“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was WITH God, and the Word WAS God….and the Word was made flesh….” (Jn 1:1, 14 NKJV).
Many modern bible scholars and academics today undermine the Four Gospels by saying that Mark’s is the first Gospel, followed by Matthew, Luke and then John; and that as we read through them in that order we see the gradual development of Jesus from being a prophet only (Mark) to becoming God and Creator (John), through progressive stages in Matthew and Luke. I first came across this teaching in the book “How Jesus Became God” authored by one-time fundamentalist Christian to agnostic and unbeliever – in other words, apostate – Professor Bart Ehrman. The most appropriate way I can describe these scholars and their false teaching is in the words of the apostle Paul: “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools” (Rom 1:22).
The Old Testament is replete with some of the Names of God, and some of these have been used by Jesus and the writers of Scripture to identify Jesus with and equate him to God. Thus we see that the deity of Jesus was not developed, it was REVEALED over several centuries. Although all the parts which make up the doctrine of the Trinity and the deity of Jesus are found scattered piecemeal throughout the Old and the New Testaments, all the parts were only finally revealed in the Person of Jesus Christ. But they were not brought together and clearly stated in the bible itself; unless, that is, one accepts the Johannine Comma (1 Jn 5:7) as revealed scripture – which I do accept. “For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one”. There are good reasons in favour of the passage and also good reasons against it, but it is not my purpose to discuss them in this article.
The earliest writings of the Church recognised Jesus as true God and worshipped him. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, c. 112, for example, wrote: “There is one physician, fleshly and spiritual, begotten and unbegotten, God in man, true life in true death, both of Mary and of God, first passible then impassible, Jesus Christ our Lord” (Bettenson, H. “Documents of the Christian Church”, p. 42, 1963). What Ignatius is saying is, in essence, that God cannot die but the human body of Jesus was capable of death and, in fact, did die. He wrote it just a few years after John wrote his Gospel (c 90-100 CE), and there were many Christians who knew John or at least had heard him; and certainly his Gospel was in circulation at the time. So if Ignatius was wrong in proclaiming Jesus as God, the Church would have come down on him like a ton of bricks. But they didn’t. Jesus was widely recognised as the Divine One: “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9). And “I and My Father are one” (Jn 10:30).
However there were sects, mainly early forms of Gnostics, who denied his divinity. One group, for example, the Docetists, so called because they believed that Jesus didn’t come in the flesh but he was a phantom who only looked like him. There were also the Adoptionists, so called because they believed that Jesus was just a man and at his baptism the divine Christ came upon him; but because God is impassible, when Jesus was about to die, the Christ departed from him.
John has this to say about these heresies: “….and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world” (1 Jn 4:2-3). And the above quote from Ignatius shows that he, too, denounced them.
However, the enemies today insist that the doctrines of the Trinity and the Deity of Christ were developed over several centuries; but the truth is that all the parts of these doctrines are there in scripture. The problem was that some of the concepts are hard to understand and the Church took several centuries before they were able to formulate and define them. This doesn’t mean that the doctrine of the Trinity was a product of human reasoning, just that the various complexities of such a concept of God being three yet one is so hard for our finite minds to grasp that the Church wrestled with how to understand and express it; hence the time lapse between the scriptural revelation and the clear definition of it.
Unfortunately, the road to these doctrines (and later, that of the deity of the Holy Spirit as the Third Person of the Trinity) being defined was rocky and ugly, and much barbarity was committed against the opposing groups. The dispute lasted for many years and through several Church Councils, and the Councils’ decisions were changed back and forth over many decades as each reigning Emperor made his own personal view to be the will of the Church and, along with the section of the Church who propagated it, pronounced excommunication and death and on those who refused to comply.
It’s a travesty and shameful that one of the characteristics of Christians since the beginning of the Church has been to vilify,, denounce, accuse, abuse, torture and damn to hell those whom they consider their opponents. They would rather pronounce them as evil than follow Jesus’ instructions on resolving differences, as in Matthew 18:15-20 and John 15:12-13. Instead of killing one another, they should be laying down their own lives for them, regarding them as brethren and people for whom Jesus died.
But the problems have been resolved and now the Church universally accepts the creeds which the Ecumenical Councils formulated, whether or not individuals or small independent groups recite them verbally or simply accept the truth of them.
YAHWEH is named the Rock
The inspired saints of the Old Testament rejoiced in God, their Rock. Moses sang: “Ascribe greatness to our God. He is the Rock, His work is perfect; For all His ways are justice, A God of truth and without injustice; Righteous and upright is He” (Deut 32:3-4). Godly Hannah prayed: “…nor is there is any rock like our God” (1 Sam 2:2). David also sang to God: “The LORD is my rock….[the God of my rock KJV]….who is a rock, save our God?” (2 Sam 22:2-3, 32).
And again, in the song which God gave to Moses for Israel to sing, that it would be a witness for God against Israel (Deut 32:19, 22), we see God and the Rock being equated and identified with each other:
“Of the Rock who begot you, you are unmindful, And have forgotten the God who fathered you…..How could one chase a thousand, And two put ten thousand to flight, Unless their Rock had sold them, And the Lord had surrendered them? For their rock is not like our rock,
Even our enemies themselves being judges” (Deut 32:18, 30-31).
JESUS is named the Rock
Jesus Christ is not a god, nor an angel, a demigod, demiurge, or super being of whatever nature; he is not some kind of lesser divinity or divine being, more than man or angel but less than God. Jesus Christ is Yahweh, creator of the universe and judge of all mankind. This is stated clearly by the apostle Paul in his letter to the Corinthians. He writes, “…they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ” (1 Cor 10:1-4).
“The spiritual Rock” in this passage refers to passages in the OT that show the presence and working of Yahweh. For example, when Moses heard the voice from the burning bush (Ex 3:1-4:17), he discovered it was God (Yahweh) who spoke to him. He is first described as “the angel of the LORD”. This being makes his appearance on several occasions in the OT, and on at least two of them he is identified as Yahweh; i.e. here, in this passage which we’ll consider in a moment; and in Judges, where the angel of the LORD appeared to the wife of Manoah and announced to her that she would give birth to a son, whom we later discover was Samson. She told her husband about the angel and he prayed that “the man of God” would return and give instructions how they were to care for this son. The angel did return and spoke to Manoah and his wife, and then ascended toward heaven in the flame of the sacrifice. Manoah’s awed and terrified response to this was that he and his wife “…fell on their faces to the ground. When the Angel of the Lord appeared no more to Manoah and his wife, then Manoah knew that He was the Angel of the Lord. And Manoah said to his wife, ‘We shall surely die, because we have seen God!’” (Jud 13:20-22).
And likewise in this passage of the burning bush, the first description of the speaker of the voice emanating from the flames was “the Angel of the LORD” (Ex 3:2). Then, in verse 4, he is identified as the LORD (Yahweh), and God. Again, in verse 6, he says, “I am the God of your father – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God” (Ex 3:6). And when Moses asked God his name, he said, “‘I AM WHO I AM.’ And He said, ‘Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you…..This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations’” (Ex 3:14-15). This was none other than Yaweh.
It was Yahweh, the speaker from the burning bush, who went before the children of Israel as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night when they were leaving Egypt (Ex 13:21-22); it was Yahweh who dried up the Red Sea so that Israel could cross, and destroyed Pharaoh and his army as they tried to follow them (Ex 14:1-31); it was Jehovah who led Israel through the wilderness in the books of Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy; and it was Yahweh who, during this time, gave them manna to eat (Ex 16:14-26 cf Ps 78:25 where it is called “angels’ food”), and “spiritual” water to drink (Num 20:2-13).
And who does the apostle himself identify with Yahweh? None other than Jesus, as we see in 1 Corinthians 10:4: “the spiritual Rock that followed them….was Christ”. Paul was saying that the one God of Deuteronomy 6:4, the same who was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob whom the Jews worshipped, the God of the Old Testament, was Jesus Christ whom the Jews had put to death.
And Jesus identified with Yahweh in many places. For example, when he was disputing with the Jews and they challenged him as to his identity, he told them, “Before Abraham was, I am” (Jn 8:58). Here, Jesus takes the most sacred name of God – Yahweh – the name by which God identified himself to Moses and the people of Israel, and claims it for himself. If he wasn’t God, this was the height of blasphemy; God had struck men dead for less (Acts 12:22-23). But what Jesus did when he claimed the name “I am” was far more significant; and no Jew, even the most degenerate among them, would ever dare utter that name and claim it as his own. It was no wonder that the Jews tried to stone Jesus for it (Jn 8:59).
“The Good Shepherd” – Jesus identifies as Yahweh
And on another occasion, he again claims deity. John relates it for us: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep….My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. I and My Father are one.’ Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him. Jesus answered them, ‘Many good works I have shown you from My Father. For which of those works do you stone Me?’ The Jews answered Him, saying, ‘For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God’” (Jn 10:11, 27-33).
Jesus’ twice claims deity in this passage. The first claim is not as well recognised as the second. In the first he calls himself “the good shepherd”, thus identifying and equating himself with, and claiming to be, Yahweh; and at the same time the Messiah (typological David) who was now come. In this claim he alludes to Ezekiel 34 where God rebukes the Israelite leaders, whom he calls “the shepherds of Israel”, in reality false shepherds, for abusing the people of Israel, God’s people, and robbing and exploiting them (Ezek 34:1-10). Yahweh then reveals that HE is the shepherd of Israel: “Indeed I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock on the day he is among his scattered sheep, so will I seek out My sheep and deliver them from all the places where they were scattered on a cloudy and dark day…” (Eze 34:11-12). And then says he will set up one shepherd: “I will establish one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them—My servant David. He shall feed them and be their shepherd” (Ezek 34:23).
And Jesus describes himself as the shepherd of Israel, caring for his flocks and pronouncing judgement on the false shepherds, just as Yahweh, his Father did (Ezek 34:11-22 cf Jn 10:1, 5, 8, 10, 12-13; see also Isa 40:10-11 cf Lk 15:3-7).
In the second statement he claims deity and equality with Yahweh: “I and my Father are one” (Jn 10:30).
“Alpha and Omega” – Jesus identifies as Yahweh
And when we read of the resurrected Jesus in heaven, he speaks as God himself, once again taking to himself the names and titles of Yahweh: “’I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the Ending’, says the Lord, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” (Rev 1:8); and: “’I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last” (Rev 1:11). And when he appeared to John, the description of him is the same as the vision of God seen by Daniel (Dan 10:4-9); and when John fell at his feet as dead, as did Daniel when he saw the same God, Jesus assured him, saying, “‘Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last. I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death” (Rev 1:17-18). These titles are those by which Yahweh refers to himself (Ezek 1:26; Isa 41:4; 44:6; 48:12).
In another place, Paul writes, “…without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Preached among the Gentiles, Believed on in the world, Received up in glory” (1 Tim 3:16).
And to the elders of the church in Ephesus, he said, “Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood” (Acts 20:28).
And again, he writes of the Jews and of the deity of Christ: “…of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen” (Rom 9:5).
Many more passages could be added to these, but if these aren’t enough, nothing will be. The fact is that scripture teaches that Jesus is none other than Yahweh and that he took on flesh and became a true man, born of a virgin, and died on a cross as true man while still being deity. This is who the New Testament is all about.
“Philip said to Him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” (Jn 14:9).
References
Bettenson, H, editor, Documents of the Christian Church, 1967, p. 31, Oxford University Press, London.
All scripture references in this article are taken from the New King James Version, online at BibleGateway.
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