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THE TEXT
“I will declare the decree: The Lord has said to Me,‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You The nations for Your inheritance, And the ends of the earth for Your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel'” (Ps. 2:7–9).
THE SONSHIP OF JESUS CHRIST
Psalm 2:7-9 is probably one of the busiest intersections in all of Scripture. It is quoted or alluded to many times throughout the New Testament. Here David reveals to us the great irony that one of his own descendants will be actually be the eternal Son of God. This sonship is an eternal sonship, not something that came into being at a certain moment in time. Therefore, the sonship of the Son of God is unlike anything that we have ever known or experienced. The Son is the eternal Son of the Father, whose being is a revelation of God’s eternal self-giving love.
THE DECLARATION OF THE SONSHIP
God the Father announced that Jesus was this eternal Son at both his baptism and his transfiguration. And in both instances the proclamation that Jesus was God’s Son was accompanied by the declaration of the Father’s love for his Son.
And then again, we see the revelation that Jesus is the eternal Son of God at his resurrection, when he became the firstborn from the dead, and at his ascension to heaven, where he is seated at the right hand of the Father. Jesus’ life corresponded to the Father’s announcement, showing that he was the eternal Son.
TODAY
So when is the “today” of Psalm 2? The answer is yes. There isn’t one moment when the Son was begotten, because the Son was eternally begotten. What we have are multiple moments throughout history when the eternal sonship was revealed in the life of Jesus Christ.
GIFTS
And one of the things that Psalm 2 reveals is that being God’s Son means that you have a Father who intends to give you certain gifts, like victory over all your enemies (including death itself) and an eternal inheritance.
YOUR SONSHIP
But here is the amazing part, in Rev. 2:26-27 we see because Jesus is the Son of God who became a man and joined himself to us, we can be placed inside of Jesus by faith. And when we are untied to Jesus through faith, we receive sonship as well. This means that the declaration of the coming of God’s eternal Son is the declaration to you that you are now children of God. What Jesus has you have.
And so you have victory over all your enemies (including death itself) and an eternal inheritance. And this is why the declaration that a Son is born in Bethlehem is good news for you. It means that you are a child of God, waking up on Christmas morning with a pile of gifts from your Father that you didn’t deserve. But they are yours because you are his. And you live inside his eternal love.