At his blog author Adrian Warnock has an interesting piece, “Jesus Commands: Worship Me.” This beautifully encapsulates the modern evangelical confusion of Jesus with his God. This is an urgent issue on which biblical reformation is urgently needed. Back to the sources!
Warnock says,
Jesus commands us to worship only God: Jesus answered him, “It is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’” (Luke 4:8)
Not exactly – context is relevant here. Jesus, living under the Law of Moses, quotes this part of it to his tempter Satan. But now the new covenant has come, and we are not under law, which is why we Christians don’t keep the Sabbath or dietary rules. Nor, according to the authors of the New Testament, are we restricted to worshiping God alone. Because of the exaltation of Jesus – see Revelation 5 – we worship Jesus too, to the glory of the God who exalted him. (Philippians 2:9-11)
Why should we worship Jesus? Jesus expects us to worship himself, because he is one with God.
This sort of demand is not attributed to Jesus anywhere in the NT. This is claim has been reverse engineered from our author’s theology. He’s thinking,
- We should worship God.
- Jesus is God.
- Therefore, we should worship Jesus.
This is a valid argument, for sure. But since we know that Jesus and God have differed, we know that 2 is false, if read to mean “Jesus and God are numerically one” (i.e. Jesus just is God and vice-versa).
Can”Jesus is God” be read to mean just “Jesus is divine.” Yes! But our author needs the premise for his arguments that Jesus just is God, that they are numerically one. Why? Keep reading.
We see this in several places. Firstly he explicitly asks his followers to serve him, something which Luke 4:8 uses as a synonym for worship.
If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him (John 12:26).
Talk of “service” in the NT can, yes, have to do with the worship of God. But more generally, it can mean, “to serve, minister to, either gods or men.” And we must read John 12:26 in context. In that chapter, Jesus is portrayed as a being distinct from God, praying to his God, and even getting back a miraculous answer. (John 12:27-28) Further, he praises God as the source of his authority and message. (John 12:44-50). And this is the book where Jesus clarifies that he has a God over him, the same one who is over us. (John 20:17) John doesn’t confuse Jesus with his God, despite what you may have heard! (More here.)
When Jesus forgives sins that have been committed against God then he is also implicitly claiming to be God as only God can forgive sins against himself (Mark 2:5–11).
A common misreading. I think the best, shortest answer is to notice that Matthew helps us out. Lest we make the mistake of agreeing with Jesus’s enemies that only God can forgive sins, Matthew adds this clarifying crowd reaction: “When the crowds saw it, they were filled with awe, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to human beings.” (Matthew 9:8) The point is that God’s given his authority to forgive to his Messiah, not that God’s Messiah is God himself. These are the people who “get it” – not his carping critics.
The sort of argument our author Warnock is making has this form:
- If anyone can do or properly say X, then this person just is God himself.
- Jesus can do or properly say X.
- Therefore, Jesus just is God himself. (That is, they are numerically one.)
The problem with this sort of argument is always the justification for premise 1. In my experience, the NT always either contradicts it outright or assumes its falsity. And claims of the form of 1 are generally not self-evident, obvious truths that don’t need support.
Elsewhere, Jesus explicitly makes claims of his oneness with God:
Believe that I am he. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. (John 13:19-20)
Not because he just is the one who sent him! (Look, for example, at John 5:32.) Rather, because Jesus really was and is God’s Messiah – to reject the legitimate agent is to reject the sender.
Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? . . . Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me (John 14:9-11).
We need to read the rest of it, which makes clear that he’s saying that he is like his Father and God, and that they are working together, “in” one another – but still, the assumption here is that they are two beings:
The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it. (John 14:10-14, NRSV)
“Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58)
Rather, “I am he,” or “I am the one” (the Messiah) – i.e. I’ve been predestined to be the Messiah since before Abe’s time. (Compare John 17:5 and with the book’s thesis, John 20:28.) Again, it is a mistake to agree with Jesus’s unbelieving opponents, who foolishly infer that he’s claiming to be older than Abe.
Jesus unashamedly owns the title Lord, which is used throughout the New Testament for God:
You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am (John 13:13)
The careful reader should note that this “one Lord” in the NT has a God over him (Ephesians 1:3, Ephesians 1:17), and that this new use of the title “the Lord” for the Messiah is based on Psalm 110:1, in which God raises a subordinate, human agent. (More here.)
Indeed the simple act of calling Jesus Lord is a crucial part of becoming a Christian (see Romans 10:9). You cannot be a Christian without worshiping Jesus as Lord.
Yes, in the sense of submitting to him as truly being God’s Messiah, now raised and exalted.
When Jesus makes the audacious claim that those who follow him will find that all things become possible, it simply makes sense for us to worship him.
The actual New Testament justification for our worshiping Jesus is well-explained by Dr. Larry Hurtado. In brief, God wills it, as evidenced by his raising and exalting of Jesus. We don’t worship Jesus “as God” in the sense of confusing together the two, thinking that the one just is the other. Rather, we worship them for different reasons. Compare and contrast the reasons cited for worshiping each of them in Revelation chapters 4 and 5.
In sum, Jesus nowhere in the NT commands “Worship me!” But God there commands us, as evidenced by apostolic statements and practice, to also worship his Son. So it is quite correct to worship the exalted Lord Jesus. We just need to take care not to confuse him for God.
Next time, the second half of his post, called “Do Christians worship three Gods?”
