Jesus the only begotten son of God

We say we believe in Jesus as God, the Son of God, eternally begotten, not made, one in being with the Father through whom all things were made but what does that mean? The apostles, the closest ones to Jesus, had a hard time getting their heads around that question so it is no surprise that we would have a similar challenge.

How could this Jesus who walked with them, talked with them, ate with them and who allowed himself to be crucified be the Son of God? The first accounts of what they believed comes to us from the Epistles, the “working” documents of this new faith community. In reading them we get an understanding of the slow realization of who this Jesus the Christ really was and what is demanded of believers.

Rather than being a simple answer the Epistles and later the Gospels describe individuals and groups who struggled to understand the meaning behind Jesus’ words. For the whole history of Christianity believers have struggled with understanding this “Jesus.”

Calling Jesus the “Son” of God is the closest approximation we can come to understanding in human terms the relationship of the “Father” to the “Son.” It connotes that the two share the same essence, a divine “gene pool” if you will. Unlike a human parent/child relationship the relationship of the Father and Son is completely different to anything we can conceive since there was never a point at which this relationship did not exist.

The term “begotten” while not in our common language refers to being created. In the creed we say eternally begotten, which essentially tells us that the “Son” wasn’t created some time in a past but is a continuous generation of the Father since with God there is no past, there is only an eternal now. He wasn’t made like any other creature but comes out of the Father as his very Word, a Word of life and creation in itself.

Iconographers trying to capture a sense of this fullness often pictured Mary holding Jesus not as a little baby but as a small human male, fully formed, radiating a specialness that is like yet different from any other of God’s creation. This Jesus is “God from God, Light from light, True God from True God… one in being with the Father through whom all things were made.”

(to be continued)