Invariably when Jesus is discussed, someone will boldly proclaim that He wasn’t actually God, but the Son of God. The contrast is unwarranted—it’s not either/or but both/and. Jesus’ identity as the Son of God includes having the same attributes as the Father, that is, He is from eternity, has all authority, etc. (see John 5:18). They are in essence, equal, as demonstrated in John 10:30 and claimed by Jesus in John 14:7-11. Jesus is also recorded as saying He has complete authority over heaven and earth (Matthew 28:18) and that He alone is the means for people to know the Father (John 14:6).
Yet they are also separate persons of the Triune God. According to Matthew 11:27, Jesus taught that They (He and the Father) enjoy a relationship that is unique and exclusive, i.e., no one else knows the Father as He does, and the Father knows Him as He knows no other. So intimate was His relationship that He never talked to His disciples about “our Father,” but rather as “my Father” and “your Father” (John 20:17) and employed the family word “Abba” (daddy) when talking to Him.
However, it does not follow from such intimacy that Jesus is the “Son” of God in any literal, biological sense. Jesus was not conceived into existence for He existed eternally with the Father (John 1:1). His use of the term “Son” for Himself is to reflect a special relationship with the Father, not kinship.
Jesus is, nevertheless, the self-expression of God. As already cited above, He told Philip, “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). British theological scholar F.F. Bruce stated that, “The words He spoke, the works He performed, the life He led, the person He was—all disclosed the unseen Father. He is, in Paul’s words, the visible ‘image of the invisible God’ (Colossians 1:15)” (F.F. Bruce, Jesus: Lord and Savior [InterVarsity Press, 1986], p.158).
Jesus shares the essence and nature of the one true God—He is not a secondary deity. “As the Son, He is the very expression of the Father; in Him we see the ‘human face of God’” (Bruce, p.159).
