MNTC - HEBREWS - Wrong Paragraphs - Pages 27-28

MNTC - HEBREWS - Wrong Paragraphs - Pages 27-28

This is the Logos Version, which is WRONG:

This passage presents to its Jewish readers the awesome truth of Christ as God’s eternal Son. But it’s a text that must be read and understood with great care. At first glance it appears to speak of the Father’s begetting the Son as an event that takes place at a point in time: “Today I have begotten Thee.” “I will be a Father to Him and He shall be a Son to Me” (emphasis added). “Begetting” normally speaks of a person’s origin. And sons are generally subordinate to their fathers. Looked at in that light, the title “Son” might seem to suggest a subordinate position or a temporal existence. That would be quite contrary to the point the writer is making here.
Bear in mind that to any first-century Jewish reader, the title “Son” would be a declaration of equality with the Father. Indeed, Jesus was famously accused of blasphemy because He “was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God” (John 5:18, emphasis added). In that culture, a dignitary’s adult son was deemed equal in stature and privilege with his father. The same deference demanded by a king was afforded to his adult son. The son was, after all, of the very same essence as his father, heir to all the father’s rights and privileges—and therefore equal in every significant regard. So when Jesus was called “Son of God,” it was understood categorically by all as a title of deity, making Him equal with God and (more significantly) of the same essence as the Father. That is precisely why the Jewish leaders regarded the title “Son of God” as high blasphemy.
Furthermore, the quotation from Psalm 2:7 must be read in its original context. That psalm speaks with a succession of voices. In the opening verses of the psalm, the nations rage against the Lord and His Anointed, saying, “Let us tear their fetters apart, and cast away their cords from us!” (v. 3).
Then the Father (“He who sits in the heavens”) answers. He laughs and scoffs at the raging nations’ insolence, declaring, “As for Me, I have installed My King upon Zion, My holy mountain” (v. 6). This earthly rebellion poses no threat to Him and no interruption to His plans whatsoever.
The Father’s derisive dismissal of the rebels is followed by the voice of His Anointed. This is now the Son speaking, and He echoes His Father’s unshaken composure, declaring that the nations are His own promised inheritance. He Himself will “break them with a rod of iron [and] shatter them like earthenware” (vv. 8–9)—the upshot being that the unruly kings and rebellious nations of this earth are as good as defeated already. We know it is the Lord’s Anointed making this declaration of victory, because He introduces Himself in verse 7. This is the text quoted in Hebrews 1:5: “I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord: He said to Me, ‘Thou art My Son, today I have begotten Thee.’ ”
The psalm closes with the voice of the Holy Spirit in verses 10–12, urgently calling the rebels (and readers of the psalm) to surrender in humble faith: “Do homage to the Son, lest He become angry, and you perish in the way, for His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!” (v. 12).
Set in this light, the word “today” in verse 7 and in Hebrews 1:5 takes on new significance. “The decree” mentioned in Psalm 2:7 can only be the eternal decree of God, meaning the word “today” cannot be a reference to one day (or any point) in time. It’s a reference to eternity past. It is a declaration of the eternal sonship of Christ, spoken by the Father and quoted here by the Savior Himself.
What about the implications of the word “begotten” in Psalm 2:7 and Hebrews 1:5? As noted, the expression usually suggests the idea of conception—which of course marks the temporal origin of a person or thing. But the whole point this argument aims to establish is that “Son of God” is a title of deity (cf. Heb. 1:8: “Of the Son He says, “Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever.”) To suggest that the Son was begotten at a point in time would severely undermine the case being built.
What does this expression mean, then?
The title “only begotten Son” is familiar to anyone who knows John 3:16. That same designation is found in John 3:18, Hebrews 11:17, and 1 John 4:9. (See also John 1:14, “the only begotten from the Father”; and John 1:18, “the only begotten God.”) The term emphatically stresses the singularity and superiority of Christ as God. (The Greek word translated “only begotten” can also mean “one of a kind.”) That expression underscores the same truth being highlighted here in Hebrews 1: that Christ is not only superior to the angels, He is also of the very same essence as the Father. In other words, the name tells us who He is, not where He came from.
Theologians use the oxymoronic term eternal generation in an attempt to do justice to both aspects of this truth: first, that Christ is of the same essence as (and identical in nature to) God the Father in a way that is analogous to creatures who are begotten “after their kind” (Genesis 1:11–12, 24–25; 6:20; 7:14); and second, that the Son of God is neither born nor created into that relationship. He is both eternal and unchanging (John 1:1–3, Hebrews 13:8). His eternality is an intrinsic aspect of His essential oneness with the Father.
Of course, the expression eternal generation is not found in Scripture, and it doesn’t shed much light on the inscrutable truth of Christ’s eternal sonship. Spurgeon rightly said that eternal generation is “a term that does not convey to us any great meaning; it simply covers up our ignorance.” Nevertheless, Christian theologians have employed the expression for centuries as a way of explaining the eternal relationship between God the Father and God the Son, and it may well be the best we can do. Of course, the ideas we are dealing with are larger by magnitudes than the human mind can possibly comprehend, and such truths are incapable of being expressed in precise and simple terms. Nevertheless, we do wholeheartedly affirm what eternal generation intends to convey. The Nicene Creed states it this way: “Jesus Christ [is] the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.”

MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1983). Hebrews (pp. 27–29). Moody Press.

This is the Right Version, from the Hardback Copy, which I have: