Hi, Pastor John:
You were teaching us lately, from the Father and Son book, that no one knew Jesus until God revealed him at Pentecost. I had a thought, “but what about the Centurion?” The KJV reads in Matthew 27:54,
Now 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.’”
I looked up your translations and read these scriptures.
Matthew 27:54:
Now, when the centurion and those guarding Jesus with him saw the earthquake and the otherthings that happened, they were stricken with great fear and said, ‘This really was a son of God!’”
Mark 15:39 reads:
Now, when the centurion, who had been standing in front of him, saw him cry out like this and give up the spirit, he said, ‘Truly, this man was the son of a god.’”
In Luke, the centurion was calling Jesus righteous; nothing about calling Jesus a god. And in John, there is no mention of a centurion saying anything (that I read).
In our Greek class we are learning our articles, “a” and “the”. If the translations used the definite article “the”, then it would sound and give the impression that the Centurion knew Jesus as the son of God, instead of a son of one of the god’s. Just knowing one small word such as the correct article to use can change the whole scene. It brought more value and validity to our reading. No one knew “The” Son, until “The” God revealed him and “The” Life of God entered into men [on the day of Pentecost]. “No one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the holy Ghost” and “from the abundance of the heart the mouth doth also speak.” We can truly say “Jesus is Lord” and truly know that from our hearts only if our hearts have been changed by the love of God; “For the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the holy Ghost”. I love articles; “they are your friend” as Mounce says. It seems as though you can’t use the definite article [and confess “the” Son], unless your heart knows God.) It was good looking up these scriptures.
The readings have been so good; hope to see everyone, soon.
Billy
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That’s right, Billy.
When we get to Chapter 6 of the Father and Son book, you will see the following section (not proofed or edited yet), if you have not already read it:
A Son of God, Not the Son of God
When Jesus came up on the bank of the Jordan after being baptized, John the Baptist must have been deeply impressed when he heard the Voice from heaven say, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mt. 3:16-17; Mk. 1:9-11; Lk. 3:21-22). At the same time, however, John (and whoever else heard that Voice) could only have thought that God was speaking of Mary’s son, for the pre-existent Son of whom God was really speaking was still unknown. The Son of God was not revealed just because he came to earth; “he came unto his own, and his own received him not” (Jn. 1:11). The Son was revealed only after he returned to heaven and the Spirit was sent back to give us the kind of life we needed in order to know him. As for Satan, hearing God express pleasure in Jesus as a son may have impressed him, too, but it would not have intimidated him. Satan himself was a “son of God”, and he believed that God was even better pleased with him, too.
By the time of Jesus, the title, “son of God”, or “sons of God”, had long been in use as a name for heavenly beings (Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7).
Heavenly creatures and many on earth in Jesus’ time understood “son of God” to be a mere figure of speech, a way to express God’s “fatherhood” over His creatures. God Himself used the phrase figuratively (Mal. 1:6). None of heaven’s creatures, however, and no one in Israel with any wisdom and scriptural knowledge, believed that God really had a Son. Such a thing, they would have thought, was beneath God’s dignity.
Of course, many ancient Gentiles believed the myths concerning gods and goddesses literally begetting earthly sons and daughters.
The Gentile king, Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 3:25), did not say that the fourth man in the fiery furnace looked “like the Son of God”, as translators usually have it. Instead, he said what others in his time would have said, had they seen that mysterious fourth man walking about in the blazing furnace; to wit, that the fourth man looked “like a son of a god.”
For another example, the Roman soldiers who crucified Jesus, when awestruck at the unnatural darkness and the earthquake which attended Jesus’ death, responded exactly as Nebuchadnezzar did, and exactly as we would expect of those who lived before the knowledge of the Son of God was revealed at Pentecost,
Matthew 27:
54. When the centurion and those who were with him guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and those other things happen, they were very afraid, saying, ‘This man really was a son of God!’”
Most Church translators have those Romans saying, “This man really was the Son of God”, but that is not what the Romans said. Nor is it what the Greek text of the Bible says. Churchmen know about the Son of God, and their mistranslation of what the Roman soldiers said leaves the impression that the ancient Romans knew about the Son of God, too. They most certainly did not. No one did. Paul pointed out the obvious fact that if they had known God’s Son, they would not have crucified him (1Cor. 2:7-8).
In the verses below, virtually every translation of the New Testament produced by churchmen quotes Satan as calling Jesus, “the Son of God”, as if Satan knew of God’s pre-existent Son. Technically speaking, that translation is possible, but again, “the” is missing in the Greek text, and given the universal ignorance of the Son’s existence at that time, that fact of biblical Greek should be taken more seriously by translators. Satan had no knowledge of the Son of God; therefore, it is beyond all question that “a son of God” instead of “the Son of God” is what Satan actually said.
Matthew 4:3:
When the Tempter came to him, he said, Since you are a [not the] son of God, command that these stones be turned into bread.’”
. . .5. “Then the Accuser carried him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple;
6. and he said to him, ‘Since you are a son of God, throw yourself down. . . .’”
Luke is the only other Gospel to record Satan’s words, and he agrees with Matthew:
Luke 4:
3. And the Accuser said to him, ‘Since you are a son of God, tell this stone to become a loaf of bread.’”
. . .9. “Then he brought him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and he said to him, ‘Since you are a son of God, throw yourself down. . . .’”
Before the day of Pentecost, even men and women of great faith and power were not considered “sons of God”; yet, even if some of them had been called “sons of God”, Satan would have esteemed the very best of them to be unworthy of comparison with him. He had no rivals in heaven or earth, as he saw it, including Jesus, even though he knew that great things had been spoken of Jesus by the prophets and that God had caused Mary to conceive him. Miracles are the norm in heaven; Satan had seen many of them over the millennia. His knowledge of Mary’s miraculous conception does not mean he knew that God was preparing a temple for His hidden Son to possess. But their knowing that God would literally be the Father of Mary’s child helps us understand why Gabriel announced to Mary that her baby would be called “a son of God” (not “the Son of God” as Church translators usually have it).
Luke 1:
31. [Gabriel said to Mary] Behold, you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will call his name Jesus.
32. He will be great, and he will be called a son of the Highest. The Lord will give him the throne of David his father.”
….
34. “Then Mary said to the angel, ‘How will this be, since I do not know a man?’”
35. “And the angel answered and said to her, ‘God’s holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you. Therefore, that holy thing which is born will be called a son of God.’”
Gabriel did not explain to Mary, because he did not know, that one day her baby boy would grow up to become the temple of the pre-existent, hidden Son of God. Gabriel’s calling Mary’s son “a son of the Highest” and “a son of God” did nothing to reveal to her or anyone else that in the beginning, God had created a Son in His image and that through His Son, everything else had been created.
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John,
The concept that no one knew the Son before Pentecost seems to be hard for us to keep near and dear to our heart. The scriptures really have to be expounded on to take this in or it doesn’t seem plausible.
After reading this I was contemplating if Satan knows even now or understands who the Son is.
Wendell
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Hi Wendell,
Satan does not know the Father and the Son. He can’t. Most probably, Satan feels misunderstood and mistreated. I have wondered many times if he thinks God rejected him and exalted Jesus instead because Jesus slandered him to God and others. Jesus certainly said some bad things about Satan while here among us. The thing is, though, that everything Jesus said was true, even if Satan does not think so.
jdc
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John,
That really makes you fearful and be compassionate, God is not mocked. Would be I could always remember your words: “What God does to a person is enough.”
It brings back words the Lord spoke to me when being ridiculed and made fun of for no reason by a group of people at work one day, and I asked the Lord why. He told me, “They have rejected my council.” It instantly made me prayerful for those that had abused me, and my thoughts were corrected.
Wendell