Last time we carefully read through a heavenly scene in which Jesus is exalted to God’s side and worshiped alongside him.
We saw that it is indisputable that Revelation 4-5 holds forth Jesus as worthy of being worshiped.
But can this help us choose between the dueling arguments from the first post? Yes!
Given that we accept that Jesus ought to be worshiped, we must choose between Only God should be worshiped and Jesus isn’t God because we can’t consistently accept both of these, in addition to the claim that Jesus ought to be worshiped.
Based on our careful reading (Part 2, Part 3) of Revelation 4-5, let us ask which of these John would agree with?
Would John agree that only God should be worshiped?
Plainly not.
- Jesus is presented throughout as someone else. In these chapters, he comes into God’s throne room, receives the scroll of God’s secret plans from God, and is then honored alongside God.
- God, the one on the throne, silently approves of all this. He lets Jesus take the scroll. It is his mission that Jesus accomplished, because of which Jesus is worthy to now be exalted. And he stands by while people worship both him and Jesus. And he does not thunder “You lousy idolaters” – worship only me!” And he, he tacitly approves of this exaltation of Jesus.
- Smartly, the people present agree. (v. 14) No one calls out God for his wrongful advocacy of worshiping someone other than himself. Because he can do that – he can exalt his only Son in that way. And since he does, John is saying, you should fall on your face before the two of them, just like “the elders” present here do. Phooey on your scruples, if you object that you can’t worship the Lamb, because he isn’t God himself. God himself has so raised him over you. To not worship Jesus is to defy God.
- As we saw, Jesus is asserted to a man, a human being, and given the background assumptions of Judaism, the reader infers that he’s not God. In this is consonant with John throughout the whole book seeming to pointedly distinguish the two. From the very first verse (1:1) he assumes that Jesus, the immediate source of this series of revelations, is other than God himself, who is the ultimate source of them. This being one among many ways Jesus serves his God. (1:6)
- Nor is the reader supposed to think that the Lamb is worthy because he is numerically one with God, that is, just is God himself. To the contrary! He’s God’s agent, who has accomplished amazing things on God’s behalf, according to God’s will. You can’t act on someone’s behalf if you are that very someone. Here, God doesn’t have blood, and so can’t shed it. But this Lamb, being a man does, and did. God didn’t ever need to be exalted, but this Lamb did, and was. God already had a throne; Jesus now comes to share what was someone else’s throne.
Would John agree that Jesus isn’t God?
- John doesn’t say this anywhere, for the simple reason that it doesn’t need saying. We all assume that a thing can’t at one time differ from itself. And Jesus and God differ in many ways here. e.g. on the throne, not on it. holding scroll vs. not. taking the scroll vs. not. sending vs. not. being sent vs. not. being a servant of God vs. not.
- Again, that the Messiah is not God himself is an assumption of ancient Judaism.
- Nor do the characters, as it were, ever merge. We never find out that John’s been calling one being by two names.
- Because of their theoretical commitments, some will read all of this in ch. 4-5 as a big series of elaborate hints that Jesus just is God and vice-versa. But the climax passes (end of ch. 5) and the worshipers are worshiping two beings, addressing each one individually, seemingly oblivious to any deeper truth that the one just is the other. And the author goes right on talking of them as if he thought they are two. After more heavenly scenes and other action, there is a resurrection of people to be “be priests of God and of Christ” (20:6) – yes, servants of the both of them. And in ch. 22, in the vision of heavenly New Jerusalem, we’re told of “the throne of God and of the Lamb”. (22:3; cf. 21:22-3)
- Is that the crucial hint that they’re really one being, at long last – that they have a single throne? No – there’s just one throne of the one God, and Jesus was raised up to share it with him.
- Or maybe near the very end? Jesus there says “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” (22:13) Aha! Smoking gun! For God himself said he was the Alpha and Omega back at the start. (1:8) In light of the above, what to make of this? Well, why can’t both be correctly called “Alpha and Omega”. Where is it written that only one can be truly so described? [Sound of crickets chirping.] What does this mean, here in ch 22? That he’s the First and Last, it says, the Beginning and the End. Of what? I would say, of the new creation. He the first born (1:5) of a new, better human race. Yes, this is a divine title now being extended to Christ. That doesn’t mean he’s divine. (There’s only one divine being.) Rather, it means that he’s been beet put in a God-like position in this new order. He bears other divine titles as well, e.g. 19:16. But he’s still the Word of God – his message and pre-eminent messenger, the “faithful witness” (1:5).
Conclusion: John would accept our second argument as sound. So should we.
Next, final post: But doesn’t this book say to worship God alone?
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Dear Russell
You may have noticed that the first part of John 1 looks a bit like Genesis 1?
In Genesis 1 NINE verses begin with the words “And God said”
So it was by Gods (spoken) word that the cosmos was created.
You may have wondered about the logic of ” the Word was with God and the Word was GOD. ?
It makes no sense unless the Word is NOT a person.
Until the publication of the Chatholic Douay-Rheims Bible in 1582 all Protestant Bibles reflected ‘ all things were made by IT and without IT nothing was made’
See
Tyndale Bible 1534
Great Bible 1539
Geneva Bible 1560
Bishops Bible 1568
Then something went wrong!
Blessings
John
Marg
So “Who” is the figure in Pro 8?
“What God was the word was” is a very good translation (I think) of the last clause in the verse.
However, the preposition pros is not quite so easily disposed of. The meaning depends on the CASE that it is used with. With the genitive case, it means from. With the accusative it means towards. With the dative, it means near; at; by. (For example, Mark 5:11 – “There was near (pros) the mount a herd of pigs.”)
In John 1:1, it is used with ton theon, which is the dative case for “the God”.
Therefore, the translation “with” or “by” is valid.
To be honest, I can’t see any reason for the clause at all if it does not imply the existence of something separate from God.
Rusell
Just a word on “the word” [pardon the pun] of John’s Gospel…the word translated “with” [pros] in the phrase: “the word was with God” in John 1.1b “does not imply any movement or action on the part of the Logos”, as if it were talking about one person next to [“with”, para] another, in this case God. Hence the translation above that best captures the meaning and intent of John 1.1c: “what God was the word was”; i.e. it was God’s word!
http://inthenameofwhowhat.blogspot.com/2010/11/word-was.html
Hi Russell,
Thanks for your comment. Yes, you state my views right. After a lot of study, I’ve concluded that John 1 is widely misread. Briefly, the Logos isn’t a pre-human self, but rather God’s wisdom or plan. By this, like the OT says, he created all, and it was “with” him. It is this which gets expressed in the man Jesus; he’s not in view until 1:14, as I read it. This is no place to make the argument; I’ll just say that this reading, in my view, better fits the text than any rival. Some day, God willing, I’ll do a series on how various theologies want to read John 1.
An interesting series of reflections! From what I have read of this series on Revelation, it appears that your view is that God, who is the Father, is not triune. Jesus is a human being who becomes worthy of worship because of his self-offering. How do you reconcile this to the first chapter of the Gospel of John which asserts the pre-existence of the Word and affirms that the Word is God and has become incarnate in Jesus? I appreciate your blogs because I am reviewing my thinking about the Trinity.
Dale
Agreed. Make this simple point by adding that people worship X as X and Y as Y. And even though both X & Y are worshipped, it does not make “them” one & the same letter. ; )
At times, yes. But maybe due to the philosophical context in which your working from.
If I worship someone “as X” it follows that I worship them (period). So I don’t see what adding that phrase adds to the discussion of whether or not Christians should worship Jesus.
“gramma-gymnastics”? Do you find it that hard to follow? To me this is merely sober reasoning.
CORRECTION: I DON’T think jumping through hoops or having people do gramma-gymnastics are needed to understand this simple biblical truth/precedence. 😉
Dale, how about simply teaching people to worship God as God and Jesus as the Son of God?
I think jumping through hoops or gramma-gymnastics are needed to understand this simple biblical truth/precedence.
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