THE FORM OF GOD

Philippians 2:5-11

by WILLIAM WACHTEL

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11 NASB)

In Philippians 2:6, Paul writes that Christ Jesus was "in the form of God," as many English versions render the Greek expression en morphe theou. This phrase has given rise to the claim that Jesus is "very God of very God," as declared in the Nicene Creed, the ancient and first official formulation of the Trinitarian faith. According to this faith, Christ is "co-equal, co-eternal, and consubstantial" with the Father, and is the "second person" of the trinity. This means that Jesus is really and truly God in every sense, apart from his being also man born of woman. All of this is declared to be a "mystery" which must be accepted by faith, under pain of excommunication or--in past centuries--death.
The investigator who has already been convinced by Jesus' words in John 17:3 that the Father is "the only true God" and by his testimony to the Samaritan woman that the Jews were correct in their doctrine of God (John 4:21,22)--a doctrine which left no room for anything but the absolute oneness of God--is puzzled by this insistence on viewing God as "three persons." One becomes further alarmed at such a requirement when reading John's criteria for a saving faith: "Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name" (20:30,31). Nothing here about the necessity of believing that Jesus is in fact God, the Eternal One. No hint here of the Trinitarian title, "God the Son." It is all a straightforward requirement to believe Jesus is the Christ, the Anointed One, the promised Messiah of Israel, and that he is truly God's own Son.

In light of such facts, one must seriously ask what Paul meant, in saying that Jesus was "in the form of God." First of all, we note that he is talking about "Christ Jesus," the historical figure who had been born and later had been "anointed" by the Holy Spirit at his baptism, so becoming "the Christ" or "Anointed One" (Acts 10:38). Trinitarianism assumes that Paul is talking about what Jesus was before his "incarnation"--that is, during his supposed pre-existence as God in heaven before he was born. Paul gives no hint here, however, as he specifies the historical person Christ Jesus, that he has any such notion in mind. This interpretation can only be in the minds of those who have already decided that Jesus pre-existed as a person, either as a divine member of the Trinity, or as an angelic being--the Arian view.

No, the one who was "in the form of God" is the Man called "Christ Jesus," and Paul is describing what was true of that Man while he was on the earth! But what does
Paul mean by this phrase? Trinitarian commentators often interpret the Greek word morphe in light of some of its usage in classical Greek literature, that is, from the period five or six centuries earlier. That usage could imply "what is essential and permanent." But the New Testament is not written in "classical Greek," but rather in what is called Koine Greek, the popular language of Paul's day. From many Koine manuscripts discovered by archaeologists and dating from the first century, we know that some terms had acquired new meanings. One of those terms was morphe, usually translated "form." From Professor of Greek at Moody Bible Institute, Kenneth S. Wuest, himself a Trinitarian, we learn that in Koine Greek the word morphehad come to refer to "a station in life, a position one holds, one's rank. And that is an approximation of morphe in this context [Philippians 2]" (The Practical Use of the Greek New Testament, p. 84).

How can we be sure that morphe in Philippians 2:6 means "station in life [status], rank, position," and not "inherent nature," as some translators or commentators would interpret the Greek word (see NIV on Philippians 2:6, for example)? Here we appeal to the immediate context to help us understand how Paul is using the word. In verse 7 he says that Christ took the "form," themorphe, of a servant--literally, of a slave. What does this mean? Does morphe suggest that a servant has some kind of "inherent nature" that would constitute him a slave, or does it not rather imply that servanthood is, per se, a matter of "status, rank, or position"? One's position as a servant is either a matter of choice or a matter of circumstances. We cannot see, therefore, that the context supports any other meaning for morphe than that which deals with one's rank or status. Christ's status as God is contrasted with His status as a servant. To translate or to understand morphe as "inherent nature" in Philippians 2, then, clearly does not fit the way it is used in this context.

What does all of this imply? It suggests that Christ as a Man on earth was functioning in the status, rank, or position of God. Amazing thought! But there had been a famous historical precedent for this. When God called Moses to be his agent to bring Israel out of Egypt, he told him, "See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet" (Exo. 7:1). The Hebrew text is even more startling, because the word "like" is not there at all. Rather, God declares to Moses, "I have given you [to be] Elohim to Pharaoh." Earlier, God had said that Moses would be "Elohim" to Aaron (4:16). This means that Moses functioned in some ways as though he were God on earth; he was the appointed leader to act for God and as possessing the authority God had conferred on him by designating him to bear Yahweh's own title, Elohim! This is similar to the character or role of an ambassador or other diplomat who has received "plenipotentiary" authority to act on behalf of the government he represents, and whose decisions and transactions are regarded as equal or identical to those of the sovereign state which has sent him.

We may ask, then, how did Jesus function in the status of God during his earthly ministry? Do the four Gospels portray his activities in such a way as to suggest that he was doing what the Father himself would have been doing, had God been present visibly and personally to carry out the ministry that his Son in fact fulfilled? Does the record show that on earth Christ was exercising prerogatives that really belong to God himself?

We do not have to go far to find the answer to these questions. Very early in Christ's ministry the question arose, "Who can forgive sins but God alone?" (Mark 2:7). Jesus had just said to a paralyzed man, "Son, your sins are forgiven." The teachers of the law who heard him say these words accused him of blasphemy. Jesus replied, "Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, take your mat and walk'?" Then he added the crucial words, "But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . . ." (2:10). The scribes were correct in understanding that the ultimate authority to forgive men's sins rests with God. But they needed to understand even further that God had delegated his Son with that authority to act in God's stead and in his name! In this act of forgiveness, then, Christ was functioning in the morphe--the status--of God, who had sent him.

Further evidence of Jesus' status as God on earth is seen in John 5:21: "For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it." The power to resurrect the dead is in the Father's hands, and he manifested that power gloriously when he raised his Son from death to immortality (Acts 17:30,31; Rom. 6:9; 8:11). But while Christ was on the earth, he himself raised several from death--the most famous case being that of his friend Lazarus. So shocking was this to Christ's enemies that they plotted to kill the risen Lazarus as well as the One who had raised him! (John 12:9-11) Again, Christ was acting in God's stead when he raised the dead and showed himself to be in the morphe of God. He will fulfill this role again someday, "for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out." The voice they will hear, to awaken them, is "the voice of the Son of God" (John 5:25-29).

A third evidence of Christ's status as God is revealed in John 5:22, 23: "Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him." Paul told the Athenians that someday God would judge the world with justice "by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead" (Acts 17:31). God is the Judge of the universe, one who is both just in his judicial sentences and yet able to be the "justifier of him who has faith in Jesus" (Rom. 3:26). But again, Paul reveals that "God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ" (Rom. 2:16). Such texts provide evidence that the White Throne Judgment described in Revelation 20:11ff. will be presided over by Christ, who will be seated on the throne of judgment. [The Greek text does not have "God" in verse 12, but "the throne"--contrary to the reading in KJV.]

Equality with God

Christ "did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped." In what sense was Christ "equal" with God? We have already seen that Paul is saying that while on earth Jesus was "in the status of God." We have also considered what were clearly some of the implications of this divine status: his authority to forgive sin, to raise the dead, and to judge mankind. To this may be added his command of the elements, to make even the winds and the sea obey him. (Matt. 8:23-27) This status made it possible for Paul to declare him "equal with God" in the sense that such equality was a matter of delegated authority from God Himself. Equality, be it noted, is not the same asidentity. Paul is not saying that Christ was identical with God. That would be to provide evidence for either Trinitarianism or modalistic monarchianism (also called Sabellianism--the doctrine that God is simply one person or one being, but one who may be viewed as Father or Sonor Holy Spirit). A helpful illustration of the difference between equality and identity may be found in the fact that under the U.S. Constitution, the vice-president becomes equal to the president when the latter becomes incapacitated. The vice-president is then authorized to fulfill all the duties and responsibilities of the presidency. In this capacity he is equal to the president, but not identical with him.

The Greek text of Philippians 2:6 shows that Christ recognized his equality with God but that he did not consider this God-given equality a harpagmos. KJV translates this word as "robbery." The word can imply something that is snatched or taken by force. The Arndt-Gingrich lexicon says it can also mean a "prize" or a "windfall" in Koine usage. If Paul is using it in the latter sense, he implies that Christ did not have any kind of presumptuous attitude as he viewed his equality with God, nor did he seek to take advantage of it, or exploit it, for his own purposes. Rather, he took the status of a slave, seeking only to serve his God and the human race that he had come to save.

He Emptied Himself

The verb "empty" is the Greek kenoo, from which some Trinitarians have developed a doctrine called the "kenosis theory." According to this doctrine, the "pre-existent Christ" divested himself of the manifestation of some of his attributes of deity in order to become man. Without going into the various aspects of this theory and the disagreements even among those who profess it, we may say that all of them use the term "kenosis" to support the idea of Christ's personal preexistence. KJV ignores such ideas by translating that he "made himself of no reputation," an obvious reference to the period of his human lifetime and ministry. We have already seen that Paul is talking about the historical man Christ Jesus, not about a person who was later to becomeChrist Jesus! It is therefore this historical person who "emptied" himself. In such a setting, the word suggests that Christ put away any temptation for self-aggrandizement or to exalt himself in any way. The queen of Sheba was "emptied" of her pride when she saw the magnificence of Solomon's court. There was "no more spirit in her"! (1 Kings 10:1-13)
Likewise, Christ's "self-emptying" left within him no room for pride, arrogance, or any plans being made without total subjection to the will of God. (Heb. 10:7-10; Psa. 40:7-9)

Christ's "self-emptying" may be seen as part and parcel of his having taken the status of a servant and of his having come into existence in human likeness. "Having taken" is from the aorist participle labon, and "having come into existence" from the aorist participle genomenos. Such aorist participles often denote a time prior to the action of the main verb. This would support the view that his "self-emptying" (the main verb) occurred after he was born, not before. "Kenosis theories," therefore, can be considered simply philosophical speculations that can have no basis in the present text. As such, they would be an example of "eisegesis" (reading into the text), not exegesis.

In Appearance as a Man

Moulton and Milligan's lexicon sees the word schema, here translated "appearance," as implying "external bearing" or "fashion." One is tempted to translate that Christ was found to be "in the human scheme of things" or "in the human condition." He was totally human, apart from sin. He looked to be what he was--a man. Such descriptions, being inspired of God, forbid any kind of Gnostic or Docetist teaching that Christ only "appeared" to be a flesh-and-blood human being while being in fact "purely spirit." In their view anything material was, ipso facto, evil. So Christ could not have a material body. He only "appeared" to have one, said the Docetists. Pastor C. T. Russell used a similar kind of "sleight of hand" when he taught that Jesus had no physical body after his resurrection. He simply "materialized" a temporary body to show to his disciples--a teaching still propagated by those called Jehovah's Witnesses as well as by others from the Russellite tradition.

He Humbled Himself

Paul now goes on to declare how far Christ went in subjecting himself to his Father, who had placed him in the status of God to carry out his earthly ministry and had delegated him to exercise equality with God according to that status. "He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death." God's plan, as foretold by Isaiah, was to lay upon his Son "the iniquity of us all" (53:6), to crush him and to cause him to suffer, and to make his life a guilt-offering (v.10). Peter says that Jesus was delivered unto death by God's "predetermined plan and foreknowledge" (Acts 2:23). And yet Jesus willingly submitted himself to this plan, in loving obedience to his Father. "The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life--only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord" (John 10:17,18). Any doctrine of the atonement must take into account this judicial infliction of death upon Christ by his Father, so that God the Judge could also act justly in being the "justifier" of those who belong to Christ. (Rom. 3:26 KJV)

Christ's willing obedience "to the point of death" is made even more amazing by the fact that his death was carried out by one of the most painful and humiliating methods available--that of crucifixion! Paul stresses this shocking truth by using the word "even." Of all the ways that one might die, death on a cross is the most horrible he can imagine--and at the same time the kind that most reveals Christ's total submission to the will of God! As a Roman citizen, Paul realized that the government reserved death by crucifixion for the worst criminals, or else for the persons she most despised--the ones she viewed as avowed enemies of her authority to rule the world.

God Highly Exalted Him

From this lowest point of humiliation Christ was elevated to the highest pinnacle of authority in the universe, excepting that of God himself. Jesus as Lord is exalted "far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come" (Eph. 1:21 NASB). His present position is such that all God's angels must worship him as being "much superior to them"; he has inherited a name superior to theirs (Heb. 1:4-6). This name is "the name above every name." One could say that God has given to his Son his own name, just as human fathers do in naming sons after themselves. Certainly God's nameYahweh (or, Jehovah) is applied to Messiah in such prophecies as Jeremiah 23:6--"This is his name by which he will be called, the LORD our righteousness [literally, Yahweh-tzidkenu]." Zechariah 14:3, 4 speaks of the day when "the feet of Yahweh" will stand on the Mount of Olives when he fights against the nations making war on Jerusalem. It appears that this refers to Christ himself, coming in his Father's name, to "strike down the nations" and to "tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty" (Rev. 19:15). It is God's exalted Son, despised and rejected of men, who will appear once more on earth to be glorified in the same place where he was humiliated! In the presence of Jesus, King of kings and Lord of lords, every knee must bow--whether angelic, demonic, or human. Every tongue must then confess that Messiah Jesus is lord of all, by the express command of God and to the glory of God, the Father who so exalted his Son!

Count to One

Helping the World to Count to One and Believe in the Gospel of the Kingdom and New Creation

Eberhard Griesebach, in an academic lecture on “Christianity and Humanism,” delivered in 1938, observed that “in its encounter with Greek philosophy Christianity became ‘theology’. That was the fall of Christianity.”¹

by Anthony Buzzard

May I start with this introductory thought: I would like to encourage the abandonment of the misleading dichotomy which goes like this: “Don’t preach doctrine; preach Christian living.” This can easily be an excuse for never making clear the essential framework of the Christian faith. “Doctrine divides,” so the slogan goes. Yes, but truth and error divide too, and Jesus caused all sorts of divisions with his teaching. He (and Paul) also of course aimed at a solid unity among his followers — a unity based on truth. And Paul uttered these amazing words in 2 Thessalonians 2:10: “Because the love of the truth they would not accept in order to be saved, God will give them over to a deluding influence so that they wind up believing what is false.” The only insurance against falling for the spirit of antichrist was, for Paul, a thorough and increasing grasp of truth, the very mind of Jesus, who is the Truth.

Yes, of course we are to be kindly in all of our teaching and living. We are to be “gentle towards all.” But avoiding “doctrine” may simply make us water down the precious truths of the faith. And of course, all teaching is doctrine. So the cry “don’t preach doctrine, preach Christian living” actually amounts to “don’t preach these teachings, but do preach other teachings.” Then of course the awkward reply of Scripture to this point of view is that we are to “live by everyword that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

Jesus combined Christian living and “doctrine” so beautifully, concisely and uncomplicatedly (John 17:3). “This is the life of the age to come” — this is how we are to live and eventually gain the immortal life of the future Kingdom fully — by knowing and understanding that You, Father, are the only one who is truly God (o monos alethinos theos, the ultimate definition ofmonotheism — Jesus defined it superbly), and that Jesus is your accredited shaliach, ambassador, agent, deputy, plenipotentiary. Are we indignant or complacent about the fact that Augustine, highly revered, said that the text ought in fact to read, “This is eternal life: that they know You and Jesus Christ whom You sent, as the only true God”? Have we made our protest against this fraudulent manipulation of Scripture? Indeed are we indignant at the appalling, brutal murder of Servetus by John Calvin, 1553, (for excellent documentation do read Did Calvin Murder Servetus? (Standford Rives, 2009). And of course you must read our modern Servetus’ cry for a return to the God of the Bible, Kermit Zarley’s The Restitution of Jesus Christ. Joel Hemphill’s To God Be the Glory equally adds to the recovery of truth about God and His Messiah. Joel is now adding to his armory the much needed cry that Greek philosophy is the root of all the trouble in churches.

How Not to Make John Contradict the Other Gospels!

Jesus is the Messiah, Son of God, not God the Son. This is true of the whole New Testament. Psalm 110:1, with its clear but translator-suppressed distinction between YHVH and adoni, has yet to have its day, and I hope revolutionize churches. Adonai is 449 times the title for the One God and rhymes with El Shaddai. Sarah called Abraham adoni (‘adonee’), and did not think he was God! Adoni never means the Lord God. Adoni is the proper protocol word for addressing “His majesty King Jesus.”

It is a pity we don’t all live to be 150 years old. I can understand how God did not use Moses until he was well up in years. I think I have learned more about how to help others to see who God and Jesus are in the past several months. I have known of course since about 1970 that God is not a family of two or three, but it takes years for this truth to become clearer and clearer. I did two radio programs with Michael Brown, the leading Jewish Messianic Christian (author of five learned volumes on Answering Jewish Objections). His radio program is called “Line of Fire.” Then I was invited to engage with the Calvinist James White (“Unbelievable,” with the British Justin Brierley as moderator). These were for me enlightening, mainly the preparation needed for intelligent defense of our position. I emerge nervous about how belief in two or three who are all of them together “Yahweh” can pass muster in the judgment. Dr. James White dedicates pages in hisForgotten Trinity to explaining that God is “one What composed of three Who’s.” He tries to simplify the befuddling complexities of Trinitarian theory. He admits that three X’s cannot be one X. But I fear he falls into his own trap when towards the end of the book, he shares his technique for getting Jehovah’s Witnesses to accept the Trinity: He argues that the Father is Yahweh and Jesus is also Yahweh. But there is only one Yahweh

A low point was reached by the academy when in Westminster Theological Journal (1957, 1, p. 137) Krabbendam wrote: “God is one Person and three Persons simultaneously.” While James White offers us “one What and three Who’s,” Dr. McGrath, leading Trinitarian author at Oxford, says that God is “one Who in three forms.” Millard Erickson, chief evangelical exponent of the Trinity (God in Three Persons, 1996) admits that to express the Trinity one must break the rules of grammar and say “he are one, and they is three.” It is a very exhausting and divisive business — trying to make one equal three. The Seventh-Day Adventist PhD’s recently produced a special book on the Trinity to celebrate their “orthodoxy” and on p. 76 spoke of the “inherently plural word echad [one] in Deut. 6:4.”

Better just to admit with Luther that he did “not so much believe in the Trinity as find it true in experience.” Or confess with A.H. Newman, “The Trinity is a contradiction indeed and not merely a verbal contradiction, but an incompatibility in the human ideas conveyed. We can scarcely make a nearer approach to an exact enunciation of it than of saying that one thing is two things.”

What if this confusion over God is at the root of the world’s major religious and other problems? What if every human being must ultimately know who the Creator is and who the one mediator between man and God is? Is it not highly significant that this topic is currently dividing billions of Christians and Muslims and of course multitudes of Jews? What can we do to help? Can we afford to remain silent?

A major task is for us as a team to be geared up to help others to stop making John’s Gospel contradict the plain teaching of Matthew and Luke and Acts. We will have made real gains when pastors everywhere systematically not only teach their congregations to understand that God is one, and Jesus is a human being, but when they are so excited by this unifying truth that they pass it on at every possibility and learn the art of teaching it to others.

Discussions of who God and Jesus are typically result in the Trinitarian’s production of select verses in John. I soon found this out on the recent radio discussions. So here is some encouragement to provide answers. What is amazing to me is that 100 years ago, in Germany, Professor Loofs, pupil of the prince of church historians, Adolph Harnack, was saying that all his colleague evangelical systematicians believed that Nicene Christology was untenable and unbiblical. He was lecturing at Oberlin College in Ohio in 1911! They knew that reading John’s Son of God back onto a preexisting person as logos, other than the Father, was the cause of all the centuries-long struggle over Christology.

Loofs’ marvelous statement about the cause of all the difficulties is in the appendix of our Who Is Jesus? booklet. It goes like this:

The Apologists [Justin Martyr, Tatian etc. of the second century] used the metaphysical misinterpretation of the concept of Son [as preexisting logos]…This was a philosophical new interpretation of John’s logos idea and imported into the church’s theology…They presented Philo’s philosophical logos idea [as a “second God”] as Christian teaching and read it back into Scripture. The Apologists laid the groundwork for the perversion of Christianity into a revealed [philosophical] teaching. Specifically their Christology influenced further development disastrously. They were the cause of the beginning of the Christological problems of the 4th century. They transferred the concept of Son of God onto the preexistent Christ. They took this for granted. They thus shifted the starting point of Christological thinking away from the historical Jesus [the only real Jesus] back into preexistence. They shifted Jesus’ life into the shadows and elevated the Incarnation [of a preexisting Son]. They connected Christology to cosmology and were unable to connect it to salvation. Their Logos [Word] teaching is not a “higher” Christology than the ordinary one. It fell in fact far behind the genuine assessment of Jesus: it was no longer GOD who revealed Himself in Christ, but the Logos, the lesser God, a God who as God was subordinate to the supreme God.²

Another German theologian of the early 1900s helped us, as he clarified the standard Trinitarian proof texts, which anyone who engages in a discussion about God will have to face:

Professor Wendt on John 8:58 and 17:5

“It is clear that John 8:58 and 17:5 do not speak of a real preexistence of Christ. We must not treat these verses in isolation, but understand them in their context.”

(These verses are used often to promote a Son of God who is essentially non-human, and who has existed as God the Son from forever, or as an angel — Michael according to JW’s.)

Professor Wendt provides the right explanation:

The saying in John 8:58, “Before Abraham came to be, I am” was prompted by the fact that Jesus’ opponents had countered his remark in v. 51 by saying that Jesus was not greater than Abraham or the prophets (v. 52). As the Messiah commissioned by God Jesus is conscious of being in fact superior to Abraham and the prophets. For this reason he replies (according to the intervening words, v. 54f.) that Abraham had “seen his day,” i.e., the entrance of Jesus on his historical ministry, and “had rejoiced to see” that day. And Jesus strengthens his argument by adding the statement, which sounded strange to the Jews, that he had even been “before Abraham” (v. 58). This last saying must be understood in connection with v. 56. Jesus speaks in vv. 55, 56 and 58 as if his present ministry on earth stretches back to the time of Abraham and even before. His sayings were perceived by the Jews in this sense and rejected as nonsense. But Jesus obviously did not (in v. 56) mean that Abraham had actually experienced Jesus’ appearance on earth and seen it literally. Jesus was referring to Abraham’s spiritual vision of his appearance on earth, by which Abraham, at the birth of Isaac, had foreseen at the same time the promised Messiah, and had rejoiced at the future prospect of the greater one (the Messiah) who would be Israel’s descendant. Jesus’ reference to his existence before Abraham’s birth must be understood in the same sense. There is no sudden heavenly preexistence of the Messiah here: the reference is again obviously to his earthly existence. And this earthly existence is precisely the existence of the Messiah. As such, it was not only present in Abraham’s mind, but even before his time, as the subject of God’s foreordination and foresight. The sort of preexistence Jesus has in mind is “ideal” [in the world of ideas and plans]. In accordance with this consciousness of being the Messiah preordained from the beginning, Jesus can indeed make the claim to be greater than Abraham and the prophets.

In John 17:5 Jesus asks the Father to give him now the heavenly glory which he had with the Father before the world was. The conclusion that because Jesus possessed a preexistent glory in heaven he must also have preexisted personally in heaven is taken too hastily. This is proven by Matt. 6:20 (“Lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven”), 25:34 (“Come, you blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world”), Col. 1:5 (“the hope which is laid up for you in heaven about which you heard in the word of Truth, the Gospel”), and I Pet. 1:4 (“an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, which does not fade away,reserved in heaven for you”). Thus a reward can also be thought of as preexistent in heaven. Such a reward is destined for human beings and already held in store, to be awarded to them at the end of their life. So it is with heavenly glory which Jesus requests. He is not asking for a return³ to an earlier heavenly condition. Rather he asks God to give him now, at the end of his work as Messiah on earth (v. 4), the heavenly reward which God had appointed from eternity for him, as Messiah. As the Messiah and Son he knows he has been loved and foreordained by the Father from eternity (v. 24). Both John 8:58 and 17:5 are concerned with God’s predetermination of the Messiah.⁴

Note: Things which are held in store as divine plans for the future are said to be “with God.” Thus in Job 10:13 Job says to God, “These things you have concealed in your heart: I know that this iswith You” (see KJV). “He performs what is appointed for me, and many such decrees are withHim” (23:14). Thus the glory which Jesus had “with God” was the glory which God had planned for him as the decreed reward for his Messianic work now completed. The promise of glory “preexisted,” not Jesus himself. Note that this same glory which Jesus asked for has already been given to you (see John 17:22, 24), before you were even born! The promised Christian reward was given as a guaranteed future blessing by Jesus speaking around 30 AD. This is obviously glory and reward as a promise for the future. Your Christian reward was given (past tense) to you and Jesus whom God loved before the foundation of the world (v. 24). You may therefore say that you now “have” that glory although it is glory in promise and prospect. Jesus had that same glory in prospect before the foundation of the world (John 17:5). You can have something “with God,” meaning that you can have something promised by God for your future, and it is laid up in store with God now and will be delivered to you when Jesus comes back. 2 Timothy 1:9 is similar: “grace was given to us before the ages of time began.”

Christians were already “in Christ” (Eph 1:4) before the world began and foreknown by God (1 Pet. 1:2).

Paul can say that we now already “have” a new body with God in heaven — i.e. we have thepromise of it, not in actuality. That body will be ours at the return of Christ. We now “have” it in anticipation and promise only. “We have a building of God,” 2 Cor. 5:1). We do not in fact have it yet. But when we do get that reward in the future, we will be able to say “give me the glorified body” which I had with you, i.e., as promised.

Greg Stafford in his Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended (p. 222)misses this point about the promise of rewards. Not only does he ignore the accounts of the origins of the Son of God laid out explicitly in Matthew and Luke, he does not see that a pre-existing angel cannot be the descendant of David, and cannot therefore be the true Messiah. Stafford does not realize that in the future we will be given a reward which we “had” already. Paul says we “have” it now (2 Cor. 5:1) and in the future we will have it not in promise but in reality. Then we will be able to say “Give me now the reward which I had in your promise.” Jesus says the same thing: “Glorify me, Father, with the glory which I had with you.” Jesus said nothing about a restoration of glory, just as he said nothing about returning to God (although the NIV misleads us in this respect).

Peter speaks of a day being like a thousand years “with God” (2 Pet. 3:8). This is the proper sense of “with God” in John 17:5. Things which are “with God” are those things which He plans and prepares. Thus Jesus asked to receive at the end of his ministry the glory prepared for him “with God,” that is in God’s plans and in His mind. Revelation 13:8 states that the crucifixion happened long before the birth of the Messiah. The idea is of course that it happened in God’s plan, not in actuality. We must think as Hebrews, and thus with Jesus and John, and not just read our western language forms into the Bible. Of course the word was “with God,” in His mind. “With God” does not imply a Son-Father relationship at that stage. Galatians 2:5 speaks of the Gospel remaining “with” (pros) the Galatians, that is in their minds.

Why would you “go to heaven” when the Promised Land, promised to the descendants of Abraham — who are the believers (Gal. 3:29) — is the land of Canaan in which Abraham lived? (Heb. 11:8-9). Can you inherit the earth (Matt. 5:5), as Jesus promised, if you go “to heaven”? Can you rule with Christ “on the earth” (Rev. 5:10)? Can you be in the camp of the saints on earth (Rev. 20:9) if you are not going to be on the earth! Ponder all this carefully and prayerfully. Don’t forget the danger of being “moved away from the hope offered in the Gospel” (Col. 1:23). Love and faith are in fact based on and produced by hope (Col. 1:5). Therefore if hope is vague, love and faith are diminished and weakened. It is vital to know what you are hoping for and where Jesus will be in the future, so that you can be with him.

God promised Abraham and Jesus the Land (Gen. 12, 13, 15, 17; Gal 3:19), and this should prove that the Land is going to be available for Abraham and all the faithful in the resurrection. You cannot inherit a planet which has ceased to exist! The glory promised to the believers will be realized at the future coming of Jesus when he resurrects to immortality the saints of all the ages (1 Cor. 15:23).

Hebrews 1:10, the Hardest Verse

On the recent radio discussion I soon learned how Trinitarians think they can persuade us. They turn to Hebrews 1:10. Here in a catena (chain) of proof texts, the Hebrews writer seeks to prove that Jesus, the Son of God, is superior to angels. This approach ought really to show immediately that the writer did not think Jesus was Jehovah! You don’t need 7 verses to prove that Jesus is better than all angels or better than Moses, if you believe that Jesus is God Himself. All you have to say is “Jesus is God.”

Hebrews 1:10 says of the Son of God that he laid the foundation of the heaven and the earth.

There are three “proof texts” addressed to the Son in Hebrews 1:8-13. There is no hint in the text that they refer to someone other than the Son. Verse 8 begins, “But of the Son He [God] says…” (Heb. 1:8) Then follow three different quotes. The series ends in verse 13 with a proof that Jesus was not an angel: “But to which of the angels did He [God] ever say…” Psalm 110:1 is then quoted as referring to the Son, Jesus. That Son is the adoni of Psalm 110:1 who is notYahweh.

Much of chapter 1 of Hebrews compares the Son of God with angels, showing that the Son was never an angel and is superior to them. This proves that the Son cannot be God! It is not necessary to prove God superior to the angels. It is obvious. Equally clear is the fact that the Son cannot be an angel or archangel as maintained by Jehovah’s Witnesses. Both angels and archangels are angels! Jesus was never an angel, because high priests are “chosen from among men” (Heb. 5:1). And holy angels are immortal (Luke 20:36), which would make the death of Jesus the Son of God impossible.

What then of Hebrews 1:10? In what sense is the Son the founder of the heavens and earth? How can this be since Jesus nowhere claimed to be the Creator and it was not Jesus, but God who rested on the seventh day (Heb. 4:4)? Did Jesus get to do all the work and yet not rest on the seventh day? “God [not Jesus] made them male and female” (Mark 10:6) and “The Lord God [not Jesus] formed man of dust from the ground” (Gen. 2:7). Fifty texts say that God, the Father, created the heavens and the earth. Luke 1:35, Matthew 1:18, 20 and 1 John 5:18 (not KJV) say that the Son did not exist until he was created/begotten in Mary. Was Jesus both six months younger than John the Baptist and billions of years older? Was Jesus thirty years old when he began his public ministry and yet really billions plus thirty years old? What part of Jesus was thirty and what part was billions of years old? Jesus cannot be so divided up, split in two. Mary bore a human being. She did not bear an angel. She did not bear GOD. She did not bear “impersonal human nature,” as Trinitarian theory says. She did not take in a person from the outside. She conceived and bore a baby. Mary bore a lineal, biological son of David. Otherwise Jesus does not qualify to be the Messiah. Romans 1:1-4 says that God’s Son was a descendant of David, and he was later installed as Son of God with power at the resurrection, but he was not Son of God for the first time when resurrected.

God cannot be begotten, and the Son of God was begotten. Even the Dead Sea Scrolls speak of an expected time when God will beget the Son of God. They too used 2 Samuel 7:14 and Psalm 2:7 to indicate the beginning of the expected Messiah. The immortal God (1 Tim. 6:16) cannot die. The Son of God died (Rom. 5:10). God cannot be tempted (James 1:13), yet the Son of God was tempted. Not to observe these category differences is to throw away precious biblical instruction.

Hebrews 1:1-2 says that God did not speak through a Son in the Old Testament times. Verse 2 also says that God made the ages through Jesus. This could refer to the ages of the new creation which Jesus introduced or it may refer to Jesus, as Wisdom, being the reason for God’s creation of everything. Hebrews 1:5, quoting the prophecy of Psalm 2:7, speaks of the coming into existence of Jesus, the Son: “Today I have begotten you” (so also the LXX of Ps. 110:3 and many Hebrew manuscripts). The same verse in Hebrews speaks of 2 Samuel 7:14’s marvelous promise, given a thousand years before Jesus’ birth, that God “will be a father to him and he will be a son.” That promise was given to David and it referred to the Messiah who was to come. The beginning of Messiah’s existence is the moment when God becomes the Father of the Messiah. Acts 13:33 refers also to the beginning of Jesus’ existence, his raising up (not raising up again as wrongly translated in the KJV), and verse 34, by contrast, to his resurrection. The same beginning of the Son is exactly what we find in Luke 1:35 and Matthew 1:20 (“that which isbegotten in her is from the holy spirit”).

Isaiah 44:24 says that God, unaccompanied, unaided, created the Genesis heavens and earth. He was entirely alone. “Who was with me?” At the time of the Genesis creation there was no Son with Him (cf. Heb. 1:1-2).

God did not speak in a Son until the New Testament. So then who said, “Let there be light”? It would be a flat contradiction of Hebrews 1:1-2 to say it was the Son. The God of the Old Testament is quite distinct from His unique Son. The latter had his genesis in Matthew 1:18 (“thegenesis of Jesus was as follows”). The Bible becomes a book of incomprehensible riddles if God can have a Son before He brings him into existence! Luke 1:35 describes how the Son of Godcame to exist. He was begotten. To beget in the Bible and in English is a word which of all words denotes a before and after. Therefore the Son had a beginning. There was a time before he was begotten, before he was. If he already existed, these testimonies in Matthew 1 and Luke 1 are nonsense. Mary bore a human being, not God or an angel. Human mothers bear humans. Mary certainly did not just bear “human nature,” and “human nature” as Mary’s son would not be the descendant of David and thus not the Messiah. (The creeds try to frighten us away from this beginning of the Son, telling us that if we say “there was a time when the Son did not exist” we are heretics and anathematized — see the anathemas at Nicea, 325AD).

The notion that the Son of God was in fact God would make a charade out of his whole struggle in obedience to God and on our behalf as Savior and model. The whole point of a High Priest is that he must be “selected from among men” (Heb. 5:1). He is the “man Messiah Jesus” in contrast to his Father (1 Tim. 2:5). The Father in John 17:3 is “the only one who is God.” If God is the only one who is God, no one else is God except the Father, which is exactly what Paul declared when rehearsing the creed in 1 Corinthians 8: “There is no God except the one God the Father” (combining vv. 4 and 6). He added, not “splitting the Shema or expanding it” as Tom Wright and others say, that Jesus is the one Lord Messiah! All that had been well said by Luke, who agreed with Paul when he spoke of the Lord Messiah (Luke 2:11) who is “the Lord’s Messiah” (Luke 2:26).
If the Son were God, there would be two Gods. To call Jesus God and the Father God is not strict monotheism, however much the label may be applied. The Bible nowhere uses “God” to mean a triune or biune God.

In Hebrews 1:10, there is a complication due to the fact that the writer quotes Psalm 102 from the Greek version (LXX) and not the Hebrew version. The LXX (Septuagint) has a different sense entirely in Psalm 102:23-25. It introduces thoughts not found in the Hebrew text. It introduces God’s reply to the suppliant. The LXX, quoted in Hebrews 1:10, says: “He [God] answered him [the suppliant]…Tell me [God speaking to the suppliant]…Thou, lord [God addressing someone else called ‘lord’].” But the Hebrew text has “He [God] weakened me…I [the suppliant] say, ‘O my God…’”

Thus the LXX introduces a second lord who is addressed by God: “At the beginning you founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands” (v. 25). The writer to the Hebrews had open before him the LXX and not the Hebrew (rather as today someone might quote the NIV instead of the KJV). The New Testament often cites the LXX Greek. F.F. Bruce in the New International Commentary on Hebrews explains:

In the Septuagint text the person to whom these words [“of old you laid the foundation of the earth”] are spoken is addressed explicitly as “Lord”; and it is God who addresses him thus. Whereas in the Hebrew text the suppliant is the speaker from the beginning to the end of the psalm, in the Greek text his prayer comes to an end with v. 22, and the next words read as follows: “He [God] answered him [the suppliant] in the way of his strength: ‘Declare to Me the shortness of My days: Bring Me not up in the midst of My days. Thy [the suppliant’s] years are throughout all generations. Thou, lord [the suppliant, viewed here as the Messiah by Hebrews], in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth.’”⁵ This is God’s answer to the suppliant; He bids him acknowledge the shortness of God’s set time (for the restoration of Jerusalem, as in v. 13) and not summon Him [God] to act when that set time has only half expired, while He [God] assures him [the suppliant, called lord by God] that he and his servants’ children will be preserved forever…

Bacon suggested that the Hebrew, as well as the Greek, text of this psalm formed a basis for messianic eschatology, especially its reference to the “shortness” of God’s days, i.e., of the period destined to elapse before the consummation of His purpose [the arrival of the yet future Messianic Kingdom on earth]; he found here the OT background of Matt. 24:22, Mark 13:20 and Ep. Barn. 4.3 (“as Enoch says, ‘For to this end the Master [God] has cut short the times and the days, that his Beloved [Jesus] should make haste and come to his inheritance’”)…

But to whom (a Christian reader of the Septuagint might well ask) could God speak in words like these? And whom would God himself address as “Lord,” as the maker [or founder] of earth and heaven?⁶

Reading the LXX the Hebrews writer sees an obvious reference to the new heavens and earth of the future Kingdom and he sees God addressing the Messianic Lord in connection with the prophecies of the rest of Psalm 102 which speak of “the generation to come” (v. 18) and of the set time for Yahweh to build up Zion and appear in His glory. The fact that the One YHVH addresses another “lord” proves that the second lord cannot be YHVH.

The important article by B.W. Bacon (alluded to by Bruce above) stresses the fact that “The word ‘lord’ is wholly absent from the Hebrew [and English] text of Psalm 102:25.” But it appears in the LXX cited by Hebrews.

[With the translation in the LXX “he answered him”] the whole passage down to the end of the psalm becomes the answer of Yahweh to the suppliant who accordingly appears to be addressed as Kurie [lord] and creator of heaven and earth...Instead of understanding the verse as a complaint of the psalmist at the shortness of his days which are cut off in the midst, LXX and the Vulgate understand the utterance to be Yahweh's answer to the psalmist’s plea that he will intervene to save Zion, because “it is time to have pity on her, yea, the set time is come” (v. 13). He is bidden acknowledge (or prescribe?) the shortness of Yahweh’s set time, and not to summon him when it is but half expired. On the other hand he [the Messianic lord] is promised that his own endurance shall be perpetual with the children of his servants.⁷

This is exactly the point, and it can only be made clear when we see that 1) the Hebrews writer is reading the LXX, not the Hebrew text, and finding in the second half of the psalm a wonderful prophecy of the age to come (Kingdom, restoration of Israel) which fits his context exactly and that 2) there is a Messianic Lord addressed by Yahweh and invited to initiate a founding of the heaven and earth, the new political order in Palestine, exactly as said in Isaiah 51:16. This is precisely the message the Hebrews writer wants to convey about the superiority of Jesus over angels. Jesus is the founder of that coming new Kingdom order. The Hebrews writer in 2:5 tells us expressly that it is about “the inhabited earth of the future that we are speaking.”

The important points are these: 1) Psalm 102 is about the new creation and the “generation to come.” It is a Kingdom psalm and points to the Messianic future. The psalm speaks of the time coming to build up Zion, when the nations will fear God’s name, and when God’s glory will appear, what we know as the Parousia of Jesus. Verse 19 of the LXX speaks of a new generation, and a people who are going to be created. This is all about the new creation in Christ, of which we are now already a part.

All this is really not so difficult when this difference in the LXX is explained. Both Psalm 102 and Hebrews 2:5 and indeed the whole of Hebrews 1 refer to the new order of things initiated by Jesus and it would not matter whether we think of the new order as initiated at the ascension (“All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me,” Matt. 28:18), or at the second coming. The new creation was initiated by Jesus even in this present age and it will of course be brought to a new stage of perfection in the coming age of the millennium, which is the first stage of the manifested Kingdom of God.

Psalm 102 is all about the coming age of the Kingdom and the restoration of Jerusalem in the millennium (see vv. 13-22). The writer looks forward to the restoration of the city when God appears in His glory (v. 16). The Psalm is written for the “generation to come” (v. 18) and a newly created people of the future Kingdom on earth. Hebrews 1-2 is speaking not of the Genesis creation but the “economy to come” (2:5).

The Oxford Bible Commentary (2000) is helpful when it notes that right up to Hebrews 2:5 the topic is the new creation in Christ. Hebrews 1:10 is included in that main subject:

The text at the center of Heb. 2:5ff. is Ps. 8:4-6 and it exhibits thematic connections to the scriptural catena [chain]⁸ of the first chapter [i.e. Heb. 1:10 is all part of the same reference to the new creation]…Heb. 2:5 [“the inhabited earth to come of which we speak”] is an introductory comment continuing the contrast between the Son and angels. Its reference to the “world to come” reinforces the notions of imminent judgment and cosmic transformation intimated by Ps. 102, cited at 1:10-12.

Isaiah 51:16 confirms this explanation. It speaks of an agent of God in whom God puts His words and whom He uses “to plant the heavens and earth.” The Word Biblical Commentary says:

Yahweh introduces Himself again, but this time in terms of His control of the ragingsea. He addresses the one He is using to put His words into his mouth and protecting him very carefully. The purpose of this care is to allow him to plant heavens and earth. That makes no sense if it refers to the original [Genesis] creation. It uses the word NaTaH [Jer. 10:12 + 10 times], stretch out, while the verb here is NaTA, plant [establish people]. In the other instances God acts alone, using no agent [Isa. 44:24]. Here the one he has hidden in the shadow of his hand is his agent. Heavens and landhere must refer metaphorically to the totality of order in Palestine, heavens meaning the broader overarching structure of the Empire, while land is the political order in Palestine itself. The assignment is then focused more precisely: to say to Zion, you are my people.”⁹

Thus both in Psalm 102 (LXX) and in Isaiah 51 the Messiah is the agent whom God will use to establish the new political order of the age to come. Hebrews 1:10 is a prophecy, written in the past tense (as customarily prophecies are), but referring to the “inhabited earth of the future about which we are speaking” (Heb. 2:5). That is the concern in Hebrews 1:10. Jesus is the “father of the age to come” (Isa. 9:6, LXX).

Finally, in Hebrews 9:11 the writer speaks of “the good things to come” as the things “not of thiscreation.” By this he means that the things to come are of the new, future creation (see Heb. 2:5). That creation is under way since Jesus was exalted to the right hand of God where he is now co-creator, under the Father, of the new creation, and has “all authority in heaven and earth” (Matt. 28:18). Even the millennial age of the future will be replaced by a further renewed heaven and earth (Rev. 20:11; 21:1).

Once again, eschatology is the great factor in revealing the truth. The Gospel of salvation is based on eschatology, what God has done and is doing and is yet going to do in Christ and in the saints of all the ages, the new community of the New Covenant, addressed as those who go by the canon of love, the Israel of God of Galatians 6:16. In this community there are no differences in nationality but all are “one in Christ.” God has a new creation in Jesus and we are to be new creatures in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). We are to join the one “new man” of the commonwealth of Israel (Eph. 2:12-13). The presently unconverted Israel will itself be renewed, at least a remnant (Mic. 2:12; Rom. 11), through the great tribulation and Jesus’ deliverance at his post-tribulation Parousia (Matt. 24:29-31). The saints of all the ages will be immortalized at the resurrection after the end of the Great Tribulation which is still ahead. There is of course no pre-tribulation gathering. Nor has the Great Tribulation been going on continuously since AD 70. The Great Tribulation is a future short period of agony just before the return of the Messiah to the earth. This event is not a drive-by episode. Jesus is coming back to the earth where as son of David he belongs installed on the throne of David.
Dan. 8:14 even tells us that the time for the temple to be finally set in order will be some 2 years, 8 months and five days into the millennium.

The world is going to be reborn and it will come under the supervision of Jesus and his followers (Matt. 19:28, Rev. 5:10; I Cor. 6:2, etc.) We must resist the temptation to be looking backwards to Genesis when the whole book of Hebrews bids us look forward to the “inhabited earth of the future” (Heb. 2:5). Note that in several places Hebrews speaks of the eternal redemption, inheritance, covenant, judgment, salvation and spirit “of the age [to come]” (aionios). Aioniosrefers to the Kingdom age to come and not just to eternity. Christians receive now the “holy spirit of the promise” (Eph. 1:13, NJB). We are to experience something of the future Kingdom age even now in the midst of trials and in a hostile world. Christians should not give away their inheritance to unconverted Jews! The church will inherit the land (Matt. 5:5; Rom. 4:13) and those who bless “the seed of Abraham” (Gen. 12) are those who bless the believers. “If you belong to Christ [and only then] you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:19). What a heritage is in store for those who endure to the end. Meanwhile should we not have a heart for the billions of human beings who have not been exposed to the great truths about God and the Messiah and the Kingdom in process of restoration? Who will tell them if you don’t?

¹Cited by Robert Friedmann in The Theology of Anabaptism (Herald Press, 1973), 50.

² Loofs, Leitfaden zum Studien der Dogmengeschichte, part 1, pp. 90, 97, 1890, reprinted 1949, translation mine. Loofs died in 1928. A similar warning about the danger of turning Jesus into a being who had an eternal existence before birth comes from Paul van Buren: “There is no clear indication that the priority [of Jesus] was intended in a temporal sense. We may conclude that for the earliest Church, Jesus was accorded the priority in reality that the rabbis assigned to the Torah. If one were to make the claim of priority in a temporal sense, one would be claiming that Jesus of Nazareth, born of Mary, had existed with God before the creation of the world. That claim would be worse than unintelligible; it would destroy all coherence in the essential Christian claim that Jesus was truly a human being, that the Word became flesh…Jesus of Nazareth began his life, began to exist, at a definite time in history: the Word became flesh” (A Theology of Jewish Christian Reality, 1983, p. 82).

³Did Jesus ever say he was going to return to the Father? Or did he just say he was going to the Father? There is a big difference between going and returning! John 13:3, 16:28 and 20:17 should be carefully examined in the King James or RSV as well as in the NIV. You will find a startling difference of translation. Which is correct? You can look in a Greek-English interlinear or check the meaning of the words in Strong’s. It is very illuminating. But remember that this is a rare case of poor translation in the NIV, to push an idea which is not there!

⁴The System of Christian Teaching, 1907, Professor of Theology, Jena. Cp. Professor Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 1892, pp. 453-460.

⁵ The reason for the completely different translations, between Greek and Hebrew, lies in the Hebrew vowel points. The sense can be altered if the vowel points are changed, and sometimes it is not clear which of the possible senses is the right one. Thus the Hebrew takes INNaHto mean “He [God] afflicted” (v. 23) but the LXX repoints the verb (i.e. understands the vowel points to be different from the Hebrew text we now have). The LXX uses the same Hebrew consonants but changes the vowels to readANaH (cp. English shipping/shopping, stepping/stopping] which means “He [God] answered [him].” So then in the LXX God is answering the one praying and addressing that person as “lord.” The LXX adds the word “lord” in v. 25. Next the Hebrew hasOMaR eli (“I say, ‘O my God,’ v. 24). But the LXX reads these consonants as EMoR elai (“Say to Me,” v. 23b; i.e. the person praying is commanded by God to tell God). The idea is that God is asked to cut short the days which have to elapse before the Kingdom comes (cf. Matt. 24:22). Ps. 102 is largely about the age to come and the restoration of Israel in the future Kingdom and so was entirely appropriate as a proof text for Hebrews 1 in regard to what the Son is destined to do in the future, indeed his role in the new, not the Genesis creation. This sense is reversed when it is made to support the unbiblical idea that Jesus was the Creator in Genesis! Orthodoxy is looking backwards, while Hebrews looks forward.

⁶F.F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews (New International Commentary on the New Testament), Eerdmans, 1990, p.62-63.

⁷B.W. Bacon, “Heb. 1:10-12 and the Septuagint Rendering of Ps. 102:23,” Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 3, 1902, p. 280-285.

⁸Compare interestingly our use of “chain reference,” and Sean Finnegan’s refs to a “hub of verses.” Bible study is done best by “joining the dots” or cross-referencing the data bases. Thus the whole meaning of the Bible is found by connecting the various pieces of information.

⁹Word Biblical Commentary: Isaiah 34-66, Word Books, 1987, p. 212.

The Doctrine of the Trinity

(A Brief Overview)

Excerpt from The Restitution of Jesus Christ, Appendix A, pp. 512 - 518
By Kermit Zarley, Servetus the Evangelical

Introduction

While this book is about Christology, many readers may wonder, “What about the doctrine of the Trinity?” Trinitarian Philip Schaff states, “The Trinity and Christology, the two hardest problems and most comprehensive dogmas of theology, are intimately connected.”1 Yes they are. In fact, the doctrine of the Trinity was later formed because the Church finally settled on its dogma that Jesus is fully God. Even though we touched on the doctrine of the Trinity in Chapter Two,2 we will now briefly consider it further.

We have seen that the Catholic Church decided on its final formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity in the late 4th century. It was that God, also called “the Godhead,” is one ousia (substance or essence) consisting of three co-equal and co-eternal hypostases (subsistences, similar to beings): God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Church officially made belief in this doctrine essential for acquiring salvation. That is, if you did not believe in the doctrine of the Trinity—or, more specifically, after having known about it you refused to believe it, or after having believed it you disbelieved it—the Church deemed that you were not a genuine Christian.

This dogma sustained throughout the Protestant Reformation and remains the official teaching in all mainline church denominations to the present. That is why eminent Presbyterian, systematic theologian A.A. Hodge could assert, “it is essential to salvation to believe in the three persons in one Godhead.”3 Yet Hodge wrote in the same volume, “A church has no right to make anything a condition of membership which Christ has not made a condition of salvation.”4 Did Jesus Christ make belief in three co-equal and co-eternal Persons in one Godhead a requirement for salvation? Chapter and verse, please!

The deity of Christ is the foundation of the doctrine of the Trinity. Without it, the doctrine of the Trinity collapses. G.W.H. Lampe rightly explains, “The Trinitarian distinctions,… had originally been developed in order to affirm that Jesus is God.”5

Nathaniel Micklem even questions if it is legitimate to speak of “the doctrine of the Trinity,” as if there is and always has been only one. He informs, “There are many doctrines of the Trinity.” Then he cites a few, including those of Augustine, Abelard, L. Hodgson, Karl Barth, and Paul Tillich, showing that they all “differ greatly.”6 Of course, church denominations have identified the doctrine of the Trinity as the one the Catholic Church deemed official in the 4th century and thus have endorsed it as the correct one.

Historical Development

No matter who you listen to, the doctrine of the Trinity has proven to be the most technical and complex teaching in the history of church dogma. To assess it, we need to review briefly its historical development, which occurred in the following stages:

1st century: Advocating a strict Jewish monotheism, that God is “one” (Person or Being), so that only the Father is God. Thus, Jesus Christ is not identified as God.

2nd century: God is two un-equal Persons—the Father and His inferior Logos-Son. Jesus Christ temporally preexisted as the Logos-Son prior to His incarnation as man.

3rd century: God is two un-equal Persons—the Father and His inferior Logos-Son. But the Father generates the Logos-Son to become an eternally preexisting Peron.

Early 4th century: God is two co-equal and co-eternal Persons: the Father and the Son. So far, nothing has been decided about the constitution of the Holy Spirit.

Late 4th century: God is three co-equal and co-eternal Persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—and all three members of this Trinity share the same substance.

So, the final formula of the doctrine of the Trinity did not obtain until the late 4th century. (For a semantic discussion of words of Church authorities used to identify the one God and distinguish the three members of the Trinity from this Godhead, see subheads The Nicene Creed and The Council of Constantinople in Chapter Two of The Restitution of Jesus Christ.)

This prolonged, historical development of the doctrine of the Trinity raises serious questions. Why would it take so long for such a supposedly important doctrine to be discovered from the revered books and letters that became the NT? Doesn’t such a lengthy period of development undermine its credibility? And how can Trinitarians claim that all professing Christians must believe this doctrine in order to be saved, since all generations of Christians prior to its final formulation in the late 4th century had never heard of it?

No Biblical Basis For the Word “Trinity”

The word “Trinity” is not in the Bible. Church father Tertullian coined it in 192 C.E. Many people ask, “Why all the fuss about a word that isn’t even in the Bible?” We learned in Chapter Two what a fuss there was about the word homoousios in the Nicene Creed, which is not in the Greek NT either. Distinguished NT grammarian Nigel Turner, although a staunch Trinitarian, admits, “Most of the distortions and dissensions which have vexed the Church… have arisen through the insistence of sects and sections of the Christian community upon using words which are not found in the New Testament.”7 Amazingly, neither is the word “Trinity” in any of the early ecumenical creeds.

Many distinguished Christian scholars now acknowledge that the doctrine of the Trinity is not biblical and does not represent primitive Christianity. Roman Catholic Hans Kung, one of the most celebrated theologians in the world for the past several decades, asks concerning the NT, “Why is there never talk of the ‘triune God’?... throughout the NT, while there is belief in God the Father, in Jesus the Son and in God’s Holy Spirit, there is no doctrine of one God in three persons… no doctrine of a ‘triune God,’ a ‘Trinity.’8 He further observes, “If we wanted to judge Christians on the pre-Nicene period after the event, in the light of the Council of Nicaea, then not only the Jewish Christians would be heretics but also almost all the Greek church fathers.”9

The Encyclopedia Americana rightly recounts the historical development of the Trinitarian doctrine. It says, “Unitarianism as a theological movement began much earlier in history; indeed it antedated Trinitarianism by many decades. Christianity derived from Judaism, and Judaism was strictly Unitarian…. Fourth-century Trinitarianism did not reflect accurately early Christian teaching regarding the nature of God; it was on the contrary a deviation from this teaching.”10 William Penn, founder of the Quakers and the State of Pennsylvania wrote, “the origin of the Trinitarian doctrine… is not from the Scriptures, nor reason,… it was born about three hundred years after the ancient gospel was declared; it was conceived in ignorance, brought forth and maintained by cruelty.”11 Kung thus concludes, “The theology which became manifest at the first [first six ecumenical] councils led to a considerable alienation from the New Testament.”12

The mere fact that the word “Trinity” does not appear in the Bible suggests that the doctrine of the Trinity is not there either. God had forewarned Israelites through Moses concerning the Law, “You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it” (Deut. 4:2). And Proverbs states rather somberly, “Do not add to His words lest He reprove you, and you be proved a liar” (Prov. 30:6; cf. Rev. 22: 18-19). It appears that Trinitarians have added their doctrine of the Trinity to God’s truth.

Trinitarians generally offer the following NT texts to substantiate their doctrine.13

Matthew 28:19
2 Corinthians 13:14
Ephesians 2:18
I Peter 1:2

“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit”

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all”

“for through Him [Jesus Christ] we both have access in one Spirit to the Father”

“according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, that you may obey Jesus Christ”

Romans 15:30
I Corinthians 12:4-6
Ephesians 4:4-6
Jude 20, 21

“Now I urge you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God for me”

“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. And there are varieties of effects, but the same God”

“There is one body and one Spirit,… one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father”

“praying in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ”

The most well-known biblical formulation that brings together the so-called “three members of the Trinity” is in Mt. 28:19, quoted above. It has been the church’s most popular baptismal formula. Yet most contemporary Trinitarian scholars now admit that all of these above passages only mention the Father, the Son, and the (Holy) Spirit without substantiating their Trinity doctrine. Thus, many of them would agree with V. Taylor’s assessment that “the Trinity is not an express New Testament doctrine.”14

Many Trinitarian scholars concede that their doctrine represents no more than a deduction from Scripture. J.N.D. Kelly says of the NT, “Explicit Trinitarian confessions are few and far between; where they do occur, little can be built upon them.”15 Johannes Schneider admits, “The NT does not contain the developed doctrine of the Trinity.”16 And staunch Trinitarian D.A. Carson concedes, “Individually these texts do not prove there is any Trinitarian consciousness in the NT, since other threefold-phrases occur.”17

The NT has other triune formulas which mention angels instead of the Holy Spirit. For example, Paul writes, “I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of His chosen angels” (I Tim 5:21). And Jesus spoke of the time when “the Son of Man… comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels” (Lk 9:26; cf. Mt 16:27/Mk 8:38). He also said, “But of that day and/or hour no one knows, not even the angels of/in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone” (Mt 24:36/Mk 13:32).

Interestingly, Trinitarians have always felt compelled to prove that Jesus is God and that the Holy Spirit is a person, whereas they have never felt any compulsion at all to prove that the Father is God. However, the latter is axiomatic because the NT constantly interchanges the word “God” with “the Father” and never “God” with the “Son.” For instance, a comparison of the first two passages listed in the above table—Mt. 28:19 and 2 Cor. 13:14—seems to show that the Father should be reckoned exclusively as God.

In the past, Trinitarians identified the three members of the Trinity as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and they further denominated them as “the first member of the Trinity,” “the second member of the Trinity,” and “the third member of the Trinity,” respectively. But most contemporary Trinitarian scholars have abandoned these numerical designations since they imply rank and thus varying levels of dignity, concepts which seem to contradict their co-equality. Yet these Trinitarians continue the traditional arrangement and rarely if ever alter it, a practice that also implies rank. Notice that none of the eight passages cited above follow this fixed order. Instead, the supposed three members of the Trinity are arranged in five different orders in which God, who is the Father, is mentioned in the first position in only two of these eight passages.

Contradictory, Confusing, and Incomprehensible

So, the primary scriptural argument against the doctrine of the Trinity is that neither the word “T/trinity” nor its meaning are found anywhere in Scripture, but only that the Father, Son, and (Holy) Spirit are occasionally mentioned together.

The primary philosophical argument against Trinitarianism is that it postulates an abstract, tri-personal Godhead, a concept that is contrary to Nature. This Trinitarian God is not even reckoned as a Person or (arguably) a Being. That is why Trinitarian C.S. Lewis explains, and assents, that “in Christianity God is…not even a person.”18

The primary logical arguments against the doctrine of the Trinity are that it is contradictory, confusing, and incomprehensible. It is contradictory in that Trinitarianism professes to be monotheistic (one God) while insisting that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all have separate identities as full-fledged Persons, each being God, yet they are not three Gods. In fact, post-Nicene patristic writings often contain a statement explaining that the three Persons of the Trinity are one Godhead, not three Gods.

Trinitarians readily admit that their doctrine is a paradox and a mystery. Jews, Muslims, and other non-Trinitarian believers in the one God vehemently deny that such a view is monotheistic. They usually allege it is tritheistic—the worship of three Gods.

Trinitarians defend their doctrine by arguing that it merely seems contradictory. When pressed to explain its seeming illogicalness and its contradiction, they frequently resort to their very irrational argument about its incomprehensibility. That is, just about all Trinitarians admit that their doctrine is humanly incomprehensible, explaining that it is because God is inscrutable. Traditionalist L.S. Chafer says of this subject, “If all of this seems incomprehensible, it is only because the finite mind is unable to grasp infinite truth.”19 John F. Walvoord, in his revised edition of one of Chafer’s books, remarks, “this doctrine [of the Trinity] should be accepted by faith on the basis of scriptural revelation even if it is beyond human comprehension and definition.”20

Talk about confusion, not to mention circular reasoning! Those who advance such arguments do not seem to grasp that, if their doctrine is incomprehensible, how can they comprehend it, let alone explain it?21 And why should anyone believe the originators of this doctrine, since according to their assertions they could not have understood it either?

Trinitarians are well known for offering a multitude of analogies to explain their doctrine. But analogies are not rationale and thus prove nothing regarding the truth.

Christians can get so mixed up about their doctrine of the Trinity. Most of them intellectually affirm that God is tri-personal and thus an abstract Godhead. Yet in their worship they often betray belief in a uni-personal God by acknowledging Him as their “Father.” In prayer, many Trinitarian Christians, even some who are well taught, interchange “the Father” and “Jesus” as if they are one and the same individual.

How strange it is that some Trinitarians are actually fond of asserting the veracity of their doctrine while simultaneously admitting its incomprehensibility! One time Daniel Webster was asked, “How can an intelligent man like you believe that three is one?” He replied, “I do not pretend to understand the arithmetic of heaven.” Mr. Webster was like most Trinitarians, who accept their doctrine by blind faith as an unfathomable mystery that originated in heaven even though they assent to its utter incomprehensibility.

Abraham Lincoln (1809 – 1865) was perhaps the greatest president in U.S. history and one of the greatest men of God in his generation. As a U.S. Senator campaigning to become the sixteenth U.S. president, the media asked him why he had never joined a church. Being a lawyer, Mr. Lincoln replied, “It’s because I can’t understand their creeds.” One wonders if he had in mind mostly Trinitarianism. Lincoln came from the region where the anti-Trinitarian Christian Church denomination was centered.

Many Trinitarians, both clergy and laity, insist that their doctrine is so complex that it is best to believe it and leave it. They mean, “leave it only for scholars to discuss.” Trinitarians have a famous ditty that can strike fear into the heart of most any Trinitarian who might be considering arguments for the implausibility of their doctrine. It is this:
Try to explain the doctrine of the Trinity and you’ll lose your mind.
But try to deny it and you’ll lose your soul.22

Restitution of the True Doctrine of God and Christ

Hans Kung critiques the doctrine of the Trinity as it relates to inter-religious dialogue between adherents of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He then states:

I shall try to sum up in three sentences what seems to me to be the biblical nucleus of the traditional doctrine of the Trinity, in light of the New Testament considered for today:

-To believe in God the Father means to believe in the one God, creator, preserver and perfecter of the world and humankind; Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have this belief in one God in common.

-To believe in the Holy Spirit means to believe in God’s effective might and power in human beings and the world: Jews, Christians, and Muslims also have this belief in God’s Spirit in common.

-To believe in the Son of God means to believe in the revelation of the one God in the man Jesus of Nazareth who is thus God’s Word, Image and Son.23

Here is a restitution of the Bible‘s teaching on God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. I couldn’t have said it better myself. Without admitting it, Kung redefines the doctrine of the Trinity as follows: (1) the one God is exclusively the Father, (2) the Holy Spirit is the power of God, and (3) Jesus’ uniqueness is that God the Father has revealed Himself fully in Him. Kung adds, “For the New Testament, as for the Hebrew Bible, the principle of unity is clearly the one God (ho theos: the God = the Father).”24


1 P. Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 3:705

2See also Chapter Four/Is the Trinity in Genesis?/ Man in the Image of God.

3 Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology (London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1886), 198.

4A.A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology, 114.

5 G.W.H. Lampe, God as Spirit, 225.

6 Nathaniel Micklem, Ultimate Questions (Nashville: Abington, 1955), 135.

7Nigel Turner, Christian Words (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1980), viii.

8H. Kung, Christianity: Essence, History, and Future, 94 – 95. Emphasis his.

9H. Kung, Christianity: Essence, History, and Future, 103.

10EA 27 (1956), 2941. Cited by Buzzard and Hunting, The Doctrine of the Trinity, 19. Of course, the word “unitarianism” is being used here synonymously with “monotheism.”

11Quoted by J.H. Broughton and P.J. Southgate, The Trinity: True or False? 376.

12H. Kung, Christianity: Essence, History, and Future, 193. Emphasis his.

13See also 2 Cor. 1.21-22, Heb. 9.14

14V. Taylor, The Person of Christ, 248.

15J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 22.

16Johannes Schneider, “theos,” in NIDNTT 2:84.

17D.A. Carson, “Matthew,” 598.

18C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 152.

19Lewis Sperry Chafer, Major Bible Themes (Grand Rapids: Dunham, 1926), 21.

20Lewis Sperry Chafer, rev John F. Walvoord, Major Bible Themes: 52 Vital Doctrines of the Scripture Simplified and Explained (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974), 41.

21Cf. D. Cupitt (Jesus and the Gospel of God, 14), who effectively makes the same arguments against the classical Incarnation dogma.

22Cited by Millard J. Erickson, Introducing Christian Doctrine, ed. L. Arnold Hustad (Grand Rapids: Baker, Seminary, 1992), 105. According to Lewis Sperry Chafer (Systematic Theology, 8 vols. [Dallas: Dallas Theological Seminary, 1947], 1:288), Robert South (Works, 2:184) penned the original as follows: “As he that denies it may lose his soul; so he that too much strives to understand it may lose his wits.”

23Hans Kung, Credo: The Apostles’ Creed Explained for Today (ET 1992; repr. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2003), 154.

24Ibid.