Q. 27. Who is Jesus Christ?

• AOR 2; Heidelberg Catechism 33
• Belgic Confession 10
• WCF 8.2
• Nicene Creed

Jesus Christ. The person of Jesus Christ is the heart of the Christian faith. Luther urged, “You must stay with the Person of Christ. When you have Him, you have all; but you have also lost all when you have lost Him” (Sermon on John). “All errors, heresies, idolatries, offenses, abuses and ungodliness in the Church have arisen primarily because this article, or part, of the Christian faith concerning Jesus Christ, has been either disregarded or abandoned” (Luther).

Son … begotten. Jesus is “the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). He is not a son by adoption. He is truly God’s Son because he is eternally begotten, “born,” or “brought forth” by the Father. The Father and the Son both have the eternal, uncreated life which belongs to God alone, but this life is eternally “granted” to the Son by the Father (John 5:26). The very names “Father” and “Son” indicate this relation. “Between Father and Son is a plain distinction that comes from generation, so that Christ is God of God” (Ambrose, Christian Faith 1.2). This is commonly called the eternal generation or eternal begetting of the Son. It is a central affirmation of the Nicene Creed: “one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made.” In this way, Jesus is the one and only Son of God. “That we are sons of God is something we have not by nature but only by adoption and grace, because God gives us this status. But the Lord Jesus, who is begotten of one substance with the Father, is of one essence with the Father, and with the best of rights is called the only Son of God (Eph. 1:5; John 1:14; Heb. 1:2), since he alone is by nature his son” (Geneva Catechism).

Eternally. When thinking about the divine “birth” or begetting of the Son, we must cleanse our minds of all earthly or fleshly notions. Unlike human sons, who are born in a moment of time, the Son of God is eternally begotten of the Father, so that he is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Hebrews 1:3). As long as a light is burning, it radiates its brightness. The Father, as an eternal Light, eternally radiates the Son, so that the Son is “Light of Light” (Nicene Creed). The Father and the Son eternally exist in a relation of “radiating” and “being radiated.” “When did anyone see light without the brightness of its radiance that one may say of the Son, ‘There was once when he was not,’ or ‘Before his generation he was not’?” (Athanasius, Discourses Against the Arians 1.4.12). There was never a time when the Son was not. The Son has no beginning. “Insofar as He is the only-begotten Son of God, it cannot be said of Him that ‘He was’ and that ‘He shall be,’ but only that ‘He is’” (Augustine, On Faith and the Creed 4.6). To those who might speak of the eternal Son as being “begotten before,” Augustine asks, “Before what, since there is no before with Him? … Do not imagine any interval or period of eternity when the Father was and the Son was not,” for the Son is “always without beginning” (The Creed 3.8). “The Sources of Time are not subject to time” (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 29.3). The eternal generation of the Son is ultimately a mystery of faith. We can barely understand the mystery of a human birth in time; how much less the mystery of an eternal begetting before all words? “God’s begetting ought to have the tribute of our reverent silence. The important point is for you to learn that he has been begotten” (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 29.8). John Chrysostom confessed, “I believe that God was begotten before all time, yet the manner of this generation I have learned to venerate in silence and I accept that this is not to be probed too curiously with wordy speech” (Nativity Sermon).

Not made or created. Unlike human birth, the begetting of the Son does not involve an act of creation. When God began to create, his eternal Son was already with him. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). This is commonly called the preexistence of Christ. Jesus is the eternal Creator, not a created being. All things without exception were made through him (John 1:3). Jesus is on the Creator side of what is commonly called the Creator-creature divide.

One substance … true and eternal God. Sons are of the same nature as their fathers. Since the divine nature or substance (ousia) is simple or “without parts” (see Notes on Q. 5), the generation of the Son does not involve a change, division, or multiplication in the divine nature. Anselm prayed, “You are so simple that there cannot be born of You other than what You are” (Proslogion 100). As the eternally begotten Son of God, Christ is “everlasting, without body or parts, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness” (Q. 5). The Son is not merely of a similar substance (homo-i-ousion) to that of the Father; he is “of one substance [homo-ousion] with the Father” (Nicene Creed). “They are one in the dignity of the Godhead, since God begot God” (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 11). “He is God by His birth from God” (Hilary of Poitiers, The Trinity 4.15). “The Father is Lord and the Son is Lord, and the Father is God and the Son is God, since He who is born of God is God” (Irenaeus, Demonstration 47). “When you hear of the only Son of God, acknowledge him as God. For it could not be that God’s only Son should not be God” (Augustine, Sermon to Catechumens on the Creed 3). “He is called Son, because he is identical with the Father in essence” (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 30.20). The Son is only inferior to the Father according to the humanity which he assumed in the incarnation (see Q. 30). “So far as He is God, He and the Father are one; so far as He is man, the Father is greater than He” (Augustine, Enchiridion 35).