{"id":42599,"date":"2020-08-06T05:14:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-06T10:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=42599"},"modified":"2020-07-30T21:42:17","modified_gmt":"2020-07-31T02:42:17","slug":"dr-larry-hurtado-dont-confuse-jesus-with-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/dr-larry-hurtado-dont-confuse-jesus-with-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Larry Hurtado: don&#8217;t confuse Jesus with God"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Father-and-Son.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-42600\" width=\"326\" height=\"370\" srcset=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Father-and-Son.jpg 795w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Father-and-Son-396x450.jpg 396w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Father-and-Son-768x872.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 326px) 100vw, 326px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In my <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Jesus-Divine-Essential-Christian-Debates\/dp\/1946971804\/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1EQ8DSPB47PD8&amp;dchild=1&amp;keywords=is+jesus+human+and+not+divine&amp;qid=1596159840&amp;sprefix=is+jesus+human+and+%2Caps%2C219&amp;sr=8-2\" target=\"_blank\">recent debate book<\/a> with Chris Date, I start off by distinguishing the popular (and <strong>demonstrably confused) identification<\/strong> of Jesus with God (as in, these are numerically one, each<em> just is<\/em> the other) from traditional<strong> &#8220;two natures&#8221;<\/strong> speculations. (pp. 10-17) <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Either can be meant by the abstract phrase <strong>&#8220;the deity of Christ&#8221;<\/strong> &#8211; which is why that phrase is none too helpful. One should also beware of theologians talking about &#8220;<strong>identifying<\/strong>&#8221; Jesus and God, for very often they simply mean that a writer is, in some unique way, <em>closely associating together<\/em> Jesus and God. Of course, we unitarian Christians are in favor of that! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I have <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/podcast-124-a-challenge-to-jesus-is-god-apologists\/\" target=\"_blank\">pointed out this popula<\/a>r confusion that we see repeated <em>ad nauseum<\/em> in popular apologetics and preaching &#8211; and, by the way the only &#8220;good&#8221; answer to that argument is to endorse it as sound. I have pointed out that <strong>this confusion goes way back<\/strong> in Christian history, which is why we find <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/origen-on-the-challenge-to-jesus-is-god-apologists\/\" target=\"_blank\">Origen denouncing this error<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Happily, the late Dr. Hurtado denounced it as well. Despite his membership in &#8220;the early high christology club&#8221; and his emphasis on the early religious worship given to Jesus, <strong>Hurtado did <em>not <\/em>confuse together God and the Son <\/strong>of God. He <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/evangelical-apologists-take-note-hurtado-on-jesus-and-god\/\" target=\"_blank\">correctly denies<\/a> that in the New Testament Jesus is worshiped <em>as God<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In this short clip put together by Restoration Fellowship, <strong>Dr. Hurtado explains<\/strong> that mainstream traditions do <em>not,<\/em> rightly understood, collapse Jesus with God. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"nv-iframe-embed\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Larry Hurtado: Jesus is NEVER Almighty God of Old Testament or Creeds!\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DMXSZws9jYg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Shield-Trinity-1024x921.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-42601\" width=\"369\" height=\"331\" srcset=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Shield-Trinity-1024x921.png 1024w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Shield-Trinity-450x405.png 450w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Shield-Trinity-768x691.png 768w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Shield-Trinity.png 1138w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 369px) 100vw, 369px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>I would add a caveat.<\/strong> I think he&#8217;s right about ancient, 4th-6th century traditions. They meant to rule out the modalistic monarchian mistake of collapsing Jesus and God together, thinking they are one and the same &#8211; the mistake Origen denounces. <strong><em>However<\/em>, people who understand &#8220;the Trinity&#8221; in the incoherent way<\/strong> where all of the occurrences of &#8220;is&#8221; in ye olde Trinity shield here mean numerical identity (affirmations on the spokes, denials around the edges) &#8211; these people <em>do <\/em>confuse Jesus with God, though they <em>are<\/em>, in some sense, in the mainstream. While they identify Jesus with God, of course, they also implicitly distinguish them! Since the Son isn&#8217;t the Father, and the Father just is God, then it follows that the Son isn&#8217;t God. The position is manifestly incoherent. But, they <em>are <\/em>collapsing together Jesus with God (and then undoing it). Is this a &#8220;popular&#8221; misreading of tradition? Maybe. But some positive mysterians are PhDs in theology who are emphatic that &#8220;the Trinity&#8221; should be <em>apparently <\/em>incoherent, in just this way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At any rate, apologists who collapse together Jesus and God as numerically one thereby <strong>show that they are not careful thinkers<\/strong>. For surely, even in <em>their <\/em>view, the two of them have simultaneously differed &#8211; which shows that<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/jesus-god-and-an-inconsistent-triad\/\" target=\"_blank\"> they can&#8217;t be one and the same<\/a>, not according to me, but <em>according to the views of that apologist<\/em>. And, of course, according to the New Testament, which seems to reveal <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/a-conversation-about-the-differences-between-god-and-jesus\/\" target=\"_blank\">many differences<\/a> between Jesus and his God. Don&#8217;t believe me? Well, maybe you&#8217;ll <a href=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/podcast-257-a-letter-from-the-lord-jesus-about-god-and-me\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">listen to Jesus<\/a>?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Hurtado calls out a common confusion which many historical trinitarian sources do not contain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42600,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"off","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37,21,15,58,14,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apologetics","category-bible","category-christology","category-creeds","category-history","category-worship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42599","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=42599"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42609,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42599\/revisions\/42609"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}