Does God have one Son or many, and are all people his children?

Hard question · Who God is · raised by 1 of the lists sceptics circulate

The meaning of a wordBoth true, in different senses

See the passages joined in the interactive map

The passages

1 John 4:9

God sent “his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him”.

In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.

Luke 3:38

Luke’s genealogy of Jesus ends with Adam, “which was the son of God”.

Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.

Job 38:7

When God laid the foundations of the earth, “all the sons of God shouted for joy”.

When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

Job 1:6

“The sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.”

Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.

Genesis 6:2–4

“The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair”, and took them as wives.

That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

Acts 17:28–29

Paul tells the Athenians, quoting their own poets, that “we are the offspring of God”.

For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.

Exodus 4:22

God tells Pharaoh, “Israel is my son, even my firstborn”.

And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my firstborn:

John 1:12–13

To those who received him he gave power “to become the sons of God”, born “of God”.

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Romans 8:14–15

Those led by the Spirit are sons of God, having received “the Spirit of adoption”.

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

John 8:41–44

To men who claimed God as their Father but sought to kill him, Jesus said, “Ye are of your father the devil”.

Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God. Jesus said unto them, 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. Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

The objection

John calls Jesus God’s “only begotten Son”, yet the Bible also calls Adam the son of God, calls angels the sons of God, and says believers become sons of God. Paul tells pagan Athenians that all people are God’s offspring, while elsewhere only believers are his children and others are children of the devil. So how many sons does God have, and who are his children?

The answer

‘Son of God’ is used in more than one sense, and the Bible itself marks the differences. In Hebrew and Greek, ‘son of’ or ‘child of’ often means one who comes from someone, belongs to him or shares his likeness, as in “children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3).

Jesus is God’s Son in a way no one else is. John calls him monogenēs (G3439), ‘only begotten’ or ‘one and only’: the unique Son, who was with God in the beginning and shares the Father’s nature (John 1:1, 14, 18). Others are sons of God by creation, by covenant or by adoption. By creation, angels are called ‘sons of God’ (Job 1:6; 38:7), and so is Adam, who had no human father (Luke 3:38). In that sense all people are God’s ‘offspring’ (Greek genos), as Paul told the Athenians: God made them and gives them life and breath (Acts 17:25–29). By covenant, Israel as a nation was God’s ‘firstborn’ son (Exodus 4:22; Deuteronomy 14:1).

In the full, family sense, people become God’s children through faith in Christ: “to them gave he power to become the sons of God” (John 1:12). Paul calls this adoption, huiothesia (G5206), which implies that those adopted were not God’s children in that sense before (Galatians 4:4–6; Romans 8:15). So Jesus could tell men who called God their Father, while seeking to kill him, that by their deeds they showed the likeness of another father, the devil (John 8:41–44). The passages answer different questions. All people are God’s creatures; only those who receive Christ are his children by adoption; and Christ alone is the Son by nature, who makes others sons.

Still open

Who ‘the sons of God’ in Genesis 6:2–4 were has been debated since ancient times. Many early Jewish and Christian writers, and many scholars today, take them to be angels, as in Job; Augustine, Calvin and Keil and Delitzsch took them to be godly men of Seth’s line; rabbinic tradition saw them as princes or nobles. On any view they belong to God by creation or calling, not as Christ does.

From the classic commentators

the apostle is not here speaking of himself, and other saints, as being the children of God, by adoption, and by regenerating grace, and faith in Christ Jesus, but as men in common with others, and with these AtheniansJohn Gill, Exposition of the Bible, on Acts 17:29 (1746–63), at Bible Hub