If Jesus is "God's Only Son" then how can we all be God's children?

Interestingly many who claim they know/understand who the Son of God is, may not know/understand him from Adam. It is written, "My Father has given me all things. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those whom the Son chooses to reveal him." Luke 10:22 (GNB).

The above-mentioned verse states that it will take only revelation to really know who the Son or the Father is, or the claimant is just making false claims that he/she knows and understands God. Now the reason man fell from actual sonship and stopped being a child of God, was because of sin in the garden of Eden. In other words man ceased to become son; he lost the sonship. God operates differently from man. His principles are not same as ours. God had spoken of Isaac of being the only child of Abraham, whereas Isaac already had an elder brother Ishmael, by a slave woman. This will bring to your understanding that God considers children had in wedlock and sees them as the sole heir, not the other way.

Is it not written that Adam is the son of God in the genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3:23-38: "... Adam, which was the son of God"? I have pointed out earlier that man was God's son initially, but for sin that destroyed that connection, and now man through the blood of Jesus Christ has to be reconciled to God and be adopted as son, because he is no longer a son for sin. This is the wisdom of God and to the self-conceited wise people, this may sound or seem foolish.

To say that Jesus is the Only Son of God is wrong. The translation is not precise enough. But thank God for more accurate translations which have it that Jesus is "the only-begotten Son of God". Begotten is the operative word here; it makes all the difference. It shows that Jesus, although Son, is the only one the Father gave birth to directly. The world and everything in it were all created by the Son the Word of the Father. So the only thing the Father ever begot was His Son. How lovely and how loving such a Son would be in the eye of His Father.

God is not just living, He is life Himself. Even His spoken word is life and it was that life that was made flesh and dwelt amongst men. You may now see that Jesus was in the bosom of the Father until He was spoken forth, being the word of the Father. He was the Word the Father spoke forth in the beginning that did not return void, but created all things according to the will of God. So this Word is eternal and has been with the Father for all eternity. Is he not the Word of God, the only-begotten of the Father?

Then who made all the other angels. This would assume there is another god capable of creating all of us and our lineage. This makes zero sense.

The two are not contradictory at all. The common understanding is that Jesus is unique and the only begotten son of God. The rest of us are heirs to God - children of God via adoption.

From Adopted Children of God

The term “Son of God” refers preeminently to Jesus Christ’s deity (Matt. 11:25-27; 16:16-17). He alone is one in substance and glory with God the Father. Believers in Christ, although “adopted” are never on a par with the uncreated, divine Son of God.

Supporting Scripture for each of these points:

That Jesus is the only begotten Son.

1 John 4:9 King James Version (KJV)

9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.

John 3:16 King James Version (KJV)

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

That we are adopted heirs:

Romans 8:15

King James Version (KJV)

15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

Ephesians 1:4-6

King James Version (KJV)

4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.

These passages cover both statements in one clear statement:

John 1:11-13

King James Version (KJV)

11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Galatians 4:4-7

King James Version (KJV)

4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,

5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

6 And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.

7 Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

Some clarification on the distinction - what makes "only begotten" special:

From ICR, in an article that directly addresses your question:

But why was it important for the Holy Spirit who inspired these five great verses to stress that the Lord Jesus was the incarnate only begotten Son of God? Many modern English translations of the New Testament apparently do not consider it important, for they render the phrase merely as "only son." It is so rendered in the Living Bible, the Revised Standard Version, the God's Word translation, the Twentieth Century New Testament, the New Living Translation, the Moffatt, Goodspeed, and Williams translations, and many others. The New International Version renders it "one and only son." There are still a few, however--the best-known being the New American Standard and the New King James--that render it correctly (as in the King James Version) as "only begotten Son."

The Greek word for "only begotten" is monogenes, the very form of which clearly denotes "only generated." As monotheism connotes only one God and monosyllable means a word of only one syllable, so monogenes means only one genesis or only one generated--or, more simply, only begotten. It does not mean "one," or even "one and only." It is worth noting that, although Christ is called the Son, or Son of God, frequently in the New Testament, He is never (in the Greek original) called the "only" son of God.

The fact is, that to call Him the only Son of God would make the Bible contradict itself, for He is not the only Son of God, and certainly not the "one and only" Son of God. Angels are several times called the sons of God (e.g., Job 38:7) since they had no fathers, being directly created by God. Likewise, Adam was called the son of God (Luke 3:38), because he was directly created. The same applies even to fallen angels (Genesis 6:2), and even to Satan (Job 1:6), because they also were created beings. The term is also used in a spiritual sense, of course, for those who have become "new creations" in Christ Jesus by faith (II Corinthians 5:17; Ephesians 2:10; etc.). In this sense, we also are "sons of God" (e.g., I John 3:2) by special creation?not physically but spiritually.

But it is never applied in this sense to Christ, for He is not a created son of God (as the Jehovah's Witnesses and other cultists teach), but a begotten Son of God--in fact, the only begotten Son of God. He never had a beginning, for He was there in the beginning (John 1:1). In His prayer to the Father in the upper room, He spoke of "the glory which I had with thee before the world was" (John 17:5).

The Latin text of the Apostle’s Creed (Symbolum Apostolicum) states,

Credo in Deum Patrem omnipoténtem, Creatórem cæli et terræ, et in Iesum Christum, Fílium Eius unicum, Dóminum nostrum, qui concéptus est de Spíritu Sancto, natus ex Maria Virgine, passus sub Póntio Piláto, crucifixus, mórtuus, et sepúltus, descéndit ad ínferos, tértia die resurréxit a mórtuis, ascéndit ad cælos, sedet ad déxteram Dei Patris omnipoténtis, inde ventúrus est iudicáre vivos et mórtuos.

While the Latin word unicum (lemma unicus) can certainly be translated into English by the word “only,”¹ St. Jerome also used it in the Latin Vulgate to translate the Greek word μονογενὴς,² meaning “only-begotten.”

For example, in Luke 7:12, it is written,

^ΙΒʹ ὡς δὲ ἤγγισεν τῇ πύλῃ τῆς πόλεως καὶ ἰδού, ἐξεκομίζετο τεθνηκὼς υἱὸς μονογενὴς τῇ μητρὶ αὐτοῦ καὶ αὐτὴ ἦν χήρα καὶ ὄχλος τῆς πόλεως ἱκανὸς σὺν αὐτῇ ^{TR, 1550}

^XII cum autem adpropinquaret portae civitatis et ecce defunctus efferebatur filius unicus matri suae et haec vidua erat et turba civitatis multa cum illa ^Vul

Other times, he translated μονογενὴς by the Latin word unigenitus,³ which is the Latin equivalent of “only-begotten.”⁴

Therefore, we could properly translate the Latin word unicum in the Apostles’ Creed as “only-begotten” (rather than “only”) without causing a contradiction, since Christians are also children (sons and daughters) of God,⁵ just as angels are sons of God.⁶

The important point to emphasize is the Lord Jesus Christ is the only-begotten (or, only-born) son of God the Father, by an eternal generation. The Lord Jesus Christ said, “I came out of God and have arrived.”⁷ This is the only instance where the Lord Jesus Christ says ἐξῆλθον ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ. In the LXX, this phrase, the lemma ἐξέρχομαι + the preposition ἐκ, is used in reference to the generation of offspring.⁸

On the other hand, Christians are sons of God by regeneration, i.e. being born again.⁹

References

Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles. A New Latin Dictionary. New York: Harper, 1891.

Footnotes

¹ Lewis & Short, unicus, p. 1932
² Luke 7:12: unicus; Luke 8:42: unica; Luke 9:38: unicus
³ Jdg. 11:34: unigenita; John 1:14: unigeniti; John 1:18: unigenitus; John 3:16: unigenitum; John 3:18: unigeniti; Heb. 11:17: unigenitum; 1 John 4:9: unigenitum
⁴ Lewis & Short, unigenitus, p. 1932
⁵ cp. John 1:12: τέκνα θεοῦ
⁶ cp. Job 1:6. The LXX translates the Hebrew בְּנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים into Greek as οἱ ἄγγελοι τοῦ θεοῦ.
⁷ John 8:42
⁸ cp. Gen. 15:4, 35:11