This is the transcript of Restitutio episode 580: An Honest Evaluation of the Evidence for the Deity of Christ with Sean Finnegan

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580 Sean Finnegan - An Honest Evaluation of the Evidence for the Deity of Christ.mp3

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00:00
Hey I'm Sean Finnegan and you are listening to Restitutio, a podcast that seeks to recover authentic Christianity and live it out today.

00:12
Does the New Tesetament refer to Jesus as God, though this is an important question, it's only a starting point for wrestling with who Jesus is.

00:21
And what?

00:22
We'll consider the evidence from 5 scholars on what texts they say attribute deity to Christ.

00:28
Then we'll examine the biblical evidence that pulls in the opposite direction, suggesting that Jesus was not God.

00:35
Lastly, we'll examine five major possibilities for interpreting this data, including Trinitarianism, Modalism, Arianism, Greco, Roman polytheism and Biblical Unitarianism.

00:46
Here now is Episode 580 an honest evaluation.

00:50
The evidence for the deity of Christ.

01:00
My title today is an honest evaluation of evidence for the deity of Christ, and I have three main points.

01:09
Number one, I want to look at the deity of Christ text.

01:14
Specifically in the New Testament #2, I want to look at the anti deity of Christ texts and #3 consider five options to understand the deity of Christ text. And as I mentioned in the title.

01:30
I'm approaching this as honestly as I possibly can.

01:35
Here is what we're going to start with. The deity of Christ text.

01:39
So looking around at various scholars to see what texts they point to, to find evidence for the deity of Christ, we land upon Raymond Brown, very famous Catholic scholar from the last century.

01:51
And he identified 2 levels of text, the clear and the dubious or doubtful texts.

01:57
And so for him, Hebrews 18, John, 11, and John 2028 were very strong texts.

02:04
And then the dubious ones were John, 118, Romans 95, Titus 213 second Peter, one one in first, John, 528 texts there. Murray Harris also wrote a famous book about Christology.

02:16
And he has more or less the same texts as Raymond Brown does, except.

02:21
He adds in Acts 2020.

02:24
So that's a new one, he adds in.

02:27
And then moving forward in time into the 21st century, we get someone named Brian Wright who has Tier 1 and Tier 2 techs essentially the same list of verses that we've already seen and his contribution to.

02:42
A book on textual criticism handles the textual aspect of the text. Like the manuscripts, the differences between the manuscripts and then Peter Nagel is valuable because while his list is shorter, which is always helpful.

02:57
But also he is.

02:59
Approaching it from more of an antagonistic point of view, he's problematizing the deity of Christ text.

03:04
But whether you are promoting or problematizing the question is, well, what?

03:08
What are your verses? And we see that Peter Nagle adds in Philippians 2.

03:12
So if we want to look at all of the verses that are in common among these 4 scholars.

03:19
We find that there are 5.

03:21
These would be the five big ones that ascribe deity to Christ, allegedly.

03:25
So that would be John 11, John, 2028, Romans 95, Titus 213 in Hebrews 18. Now, even if we limit our focus to those five.

03:36
We still encounter ambiguity and multiplicity of interpretations, so in the first one, John 11 in the beginning was the word and the word was with God.

03:46
Word was God.

03:48
It doesn't really call Jesus. God. I mean, maybe it does.

03:52
If you already believe that Jesus is 1 to one equivalent with the word.

03:57
But the text doesn't say that we know from verse 14 of John one that the word became flesh.

04:05
So presumably that's something that happened later after verse one.

04:10
So at the stage of verse one.

04:12
Is Jesus being called God?

04:14
Think arguably.

04:16
It depends on your interpretation. If you take a personification view of the word rather than a personal view of the word, it changes entirely.

04:24
Yeah.

04:26
But strictly speaking, it doesn't actually call Jesus Theos, which is the word for God in Greek.

04:30
Acts 2028 has similar interpretational issues.

04:35
That's where Thomas says, my Lord and my God to Jesus.

04:40
Here it could be that Thomas is calling Jesus God in a very exalted sense, or it could be that he's calling him God in kind of a secondary sense, or that he's identifying Jesus as.

04:55
The fulfillment of what Jesus had said at the Last Supper.

04:58
When he said to Phillip if you've seen me, you've seen the father.

05:03
And then a few verses later, you should believe that I am in the father and the father is in me.

05:08
This could just be affirming that statement of Christ. And then Hebrews 18 definitely calls Jesus God, at least in my estimation, there is a potential translation issue there, but I think it does call Jesus God.

05:22
That's.

05:23
The one where it says you're throwing O God is forever.

05:26
And it's it says into the son, he says.

05:29
Oh God, forever. But the problem with Hebrews 1/8 or the interesting thing I suppose, is that it's quoting from Psalm 45-6, where the same words.

05:39
Are said of an Israelite king.

05:43
Not Jesus, just some sort of son of David is called God in Psalm 45-6. And then it says your God, but also has a God. And so it's not calling Jesus God in any sort of absolute sense in Hebrews 1/8.

05:59
And then the other two dimension in this list of five are Romans 95 and Titus 213, which both depend on grammatical issues, which means that some translations will say Jesus is God and some will not.

06:15
Depends on what translation you read.

06:17
So all five of these are.

06:19
Not as solid as one might expect, having all four of these scholars agree on.

06:25
But even if we look at the other verses like John 118 depends on which manuscripts you're reading, the majority of manuscripts do not call Jesus God, but there are a few from Alexandria in which he is called God.

06:37
Second, Peter, 11, is very much like Titus. 213 Acts 2028 first John.

06:42
20, Philippians 26 those three all depend on interpretation.

06:46
There are legitimate interpretations on either side.

06:49
That scholars and specialists have put forward.

06:54
So the evidence is pretty weak for the deity of Christ.

06:57
Don't take my word for.

06:58
For it, let's see what the scholars say, who themselves believe in the deity of Christ.

07:04
So first up and I have 5 quotes here. The first one is from William Barclay in 1978.

07:11
He said the following, but we shall find that on almost every occasion in the New Testament on which Jesus.

07:18
Seems to be called God.

07:20
There is a problem either of textual criticism or of translation.

07:26
In almost every case, we have to discuss which of two readings is to be accepted or which of two possible translations is to be accepted. Then in 1982, Christopher Kaiser said belief in the deity of Christ has traditionally been the keystone of the doctrine of the.

07:45
Yet explicit references to Jesus as God in the New Testament are very few, and even those few are generally plagued with uncertainties of either text.

07:57
Or interpretation.

08:00
In 1992, Murray J Harris wrote.

08:03
No one can help being impressed by the remarkable reserve of the New Testament writers in applying the term THEOS to Jesus. If the writers of the New Testament were persuaded of the deity of Christ.

08:16
What accounts for their reticence to ascribe to him the title that of all the divine names, would seem most explicitly to affirm that deity have the fathers and the creeds of the church outstripped the New Testament evidence?

08:31
So plainly and so often of Jesus Christ as God.

08:35
It is a curious fact that each of the texts to be examined contains an interpretive problem of some description.

08:41
Actually most contain two or three.

08:45
These are shocking admissions by professional scholars who believe in the deity of Christ and are somewhat awkwardly admitting that the New Testament is a bit coy on the subject.

08:57
Brian writes in 2011 said no author of a synoptic gospel explicitly ascribes the title Theos to Jesus.

09:06
Jesus never uses the term Theos for himself.

09:09
No sermon in the book of Acts attributes the title Theos to Jesus and possibly the biggest problem for New Testament Christology regarding this topic is that textual variance exist in every potential passage where Jesus.

09:23
Is explicitly referred to as Theos.

09:26
And then last of all, from 2019, Peter Nagel writes on a semantic, linguistic and syntactical level yesus a proper noun is not theos, a common noun. The New Testament text draws a clear distinction between Jesus and Theos as literary figures.

09:46
So what are these five scholars saying?

09:48
They're saying that these texts are uncertain.

09:53
Now if I just show you the list of eight or nine Oregon ten of these verses and say, look at all the evidence for the deity of Christ, you might be impressed at first.

10:02
But when you start to study each one individually, more doubt and more doubt arises.

10:08
Still, there are probably still a couple that are pretty solid, but look.

10:15
You run a huge risk if you build upon an uncertain foundation like this.

10:22
Whole building's likely to come down.

10:25
And my question is why is it like this?

10:27
Why is it like this with reference to the deity of Christ?

10:31
Why all the confusion when we consider other facts about Jesus, we don't have the same problems.

10:37
Here's a little list. The birth of Christ.

10:41
Is absolutely certain textually, grammatically in every translation in every interpretation.

10:47
That I know in Matthew and Luke, everyone agrees Jesus was born.

10:52
Jesus was a human.

10:54
Everyone that came up to Jesus recognized that he was a human being.

10:58
Not once did someone come up to say, you know, crazy thought. Are you? God. Nobody said that to him.

11:07
His miracles are totally non controversial.

11:10
His teachings his 12 disciples, the fact that he had 12 disciples, his death by crucifixion, his resurrection, his ascension, his return. All of these facts about the Christ are certain.

11:22
In the manuscripts.

11:23
Translation and interpretation. So why?

11:28
Why are the deity of Christ's texts fraught with so many problems that these other facts about Jesus do not have?

11:36
We'll come back to that.

11:37
Let's look at the anti deity of Christ texts.

11:40
The evidence pulling in the opposite direction is actually quite strong.

11:46
O here is a list of a few of these.

11:49
First of all, Jesus was not invisible. I think that is pretty obvious. People saw Jesus.

11:55
Which you.

11:56
You know, that's maybe not very strong evidence, but we do have these verses about God, first Timothy 117. It says to the king of the ages, the immortal invisible, the only God be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. And first Timothy 616 says it is.

12:11
Alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light. Whom?

12:16
Has ever seen or can see to him be honor and Eternal Dominion. Amen.

12:22
So God is invisible.

12:27
Jesus is visible.

12:31
Jesus never claimed to be God.

12:35
Which is a big omission if he is God.

12:38
Is sort of the most important thing about him. If he's God and for him never to claim it.

12:44
We have to ask the question, well, why not?

12:46
Why wouldn't he claim to be God if he was God, you might think, well, people just couldn't handle this new truth that a God could become a man.

12:58
Well, that's not true.

13:01
In fact, most people believed that the gods could become humans.

13:05
It was a totally non controversial common belief in the Greco Roman world that God such as Apollo could come and take the shape or form of a human being and interact with others.

13:19
Furthermore, the idea that a human could become a God was totally standard as well. Like Asclepius, the healer was originally a human who became a God and ascended. So gods can become men. Men can become gods.

13:30
Big deal in the ancient world. In the ancient world, it wasn't controversial.

13:33
Wouldn't have been that strange of an idea.

13:37
Within Judaism, it would have been a stretch for sure, but within the wider world it was utterly.

13:43
In fact, when Paul and Barnabas were preaching and they healed someone, they said, oh, the gods have come down to us.

13:51
That's just a very common view in their world.

13:56
So Jesus could have told them.

13:59
So either Jesus never mentioned that he's God to his closest followers, or he mentioned it, but none of the gospel authors recorded it.

14:09
Which is like, well, why not?

14:11
Why keep this as a secret? If it's important to believe the closest we have is John 858, which Jesus says before Abraham was I am.

14:21
But I I think I'm closer examination. That's not actually calling himself God.

14:27
And I think that is a translation issue which I can't get into here.

14:31
You know what would really convince me is if Jesus, who loved illustrations and parables and talked about the birds of the sky and the lilies of the field, if he had taken an egg and said, well, you see, it's not that complicated.

14:46
Got to shell the white and the yoke.

14:50
The three leaf Clover.

14:52
Surely they had those around?

14:54
I don't know if Israel has three leaf clovers, but I'm sure there's some sort of plant with three leaves that they.

15:00
Have used.

15:01
Or what about water?

15:04
Ice liquid steam.

15:08
Surely Jesus, the master teacher, could use any of these analogies to talk about the Tri personality of the Godhead.

15:16
And yet we find nothing.

15:18
Why is it we find nothing?

15:20
There are other times when we would really expect to find Jesus to say something about his divinity, like Mark 12 when he's in a conversation with a scribe.

15:29
And the scribe says to him, what's the most important commandment?

15:32
And Jesus says here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is 1, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength.

15:39
And the second is like unto it love your neighbor as yourself.

15:42
You all know that.

15:45
And the scribe says to him, you're right, he is 1. And to love him is more than all the burnt offerings. And to love your neighbor as they agree, they agree on who God is. A Jewish, non Trinitarian scribe and Jesus.

16:02
Have the same definition for God. This is a problem.

16:05
Jesus should say.

16:08
Well, it's a little more complicated and I don't think you can handle it, but there's a day coming.

16:14
When you will.

16:16
He doesn't say that it's a big omission or the time when the Jews thought Jesus was making himself equal to God. In John Chapter 5, to which Jesus responded yes.

16:31
I'm Co equal Co, Eternal and Co essential.

16:34
No, he didn't respond that way. Did.

16:36
He responded in John 519 by saying the son can do nothing of himself.

16:44
That's how he responded to the claim that they were making, that he was saying he was equal with God or in John 10 when the same sort of interpretation came forward where people are thinking, oh, Jesus is God, he's he's he's claiming he's saying his father's working.

16:58
He's claiming inequality with God and Jesus instead of saying yes, I am God.

17:04
Instead of saying that, which would be what we would expect, he says.

17:09
Well, what about those to whom?

17:10
Word of God came.

17:12
They were called gods, and so he launches into this secondary definition of the word God in John 1034 and following all right on to the next point, Jesus died. We saw in first Timothy 117 that God is immortal.

17:27
So this is evidence pulling in the opposite direction. If you are mortal, Jesus was tempted by the devil. God cannot be tempted by evil.

17:37
James, 113.

17:39
Jesus wasn't omniscient.

17:41
He didn't know who touched him when the woman with the issue of blood touched him and was healed, he said. Who touched me?

17:48
So either he's putting on a game Oregon, he really didn't know because he was surrounded by a crowd, and everyone was everywhere and he didn't know who touched him or what about the time he said. No one knows the day or the hour neither the son of man.

18:02
The.

18:03
Only the father.

18:04
So we know Jesus didn't know everything.

18:08
And then Jesus actually denied he was God in Mark 10.

18:11
I think that's a face value reading of Mark 10/18 when the the guy comes up to Jesus and says good teacher.

18:18
What must I do to be?

18:19
And Jesus says, why do you call me good?

18:22
No one good except God.

18:24
I think on a face value reading, that's just him flat out saying I'm not God.

18:31
Jesus also said he has a God, John 2017, Jesus said.

18:37
I sent to my God and your God to my father and your father.

18:41
Jesus identified his God is the same as Mary's God.

18:45
Jesus is contingent.

18:47
God is not contingent. What I mean by contingent is dependent as opposed to without any requirements of anything else. The Assadi of God so-called so Jesus is contingent. What I mean by that is that he's begotten.

19:02
So it says in Hebrews 1/5 for to which of the Angels did God ever say you are my son today.

19:08
Have begotten.

19:09
Or again, I will be his father, and he shall be my son.

19:13
It's the will part of these of this verse.

19:17
The future tense, that's the trouble.

19:20
Actually all the timing, even the word today.

19:24
So if this verse said something like you are my son in eternity I have begotten you, there would not be.

19:32
A problem?

19:33
But it the fact that it says today indicates that there was a time when the sun was begotten.

19:40
And in the second-half of the verse with the word will hear I will be his father and he will be my son.

19:46
Indicates that there was a time before.

19:50
The father was the father of the son that there was a son.

19:55
This is just a face value reading. Now I know there are interpretations and strategies that scholars and Christians can use to avoid this face value reading.

20:04
I understand that I'm just putting out the evidence because we want to evaluate all the evidence before making a decision.

20:12
Jesus said his father was the only true God.

20:15
17/3.

20:17
This is eternal life.

20:18
That they may know you. The only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent Jesus, is subordinate to the father.

20:26
All the prophecies about the Messiah from the Hebrew Bible are spoken as God making the decisions.

20:34
It's not the father and the son and the spirit working together to decide well who.

20:39
For us and then the Sun raises his hand and said I will go. Send me now.

20:45
The Prophet Isaiah you're thinking of not the Messiah.

20:49
So Jesus forward ordination is exclusively under God's purview.

20:54
And then throughout his entire life, he's very clear that the father is.

20:59
In fact, Jesus flat out says in the end of John 1428, the father is greater than I.

21:05
That is as clear of a statement as you could possibly make about any.

21:10
Quality or the fact that in eternity the father will remain greater than the son for all time, according to 1st Corinthians 1528, which says when all things are subjected to him, then the son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things.

21:28
In subjection under him, so that God may be All in all.

21:33
But in addition, there are also surprising verses. If Jesus was thought to be.

21:39
So for example, first Timothy 25 says for there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind. Christ Jesus himself a man.

21:50
I would expect if Jesus were God, or especially if he was a God, man.

21:55
This is the perfect place to say that, for there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the God man.

22:05
Christ, it would just be perfect right there.

22:08
You couldn't do better.

22:09
And yet it doesn't identify Jesus as a God, man at all. In first Timothy 2/5.

22:13
Just identifies him as a man, so that's surprising.

22:16
Not irrefutable, but it's surprising. Hebrews 217.

22:21
Says that Jesus had to be made like his brothers and sisters in every respect.

22:26
You are the brothers and sisters who are alive of Christ.

22:31
If he is, I mean, maybe I am.

22:34
Maybe it's just me, but is anyone in the audience like part God and part man or fully God and fully?

22:39
And is that your experience of life, 'cause? If not, then Jesus is not made in every respect like you. If he's a God, man, then you should be a God, man.

22:50
But if he's in every respect the same, we are.

22:53
Just humans, then he is just human. According to Hebrews 217, and then Hebrews 3 one through 2 calls Jesus a high priest and that's awkward. Why would you?

23:05
Would one person of God assign another person of God the role of being the priest to lead people to?

23:11
The other person of God.

23:14
Just it's not a defeat or it's just kind of surprising that God would be the high priest.

23:21
Wouldn't you want to have a human be the high?

23:23
That's certainly the pattern from the Old Testament, 2 Corinthians 4/4.

23:27
Jesus is called the image of God.

23:30
If you are God, stop messing around with this image.

23:33
Just tell us your God image of God is just a little too much separation.

23:38
And then first Timothy 115 and 16 says.

23:42
It it doesn't mention Jesus as being the only ruler, it says that there is one only rulers, the one who is invisible.

23:49
Read this verse earlier invisible and immortal, but Jesus isn't included in that.

23:56
So, so far we've seen evidence for the deity of.

23:59
Several verses likely do call Jesus God and we've seen anti deity of Christ text as well.

24:07
And we're going to consider five options to understand the deity of Christ. Text in just a moment.

24:11
I think we have to be honest with our translations.

24:14
And.

24:16
And and translators are good people.

24:18
They're not evil, maniacal villains who are just sort of like.

24:23
Pontificating in the backroom like how can I twist the Bible?

24:27
You know they're good people, but I think it is a bit dishonest. Like if if the Bible doesn't clearly teach the deity of Christ, then massaging.

24:38
This verse or that verse to to sort of like make it say that is dishonest.

24:45
I'll give you an example in Philippians 26 to say that Jesus is in very nature.

24:49
Is not what the Greek says. Not even close.

24:54
But it sounds really good if you have a Nicene theology. If you have a Trinitarian theology in very nature, yeah, that's what we've been trying to say this whole time. Right there it is.

25:04
So I think we have to be honest.

25:06
Honesty is the best policy because we want to know the real Jesus, the genuine Jesus.

25:10
Don't want to know what is sometimes called the Christ of faith.

25:14
To know the real Jesus.

25:16
I want my Christ of faith to be the real Jesus.

25:20
So let's consider all the possibilities for understanding the deity of Christ text.

25:25
I have 5 for.

25:27
The first is the possibility that is held by most Christians today that Jesus is God in being.

25:34
Yet distinct from the father in person. Now there are some pros to this view.

25:40
Are some pros and some.

25:42
One of the pros to this view is that you have to admit it is absolutely ingenious.

25:48
Like this is a very impressive concept.

25:51
You can maintain the unity of Father and son while preserving the distinction between father and son.

25:59
It's a brilliant idea separating person from being and recognizing them as two different ideas, two different concepts.

26:08
And then saying, well, there's a oneness and a diversity at the same time, but there are major cons for this view as well.

26:16
The biggest cons is that for an idea that's so.

26:20
Complex and non obvious that I would argue even most Trinitarians struggle to explain it.

26:27
For an idea that's so complex and so non obvious, it's strange that nobody in the Bible ever took the time to explain it.

26:35
Or articulate it.

26:37
That is a major con of this view.

26:40
We don't even find rudimentary explanations like the egg or the Clover or the water.

26:46
It's as if no biblical authors held the idea, since none of them ever talk about it.

26:52
The idea.

26:52
A person, as distinct from being, I mean.

26:55
In fact, distinguishing a being and a person in the philosophically complicated way necessary to meaningfully conceive of this idea was a later development.

27:06
Even the word that later means person, even the Greek word for person in the 1st century didn't mean person, it meant substance.

27:14
Post office often said in English.

27:18
This word originally meant substance. We actually have it in Hebrews chapter 1.

27:22
Think it's like verse 3 and it's translated as nature there.

27:26
Not as.

27:27
So this word actually had to flip meanings as the Trinitarian controversy began and then rolled on through the 4th century.

27:36
So I'm not even sure one could talk about person as distinct from being in the 1st century.

27:40
They could.

27:41
But we find no evidence of it in the Bible.

27:44
Let's look at option #2.

27:46
Option number.

27:47
Is that Jesus just is the father.

27:48
Here so you have all these deity of Christ versus and many of them have problems, but at least I think a couple of them are probably legitimate.

27:58
Jesus is called God a couple of times in the New Testament.

28:02
When that happens, are they saying Jesus just is the father that's modalism?

28:06
The pros of modalism are that, first of all, it's taking language at face value. If you say Jesus is God.

28:13
By that you mean Jesus is the father as opposed to a person of God.

28:17
It's a lot simpler of an idea.

28:20
And it's not anachronistic. It's not important. Later development of ideas into an earlier time.

28:27
But there are major cons with understanding God as Jesus and Jesus as the Father and.

28:36
One is that it ignores basic differences between Jesus and God.

28:41
God knows everything.

28:43
Jesus had limited knowledge.

28:45
God can't be tempted with evil.

28:47
Was tempted.

28:49
God is not a man, but Jesus was a human.

28:53
God is immortal.

28:55
God is invisible. People saw any difference between the two is a reason not to believe Jesus. Just as the father.

29:04
Now my brother-in-law is here.

29:05
Name is.

29:06
My name is Sean OK and if you never saw us in the same room, maybe you would think. Well, there's just one Sean.

29:15
But the moment you see both of us, you say, oh, there's two Sean's or what if you never saw both of us at the same time?

29:22
All you'd have to do is observe 1 difference between the two of us, and you say there are two Sean's not just one, Sean.

29:28
Right, this is this is basic logic.

29:31
So God knows.

29:33
Jesus had limited knowledge, but really the hardest issue is the garden of Gethsemane, because in the garden of Gethsemane we have a distinction, a separation, a contradiction of wills. Jesus says not my will, but yours be done.

29:48
Jesus doesn't want to go through with the suffering and death.

29:52
God does want him to go through with it and Jesus says, is there any other way?

29:58
So we have a clear difference in views, but then Jesus aligns his view with the father's view and says not my will, but your will be done.

30:06
They cannot have difference in will. If they are the same person and that is a real problem for the modalist position.

30:15
Option #3.

30:16
Jesus is a created subordinate God who pre existed and became a man, A so-called Aryan View.

30:25
The pros to this view is that it takes language at face value.

30:28
It's simple to understand.

30:30
Not.

30:31
Very similar to option 2IN that regard.

30:34
But there are some.

30:35
One is that it requires polytheism. The belief in multiple gods.

30:39
I don't think that's really a deal breaker though, because.

30:42
Strictly speaking, the Bible doesn't insist on monotheism.

30:46
God does not say I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

30:51
Are no other gods besides me?

30:54
He doesn't say that. He says you shall have no other gods besides me.

30:59
So I think there is room to see the creator.

31:03
Is the highest.

31:04
And then to you could call angels gods, I guess.

31:06
I.

31:07
Think Psalm 8 kind of does that, but it is also difficult to reconcile Isaiah, especially in the 40s of Isaiah, where Yahweh says over and over that he alone created the heavens and the Earth.

31:19
With the idea that he didn't alone create the heavens and the earth, he created it through the sun.

31:27
Or it is a tad awkward that Jesus never actually shows up in the Old Testament?

31:33
I mean, if he's there, what's he doing?

31:37
Why doesn't he get a role in the play, so to speak?

31:40
Know like he's the star.

31:42
Why does he have to wait thousands of years until he's born to do anything? If he's there, then it would make sense.

31:50
Sometimes people theorize that the Angel of the Lord just is Jesus before he became a human.

31:55
But I think the evidence for that is incredibly weak.

31:58
And then we have option #4.

32:01
Jesus is a deified hero.

32:04
The standard approach of Greco Roman person would take I presented on this last year at the American UCA conference.

32:12
You can check that out if you're interested in it, but the pros of this position is that Jesus is a God.

32:20
And by a God, we mean someone that is immortalized and lives in heaven and is more powerful than a human.

32:29
I think on that definition, all of us would agree that Jesus is God, right?

32:33
We all believe that he's.

32:35
He's been resurrected, never to die again. We all believe that he lives in heaven.

32:39
And then he also is more powerful than regular human beings.

32:43
There are some cons though, because.

32:46
I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that the Jewish apostles were thinking of Jesus in Greco Roman way of thinking.

32:54
Maybe there was a lot of Hellenization that had occurred prior to the time of Christ, but I think it's still pretty strange to say that then we have option #5.

33:04
Jesus is a man who fully represents God as his agent.

33:09
The prose of this view is that out of the two strongest deity of Christ text which would be Hebrews 18 and John 2028, Hebrews 18 clearly.

33:21
Holds to this perspective.

33:23
I'm taking kind of a overview approach, so I'm not going into anyone verse in too much detail, but I'll just mention once again. Hebrews 18 is the is the verse where it says enter the son. He says your throne O God is forever and ever that is.

33:36
Quotation from Psalm 45, where the same thing is said of a King of Israel.

33:42
A Davidic king or a king of Judah, perhaps that he is called God.

33:46
Why is a King of Israel called?

33:49
He's called God because he represents God.

33:51
Doing the work of.

33:52
He has the authority of God to rule, and that's the same sort of representation and authority and agency we see with Jesus of Nazareth, who says over and over, especially in the Gospel of John.

34:03
I'm not doing my own, will he?

34:05
My food is to do the will of my father who sent me, he says.

34:08
Father sent him 40 times in the Gospel of John.

34:11
That's a major theme in the Gospel of John, he says in at the end of John 12, God has given him a commandment of what to say and what to speak.

34:21
So he's speaking the words of God, he says in John 14 that he does the deeds of God, that he's not.

34:27
Are not his.

34:27
These are the father's deeds who sent him.

34:31
So Jesus is representing God as his agent.

34:35
A super prophet.

34:37
He's not just an Elijah. He's like a whole nother level and he is the Messiah.

34:43
There has never been another Messiah.

34:45
Christ, he's not just a king. He's the Messiah.

34:47
It's it's the highest level human you could possibly be.

34:52
And he's the second Adam.

34:54
He's the last. Adam is what the Bible says.

34:57
Jesus himself used this definition to defend himself in John Chapter 10 when they accused him of thinking that he was God.

35:08
So it's the most Jesus of all the five options. Jesus doesn't say. Yeah, you know, I'm God, but I'm. I'm really just, like, a deified hero.

35:17
Of like Hercules, Heracles. Hercules. You ever heard of?

35:20
He doesn't say that, he says no, this is this is like when the word of God came to others and they were called gods.

35:27
That's what's going on here.

35:30
So I think it has a lot going for it.

35:33
Lot of pros going for.

35:34
It fits nicely with the major themes in the Gospel of John. In the upper room discourse. Jesus says when you've seen me, you've seen the father.

35:41
Mentioned this before and then he says a few verses later I am in the father and the father is in me.

35:45
Makes sense on a representational approach and it nicely makes sense.

35:50
Of the rather restrained purpose statement in John 2031. So in John 2028 Thomas calls Jesus, my Lord and my God.

35:59
And if by that Thomas means that Jesus is a person of God, fully God and fully man, or Thomas means that Jesus just is the father, which seems to be the probably the the two most likely scenarios.

36:12
Conclude with the purpose I wrote this gospel.

36:16
So that you would believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God.

36:19
It's just kind of a weak.

36:21
It's kind of a weak conclusion. I mean, if he's Messiah, but also God just go for the big title.

36:29
Why settle for Messiah if he's also got such you say you say he's God John.

36:33
Don't be shy.

36:36
So this idea that he represents God and that's why he's called God a handful of times, depending on how you count them and what your interpretation is.

36:47
Does kind of fit and it's recognized by major lexicons of Hebrew and Greek. There are some cons, probably the biggest con of position #5 is that it's so unknown in the world today. People have not heard of this.

37:02
Even though it is attested in the Bible.

37:06
It's not commonly known.

37:08
And it's not reflected very much in the church fathers.

37:13
The Christians who wrote in the 2nd century 3rd century, 4th century don't seem to talk about this.

37:20
And I think that is a con as well.

37:22
I think something very similar to this shows up in the Clementine homilies, and it also shows up in a 4th century.

37:30
Source, but a 4th century Persian Christian named Afrahat.

37:35
Afrojack the Persian and I'd like to quote you from.

37:39
So he's in the Sasanian Empire, not the Roman Empire. So east of the Roman Empire.

37:45
He seems to be untouched by the controversies that were raging in the West about the Council of Nicaea and so forth. 'cause this document of his that I'm about to read to you, comes from the year 344.

37:59
So, 20 years after the Council of Nicaea, and he doesn't use that kind of language at all.

38:05
So I just want to read this to you because it is so interesting to see and it's not well known.

38:10
This is aphraut the Persian. His book called the demonstrations, Chapter 17, paragraph 1, he says.

38:17
This is a reply against the Jews who blasphemy the people gathered from among the Gentiles, for they say. Thus you worship and serve a man who was begotten.

38:28
A son of man who was crucified, and you call a son of men God.

38:33
God, you are opposing God in that you call a man God.

38:38
So this is the accusation of the Jews in the Persian Empire that Alpha hat is engaging with.

38:45
And he's an older man now in the three 40s, shortly before his death, in fact.

38:50
And he's giving.

38:52
He's writing down, you know, his sermons like what he wants the next generation to know.

38:57
And he says, well, yeah, if you come across any Jews and they're and they're giving you a hard time for calling.

39:01
God, this is what you should say to them.

39:05
Paragraph 3 for the venerated name of Godhead, has been applied also to righteous men, and they have been held worthy to be called by it. You hear that he recognizes that men are called God.

39:19
And the men with whom God was well pleased. Them he called my sons and my friends when he chose Moses, his friend and his beloved, and made him chief and teacher and priest unto his people. He called him God.

39:35
God called Moses.

39:38
He goes on for he said to him. I have made you a God unto Pharaoh, Exodus 6/1.

39:45
And he gave him his priest for a prophet.

39:47
And Aaron, your brother shall speak for you unto pharaoh, and you shall be unto him as a God, and he shall be unto you an interpreter.

39:56
Exodus 71 thus not alone to the evil pharaoh, did he make Moses God, but also unto Aaron the holy priest he made.

40:08
Paragraph 4.

40:09
And we call him God.

40:12
Even as he surnamed Moses by his own name.

40:15
And also David said concerning them, you are gods and children of the highest all of you.

40:21
Psalm 82, the same verse Jesus quoted in John Chapter 10.

40:27
And then finally, paragraph 5, Afrhhut says for the name of divinity is given for the highest honor in the world.

40:34
And with whomsoever God is well pleased, he applies it to him.

40:40
So there isn't hardly any church father evidence of this view.

40:47
But it's interesting, once we once we go to the east to a more Semitic context, a Syriac Christian name of Rahat, we do find it again.

40:57
And it's interesting that he doesn't say, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, everybody knows that. But like.

41:01
He's also God in his nature.

41:03
He doesn't do that.

41:04
He doesn't offer that second.

41:06
You can read all of Chapter 17 of the demonstrations if you don't believe me, but he's very clear on what he means when he calls Jesus God and what other Christians should mean when they call Jesus God.

41:17
They should mean is that he's got, like Moses is called God because he's received that.

41:22
From God.

41:25
Now when we consider the deity of Christ texts, we have to admit that the Bible does call Jesus God at least a couple of times.

41:32
I would argue John 2028 and Hebrews 18I think the others are debatable.

41:38
Titus 213 is 2 Peter 11. I think depend on the Granville sharp rule and if you think that rule holds then they also called Jesus our God and savior.

41:48
Not then they don't.

41:51
So we are left with calling Jesus God at least a little bit.

41:55
Do you know how many times the father is called God?

41:57
New Testament 1300 times.

42:02
So I'm arguing for maybe 3234 times.

42:08
So it's not calling Jesus God in the same way it's calling the father.

42:11
What would be really slick and expected is if out of the 1300 times that someone is called God in the New Testament.

42:21
1/3 applied to the Father, 1/3 applied to the son and 1/3 applied to the Holy Spirit.

42:27
That would be some good evidence, but we don't find that.

42:30
Instead, it's less than 1% apply to the Sun, and arguably 0 to the Holy Spirit, depending on how you read a couple of texts here and there, but very few.

42:40
So we are left with calling Jesus God, but we have much evidence that Jesus is not God.

42:47
And we've already gone through that.

42:49
So where does that leave us?

42:52
I'm interested in an honest evaluation of the data. Like I said before, I don't want to believe incorrectly about Jesus.

43:00
Jesus is my hero, my Lord, my savior. Is he also my God?

43:04
I would say yes, he is also my God.

43:06
In what sense? Don't you stop?

43:08
You have to say in what sense is he your God?

43:10
Is he God to you?

43:13
That Moses was God to pharaoh and that Moses was God to Aaron, and that the King of Israel was God to the poet in Psalm 45.

43:21
Yes, I think that's exactly the right sense.

43:24
We've got five options to pick from, and I argue that Option 5 makes the most sense now.

43:32
Cannot prove the others are wrong definitively.

43:35
There's always a counter explanation to every objection I could possibly raise.

43:40
But.

43:42
There's certainly less historically plausible.

43:45
There's sort of lacking in parallels within the Bible itself.

43:50
Jesus is my God and that he represents God to me.

43:54
Jesus was transparent to another.

43:57
He's the human face of God.

44:00
Though he's not an eternal being who created the universe, when I look at Christ, I see God.

44:07
I see what God wants me to see.

44:11
I see the words of God, the actions of God manifested through and carried out by Jesus of Nazareth as his agent.

44:20
So I submit to you that this way of looking at the deity of Christ Text works best.

44:25
Now let's consider reasons to opt this representative approach or agent approach one it's native to scripture. Unlike theories about person and being.

44:37
It fits naturally.

44:40
In the native biblical soil.

44:43
Of the 1st century. In other words, it would make sense to a 1st century Jew.

44:49
The original followers of Jesus were 1st century Jews.

44:52
Jesus was a 1st century Jew.

44:55
So to make sense to a 1st century Jew, I think is important.

44:59
#2 this view accommodates all the data without hermeneutical gymnastics.

45:05
You can admit that there are rarely a few times that Jesus is called God and it doesn't disturb this view whatsoever.

45:12
Just proves it actually.

45:14
#3 is that it's simple enough for a child to understand.

45:19
And #4, it preserves Jesus's humanity, which is what Paul said, qualify Jesus to atone for sin.

45:27
Paul does not say Jesus had to be God to pay for the sins of the.

45:30
He does not say that if that were true, I think Paul would say it because he was very interested in that topic.

45:37
Instead, he says, he had to be a human being to be an offering for us.

45:42
In Romans 514 and 1st Corinthians 1521 so.

45:47
In.

45:47
Light of all this, I recommend option #5 to you that Jesus is God's representative agent who speaks for God.

45:57
Who acts out God's desires and therefore can be called God in certain rare occasions.

46:08
Well that.

46:08
Brings this presentation to an end.

46:11
Did you think?

46:11
Come on over to restitudio.org and find Episode 580 an honest evaluation of the evidence for the deity of Christ.

46:20
Is the presentation.

46:22
I gave at the first ever UCA New Zealand conference this past November and it was quite delightful to meet so many Kiwis and to spend a little bit of time with them and to see this incredible.

46:36
Really. Move of God in this country.

46:40
Where so many people got to meet each other for the first time and had no idea there were others living 15 minutes away or maybe an hour or two away, who shared this precious view of who Jesus is together.

46:55
And so I am very eager to see what will come out of all the different meetings that occurred during that weekend.

47:03
I'm lining up a future interview with someone who was there and hopefully this will be a.

47:11
Good window into that whole community and the history going back, at least from one person's perspective.

47:18
On our last episode, number 579 Christologies in the second and third centuries by Dale Tugge, someone called Son of God by new birth in Christ wrote in saying in my 52 years of following Jesus and trying to learn as much as I can about God.

47:35
Is no smoking gun verse that turns me from believing Jesus a man.

47:40
Told you the truth that I heard from God.

47:42
8:40.

47:43
Well, that's an interesting comment that you make.

47:46
Sadly, most people are coming at it from the opposite perspective.

47:50
Most people who are Christians today already believe Jesus is God in the same sense that the father is God. Whether that is in a Trinitarian or modalistic sense.

48:02
Either way, they're conceiving of Jesus.

48:06
As God first and man 2nd and this is really the sort of thing that we've been working on on this podcast and a number of other ministries and organizations around the world is how do.

48:19
Get the word out.

48:20
That this way of thinking about it is just wrongheaded to start by asking the question.

48:26
Well, if God has become a man, then how should we think about him instead of starting there, start with the.

48:34
Text themselves and build your understanding based on the Gospels and the Epistles and the Old Testament of course as well, with the messianic prophecies.

48:44
Know build it.

48:45
An overarching.

48:47
Case, don't just take one particular, rather strained reading of the prologue of John and the Carmen Christian, Philippians 2.

48:57
And say, OK, this is where we're going to start.

49:01
And let's read everything in light of this, because the prologue of John does not teach that God became a man.

49:08
It doesn't say.

49:09
It says the word became a.

49:11
Now I know the word is identified as God earlier in the text.

49:15
But if you look at the grammar and plenty of people have noticed this, there's more going on here.

49:21
It's not just a simple A equals BB equals C.

49:24
Therefore a = C and if it did, it would prove modalism anyhow.

49:28
So that's not helpful I.

49:29
What's happening in John 1 is personification. As I mentioned in this talk, where the word is God's word, sort of like God's wisdom or God's spirit, right?

49:41
And these are just different ways of talking about God.

49:44
Expressing himself in some sense. And here it is personified, just like wisdom is personified in proverbs. Chapter 8, as a lady who is working alongside God.

49:54
Of course, wisdom just is God working.

49:57
Everybody knows that about proverbs.

49:59
It's personified as if it is an independent person, but it's not an independent person. It's just.

50:05
God laying the foundations of the earth.

50:08
And so it is in the prologue of John.

50:10
It talks about the word as if the the word is the one bringing everything into existence, but in fact the word is just God expressing himself in the same way that when the word became flesh we got a real human being.

50:24
Who always did the will of God, who always spoke the words of God, who always accomplished the works of God. It makes perfect sense.

50:33
Don't need to involve some sort of incarnation here of a pre existent being.

50:41
In order to make sense of John, one in Philippians 2 does not say.

50:45
That Jesus was in very nature God, and he became a human being.

50:51
It's just not a good translation of the text.

50:55
Philippians 2 can mean a number of different.

50:58
There are number of different interpretations that well meaning people take on all sides of the subject and to say, OK, well this one text.

51:06
About which.

51:07
Who even knows how many scholarly articles have been written and scholarly books and monographs, and even just reviewing the literature related to Philippians 26 through 10 is nearly impossible.

51:22
Actually have a friend who's doing a PhD on it right now, and it and it's just overwhelming.

51:26
All of the.

51:28
Just because the text is hard, it's.

51:31
It's not an easy start. Your Christology here text.

51:37
It's a sophisticated text you may be doing this maybe doing that this word might mean this. That word might mean that.

51:45
Lots of debate and controversy that have raged over the years.

51:50
The decades really, probably even centuries at this point.

51:54
On the scholarly analysis of Philippians 26 of following that we we can certainly say it's not a good starting place to build your understanding of what the Bible's saying about Jesus.

52:06
It's just not.

52:07
Look, so let's not start.

52:09
Not not that we don't need to incorporate it into our understanding, but it's just not a fitting place to start.

52:15
Where should we?

52:16
Let's start with the Gospels.

52:18
The Gospels are intentionally evangelizing Jesus to the nations.

52:23
So what we need to learn is in there what we need to believe is in there and then once we add Paul into it, we fit it into what's already clearly laid out rather than twisting and manipulating everything to fit this other understanding that we're reading into Paul.

52:40
From.

52:41
Later times.

52:43
So it's just a couple of thoughts.

52:45
Thanks for writing in and I just wanted to finish off by mentioning once again my upcoming first Corinthians in context class which is starting on January 14th. If you want to watch it live.

52:58
Or it'll be out on this podcast if you prefer the edited version, which I assure you will be much shorter with fewer false starts and UMS and likes and that sort of thing cut out to maximize your listening pleasure.

53:12
But yeah, here is a little description. The official description of the class which reads watch Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians come alive as you learn about the city of Corinth, the kind of society that live there.

53:27
And how Christians challenged so many aspects of their way of life in this class, you'll learn about animal sacrifices, city governments, Corinthian sexuality, and much more.

53:38
Work our way through the major themes in First Corinthians, always asking the question.

53:43
How would they have understood this?

53:45
Also asking how does this speak to us today?

53:48
First Corinthians is easily the most revealing letter Paul wrote to any of the churches.

53:54
Reading it, we find a church reeled with strife, sinfulness and doctrinal error. Although this resulted in a difficult situation for Paul.

54:03
It's wonderful for us today since we get to see how the apostle definitely navigated complex issues like lawsuits, divisiveness, communion, divorce, singleness, and gifts of the spirit.

54:15
Although several life principles come through First Corinthians, probably the most pronounced is Paul's teaching on other.

54:23
Rather than looking to their own interests, benefits and statuses, Christians in Corinth should instead seek to honor, serve, and love each other.

54:32
This simple behavior is the key to unlocking personal and community flourishing in a wide variety of circumstances.

54:39
Even so, Paul did not compromise on traditional biblical morays about righteousness and sin, seeing them as the boundaries within which Corinthians should express love intolerance.

54:50
Although written nearly two millennia ago, one Corinthians is eerily relevant for churches today, especially in the USA. Many of the old Roman prejudices and mores that had waned over the centuries have returned to mainstream culture in new guises.

55:06
As such, Paul's words correctly understood, hold great insight into navigating our own increasingly hostile environment with integrity and effectiveness.

55:17
So that's the official long.

55:19
You probably won't see that very many places online because we'll just take the first paragraph, typically for marketing.

55:25
But I just wanted to read out the whole thing to you here and also wanted to list off the lectures.

55:32
Number one is Corinth. In Context, 2 is factions and status in Corinth.

55:38
Philosophy and wisdom in first Corinthians 4.

55:42
Morality in first Corinthians 5.

55:45
In first Corinthians 6.

55:47
Same sex attraction in First Corinthians 7, divorce and remarriage in First Corinthians.

55:52
8 food sacrificed to idols in one Corinthians 9 Christology in first Corinthians 10 supporting ministers in First Corinthians.

56:02
11 women in First Corinthians 12 communion in First Corinthians.

56:07
13 speaking in tongues in First Corinthians 14, loving each other in first.

56:13
15 prophecy and orderly services in First Corinthians 16 eschatology in First Corinthians and 17.

56:23
Including first Corinthians.

56:25
Now, there may be some changes that develop over the course of fully developing all the material, but this is certainly going to be the gist.

56:34
May not change at.

56:35
Actually, I'm not entirely sure. I have just an immense amount of material on gods in Corinth that I'm not sure is going to fit into Session 8. Food sacrifice to idols in first.

56:46
So I may have to expand that out.

56:48
I may just dump some of that into Session 9, which is on Christology.

56:53
Have to wait and see.

56:55
I've been working on this for honestly months now, doing research little by little.

57:02
And with much more intensity over the last month and have just recently gotten through a lovely book by Jerome Murphy O'Connor on 1st Corinthians. Looking at the various primary sources, ancient literary sources that mention the city of Corinth and.

57:21
Corinthian things and I've learned an immense amount from that. I think it's going to be super helpful in bringing Corinth to life so that you're reading first Corinthians in context.

57:32
So anyhow, I could go on and on obviously about this class.

57:36
I've been doing it for 17 sessions, but I just wanted to give you a little more information about that.

57:42
That should be starting to come out in a few weeks here on rest studio and I hope you will enjoy that.

57:50
Well, that brings this episode to a close. If you'd like to support us, you can do that at restitudio.org.

57:55
Catch you next week and remember the truth has nothing to fear.