Scripture and culture

Don Carson's final chapter deals with a few applicatory issues coming out of the topic at hand. The major one is how best to communicate the gospel to Muslims and whether avoiding the title Son of God for Jesus is helpful for eliminating some of the barriers there. Having recently done some introductory studies on Islam, I feel the weight of the issue. The Quran has Jesus vehemently rejecting his title as Son of God, it is something that Muslims are explicitly taught as a Christian belief that's gravely in error. Does this mean it's a big problem for them when they read the Bible?

This issue of Bible translation highlights the same ideas explored in my first two posts. How important is it to be precise in our terminology? Roses by any other name would apparently smell just as sweet, said Shakespeare, but, if God chooses to call it a rose, what does that signify? 

This is indeed a wisdom issue, the Bible calls us to remove stumbling blocks for the proclamation of the gospel, but does removing this stumbling block become a rejection of God's chosen terms for self-revelation? Which sounds ill advised. Pragmatism in ministry methods often worries me. It's just too close to decision making on our own terms, rather than seeking God's ways. How ironic, too, that this appears to be more of a Western preoccupation (page 108). Another symptom of our loss of faith in the power of the gospel to save?

Something really clarifying that comes out of this discussion is the reminder that the Son of God title does indeed have such a wide semantic range. The concept of a trajectory, or to give this concept the more familiar term: typology, is demonstrated by reminding us of how 2 Samuel 7:14, Psalm 2:7 and Psalm 45:6-7 are applied to Jesus progressively. Carson also identifies these biblical teachings as a 'complex interplay of themes,' which helps to explain for me the ambiguity of references that I was struggling with last week. There are definitely two uses of 'Son', and this works to argue that you can't use the term Messiah for all of the passages, as some Muslim friendly translations propose. As Carson writes, the biblical affirmations of Jesus' sonship are multi-faceted. This makes the translation task much more complex. In an ideal world, as Carson suggests, it is good to provide the personnel along with the translation to explain these complexities, but that's not possible in many Muslim countries.

Carson's observation that dealing with the biblically illiterate has the potential to force a change in our language has got me thinking about what biblical language offends our culture. I didn't have to think too hard: it's submission for the feminists and rejection of homosexual practice for a large section of modern Sydney. But we ought not be ashamed of God's Word. The task we have in all these contexts is to allow Scripture to challenge our antecedent cultural understanding. And as Carson also asserts, the overcoming of such barriers shows the genuine converts from the merely interested.

Having said all that, perhaps my proposal in the previous post for God the Son to be used more often would not be the best option in most Muslim contexts? I'm happy to concede that. 

A call for clarity in our terminology

This is where the rubber hits the road, on the back of the book the question was raised: 'What does it mean to confess Jesus as God's only Son?' As this chapter tackles a couple of Bible passages in depth, digging into what it means to believe in 'God's only Son our Lord,' this was where I expected that the Davidic Son of God title would give way to trinitarian concepts. But it did not. Not clearly anyway. Carson uses the two Bible passages (Hebrews 1 and John 5), which to me are clearly speaking of Jesus as God the Son, and yet Carson continues to mostly use the term Son of God. I concede that we're entering confusing territory, as there's a lot of overlap in the biblical terms. And because God the Son is not a Bible phrase, I can see that it does not have to be used, but it still pays to be clear in your terminology when you're discussing these concepts in order to help clarify some issues. There is a difference between the concept of Jesus as God the Son and as the Son of God.

Carson's been exploring how there are many sons of God, and then there's Jesus who is God's only Son while also being called the Son of God. As he considers the first passage, Carson asserts that Davidic typology drives Hebrews 1, but as he continues he does conclude that 'the sonship language applied to Christ in the prologue cannot be restricted to a strictly Davidic-messianic horizon.' He notes that the author links Jesus' messianic with his divine status and he ends by arguing that 'the complementary christologies are woven into one organic whole.' The Bible certainly does combine the two concepts in many places, but in others it focuses on one or the other and it seems to me that in Hebrews 1 and John 5 we're clearly talking about the eternal Son.

I've been struggling to write this post, finding myself caught between the categories I've been thinking in over the last few years, and those modelled in this book. I've been taught to observe when a Bible passage is talking about Jesus as God the Son in order to truly appreciate the wonders of God's perfect plan that the ultimate Son of God was God the Son. We can only see this if our terminology is clear as we discuss it. As I read a bit wider on these issues it does seem that the North Americans do tend to use the Son of God term for both meanings. In the beginning of chapter one Carson observes how the term Son of God was mainly dealt with in trinitarian articles, and he seems to disagree with this categorisation, but he himself refers to the term 'Son of God' as a trinitarian identity and reflects that 'for most of us it's so tightly tied to the second person of the trinity'. But I want to argue that it isn't tied there and that the more accurate term for that is 'God the Son'.

Am I being 'atomistic'? I like to think I'm being biblical. Maybe I'm being pedantic, but I do believe that it's important to be precise in your terminology on issues such as this. I find it helpful to separate out the passages identifying Jesus as a member of the Trinity, from those saying he is the Christ, at the points where the Bible is separating them, anyway. The term Son of God, as clearly shown by Carson in both chapters one and two, is the term the Bible primarily uses for the Christ. But at times, especially when speaking of Jesus as 'the Son', the Bible is referring to Jesus' deity. It's helpful to know when that is. One of the mysteries revealed by the gospel is that God the Son became the Son of God, the only one who could be the perfect king. If we don't read carefully we may not see it, when we do, we have all the more reason to wonder at the work of God.

Sons of God- Introducing our new book, Don Carson's 'Jesus the Son of God'

Our book for August is certainly not daunting in terms of pages, it only takes a few hours to read, but the author and the ideas make up for that! We're facing the heady combination of the well-known big thinker, Don Carson, and a rather big issue: the identity of Jesus as the Son of God. So, I think we're still in for a big month! 

This work is a conversion of a lecture series into a book, so that doesn't make for the easiest of reads, or the most comprehensive of explorations on this massive topic. I was certainly left wanting more! But it serves as a helpful introduction to the key theological issues, and provides a preliminary investigation into a pressing concern in Bible translation. There were so many things coming out of each chapter that could be explored. I plan to share with you just one idea that each lecture had me pondering.

This week, with Father's Day fast approaching, I'm considering how our culture has lost so much of the concept of sonship. Chapter one highlighted for me that the idea of 'son of' is used in the Bible much more than we realise, for example identifying people by their fathers (1 Sam 16:18), using the title to refer to a social dynamic (especially page 21's revelation of the use of 'son of Belial' - hidden in most of our translations!) or idiomatic phrases such as 'son of a bow' to mean arrow. What hit me in all of this was how a father really determined his son's identity: a son was not just biologically but 'functionally derived' from his father, he was shaped by who his father was, so the vital piece of information: 'who's your Daddy?' told society a whole lot about you. Hence all those surnames we carry on with today (any Donaldsons or Williamsons reading this?).

There are a number of theological implications flowing from this. It made me realise how meaningful the title of the king as 'Son of God' was meant to be. When having a king as the replacement for God's direct rule of his people became a reality for Israel (1 Samuel 8:7), that king was truly meant to still represent God. His character, his power, his holiness. How terrible that all of Israel's kings failed to do that to greater or lesser degrees - and some shockingly! And then my thoughts turned to how much we, as sons of God, (Galatians 3:26 and the rest of the list on page 30) are to honour him in how we live to bear that great title. And this made me finally realise (but maybe you've all worked this out long ago and I'm the only slow one) how right it is to call myself a son, and not just a daughter, of God. Gender balanced terms are all very well in this modern world, but when the term 'daughters of God' (or children) does not carry the historical association that 'sons of God' does, we need to ditch that politically correct concept and return to an original translation that communicates what the Bible intends to tell us with its choice of language. (Not mentioning any current new translations by name, but there's something for the 'trainspotters' among us.....) 

All this leads us to the primary topic on view in this book: that of Jesus as God's Only Son. This is the issue that we'll explore next week.

About our contributor:

Alison Napier has served in fulltime ministry since 2005 in Sydney’s CBD. During that time she’s discovered the joys of high-rise living and exotic food in Chinatown. An animal lover who’s recently developed a fascination for elephants, Alison’s own pets tend to be fish or birds, as they fit best into a one-bedroom flat on the 26^th floor. Having become a Christian in her second year of university, Alison delights in growing in her knowledge of and love for God day by day. An avid, but time-poor, reader she particularly enjoys any book that takes her away to another world for a few hours, if relaxing, or challenges her brain with interesting ideas, if working.