The meaning of the phrase Son of God in the Bible?

[Tyuiop411]

Okay i was talking to one of my Muslim friends on MSN and one thing led to another and we ended up on the topic of Jesus’ Divinity. He stated “The Bible does not indicate that Jesus is God nor does it indicate that he is Divine” after he said this i responded by quoting Matthew 16:13-20. Then after a considerable delay he threw out a slightly personalized copy-paste reply that i am honestly at a loss to respond to at the moment. It is as follows.

On with the topic:
For the sake of brevity, let’s deal with point number 1:

The contention here is : The Bible does not indicate that Jeuss pbuh is divine nor he is God/

Your reply:

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13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do men say that the Son of man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” 20 Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. Matthew 16:13-20.>>
Your conclusion based on the verses above is: **Peter clearly states his belief that Jesus is God here and Jesus himself confirms it.
**I found this highly questionable giving the context of the verses above. Let’s go though it one by one:

13: Jesus asked his disciples who he is according to the people ( I would presume believers who were flocking to meet him) and it is rather strange that he referred to himself as “Son of man” Why and what justification for this and why this expression Son of man (jesus pbuh refereing to himself) is used at various other places under various other conditions?
14: Believers at the time took him as a prophet i.e human. (John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or one of the prophets pbut)
15-16: Simon Peter replied, **“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
**
So I take it that your clear evidence and conclusion that Jesus pbuh is God is based on the statement : “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”?

Now here are two biggest problems I have with this:

1) The term Christ: Christ is the Grecian form of a Hebrew word ‘Messiah’. In the Quran Jesus pbuh is referred to as Al-Massih i.e the Messiah. ‘Messiah’ means an anointed one, i.e somebody selected or picked to do a job. So there is no agreement there except the Bible appear to assign the Grecian term ‘Christ’ whenever the vesre applies to Jesus pbuh.
Is there other messiah (i.e Christ) in the Bible? Yes, there are many*, Cyrus the Persian is called Messiah (Christ/ anointed) in Isaiah 45:1. So this term ‘Christ’ does no carry with it divinity.

1. The term Son of God:
   Now if you go here:
   bible.cc/acts/3-13.htm , there are close to 20 translations, here are two of them:

Acts 3:13

NIV : *The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his **servant ***Jesus.

KJV: The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus;

Notice the difference there?
NIV claims* “RSV was compiled by thirty two Biblical scholars of the highest eminence, backed by 50 cooperating Christian denominations from the “most” ancient Biblical manuscripts available to them today.”*

Why the confusion? Well because "The Actual Greek word used is “pias” or “paida” which mean; “servant, child, son, manservant.”

Now here’s the double standard, the exact same word 'pias’attributed to Jacob(Israel) in Luke 1:54 and translated as “servant”:

“He hath helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy;.”

It is also applied to King David pbuh in Luke 1:69, and once again, it is translated as “servant”:

"…the house of his servant David;" (also see Acts 4:25).

Notice that whenever the excact same word applies to Jesus pbuh, the scribes translated it as Son (not just son but Son). Why the double standard and dishonest translations? What justification that the scribes used to justify the capital S there?

As for other ‘sons of God’ in the Bible:

In the language of the Hebrew Bible, righteous persons who follow the Will and Plan of God are know as Sons Of God.

"Adam, which was the Son Of God." Luke 3:38

“The Sons Of God saw the daughters of men… And the Sons Of God came in unto the daughters of men…” Genesis 6: 2,4.

"Israel is My Son, even my first born." Exodus 4:22

"…for I (God) am a Father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn." Jeremiah 31:9

“The Lord hath said unto me (David), Thou art My Son this day have I Begotten thee.” Psalms 2:7.
Also Mat 5:9; Romans 8:14 etc.

In colclusion, your "Jesus pbuh is clearly god " falls flat on its face. Son Of God is a nothing but a metaphorical description commonly used among the Jews.As for the ‘Trinity’, it is quite amazing of course that, if trinity is such a fundamental part of Christianity, why in the world the word trinity is not mentioned even once in the Bible?

I’m going to do more research into this, but i wanted to post it here to get some (name removed by moderator)ut on the matter.

 

[NotWorthy]

I think the point is irrelevant. That’s not the text I use to declare Jesus’ divinity.

Thomas declares it, “My Lord and My God” in John 20 and John declares it in John 1, “And the Word was with God and the Word was God”.

I’m not sure if any of the synoptic Gospels spell out that Jesus was God. They do, however drop many hints.

For instance, if you read the psalms you’ll find that God alone can tread the seas and also calm the seas.
In the Synoptics we have separate scenes where Jesus walks on the water and Jesus calms the seas with simple words. A good Jew would begin to wonder. What do the Apostles say? “Who is this Man who can calm the seas”.

We also see the Scribes attesting that God alone can forgive sins. What does Jesus do? Forgive the paralytics sins.

It was John’s Gospel that spoke most clearly on Jesus’ divinity, perhaps to combat gnosticism, which had already raised its ugly head.

 

[NotWorthy]

As for the ‘Trinity’, it is quite amazing of course that, if trinity is such a fundamental part of Christianity, why in the world the word trinity is not mentioned even once in the Bible?

Because Trinity is a Latin word.

But we see the Trinity in several scenes in both the Old Testament and the New.
We see the Trinity in the Creation Account of Genesis 1.
We see the Trinity even more clearly both in the Baptism of Jesus and the Transfiguration.

Also, in the Old Testament we see Typology of the Trinity in Genesis.
**Abraham **is a type of God the Father, who is willing to give up his only Begotten Son. (Notice this is a phrase that John will use to describe God loving the world that He gave His only begotten son).
**Isaac **is a type of Jesus, who is the Son of the Father and is willing to die for His Father, even going so far as to carry the wood up the mountain that would cause his death.
Abraham’s Servant is a type of the Holy Spirit who is sent out to find a bride for Isaac, Rebeka. Just as the Holy Spirit is sent out to find the bride for Christ, The Church. Notice that, just like the Holy Spirit, the Servant has no name.

There you have the Trinity!

 

[Tyuiop411]

Because Trinity is a Latin word.

But we see the Trinity in several scenes in both the Old Testament and the New.
We see the Trinity in the Creation Account of Genesis 1.
We see the Trinity even more clearly both in the Baptism of Jesus and the Transfiguration.

Also, in the Old Testament we see Typology of the Trinity in Genesis.
**Abraham **is a type of God the Father, who is willing to give up his only Begotten Son. (Notice this is a phrase that John will use to describe God loving the world that He gave His only begotten son).
**Isaac **is a type of Jesus, who is the Son of the Father and is willing to die for His Father, even going so far as to carry the wood up the mountain that would cause his death.
Abraham’s Servant is a type of the Holy Spirit who is sent out to find a bride for Isaac, Rebeka. Just as the Holy Spirit is sent out to find the bride for Christ, The Church. Notice that, just like the Holy Spirit, the Servant has no name.

There you have the Trinity!

Thanks for the thorough explanation. I am far from an apologist, in fact I’ve just been Catholic for half a year now. I’ll get better at it with time

 

[NotWorthy]

Thanks for the thorough explanation. I am far from an apologist, in fact I’ve just been Catholic for half a year now. I’ll get better at it with time

Congratulations!!! But remember, your first priority is your faith! The apologetics will come in time. The two don’t necessarily go hand in hand.

 

[Mad_Amos]

The title “Son of Man” is actually more revealing in this context than “Son of God”.

Recall that Daniel (Dn 7:13) foresaw The Messiah as “One like a son of man”; the peculiarity occurring to the prophet is that while This Figure is certainly divine, He appears in the vision as human.

Christ’s accusers saw no ambiguity in this passage when He quotes it in self-reference in their presence (Mt 26:64), as evidenced by their violently indignant reaction.

 

[NotWorthy]

Regarding Jesus as “Servant” or “Son” of God, I love stumbling across these little gems as I’m studying something else.

To the OP, I would refer your Muslim friend to Greek grammatical rules.

In Galatians 4:1 where St. Paul writes: *"**What I am saying is this: an heir, during the time while he is still under age, is no different from a slave **[servant]…". *

Son and Slave are interchangeable.