Question: Is it right to view Christ as the Son of God only since His birth into this world, or is He the eternal Son?—K. H.
Answer: Not only is the Lord Jesus, Son of God as born into the world (Luke 1:35; Acts 13:33), but this title is equally His from all eternity, as Scripture plainly reveals. Or how otherwise can we understand the following statements?
“Whose Son is he? If David then call him Lord, how is he his son” (Matt. 22:42-45; Mark 12:35-37; Luke 20:41-44)? “God gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16). “God sent not his Son into the world to judge,” etc. (John 3:17). “God sent his only begotten Son into the world” (1 John 4:9, 10). “God sent forth his Son” (Gal. 4:4). “Say ye of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemist, because I said, I am the Son of God” (John 10:36)? “The Father sent the Son” (1 John 4:14). “The Son of his love... the firstborn of every creature, for by him were all things created,” etc. (Col. 1:13-17). “God... hath.. spoken unto us by his Son... by whom also he made the worlds,” etc. (Heb. 1:1-3). “Melchisedec.... without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God” (Heb. 7:3). “We know that the Son of God is come” (1 John 5:20).
These scriptures are surely plain to a simple mind; and Dr. Adam Clarice’s rationalistic reasoning as to the Eternal Sonship of our blessed Lord has no just force. He was answered by Abraham Scott in 1828, and subsequently by Richard Treffry, jun., in his well-known work, “The Eternal Sonship of our Lord Jesus Christ.”