God the Son is the second person of the Trinity in Christian theology. Christians identify Jesus of Nazareth with God the Son. This is significantly different from the biblical title Son of God, which is also applied by Christians to Jesus, but is used in several ways in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament or Tanakh), only some of which refer to the Messiah.
As applied to Jesus, Son of God draws attention to his humanity, where God the Son refers more generally to his divinity, including his pre-incarnate existence. According to Trinitarianism, God the Son is co-eternal with God the Father, before creation. So Jesus was always God the Son, however he becomes the Son of God, through incarnation, death and resurrection. The New Testament quotes the Hebrew Bible as prophetic of God the Son becoming the Son of God:
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The phrase God the Son does not appear in the Hebrew Bible, which is distinctively monotheistic. It has the following, rather enigmatic, references to the exact phrase Sons of God.
The exact phrase "God the Son" is not attested in the New Testament. Later theological use of this expression reflects what came to be standard interpretation of New Testament references, understood to imply Jesus' divinity, but the distinction of his person from that of the one God he called his Father. As such, the title is associated more with the development of the doctrine of the Trinity than with the Christological debates. There are many places in the New Testament where Jesus is given the title "the Son of God", but this is not considered to be an equivalent expression.
Matthew cites Jesus as saying, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God (5:9)." The gospels go on to document a great deal of controversy over Jesus being the Son of God, in a unique way. The book of the Acts of the Apostles and the letters of the New Testament, however, record the early teaching of the first Christians — those who believed Jesus to be both the Son of God, the Messiah, a man appointed by God, as well as God himself. This is evident in many places, however, the early part of the book of Hebrews addresses the issue in a deliberate, sustained argument, citing the scriptures of the Hebrew Bible as authorities. For example, the author quotes Psalm 45:6 as addressed by Yahweh to Jesus.
The author of Hebrews' description of Jesus as the exact representation of the divine Father has parallels in a passage in Colossians.
John's gospel quotes Jesus at length regarding his relationship with his heavenly Father. It also contains two famous attributions of divinity to Jesus.
The most direct references to Jesus as God are found in various letters.
The biblical basis for later trinitarian statements in creeds is the early baptism formula found in Matthew 28.
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