The Only Begotten

Jn 1:14   The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
    
Language use changes through the years and I remember many years ago listening to a preacher using the old King James Version of the Bible who spent most of the time explaining the meaning of the old words. I sat there then and thought, “Wouldn’t it be easier to use a modern translation so then you won’t have to waste most of your time translating it here in front of us?” However there are sometimes, words that have gone out of use that convey more than other modern words do. In the NIV version above we have omitted a ‘note letter’ immediately after “the One and Only” which points us to a note saying “or the Only Begotten”. It is this word ‘begotten’ which is alien to most of us today, even though many of us will sing it at least once a year at Christmas in “O Come all ye Faithful”, the second verse of which finishes with “Son of the Father, begotten, not created”. So what does begotten mean?
    
To beget means to procreate which is a word that is more familiar but is still unwieldy. “One and Only” indicates something of Jesus’ uniqueness and “came from the Father” could be taken to mean simply that the Father sent him, but when we consider the word ‘begotten’ we see something different; he is the one and only one because he has come out of the Father and is God in essence. That is why he was described as glorious and full of grace and truth, characteristics of God Himself.
  
The Greek word in the original is fascinating. It is monogenes – only born, one with the genes of the Father, because he’s come from the Father. It was only when heresies started creeping in that the Church started formulating the truth. The early ‘Apostles Creed’ (orig. AD140) speaks of “Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord: Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit”. Later the ‘Nicene Creed’ (AD325) stated, “Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.” It took the ‘Athanasian Creed’ (?670AD) to declare, “The Son is of the Father alone, not made nor created but begotten…. We believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man. He is God of the substance of the Father begotten before the worlds.”
    
Here is the truth declared, whatever substance (spirit?) God is, Jesus is the same because he came out of the Father and was not some separate creation made from dust (material) as man was (Gen 2:7). Nowhere else in all of history is there such a claim as this, established by the Gospel and epistle writers, and confirmed by the Early Church – that this man walking on the earth IS God. Yes, it goes beyond our understanding but that’s what the record clearly says.
   
John repeats this doctrine again and again: “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only (begotten), who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.” (1:18) and “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only (begotten) Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (3:16) and so on. John had come to realize something that earlier they had not appreciated: the one who had walked among them was in essence God as well as man. When New-Agers say, “We are all gods” they’re not even speaking the same language!