In an age prone to the erosion of conviction, where the granite truths of scripture are often ground into the shifting sands of personal sentiment, there stands a declaration of such majestic finality that it admits no compromise. The modern mind, with its therapeutic sensibilities, recoils from the sharp edges of doctrine, preferring a malleable deity fashioned in its own image. Yet, the apostolic testimony is not a proposal for negotiation; it is a proclamation of absolute fact. The Apostle Paul, in his epistle to the Romans, commences not with a gentle suggestion, but with a single, magnificent sentence stretching across seven verses—a torrent of revelation whose every current flows toward one central reality: the gospel is altogether “concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”
The Apostolic Gospel: Separated unto His Son
The Christian message, in its pristine form, is not a system of ethics, a social program, or a path to self-fulfillment. Paul declares himself “separated unto the gospel of God,” a message promised long before by the prophets and now unveiled in its glorious fullness. This gospel is not a human invention but a godly disclosure, and its singular subject is the Son. Our service, our faith, and our very life are rooted in what God has revealed “concerning his Son.” All else is subordinate. To begin anywhere else is to build upon a foundation of sinking sand. The heart of our faith is not a creed, but a Person. As the apostle later states, “I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his son” (Romans 1:9). The soul’s highest ministry is to be occupied with Him.
The Mystery of His Natures: Flesh and Spirit
In this grand opening sentence, Paul presents the two essential pillars of Christ’s identity. First, He was “made of the seed of David according to the flesh” (Romans 1:3). This is no spiritual abstraction. The eternal Son of God entered human history through a specific, prophesied lineage. He possessed a true human nature, tethered to the line of Israel’s great king, thereby fulfilling the covenant promises made to David. His humanity was as real as the dust of Galilee upon His feet and the weariness in His bones.
Yet, this is but half the truth. He was also “declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead” (Romans 1:4). The resurrection was not the event that made Him the Son of God; He was so from eternity past. Rather, the resurrection was the public declaration—the irrefutable vindication—of His eternal Sonship. The empty tomb stands as God’s thunderous affirmation that this Jesus, the descendant of David, is indeed His eternal Son. The power that rolled away the stone is the same power that confirms His deity.
The Unmistakable Identity of the Son
To speak of a “Son of God” is to invite a profound question of identity. If God has a Son, what is the nature of that Son? The crude analogies of human biology fail us, yet the underlying principle holds: like begets like, a duck does not produce a squirrel. If God has a Son, that Son must, of necessity, be God. His Sonship denotes not a created being, but One who shares the very essence of the Father.
This leads us to the heart of the mystery: the one true and living God exists as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. These are not three gods, nor are they modes of a single being. They are three distinct Persons who compose the One True God. [[Jesus]] Christ is not a lesser deity; He is God the Son, as eternally and completely God as the Father and the Spirit. He voluntarily subjected Himself, coming through the line of David, yet He never ceased to be what He always was: the eternal Word.
The Witness of the Scriptures to the Son
The entirety of the New Testament bears witness to this central truth. The Son binds the whole tapestry of revelation together.
- In Reconciliation: It is through the Son that we find peace with God. “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us… we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Romans 5:8, 10). His death satisfies God’s justice, and His resurrected life secures our own.
- In Fellowship: We are “called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:9). This is not a simple formal association, but a living, breathing communion with the risen Lord, sustained by His grace.
- In Judgment: The world stands condemned not only for its manifold sins, but for its singular rejection of the Son. “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18). The Son is the dividing line of eternity.
- In Life: The record of God is plain and absolute. “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life” (1 John 5:11–12). Eternal life is not a commodity to be acquired; it is a Person to be received.
The Peril of a Counterfeit Christ
In our modern spiritual marketplace, many versions of “Jesus” are offered. There is the [[Jesus]] of sentimentalists, a kindly moral teacher. There is the [[Jesus]] of other religions, a prophet subordinate to another. If the [[Jesus]] who died on the cross was only a good man, as Gandhi might have conceived, his death is powerless. If he was a created being, as the Jehovah’s Witnesses profess, his sacrifice is insufficient. If he was a forerunner to another prophet, as Islam teaches, his work is incomplete.
Unless the one who hung on Calvary’s cross was the eternal Son of God, then “ye are yet in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17). A false Christ offers a false hope. To diminish His deity is to nullify His redemptive work. The gospel’s power rests entirely upon the identity of its subject.
The Urgency of a Finite Offer
The human soul is a fragile thing, and life but “a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away” (James 4:14). Yet men trifle with their eternity as if they were guaranteed a thousand tomorrows. Scripture is stark in its warning: “it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). There are no second chances, no post-mortem negotiations.
The offer of salvation through the Son is an exclusive, time-limited opportunity. From the moment of Christ’s resurrection until He returns for His church at the rapture, the door to the body of Christ stands open. But that door will one day shut. To delay is to gamble with one’s soul, to presume upon the grace that might not be available an hour from now. Why would any man, faced with the clear choice between eternal life in the presence of the glorified Son and an eternity of torment in the lake of fire, hesitate for even a moment?
He That Hath the Son
The message of the gospel is, in the end, profoundly simple. It is not about mastering a complex theological system, but about bowing the knee to a Person. Who is [[Jesus]] Christ? He is [[Jesus]], the man; Christ, the anointed King; Lord, God; and Son of God, in eternal relation to the Father. Without Him as the Son of God, we have nothing but our sins and a fearful expectation of judgment. With Him, we have everything: reconciliation, atonement, grace, peace, fellowship, and a future inheritance of unimaginable glory.
If you have not trusted the [[Jesus]] who is the Son of God, you have the wrong [[Jesus]]. He is God the Son, and He is the Son of God. If you will trust in Him—not in a church, not in your own works, but in Him alone—your eternity, which may have seemed a dim and fearful prospect, will suddenly become brighter than the midday sun.
Pastor Thomas Irvin
George County Baptist Church
Lucedale, Mississippi
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