the latter term is far less capable of being misunderstood. The Lord Jesus is called the Son of God in the same sense in which He is styled the Word (كلمة) of God: that is to say, both titles declare His divine nature and origin. Philosophically the title Word of God is preferable to the other, but it does not so clearly teach His personality, nor does it so plainly imply the love which from all eternity has existed ¹ between the hypostases (اقانيم) of the divine unity. Hence, no doubt, the Lord Jesus Christ and His Apostles used the title Son of God in preference to any other. Nor must it be supposed that the term is used in any hyperbolical or unreal sense. On the contrary, Christ's relation to His Heavenly Father is a much more true and real Sonship than that which on earth subsists between a human son and his human father, inasmuch as God Most High, who is eternal, is far superior to man, who is transitory and mortal. As God's existence is the cause of our existence, so God's power and wisdom are the source of any power and wisdom that man may possess. In the same way, human fatherhood is but the shadow of the divine fatherhood, and human sonship is

only a faint reflexion of the divine sonship of Christ, in which there is nothing temporary or material. All that is temporary or material in the relationship of father and son is merely contingent on earth, not absolute: and all such conceptions must clearly be out of place when the subject dealt with is the most holy divine nature, which is One, Eternal, Unchangeable, Transcendent (منزّه), and free from the limits of time and space.

The Lord Jesus Christ is called not only the Son of God but also the only ¹ Son of God to show that He is in this dignity and in nature separate from all creatures, and that in this respect no created being is like Him or equal to Him. Men may become God's children by adoption,² through faith in God's only true Son, the Lord Jesus, having received new, spiritual birth through the Holy Spirit ³: but this does not render them equal to Him who was from all eternity the Son of God and the Word of God.⁴ As among men a son is not created by his father, but receives from his father the human nature (الانسانيّة) which the latter possesses, so the eternal Son of God is not a creature of God, but receives ⁵ from His Father His divine nature and all the divine attributes. He is, therefore, entitled to be called God; and we