Beyond the names Jesus, Lord, and Christ, the New Testament identifies our Saviour by three further titles of immense weight: Son of God, Son of Man, and Word of God. Far from theological technicalities, these names lie on the very surface of the biblical text — and together they give direct and unadorned expression to both Jesus’ full divinity and his true humanity.
Son of God
The title ‘Son of God’ appears at the very opening of Mark’s Gospel (Mark 1:1), and subsequently on the lips of a wide range of figures — Satan, demons, John the Baptist, Jesus’ disciples, angels, and the centurion who witnessed his crucifixion. It figures prominently in Jesus’ own self-understanding (Matt 11:27) and was declared by God’s own voice at his baptism and transfiguration (Mark 1:11; 9:7). John’s Gospel was written with the express purpose of demonstrating that Jesus is ‘the Christ, the Son of God’ (John 20:31).
‘Son of God’ is an extremely rich title, used across the New Testament in a range of senses: as expressive of Jesus’ unique status in relation to God; as pointing to his identity as God’s promised Messiah, the ultimate anointed King from the line of David (2 Sam 7:13-14; Luke 1:32-33); as indicating that Jesus embodies the true Israel (Matt 2:15; 4:1-11); and as articulating his full deity, at times coupled with assertions of his eternal pre-existence (John 1:1-18; Heb 1:1-14).
As the unique Son of God, then, Jesus’ divine nature did not come into existence either at the creation of the world or at the moment of his human birth. His divine Sonship refers to his absolute equality of being with God (John 5:17-18). This title ‘describes the unique relationship of Christ to God. Christ comes from the depths of God himself; he is God. But he is God in human form, a form which hides his God-ness and which requires of him obedience to the Father whose being he shares.’1David Wells, The Person of Christ (Crossway, 1984), 70.
Son of Man
The title ‘Son of Man’ appears more than one hundred times in the Gospels, almost entirely on the lips of Jesus himself. It is his most frequently preferred self-designation: ‘For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost’ (Luke 19:10). Its background is Daniel 7:13-14, where the ‘Son of Man’ is presented before ‘the Ancient of Days’ as an unmistakably human figure — yet one who shares in God’s own characteristics of absolute and everlasting authority, dominion, glory, and kingdom.
The Son of Man is, in other words, a human yet fully divine figure. This was why, when Jesus used the title at his trial before Caiaphas, he was immediately found guilty of blasphemy and condemned as worthy of death (Matt 26:64-68). In Jesus’ own self-definition, ‘the Son of Man’ possessed God-like authority to forgive sins (Mark 2:10) and exercise lordship over the Sabbath (Mark 2:28); yet he was also one who would be misunderstood and rejected (Luke 7:34), without a home (Luke 9:58), murdered yet raised from the dead (Mark 9:31). He would eventually come in great power as Judge and Saviour (Matt 24:30), accompanied by ‘all the angels with him’ (Matt 25:31). The title therefore embraces every dimension of Jesus’ identity — humiliation and service as suffering Saviour, and exaltation and rule as divine Lord.
In John 5:25-29, the two titles converge in Jesus’ own self-understanding. Like God the Father, the Son of God has ‘life in himself’ — he is fully divine — yet it is as Son of Man that he has been given authority to raise and judge the dead. There are not two sons, one of God and another of Man, but one Son — the Lord Jesus Christ — who is both Son of God and Son of Man in one unique divine-human Person. ‘God’s only begotten Son … assumed human nature into such a personal unity that he himself became the Son of Man as well.’2Augustine, Enchiridion, 10.35; Outler ed., 362.
Word of God
Relatively few passages use ‘Word’ (logos) as a direct title for Jesus (John 1:1-18; 1 John 1:1-4), though such language is indirectly present elsewhere (Heb 1:1-3; Col 1:15-20). Perhaps the simplest way of capturing its meaning is this: in calling Jesus Christ God’s Word, the New Testament declares that in Jesus, God is with us and speaks to us. In Jesus — the essential, eternal, objective, living Word — God speaks to us in Person and discloses his very being as Word.
It is not merely that Jesus shows us a God who uses words to communicate, though this is true. It is that God is Word — eternally, on the inside, in his innermost Being — and in addressing us in the Person of his incarnate Son, he aims to bring about a life of fellowship with us. In the Old Testament, the Word of God combines three main realities: God’s creativity, his revelation, and his eternity. ‘God’s Word is the original reality, which lies at the basis of all reality.’3Hans-Martin Barth, as cited by Robert Kolb in Carson, Enduring Authority, 93. In John’s prologue, these divine qualities are directly attributed to the person of Jesus. To call Jesus Christ the ‘Word of God’ is to imply that he is God’s mind, thought, intention, and speech in Person.
‘In the Word, then, we are met by the personal and eternal God who has joined himself to our flesh. In Jesus, the permanent and final unveiling of God has taken place, and the center of this truth is coincidental with the life of this man. Jesus is the means through which, and in conjunction with whom, God has made known his character, his will, and his ways.’4Wells, The Person of Christ, 69-70.
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- 1David Wells, The Person of Christ (Crossway, 1984), 70.
- 2Augustine, Enchiridion, 10.35; Outler ed., 362.
- 3Hans-Martin Barth, as cited by Robert Kolb in Carson, Enduring Authority, 93.
- 4Wells, The Person of Christ, 69-70.