I started to meditate on the word “son…
I started with ” The ONLY BEGOTTEN Son of God…”
Texts that refer to Christ as God’s “only begotten Son” are based on a misunderstanding of the Greek word “monogenēs” and that the Greek word does not mean “begotten” in the sense we beget children but means “having no peer, unique”
The term “Sons of God” is a phrase used in the Hebrew Bible and apocrypha. The phrase is also used in Kabbalah –
Kab·ba·lah
/kəˈbälə,ˈkabələ/
noun
The ancient Jewish tradition of mystical interpretation of the Bible, first transmitted orally and using esoteric methods (including ciphers). It reached the height of its influence in the later Middle Ages and remains significant in Hasidism.
where Bene elohim are part of different Jewish angelic hierarchies. Wikipedia
The Hebrew word translated “lord” in this case is plural, even though it refers to the singular David. This honorific plural is also used of God elsewhere in texts like Psalm 8:1, where we read, “O LORD, our Lord….” … First, YHWH Elohim cannot mean “Lord of Gods.”
This gets complex fast. “The ONLY begotten Son of God.” Means so very much!
We through Jesus are “children of God.” Having been “adopted” into The family.
The theme of adoption is woven throughout Scripture, serving to not only strengthen our faith but to also encourage us as we press into the needs of waiting children around the world. We’ve talked about what the Bible says about orphans and how Scripture encourages us to address their needs, now here are three more verses that remind us of how adoption has been woven into our own unique stories.
1. “IN LOVE, HE PREDESTINED US TO BE ADOPTED AS HIS SONS THROUGH JESUS CHRIST, IN ACCORDANCE WITH HIS PLEASURE AND WILL.” – EPHESIANS 1:5
The nature of the Gospel is clear…through his pleasure and will, God has set his radical love on us through the sacrifice of his own Son before we breathed our first breath or had the ability to do anything that might endear ourselves to him. What a marvel of God’s love on our behalf!
2. “BUT WHEN THE SET TIME HAD FULLY COME, GOD SENT HIS SON, BORN OF A WOMAN, BORN UNDER THE LAW, TO REDEEM THOSE UNDER THE LAW, THAT WE MIGHT RECEIVE ADOPTION. SO YOU ARE NO LONGER A SLAVE, BUT GOD’S CHILD; AND SINCE YOU ARE HIS CHILD, GOD HAS MADE YOU ALSO AN HEIR.” – GALATIANS 4:4-5 & 7
Apart from Christ, we are isolated from the love and mercy of our Father. But through the cross, we have been adopted into God’s family, receiving all the benefits and blessings as his children. Moreover, we are also now full heirs of God’s rich inheritance, overflowing from his grace, mercy and love. As a natural response to the lavish love we have been given, we press into the needs of others as we join together to help restore the hope of a family to waiting children around the world.
3. “WHOEVER RECEIVES ONE SUCH CHILD IN MY NAME, RECEIVES ME.” – MATTHEW 18:5
As we begin to gain a larger understanding of all we have been given through our own adoption into God’s family, we see our calling to love and become like children more clearly. For children who find themselves vulnerable and often voiceless, the call to receive them in God’s name becomes nearly palpable. When Christ tells his disciples that “whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 18:4), he is giving us a clear picture of what it looks like to love God with the best parts of ourselves. Through the miracle of adoption, we see not only how we are loved by our Father, but how we can also give ourselves to love others.
As these verses stir your heart toward the beauty of adoption, consider the ways God is calling you to care for orphans in distress. Everyone can do something, and whether you feel called to become an adoptive family or support those who wish to do so, we would love to help you discover what the Lord is calling you to in your own life!
We return yet again to understand the term and usage of the term:
SON; SONS
sun, sunz:
(1) In Biblical language the word “son” is used first of all in its strictly literal sense of male issue or offspring of a man or woman. In a few cases in the Old Testament, as in Genesis 3:16; Joshua 17:2; Jeremiah 20:15, the Hebrew word ben, is translated correctly in the English by the word “child” or “children” as it includes both sexes, as in Genesis 3:16, or is limited to males by the use of the modifying term “male.” Closely connected with this meaning of direct male issue or of children is its use to denote descendants, posterity in the more general sense. This usage which, as in the case of the sons (children) of Israel, may be regarded perhaps as originating in the conception of direct descent from the common ancestor Israel, came in the course of time to be a mere ethnographic designation, so that the term “the children of Israel” and “the children of Ammon” meant no more than Israelites or Ammonites, that is, inhabitants of the lands of Israel or Ammon respectively. An extension of this usage is to be found in the designation of a people as the sons or children of a land or city; so in Amos 9:7 “children of the Ethiopians,” or Ezekiel 16:28, where the literal rendering would be “sons of Asshur,” instead of the Assyrians, and “the children of Jerus” in Joel 3:6.
(2) More characteristic of Biblical usage is the employment of the word “son” to indicate membership in a class or guild, as in the common phrase “sons of the prophets,” which implies nothing whatever as to the ancestry, but states that the individuals concerned are members of the prophetic guilds or schools. In the New Testament the word “sons” (huioi) in Luke 11:19, rendered “children” in Matthew 12:27 the King James Version, means, not physical descendants, but members of the class or sect; according to Mt the Pharisees, who were attacking Christ.
(3) The word “son” is used with a following genitive of quality to indicate some characteristic of the person or persons described. In the English the word “son” is usually omitted and the phrase is paraphrased as in 2 Samuel 3:34, where the words translated “wicked men” in the King James Version mean literally, sons or children of wickedness. Two examples of this usage may be cited:
the familiar phrase “sons of Belial” in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 15:13 the King James Version, and often), where the meaning is simply base or worthless fellows (compare Numbers 24:17, margin “children of Sheth” (Expository Times, XIII, 64b)); and in the New Testament the phrase “sons of thunder,” which is given in Mark 3:17 as the explanation of the epithet “Boanerges.” This use is common in the New Testament, as the phrases “children of the kingdom,” “children of light,” etc., indicate, the general meaning being that the noun in the genitive following the word children indicates some quality of the persons under consideration. The special phrases “Son of man” and “Son of God” are considered in separate articles.
There is a marked difference, for as stated above in Heaven, there will be no marriage.
We have shared the concept of experience in a “day” there our existence can be understood to be just that…continual!
In The presence of God ALL mighty, there is no night…
“And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there.”
Revelation 21:25
“There shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God gives them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.”
Revelation 22:5
Indeed they have no light from
the sun; but “the Lord giveth them light.” For He is light. So it is all “day” in Heaven.
We take from this that after death, Judgement after we ‘sleep’ for a ‘little while’.
Sleep [N]
In the Scriptures the words that designate sleep are used in both a literal and a figurative way. When the word is used literally, as it frequently is, it usually depicts sleep as a simple fact of human experience ( Gen 28:16 ; Dan 8:18 ; Matt 25:5 ). Even our sleeping state is not outside the active involvement of God, who neither slumbers nor sleeps ( Psalm 121:4 ). The Lord watches over us while we sleep ( Psalms 121:3 Psalms 121:5-6 ), and the darkness of night is as the light of day to him ( Psalm 139:11-12 ). God uses our sleep on occasion to give us revelatory dreams and guidance ( Gen 20:6-7 ;Judges 7:13-15 ; 1 Kings 3:5 ; Matt 1:20 ; Matthew 2:12-13Matthew 2:22 ). In the Old Testament, natural sleep is occasionally referred to as a sweet blessing of God ( Psalm 4:8 ; 127:2 ; Eccl 5:12 ).
The word “sleep” is also used metaphorically of spiritual dullness, sloth, or lack of watchfulness. In the Book of Proverbs, laziness, sloth, and sleep are used in a quasi-moral way to depict the irresponsible person who refuses to acknowledge the reasonable demands of human life ( 6:9-11; 19:15 ; 20:13 ; 24:33-34 ); such a person will suffer the inevitable consequences. In Isaiah 29:10 and frequently in the New Testament ( Mark 13:36 ; Rom 13:11 ; Eph 5:14 ; 1 Thess 5:6-9 ) it is used to describe a spiritual heaviness that must be shaken off in order to remain awake in this evil time. It is often used in this way in an eschatological context, warning us to be alert to the signs of the times.
“Sleep” is also used metaphorically of death. This is common in the Old Testament ( Job 7:21 ; 14:12 ; Psalm 13:3 ; Jer 51:57 ; Dan 12:2 ). The expression “he slept with his fathers” is a fixed formula in reference to death, and is used over thirty-five times in the Old Testament. This expression does not continue into New Testament times, although the metaphorical use of sleep for death does. Six observations can be made about this expression in the New Testament.
First, Jesus is never said to have fallen asleep. There is no softening of what he experienced at the end of his earthly life. Second, unbelievers are never said to fall asleep. They, too, experience death in a stark and crushing way. Death is no pleasant sleep for them, but a final, unending negation. The difference from Jesus is, of course, that the unbeliever dies for his or her own sins, whereas Jesus died for the sins of others and rose again in triumphant life. Third, believers are said to fall asleep at death ( 1 Corinthians 15:6 1 Corinthians 15:18 1 Corinthians 15:20 ; 1 Thessalonians 4:131 Thessalonians 4:15 ), and in one instance “to fall asleep in Jesus” ( 1 Thess 4:14 ). Although believers are still occasionally said to die, death is described as gain ( Php 1:21); it has lost its sting ( 1 Cor 15:54-57 ). Death comes attended by blessedness and rest ( Rev 14:13 ) and a conscious sense of the presence of Christ ( 2 Cor 5:8 ). Death is, in fact, not death anymore, and those who believe in Jesus will never really die, even though they might still experience what used to be called death ( John 11:25-26 ). So the metaphor of sleep is used to emphasize that we have no more to fear from death than we do from falling asleep. Fourth, believers are never said to have fallen asleep in the death of Jesus; rather, we died with Him ( Col 2:20 ; 2 Tim 2:11 ) or were crucified with Him; our old self is passed away, ALL things become new, Amen ( Gal 2:20 ).
It is only because of Jesus’ death, and our death in Him, that death no longer holds any terror, becoming instead a peaceful sleep and a blessedness ( Rev 14:13 ). Fifth, even when believers are punished by the Lord with temporal death, it is still no longer death but a falling asleep ( 1 Cor 11:30 ). Finally, not only do believers never experience death (in the old way) anymore, although they must go through what is metaphorically called sleep; there are some who will not even experience that — that single generation of believers, who are alive at the second coming of Christ ( 1 Cor 15:51 ), they will not sleep, but will be transformed instantaneously into their new unending life.
Jesus taught that when physical death occured, we as believers are in the bosom of Abraham!
“Bosom of Abraham” refers to the place of comfort in the Biblical Sheol (or Hades in the Greek Septuagintversion of the Hebrew scriptures from around 200 BC, and therefore so described in the New Testament)[1] where the righteous dead await Judgment Day.
The phrase and concept are found in both Judaismand Christian religions and religious art, but is not found in Islam.
We will tackle this, but there is but a ‘bit’ to dwell on here. Be blessed with peace, fullness of spirit with joy brimming over, Amen
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“Bosom of Abraham” refers to the place of comfort in the Biblical Sheol where the righteous dead await Judgment Day. The phrase and concept are found in both Judaism and Christian religions and religious art, but is not found in Islam.