Only Son (part 9)

We have now seen both Adam and Israel positioned as sons of God, and have done so, so that we might comprehend the engagement between Nicodemus and Jesus and its rooting in Jewish hope and expectation according to the history of the world and the history of Israel. Both of those histories are related to the redemptive history that has been playing out according to God’s covenant faithfulness, and this is the framework that has been built for an understanding of Jesus and His mission. By using the language that we find in John 3:16, we can not only see that Jesus understands Himself along this historical-redemptive line, but that Jesus also wants Nicodemus to understand His purposes according to the historical-redemptive pattern set forth in the history of Israel as a nation, and in that of mankind as recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures. The author of this Gospel seems to be communicating the same desire, and we can also see the same goings-on in the book of Acts and in the letters of the New Testament.

In Acts, which contains the records of the first preached sermons proclaiming Jesus as Christ (Messiah) and Lord, there is an ongoing appeal to the history of Israel and God’s ongoing dealings with humanity and His creation through Israel, in confirmation of Jesus’ messianic status. The letters make almost constant reference to Israel’s history, which is an eminently reasonable thing to do, for if one is proclaiming Jesus as Messiah, one must appeal to history, for it would be absolutely and completely impossible to understand the nature or role of the messiah apart from a thorough grounding in that history. If we remove or detach Jesus from His thoroughly Jewish roots and from the thoroughly Jewish hopes within which He was operating and proclaimed Himself to be properly fulfilling, without first coming to terms with who He was and what He did for Israel, then we remove and detach Him from all meaning, from all legitimacy, and from all relevance to ourselves or the world. If Jesus does not have that anchor, then He was just another itinerant preacher, who said some nice things and might have done some nice things, but in the end was crucified for challenging the existing power structures of His day.

If we do not understand the way in which Jesus first fulfilled the hope of Israel through His crucifixion and His Resurrection, and following that, understand what that meant for the wider world, for creation as a whole, and for our ongoing mission (as the church of Jesus Christ that proclaims a King and a kingdom) in the world that mirrors the mission of Israel, which mirrored the mission of Adam, then it does not matter for us one single bit if or why He was raised up from the grave. He might as well have just laid there in that lifeless condition, and God could have saved Himself all of the trouble of taking the form of human flesh.

However, it is His attachment first to the providential and covenantal history of Israel, and then to the providential and covenantal history of the whole of the world (as it relates to God’s original intention for man and for His creation), that provides meaning for His life, His death, His life after death, and His living through His church (life after life after death) that provides His chosen people with their hope of life after life after death. It is for that reason that every effort must be made to understand His words in the light of what had gone before, and in the way in which His hearers would have understood them. That is the purpose for this exercise in regards to His statements concerning God’s “one and only son.”

So, returning to this important conversation, when Jesus speaks of the one and only Son of God, Nicodemus is not only going to consider His statement in the light of Adam, and he is not only going to consider His statement in the light of Israel and the exodus, but he is also going to consider His statement in the light of Solomon. Yes, Solomon, the son of David. Solomon, the great and wise and powerful king of Israel. Solomon, the type of king (owing to the scope of the territory of his kingdom, his riches, his fame, Israel’s great prosperity, the tribute paid to him by other nations, and the peace Israel enjoyed under his reign) that Israel truly wanted to see rise to power in Jesus’ day, as evidenced by the fact that the messiah is not referred to as a “king like David,” but rather, as the “son of David.” More evidence that Israel wanted a king like Solomon---though they did generally believe that (because they didn’t truly remember the way that God wrought their Egyptian exodus, though it was constantly referenced as was the ground for their self-understanding as God’s chosen people), before they could have such a king, who could enjoy such a rule, they would first have to see a warrior-king like David---was that when they hailed their messiah-king, they did so when Jesus came riding into Jerusalem on “a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9, Matthew 21:5b). When Solomon was appointed to the kingship by David, and anointed as king, he would come to the place of coronation riding on his father’s mule (1 Kings 1:38).