What is the Son in the Holy Trinity?
Answered from the commentary of H. J. Vine, J. N. Darby, W. W. Fereday and 2 others
The Son is God, a distinct Person from the Father and the Holy Spirit, yet one with them in the one Godhead. He is the eternal Son: His relationship with the Father was before the world began, and He did not become the Son at His incarnation. He is not a creature; all things were created by Him and for Him.
The Son became truly Man without ceasing to be God, and in Him God is made known. He came to reveal the Father and to save sinners; He gave Himself, and those who believe in Him have eternal life.
Verses: John 3:16, Matthew 3:16, Matthew 3:17, Matthew 17:5, John 1:1, John 1:2, John 1:3, John 1:4, John 1:5, John 1:6, John 1:7, John 1:8, John 1:9, John 1:10, John 1:11, John 1:12, John 1:13, John 1:14, John 10:30, John 14:6, John 14:7, John 14:8, John 14:9, John 14:10, John 14:11, Colossians 1:15, Colossians 1:16, Colossians 1:17, Colossians 1:18, Colossians 1:19, Colossians 1:20, Hebrews 1:1, Hebrews 1:2, Hebrews 1:3, Hebrews 1:4, 1 John 5:20
The above is AI generated summary based on the writers below.
What the commentators say
The passages the answer is drawn from, the most direct first, with the words that bear on the question marked.
We are speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ as “the Son,” and not of His distinctive glories as “the Son of David,” “the Son of Man” and “the Son of God,” nor even of Him as “the Son of the Father,” but rather of His deity as God the Son. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; yet there are not three Gods, but one God, “God is one” (Gal. 3:20; 1 Tim. 2:5, N.Tr.). Baptism is to the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” we are told in Matthew 28:19. This indicates for us the trinity of Persons in the Godhead, all of whom share in that supreme glory.
Jesus is the Son in the Unity of the Godhead
The Son is of the Same Substance with the Father and the Holy Spirit
Each of these errors destroys the Trinity in Unity, the first by denying the Unity of the Essence, the second by denying the Trinity of the Persons. The true and scriptural doctrine of the Trinity steers between these two erroneous extremes, and holds a Trinity of Persons in a Unity of Essence. Now, the Lord Jesus, as the eternal Son of the Father, is distinct from Him as His Son, and yet necessarily one with Him as partaking of the same Essence; and the Holy Spirit, as proceeding from the Father and the Son, is distinct also from those Persons of the Trinity, and yet, as eternally proceeding from both, partakes of their Essence likewise. Thus we have a Trinity of Persons, but a Unity of Essence—One God, but eternally subsisting as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Eternal Sonship gives to the Son a Unity of Essence with the Father, and yet a distinctness of Person; thus, as the Son He is one with the Father (John 10:30), and yet as the Son He is distinct from the Father. So eternal procession from the Father and the Son gives to the Holy Spirit Unity of Essence with the Father and the Son, and yet a distinct Personality. Upon this firm basis the Trinity stands. But if you remove the eternal Sonship of Christ, you also must take away the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit; and by so doing you destroy the Unity of Essence and inter-communion of Nature of Israel’s Triune God. If the denial of the eternal Sonship of Jesus involve such consequences, well may we tremble at such an error as removes the very foundations of revealed truth. All other views of the Sonship of Christ lower His essential and eternal dignity and, however craftily disguised, tend to, and usually end in, Arianism. If His Sonship be not His eternal mode of subsistence, it must, in some way or other, be created Sonship, and what is this but Arian doctrine in its very root and essence? How the Son can be eternally begotten, and how the Holy Spirit can eternally proceed, is a mystery which we cannot understand, much less explain; but we receive it by faith, in the same way as we receive the “great mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh.” If once we begin to reason on these matters, we are lost at the very threshold of our inquiry. To believe, not to speculate; to receive the testimony that God has given of His Son; not to doubt, argue and cavil, is the only sure path, as well as the peculiar blessedness of a child of God.
Love, life, and intimacy; every character of honour, glory, and might; subsist in the revelation of this relation. Jesus is truly the Son of God; He is also the Son of the LIVING God. He is truly the Son of the Father; He is also the Son of the Father's love. He is God's own Son—essentially the Son. He is the Son having life in Himself—the living, quickening One. Every honour due to the Father is due also to the Son. He is one with the Father; He is in the Father as the Father is in Him. Such realities could only be affirmed of a relation which is, in its very nature, inherently and essentially Divine; Divine, that is, as belonging properly to the absolute and eternal existence of God. Thus, indeed, is God revealed to us, in the Unity of the Godhead, yet according to the Holy Trinity of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Here then we have the solid foundation of our Christian faith — the glory of the Person of the Son — an eternal Person, a distinct Person, a Divine Person, and an eternally distinct Person.
God the Son. Similarly, the Son is of course revealed, not merely in His human nature, nor as God incarnate, but back of that we have clear intimations of the eternal relationship between the Father and the only begotten Son who was in the bosom of the Father (John 1:18). The doctrine of the incarnation, we need hardly say, is on every page of the Gospels. We will examine this more in detail later. Our object just now is to trace the doctrine of the Trinity.
"We are baptized in the name of, the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, (Matthew 28:19). This carries with it the formal declaration of the mystery of the Godhead; the Son being a divine Person (in the recognition or declaration of this sentence), as is the Father, and as is the Holy Ghost." (The Son of God. J. G. Bellett)
What a joy must it have been to Him to hear the Father's voice saying, "Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased" (Luke 3:22). Notice this. People are sometimes troubled about the Trinity. You have it here. "The Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him." Then "a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased." There you have the Son, a real, true Man, before your eye. A Man whose only thought was to do the will of God. Beloved friend, have you any doubt about the Trinity? If you have, you will never make progress in your soul as to God's truth. It is not that I find the word in Scripture, but I find the thing. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost are each before us in this scene. The Son was come here to make the Father known. And moreover, in the power of the Spirit, He was come to do the work by which man is delivered, as well as Satan absolutely defeated.
The disciples could not fail to realise that He was the Son of the Father. Our Lord spoke much of the Father. “I and My Father are One” (John 10:30), He affirmed, He was ever in communion with the Father. The Father was not the Son. The Son was not the Father. Yet, with the Spirit, they are ONE God, one in purpose, counsel, will, knowledge, movement. It is no wonder that one of the disciples, writing for the rest, could say, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
Verses
- John 3:16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal.
- Matthew 3:16–1716And Jesus, having been baptised, went up straightway from the water, and lo, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon him 17and behold, a voice out of the heavens saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight.
- Matthew 17:5While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and lo, a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight hear him.
- John 1:1–141In [the] beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things received being through him, and without him not one [thing] received being which has received being. 4In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5And the light appears in darkness, and the darkness apprehended it not. 6There was a man sent from God, his name John. 7He came for witness, that he might witness concerning the light, that all might believe through him. 8He was not the light, but that he might witness concerning the light. 9The true light was that which, coming into the world, lightens every man. 10He was in the world, and the world had [its] being through him, and the world knew him not. 11He came to his own, and his own received him not; 12but as many as received him, to them gave he [the] right to be children of God, to those that believe on his name; 13who have been born, not of blood, nor of flesh's will, nor of man's will, but of God. 14And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father), full of grace and truth;