Please turn in your copies of God's Word to the Gospel of John. The Gospel of John chapter 1, beginning in verse 1 and reading to verse 18. And you may notice, if you're reading the ESV, there will be at least two changes from what I am reading versus what you have in your hands. And I will explain that in the sermon. John chapter 1, verse 1, in the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him. Yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness about him and cried out, this was he of whom I said, he who comes after me ranks before me because he was before me. For from his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, the only begotten God, who is at the Father's side. He has made him known. So ends the reading of the word. Let us pray and ask the Lord's blessing. O Lord, even as we have just read of how Christ is the great revealer of the Godhead, the one who reveals and shines forth the glory of the triune God to us, Lord, would you shine upon us now? Would you illuminate the texts of your holy word that we might grow in understanding, that we as creatures might behold something more by faith of your glorious character and presence? We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, if I had to guess, I'd imagine that the very first Bible verse that many of us memorized, whether as children or as Christians new to the faith, was John 3.16. And most of us probably learned it in the language of the King James Version. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. I must have recited that verse countless times growing up, and maybe it was the same for you. But looking back, if someone had asked me what it meant that Jesus is the begotten Son of God, I'm not sure how I would have answered at the time. But here's something curious. If you open an ESV Bible to John 3.16, you'll notice that the word begotten is missing. It simply says his only son. So the question naturally arises is why and does that matter that the word begotten is missing? Is that word important? Well, the Apostles' Creed seems to think so, because for millennia, Christians are all around the world and throughout time have confessed together, I believe in Jesus Christ, his only begotten son, our Lord. And up until very recently, every major English translation of the Bible retained that word, only begotten. That alone should make us pause and consider, what does this word mean and why does it matter Last week we explored what it means to confess Jesus as both Jesus and Christ. We thought about our Lord as he entered into time, as he came as the anointed one of God sent to save us from our sins. And so we looked at the second person of the Trinity incarnate in time and space. Well, today we consider an even more fundamental truth about the second person of the Trinity as we move from time to eternity. You see, prior to and apart from his incarnation, the son exists eternally begotten of the father. The theological term for this is eternal generation. Now maybe that's a new phrase for some of us, probably most of us. And perhaps that phrase, eternal generation, it might sound a little technical, a little maybe even philosophical. But while eternal generation is mysterious, meaning we cannot fully comprehend it, we cannot fully comprehend God or eternity, and it certainly isn't the easiest concept to understand, we must be clear that this is not a speculative you know, philosophical term as it were. No, this is a deeply biblical doctrine revealed by God throughout the pages of the Old and New Testaments. God has shown us in his word that the son is eternally begotten of the father. In the words of the Nicene Creed, the son is begotten, not made. The son is eternally from the father, fully God, yet personally distinct. And so this is how the Bible speaks of the relationship between the father and the son, the first person and the second person of the Holy Trinity. And this matters deeply. It matters to the gospel. Because the gospel is not only what a man called Jesus did, But more than that, it's about who Jesus is. Jesus was not just a teacher, nor just a miracle worker, nor simply another anointed servant in a long line of anointed servants. Nor is Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, a created being. No, his identity ultimately is as the eternal Son of God sent by the Father to make the Father known to us and to bring us to the Father. So let's consider then what it means to confess Jesus as the only begotten Son. First, we'll consider the meaning of eternal generation. Second, the scriptural foundation of eternal generation. And then third, the implications and application of eternal generation. So first, let's consider the meaning of the eternal generation of the Son. To understand this doctrine, we need to clarify what the Bible means when it speaks of the Son as the only begotten of the Father. Now, as I said, if you grew up reading the King James Version or the New King James translations, then you're familiar with this phrase, only begotten Son, especially from verses like John 3.16. The Greek word translated as only begotten is a Greek word called monogenes. monogenes, and it appears nine times in the New Testament. Now, some modern translations, like the ESV, translate monogenes as unique or only, so arguing that the word emphasizes Jesus as the unique son or the only son, rather than as the begotten son, the offspring of the Father. Now, I won't get into all of the reasons why they make that decision, but I will say that I think that it's a mistake The early church fathers who spoke Greek and lived much closer to the Apostolic Age understood monogenes to mean only begotten. And this has been the consensus view throughout most of church history. That's why I believe only begotten is the faithful translation of this Greek term monogenes. Well, what does begotten mean? This really isn't a word that we use too much in our day-to-day speech. What does it mean to beget? Well, in human terms, to beget refers to the process of a father siring a son, a father's role or action in bringing forth offspring. Think of the biblical genealogies like Genesis 5, again using King James language, where we read how Seth begat Enosh, Enosh begat Canaan, and so on. So another term for begetting is generation. So generation and begetting essentially mean, they mean the same thing. It means to produce offspring. Now it's important to recognize that this language of a father begetting a son is human, creaturely language. And scripture uses this language in order to reveal something about God. But like with all analogies, there are similarities and there are dissimilarities. Whenever you make an analogy, there's something that connects the two things together, but also things that shouldn't be pressed too far. So, for example, if I say, a train is like a bicycle. That's an analogy, and there's a touch point between those things. How is a train like a bicycle? Well, they're alike in the sense that they're both modes of transport. You get on and you get taken from point A to point B. And yet, we also would have to say that there are a lot of ways that a train is unlike a bicycle. So that's an analogy that ought not be pressed too far. Obviously, a train is a lot larger, it's more expensive, et cetera, et cetera. There are a lot of ways that a train is unlike a bicycle. Well, likewise, with the analogy of the father begetting or siring the son, we need to distinguish between what's similar and what's different in that analogy. The church father Cyril of Alexandria helps us make that distinction. Here's a quote from his sermon on the creed. He says, when you hear of God's begetting, fall not upon bodily things. Think not of corruptible generation, lest you be profane. God is spirit. Spiritual is his generation. For bodies beget bodies, and need that time should intervene. But time intervenes not. in the generation of the son from the father. So with this analogy, Cyril is saying that we need to remove all of the creaturely limitations of a father begetting a son. As Cyril said, this is not a physical begetting. It's not that God physically procreates and produces a son. No, God is spirit, so it's not saying that there's a physical bearing of a son. It's also not a time-bound begetting. For human fathers, to beget offspring involves time. Before Adam begot Seth, Seth did not exist. There was a point in time at which Seth came into existence. Seth had a beginning. For those of you who are fathers with sons, your son did not exist before he was conceived. That's obvious. And so in human terms, generation and begetting is all tied up with time. So how can the Apostle John speak of the second person of the Trinity being begotten or generated? And that's where the word eternal comes in. We confess that the Son is not begotten in time, but eternally begotten, or eternally generated by the Father. Now, eternal is another word we need to define in order to understand it correctly. And when we use the word eternal or eternally, we can use it in two different ways. We can use it to speak of something that lasts a really long time, so kind of an eternity within time. Think of eternal life. We will live for eternity, but it's an eternity within time. The second way we use the word eternal is to speak of something that is timeless. So something that's not bound by time, something completely outside of time, time doesn't apply to it. And it's that second term we mean when we speak of the son being eternally begotten of the father. So it's not referring to a single moment when the son was born or was begotten of the father. No, it's referring to a timeless relationship. Again, by contrast, your relationship with your father had a beginning. But the relationship between the father and the son never had a beginning. It's a timeless relationship, a timeless father-son relationship, a timeless begetting. And so when scripture uses the analogy of a father begetting a son to describe the eternal relations of God the father and God the son, it's not speaking physically, It's not speaking in a time-bound way, and it's not saying that the son was created or had a beginning at some point. So what is being communicated, right? With every analogy, as I said, there's a touchpoint. There's a similarity where the two things do agree. What truth is this analogy revealing? Well, the main result of human begetting is that the son is of the same nature as the father. When humans, this is pretty obvious, but when humans have children, they have human children. When they give birth, they don't give birth to aliens, or donkeys, or ducks. No, when humans beget, they beget humans. When ducks beget, they beget ducks. And presumably, aliens beget aliens. But it's another. Don't take that too far. But the point is that a child begotten by the father has the same nature as the father. So to say that God the son is begotten of God the father is to say that the son receives from the father the very same nature as the father. And what is the nature of God the father? It's divinity. It's his divine nature, divine essence. And so this is what theologians call, another term, communication of essence. that the Father eternally shares or communicates the divine essence to the Son. So because the Son is begotten of the Father, he shares the one, same, undivided essence of the Godhead. Thus, the Son is fully God and equal to the Father. Now if your head is spinning just a little bit, then here's just what it all boils down to. The doctrine of eternal generation teaches that the Son is eternally begotten of the father in a way that is timeless and non-physical. So it's not saying he was actually born in time. And this helps in two ways. It reveals two things. First, it explains the eternal relationship between the father and the son. How do we talk about the relations of the father and the son? Well, here's a way not to describe that. Some propose that the relation between the father and the son is one of subordination, that the father is kind of the boss, the son is the servant, and therefore the father has more authority than the son. So it's a dynamic of authority and submission. No, the church has always rejected that. Rather, the way we speak, the way scripture allows us to speak of that relationship, is the language of begetting and begotten. The second thing that this does is that it affirms the full deity of the son with the father. The fact that the son is begotten of the father means he shares the same divine essence, which means what? It means that the son is not created. It means that the son is equal with the father. If a son born to a father doesn't receive less of a human essence, and likewise, the son born of this divine father, so to speak, does not receive less than the Father's exact same divine essence. So we've defined our terms as we've considered the meaning of eternal generation. Now secondly, let's look to several scriptural passages where we see this doctrine taught. And there are many places in both the Old and New Testaments where we could turn, but for our purposes we'll survey three key passages, John 1, John 5 and Hebrews 1. So first turn to John 1. And in John 1, there are two references to Jesus as the monogamist, or the only begotten. And it's important that we read those in the context of John's opening prologue. You notice that John doesn't begin his gospel in Bethlehem with a manger scene or even with a genealogy. Rather, he writes, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. So here, John distinguishes between this between the Word and God. He says that the Word was in the beginning with God. And then he says that the Word was God. And further, that all things were created through him. So the Word was the instrument through which all things were made. And if all things were made through and by the Word, That means the word is not a made thing, right? You follow the logic, that's John's logic here, that's the logic in Hebrews 1, that's the logic in Colossians 1. Everything is made through the sun, and therefore the sun is not a created thing. Sometimes we use the language of the creator-creature distinction, right? There's the creator who made all things out of nothing. And then there's everything that was made. And there's no third option. Where does the son fall in that? He falls on the creator's side. He is not a created being. John makes that very clear. And so whatever the son being begotten means, it does not mean that the son was born in time or was created by the father. Well then in verse 14, we see our first monogamous where John writes, and the Word became flesh, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." So here we learn that Christ is the only begotten and that he is eternal like the Father is. The fact that the Word existed prior to and apart from becoming flesh, the Incarnation, means that he has existed eternally with the Father. The Word, God the Son, had no beginning in time. He didn't come into existence at the Incarnation. No, God the Son existed eternally with the Father and with the Holy Spirit. And again, this language of being the only begotten from the Father underscores the shared divine nature with the Father. Well, then in John 1, verse 18, we have the second monogamies, where John writes, no one has ever seen God, the only begotten God, who is at the Father's side. He has made him known. Well, here, the son Jesus Christ is called the only begotten God, again emphasizing his equality with the Father. Because Jesus is God's Son, eternally begotten, this is how he can reveal the Father to us. No one has ever seen the Father. You cannot uncover the Father. And yet here, there is one who is able to reveal the Father to us, and that is the one who is at the Father's side, the one who shares in the same glory of the Father. This is how Christ is the revealer of God to us, and how he can be a perfect mediator, because he is himself one with God. So John 1 teaches us that Jesus, the word, is eternal, fully God. He's begotten, not made. All things were made through him. He is not a made thing, he's not a creature. Now let's turn to John chapter five, verse 26, where Jesus says something rather amazing about his relationship with the father. Jesus says, for as the father has life in himself, so he has granted the son also to have life in himself. Now here Jesus doesn't use the term monogenes, but he does refer to the concept of being eternally begotten or eternally generated. Jesus says the Father has life in himself. That word, that phrase, life in himself, the theological term is ase. So it's the idea that God is eternal. has everything he needs within himself. He is perfect. He needs nothing from outside of himself. He is self-existent. So this is a unique perfection that God has. We do not have life of ourselves. We derive life from God. God gives us life and breath, as Paul says in Acts. But rather, God has life of himself, so he doesn't derive life or being from anyone outside of himself. Well, then Jesus says something incredible. He says the father has granted the son to have this same life in himself. So this means that the son also has this divine perfection of self-existent life, like the father. So that means that the son is perfect. He's not dependent on anything outside of himself. He has all that he needs within himself, as it were. But Jesus says then that this self-existent life was granted to him. Now when we think of granting something, we imagine someone giving something to someone else that they didn't previously have. If I give you a present, well prior to me giving you that present, you didn't have that present. But that's not the case here with this granting. Jesus is not saying that there was some point in time in which the Father granted the son this self-existent life and he became God. Rather, it's a timeless or eternal granting. It's a way of communicating that the father eternally begets the son. The father eternally shares with the son or communicates to the son the divine life that is self-existent. And so it's a way that expresses the full deity of the son with the father. So John 5.26 shows us that the father and the son share the same divine life eternally. The father grants that life, there's a sharing of that divine nature, but in a way that denies that it began at some point in time. Finally, let's turn to Hebrews 1, which gives us another picture of what it means that the Son is eternally begotten of the Father. The passage starts, Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. And he upholds the universe by the word of his power. And jumping down to verse 5. For to which of the angels did God ever say, you are my son? Today I have begotten you. So this passage speaks of Jesus as God's son. It even says that he is begotten of the Father. Unlike John 1, it emphasizes that Jesus is the creator of all things. He is not a created being. So again, whatever scripture means by Jesus as the son of God does not mean that he was actually physically born of God or created by God. It expresses an eternal relationship. And Hebrews uses two interesting metaphors to describe what it means that the son is begotten of the father. It says, he is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature. That language of radiance, Think of the sun and the sun's rays, right? The sun is the source of the rays and the rays shine out from it. You can distinguish between the rays and the sun, but you can't separate those things. Well, in the same way, Jesus, the sun, is the radiance of the Father's glory. He shines out from what the Father is. Again, another way of describing how they share the same nature, just as the rays share the same nature as the sun. And then the next metaphor is that the sun is an exact imprint. It means that Jesus is the exact representation of the Father. He's not a cheap copy that you buy online, a knockoff brand or something like that. No, he's the exact imprint. Just like if you had a stamp and you put it in the ink and you press it firm down on a piece of paper, it creates the exact imprint of that stamp. The author of Hebrews is saying that You know, Jesus isn't just similar to God. He's not like God, but he is God, and he is the exact radiance of the Father. He is the exact imprint of the Father's nature. And so this explains, then, what it means that Jesus is the Son of the Father. It means that he shares the exact imprint of the Father's nature. And this is why, in the words of Hebrews, The father has never said to an angel, nor could he ever say to an angel, you are my begotten son, today I have begotten you. Again, remember, like begets like. A human father begets a human son. Donkeys beget donkeys. God cannot beget an angel, but God can beget a son who shares in the full divine essence of the father. And so these three passages, John 1, John 5, and Hebrews 1, paint a clear picture of the eternal generation of the Son. They show us that the Son is the exact imprint of the Father. He was not created. He had no beginning. Instead, he eternally exists, sharing the same one and undivided nature as the Father and the Spirit. So we've defined the doctrine. We have seen its scriptural foundation. And now third, consider a number of implications and applications of this doctrine. First, eternal generation helps us to rightly distinguish between the persons of the Trinity. So the one triune God exists as subsets in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And eternal generation teaches us that the father begets the son, and the son is begotten of the father. And so this is not a relationship of rank or hierarchy. Again, as I said earlier, we do not distinguish between the persons by saying, well, the father is most God, the son is kind of next level, and then the spirit is kind of a lower tier deity. It's also not the case that the Father has authority over the Son eternally. And when we get to the incarnation, we can talk about the roles and the economy of salvation or the missions of the Trinity. But eternally, the Father, the Son is not subordinate, a lower rank than the Father. And so eternal generation helps us to rightly speak of those relations. And this is how the church has spoken of these relations ever since pre-Nicaea. The distinction is one of eternal relations. The father begets, the son is begotten, and the spirit proceeds. And so this language keeps us from very dangerous Trinitarian error. Second, eternal generation affirms the full divinity of the son. The early church was plagued by a heresy known as Arianism. Arius was the name of the heretic at the time and unfortunately even after he died, Arianism as a heresy continued and it had many followers for a time and it even had state support. from one of Constantine's descendants. But the Aryans said that the son is, I mean, he's still a great guy, but he's not fully God. The son is similar to the father, but he's not equal with the father. He doesn't have the same nature as the father. Because he's a son, he's created by the father, so the son is a created being. And they had a hymn that went along with that, how they would sing about how there was a time when the son was not. That's what they sang. But as we've seen, the fact that the son is begotten of the father proves that he has the same nature of the father. Like begets like. Man begets man. Duck begets duck. And God the father could only beget a son, one with the same nature as his own. And thus the son is not a lesser deity. He's certainly not created. Rather, he is fully God. As our catechism says, the father, son, and Holy Spirit are the same in substance, equal in power and glory. Third, eternal generation affirms that Jesus is not only God's son, but as the creed says next, he is our Lord. Because the son is the son of the father, a father who is almighty, in his nature, and since the Son shares that nature, well then the Son is almighty. Everything we can say about God, we can say about the Son. And thus the Son is the Lord of creation, and he is the Lord of the church. And dear Christian, he is your Lord. What that means is that you submit to his Lordship through obeying his commands, through believing his promises, through worshiping his being in person. It means that you are aligning your mind, your affections, your will to his revealed will for your life. Very practically, it means even down to the daily decisions we make. The simple decisions of what should I maybe do today or how should I spend my money, all the way to the big decisions of life. Like, you know, who should I marry and what should I do with my life? And all of these things we want to rest and trust and submit to Jesus Christ, the begotten Son of the Father, who is our Lord. Fourth, because the Son is eternally begotten, his relationship with the Father is unbreakable, and therefore your salvation, and your relationship with the Trinity is unbreakable. The one that brings you to the Father is the eternal Son of the Father, the exact imprint of his nature, the radiance of his glory. Jesus doesn't come to simply bring a message from God. No, instead, Jesus comes as God, revealing God. And because he is eternally from the Father, he can never be severed from the Father. And what that means is that if you are united to the Son, you are united to the Father also and the Holy Spirit. And what that means is that you are eternally secure in the love of your triune God. Isn't this exactly what Jesus speaks of in John chapter six? where he says, I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one. Jesus is the natural, only begotten Son of the Father. You and I are adopted sons and daughters of the Father. But because we are united to Christ by faith, it means the Father's eternal love for the Son now rests on us. It means he delights in you, dear Christian, not because of what you've done, but because you belong to his beloved Son. And because the Son will never be separated from the Father, you likewise will never be separated from the Father's love, and nothing, no one, Not anything can separate you from the Father's love for you through Christ. Fifth and finally, this doctrine should lead us to humility and awe. We live in a culture dominated by what some have called the tyranny of the practical. It's a post-enlightenment mindset that measures the value of truth by its immediate usefulness. So if something doesn't yield immediate, tangible results, or if something doesn't offer a kind of a quick, ready application to my life, it's dismissed as irrelevant. And sadly, the eternal generation of the sun has been dismissed as irrelevant over the last hundred years. But this is not biblical thinking. It has no place in Christian theology, and it had no place in Christian theology for most of time up until recently. The eternal generation of the sun is not merely a practical tool to be wielded or even to be measured against how practical it is for our lives. Although I would say it is practical and it has implications as we've considered. But no, the doctrine of the eternal generation of the sun is a glory. a glory for Christians to behold. It declares that God, our creator, is not like us. His being is infinite. His ways are beyond tracing out. The doctrine is a mystery, which is to say it's beyond our full comprehension. And that should humble us. We should neither be led to pride that we have a hold on the doctrine, nor should we be led to apathy because it's a hard doctrine to behold. No, instead, we ought to strive to behold this doctrine and then be humbled before our triune God. You know, whenever the psalmist contemplates the glory of God in his infinite internal being, or when Job does that, what's the result? It's never that they come away with a checklist, okay, here are these things I've got to do now. No, what is always the result of that? It's that they're humbled. They realize that there is a limitation to their human minds and faculties, and they fall on their knees broken in awe before the God who is beyond our comprehension, the God who is infinite, beyond what even our eternity in heaven will be able to fully grasp and comprehend. And then from that place of humility and awe, they're brought to worship the triune God. And these glorious thoughts should lead us to worship. This son, eternally begotten of the father, the radiance of his glory entered the world. He took on our flesh. He bore our judgments and he brought us to God. Christian, behold your God and worship him. When Thomas saw the risen Christ, he cried out, my Lord and my God, May that same cry rise from our lips today. May the doctrine of eternal generation stir us to adoration of God, such that our whole lives become an echo of that cry, my Lord and my God. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, as we have wrestled with difficult and complex things from your word. We do pray once again for your Holy Spirit to enlighten our minds, lead us into understanding that we might better apprehend the doctrines taught in your word, that we might more understand the relations between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that we might better understand the deity of Christ being your eternally begotten son. And from there, Lord, would you lead us to humility, to awe, and to doxology. Cause us to worship you, the God who entered into time and space to save us from an eternal damnation and to bring us into eternal life through your son and by your spirit. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.