After expressing that our Redeemer must be both truly God and truly human, Question 22 addressed why the Redeemer must be truly human. Our present question brings us to the second part of that blessed truth: Why must the Redeemer be truly God?

Since Jesus revealed Himself to be the eternal Son of the Father, Jesus’ divine sonship is a core component of His identity. Hebrews 1:1-3 affirms this with undeniable clarity:

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds all things by the word of his power.

As the divine Son, Jesus was the Word through whom the Father created the world, He is the visible and radiant display of God’s eternal glory, and He continues to uphold the cosmos with the sheer authority of His word. When Jesus is called the Son of God, these are the attributes to which the New Testament writers are pointing. Indeed, the Son is, as the Nicene Creed affirms with greater clarity, “the begotten of God the Father, the Only-begotten, that is of the essence of the Father. God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten and not made; of the very same nature of the Father, by Whom all things came into being, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.”

Jesus has eternally been God the Son, and He will forever be God the Son, which, of course, means that we cannot know Jesus as the Son without also knowing the Father. Furthermore, Paul states that no one can confess Jesus as their Lord without the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3). Believing in Jesus, therefore, requires belief in the Trinity. It is not enough to believe solely in Jesus. Any who fail to believe in the triune nature of the Father, Son, and Spirit do not believe in Christ.

But believing in Jesus as God’s only Son has another glorious dimension for us as well. As the Nicene Creed clarified, we believe that Jesus is the begotten Son of God. He is the Son of the Father by being of the same essence as the Father. He is the Son by right, by the very nature of His being. Yet Hebrews goes on to describe the work of Jesus on the earth as “bringing many sons to glory” (2:10). By His suffering, which was only perfect and effective because of his divine nature, Jesus brings His people to the Father as sons and as His brothers.

Consider the weight of this truth for a moment.

We were originally created to display God’s likeness. Although less glorious than the angels, we were given dominion over the earth and its animals. We were crowned with glory and honor by the Creator Himself, yet we threw His gifts back in His face. Like impulsive children, we broke God’s command, believing God to be a malicious and controlling dictator rather than a loving and selfless Father. When looking at the God’s fence of rules, we only saw our freedom being limited, not the busy highway on the other side.

But even when we learned evil by firsthand experience, we continued to sin, the Serpent’s lie still ringing in our ears, fueling our god complex. We, therefore, deserved death. We deserved judgment, the same that Satan and his angels received, condemnation without mercy. God, instead, chose to save us. To maintain His justice and righteousness, our sin required retribution, an eternal consequence since the sin was against the Eternal One. Rather than dooming all of humanity to damnation, God took our place. The Son, through whom the world was made, entered the world as a man. His sinless life ended on a cross, where He freely gave Himself to the grave in payment for our sins, since He alone was able to bear the righteous anger of God. Three days later, He rose back to life to triumph over sin, to overcome death, and to give life to all those who believe in His name for salvation. Nothing else is more important than the truth that God died to save us. How could anything even come close?

The glory of this gospel is only magnified when we understand that God is not merely restoring us back to Eden, He is making things even better. In the garden, we were God’s stewards over the earth, His image. But now, in Christ, we are adopted as sons and daughters of God. God is not only the Father of Jesus the Son; He is also now our Father, since we have been made into co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17). This, in no way, negates the truth of Jesus being God’s only Son, since He is still the only begotten Son. We, instead, are adopted, brought into God’s family, chosen by the Father before time began.

In Christ and as God’s children, we are also being made into “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). This, of course, does not mean that we become gods, but it does mean that we are able to experience the eternal and glorious love of the Triune God, that we are given the very essence of joy and peace.