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Paul calls Jesus “the one Lord.” What does this mean?
In episode 15, we saw why we can’t take Paul to mean that Jesus is Yahweh himself. In this episode, we see what, according to the New Testament, it means for Jesus to be “the one Lord.”
Sir Anthony Buzzard has helpfully covered Psalm 110:1 many times. See this blog post and this video, in addition to his published works. See also this discussion between Dr. Joe Martin and pastor J. Dan Gill, who also discuss Peter’s use of this text in Acts 2, and other relevant texts.
The commanding voice of Paul in this and the last two episodes is Mr. Dominick Baldwin. Be sure to contact him if your business or church etc. is looking for a voice-over that makes Warf sound like a little girl.
Books quoted in this episode:
- Larry Hurtado, How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?
- James Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle.
- Samuel Clarke, The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity.
- James McGrath, The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in Its Jewish Context.
- Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel.
Dale
You more or less stated that the only alternative to Jesus being creator in Col1:16 was to view the creation here as the “new creation”. This is a common BU position – and, IMHO, deeply flawed and rightly smacks at the credibility of the BU position by even a common reader. There are much better intra-textual approaches to this primarily with starting off with the obvious point that the creation is NOT the physical creation as Paul clearly states.
Greg,
Not all Biblical Unitarians consider the “creation” in Colossians 1:16 to be “new” in the sense that it has no relation or to, or involvement with, the Genesis creation.
For example, when Paul spoke of the “new creation in Christ”, he was talking about the status of circumcised and uncircumcised people who were already part of the original creation (Galatians 6:15). Even later in Colossians, he spoke of it as a “renewal” (Colossians 3:10).
If you think you have a better “intra-textual approach” (as you call it), please share it with us.
Dale,
It is explicit in the O.T. that God is the only “one Lord” (Shema, Deut. 6:4).
However, it it is also very clear that Jesus Christ is the ‘one Lord’ (1 Cor. 8:6).
Jesus is not a second Lord. Rather, Jesus is Lord the same way God is Lord.
The name of God in the Shema is given to Jesus Christ by God himself (Phil. 2:9).
Jesus is not the Father. Rather, both of them have the same name of ‘one Lord.’
Paul identified Jesus with the God of the Shema. Jesus Christ is not only man (1 Tim. 2:5) but the one Lord of the Shema (1 Cor. 8:6; Deut. 6:4 Lxx).
Richard Bauckham notes:
“Paul has reproduced all the words of the statement about YHWH in the Shema…but Paul has rearranged the words in such as way as to produce an affirmation of both one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ. It should be quite clear that Paul is including the Lord Jesus Christ in the unique divine identity. He is redefining monotheism as christological monotheism. If he were understood as adding the one Lord to the one God of whom the Shema speaks, from the perspective of Jewish monotheism, he would certainly be producing not christological monotheism but outright ditheism” (Bauckham, p. 38).
Other scholars who have written on Paul’s reliance on the Shema in this verse include: F.F. Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians; D. R. de Lacey, “‘One Lord’ in Pauline Christology,” in H. H. Rowden, ed., Christ the Lord; L. Hurtado, One God, One Lord and At the Origin of Christian Worship; N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant and What St. Paul Really Said; D. A. Hagner, “Paul’s Christology and Jewish Monotheism” in M. Shuster and R. Muller ed., Perspectives on Christology; N. Richardson, Paul’s Language about God; B. Witherington, Jesus the Sage; P. Rainbow, “Monotheism and Christology in 1 Corinthians 8:4-6 [unpublished D.Phil. Thesis, Oxford University]; W. A. Elwell, “The Deity of Christ in the Writings of Paul,” in Hawthorne, ed., Current Issues in Biblical and Patristic Interpretation.
No, there is noy only “one Lord”, there is only “One Yahweh.”
No he is the one lord “For us” rather than the many lords of the world, refering to the emperors and kings and so on. But there is also one god “for us” and that is Yahweh
https://theologyandjustice.wordpress.com/2015/04/24/1-corinthians-86-splitting-the-shema-with-dr-nabeel-qureshi-and-n-t-wright/
No it isn’t, Philippians 2 doesn’t have anything to do With the Shema, or the name Yahweh.
“Lord” can mean many Things, it’s not ALWAYS a replacement for Yahweh, otherwise David and Abraham would be Yahweh also.
Richard Bauckham … who I think has actually changed his thinking on 1 Corinthians 8:6, was wrong.
Read the text in the greek, read the Shema in the LXX. Look at the uses of Kyrios in the Hellenistic world, and by greek speaking Jews, it’s Clear that 1 Corinthians 8:6 is not taken from the Shema.
Nope. Jesus Christ is one Lord the way God is (Deut. 6:4).
The immediate context talks about ‘idols’ as gods (1 Cor. 8:5-6).
The lords in 1 Corinthians 8:5 are humans (emperors, kings) who claim to be gods (Acts 12:22-23; 28:6). These gods are “not gods by nature” (Galatians 4:8).
Acts 12:22-23
22 The people kept crying out, “The voice of a god and not of a man!”
23 And immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and died.
Acts 28:6
6 But they were expecting that he was about to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But after they had waited a long time and had seen nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and began to say that he was a god.
“The formula ho kyrios kai ho theos hemon (Rev. 4:11, cf. Jn. 20:28), our Lord and our God, is reminiscent of the title adopted by Domitian.”
1 Corinthians 8:6 highly alludes the Shema in the Septuagint (EIS -one , KURIOS – Lord). No Jew in the first century Judaism would ever thought that the ‘one Lord’ was other than God. In other words, it is widely known that only God is the one Lord.
I highly recommend you to read Larry Hurtado’s ‘One God, one Lord.’
I suggest you read my argument here https://theologyandjustice.wordpress.com/2015/04/24/1-corinthians-86-splitting-the-shema-with-dr-nabeel-qureshi-and-n-t-wright/
It lays it out in a more Complete way.
The Shema says “Hear oh Israel Yahweh Our God, Yahweh is one” or Yahweh Our God is one Yahweh” or something like that.
So if 1 Corinthians 8:5-6 were an allusion to the Shema, it would have to be interpreted as saying “there are many Gods and many Yahwehs” and then “but for us there is one God the father and one Yahweh Jesus,” which is patenetly rediculous and obviously not what Paul is saying.
Or it could be “there are many Gods and many Lords” and then “But for use there is one God the father and one Yahweh Jesus,” which would mean that verse 5 and 6 don’t really have any Connection, it would also mean that Paul was had a very bizzare theology, where there was one God, and one Yahweh, who was seperate from that God (some kind of strange gnostic theology), but OBVIOUSLY that is not what Paul is saying here.
There clearly is no coneection to the Shema.
I haven’t read Larry Hurtado’s book on the subject, but I have read many other scholars who have written on Paul, and more importantly I’ve read the actual text, the LXX, the patristics, and the jewish literature from around the time.
For the Shema argument to work would require that Paul have no idea about the Shema in Hebrew, or the Hebrew bible, and not really actually be the Pharisaic Jew taught by Gamaliel the NT describes him as.
There is no Shema there.
The apostle Paul wrote his epistles in GREEK.
Though he was “a pharisee of Pharisees”(Acts 23:6), he was also truly the ‘apostle to the Gentiles” (Galatians 1:16).
1 Corinthians 8:6 is an allusion to the Shema of Deut. 6:4 (SEPTUAGINT)
We revere the tetragrammaton through reverencing the substitute, that is, the Greek word KURIOS.
The Greek word KURIOS replaced or is the substitute for the name of God.
The many gods (divinities) and many lords (masters) are idols (worthless, nothing). They do not have substance. In fact, they were not deties “by nature” (Gal. 4:8).
ok so we are assuming that Paul KNEW that Kyrios in the LXX in Deuteronomy 6:4 was a replacement for the Divine name, that’s a good assumption, I agree, he must have known.
So then what was he saying.
there are many Gods and many Lords, but for us there is but one God the father and one Yahweh Jesus?
Or was he saying:
there are many Gods and many Yahweh’s, but for us there is but one God the father and one Yahweh Jesus?
If you’re claiming that that Paul is referenceing the Shema, you would HAVE to pick one of those 2, both of them are absolute nonsense as you can see.
As for as those Gods mentioned in Galations 4:8, being not Gods “by nature,” first of all we can’t just assume that Paul is using “nature” in some Aristotelian way, second we just because whatever these People were enslaved to were not Gods by nature (whatever that means) doesn’t mean that there arn’t Gods out that there arn’t Yahweh, and I mean by Gods anything which can be properly called a God, so for example according to Psalms, Angels … or According to Yahweh, Moses, of course not in the same way Yahweh is.
But anyway, when it comes to 1 Corinthians 8:6, which of the Kyrios’ do you believe is a replacement for Yahweh?
There are many Gods (beings who are divine) and Lords ( beings who are in authority)
The Shema in the Septuagint can be translated into English as ” Hear Oh Israel, The Master our God is our One Master.”
KURIOS = Master (one who is in authority)
The reason KURIOS could replace the Tetragrammaton is that it is qualified numerically. For Jews, only God is the “one YHVH” or “one Lord” (EIS KURIOS ~ Deut. 6:4 Lxx)
For Christians, there is only one who is in authority and it is Jesus Christ. The identification of Jesus Christ as one Lord is without a shadow of doubt a clear reference to his equality with God. The Diaspora Jews would always recite the Shema as found in the Lxx. Identifying Jesus as EIS KURIOS would be utter blasphemy if Jesus Christ was only human by nature.
Kyrios in the LXX means YHWH, it would only mean just “master” if someone wasn’t familiar with the Torah and the divine name, I’m pretty sure Paul, who studied under Gamaliel, knew that Kyrios meant YHWH and not just master in Deuteronomy 6:4.
The shema is not “hear oh Isreal the master our God is one master.” It’s the divine name, and Adonai in the shema is not just “master” it’s a replacement word for YHWH, if it isn’t then it isn’t the shema we are talking about.
You can’t have it both ways, either Kyrios is a divine name replacement or it isn’t. And if it isn’t then it’s not the shema.
Unless you want to argue that Paul didn’t know what the shema was.
“Jesus is not a second Lord. Rather, Jesus is Lord the same way God is Lord.”
Maybe you should actually listen to the podcast. In brief, the use of “Lord” for the risen Jesus seems to be based on Psalm 110:1 – Jesus is the second, human lord (“my lord”) there, *in contrast to* the LORD. Now exalted to God’s right hand, Jesus is that lord. No, that lord is not the LORD – he doesn’t get his high position from any other.
I’m afraid that you’re in the grip of Bauckham’s confusions about 1 Cor 8. As I explain in the previous podcast, Paul can’t be *identifying* the one God and the one Lord there because he assumes a difference between them. I patiently try to untangle Bauckham’s confusions about “identity” in this paper: https://trinities.org/blog/podcast-13-on-bauckhams-bargain/ As your references show, his misreading has recently become popular with some evangelical scholars, but this interpretation simply isn’t found prior to him. This should give you pause – a wholly new reading simply can’t be the plain meaning of the text! As I explain in the paper, it is hoped by these folks that this is just a better or more modern way of restating the two-natures and Trinity traditions – but that is far from clear, to put it mildly.
I’ll interact further with you if you actually read the paper; I’m not interested in mere appeals to authority here, as I know the main authority to be unclear in this case.
Dale,
Psalm 110:1 refers to God and Christ. God is YHVH while Christ is adoni at God’s right hand.
Psalm 110:5 still refers to God and Christ. Christ is Adonai at God’s right hand.
While it is true that Christ is not identified as YHWH in Psalm 110:1, it is also equally true that Christ is identified as Adonai in Psalm 110:5.
Questions Unitarians need to answer:
[1] What does ‘Adonai’ mean? What does it stands for?
[2] Does the Scripture call Christ Adonai in the Scriptures?
[3] Why is Christ called Adonai in Psalm 110:5?
Ponder on these info’s:
(1) Jesus Christ is Adonai in Psalm 110:5
(2) Jesus Christ is Adoni in Psalm 110:1
(3) Jesus Christ is YHVH (KURIOS) in the N.T. […one Lord, Jesus Christ…] 1 Cor. 8:6 (Deut. 6:4 Lxx)
No. https://theologyandjustice.wordpress.com/2015/04/23/nabeel-qureshi-and-psalm-1101/
Adoni means my lord, a title never used for YHWH, but it is used for human’s in a certain position.
Remember this is a song that would have been sung by the kings singers.
So the song is being sung to the king, so in verse 3 “Your People” and “Your Company of Young men” is the People and Company of Young men of the king.
so in verse 5 it’s YHWH standing at the right hand of the King.
In verse 1, a statement is being made prior to the song.
1. In the actual Hebrew Text there is no Adonai, there is YHWH, so when you read the text in Hebrew you read YHWH, it’s only pronounced as Adonai, by Rabbinic Jews.
2. Not that I can find, he’s called Adoni here … but never Adonai, but then again, in the text’s translated as the LORD, it’s not translated from Adonai, it’s translated from YHWH …. it’s only PRONOUNCED Adonai by rabbinic Jews.
3. he isn’t. he is the priest according to the order of Malchizedek, YHWH pronounces that to him, and then the song continues singing to the king.
1. No he’s not.
2. Yes it his.
3. Kyrios is not always taken from YHWH in the NT, when it is, it’s obvious to see, because you can tell it’s speaking of the God of the old testament.
When it refers to Jesus it’s always in a kingly context.
Roman,
Jesus was not called ‘YHVH’ in Psalm 110.
However, Jesus was called both ‘Adoni’ and ‘Adonai’ in Psalm 110.
Take a look at what is written:
[…YHWH says to Adoni…sit at my right hand…] Psalm 110:1
[…Adonai is at your right hand…] Psalm 110:5
The Greek word KURIOS was used in the N.T. to refer to the following:
(1) God [all O.T. citation in reference to YHVH]
(2) Sir [a title of respect]
(3) Ruler [a title of sovereignty]
Jesus Christ is identified as KURIOS [God; YHVH] in 1 Corinthians 1:2, 8:6, Romans 9:10-13 and in Phil. 2:9-11.
Adoni is “my lord,” Psalm 110:5 is Adonai, “Our lord,” remember this is being sung to the king, the Adoni.
Jesus Christ is NOT called Adonai in Psalm 110:5, God is called Adonai.
Jeseus Christ is called Kyrios, but never as a replacement for YHWH.
Jesus is the only one who is at the right hand of YHVH in Ps. 110:1.
The one who is at the right hand of YHVH is none other than Jesus Christ.
In Psalm 110:5, it says that ‘Adonai’ is at the right hand of YHVH.
No … listen I’m gonna spell it out.
First of all this is a song that was made to be sung to the King
1 Yahweh says to my lord (Adoni),
“Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies your footstool.”
here Adoni is the King, David, and also referencing Jesus.
The singer says Yahweh says to “my lord” which is the king ….
Let’s keep going in the song.
2 Yahweh sends out from Zion
your mighty scepter.
Rule in the midst of your foes.
3 Your people will offer themselves willingly
on the day you lead your forces
on the holy mountains.[a]
From the womb of the morning,
like dew, your youth will come to you.
4 Yahweh has sworn and will not change his mind,
“You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.”
Now in verse 3 when the singer says “Your People” he’s saying the People of the King … and the “Your youth” is the youth of the King …. NOT Yahweh.
Now notice the singers says “Yahweh has said” and then “you are a priest …”
That’s Yahweh talking to the King (later to Jesus).
Now verse 5.
The Lord is at your right hand;
he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath.
Now the LORD is God, and YOUR is the same YOUR as the previous verses … i.e. the King, I.e. Jesus.
So the Lord there is NOT Jesus.
let’s be careful With text and read what it ACTUALLY says.
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