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Being raised in Lutheran church and school for my entire childhood, the first thing I think of when I see the word “begotten” is a brief phrase from the Nicene Creed: “begotten, not made.” This particular context refers to Jesus as being the Son of God; He was begotten, not made or created.

But what does begotten mean? Literally, it means “fathered by.” It is often seen in genealogies in Scripture; so-and-so begot so-and-so, who begot so-and-so, et cetera. For example, I was begotten by my father, and you were begotten by your father.

How does this relate to your faith, you may ask? Good question! There are two ways this word is important.

First, those genealogies I mentioned earlier are really important. We may have a tendency to gloss over them because they seem boring when we don’t know those names, but they are proof that Jesus is the Messiah. I was recently studying the genealogy in Ruth 4:18-22 with the student to whom I teach Biblical Hebrew. As he put it, it’s those verses that make the entire book worthwhile - the story of Ruth is so important because it leads to the genealogy of Jesus! There are many similar genealogies in the Bible, especially in Matthew 1, that are key to showing us that Jesus had a real bloodline and thus was truly human. They also show fulfillment of many Old Testament prophecies about the bloodline of the Messiah, thus proving that Jesus was truly the Messiah.

Second, the word begotten is used of Jesus’ relationship with the Father. In John 1:14 (NASB) it says, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Similarly, John 3:16 (NASB) also refers to Jesus in this way: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” These verses are important for a few reasons. They identify Jesus as the ONLY begotten Son of the Father. There is only one Son, and thus there is only one Savior! They also tell us that although He was fathered by God Himself, Jesus was still a man among us. Because of these things, He was able to save us from our sin because He was truly God and truly man. Earlier in John 1, it says how Jesus was there before the creation of the world, and therefore we know He was not a created being such as ourselves. He was “begotten, not made” like the Nicene creed states.

While the word begotten is not one that we typically use in everyday modern language, as you can see it is definitely an important one to our Christian faith!