Last time we looked at this inconsistent triad of claims, one of which we must deny:
- The New Testament gospels agree in their core claims about Jesus and God.
- Matthew, Mark, and Luke don’t teach that Jesus is God.
- John teaches that Jesus is God.
We can look at this from two directions. First, we can ask what the evidence for each of 1-3 is. Second, we can ask what the downside is of denying each. In this post, I’ll do the latter.
- The simplest is 3. What’s the cost of denying 3? Here, one must swim against a tide of catholic traditions about interpreting John. Isn’t it obvious that the gospel of John teaches that Jesus is God? “I and the Father are one.” “The Word was God.” “I am.” “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” “My Lord and my God.” What more do we need? In the minds of many Christians – and strangely enough, some others, like Dr. Bart Ehrman, it seems blindingly obvious that this book teaches that Jesus is God. “Here, Jesus is decidedly God and is in fact equal with God the Father.” (How Jesus Became God, p. 271.) (He clarifies on the next page that it doesn’t identify Jesus with the Father, that is, with the one God, but his view seems rather to be that it makes Jesus a sharer in the divine nature, and so essentially qualitatively equal to God.) But is it so obvious? Some of the most favored proof-texts dissolve under a careful reading – such as Ehrman’s treatment of John 1 (p. 273-7), which I think is basically right. But if some dissolve… do they all? That’s what unitarian Christians have been arguing since Reformation times. Currently, the mainstream either ignores these arguments as simply non-Christian (!), or tries to shove them aside to matters of anti-cult apologetics. But are they right in so ignoring them? There is a strong minority report in our tradition here. In sum, the cost of denying 3 is risking contemptuous and quick dismissal by catholic Christians and those whose reading of John is influenced by them. Strangely, many will admit that the gospel of John itself contains plenty of passages that seem, after all’s said and done, to imply that 3 is false! They read the book as apparently self-inconsistent, which they spin and minimize as its containing logical “tensions”. To follow tradition, they affirm (and don’t also deny) 3. They simply assume that a seemingly self-consistent interpretation of John is impossible – the book is a “mystery.” But is it? The minority report says no. Are they correct?
- The cost of denying 2 is heavy, though often unperceived. The synoptic gospels reveal a very (and endearingly) human Messiah, and not merely a literary character, but a believable, flesh and blood first century Jewish man. These books don’t teach his existence prior to his conception. This must be remembered, while evangelicals like Gathercole move heaven and earth to try to show that the authors presuppose or maybe suggest or imply his pre-human existence. Really – they believed that, but never thought it worth once asserting? Really? Jesus isn’t credited with creation there. He isn’t called “God” in those books, but he constantly calls someone else God. And he seems to deny by implication that he’s either God or equal to God when he expresses his own fear of or ignorance of the future. He is a faithful servant of the one God in those books. Interpreters must vigorously massage them to find “hints” of Jesus being God there. And they must expend serious effort to obfuscate what’s meant by “the deity of Christ” or talk of Jesus “being God.” Clarity would risk refutation. But there’s a growing awareness that the traditional arguments for Jesus’ “deity” based on things he does and says in the synoptics are problematic – e.g. his forgiving sins, his being the object of proskuneo, his fulfilling prophecies about what YHMH himself will do, occasionally speaking out God’s words first-person, his being a sin-offering. In brief, everything Jesus does and says in those books, and everything there said about him, makes good sense if we think the authors viewed Jesus as the human Messiah, the unique Son of God, sent and empowered by God, to advance his Kingdom. There’s no noise there about revising the core theology of Israel’s prophets; Jesus affirms the Shema with no addition or qualification. Absolutely none of this material requires that Jesus “is God” in the sense defined here. Nor does it require the newly coined, confusing talk about Jesus as “belonging to the divine identity.” In sum, the cost of denying 2 is going against a mountain of careful, in-context exegesis of those books, in favor of hint-hunting that seems an ad hoc defense of traditional talk, or something resembling it.
- The cost of denying 1 is, I think, not often thought about. I’m inclined to think it is high. Jesus personally trained eleven people who continued on after his crucifixion. And we Christians believe that back from the dead he also personally called Paul, who then instructed both by the 11 and by God’s spirit. We Christians also believe, minimally, that the four gospels came from the circles of the apostles. Either we accept traditional authorship, more or less, or at least we think that they accurately represent the teachings and memories of the apostolic movement(s). Now, if you think that John emanates from a different context, that this book is truly alien to the apostolic tradition, and not substantially based, ultimately, on apostolic memory, then you’ll be happy to deny 1. But if you think John is, broadly, apostolic, and you affirm 2 and 3, you’re now taking the view that the apostles collectively did not have their story straight about Jesus and God. Either, Jesus was not a competent teacher, or he was competent but simply confused about himself and God, or else the apostles foolishly forgot his teaching very soon after his ascent. These are all, to Christians, bad options. It is arguably even problematic for the secular historian. These options are uncharitable to Jesus, and to his students; we’re postulating confusion, incompetence, or culpable forgetfulness. It’s not enough to mutter something about how doctrines develop. We should avoid these hypotheses if possible. Is it? And why was John so widely and quickly accepted, if it was in fact different in its core theology and christology, and if it in fact had little connection to the historical Jesus? Wouldn’t there have been a big fight about its new theology, and demands for an inquiry into its provenance? Wouldn’t it make more sense, if possible, to see the gospel of John as, despite its bold recasting of Jesus’ story, consistent in its core points about Jesus and God? Maybe it’s bold because it’s by John, as tradition has always said.
Of these, I think the most urgent to look more into is 3. Is the cost so high as many suppose?
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Hi Alec
Just to reinforce my difficulties with the Gospel According to John…
My Trinitarian friends continually stress John 20 v 28 as a Trinitarian ‘proof verse’
HOWEVER
(i) It seems to me to be ‘in the wrong neighbourhood’ sandwiched between verses like
John 20v17 “I am going to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God’
AND
John 20 v 31 ” All these are written that you might come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son
of God…..”
(ii) John 20 v 28 has some problems
“My Lord and my God”
‘ho kyrios mou kai ho theos mou”
Note
(a) Two nouns
(b) Not being proper names
(c) Joined by a conjunction
(d) Each preceded by the definite article (ho)
According to the Granville Sharp Rule this means that we have TWO persons in view.
Long before I became a Unitarian I had always interpreted this verse as meaning that Thomas –
– Recognised his risen Lord and
– Acknowledged the power behind the resurrection. See Matthew 9v8
Finally, so many verses in John speak to me of Christ as Gods divine agent — but I’m just a Unitarian!
Every Blessing
John
Alec,
Many thanks for your detailed reply.!
Much appreciated.!
I notice that you place great emphesis on Christ as being ‘the word’ in John.!
This issue has taxed me greatly .
It all begins, of course, in John 1 v1
Trinitarians are at pains to stress John 1 ,1,:3
“And the word was God ”
“kai theos en ho logos ”
Note
(i) The subject of this sentence (in the Greek) is ‘logos’
(ii) ‘logos’ is prefixed by the definite article – so this ‘logos’ is not ‘any old logos’
(iii) ‘theos ‘ is not prefixed by the definite article so it is unlikely that ‘theos’ refers to God
but rather to an atttribute of God, or a quality of God as some suggest. (see footnotes to the NAB Bible)
Many scholars believe that ‘the word’ is a reference to God’s ‘Word Wisdom’ and this maks sense to me.
In other words
” Gods creative dynamic word (Genesis) – God’s creation by his spoken word” combined with
” Personnified Wisdom as the agent of God’s creative activity ( e.g. Proverbs 2 v19)
SO it seems that ‘the word’ is NOT Christ. or a ‘person’
(I had always wondered how a person could ‘be’ and at the same time ‘be with’ someone)
However, Gods Word Wisdom entered into a human being in verse 14
And, just to make sure that believers do not mistake the logos with Christ, John writes in verse 18
“No man has seen God at any time, the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father
has made Him known”
Now we come to the tricky bit..
Some texts read
“…ho mongenes theos ho on eis….”
While others say
” … ho mongenes huios ho on eis…”
The former are from texts 66 and 75 which are favoured by the Catholic Church .
These texts have severely inferior reading in connection with other scriptures.
So, it’s not easy!
We now come to your thoughts that Philippians 2 v10 proves that Christ has
equal status to God . “The name that is above every other name..”
I think we have a poblem of ‘domain here’
Who conferred on Christ the honours referred to ? Who elevated Christ?
It was God of course – so it seems that we have two main ‘domains’ here i.e.
(i) God
(ii) Gods creation
You mentioned the issue of ‘pre-existence’ in a previous post and I have found this issue a difficult one.
I would refer to the opening verses of Hebrews Chapter 1
“In times past God spoke in partial and various ways, to our ancestors through the prophets
In these last days he spoke to us through a Son whom he made heir to all things and through whom
he created the universe’
As I say, these are not simple matters and I thank you for your patience with me!
God Bless
John
Dear John,
talk about going to trouble! On John: I’m afraid I’m still unclear what problem you have. The problem that I have is that you and Dale are saying that John doesn’t teach that Jesus is God. Whatever you mean by that, you’re expressing it in a very unfortunate way, given what John does teach. And though, as I say, John doesn’t give a precise metaphysical analysis of his teaching, he does specify his teaching in some ways:
He existed in the beginning 1:1, played a role in creation 1:3, does whatever the Father does 5:19, is one with the Father 10:30, is such that to see him is to see the Father 14:9 and is in himself light, truth, and life.
Philippians: perhaps ‘equal in status’ isn’t right. He shares in the honour proper to YHWH, maybe? The knees and tongues language recalls Isaiah 45, which strongly states the unique position of YHWH as God of all and saviour of all. The very same worship Isaiah says is to be given to the unique God YHWH is now given to Jesus. Further, Jesus is given ‘the name above every name’. What name is above every name? ‘YHWH’, of course! It is not a long way from sharing in YHWH’s honour in Paul to being the Word in John.
Many of your other points concern the reference of the word ‘God’. I agree that the primary reference of ‘God’ in the New Testament is the Father, and that Jesus is not the Father. John, though, also applies the word to Jesus. So I’m comfortable applying it to Jesus. But the words don’t really matter. What matters is that Jesus and the Father are one, just as Israel’s God is one.
I see what Spirit taught the apostles’ chosen successors to see. Tradition is just the faith handed down from the apostles.
All the best, Alec.
Alex
Many thanks for going to so much trouble on my account!
You say
” John teaches that Christ is God in some unspecified sense”
Yes – and that’s where I have a problem!
In what sense?
We have Christs clear and exlplicit language in The Gospel according to John
John 17 v 3
“Father, the only true God…”
John 20 v 17
” I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God,,”
Who did Christ pray to?
Who did Christ tell us to pray to?
THEN
YOU REVERT TO PHILIPPIANS 2 v 10
V10 That at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father’
You state that in this verse Jesus is given status equivalent to YHWH.
Thats a long leap!
Surely the one doing the exaltation and glorification is ‘superior’ to the one being exalted?
If we follow the trinitarian thinking we get into a veritable quicksand – and trinitarians have got to resort to excruciating ‘gymnastics’ to get out of it!!
Consider
(i) Which God is Paul talking about ?
The alleged ‘triune’ God OR
The God who is Father of Adam, Moses, Abraham and Isaac, and our Lord Jesus Christ?
(ii) If Christ died then God died (I know the ‘two natured’ response and it is gobbledygook to me)
(iii) If Christ is God why did he not consider equality with God as something to be grasped?
(iv) If Christ is God why did he exalt himself
(v) If Christ is God what did he empty himself of? If it was his attribures then was he still God?
(vi) Why did Christ come in the form of God – instead to God Himself?
(vii) The Greek word ‘morphe’ or ‘form’ indicats something which can be see.
God is invisible so his nature is invisible. . It seems nonsensical to have Paul contasting a ‘what’
(divine nature) with a ‘who’ (servant)
A servant is a servant by virtue of a role that he plays – not his appearance!
Alec, I am a scientist and a businssman.
I have always found when dealing with problems, that the most ‘elegant’ solution is always the best – thats why I am a Unitarian.
My frustration is that people tend to see what they WANT to see and that they are addicted to ‘tradition’.
I guess that it’s our way of dealing with uncertainty and ‘angst’ !
My very best wishes
John
Dear John,
re Philipians. First, there’s the question of pre-existence in the first half of the hymn. I’m aware that scholars like Dunn say that it’s all Adam Christology and doesn’t teach pre-existence at all. I have no great background in Pauline exegesis, but the Adam only interpretation certainly strikes me as forced. The basic drift of the text seems to be that at Christ was at one point in the form of God, and then chose to become in the likeness of men. And it is difficult to see in what sense Christ could have made this choice, except on the assumption of Christ’s pre-existence. The idea that this text definitely articulates an Adam Christology and Adam Christology definitely doesn’t teach pre-existence doesn’t seem to me strong enough reason to resist the apparent drift of the text. Still, I’m not especially confident (or competent) here. More interesting perhaps is the hymn’s second half. ‘God’ is certainly the subject in verse 9, but that’s not really the issue. The issue is that Jesus is given ‘the name that is above every name’, and that every knee should bend to Jesus and every tongue confess that he is Lord. The force of all this is plainly to attribute Jesus a status equivalent to that of Yahweh, an attribution which, as I say, sits well alongside the high Christology of John.
To which Christology we now turn. I agree that John does not teach that Jesus is numerically identical with God the Father, nor that Jesus shares the same nature as the Father. I also recognise that those are different claims, though I’m not sure why you want to stress that so keenly. Your conclusion that John does not teach that Christ is God is still too hasty. As I said, John teaches that Jesus is God, albeit in some unspecified sense. That is the explicit, and frequently implicit, teaching of the evangelist. It’s no help at all offering several specific interpretations of ‘Jesus is God’, correctly noting that John doesn’t affirm any one of those interpretations, and then saying that John does not teach that Jesus is God. He does teach it, he just doesn’t affirm any one of your interpretations.
Alec
Even Unitarians admit that Jesus is divine by virtue of the fact that He posseses the divine nature.
Note however that Nature is NOT the same thing as ‘identity’
God is the source of the divine nature
Christ has inherited the divine nature
Believers share the divine nature —- 2Peter1 v4
Read properly, the Gospel according to John does not reveal that Christ is God.
Blessings
John
Alec
The Philippians hymn has been cpmpletely understood.!
If you read Philippians 2 verses 6-10 you will note that
-In verses 6 through 8 Christ is the subject of every verb
– In verse 9 it is God who is the subject of every verb.
Unitarians tend to interpret this scripture as follows
(i) The first Adam , while being made in the image of God (Genesis 1v26) tried to equate
himself with God (Genesis 3 v5) and this was the first sin.
(ii) The second Adam reversed what the first Adam did.
Far from rtying to snatch equality with God, Christ humbled himself and became obedient
even unto death on the cross.
For this, God has exalted Him.
Some say that Christ emptied himself of his human ego.
There are many points that can be made – but just simple logic tells one that
God does not need to be elevated by Himself!
EveryBlessing
John
I’m puzzled. Just what is supposed to uncharitable to Jesus and his apostles, and why? The hypothesis under consideration, it seems to me, is simply that the evangelists were not uniform in their understanding of Christ. But Christianity has pretty much never seen uniformity in the understanding of Christ. What’s so problematic about supposing this was so back to the very earliest days? We don’t have to assume that Christ was a bad teacher or that the apostles were bad students – just that Christ never laid down an exact explanation of who he was. He manifested his authority and glory, and left the apostles to figure out what it all meant with the aid of the Holy Spirit. That, I think best explains our evidence.
As to the specific question of Johannine Christology, I agree entirely that John does not explicitly teach that Jesus fully possesses the divine nature. Nowhere does the Bible go in for such metaphysical precision. Still, it is futile denying that John insists that, in some sense the evangelist leaves unspecified, Jesus is God. Is that teaching consistent with the rest of the NT? Certainly, it fits neatly with the Philipians hymn. And it also consistent with those hints in the synoptics which suggest, without directly implying, that Jesus is divine.
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Hi, John. Yes, I agree that to say that Jesus is divine is to say that he shares in or possesses the divine nature. I also agree that if “God”=”the Father of Jesus,” then it would have been nonsensical and confusing for Jesus to have said “I am God” or for the New Testament writers to have said “Jesus is God.”
But as I mention in my recent article on my blog, I also do not think that it would also have been possible for the NT writers to have asserted that Jesus shares or possesses the divine nature. Such a statement requires a conceptuality and grammar that was not yet available to them.
For these reasons I have to refuse to play the game Dale has set before us.
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Fr Aidan,
We keep coming back to what is meant by the word ‘divine’.
Do you not agree that .divine’ relates to ‘nature’ rather than ‘identity’.?
The Father is the source of the divine nature – which Christ inherited ,and we as believers
are partakers?
Most of agree that Christ was a ‘divine’ figure -but this does not make him God Himself.
Blessings
John
Dale, you have me curious. Of the reputable Johannine scholars of, say, the past fifty years, which ones have denied that the Gospel of John do not present Jesus as a divine figure?
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