"Begotten" -- as I understand the word -- can refer to the physical birth of a human being, or it can refer to the generation by one being of another being. I have always understood that the Son (I will reserve the name "Jesus" for the incarnate Son who walked the planet 2,000 years ago, and just refer to the pre-incarnate Son here) was "begotten" eternally (i.e., generated from the Father), before Jesus was physically born of Mary. Is that not your view? Is there another way to make sense of John 8:58?
I see both ways.
Man begets man. Animal begets animal. God begets God. Begotten means giving birth to, born of the same nature. Jesus is the God/man, of two natures, one created and one eternal. Upon His resurrection, the Father said "today I have begotten you". His physically dead body came to life.
It has a deep, complex meaning.
MacArthur explains it in sveral ways:
"Son is an incarnational title of Christ. Though His sonship was anticipated in the Old Testament (Prov. 30:4), He did not become a Son until He was begotten into time...The Bible nowhere speaks of the eternal Sonship of Christ...He was always God, but He became Son. Before that He was eternal God. It is therefore incorrect to say that Jesus Christ is eternally inferior to God because He goes under the title of Son. He is no "eternal son" always subservient to God, always less than God, always under God....His Sonship began in a point of time, not in eternity. His life as Son began in this world..."
"To say that Christ is “begotten” is itself a difficult concept. Within the realm of creation, the term “begotten” speaks of the origin of one’s offspring. The begetting of a son denotes his conception--the point at which he comes into being. Some thus assume that “only begotten” refers to the conception of the human Jesus in the womb of the virgin Mary. Yet Matthew 1:20 attributes the conception of the incarnate Christ to the Holy Spirit, not to God the Father. The begetting referred to in Psalm 2 and John 1:14 clearly seems to be something more than the conception of Christ’s humanity in Mary’s womb.
And indeed, there is another, more vital, significance to the idea of “begetting” than merely the origin of one’s offspring. In the design of God, each creature begets offspring “after his kind” (Gen. 1:11-12; 21-25). The offspring bear the exact likeness of the parent. The fact that a son is generated by the father guarantees that the son shares the same essence as the father.
I believe this is the sense Scripture aims to convey when it speaks of the begetting of Christ by the Father. Christ is not a created being (John 1:1-3). He had no beginning but is as timeless as God Himself. Therefore, the “begetting” mentioned in Psalm 2 and its cross-references has nothing to do with His origin.
But it has everything to do with the fact that He is of the same essence as the Father. Expressions like “eternal generation,” “only begotten Son,” and others pertaining to the filiation of Christ must all be understood in this sense: Scripture employs them to underscore the absolute oneness of essence between Father and Son. In other words, such expressions aren’t intended to evoke the idea of procreation; they are meant to convey the truth about the essential oneness shared by the Members of the Trinity."
John MacArthur
