The End of All Argument

Is Jesus Christ a created being? Orthodoxy says no, the heretics say yes, and the argument has been going on for centuries. Even today, Jehovah’s Witnesses will plainly tell you, “God created Jesus before creating Adam.” One of the most common texts employed to attempt to demonstrate Christ’s ‘createdness’ is John 3:16, along with other verses in the New Testament that use the word monogenēs [“only begotten” in the familiar language of the KJV]. John uses the term four times.

The reasoning is that if Jesus was “begotten”, then there had to be a point before which he did not exist.

“Only Begotten”

It’s a concern I dismissed with very little research in my early twenties and have not revisited since, for the most obvious of reasons. The Father-Son relationship is not literal. The family imagery of the Bible is a perfect illustration for people familiar with the parent-child dynamic but who lack the intellectual chops to fully comprehend the infinitely more complex relationships within the Godhead. That, by the way, is all of us. Once we understand that “Father” and “Son” in the scripture are metaphors, any discussion of one member of the Godhead creating another becomes nonsensical.

Further, writers defending the orthodox view (that the Son is eternal) point out that the emphasis of monogenēs is not primarily on generation. It’s a status term. In ancient Greek literature, Hesiod and Herodotus both used the word hundreds of years before Christ with the primary emphasis of “heir” rather than with any focus on begetting. Likewise, in the Hebrew culture, a father might have many sons, but one son was always singled out for a double portion of inheritance and special family status. Jacob and Esau were both sons of Isaac, but Jacob was the son with the status, having stolen his father’s blessing and connived the birthright from his elder brother.

God has many “sons”, both angels and human beings. The term “only begotten” distinguishes Jesus Christ from all other sons. He is uniquely beloved, and we are loved in him.

Another Angle

For me, that was that. But for those folks engaged in debating the subject with JWs and others who diminish the person of Christ, I recently noticed another angle of approach to the issue, something I now consider the end of all argument on the subject. I’m quite sure others have noticed this too, though I’ve yet to come across anyone else pointing it out. If it works for you, feel free to make use of it.

In my view, the end of the argument is Psalm 2, where David in the Spirit wrote these much-quoted words:

“I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you.’ ”

There’s our old friend “begotten”. In the OT version of the Psalm, it’s the Hebrew yālaḏ, first used in Genesis to describe the birth of literal children. (The term is distinct from conception, which is hārâ in Hebrew.) When the NT writers pick up David’s words in Psalm 2 and quote them, they use the Greek gennaō, which is just as literal most of the time (though not all the time), and a member of the same word-family as monogenēs.

But remember, when we talk about Fathers and Sons with respect to the Godhead, we are speaking figuratively. The proof is right there in Psalm 2: “today [KJV: ‘this day’] I have begotten you”.

When is Today?

Ask yourself this: when is “today”? I’ll tell you when it isn’t. It’s not Bethlehem. That’s not the subject of the psalm. It’s definitely not some mysterious moment prior to the foundation of the world. The context is a public exaltation of our once-crucified Lord yet to be seen. In Psalm 2, Christ is finally declared king and seated not in heaven but on David’s throne in Jerusalem. The nations don’t like that one bit. In verse 6, he says, “I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.” So “today” or “this day” is not the day the Word was made flesh and came into the world, and certainly not any day prior to it, but rather the day he comes to reign. (Naturally, this day need not be literal; “day” in scripture may be just as figurative as “Son”. In principle, this day commenced the moment God raised Jesus from the dead and received him back to his right hand. Everything to come follows from that, as sure as the promises of God.)

So then, in the scriptural imagery, Christ’s “begetting” consists not in bringing him into the world (much less in bringing him into existence) but in declaring him the heir of all things. God “begets” Christ when Jesus has already taken humanity into the Godhead, has finished his work on the cross, risen from the dead and ascended into glory, where he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool.

The New Testament confirms this association of “begetting” with a fully-grown descendant of Adam, not a newborn. The writer of Hebrews cites “today I have begotten you” in connection with Christ’s appointment as our great high priest, a ministry for which he did not qualify until after he was “made like his brothers in every respect”. That didn’t happen in the incarnation. That happened, says Hebrews, when “he himself … suffered when tempted”.

This being the case, arguing from the word “begotten” that Christ is a created being is an absolute non-starter. For me at least, Psalm 2 is the end of all argument.