Who is Jesus? Robert A. Herrmann Ph.D. 27 DEC 2007 God displays His attributes in many different ways. Biblically stated attributes can be grouped into three categories. Relative to this categories, what does it mean to state that Jesus is the Son of God? This statement occurs over forty times in the New Testament. In the Greek language, the term "son" need neither correspond to a biological son nor an adopted son. If an individual A had nearly the same characteristics as an individual B, then B could refer to A as his "son" and A could refer to B as his "father." Apparently, this is how "Son" should be interpreted in these many cases, but in the strongest possible sense.
The Scriptures state that "Christ is the image of ('the invisible' in the Sinaitcus Codex) God," 1 Cor. 4:4, and "He is the image of the invisible God," Col. 3:10. Relative to these two Biblical statements, Vine (1940) states, that such an image it is "essentially and absolutely the perfect expression and representation of the Archetype, God the Father," and that "Christ is the visible representation and manifestation of God to created beings." Further, without altering the basic meanings of the words or adding to or removing words, John 14:9-10 and 16-18 specifically states that the set of Godhead characteristics that are restricted to the created universe are attributes of Jesus. Let the restricted Father attributes be denoted by FA, and let the restricted Son attributes be denoted by RS. The Spirit of God attribute as well as the immortal human spirit are considered as a type of restricted characteristic. (The man "Jesus" has certain human characteristics that are not, in some respects, Father attributes. Indeed, when Jesus "speaks" or behaves in various ways, one needs to determine whether He is displaying His physical and non-Father human characteristics, or His restricted Father characteristics.) The most important first step is to realize that RS and FA are the same set of characteristics. Or in symbolic form
RS = FA. It is now possible, through mathematical (i.e. classical) reasoning, to add a most significant property to this equational statement. In John 14: 15-20, Jesus states explicitly that the indwelled Holy Ghost will display His attributes. Moreover, God is teamed as "perfect" in the sense of "complete." Further, Heb. 2:10 states that Jesus was made "perfect through suffering" (NIV) and such a "completion" is restated in Heb. 5:9 "once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation" (NIV). And, we find in Heb 7:28 that His perfection is "forever" (NIV). Notice that it is Jesus' human characteristics that were allowed to suffer physically and die on the cross. This allowed His suffering and death to be substitutional in character.
Using mathematical analysis, it is shown using this notion of "perfect" and a basic modeling technique that, from God's pure supernatural viewpoint, there is no "comprehensible" difference between the risen and transformed (glorified) supernatural Jesus attributes and the attributes of the Father and the attributes of the Holy Ghost. The term "comprehensible" means from the viewpoint of those created beings that have been transformed (glorified).
For a further and more in-depth discussion of the relation between the three attributive categories and how these categories are scientifically modeled, see the article on Modeling Divine Attributes.
Reference Vine, H. E. Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, Revell, New York, 1940.
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