Jesus is God (or not)

Another of the evidences used for Jesus� divinity is the application of the title �Son of God� to Jesus.  However, there are numerous places in the Old Testament where this title has been given to others.

God called Israel (Prophet Jacob) His �son� when He instructed Prophet Moses to go to Pharaoh in Exodus 4:22-23, �²² And you shall say to Pharaoh, �Thus says the Lord, �Israel is my first-born son, ²³and I say to you, �Let my son go that he may serve me.� � [69]

            In 2nd Samuel 8:13-14, God calls Prophet Solomon His son, �¹³ He [Solomon] shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. ¹⁴I will be his father, and he shall be my son.�

            God promised to make Prophet David His son in Psalms 89:26-27: �26 He shall cry unto me, �Thou art my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation,� ²⁷Also I will make him my first-born, higher than the kings of the earth.�[70]

            Angels are referred to as �sons of God� in The Book of Job 1:6, �Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them.�[71]

            In the New Testament, there are many references to �sons of God� other than Jesus.  For example, when the author of the Gospel according to Luke listed Jesus� ancestors back to Adam, he wrote: �The son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.�[72]

            Some claim that what is unique in the case of Jesus, is that he is the only begotten[73] Son of God, while the others are merely �sons of God�. However, God is recorded as saying to Prophet David, in Psalms 2:7, �I will tell the decree of the Lord: He said to me, �You are my son, today I have begotten you.� �

            It should also be noted that nowhere in the Gospels does Jesus actually call himself �Son of God�.[74]  Instead, he is recorded to have repeatedly called himself �Son of man� (e.g. Luke 9:22) innumerable times. And in Luke 4:41, he actually rejected being called �Son of God�: �And demons also came out of many, crying, �You are the Son of God!�   But he rebuked them, and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ.�

            Since the Hebrews believed that God is One, and had neither wife nor children in any literal sense, it is obvious that the expression �son of God� merely meant to them �Servant of God�; one who, because of his faithful service, was close and dear to God, as a son is to a father. Christians who came from a Greek or Roman background, later misused this term. In their heritage, �son of God� signified an incarnation of a god or someone born of a physical union between male and female gods.[75] When the Church cast aside its Hebrew foundations, it adopted the pagan concept of �son of God�, which was entirely different from the Hebrew usage.[76]          

            Consequently, the use of the term �son of God� should only be understood from the Semitic symbolic sense of a �servant of God�, and not in the pagan sense of a literal offspring of God. In the four Gospels, Jesus is recorded as saying: �Blessed are the peace-makers; they will be called sons of God.�[77]

            Likewise, Jesus� use of the term abba, �dear father�, should be understood similarly. There is a dispute among New Testament scholars as to precisely what abba meant in Jesus� time and also as to how widely it was in use by other Jewish sects of that era. 

            James Barr has recently argued forcefully that it did not have the specially intimate sense that has so often been attributed to it, but that it simply meant �father�.[78] To think of God as �our heavenly Father� was by no means new, for in the Lord�s prayer he is reported to have taught his disciples to address God in this same familiar way.