Epistle to the Hebrews: "The Song of the Bridegroom", 1:5

τινι γαρ ειπεν ποτε των αγγελων υιος μου ει συ εγω σημερον γεγεννηκα σε και παλιν εγω εσομαι αυτω εις πατερα και αυτος εσται μοι εις υιον

For, to which angel in particular, at any moment in the past, did he say “You are my son, I have begotten you?” Moreover, “I will be to him as father and he shall be to me as son”?

The angels, as a group of angelic beings, receive the name of “sons of the Almighty” (Psalm 29:1). It is a precious name that designates them within a very special group before God as God’s sons. But the argument that our author presents to the readers is that no one angel in particular, ever, has been designated by God as “His Son”. God’s relationship with Jesus of Nazareth is such that God acclaims Him as His Son. Moreover, the pronoun “I” which refers to God, is the pronoun used in the Greek when the importance of the person is emphasized. It is the divine “I”, the holy and infinite almighty God, eternal and divine in nature, who acclaims Jesus as His son.

In the Old Testament Hebrew culture, “sons” could be grandchildren, great grandchildren, and even more distant generations. The logic behind the designation of “sons” for any offspring removed by one or more generations is because those descendants retained the blood lineage, the same substance, of their progenitor. A son was a son if he was of the same blood line of his progenitor. A son’s first claim was by virtue of the blood line, what they called “the seed” of the progenitor. The blood line was the link to his ancestor.

Sonship was not merely determined because the ancestor was his actual biological father. As long as the offspring had his blood line, he was the son of the progenitor. For this reason the kings of Israel who were descendants of David were called “sons of David”.

This entire phrase, “You are my son, I have begotten you today” is a direct quote from Psalm 2:7. This is a psalm that announces the coming of the Messiah (a Messianic psalm). Therefore, the one who God is claiming as “my son” is the person of Jesus Christ. The meaning of the phrase is that God declares that even in his incarnation, Jesus of Nazareth is still “my son”, or of the same substance and nature of the Deity. That father-son relationship pointed to not only the spiritual union between Jesus and the Deity, but that Jesus was signaled as belonging to the divine nature, of the same essence and substance as the eternal Deity. As a true father, God the Father recognizes and acclaims his Son as his, because although Christ empties himself of his place within the Deity, he retains his divine essence and substance of pure and eternal love.[1]


[1] Philippians 2:7