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Let’s back up. What does “Son of God” mean in the first place? No legitimate
Christian sect suggests that God took a wife and had a child, and most certainly none
conceive that God fathered a child through a human mother outside of marriage.
Furthermore, to suggest that God physically mated with an element of His creation is so
far beyond the limits of religious tolerance as to plummet down the sheer cliff of
blasphemy, chasing the mythology of the Greeks. With no rational explanation available within the tenets of Christian doctrine, the
only avenue for closure is to claim yet one more doctrinal mystery. Here is where the
Muslim recalls the question posed in the Qur’an, “How can He have a son when He has
no consort?” (TMQ 6:101)—while others shout, “But God can do anything!” The Islamic
position, however, is that God doesn’t do inappropriate things, only Godly things. In the
Islamic viewpoint, God’s character is integral with His being and consistent with His
majesty.
So again, what does “Son of God” mean? And if Jesus Christ has exclusive rights
to the term, why does the Bible record, “For I (God) am a father to Israel, and Ephraim
(i.e., Israel) is my firstborn” (Jeremiah 31:9) and, “Israel is My son, even my firstborn”
(Exodus 4:22)? Taken in the context of Romans 8:14, which reads, “For as many as are
led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God,” many scholars conclude that “Son of
God” is metaphorical and, as with christos, doesn’t imply exclusivity. After all, The
Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion confirms that in Jewish idiom “Son of God” is
clearly metaphorical. To quote, “Son of God, term occasionally found in Jewish literature, biblical and postbiblical, but nowhere implying physical descent from the
Godhead.”
Hasting’s Bible Dictionary comments:
In Semitic usage “sonship” is a conception somewhat loosely
employed to denote moral rather than physical or metaphysical
relationship. Thus “sons of Belial” (Jg 19:22 etc.) are wicked men, not
descendants of Belial; and in the NT the “children of the bridechamber”
are wedding guests. So a “son of God” is a man, or even a people, who
reflect the character of God. There is little evidence that the title was used
in Jewish circles of the Messiah, and a sonship which implied more than a
moral relationship would be contrary to Jewish monotheism.
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