The Son of God?

I was asked by a Muslim to explain how God could possibly have a son and to do so without using any bible verse. Here is my explanation.

Jesus is not the son of God in a physical sense. God did not have any sort of physical relationship with Mary that created a son. The Son of God is a title given to Jesus. It is a title meant to express His nature, namely being “of God”. In other words, by calling Jesus the “Son of God”, they are saying that He has the very nature of God. 

If I might draw a slightly inappropriate parallel. Just to be clear I am not making a comparison to God with this example. But it does a good job of demonstrating the difference… Have you heard the phrase “Son of a bitch”? When someone says this do you assume them to mean that the person is the actual son of a female dog? Of course not. You recognize that this is referring to this person’s nature. Specifically, that person is a jerk. Similar phrases are "son of a gun", or "son of a sea biscuit". Again, neither is said with the assumption that the person is the actual child of a gun or a sea biscuit. So when you describe someone as being the “son of ______”, this does not necessarily mean that person is the physical son of whatever fills the blank. It means that person has the attributes of whatever fills the blank. 

By confirming that He was “the Son of God”, Jesus was actually making a claim to have the very nature of God. The Jews understood this as blasphemy, or actually claiming to be God. This is why they executed Jesus.