Scripture and God in Christianity

gotten thee." In 1 Chronicles 22:10 Solomon is told to be the Son of God. Even in the New Testament
the title is used for human beings other than Jesus. Luke 3:38 ends the genealogy of Jesus
by writing " ...son of Adam, which was the son of God." Matthew 5:44 declares those who love
their enemies and 5:9 declares the peacemakers as the children of God. Moreover Jesus is told to
have used the phrases like "My Father", "Your Father" and "Our Father" frequently.
Now, in the historical person of Jesus, these variety of implications were woven together to create
a mysterious and awe inspiring figure. It is true to observe with A. D. Nock that "the impact
of the figure of Jesus crystallized elements which were already there." 416 But there is a distinctive
element in Jesus' use of the term "Abba" as writes Michael Goulder, "Although there are a number
of examples in Jewish literature of rabbis and other holy men being spoken of as God's sons,
there is no serious parallel for the use of Abba in address to God, the term being normal for a
human child to his father." 417 Hans Kung observes that "Hitherto only one explanation has been
found: abba- like our "Daddy"- is originally a child's word, used however in Jesus' time also as a
form address to their father by grown-up sons and daughters and as an expression of politeness
generally to older persons deserving of respect. But to use this not particularly manly expression
of tenderness, drawn from the child's vocabulary, this commonplace term of politeness, to use
this as a form of addressing God, must have struck Jesus' contemporaries as irreverent and offensively
familiar, very much as if we were to address God today as "Dad." 418 Jeremias argues that
"All this confronts us with a fact of fundamental importance. We do not have a single example of
God being addressed as 'Abba in Judaism, but Jesus always addressed God in this way in his
prayers. The only exception is the cry from the cross (Mark 15:34 par. Matt. 27.46), and the reason
for that is its character as a quotation." 419 Vermes, though, does find an example. 420
The use of the title "the Son of God" for Jesus by others and Jesus' own use of intimate terms like
my Father and Abba, to Cullmann, makes the "Father-Son relationship between God and Christ a
special and quite unique one", and "does point to Christ's coming from the Father and his deity."
421 Jeremias, on the other hand warns that "the fact that the address 'Abba expresses a consciousness
of sonship should not mislead us into ascribing to Jesus himself in detail the `Son of
God' Christology, e.g. the idea of pre-existence, which developed very early in the primitive
church. This over-interpretation of the address 'Abba is prohibited by the everyday sound of the
word." 422 Grillmeier observes that the term Abba denotes that the "relationship of the `Son of
God' to the `Father' is therefore not just a more or less technical circumlocution for a special election
of Jesus, say, to be Messianic king: it means a real relationship of Son to Father....As revealer,
the Son is mediator between God and a number of elect, but he is this precisely by virtue
of his uniquely intimate relationship to the Father, which is more than that of a prophet, a king, or
a faithful servant: the Son of God really is the beloved Son, to whom the father can give all
things." 423 He further observes that the "Son of God" is a title "which, while affording a special
insight into the primitive church's understanding of Jesus (cf. Mark 1.1,11;9.7;14.61; Luke
1.35;22.70; Matt.2.15;14.33;16.16;27.40,43), nevertheless has its basis in the unique consciousness
of divine Sonship in Jesus himself. The consciousness (Mark 12.6;13.32; 14.6), together
with Jesus' claim to be the only saving way to the Father (Matt. 11.25-27), is the decisive starting
point not only for the confessions of primitive Christianity and the early church, but also for the
christology which developed from them and led up to Chalcedon." 424
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