“My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.”John 5:17
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.
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.
“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) 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)