There are five entities in the Scriptures who are called God’s son:

  1. Adam – “the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, THE SON OF GOD.” (Like 4: 38)
  2. The people of Israel – “Then you shall say to Pharaoh, “ISRAEL IS MY SON, MY FIRST-BORN.” (Exodus 4:22)
  3. The Descendants of David – “I will set up one of your descendants after you, who shall be of your sons; and I will establish his kingdom.  He shall build for Me a house, and I will establish his throne forever.  I will be his father, and HE SHALL BE MY SON; I will not take My lovingkindness away from him, as I took it from him who was before you.  But I will settle him in My house and in My kingdom forever, and his throne shall be established forever.
  4. The King of Israel – “Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are THE SON OF GOD; the King of Israel.” (John 1:49)

So which one of these is Yeshua identifying himself to be by calling himself “the son of God”?  There comes a point where the Jewish people have picked up stones to stone him for using this phrase, and Yeshua challenges them on it.  He says,

Yeshua answered them, “Has it not been written in your Law, “I said, ‘you are Gods’?  If he [God] called them ‘gods’ to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken); do you say of him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, “I am the Son of God’?  If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I am in the Father.”  (John 10:34-38)

In this response, Yeshua uses a quote from Psalm 82 to justify his use of the phrase, “the son of God.” However, most people do not go back and look at the verse he is referencing to see what it is that he is saying.  If we go back and read Psalm 82, we would discover some interesting things.

 GOD (Heb. elohim) takes His stand in His own congregation; He judges in the midst of the RULERS (Heb. elohim).  How long will you judge unjustly, and show partiality to the wicked?  Vindicate the weak and fatherless; Do justice to the afflicted and destitute.  Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.  They do not know nor do they understand; they walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken.  I SAID, “YOU ARE GODS (Heb. elohim), and ALL OF YOU ARE THE SONS OF THE MOST HIGH.” Nevertheless, you will die like men, and fall like any one of the princes.”  Arise, O God (Heb. elohim), judge the earth! For it is Thou who dost possess all the nations.  (Psalms 82: 1-8)

The quote that Yeshua used in his response comes from Psalm 82:6.  And as you can see, the Hebrew word that is used is elohim (H430), and this word is translated as “God,” “gods,” “Judge,” “judges,” or “rulers.”  So in this Psalm, God is identifying the rulers or “judges” in Israel as being elohim (“gods”), and that all of Israel are “the sons of the Most High.”  Therefore, in citing this verse, is Yeshua saying that by him calling himself as “the son of God,” he is identifying himself as “a son of a judge,” or “a son of Israel”?  Why would he cite this verse if he was wanting to prove that he was God, a Divine being?  It actually seems to prove the opposite.

The Hebrew word ‘elohim (H430) gets translated into Greek as theos (G2316; “God”).  The Greek does not have the diversity of meaning that we see in the Hebrew.  So by not going back and re-examining the whole passage from the Hebrew verse that is cited, could it be that people have been misinterpreting the Scriptures for centuries?  Thus, the phrase “son of God” cannot be used to prove that he is God in and of itself.

Now let’s read what is in the Torah,

I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you [Moses], and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.  And it shall come about that whoever will not listen to My words which he shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him.  (Deuteronomy 18:18-19)

Yeshua is the Prophet God promised who would be “like unto Moses.”  Look also what Yeshua says in the book of Yochanan (John):

  • “Truly, truly, I say to you, THE SON CAN DO NOTHING OF HIMSELF, unless it is something he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does. the son also does in like manner.” (John 5:19)
  • “I CAN DO NOTHING ON MY OWN INITIATIVE.  As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent me.” (John 5:30)
  • “…for the works (miracles/deeds) which the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I do,  bear witness of me, that THE FATHER HAS SENT ME.”  (John 5:36)
  • “MY TEACHING IS NOT MINE, but His who sent me.  If any man is willing to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from myself.” (John 7:16-17)
  • “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and I DO NOTHING ON MY OWN INITIATIVE, but I speak these things as the Father taught me.” (John 8:28-29)
  • “…for I proceeded forth and have come from God, FOR I HAVE NOT EVEN COME ON MY OWN INITIATIVE, but He sent me.” (John 8:42)
  • “FOR I DID NOT SPEAK ON MY OWN INITIATIVE, but the Father Himself who sent me has given me commandment, what to say, ad what to speak.” (John 12:49)
  • “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me?  The words that I speak to you I DO NOT SPEAK ON MY OWN INITIATIVE, BUT THE FATHER ABIDING (LIVING) IN ME DOES HIS WORKS.” (John 14:10)

Here we see repeatedly that Yeshua said that he could do nothing by himself, and that whatever he did, he did because the Father told him to do it, and everything he said or taught was because the Father told him to say it.  Therefore, Yeshua did not live his life with any “special powers,” nor did he raise himself from the dead, as Christians teach.  For Shi’mon Petros (Peter) said,

Men of Israel, listen to these words: Yeshua the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which GOD PERFORMED THROUGH HIM in your midst, just as you yourselves know – this MAN, delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death.  AND GOD RAISED HIM UP AGAIN, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held by its power.  (Acts 2:22-24)

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His servant Yeshua, the one whom you delivered up, and disowned in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release Him.  But you disowned the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, but put to death the Prince of life, THE ONE WHOM GOD RAISED FROM THE DEAD,  a fact to which we are witnesses.  (Acts 3: 13-15)

Just as God worked through the life and ministry of Mosheh (Moses) to bring the plagues against Egypt, and to do the miracles in the wilderness, and God worked through Samson to kill the Philistines, and God worked through Eliyahu (Elijah) and Elisha to perform the various miracles they did, then why do we believe that the situation with Yeshua would be any different than with them?  Why couldn’t have God worked in and through Yeshua to perform all the miracles that He did?  He did not do the various miracles because “He was God” as Christians teach, but because “God was with him,” as Peter said in the book of Acts,

You know of Jesus (Heb. Yeshua) of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil; FOR GOD WAS WITH HIM. (Acts 10:38)

Not only did God work in and through Yeshua to perform all of the various miracles, and to give all of the various teachings, but it was God who raised Yeshua up from the dead, and it was God who took him into the heavenlies forty days later, just as God did Hanoch (Enoch) and Eliyahu (Elijah).  But it was even God working in and through the sufferings of Yeshua on the cross that brought about our redemption, as Sha’ul Paulus (Paul) writes in his second letter to the congregation in Corinth, Greece:

  Now all these things ARE FROM GOD, WHO RECONCILED US TO HIMSELF THROUGH MESSIAH, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.  To wit, GOD WAS IN THE MESSIAH RECONCILING THE WORLD UNTO HIMSELF, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.  (2 Corinthians 5:18-19)

So who saved us?  God did it working in and through the sufferings of the Messiah on the cross.  And what was Yeshua’s reward for laying down His life and allowing God to work in and through His sufferings to redeem Israel, and to open the way for the restoration of Israel?  We read in Rav Sha’ul’s (Paul’s) letter to the congregation in Philippi,

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  Therefore also God highly exalted him, and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Yeshua “every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth,” and that every tongue should confess that Yeshua the Messiah is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.  (Philippians 2:10-11)

Just as the Pharaoh lifted Joseph from the dungeon to the second highest position in the Egyptian empire, God raised Yeshua from the grave to the second highest position in God’s Kingdom, the whole created order.  Just as Joseph through his sufferings saved his own people and those of the Egyptians through the things that he suffered, so the Yeshua Messiah son of Joseph saved Israel and those non-Jews who have attached themselves to Israel by their acceptance of the Messiah-King of Israel by the things that he suffered.

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