Appendices To My Study On Proverbs 8:22-31

In this article I want to deal with the somewhat tenuous connection between Prov. 8:22-31 and three other passages, which has been asserted by some. These passages are Prov. 30:4, John 1:1, 1 Cor. 1:24 and 30. I will continue to use these abbreviations from the previous article: PISV = pre-incarnate son view; TV = Torah view; PAV = personified attribute view.

Appendix 1 – Proverb 30:4

This is the most surprising of the passages, for I had never encountered this assertion prior to my research for my previous article. In that research I read and listened to a number of presentations on Proverbs 8:22-31 from the PISV, and was stunned to see a few of them, both trinitarian and non-trinitarian, assert a connection between the two passages. Here is the passage:

Who has ascended into heaven, and then descended? Who has gathered up the wind in the palm of his hand ? Who has bound up the waters in a cloak? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son’s name? Surely you know!

The assumed point of connection with Prov. 8:22-31 is that this verse supposedly confirms the interpretation of that passage as being about the pre-incarnate son. Though the previous passage is somewhat ambiguous, veiling the pre-incarnate son under the figure of Wisdom, this verse supposedly reveals that wisdom, in the previous passage, is in reality God’s son, who was with him and participated in the creation event. But this supposed connection depends on three things that are assumed by the proponents of PISV but not substantiated from the text itself – 1. that the answer to all of the “who” questions is God, 2. that the answer to the question “What is his name?” is Yahweh, and 3. that in the question “What is his son’s name?” the son refers to an ontological son of God who was either eternally begotten or produced out of the Father’s substance just prior to creation. A fourth assumption is that the first four questions have to do with who created the world. Let’s see if any of these assumptions proves true.

The first thing to point out is that these questions are almost certainly to be understood as rhetorical, and that the real answer to the first four is no one, and so the answer to the other two are then cancelled out because a name cannot be assigned to no one and a son cannot be attributed to no one. In other words, these questions are not really designed to elicit a serious answer. Now let’s think about this. If, as assumed, the first four questions are concerned with who created the world, do we really think that one Jew, Agur, would really have to query two other Jews, Ithiel and Ukal, as to who created the world? The very thought is laughable! Every ancient Jew knew who created the world. This makes this view suspicious from the start. It is not even certain that the creation of the world is what is in view in these four questions. Certainly the first question – “Who has ascended in to heaven and descended?” – would have nothing to do with God creating the world. The second and third questions – “Who has gathered up the wind in the palm of his hand ?” and “Who has bound up the waters in a cloak?” seem to speak more about the manipulation or control of the wind and the waters than about the creation of them. Even the last question, which is ambiguous in both it’s translation and precise meaning, is probably not referring to the act of creation either. What exactly does the phrase “ends of the earth” refer to? Sometimes it refers to distant nations or lands; sometimes it refers to all the people of the world; sometimes it refers to the extreme borders of the land of Israel. What does the word qum in the Hiphil stem mean? The verse could be translated as “Who established all the ends of the earth?” and could possibly be referring to the creation of the world, but I could find no other place where the word qum is used in that way; this verse would be a one off usage of qum with that meaning. It could mean “who has established all the nations” and would then have reference to what Paul said in Acts 17:26: “From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands.”

At any rate, I think the best way to understand these questions is as rhetorical. The real force of the first four questions is “What man has done or can do these things?” and the answer is none.¹ Now, we could say that certainly God can do all of the things proposed in the questions, but I don’t think that is the point. Rather, the point seems to be that it is impossible for man to do these things. Although vv. 1-3 are ambiguous, they might hold the key to understanding v. 4. Agur is said to have declared this utterance to Ithiel and Ukal. Perhaps these two men had asserted a superior wisdom to that of Agur and he spoke in this way to them to humble them. The final clause, “If you know,” which could be taken as “If you are so wise,” certainly has a sarcastic ring to it. Perhaps the idea is that the wisdom Ithiel and Ukal claimed for themselves is as impossible for man to obtain as it is impossible to accomplish these four feats. Verses 2-3 seem to fit this view of the passage, in that Agur seems to be exaggerating his own lack of wisdom and knowledge in comparison to that of Ithiel and Ukal.

It is also worth noting the first question, which speaks of first ascending to heaven and then descending. This does not seem like something that would be said of God. We might perhaps imagine a scenario where God first descends to earth and then ascends back to heaven, but if the ascent is first, then the starting place would be earth and so the more reasonable conclusion would be that this refers to a man ascending to heaven and then back². This first question may set the tone for the questions that follow, the idea being that any man who could achieve this first feat could go on to accomplish the other feats. In any case, the whole point of the passage seems to be to underscore the limitations of man in attaining a complete knowledge and understanding of God and his ways.

So for Agur to ask, “What is his name,” is simply a rhetorical devise. Ithiel and Ukal cannot supply a name, for no man exists who can accomplish these feats. And to ask for the name of his son is simply to ask for further information to make a certain identification of the man who has done these things (wink wink).

But let us suppose, for the sake of the argument, that Agur’s four questions were meant to elicit the answer God, and “What is his name” was meant to exact the answer Yahweh. Why should we assume that the question “what is his son’s name” would be referring to an ontological son of God who was either eternally begotten or produced out of the Father’s substance just prior to creation? Such a theological concept did not even exist at the time Proverbs was written. Why should we import a much later theological development back into this ancient text? If the answer to the questions is God, and his name is Yahweh, then, within the cultural and historical context of the passage, there would be at least two much more plausible answers to the question “what is his son’s name.” First, it might be answered Israel, for the nation of Israel was regarded by Yahweh as his son³. But an even more probable answer would have been Solomon, for in the cultural milieu in which the Proverbs was written, the king of any given nation was regarded as the son of the god on whose behalf he reigned. This was also true of Yahweh and the king whom he chose to rule for him over his people. We see this ancient Near East concept reflected in the words of God to king David in 1 Chron. 28:5-6:

“Of all my sons—and the Lord has given me many—he has chosen my son Solomon to sit on the throne of the kingdom of the Lord over Israel. ₆ He said to me: ‘Solomon your son is the one who will build my house and my courts, for I have chosen him to be my son, and I will be his father.’ “⁴

Therefore, there is no good reason to see this passage as having any connection with Proverb 8:22-31 or as confirming the PISV of it.

Appendix 2 – John 1:1

A connection between Prov. 8:22-31 and John 1:1 has been posited ever since the second half of the 2nd century. Early church fathers (ECF) so-called, who held the PISV, maintained that the two passages refer to the same thing, i.e. the pre-incarnate son being with God prior to the creation of the world. Indeed, these ECF assumed that John had Prov. 8:22-31 in mind when he wrote this opening verse of his gospel, as do modern proponents of the PISV. Some proponents of the PAV also assume that John wrote his prologue with Prov. 8 in mind. They see much similarity between John 1:1 and wisdom literature in general, especially with passages in the books of Sirach, Baruch and Wisdom of Solomon. Hence they speak of the author of John employing a wisdom motif in the prologue and insist that it should be read in light of this wisdom motif. Proponents of the TV, who hold wisdom and word to be synonymous and as referring to the Torah, would certainly want to read John 1:1 as “In the beginning was the Torah, and the Torah was with God, and the Torah was divine.”

As for me, I don’t see any reason to assume a connection between the two passages, except for the use of personification in both; in the one, of the attribute of wisdom, in the other, of God’s word. While wisdom and word may be able to be equated on some level, wisdom does not exhaust the meaning of what God’s word is. Wisdom is only one aspect of what word might denote, because although it contains wisdom, there are other facets to God’s word, such as promises, prophetic utterances and decrees. What if the author of John wanted to express some aspect of God’s word other than wisdom? In some instances wisdom would not be appropriate to express a particular aspect of God’s word. For example, in the Wisdom of Solomon 18:15, in his recounting of the plague on the first-born of Egypt, the author does not personify wisdom, but God’s decree of judgment, speaking of his “allpowerful word [which] leaped down from heaven out of [his] royal throne as a fierce warrior into a land of destruction.” It would not have been suitable for him to have spoken of wisdom in this manner, so he chose instead to use word, which encompasses a wider range of meaning.

For this reason, along with the fact that neither the word wisdom nor the idea of wisdom is to be found anywhere in the prologue or even in the rest of the gospel of John, I don’t think the author had Prov. 8 in mind. As I interpret the prologue⁵, logos (word) is not meant to evoke wisdom but God’s prophetic word of promise. This prophetic promise, which was with God in the beginning, becomes, at a point in history, a reality in the real world in the human person Yeshua of Nazareth. The similarities between this passage and Prov. 8:22-31 are superficial, stemming first from the use of personification in both, and secondly from the use of creation language. But it is more likely that John modeled his prologue on Genesis 1, though only figuratively⁶, which would account for the language of creation. Similarities between this passage and intertestamental Jewish wisdom literature may be explained as the author using, or even borrowing, similar language but applying it in the context of God’s word of promise rather than of wisdom. Proponents of the PAV who insist that John’s prologue should be understood in terms of the wisdom of Prov. 8, are, in my view, playing into the hands of the PISV proponents.

Proponents of the PISV make the same mistake with John’s prologue that they do with the Prov. 8 passage, they miss the obvious use of personification and take it too literally. Just as they take wisdom to be an actual person who was with God before the creation of the world, so they take word to be also. This is not because either text demands this interpretation but because they approach both of these texts already with that presupposition in mind.

I don’t think the TV has any value in understanding John’s prologue because of v. 17, which reads, “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” The law, no doubt, refers to the Torah, and is associated with Moses, while grace and truth⁷ are associated with the coming of Yeshua the Messiah. This would seem to preclude the logos, which becomes embodied in the man Yeshua of Nazareth, from being equated with the Torah.

Appendix 3 – 1 Cor. 1:24 and 30

” . . . but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God . . . It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God, and also righteousness, sanctification and redemption.”

Since these two verses seem to equate Yeshua with wisdom, proponents of the PISV often assert that Paul had Prov. 8 in mind when he wrote them. But even some proponents of the PAV assert the same thing since they believe that Paul, in a number of his letters, presented the Messiah as the embodiment of wisdom. They speak of Paul and other NT authors as holding a wisdom Christology, i.e. seeing the role of Christ in terms of wisdom as portrayed in Prov. 8 and in other Jewish wisdom literature. But is this really what Paul had in mind when he wrote 1 Corinthians? The scant few words Paul says here should caution against taking an adamant posture.

In the context, Paul is speaking of the message of a crucified Messiah as being a stumbling block to Jews, who were waiting for a powerful king to deliver them from Gentile subjugation, and as being foolishness to Greeks, who highly valued philosophy. Jews demanded signs of power to authenticate a messianic claim, and Greeks demanded wisdom, i.e. a message had to be congruent with the then prevalent philosophies. Paul is saying in v. 24 that for those who have believed the message, whether Jew or Greek, Messiah is the power and wisdom of God. But does he mean by this that the person of Messiah is identical to God’s wisdom and power, that to speak of God’s wisdom just is to speak of Messiah? I do not think this is what Paul means, first and foremost because without the presupposition that Messiah pre-existed with God before the creation it just doesn’t make sense. It is more probable that what Paul means is that the wisdom and power of God are best demonstrated in his eternal plan, which revolves around Messiah. Whereas, Jews typically would have considered the creation of the world as the greatest display of God’s wisdom and power, believers can now look to what God has planned and accomplished in Messiah as the greatest expression of his wisdom and power.⁸

As for the second statement, in v. 30, I would suggest it should be understood in the sense that Yeshua the Messiah has become, for us who believe, the means of attaining the wisdom of God, as well as the means of attaining righteousness, santification and redemption.

I just do not see any reason to think that Paul had Prov. 8 in mind when he wrote 1 Cor. 1, nor do I find it necessary to the understanding of this passage to suppose he was casting Messiah in the image of the personified wisdom of the Jewish intertestamental literature. The passage is comprehensible apart from the uncertain concept of wisdom christology.

Endnotes

1. Another passage which shows the use of rhetorical questions which require the answer “no one” is Is. 40;12-14, where God himself questions his people in this manner. ↩︎
2. See Deut. 30:12. ↩︎
3. See Ex. 4:22 and Hosea 11:1. ↩︎
4. See also Ps. 2 where God says to the king whom he set on Zion “You are my son.” ↩︎
5. For a full explanation of my view of the prologue see this article here. ↩︎
6. I believe the prologue of John is playing off of the creation language of Gen. 1 but that it is not about the Genesis creation. This may be because the author has the new creation in the Messiah in mind. ↩︎
7. Grace and truth in the GOJ corresponds to the Hebrew words hesed and emeth. These two words are coupled together often in the Hebrew Bible and together express the idea that God will be faithful to show his covenant mercy and love to Israel in accordance with the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – see Micah 7:20. The coming of Messiah into the world was the ultimate expression of God’s hesed and emeth toward Israel – see Lk. 1:68-73. ↩︎
8. See Eph. 3:10-11. ↩︎

Is Lady Wisdom The Pre-Incarnate Son Of God? A Study Of Proverbs 8:22-31

In answering the question proposed in the title of this article we will look at Proverb 8:22-31 exegetically and survey three different ways of interpreting the passage: 1. the orthodox Trinitarian/Arian¹ perspective – Wisdom is the pre-incarnate son of God 2. the Jewish rabbinic perspective – Wisdom is the Torah and 3. the Biblical Unitarian perspective – Wisdom is the personification of the attribute of wisdom. In the rest of this article I will refer to #1 as PISV (Pre-incarnate son view), #2 as TV (Torah view) and #3 as PAV (Personified Attribute view).

In order to receive the full benenfit of this study, I encourage the reader to take the time to look up all of the scripture references in both the article and the endnotes.

Preliminaries

In the exegetical part of the article we will examine this passage in three different sections – vv. 22-26, vv. 27-29 and vv. 30-31. Before we begin to exegete the passage it is necessary to establish the immediate context, which is set out in vv.1 -4 of the chapter:

_1. Does not Wisdom call, and Understanding lift up her voice?
_2. On the top of the heights along the way, between the paths she has taken her stand.
_3. Beside the gates, leading to the city, at the entrances, she shouts:
_4. “To you, O men, I call, and my voice (calls out) to the sons of men.“

It is clear and undeniable that the attribute of ‘wisdom’ is here being personified, i.e. portrayed as a person. Because of the feminine grammatical gender of the Hebrew word chokmah, the natural consequence is that wisdom is portrayed as a woman. Some scholars have asserted that we cannot tell if Wisdom in this passage is meant to be taken as a simple personification of the attribute or as a hypostasis or actual personal being, perhaps a goddess of sort. But this is absurd! We are dealing with poetry here, not straightforward narrative. We are readily able to recognize when we encounter poetry because there is something distinctly different about it compared to narrative. Typical of poetry is the use of non-literal language to vividly express ideas, and we see this kind of thing in the poetry of scripture². Personification of inanimate things and abstract concepts is one particular technique in the use of non-literal language. We already begin to see this technique of personification applied to wisdom earlier in the book of Proverbs, though on a smaller scale, in 1:20, 4:6-9, 7:4-5, and after our passage, in 9:1-6. Wisdom’s antithesis, foolishness, is also briefly personified in 9:13-18. Another clue that the attribute of wisdom is being personified is that it is paralleled with the attribute of ‘understanding’³ and is said to dwell with ‘prudence’⁴, another feminine noun attribute. Also important is Prov. 3:19, where God is said to have created by his wisdom.

This poetic devise of personifying wisdom is encountered again in intertestamental wisdom literature⁵. It is important to understand that the PAV is not based upon a presupposition that is being forced upon the text, but is, in fact, the most natural way to read it.

The TV, espoused by many Jewish sages throughout history, while recognizing the technique of personification, holds that the ‘wisdom’ of Proverb 8:22-31 is the Torah itself. This concept was developed from particular passages from the Tanakh, such as Deut. 4:5-6, Ps. 19:7; 119:98, 130, in which it is the law of God that makes men wise. This is then extrapolated to passages like Ps. 104:24, Prov. 3:19, Jer. 10:12 and 51:15, in which God is said to have created by his wisdom. It is then deduced that God created the Torah first and then used the Torah as a guide in the creation of the material universe. While not so much in the cannonical scriptures, the identification of wisdom as the Torah becomes more straightforward in the intertestamental literature. In Sirach 24:23-25 and Baruch 3:36-4:4 the equation of wisdom with the Torah is more explicit. A further development seen in Sirach 24:3 is that Wisdom says, “I came out from the mouth of the Most High.” This, coupled with Ps. 33:6, equates God’s word with wisdom, further solidifying in the Jewish mind the identification of wisdom with the Torah.

While I can appreciate this line of reasoning, and surely God’s law does make one wise, I don’t think it can be said that wisdom is synonymous with Torah. Wisdom can be derived by other means also, such as from observation of the world around us⁶ or by direct impartation into a person’s mind by God.⁷ Surely, in the Torah is found a specific wisdom given to the nation of Israel to enable her to live in proper covenant relationship with God and in such a way so as to enjoy God’s continued blessing and protection, but to infer that the Torah existed before the creation of the physical world and was the blueprints that God used to create all things is certainly going beyond what is written and is an idea not worthy of being taken seriously.

Proponents of the PISV will typically acknowledge that wisdom is personified in all of the earlier passages in Proverbs noted above, and even in 8:1-21, but then claim that in 8:22-31 wisdom morphs into an actual person who was with God from all eternity. Since there seems to be no textual or grammatical reason for this shift it becomes obvious that this understanding of the passage is derived from their presupposition rather than from the text itself. The presupposition of modern adherents to this view is that because church fathers of the 2nd -5th centuries interpreted the passage this way then this must be the right way to understand it. But why did these earlier so-called church fathers interpret the passage this way? One might wish to suppose it was simply their commitment to scripture that led them to this conclusion, but it seems more likely than not that a commitment to certain philosophical principles, as set forth in the first endnote, was mainly at play.

But we should not just blindly follow what these early church fathers wrote and then interpret scripture accordingly, as if what they wrote was inspired by the spirit of God. These men were evidently imbued with a certain philosophical worldview which was ubiquitous in their day, most of them having been instructed in the then prevalent philosophies prior to their conversion to Christianity. Thankfully, many orthodox Christian scholars today are able to see this flaw in the church fathers and to understand that Proverb 8:22-31 is simply employing the literary technique of personification in speaking of the attribute of wisdom. One does not have to be a Biblical Unitarian to deny that ‘wisdom’ in this passage is meant to be taken as an actual personal being, nor does one have to deny the Trinity and deity of Christ to acknowledge the obvious use of personification. With this in mind let’s examine the passage.

Section 1

₂₂“The Lord brought me forth (acquired me) a beginning of his way, 
before his works of old;
₂₃ I was established from of old,
from the beginning, from before the earth.
₂₄ When there were no seas, I was given birth,
when there were no springs overflowing with water;
₂₅ before the mountains were settled in place,
before the hills, I was given birth,
₂₆ before he made land or open spaces
or the first dust of the earth.

The first thing to note is the underlined portions, which are descriptive of how wisdom came to be. The non-underlined portions speak of when wisdom came to be. There has been much debate about the word in v. 22 which I have translated here as “brought me forth” or alternatively “acquired me.” The Hebrew word is qanah and it’s dominant meaning in it’s 85 occurrences is to acquire by purchase. It is also used in the book of Proverbs of acquiring wisdom⁸. One rare usage which may be more pertinent to our passage is Gen. 4:1 – “And Adam knew his wife Eve and she conceived and brought forth Cain and said, ‘I have acquired a man from Yahweh.'” Here the word is used in connection with giving birth to a child. This is relevant to our passage which, as we will see, uses the language of birth in relation to God’s acquiring of wisdom. The LXX and the Peshitta both have words that mean to create in Prov. 8:22. This may be because there is another Hebrew root for qanah, confirmed by Ugaritic literature, which means to create.⁹ The problem is in knowing which meaning was originally intended by the author of Proverbs. Since, we have an allusion to birth in two other verses in this section, I prefer the idea of acquiring by birth rather than by creation, although it is possible for both concepts to apply to the same entity. For example, the nation of Israel is said to have been both created by God¹⁰ and given birth by God.¹¹ Believers in Messiah are also said the be both created anew¹² and born anew.¹³ So the two concepts do overlap; what is created could be spoken of as having been born and what is born can be spoken of as having been created.

Proponents of the PISV have typically opted for the translation possessed, for obvious reasons. Since they take ‘wisdom’ here to literally be the pre-incarnate son of God, and they hold to the belief that the son is eternal, then the idea of wisdom being created is not something they would want to say. Some early church fathers, though, quote the passage as created, but explain it as a figure of speech, not a literal creating. But even if qanah is best understood as to acquire, and the idea of possession is implied, for once something is acquired it is then possessed, the idea is that one is acquiring something they did not possess before they acquired it. Is this passage saying that God did not possess wisdom until he acquired it at some point? I will come back to this shortly, but let’s first look at the other words used of how wisdom came to be.

In v. 23 the word is nacak whose primary meaning is to pour out as in the pouring out of the drink offering. The two odd uses of this word are Prov. 8:23 and Ps. 2:6, which is typically translated as installed, set or appointed in English versions. Perhaps the idea of anointing is in view, as the king was anointed with oil which was poured upon his head. The Greek text has a word meaning founded or established and the Aramaic also has established, probably from the same idea of set or appointed as found in Ps 2:6. But perhaps the idea is simply that wisdom flowed out of God like a liquid is poured out of a cup.

The final word we will look at is found in both vv. 24 and 25. It is the Hebrew word chuwl which means to writhe, either in dance or in pain. It then came to denote writhing in the pains of childbirth, and then finally giving birth. That it has the meaning of giving birth can be seen in the instances where it is paralleled with other words for birthing¹⁴.

All of this language implies a coming into existence of wisdom at a point in time. The time designated by the text is prior to the creation of the world. This is explicit in the language used. So what are we to make of this? Was there a time in which God did not possess wisdom? Tim Warner of 4Winds Fellowships, a proponent of the PISV though not a trinitarian, in a recent teaching on Prov. 8:22-31, pointed out that the flaw in the PAV is that all of this language implies that God would not have had wisdom prior to his having acquired it. But the flaw is not in the PAV but in Warner’s reasoning. Warner sees ‘wisdom’ in Prov. 8 to be literally equated with the pre-incarnate son of God, who is not co-eternal with God but was given birth out of God. So there was a time when the son did not exist. But if wisdom is just an attribute and it was originated at a point in time then God would have existed without wisdom until that time, and this is unthinkable. But Warner is ignoring the poetic nature of the passage and is simply applying the language much to literal.

Imagine, if you can, a time before God created anything. We would assume that God was alone and was inactive, except for any activity in his mind. All of God’s attributes would have, at this point, been dormant. Not until God began to create did his latent attributes become active. Before creation what need would there have been for God to exercise his power or his wisdom? To whom would he have shown his love and mercy? What need would there have been for his justice? The first exercise of these latent attributes of God would have taken place only when he created. Therefore, the poetic language of birthing in Prov. 8:22-24 should be understood as “it was as if the Lord acquired me, it was as if he gave me birth.” This is much like other instances in scripture poetry where God’s inactivity and the resumption of his activity are spoken of in non-literal terms. For example Ps. 44:23-24 – “Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep? Wake up! Do not reject us forever. Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression?” and 78:65-66 – “Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, as a warrior wakes from the stupor of wine. He beat back his enemies; he put them to everlasting shame.” We are not to think from these words that God was actually asleep and then awoke from that sleep. Instead we are to understand that God was inactive in his relationship with Israel in such a way that it was as if he were asleep. And when he resumed his activity in coming to their aid it was as if he had awakened from sleep.

So when v. 22 says, “The Lord acquired me a beginning of his way,” we can understand “his way” to refer to his motion or activity, and thus wisdom was the first of his latent attributes to be employed. This makes sense, since wisdom was the attribute he would have used to plan his creation.

From the time of Origen, in the 1st half of the 3rd century, theologians began to speak of an eternal generation or begetting of the son and Prov. 8:22-31 played a pivotal role in this understanding, along with Ps. 2:7¹⁵. It was deduced that if the son, a.k.a. wisdom, was given birth before the creation of the physical world then he was begotten before time itself was created and therefore in eternity, making his generation from the Father an eternal process. This was first postulated by Origen on the basis of certain philosophical commitments he held to and then imposed upon the biblical text. This idea eventually became key to the development of the orthodox doctrine of the trinity. But it is important to note that this understanding is not derived exegetically from the text.

Section 2

₂₇ I was there when he set the heavens in place,
when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep,
₂₈ when he established the clouds above
and fixed securely the fountains of the deep,
₂₉ when he gave the sea its boundary
so the waters would not overstep his command,
and when he marked out the foundations of the earth.

The thing I want to stress in this section is that the activity of creating is attributed to Yahweh himself, not to the wisdom that he acquired. In the PISV, it is always asserted that it is the pre-incarnate son of God who was active in creating the material world, but the text portrays ‘wisdom’ as an observer of Yahweh’s acts of creation, not a participant. The text says only “I was there.” The LXX and Peshitta read the same in this section, making Yahweh himself as the active mover in creation. Yet the early church fathers made constant use of this passage in portraying the son of God as the active agent of the Father in creation. This was based mainly on two misconceptions: 1. a philosophical need to have an intermediate agent of creation to preserve God’s perfection and immutability and 2. a handful of NT passages which they thought attributed to the son an active role in creation – John 1:3; 1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2. Needless to say, I think they were wrong on both counts.

The TV would not have any issue here, since it does not see the Torah as an active agent in creation but only as the plan or blueprint which God used to map out his strategy¹⁶.

Section 3

₃₀ And I remain beside him, a reliable one;
I have been a delight (to him) day by day,
celebrating before him always,
₃₁ celebrating in the world, his earth,
and my (continuing)delight was in the sons of men.

Much debate has been had over the meaning of the Hebrew word amon in v. 30. The two chief suggestions, which have both ancient and modern support, are master craftsman and nursling. But these suggestions are not without their difficulties¹⁷. After doing much research on this verse and on the best probable meaning of amon, I have decided in favor of the translation above, based mainly on a 2006 JBL article by Stuart Weeks¹⁸, professor of OT and Hebrew at Durham University in the UK who specializes in wisdom literature. In the article he goes briefly through the two main translations and shows why they don’t really work, based largely on contextual considerations, and then shows why the better solution is to read emun instead of amon¹⁹.

The main gist of his argument is that the passage can be broken up into three sections. I was pleased to see this for I had already come to this conclusion before discovering his article. I had already ascertained that the first section, vv. 22-26, focuses on wisdom’s birth prior to God creating the world, and section 2, vv. 27-29, focuses on the period during God’s creative activity, as Weeks demonstrates. What I failed to see is that section three focuses on on-going time after God’s creative activity. Here is an excerpt from Weeks’ article explaining this aspect of the passage:

In short, a syntactic link between v. 30a and the preceding verses would be redundant, and the poetic techniques tie it very closely and obviously to what follows rather than to what precedes. In that case, there is no good reason to take ואהיה to refer to the period in which the preceding verses are set. Indeed, if ot is not serving as the apodosis of the previous temporal expression, then v. 30 more naturally refers to the period after creation; this after all is the setting of v. 31, to which it is closely tied. Correspondingly, the expressions of time in v. 30b are likely to have a more general reference than simply to the period of creation: Wisdom was not a source of delight only while God created the world, but continued to be so, “daily” and “all of the time.” In fact, it seems likely that these verses, with their strong emphasis on temporal constancy, should be understood with reference not to a brief interval in the past, but to the whole subsequent period: Wisdom was with God before the creation, was present at the creation, and has continued to be beside God all of the time, while herself rejoicing in the world. This clarifies the purpose of the section. It is not merely a statement that Wisdom was with God early on, but a declaration that she has been with God throughout the history of the world, and still is. To humans, in whom Wisdom delights, she offers a unique understanding of the divine will, which will enable them to live and prosper with divine favor.

P. 438 of Weeks’ article

Weeks points out that the word hayah that appears twice in v. 30 can be translated as continue or remain, and would then be describing wisdom’s continued value to God in his providential care and rule of his creation, just as wisdom was a reliable asset which enabled God to plan out his creation. This reliability of wisdom, which even God esteems, becomes a further motivating factor to incentivize men to desire, seek and acquire wisdom. This fits well with the context of chs. 1-9 of Proverbs, which contain a series of poetic discourses setting forth the greatness, desirability and benefits of wisdom, and which call men to it’s diligent pursuit. Wisdom’s benefits are especially touted as an inducement to it’s acquisition²⁰. But here, in 8:22-31, it is the fact that God himself highly valued wisdom as a necessary asset in planning his creation and as a continued asset in the judicious management of that creation, that becomes the motivating factor for man’s procurement of the same.

Now, of course, proponents of the PISV favor the translation that portrays wisdom as a master craftsman, for this gives support to the notion that the son was the active agent in the creation of the world. But, as I pointed out earlier, prior to this point in the passage there has been no language used which would require us to understand wisdom to be an active participant in the work of creation. Why would this idea come up only at the end of the passage? This seems to me to be a matter of reading back into this passage the presupposition that the son was the active agent in creation, based on John 1:3, 1 Cor. 8:6, Col. 1:16 and Heb. 1:2. As I said before, one would not need to abandon that presupposition in order to acknowledge that Prov. 8:22-31 is not a support for it. Many orthodox scholars admit this.

Conclusion

We have seen that the PISV of Prov. 8:22-31 depends first of all on the presupposition held by early church fathers that the son of God existed as a kind of emanation out from the substance of God prior to his incarnation as a human, and ultimately on the presupposition of modern orthodoxy that these church fathers were correct in this assessment. But neither of these presuppositions is certain and certainly if the first one can be shown to be false, and I believe it can, then the second one is automatically false.

We have also seen that the TV is based on the rather tenuous connection between scriptural passages which refer to Torah as a source of wisdom and those which speak of God creating the world by his wisdom. But this kind of exegesis seems forced at best and at worst just plain ridiculous. The idea that God created the Torah before the material world is not only not stated anywhere in the cannonical scriptures but also strains the limits of credulity.

Finally we have seen that the PAV is the most natural reading of the text, taking into account the poetic nature of the passage, the tendency in poetic scripture toward personification, and how this view best fits the immediate context of Proverbs ch. 8 and the overall context of chs. 1-9.

I plan to do a follow-up article of appendices to this article, dealing with christological issues related to Prov. 8:22-31.

Endnotes

1. The 4th century Alexandrian presbyter Arius believed that “if the Father begat the Son, he that was begotten had a beginning of existence: and from this it is evident, that there was a time when the Son was not. It therefore necessarily follows, that he [the Son] had his substance from nothing.” I am not using the term Arian in this strict sense but only as a convenient way to refer to those non-trinitarians who believe in the pre-human existence of the Son, whether they believe exactly as Arius did or not. Many of the early church fathers before Arius held the view that God had within himself his Wisdom/Logos from all eternity, but prior to creation brought forth this Wisdom/Logos out of himself as a distinct rational being, the Son. Hence, the Son was emanated or generated out of the substance of God. This belief differed from the later Nicean theology in that before Nicea the Son was always viewed as subordinate to the Father, who was considered alone the one true God. These so-called church fathers, both before and after Nicea, believed that the Son, once emanated out from the Father as a personal being, created the material universe. This was a necessary plank in their theology because of their Neo-Platonic view of the Monad as perfect and immutable. Since to go from not creating to creating would involve a change in God it was necessary to have an intermediate figure who could do the actual work of creation. For these church fathers, who held this philosophical worldview, the Son easily occupied this role in their theology. This is why in their theology the Son is credited with creating the material world. This was a clear deviation from the concept of God as Creator in the Hebrew bible. ↩︎
2. See Gen. 4:7; Ps. 19:1-5; 43:3; 57:4; 79:8; 85:10-11; 96:11-13; 98:8; 114:3-4; Is. 55:11, 12; Joel 3:12-13; Hosea 10:11-13. ↩︎
3. See 1:2; 2:2, 6; 3:13, 19, 21; 4:5, 7; 8:1. ↩︎
4. See 8:12. ↩︎
5. See Wisdom of Solomon chs. 6-9; Sirach 24; Baruch 3-4. ↩︎
6. See Job 12:12; Prov. 24:30-34; 30:25; Eccl. 8:16. ↩︎
7. See Ex. 28:3; 31:3; 35:31; Deut. 34:9; 1 Kings 4:29. ↩︎
8. See 1:5; 4:5, 7; 16:16; 19:8. ↩︎
9. See the translators note on Prov. 8:22 in the NET Bible. ↩︎
10. See Is. 43:1. ↩︎
11. See Deut. 32:18. ↩︎
12. See 1 Cor. 5:17; Eph. 2:10. ↩︎
13. See John 1:13; 1 Pet. 1:3, 23. ↩︎
14. See Deut. 32:18; Job 15:7; 39:1; Ps. 51:5; Is. 45:10. ↩︎
15. It is hard to see how Ps. 2:7 ever became an important text for those who held to the eternal generation idea, since it explicitly refers to the day in which this son was begotten. The Psalm simply speaks of Yahweh’s anointed one, the Davidic king and v. 7 specifically about God’s decree that the chosen son of David would become the son of God upon his being installed upon the throne, based on God’s promise to David in 2 Sam. 7:12-14 (see also 1 Chron. 28:5-6). This does not entail an ontological change in the king, but only a change in his position or standing. It speaks of a functional relationship between God and the king, not an ontological one. ↩︎
16. From Rabbi Hoshaya in the midrash Bereshit Rabbah 1: The way of the world is that when a flesh-and-blood king builds a palace he does not build it based on his own knowledge, but rather based on the knowledge of an artisan. And the artisan does not build it based on his own knowledge, but rather, he has [plans on] sheets and tablets by which to ascertain how he should build its rooms, how he should build its doors. So too, the Holy One blessed be He looked in the Torah and created the world. The Torah says: “Bereshit God created” (Genesis 1:1), and reshit is nothing other than the Torah, as it says: “The Lord made me at the beginning of [reshit] His way” (Proverbs 8:22). ↩︎
17. See Scott, R. B. Y. “Wisdom in Creation: The ’āmôn of Proverbs VIII 30.” Vetus Testamentum 10, no. 2 (1960): 213–23. here ↩︎
18. Here is the link to Weeks’ article in the Journal of Biblical Literature , Vol. 125, No. 3, pp.433-442: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27638373 ↩︎
19. See Weeks article pp. 440-441 and Scott article p.220. ↩︎
20. See 2:9-16; 3:13-18; 4:5-9; 8:12-21. ↩︎

The Pitiful State Of ‘Jesus Is God’ Apologetics

There is a particular apologetic for the deity of Yeshua, which has been around for about a decade or more, that seeks to establish that the earliest gospel, Mark, presents Yeshua as God. This is a direct attempt to counter the prevalent notion among NT scholars that the ‘deity of Christ’ was a development, in which Mark, thought to be the earliest gospel, is seen as portraying a human Messiah, and John, thought to be the latest gospel, is seen as presenting a divine Messiah. This apologetic purports to show that Mark’s gospel actually presents Yeshua as divine, and in it’s extreme form as Yahweh himself. Though many apologists¹ have promoted this view, probably the best articulation of it is by Mike Licona, a NT scholar, author and apologist. I will be drawing specifically from a March 4, 2022 video on the Inspiring Philosophy Youtube channel titled Is Iesus God in the Gospel of Mark?, in which Licona appeared as a guest. Here is the link to the video.

My purpose in this article is to show the shallow reasoning and low-level argumentation that apologists like Licona engage in when presenting this apologetic, and how their conclusions are driven not by exegesis but by their presupposition that Yeshua is God.

The Argument

The gist of Licona’s argument in this video is that in the gospel of Mark the author, while not coming right out and explicitly saying Yeshua is God, is giving the reader clues that Yeshua is actually Yahweh himself. These clues consist of applying OT texts about Yahweh to Yeshua and portraying Yeshua as doing things that only Yahweh can do, as well as titles being given to Yeshua which seem to imply his deity.

But before we examine these so-called clues of Yeshua’s deity I want to address Licona’s preliminary argument to the evidence from the text of Mark. From timestamp 2:10-5:44 he sets up his main argument by appealing to the supposed fact that the gospel of Mark, and the other three gospels for that matter, conforms to what he refers to as Greco-Roman biography. Licona appeals to Plutarch’s Life of Alexander to show how ancient biographies were written to illuminate the character of the person whose life was being presented. He gives a loose quote from the 1st chapter of Plutarch’s work, but, in my opinion, mischaracterizes how what Plutarch wrote would apply to the gospel of Mark’s portrait of Yeshua. Listen first to what Licona says (at the above timestamp) and then compare it to what Plutarch actually wrote:

“. . . if I do not record all [his] most celebrated achievements or describe any of them exhaustively, but merely summarize for the most part what [he] accomplished, I ask my readers not to regard this as a fault. For I am writing biography, not history, and the truth is that the most brilliant exploits often tell us nothing of the virtues and vices of the men who performed them, while on the other hand a chance remark or a joke may reveal far more of a man’s character than the mere feat of winning battles . . . or of marshalling great armies, or laying siege to cities . . . it is my task to dwell upon those actions which illuminate the workings of the soul . . . I leave the story of his greatest struggles and achievements to be told by others.”

One of Licona’s main points in this preliminary argument is that the great exploits of Yeshua in the gospel of Mark, his miracles of healing and his power over nature, reveal to us who Yeshua really was, i.e. Yahweh. But these exploits of Yeshua are what would correspond to the great exploits of Alexander in battle, the very things Plutarch says he is not interested in telling. If Mark, in trying to reveal Yeshua’s divine nature, sought to follow some kind of accepted norm of Greco-Roman biography, where the “brilliant exploits” of a person were ignored in favor of his words and actions in dealing with others on a more personal level, thus revealing the “workings of the soul”, then Mark has missed his mark (no pun intended). Licona, in putting forth this kind of argument, seeks to capitalize on what he knows about the form of ancient biography, which he knows most of his audience is ignorant of, to make exaggerated and unsubstantiated claims about the gospel of Mark’s portrayal of Yeshua. The truth of the matter is that this kind of argument falls completely flat and is meaningless in determining Mark’s purpose in recording what he did of Yeshua’s words and deeds.

Now let’s look at Licona’s main points. He goes through the gospel of Mark, chapter by chapter, and offers brief explanations why we should think that Yeshua is being portrayed as Yahweh himself. Here is the breakdown of the video:

6:00-6:48 / 1:2-3 – Here, an OT text about Yahweh is applied to Yeshua
6:49- 7:20 / 2:5-12 – Yeshua forgives a paralytic’s sins
7:21-8:44 / 3:26-27 – Yeshua binds Satan
8:45-9:25 / 4:39 – Yeshua stills the storm
9:26-10:34 / 5:41-42 – Yeshua raises a dead girl to life
11:18- 12:18 / 6:48-49 – Yeshua walks on the surface of the lake
15:18-17:51 / 14:61-63 – Yeshua claims to be the son of man of Dan. 7

Though Licona’s commentary on each of these points is brief, it is important to notice the shallow reasoning in which he engages and how his exegesis is being driven not by the cultural context in which the gospel was written but by his presupposition. It is because he approaches the text with a firm belief that Yeshua is Yahweh, that he sees these vignettes of Yeshua’s life as confirmatory of that belief, even though there is another viable and more plausible explanation drawn from historical and cultural considerations. There is no exploration on his part of the other possible ways to understand the data that the author of the gospel has given. To his mind, all of these incidents of Yeshua doing what only Yahweh can do can mean only one thing – Yeshua just is Yahweh.

A More Reasonable Explanation

When we set out to interpret any passage of scripture we should take into account the historical and cultural context, and try to understand the text from the milieu of the author and original audience. Based on the historical and cultural context, what can we assume the original audience would have thought about a man who shows up on the scene “doing things that only Yahweh can do?” And is there any evidence from the gospel of Mark itself and from the other New Testament documents to back up that assumption? While Licona does make use of the standard Greco-Roman form of biography, wrongly in my opinion, to bolster the apologetic that says the gospel of Mark portrays Yeshua as God, what he either purposely ignores or is completely ignorant of is the concept of representative agency, so prevalent in the ancient Near East culture. What is funny is that this ubiquitous concept and practice is much more apropos to the question of how Yeshua is being portrayed in Mark’s gospel than whether or not the author was writing in the standard form of Greco-Roman biography. The failure of Licona and other apologists to recognize the relevance of representative agency to the question of how Yeshua’s disciples and the Jews in general would have understood his identity is a glaring blunder on their part. This blunder, coupled with the necessity of finding the orthodox tradition in scripture, is what leads Licona to the shallow reasoning and eisegesis displayed in this video.

Scholars in the field of ancient Near East studies have informed us of the pervasiveness of representative agency and it’s significance for understanding biblical passages. OT scholar John Walton observed regarding this ancient practice:

“In the ancient world direct communication between important parties was a rarity. Diplomatic and political exchange usually required the use of an intermediary, a function that our ambassadors exercise today. The messenger who served as the intermediary was a fully vested representative of the party he represented. He spoke for that party and with the authority of that party. He was accorded the same treatment as that party would enjoy were he there in person. While this was standard protocol, there was no confusion about the person’s identity. This explains how the angel in this chapter can comfortably use the first person to convey what God will do (v. 10). When official words are spoken by the representative, everyone understands that he is not speaking for himself but is merely conveying the words, opinions, policies decisions of his liege.”²

This concept of agency was also understood by ancient people to have carried over into the divine realm. In the Hebrew bible Yahweh is depicted as employing agents to represent him, to speak and act on his behalf. Angels, priests, prophets and the Israelite king were regarded as God’s agents. In the New Testament God is depicted as still employing agents such as angels, prophets and, of course, his chief agent, Messiah.

The fundamental principle of representative agency is that the words and actions of a person’s agent are attributable to the person himself.³ The person himself takes full responsibility for what his agent says and does while acting in his official capacity as that person’s representative. Understanding that the presence of a party’s representative agent is equal to the presence of the party himself, those to whom the agent was sent would receive or reject the agent as they would the party who sent him. However a person’s agent was treated, either good or bad, was taken personally by the person who sent him.⁴ Also pertinent is the fact that a person’s agent had at his disposal the necessary resources of that person to carry out his commissioned task.⁵

Now let’s take a look at Mark’s gospel with this in mind to see if it helps make sense of how the people of Yeshua’s day would have thought about his identity. It is my contention that this concept of representative agency adequately explains what we see written in the gospels and sufficiently answers Licona’s main argument in the video. The reason Yeshua is portrayed as fulfilling OT passages about what Yahweh would do and the reason he is portrayed as doing things that only Yahweh does is simply because he is acting as Yahweh’s agent. Every one of the passages Licona makes use of to establish that the author of Mark is portraying Yeshua as Yahweh himself is perfectly explicable from the perspective of Yeshua being a man who is Yahweh’s agent.

There are only two possible explanations of Yeshua’s ability to do what only Yahweh does: either he is able to do these things by an innate divinity or he is empowered to do these things by God and therefore the power is not innate to him. Either of these options could be true but they can’t both be true; the one negates the other. Sometimes, in debate, an apologist will first declare that Yeshua’s miracles prove his divinity, but then when confronted with passages that clearly speak of God doing these things through Yeshua, they will shift to saying that since Yeshua emptied himself in the incarnation and took on human nature he was acting as a man dependent on God. But they cannot have it both ways. Even if the incarnation were true, if Yeshua performed these miracles as a man dependent on God, then his miracles would not be evidence that he was Yahweh himself but only a man empowered by Yahweh.

The apologists have placed themselves in a quandry – they cannot maintain that Yeshua did these things by his own power as Yahweh, in light of clear passages to the contrary,⁶ and once this is admitted they can no longer use his miracles as evidence that he is Yahweh himself. Licona never addresses any of this in the video. The closest he comes to addressing this is when talking about Yeshua raising the young girl from the dead in Mark 5. He acknowledges that others, who are considered to be purely human persons, such as Elijah, Elisha and Peter, also raised the dead.⁷ To escape from the force of this he asserts that these men prayed to God before raising the dead and that Yeshua did not pray to God but raised the dead by his own power. Let us again note the ad hoc quality and unreasonableness of this argument. Just because Yeshua is not explicitly depicted as praying to God before raising the girl from the dead, is no reason that we should assume he didn’t pray to God. Yeshua is depicted in Mark 1:35 as going off early in the morning to a solitary place to pray. This was most likely his habitual practice, and it could be that in this time of prayer he would receive instructions from God as to what he was to do. This is certainly a reasonable conjecture. Even the gospel of John, which Licona himself admits portrays Yeshua’s deity much more explicitly than Mark’s gospel, strongly implies that Yeshua had prayed to God regarding the raising of Lazarus from the dead before he arrived at the tomb.⁸ Elisha is depicted as performing miracles without the text explicitly stating that he prayed beforehand⁹ but we cannot simply assume that he didn’t. This is an argument from silence and is simply not valid.

As for the other passages Licona points to, there is no objective reason why Yahweh could not give authority and power to a human person to forgive sins, to bind Satan, to speak to a storm and calm it, and to walk on water. In fact, concerning at least two of these, others beside Yeshua are given the same ability in the NT.¹⁰ Licona’s appeal to passages in the Hebrew bible which speak of God calming a storm and of men not being able to restrain the wind would be laughable if it were not so sad. Yes, only God can do these things, that is, innately, by his own power. But this does not preclude God giving power and authority to men so that they are able to accomplish such feats. Of course, no human being, in and of themself, can do these things, except God were with them. This should be obvious to all.

But is this how the 1st century Jews who saw Yeshua doing these things would have perceived it? I believe the NT answers in the affirmative. In Mark 2:12, after Yeshua healed the paralytic, it is recorded that the people who observed this miracle “praised God.” The author of Matthew’s gospel adds this, “who had given such authority to men.”¹¹ On another occasion when Yeshua raised someone from the dead, the response of those who saw it enlightens us as to how Yeshua’s miraculous power was perceived:

“. . . they glorified God saying, ‘A great prophet has been raised up among us,’ and ‘God has visited his people.'”¹²

This shows that the most natural response that 1st century Jews would have to seeing a man doing things that only Yahweh can do, was to assume he was a prophet, someone sent by God. There are a number of places in the gospel accounts that record the fact that the people perceived Yeshua to be a prophet.¹³ One such passage is in John 9 in the account of Yeshua healing the man born blind. When the man is questioned by the Pharisees he gives this response in vv. 30-33, after earlier in v. 17 referring to Yeshua as a prophet:

The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

This is the typical conclusion drawn by the people who saw Yeshua’s miracle, even the one’s who were the recipients of a miracle. They regarded him as being a man who was from God, a prophet, one whom God was with.¹⁴ What we never see in any of the gospels is the Jewish people drawing the conclusion that Yeshua must be Yahweh himself come in human form; such a thing is completely absent from the record. In fact, the only two times recorded in the NT where people who observed a man perform some miraculous feat and concluded he must be a god in human form, it is pagans who did so.¹⁵ What this shows is that pagan’s conceptions of their deities allowed for this kind of thing. But this would not have even entered the thoughts of a first century Jew. One final passage that shows this to be a fact is Acts 2:22. In this passage, the apostle Peter, who would have been present to observe every one of Yeshua’s miraculous deeds, is recorded by Luke as giving the definitive perspective of 1st century Jews:

“Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know.”¹⁶

I will now turn the focus to Mark 1:2-3 and 14:61-63 and show how the concept of agency better explains what is being said than the idea that the author is hinting at Yeshua being Yahweh himself.

Mark 1:2-3

In the video, both Licona and his host give such a vacuous reading of this passage that, once again, it would be laughable were it not so pathetic. Their argument amounts to this: Mark quotes two prophecies which speak of someone preparing the way for Yahweh. It is fulfilled by John the baptist preparing the way for Yeshua. Hence, the author is saying Yeshua just is Yahweh. Despite this being an extremely unsophisticated gloss of this text, it has become a standard apologetic move.

The first thing to note is that the author is not even quoting these two passages in reference to Yeshua but in reference to John. His point is to show that John’s ministry was foretold in the scriptures. This certainly detracts from the notion that his aim is to portray Yeshua as God. The second thing of note is the way the author quotes these two passages. He cites them in a way that differs from the Hebrew text, the Greek text (LXX) and the Aramaic text, which all agree. In fact, we know of no existing text that words the passages the way this author does. Curiously, Licona doesn’t even mention this fact. The author changes Malachi 3:1 from “See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me” to “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way.” The first person pronoun is changed to a second person pronoun. Likewise, Is. 40:3 is changed from “Prepare the way for Yahweh; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.” to “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.” Regarding the Malachi passage, it is interesting that the only other two times it is quoted in the NT¹⁶ it is worded the same way as in Mark, with the second person pronouns instead of the first person pronoun. And regarding the Isaiah passage, the one other time it is quoted in the NT¹⁷ it is worded the same as in Mark, with the second person pronoun replacing “our God”. The first thing I will point out regarding this difference in the wording of Mark’s quotations, is that this, in itself, works against the idea that this author was trying to portray Yeshua as Yahweh. If that was his aim he would have done better to have left the wording as it is in the traditional texts. The changes from the first to the second person actually obscure any attempt of the author to insinuate that Yeshua is Yahweh himself. Again, this fact isn’t even mentioned by Licona.

But why does the NT change the wording of these passages? Well, we can’t know for certain. I suppose it is possible that there was a Hebrew or Greek text available to these 1st century authors that read that way, which is no longer extant. But I would offer another possible explanation. It seems likely that this way of reading these texts may have become standard among the Christian community based on the fact that these prophecies had already been fulfilled and they knew it wasn’t Yahweh himself who showed up, but his agent, the Messiah. In other words, they were reading the passage agentially and so it was appropriate, after the fact, to use the second person pronouns to reflect the reality of what actually happened. Further evidence that this may be the case is the apparent conflation of Ex. 23:20 with Malachi 3:1 in the NT citations. The three NT citations contain the phrase “before your face” after the phrase “I will send my messenger”, which is not found in any extant text of Malachi 3:1. It appears to be taken from Ex. 23:20: “See, I am sending a messenger before your face . . .” In Ex. 23:20 Yahweh informs the Israelites that he is sending an agent¹⁹ to lead and care for them on their way to the promised land. The passage is clearly agential and for this reason may have been conflated with Malachi 3:1 to further emphasize the agential nature of that passage.

In the original texts the way was to be prepared for Yahweh and for our God, and indeed it was. John’s mission was to ready a people prepared for what God was about to do in bringing his anointed one on the scene. In the appearing of Yeshua of Nazareth, God was going to accomplish his long awaited plan of redemption. No Jew reading Malachi’s or Isaiah’s prophecy would have thought that Yahweh was literally, personally and visibly going to appear in the wilderness of Judea, and so they were not surprised to see these prophecies fulfilled in Yahweh’s chief agent, the Messiah. A parallel instance of this kind of prophecy and fulfillment is found in Gen. 50:24:

Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die. But God will surely visit you and take you up out of this land to the land he promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

Here Joseph prophesies, based on God’s promise to the patriarchs, that God will come to them and bring them out of Egypt and to the land he promised them. So how was this promise fulfilled? Exodus chapters 2-3 tell of the birth of Moses and of God’s commissioning of him to go to Egypt and bring the Israelites out and bring them to the land God promised. So God promised to come to them and bring them out and, in time, Moses shows up to bring them out. Yet there is no record of anyone thinking that Moses was God himself and even to this day orthodox Christians have no problem distinguishing between God and his agent, Moses.

Mark 14:61-63

Regarding this passage, Licona reads way too much into it. He briefly mentions other texts, such as Daniel 7, the book of 1 Enoch and 4 Esdras, making exaggerated claims from these texts to support his reading Mark 14:61-63. His first assertion regarding this passage is that Yeshua is certainly claiming more than just being the Messiah because he is charged with blasphemy by the high priest, and “you don’t get charged with blasphemy for claiming to be the Messiah.” This is a common claim by the apologists, but is it true? The only thing I have ever heard offered as proof of this claim is that there were supposedly many in the first century who claimed to be the Messiah and none of them were ever charged with blasphemy. This assertion itself is truly without any basis. We know of four people around the time of Yeshua’s birth and childhood who rose up and led a following in rebellion against Rome.²⁰ It is not clear that any of them claimed to be the Messiah and we do not know if any of them ever had any dealings with the religious leaders in Judea. There may not have even been the oppurtunity for any of them to be accused of blasphemy. The point is that there is just not enough information to be dogmatic about this. To draw any conclusions as to whether or not the charge of blasphemy could be incurred by a messianic claimant in 1st century Judea, based on what little we know of these four, is both ill-considered and ill-advised.

What should be taken into account with Yeshua’s case is that the Jewish authorities were threatened by Yeshua’s teachings and by his castigation of their corruption and had been looking for a way to get rid of him for some time, and having finally arrested him, they conducted a sham trial. There didn’t need to be a legit reason for condemning him for it had most likely already been decided beforehand that he would not leave the trial without having been condemned to die. The charge of blasphemy should be understood as a pretense by the high priest and nothing more. Of course, we do not know if any of these circumstances were involved in the case of the other so-called messianic claimants.

Alternatively, Yeshua was regarded as a sinner, a sabbath breaker, by the Jewish leaders, and hence, his claim to be God’s chief agent amounted to the claim that God approved of his lawlessness, a claim which would have been considered blasphemous.

Whatever the case, there is no reason to think that the account of Yeshua’s words before the Sanhedrin at his trial amounts to a claim to be God himself. Licona, while rightly equating Yeshua’s answer with Dan. 7:13, gets the implication of the correlation between the two passages wrong. Like almost all apologists, Licona assumes the “son of man” figure in Dan.7 is a divine figure. In Daniel’s vision “one like a son of man” approaches the ancient of days who is seated on the throne, a clear reference to Yahweh. If the “son of man” is seen coming before Yahweh and receiving from Yahweh authority, glory and sovereign power, then why should anyone assume that the son of man figure is Yahweh himself. Licona simply brings a faulty interpretation of Dan. 7 to bear on Mark 14:61-63 and ends up with a confused and confusing mess.

Licona’s understanding of the passage amounts to this: Yeshua is brought before the Sanhedrin and is asked by the high priest if he is the Messiah, the son of God. Yeshua answers yes, but then goes further in his claim by alluding to Dan. 7:13 and thus implying that he is Yahweh himself. The high priest understands Yeshua to be claiming to be Yahweh himself and charges him with blasphemy. Now, can you see the problem with this scenario? This whole interpretation requires that the high priest and others in the Sanhedrin thought that the ‘son of man’ figure in Dan. 7:13 is Yahweh himself, which is a highly dubious assumption. The high priestly family and many others in the Sanhedrin were of the Sadducee sect, which regarded only the five books of Moses as authoritative scripture. It is more likely than not that they did not even regard Daniel’s prophecy as legitimate scripture. But even if they did, why should anyone believe that any Jew ever thought that the ‘son of man’ figure in Dan. 7:13 is himself Yahweh? This idea may be a later Christian interpretation of the passage based on the presupposition that Yeshua is God, but there is certainly nothing in the text itself to suggest it, and there is no evidence that 1st century Jews would have ever thought this. This is simply a case of reading a later high christology back into a passage from the Hebrew bible and then using it to prove the validity of that high christology. I think they call that circular reasoning.

Licona also insinuates that the worship given to the son of man in Daniel is the worship that is given only to God. He appeals also to the worship that is given to the Messiah in the 1st book of Enoch and in 4th Esdras. But these texts do not say that this personage is being worshipped as God or with a kind of worship that can only legitimately be given to God. What this text portrays is a highly exalted human, for that is what a son of man is, who is rightly given homage by all peoples because of the exalted status bestowed on him by God. The text depicts this one as God’s chief agent, through whom God will carry out his program of righteousness, justice and peace in the world.²¹

It should also be born in mind that the book of Daniel is apocalyptic literature and the vision imagery within this kind of literature is always overdramatized and hyperbolic and should never be taken strictly literal. This also goes for 1 Enoch and 4 Esdras and other such apocalyptic works. Depictions of worship being given to the Son of man, the Son of God and the Elect One figures in these works may seem to imply that they share divinity with God, but this is never explicitly stated in these works, and the hyperbolic imagery and language used of these figures is better attributed to the nature of this particular kind of literature.

Conclusion

No one should be fooled, by the title of this article, into thinking that I am lamenting the pitiful state of ‘Jesus is God’ apologetics. Rather, I rejoice at this state of affairs, for if this is the best kind of argumentation these apologists can offer then I expect, in the near future, to see many more abandon the ‘Jesus is God’ nonsense and join the ranks of those who believe in the Father as the only true God and in Yeshua as his chief human agent, his anointed one and our Lord.

Endnotes

1. Matt Slick, “Does the gospel of Mark teach the deity of Jesus?” Nov. 4, 2016 article on the CARM website; James White, “Did the Earliest Followers of Jesus Believe in His Deity? 2015 debate with Muslim Shabir Ally; Michael J. Kruger, “Does the Gospel of Mark Present Jesus as God?” Oct. 14, 2013 article on Cannon Fodder website; “The Deity of Christ in the Gospel of Mark” Dec. 15, 2014 article on Cross Examined. Org website.
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2. Comment on Gen. 16:7 in the Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible. ↩︎
3. This is a non-exhaustive list of passages demonstrating this principle: Gen. 16:11-12/16:13; Gen. 19:12-13/19:14; Gen. 32:24-30/Hose 12:3-4; Ex. 3:1-15/Acts7:30, 35; Ex. 7:19-20/7:17; Ex. 14:16, 21/Is. 10:26; Ex. 17:5-7/Ps. 78:20; Judg. 2:16-18/10:11-12; 1 Sam. 16:13/Ps. 89:20; 1 Sam. 26:11/26:12; 1 Kings 5:8-9; 2 Chron. 36:15/Jer. 7:13; Ps. 77:20; Is. 7:3-4, 10; Is. 29:1-3; Jer. 43: 8-9/43:10; Lk. 1:26-38/1:45; Lk. 2:9-12/2:15; Lk. 7:1-8/Matt. 8:5-9; Acts 12:6-11/12:17; Acts 27:23-24/27:25. ↩︎
4. Ex. 16:1-8; 1 Sam. 25:9-12; 2 Sam. 10:1-6; Matt. 10:40; Lk. 10:16; Jn. 12:44-45. ↩︎
5. Gen. 24:1-10, 52-53; Ex. 3:10/4:1-17; Josh. 1:6-9; Judg. 6:14-16; 1 Sam. 3:19-21; 1 Kings 19:16/2 Kings 2:13-14; Is. 48:16; Matt. 11:27; Lk. 5:17; Jn. 3:2; Acts 10:38. ↩︎
6. Lk. 5:17; Jn. 5:19; 10:25, 37-38; 14:10-11; Acts 2:22; 10:38. ↩︎
7. 1 Kings 17:17-24; 2 Kings 4:32-35; Acts 9:40-41. ↩︎
8. John 11:41-42. ↩︎
9. 2 Kings 4:38-41; 6:5-7. ↩︎
10. See Matt. 14:29; Jn. 20:21-23. ↩︎
11. Matt. 9:8. ↩︎
12. Lk. 7:16. ↩︎
13. Matt.16:13=14; 21:11, 46; Mk.6:14-15; Lk. 7:39; 24:19; Jn. 4:19; 6:14; 9:17. ↩︎
14. See also John 3:2. ↩︎
15. Acts 14:8-12; 28:3-6. ↩︎
16. See also Peter’s testimony in Acts 10:38: “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, and because God was with him, he went around doing good and healing everyone who was oppressed by the devil.” ↩︎
17. Matt. 11:10; Lk. 7:27. ↩︎
18. Matt. 3:3. ↩︎
19. Here is my article on Ex. 23:20 in which I make the case that this agent refers to Moses: Exodus 23:20-23 : Who Is The Angel?https://letthetruthcomeoutblog.wordpress.com/2023/01/05/exodus-2320-23-who-is-the-angel/ ↩︎
20. Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews 17. 10.5, 6 and 7 tells of Judas of Galilee, Simon of Perea and Athronges, a shepherd, who each, at different times, gathered a following and was made out to be king. Acts 5:36-37 speaks of a Theudas and of a Judas the Galilean, who both apparently gained a following and attempted a revolt against Rome. The Judas mentioned by Josephus and in Acts may be the same person but we can’t be certain. ↩︎
21. It is also possible and even likely that the son of man figure, in it’s original context in Daniel 7, is not referring to the Messiah but to the collective people of God, as the angel’s interpretation of the vision in vv. 17-18, 22, 27 seems to imply. This interpretation certainly takes the wind out of the sails of the apologists assertion that the ‘son of man’ is a deity figure. If the ‘son of man’ does indeed represent the collective people of God, then we can understand Yeshua’s appropriation of the phrase as a personal title to mean that he saw himself as the sole representative or head of this collective body of holy ones. ↩︎

Why Romans 1:3-4 Is Not A Proof-Text For The Dual Natures Of Christ

Rom. 1:3-4 – (The gospel of God) concerning his son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was declared to be the son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ, our Lord. NASB

This passage is typically understood as a proof-text for the doctrine of the two natures of Christ. That Yeshua was of the seed of David according to the flesh is supposed to connote his human nature, while his being declared the Son of God according to the Spirit of holiness is supposed to connote his divine nature, hence Christ has two natures. The commentaries of popular expositors are replete with statements to this effect. The claims made concerning this passage reveal a strong tendency for commentators to read the presuppositions of their tradition into scripture wherever the text might afford an opportunity, as this text does. Here are some examples:

of the seed of David according to the flesh — That is, with regard to his human nature. Both the natures of our Lord are here mentioned; but the human is mentioned first, because the divine was not manifested in its full evidence till after his resurrection . . .  “The phrase, κατα πνευμα αγιωσυνης, according to the Spirit of holiness,” says Mr. Locke, “is here manifestly opposed to κατα σαρκα, according to the flesh, in the foregoing verse,” and so must mean his divine nature; “unless this be so understood, the antithesis is lost.”

Benson Commentary

according to the flesh—that is, in His human nature (compare Ro 9:5; Joh 1:14); implying, of course, that He had another nature, of which the apostle immediately proceeds to speak . . . according to the spirit of holiness—If “according to the flesh” means here, “in His human nature,” this uncommon expression must mean “in His other nature,” which we have seen to be that “of the Son of God”—an eternal, uncreated nature.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

According to the flesh.—The word is here used as equivalent to “in His human nature, in that lower bodily organisation which He shares with us men”. . . According to the spirit of holiness.—In antithesis to “according to the flesh,” and therefore coming where we should expect “in His divine nature.”

Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers

He was a descendant of David in his human nature, or as a man. This implies, of course, that he had another nature besides his human, or that while he was a man he was also something else; that there was a nature in which he was not descended from David . . . If in this passage we understand the apostle to declare, that Christ was of the seed of David, according to his human nature, the rule of antithesis demands, that we understand him next to assert what he was according to his divine nature, namely, the Son of God.

Barnes’ Notes

We note that in each of these examples the authors simply assume that the passage is referring to the orthodox doctrine of the two natures of Christ (though it doesn’t actually state that), based on a perceived antithesis in the text between Christ’s human (according to the flesh) and divine (according to the Spirit) natures. We will come back to this in time.

We can also see this same bias in favor of the orthodox belief enshrined in some modern English versions. For example:

AMP – ³ [the good news] regarding His Son, who, as to the flesh [His human nature], was born a descendant of David [to fulfill the covenant promises], ⁴ and [as to His divine nature] according to the Spirit of holiness was openly designated to be the Son of God with power [in a triumphant and miraculous way] by His resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.

CEV – ^3-4 This good news is about his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ! As a human, he was from the family of David. But the Holy Spirit proved that Jesus is the powerful Son of God, because he was raised from death.

GW – ³ This Good News is about his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. In his human nature he was a descendant of David. ⁴ In his spiritual, holy nature he was declared the Son of God. This was shown in a powerful way when he came back to life.

GNT – ³ It is about his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: as to his humanity, he was born a descendant of David; ⁴ as to his divine holiness, he was shown with great power to be the Son of God by being raised from death.

ISV – ³ regarding his Son. He was a descendant of David with respect to his humanity ⁴ and was declared by the resurrection from the dead to be the powerful Son of God according to the spirit of holiness—Jesus the Messiah, our Lord.

TLB – ³ It is the Good News about his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who came as a human baby, born into King David’s royal family line; ⁴ and by being raised from the dead he was proved to be the mighty Son of God, with the holy nature of God himself.

NOG – ³ This Good News is about his Son, our Lord Yeshua Christ. In his human nature he was a descendant of David. ⁴ In his spiritual, holy nature he was declared the Son of God. This was shown in a powerful way when he came back to life.

Besides these translations of the text being poor and inadequate, they are also based on the theological predilections of their translators and/or editors, as will soon become obvious.

To be sure, there are some aspects of this passage which are difficult to translate and interpret, and this difficulty is exacerbated by the limitations forced upon the text by the need to make it consistent with the orthodox tradition. So let’s take a close look at each facet of the passage in order to see if we can ascertain authorial intent.

According to the Flesh/According to the Spirit

The whole basis of the orthodox interpretation of this passage seems to hinge on the misguided assumptions that the phrase “according to the flesh” refers to Christ’s human nature and the phrase “according to the Spirit” refers to his divine nature, and that these two are being set in antithesis to each other. If these assumptions can be shown to be wrong or at least not necessary to a correct understanding of the text, then this passage becomes moot in as far as being a biblical confirmation of the two natures doctrine.

Let’s look first at the phrase “according to the flesh.” Despite the confident assertions of many expositors, this phrase does not mean “in his human nature,” as each of the above commentaries claim. The Greek reads kata sarx, which literally translated means according to flesh. First, we note that the phrase contains no 3rd person possessive pronoun (his), making this interpretation suspect right from the start. Next, let’s look at other uses of this phrase in this same letter and in other of Paul’s letters to see if “according to human nature” is even a viable meaning. I will also examine the claim that the phrase implies a second nature distinct from the human nature, for why would Paul say “according to his human nature” if that were his only nature.

By my count, the phrase kata sarx appears 22 times in the NT, 21 times in Paul’s letters and once in the gospel of John¹. The phrase can be seen to have more than one meaning in Paul’s usage², of which one is “by natural descent or lineage.” Take for example Rom. 4:1:

“What then shall we say that Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh, has discovered regarding this matter?”

Did Paul mean “our ancestor according to our human nature?” And if so, does he imply that the Jews had a second nature distinct from their human nature? Or is it better to take his words as “Abraham, our ancestor by natural lineage?” Another pertinent text is Romans 9:3, which reads:

“For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.”

Again we can see that Paul is not saying “my kinsmen according to my human nature,” and if he were saying this would that imply that he had a divine nature also, like Christ? What Paul obviously means is “my kinsmen according to natural lineage,” i.e. Paul and his fellow Jews were all natural descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Two verses later, in v. 5, we encounter the phrase again, this time in relation to the Messiah, of whom Paul says ” from whom [the Israelites] is the Messiah according to the flesh.” Paul’s point here is not that the Messiah’s human nature is derived from the lineage of Israel and that he has another nature not derived from the Israelite stock, but that the Messiah was of the same natural lineage as the Israelites.

So when we come back to our passage in 1:3 we can see that Paul simply means to say that God’s son, Yeshua the Messiah, came to be out of the seed of David by natural descent. To read more than this into Paul’s words would clearly be eisegesis. The phrase kata sarx never means according to human nature in Paul’s usage and to read this meaning into the phrase would result in absurdity.

Next, let’s look at the phrase “according to the Spirit of holiness.” There seems to be no good reason for taking this phrase in Rom. 1:4 to refer to Christ’s supposed divine nature, in contrast to his human nature, except as an attempt to validate the orthodox tradition. Most English translations capitalize the word ‘spirit’ to make it refer to the Holy Spirit of God, but this is uncertain. Many commentators freely acknowledge that the phrase pneuma hagiosynes would be a one off usage as a reference to the Holy Spirit (Gr. pneuma hagios, with or without the definite article). Even if it could be maintained that this is referring to the Holy Spirit, how would it make sense, from a trinitarian perspective, to say then that the phrase refers to Christ’s divine nature? Does orthodoxy teach that the divine nature of Christ is synonymous with the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity? Many commentators, seeing the problem (though some apparently do not), look for another way to explain this unusual phrase. The varied ways in which expositors interpret this passage reveals the ambiguity of the phrase and the difficulty they have in explaining it in a way that conforms to orthodox tradition. Here are some attempts made by some interpreters:

Barnes – “As the former refers doubtless to his human nature, so this must refer to the nature designated by the title Son of God, that is, to his superior or divine nature . . . It denotes that holy and more exalted nature which he possessed as distinguished from the human. What that is, is to be learned from other declarations.”

Lange – Within his lengthy and convoluted explanation of this phrase Lange says,”{Kata pneuma hagiosynes] is evidently the antithesis or counterpart of [kata sarka], and as [sarx] here means the human nature of Christ, [pneuma] must mean His divine nature, which is all Spirit, and intrinsically holy.” He concludes by saying the phrase means: “The Divine side of Christ’s person with the essential characteristic of holiness.”

Meyer – Meyer goes against most expositors in referring the phrase to the human spirit of Christ: “Consequently the [spirit] of Christ, although human, was exalted above all other human spirits, because essentially filled with God, and thereby holy, sinless, and full of divine unpolluted life, as was no other human [spirit]; and for this reason His unique quality is characterized by the distinguishing designation πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης, i.e. spirit full of holiness.

A. T. Robertson – “Not the Holy Spirit, but a description of Christ ethically as kata sarka describes him physically (Denney). Hagiōsunē is rare (1Th_3:13; 2Co_7:1 in N.T.), three times in lxx, each time as the attribute of God. ‘The pneuma hagiōsunēs, though not the Divine nature, is that in which the Divinity or Divine Personality Resided’ (Sanday and Headlam).”

Vincent – “In contrast with according to the flesh. The reference is not to the Holy Spirit, who is nowhere designated by this phrase, but to the spirit of Christ as the seat of the divine nature belonging to His person. As God is spirit, the divine nature of Christ is spirit, and its characteristic quality is holiness.”

As you can see, there is no general agreement as to the meaning of this phrase as it applies to the Messiah (and I could multiply examples), and frankly, these expositors come across as if they are just contriving an explanation because they have to say something about it. I would suggest that the confusion and the convoluted and contrived explanations of most expositors regarding this whole passage is the result of their attempt to make the passage conform to the orthodox tradition (when really, there is a much simplier explanation). In this vein, they almost universally agree that the two phrases, “according to the flesh” and “according to the spirit of holiness” are being set in contrast to each other. They just think this is obvious. This, in itself, sets them up to misunderstand Paul’s thought process.

I propose that we take the two phrases not as contrasting two distinct natures in Messiah, but as pointing out two different aspects of the sonship of the man Yeshua in relation to God, aspects which are not contrastive but complementary and progressive. When Paul uses these two phrases in contrast he uses a word to denote that contrast, such as alla or de, which are absent in our passage. And I propose the phrase kata pneuma hagiosynes should be translated as “a spirit of sanctification.” In this sense, the word ‘spirit’ is purely abstract and has no concrete meaning³. “According to a spirit of sanctification” probably means something like “in consequence of a setting apart.” This view takes hagiosynes in the sense of being set-apart for God’s purpose rather than as personal moral purity.

The Meaning of Horizo

Let’s move on now to the next phrase “who was declared son of God with power.” The Greek word behind “was declared” is the passive aorist particple of horizo, which, in it’s different forms, appears eight times in the NT, including this passage. In the seven other occurrences⁴ it clearly does not mean ‘declared’. The lexicons define it as to mark out (as a land boundary), to designate, appoint, determine or define. The word simply does not mean ‘to declare’. The reason that the majority of English versions have chosen to translate horizo as declared in this one instance is purely theological, to avoid the appearance that Yeshua was appointed as son of God only at his resurrection, implying he was not before this point. This, again, is a theological predilection being forced upon the text, for, from their perspective, if the Messiah is eternally the Son of God how can Paul say that he was appointed as such by his resurrection from the dead? Too many presuppositons have precipitated the traditional translation and interpretation of this passage.

While the idea of to appoint is valid, I think the best way to understand the word horizo in this context is in relation to it’s primary meaning of marking out the boundaries of a piece of land so as to define it and separate it from the other land around it. Understood in this way, Paul is saying that Yeshua was marked out, chosen from among all of the descendants of David alive at that time, to be God’s son. Having established that Yeshua was of the seed of David by natural descent, a necessary qualification for the Messiah, it was still necessary to determine how he was marked out, in distinction from all the other of David’s descendants then existing, as the chosen one. This marking out was accomplished in consequence of a setting apart, the result of a resurrection from the dead.

Son of God – Two Views

One overarching presupposition of the traditionalist view is that the relationship of the son to God is an eternal relationship and that the title ‘son of God’ implies deity. This has, of course, been the predominate view of the Son in the collective consciousness of Christendom since the 4th century. The problem, though, is that this concept of the Son is not derived from the Hebrew scriptures or even from the NT authors, who relied upon the Hebrew scriptures, but from the so-called early church fathers, Gentile converts who had previously been educated in the schools of Greek philsophy. To them it just was axiomatic that a son of God was one who shared the divine essence, to whatever degree, with the god whose son he was. Being ignorant of the Hebraic concept of son of God they simply brought their presuppositions over into their Christian faith and interpreted the sonship of the Messiah in accord with the Greek thought that still influenced their thinking. But the Hebraic concept, which certainly must be the foundation for our understanding of this sonship rather than the Greek concept, contains no thought of an ontological relationship between the son and God. In the Hebraic concept the relationship is metaphorical and analogous. God chooses a man from among the descendants of David to be ruler for him over his kingdom. This chosen one is given the status or functional position of a vicegerent to God and his relationship to God is analogized as a father/son relationship. Note what Yahweh said concerning the one whom he chooses for this position, paying careful attention to the prepositions used:

“I will be to him for a father and he will be to me for a son . . .” 2 Sam. 7:14

This same explanation of the relationship between God and the one he chooses to reign over his kingdom is repeated three other times, in 1 Chron. 17:13; 22:10 and 28:6. It is also reiterated in Psalm 2, an inauguration psalm, where in v. 7 the newly installed king recounts Yahweh’s former decree:

“He said, ‘To me⁵ you are my son, this day I have become your father.’ “

For those who insist that the title takes on a new dimension in the NT when applied to Yeshua, implying a divine ontology, I would direct your attention to Luke 1:32-33 where the angel Gabriel informs Mary regarding the son to whom she is to give birth:

“³²He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. ³³He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will never end.”

This statement accords perfectly with the Hebraic concept and leaves no room for an ontological relationship⁶, for his ontology is connoted in his relationship to David and his status as ‘son of the Most High’ is seen in the fact that he is destined to reign over the house of Jacob, i.e. God’s kingdom, forever.

Pertinent to the fact that the Messiah will reign forever is Paul’s statement that Yeshua was designated as son of God with power. Although Yeshua was son of God from the moment of his birth, seeing that he was the one whom God chose from the seed of David to reign over his kingdom, it was not until his resurrection from the dead that he was made fit or perfected for his role as ruler over God’s kingdom forever. The promised Messiah would be the final king in the line of David, for his reign was to last forever, and for this reason he had to be endowed with the power of an indestructible life⁷, i.e. immortality.

Putting It All Together

Now back to the flow of Paul’s thought in Romans 1 to put it all together. What we have seen is that Paul, in this passage, is giving the validation for Yeshua being the son of God, i.e. the chosen one from David’s line. Initially he shows that Yeshua’s messiahship is validated by his lineal descent from the seed of David⁸. But something further was needed to set him apart, to mark him out from all the other descendants of David then existing. This, God did by raising him from the dead, which event also endowed him with the power of an indestructible life, a prerequisite for reigning forever. Once it is taken for granted that Paul is working from the Hebraic view of son of God then this interpretation becomes obvious, having before been obscured by the assumption of the Greek view of son of God.

But even presupposing the Greek view and the orthodox doctrine of the two natures, the passage would still be highly ambiguous in that regard. If Paul was trying to advance a concept of two natures in Messiah why the ambiguity? Paul certainly had available to him the language necessary to set forth this idea in clear terms. For example, Paul could easily have said that Yeshua was “tou genomenou ek spermatos Dauid kata ho anthropinos phusis autou, tou horisthentos huiou Theou en dynamei kata theiotes autou ex anastaseos nekron, Iesou Christou tou kyriou hemon.“⁹ If Paul would have written this there would be no debate as to his meaning. Likewise, if the Greek view of son of God had never come to predominate in the collective consciousness of Christendom, there would also be no debate as to Paul’s meaning.

I will close this article with a paraphrase of the passage with explanatory comments in parentheses:

[The good news] regarding his son (son here is appositional to Jesus Christ our Lord in v. 4), the one having come to be from the seed of David by natural descent; the one being marked out (in distinction from all other descendants of David) as 'son of God' with [the] power (of an indestructible life), in consequence of being set-apart, the result of a resurrection from the dead - Jesus Christ our Lord.

Endnotes

1. Jn. 8:15; Rom. 1:3; 4:1; 8:1, 4, 5, 12(2x); 9:3, 5; 1 Cor. 1:26; 10:18; 2 Cor. 1:17; 5:16(2x); 10:2, 3; 11:18; Gal. 4:23, 29; Eph. 6:5; Col. 3:22. ↩︎
2. Possible meanings of the phrase are:
   a) In accordance with the dictates of our mortality – Rom. 8:1, 4, 5, 12
   b) according to natural descent or lineage – Rom. 1:3; 4:1; 9:3, 5; 1 Cor. 10:18
   c) by birth or natural – 1 Cor. 1:26
   d) based on mere outward appearances – 2 Cor. 5:16
   e) in a self-seeking manner – 2 Cor. 1:17; 10:2, 3; 11:18
   f) in the natural manner – Gal. 4:23, 29; Eph. 6:5; Col. 3:22
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3. Other passages which use ‘spirit’ in this manner are Is. 4:4; 19:14; 28:6; Zech. 13:2; Rom. 11:8; 1 Cor. 4:21; 2 Cor. 4:13; 2 Tim. 1:7 ↩︎
4. Lk. 22:22; Acts 2:23; 10:42; 11:29; 17:26, 31; Heb. 4:7 ↩︎
5. The 1st person preposition el, meaning to me, can be connected either with “He said” or with “you are my son.” To connect it with “you are my son” reflects the same thought seen in the original decree “he will be to me for a son. ” This understanding of the text is reflected in the Targum Psalms. ↩︎
6. It is noteworthy that the author of Hebrews, in chapter 1, cites four passages from the Hebrew bible which speak of the status of the one chosen from David’s line, two of which are 2 Sam. 7:14 and Ps. 2:7; the other two are Ps. 45:6-7 and Ps. 110:1, which are ideal depictions of the Davidic king. There is no good reason to suppose that the author of Hebrews has abandoned the Hebraic perspective in favor of a Greek prespective of the Son. All four passages originally spoke of the reigning human king, so a divine ontology is unnecessary for their ultimate fulfillment. If you think Heb. 1:1-3 necessitate then please see my study on Hebrews 1. ↩︎
7. What the author of Hebrews, in 7:15-25, says regarding the priesthood of Messiah is just as relevant to his kingship. ↩︎
8. That the Messiah would be a descendant of David is established in the following passages: Ps. 89:3-4, 28-29, 35-37; Is. 9:6-7; 11:1-2, 10; 16:5; Jer. 23:5-6; 30:9; 33:15-17, 21; Ezek. 34:23-24; 37:24-25; Hosea 3:5. ↩︎
9. Translation: “. . . the one having come to be from the seed of David according to his human nature, the one having been marked out son of God with power according to his divine nature, by a resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.” ↩︎

John 3:31-36 – A Problematic Text

In this article I will examine John 3:31-36, pointing out the problems in the text itself as well as problems with the typical interpretations of the passage. I will propose possible solutions to these problems in an attempt to make the passage make sense. There are inherent problems in this passage whether one approaches the text as a Trinitarian, Biblical Unitarian or Arian.

John 3:31-36 – ³¹“The one who comes from above is superior to all. The one who is from the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is superior to all. ³²He testifies about what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. ³³The one who has accepted his testimony has confirmed clearly that God is truthful. ³⁴For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he does not give the Spirit sparingly. ³⁵The Father loves the Son and has placed all things under his authority. ³⁶The one who believes in the Son has eternal life. The one who rejects the Son will not see life, but God’s wrath remains on him.”

Traditional Interpretation

Traditionally, this passage has been taken as the continued testimony of John the baptizer, which had begun in v. 27. But more recent scholarship has seen vv. 31-36 as the comment of the gospel’s author. I will not rehash that debate here for there are plenty of online sources available for those interested. As for me, I take these verses to be the author’s comments.

Typically, the passage is interpreted as a contrast between Yeshua, the one coming from above, and John, the one from the earth. It is traditionally understood that this speaks of the ontology of these two figures, Yeshua being divine in nature, having literally come from heaven to earth, and John being simply of human nature, having his origin on earth. Sometimes the contrast with Yeshua is expanded to include all of the Hebrew prophets before John. In this view, the witness of John and the other prophets is seen as somehow subpar or limited in some sense in comparison to that of Yeshua’s . Admittedly, this interpretation does appear consistent with the flow of thought of the immediate context. In verses 27-30 John testifies that Yeshua has the greater role to play and that he must become greater while he himself must become less. Then verse 31, in this view, contrasts Yeshua and John (and all the prophets in some commentaries), asserting Yeshua’s superiority to John. Verses 32-34 then tell why Yeshua’s testimony is superior to John’s and the remainder speaks of Yeshua’s position in God’s plan. But, as we will see, this interpretation is not without it’s problems, as it contradicts not only other statements in both the Hebrew scriptures and the NT, but also other statements in the gospel of John itself. For reasons that I do not know, this has seemed to escape the notice of those commentators who take the traditional view, which is nearly all of them.

My Proposed Interpretation

One prominent theme of this gospel is whose testimony should be believed, that of John and Yeshua or that of the Jewish leaders. This is why I have said before that I believe this gospel was written primarily to Jews of the dispersion and only secondarily to Gentiles. The author’s purpose was to show the Jews living outside of the land of Israel why they should accept Yeshua as the chosen king even though the Jerusalem leadership had rejected him. One’s testimony should be received or rejected based on whether their authority to speak was from God or from men. This can be seen in passages which fall into three categories (there is some obvious overlap between these categories): 1) John’s authority and testimony – 1:6-7, 19-27, 29-35, 40; 3:11, 26-30; 5:33-35; 10:41 3. 2) Yeshua’s authority and testimony – 1:14-18; 3:11-12; 4:25-26, 39-42; 5:16-20, 43; 6:38; 7:16-17; 8:14-18, 28, 40, 42-47; 12:49; 14:10-11, 24. 3) The Jewish leadership’s authority and testimony – 1:19-26; 2:18; 3:10, 25; 5:37-47; 7:15-18, 45-52; 8:13, 48-59;9:16, 22, 24, 28-29, 34, 40; 10:12-13; 11:45-57; 12:42-43. We might also add a fourth category, which stands over the other three, that of God’s own testimony – 1:33; 5:36-37; 8:18; 10:25, 32.

I propose that John 3:31-36 should be understood in light of this prominent theme and that all three of these categories are present in the passage. The whole passage seems to be about who has the right to speak for God in an authoritative way, and hence why one testimony should be believed over another. I see this not as a contrast between Yeshua and John, but as a contrast between Yeshua and John on one side and the Jewish leadership on the other side, since the testimonies of Yeshua and John were congruent against the testimony of the Jewish leaders.

Exegesis Of The Text

Critical to the traditional interpretation (TI) is the necessity to take the phrases “comes from above”, “comes from heaven”, and “from the earth” in the most literal sense. The TI conceives of an ontological difference between Yeshua and John (and the former prophets) and so these phrases are taken literally, i.e. Yeshua has actually come from above/heaven and John and the prophets are literally from the earth. This means that Yeshua’s ontology is divine and John’s is human. While the text could be saying this, it seems to me that the presupposition that Yeshua is a divine being must precede that conclusion. Why would anyone suppose that Yeshua, who is clearly portrayed in this gospel as a human being, literally came from heaven, unless they presupposed he was something other than merely human. But, generally, we don’t think that human beings had some kind of existence in heaven before becoming a human person. There is a circularity to the TI – we accept that Yeshua is portrayed in this text as literally coming from heaven because we know he is a divine being, and we know he is a divine being because the text says he literally came from heaven. But what if the phrase “comes from above/heaven” is meant to be taken figuratively? It could then apply to mere human beings, and this is what I think the text is actually saying, notwithstanding other passages in this gospel which speak of Yeshua descending from heaven.¹ In my proposal the phrase applies to John as well as to Yeshua, and we can even include all the Hebrew prophets. Is there any evidence that this could be taken in a figurative sense?

It is highly probable that the words ‘above’ and ‘heaven’ are simply being used as a metonym for God, as in 3:27, 8:23 and 19:11.² It is interesting that the figure in 3:27 occurs just four verses before our passage begins. Could John’s use of the figure have been the impetus for the author’s use of it here? If this is indeed the use of metonyms in v. 31 then the two phrases simply mean comes from God. But what does it mean to come from God? Couldn’t this still leave open the possibility that the one who comes from God literally comes from heaven? Such an idea is completely unnecessary to make sense of the passage. In vv. 1-2 of the same chapter we read this:

“Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.’”

In expressing their belief that Yeshua had “come from God”, does anyone seriously believe that Nicodemus and other members of the Sanhedrin thought that Yeshua literally came from heaven? The very idea is absurd! What they meant was that they recognized that God had raised him up and commissioned him to publicly declare God’s word, and the signs he performed confirmed that God was with him. But this language would apply just as equally to John and all of the former prophets, as well as to the Messiah.

Further evidence that the phrases “comes from above/heaven” are to be taken figuratively is that the passage goes on to explicate their meaning in v. 34, “For the one whom God has sent . . .” Hence, to come from above/heaven means to come from God, which means to be sent by God. But doesn’t being sent by God still leave open the possibility that the one sent by God must have literally been sent from heaven? Only if one presupposes the specific individual in mind to be a divine being, otherwise no. In fact, we have an example, in this very gospel, of one who was sent by God, whom no one imagines came literally from heaven : “A man came, sent from God, whose name was John” (NET). Furthermore, all of the Hebrew prophets are said to have been sent by God – 2 Chron. 24:19: Jer. 7:25; 25:4; 26:5; 29:19; 35:15; 44:4. While the phrases ‘come from above/heaven’ and ‘sent from God’ could imply that the one in question literally came from heaven, such as when God sent an angel for some purpose, there is nothing inherent in these phrases that demands they be understood that way. In the case of angels, we know that they have their origin in heaven and come from there when sent by God. But such is not the case with human beings. So again, the main reason why most commentators take these phrases literally when the subject is Yeshua is because they already think he existed in heaven, as a divine being, before becoming man.

Let’s explore this figurative use further in the gospel of John. In 8:23 Yeshua, in a wrangle with the Pharisees (see v. 13), said, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.” This is an example of Hebrew parallelism where a thought is expressed one way and then repeated in another way. Here, to be of this world is equivalent to being from below, and to be not of this world is equivalent to being from above. This also enables us to see that the thought of being from above is to be understood figuratively. Though one could take the phrase “not of this world” in the most literal sense to understand Yeshua to be saying that he had his origin in another world instead of on earth, we should be cautious, in light of what we have already seen, to jump to that conclusion. In 17:14-16 Yeshua uses this phrase again, not only about himself but also about his disciples:

“I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.”

If the phrase can be easily applied to those who are regarded by all to have had their origin on this earth, even as it is applied to Yeshua, then there is no reason to take it literally or to speak of one’s ontology. Rather, we are free to take it figuratively, to speak, most likely, of one’s allegiance. One can be said to be of the world when their allegiance is toward some one or more of the man-made systems of the world, whether religious or political, that are in opposition to God and his truth. Conversely, one can be said to be not of this world when their allegiance is soley toward God and his truth and in opposition to the man-made systems of this world. With this understanding, we can interpret 8:23 something like this – “You (Pharisees) have your commission from men; I have been sent by God. Your allegiance is to man’s traditions; my allegiance is to God’s truth.”

If we look outside of this gospel we can find even more evidence that the phrases “come from above/heaven” are to be taken figuratively. There is an account, recorded in all three synoptic gospels,³ in which the religious authorities question Yeshua as to who gave him authority to do the things he was doing. Yeshua turned the tables on them and asked a question of them, “The baptism of John, was it from heaven or from men?” Now, when Yeshua said “the baptism of John” he really, in effect, means John himself, for John’s activity cannot be thought of separately from himself. Yeshua’s question amounts to this – who commissioned John to do what he did, God or man? So we see the same idiom that we find in John 3:31 used here of John.

But what of the phrase, “the one being from the earth is from the earth, and speaks from the earth.” So, taking the former phrase in the figurative sense to mean ‘from God’ we should understand the phrase “from the earth” figuratively to mean ‘from man’. The whole phrase could mean something like “the one who is sent from man is taught of man, and speaks the words of man.” If this is what the author means, and I think it is, then we should not think that this refers to John or to any of the Hebrew prophets before him.⁴ In the context of the gospel as a whole, it can only refer to the religious leaders who were opposed to the ministries of both John and Yeshua. To be from the earth corresponds to being from below in 8:23 and from men in the three synoptic passages regarding the baptism of John. Therefore, all of this evidence taken together should suffice to convince any unbiased mind that John 3:31 could apply to John as well as Yeshua.

Now, someone may object to this interpretation based on the fact that the text says, “The one coming from above/heaven” and “the one who is from the earth.“ Does this preclude the idea that these phrases could refer to more than one person, namely Yeshua? Absolutely not, for the grammar of the passage certainly allows for these phrases to be referencing more than one person. This Greek construction of a masculine singular present participle preceded by the definite article, which is quite common in this gospel, can denote either a single person or a type or category of persons. In the second class it refers to anyone who is performing the action of the verb. For example, in 6:47, “the one believing” means anyone who believes, and in 6:57 “the one feeding on me” means anyone who feeds on me. In 7:18, “the one speaking from himself” means anyone who speaks from himself and in 12:45 “the one looking at me” means anyone who looks at me. So, in our study passage , “the one coming from above/heaven” means anyone who comes from above/heaven and “the one being from the earth” means anyone who is from the earth. This means that the phrase “the one coming from above” need not be understood as referring to Yeshua alone but also to others who, like John, fit the category.

The testimonies of Yeshua and John are sometimes spoken of together as of the same quality and against the religious leaders. Earlier in chapter 3, in his conversation with Nicodemus, Yeshua said, “I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.” Who was Yeshua referring to when he said “we”? Perhaps his disciples? I don’t think that at this early point in Yeshua’s ministry that this could be said of his disciples. The more reasonable conclusion is that he was referring to John, in which case, he seems to put their testimonies on the same level.

Another passage in this gospel that seems to imply that the testimonies of John and Yeshua are qualitatively equal, but which is often obscured by inadequate English translation, is 5:31-37. Here is a typical English translation:

“If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. 32 There is another who testifies in my favor, and I know that his testimony about me is true. 33 “You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth. 34 Not that I accept human testimony; but I mention it that you may be saved. 35 John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light.36 “I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to finish—the very works that I am doing—testify that the Father has sent me. 37 And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me.” NIV

Any astute student of scripture should immediately see some problems with a face value reading of this translation. For example, is it really true that if Yeshua testifies about himself his testimony is not true? Such a conclusion is obviously wrong. If Yeshua testified about himself that he is the Messiah, would that testimony not be true? And what about v. 34, does Yeshua really not accept testimony from human beings? The very thought is absurd. Did he not send out his apostle to do that very thing, to testify about him. Another problem is who is being referred to in v. 32? Most commentators say the Father, but is that the best way to take it?

I will say first that v. 32 is better understood to be referring to John, not the Father. As I will show, it seems to me that Yeshua is showing a progression in the testimony about himself, from the least persuasive to the most persuasive. This has nothing to do with the content value of the testimony in each case or the ontology of the one testifying, but of the persuasive value in each case. In v. 31, Yeshua, talking to the Jewish leaders, admits that his testimony about himself would not be valid, that is, in their eyes, because anyone can assert something about themself. This is the least persuasive testimony. He then says, in v. 32, that there is someone else who testifies concerning him and his testimony is valid. This is John, as v. 33 confirms. John’s testimony is more valid than Yeshua’s because it is always more persuasive if, after asserting something about yourself, someone else, especially someone recognized as a prophet of God, confirms your self testimony. Verse 33 refers back to 1:19-28. Verse 34 should read, “The testimony I receive (from John) is not from man.” This is a better way to take the words, for the reason already given above, but also because if John’s ministry was not from men, as seen in the synoptic passages already noted, then why should we think his testimony was from man? From man, here, obviously means of human origin, as it does in Matt. 21:25, and has nothing to do with the ontology of the one testifying. Yeshua is actually confirming that John’s testimony was from God, not from himself. If it was from God, why should we think that it was deficient in some way simply because it was delivered by a human being? Verse 35 speaks further of John, calling him a lamp who gave light to Israel for a time. This language certainly implies that God was at work in the ministry of John and that his testimony about Yeshua was just what God raised him up to declare. Then in v. 36 Yeshua says that he has a testimony that is greater than John’s. The NIV gives the right sense with the word ‘weightier’, for this testimony is greater only in the sense that it is more compelling than John’s. So John’s testimony was more persuasive than Yeshua’ own testimony, but still more compelling was the very works that Yeshua was doing, which the Father had given him to do. This can only refer to the miraculous signs and wonders that Yeshua performed, which was, in fact, God giving testimony that he had sent Yeshua {see Acts 2:22}. So this passage is further evidence that John’s testimony should not be regarded as from the earth, but from above.

Turning back to our passage in ch. 3, let’s see if the remainder of what is said about “the one coming from above” can apply to John, and for that matter to all of the former prophets. First, the one who is from above, i.e. from God, is said to be “above all.” Those who take this to refer to Yeshua alone understand the phrase to speak of Yeshua’s authority over all others, as the Lord from heaven. But in what sense could John and all the prophets be said to be “above all”? The word ‘all‘ need not be taken in the most literal sense but only of all within a certain category, i.e. those who publically speak a message. In this context it would refer to the Pharisees and teachers of the Law, the religious leaders. The one who has been commissioned by God, to speak on his behalf, has a higher authority than those who are taught in the traditions of men and are authorized by men to speak. If the two should have contradictory testimonies, then the one sent from God should be believed over the one authorized by men. We can know that “above all” should be understood like this, rather than in a lordship sense, because of what immediately follows in v.32: “He testifies to what he has seen and heard.” This shows that “above all” is associated with the testimony of the one coming from heaven, not to a superior ontology.

So lets look at v.32; can this be said of John and the prophets? The typical interpretation, which attributes this to Yeshua alone, takes this as saying that Yeshua testified to what he had seen and heard while in heaven, prior to his incarnation. While this could be a plausible way to take the text, if one already presupposes Yeshua to have pre-existed as a divine being, it suffers from at least two problems. First, I am not aware of anywhere in this gospel where Yeshua is portrayed as actually speaking about things he had seen and heard while in heaven, as a divine being. Second, we have an explicit statement of Yeshua, in this gospel, telling the Jewish leaders just in what sense they should understand him to have received his message. In 8:40 Yeshua says that he is “a man who has told you the truth I heard from God.” Notice how this statement is without any ambiguity; it is clear and not open to more than one interpretation. Now compare it to other statements either of Yeshua or the author of the gospel which seem, on the surface anyway, to say that Yeshua literally came from heaven. Are not these kinds of declarations ambiguous? Are they not open to figurative interpretations? But it can’t be both ways. Either Yeshua was telling the Israelites of the things he had personal knowledge of because he had personally lived in heaven as a divine being or he was a man who was telling the Israelites the truth he heard (i.e. learned) from God,⁵ just like Moses and all the prophets after him.

John is clearly portrayed in this gospel as testifying to what he had seen and heard. He heard God tell him, “The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.” And he saw the Spirit descend upon Yeshua at his baptism, and so he testified.⁶ The same can be said for all of the prophets before John, they testified to what they had seen and heard. The primary means through which God communicated his word to the prophets was by visions and dreams.⁷ They saw things in the spirit and heard God tell them what to speak to the people. In Jeremiah 23, God is rebuking false prophets and, in doing so, reveals something about true prophets in v. 18:

“But which of them (false prophets) has stood in the council of Yahweh to see and to hear his word? Who has listened and heard his word?”

So the prophets were said to have, as it were, stood in the council of God, where they would both see and hear his word. They then testified to the people what they had seen and heard.

The last clause of v. 32, “but no one accepts his testimony” is also true of both John and the prophets. The phrase is evidently hyperbolic, as v. 33 shows, and means that many did not accept his testimony, especially the Jewish leaders. This has always been true of all who were sent by God to proclaim his word.⁸

Verse 34 states that whoever is sent by God “speaks the words of God.” Surely no one would seriously argue that this can only apply to Yeshua. When John saw Yeshua passing by and proclaimed, “Look, the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of ther world,” was he speaking from his own mind or was he speaking the word of God? We have already seen that John was indeed a man sent from God and, as such, must have spoken the words of God.⁹ But this is also true of all the Hebrew prophets, who, being sent from God, spoke the word of God to the people.¹⁰

We will consider next the final clause of v. 34, “for he gives the spirit without measure.” Now surely, this phrase can only apply to Yeshua. Was not Yeshua given the Spirit of God without measure while John and the prophets were given only a portion of the Spirit? This is a prevalent idea, but the problem is that it is derived solely from this verse, and the verse is just too ambiguous to be certain of it’s meaning. The Greek reads simply “for not out of a measure he gives the spirit.” The word ‘for’ (Gr. gar) points to the reason for the preceding statement, i.e. the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God because he gives the spirit without measure. But the ‘he’ is ambiguous; does it refer to the one whom God has sent or, perhaps, to God? A number of English versions add the word ‘God’ in an effort to help the verse make sense. But it is not certain at all that the ‘he’ refers to God and not to the one whom God has sent. And if my proposal is correct, how then would the statement be understood?

Although the clause has a subject, a verb and a direct object, something seems incomplete about it. Some versions add the words “to him” to make it more intelligible, which, along with the addition of the word ‘God’, results in “for God gives the Spirit to him without measure.” It is from this uncertain translation of this verse alone that the idea comes that Yeshua was given the Spirit in a fuller degree than the prophets. There is no other verse that I am aware of that states such an idea. But really the flow of the passage seems to favor the “he” as referring to the one who is sent by God. The problem with that view is that it’s difficult to see exactly what it would mean that the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God because he gives the Spirit without measure. So if we understand it as “God gives the Spirit to him without measure” then we must say that it would not refer only to Yeshua, for, as I have already shown, all of this language is just as easily applicable to John and the prophets as it is to Yeshua. So then the verse would be saying that God gives the Spirit without measure to those whom he sends, who speak his words. Though it is not clear exactly what “without measure” would mean, this may be expressing a similar sentiment as 2 Pet. 1:20-21:

“Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

Whenever we do see the Spirit being given to the prophets in the Hebrew scriptures, we never read that the Spirit was given to them in some limited sense.¹¹ In fact, Luke’s gospel says that John was “filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth.”¹² There is no good reason to think that Yeshua of Nazareth was endued with the Holy Spirit in any greater way than were the former prophets. I think that for trinitarians, who see Yeshua as a divine person, it becomes necessary to have him set-apart from all merely “human” prophets, since in their thinking he is ontologically superior.

As for verses 35-36, these do speak exclusively of the son, Yeshua the Messiah, and can be taken as the author’s terse summation of the testimony of John about him.

My Summation

I see three possible ways to interpret this passage, each depending upon one’s presupposition about the ontology of Yeshua of Nazareth.

1. In this traditional interpretation 3:31-36 is a continuation of John’s testimony regarding Yeshua which began at verse 27. John contrasts himself with Yeshua on ontological grounds, declaring Yeshua to have literally come from heaven, thereby implying pre-existence, and himself to have come from the earth, a mere mortal man. Yeshua is superior to John and all the prophets because of his superior divine nature. Yeshua testifies to what he has seen and heard in his prior existence in heaven, while John can testify only of earthly things. Yeshua alone speaks the words of God and has been given the Spirit without measure, unlike John and all the previous prophets, who were given only a portion of the Spirit. Verses 35-36 sum up the importance of the son role in God’s purpose. Both trintarians and unitarians of the arian persuasion typically hold this interpretation of the passage.

2. This interpretation views vv. 31-36 not as John’s testimony but as that of the author. The passage is particularly about Yeshua, i.e. he is the one who has come from above, who testifies to what he has seen and heard, who has been sent from God and who speaks the words of God, and who has been given the spirit without measure. The Father has chosen Yeshua as his son and has placed all things pertaining to the kingdom in his hands. Immortality in the kingdom of God is attainable by an allegiant faith in him. Those who reject God’s chosen one will be rejected by God. This view does not demand a literal interpretation of the phrases “comes from above/heaven” and “is of the earth”, nor depend upon an ontological distinction between Yeshua and John or between Yeshua and his opponents. Yeshua is compared not to John but to the religious teachers of Jerusalem – Yeshua is from God while they are from man. Yeshua speaks the words of God while they speak the traditions of men. In this view all of the language that is used of Yeshua could readily apply to John and the other prophets, but they are simply not in view in this passage; it is focused solely on Yeshua. This interpretation of the passage fits a biblical unitarian theology in which Yeshua is not divine but simply human.

3. In this final view, Johns’ testimony stops at verse 30 and 31-36 are the comments of the author. Verses 31-34 are his comments on John and John’s testimony about Yeshua, as compared to that of the religious leaders. This is why all Jews should believe that Yeshua is the promised son of David, the Messiah, because the testimony of John, who was held by all the people to be a prophet of God,¹³ is higher than that of the religious teachers and leaders who rejected Yeshua. John was from God and spoke the words of God, while they were commissioned by men and spoke from their own traditions. This view does not seek to elevate John above Yeshua in any way. Though John and Yeshua are equal as to ontology and as to their being sent by God and in speaking what they had seen and heard from God, Yeshua, as the son, the chosen one from David’s line, is superior in status to John, who merely prepared the way for Yeshua. Verses 35-36 can be seen as the author’s terse summation of both John’s and Yeshua’s testimony. This view also fits a biblical unitarian position in which Yeshua is a simple human person.

Endnotes

1. John 3:13 and 6:32-58 – In John 6 Yeshua says some 5 times that he “came down from heaven.” Again, without the presupposition that Yeshua was something other than simply human, this language can be understood figuratively. To come down from heaven can signify either that something is given by God – see James 1:17; 3:15-17 – or that something which has been predestined to happen in God’s plan becomes a reality in this world – see Rev. 21:2, 10. The passage in 3:13 can be understood as referring to Yeshua’s future descent from heaven at his second coming. We could read it like this: “No one has ever ascended into heaven except the one (seen by Daniel) coming from heaven – the son of man.” The point would be that in order for a human person to descend from heaven he must first have ascended into heaven – see Dan. 7:13. ↩︎
2. See also Dan.4:25; Matt. 16:1; Mk. 8:11; 11:29-32; Lk. 15:18, 21; James 1:17; 3:15-17; 1 Pet. 1:12. ↩︎
3. Matt. 21:23-27; Mk. 11:27-33; Lk. 20:1-8 ↩︎
4. Albert Barnes’ comment on this passage is typical, but unsatifying:
   “Speaketh of the earth – His teaching is inferior to that of him who comes from heaven. It is comparatively obscure and imperfect, not full and clear, like the teaching of him who is from above. This was the case with all the prophets; and even with John the Baptist, as compared with the teaching of Christ.”
   This is quite a ridiculous statement. These are the same prophets whose words Barnes’, no doubt, believed to be the inspired word of God. ↩︎
5. See John 7:16; 8:26; 12:49-50; 14:24;15:15 ↩︎
6. John 1:32-34 ↩︎
7. Numbers 12:6 ↩︎
8. 2 Chron. 24:19; 36:15-16 ↩︎
9. John 1:6; see also Lk. 3:2 ↩︎
10. See Jer. 1:2, 9-10; 23:22, 28; 43:1; Ezek. 2:7-3:4; Hosea 6:5 ↩︎
11. See Num. 11:17; 2 Sam. 23:2; Is. 48:16; 63:10-12; Ezek. 2:2; Micah 3:8; Zech. 7:12 ↩︎
12. Luke 1:15 ↩︎
13. See Matt. 21:26 ↩︎

A Rebuttal To Anthony Rogers’ Video “The Absolute Equality of the Lord Jesus Christ with God the Father”

In a recent video, released on 9/20/23, Anthony Rogers presents what he thinks is another strong scriptural proof of the full deity of Yeshua – the salutations in Paul’s letters. This video presentation is typical of much of trinitarian apologetics and of Rogers’ penchant for over exaggerating the biblical data. Rogers’ obsession with establishing biblical support for a plurality of persons in God constrains him to find such support in just about any verse of scripture that affords him even the smallest opening. Here is the link to the 8 minute video if you want to hear it for yourself.

The Claim

Rogers’ argument in this video amount to this: In the salutations of Paul’s letters to the churches¹, which typically follow the pattern “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,” Yeshua is being put on a level of absolute equality with the Father. This is supposed to be established by the fact that Paul connects the two persons, God our Father and the Lord Yeshua the Messiah, by the Greek word kai (and), in a prayer for grace and peace, which is governed by the single preposition apo (from). Rogers confidently asserts that Paul’s use of this syntax thereby makes Yeshua the co-equal source of grace and peace and that this is “an undeniable grammatical fact . . . that is true no matter what self-proclaimed church or . . . authority says to the contrary. This is what the word of God teaches.” Besides this being a supposed undeniable fact of the grammar, Rogers also appeals to the former Princeton professor of Reformed Theology, B. B. Warfield. Presumably, Warfield was the first to notice this “undeniable fact” and Rogers was deeply impressed by this supposed proof of Yeshua’s full divinity when he first encountered it.

The Refutation

The first thing I want to address is Rogers’ appeal to Warfield, as the source from which he gained this understanding. Rogers seems somewhat disingenuous when, after praising Warfield as a stalwart defender of the inspiration of the scriptures and of the Trinity and Deity of Christ and referring to him as “the Lion of Princeton”, he then states that he is not appealing to him as an authority but simply letting us know that he derived this argument from him. If that is the case, one wonders why he went on so about Warfield. That Warfield was a well educated Princeton graduate who ardently defended orthodoxy, tells me nothing about the validity of this argument. What it might rather suggest is that, like many of today’s apologists, Warfield, being committed to both the inspiration of scripture and the orthodox creeds, was inclined to read the doctrines of orthodoxy into scripture, in his defense of both.

The next thing I want to address is Rogers’ claim that Paul’s salutations functioned in a creedal way. This makes little sense to me since it has been noticed by researchers of ancient epistolography that the salutations in Paul’s letters follow the common practice of the time for letter openings, which included who the letter was from, who the letter recipients were, and a greeting, sometimes accompanied with a wish for health and prosperity {see 3 Jn. 1-2}. Paul adapted his greetings to his Christian recipients, changing the customary chairein (greetings) to charis (perhaps here in the general sense of blessing) for the Gentiles in the congregation and then added eirene (the Gr. equivalent to shalom) for the Jewish members of the congregation. This seems to me to simply be Paul’s adaption of the customary letter opening, with a wish for blessing and shalom to be upon them from God and Yeshua. Rogers also intimated that this amounts to a prayer, but I don’t see that it has to be understood as a formal type prayer but only perhaps as a desire or wish, or perhaps as a pronouncement of blessing similar to Num. 6:22-27. It is even possible, due to the lack of a verb in the phrase causing ambiguity, that it could be read as “Grace is yours (or is upon you) and peace from . . .” {see Rom. 5:1-2}. In any case, it is likely that Paul standardized this form of salutation in all of his letters as a sort of signature.

Next, I would point out that in Rogers’ zeal to make Yeshua equal to the Father in deity, he totally misses the obvious, i.e. that in these salutations God and our Father are being equated, so that the one just is the other, and that God is being distinguished from the Lord Yeshua Messiah. To any unbiased mind it should be obvious that what Paul meant when he said “God our Father” is “God, our Father” or “God, who is our Father”, making God numerically identical to our Father. It should be equally as obvious that the connecting word kai (and) is not connecting the two persons together into one being but distinguishing them from each other. The distinction being made is not between the Father and Son in a trinitarian sense, for then we might have expected Paul to have said, “Grace to you and peace from God the Father and God the Son.” The phrase God our Father cannot be construed as referring to one member of a trinity, the Father, as God, thus leaving open the possibility that the Lord Yeshua Messiah is also God. If that is what Paul wanted to convey there are a number of ways he could have done so to make it clear, as the example above shows. Instead, Paul uses language that goes decidedly against the notion that the Father and Yeshua are both to be equated with God. In referring to the Lord Yeshua as the Christ (i.e. Messiah) Paul, as a Jew, could only have meant what every Jew would have understood by the title, that is the anointed one of God. In the Hebrew bible the word messiah (or christ in the LXX) always refers to a human person chosen and exalted by God, never to a divine person. If Paul meant for his readers to understand by his words that the Father and the Lord Yeshua are associated together as co-members of a Triune God, he could not have been less clear. One would have to presuppose such a unity in order to see it in these words.

But what about Rogers’ claim that the single preposition (from) requires us to understand that the Father and Yeshua are “the co-equal source of grace and peace,” thus making them co-equal in deity? Rogers does not say so explicitly, but he certainly does strongly imply that this is some grammatical rule when he says it is “an undeniable grammatical fact“. This is a perfect example of the kind of exaggeration that trinitarian apologists in general, and Rogers in particular, are prone to. Grammar and syntax are often appealed to as establishing beyond any doubt the doctrines of the Trinity and deity of Christ. This is much like the overstated claims of the so-called Granville Sharp Rule², which in reality is much ado about nothing. Even Greek scholars, in their fervor to uphold orthodoxy, sometimes overstate the significance of grammatical factors in texts that bear on the relationship between God and the Lord Yeshua. Bill Mounce, in his Basics of Biblical Greek Workbook, wrote, concerning this construction in Paul’s salutations:

Notice that [apo] is not repeated before [kurios]. This is exegetically significant in Paul’s salutations. If Paul had thought of “God” and the “Lord” as two different entities, he would have had to repeat the preposition. The fact that he doesn’t shows that he views both as the same entity.

But immediately, as if he realized he overstated the case, he added:

It is probably pushing the grammar too far to say that Paul equates Jesus with God, but it does show that Paul views them working in absolute harmony with each other, both being a single agent of grace and peace . . .

So is it true that if Paul thought of God and the Lord Yeshua as two different entities he would have had to repeat the preposition? If so, does this mean that the inclusion of a second preposition in this kind of salutation would explicitly differentiate between God and the Lord Yeshua? If so, then 2 John 3 must be the cause of great consternation to trinitarian defenders³:

“Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Son of the Father, in truth and love.”

According to Mounce, John must have conceived of God the Father and Yeshua the Messiah as two distinct agents of grace, mercy and peace. Nevertheless, I can hear trinitarian apologists now, averring that Paul shows the unity of essence while John shows the distinction in persons. Trinitarians can’t have it both ways; if they are going to make these grandiose claims for the grammar and syntax then they should apply it both ways.

But is this assertion by Warfield, Mounce and Rogers, that when two or more nouns are governed by a single preposition that the author is trying to convey a conceptual unity between the objects, establishing them as a single agent, really a hard and fast rule of Greek grammar?

In an article by James Davis titled Single Prepositions with Multiple Objects in Matthew 3:11 and John 3:5: An Exegetical Argument Running Amok?, he gives a number of examples from the NT which show there is no real difference between whether a single preposition governs multiple nouns or each noun receives it’s own preposition. A good case in point is 1 John 5:6:

“Jesus Christ-He is the One who came by water and blood, not by water only, but by water and by blood.” 

We note that John twice combines the two objects water and blood together with kai, the first time with a single preposition and the second time repeating the preposition. This indicates that there is no distinction between these two constructions, unless one is ready to advocate for a change in meaning between the two phrases. Let’s look at another case:

“Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, ‘Why didn’t you bring him in?’ ” John 7:45

“So Judas came to the garden, guiding a detachment of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and from the Pharisees.” John 18:3

In the first verse we have two nouns governed by a single preposition, and in the second verse the same two nouns are governed each by it’s own preposition, and this by the same author in the same book. Is there any theological significance to this? Does the author mean two different things by this? The answer is obviously not. One more example should suffice.

“And beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” Luke 24:27

“He said to them, ‘This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.’ “ Luke 24:44

Once again, from the same author and just seventeen verses apart, we see that the same two objects can be governed either by a single preposition or each by it’s own preposition. Is Luke trying to join Moses and the Prophets in a conceptual unity in the second verse, but conceiving of them separately in the first? Actually this shows that an author had freedom to repeat the preposition or not, without changing the meaning.

Davis, on page 8 of his article, speaks of Nigel Turner’s work in addressing this phenomenon, observing:

Turner is most helpful in describing the situation in biblical and nonbiblical Greek in stating that in both cases repetition and nonrepitition is common. He writes, “Both repetition and omission of the preposition before two or more phrases connected by kai, is found in Ptol. pap. and NT.” In nonbiblical Greek, Turner states that Polyb. [Polybius (II-III BC)] is “fond of repeating the preposition” but “by far the greater majority of instances in the Ptol. Papyri, especially in the unofficial style of writing, the preposition is not repeated.”

Davis’ own conclusion in his article throws light on this aspect of Greek syntax:

While not an exhaustive study, these examples should give one pause in assigning exegetical linkage or distinction when interpreting objects of prepositions based on single or multiple preposition constructions. Anyone who has seriously tried to translate the Old Testament into English has felt the tension between being faithful to the Hebrew or Aramaic text and the very unnatural English expression that can be created by strings of multiple prepositions. The decision to leave them all or omit some is usually due to translation philosophy and how much the natural English is strained. When omission is done it is not to create a special conceptual unity to communicate the same event or category but to express a concept in natural idiom. Even if a translator or author would have a native Semitic background he would probably want to the best of his ability get the text into natural form of the receptor language whatever it was. It is hoped that the raising of this red flag would spur further research and discussion to better understand how prepositions are used in the New Testament and what they do or do not communicate. As A.T. Robertson cautioned, freedom rather than rule seems to govern this aspect of Greek syntax.

In light of the above examples and the many more that could be shown, it is clear that this supposed “undeniable grammatical fact” is no such thing and is wide open for debate.

So if one does not presuppose the Lord Yeshua to be co-equal God with the Father, but holds to a simple human christology, and does not see the use of the single preposition as denoting absolute equality, how could the language of Paul’s salutations be understood? I would say that Paul has indeed paired together God our Father and the Lord Yeshua the Messiah in a way that creates a conceptual unity, but not as a single agent or even as two co-equal agents, but as primary and secondary agents. Just because Paul says that grace and peace come to us from God our Father and the Lord Yeshua, whether with the second preposition or not, does not entail that we understand them to be equal in every way. These things can come to us from God, as the primary source, through Yeshua, as the secondary source. In fact, this is the usual way that the NT authors spoke of how God’s blessings come to his people – they come from God through Yeshua the Messiah⁴. One relevant passage in this regard is John 1:17:

“For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

Here we are told that the law was given to Israel through Moses, and that grace and truth came to Israel through Yeshua the Messiah. This presents both Moses and Yeshua as secondary agents, acting on behalf of God, who is the implied primary source. A comparison of these two agents of God is very instructive with regard to the language used of them in scripture. Such a comparison becomes even more pertinent if one considers the prophet of Deut. 18:17-19 to be referring to the Lord Yeshua, as at least the author of Acts does {Acts 3:222-26; 7:37}. If so, then Yeshua is an agent like Moses and we should expect to see similarities between the two, for example, they were both workers of wonders and they both heard from God and spoke his word to the people. But the similarity can further be seen in how their agency is described. Just like Yeshua, Moses’ role in the giving of the law to Israel is expressed in terms of secondary agency – see Ex. 31:18; Lev. 10:11; 26:46; Num. 31:21; Deut. 1:3; 6:1; Judg. 3:4; 1 Chron. 22:13; 2 Chron. 33:8; 34:14; Ezra 7:6; Neh. 8:14; 9:14; 10:29. But this did not prevent biblical authors from also expressing Moses’ role as if he were the primary source, even calling the law which God gave them the law of Moses – see Deut. 4:45; 33:4; Josh. 8:31-32; 23:6; 2 Kings 23:25; Dan. 9:11; Lk. 24:44; John 7:19, 23; Acts 15:5; Heb. 10:28.

In this same way, we can understand our Lord Yeshua to be the secondary source through whom the grace of God comes to us, even when scripture seems to speak of his agency in the language of a primary or co-primary source – see Matt. 1:21; Lk. 19:10; Jn. 2:19; 8:31; 11:25; 1 Cor. 16:23; Eph. 5:23; Phil. 3:20-21; 2 Thess. 2:16; 2Pet. 1:1b, 2; Jude 21; and of course, all of Paul’s salutations.

Endnotes

1. Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:3; 2 Cor. 1:2; Gal. 1:3; Eph. 1:2; Phil. 1:2; Col. 1:2b; 1 Thess. 1:1c; 2 Thess. 1:2; 1 Tim. 1:2b; 2 Tim. 1:2b; Titus 1:4b.
2. For an explanation and rebuttal of the Granville Sharp Rule see this article here.
3. Another passage which should cause consternation for trinitarian defenders is Rev. 1:4b-5a: “Grace to you and peace from the one who is , and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness.” Here we have a salutation from the author invoking grace and peace for the seven churches of Asia from God, the Father, the seven spirits before his throne, which most expositors take as a reference to the Holy Spirit, and Jesus Christ. Nearly all orthodox expositors see in this passage a clear reference to the Trinity, but it should be noted that each of the objects receives it’s own preposition. If Rogers wants to be consistent he would have to say that this passage makes a separation between the three objects, which according to orthodoxy are supposed to be co-equal.
4. In the NT, the blessings and gifts of God are said to come to us in, through or by Yeshua the Messiah. In these passages God, the Father, is the implied primary source, even if not explicitly stated: John 1:17; Rom. 3:24; 5:1, 11, 21; 6:23; 7:25; 8:39; 1 Cor. 1:2, 4; 15:22, 57; 2 Cor. 1:5, 20; 5:18-19; Gal. 3:14, 26; Eph. 1:3, 5; 2:10; 3:11; 4:32; Phil. 1:11; Col. 1:22; 2:10; 1 Thess. 5:9; 2 Tim. 1:1, 9; Titus 3:6; Heb. 13:21.

The Postponement Of The Kingdom – A Response To Preterists And Anti-Missionary Rabbis

A little known concept, at least among the Christian circles I have been associated with most of my life, is the concept of the postponement of the kingdom. This concept says that the kingdom of God could have been established at the time of Yeshua’s ministry in the first century but, due to the conditions not being met, was postponed until an unknown point of time in the future. If this concept is accurate it means that the kingdom of God has not been inaugurated in the earth. This concept is in contradistinction to the popular belief of Christendom that the kingdom of God was indeed inaugurated in the first century and has been a reality in the world ever since.

In this article I will examine the biblical case for this idea and show how it provides an answer to preterism/replacement theology and to one of the main arguments of the anti-missionary rabbis.

Preterism is the belief that much (partial preterism) or all (full preterism) of biblical prophecy concerning the Messiah and Israel has already been fulfilled, namely in the first century. A sister belief to preterism is replacement theology, which teaches that God has fully rejected national Israel and that the ‘church’ has replaced Israel as God’s chosen people. In this theology all of the promises given to Israel as a people have been transferred to the church, although in a spiritual rather than literal sense.

Anti-missionary rabbis are Jewish rabbis who engage in polemical attacks against Christianity in an effort to dissuade Jews from becoming Christians and to sway doubting Christians to reject the faith. These attacks are often quite virulent and vitriolic, and can be rather persuasive to those who are not as well informed about things. Much of their assaults are focused on catholic Christianity and it’s widely accepted beliefs, such as the Trinity, the deity of the Messiah, penal substitutionary atonement, and hell as eternal conscious torment, thinking that this is what all Christians believe. But, in fact, not all who call themselves ‘Christian’ would hold to these doctrines. Moreover, their attacks are also leveled against the person of Yeshua, denying that he is the Messiah foretold in their scriptures. The main argument in this regard is that Yeshua did not fulfill the many prophecies in the Tanakh relating to the Messiah, such as reigning on the throne of David, regathering the dispersed Israelites, throwing off from Israel the yoke of oppression of foreign nations, subjecting all the nations to Israel, bringing in world peace and the cessation of war, etc. Instead, Yeshua was killed by the Romans as a dissident and his followers invented the religion of Christianity in his name.

Later we will see how the concept of the postponement of the kingdom provides the only reasonable answer to both the preterism/replacement theology and the main argument of the anti-missionary rabbis.

The Kingdom Postponed

Let me say first that the NT does not explicitly use the term ‘postponed’ in connection with the kingdom. Rather, the concept is derived from inference, i.e. from other things that are explicitly said. The Oxford online English dictionary defines the word postpone as “cause or arrange for (something) to take place at a time later than that first scheduled.” This definition fits well the data which we can glean from the synoptic gospels, mainly. This data can be boiled down to four main points:

1.The establishment of the kingdom was proclaimed as “at hand” or “near” by
John the baptizer, as well as by Yeshua and his apostles, early on in his
ministry.
2. The establishment of the kingdom was contingent.
3. The Jewish leaders rejected Yeshua as their king and led the people to do likewise.
4. After Yeshua was removed from the earth, his loyal followers are found to be in state of waiting for the establishment of the kingdom.

Because points 1. and 3. are generally not contested by anyone I will focus my attention on showing the validity of 2. and 4.

The Contingency of the Kingdom

Matt. 23:37-39 – “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. ³⁸Look, your house is left to you desolate. ³⁹For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’ ”

Here Yeshua expresses his constant prior desire to take his role as king in Jerusalem. The imagery of a hen gathering her chicks under her wings is an apt metaphor for a king bringing his people under the shadow of his care and protection. This, Yeshua longed to do for the people of Jerusalem but they were unwilling to acknowledge him as their king. So the question must be asked – what would have happened if they had been willing? The answer should be obvious – if they had been willing he would have become their king and would have provided the protection and care they needed. This clearly shows that Yeshua’s entering into his divine right as Israel’s king was contingent upon the response of the Jerusalem leadership. It also shows that the kingdom of God would have then been established if this condition had been met.

The phrase “Look, your house is left for you desolate,” also speaks of the result of the unwillingness of Jerusalem’s leaders to acknowledge Yeshua as the chosen son of David. What house is Yeshua referring to? This depends on if the desolate or forsaken condition spoken of is something that was a present reality at that time or something which would ensue. The word left translates the Greek verb aphietai from the lemma aphiemi, which has a wide semantic range, in which is the meaning of to be left remaining in a place or condition. This meaning can also be found in Matt. 24:2, 40-41. If Yeshua is saying that the house, whatever house that may be, is being left desolate, i.e. will continue to be or remain desolate, then we have a clue as to what house he is referring to. I think it is safe to say that most commentators would presume the house refers to the temple, since the temple was located in Jerusalem. But if aphietai is to be understood as I have suggested, then it can’t be referring to the temple, for the temple was not desolate at that time, and would not be for another 40 yrs or so. If the condition of desolation was a condition this house was already in when Yeshua spoke these words, then the temple does not fit. But what other house, uniquely associated with Jerusalem, was in a desolate state at the time Yeshua said this? It could only refer to the royal house of David, which had a unique association with the city of Jerusalem. At the time of Yeshua the royal house of David had been abandoned for nearly six hundred years. No king from David’s line had sat on the throne in Jerusalem since king Zedekiah was carried off by Nebuchadnezzar and the city of Jerusalem was destroyed. But God had promised to restore the fallen tent of David {Amos 9:11}, no doubt, by raising up the Messiah {Jer. 23:5-6}. Because of the unwillingness of the Jerusalem leadership to acknowledge Yeshua as their king, the restoration of the Davidic throne, and hence the kingdom, which would have occurred then, was postponed, and Jerusalem’s royal house would remain desolate, until some time in the future when Jerusalem would say of Yeshua, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

Luke 19:41-44 – As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it ⁴²and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. ⁴³The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. ⁴⁴They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”

Once again, Yeshua laments over Jerusalem, i.e. it’s inhabitants and their leaders, for their failure to recognize what would bring about the peace they so longed for. It is likely that the peace referred to is that peace which will be experienced by Israel in the Messianic age according to Is. 9:6-7; 52:7; 54:10-14; 66:12 and Mic. 5:2-5. Again, the implication is clear – because they did not recognize the time of their visitation {see Lk. 1:68 -79, particularly vv. 68 and 78} the peace they could have known is withheld and instead they would be destroyed. But what if they had recognized that God had visited them by raising up his chosen one, Yeshua, to be their king? This cleary shows again that the restoration of the throne of David and of the kingdom of God was contingent on the people’s ability to recognize Yeshua as their king, and their day as the appointed time of visitation. But why did the Jerusalem leadership fail to recognize these things? This leads to our next passages.

Matt. 17:10-13 – The disciples asked him, “Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?” ¹¹Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah is coming and will restore all things. ¹²But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” ¹³Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist.

Matt. 11:14 – And if you are willing to receive it, he (John) is the Elijah who was to come.

Three of Yeshua’s apostles were privileged to accompany Yeshua when he went up Mount Hermon, and to witness the vision of Yeshua as he will appear in his glory and kingdom, and to hear the voice from the cloud designating Yeshua as God’s chosen one {see Matt. 17:1-8 and 2 Pet. 1:16-18}. Part of the vision included Moses and Elijah conversing with Yeshua. This must have got them thinking and perhaps talking about Elijah, and as they were coming down the mountain they asked Yeshua the question in v. 10. The question implies that the teachers of the law taught that the scriptures stated that Elijah must come first, i.e. prior to the Messiah. They must have been thinking that if Yeshua was the chosen one, the Messiah, as the vision and voice declared, then why had Elijah not come first. Yeshua’s answer to their question is very enlightening. The present tense form of the verb erchomai should be understood as a future action (is coming) since the accompanying verb apokatastesei is a future tense indicative. Yeshua also spoke of the certainty of this event, as the Greek word men (truly, certainly) indicates. But then Yeshua said that Elijah had already come and that they, i.e. the teachers of the law and the other leaders, did not recognize or acknowledge him, but instead rejected his ministry. Then, we are told, his disciples understood he was referring to John.

Earlier in his teaching, as recorded in Matt 11:7-19, Yeshua had spoken about John’s importance in the plan of God, confirming that John’s role was foretold in Mal. 3:1 (v. 10). He went on to speak (v.12) of how, since the days when John began to preach that the kingdom of God was near, the kingdom of God had been either forcefully advancing (middle voice) or subjected to violence (passive voice). Though this passage is not clear, it is possible to see in it a corroboration of the postponement view. If we take the verb as passive, the idea could be that that the establishment of the kingdom is being met with violent opposition. This is reflected in the translation “the kingdom of heaven suffers violence” found in KJV, ESV, NASV, HCSB, NET, ERV, and ASV. Thayer, in his lexicon, states that this “agrees neither with the time when Christ spoke the words, nor with the context.” But that is a rather inane conclusion, for if one understands the Hebraic view of the kingdom and it’s postponement, due to the failure of the Jewish leaders to acknowledge Yeshua as their appointed king, then “the kingdom is being subjected to violence” does indeed agree with the timing and the context of Yeshua’s words. What Yeshua would then be saying is this: “Since the days of John the establishment of the kingdom of heaven has met with violent opposition (the Jerusalem leadership had not responded positively to John’s message and at the time of Yeshua’s words John was in prison, having been arrested by Herod) and the violent ones (the Jerusalem leadership) are snatching it away (i.e. are the cause of it ultimately not being established).” The context that follows bears out this interpretation. In vv. 16-19 Yeshua speaks of how both John and himself have met with opposition from the leadership. This view is also confirmed by Yeshua’s parable in Matt. 21 where the Jewish leaders are depicted as wicked tenants who conspire to kill the son (the chosen son of David) of the landowner that they may take his inheritance (the kingdom).

It is in this context of the kingdom advancing toward fulfillment, but being opposed by the Jewish leadership, that Yeshua said, “And if you are willing to receive it, he (John) is the Elijah who was to come.” This is typically taken to refer to their willingness to accept the idea that John was the Elijah who was to come, but I would like to suggest that he meant that if they were willing to receive the kingdom, by acknowledging him as their chosen king, then John would fulfill the prophecy of the coming of Elijah. With this in mind let’s go back to Matt. 17:11-12. At this point in Yeshua’s ministry he had already come to know that he was being rejected and the kingdom would not be established at that time, so he assures his disciples that Elijah will come, i.e. in the future. He then reminds them of what he had said earlier (in 11:14), that in fact Elijah had already come but was rejected. The clear implication is that if the people, under the guidance of the Jerusalem leadership, had received Yeshua as their king and the kingdom would have thus become a reality, then John would have been the fulfillment of the prophecy about Elijah. But since they rejected Yeshua as their king and the kingdom was thus postponed until some future time, then the prophecy regarding the coming of Elijah was still yet to be fulfilled at that future time. This shows, once again, the contingency involved in the establishment of the kingdom. It also shows that the kingdom has not yet been established, for Elijah has not come to restore all things, as Yeshua said he must, prior to the kingdom’s etsablishment.

Another aspect of John’s role which indicates the contingency involved in the kingdom’s establishment is the nature of his mission. This comes out clearest in Luke’s gospel, where in 1:17 we are told that he would go in advance of the Lord to“make ready a people prepared for Yahweh.” John’s unique task at that point in history was to prepare a people who would be ready for what God was about to do in Israel, in fulfilling the words of the prophets regarding the coming of Messiah and the restoration of the kingdom to Israel. Later in 7:27 Yeshua confirms this as John’s role by applying Mal. 3:1 to him:

“I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.”

If the establishment of the kingdom would simply come about at God’s will, regardless of the response of the people of Israel to Yeshua, then John’s mission was unnecessary. Why prepare a people who were ready for what God was about to do if their negative response would not or could not prevent it. The way that John was to prepare the people was by preaching that the kingdom was at hand and calling them to repent, i.e. to turn back to God. Those who responded to John’s message and were baptized were thus made ready for the Messiah’s appearance and could be taught by God that Yeshua was indeed his chosen one. But those who did not respond to John’s message by repentance and baptism would not be ready or prepared and would thus not be in a position to hear from the Father and acknowledge Yeshua as the king. Whether Israel, as a whole, would receive Yeshua as king was directly related to how they as a whole had responded to John’s message.

Now, Luke tells us something very significant in 7:29-30:

Now all the people who heard this, even the tax collectors, acknowledged God’s justice, because they had been baptized with John’s baptism. ^30.However, the Pharisees and the experts in religious law rejected God’s purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by John.

I would suggest that God’s purpose or plan for the Pharisees and the experts in the law was to lead the nation in acknowledging Yeshua of Nazareth as their king and thereby inaugurating the restoration of the kingdom to Israel. But these Jewish leaders did not respond to John with repentance and so rejected God’s purpose for themselves. But, again, I ask, what if they had repented and been baptized by John and so were made ready for Yeshua’s appearance? Would they not have then fulfilled God’s purpose for themselves by first acknowledging Yeshua as king and then by leading the nation to do so as well? All of this shows the contingent nature of the kingdom, for if the people’s response to Yeshua played no role in whether or not the kingdom would be established at that time, then what purpose did John’s ministry (of making ready a people prepared for God’s visitation) serve?

Waiting for the Kingdom

Acts 1:6-7 – Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.”

This one passage contains so much that refutes preterism that it is no wonder that the preterist interpretations of it are quite imaginative. The question which the disciples ask and the answer Yeshua gives provide us with a clear testimony to the true nature of the kingdom and to the timing of it’s establishment.

The first thing to note is that, according to v. 3, the disciples had been meeting with the resurrected Yeshua over a forty day period in which Yeshua was speaking to them about the things concerning the kingdom of God. It is presumably at the end of this forty day period, just before he is taken from them, that they ask the question in v. 6. This shows that whatever Yeshua was telling them about the kingdom of God they did not understand from his words that the kingdom had already been established. So, forty days after Yeshua had been raised from the dead the kingdom was still something that the disciples were waiting for.

Next, their question can only be understood from the perspective of what the prophets had foretold and what the Jews had been waiting for, i.e. the restoration of the theocratic kingdom of Israel under the kingship of the long awaited son of David. For a thorough presentation of the view that the kingdom of God is synonymous with the theocratic kingdom of Israel see this article here. Their question precludes the idea that the kingdom was something new, something different than what the Jews had been long expecting. It also precludes the idea of the kingdom as internal or invisible. Now please understand the significance of this. After being instructed by the risen Yeshua over a forty day period, the disciple still understand the kingdom to be the restoration of the theocracy of Israel. We must believe that either Yeshua, during this forty day period, confirmed the Hebraic view of the kingdom and that the disciples understood him to be doing so, or that Yeshua taught them about some different kingdom, a spiritual or non-Jewish one, but that the disciples had completely failed to rightly comprehend his words. Yeshua’s answer confirms that they had understood him correctly for he does not rebuke them as he had done on other occassions when they were slow to understand his meaning {see Matt. 15:15-16; Mk. 8:14-21; Lk. 24:25-26}. He simply said that it was not for them to know when the kingdom would be restored. Yet many have wrongly claimed that Yeshua rebuked the disciples for thinking carnally about the kingdom. Such an interpretation of Yeshua’s words is sheer nonsense.

These final words of Yeshua to his disciples, that the Father has set a time for the restoration of the kingdom, spoken just prior to his being taken from them, fixes their frame of mind to one of waiting and expectation. Now, of course, preterists will say that, indeed, they did wait for the kingdom and it came in 70 A.D. But there are certain things that Yeshua said would happen when he came to reign in the restored kingdom of Israel that simply did not occur in 70 A.D. Of course, debating with a preterist about what scripture says is a losing battle for they will simply allegorize every passage to make it fit their view. For instance, in Matt. 19:28 Yeshua told his 12 apostles, “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” Now let’s think reasonably through this passage. If Yeshua, in fact, returned and the kingdom of God was established in 70 A.D., then when did the apostles ever sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel? They might say this occurred during their ministry of preaching the gospel to Israel, but that would hardly amount to sitting on twelve thrones and judging the twelve tribes of Israel. So they would have to allegorize the twelve thrones and the act of judging the twelve tribes because it is obvious this wasn’t literally fulfilled during the lifetime of any of the apostles. It is even likely that most of the apostles were already dead by 70 A.D., so that their supposed sitting on twelve thrones and judging the twelve tribes of Israel during their lifetime on earth, would have occurred before the establishment of the kingdom in 70 A.D. The only other option for the preterist would be to relegate this sitting on twelve thrones and judging the twelve tribes of Israel to a spiritual or heavenly fulfillment that began after 70 A.D.

Another passage is Matt. 8:11 where Yeshua said, “I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” Did this occur in 70 A.D. ? Well obviously not literally, but I am sure that preterists have come up with some allegorical interpretation. They would have to say that this feast occurred in heaven after 70 A.D. But the language of Yeshua suggests a literal fuflfillment, in Jerusalem, for what else could be understood by many coming from the east and the west? East and west of where? Usually when scripture speaks of east and west or north and south, unless otherwise specified, it does so in relation to Jerusalem or to the land of Israel. The face value reading of the passage is that when the kingdom is finally established and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob have been raised from the dead, there will be a great feast in Jerusalem to celebrate and that many will come from lands east and west of Jerusalem or Israel to participate. But I digress.

That the assembly of believers in Yeshua the Messiah were put into a posture of waiting for Yeshua to return in order to fulfill all that God has promised to those who love him and who are allegiant to Yeshua his chosen one, can be ascertained from the following passages: Acts 1:11; 17:31; Rom. 8:18-25; 1 Cor. 1:7; Phil. 3:20-21; 1 Thess. 1:9-10; Titus 2:12-13; Heb. 9:28; James 5:7; Jude 1:21; Rev. 1:9.

All of these passages are explicit that the believer’s posture is one of waiting, except for Rev. 1:9. So let’s take a look at it because it tells us just what believers are waiting for.

“I, John, your brother and co-participant in the tribulation and kingdom and patient endurance in Yeshua . . .”

This passage tells us that there are three things which believers experience in their association with Yeshua – tribulation (oppression, affliction, distress), the kingdom (ruling with Yeshua) and patient endurance (with a strong implication of waiting). The way I see this is that the tribulation is what believers experience now, in this age; the kingdom is what they will experience in the age to come; and the patient endurance is what connects the other two together. It is in this waiting period that we experience tribulation which we must patiently endure in the hope of attaining to the kingdom in the age to come. That the kingdom is a future reality should be obvious because it is not plausible that the experiences of tribulation and of ruling with Messiah in the kingdom should occur simultaneously. As it is said of Messiah that he “[had] to suffer . . . and then enter his glory” {Lk. 24:26, see also Heb. 2:9; 1 Pet. 1:11}, so is the experience of those in him {see Rom. 8:18 -21; 2 Cor. 4:17-18; 1 Pet. 1:6-7}. It is in this present age that we experience rejection and persecution and distress and oppression because of our faith. But in the age to come all of that will cease and we will experience glory and honor and immortality. The key that gets us from the present experience of suffering to the future experience of glory is the patient endurance. The preterist view combines the two experiences of suffering and reigning in the same time period and so confounds the biblical focus on waiting.

According to the preterist view, the first believers in Yeshua were awaiting the coming of Yeshua in power and glory, and that this coming was accomplished when the armies of Rome attacked and destroyed Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Are we to believe that the anticipatory cry of maranatha (our Lord come) on the lips of the 1st century believers was a cry for Yeshua to come, in the armies of Rome, and destroy the Jews and Jerusalem? What benefit did they then receive from this coming of Yeshua? Did they know that that is what they were actually waiting for, or did they expect Yeshua to literally come again? If the coming of Yeshua was fulfilled spiritually, in the destruction of Jerusalem by Rome in 70 A.D., how did the lives of believers change from that point on? Did they get relief from their suffering, as 2 Thess. 1:5-9 says? NO! In fact, since then, every generation of true believers in Yeshua have suffered persecution, even down to our very day. What grace did they receive after 70 A.D. that they lacked prior to then, but had hoped to receive upon Yeshua’s return, and how did that change things {see 1 Pet. 1:13}? What salvation did these first believers receive in 70 A.D. when Yeshua ‘came again’ {see Heb. 9:28; 1 Pet. 1:5}? Did the believers then, and do believers today have authority over the nations {see Rev. 2:26-27}? The last time I checked, believers in almost every nation on earth are hated and mistreated and are subjected to varying degrees of persecution, just ask the Voice of the Martyrs organization. This doesn’t sound to me like creation now recognizes the followers of Messiah Yeshua to be the true sons of God, nor has the creation itself been freed from it’s bondage to corruption {see Rom. 8:18-21}. I think you get my point. The preterist view makes a mockery of what scripture says will take place when and after our Lord Yeshua is revealed in his second coming. Everything is relegated to an allegorical or spiritual, unseen fulfillment, that has no real practical effect upon anything in this present age.

The actual fact of the matter is that the promise of Yeshua’s return in glory to establish the theocratic kingdom of Israel was meant to be taken literally and was understood that way by the first disciples. The fact that they looked for it to happen in their lifetime is not a valid argument against the literal fulfillment view, due to the fact that Yeshua told them it was not for them to know the time. Even Yeshua himself did not know the timing of his glorious return. In view of this, why would the disciples, upon being told it was not for them to know, imagine that it would not occur in their lifetime? It seems to me that the reason for keeping the believers ignorant of the timing is so that they would always be waiting and watching and anticipating. As the first generation died off the next generation then watched and expected it in their lifetime, and so on with each successive generation.

An Objection to Contingency

In a recent discussion with a fellow biblical unitarian believer and friend, he shared with me his objection to the idea that the establishment of the kingdom was contingent upon the response of the Jewish people to Yeshua and that if they had acknowledged him as their king then things would have played out differently. He pointed to Acts 2:23:

This man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.

His point was that it was the predetermined plan of God for Yeshua to die and therefore how could it be contingent? But we must ask, did the Jewish leaders who handed Yeshua over not have freedom of will? Were they predetermined by God to reject Yeshua as their king? Now I know that the question of freewill has been debated for centuries and my purpose here is not to rehash that debate. What I do want to do is show how this passage and perhaps others (e.g. Acts 4:28) need not be a hindrance to the kingdom postponement view. If one holds to the concept of man’s freedom of will and rejects the extreme view of God’s soveriegnty as propounded by Christians of the Reformed persuasion, then there should be no real problem reconciling the ideas of contingency with God’s predetermining certain things. Yes it was the predetermined plan of God for the Messiah to die and then be raised again, but what if how it was to be accomplished was open to God depending on what the people involved did or didn’t do? Is it possible that God builds contingency into some of his plans, and then based on his foreknowledge predetermines that if his people respond one way then he will work out his will according to that response, but if they respond in a different way then he will work out his will in a different way?

With the understanding that it was God’s predetermined plan for Messiah to die, let’s imagine what kind of contingency plan God may have had prepared if Israel as a whole had received Yeshua as their king. I can imagine that if Yeshua had been received by the Jewish leaders and the nation as a whole, and he was declared to be their king, then God could have determined for him to have been arrested by the Romans for sedition and executed. He would then have been raised from the dead on the third day and would have begun to fulfill the many prophecies written about him.

Even if one were not inclined to see that much openess to the plans of God but understands God’s predetermined plans to be more fixed or unchangable, I could still posit a scenario in which contingency would still figure in. Since Acts 2:23 mentions not only God’s set plan but also his foreknowledge, it could be that his plan is determined by what he foreknows will happen. God, foreknowing the rejection of Yeshua by the Jewish leaders, wrote into his plan the postponement of the kingdom. How God might foreknow the future free acts of men is a matter of debate and beyond the scope of this article. We don’t have to know the how in order to believe that he is able to know in advance how people will choose to act and that without coercing their wills. If this view is allowed, then God’s predeterminations, at least in some cases, could be based on his foreknowledge. If God foreknew the unbelief of the Jews regarding Yeshua he would still need to let everything play out as if there was the possibility that the Jews could have repented and acknowledged Yeshua as their king. So from the human perspective it would appear that the Jews could have chosen to receive Yeshua, but having failed to do so, the kingdom, which could have been established then, was then postponed.

Conclusion

So we have seen how contingency was built into God’s plan, leading to a postponement of the establishment of the kingdom and setting the disciples of Yeshua in a posture of waiting, even until this very day.

The preterist view came about in order to explain how it is that the many prophecies of Messiah’s coming were not fulfilled in Yeshua’s lifetime, if indeed Yeshua is the Messiah. Their solution was to say that the prophecies were fulfilled in the first century, only not literally but spiritually, invisibly, allegorically.

Anti-missionary rabbis also point to the non-fulfillment of many Messianic prophecies as evidence that Yeshua of Nazareth just doesn’t fit the bill. But what they have in common with the preterists is they do not comprehend the concept of the postponement of the kingdom. Because of the rejection of Yeshua as their king by the Jewish leadership of that day, the kingdom, which could have then been established, was withheld, being postponed until a future time known only to God. At the appointed time he will send the Lord Yeshua back to this earth in great power and glory and every unfulfilled prophecy will then be realized literally. Every eye will see him and there will be no mistaking who he is. MARANATHA!

So then, the concept of the postponement of the kingdom answers both the preterist’s concerns and the anti-missionary rabbi’s insistence that Yeshua cannot be the Messiah.

Reconciling 2 Samuel 24:1 To 1 Chronicles 21:1

2 Samuel 24:1 – Again the anger of the YHWH burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, to say, “Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.”

1 Chron. 21:1 – Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel.

Because these two passages are referring to the same incident, we can immediately see the problem. As these verses stand, in most of our English versions, they provide the critic of the Bible an opportunity to mock. Unbelievers often seize upon this seeming contradiction to denigrate both the Bible and those who believe it to be God’s word. But it is not just unbelievers that do so. I was recently engaged in a discussion in a Face Book group with a man who could be classified as a Marcionite, Oneness believer. He was Oneness in that he believes Yeshua to be the only true God, and he was a Marcionite in that he rejected Yahweh, the God of the OT, as an evil being. Now, can you guess what he used as a proof-text for his Marcionism? That’s right, our two passages of interest. He basically claimed that these two passages were proof that Yahweh and Satan are the same being (the shallow reasoning of some people is hard to fathom).

In this study I want to delve beneath the surface reading of our English versions and answer the questions – Why was YHWH angry with Israel? Who is Satan in 1 Chron. 21:1? Who incited David to take a census? Why was it wrong for David to take a census?

Why was YHWH angry with Israel?

The text of 2 Sam. 24:1 states that “again the anger of Yahweh came to be aroused against Israel.” This implies that the anger of Yahweh was aroused against Israel prior to this. The prior time may be referred to in 2 Sam. 21:1 where we are told that there was a famine in the land for three years due to Saul’s earlier mistreatment of the Gibeonites. Famine was one means God used to discipline the nation for sin. Even though the phrase “the anger of Yahweh was aroused” is not used in this incident, we can see how the famine is an expression of God’s displeasure. When we look back into the book itself, the only other time the phrase appears is in 6:7, “the anger of Yahweh was aroused against Uzzah.” 24:1 is likely not referring to this because 6:7 involves only a single person, not Israel as a nation. A reasonable conclusion is that the prior occasion on which Yahweh was angry with Israel is in chapter 21, and that Yahweh’s anger is now aroused again against Israel in chapter 24.

When we look back, starting at chapter 5, when David became king over all Israel, and go forward to the end of chapter 23, the only thing other thing that occurred that could have aroused Yahweh’s anger against Israel is found in chapters 15-19, when David’s son Absalom rebelled against his father and attempted to usurp the throne. All of Israel seems to have sided with Absalom against David {15:4, 10; 16:15; 17:11, 14; 18:6; 19:8b-10}, with the exception of Jerusalem¹ and perhaps some of Judah. If David was indeed God’s chosen vessel to rule Israel at that time and all of Israel, who had previously acknowledged this {5:1-3}, rebelled against David, pledging allegiance to another, would this not be considered rebellion against Yahweh himself and so arouse his anger against the nation. Although it is never stated in the chapters which recount this story, it is reasonable to assume that God’s anger was aroused against Israel at that time but was never expressed or laid to rest. Just as the discipline of the famine was delayed, being carried out years after the offense of Saul, so it in this case. At this later time then, God intended to discipline Israel for their earlier rebellion against his chosen vessel. Admittedly, this is conjecture, but it is certainly reasonable, not wild, conjecture.

Who is Satan in 1 Chron. 21:1?

This is the most important question to answer in addressing the charge that what we have in these two passages is a contradiction. Is this passage referring to the evil spirit being known as the devil and the serpent? Well, if you followed the lead of nearly every English Version of the Bible you would say yes. But could it be possible that 50 out of 55 English versions got it wrong in translating the Hebrew word satan as Satan? I think that is definitely the case.

The anarthrous word satan simply means an adversary, and should be translated so in 1 Chron. 21:1, just as it is in 1 Sam. 29:4 (of David); 2 Sam. 19:22 (of Abishai); 1 Kings 5:4 (of adversaries in general); 1 Kings 11:14 (of Hadad); 1 Kings 11:23 (of Rezon). In each of these cases the word satan simply signifies an adversary. The reason this is obvious in these verses is because the adversary is named, with the exception of 1 Kings 5:4. In 1 Chron. 21:1 we simply have an unnamed adversary, an enemy nation, in view.

Of the 55 English versions, 48 chose to translate satan in this passage as Satan. Two versions have Satan [an adversary] (EXB, AMPC), one version has satan (TLV), one has a satan (NABRE) and three have an adversary (NET, YLT, VOICE). In all of the verses cited above, satan is without the definite article, as also in Num. 22:22 and 32, where an angel of Yahweh sent to oppose Balaam is called a satan. The last anarthrous use of satan is in Ps. 109:6, where it is parallel to a wicked man. All other occurrences (14x in the first 2 chapters of Job and 3x in Zech. 3) have the definite article and refer to the specific individual being known as the devil. All of this shows that the best way to understand the anarthrous satan in 1 Chron. 21:1 is as an unnamed enemy nation which rose up to oppose Israel.

Who incited David to take the census?

Having established that the anarthrous satan refers to an enemy nation of Israel, we are now prepared to answer the next question – who incited David? Was it Yahweh or an enemy nation? The answer is both. Yahweh was the ultimate cause while the adversary was the immediate cause. In Yahweh’s relationship to Israel, one of his disciplinary methods in dealing with Israel’s rebellion was to allow an adversarial nation or kingdom to defeat them in battle and often to persist as a dominating power over them. In Joshua 7 we read how after their victory over Jericho, Israel’s army was defeated by the men of the city of Ai. This defeat was directly attributed to the fact that “Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel”{v. 1} because of an act of disobedience regarding Jericho’s defeat. Other passages which speak of this are:

Judges 2:14-15 – “In his anger against Israel YHWH gave them into the hands of raiders who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. ^15.Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of YHWH was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress.”

Judges 3:8 –“The anger of YHWH burned against Israel so that he sold them into the hands of Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram Naharaim, to whom the Israelites were subject for eight years.”

2 Kings 13:3 – “So YHWH’s anger burned against Israel, and for a long time he kept them under the power of Hazael king of Aram and Ben-Hadad his son.

We can surmise that the situation associated with 2 Sam. 24:1 and 1 Chron. 21:1 is that Yahweh’s anger was aroused against Israel because of the people’s rebellion against his appointed king, David, regarding Absalom’s usurpation of the throne, and that, for whatever reason, no disciplinary action was taken at that time against Israel. At some time later, after David was reinstated as king and again acknowledged by all Israel, Yahweh then sought to express his anger against Israel, which had not been given rest earlier. So Yahweh raised up an adversary against Israel. Whether or not Yahweh’s intention was to incite David to take the census, this was indeed the result of this adversary being raised up. It is quite possible that the phrase in 2 Sam. 24:1 “and he incited David against them tosay . . .” could be translated as “and it (i.e. the anger of Yahweh expressed in the persistence of an adversary)incited David . . .” So, in one sense it can be said that Yahweh, by raising up an adversary, indirectly incited David, but in another sense, it can be said that this persistent² adversary incited David. The same result is being viewed from two different, yet interdependent, perspectives.

Why was it wrong for David to take a census?

The answer to this question is not necessary in order to understand the correlation between 2 Sam. 24:1 and 1 Chron. 21:1, but it is worth examining. These texts themselves do not give all of the necessary information for us to be certain or dogmatic about the answer to this question of why it was wrong for David to take the census, but it is intriguing to consider.

As far as I can ascertain, there is no written prohibition in the law against the king taking a census, yet both Joab {2 Sam. 24:3; 1 Chron. 21:3} and David {2 Sam. 24:10, 17; 1 Chron. 21:8, 17} seem to have understood it to be a violation of some command. The only thing commanded in the law concerning the taking of a census is in Exodus 30:11-16:

Then the Lord said to Moses, ^12.“When you take a census of the Israelites to count them, each one must pay the Lord a ransom for his life at the time he is counted. Then no plague will come on them when you number them. ^13.Each one who crosses over to those already counted is to give a half shekel, according to the sanctuary shekel, which weighs twenty gerahs. This half shekel is an offering to the Lord. ^14.All who cross over, those twenty years old or more, are to give an offering to the Lord. ^15.The rich are not to give more than a half shekel and the poor are not to give less when you make the offering to the Lord to atone for your lives. ^16.Receive the atonement money from the Israelites and use it for the service of the tent of meeting. It will be a memorial for the Israelites before the Lord, making atonement for your lives.”

So we can see that the command here is that when a census is taken it is required that each man counted is to pay a ransom of a half shekel of silver. Nothing is said about the appropriateness or inappropriateness of taking a census. We might assume that a census was only to be taken at God’s command, but this is not explicitly stated. As the written law of Moses stands, there is no prohibition against taking a census.

But there was another document that may have stipulated something about the taking of a census by the king. Back in 1 Samuel, when the people insisted on having a king like the other nations, Samuel, following Yahweh’s command, gave them a king, Saul. When Samuel brought Saul before the people and announced him as Yahweh’s choice, the scripture tells us:

“Samuel explained to the people the regulation of the kingship. He wrote it in a scroll and placed it in YHWH’s presence. Then Samuel sent all the people to their own houses.” 1 Sam. 10:25

It is possible that this scroll containing the proper and fitting manner of the kingship included a stipulation that the king could take a census of the people only if commanded by Yahweh. This document, which we do not have today, would have been a revelatory document, having come from the prophet of God. This document was written in David’s lifetime and would surely have been known by David, as he was only the second king of Israel. Some scholars suggest that this document was simply the reiteration of Deut. 17:14-20, but, if so, since that passage says nothing regarding the taking of a census, we would still be left with the question of how David and Joab knew it was wrong to take the census. Of course, all of this is conjecture and we cannot know for certain, but it is reasonable to assume that this document written by Samuel contained some stipulation concerning the taking of a census, which David, for whatever reason, knowingly ignored, bringing forth the disciplinary judgment recorded in these chapters.

We might also consider David’s possible frame of mind. In response to this persistent enemy, whom Israel could not defeat, David, instead of seeking God, decided to count how many fighting men he could muster to put down this enemy. In doing so he would have dishonored God by making Israel’s victory over this enemy dependent more on the size of their army than on the truth that Yahweh was the true source of Israel’s strength. This being so, it still does not really satisfy me as to how Joab readily knew it was wrong for David to order the census. The severity of the punishment also leads me to think this was a direct act of disobedience to a known command rather than just a matter of not fully trusting in God.

Endnotes

1. This may be why, in the judgment of the plague which followed the census, Jerusalem was spared – see 2 Sam. 24:15-16.
2. The word in 1 Chron. 21:1 translated as “stood up” or “rose up” can imply a persisting, remaining, or enduring of the adversary.

Why Jeremiah 23:6 Is Not A Proof Text For The Deity Of Messiah

Jeremiah 23:5-6 is often employed as a proof-text from the Hebrew scriptures for the deity of the Messiah by trinitarian apologists in debates with non trinitarians or on apologetics websites. Here is how the passage reads in most English versions:

“The days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. ^6.In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘Yahweh is our righteousness.’”

This is a prophecy about the Messiah, whom God is promising to raise up for David. It is claimed by the trinitarian apologists that because it is said that this king will be called ‘Yahweh (is) our righteouness’, then this king must be Yahweh himself. Hence, they think they have in this passage a strong attestation to the deity of the Messiah in the Hebrew Bible. I will give two different arguments against this interpretation of the passage.

Argument 1

Given the correctness of the traditional understanding of this passage, that it is indeed saying that the coming Messiah would be called ‘Yahweh our righteousness’, then this would simply be a theophoric designation applied to the Messiah.

Theophoric names are names or titles which contain the name of a deity. There are many theophoric names in the Hebrew bible, containing either el, a shortened form of elohim which means God, or yah a shortened form of Yahweh, the personal name of the God of Israel. Some examples of El theophory are Abiel = my father is God; Daniel = my judge is God; Elisha = my God saves; Emmanuel = God is with us. Here are some examples of Yah theophory – Abiyah = my father is Yahweh; Adoniyah = my lord is Yahweh; Isaiah = salvation of Yahweh; Nehemiah = Yahweh comforts; Zechariah = Yahweh remembers. One name which combines both el and yah is Eliyah = Yahweh is my God. Theophoric names usually say something about God rather than saying something about the one who is so named. Why could this not be the case with the Messiah in Jer. 23:6? Why must the name be taken to be revealing something about the Messiah himself rather than to be revealing something about the God who raised him up?

The only answer that trinitarians have offered to rebutt this argument is that theophoric names involving Yahweh typically do not include the full name but only the shortened form Yah. The fact that Jer. 23:6 applies a name to the Messiah that contains the full name of God, Yahweh, instead of the short form, Yah, is said to stand out as unusual and therefore means that this is not a typical theophoric name but a title denoting the Messiah’s actual ontological nature. But this seems to me to be an ad hoc argument. On what basis do they make this claim? Is there some rule written somewhere which tells us that if a name or title contains the full name of Yahweh then it cannot be a simple theophoric name, but must be taken as signifying the nature of the one bearing the name? Even if this were the only example of a theophoric name given to a person which contains the full name Yahweh, does this then require it be understood as denoting the ontology of the bearer? The assertion is simply absurd, groundless, and without merit. A proof-text cannot be established as such on such flimsy reasoning.

Argument 2

It may be that the traditional understanding of this passage is simply wrong, that the epithet “Yahweh our righteousness” is not at all being applied to the coming Messiah in Jer. 23:6. What gives us a clue that this is likely the case is the parallel passage in Jer. 33:15-16, which reads:

“In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line; he will do what is just and right in the land. ^16.In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it will be called: ‘Yahweh our Righteousness.’ “

In case you didn’t notice, this passage says that it is the city of Jerusalem that shall be called “Yahweh our righteousness,” instead of the Messiah. Now I am going to get a little technical, so please pay close attention. The reason we know that Jerusalem is being given the epithet here, and not the Messiah, is because of the feminine form of the preposition le which appears in the text just before the title “Yahweh our righteousness.” The le preposition has the meaning of to or for, and in the feminine form, to her or for her. This must refer to a feminine noun in the context of the passage. The word “land” in v. 15 and the word “Jerusalem” in v. 16 are the only feminine nouns, so it must refer to either one. It is probably best to take Jerusalem as the referent, being the nearest antecedent, but it could possibly refer to the “land”, i.e. the land of Israel. The last sentence contains the masculine verb for “to call” followed by the feminine preposition and so literally reads, “This is that which he will call for (or to) her: Yahweh our righteousness.” It is probably best to take it as “for her” which would indicate that this is what he (i.e. the king) will call her instead of Jerusalem. The “he” would best be understood as referring to the king.

Now, why would 23:6 say that the Messiah will be called “Yahweh our righteousness” but 33:16 say that Jerusalem will be called “Yahweh our righteousness”? It just doesn’t seem like there is congruence between the two passages if 23:6 is understood in the traditional way.

But what if 23:6 could be understood in a way that was congruent with 33:16, would this not be preferable. If we look at the last sentence of 23:6 it reads literally from the Hebrew, “This is his name which he will call him: “Yahweh our righteousness.” Here we see that there are three masculine pronouns referring to two entities. In the traditional interpretation it is just assumed that the first and third pronouns refer to the Messiah and the second one is usually not even expressed in English versions; why, I don’t know. So the typical resulting translation is “this is the name by which he (the Messiah) will be called: ‘Yahweh is our righteousness.’” But this is not necessarily how the verse should be read. The second and third masculine pronouns must refer to some masculine antecedent in the text, the options being 1. the king in v. 5 2. Judah in v. 6 3. Israel in v. 6. Again, it is simply assumed by most expositors that it refers to the king, but I propose instead, that it refers to Israel, i.e. the nation and the land of Israel. The position which the word “Israel” occupies in relation to the final clause of 23:6 is exactly parallel to the position which the word “Jerusalem” occupies in relation to the final clause in 33:16. So if the final clause of 33:16 refers back to Jerusalem, then why shouldn’t we take the final clause of 23:6 to refer back to Israel rather than to the king? Since “Israel” here refers to the nation and land, it is impersonal. When translating from another language into English, impersonal nouns which have grammatical gender are typically translated as “it”. Following this practice we could translate the final sentence of v. 6 as – “this is it’s name which he will call it . . .” So then the text would be saying that the promised king, the Messiah, will call Israel, the nation and the land, by the epithet Yahweh our righteousness. This makes this passage congruent with 33:16 in which the king calls Jerusalem or the land of Israel by the epithet. If 33:16 refers to Jerusalem we can understand it as the nation of Israel being represented in it’s capital city.

It would not be without precedence that a theophoric name is given to an inanimate or impersonal object. We know such is the case in Jer. 33:16, but there are earlier examples of this phenomenon, the most significant being found in Gen. 22:14 – “So Abraham called that place “Yahweh Yireh”. We note that this epithet includes the full name Yahweh and not just the abbreviated form Yah, once again showing the apologists’ answer to my first argument to be without merit.

Conclusion

Though I have presented two arguments against the use of Jer. 23:6 as a proof-text for the deity of Messiah, I think the second one is the better option. The first argument is good if the traditional understanding of the passage can be maintained, but trinitarians will not likely be convinced since they have their answer to it, even as weak as it is. But the second argument completely takes away from the apologists any reason to even think this passage refers to the Messiah as Yahweh.

Did God Himself Have To Die To Prove His Love For Us?

Recently, a trinitarian inquirer joined one of the biblical unitarian Facebook groups I belong to and asked a very sincere and thought-provoking question. Here is what she asked :

Thank you for accepting me. I have never heard of unitarianism until this week. I have always been told about the trinity and accepted that. Now I am looking into things to find out what the truth is. There is one thing that I can’t understand if the trinity isn’t true. If Jesus is not God then it doesn’t seem to line up with God’s character. We know God is love. And it says in the bible that there is no greater love than to lay down your life:
“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
So if Jesus willingly gave his life to take our sins that means that he showed a greater love than God could? And also it means God doesn’t love Jesus as much as us because he allowed Jesus to take our punishment and made him a scapegoat. It doesn’t seem very loving and in line with God’s character, to sacrifice His son who was innocent.

As has happened many times since I left the trinitarian belief for the biblical unitarian (BU) belief, this challenge from a trinitarian started me thinking about this matter, which I had never before considered in the almost seven years I have been a BU. I really do love being challenged in this way, for it affords me the opportunity to ponder potential problems with my belief system and to see if they can be resolved. I had some immediate thoughts which I related in the comments on the original FB post. But as I considered this question further I came to some other conclusions that I thought that I should share with my readers.

What Does John 15:13 Really Mean?

Too often when we read scripture, we tend to read it through the lens of our overarching theological paradigm. This is not done on purpose necessarily, it’s just kind of how we think as humans. For the orthodox Christian, the overarching paradigm that governs everything else is the doctrine of the Trinity (and it’s sister doctrine, the deity of Christ). For the orthodox believer no other biblical theme can make sense apart from the Trinity, not creation, redemption, salvation, sanctification, nor the love of God.

As a trintarian, when I read John 15:13, I too thought of it through the trinitarian lens, i.e. that Yeshua was fully God, and as God in human flesh he loved us so much that he laid down his life for us. So then, this demonstration of God’s love toward us is the greatest kind of love that can be demonstrated. This seems to be how the FB inquirer was thinking when she first encountered the idea that Yeshua is not God incarnate, and so she astutely considered how these two ideas could fit together. Being perplexed she inquired of the BU group.

But to rightly understand the scriptures, it is sometimes imperative that we take off the glasses through which we typically read them. So what would the passage mean if Yeshua were not God incarnate, the second person of the Trinity in human flesh?

When we look at the context of the passage we get a much clearer picture of what Yeshua was saying when he uttered the words, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” Let’s read the passage from v. 9 – v. 17:

⁹“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. ¹¹I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. ¹²My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. ¹⁷This is my command: Love each other.

The main theme of this passage is Yeshua’s command to his disciples to love one another, which is stated twice. Having given them this command, he then set the bar very high – the greatest love that one can show for his friends is a readiness to lay down your life for them. Yeshua’s command was explicit – they were to love each other as he had loved them. Yeshua was ready to lay down his life for them and so they must do likewise for each other. So then, the passage is not referring to God’s love toward man, but of man’s love toward his friends and that the greatest expression of love for one’s friends is to lay down your life for them. None of this requires that Yeshua be God in the flesh. If Yeshua is commanding his disciples to express this same kind of love that he himself expressed toward them in laying down his life for them, then the love being spoken of is not something that one must be God to possess.

If Yeshua were God, and laying down his life for his friends is the greatest expression of love that God can have, then we have a conflict with what the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 5:6-8:

⁶For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷(For rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person perhaps someone might possibly dare to die.) ⁸But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Again, if Yeshua is God incarnate demonstrating his love for us by dying for us, then the greatest love that can be shown is not laying down one’s life for his friends but for his enemies {see Rom. 5:10}. Note that this passage does indeed teach that God’s love is demonstrated in Yeshua dying for God’s enemies. But this is different than John 15:13, where Yeshua taught that the greatest love any man can show for his friends is to lay down his life for them. The two passages are not referring to the same thing, even though Yeshua laying down his life is involved in both passages. In the one Yeshua is portrayed as showing the greatest love for his friends by dying for them; in the other God demonstrates his love for his enemies by Yeshua’s dying.

The Disqualification Of God

When God wanted to redeem fallen humanity he was faced with a dilemma (I am speaking from a purely human perspective), namely, if a redemption price had to be paid then who would pay it? If the redemption price was the life of an innocent one then how could God himself pay it, since it would be impossible for God himself to lay down his life. Not only is it impossible for God himself to lay down his life, but in order for the redemption to be effective, the innocent one, i.e. the one redeeming the guilty ones by his death, must be of one and the same family as those he redeems¹. Therefore, this one must necessarily be a full-flegded human person, a man in every respect like those he redeems {see Heb. 2:10-18}, except without sin. Therefore, based on two factors, God’s inability to lay down his life and God not being of the same family as those who need redemption, God himself is disqualified from being the one who effects this redemption. If God is going to demonstrate his love for his enemies then he must have an innocent² human person who can represent him in this act of redemption, to do on his behalf what is impossible for him to do himself.

Orthodox Christianity (OC) claims to have the solution to this dilemma – the incarnation. Most Christians believe that God became a man in order to redeem us. But is this what OC asserts? Not really! The orthodox belief is that God, while remaining fully God, took to himself an impersonal human nature. So in this scenario God does not actually become a human being. To actually become a human being he would have to cease to be the God being that he is and change into a human person. But this is not what OC teaches. Instead, OC claims that God the Son simply added to himself an impersonal human nature, so that what we have in Yeshua is the person of God the Son with an impersonal human nature attached to him. I say an “impersonal human nature” because, according to orthodoxy, the only person present in Christ is the divine person God the Son. This means that there is no human person involved in the being known as Yeshua of Nazareth a.k.a. Jesus Christ. Ask yourself, in all honesty, could a God person taking to himself an impersonal human nature ever really count as an actual human being? In this scheme, the death of Yeshua does not and could not amount to God laying down his life for us because the divine person who is God the Son does not die (simply because God cannot die) but only the attached impersonal human nature dies.

So the incarnation would not really solve the dilemma because it does not negate the two factors which disqualify God himself from effecting our redemption – God’s inability to lay down his life and God not being of the same family as those he redeems.

How The Death Of One Human Demonstrates God’s Love

What God needed was an innocent human person who would be willing to lay down his life for the rest of humanity, that they might be redeemed. But in order for God to have as much skin in the game as possible, this human person would have to be the one most dear and precious to him, the one who shares the closest relationship with him, one whom he calls son. Throughout scripture, the one who held this place of honor was Yahweh’s anointed one, the king. Let’s look at how this relationship was expressed in the Hebrew scriptures:

“[Yahweh said to David] ‘. . . I will raise up your seed after you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build me a house, and I will establish his throne forever. I will be to him for a father and he will be to me for a son. I will never take my love away from him . . .’ “ 1 Chron. 17:11-13

“O Yahweh, the king rejoices in your strength. How great is his joy in the victories you give! You have granted him the desires of his heart and have not witheld the request of his lips. You welcomed him with rich blessings and placed a crown of pure gold on his head. He asked you for life and you gave it to him, length of days for ever and ever. Through the victories you gave his glory is great; you have bestowed on him splendor and majesty. Surely you have granted him eternal blessings and made him glad with the joy of your presence. The king trusts in Yahweh; through the unfailing love of the Most High he will not be shaken.” Ps. 21:1-7

“I have installed my king on Zion, my holy hill.” I (the king) will proclaim the decree of Yahweh: He said to me “You are my son; today I have become your father. Ask of me and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, the ends of the earth for your possession.” Ps. 2:6-8

“Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand, the son of man you have strengthened for yourself.” Ps. 80:17

“He will call out to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, the Rock my Savior.’
I will also appoint him my firstborn, the most exalted of the kings of the earth.
I will maitain my love to him forever and my covenant with him will never fail.
I will establish his line forever, his throne as long as the heavens endure.”
Ps. 89:26-29

“Yahweh said to my lord (the king), ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’ “ Ps. 110:1

“Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight. I will put my Spirit on him . . .” Is. 42:1-2

“And now the Yahweh says— he who formed me in the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him, and gather Israel to himself, for I am honored in the eyes of  Yahweh and my God has been my strength— he says: ‘It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have reserved. I will also make you a light to the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.’ “ Is. 49:5-6

“Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is my associate.“
Zech. 13:7

All of these passages speak of the relationship between Yahweh and his anointed king and it can be stated without contradiction, that of all humans, his anointed king held the dearest place in the heart of God. We see this same relationship expressed in the NT regarding the man Yeshua, who is the final and ideal anointed one of God:

“As soon as Yeshua was baptized . . . a voice from heaven said, ‘ This is my son, the beloved one, with him I am well pleased.’ ” Matt. 3:16-17

“All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the son and those to whom he chooses to reveal him.“ Matt. 11:27

“No one has ever seen God; the only begotten (or dearly loved) son, the one who is in the Father’s bosom³, he has declared him.” John 1:18

“Yeshua answered, ‘I tell you the truth, the son can do nothing by himself; he can only do what he see’s his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the son also does. For the Father loves the son and shows him all he does.‘ “ John 5:19-20

“For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the son of his love.” Col. 1:13

“For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people . . .” 1 Tim. 2:5-6

The man Yeshua, at the time of his death, held the place closest to God of any other human being alive. As such, he was the only human who could qualify to redeem humanity. God had to give this one up to death, this one who pleased him the most, this one in whom he delighted more than any other. Indeed, God giving his son over to a shameful death was the greatest demonstration of his love for man.⁴

When God wanted to test Abraham’s faith and obedience he did not ask Abraham to offer up himself as a sacrifice, but to offer his dearly beloved son, the one he had waited so long to sire, the person who was the most precious and valuable to him. Abraham would have gladly offered up himself rather than give up his son, but God required Isaac and so Abraham obeyed. When Abraham willingly offered up his most precious and dearly loved son, this set the stage for Yahweh to do the same many centuries later. And so it is said, “He . . . did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all.”⁵ No, God did not lay down his own life in order to demonstrate his love for us, but he gave up to death the one human person who was the most precious and dear to him. How great is the love the Father has lavished on us!

Endnotes

1. For the concept of the kinsman-redeemer see Lev. 25:47-55.
2. As for how Yeshua could remain sinless if he were merely a human person and not a divine person, let me first say two things: 1. the NT authors never address how Yeshua, as a simple human person, could remain free from sin 2. the NT authors never attribute Yeshua’s sinlessness to some innate divinity. The NT simply assumes and affirms Yeshua’s sinlessness – 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15; 7:26; 1 Pet. 1;19; 2:22; 1 John 3:5. So whatever I or anyone else says on this subject is conjecture, but here is how I reconcile it. God, knowing that his son, the most dearest and cherished human person to him, must be without sin to qualify as our redeemer, gave every possible advantage to him, without, of course, negating his own will. I imagine that from the earliest days of his youth Yeshua was receiving revelatory messages from the Father, even on a daily basis – see Is. 50:4-5. He had a open line of communication with God, like no one before him. He knew and understood his destiny and role in God’s plan even in his youth – see Is. 49:1-3; Luke 2:49. I imagine that he had a sense or awareness of God’s presence with him at all times. – see Is. 42:6 (note that Yahweh said he would natsar him i.e. keep, watch over, preserve). All of this and whatever other advantages he was given would have been sufficient to keep him without sin, though he still had to face and overcome temptations.
3. The early church fathers understood this passage from the perspective of the Greek metaphysics in which the were formerly schooled, seeing in it the special metaphysical relationship between the One and his eternal Logos/Son. But in reality, this is nothing more than a Semitic idiom denoting a close and intimate relationship. BDAG, under the definition of kolpos (bosom), says of the idiomatic use “‘being in someone’s bosom’ denotes the closest association.” The early church father’s, being imbued with the Greek metaphysics then in vogue, simply read their presupposition unto the text. Nothing in this language precludes a human person from holding this most cherished position with God. See also Deut. 28:54, 56 for the phrases “wife of his bosom” and “the husband of her bosom”.
4. 1 John 4:9-10
5. Rom. 8:32