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The Question Answered

 

 

So far, we have not answered the question Jesus asked the Pharisees that day nearly two thousand years ago. We have only considered the dilemma of Jesus’ question. The God of the scriptures has the answer, and His people are privy to it, unlike those who are ignorant of or simply reject the Jesus of the scriptures.

So, what is the correct answer to, "How is it David, in the Spirit, calls him (the son who will come from your body)[1] Lord?” In a more simple way, “how can the father call the son Lord?” Ultimately, the answer is found in the promises God made to the fathers.[2] God’s promises began with the seed promise to the woman and found its fulfillment in Yahweh’s declaration, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father.”[3]

To be considered are some of the most profound words to reach the ears of mankind—words laden with hope—when Yahweh spoke, prophetically and proleptically, through His prophets, to the promised One. "You are my Son; today I have become your Father.” [4] In God’s mind, where time and space exist together, His decree was as good as accomplished. The goal of redemptive history is revealed in Yahweh's decree.

 

The logical question, for the most part widely ignored, perhaps out of indifference and /or ignorance of the scriptures, is this: In what sense are we to understand God’s decree, “today, I have become your Father?” Is it possible when Yahweh spoke these words, that we can conclude that there was a time when the relationship of the Father and the Sonship did not exist?[5] The word “today” ought to remove all ambiguity.

The Greek word, pronounced semeron (σήμερον), translated into our English, “today,” is found in both the Greek Septuagint[6] and in the Acts of the apostles (where Paul quotes from the Septuagint) and has the meaning of, “this very day.” Semeron is an adverb that modifies the Greek verb Ge-gen-na-ka (γεγέννηκά) which holds the primary meaning, “to bear, bring forth, beget, gender.” One does not have to be proficient in Greek to conclude that the use and meaning of these two Greek words, as they are found together (no less than four times[7]) have great significance in understanding just how Jesus became (γεγέννηκά ) the Son of the most High God.[8] The God-fearing Hebrew who searched the scriptures would have seen and understood that there was a day, a specific day, in which the expected promised one was to be declared, “my Son, I have become your Father this day.”

What this actually might have meant to the God-fearing Hebrew in times past might be another matter altogether.

For the God-fearer today who considers the sense of “the Sonship of God’s Christ,” the question before him or her is this: [9] Was the Sonship to the Father achieved because it rested upon God’s decree as it was expressed through the Psalmist’s words? If so, then how should one understand the moment of fulfillment of Yahweh’s decree, “my Son, I have become your Father this day”? Basically, when did it happen? When was “this day?” The answer explains the objective of redemptive history.

 The prominent theologian of the scriptures, the Apostle Paul, provided the answer. Keep in mind that the scriptures referred to by Paul and the other apostles were those, “which were written in the law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning Jesus who is the Christ.”[10]

The teaching and preaching of the apostles were an overflow[11] of the scriptures while they penned the New Testament writings which provide the Church its theology. In other words, the theology of the Church was absolutely sourced, as it should be, upon those Old Testament scriptures. Today, many adherents within Christianity simply ignore those scriptures, giving them little or no emphasis upon them.

In the Acts of the Apostles, the record of how they took the gospel of Jesus Christ out into the world, there are several important accounts of when Peter and Paul stood up and recounted God’s promises to the fathers before the people. The teachings of Peter, in the second chapter of Acts, and Paul, in the thirteenth chapter, are key examples. The accounts parallel each other in words and concepts, complementing each in detail, with neither contradicting the other. Peter, in the first message to the newly formed Church, was directly addressing the men of Israel.[12] Paul, on the other hand, on what has been considered the first mission to the nations,[13] addressed both “men of Israel and you who fear God.”[14]

The key in both Peter and Paul’s discourses rests within God’s promise to the fathers, which was revealed in the seed promise to David.

It was understood by those seeking the Christ (messiah) that He was to come from David.[15] Peter was in full agreement, and said, “Men and brethren, let me freely speak to you of the patriarch David that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us to this day. Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne.” [16] Paul also agreed, saying, “He (God) raised up to them David to be their king; to whom also He gave testimony, and said, 'I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after Mine own heart, which shall fulfill all My will.' Of this man's seed has God, according to His promise, raised to Israel a Savior, Jesus.”[17]

Both Peter and Paul reminded the people that they were responsible for the crucifixion of the promised one,[18] the one who had come from the loins of David, “But God raised him from the dead.”[19] God’s raising of Jesus from the dead, as Paul put forth, was the declaration of the glad tidings.[20] Those glad tidings were the fulfillment of the scriptures in which God speaks to the promised one, "You are my Son; today I have become your Father.”[21] This was the message which the apostles preached and taught throughout the book of Acts, that the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth was the fulfillment of the promises of God to the fathers.[22]

Simply stated and absolutely critical to both Peter and Paul's gospel message is this: The resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead signified the fulfillment of Yahweh’s decree found in David’s Psalm, “The LORD has said to me, you are my Son, today I have become your Father.” [23]