This page is a work in progress, (last updated on 01-15-22) and I intend to add a full “confession of faith” at some point. For starters though, here’s my “creed”, written in the style of the church creeds throughout history, especially the Nicene Creed.
The Berean Patriot Creed:
- I believe in One God, the LORD1How to Pronounce God’s name (יהוה/YHWH/the Tetragrammaton) Almighty, and He alone is God 2Isaiah 45:5, Isaiah 45:10
- I believe the Father is truly God, 5Ephesians 4:6
- I believe the Word is truly God8John 20:28, John 5:18, John 1:1 and our Lord Jesus,9Acts 2:36
- through whom all things were made, whether visible or invisible, 10Colossians 1:16, John 1:3
- He became the Son of God through the incarnation, begotten by the Father through the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary 11Luke 1:35
- He was crucified for our sake. 12Matthew 28:5
- He suffered, died, and was buried, 131 Corinthians 15:3
- The third day He rose again. 141 Corinthians 15:3
- He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. 15Acts 1:9; Hebrews 12:2
- He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, 16Acts 1:11, Matthew 25:31-32, Revelation 20:11-13
- And His kingdom will never end. 17Luke 1:33
- I believe the Holy Spirit is truly God, 18Acts 5:3-4 (Lied to the Holy Spirit = lied to God)
- He is worshiped and glorified with the Father and the Son. 19Revelation 22:9 (see previous point; the Holy Spirit is God, and therefore should be worshiped)
- And I believe in:
- Amen
Note: much of this was taken or modified from the Nicene Creed. The foundation of my faith – and thus this creed – leads from complete doubt of everything to the the basic starting point that the Bible must be true.
Click here to read the philosophical/logical proofs that lead from complete doubt to ''the Bible must be true''; OR continue reading The following is where my faith started; the foundation that led me to God, and frankly trapped me there when I wanted to fall away in my teen years. I had foundations that I couldn’t deny, and thus I couldn’t be intellectually honest and not be a Christian. Here are those proofs in a condensed/concentrated form, and there’s a lot more detail I haven’t included for space reasons. Undeniable foundations: from complete doubt to the Bible must be true Anyone can doubt the Bible and almost everything else I believe. However, to deny the following foundations is tricky. That’s because if you deny them, you will simultaneously affirm them by the very act of denying them. You can doubt that God exists. You can doubt that everything exists including the physical world. You can doubt everything you see because the senses can be tricked. You can doubt that the senses even exist. In fact you can doubt that everything exists… …except one thing. You yourself. You cannot doubt that you yourself exist. To quote René Descartes’ original Latin phrasing: “dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum” which is translated “I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am“). If you doubt that you yourself exist, you have affirmed your own existence, for you must first exist in order to doubt your own existence. You might ask “is that true?” and perhaps you doubt that truth exists. But if you say “truth doesn’t exist“, then I can respond “Is that true?” If you reply “yes, truth doesn’t exist“, you have affirmed the existence of truth by denying its existence, in effect saying “it’s true that truth doesn’t exist.” You cannot deny the existence of truth, for to deny the existence of truth is to affirm that truth exists. If you say “Truth might exist, but we can’t know it.”, then again I reply: “Is that true?“, for you would claim that it is true that you can’t know truth. Being logical, these statements didn’t come from your own mind. You didn’t think them up. They came from something outside of yourself, therefore, something outside of yourself must exist. Since you have read these statements, it’s reasonable to affirm that at least the sense of sight exists, however imperfect it is. If the sense of sight exists, then it’s reasonable to think the other senses do also. Thus it must be affirmed that the senses exist, though they can be fooled. If you disagree, then realize you must’ve used your senses to read my statement before you could disagree with it. You would be using your senses to deny the existence of the senses, which is a contradiction. Again, you cannot deny the existence of the senses without affirming that they do exist using those same senses. But what of God? A fundamental law of physics – which we can confirm using our senses – is that that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed. However, then we must ask this: “where did all the matter and energy in our world come from?” for it must have come from somewhere. Some might say the universe has always existed, but that again violates the laws of physics. If the universe were eternal, the stars would’ve burnt out an eternity ago, their energy defused across the universe or condensed into a black hole. The only satisfactory answer is that a Being must exist that can break the laws of physics and create matter from nothing. For if the law of physics which states that matter can’t be created was never broken, then how could physical matter exist? For the universe to exist, someone or something must have broken this fundamental law of physics. A being of such power and ability would be able to do anything because this Being wouldn’t be bound by the laws of physics. Therefore, a being of such power could rightfully be called “God”. Now, merely knowing that a Being like that must exist tells us nothing about that Being. Nothing whatsoever. So if we wish to know about this being – this God – we must look elsewhere. So where could we find such knowledge? Men are bound by the law of physics, which means we’re bound by time. We can only guess at what will happen minutes from now, much less days, years, or centuries. Again these limitations are caused by the laws of physics. (And I’d love to explain why according to General Relativity, but there isn’t space/time.) Therefore, if a being could accurately predict the future, it’s reasonable to assume that this being wasn’t bound by the laws of physics, and therefore deserves the title of “God”. At last we come to the Bible The Bible contains many prophecies which were made well in advance of their fulfillment. Many of these prophecies have their fulfillment recorded in history, not just the Bible. That is, we can use history to substantiate many Biblical prophecies, which prove that either (a) the men who wrote them could break the laws of physics, (not likely) or (b) these predictions were given to them by a Being who could break the laws of physics (God). For a stunning example of the precision of the Bible’s prophecies, I recommend you read my article on revelation, or look at a word document entitled “Biblical Prophecies Fulfilled” which I created many years ago to teach a youth group these things. Since the Bible so accurately and so commonly predicts the future, it’s reasonable to think that the One behind its writing is a Being who can break the laws of Physics. Aka “God”. This does a reasonable job of proving that the Bible is true, and was written by God Himself. Now that we’ve established the Bible is true, we’ll look at the doctrines. These are the essential truths of the Christian faith according to my (imperfect) understanding. Outside of scripture, where would we get our knowledge of God? If you deny that God inspired the Bible, then where could you get any information about Him? If we know that God inspired the Bible based on the evidence of fulfilled prophecy, then we must accept it as the final, ultimate authority on everything that pertains to God and the faith, because He inspired it. As it is written: 2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; The canon of scripture consists of 66 books; 39 of the Old Testament and 27 of the New Testament. While there is no disagreement on the New Testament canon, some denominations include other books in the Old Testament. Please see my article The Bible: 66 books vs 73 and Why (the “Apocrypha” Explained) under the heading “How did the Jews arrive at their Canon?” for an explanation of how God Himself chose the Old Testament canon through the final prophets of the Old Testament. (Note: please also see my article What’s the Best Bible Translation? And More Importantly, Why? for a deep study of which translation is best to use.) There is only one God. There will only ever be one God. As it is written: (Both of the following are partial verse quotations for brevity) Isaiah 45:5“I am the LORD, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God. Isaiah 43:10 Before Me there was no God formed, And there will be none after Me. Yet while God is One, there is plurality in God as well. As it is written: 1 John 5:7 For there are three that testify in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one. (Note: some don’t believe that the red highlighted portion belongs in the Bible; I have an article which provides powerful evidence that it does.) Thus, One God exists in three distinct persons, who together are one God. Just as a triangle can have three distinct sides and yet form only one shape, so also God has three distinct persons and yet is only one God. Those three persons have been revealed to us in the Bible as the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. It should be noted that the Word is also called “Jesus” and “God the Son”, among other titles such as “Christ” and the “Son of God”. It’s important that all three are equally God. No member of the Trinity relies on another member of the Trinity as the “source” for His Deity. To be clear: All three are God, yet they are one God. How this is possible? Again, consider a triangle which has three sides, yet it’s only one shape. It is three, but one. (and of course, all analogies are flawed, but that’s the least flawed one I know of.) God has revealed his name: Exodus 3:13-15 (LSB) 13 Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am about to come to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ And they will say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?” 14 And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” 15 And God furthermore said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-name from generation to generation. (Note: “Yahweh” is a guess at the proper pronunciation, since ancient Hebrew didn’t include vowels and the original pronunciation was lost. You can read my article on a more probable pronunciation here.) The name of God is represented in the Old Testament with four consonants (because ancient Hebrew didn’t have vowels). Transliterated into English, these consonants are “YHWH”. These four letters are called the Tetragrammaton, and are usually translated “lord” in all caps as: “LORD”. The Tetragrammaton (YHWH) is the name of the Trinity. Next we’ll examine the Father, the Word and Holy Spirit in more detail The first person of the Trinity is called God the Father. He is the maker of all things: (though He made them through the Son) Hebrews 1:1-2 1 God, having spoken to the fathers long ago in many parts and many ways by the prophets, 2 spoke to us in these last days by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom He also made the ages; We can only speculate about the relationship in/among Trinity in eternity past, and we have only one clear clue: that the Father sent the Word (the Son) into the world. As it is written: John 10:36 36 “why do you say of He who the Father made holy and sent into the world; ‘you blaspheme’ because I said I’m the Son of God?” This is thin evidence to draw any conclusions from. Fortunately, the relationship in/among the Trinity is clearer after the incarnation. From the incarnation onward, the Word submitted Himself to the Father: (See also Philippians 2:8, which we’ll look at in a minute.) 1 Corinthians 11:3 And I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of woman, and God is the head of Christ. Further, this submission will continue forever. 1 cor 15:27-28 For He [the Father] put all things in subjection under His [Jesus’] feet. But when He said “He has put all things in subjection”, it’s obvious that the One who put all things in subjection to Him is the exception. And when all things have been made subject to Him, then even the Son Himself will be made subject to the One who made all things subject to Him, so that God might be all in all. Thus the Bible declares: Ephesians 4:4-6 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you also were called in one hope of your calling, 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all. (Notice the Spirit is included in verse 4. Contextually speaking “over all” could include the Holy Spirit. It doesn’t necessarily have to, but it certainly leaves the door open. That’s significant because the Spirit obviously was never incarnated, and thus this could potentially indicate that authority/submission within the Trinity existed in eternity past. It is by no means certain, but it leaves the door open.) The Word – also commonly called the Son and/or Jesus – is the second person of the Trinity, and He is God. John 1:1 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Not only is He God, but He also is our Lord: Acts 2:36 “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” Please note that “Christ” is a transliteration, not a translation. It’s the Greek word “χριστός” (christos), with the “os” ending indicating the word’s function in a sentence. (See my article A Few Fun Things About Biblical (Koine) Greek for more on how this works in Greek) Drop the ‘os’ ending and you have “christ”. However, the word christos literally means “anointed”. So the “our Lord Jesus Christ” is more accurately translated “our Lord Jesus the Anointed”, or “our Anointed Lord Jesus”. God the Father made everything through Him: (also see Hebrews 1:1-2 above) John 1:3 All things came into existence through Him; and apart from Him, not even one thing that came into existence has come into existence. Colossians 1:15-16 15 He who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, 16 because all things in the heavens and on the earth were created in Him, the visible and the invisible; whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities; all things were created through Him and for Him. The Word came down from heaven, becoming a man. As it is written: John 1:14 14 And the Word became flesh and encamped among us, and we gazed at His glory; glory as the only unique One from the Father, full of grace and truth. Philippians 2:5-8 5 Have this understanding in you which was also in Jesus the Anointed: 6 Who, being in the form of God, didn’t consider being equal with God something to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself; taking the form of a slave and being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in the form of a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient even to death, and even death on a cross. Importantly, Jesus was still God while He was a man. As it is written: Matthew 1:23 23 “Behold! The virgin will carry a child in her womb and will bear a son. And they will call His name Immanuel;” which is translated: “God with us”. Thus, Jesus was fully God and fully man. The Word (Jesus) is called the “Son of God” very often in the Bible. However, He wasn’t always the “Son of God”, as it is written: Luke 1:34-35 34 And Mary said to the angel: “How will this be, since I don’t know a man intimately?” 35 And answering, the angel told her: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. For this reason, the holy child which is born will be called the Son of God. The Father “begot” (fathered) Jesus through the Holy Spirit in the virgin Mary, and “for this reason” the Word became known as the “Son of God”. It’s an important doctrinal point that the Word (Jesus) became “the Son” because of the incarnation. Before the incarnation, He wasn’t the Son. Again, the Son wasn’t always the Son; He became the Son through the incarnation. This is clearly stated in Luke 1:35, as you just read. (This is important because one historical position on the Word is that He was always the Son. This position is called “Eternal Sonship”, and appears to be explicitly rejected by scripture.) Despite having become man through the incarnation, the Word – Jesus – lived a sinless life. As it is written: Hebrews 4:14-15 14 Therefore, having a great high priest who has passed through the heavens (Jesus, the Son of God) we should hold fast to the confession. 15 For we don’t have a high priest who isn’t able to sympathize with our weaknesses. But having been tempted in all things the same way we are, He’s without sin. Mankind has a problem with sin, which we’ll cover in more detail lower down. The Word became the Son (Jesus) to die on a cross for our sake to solve our problem with sin. After death, Jesus was buried and then raised again from the dead; and there were many witnesses to this. As it is written: 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received; that the Anointed died for our sins according to the scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, 5 and that He was seen by Cephas, and then the twelve. 6 Afterwards, He was seen by more than five hundred brothers at once; of whom many remain, but some were put to sleep. After this He ascended bodily into heaven. Yes, bodily; Jesus didn’t lose His body when He ascended into heaven. This is explicitly stated in scripture: Acts 1:9 9 And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. 10 And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. 11 They also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.” Bodies in heaven? How does that work? I don’t know and I’m comfortable with that because 1 Corinthians 15 teaches it clearly. We’ll touch more on this later later. (Spoiler: we won’t be disembodied spirits in heaven, we’ll have bodies and live on the New Earth: see Revelation 21:1-4) After His ascension, Jesus sat down at the right hand of God the Father. As it is written: Hebrews 12:2 2 looking away from everything else except the author and perfecter of our faith, Jesus, who in exchange for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and He has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. To be seated at the right hand was a mark of both honor and authority in the 1st century. It meant that you were second only to the lord/master/king/governor etc. in both honor and authority. Thus, that is Jesus’ position to this day. Further, He will come again, just as it is written: Acts 1:9-11 9 And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. 10 And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. 11 They also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.” But while the first coming wasn’t to judge the world but to save it, (John 3:17) the second coming won’t be the same. Rather, He will come in glory for judgement of both the living and the dead. As it is written: Revelation 19:11-16 11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. 12 His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself. 13 He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. 14 And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. 15 From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. 16 And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.” Revelation 20:11-13 11 Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. 13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. And His kingdom will never end, as it is written: Luke 1:32-33 32 “He will be great, and will be called “Son of the Most High”. And the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. 33 “And he will reign over the house of Jacob through the ages, and His kingdom will not end. Amen to that promise. The third person of the Trinity is the Holy Spirit. He is truly God. Acts 5:3-4 3 But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back some of the price of the land? 4 “While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control? Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.” A lie to the Holy Spirit is a lie to God, thus the Holy Spirit is God. As such, He should be worshiped together with the Father and the Son. The Scripture is also clear that both Jesus and the Father sent the Spirit to us. As it is written: John 15:26 26 “When the Advocate whom I will send to you from the Father comes – the Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the Father – He will testify about Me. Galatians 4:6 6 And because you are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out “Abba, Father!” Thus, the Father sent the Word into the world, and the Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit into our hearts. The word translated “Advocate” above in John 15:26 bears a closer look, so I will quote from a few lexicons: HELPS Word Studies: 3875 paráklētos (from 3844 /pará, “from close-beside” and 2564 /kaléō, “make a call”) – properly, a legal advocate who makes the right judgment-call because close enough to the situation. 3875 /paráklētos (“advocate, advisor-helper”) is the regular term in NT times of an attorney (lawyer) – i.e. someone giving evidence that stands up in court. Thayer’s: 1. “one who pleads another’s cause before a judge, a pleader, counsel for defense, legal assistant; an advocate” 2. universally, one who pleads another’s cause with one, an intercessor: 3. in the widest sense, a helper, succorer, aider, assistant; That’s what the Spirit does, and thank God for it. 🙂 Note: This article is still a work in progress, with much more to add. No guarantee when I’ll get around to it though. For now, I recommend these articles for my position on various issues:Statement of Basic Christian Doctrines
Authority of the Scriptures
Monotheism/Trinity
The Name of God/the Trinity
The Father
The Word (Jesus/the Son)
The incarnation
Death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and return
The Holy Spirit
Amen!!!
I’ve read lots of your stuff and its all sincere, accurate, and arrived at through careful research. I enjoy reading and learning stuff here. I have one suspicion against you brother, it is hard for you to kick against the goads. You seem to find the everlasting torment that the unsaved will experience in hell disturbing. Not disturbing in the same way John did when he admonished us to save people with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh, but rather you find it so disturbing that cautious hesitance is the only remedy for your heavy heart. Paul said those who don’t obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ will be punished with everlasting destruction. Paul found this very disturbing, so disturbing that he nearly wished he could suffer it himself if it would save his brethren from it, Rom 9:3. Christ found it so disturbing that He gave us the horrifying hyperbolic warning that the wise sinner would gladly mutilate himself rather than suffer hell. You are a clever Christian! I genuinely consider you an intelligent Christian. Your reluctance about eternal torment is no doubt the goads you kick against. Stop kicking the goads, let them drive you to explain hell, not to explain hell away! The doctrine of damnation is not a hateful ideology that Christ’s dignity needs to be rescued from. The Son of the Blessed rode a donkey’s colt to his destiny, which nailed His nude body to an ugly cross where many spit at and cursed. The Son of David doesn’t care about His dignity in the least. The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. No doubt hell seems foolish and weak in the 21st century. The ecumenical musing, ‘Christ must accept all or none’, is contrary to the gospel of our Lord ( No, this is not what you teach. I do not believe you are a universalist. I see similarities in you with my younger self, thus my concern ) Don’t let the spirit of our age influence you. Hopefully you’ll use your gift of teaching in this area soon.
I believed eternal torment for most of my life, and only reluctantly and with great hesitation called it into question. To say that I was dragged ‘kicking and screaming’ as the expression goes would be accurate (and did so at great personal cost). I’m very willing to change my mind, I merely need a good reason. However, this isn’t the article for that discussion. Please leave a comment under the appropriate article(s) on the topic and I’m more than happy to engage. 🙂
The 9 articles about this won’t let me post a comment.
Oh you’re right; comments were disabled for them and not sure how that happened. Anyway, it’s fixed now and anyone should be able to comment. Thanks for letting me know.
I must say that I found your article to be better balanced than many that treat the same topic. And I appreciate the lack of ad hominem. Some want to demonize on text family or the other, or those who hold one over the other. I have never seen anything in the patristic writings where they clashed over any differences in the texts they were using, at least in any important doctrine or practice. And as you probably know, they had some real knockem-down-and-dragem-out theological debates. This shows that although there are thousands of variants in the texts (not two early church Bibles were exactly alike!), no theological differences can actually be extracted from the variant readings.
Thanks for putting this together. I found it to be a nice summary of what I found in bits and pieces elsewhere.
~Mike
Oops. My previous comment was supposed to go on the page about the various text families. 🙁
Lol. It happens. If you copy/paste your comment onto that article I can delete it on this one. Or not; up to you. Also, I’m glad you enjoyed it. 🙂
Did I miss it ??? No statement on “Salvation??”
I did say: “Note: This article is still a work in progress, with much more to add.”. A thorough statement on salvation is one of those things. The creed does contain this phrase though: “The forgiveness of sins through faith”, which is intended to be a statement on salvation.
Salvation comes through seeking God/hearing the word of God — repentance — faith in Lord Jesus Christ — the Son of God — forgiveness of sins by the blood of the Lamb of God — God willing receive the Father’s Holy Spirit due to our faith in his Son/repenting — the Holy Spirit regenerates our heart and it’s a life long sanctification process of walking in the Spirit (Galatians Chapter 5). If you do not have the Holy Spirit you’re not part of Christ (Romans 8:9).
Would like to have seen in your creed what you believe happens to the unbeliever, or those not redeemed. I too no longer believe in a literal Hell. I don’t believe it exists and I don’t believe in endless, eternal punishment. Only in the sense that you won’t be with God for eternity. You may not know you’re being punished though due to being destroyed physically and spiritually.
It’ll end up there eventually. Until then, I have a whole article series on the topic.
Hello, brother BP.
My wife and I take the bible very seriously, and have done so for years in the context of evangelical orthodoxy. However, on the basis of the scriptures including (but not limited to) the passages you used, we recently abandoned Incarnation and Trinity in favor of Jesus being a man (as he himself claimed)- a very special man: the second Adam, the one like-and-greater-than Moses, etc, with an origin. After reading what you wrote here, I would like to respectfully note that I don’t see any proofs for Incarnation or Trinity.
Please consider that the full and sufficient gospel that saves was presented by Jesus and the apostles. Where is this gospel ever presented to include even a hint of Incarnation and Trinity? In John 20:31? In Acts 8? In Acts 6:31? Where?
It seems to me that in Deuteronomy 13, God -through his divinely appointed agent, Moses, who in this capacity is twice referred to as God- decrees the death penalty for any professing believer who would encourage the worship and service of a God other than the one personally identified by name (Yehovah) and numerically enumerated (One) by Moses.In Mark 12:29, Jesus agreed with Moses. In Luke 24, Jesus twice showed his disciples ALL THINGS ABOUT HIMSELF using Moses, the prophets and the Psalms. In neither case did Jesus take the opportunity to teach Incarnation or Trinity. Hmm…
In 1 Corinthians 8:6, Paul affirms that for us there is one God, the Father… and, distinguished from that one God, Paul identifies Jesus, God’s son (think in contrast to the first Adam, also God’s son).
In John 17:3, Jesus himself identifies his Father as the one true God. Hmm…
In Luke 1:35 (that you reference) Luke’s account has Gabriel using synonymous Hebrew parallelism to describe the Holy Spirit and the Father.
John 5:7 mentions a triad. Fine, no problem. There are many triads in the scriptures, but that is no proof for Three-in-One.
Looking into historical information, it seems that the trinity is a later, neo-platonic and gnostic concept introduced into the church during the second century at first as a concept of lesser-god status of Jesus, and does not gain fuller dominance and fleshing-out until AD 381.
I could go on. For more than a year, we have exhaustively pored over the scriptures, searching for even a hint of Incarnation or Trinity; we have found nothing except about two dozen ‘proof texts’ that are all subject to multiple interpretations, based on various preconceptions, lexical knowledge, contextual considerations, etc.
But we see thousands of affirmations of God being numerically ECHAD (and Echad exclusively means ‘one’ in the numerical sense) and Jesus being a man with an origin. Yes, he is a very, very special man.
And the Holy Spirit is the action of the Father in the world convincing sinners of sin, and also empowering his people for the work he has prepared for them to do. We do not see another usage.
A minor point: Why do you say that a title of Jesus is ‘God the Son’? Where is that in the scriptures? Jesus certainly is the Son of God, but that is something very different.
On other points you seem to tightly adhere to the scriptures. Please reconsider your position on these matters, in light of the scriptures, the historical evidence and the relevant ANE worldview… all of which I would like to develop, but I fear my comment has already extended too long.
In closing, I will say that my wife and I feel like abandoning Incarnation and Trinity has made the scriptures vastly more internally consistent and sensible, and we now have peace with those few dozen ‘proof texts’ that never seemed to measure up to true proof.
Also,
This article wasn’t intended to be a full proof of the positions since that would take far more words and I wanted to keep things concise. Now, if you don’t believe in the incarnation then I would assume (correct me if I’m wrong) that you believe Jesus came into existence when Mary conceived. Assuming that’s the case, how do you understand Jude 1:5? It’s below and I included verse 4 for context.
With the context of the end of verse 4, “the Lord” in verse 5 who saved people from Egypt and destroyed the rebellious Israelites can only be Jesus. In fact, there’s a textual variant there with many manuscripts having “Jesus” instead of “lord” in verse 5, which is why several popular translations have “Jesus” there. Regardless, “the Lord” is just as clear because of the end of verse 4. So how do you understand this verse?
Also, I’m glad you mentioned “the relevant ANE worldview” (ANE = “Ancient Near East” for others reading this comment). There’s some applicable worldview elements that I suggest you look up. Specifically, the first 7-10 minutes of the second video (not my video) embedded in my article: Seeing the Bible from the Hebrew Cultural Perspective. Jesus does this all the time and that’s where some of the strongest deity claims come from.
That’s nice of you to reply, and to do it civilly. The world of Christian orthodoxy is typically neither civil nor reasonable, to the discredit of the gospel of Christ.
Yes, I now do believe that Jesus’ personal existence begins at the miraculous conception in Mary.
I also think that the notional existence of the promised messiah extends back, as it is written in Micah 5:2, into ‘olam’, or the unknown (unknown, that is, to us). I think the scriptures are clear that from Genesis 3, we see him prophesied and promised.
As for Jude and elsewhere in the apostolic writings and the LXX, ‘kyrios’ is used at various points for God proper, Jesus, kings, husbands, idols and celestial beings. I don’t see any syntactical, grammatical or contextual necessity to conclude that ‘the Lord’ of v.5 to ‘our… Lord’ of v.4 are the same person.
Deuteronomy 13 seems to me to be highly determinative. If Jesus and the apostles taught anything contrary to the revelation of Moses (I am thinking about talk of multiple persons qualifying personally as the God of Deuteronomy 6:4) I would like to point out that not only would we have seen apostolic accounts of the Jews pushing back hard against this (something entirely and curiously absent!) but that we ourselves should likewise either dismiss Jesus and the apostles as gnostic cultists who are heretical with respect to Moses, or we should follow Jesus with no pretense that we honor the revelation of Moses.
Would you be willing to direct my attention to any passages where we see Jesus or the apostles clearly (or even vaguely) preaching a Trinitarian gospel, or clearly teaching Incarnation or Trinity as a basis for salvation?
My point about the ANE perspective is that the ‘sending’ passages and the many applications of various words that can be translated ‘God’ is used to refer to created beings (including men) reveal the extent that a Greek, western perspective sees Incarnation and Trinity where none existed in the minds of the ancient writers, or in the minds of many of their descendants to this day… just as you noted in your prefatory comments to the videos you provided in the link above.
You said:
You really don’t see “any” contextual reason to conclude that? None at all? V4 calls Jesus “our only Master and Lord” — “only” meaning there’s exactly one — and then verse 5 talks about “the Lord” without a single other person being mentioned between them, and yet you don’t see “any” contextual reason to connect them? None at all?
Okay, let’s add another passage for evidence then.
Here we have Christ with the Israelites in another passage. Even if Jude wasn’t clear, this verse is. (Again, this does nothing to argue for Jesus’s deity, but rather it’s about establishing that He existed before Mary conceived, in at least some form.)
You wrote:
‘Jesus does this all the time and that’s where some of the strongest deity claims come from.’
Respectfully, when you say Jesus made deity claims, could you perhaps be presuming the conclusion? Would you instead consider ‘…what I interpret as, and will attempt to prove to be, some of his strongest deity claims’?
It remains to be seen whether Jesus made any such claims. I think that he did make numerous claims along these lines… but not in a way conducive to the Trinitarian model.
‘Deity’ has multiple possible meanings.
When you say ‘deity,’ do you mean that Jesus or the apostles claimed that Jesus is God (a meaning of Elohim) in the way that the Father is God?
Or, do you mean it in the sense of being God (another meaning of Elohim) with respect to those to whom Jesus was sent as God’s supreme representative (shaliach) and agent, such as the office of king, high priest, promised messiah, prophet, redeemer, captain, deliverer, savior, judge, etc? Those are all legitimate scriptural/ANE/Israelite usages of the title ‘God,’ with no confusion as to who is personally, ontologically the Creator God behind the man so appointed.
After Alexander conquered Persia proper and occupied the Persian throne, it seems that he adopted the eastern custom of receiving proskinesis/proskineo from his subjects. This was no problem for the easterners; they were not confusing the king with God-proper, but they understood the king as the divinely appointed representative over them, and as such, fit to receive worship. I don’t have the reference handy, but it seems that men from Alexander’s Greek Macedonian homeland did not share this worldview, and they took offense; to them, proskineo was only to be rendered to one who is personally, ontologically God; thus, they refused to proskineo before him. And to this day, those with a Greek mindset (i.e.: westerners) see proskineo, etc., before Jesus as evidence that he is personally God in the way that the Father is God.
I hope you will agree that if a passage can be interpreted variously depending on worldview or other presuppositions, grammatical, syntactical or textual disputes, context, etc, then that portion of scripture in dispute is of no avail in proving anything; all that can be said about it is that within a certain interpretative framework, it is consistent.
For proof, we need indisputable declarations, etc.
John 1:6 can help us illustrate this:
‘There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.’
I think the following is essentially indisputable as to the meaning and intent of the author: John was a man, in the plain sense. We should all be able to agree on that.
However, in view of fourth century propositions such as Incarnation and Trinity, the following is highly disputable as to its meaning: ‘…sent from God’.
Was John -prior to his ‘incarnation’- with God in the heavenlies, and then, at the right time, sent to earth to be the promised herald, the Elijah who was to come, as the Greek mind would have it? Or, was John ‘sent’ in the sense of being the shaliach of God, just as Eliezer was Abraham’s agent, etc; that is, he was ‘sent’ as God’s appointed agent?
The same claim of having been sent is also found on the lips of Jesus; please consider, for examples, Jesus’ own words about himself in John 5:30,36-38 etc., and John 17:3; and if the same word (G649) is used of both John and Jesus, then perhaps we can allow that both may have been sent in like manner. At least, that is an option to consider.
Now if we simply insist that claims to have come from heaven and having been sent by God mean one thing for Jesus but something else for John, are we being intellectually honest? I do not say that you are making such an unworthy argument; I am only trying to point to what appears to me to be a tendency among Trinitarians (and I was once one of them) to latch onto various words and passages that are disputable, and insist that they are properly read through a Trinitarian lens and are proofs of Incarnation and Trinity.
But, to be consistent, is the Trinitarian going to argue that John, too, was a personally preincarnate being who at one point took on the appearance of a man? I think not.
You have completely ignored my previous comment. If we are going to have a fruitful discussion, splitting into a dozen different points simply doesn’t work. Additionally, most of the passages and arguments that you have mentioned aren’t ones I would use. (certainly not as primary arguments) I’m intentionally building a case, starting with scripture to prove that Jesus existed in some form before Mary conceived. Please address that. If you are unpersuaded, please explain in specific detail why you are not persuaded.
Okay, I just now saw your reply to my previous comment. I will reply below.
This is healthy spiritual engagement, and I thank you for it.
‘Christ,’ as I am sure you know, is a Greek equivalent of moshiach, messiah… and it means ‘annointed’. In the prophets, we see different ‘annointeds’. I think Paul (Shaul, an learned orthodox rabbi) was drawing upon a very Jewish theme of patterns of fulfillment evidenced throughout the scriptures. In other words, Jesus is the crescendo of the messianic pattern of salvation by God’s annointeds; Jesus is the one like to Son of Man… the second Adam, a new federal head… one like Moses (a messianic figure chosen by God to deliver God’s temporal people from a temporally hard place [Mizraim] to a temporally blessed land, only Jesus is greater than Moses, in that Jesus works a spiritual deliverance that Moses was not empowered to establish.
Yes, the rock is a type of Christ. In other words, it pointed to, and foreshadowed Jesus.
In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus identified himself as the giver of rest, and the one in whom is rest (shabbat). In Hebrews 3 and 4, we see that the new birth and the coming kingdom are the rest of God. Are we then going to say that the fourth commandment given at Sinai is evidence of the personally preincarnate second person of the Godhead?
Likewise, in John 6, Jesus declares himself to be the bread that came down from heaven. Are we then going to argue that when, in Exodus 16, God sends manna, that the manna was the personally preincarnate second person of the Godhead?
In Isaiah 45, Cyrus is called ‘messiah’. Are we to conclude that Cyrus was really the preincarnate Jesus?
I think these are all (including 1 Corinthians 10, ‘that rock WAS Christ’) figurative ways of speaking, normal to the Jesus and the apostles but sometimes strange and difficult to the western mind.
The scriptures are full of prophetic patterns of fulfillment; it is the western mind that defaults to a one-fulfillment-per-prophesy perspective, and the Greek mind that imports ontological meaning into representative ANE language.
But I don’t have to prove my view. All I have to do to exclude a passage from the list of possible proofs for Incarnation and Trinity is to show that there are multiple legitimate possible coherent and logical interpretations, depending on worldview and other presuppositions.
Now, about the Jude text:
‘Kurios’ is a title applied to many, and not a personal pronoun identifying one. I do not think it is at all reasonable to presume that wherever we see ‘kurios’ used with reference to Jesus and God, that we must conclude that we are talking about the same person. After all, in 1 Corinthian 8:6 (regarding which I would like to hear your interpretation) Paul tells us that the kyrios Jesus is distinct from the theos Father. This is one of many passages where the two are distinguished as Father and someone subordinate to him, not the Father. (And let us consider that to be the son of a father, you have to have an origin, and are therefore not qualified to be considered on the list of eternal beings.)
Now in v.4, Jude himself distinguishes between the ONLY ‘despotes’ God, and our ‘kyrios’ Jesus Christ. Respectfully, this differentiation appears to me to be somewhat fatal to the Jesus-is-God-in-the-way-that-the-Father-is-God position. In other words, Jesus is our kyrios, UNDER, AND SUBJECT TO GOD. And if he is subject to God, how can he be God?
On that point, I am aware of Philippians 2, but I think that passage is better understood with respect to Jesus’ humility of choice when, though the second Adam and not subject to sin and death, he nevertheless chose to become sin for us of the first Adam, by suffering and dying as though he were a sinner… nothing clearly there about ‘God the Son’ setting aside divine prerogatives and humbling himself by becoming a man, etc.
Please, can you point to any scripture in which Jesus himself or the apostles ever said something even remotely like ‘well, we bring new revelation with respect to the numerical identity of God… and this new revelation also does not invoke the Deuteronomy 13 death penalty, so you should accept it… and, in order to be saved and to maintain that salvation to the end, you must believe in Incarnation and Trinity in addition to Jesus being the promised messiah.’ If not, then I think we ought to be able to agree that Incarnation and Trinity are certainly available for private speculation, but they are remarkably unsuitable for foundational doctrine.
When did Jesus ever contradict Moses?
To the contrary: Jesus called upon Moses as the foundation of his Luke 24 proofs about himself. Why shouldn’t we also find all we need to know about Jesus’ identity, role and ministry by doing as Jesus did, and confining oneself to Moses, the prophets and the psalms, and to those apostolic teachings likewise consistent with Moses, et al?
Finally, if Jude (or anyone else) is telling us that Jesus and the Father are both God, how can we also maintain monotheism without collapsing Jesus and the Father, resulting in either docetism, modalism (oneness Pentecostalism) or Apollinarianism, and Jesus talking to himself when he is talking to ‘his Father’; or, we must come up with illogical formulae such as three persons in one being (even though ‘being,’ by definition and customary usage, encompasses ‘person’); or, we must reject monotheism, in favor of tritheism or subordinationism or, as many serious apologists say, that there are four: Father, Son, Holy Spirit AND the Trinity (in which the monotheism is located)?
Even worse, there are many Trinitarian apologists and theologians who deny Jesus’ authentic humanity as we would understand that. For example, the ‘Desiring God’ folks are among many who outright declare that Jesus is not a man… instead, he is a God who has taken on ‘humanity,’ apparently contrary to Peter’s clear declaration in Acts 2:22 (‘…a man accredited to you by God.’ according, as it appears, to the Deuteronomy 18 standard.) Huh?
Why not just stick with the scriptures, which declare Jesus to be a man, the fully created second Adam and the son of God, etc., and our perfect and sufficient opportunity to escape the corruption of the world and to enter God’s coming kingdom… that is, if we repent and believe that Jesus is the promised messiah in whom we have eternal kingdom life (John 20:31)?
I would go even further, and say that according to Paul’s formula in Romans 5 and 6 and 1 Corinthians 15, salvation would not be possible unless Jesus were a man in the same sense as the first Adam (the son of God, having an origin, and the first federal head over his seed)… seeing as the Second Adam was without sin, he was able to propitiate God on account of the sins of the first Adam, as it is written, ‘a life for a life’ and ‘without the shedding of blood there is no remission’.
But God is pure spirit without blood, and God is not a man in the sense of the first Adam, that he can personally be the blemish-free substitute for that first man.
And God cannot die.
Yet, I think the Trinitarian contradicts the scriptures, saying that God died.
Okay, I just now saw your last reply. I guess I should refresh the page before I do anything else. I was not trying to ignore your responses.
Regarding existence prior to Mary, I do agree that Jesus had notional existence from the beginning, in the forethought and plan of God. I did mention that yesterday.
In Luke 1:35, the child shall be born (future) and shall be called the Son of God.
To be a son, you must of necessity have an origin.
If someone wants to argue that this origin is only with respect to his humanity, I would agree! I would nevertheless want to share my doubts about there being any PERSONAL existence prior to his conception, based on what I have so far found to be, within the scriptures, an absence of testimony to that effect; also, I would object based on various points of logic, reason, the documented historical development of Trinitarianism and what I believe to be a highly controlling Deuteronomy 13 prohibition against that proposition being kosher, as they say.
I also previously pointed out that Luke 1:35 records Gabriel using synonymous Hebrew parallelism (a form current to this day among the Jews) when stating ‘the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee’ and ‘the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee’ and therefore that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God’… thus, the Holy Ghost here is the same as the Highest, and the same as God, since he shall be called the son not of the Holy Spirit, but of God (singular); or, are we to posit that God the Father is impotent, and the Holy Spirit is Jesus’ surrogate dad on the Father’s behalf, after the fashion of Sarah and Hagar, Leah and Zilpah, Leah and Bilhah?
I think that the most straightforward reading consistent with Deuteronomy 6:4 monotheism appears to me to be that ‘God,’ ‘the Highest’ and ‘the Holy Ghost’ are all one and the same person, and that in Luke 1:35 we find neither a distinct person called ‘Holy Ghost’ or a preincarnate second person of the Godhead becoming a fertile egg in Miriam as a result of an act of either a Holy Spirit of The Highest…God.
What about Luke 1:35 -or any thematically connected passage of scripture- would lead you to think differently?
Now, as I address your case and your arguments, I do think it would be reasonable for you to address some of mine. Okay, I get that you want to take it one step at a time. That’s reasonable. But I am bringing to bear certain arguments that, to my way of thinking, are indeed part of my responses, since I find many presuppositions appear to be at work in the background with every prospective proof, and as I think about your statements, these appear to me like unaddressed elephants in the room.
I have also added a bit of new stuff, that is true. I will try to reduce that.
Okay, so I went through all of 1 Corinthians and looked at every single time the word Christ/Χριστός and its inflections were used. Without exception, every other time the word is used outside of this passage the obvious referent is Jesus. To make 1 Cor 10:4 the exception without a contextual reason flies in the face of the context of the entire book.
To Jude, It looks like you’re looking at an alternate reading/textual variant following the Majority Text and Textus Receptus, which is worded slightly differently. Actually, it’s clearer than the Critical Text variant, so thanks for posting that! 🙂 Notice the parallelism below in scripture next to a modified version to make the grammar clearer
Who saved the employees from being fired? The CEO Bob? That’s effectively what you’re arguing! It simply makes no sense in the context!
Since you asked me to respond to something you said, I’ll answer what you explicitly said you’d like to hear my opinion on: 1 Cor 8:6. I actually consider this a strong Trinitarian passage. Why? Because We have “only God” (the Father) and “only Lord” (Jesus). Thus, you must say that the Father is not your Lord if you wish to claim Jesus isn’t God. If Jesus isn’t God, the Father isn’t Lord. Are you willing to say the Father isn’t your Lord?
Additionally, since Deut 13 is so central to you, consider that I think Yahweh is the name of the trinity *collectively*, not the name of the Father. When viewed that way, Jesus can be called God without running afoul of Deut 13. 🙂
I know it can be hard to read contrary opinions, and I again thank you for engaging, and for doing that respectfully.
I am not a devoted advocate of the Textus Receptus. As with the Wescott and Hort/Nestle-Aland texts, I have observed numerous trinitarian presuppositions having crept into the TR-based translations, unjustified by the underlying Greek (such as we see in Jude 1:25, also typically corrupted in translation in the modern versions to favor collapsing ‘God’ and ‘our Savior’ into one person, despite the Greek not supporting that).
With respect to kyrios, context is most determinative, because kyrios is used ambiguously in the apostolic writing, and Kyrios Jesus is always described as distinct from God: he is presented as a man with an origin, he has a God, he can do nothing except that for which he was SENT (for example, John 5:30)… just as the kyrios of Jude in verse 21, for example, where again God and the Lord Jesus are distinguished.
To directly answer your question:
Of course I can (and I do) call God the Father my kyrios/master, just as I can call Jesus my kyrios/master. That is consistent with all the apostolic writings, and also with the LXX’ handling of the the Hebrew scriptures.
In your parallel reworking of the Jude text, you appear to me to have inverted the meaning of Jude, thus invalidating your exercise: Jude, in verse 5, warns about the faithless making a cumulative denial of two (God and Jesus, from verse 4) who are distinct yet unified, but your rework puts the two at odds: two who are distinct and also disunified, and at cross-purposes to each other: the first attempting to fire the workers, the second resisting the first.
The Hebrew/ANE way of referring to God’s representative is to be entirely comfortable calling that representative ‘Lord’ and even ‘God’ and no one is confused as to the ontology of either; the hearer does not presume to collapse God and his agent into numerically and ontologically one person.
To the Hebrew/ANE mind, to be SENT is to be, functionally, the sender. I think no Hebrew/ANE-minded person would be confused as to the personal distinction between the sender and the sender’s agent… but not so the trinitarian! ‘If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.’ Who points to this as Jesus claiming to be God, but many trinitarians? (Yes, I do note that you did not… and I think that is to your credit.) To the Hebrew disciples, this statement of Jesus pointed to Jesus’ status as the shaliach, or representative agent of God, and not a rejection of Moses and a claim by Jesus to the status of a pagan theos such as Jove (or, as the ancient Latins pronounced it, Yoveh, the very likely origin of the erroneous ‘Yahweh’ according to certain recent scholarship investigating earlier documents).
In parallel to John 14:9 Jesus teaches that he has revealed the Father. This Father is the ‘One True God’ of John 17:3… by Jesus’ own, declaration, distinct from messiah Jesus, whom God had sent… nothing there about God sending God. Likewise, the writer to the Hebrews declares Jesus to be God’s son (1:2) and also the icon/image of God (1:3). To be the image is most definitely NOT to be the original: in this case, the original bneing ‘Theos’… God Himself (see v.2)!
I think Moses and the prophets, Jesus and the apostles all make it clear that the promised messiah would be a man, especially prepared and empowered by God. Where is there any evidence that Moses et al had any notion of a numerical plurality of God?
You wrote:
‘Additionally, since Deut 13 is so central to you, consider that I think Yahweh is the name of the trinity *collectively*, not the name of the Father. When viewed that way, Jesus can be called God without running afoul of Deut 13. 🙂’
Would you please explain what in Moses would lead to a trinitarian conclusion about the numerical identity of God?
As I mentioned previously:
In Luke 24, we see Jesus relying wholly and adequately upon Moses, the prophets and the Psalms, to show his disciples all thing about himself. Moses sets the baseline, and in Deuteronomy 13, he seems to exclude anything deviating from that baseline. I think Deuteronomy was so important that if any Jew of Jesus’ day thought Jesus was claiming to be God in the way that the Father is God, they would have objected most severely, and this would have been recorded in the gospels. But… crickets. Do you disagree? If so, on what scriptural basis?
You do appeal to John 10:36, but in this verse, Jesus is declaring himself to be the son of God, and not God. Why do you think the trinity is there, but, as you say, not yet clear? Why not instead observe that to be a son means that you have an origin, and that Luke calls Adam the ‘son of God,’ and Paul makes explicit contrast between the first Adam (the son of God) and the second Adam (also the son of God), and John tells us that to those who believe God gave the power to become the sons of God, and that the sons of God include the celestial host, and that Israel is identified as the sons if God… so, the title ‘son of God’ means a direct familial creation by God, in his capacity as a Father? Again, what about these eminently scriptural claims points to personal divine preexistence for Jesus… in a way that wouldn’t also do likewise for all the other ‘sons of God’?
As far as I can tell, Moses and the prophets repeatedly (as in thousands of times) use singular personal forms for various references to God, and God speaks in first person singular through all the prophets (‘I am God, and there is no other!’). While some trinitarians appeal to Genesis 1:26 to find a multiplicity of persons in the Godhead, that is a highly controversial usage and anyway is clarified in the next verse, with God being singular and the ‘let us’ seeming to refer to God’s heavenly counsel. Not to say that you were going to make an appeal to Genesis 1:26, of course.
Now, to address some of your other trinitarian proofs:
I think John’s prologue (vs 1-14) is best read as Jesus being the author of the New Creation. While we can demonstrate this by appealing to the scriptures in their english translations, this becomes marvelously more clear when reading the LXX; this is so because John’s readership (Jews in diaspora (called ‘Greeks’ in the gospel [as opposed to the Jews of Jerusalem and Judea] who arguably the author’s target audience) was familiar with the LXX; in the LXX, Moses is PROS TON THEON, and in John’s prologue Jesus is likewise PROS TON THEON… the promised one like Moses (a created and faithful man appointed by God as his supreme and empowered representative over the people of God, to deliver them from the spiritual Egypt of enslavement to sin (in parallel to Jude 5!!). Jesus is typified by Moses, yet greater than Moses. In this interpretation, John’s prologue is not saying anything about Jesus being the God of Genesis 1 and 2.
Likewise Colossians 1 is best interpreted as referring as Jesus being the author of the New Creation, by the way; just consider that Jesus is there shown to be the new ruler over preexisting thrones, rulers, etc.
I have already mentioned that Philippians 2 is eminently understandable in this way: The man, messiah Jesus, by virtue of being a direct creation and son of God, and having been found at his immersion as having passed the test that the first Adam failed, had all authority given to him as the ruler and heir over all creation; nevertheless, to honor his Father’s wish that none from the race of the first Adam should perish, Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom, and then made provision for salvation of all who believe by becoming Nehushtan for sinners (Numbers 21, John 3, 2 Corinthians 5:21), and he became the likeness of sinful men, dying for sinners (a life for a life… the second Adam for the first Adam)… harmony with the scriptures! But when Philippians 2 is interpreted as a divine being emptying himself of his divine prerogatives, I see not harmony, but a jarring novelty.
What about Luke 1:35 indicates personal preexistence of the one who is to be conceived in Miriam? You assert that this scriptures shows this… but, how and where? How doers the presence of the word ‘son’ equal personal preexistence?
Hebrews 4 refers to post-resurrection office, activity and sympathy of the risen Jesus. What about this also points to Incarnation?
What do you see about Acts 2:36 that you think points to personal preexistence and incarnation? Especially, please consider Peter’s own words in 2:22, that Jesus was ‘a man approved of God among you’… that is, in this verse Peter was speaking in terms of Hebrew/ANE concept of shaliach/representative agency, and I think this in no way ever involved the notion that the shaliach was personally the sender. This particular agent was declared Lord/kyrios/adoni (not Adonai, see Psalm 110:1) and messiah/christ (annointed), crucified (he genuinely died! something God cannot do) and was raised to life by someone else. I am not seeing how any of this points to Jesus have personal deity and personal preexistence.
Jesus and the apostles are constantly distinguishing Jesus from the Father. I see abundant straightforward claims to the full true humanity of Jesus, and not one straightforward claim to three-in-one. Why, then should we claim ontological sameness to God the Father and the Jesus, son of God?
What about the readily accessible historical documentation, to the effect that trinitarianism as we think of it really has no meaningful existence prior to AD 381? Did the fourth century Greek churchmen know better than everyone prior, including Moses and the prophets, Jesus and the apostles? If it is true that Incarnation and Trinity are post-apostolic, then we ought to view those teachings as did Jude, where, in v.4, he refers to certain ungodly men who crept in.
And what about the logical problems inherent in trinitarianism? As I mentioned before: monotheism vs three persons, ‘being’ and ‘person’ being in, reality, synonymous terms; the reality that ‘echad’ in the scriptures only ever means numerically ONE, and God is described as echad; the problem that if the trinity of God, then the three members of the supposed godhead must -to avoid polytheism- be described as parts of, and less than God-proper… and that is blasphemy against God the Father, who is himself described as God; plus, the trinity then becomes a quadrinity (the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and the God the Trinity); finally, Jesus’ humanity is truly denied by trinitarianism, else we have a schizophrenic/dual personality Son who is both God who knows all and cannot die, tire or sleep and who always experiences the bliss of pure-spirit divinity, and a man who has only the knowledge given to him and tired, slept, personally suffered and felt abandoned and truly died.
Finally:
I would like us to agree that whatever is not taught as necessary to believe in order to receive or to maintain salvation, has no place in a scriptural statement of faith, or in any other sort of declaration of foundation doctrine. In John 20:31, John says that he wrote in order ‘that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God; and that believing, you might have life through his name.’ Likewise in Acts 16:31, and everywhere else I see the gospel taught. I see nothing in these passages where I could say that Incarnation and Trinity are taught; therefore, perhaps these ought to be reserved for the realm of private speculation, lest Incarnation and Trinity become stumbling blocks and sources of unholy division, as it is written, ‘What God has put together, let man not separate!’.
When God saves on the basis of belief as defined by Jesus and the apostles, who are we to say, ‘No, you must also believe Incarnation and Trinity as defined by the councils, or you are anathema.’ (per the Athenasian Creed of AD 451). In fact, promoters of Incarnation and Trinity generally do in fact divide in this way, and I do not think that can possibly please the Father, or his son by whom we are saved.
I neglected to respond to what you wrote:
‘I went through all of 1 Corinthians and looked at every single time the word Christ/Χριστός and its inflections were used. Without exception, every other time the word is used outside of this passage the obvious referent is Jesus. To make 1 Cor 10:4 the exception without a contextual reason flies in the face of the context of the entire book.’
So here is my response now:
I don’t think I am offering a contextually inappropriate interpretation when I say that the pneumatikos petra, the spiritual rock, is Paul’s way of making a typological application to Christ Jesus. That ought to be clear when we know that Jesus is a genuine man, and not ontologically a rock. In Matthew 16, Jesus called Peter a pretros (pebble, small boulder, nickname ‘Rocky’) and depending upon your interpretation, either Peter’s profession of faith or Jesus himself is the petra (from man’s perspective, an immovable rock, that is, a rock not cut out by human hands, per Daniel 2); now, neither was Peter to be understood as ontologically rock in the appearance of a man, nor was a profession of faith or Jesus to be understood to be an immovable mountain masquerading as a man… despite Daniel 2 clearly speaking about a vision in which a rock is cut out, etc., and it is generally agreed that the rock in Daniel 2 is the promised messiah.
By what hermeneutical principle ought we to force 1 Corinthians 10:4 out of what is demonstrably and arguably Paul’s completely appropriate rabbinic, talmudic mode of typological exegesis, and into a western trinitarian mindset that includes insisting that in 1 Corinthians, christos can only be understood to refer to Jesus personally, since that is the majority usage, even though in the LXX, christos is the translation of moshiach, and both words simply mean annointed (that is, there were many messiahs chosen and empowered/infilled by God, for specific purposes, and they all foreshadowed the greatest messiah, Jesus, as it is written in Hebrews 1:2, and by whom God now speaks)?
I find this contention to be especially weak in the face of what I believe to be a rather clear Hebrew usage of ‘rock’ to represent both God (my fortress, my ROCK, my fortress and shield, my redeemer, etc, in all usages contextually the one God of Moses) and his messiah (the rock cut out, but not by human hands… and if this rock is cut out by God, then he is shown to to be something other than God, and also to have an origin, as we see in the parallel passage of Daniel 7 in which we see one like a son of man who receives judgment in his favor and is given all dominion, just as we read in Colossians 1, and all this seems consistent with a man, and not God personally, who doesn’t need anything to be given to him, and who certainly has no origin).
Also, I would like to suggest that we ought to agree that with respect to this and similar controversial passages, we both acknowledge that we interpret according to our prior conclusion and biases. Therefore, such controversial passages are useless for establishing any doctrine, for I trust that you will agree that it is a basic principle of biblical interpretation that the difficult, controversial and textually debatable passages (such as the Jude texts we have been discussing) must be interpreted by the clear and essentially undisputed passages.
I also want to amplify something about Paul’s important teaching on the dynamic of the first Adam/second Adam. I think Paul is saying that just as through one first man (a directly created first man, the son of God) all died, in the same manner through the one second man all are made alive; that is, salvation is through a man very much like the first, yet without sin. How do you think that could work unless the second man is -like the first man- a directly created first man, the son of God? How could that work if the second is not a man, but some sort of God-man?
What is a God-man? How can a God-man be susceptible to temptation? As it is written, Jesus was tempted as we are, yet without sin… but James assures us that god cannot be tempted; but without truly resisting temptation to which he might have succumbed, how could Jesus have authentically been tested, and passed, and become our sympathetic high priest? And what kind of death can a God-man really experience? How can Jesus know something in his deity, and not know it in his humanity? How can Jesus be a truthful man when he declares that he doesn’t know something that only the Father knows? How is the alleged God-man Jesus not a liar, when he thus denies that in his deity, he knew this or that (Who touched me? and When will I come again?)? Also, in all this, where is the alleged separate God-person of the Holy Spirit? Does he also not know the day and the hour of the second coming?
Anyway, I frankly don’t see how, in God’s economy, salvation is possible without Paul’s model of substitutionary atonement involving two Adams created of the same essential type. and nature.
Since I see neither Incarnation nor Trinity taught in the scriptures -and especially not in connection with the presentation of the gospel- I do wonder if those who teach these things -and especially those who teach that these must be believed to receive and/or maintain salvation- can avoid a terrible reward (condemnation) at the Judgment, because such teaching appears to be the sort of error that brings the judgment that Jesus says is worse than being thrown into deep water with a millstone around the neck. How are those who teach such things not violating the third commandment, which warns against taking -yet misusing- his name? For unless we can find clear teaching of Incarnation and Trinity that also modifies and overcomes the thousands of seemingly Mosaic monotheist passages, Incarnation and Trinity look to me like that which is beyond that which is written (1 Corinthians 4:6) and another gospel (Galatians 1:8-10) that brings a curse and spiritual death upon those who preach it.
In Mark 12:28-34, Jesus presents what appears to me to be a thoroughly Mosaic monotheistic creedal statement, and the scribe praises and affirms Jesus’ words. Jesus then declares that the scribe is not far from the kingdom of God. I take this to mean that this scribe need now only repent and believe the good news, and he will have his name written in the book of life. At no point does Jesus seek to clarify that ‘Yehovah’ is a trinity and that echad in Deuteronomy 6:4 really means three-in-one, or that the messiah would be God incarnate, and that Jesus was that expected God-messiah, or that Moses’ Deuteronomy 13 line in the sand has been otherwise authoritatively redefined or abrogated; no, Jesus simply affirms Moses, and Jesus also affirms the scribe’s agreement with Moses.
Shouldn’t we do the same, and honor the son as he presents himself?
You included in your Monotheism/Trinity section:
‘It should be noted that the Word is also called “Jesus” and “God the Son”, among other titles such as “Christ” and the “Son of God”.’
Where on the scriptures do you find ‘God the Son’?
Also, how can trinitarianism be scripturally reconciled with scriptural monotheism?
For argument’s sake, I will here stipulate that John 5:7 is scripture. How is this verse a proof of a trinitarian Godhead? Here the three are ‘eis,’ or ‘one’. ‘Father make them eis/one, as we are eis/one.’ Was Jesus praying that his disciples ought to be incorporated into an ontologically preexisting and eternal tripersonal divine union? No, I think the better understanding is that by ‘one’ Jesus is speaking as did Paul and Peter, exhorting believers to be of the same mind toward one another in Christ Jesus, and together holding the teachings of Jesus and his apostles (John 8:31) and to the traditions handed down from the apostles (1 Corinthians 11:2) and shunning unholy division (1 Corinthians 1 and 3, for instance); I see nothing obviously trinitarian in this triad or in eis/one, unless I were looking for such with a strong trinitarian preconception.
In a similar (nontrinitarian) manner, John’s 5:7 triad is an unproblematic way of saying that heavenly factors are all bearing witness to the same thing, just as in verse 8, God is using three factors to likewise testify on earth (that is, as sign confirming the heavenly testimony declared by Jesus). Verses 9 and 10 would seem to confirm this very conclusion that theos/God has given his testimony as to the identity of his son; if this is true, then how can Jesus be both the son and also the ‘word’ of verse 7? Can the son be the one testifying and the one about whom testimony is made? That neither makes sense to me, nor does that interpretation result in any clarification about the heavenly testimony that is said to parallel the testimony given on earth (v.8) by three ontologically distinct things. See what I mean?
After affirming that eternal life results from believing in this son of God whom is elsewhere described by John as a man (see 1 John. 4:2, in which it is declared that the one who denies that Jesus came [i.e., was appointed by God as his representative] on the flesh [i.e., was a true man]), John warns believers to keep themselves free from idols.
In view of John’s own writings, why should I not view the trinity not an idol?
Sorry for those late night typos! I meant ‘IN the flesh’ and ‘AS an idol’. I hope those and other bloopers, were not hard to mentally correct.
Don’t worry about typos, I got it. 🙂
So, you spent a LOT of time/words answering arguments that I haven’t made, some of which I wouldn’t make. To prevent this from becoming overly long, please confine yourself to one or two verses/passages/arguments supporting your position at a time.
Your answer to 1 Cor 10:4 is entirely unsatisfactory because it contradicts the plain meaning of the text and the context, apparently because of a prior assumption that it can’t be Jesus. However, for the sake of space/brevity, I’m willing to focus on other passages for now.
You are correct that my modified version of Jude 1:4-5 does put them at cross-purposes. My bad, let me re-word it.
My point is that Jesus existed (in at least some form) before Mary conceived. Please remember that I wasn’t arguing for Jesus’s deity in this verse, merely that He existed before Mary conceived.
In reference to Duet 13, you asked:
The Shema of Duet 6:4:
God is plural and Echad is used in other places as “one from multiple parts”. For example, Genesis 2:24 (“become one flesh”) and Ezekiel 37:17 where two sticks are joined to make “one stick”. You might disagree — and that’s fine — but you keep saying that we shouldn’t use unclear verses to prove doctrine. Thus, since there’s a perfectly valid Trinitarian understanding, then by your own argument, you should accept this as “unclear”. Thus — by your own argument — you shouldn’t say that Deuteronomy doesn’t reference the Trinity anymore since there is a valid Trinitarian understanding, making it “unclear” by your standards.
In my recent comments, I think I addressed every one of your statement of faith Incarnation and Trinity proofs. I also appealed to related texts and arguments, to show both from context and other principles of interpretation that your proffered reasons for believing as you do are not useful to that end. Isn’t that a relevant exercise?
In a statement of faith, I would think the author is advancing his best arguments. Is that not the case here?
You wrote:
‘Your answer to 1 Cor 10:4 is entirely unsatisfactory because it contradicts the plain meaning of the text and the context, apparently because of a prior assumption that it can’t be Jesus.’
Yes, this is correct. In particular, I have argued that Deuteronomy 13, for example, requires us to read the revelatory ministry of Jesus and the apostles through the same Moses whom Jesus and the apostles repeatedly affirmed; or else if we find Jesus and the apostles at odds with Moses, we are to either forsake Moses -and Moses’ God- in favor of Jesus and his ministry, or else we must forsake Jesus and his ‘church’.
Why must we make such a choice? Well, trinitarianism is simply incompatible with the only true God revealed by Moses.
And you most certainly also read through your prior assumptions, yes?
Regarding what you wrote:
‘1 Cor 8:6. I actually consider this a strong Trinitarian passage. Why? Because We have “only God” (the Father) and “only Lord” (Jesus). Thus, you must say that the Father is not your Lord if you wish to claim Jesus isn’t God. If Jesus isn’t God, the Father isn’t Lord. Are you willing to say the Father isn’t your Lord?’
I do find your claim here quite shocking.
What is trinitarian about this passage?
There is no claim to deity beyond what is explicit: ‘there but one God, the Father’.
There is no third person, so there isn’t even a controversial triad.
How can Paul be more clear in this contrast? In verse 5, he acknowledges many gods and lords. In verse 6, he contrasts that for us, there is only one of each… and of those two, one is not called God.
Paul uses ‘Lord’ elsewhere to mean God only when he is quoting the Hebrew scripture; elsewhere (for example, in his many opening greetings), Paul and the other apostolic writers regularly use ‘Lord’ to distinguish Jesus from God (1 Cor 1:1; 2 Cor 1:3; James 1:1; etc.).
! Corinthians 8:6 seems to me to be a potent sledge hammer against trinitarianism.
I think I have shown how your ‘only God’ and ‘only Lord’ argument, if correct, wouldn’t get you to trinitarianism anyway, as I have already observed. But you have yet to show that kyrios is only used one way, and that is to mean ‘God’ proper. Respectfully, although I have repeatedly pointed out how kyrios is used for God proper but also for men and that the context is determinative, you have not refuted this, or shown how here in verse 6 Paul must be taken to mean ‘kyrios’ as a referent to one who is personally a deity.
You wrote, regarding
‘The Shema of Duet 6:4:
“Hear O Israel, Yahweh your Gods (plural), Yahweh is one (echad)”
God is plural and Echad is used in other places as “one from multiple parts”. For example, Genesis 2:24 (“become one flesh”) and Ezekiel 37:17 where two sticks are joined to make “one stick”. You might disagree — and that’s fine — but you keep saying that we shouldn’t use unclear verses to prove doctrine. Thus, since there’s a perfectly valid Trinitarian understanding, then by your own argument, you should accept this as “unclear”. Thus — by your own argument — you shouldn’t say that Deuteronomy doesn’t reference the Trinity anymore since there is a valid Trinitarian understanding, making it “unclear” by your standards.’
First off, if you agree that unclear passages are unsuitable for proving doctrine, then let’s together try that approach. I expect that by following that plan, when we are left with that which we agree is clear we will end up agreeing that Jesus is a man and the promised messiah, and the mediator between God and men, i.e., sinners, who are in desperate need of mediation… and not much else of relevance to Jesus’ ontology; as a result, I predict that notions of Incarnation and Trinity will be roadkill.
Also, please consider that to be a mediator between two parties necessarily means that the mediator is not also one of the parties.
Anyway…
I don’t agree that ‘Echad is used anywhere as “one from multiple parts”’. No, echad is simply the cardinal number one, and it matters not if the ‘one’ in question can be described as having parts. The echad/oneness of God is a numerical/headcount statement. I don’t know of any Hebrew lexical source, rabbinic writing or any Hebrew or ANE scholar who would say otherwise. Do you find any scholarly evidence to the contrary?
If two stick are joined to make one (echad), then they are no longer two, but one. In your example, echad refers not to the components, but to the number of quantitatively enumerable sticks. You can have one stick or two (or more) sticks, but you cannot have one sticks without violating the very rules of grammar itself… and then we lose all ability to communicate. But God is not the author of confusion.
Now, I have really encountered heard apologists saying things such as ‘He are Three’ and They is One,’ but I think it is evident to us both that this is nonsense unworthy of men of faith. Yet, that appears to me to be the result of your proposition.
I don’t merely disagree about the marriage image. I would rather state that it is simply incorrect; the ‘one flesh’ is the husband (according to Blackstone, and I tend to agree with him); or, if that is too controversial, you might say that the one flesh is the marriage itself; but in any case, it is not the individuals separately. In marriage, they ARE one, not they IS one, if you take my meaning.
I think you will find not an single Hebrew scholar or lexical resource that will back you up on the notion that echad means anything but numerical ONE; also, echad is not a reference to any prospective parts.
A car is one, but the tires, the engine, the paint and the bumper stickers are not one; they are connected parts of a distinct whole. Why, you can lose the windshield, but the one/echad car is still called a car… minus some safety glass; likewise, a sketch of one/echad car is still echad, even though the component parts are not really there except in a figurative sense. Therefore, as the car is not the sum of the parts but a single thing in a sense not dependent upon the parts. Likewise, a stick is a stick, regardless of its origins or the pieces out of which it was glued.
You didn’t mention this other popular echad-equals-compound-unity argument, but I will mention it:
Individual grapes in the (echad) cluster brought back by the spies are not all one; the cluster is one, but the grapes are separate. Echad referred to the cluster, and not to the individual grapes. They is not one, if you see my point.
The word you translate as ‘Gods’ occupies the position of Elohaynu. I believe Elohaynu is an exclusively plural 1st person possessive form of Elohim that, I think everywhere it is used, exclusively means ‘our God’ singular. Jews everywhere have invested their lives singing ‘Shema Yisrael [Adonai] Elohaynu, [Adonai] echad’ and I don’t know of any serious Jewish scholar who thinks this means anything but ONE GOD, SINGULAR.
But perhaps you can enlighten. What Jewish writing has ever interpreted the Elohaynu in this verse to mean a plurality of Gods?
Also, where in the scripture is Elohaynu used as a plural? And why would you think that in Deuteronomy 6:4 of all places, Moses is using Elohaynu here as a plural?
in Isaiah 36:7, we see Isaiah declare Yehovah Elohaynu to be as HE (demonstrative third person SINGULAR pronoun).
And Elohim itself is of no help to you, because there are many instances where it is obvious that the word is being used as a plural of majesty, yet referring to just numerically one God.
Sure, variants of Elohim (except, I think, Elohaynu) are sometimes used in a plural form, and this becomes obvious from the context.
For example:
In Psalm 82:1, Asaph used synonymous parallelism to do this very thing, as it is written, ‘In the congregation of the mighty/he judgeth among the Gods(Elohim)’. There it is clear that Elohim is being used to mean a plurality of persons (possibly God’s divine counsel/the Watchers of Daniel 4:17, and the attendees of Micaiah’s vision).
Now, Exodus 20:2-3 is a context in which the Hebrew goes violently the other way, requiring us to read the ‘Elohim’ variant as a plural of majesty. Please consider: is there anything about the Hebrew of the First Commandment allowing for an interpretation of Elohim that can faithfully be translated ‘Gods’?
Finally, consider Mark 12:29. Here Jesus (an authoritative interpreter of scripture, yes?) recites this same great shema (Deuteronomy 6:4) that you advance as evidence for ‘Gods’. Mark records Jesus’ words, including eis esti to translate ‘is one’. I think eis -the cardinal numeral ONE- as with echad, cannot mean a plurality of persons; I think esti in this form simply means ‘is’ in the third person singular present indicative. I see no room here for a plurality of persons.
Furthermore, in verse 34 of this account, Jesus himself seems to affirm the scribe’s words in verse 32-33: ‘there is but one God, and there is none other but he; and to love him…’ etc. So, Jesus and the scribe appear to favor echad translating as ‘one,’ and Elohaynu/Elohim indicating the majesty of that ‘one’ God.
Sorry, but I think Jesus, the scribe and I view your appeal to Deuteronomy 6:4 as falling somewhat short.
Oh… since you brought it up again, I still don’t see Luke 1:35 revealing personal preexistence of the ONE TO BE BORN, and who WILL BE CALLED (note all future to the action in the passage) the Son of God. I see no mention (or even an implication) of personal preexistence.
I continue to affirm the notional preexistence of messiah, as it is written, from ‘olam,’ or unknown.
What about this verse do you think points to personal preexistence of the one to be born?
In the Jewish manner, here are some questions challenging personal preexistence:
1. How can Jesus be a true man, if he is really a preexistent being somehow being morphed into a fertile egg in the womb of Miriam? What can we really say about the nature of a non-man, who then somehow switches roles and takes on the likeness of men? Is such a man even a real man in the plain sense… and if not, then how are Jesus and the apostles not liars when they present Jesus as a man like us (except for sin of course)? How can a ‘likeness of a man’ be a sympathetic high priest on behalf of men?
2. How can a previously non-human Jesus a fit candidate to inherit the throne of David?
3. How could a personally preexistent Jesus be a fit counterpart to the first Adam, or be qualified to be a truly homologous atoning substitute on behalf of men who are themselves not preexistent? How can the blood of a fundamentally abnormal man be acceptable as an atonement for sin?
4. How can a personally preexistent Jesus be a fit candidate to be the one like Moses (not personally preexistent) who was to come?
5. Where are the parallel verses indicating personal preexistence of the being?
6. How can the second Adam be a man who is the Son of God, but also personally preexistent? Should we then also think that the first Adam was personally preexistent?
7. The scriptures speak of the Sons of God, celestial beings; would a preexistent Son of God be one of them? Isn’t that similar to what the JWs believe?
Answering both comments at once: There’s nothing wrong with you addressing everything I wrote, but it’s too much to take all at once. I’m not opposed to talking about all of it, but one at a time is important for clarity.
You asked if this article contained my best arguments: not necessarily. I went with only a single verse for each point according to what I thought would be clearest to Christians for brevity, not necessarily strongest verses for apologetics. Thus, I omitted the strongest Deity of Christ verses (including my “go-to” verse: John 20:28-29) in favor one Trinity verse (1 John 5:7), and one Deity of Christ verse (John 1:1), again for brevity.
Regarding 1 Cor 10:4, this verse doesn’t prove Deity at all in any way whatsoever. I’m only using it to argue that Jesus existed before Mary conceived. That doesn’t make Him God, but solidly argues for Him existing before Mary conceived.
You didn’t comment on my updated argument on Jude, which also argues clearly and unambiguously for Him existing before Mary conceived (though not for His deity.) Please, answer that. I want to establish preexistence before moving to Deity
Regarding the shema/echad/elohim, I brought them up to add some uncertainty to you OT arguments, not because I would not use those to argue for Trinity. (I would use clearer verses)
Regarding 1 Cor 8:6, agreed that it doesn’t argue Trinity as it lacks the Holy Spirit. However, it seems blasmephous to say that the Father isn’t my lord, which is what you MUST say to read 1 Cor 8:6 the way you want to. The seeming requirement to commit blasphemy (using your understanding) adds enough uncertainty to eliminate this verse from your arguments because of your “don’t use unclear verses” conviction.
Again, you didn’t answer Jude since I updated my example, and please do NOT argue against deity there. (since it doesn’t prove deity) I’m ONLY talking about preexistence, NOT deity. So please answer Jude regarding preexistence, not regarding deity.
Okay, ‘one point at a time’ is a good plan. I will be happy to address Jude in more detail, but first…
Regarding Deuteronomy 6:4:
1. Would you kindly address my observation that Elohim is not the word form there, but rather the Hebrew has Elohaynu (I know this not only from the Hebrew itself, but because as a youth I sang it weekly along with the rest of the congregation), and that by every Hebrew usage, Elohaynu means ‘our God’ and nothing else? Therefore, I argue that there is no ambiguity here, and that the shema is a thoroughly unitarian declaration.
2. I offered somewhat extensive challenge to the proposition that ‘echad’ means anything but the cardinal number ‘one,’ and I addressed your proposed examples to the contrary -and then some- to reinforce what I believe to be the sound observation that ‘echad’ is simply not amenable to plural usage. Recall that the individuals in the marriage are not the marriage; that is, it would be nonsensical to say that ‘he is the marriage, she is also the marriage, and furthermore, they is the marriage, and there is only one marriage.’ But that is precisely how the trinitarian talks when he says ‘The Father is God, and Jesus is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and the trinity is God, and furthermore, I am a monotheist, and there is only one God!’
Kind Regards!
(1) I was following the common conventions of using the word’s base form when discussing it for clarity. Yes it’s inflected with a first person possessive form there. I will not agree that there’s no ambiguity, partially because of the OT verses were the plural noun Elohim is paired with a plural verb (meaning more than one person is doing the action). That usage clearly argues for plurality, even if that isn’t acknowledged by the Jews.
(2) Let’s say that echad does indeed mean the cardinal number one without nuance. That is no blow to Trinitarianism because we believe in only one God. (See 1 John 5:7, but we’ll get to that later and I don’t want to discuss it… yet)
You argue:
‘Regarding 1 Cor 10:4, this verse doesn’t prove Deity at all in any way whatsoever. I’m only using it to argue that Jesus existed before Mary conceived. That doesn’t make Him God, but solidly argues for Him existing before Mary conceived.’
What about this passage solidly argues for personal preexistence? All I see is you exercising your interpretive liberty in favor of reading G2258 ‘en’ as a statement of personal identity (definitionally possible, but contextually debatable) rather than as a declaration of typological pattern fulfillment. Therefore, two questions emerge:
1. Is your interpretation clear and not amenable to multiple interpretations? (If yes to both, then your interpretation is the one to which we must all submit; but if the text could also be read another way, then it is not clear, and must be interpreted by other, more clear texts, right?); and,
2. Is your interpretation consistent with the particular scriptural figure of speech employed in this and similar passages?
I think the answer is ‘demonstrably no’ on both counts.
In Matthew 21:25, we read Jesus confronting his enemies, thus:
‘The immersion of John, whence was it? From [En] heaven, or from men?’
Now, I think it is plain that in Matthew’s gospel, ‘heaven’ is often used to mean ‘God’ as opposed to ‘from men’ or ‘from the earth’. Who reads Matthew as having Jesus making claims about the physical point of origin of the practice of ritual immersion? I don’t know of any serious student of the scriptures taking such a view.
But more to the point, right there in 1 Corinthians 10:1, Paul uses ‘en’ to say that ‘our forefathers were [en] under the cloud’ etc.
I think no one will argue that these men of Corinth physically descend from the men of the exodus. No, Paul is speaking typologically about those who have before been rescued by Moses (a type of the Christ who was to come), and benefited from an earlier, typological Passover lamb (as of Jesus, John said: ‘Behold, the Lamb of God!’) pointing to ‘Christ our Passover’ (1 Corinthians 5:7); and they received an immersion into Moses and the Red Sea, and this was a foreshadowing of the immersion of Christ that was to come; all these typological elements were fulfilled in the lives of those believing men of Corinth, and it is that common experience of salvation (rather than natural physical descent) is the connection between the men of the exodus and the men of Corinth.
Likewise, the rock that watered the men of the exodus is the typological basis for Christ.
You can interpret however you like, but I want you to at least grant that from a Hebrew/ANE worldview that is documented to have been the convention back at the time of these writings and even persists among those peoples to this day, I am being ‘orthodox’ with respect to their worldview. Therefore, 1 Corinthians 10:4 is no solid ground for the one arguing personal preexistance.
Now, based on the Hebrew scriptures, the Jews have long held that the messiah has NOTIONAL personal preexistance… ‘olam’. I am mentioning this for the third time I think, because without this concept, typological and proleptic linguistic forms in scripture appear to the western ear as statements of personal and ontological significance, when they in fact are no such thing according to the original authors or to their contemporary hearers.
You might want to check your sources. “From” in Matt21:25 is “ἐξ” (ek), not “ἦν” (en). En is “was” in the phrase “whence was it”. Curiously, “ἦν” (en) there is listed a #1510 in my references, (biblehub interlinear). It’s the Greek verb of being/existence in a form indicating ongoing existence/state in the past. (though not necessarily eternal existence, but continuing for a time which could be short or long) Thus “was” or “was existing” is the proper understanding. A hyper-literal translation is: “…the rock was the Anointed”.
Nevertheless, I didn’t make the argument that I though Christ was in view because of en, and I’m not now. I said it was Christ (Jesus) because the word only ever means Christ as a title of Jesus in the entire epistle. Thus, making it say something else here is flying in the face of all the context. I do not accept your understanding because it completely ignores the context of the entire epistle. I will agree that Jude is clearer though, so please answer Jude.
You wrote:
‘Regarding 1 Cor 8:6, agreed that it doesn’t argue Trinity as it lacks the Holy Spirit. However, it seems blasmephous to say that the Father isn’t my lord, which is what you MUST say to read 1 Cor 8:6 the way you want to. The seeming requirement to commit blasphemy (using your understanding) adds enough uncertainty to eliminate this verse from your arguments because of your “don’t use unclear verses” conviction.’
Thank you for your concession that this verse doesn’t argue Trinity.
Paul is not saying that God and Jesus are the same being; he is saying that the believer has no other commanding officer under God. The believer owes 100% allegiance to Jesus, his Head; not one iota of allegiance is due to any competing lord, such as presidents, judges, policemen, employers, etc. The people of the world are enslaved to those latter ‘lords’; believers are bondslaves of the one true God, through Jesus alone, God’s appointed ‘Lord’ over all. That, I think, is the true and exclusive meaning of ‘and one Lord Jesus Christ’ and this can be demonstrated by numerous parallel texts.
Now, as to your other point, please recall that I said that I DO call both my heavenly Father and my savior Jesus, my ‘kyrios’. Kyrios is a fluid title, and different persons can be acknowledged as kyrios without confusion, and without collapsing them all into one.
Likewise, I can call God my Lord, and also Jesus my Lord; ‘Lord’ is not an exclusive title.
In the military, an enlisted man has ‘lords’ all the way up, without confusing them.
Now, I think I hear you saying, ‘A ha! But in 1 Corinthians 8:6, Paul says that we have only one Lord! So, either GOD and LORD are one and the same, or you deny the Father!’
Well, first, I observe that here is where I think your line of reasoning leads:
Paul is saying that Jesus is Lord; now, we know that God is also called ‘Lord,’ and since there is only one God and but one Lord, by your reckoning Jesus and the Father are now one and the same GOD/LORD person. From an analytical perspective, this is a valid, coherent argument… but it results in modalism, something I think you would reject as unscriptural.
By your surely unintended logic, it appears that you would have Jesus talking to himself every time he talks to the Father. That dynamic of Jesus talking to himself/God looks akin to mental illness, or possibly some kind of deception, or perhaps a vain conceit… and that is not at all my view.
I think we might be helped here by considering in this same letter, chapter 15:28, where we are told that when Jesus is victorious over his enemies, he himself will be subject to God, that God may be all in all.
We are worship the Lord Jesus not because of any claim that he is personally our Lord who is personally God (I still haven’t seen any such direct claim in the scriptures, although there are many straightforward claim to his true humanity); no, we worship Jesus because we recognize that Jesus is God’s perfect and faithful image bearer (Hebrews 1:3), or savior and mediator, appointed over those who believe as their federal head. And in what manner does Jesus not compete with God for the glory due to the Father? He is wholly submissive and subject to God. ‘I only speak the words I hear my Father speaking.’ Our worship of Jesus passes through to the Father.
Paul here appears to me to so obviously be taking great pains to distinguish God and Jesus not only from the idols, but also from each other. To say that by doing so, Paul was trying to identify Jesus as God is, to my mind, unreasonably poor exegesis in favor of trinitarianism at all costs.
I continue to see nothing about 1 Corinthians 8:6 requiring me to choose who is ‘Lord’ between the two distinct persons.
You said:
Now, regardless of how I view Modalism, you have conceded that there is at least one other perfectly valid coherent argument to understand this verse another way. Thus, by your own rule of not using unclear verses, you are now officially excluded from using 1 Cor 8:6 by your own rule. (Even if you personally find it compelling)
Now that this verse has been answered, please address Jude.
You wrote:
‘I was following the common conventions of using the word’s base form when discussing it for clarity. Yes it’s inflected with a first person possessive form there. I will not agree that there’s no ambiguity, partially because of the OT verses were the plural noun Elohim is paired with a plural verb (meaning more than one person is doing the action). That usage clearly argues for plurality, even if that isn’t acknowledged by the Jews.’
I previously noted that ‘Elohim’ is not infrequently used as a clearly singular majestic plural. I could point to perhaps dozens of other usages. Therefore, the ambiguity inherent in ‘Elohim’ must be resolved contextually and in light of more clear passages, and not on the basis of the word itself.
I elsewhere see that you seem to favor Genesis 1:26 as a proto-trinitarian indicator (even though the very next verse, every translation I know shows God SINGULAR as the creator) and that you think the ‘divine council’ view is least likely. Why would you say that, except on account of a trinitarian predilection? I ask this because I see many parallel passages indicating the presence of a divine council (Revelation 4, Daniel 4:17, Micaiah’s vision, the opening scene in Job’s account, certain interactions in Zechariah’s visions, and more), but I see no such clear parallel passages to support the idea of a conversation within an alleged Godhead. I am not saying that Genesis 1:26 IS revealing a word God spoke to his divine council, but I think this view arguably has more scriptural merit than the ‘Godhead talk’ view. Is it possible that you likewise want to see ‘Elohim’ somehow as a default to plurality, even though, at best, this is debatable, and I think pretty much no biblical scholarship takes this position?
I propose that we agree on three things:
1. Elohaynu is in fact the word used in Deuteronomy 6:4, and specifically ‘Elohaynu’ does unambiguously mean ‘our God’ (singular)… unless, that is, you can find a plural usage in connection with the God of Moses;
2. I already argued based on the parallel passage found in Mark 12:28-34, that Jesus and the scribe agree that Deuteronomy 6:4 is correctly translated ‘our God [singular] is one [numerically/by head count]’. So yes, some Jewish heavy hitters would appear to disagree with your proposed alternate reading of ‘our Gods… our God is one’.
3. Elohim has multiple usages, and context is king; in Psalm 82:1, ‘Elohim’ is used twice: once to indicate God himself, and again to denote a class or set including a plurality of persons who are other than God, but enjoy the same title of ‘Elohim,’ consistent with the ancient Hebrew concept of shaliach. I encourage you to explore this doctrine, because the entire sweep of the scriptures is replete with examples of the shaliach dynamic, and without knowing this, all kinds of textually unwarranted ontological presuppositions can be generated.
I will soon get back to Jude. Not a problem.
You quoted me saying,
‘From an analytical perspective, this is a valid, coherent argument… but it results in modalism, something I think you would reject as unscriptural.’
Then you wrote:
‘Now, regardless of how I view Modalism, you have conceded that there is at least one other perfectly valid coherent argument to understand this verse another way. Thus, by your own rule of not using unclear verses, you are now officially excluded from using 1 Cor 8:6 by your own rule. (Even if you personally find it compelling)’
I was using ‘valid’ and ‘coherent’ as technical terms from analytical philosophy.
I was simply saying that your argument does indeed arrive somewhere; it does not commit suicide along the way.
But I don’t see how it invalidated my argument.
And as to where it led… that is something else entirely.
Yes, let’s leave aside every difficult passage. By the way, Jude’s Greek has left many translators scratching their heads, and translational controversies plague the very language on which you focus. Thus, Jude likewise must be understood through the lens of the clearer passages. Details to follow.
To amplify my point about the doctrine of shaliach:
Jesus said, ‘I and my Father are one.’ and ‘If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.’.
Some folks -I think unacquainted with the ANE concept of shaliach, or representative agency- read these statements as suggesting that Jesus is God in the way that the Father is God. But Jesus is actually pointing out that he is God’s fully authorized representative, God’s image to man.
In Acts 7, Stephen tells us that the law was given mediated by ANGELOS. But Exodus makes no mention of this. The ‘malach’ (Hebrew for messenger) who spoke at Sinai spoke for God, and so Moses merely tells us that God spoke.
Understood, of course, as ‘through his appointed malach’… God’s shaliach.
It is through this same shaliach dynamic that the prophets declare ‘thus says Yehovah’ and then switch to first person singular, and then back again, etc. The sent IS the sender… not ontologically, but representationally, and with authority to speak, negotiate and contract on the sender’s behalf.
Moses is twice called God:
To Aaron, in Exodus 4:16 (an Moses was Elohim… singular!)
To Pharaoh, in Exodus 7:1 (again, an Elohim… singular!)
Moses was a singular Elohim to these men not because of anything ontological (after all, we know of Moses’ human origin, and of his death), but rather because God chose and authorized Moses for certain tasks involving a limited scope of divine authority over these men.
And I think we can agree that Moses is typological of Jesus, one like Moses but greater.
You wrote:
‘You might want to check your sources. “From” in Matt21:25 is “ἐξ” (ek), not “ἦν” (en). En is “was” in the phrase “whence was it”. Curiously, “ἦν” (en) there is listed a #1510 in my references, (biblehub interlinear). It’s the Greek verb of being/existence in a form indicating ongoing existence/state in the past. (though not necessarily eternal existence, but continuing for a time which could be short or long) Thus “was” or “was existing” is the proper understanding. A hyper-literal translation is: “…the rock was the Anointed”.
Nevertheless, I didn’t make the argument that I though Christ was in view because of en, and I’m not now. I said it was Christ (Jesus) because the word only ever means Christ as a title of Jesus in the entire epistle. Thus, making it say something else here is flying in the face of all the context. I do not accept your understanding because it completely ignores the context of the entire epistle.’
To clarify:
I know about ‘ek’, and I wasn’t talking about. ‘En’ is the G2258 imperfect indicative 3rd person singular (as I have it from Blue Letter Bible) and is translated ‘was it’ in the KJV… in this case, ‘whence was it?’ Meaning, in this case, is its origin spiritual or carnal, and not ‘did it physically travel from heaven or from earth’? Likewise, we ought to be careful not to read personal preexistence or physical origin when the mode of speech and the context are concerned with spiritual condition and content.
Well, as to whether kyrios is ever used in 1 Corinthians to mean someone other than Jesus personally… one good example of a place where kyrios is indeed used to mean someone other than Jesus would be… drum roll… 1 Corinthians 10:4.
Presuming the conclusion is a logical fallacy that, no doubt, you didn’t intend. However, since we are trying to determine precisely whether ‘Lord’ here is used in a certain way, we oughtn’t start with the presupposition that it is never used in a particular way.
Anyway, in 6:14, God is declared to have raised up the Lord. This is a particularly mighty evidence that this Lord (Jesus, obviously) is not God, for God cannot die, and he apparently needed someone to raise him up. Therefore, ‘Lord’ when used for Jesus most probably can NEVER be rightly understood as meaning a being who is God in the way that the Father is God. And short of that, personal preexistence prior to conception in Mary is a recipe for essential non-genuine humanity, as I have previously noted with various questions.
Now in 10:9, we see Christ (in Hebrew, moshiach) as the one those in the wilderness tempted. Are we going to say that everywhere moshiach is used, there is a preexistent Jesus? For example, Cyrus? Kings Saul, David and all those from David’s line? Aaron? These are all, in their was, types of the ultimate fulfillment in Jehoshua ha’messiach. In verse 9, the ‘Christ’ in view is Moses.
Therefore, 10:1-11 are all about how previous people of God failed to relate properly to the Lords/Christs God provided them. Paul says this plainly: ‘and they are written for our admonition’ v.11.
NOT written to to show the personal preexistence of Jesus.
That is the context of this part of the epistle.
As for the whole letter, the context is carnality, and the grand theme is a rebuke and correction of the same, and a call for men of faith to spiritually man up (1 Corinthians 16:13w).
Friend, what do you think I am missing or ignoring?
You wrote about ‘en’ and ‘ek’:
‘You might want to check your sources. “From” in Matt21:25 is “ἐξ” (ek), not “ἦν” (en). En is “was” in the phrase “whence was it”. Curiously, “ἦν” (en) there is listed a #1510 in my references, (biblehub interlinear). It’s the Greek verb of being/existence in a form indicating ongoing existence/state in the past. (though not necessarily eternal existence, but continuing for a time which could be short or long) Thus “was” or “was existing” is the proper understanding. A hyper-literal translation is: “…the rock was the Anointed”.
Nevertheless, I didn’t make the argument that I though Christ was in view because of en, and I’m not now. I said it was Christ (Jesus) because the word only ever means Christ as a title of Jesus in the entire epistle. Thus, making it say something else here is flying in the face of all the context. I do not accept your understanding because it completely ignores the context of the entire epistle.’
To clarify:
I know about ‘ek’, and I wasn’t talking about. ‘En’ is the G2258 imperfect indicative 3rd person singular (as I have it from Blue Letter Bible) and is translated ‘was it’ in the KJV… in this case, ‘whence was it?’ Meaning, in this case, is its origin spiritual or carnal, and not ‘did it physically travel from heaven or from earth’? Likewise, we ought to be careful not to read personal preexistence or physical origin when the mode of speech and the context are concerned with spiritual condition and content.
Well, as to whether kyrios is ever used in 1 Corinthians to mean someone other than Jesus personally… one good example of a place where kyrios is indeed used to mean someone other than Jesus would be… drum roll… 1 Corinthians 10:4.
Presuming the conclusion is a logical fallacy that, no doubt, you didn’t intend. However, since we are trying to determine precisely whether ‘Lord’ here is used in a certain way, we oughtn’t start with the presupposition that it is never used in a particular way.
Anyway, in 6:14, God is declared to have raised up the Lord. This is a particularly mighty evidence that this Lord (Jesus, obviously) is not God, for God cannot die, and he apparently needed someone to raise him up. Therefore, ‘Lord’ when used for Jesus most probably can NEVER be rightly understood as meaning a being who is God in the way that the Father is God. And short of that, personal preexistence prior to conception in Mary is a recipe for essential non-genuine humanity, as I have previously noted with various questions.
Now in 10:9, we see Christ (in Hebrew, moshiach) as the one those in the wilderness tempted. Are we going to say that everywhere moshiach is used, there is a preexistent Jesus? For example, Cyrus? Kings Saul, David and all those from David’s line? Aaron? These are all, in their was, types of the ultimate fulfillment in Jehoshua ha’messiach. In verse 9, the ‘Christ’ in view is Moses.
Therefore, 10:1-11 are all about how previous people of God failed to relate properly to the Lords/Christs God provided them. Paul says this plainly: ‘and they are written for our admonition’ v.11.
NOT written to to show the personal preexistence of Jesus.
That is the context of this part of the epistle.
As for the whole letter, the context is carnality, and the grand theme is a rebuke and correction of the same, and a call for men of faith to spiritually man up (1 Corinthians 16:13w).
Friend, what do you think I am missing or ignoring?
Okay, Let’s get back to JUDE now.
Essentially, all the variants that deviate from the majority text tend to make my case easy as pie, since they generally render verse 4 along the lines of ‘our only master and Lord Jesus Christ’; Grenfell Penn even has ‘Joshua’ rather than Jesus as the preferred translation in verse 5, and this is not outrageous when considering the LXX, since in the Greek, the Joshua who succeeded Moses is Jehoshua, and that successor of Moses is typological of the greater messiah who was to come, the Jehoshua english speaking westerners usually call ‘Jesus’.
Nevertheless, I do not need those variants to reasonably demonstrate that verses 4-5 can be faithfully read from the majority text to the effect that the Lord of verse 5 is not at all best understood as the Lord Jesus Jesus Christ of verse 4.
My arguments:
1. The number of competing textual variants alone here are enough to render these verses unsuitable for proving anything, and I hope you will concede this point. The unclear and textually disputed must be interpreted by the clear and uncontested. May we agree on that? While I think this is a sound appeal to a foundational hermeneutical principle, I feel it is my least potent argument.
2. Personal preexistence apart from a proof that Jesus is God in the way that the Father is God gets you to some flavor of Arianism and second and third century speculations about lessor gods (for example, Justin Martyr and his fellow neoplatonists, as well as their gnostic cousins). Arianism makes for a strange bedfellow with genuine humanity as plainly understood, which I hope we can agree is incompatible with personally preexisting one’s own conception; if you can find a way to chew on that last statement apart from trinitarian presuppositions, I feel you will be sympathetic to this point.
3. For the purpose of illustration, let’s try an English synonym for Lord: ‘king’. The ‘KING Jesus Christ’ of verse 4 is not automatically or necessarily the ‘KING’ of verse 5; now, just as more than one person in the scriptures is identified as ‘king,’ so also more than one has been called lord, ‘kurios’. It must therefore be syntactically and contextually demonstrated that the kyrios of verse 5 can only be the same Lord of verse 4, and I have not yet seen such a demonstration.
4. For the sake of simplifying the debate, let’s continue to stipulate that the majority reading indeed presents the most difficulty for my argument. I still have excellent basis for denying that the kyrios of verse 5 is the kyrios Jesus of verse 4, and I think I saved the best argument for last, right here:
In verses 9 the author appears to refer to a now obscure text containing the words of the archangel Michael, in which Michael uses the title ‘kyrios’ to denote someone; and I think that someone, by default pending further evidence, is Yehovah as revealed by Moses, whom Jesus addresses as his ‘Father’ and the only true God (John 17:3). In the majority text, the author of Jude calls this same one ‘the only master God’. And again, in verse and 14, the author uses ‘kyrios’ as a Greek translation of a Hebrew titular form referring to, as it would seem, the one the author of Enoch (in chapter 1) identifies as Holy Great One and the Eternal God. Now the book of Enoch appears to me to be a good candidate for the source of Jude’s apparent quote from Enoch, the seventh from Adam; but even if you reject this book as the source, we are still dealing with a reference to an historical person; if you can make clear and compelling appeals to Genesis or related inspired texts to persuasively demonstrate the existence of the person of kyrios Jesus Christ extant around the time of Enoch, you win the debate over personal preexistence.
Now, what does Jude appear to be assuming about the identity of the ‘kyrios’ in verse 5? We see that out of six times kyrios is used by this author, three times this title is clearly and indisputably applied to Jesus personally, but verse 5 is not clear in the manner of those instances, since we here have ‘kyrios’ with no proper noun attached, or even hinted (as would be the case if in verse 5 Jude had said ‘how that same Lord’ instead of ‘how the Lord’); thus, we must appeal to context and parallel passages. The remaining two instances of ‘kyrios’ look most plainly like references to Yehovah proper, who, I think I can continue to confidently affirm per the revelation of Moses, is Yehovah, and numerically one.
Therefore, I want to suggest that the ‘kyrios’ of verses 4 and 5 are much better understood in this way:
‘I will put you in remembrance that just as Yehovah through messiah/christ Moses saved the people out of Egypt and later destroyed them who did not combine that former deliverance with faith, so also bear in mind that our only master God through our Lord messiah/christ Jesus will likewise destroy the falsely professing ungodly men of this generation.’
While this rendering is of course not a translation, it an interpretive rework through which I am trying to bring out the author’s real meaning, in preference to your parallel analog about a CEO and a manager that, candidly, I do not see as syntactically or contextually reflecting the thought process of the author of Jude’s little letter.
Why do I offer my rendering? I do so because I sincerely believe this is the view consistent with the grammar, the syntax and also the parallel texts such as Enoch chapter 1 and, more importantly, Hebrews 3, in which Moses is very clearly shown as prefiguring Jesus as a messianic leader or lord who is to be followed with true faith, or else.
Likewise, in John. 1:1c (a favorite trinitarian proof text, but, too bad for the trinitarian, a decidedly unitarian declaration) in the LXX, Jesus is very, very clearly linked to Moses, as in the LXX ‘pros ton theon’ is said about both Moses and Jesus.
I am confident we will agree that the authors of John’s gospel and the letter to the Hebrew believers are not in any way saying that Jesus is ontologically equivalent to Moses; rather, I think we can agree that Jesus is the one like Moses, who was to come.
There it is: Who WAS TO COME; meaning, I take it, that this Jesus, who is the one greater than Moses (a created man with definite origin in his mother’s womb, and at the age of eighty, authorized as God’s supreme agent over the people of God) would be an even more faithful and efficacious Lord over God’s house as God’s Son. While this Jesus notionally existed in the foreknowledge and definite plan of God from ‘olam,’ Jesus did not yet personally exist at the time Moses penned Deuteronomy 18.
No personal preexistence, but certainly typological foreshadowing… just as Jude appears to implicitly presume in verse 5, as a basis for his warning in the previous verse.
I sincerely thank you for your patience regarding my Jude 1:4-5, and the question of personal preexistence.
A brief followup to Jude:
1. SINCE my answer to you regarding the Jude verses, https://letthetruthcomeoutblog.wordpress.com/2023/01/20/was-jesus-involved-in-the-exodus-answering-1-cor-104-and-9-jude-5-heb-1126/ was brought to my attention. This is the website of bible scholar Troy Salinger.
Salinger is thorough but pleasantly readable (for a scholarly commentary) and he also addresses 1 Corinthians 10:4 and 9 as well as Hebrews 11:26 as these are all thematically related passages, in the sense that they involve much textual conflict, they are highly subject to worldview interpretive bias and yet they enjoy great popularity among trinitarians.
Also following my Jude post, I was directed to the REV bible translation team website https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Jude/chapter1/4 has a verse-by-verse commentary function including relevant lexical information, all provided to show why a certain translation is preferred, and the base manuscripts. I am not endorsing the REV, but the resource is helpful for our purposes. The REV page on verse 5 https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Jude/1/5 specifically addresses our debate, and you might find that commentary of interest.
In the spirit of disclosure, both these contemporary scholarly resources do arrive at the ‘no personal preexistence’ conclusion, similarly to my own. Nevertheless, I think they do so for good hermeneutical reasons, as they variously explain. You can read and decide for yourself.
If you choose to examine these or other related resources of your choice, I do hope you will share, so we can learn together.
Since my last comment yesterday, you’ve commented thousands of words, which isn’t counting the links which are thousands more. You have to have to wait a bit for a response.
I skimmed the links: The article author needs to learn Greek better (Hebrews 11:26 is a standard 2nd attributive position genitive; of course it doesn’t need to be dative.) I also wasn’t a fan of the straw-man arguments he took delight in knocking down or his (seemingly deliberate) misrepresentation of the Trinitary position. I did appreciate him undercutting his own textual argument in Jude though, that was fun. 🙂 Though downplaying anything that disagreed with his position wasn’t as fun.
To the commentary on the REV, even the article was more fair in it’s treatment of the textual evidence. (which isn’t to say the article was fair, just more fair)
Of course. Take your time as you conduct a thorough investigation.
However, is the quantity of my words really a mark against their content and quality?
You, in FEW words, wrote:
‘Let’s say that echad does indeed mean the cardinal number one without nuance. That is no blow to Trinitarianism because we believe in only one God.’
I respect you for conceding the possibility that ‘echad’ may be of no help to you. However, by your second sentence I think I had to pick my jaw up off the floor, as they say; by that statement, it seems to me that you committed intellectual suicide because of the many logical, grammatical, hermeneutical and syntactical and problems that come to mind, and that must be suppressed in order to make such an (admittedly popular trinitarian) affirmation. Therefore, mere quantitative analysis of word-count is inadequate.
On a humorous note, I think Samuel Clements one penned a letter, thus: ‘I would have written a short letter, but I didn’t have the time.’.
I will present my Jude case in fewer words:
In Jude verse 5, the author uses kyrios/lord to typologically. Please refute this -consistent with the usage and worldview of the original author- if you can. If you find you can only offer an alternate interpretation rather than refute my handling, then please acknowledge Jude as yet another unclear and disputed passage, and try to make your case from something clear and not credibly disputable.
The author of Jude is in good company when he uses a typological figure of speech about Jesus, because Moses, Jesus, Paul and John all do the same, and in abundance. Please either refute this or show its irrelevance, if possible.
In addition to a messianic pattern (Nehemiah 9:27, ‘nathan yasha yasha’, ‘you gave them saviors’) typologically culminating in Jeshua, ‘Messiah’ certainly NOTIONALLY preexisted from olam; Moses, Balaam, Micah and many other prophets declare an ultimate Messiah who would personally arise, and not one who is personally preexistent of personally God in the way that the Father is God. Please definitively refute this, if you can.
The only relevant and clear ONTOLOGICAL statements made about Jesus teach that he is a man; not a preexistent-being-somehow-become-man, and certainly no claim to the effect that Jesus is God in the way that the Father is God. Please refute this, if you think you have a good case.
Western interpretative bias shaped by centuries of ‘Greek/neoplatonic/gnostic’ influence is at the root of incorrectly reading many typological statements (‘is,’ ‘sent from,’ etc.) as statements of personal being and origin. Such typological talk is not confusing to the Hebrew writer or listener. A proper hermeneutic requires Jew and gentile alike to forsake foreign and irrelevant interpretative notions, and learn to think as did the inspired original authors. Please refute this, if you can.
Since Jesus affirms Moses, Deuteronomy 13 becomes THE CONTROLLING PASSAGE in this matter, imposing a scripturally mandated interpretive bias. Every one who wants to follow Jesus AND be faithful to the God of Moses is thereby compelled to interpret, to the extent credibly possible, the words of Jesus and the apostles about the name and personal headcount of God through the limitations of the revelation of Moses; or, if the believer feels he must be a trinitarian yet he cannot demonstrate trinitarianism in Moses, he must acknowledge that his Jesus is ‘another gospel’: anathema to Moses, and a different faith entirely.
Trinitarianism is well documented as originating in the fourth century as a Greek-shaped politically-driven import into the church, and scripturally depending exclusively on weird textual variants as well as the foreign application of western presuppositions with respect to a handful of passages and fraught with many and internally conflicting flavors multiplying even to this day. If these claims are true, your trinitarianism ought to be thoroughly reexamined as part of your highly admirable pursuit of the truth.
I will quote someone known to you as a wise man:
‘You can’t ride the coat tails of our faith forever. So I’ll show you why we believe what we believe and how to do the research for yourself. If you find out were wrong and can prove it, we’ll do what you’re doing.’
Please now apply your father’s wise words anew to trinitarianism.
I suggest you consider reading this short, well-reviewed and fair book on the subject, by Dr. Dale Tuggy, who has extensively researched, published, podcasted, taught and persuasively debated on the matter:
https://www.amazon.com/What-Trinity-Thinking-Father-Spirit-ebook/dp/B07S1ZSPZJ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=Y4WQNBU3QFW9&keywords=Dale+Tuggy&qid=1707683622&s=digital-text&sprefix=dale+tuggy%2Cdigital-text%2C206&sr=1-1
You wrote:
‘Let’s say that echad does indeed mean the cardinal number one without nuance. That is no blow to Trinitarianism because we believe in only one God.’
Regarding your first sentence:
I appreciate what I take to be your tentative concession here. That takes manly and commendable spiritual courage.
I again observe that Deuteronomy 6:4 really must mean that God’s numerical identity is singular because Mark records Jesus and the scribe harmoniously exegeting Deuteronomy 6:4 with the explicit numerical oneness of God in view. Therefore, I propose that we consider Deuteronomy 6:4 as a clear passage suitable for use in establishment of foundational doctrine; after all, this credal declaration is the primary basis for revelation of the God of Moses and the Patriarchs, the exclusive worship of whom is what is in view in the strict Deuteronomy 13 prohibition that I believe to be the primary controlling passage with respect to understanding the ‘echad’ness of God’.
Do you disagree with the above conclusion and proposal? If not, why not?
Regarding your second sentence:
Do you agree with the following breakdown of the reasoning of what I take you to be saying, namely, ‘[We believe] trinitarianism because we believe in only one God’?
Expanded:
The Father is God.
The Son is God.
The Holy Spirit is God.
The Father is neither the Son nor the Spirit.
The Son is neither the Father nor the Spirit.
The Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son.
All Three are One Triune God.
Is that a fair breakdown of your version of trinitarianism?
Okay, so answering your comments at once and in brief: You still haven’t given even a single credible reason to ignore the plain language of Jude 1:5 when considering Jude 1:4. Not a single one. As I demonstrated with my CEO/manager analogy, the meaning is obvious when read in context is obvious. Yet you said:
However, the CEO/manager analogy is syntactically identical to Jude in every relevant way and you cannot know Jude’s thought processes, only his words. True, Jude does allude to other works, but verses 4-5 could be all one sentence and clearly are one connected thought. Contextually, after the ending of verse 4, saying that “lord” in verse 5 is anyone other than Jesus simply makes no sense. You mentioned textual variants, but not only does the manuscript evidence lean in favor of “Jesus” in verse 5, but not a single variant changes the meaning of the verse as it relates to the preexistence of Jesus.
You often appeal to the OT, but remember that there are clear indications of plurality in God in the OT. (See the beginning of this article for some examples). There’s enough “foreshadowing” of the concept of plurality in God in the OT that it doesn’t break Deut 13 or other OT passages. (Especially with Yahweh being the name of the Trinity *collectively*, not the Father.)
Candidly, you seem to have a problem with circular reasoning.
You admitted (or at least appeared to admit) in one of your comments dated Feb 7th that you come to these passages with a prior assumption that they can’t argue for Jesus’s preexistence. Here’s the problem: If you come to a passage saying “Whatever it means, it can’t mean _____”, you’ll never arrive at the truth because of your presuppositions. You are effectively saying: “This verse can’t argue for Jesus’s preexistence because Jesus didn’t preexist.”
That’s circular reasoning.
It’s the very definition of it.
You said in a comment above that preexistence without Deity leads to the “lesser gods” problem and a flavor of Arianism. I agree. I must assume that this is the reason you (perhaps subconsciously) cannot accept preexistence despite clear scriptural statements of it. Maybe it’s why you lean toward circular reasoning and ever more improbable ways of understanding the plain text. (Jude is referring to Joshua? That strains credulity well past the breaking point.)
All that said, How about we move to an audio chat instead of continuing in the comments here? I simply don’t have the time to keep replying to everything you post since you are so… prolific in your writing. However, I could occasionally find the time to talk on my day off. If that’s agreeable, let me know and I’ll send you an email so we can set it up.