PREEXISTENCE OR PREEMINENCE?

COLOSSIANS 1:15-20

by William M. Wachtel

In standard Evangelical commentary, two texts from Paul's writings are constantly used to teach the personal preexistence of Christ: Philippians 2:5-11 and Colossians 1:15-20. These texts are considered to be bulwarks of trinitarian theology, expressing in some sense Christ's status as deity. At the time of the Nicene Council, both Arians and Athanasians were fond of using them to prove that Christ existed as a personal being before his birth or "incarnation." The difference, of course, was that the Arians thought he had a beginning and was the first creature whom God made; while the Athanasians thought he had no beginning and was himself "co-equal, co-eternal, and consubstantial" with the Father. The result of such terms was the claim, still insisted on by trinitarians today, that Jesus must be seen to be God just as the Father is seen to be God.

This writer questions seriously, however, whether any such ideas were in Paul's mind or in God's inspiration through the Spirit upon Paul's writing of Scripture. In Philippians 2:5, for instance, Paul declares he is holding forth the historical example of the man Christ Jesus (as in 1 Tim. 2:5), not some prehistoric example into which can be read ideas of personal preexistence. Can the same be said to be true of Colossians 1:15-20? Let us take a careful look at the text and its implications.

Christ, the Image of God

Verse 15 tells us that God's "beloved Son" (v.13 NASB) is the "image" of the unseen God. An image, of course, is a visual representation, the copy of an original. The very fact of using a word such as "image" suggests necessarily that there is a difference in identity between the copy and the original. When one looks in the mirror, he sees an "image" of himself. He does not consider himself to be the person who is "behind the glass" but the person who is "in front of the glass." The only reason to labor this point is that many foolish things have been said about the word "image" in this and other verses, seeking to prove that Christ, "the image of God" (2 Cor. 4:4), is God himself! *(1) The word "image" establishes, by its very meaning, that Christ is notGod. The image is not the same as the original, and in this case the original is God.

When Jesus told his disciples, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9), he was not claiming to be the Father (a claim that would prove too much, if trinitarianism were correct), but rather that he is like the Father. The writer of Hebrews (1:3) says that he is the "express image" (KJV)--"exact representation" (NIV, NASB)--of God's being, or God's nature. Again, our two words "exact representation" and the single Greek word charakter *(2), from which those two words are translated, imply that a copy is being set forth, based on an original. The writer of Hebrews is telling us that God has spoken to us by a Son who is just like God. But to say this Son is "just like" God is to recognize that he is not, in fact, himself God, i.e., the One to whom he is now being "likened." The writer goes on to say that this person who is like God, after purging our sins by his death, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, a further differentiation between the Man who is "just like" God, and the Being who is God, himself! *(3)

"Christ, the Firstborn

Verse 15 continues by calling Christ the Firstborn of "every creature" (KJV) or "all creation" (NIV, NASB). If "first" in the word Firstborn means only precedence in time, and if "creation" means theoriginal creation of Genesis 1, then the case for Christ's personal preexistence must stand. The Arians and Athanasians would have to be right in their claim that Christ existed as a person before his birth and that this person in fact abandoned his previous mode of existence in order to become a human being. This, precisely, is what any views of personal preexistence must find in the texts in Philippians 2 and Colossians 1. What we are questioning here is whether several crucial terms mean, in their context and in Scripture as a whole, what they are popularly interpreted to mean!

Let us begin by examining the word translated "firstborn"--prwtotokos, prototokos. This word is used a number of times in Scripture, often to designate the child born first in a family. When Esau came to his father Isaac to receive the blessing that was due him, he pleaded the fact that he was Isaac's firstborn--his prototokos (Gen. 27:32 LXX). Jacob, the second born son, had already deceived his father and received the blessing intended for Esau. The custom of conferring special privileges or a major inheritance on the firstborn son is not only seen in the Bible, but also in the later laws of "primogeniture" in England and other countries, awarding the family inheritance to the eldest son.

There is, however, in Scripture a further meaning to the term prototokos. Since the Greek wordprotos can mean either first in time or first in rank, the "firstborn" may be used to designate one who is honored with first or chief position, regardless of time of birth. This idea is seen in Exodus 4:22, where God commands Moses to tell Pharaoh, "This is what YHWH says: Israel is my firstborn son. . . . Let my son go, so he may worship me." Clearly, here the word prototokos(LXX) has nothing to do with precedence in time, but rather precedence in rank among the nations, as God views their relative importance.*(4) The same is true in Jeremiah 31:9 (38:9 LXX), where God calls Ephraim his prototokos (even though Ephraim's brother, Manasseh, was the elder of the two). Again, it is precedence in rank, or importance, that is in view. The classic example of this usage is found in Psalm 89:27 (88:27 LXX), where God describes in glowing words the promised Davidic king, the Messiah: "I will also appoint him my firstborn, the most exalted of the kings of the earth." This foremost position as King of kings is a matter of appointment, not time of birth! *(5) These facts and this usage as to the word "firstborn" may well have much significance in helping us to understand how and why Christ can be called "the Firstborn of all creation" in Colossians 1:15. "If prototokos is selected in Col. 1:15 and then again in 1:18 to express this supremacy, this is because of the great importance which the term 'firstborn' took on as a word for rank in the OT and then retained in later Judaism." *(6)

Over All Creation

The NIV calls Christ "the firstborn over all creation," while NASB has "firstborn of all creation," reflecting a literal translation of the genitive case. KJV also translates the genitive literally: "the firstborn of every creature." The NASB and KJV renderings could be interpreted to imply that Christ was the first created being, just as the Arians believed. They understood "first" to refer to precedence in time. That is why Arius declared that "there was a time when he was not," i.e., before his being created. It was this that the Athanasians rejected so vehemently, insisting that he was eternal, "begotten in eternity, before all time." *(7) To them this meant he was "co-eternal" with the Father and therefore himself God.

It is necessary at this point to consider whether Paul uses the word "creation" here in reference to the original creation of Genesis 1, or whether he may have in mind what may be called the "new creation." Paul goes on to define this creation as comprising all things "in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him." Certainly, it was Christ himself who described the original creation as being God's work (Mark 13:19)--suggesting that Christ did not see himself as creator of the "all things" mentioned in Genesis 1:31. *(8) Paul, in fact, seems to give an exact description of what he means by the "all things" created--namely, "thrones, powers, rulers, authorities." If this is what he means, then we must ask in what sense Christ can be called the creator of such.

Just before his ascension, Christ said that "all authority in heaven and on earth" had now been given to him (Matt. 28:18). With that authority he commissioned his apostles to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations and to teach them all his commands. Moses had foretold that Messiah would be a prophet like Moses himself, whose word would have the force of law, demanding obedience (Deut. 18:15,18,19; Acts 3:22.23). But what about his authority "in heaven"? Paul says that when Christ was raised from the dead and was set at God's right hand in the "heavenlies," his new position brought him to a status "far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come" (Eph. 1:21). Not only that, but "God placed all things under his feet" (v.22). Colossians 1:17 echoes this, in saying that "in him all things hold together." Col. 2:10 describes him as "the head over every power and authority." God rewarded Jesus' "obedience unto death" by highly exalting him and giving him the name which is above every name. At the name of Jesus every knee is required to bow, "in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Phil. 2:8-11).

These ascriptions of supreme authority to Christ, under God, suggest that when Christ came to be seated at the right hand of God, he--in turn--set up, or created, a new system of rulerships among the angelic beings as well as preparing a place of honor and service within his Father's household for all his faithful people, both in this age and in the age to come (John 14:2,3). All of this is then part of "the new creation." It is this new creation that the present writer understands to be the subject of Colossians 1:15-17. If this view is correct, the personal preexistence of Christ is not at all the subject of our text, contrary to popular interpretation!

Before All Things

Verse 17 declares that Christ is "before all things"--pro panton. This phrase has been seized upon as proof of his personal preexistence. But care must be taken to notice that the verb here is in the present tense--"is"--not "was"! Paul does not tell us that Christ "was" before all things, evidence for preexistence. But what does "before" mean? The Greek word used here--pro--has three common uses: before, in the sense of place = "in front of"; before, in the sense of time ="prior to"; and before, in the sense of preeminence, rank, advantage. *(9) The latter usage is seen in 1 Peter 4:8--pro panton, "before all things" or "above all things" = "most important of all." Here, pro has nothing to do with time or place, but rather stresses how Christian love ispreeminent above all other virtues. James 5:12 provides another example of the same usage and of the phrase pro panton.

To say, therefore, that Christ is pro panton is to say that he is, under God, the Preeminent One, the Most Important One! This is underscored by the last statement of the next verse, describing him as having, in everything, "the preeminence" (KJV), "the supremacy" (NIV), "the first place" (NASB). To emphasize this preeminence even more, Paul adds the personal pronoun autos to the verb proteuo, meaning that HE, Christ himself, is being given first place in all God's universe! This reminds the writer of Pharaoh's exalting Joseph to first place in Egypt. He told him, "You shall be in charge of my palace, and all my people are to submit to your orders. Only with respect to the throne will I be greater than you. . . . I hereby put you in charge of the whole land of Egypt. . . . I am Pharaoh, but without your word no one will lift hand or foot in all Egypt" (Gen. 41:40,41,44). This is the kind of preeminence and rulership that God has granted to his Son--to be over all other beings--typified only dimly by the history of Joseph's own exaltation!

Paul piles on superlatives to declare that in Christ "all things hold together." The Greek verb translated "hold together"--sunistemi--is given various definitions by the lexicographers. One suggestive definition is "cohere." All things cohere in Christ and provide a coherent meaning to the universe. He is the reason for it all, because he is God's only-begotten Son, the perfect image of the Father himself! Another definition is "to have one's proper place." All things in the universe have their own proper place, designed by the Creator, YHWH, to be in perfect relationship and harmony with "the Son whom God loves" (v.13).

Christ's headship over the church is a frequent theme in Paul's writings. Verse 18 declares that headship, and goes on to call him arche, "beginning" (KJV, NIV, NASB). This word also means "ruler, authority." *(10) It gives further emphasis to Paul's theme of Christ's preeminence and supreme authority under God. In that now conferred authority, all things begin and end in Christ. As the beginning of the New Creation, he is the "firstborn from among the dead," the first human being to rise immortal from the grave and to become thereby a "partaker of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4). As prototokos he is also "chiefborn" from among the dead, because he in turn is the Lifegiver, the Prince of Life whose voice will awaken and call forth the sleeping dead from their graves (John 5:21-29; Acts 3:15).

The Fullness of God

"God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him" (v.19). The past tense here, combined with the immediate mention of Christ's reconciling work in his death on the cross (v.20), seems to indicate that Paul has in mind the period of Christ's mortal lifetime. It was then that Christ was already filled with God's fullness, just as believers are called upon to seek that fullness for their own lives today (Eph. 3:19) *(11) In Christ's case, however, there was no limit to the Spirit working in him--he was totally filled with God's Spirit and power throughout his earthly ministry. *(12) His initial preeminence is seen in his walking the earth as though he were God himself. *(13)

Later, in Colossians 2:9, Paul speaks of God's "fullness" again, but describes it in a special way and in the present tense. "In Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form." Since his resurrection to bodily immortality and his being granted "all authority in heaven and earth" Christ is exalted by his Father to the highest place in the universe, next to God himself, and is given the highest name (Phil. 2:9). He can be described, therefore, as possessing the fullness of the Deity. How could his preeminence be emphasized more powerfully than this? But all of this is short-circuited and spoiled by trinitarian notions and the teaching of Christ's personal preexistence! If those ideas were true, he already possessed--in person--total preeminence long before he was born, before he had been obedient unto death. But, as Paul insists, it was this very obedience--and the humility from which it sprang--that was the reason for, and the causeof, that exaltation and that preeminence!

NOTES

*(1) See, for example, The Living Bible on 2 Cor. 4:4.

*(2) This word may be transliterated as "character," but the modern English word has come a rather long way from its original Greek meaning.

*(3) "Majesty" is probably used here as an equivalent for the divine name, YHWH.

*(4) "When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided all mankind, he set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel. For the LORD's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance" (Deut. 32:8,9 NIV).

*(5) See the excellent discussion of prototokos in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, VI, 871-881.

*(6) Ibid., VI, 879.

*(7) Stated in the Nicene Creed as "begotten of the Father before all the ages"--my translation from the Greek text found in Schaff's Creeds of Christendom, II, 57. Also see article "Eternal generation," p. 194, in Baker's Dictionary of Theology.

*(8) "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good."

*(9) Arndt and Gingrich's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, article pro.

*(10) Ibid., article arche.

*(11) "To know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."

*(12) "For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God; to him God gives the Spirit without limit" (John 3:34).

*(13) Philippians 2:6, speaking of the historical person Christ Jesus, tells us that--as a man-- he was in the morphe of God. This word, usually translated "form," in this context has the other Koiné Greek meaning of "status, position, rank." This is proved by the use of the same word in verse 7, where Christ is shown to have taken the "status" or "position" of a servant. Cf. morphein Moulton and Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament; and Kenneth S. Wuest, The Practical Use of the Greek New Testament, p. 84.

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.