my enthusiasm for the message of this book. Ty’s approach to the ancient question of the simultaneous Divinity and Sonship of Jesus Christ is refreshing, biblical, and, to me, entirely persuasive. I pray this book gets the widespread attention and affirmation it deserves. The Sonship of Christ is, above all, a joyous exploration and celebration of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. Thank you, Ty!”
Pastor David Asscherick
“Daughters of Eve, after all you’ve been through, I want you to know you were in my thoughts every sentence along the way.”
preface
KIDS KNOW STUFF
This book was written purely by accident.
No kidding.
It seems to have written itself. Yes, I was involved in the process, painfully so at times. But my next book was going to be about something else. In midstream, I got diverted, then obsessed, then overwhelmed by an unexpected vision of God’s beauty, and I had to follow the light wherever it might lead. There were so many people asking the same basic question—people in Germany and Australia, Spain and California, and at the Village Market in Collegedale, Tennessee—that I started composing notes and answering emails, until, next thing I knew, this book popped out of my computer.
So here it is.
The Sonship of Christ
Exploring the Covenant Identity of God and Man
Admittedly, it’s not a super catchy title, but it is very specific to the content of the book. So I’m hoping the title, and the subtitle, will become extremely meaningful to you before our journey’s end. As I chased the thread woven through the pages ahead, before I knew it more than 100,000 words had been written. “Yikes! Stop already,” I said to myself. So I stopped, and I edited. I didn’t want to bury or bore you, so I cut the thing down to 43,459 words. That’s manageable. In fact, at an average reading speed of 200 words per minute, you can get through this little volume in about three and a half hours. No sweat. That’s a lazy Sunday afternoon, and I am confident it will be well worth your time.
Another thing about the title: yes, I am aware, extremely so, that “Sonship” is a boy word.
Daughters of Eve, after all you’ve been through, I want you to know you were in my thoughts every sentence along the way. Please keep in mind throughout this exploration that everything of which we speak regarding sons is equally applicable to daughters. Throughout the biblical narrative, Sonship is a covenant mechanism for tracing the lineage of Christ. Point is, my dear sisters, you are not excluded from any of the glorious implications of the biblical Sonship theme any more than men are excluded from the biblical portrayals of God’s church as a woman and ultimately as a bride. Men along with women are represented by the bride, and women as well as men are represented by Sonship.
I’m so excited about The Sonship of Christ that I can’t wait for you to read it. Please email me at [email protected] and let me know what you think. I am praying, just so you know, that the
ideas you are about to encounter will blow your mind and take you to a whole new level of biblical comprehension.
Finally, since books are expected to have introductions, here’s mine:
Children tend to know more than adults—not more in mass, but more in meaning. As we grow older and “smarter” we tend to forget profound things nobody ever had to tell us. So this book is a wink and a nod to a little boy who intuitively sensed the essential make up of reality when he asked the rather brilliant question, “If we was created, well, that must mean God was alone before we was here, so how could God be nice way back then if there weren’t nobody to be nice to? Maybe God weren’t never alone.”
Precisely, little guy.
Contents
endorsements 7
contents 17
READING SCRIPTURE ON ITS OWN TERMS 24
MATTHEW’S GOSPEL—SON OF ABRAHAM 76
JOHN’S GOSPEL—ONLY BEGOTTEN SON 96
ROMANS—GOD’S FIRSTBORN SON 112
HEBREWS—OUR ETERNAL BROTHER 128
“The Son of God cannot be God in the same eternal sense that the Father is God, we reason, or else He would not be called the Son.”
Chapter One
TWO IDENTITIES
What does the Bible mean when it calls Jesus “the Son of God”?
Oh, no! Is this gonna be one those boring, hairsplitting theological exercises?
Actually, no.
In fact, if you will take this little journey with me to its end, I assure you the rewards will be rich. You may even find yourself deeply moved by the beauty of God’s character and awestruck by the utter genius of the biblical narrative. Even if you find the above question boring at first glance, I promise you our time together will not be boring in the least.
First of all, you should be aware that this question has challenged Bible students for nearly two thousand years. It’s not an easy nut to crack. Scholars have been endlessly intrigued and baffled by the topic. And it’s easy to see why. On the rather compelling premise that Scripture calls Christ “the Son of God,” various groups have arisen throughout church history insisting