Theology Thursday: Who is God the Son?

Theology is the study of God, his relation to the world, and our relation to him.

Welcome to Theology Thursday!

Today’s question:
What is God the Son's role in the trinity? Who is Jesus?

Pastor Brady’s thoughts:
If you’ve been around church for a while, you’ve heard more about Jesus than probably any other aspect of the Christian faith, and rightly so. Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah, the Redeemer, Emmanuel (God is with us), the Lamb of God, Savior, Prince of Peace, Son of Man, the Christ.

(“Christ” is not Jesus’s last name - it’s a title. It’s from Greek, and means “anointed one.” From the earliest days of the faith, including throughout the New Testament writings, “Christ” was used exclusively as a title for Jesus to denote his divine nature and his mission as messiah-savior for God’s people and the whole world.)

Regardless of one’s faith, the person of Jesus and his earthly incarnation were so monumental - so universally affecting - that it maintains its position as the center point of history. No person, event, or idea has changed the course of humankind more than Jesus of Nazareth. The entire world even views time itself as resetting when Christ came to earth: B.C. = “before Christ,” and A.D. = Anno Domini, Latin for “in the year of the Lord.”

If you acknowledge that to say we live in the year 2024 is an accurate statement, you’re acknowledging the importance - at least on a basic level - of the historical Jesus character!  

So…who was he?

The responses to that question have filled centuries worth of books, sermons, academic lectures, and personal discussions, but for our purposes we’re going to focus on three aspects of Jesus’s role in the trinity: his incarnation, his ministry, and his lordship.

Jesus’s Incarnation
Properly grasping Jesus’s existence requires understanding that he is essentially two natures, in one person. Jesus was both completely human, and is fully God.

Jesus was completely human: he was born in Bethlehem to a mother named Mary. He worked as a carpenter and as a rabbi (a teacher of religious beliefs and actions). He was killed on a cross by the Roman authorities for the supposed crime of blaspheme, and he was resurrected from the dead and appeared as a human again to thousands of people before returning to Heaven.

Jesus is also fully God: he shares with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit a divine oneness of character and personhood, despite their distinct natures. Each exists eternally (Psalm 90:2; Hebrews 9:14; Revelation 22:13), each was involved in the creation of the universe (specifically related to Jesus: John 1:3, Colossians 1:16, and Hebrews 1:2), and each are actively reigning over are world today and forevermore.

The term “incarnation” matters, because it helps us understand that Jesus did not begin his existence when Mary conceived him in a miraculous, supernatural manner (This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. - Matthew 1:18), he already existed as God and only began to exist as a human in Mary’s womb.

We use the term “Son of God,” but Jesus’s sonship did not have a historical beginning. He did not become the Son at his birth, baptism, or resurrection. Jesus’s identity and relationship with the Father precedes his earthly life. The Father always had the Son, and the Son always had the Father.

Jesus was a real, human, male. He got hungry, thirsty, and tired; he learned and grew; he cried and he rejoiced; he suffered physical and emotional pain and turmoil, especially in his torture and death.

Christ’s human nature does not negate or detract from his divine nature, and his divine nature does not negate or detract from the fact that he was 100% human. Just as the Godhead is three-in-one, Jesus himself is two-in-one.  

So, that’s Jesus as God and man. But what did he do? Or, put another way, why did he matter so much back then and still to this day?

Jesus’s Ministry
There are many useful and moving summaries of Jesus’s time on earth and the salvation he offers us through belief in him because of his atoning death and resurrection, but here today I want to focus on one particular aspect of his ministry: his role as mediator.

The Apostle Paul writes in his first letter to his mentee, Timothy, that “...there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people.” - 1 Timothy 2:5-6

One of my college theology professors, Steve Cone, explains what this means in his book Theology From the Great Tradition: “By mediation, Christ bridges the gap between us and God, making God present to us in a new and better way, and thereby making us able to come to God.”

Think of a famous bridge - the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco or the Brooklyn Bridge in New York - a trip across such a bridge would be impossible if both ends did not span the entire gap across the water to the shore.

Jesus is able to mediate God to us - make God fully present to us - because he really IS God. And the way he accomplishes this is by taking on humanity. He bridged the gap between both shores, and the path he created is the one and only way to make it to the other side.

Jesus mediates God to us because he reveals the Father through the life that he gives us as a result of his sacrifice on the cross. In John’s gospel, Jesus prays: “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began." - John 17:3-5

To redeem humans where they are, the Son had to become what they are.

The purpose of this Theology Thursday series is to gain a basic understanding of the trinity and each of the three persons’ roles within it. So, I’m not going to spend too much time here on the various aspects of Jesus’s ministry related to atonement and salvation, though they are all supremely important. Our point today is that Jesus is our window into the mystery of God.

It’s through Jesus’s ministry during his time on earth - his countercultural teachings, his earnest prayers, his compassionate approach to relationships, his radical priorities, his humble character - that we can best see what God is like, and what we are supposed to strive toward.

When Jesus took on flesh, he served as God’s definitive revelation of himself, and that revelation is God’s offer of salvation to all who believe in him and follow his way.

Jesus’s Lordship
The Greek word kyrios is translated “Lord,” many times in the New Testament. It has a few different meanings, but when the early Christians referred to Kyrios Jesus - “Lord Jesus” - they meant more than just “respected master” or as a polite and honorable way of saying “sir.” And they meant more than just “Lord of my life,” though that characteristic was and is true and accurate. Kyrios Jesus is not just a statement about Jesus’s divinity, it’s a statement of his active authority over the world.

When the early Christians said “Jesus is Lord,” they meant “Lord over all” (Romans 10:12, 14:9; Acts 10:36). We do too.

Jesus’s incarnation and earthly ministry are the climax to the biblical story. He came to fulfill God’s promises to his people, to display his faithfulness to his covenant with Israel, and to usher in the Kingdom of God and make a way for all people to know God’s love and peace, forever.

And he’s still doing so.    
   
The Lord of our lives is also the Lord of the cosmos; he stands over every power and his ultimate victory has been assured, as Paul writes in Philippians 2:9-11: Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus’s lordship will not be completely actualized or displayed until he returns in triumph, but the biblical vision of that great day ought to affect our attitudes and actions in the present.

In other words, there’s work to do; in ourselves, and for others. How does that work get done? That’s next week’s Theology Thursday.

Related Resources:
Article - Jesus is Mediator of a Superior Covenant
Article - Is Jesus God? A Narrative Journey into the Evidence
Video series -  Who Is Jesus? (access a free Right Now Media subscription HERE!)

Next week: We’ll continue this series on the trinity by turning to God the Holy Spirit.

To know Him and to make Him known!
- Pastor Brady

Have a question for Theology Thursday? Send an email to minierccstaff@gmail.com and we'll respond, or we'll include in a future Theology Thursday Buffet.