The Father And The Son: An Eternal Relationship
Uplook – June 2025 — Grace & Truth Magazine
The Father And The Son:
An Eternal Relationship
The virgin Mary was given a most marvelous message by the angel Gabriel: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you, therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God” (Lk. 1:35 NKJV ). How wonderful, beyond all human thought, it is that the Son of God has come into Manhood! He is not called “the child of God,” but “the Son of God.” He was indeed in Manhood the child of Mary, for “child” involves birth, but as Son, birth is not involved at all. Christ was not born of God as are believers. When He came into relationship with humans He was called “the Son of God” because He had, for eternity past, enjoyed the relationship of Son with the Father.
“The Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world” (1 Jn. 4:14). Was He the Son before He was sent? Certainly He was. Some have denied this and have claimed that Christ became the Son only in incarnation. Then was God not the Father before He sent His Son? If God was the Father, then it follows absolutely that Christ was the Son. Did God only become the Father when Christ came into the world? No indeed! The Lord Jesus answered this plainly and unquestionably in John 16:28, “I came forth from the Father, and have come into the world.” He made His coming forth from the Father distinct from His coming into the world.
John 3:16 also is plain on this subject: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Only foolish unbelief would change this to say, “He gave the One who became His Son.”
The expression “only begotten” occurs only in John’s writings in referring to the Lord Jesus, although it was used of Abraham’s son Isaac in Hebrews 11:17. The word does not refer to birth but “the glory was that of a unique relationship and the word ‘begotten’ does not imply a beginning of His Sonship. It suggests relationship indeed, but it must be distinguished from generation as applied to man” (W. E. Vine, Expository Dictionary Of New Testament Words). The great mistake some make is that they consider that since in human relationships a son comes after his father, then Christ as Son of God must have become Son. But the word “Son” does not at all imply the origination from something or someone else, as does the word “child.” The Lord Jesus was Son of the Father from eternity past, implying His place of dignity, unity and fellowship with the Father. And, His being the Son is the background for sonship in human relationships, not the reverse. “All should honor the Son just as they honor the Father” (Jn. 5:23). We honor the Father as One who is infinite, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent and eternal. Therefore the Son is to be honored precisely the same. He is by nature the Son of God, but believers become sons of God by adoption (Gal. 4:1-7). They become children of God by new birth, which was never the case with the Lord Jesus, for He is not “the Child of God.” He is Son by nature, certainly not by adoption.
The words of the Lord Jesus above may seem a contradiction to His words in John 14:28, where we read: “My Father is greater than I.” He was not speaking of the Father being personally greater than He but rather that He as Son had taken a place, evident then in Manhood on earth, under the authority of the Father. There, He also spoke of His returning to the Father.
John dealt greatly with who Christ is in the glory of His deity. This is beautifully seen in John 1:18. “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” Was He in the bosom of the Father before He came into the world? Certainly, it was always His very nature to be in the bosom of the Father. Having so intimate a relationship with the Father in all the past eternity, He was fully qualified to declare Him.
John spoke of Christ as “the Word” before he spoke of Him as “the Son.” “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God” (vv.1-2). Just as some have dared to deny that Christ was the Son of God before coming into the world, so there are those who boldly assert that Christ became the Word when He came into the world. This is a flagrant insult to Scripture and to the Lord Himself.
Actually, the Word had no beginning. He was “in the beginning,” before time as we know it existed. He was there. In other words, He is an eternal person. He was “with God,” that is, He is a distinct person. “And the Word was God.” He is a divine person. More than that, “He was in the beginning with God. He is an eternally distinct person. As “the Word,” Christ is the perfect expression of all the thoughts of God. As “the Son” He is in the bosom of the Father, the One in whom the heart of the Father is perfectly manifested.
The Testimony Of The Old Testament
Although Agur spoke of himself as being “more stupid than any man” (Prov. 30:2), he asked questions in verse 4 that should have profoundly stirred the intelligence of any Israelite: “Who has ascended into heaven, or descended? Who has gathered the wind in His fists? Who has bound the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name, and what is His Son’s name, if you know?”
But let us remember that this is Scripture, and therefore God is asking us these questions. We are faced with the great glory of the Creator, then we are asked “What is His name, and what is His Son’s name, if you know.” He did not ask, “What will be the name of One who becomes God’s Son in the future?” but, “What is His name, and what is His Son’s name? Was Christ the Son of God at the time Agur wrote? Absolutely! There is no escape from this certainty.
Psalm 2, which has the judgment of the nations in view, prophesies of the words of the Lord Jesus: “I will declare the decree: the LORD has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You’” (v.7). The phrase “You are My Son” stands absolutely alone in solitary grandeur. He is God’s Son because He is God. This refers to His personal glory, true from eternity past. However, “Today I have begotten You” is prophetic, referring to the wonder of His incarnation. Some have objected to this, saying that Christ was begotten as Son through incarnation. But Scripture does not say, “I have begotten you to become My Son.” If such a thing was to be implied then the begetting would be mentioned first, but that is not the case. The greatness of His person is first mentioned, then the fact of His being begotten, which, of course, is in Manhood.
Psalm 2 also adds another valuable lesson for us in verses 10-12, where we read: “Now therefore, be wise, O kings; be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.” Although the psalm is prophetic of judgment in the last days, yet these verses are an admonition to kings and judges now, even as it was at the time of its writing. At that time they were told to “kiss the Son,” which was long before He was “begotten” in Manhood. Also, “Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him” (v.12). The psalmist surely wrote this to encourage people at the time to put their trust in the Son, which would be the way to “kiss the Son.”
Another most beautiful testimony to the relationship of the Father and the Son is found in Proverbs 8:22-36, which begins, “The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I have been established from everlasting, from the beginning, before there was ever an earth” (vv.22-23). Later, in verses 30-31, we read: “Then I was beside Him as a master craftsman; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him, rejoicing in His inhabited world, and my delight was with the sons of men.” Wisdom is here seen to be clearly personified, and the person can be none other than the Lord Jesus, the Son of the Father, as 1 Corinthians 1:24 bears witness, “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” How much we would miss if we did not recognize that the Son was in past ages always “His [the Father’s] delight, rejoicing always before Him” (Prov. 8:30). This relationship between the Father and the Son is one that should deeply delight our hearts and encourage our own present joy in “fellowship … with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ” (1 Jn. 1:3). Notice, too, that even in past ages the Son’s “delight was with the sons of men” (Prov. 8:31), for there was never a time when the Father and the Son did not have in mind the eternal blessing of believers.
Some have protested that Proverbs 8 cannot refer to the Son of God but only to wisdom as a principle, for wisdom is spoken of as “she” in chapter 8:1-3 and 9:1-6. However, it is not so in chapter 8:22-36, for wisdom speaks as a person there (see v.12). When spoken of as “she” the emphasis is on the subjective working of wisdom in people, but in Proverbs 8:22-36 the subject is not that of our assimilation, or understanding, of wisdom, but wisdom objectively in one person, apart from how we are affected by it. That person can be only the Son of God. He is not even seen as the example of wisdom in this case, for we could never follow such an example. Rather, He is put before us as the Object of our devoted affection and worship. May such a passage of Scripture therefore deepen our adoration of the Father and the Son.
Finally, we may well delight in the truth declared in the prayer of the Lord Jesus to His Father in John 17:24, “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” The Son spoke to God as His Father, and as the Father, God loved His Son even before the foundation of the world. How perfectly this agrees with the various passages we have considered in this short paper.
The beauty of the eternal relationship of love between the Father and the Son is surely intended to move us in worship and adoration before His face.
By Leslie M. Grant, adapted.
Human language is suited to express human relationships and things within the sphere of human conceptions and ideas. Therefore, it is deficient to describe adequately the divine being of the eternal God and the uncreated relationship that must exist essentially without beginning or end between the three persons of the Triune God. The expressions God used to reveal these divine things must be couched in human language, which we humans are liable to wrest and distort by reading into them our own human ideas.
But God has come in His sovereign goodness toward us in this our natural weakness. In giving us His divinely inspired statements about Himself, He has not at all left us to our own reasoning powers to speculate about what He said. Instead, He has made us partakers of His own divine nature, which has a capacity to grasp revealed, divine things. And, He has given us His own Holy Spirit to dwell in us to interpret His Word and to enlighten our renewed understanding as to their true meaning. This is a great boon, but it is only as we lean not on our own understanding and have a submissive will and a teachable heart that He can guide us into all truth (Jn. 7:17; Prov. 3:5-6; 1 Cor. 2:10,12,14; Jn. 16:13). —E. C. Hadley, adapted from “The Eternal Son”