The idea, then of God having a son is Mosaic, and not of Nazarene origin. But we are not left to inference and implication in relation to the Christ being the Son of God. That he should be both Son of Man and Son of God -- "of man," by his mother, and "of God," by his Father--is expressly stated in 2 Sam. 7: 14; 1 Chron. 17: 13. In the Berith Olahm, or Covenant of the Aion, recorded there, Yahweh informed David that he should have a Seed or Descendant, who should be resurrected to sit upon the throne of the House of Israel; and that Yahweh would be his Father, and he, the Seed, should be His Son. Hence, David expected that the Son of the Woman who is to bruise the Serpent's Head, would descend from himself, and therefore be Son of Man; but that he would be begotten in one of his female descendants by the Spirit of Yahweh, and therefore be Son of God. This was the kind of Christ expected by David; and therefore in Psalm 110 he styles him "Lord," although His son.
The berith or covenant, that promised this, was ever present to the mind of David. The truth of this is apparent abundantly in the Psalms; besides that, he would constantly have before his mind, what he tells us was "all his salvation, and all his delight." He understood that the subject of this covenant was the Second Adam; for when it was delivered to him, he exclaimed: "Who am I, Yahweh Elohim; and what is my house, that Thou hast brought me thus far? And yet this was a small thing in Thine eyes, Elohim; for Thou hast spoken concerning the house of Thy servant to a far distant time; and Thou hast regarded me according to the oracle of the ascending Adam, Yahweh Elohim" (1 Chron. 17: 17). And in 2 Sam. 7: 19, he says of the covenant: "This is the oracle of the Adam, Yahweh Elohim."
David's mind then, was full of this remarkable idea, that the Son of God was to descend from his loins. No Jew can refute this proposition. They are as dumb in its presence as when Jesus silenced their fathers that they could not answer him a word. To the carnal mind the idea is no doubt absurd and incomprehensible, because it judges according to the flesh. How could the Son of God be born of a woman? This is "a great mystery," says Paul, "God manifested in flesh"; and with all the love of mystery, and acuteness of the human mind, Jews nor Gentiles can make nothing of it apart from Moses and the prophets.
Now look at a few sentences from David's pen, as illustrative of his views of things in connection with the Son of God, who was to descend from him. "The truth to David Yahweh swore; He will not turn from it; saying, from the fruit of thy body I will set for thee on the throne. If thy sons will keep my covenant (berith) and my testimony which I will teach them; even their sons shall sit on the throne for thee until AD adai-ad. Because Yahweh has chosen (to be) in Zion; he has desired it for a dwelling for Him. This, saith He, is My rest until AD; here will I dwell, for I have desired it. There I will make a Horn to bud forth for David. His enemies will I clothe with shame; and upon Him shall his crown flourish" (Psalm 132:11-18).
From this we learn:
We may remark here that ad is a remoter period than olahm. Ad does not arrive till olahm has passed away. It is an indefinite series of ages beyond the thousand years of Messiah's Aion. David's throne is for this period, styled in Daniel, "a season and a time." Olahm ends where Ad begins; so that "until Ad" is to the end of Olahm. Paul refers to this when he says, in 1 Cor. 15:24: "Then cometh the END when he, Christ, shall have delivered up the kingdom to God even the Father that God may be all things in all men" (Ta Panta en pasin). This is what obtains beyond olahm, or in Ad. When the end of Olahm touches the beginning of Ad, a change in mundane affairs again ensues. It is the epoch of the crushing of the serpent's head, which occurs 1,000 years after his being bound. "The Son of God reigns until He (the Eternal Spirit) hath put all enemies under his feet." This is Paul's testimony; and that "until" is the "until Ad" of Psalm 132: 12, 14. When "all enemies" are destroyed, there will be no occasion for any more reigning; for to continue a reign after the last enemy is destroyed, and God is "all things in all," would be for God to reign over Himself, which is absurd.
Now David's throne would have continued from David's time until Ad, without interruption, if his sons had kept Yahweh's covenant and testimony; even that testimony which should be delivered to them after David wrote -- "which," says he, "I shall teach them." This testimony was the Gospel of the Kingdom, which the Eternal Spirit had sent Jesus of Nazareth to proclaim to Israel -- the Spirit's words put into the mouth of the prophet like unto Moses, which a man can reject only at the hazard of damnation (Deut. 18:15-19). But they despised the Covenant of Promise, and therefore the sons of David were excluded from the throne at the Babylonish captivity; and the throne itself abolished until the Son of God should come as "The Repairer of the Breach; the Restorer of the paths to dwell in" (Isaiah 58:12).
But David saw that the Son of God would not be allowed by the kings of the earth and their partizans to enter peaceably upon the possession of his throne; in fact that they would do their best to prevent it. In his last words he styles them "a thornbush to be thrust away, and consumed": and though they should fill the Son of God with iron and the shaft of a spear, he should nevertheless smite them (2 Sam. 23:5-7), and by the power of the Eternal Spirit, be established in Zion as King over the nations to the utmost bounds of the earth, as testified in the second Psalm. Will a Jew read this, and persist in denying that Yahweh has a Son? In that testimony he will find predicted a conspiracy to murder "Yahweh's Anointed," and so get quit of his yoke. But that it is only temporarily successful, because of the interposition of Divine Power. Yahweh laughs their impotence to scorn, and tells them that notwithstanding all efforts against it, He will set His King on Zion, after He has raised him from the dead, according to the words, "Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten thee; and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them to pieces as a potter's vessel" (Psalm 2).
In two places David refers to the Mother of the Son of God. In his last words, he tells us "that Yahweh's Spirit spoke by him, and that his word was upon his tongue." He spoke then, by inspiration. The Spirit, then, afterwards, incarnate in the Son of God, says in Psalm 116: 16: "Yahweh, truly I am Thy servant; I am Thy servant, the Son of Thine Handmaid; Thou hast loosed my bonds." This deliverance is in answer to his prayer in Psalm 86: 16: "O turn unto me, and have mercy on me; give Thy strength unto Thy servant, and save the Son of Thine Handmaid. Show me a token for good; that they which hate me may see, and be ashamed; because Thou, Yahweh, hast helped me, and comforted me." The person here styled Yahweh's Handmaid, is the woman of Gen. 3: 15, and, as Christians believe, the Mother of Jesus, whom Elizabeth, her cousin, styled "the Mother of our Lord"; and Gabriel, "the highly favoured of the Lord," whose handmaiden she averred herself to be. "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee," said Gabriel, "and the power of the Highest One shall overshadow thee; therefore also, that Holy One that shall be born of thee, shall be called 'the Son of God'." Creative power was to be preternaturally exerted as in the formation of the first Adam and of Isaac; and therefore the product was the Son of Power, that is of God.
We see, then, from Moses and David, that Christ was the Son of Woman and the Son of Yahweh: will the Jews, who object to Jesus on the ground of what they call his illegitimacy, which if proved, would make him unholy or unclean, show us how such a Christ could be born upon any other principle than that narrated by Luke? But we must conclude for this time, with the remark for further elucidation hereafter, that that which is born of Deity is Deity, as Jesus has declared.
In previous pages, expository of Scripture revelation which the Eternal Spirit has given concerning "God," we have shown --
These things having been demonstrated: much rubbish has been cleared away. Trinitarianism and Unitarianism have both received a quietus. There are not three Gods in the Godhead; nor are there but three in manifestation; nevertheless, the Father is God and Jesus is God; and we may add, so are all the brethren of Jesus gods; and "a multitude which no man can number." The Godhead is the homogeneous fountain of the Deity; these other gods are the many streams which form this fountain flow. The springhead of Deity is one, not many; the streams as numerous as the orbs of the universe, in which a manifestation of Deity may have hitherto occurred.
