As time went on (8th century before Jesus came), God explained his ‘personality’ somehow more tangibly through the prophet Isaiah:
“I will tell of the kindness of the LORD – he became their JESHUA (the Hebrew form of the English name ‘Jesus’, meaning ‘Saviour’) . . . yet they rebelled and grieved his HOLY SPIRIT” (Isa. 63:7 – 10).
In the Gospel, Jesus is called both, ‘Son of God’ and ‘Son of Man’. Although these names seem to be in opposition to each other, in essence they are the same. That becomes quite clear when we consider a vision the prophet Daniel had:
“In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a Son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven . . . He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshipped Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away”. (Daniel 7:13, 14).
We realise that this does not refer to a human being, and that is what Jesus said He was.
Not with a single word does the Bible even remotely suggest, what most Muslims seem to assume is taught in the Bible, that Christians believe Jesus to be a Son of God resulting from a physical, sexual union between Him and Mary. The attribute ‘son’ rather suggests that in every sense no one is closer to the father than his son. They are of the same kind. And so it is with God the Father and His son Jesus.
The words ‘only begotten Son’, as used in an old Bible translation for the Greek word ‘mono-genis’, actually mean ‘only-born’. The other is an unfortunate wording and can be misleading.
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