“And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.”John the Baptist, John 1:34 (KJV)
The old question returns
If thou be the Son of God
Still today, the devil raises the same question he pressed upon Christ in the wilderness. He questions the Sonship of Jesus Christ, and by doing so attacks the Father, the gospel, and the confession by which the believer is born of God.
The confession
Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.
The Scripture does not leave Christ’s Sonship in a mist. It speaks plainly. The Son has a Father. The risen Christ names Him as His Father and His God. The believer receives the Spirit of His Son and cries, Abba, Father.
“Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.”
1 John 5:1 (KJV)“Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.”
John 20:17 (KJV)“And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.”
Galatians 4:6 (KJV) The wilderness test
The devil questioned the Son. Christ answered with the Word.
Matthew records the wilderness trial with solemn force. The attack came after hunger, solitude, and forty days of fasting. Satan did not begin with a visible empire. He began with identity: If thou be the Son of God.
“Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
Matthew 4:1-4 (KJV)The answer is still, It is written.
The Son did not prove Himself by acting independently from His Father. He stood on the written Word. He lived as the obedient Son, trusting the Father rather than performing for the tempter.
Every doctrine that blurs the real Father and the real Son weakens the confession Scripture gives. Every faithful witness must answer the ancient question with the Bible open.
Peter’s confession / the wider witness
“Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Peter did not answer with a theory or a title detached from the Father. He confessed Jesus as the Christ and as the Son of the living God. Jesus called that confession blessed because it was revealed by the Father in heaven.
“When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.”
Matthew 16:13-17 (KJV)“Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel.”Nathanael, John 1:49 (KJV)
“Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.”Martha, John 11:27 (KJV)
“And when the centurion, and they that were with him watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.”Matthew 27:54 (KJV)
“And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God.”Paul, Acts 9:20 (KJV)
“He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.”John 3:36 (KJV)
The context keeps the confession connected to the Father.
Peter’s confession belongs inside the conversation Jesus began: “Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?” The answer is not merely that Jesus is a manifestation or an office. He is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and the Father Himself revealed that truth. Read the whole passage slowly, then compare it with the witness of John, Martha, the centurion, and Paul.
The spirit of antichrist
To deny Christ come in the flesh is perilous ground.
The warning
John names the issue directly. The spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God.
“And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.”
1 John 4:3 (KJV)The Father sent His Son.
Jesus spoke with holy clarity about where He came from and who sent Him.
“If God were your Father, ye would love me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.”
John 8:42 (KJV) The Son speaks of His Father
The Bible witness is not ashamed of Father and Son.
The same Jesus who defeated the wilderness temptation also opened the way for believers to know God as Father through the Son. The Sonship of Christ is not a small doctrinal edge. It is living gospel ground.
“My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.”John 5:17
“The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do.”John 5:19
“I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.”John 5:30
“My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.”John 7:16
“I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.”John 8:28
“The word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.”John 14:24
Genesis 1:26 / Isaiah 9:6 
Let us make man in our image.
Before this earth was formed, God truly had a Son. The words of Genesis are not the voice of a lonely monarch speaking into emptiness. “Let us make man in our image” reveals fellowship, counsel, and divine purpose. The Father made all things by His Son, and the Son who stood with the Father before the foundation of the world is the same Son sent to die in our place so we could live.
Did a pretend Son die for your sins?
That thought should make the conscience tremble. A ceremonial title cannot bleed for the world. A role-play Son cannot reveal the Father. A borrowed label cannot carry the love of John 3:16. The gospel is not that God sent a metaphor. The gospel is that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.
“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”
Genesis 1:26 (KJV)“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder.”
Isaiah 9:6 (KJV)The Father sent His Son.
Isaiah does not merely say a child would be born; he says a Son would be given. The gift existed before Bethlehem could receive Him. The manger revealed Him in flesh, but it did not invent His Sonship. Calvary is the measure of the Father’s love because the Father gave the Son who was truly His.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son.”
John 3:16 (KJV)“God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law.”
Galatians 4:4-5 (KJV)And this is where Satan’s hate began.
Long before man existed, the Father was not planning to make a race in a way that included Lucifer. God went to Jesus with the plan of creating man in the image of the Father and the Son. That was the wound in Satan’s heart before Adam ever breathed. He was not excluded from creation in general; he was excluded from the covenant purpose itself. He was not invited into the plan to be the one with whom God would share the work of making man. That is why his rage ran so deep: the plan of redemption and the place of the Son were settled before the world was, and Lucifer was left outside the design.
That is why the hatred of man was not only about our sins; it was about a wounded pride that saw God choosing the Son and then making a creature in the image of that Son. Satan was mad because he was not included in the plan. The first rebellion was not merely against God’s law; it was against God’s purpose, against the place of Christ, and against the destiny of man. To distort the Sonship of Christ is to walk in the same malign pride that rose before humanity existed.
“I saw that the nominal churches, as the Jews crucified Jesus, had crucified these messages, and therefore they have no knowledge of the move made in heaven, or of the way into the Most Holy, and they cannot be benefited by the intercession of Jesus there. Like the Jews, who offered their useless sacrifices, they offer up their useless prayers to the apartment which Jesus has left, and Satan, pleased with the deception, fastens them in his snare...” — Ellen G. White, Spiritual Gifts, vol. 1, 1858. Read the full 1858 context here.
Definition: metaphorical means something used in a figurative or symbolic sense. It is not a literal command, a legal rule, or a statement of fact. The moment someone tries to make the Ten Commandments into a string of metaphors, they are not defending Scripture — they are mocking it.
“Thou shalt not metaphorically steal.”Exodus 20:15 (mock form)
“Thou shalt not metaphorically commit adultery.”Exodus 20:14 (mock form)
“Thou shalt not metaphorically bear false witness.”Exodus 20:16 (mock form)
“Thou shalt not metaphorically covet thy neighbour’s house.”Exodus 20:17 (mock form)
“Thou shalt not metaphorically take the name of the LORD thy God in vain.”Exodus 20:7 (mock form)
“Thou shalt not metaphorically make unto thee any graven image.”Exodus 20:4 (mock form)
“Thou shalt have no other metaphorical gods before me.”Exodus 20:3 (mock form)
“Remember the metaphorical sabbath day, to keep it holy.”Exodus 20:8 (mock form)
“Honour thy metaphorical father and mother.”Exodus 20:12 (mock form)
This is the same kind of absurdity produced when a retired Adventist Bible scholar twists the plain meaning of Scripture into a clever phrase so he can steal the Son’s birthright and call it theology. The law is not a metaphor. The Son is not a role. The Father is not a symbol. The Bible is not a stage play.
The old Advent message did not ask the people to dignify Babylon with clever labels. It called them out of Babylon, away from apostasy, and back to the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.
Embedded PDF Reader: A Question of Sonship
Adventist World, November 2015, page 42. Use the buttons above to open full screen or download the proof PDF.
Abba, Father
Receive the Spirit of His Son.
Now, seeing that you are sons, God sends forth the Spirit of His Son into the heart, crying, Abba, Father. The final issue is not cold argument. It is worship, sonship, truth, and life. Confess the Son. Honor the Father. Stand where Scripture stands.
“He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him.”
John 5:23 (KJV)