WHO DO YOU THINK JESUS IS?

It is not generally known that many students of the Bible throughout the ages, including a considerable number of contemporary scholars, have not concluded that Scripture describes Jesus as “God” with a capital “G.” A difference of opinion on such a fundamental issue should challenge all of us to an examination of the important question of Jesus’ identity.

If our worship is to be, as the Bible demands, “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24), we will want to understand what the Bible discloses about Jesus and his relationship with his Father.

Scripture warns us that it is possible to fall into the trap of believing in “another Jesus” (2 Corinthians 11:4); a “Jesus” other than the one revealed in the Bible as the Son of God, His anointed one, the Messiah promised by the prophets of the Old Testament. It is a striking fact that Jesus never referred to himself as “God.”

It is remarkable in the New Testament’s use of the word “God”; in Greek “ho theos”; to refer to the Father alone, some 1325 times. In sharp contrast, Jesus is called “god” in a few texts only, and in those verses to term god would be the Hebrew word “Elohim” and this could refer to anyone who represented God [Yehovah] on the earth, i.e., King David to the great, great grandfather of the lord Jesus.

Let’s look at Old Testament Monotheism Confirmed by Jesus and Paul

The belief in one God was the first principle of all Old Testament teachings about God [Yehovah]. The Jews were prepared to die for their conviction that the true God [Yehovah] was a single Person. Any idea of plurality in the Godhead was rejected as dangerous idolatry. The Law and the Prophets had repeatedly insisted that only one was truly God, and no one could have envisaged “distinctions” within the so-called godhead [a word never mentioned in the scriptures] once he had committed to memory texts like the following (quoted from the New American Standard Bible):

Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear, O Israel! YEHOVAH our God is one YEHOVAH”.

Malachi 2:10: “Do we not all have one Father? Has not one God [Elohim] created us?”.

Isaiah 43:10: “Before Me there was no God [Elohim] formed, and there will be none after Me”.

Isaiah 46:9: “I am Yehovah - YHVH [God], and there is no other.

Isaiah 46:9: “I am God [Yehovah – YHVH], and there is no one like Me.

The important fact to observe is that Jesus, as the founder of Christianity, confirmed and reinforced the Old Testament insistence that God is one. According to the records of his teaching compiled by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus said nothing at all to disturb belief in the absolute oneness of God. When a scribe (a theologian) quoted the famous words, “God is one, and there is none else besides him,” Jesus commended him because he had “spoken intelligently” and was “not far from the kingdom of God” (Mark 12:29-34). 

Let’s read the creed of the lord Messiah Jesus: Mark 12:28-32: 

And one of the scribes came up and heard them debating. When he saw that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?”

Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Listen, Israel! The Lord [Yehovah] our God, the Lord [Yehovah] is one. And you shall love the Lord [Yehovah] your God from your whole heart and from your whole soul and from your whole mind and from your whole strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

And the scribe said to him, “That is true, Teacher. You have said correctly that HE [Yehovah] is one and there is no other except Him. And to love Him from your whole heart and from your whole understanding and from your whole strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

And Jesus, when he saw that he had answered thoughtfully, said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” 

Notice: When Jesus says, “Hear Israel, The Lord [Yehovah] our God, the Lord [Yehovah] is one. And you shall love the Lord [Yehovah] your God from your whole heart and from your whole being and from your whole mind and from your whole strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Those words apply to all those who as new creations in the lord Messiah Jesus have been grafted into the true Israel of God. Romans 11: 17-20:

Now if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although you were a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them and became a sharer of the root of the olive tree’s [Israel’s] richness, do not boast against the branches. But if you boast against them, you do not support the root, but the root supports you. Then you will say, “Branches were broken off in order that I could be grafted in.” Well said! They were broken off because of unbelief, but you stand firm because of faith.

Jesus' creed is to love God [Yehovah] with all your heart, mind, strength, your whole being and to love your neighbor as yourself, this is a direct command to all those who are in the lord Messiah Jesus to keep, realizing we can only do so enabled by the Spirit of the only true God knowing that whatever our God [Yehovah] asks us to do, He will always give us the enabling power of His Spirit to do what He has asked.

In John’s account of Jesus’ ministry, Jesus equally confirmed the unrestricted monotheism of his Jewish heritage in words that cannot be misunderstood. Jesus spoke of God, his Father, as “the one who alone is God” (John 5:44) and “the only true God” (John 17:3). Throughout his recorded discourses he referred the word “God” to the Father only. Not once did he ever say that he was God, a notion which would have sounded both absurd and blasphemous. Jesus’ unitary monotheistic phrases in John 5:44 and 17:3 are echoes of the Old Testament view of God [Yehovah] as one unique Person. We can easily discern the Jewish and Old Testament orthodoxy of Paul who spoke of his Christian belief in “one God, the Father” (1 Corinthians 8:6) and the “one God” as distinct from the “one mediator between God and man, Messiah Jesus, himself man” (1 Timothy 2:5).

For both Jesus and Paul, God was a single uncreated Being, “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). Even after Jesus had been exalted to the right hand of the Father, the Father is still, in Jesus’ own words, his God (Revelation 3:12).

The Old Testament is strictly monotheistic. God is presented as a single personal being. The Jews, as a people, under its teachings became stern opponents of all polytheistic tendencies and they have remained unflinching monotheists to this day. On this point, there is no break between the Old Testament and the New. The monotheistic tradition is continued. Jesus was a Jew, trained by Jewish parents in the Old Testament Scriptures. His teaching was Jewish to the core, a new Gospel indeed, but not a new theology. He declared that He came, ‘not to destroy the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill’ them, and He accepted as His own belief the great text of Jewish monotheism: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord [Yehovah] our God is one God [Yehovah].’ His proclamation concerning Himself was in line with Old Testament prophecy. He was the ‘Messiah’ of the promised Kingdom, the ‘Son of Man’ of Jewish hope... If He sometimes asked: ‘Who do men say that I the Son of Man am?’ He gave no answer beyond the implied assertion of Messiahship.”

Note: Ezra D. Gifford, in The True God, the True Christ, and the True Holy Spirit, says: “The Jews themselves sincerely resent the implication that their Scriptures contain any proof, or any intimation of the doctrine of the orthodox Trinity, and Jesus and the Jews never differed on this subject, both maintaining that God [Yehovah] is One only and that this is the greatest truth revealed to man.”

If we examine the recorded teachings of Jesus in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, remembering that these documents represent the understanding of the apostolic church in the 60s-80s AD, we will find not a hint that Jesus believed himself to be an uncreated being who had existed from eternity. Matthew and Luke trace the origin of Jesus to a special act of creation by God when the Messiah’s conception took place in the womb of Mary. It was this miraculous event that marked the beginning; the genesis, or origin; of Jesus of Nazareth (Matthew 1:18, 20). Nothing at all is said of an “eternal sonship,” implying that Jesus had been alive as a son before his conception. That idea was introduced into Christian circles after the New Testament documents had been completed. It does not belong to the thought world of the biblical writers.

The crucial question we must answer is this:

On what basis did Jesus and the early church claim that Jesus was indeed the promised Messiah? The answer is plain. It was by contending that he perfectly fulfilled the role which the Old Testament had predicted of him. It had to be demonstrated that he fit the “specifications” laid out for the Messiah in Hebrew prophecy. Matthew, particularly, delights in quoting the Old Testament as it was fulfilled in the facts of Jesus’ life and experience (Matthew 1:23; 2:6, 15, etc.). But Mark, Luke, John, and Peter (in the early chapters of Acts) equally insist that Jesus exactly fits the Old Testament description of the Messiah. Paul spent much of his ministry demonstrating from the Hebrew Scriptures that Jesus was the promised Messiah (Acts 28:23). Unless Jesus’ identity can be matched with the Old Testament description of him, there would be no good reason to believe that his claim to Messiahship was true!

What portrait of the Messiah is drawn by the Hebrew Scriptures?

When the New Testament Christians seek to substantiate Jesus’ claim to Messiahship, they are fond of quoting Deuteronomy 18:18-19:

“I will raise up a Prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put my words into his mouth, and he will speak to them all that I command him. And the man that will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name [Yehovah], I will hold accountable.”

Both Peter (Acts 3:22) and Stephen (Acts 7:37) used this primary text to show that Jesus was “that promised prophet” (John 6:14), whose origin would be in an Israelite family and whose function would be like that of Moses. In Jesus, God [Yehovah] had raised up the Messiah, the long-promised spokesman representing God [Yehovah], the savior of Israel and the world. In Peter’s words, “God [Yehovah] raised up His servant and sent him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways” (Acts 3:26).

Other classic Messianic texts promised that “a son will be born to Israel” (Isaiah 9:6), the “seed of a woman” (Genesis 3:15), a descendant of Abraham (Galatians 3:16), and a descendant of David’s royal house (2 Samuel 7:14-16; Isaiah 11:1). He would be a ruler born in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:6; Micah 5:2). Of his several titles one would be “mighty god” and another, “everlasting father” (Isaiah 9:6). The “mighty god” of Isaiah 9:6 is defined by the leading Hebrew lexicon as “divine hero, reflecting the divine majesty.” The same authority records that the word “god - Elohim” used by Isaiah is applied elsewhere in Scripture to “men of might and rank,” as well as to angels. As for “eternal father,” this title was understood by the Jews as “father of the coming age.” It was widely recognized that a human figure could be “father to the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem” (Isaiah 22:21).

In Psalm 45 the “ideal” Messianic King is addressed as “god,” but there is no need whatever to assume that Jewish monotheism has therefore been compromised. The word (in this case Elohim) was applied not only to the one God but “to divine representatives at sacred places or as reflecting divine majesty and power” (Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament by Brown, Driver, and Briggs, pp. 42, 43). The Psalmist and the writer to the Hebrews who quoted him (Hebrews 1:8) were conscious of their specialized use of the word “god” to describe the Messianic King and quickly added that the Messiah’s God had granted him his royal privileges (Psalm 45:7). Even the frequently quoted text in Micah 5:2 about the origins of Messiah does not necessitate any kind of literal, eternal pre-existence. In the same book a similar expression dates the promises made to Jacob from the “days of old” (Micah 7:20). Certainly, the promises of Messiah had been given at an early moment in the history of man (Genesis 3:15; cp. Genesis 49:10; Numbers 24:17-19). 

Approaching the question of Jesus’ Messiahship as he and the apostles do, we find nothing at all in the Old Testament predictions about the Messiah which suggests that an eternal immortal being was to become human as the promised King of Israel. That King was to be born in Israel, a descendant of David, and conceived by a virgin (2 Samuel 7:13-16; Isaiah 7:14; Matthews 1:23). And so, during the reign of Emperor Augustus, the Messiah arrived on the scene. 

The Son of God

In the Bible “Son of God” is an alternative and virtually synonymous title for the Messiah. Thus, John dedicates his whole gospel to one dominant theme, that we believe and understand “that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God” (John 20:31). The basis for equating these titles is found in a favorite Old Testament passage in Psalm 2: 

“The rulers take counsel together against Yehovah and against His Messiah” whom He has installed as King in Jerusalem (v. 6), and of whom He says: “You are My Son, today I have begotten you. Ask of Me and I will give you the nations as your inheritance” (vv. 7, 8). Jesus does not hesitate to apply the whole Psalm to himself and sees in it a prediction of his and his followers’ future rulership over the nations (Revelation 2:26, 27). 

Peter makes the same equation of Messiah and Son of God when by divine revelation he affirms his belief in Jesus: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). 

The high priest asks Jesus: “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” (Mark 14:61).

Nathaniel understands that the Son of God is none other than the King of Israel (John 1:49), the Messiah (v. 41), “him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote” (v. 45; cp. Deuteronomy 18:15-18).

The title “son of God” is applied also in Scripture to angels (Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7; Genesis 6:2, 4; Psalm 29:1; 89:6; Daniel 3:25), to Adam (Luke 3:38), to the nation of Israel (Exodus 4:22), to kings of Israel as representing God, and in the New Testament to Christians (John 1:12). We would search in vain to find any application of this title to an uncreated being, a member of the eternal Godhead. This idea is simply absent from the biblical idea of divine Sonship.

Luke knows very well that Jesus’ sonship is derived from his conception in the womb of a virgin; he knows nothing at all of any eternal origin: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; for that reason, the holy thing which is begotten will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). The Psalmist had ascribed the Messiah’s Sonship to a definite moment of time; “today” (Psalm 2:7). The Messiah was begotten around 3 BC (Matthew 1:20; Luke 1:35). His begetting is thus related to his appearance in history (Acts 13:33), when God became his Father (Hebrews 1:5; 1 John 5:18).

Here, clearly presented by the Scriptures which Jesus recognized as God’s word, are the biblical ideas of Jesus’ sonship. It is to be dated from Jesus’ conception, his resurrection, or from his appointment to kingship. Luke’s view of Jesus sonship agrees exactly with the hope for the birth of the Messiah from the woman, a descendant of Adam, Abraham, and David (Mattew 1:1; Luke 3:38). The texts we have examined contain no information about a personal pre-existence for the Son in eternity.

The Son of Man, the Lord at God’s Right Hand

The title “Son of Man” was frequently used by Jesus to refer to himself. Like “Son of God” it is closely associated with Messiahship; so much so that when Jesus solemnly affirms that he is the Messiah, the Son of God, he adds in the same breath that the high priest will see “the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:61, 62). The title “Son of Man” is most fully described in Daniel 7:13, 14, where a human figure (a “Son of Man”) receives the right to world dominion from the Father. The parallel with Psalm 2 is obvious, as well as the close connection with Psalm 110, where David refers to his “lord” (the Messiah) who is to sit at the Lord’s (the Father’s) right hand until he takes up his office as world governor and “rules in the midst of his enemies” (Psalm 110:2; cp. Matthew 22:42-45). The Son of Man has an equally clear Messianic connection in Psalm 80:17: “Let Your hand be upon your right-hand man, upon the Son of Man whom you made strong for Yourself.

It is significant that the New Testament writers lay the greatest stress on Psalm 110, citing it some 23 times and applying it to the lord Messiah Jesus, who had been by that time exalted as the Lord and Messiah to immortality at the right hand of the Father just as the Psalmist had foreseen. Once again, we must recognize that eternal Sonship is alien to all the descriptive titles of the Messiah. This startling fact should lead Bible students everywhere to compare what they have been taught about Jesus with the Jesus presented by Scripture. An eternal Son will not match the Bible’s account of the Messiah. In opting for a Jesus who is an eternal being passing through a temporary life on earth, many seem, so to speak, to have “got the wrong man.”

Jesus the lord Messiah

In the Gospel of John, the identity of Jesus is a principal theme. John wrote as he tells us, with one primary purpose: to convince his readers that Jesus is “the Messiah, the Son of God” (20:31). According to John, Jesus carefully distinguished himself from the Father who is “the only true God” (17:3; cp. 5:44; 6:27). It is high time that we allow Jesus to set the record straight. In Matthew’s, Mark’s, and Luke’s accounts, we are told that Jesus explicitly subscribed to the strict monotheism of the Old Testament (Mark 12:28-34). Did he ever, according to John, claim to be God? The answer is given plainly in John 10:34-36, where Jesus defined his status in terms of the human representatives of God in the Old Testament. Jesus gave this account of himself in explanation of what it means to be “one with the Father” (John 10:30). It is a oneness of function by which the Son perfectly represents the Father. That is exactly the Old Testament ideal of sonship, which had been imperfectly realized in the rulers of Israel, but would find perfect fulfillment in the Messiah, God’s chosen King.

The argument in John 10:29-38 is as follows: Jesus began by claiming that he and the Father were “one.” It was a oneness of fellowship and function which on another occasion he desired also for his disciples’ relationship with him and the Father (John 17:11, 22). The Jews understood him to be claiming equality with God. This gave Jesus an opportunity to explain himself. What he was actually claiming was to be the “Son of God” (v. 36), a recognized synonym for Messiah. The claim to sonship was not unreasonable, Jesus argued, in view of the well-known fact that even imperfect representatives of God had been addressed by Him in the Old Testament as “gods [Elohim]” (Psalm 82:6). Far from establishing any claim to eternal Sonship, he compared his office and function to that of the judges. He considered himself God’s representative par excellence since he was uniquely the Son of God, the Messiah, supernaturally conceived, and the object of all Old Testament prophecy. There is absolutely nothing, however, in Jesus’ account of himself that interferes with Old Testament monotheism or requires a rewriting of the sacred text in Deuteronomy 6:4. Jesus’ self-understanding is strictly within the limits laid down by God’s authoritative revelation in Scripture.

John’s Jewish Language

Since Jesus expressly denied that he was God in John 10:34-36, it would be most unwise to think that he contradicted himself elsewhere. John’s Gospel should be examined with certain axiomatic principles firmly in mind. Jesus is a man distinct from “the only true God” (John 17:3). The Father alone is God (John 5:44). John wishes his readers to understand that all that he writes contributes to the one great truth that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God (John 20:31). Jesus himself says, as we have seen, that the term “god [elohim]” can be used of a human being representing God. Jesus’ own self-designation is plainly “Son of God” (John 10:36). In John 10:24, 25 Jesus told them “plainly” that he was the Messiah, but they did not believe him.

Jesus states often that he has been “sent by God.” John the Baptist was also “sent from God,” which does not mean that he pre-existed his birth (John 1:6). Prophets, in general, are “sent” from God (Judges 6:8; Micah 6:4), and the disciples themselves are to be “sent” as Jesus was “sent” (John 17:18). “Coming down from heaven” need not mean descent from a previous life any more than Jesus’ “flesh, which is the bread which came down from heaven,” literally descended from the sky (John 6:50, 51). Nicodemus recognized that Jesus had “come from God” (John 3:2) but did not think of him as pre-existent. Nor did the Jewish people, when they spoke of the prophet “who was to come into the world” (John 6:14; cp. Deuteronomy 18:15-18), mean that he was alive before his birth. James can say that “every good thing bestowed, and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father” (James 1:17). “Coming down from heaven” is Jesus’ and the Jews’ graphic way of describing the divine origin, which certainly belonged to Jesus through the virgin birth. I personally know that all I have has come from my God and Father Yehovah’s hand.

The statements in John (John 3:138; 6:62) relate to the Son of Man, which means human being. it is noted that Daniel had 600 years earlier seen the Son of Man in vision seated at the right hand of the Father, a position which the New Testament says Jesus gained by resurrection and ascension. As Messiah, Jesus saw himself in the role of the one who was later to be exalted to heaven, since this, according to Daniel’s inspired vision, was the destiny of the Messiah prior to his second coming in glory. Jesus does indeed “pre-exist” his future return to the earth. All this had been seen in advance by Daniel before the birth of the Messiah. Thus, Jesus expected to ascend to the right hand of the Father where he had been seen before in vision as an exalted human being - the Son of Man (John 6:62). Jesus had to be born, have a beginning before anything predicted of him in the Old Testament could take place!

Glory Before Abraham

Jesus found his own history written in the Hebrew Scriptures (Luke 24:27). The role of the Messiah was clearly outlined there. Nothing in the biblical record had suggested that Old Testament monotheism would be radically disturbed by the appearance of the Messiah. A mass of evidence will support the proposition that the apostles never for one moment questioned the absolute oneness of God [Yehovah], or that the appearance of Jesus created any theoretical problem about monotheism. It is therefore destructive of the unity of the Bible to suggest that in one or two texts in John, Jesus overturned his own creedal statement that the Father was “the only true God” (17:3), or that he took himself far outside the category of being human by speaking of a conscious existence from eternity. Certainly, his prayer for the glory that he had had before the world began (John 17:5) can be easily understood as the desire for the glory that had been prepared for him in the Father’s plan. The glory that Jesus intended for the disciples had also been “given” (John 17:22, 24), but they had not yet received it.

It was typical of Jewish thinking that anything of supreme importance in God’s purpose; Moses, the Law, repentance, the Kingdom of God, and the Messiah; had “existed” with God from eternity. In this vein, John can speak of the crucifixion having “happened” before the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8), because God [Yehovah] in His foreknowledge knows the End from the Beginning. Peter, writing late in the first century, still knows of Jesus’ “pre-existence” only as an existence in the foreknowledge of God (1 Peter 1:20). His sermons in the early chapters of Acts reflect the same view.

But what of the favorite proof text in John 8:58 that Jesus existed before Abraham? Does Jesus after all confuse everything by saying on the one hand that the Father alone is the “only true God” (17:3, 5:44); and that he himself is not God, but the Son of God (John 10:36); and on the other hand, that he, Jesus, is also an uncreated being? Does he define his status within the recognizable categories of the Old Testament (John 10:36; Psalm 82:6; 2:7) only to pose an insoluble riddle by saying that he had been alive before the birth of Abraham?

Is the Trinitarian problem, which has never been satisfactorily resolved, to be raised because of a single text in John? Would it not be wiser to read John 8:58 in the light of Jesus’ later statement in 10:36, and the rest of Scripture?

In the thoroughly Jewish atmosphere that pervades the Gospel of John, it is most natural to think that Jesus spoke in terms that were current amongst those trained in the rabbinical tradition. In a Jewish context, asserting “pre-existence” does not mean that one is claiming to be an uncreated being! It does, however, imply that one has absolute significance in God's plan. Jesus is certainly the central reason for creation. But the one God’s creative activity and his plan for salvation were not manifested in a unique created being, the Son, until Jesus’ birth, his beginning. The person of Jesus originated when God’s prophetic word given in Genesis 3:15 took place at his birth as a human being (John 1:14).

It is a well-recognized fact that the conversations between Jesus and the Jews were often at cross purposes, they wanted to catch him in what he said to destroy him. In John 8:57 Jesus had not in fact said, as the Jews attempted to charge him with saying that he had seen Abraham. However, Abraham had rejoiced to see Messiah’s Day (v. 56: Abraham your father rejoiced that he would see my day, and he saw it and was glad.”). The patriarch was expecting to arise in the resurrection on the last day (John 11:24; Matthew 8:11) and take part in the Messianic Kingdom. Jesus claimed superiority to Abraham, but in what sense?

As the “Lamb of God” he had been “crucified before the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8; 1 Peter 1:20); not, of course, literally, but in God’s plan. In this way also Jesus “was” before Abraham according to the foreknowledge of God [Yehovah]. Thus, Abraham could look forward to the coming of the Messiah and his Kingdom. The Messiah and the Kingdom therefore “pre-existed” in the sense that they were “seen” by Abraham through the eyes of faith.

The expression “I am” in John 8:58 positively does not mean “I am God.” It is not, as so often alleged, the divine name of Exodus 3:14, where Yahweh declared: “I am the self-existent One” (ego eimi o ohn). Jesus nowhere claimed that title. The proper translation of “ego eimi” in John 8:58 is “I am he,” i.e., the promised Messiah (cp. the same expression in John 4:26, “I who speak to you am he [the Messiah]”). Before Abraham was born Jesus had been “foreknown”, in the mind of God [Yehovah] (cp. 1 Peter 1:20). Jesus here makes the stupendous claim to absolute significance in God’s purpose. 

The Logos in John 1:1

There is no reason, to assume the “word” in John 1:1, can refer to Jesus who had his beginning when he was specially created in the womb of Mary. A similar personification of wisdom in Proverbs 8:22, 30, and Luke 11:49 does not mean that “she” is a second person. There is no possible way of accommodating a “second divine person” in the revealed nature of God [Yehovah] as John and Jesus understood it. The Father remains, as He always has been, “the only true God” (17:3), “the one who alone is God” (5:44).

Reading the term logos (“word”) from an Old Testament perspective we will understand it to be God’s activity in creation, His powerful life-giving command by which all things came into existence (Psalm 33:6-12). God’s [Yehovah’s] word is the power by which His purposes are furthered (Isaiah 55:11). If we borrow from elsewhere in the New Testament we will equate the word with the creative salvation message, the gospel. This is the meaning throughout the New Testament (Mattew 13:19; Galatians 6:6, etc.).

It is this complex of ideas which go to makes up the significance of logos, the “word.” “Through it all things were made, and nothing was made without it” (John 1:3). In John 1:14 the word materializes in a real human being [Genesis 3:15] having a divine origin in his supernatural conception. From this moment, in “the fullness of time” (Galatians 4:4), the one God expresses Himself in a new creation, the second man specially created the counterpart of the creation of the first man from dirt, Adam. Jesus’ conception and his birth, mark an unprecedented new phase of God’s purpose in history. As the second man and the last Adam, Jesus sets the scene for the whole program of salvation. He pioneers the way to immortality. In him, God’s purpose is finally revealed in a human being (Hebrews 1:1).

All this does not mean, however, that Jesus gave up one life for another using Mary as a drive-through. That would seriously disturb the parallel with Adam who was also “Son of God” by direct creation (Luke 3:38). It would also interfere with the pure monotheism revealed throughout the Scriptures which “cannot be broken” (John 10:35). Rather, God begins to speak to us in the first century AD in a new Son, His last word to the world (Hebrews 1:1). It is the notion of an eternally existing Son which so violently disrupts the biblical scheme, challenging monotheism and threatening the real humanity of Jesus (1 John 4:2; 2 John 7). It is this notion, belief in an eternally existing Son, that Satan uses to blind the eyes of humanity from recognizing the true Messiah Jesus, and the only true God [Yehovah].

This understanding of Jesus in John’s Gospel will bring John into harmony with his fellow apostles and the monotheism of the Old Testament will be preserved intact. The facts of church history show that the unrestricted monotheism of the Hebrew Scriptures was soon after New Testament times abandoned under the influence of alien Greek ideas. At the same time the predetermined framework for Messiahhood was forgotten, and with it the reality of the future Messianic Kingdom. The result was years of conflict, still unresolved, over how an already existing second divine Person could be combined with a fully human being in a single individual as a god/man. The concept of literal pre-existence for the Messiah is the part of the Christological puzzle that will not fit. Without it a clear picture of Jesus emerges within the terms of the Hebrew revelation and the teachings of the apostles. God [Yehovah], the Father, remains indeed the only true God, the one who alone is God (John 17:3; 5:44), and the oneness of Jesus with his Father is found in a unity of function performed by one who is truly the Son of God [Yehovah], as the Bible everywhere else understands that term (John 10:36). If Christianity is to be revived and unified it will have to be based on belief in Jesus, the Messiah of the Bible, unspoiled by the misleading speculations of the Greek so-called Church fathers, who displayed very little sympathy for the Hebrew world into which the Christian message of the Gospel of the coming Kingdom of God was born. 

The “Divinity” of Jesus

To say that Jesus is not God is not to deny that he is uniquely invested with the nature of God. Divinity is, so to speak, “built-in” to him by virtue of his unique conception under the influence of the Holy Spirit, as well as by the Spirit which dwelt in him in full measure (John 3:34). Paul recognizes that the “fullness of the nature of God dwells in him” (Colossians 1:19; 2:9). In seeing the man Jesus, we see the outshining glory of his God and Father (John 1:14). We perceive that God Himself was “in the Messiah reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19). The Son of God is therefore the pinnacle of God’s creation, the full expression of the divine character in a human being. Though the glory of the Father had been manifested, to a much lesser degree, in Adam (Psalm 8:5; cp. Genesis 1:26), in Jesus his God and Father Yehovah’s will is fully explained (John 1:18, NASB).

None of what Paul says about Jesus takes him out of the category of human being. The presence of God, the Shekinah glory of God, which dwelt in the temple did not turn the temple into God! It is seldom observed that a high degree of “divinity” is ascribed by Paul also to the Christian who has the spirit of Messiah dwelling in him/her (Ephesians 3:19). As “God [Yehovah] was in the Messiah” (2 Corinthians 5:19), so the Messiah was “in Paul” (Galatians 2:20), and he prays that the Christians may be “filled up to all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 1:23; 3:19). Peter speaks of the faithful having the “divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). What is true of the Christian is true to a much higher degree of Jesus who is “the pioneer” leading others through the process of salvation after successfully “completing the course” himself (Hebrews 2:10).

In the Form of God

Despite the massive evidence from the New Testament showing that the apostles always distinguished Jesus from the “one God, the Father” (1 Corinthians 8:6), many confidently find the traditional view of Jesus as a second uncreated being, fully God, in Philippians 2:5-11. It is something of a paradox that the writer on Christology in the Dictionary of the Apostolic Church can say that “Paul never gives to the Messiah the name or description of ‘God,’” but nevertheless finds in Philippians 2 a description of the Messiah’s eternal “pre-life” in heaven. Amazing how deceived many are because they don’t believe the direct testimony of God’s revelation given in the scriptures but follow the traditions of men which Jesus condemned.

A recent and widely acclaimed study of the biblical view of Jesus; Christology in the Making, by James Dunn; alerts us to the danger of reading into Paul’s words the conclusions of a later generation of theologians, the “fathers” of the Greek church in the centuries following the completion of the New Testament writings. The tendency to find in Scripture what we already believe is natural, since none of us can easily face the threatening possibility that our “received” understanding does not coincide with the Bible. (The problem is even more acute if we are involved in teaching or preaching the Bible.)

However, are we not demanding of Paul more than he could possibly give by asking him to present to us, in a few brief phrases, an eternal being other than the Father? This would so obviously threaten the strict monotheism which he everywhere else expresses so clearly (1 Corinthians 8:6; Ephesians 4:6; 1 Timoty 2:5). It would also raise the whole Trinitarian problem of which Paul, brilliant theologian as he was, is quite unaware.

Looking afresh at Philippians 2, we must ask the question of whether Paul in these verses has really made what would be his only allusion to Jesus having been alive before his birth. The context of his remarks shows him urging the saints to be humble. It has often been asked whether it is in any way probable that he would enforce this lesson by asking his readers to adopt the frame of mind of one who, having been eternally God, made the decision to become man. It might also be strange for Paul to refer to the pre-existent Jesus as Jesus the Messiah, thus reading back into eternity the name and office he received at birth. 

Paul can be readily understood in Philippians 2 in terms of a favorite theme: Adam Christology. It was Adam who was in the image of God as a son of God (Genesis 1:26; Luke 3:38), while Jesus, the second man and the last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45) was also in the form of God (the two words “image” and “form” can be interchanged).17 However, whereas Adam, under the influence of Satan, grasped at equality with God (“You will be as God,” Genesis 3:5), Jesus did not. Though he had every right to divine office since he was the Messiah reflecting the glory of God [Yehovah], he did not consider equality with God something to be “clutched at, as Adam did.” Instead, he gave up all privileges, refusing Satan’s offer of power over the world’s kingdoms (Matthew 4:8-10), and behaved throughout his life as a servant, even to the point of going to a criminal’s death on the cross. 

In response to this life of humility, God has now exalted Jesus to the status of Lord and Messiah at His right hand, as Psalm 110 predicted. Paul does not say that Jesus was regaining a position that he had temporarily given up. He gained his exalted office for the first time following his resurrection. Though he had all his life been the Messiah, his position was publicly confirmed when he was “made both Lord and Messiah” by being raised from among the dead (Acts 2:36; Romans 1:4). If we read Paul’s account of Jesus’ life in this way as a description of the Lord’s continuous self-denial a close parallel will be seen with another of his commentaries on Jesus’ career. “Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor” (2 Corinthians 8:9). While Adam had fallen, Jesus voluntarily “stepped down.”. 

The traditional reading of the Philippians 2 passage depends almost entirely on understanding Jesus’ condition “in the form of God”. In 1 Corinthians 11:7, Paul says that a man ought not to cover his head since he is in the image and glory of God. The verb here is no different from the “was” describing Jesus as in the form of God. If ordinary man is in God’s glory and image, how much more Jesus, who is the perfect, sinless, human representative of God in whom all the attributes of God’s divine nature dwelt (Colossians 2:9). Paul’s intention in Philippians 2 is to teach a simple lesson in humility. We are to have the same attitude as Jesus, to think as he did.

It is not widely known that many have had serious reservations about reading Philippians 2, as a statement about pre-existence. No, no, Paul is begging the Philippians to cease dissensions and to act with humility towards each other. In 2 Corinthians 8:9, he is exhorting his readers to be liberal in almsgiving. Paul also points to the inspiring example of the Messiah’s humility and self-sacrifice in his human life, as in 2 Corinthians 10:1: “I exhort you by the meekness and forbearance of the Messiah.” Though Jesus was throughout the whole of his life the Messiah, he did not think it a privilege to be maintained at all costs, to be treated as the Messiah, but of his own accord emptied himself by taking on the nature of a slave.” What a great example for us who are sons and daughters of God [Yehovah] to follow!

Paul is pointing to the fact that Jesus appeared on the scene as any other man (“in the likeness of men”). His life looked at, as a continuous process of self-humbling, culminating in his death on the cross. The second man and last Adam, unlike the first, commit himself totally to the will of God and in consequence receives the highest exaltation.

Head of the New Creation

The parallel between Adam and Jesus forms the basis of Paul’s thinking about the Messiah. The Messiah bears the same relationship to the new creation, as the federal head of the new humanity, as Adam is the federal head of humanity as it exists today. Beginning with Jesus, because of him humanity makes a new start. In Jesus as representative man, the new Adam, there is the creation of a new humanity, for those in him are new creations and members of the new humanity, as all those resurrected at his coming will also be members of the new humanity. The final destiny of those in the new humanity of which Jesus is the federal head is to enter the new earth – having been cleansed by fire and recreated and the new heavens, a completely new order of things. Only glorified, immortal human beings, like Jesus is now, will enter the new earth and new heavens, the New Age, and live with God [Yehovah] who will come down from heaven and set up His residence at Zion. This will all happen after death and the grave is cast into the Lake of Fire at the end of the 1,000 rule of the Lord Jesus.

As Adam is created a “Son of God” (Luke 3:38), so Jesus’ creation in the womb of Mary constitutes him “Son of God” (Luke 1:35). Certainly, Adam is of the earth (1 Corinthians 15:47) while Jesus is the “man from heaven,” according to Paul, coming from heaven at his second coming to raise the faithful dead (1 Corinthians 15:45). The movement of the Messiah from heaven to earth centers in Paul’s mind on the Parousia (second coming). In later tradition thinking the center of interest was transferred to his birth. So, the traditional scheme looked backward into history, while the Bible orients us primarily towards the Messiah’s future coming in glory.

It is as the head of the new creation and the center of God’s cosmic purpose that Paul describes Jesus in Colossians 1. His intention is to show the supreme position that Jesus has won through resurrection and his pre-eminence in the new order, as against the claims of rival systems of religion by which the Colossians were being threatened. All authorities were created “because of the Messiah” (Colossians 1:16). So, Jesus had claimed also: “All power in heaven and earth is mine” (Mattew 28:18). “All things” here means for Paul the intelligent, animate creation consisting of “thrones, dominion, rulers or authorities,” which were created “because of the Messiah,” “through the Messiah” (not “by”) and “for the Messiah.” It is his Kingdom that Paul has in mind (Colossians 1:13). Jesus is the firstborn of every creature as well as the firstborn from among the dead (vv. 15, 18). The term “firstborn” designates him as the federal head, and leading member of the newly created order as well as its source, a position which he attained by being the first to receive immortality through resurrection. John, in Revelation 3:14, similarly calls Jesus “the beginning of the [new] creation of God,” which most naturally means that he himself was part of that creation. Firstborn designates in the Bible the one who holds the supreme office can be shown in Psalm 89:27 where the “firstborn,” the Messiah, is the “highest of the kings of the earth,” one chosen like David from the people and exalted (Psalm 89:19). Again, Paul has developed the Messianic concepts already well established by the Hebrew Scriptures. 

Paul presents us with the glorified, immortal, second Adam, now raised to be Lord over all of God’s creation with only Himself excluded. for which man was originally created (Genesis 1:26; Psalm 8). Jesus is now represented as the federal head of the new order of humanity. He intercedes for us as supreme High Priest in the heavenly temple (Hebrews 8:1). In ascribing such elevated titles to the risen Lord Jesus there is no reason to think that Paul has infringed his own clear monotheism expressed in 1 Corinthians 8:6: “To us Christians, there is one God the Father, and one Lord Jesus the Messiah.” Nothing in Colossians 1 forces us to believe that Paul, without warning, has parted company with Matthew, Mark, Luke, Peter, and John, and deviated from the absolute monotheism which he states so carefully and clearly elsewhere (1 Timothy 2:5; Ephesians 4:6), and which was deeply embedded in his whole theological background.

The Inhabited Earth to Come of Which We Speak

The writer of Hebrews lays special emphasis on the humanity of Jesus. He was tempted in all points as we are and yet was without sin (Hebrews 4:15). God originally made the ages because of the Son, with his destiny as Messiah in view, according to God’s foreknowledge (Hebrews 1:2). After communicating with us in different ways and at different times through spokesmen in the past, God [Yehovah] has now finally spoken to us in one who is truly His Son (Hebrews 1:2). It was God who had rested on the seventh day, after completing His work (Hebrews 4:4, 10). It is God [Yehovah], also, who will yet introduce the Son into the “inhabitable earth of the future”: “When He again brings the Son into the world” (Hebrews 1:6, NASB).

When the Messiah is reintroduced into the earth, a few important statements about him will become history. Firstly, Messiah’s throne will be established (Hebrews 1:8). (Compare, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, then he will sit on his throne of glory,” Mattew 25:31). As representing the divine majesty of the Father, the Messianic title “god” [elohim] will be applied to Jesus, as it once was to the judges of Israel who foreshadowed the supreme Judge of Israel, the Messiah (Psalm 82:6). Another prophecy from Psalm 102:25 will also be realized in the coming kingdom of Messiah. The foundations of a new earth and a new heaven to come will be laid as Isaiah 51:16 and 65:17 foresee. Notice the author’s quotation from the LXX of the thoroughly Messianic Psalm 102. He specifically states that his series of truths about the Son refers to the time when he is “brought again” into the earth – at his second coming (Hebrews 1:6). And in Hebrews 2:5 he tells us once again that it is the “inhabited earth of the future” of which he is speaking in chapter one. The writer of Hebrews must be allowed to provide his own commentary. His concern is with the Messianic Kingdom, not the creation in Genesis. Because we do not share the Messianic vision of the New Testament as we ought, our tendency is to look back rather than forward. We must attune ourselves to the thoroughly Messianic outlook of the entire Bible.

The Hebrew Background to the New Testament

It will be useful by way of summary and to orient ourselves to the thought world of the authors of the New Testament to lay out the principal passages of the Hebrew Scriptures from which they derived their unified understanding of the person of the Messiah.

The original purpose for man, made in the image and glory of God, was to exercise dominion over the earth (Genesis 1:26; Psalm 8). That ideal is never lost beyond our recovery for the Psalmist speaks of the “glory” with which man has been (potentially) crowned so that “all things are to be subjected under his feet” (Psalm 8:5, 6). As the divine plan unfolds it becomes clear that the promised “seed of the woman” who is to reverse the disaster caused by Satan (Genesis 3:15) will be a descendant of David (2 Samuel 7:13-16). He will call God [Yehovah] his Father (2 Samuel 7:14) and be appointed as God’s [Yehovah’s] Son, the Messiah, to whom God [Yehovah] entrusts rulership of the earth (Psalm 2). Prior to taking up his royal office, however, the Messiah is to sit at the right hand of the Father and bear the title “Lord” (Psalm 110:1). As Son of Man, representative man, he will take his place in heaven prior to receiving from God authority to administer a universal empire (Daniel 2:44; 7:14; Acts 3:20, 21). Having at his first coming suffered for the sins of the people (Isaiah 53; Psalm 22), he is to come again as God’s firstborn, the ruler of the kings of the earth (Psalm 89:27), foreshadowed by David who was also chosen from the people (Psalm 89:19, 20). 

As the second Moses, the Messiah was to arise in Israel (Deuteronomy 18:18), deriving his Sonship from a supernatural birth from a virgin (Isaiel 7:14; Luke 1:35), and being confirmed as God’s Son through his resurrection from the dead (Romans 1:4). As High Priest, the Messiah now serves his people from heaven (Hebrews 8:1) and awaits the time of the restoration of all things (Acts 3:21), when he is destined to be reintroduced into the earth as King of Kings, the figure of Psalm 45 (Hebrews 1:6-8). At that time, in the new age of the Kingdom, he will rule with his disciples (Matthews 19:28; Luke 22:28-30; 1 Corinthians 6:2; 2 Timothy 2:12; Revelation 2:26; 3:21; 20:4). As Adam was the federal head of the original creation of human beings on earth, so Jesus is the created federal head of the New Order of humanity, in whom the ideals of the human race will be fulfilled (Hebrews 2:7). 

Within this Messianic framework, the person and work of Jesus can be explained in terms understood by the apostles. Their purpose even when presenting the most “advanced” Christology is to proclaim belief in Jesus as Messiah and Son of God (John 20:31), who is the center of God’s whole purpose in history (John 1:14). Though Jesus is obviously coordinated in a most intimate way with his Father, the latter remains the “only true God” of biblical monotheism (John 17:3). Jesus thus represents the presence of the one God, his Father. In the man Jesus, Immanuel, the one God is present with us because God [Yehovah] is in him reconciling humanity to Himself (John 14:9).

The pure Messianism of Psalm 2 remains as strong as ever in Revelation 2:26 and 3:21, and these are Jesus’ very own words to the church (Revelation 1:1; 22:16). The Jesus of the Scriptures is none other than the Messiah of Old Testament prophecy and apocalyptic literature.

There is an urgent need for churchgoers to involve themselves in a personal investigation of the Scriptures unshackled by this or that creed at present so willingly accepted “on faith.” We have to be honest enough to admit that the majority opinions are not the correct ones and that tradition, uncritically accepted, may have gone too far in burying the original faith as Jesus and the apostles taught it.

It may be that we should take seriously the observation of Canon H.L. Goudge when he wrote of the disaster that occurred “when the Greek and Roman rather than the Hebrew mind came to dominate the church.” It was “a disaster in doctrine and practice,” according to Canon Goudge, “from which the Church has never recovered.”

Recovery can only begin when due notice is taken of John’s solemn warning that “there is no falsehood so great as the denial of the Messiahship of Jesus” (1 John 2:22). Jesus must be proclaimed as the Messiah, with all that highly colored term means in its biblical setting.

Jesus, the Man and Mediator

The Jesus presented by the apostles is “the Son of God.” Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah, whose origin is to be traced to his miraculous conception (Luke 1:35). The one God of the Scriptures remains in the New Testament the one Person revealed in the Old Testament as the Creator God of Israel. Jesus, “himself a man” (1 Timothy 2:5), mediates between the one God, the Father, and mankind. This Jesus can save “to the uttermost” (Hebrews 7:25). Any other Jesus must be avoided as a deceptive counterfeit, and it is all too easy to be “taken in” (2 Corinthians 11:4).

The Church’s Confession

The church that Jesus founded is based upon the central confession that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God (Matthew 16:16). This confession is seriously distorted when a new unbiblical meaning is attached to the term “Son of God.” That such a distortion has occurred should be evident to students of the history of theology. Its effects are with us to this day. What is urgently needed is a return to the rock-solid confession of Peter, who, in the presence of Jesus (Matthew 16:16), the Jews (Acts 2; 3), and at the end of his ministry declared that Jesus is the Messiah of Israel, the Savior of the world, foreknown in the counsels of God but manifested in these last times (1 Peter 1:20). The stupendous fact of Jesus’ Messiahship is understood only by divine revelation (Matthew 16:17).

Christianity’s founding figure must be presented within the Hebrew-biblical framework. It is there that we discover the real, historical Jesus who is also the Jesus of faith. Outside that framework, we invent “another Jesus” that Paul warned about because his biblical descriptive titles have lost their original meanings (cp. 2 Corinthians 11:4).

When Jesus’ titles are invested with a new unscriptural meaning, it is clear that they no longer truthfully convey his identity. When this happens, the Christian faith is imperiled. Our task, therefore, must be to proclaim Jesus as the Messiah of the prophets’ vision, and we must mean by Messiah and Son of God what Jesus and the New Testament mean by these terms. The church can claim to be the custodian of authentic Christianity only when it speaks in harmony with the apostles and tells the world who Jesus is. 

Notes

One of the most striking facts predicted of the Messiah is that he is definitely not God, but the Son of God. Psalm 110:1 is the NT’s master Christological proof-text, alluded to some 23 times. The relationship between God and the Messiah is precisely indicated by the title given to the Messiah; ‘Adoni’ (Psalm 110:1). This form of the word “lord” invariably (all 195 occurrences) designates non-Deity figures in the OT. Adoni is to be carefully distinguished from ‘Adonai’. Adonai in all of its 449 occurrences means the Deity. Adonai is not the word that appears in Psalm 110:1. This important distinction between God and man is a vital part of the sacred text, and is confirmed by Jesus himself in Matthew 22:41ff. It places the Messiah in the category of man, however elevated. Psalm 110:1 appears throughout the NT as a key text describing the status of the Messiah in relation to the One God (see Acts 2:34-36).

Note: Psalm 110:1: A declaration of Yehovah to my lord – adoni – referring to the Messiah Jesus, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.

Adonai and Adoni (Psalm 110:1)

The NT’s Favorite Old Testament Proof-text

Why is the Messiah called Adoni (my lord) and never Adonai? (Lord God) 

“Adonai and Adoni are variations of Masoretic pointing to distinguish divine reference from human. Adonai is referred to God but Adoni is to human superiors. 

Adoni—ref. to men: my lord, my master [see Psalm 110:1] 

Adonai—ref. to God…Lord” (Brown, Driver, Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, under adon [= lord], pp. 10, 11). 

“The form ADONI (‘my lord’), a royal title (I Samuel 29:8), is to be carefully distinguished from the divine title ADONAI (‘my Lord’) used of Yahweh.” “ADONAI - the special plural form [the divine title] distinguishes it from Adonai [with short vowel] = my lords [found in Genesis 19:2]” (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, “Lord,” p. 157). 

“Lord in the OT is used to translate ADONAI when applied to God. The [Hebrew] word… has a suffix [with special pointing] presumably for the sake of distinction. Sometimes it is uncertain whether it is a divine or human appellative… The Masoretic Text sometimes decides this by a note distinguishing between the word when ‘holy’ or only ‘excellent,’ sometimes by a variation in the [vowel] pointing—Adoni, Adonai [short vowel] and Adonai [long vowel]” (Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, “Lord,” Vol. 3, p. 137). 

“Hebrew Adonai exclusively denotes the God of Israel. It is attested about 450 times in the OT… Adoni [is] addressed to human beings (Genesis 44:7, Numbers 32:25, 2 Kings 2:19 [etc.]). We have to assume that the word Adonai received its special form to distinguish it from the secular use of adon [i.e., adoni]. The reason why [God is addressed] as Adonai, [with long vowel] instead of the normal adon, Adoni or Adonai [with short vowel] may have been to distinguish Yahweh from other gods and from human lords” (Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, p. 531). 

“The lengthening of the ā on Adonai [the Lord God] may be traced to the concern of the Masoretes to mark the word as sacred by a small external sign” (Theological Dictionary of the OT, “Adon,” p. 63 and Theological Dictionary of the NT, III, 1060ff, n. 109). 

“The form ‘to my lord,’ l’adoni, is never used in the OT as a divine reference… the generally accepted fact [is] that the Masoretic pointing distinguishes divine references (Adonai) from human references (Adoni) (Wigram, The Englishman’s Hebrew and Chaldee Concordance of the OT, p. 22)” (Herbert Bateman, “Psalm 110:1 and the NT,” Bibliothecra Sacra, Oct.-Dec., 1992, p. 438). 

Professor Larry Hurtado of the University of Edinburgh, celebrated author of a modern classic on Christology: “There is no question but that the terms Adonai and Adoni function differently: the one a reverent way of avoiding pronouncing the word YHVH and the other the use of the same word for non-divine figures”. 

The NT presents Jesus as the Messiah, the Messianic Son of God. He functions as the agent and representative of Yehovah, his Father, the God of Israel. Jesus founded his church on the revelation that he is “the Messiah, Son of the Living God” (Matthew 16:16) As Son of God he was supernaturally created or begotten (Matthew 1:20; Luke 1:35; Acts 13:33; I John 5:18) in the womb of his mother. This constitutes him as, “the uniquely begotten Son of God” (John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9) and the Lord Messiah (Luke 2:11). Because he was begotten; created; brought into existence; he cannot by definition be eternal. Therefore, the term “eternal Son” is an obvious non-sense expression. “Eternal” means you have no beginning. To be begotten means you have a beginning. You cannot be the eternal God and the Son of God at the same time!

The church fathers of the second century onwards, beginning probably with Justin Martyr, began to shift the history of the Son of God back into pre-history, thus distorting and eclipsing his true identity. They removed him from his status as the federal Head of the new human creation, the Second Adam. They minimized his real history and invented a cosmic pre-history for him. This destroyed his identity as the “man Messiah Jesus.” Later Origen invented a new meaning for the word “begotten” or “generated.” He called Jesus the “eternally generated” Son; a concept without meaning which contradicted the NT account of the actual “generation” or “begetting” of the Son around 3 B.C.

This fundamental paradigm shift which gave rise to the awful “problem of the Trinity” is rightly traced by “restorationists” to those ante-Nicene Church Fathers who, using a middle-Platonic model, began to project the historical Jesus, the Messianic Son of God, back into pre-historical, ante-mundane times. They produced a metaphysical Son who replaced the Messianic Son/King described in the Bible; the Messianic Son whose existence was still future when he was predicted as the promised King by the covenant made with David (2 Samuel 7:14, “he will be My [God’s] Son”). Hebrews 1:1-2 expressly says that God did not speak through a Son in OT times. That is because there was as yet no Messianic Son of God. 

Professor Loofs described the process of the early corruption of biblical Christianity: 

“The Apologists [‘church fathers’ like Justin Martyr, mid-2nd century] laid the foundation for the perversion/corruption (Verkehrung) of Christianity into a revealed [philosophical] teaching. Specifically, their Christology affected the later development disastrously. By taking for granted the transfer of the concept of the Son of God onto the preexisting Messiah, they were the cause of the Christological problem of the fourth century. They caused a shift in the point of departure of Christological thinking; away from the historical Messiah and onto the issue of pre-existence. They thus shifted attention away from the historical life of Jesus, putting it into the shadow and promoting instead the Incarnation [i.e., of a pre-existent Son]. They tied Christology to cosmology and could not tie it to soteriology. The Logos teaching is not a ‘higher’ Christology than the customary one. It lags in fact far behind the genuine appreciation of the Messiah. According to their teaching, it is no longer God who reveals Himself in the Messiah, but the Logos, the inferior God, a God who as God is subordinated to the Highest God (inferiority or subordination). 

“In addition, the suppression of economic-trinitarian ideas by metaphysical-pluralistic concepts of the divine triad (trias) can be traced to the Apologists” (Friedrich Loofs, Leitfaden zum Studium des Dogmengeschichte [Manual for the Study of the History of Dogma], 1890, part 1 chapter 2, section 18: “Christianity as a Revealed Philosophy. The Greek Apologists,” Niemeyer Verlag, 1951, p. 97, translation mine). 

Those who are dedicated to restoring the identity of the biblical Jesus, Son of God, may take heart from the incisive words of a leading systematic theologian of our times. He restores the biblical meaning of the crucial title “Son of God,” rescuing it from the millennia-long obscurity it has suffered from Platonically minded church fathers and theologians. 

Professor Colin Brown, general editor of the New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, writes, “The crux of the matter lies in how we understand the term Son of God… The title Son of God is not in itself an expression of personal Deity or the expression of metaphysical distinctions within the Godhead. Indeed, to be a ‘Son of God’ one has to be a being who is not God! It is a designation for a creature indicating a special relationship with God. In particular, it denotes God’s representative, God’s vice-regent. It is a designation of kingship, identifying the king as God’s Son… In my view, the term ‘Son of God’ ultimately converges on the term ‘image of God’ which is to be understood as God’s representative, the one in whom God’s spirit dwells, and who is given stewardship and authority to act on God’s behalf… It seems to me to be a fundamental mistake to treat statements in the Fourth Gospel about the Son and his relationship with the Father as expressions of inner-Trinitarian relationships. But this kind of systematic misreading of the Fourth Gospel seems to underlie much of social Trinitarian thinking… It is a common but patent misreading of the opening of John’s Gospel to read it as IF it said, ‘In the beginning was the Son, and the Son was with God, and the Son was God’ (John 1:1). What has happened here is the substitution of Son for Word (Gk. logos) and thereby the Son is made a member of the Godhead which existed from the beginning” (“Trinity and Incarnation: Towards a Contemporary Orthodoxy,” Ex Auditu, 7, 1991, pp. 87-89). 

The phrase “eternal generation of the Son,” which is the linchpin of orthodox Trinitarianism, has no meaning since to generate means to bring into existence, while eternity lies outside time. Cp. the protest of Dr. Adam Clarke: “I trust I may be permitted to say, with all due respect for those who differ from me, that the doctrine of the eternal Sonship of Christ is, in my opinion, antiscriptural and highly dangerous…To say that he was begotten from all eternity is, in my opinion, absurd; and the phrase ‘eternal Son’ is a positive self-contradiction. ‘Eternity’ is that which has had no beginning, nor stands in any reference to time. ‘Son’ supposes time, generation, and father, and time is also antecedent to such generation. Therefore, the conjunction of these two terms, ‘Son’ and ‘eternity,’ is absolutely impossible, as they imply essentially different and opposite ideas” (Commentary on Luke 1:35). Dr. J.O. Buswell writes, “We can say with confidence that the Bible has nothing whatsoever to say about ‘begetting’ as an eternal relationship between the Father and the Son” (A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion, Zondervan, 1962, p. 111). 

People who adhere to sola scriptura (as they believe) often adhere in fact to a traditional school of interpretation of sola scriptura. Evangelical Protestants can be as much servants of tradition as Roman Catholics or Greek Orthodox Christians; only they don’t realize that it is ‘tradition. F. F. Bruce 

It should be noted that John is as undeviating a witness as any in the New Testament to the fundamental tenet of Judaism, of unitary monotheism (cp. Romans 3:30; James 2:19). There is the one, true and only God (John 5:44; 17:3)” (J.A.T. Robinson, Twelve More New Testament Studies, SCM Press, 1984, p. 175). Jesus referred to the Father as “the only one who is truly God” (John 17:3). Such statements should end all argument. Only the Father is the one true God. 

It is typical of Jewish thinking that what is promised for the future may be said to exist already in God’s plan. Thus, in John 17:5 Jesus already “had” glory “with” the Father. The glory was his promised reward. Christians likewise already “have” a reward stored up in heaven. It is a reward “with” the Father (Matthew 6:1; cp. John 17:5: “glory I had with you before the foundation of the world”). “In some Jewish writings’ pre-existence is attributed to the expected Messiah, but only in common with other venerable things and persons, such as the Tabernacle, the Law, the city of Jerusalem, the lawgiver Moses himself, the people of Israel. 

The Hebrew word “lord” (Adoni, my lord) is never, in all of its 195 occurrences, the title of Deity. Yehovah God, by contrast, is Adonai 449 times. This critical text proves that no writer of the Bible thought the Messiah was God Himself. 

John 20:28 describes an address to Jesus as “my Lord and my God.” Both titles are ascribed to the Messiah in the Old Testament (Psalm 45:6, 11; 110:1). John’s whole purpose is to present Jesus as the Messiah (John 20:31). But there is a special significance in Thomas’ words. In John 14:7 Jesus said to Thomas: “If you had known me you would have known my Father. From now on you know Him and have seen Him.” Finally, after the resurrection, Thomas sees that God indeed was in the Messiah and that to see the Messiah was to recognize the God who commissioned him. John 20:28 is the sequel to Jesus’ earlier conversation with Thomas and Philip (John 14:4-11).