Did Jesus Redeem Mankind? — Page 100
100 the 'Son of God', he therefore offered atonement. . He no sense other doubt claimed to be the Son of God but in no than that in which people before him were called sons of God and that at the same time, he claimed to be son of man. "SON OF GOD” A METAPHORIC EXPRESSION sons. . Now we shall examine whether the real facts back. Messiah's sonship of God or his sonship of man, and in order to determine the truth, we shall again turn to his own words. . I have already explained that the Messiah admits that he is the Son of God in the same sense as were the Israelites His. And when his own word confirms this fact, it is clear that if he had an entitlement to atonement, they all had equal claim to it, and if they were not eligible for this honour, neither was Jesus (peace be on him). Now we shall examine this point in yet another light. When a person claims in this world that he is the Son of God, it can be either a statement of literal fact or a metaphoric expression. Since it is subject to both the interpretations, a way must therefore be sought to resolve the issue. Let us take another instance. We are often apt to call a particular person a lion or an eagle, and yet we also call a lion, a lion. We take our child round the zoo and pointing to an animal in the cage, we tell him that it is a lion and if, at the same time, there is a brave person in front of us, we call him a lion too. Now the question is, how would the child distinguish between the two and be enabled to place the one lion in one category and the other in another category. There must be some yardstick to distinguish one from the other. In this particular case, the yardstick is the knowledge that the child has gained through a study of natural history books which tell that a lion has paws of a particular description, a tale and a head of a particular shape