{"id":39493,"date":"2019-11-09T16:17:47","date_gmt":"2019-11-09T22:17:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=39493"},"modified":"2019-11-05T21:29:08","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T03:29:08","slug":"worship-of-jesus-worship-of-god-and-the-fulfillment-fallacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/worship-of-jesus-worship-of-god-and-the-fulfillment-fallacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Worship of Jesus, Worship of God, and the Fulfillment Fallacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Notice how this scholar avoids what I call the fulfillment fallacy<\/strong>, which is inferring that because the New Testament author applies in Old Testament text about Yahweh to Jesus, then that author is asserting the numerical sameness of Yahweh and Jesus, i.e. that Jesus just is Yahweh himself.<\/p>\n

It is noteworthy that, at least in some of the instances of the transfer to Christ of passages originally relating to God, special care seems to be taken to safeguard, as it were, the supremacy of God<\/strong>. Thus, in Philippians 2:11, the acclamation of Christ in terms originally intended for God is said to be ‘to the glory of God the Father.’ Similarly, in Revelation 5:9f., 12f., explicit references to God are brought in alongside of expressions of the worthiness of the Lamb. … such phenomena may be an indication that the passage in question was directed to a situation in which Christians were in danger of being either misunderstood by Gentiles or attacked by Jews as polytheists, and needed to safeguard their monotheistic intentions. (C.F.D. Moule, The Origin of Christology<\/em> (1977), 42-43.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

His point about the lamb in Revelation<\/strong> here is obscure. But I think we can unpack it pretty easily.<\/p>\n

Notice why<\/em> each of the two are worshiped<\/strong>. The worshipers go to all the trouble of actually stating their reasons. In worshiping God in chapter 4, it is stated that God is eternal<\/strong> (Revelation 4:8) and that he is the creator<\/strong> (Revelation 4:11).<\/p>\n

In contrast, when the Lamb is brought into the throne room<\/strong> of God in chapter 5 and receives worship alongside God, here are the worshipers’ stated reasons in their “new song:”<\/p>\n

You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed<\/strong> for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation; you have made them<\/strong> to be a kingdom and priests serving our God<\/strong>, and they will reign on earth. (Revelation 5:9-10)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In short, the Lamb (Jesus) is worshiped because of his unique service to God<\/strong>. There is not any confused and confusing statement here about Jesus being “worshiped as God.” No, the monotheism has been carefully left intact<\/strong>, even though the man Jesus here has been exalted to the highest possible place under God himself and worshiped alongside him. Yes, it is remarkable<\/em> that anyone, especially a man, should be worshiped alongside God Almighty. And yet, we already know why God is being worshiped, and it is a more foundational or fundamental reason than the reason for worship of Jesus. Jesus, having fulfilled his divine commission, has now been exalted, and this is why he must be worshiped, to the glory of the God who sent, empowered, raised, and exalted him. God’s sponsoring agency is assumed here in the background, when the Lamb suddenly appears in the throne room. This has all been the working out of God’s plan, so this amazing exaltation must be understood as God’s will<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Due to theoretical glasses being welded to some theologians’ faces, they will insist on seeing these texts as merely distinguishing the Person of the Father from the Person of the Son<\/strong>. But in truth they are taking care to distinguish between God from Jesus, the one true God and his unique human Son. As history shows, the idea of multiple, equally divine “Persons” within the one God is at this point still centuries in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Notice how this scholar avoids what I call the fulfillment fallacy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39494,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"default","neve_meta_container":"default","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"off","neve_meta_content_width":70,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"off","neve_meta_disable_footer":"off","neve_meta_disable_title":"off","footnotes":""},"categories":[21,7,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible","category-quotes","category-worship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39493"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41942,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39493\/revisions\/41942"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}