Why Does It Matter That Christ Was ‘Begotten, Not Made’?
00:00:00.000 | Pastor John joins us today over Skype, remotely, even though today's question
00:00:09.620 | comes in to us from a pastor not far from you, Pastor John. He writes, "Pastor
00:00:14.420 | John, hello. I'm a pastor of a small congregation in Minneapolis. As we
00:00:18.300 | endured the inability to gather in person as a congregation in the midst of
00:00:22.500 | the virus, I emailed the church weekly, slowly working through the questions in
00:00:27.860 | the New City Catechism. It raised again a question that has been gnawing at me for
00:00:32.500 | a number of years. Specifically, what does it mean that the Son was begotten by the
00:00:38.020 | Father and not made? Why this distinction and why does it matter so much today?"
00:00:46.820 | Well, hello, brother, fellow lover of Minneapolis, our sad city, our sinful city.
00:00:53.860 | The early church had to settle certain really crucial disputes over the nature
00:01:02.420 | of Christ, and one of those disputes came to a head in the fourth century when a
00:01:08.620 | group called the Arians, A-R-I-A-N-S, argued that Jesus Christ was created, made, and
00:01:17.660 | was not God. The summary and the end of that dispute was the Council of Nicaea,
00:01:24.780 | and it was formulated, I'll just read a little section of it, "We believe in one
00:01:32.820 | Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, only begotten, that
00:01:41.420 | is, of the substance of the Father, God of God, light of light, true God of true
00:01:50.740 | God," and then comes the phrase, "begotten, not made," clearly in the face of the
00:01:57.620 | Arians, "of one substance with the Father, through whom all things were made." Now
00:02:05.340 | that has been, and is today, the historic biblical Orthodox position of the church
00:02:13.620 | throughout history. I believe that what that says is true. The phrase "begotten,
00:02:20.340 | not made" comes from that Council of Nicaea, the Creed of Nicaea. So we now
00:02:28.420 | should ask, since the Bible and not creeds are our final authority, though we
00:02:34.640 | really esteem, I esteem highly, and love to ponder the wisdom of the creeds, is
00:02:40.940 | it biblical, and why does it matter? I think a compelling case can be made
00:02:48.580 | biblically from the first 14 verses of the Gospel of John that that phrase,
00:02:55.860 | "begotten, not made," is biblical. So John begins like this, "In the beginning was the
00:03:01.940 | Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He," this Word is a person,
00:03:12.460 | "was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him
00:03:23.180 | was not anything made that was made." That's verses 1 through 3 of John 1. And
00:03:32.180 | then he adds verse 14, "That Word," the Word, "became flesh," so we're talking
00:03:38.740 | Jesus Christ, "that Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory,
00:03:46.260 | glory as of the only," and the old King James said, "only begotten," I'll come back to
00:03:54.460 | that, "Son." So what I'm focusing on here is Sonship is introduced. What he called
00:04:01.020 | Word in verse 1, he calls Son in verse 14. Son from the Father, full of grace and
00:04:07.540 | truth. Now there's a good deal of dispute over whether the term, Greek term,
00:04:13.220 | monogenous, means only, only Son, or only begotten Son. Here's the catch, and I want
00:04:21.940 | all just ordinary, run-of-the-mill, faithful pastors and teachers to take
00:04:27.980 | heart, I don't think the truth of the doctrine of begotten not made depends on
00:04:36.020 | the translation of that verb. If it did, we would be in the middle of a
00:04:41.780 | dispute that continues. What is essential is that in the first three verses of
00:04:50.060 | this gospel, the Word of God is said to be God, and to be with God. In the
00:04:58.760 | beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God, meaning
00:05:05.540 | you have two persons, God and the Word of God, and the second person, the Word of
00:05:12.780 | God, is God, and with God. And then it says that through the Word everything
00:05:22.540 | was made that was made, and that precise wording rules out the possibility that
00:05:33.020 | the Word of God itself was made, because everything that is in the category of
00:05:42.940 | made, or coming into being, was in fact brought into being, was made by the Word,
00:05:52.900 | which means he's not in that category, he was not made. Then verse 14 uses
00:06:02.460 | sonship language, quite apart from whether you say only son or only begotten
00:06:06.980 | son, he's son, sonship language to describe the relationship between God
00:06:12.500 | and the Word. Not only is the Word God, the Word is also Son of God, which means
00:06:23.380 | that what is said about the Word applies to the Son, and what was said about the
00:06:30.980 | Word was, he was not made. So how then does the Son exist? As Son, not as Father,
00:06:40.380 | but as Son. If we just stay with the language of Son and Father, the answer
00:06:47.380 | would be, not made but begotten, that's what sons are, sons are begotten, that's
00:06:53.060 | what it means to be the son of a father. But this begetting of the Son clearly
00:07:01.500 | then is very unique, I mean it's really different, because this Son, this Word, had
00:07:10.420 | no beginning. In the beginning was God, the Word of God was there, and God was
00:07:19.180 | there, and the two of them were eternally there. God was the Word, the Word was God.
00:07:25.980 | They had no beginning. He was always there with God as God. So the text itself
00:07:33.620 | pushes us to the conclusion that the peculiar kind of begetting that we're
00:07:42.300 | talking about is an eternal begetting. There never was a time when the Son did
00:07:51.260 | not exist, and yet he is Son and not Father. They're not reversible, ever, in
00:07:59.420 | the New Testament. And the Christian Church is right to argue that it is
00:08:05.540 | fitting to speak of this eternally existent Son, who is God, and yet is not
00:08:15.300 | the Father. He has been eternally begotten by the Father, not coming into
00:08:22.340 | being, but eternally begotten. So the point stressed, both biblically and
00:08:28.540 | confessionally, is that eternal begetting of the Son secures the Son's very same
00:08:39.020 | exact nature with the Father. That's the point of Hebrews 1.3. He is the radiance
00:08:47.660 | of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. Or Philippians 2.6,
00:08:54.060 | "Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to
00:09:01.820 | be grasped." Now, C.S. Lewis was really criticized for trying to make things
00:09:08.980 | understandable for ordinary people, but most of us bless him for it, right?
00:09:13.740 | And here's what he wrote, "When you beget, you beget something of the same kind as
00:09:20.220 | yourself. A man begets human babies, a beaver begets little beavers, and a bird
00:09:27.540 | begets eggs which turn into little birds. But when you make, you make something
00:09:34.420 | different, a different kind from yourself. A bird makes a nest, a beaver builds a
00:09:42.340 | dam, a man makes a wireless set." He's writing what, 80 years ago? That's an
00:09:51.340 | essential part of what the doctrine intends to preserve. The Son is not a
00:09:57.420 | creature, he's not made, he's not different from the very essence and
00:10:03.700 | nature of God. Or, if you want to move from Lewis and jump in at the deep end
00:10:08.700 | of the pool with Jonathan Edwards, let me read you what Edwards says in his
00:10:14.580 | attempt not to explain to ordinary people, although I guess he was, and yet
00:10:18.780 | he pushes the limits of our mental capacities, but I think it's valuable to
00:10:22.740 | hear what Edwards has to say about this. Here's what he says, "As God, with perfect
00:10:28.780 | clearness, fullness, and strength, understands himself, views his own essence,
00:10:37.420 | that idea which God hath of himself is absolutely himself. This representation
00:10:48.820 | of the divine nature and essence is the divine nature and essence again, so that
00:10:56.140 | by God's thinking of the deity, the deity must certainly be generated.
00:11:03.900 | Thereby, there is another person begotten. There is another infinite, eternal,
00:11:13.020 | almighty, and most holy, and the same God, the very same divine nature. And this
00:11:23.700 | person is the second person in the Trinity, the only begotten and dearly
00:11:30.420 | beloved Son of God." End of Edwards. Now I think it is faithful and true to speak
00:11:40.060 | of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, as eternally begotten but not made, and yet
00:11:48.180 | never having a beginning, and being the very nature of God. Now does it matter?
00:11:56.060 | That's the question at the end that he asks, "Can you help me
00:12:00.700 | understand what it means, and why would we devote a summer to it?" It does
00:12:06.860 | matter. Yes, I will only mention one of many reasons that it matters. Paul and
00:12:14.300 | the writer to the Hebrews show how the full deity of Christ, begotten, not made,
00:12:23.140 | is interwoven with his work of redemption. There wouldn't be redemption
00:12:29.980 | without this truth. Colossians 119, "For in him all the fullness of God was
00:12:37.980 | pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether
00:12:47.180 | on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross." Those go together.
00:12:54.660 | You can't have the one without the other. If the fullness of deity isn't there,
00:13:00.060 | reconciliation by the blood of this being isn't there. And here's Hebrews 1:3,
00:13:05.340 | "He is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature. He
00:13:10.580 | upholds the universe by the word of his power, after making purification for sins
00:13:16.740 | he sat down at the right hand of the majesty." In other words, there is no
00:13:23.460 | salvation without the deity of Christ. If the Son of God was made instead of being
00:13:32.340 | eternally begotten in the very nature of God, we are still in our sins and
00:13:40.220 | biblical salvation does not exist. That's really helpful. Thank you, Pastor
00:13:45.380 | John. And a wireless set, is that a radio or a TV? I think it's a radio.
00:13:51.620 | Yeah, I think it's radio, too. Well, I know we have a bunch of listeners listening
00:13:55.180 | right now on the FM Airwaves. A shout-out to Family Radio and our listeners there
00:14:00.660 | who are listening to us right now. Each new episode of this podcast has been
00:14:04.500 | broadcasted through Family Radio stations across the country twice per day, and
00:14:08.860 | that's been true now for over a year. Just last June, my wife and I were
00:14:13.260 | driving through Salt Lake City, Utah, listening to 91.9 FM, an FM station out
00:14:18.500 | of Ogden, Utah, listening to the inaugural APJ episode on the FM Airwaves. It was
00:14:23.820 | surreal. So thank you, Family Radio, for partnering with us and making these
00:14:28.100 | episodes broadcastable all across the United States. But if you prefer to get
00:14:34.180 | new episodes of this podcast delivered to your device, subscribe to Ask Pastor
00:14:38.300 | John in your favorite podcast app in Spotify, or by subscribing to DG's
00:14:41.980 | YouTube channel. And to find other episodes in our archive, or to submit a
00:14:46.020 | question to us of your own, do that online right now at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:14:53.300 | Well, how can we overcome a fear of the future? It's a question God's
00:14:59.820 | people have always faced, and we're going to look at God's response to our own
00:15:04.420 | fears over the future by looking carefully at Isaiah 41 next time. Don't
00:15:09.820 | miss it, whether you join us on Family Radio, or whether you listen in YouTube,
00:15:15.140 | or in a podcast app, or the original APJ app that we created, wherever. Thank you
00:15:20.860 | for joining us. I'm Tony Reinke, and we'll see you on Wednesday.
00:15:25.340 | [BLANK_AUDIO]