Why is God like a man that he had to have a son? How could the son of God be God? Was Mary the wife of God?


Email Received:

I read some topic on Jesus where it said that Jesus was the son of God as well as God. But I cannot understand how a person can become the son of God as well as be God himself. Since Mary was the mother of Jesus, was she also the wife of God?


Ted’s Response:

God is a multiple but unified being. One way we can understand this is to see how we were made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26). Each of us has a spirit, a soul and a body. The physical portion of ourself that everyone can see is our body. Likewise, Jesus was and is the physical manifestation or body of God that people could see when He walked on the earth.

As human beings, all of us have broken God's commandments and fallen short of God's perfect standards. We are tarnished and are unable to compensate for our sins and transgressions against God and other people. Therefore, there would be no way that any of us could be with God after we die unless God Himself provided a way to wash away our wrongdoings and offenses.

Our heavenly Father, who created all things, is the essence of God. He could not come to earth to mend the gap between us and Him, because no imperfect being could look at Him and live. So He sent Jesus as the physical manifestation and the sinless representation of Himself to people here on earth.

God did not have to have a Son. He chose to have a Son, in the form of a human being, Jesus, who would stress to all people the importance of repenting of their sins. He also would shed His blood for the remission of the sins of humanity. It was only by His self-sacrifice that any person who believes in Him can avoid being separated from God forever after death. There is no remission or forgiveness of sins without the presence of blood (Leviticus 17:11; Hebrews 9:22); so God had to come to us in the form of a human, who had blood and who shed this blood.

Mary was not the "wife" of God. The Holy Spirit of God came upon the virgin Mary (not a sexual encounter), and Jesus was conceived inside of her supernaturally, not naturally. So He was the supernatural Son of God. The ancient prophet Isaiah prophesied that a virgin would be with child, a son, and His name would be Immanuel, which means "God with us" (Isaiah 7:14).

After Joseph and Mary were betrothed to be married, Joseph realized that Mary was pregnant. He was going to divorce her, thinking that she had been with another man. However, an angel appeared to Joseph and told him that a son would be born to the woman he was to take as his wife, and they were to name Him Yeshua (Jesus), which means "Yahveh saves." He also would be known as Immanuel, or "God with us," as predicted by the prophet Isaiah. All of this is described in Matthew 1:18-25.

Jesus was God in human form. By shedding His blood on the cross and taking our sins upon Himself, He was giving mankind the opportunity to have the stain of our sins and transgressions removed before a perfect God. He also provided us with the opportunity to have a meaningful relationship with His Father in heaven, during this life and after we die. Only if Jesus was the infinite God could His bloody death pay for the countless sins of humanity. No finite, ordinary, mortal man could do this.

However, we must accept His sacrifice on our behalf, or we cannot be saved from the ultimate penalty of our sins and disobedience: eternal separation from God after death. We must confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord, and believe in our hearts that God the Father raised Him from the dead, and we will be saved (Romans 10:9,10). If you have difficulty believing this, ask God for the faith to believe, since true faith is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit received directly from God (1 Corinthians 12:4,8,9).

To better comprehend how God can have both a singular and a multiple nature, and also to better understand the relationship between the Father and the Son, you might want to read these two sections in one of my commentaries: singular and multiple and Father and Son.

There were several times that Jesus claimed He was the Son of God, and others understood that this is what He was saying. Those who did not believe Him wanted to stone Him to death.

You also might be interested in reading responses to other people who have asked me questions about the deity of Jesus and about God. If so, you can go to these sections on my email responses page and click on some of the questions there: Was Jesus God? and Who Is God?

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