Christ, Logos and Son of God
| “ | "But who do you say that I am? Only Simon Peter answered him: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" — Matthew 16:15-16 | ” |
Christians generally consider Jesus to be the Christ, the long awaited Messiah, as well as the one and only Son of God. The opening words in the Gospel of Mark (1:1), "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" provide Jesus with the two distinct attributions of Christ and the Son of God. The divinity being again re-affirmed in Mark 1:11. Matthew 1:1 also starts by calling Jesus Christ and Matthew 1:16 explains it again with: "Jesus, who is called Christ".
In the Letters of Saint Paul, the word "Christ" is so closely associated with Jesus that apparently for the early Christians there was no need to claim that Jesus was Christ, for that was considered widely accepted among them. Hence Paul could use the term Christos with no confusion about who it referred to, and as in 1 Corinthians 4:15 and Romans 12:5 he could use expressions such as "in Christ" to refer to the followers of Jesus.
In the New Testament, the title "Son of God" is applied to Jesus on many occasions. It is often used to refer to his divinity, from the beginning in the Annunciation up to the Crucifixion. The declaration that Jesus is the Son of God is made by many individuals in the New Testament, and on two separate occasions by God the Father as a voice from Heaven, and is asserted by Jesus himself.
In Christology, the conception that the Christ is the Logos (i.e. The Word) has been important in establishing the doctrine of the divinity of Christ and his position as God the Son in the Trinity as set forth in the Chalcedonian Creed. The conception derives from the opening of the Gospel of John, commonly translated into English as: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." In the original Greek, Logos (λόγος) is used for "Word," and in theological discourse, this is often left untranslated.
The pre-existence of Christ refers to the doctrine of the personal existence of Christ before his conception. One of the relevant Bible passages is John 1:1-18 where, in the Trinitarian view, Christ is identified with a pre-existent divine hypostasis called the Logos or Word. However, other non-Trinitarian views question the aspect of personal pre-existence or question the aspect of divinity, or both. This doctrine is reiterated in John 17:5 when Jesus refers to the glory which he had with the Father "before the world was" during the Farewell discourse. John 17:24 also refers to the Father loving Jesus "before the foundation of the world".
Following the Apostolic Age, from the 2nd century onwards, several controversies developed about how the human and divine are related within the person of Jesus. Eventually in 451 the Hypostatic union was decreed, namely that Jesus is both fully divine and fully human. However, differences among Christian denominations continued thereafter - see the article on Christology for details.
Read more about this topic: Jesus In Christianity
Famous quotes containing the words son and/or god:
“Happy is that mother whose ability to help her children continues on from babyhood and manhood into maturity. Blessed is the son who need not leave his mother at the threshold of the world’s activities, but may always and everywhere have her blessing and her help. Thrice blessed are the son and the mother between whom there exists an association not only physical and affectional, but spiritual and intellectual, and broad and wise as is the scope of each being.”
—Lydia Hoyt Farmer (1842–1903)
“To know God better is only to realize how impossible it is that we should ever know him at all. I know not which is more childish—to deny him, or define him.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)