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St Francis Magazine Vol 8, No 2 | April 2012 this narrative paralleling that Jesus is God. 47 Luke continues to develop the deity of Jesus in this same manner in the Book of Acts. This particularly Lucan development helps to explain why the earliest confession of the Church was “Jesus is Lord” (see Hurtado 2005). 48 4. Divine Sonship in Matthew It appears that Matthew uses the term “Son of God” in this same manner as we have seen it used in Luke and in Acts. “Son of God” seems to be a title that highlights Jesus’ divine sonship and messianic, kingly role and does not necessarily refer to his divinity. 49 This could be questioned because in the first chapter Matthew quotes Isaiah indicating that Jesus was the fulfillment of the prophecy that the virgin would conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name Immanuel. Due to our Christian heritage we immediately read deity and divine sonship into this name because Matthew includes its meaning, “God with us.” Developing the deity of Jesus is one of Matthew’s theological intents in including this quote. 50 However, we tend to overlook 47 For the significance of narrative paralleling in Luke and Acts, see Charles H. Talbert’s Reading Acts, A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, especially pages 11-‐13, as well as Rebecca Denova’s The Things Accomplished Among Us, Prophetic Tradition in the Structural Pattern of Luke-Acts, particularly page 99. 48 This may explain why Paul’s preferred titles for Jesus were Lord and Christ and not Son of God. Paul calls Jesus Lord 184 times and Christ/Messiah 382 times, while referring to Jesus as God’s Son 15 times (see Keener 2003, 293). 49 Craig Keener concurs that “Son of God” in Matthew is likely a synonym for “Messiah” (2003, 297). Schreiner also concurs that the “titles ‘Christ’ and ‘Son of God’ were synonyms” (2008, 235-‐236; see also pp. 83, 237-‐247, 260, 322). 50 Boring asserts that developing the deity of Jesus was not a primary concern for Matthew. Matthew accepted it and his community apparently accepted it. Matthew was more concerned about developing the theme of the kingship of 198
St Francis Magazine Vol 8, No 2 | April 2012 two points as we read this passage. First, God is not identified as the father in the passage. 51 Second, Jesus is not identified as the “Son of God.” One other minor point is that Matthew’s intended readers (who would have been well-‐versed in the OT) would not necessarily have interpreted the name Immanuel to automatically indicate that the child was divine in nature. 52 Since the reference is drawn from the Book of Isaiah (Is. 7:14) a first century Jewish reader would have read the passage as indicating that the child was a sign that God was with his people to save them because this was its meaning when Isaiah initially spoke the prophecy. 53 the Messiah and demonstrating what kind of king Jesus was (2010, 366). If Boring is correct, I assert that it was a ‘major’ concern because Matthew would have wanted to introduce his readers to all of who Jesus is. 51 For a fuller development of this, see John Nolland’s No Son-Of-God Christology In Matthew 1.18-25. 52 According to R. T. France, Matthew is writing to a predominantly Jewish believing community (2007, 18). 53 This fits the meaning of the name Jesus, which is “Savior” or “God saves us.” John Oswalt asserts that the immediate application of this verse in Isaiah was this: Isaiah was likely referring to the young woman he was about to marry, who was standing there in the crowd. This statement was an affirmation to Ahaz and all those present with him that before this child who was about to be conceived was able ‘to reject the wrong and choose the right,’ Judah’s enemies would be destroyed. Judah had no reason to fear (2010, 141) . France acknowledges that this possibility exists for Matthew’s readers, though it is clear that Matthew means much more than this. France writes: “The phrase ‘God with us’ which thus marks the beginning of Matthew’s presentation of Jesus will have its arresting counterpart at the end of the Gospel, where Jesus himself declares, ‘I am with you always’…At this point it would be possible to read ‘Immanuel’ only in its probable OT sense as a statement of God’s concern for his people, ‘God is with us,’ but the name as applied to one who has just been declared to owe his origin to the direct work of the Holy Spirit was probably in Matthew’s mind a more direct statement of the presence of God in Jesus himself, so that Jesus’ declaration in 28:20 is only drawing out what has already been true from the time of his birth, that God is present in the person of Jesus” (2007, 49). 199
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