When the Jews accused Jesus of blasphemy, he answered: “Do you say to me whom the Father sanctified and dispatched into the world, ‘You blaspheme,’ because I said, I am God’s Son?” (
John 10:36) Jesus did not say that he was ‘God the Son’ but that he was “God’s Son," was Jesus lying or wrong when he said he was, "God's Son?"
When Jesus died, even the Roman soldiers standing by knew that Jesus was not God: “The army officer and those with him watching over Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and the things happening, grew very much afraid, saying: ‘Certainly this was God’s Son.’” (
Matthew 27:54) They did not say, ‘this was God’ or ‘this was God the Son,’ because Jesus and his disciples taught that Jesus was the Son of God, not God Almighty in human form.
God himself testified that Jesus was his beloved Son, as the Bible writer Matthew noted when Jesus was baptized. (
Matthew 3:17) Other Bible writers noted the same. Mark wrote: “A voice came out of the heavens: ‘You are my Son, the beloved; I have approved you.’” (
Mark 1:11) Luke said: “A voice came out of heaven: ‘You are my Son, the beloved; I have approved you.’” (
Luke 3:22) And John the Baptizer, who baptized Jesus, testified: “I have borne witness that this one [Jesus] is the Son of God.” (
John 1:34) So God himself, all four Gospel writers, and John the Baptizer clearly state that Jesus was the Son of God. And some time later, at the transfiguration of Jesus, a similar thing happened: “A voice [God’s] came out of the cloud, saying: ‘This is my Son, the one that has been chosen. Listen to him.’”—
Luke 9:35.
In these accounts, was God saying that he was his own son, that he sent himself, and that he approved himself? No, God the Father, the Creator, was saying that he had sent his Son Jesus, a separate individual, to do God’s work. Hence, throughout the Greek Scriptures the phrase “Son of God” is used to refer to Jesus. But not once do we see the phrase ‘God the Son,’ for Jesus was not almighty God. He was the Son of God. They are two different persons, and no theological “mystery” can change that truth.