The voice from the Heavens is a little easier to trace. “Our Father in Heaven”, or God, would be the obvious source of the voice, since it comes from heaven and it talks about a familial relationship. But the manner in which these verses are manifest is unclear. There have been many artistic representations of this very scene, which categorically makes it harder to visualize what the words are actually saying, rather than remembering an artistic interpretation of them.

For the sake of the narrative, let’s take this at face value. The “Father in heaven” as discussed earlier, is Caesar – specifically a prior, deceased Caesar. If we suppose this scene is set around 33CE, then this would have referenced Augustus, or perhaps Julius, or some amalgam of both. Here, Caesar is calling Jesus his son, and that’s going to seem really weird to us, because we don’t do anything like the Romans.

Roman society was built upon hierarchies of families linked by an ongoing set of mutual obligations between the heads of each family. Who you were and what you did was linked to the family you belonged to. However, biological notions of family were less relevant then. Where today if you get a job, you’d simply become an employee at a place where they make mouth noises about “being a family”, back then, you’d literally be adopted into a family to do a job. Your new ‘Dad’ would not just be your boss, he’d be your tyrannical master from whom there would be no appeal – all decisions final! Everyone from the chief executive to the stable boy would not just do what their “father” said, they took time each day to pray for the health and continued good decision making of the “father”. 

If you need an example of this kind of society in action, I recommend watching the movie “The Godfather” and then imagining that the entire country was run that way. 

Given this context, it’s clear to see that naming Jesus the Son of God was like a business arrangement, and not a statement of biological condition. Perhaps in today’s parlance, the voice might have said something like, “I like you – you’re hired!” The implication being that there is a job for Jesus to do, and that job is to spread the good news that Judea is doomed.

If the Jesus being referenced here is the high priest from Gamla who had been a leader of the rebellion, it would have been immensly powerful propaganda to tell a story about how Caesar’s messenger convinced him (through torture?) to change his mind about Rome and tell others to accept Roman taxation and law. And further, that this was why the other Jews really killed him.

(Spoilers) Jesus himself predicts his own return as a Flavian Roman General, and later as a Flavian Caesar, as a part of the prophecy. What’s important about this in our context here is that it means into the future, the name “Jesus Christ” would become another title for Caesar, the collector of titles. For Titus and his brother Domitian, it meant that, as Jesus was called “Son of God” by “God in Heaven”, and Jesus returned as a Flavian, that the Flavians are also Sons of God, by extension. There are many goals actively sought out in the writing of the Gospels, but obtaining this explicit authorization by God in Heaven, in the Prophecy, for Flavian rule was the defining motivation.