or even your own standards. Maybe someone convinced you you’ll never be enough and you haven't had the best hand given to you in life. Maybe you have just outright murdered and stolen things and done people wrong because you wanted to.
Most societies attribute things like murder, stealing, lying, cheating etc. as bad things and the reason why we have prisons and justice systems. Who decided we needed prisons to put people in? Some people consider murder worse than stealing on a “bad spectrum” and that it is definitely worse than feeling depressed and bad about yourself. Okay, so, who decided it was worse? Someone who steals may not think stealing is that bad but think murder is too far on the bad spectrum. If you consider yourself to be in the good category, would you say that murder is worse than stealing? To push these “good person” boundaries, do you believe you’re going to heaven? Are good deeds what get us into heaven?
In either case, there is reason to believe that these beliefs and convictions come from somewhere. I'm not exactly sure why morality becomes an existential topic but it surely makes you think through what you believe about the world and about others.
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire.”
Matthew 5:21-22 NKVJ
https://www.bible.com/bible/114/MAT.5.21-22
Most people would agree that every murderer deserves to be put in jail. This text is saying that even just anger towards a fellow brother gets you the same outcome as what we believe murder should get you [the term “in danger of”, G1777, means ‘to be guilty of’]. You don’t have to go as far as murder to be in sin. This is just to give language to morality from the bible with an Old (OT) and New Testament (NT) perspective.
Is anger worse than murder? In this case, the outcome for both of them is the same. So then, the question becomes, does my behavior and actions lead to “being guilty of judgement” or not, versus this ‘bad spectrum’ where we rank the common bad things of the world as being more bad or less bad depending on what type of bad it is.
This text should address not just unbelievers, but most other religions because the view on morality is wildly different and affects the theology of ‘work’ and needing to do something to be right with God. There isn’t a thing you can do from the OT that can change your anger into love at the heart level. Unchecked anger towards your brother is sin, and we deal with sin by putting on Christ and having faith in Him. That's it.
God in essence
There’s a difference between essence and role. “The Word” and “God” are different titles for the same essence of being. This post is not to explain Jesus being made manifest into human or to explain what He created. This post attempts to explore a foundation that comes before what is created, or I should say, “in the beginning” of all that Jesus is and what He did. (Haha.)
Jesus, or “The Word”, is God in essence and creator in role, one of many roles. The Father and Holy Spirit are both God as essence with roles different from each other and roles both different from Jesus. When it says “and the word was God” in John 1:1, it means that at a point in time, before right now, there was a being with the essence of God.
God in role
Continuing on in Hebrews, in verse 1:3, the writer expresses a little bit of the role and image of The Son, that is, The Son of God.
“The Son is the dazzling radiance of God’s splendor, the exact expression of God’s true nature—His mirror image! He holds the universe together and expands it by the mighty power of His spoken word. He accomplished for us the complete cleansing of sins, and then took His seat on the highest throne at the right hand of the majestic One.”
Hebrews 1:3 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/heb.1.3.TPT
The Son of God is a complete expression of God- God who the entire world knows as His name and who the entire world is wanting to know more about. All things in God can be found in Jesus. Not only did Jesus create the world and everything in it, He took away the sin of the world that would have kept the world separated from God forever. Jesus even went back up to heaven, after being resurrected from death, to be seated next to the Father. Truly, this is the Lord's work that no-one can compare to. Not any prophet or other god in the earth, or under the earth, can say they did this.
Attributes of God
Lastly,
We know Jesus, the Son of God is God because of the attributes given to Him that only God can have. He is light, truth, and life. These three things are only described in reference to God in the bible. He became flesh and multiplied food (fish and bread) and commanded the seas, both more than once, which is the epitome of the exodus in the OT, as well as healed the sick, raised the dead, forgave sins, cast out demons, and gave power to the disciples to heal and cast out demons as well. There are few that could do one or the other of these things (i.e. Moses/Elijah) but no one has done EVERY last one of them on top of doing something no-one has done: shedding His blood, dying, and resurrecting to the right hand of the Father in heaven for all of the sin of the world- past, present, and future sins.
Let’s explore in more detail, soon, about how the Son of God has attributes and characteristics that only God can have.
If you believe that Christ died for your sins so that you can no longer be an enemy of God, pray with me to the Father, in Jesus’ mighty name, of your accepting of His finished work on the cross for you.
Sinners prayer of repentance
“Dear God, I come to You admitting that I am a sinner and enemy of God. I believe that Your Son, Jesus, was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, shed His blood, and died on the cross in order to take away my sin and defeat death for me. I also believe He rose from the dead so I can be justified and be made righteous through faith in Him and His completed work on the cross to redeem us from sin and from being enemies of God. God, I repent of my sins of ____________. Jesus, I ask that you forgive me of my sins, cleanse me, and fill me with the power of the Holy Spirit to be a Christ follower and child of God. Thank you for saving me! In Jesus’ name, amen.”
Thank you for reading and praying! If you do not have a bible or need help navigating translations let me know! I’m hoping you start reading it everyday and that you would find community at a local bible believing and sound church near you (really important!).
This concludes the second part of Who is the Son of God series. Sign up to be notified for the next part!