[Mary Naeem]

Pope Shenouda III





Christ's Sonship was the object of Satan's bewilderment. In the Lord's temptation in the wilderness, we find Satan saying to Him: "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread' (Matt. 4:3). Satan's question implied the Sonship to God which has extraordinary miraculous power that can change stone into bread, and not the ordinary sonship of all the children of God. Again Satan asked the same question at the Crucifixion, through the mouths of the people who said: "If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross" (Matt. 27:40). Therefore it was understood by all that Christ's Sonship was not a common sonship, but a Sonship which had miraculous power that could enable descent from the cross.