{"id":3538,"date":"2013-10-22T21:00:34","date_gmt":"2013-10-22T21:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pjhmail.wordpress.com\/?p=3538"},"modified":"2013-10-22T21:00:34","modified_gmt":"2013-10-22T21:00:34","slug":"son-or-son","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/3538\/son-or-son\/","title":{"rendered":"“Son” or “son”?"},"content":{"rendered":"

John<\/span><\/p>\n

\n In chapter 1 of the book, God Had a Son before Mary did, under the section, “Suddenly”, it says this:<\/span><\/p>\n

“The child which Mary bore was created in her womb by God, and that being the case, he was physically the Son of God. But the Son of God through whom God \u201cmade the worlds\u201d did not spend nine months being formed in Mary\u2019s womb.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Would the first “the Son” still be capital when referring to Mary’s son Jesus being physically God’s son?<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard<\/span>
\n ================<\/span><\/p>\n

Hi Richard.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

That is an issue that we have debated several times. As for capitalizing the “S”, in general, I doubt that the Son of God himself would capitalize the “S” on “Son” if he were writing the word. But most of the time, we capitalize it because Jesus told us that God wants men to honor the Son even as they honor the Father (Jn. 5:23).<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Paul and James both referred to the night in Genesis 15, when God told Abraham to look up at the stars and Abraham believed God when He promised that He would multiply Abraham’s seed like the stars in the night sky (Rom. 4:21-22; Jas. 2:23). The problem is, that “Abraham” didn’t exist then. His name at that time was still “Abram”. God didn’t change Abram’s name until Genesis 17! But what we learn from this (and other, similar examples) is that it is acceptable to call the man in Genesis 15 “Abraham”, even though “Abraham” was not his name until years later.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Likewise, I believe it is acceptable to refer to Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God, even though only years later did the Son of God leave heaven and become one with him at John’s baptism. I even hear people talk about “Jesus” being at the Father’s right hand in the beginning of creation, and I do not argue with them because there is no difference now between Mary’s son and the Son whom God had with him in the beginning, “through whom He made the worlds”.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

The original languages do not capitalize “son”, “father”, “spirit”, or even the word “God”. It is our choice to do that. An argument can be made that “son” should not be capitalized when Mary’s son is clearly the son being referred to, and in our translation, we have not always capitalized “son”, depending on the meaning of the verse itself. For example, we did not capitalize “son” in the following verse from John 10:36, where Jesus asked the Jews who hated him,<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

36. Are you telling the one whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, \u2018You are blaspheming,\u2019 because I said, \u2018I am a son of God\u2019?<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In general, out of respect for the wondrous work of God in Jesus, I think it is acceptable to refer to Mary’s son as “Son”, but it is not a law that can be laid down. It is a matter of choice.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks for the question, Rich!<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

jdc<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John In chapter 1 of the book, God Had a Son before Mary did, under the section, “Suddenly”, it says this: “The child which Mary bore was created in her womb by God, and that being the case, he was physically the Son of God. But the Son of God through whom God \u201cmade the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-qa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3538"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3538\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}