491 Refuting Kyle Essary’s Case That Jesus Is Yahweh

Posted on by Sean Finnegan

Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

This is part one of a two part series refuting the opening statement of a debate on the question “Is Jesus Yahweh?”

This week and next week we are taking a little break from our Early Church History class to do discuss a recent debate about Christ’s identity. So, if you’re not interested in that, just skip ahead two episodes and you can pick up on the class. But, since this debate just happened, I wanted to take a couple of episodes to respond while it’s still fresh in people’s memories.

If you haven’t listened it yet, you can watch it on YouTube or listen on Spotify. Just search “Is Jesus Yahweh debate.” You’ll find the Gospel Truth channel on YouTube or the Biblical Unitarian podcast episode 271 in your podcast app. But, even if you haven’t yet listened to this debate, we are going to play out the audio and respond, so you should be able to follow along fine.

Now this was a two on two debate between Dr. Dustin Smith and Pastor William Barlow who took the negative position “Jesus is not Yahweh” vs. Dr. Kyle Essary and Apologist Samuel Nesan who took the affirmative position that “Jesus is Yahweh.” In this episode Brandon Duke of TruthBorn and I are going to perform a postmortem critique of the debate. We’ll play out Dr. Essary’s opening statement and respond to it. Of course Dr. Smith and Pastor Will responded to several of these points in the debate, but I thought it would be helpful to take a little more time with them. Then in our next episode we’ll take on Samuel Nesan’s opening statement.

Before jumping into my conversation with Brandon Duke, I first want to formally introduce Kyle Essary. He’s a scholar of the Old Testament with a PhD in biblical studies. He is currently a lecturer at the Malaysia Baptist Theological Seminary where he also serves as the interim dean. He is originally from Dallas, USA, but has lived in China, the Middle East, and Malaysia for most of the past decade. And I hasten to add to this little bio, that he also seems like a genuinely kind man. Maybe that’s just his southern accent, but he came across as fair minded and respectful.

Well, that’s enough of an introduction. Here now is episode 491 Refuting Kyle Essary’s case that Jesus is Yahweh with Brandon Duke.

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3 thoughts on “491 Refuting Kyle Essary’s Case That Jesus Is Yahweh”

  • Heh guys, Enjoyed your reactions. Great job showing the inconsistencies, failures and outright obscureness of the Trinitarian arguments.
    One pushback if I may. I think it would be pretty easy to show a biblical distinction between the creator and the created. We could go to Genesis 1 and see what is created, and that God is not part of that. Or to scriptures that describe the eternality of God in contrast with created things and beings. It would not be too difficult to show biblically that the Creator is not the creation.

    The distinction between the Created and the creator is what we as one God believers should insist on. God does not become man. God does not become a created being.

    In fact, the distinction between the Creator and the created destroys the very argument the Trinitarians wanted to make. Of course they are confused on what it means to “worship”, but by their definition of worship they then deny that Jesus is a human being, let alone that he has a human nature. The say, “You can only worship God”. By their own definition they deny that Jesus is human.

    Here is the syllogism they espouse, without realizing or admitting so:
    1. “No human should be worshipped”
    2. “Jesus is worshipped”
    3. Jesus is not human.

    Thanks again.

    Reply

    • Bill –

      Some Trinitarians might say that in worshipping Jesus, they are actually worshipping the ‘Divine nature’ (which in reality, is the Father’s concentrated, indwelling spiritual presence) Which/Who was within both the earthly Jesus (cf. John 14:10, 11), and in the resurrected Jesus (John 20:28; and, Col. 2:9 [?]). When Thomas said to the resurrected Jesus : “…my God”, he was probably referring to the Father (the ‘only true God” [John 17:3]) Who indwelt the pre-resurrection Christ, and the post-resurrection Christ.

      To paraphrase a remembered quote from David Jenkins – a former Bishop of Durham in the ‘Church of England’ :

      “Almighty God, our Father, is in Heaven. Jesus however, is ” ‘God’ for me”, in that in Jesus, I ‘see’ the Almighty God. And, the holy Spirit, is Almighty God in me.”

      Reply

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