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
- For the concept of the kinsman-redeemer see Lev. 25:47-55.
- 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.
- 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”.
- 1 John 4:9-10
- Rom. 8:32
Let the Truth Come Out 