The point of Paul’s gospel proclamation is to relate these two kinds of sonship, but the relation is only possible because of the infinite qualitative distinction between them.

When he wants to make the ultimate claim about the greatness of God’s love, Paul puts it into the ultimate perspective: He compares it to the greatness of God’s own son. Consider Romans 8:3 : “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”

There is a lot happening in this passage, but it all hinges on the word “own.” What does it mean to call Jesus God’s “own” Son? You might paraphrase “his own Son” as “not just any son,” or “not just any kind of son,” or “not one of the various other things that can be called sons of God in an extended sense,” but an actual, factual, connatural son, the kind that belongs to him by nature.

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