HIS ETERNAL SONSHIP

HIS ETERNAL SONSHIP 

"Jesus . . . the son of Adam, the son of God" Luke 3:23, 38

While there are supposed to be difficulties in reconciling the TWO GENEALOGICAL TABLES OF MATTHEW AND LUKE, it is obvious that Mary and Joseph came of the same stock, and that both were of the house of David, and of the seed of Abraham. As a matter of fact there are no difficulties—or should not be. In Matthew we have THE LEGAL BIRTH BOOK OF JESUS AS THE ADOPTED SON OF JOSEPH. In Luke we have HIS ACTUAL GENEALOGY THROUGH HIS MOTHER. The peculiar value of Luke's is that in it he passes back through this house and seed to the human origin in Adam. The last named in his table is Adam, and through the successions Jesus is the SON OF ADAM. But Adam is here called the SON OF GOD, and so in this way also Jesus is the SON OF GOD. This is a matter of utmost importance in the light it throws upon human relationship to God.

Our Lord was “THE” SON OF GOD in a separate and lonely sense, but as the Son of Mary, a child of the human race, He was also “A” SON OF GOD. That then is the deepest fact of all human life, and it is when the fact is realized that the appalling tragedy of human life is also realized. By sin man is alienated from his birthright, cut off from God, degraded and lost. Jesus of Nazareth, Child of Mary, and ultimately Son of Adam and Son of God, was sinless in His human nature, and so lived in His birthright, in fellowship with God, full of grace and truth. Herein we find THE ELEMENT WHICH MADE IT POSSIBLE FOR HIM TO ACT WITH GOD FOR MEN; as the other, that of HIS ETERNAL SONSHIP, enabled Him to act WITH MEN for God, and as God.