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And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love. I shall walk at liberty, for I have sought your precepts. |
GregI've noticed that some people will go to a text to argue for a certain theological view, and they seem to think the explanation they offer settles a theological dispute, perhaps on grammatical grounds. I think it is important to remember that when it comes to a passage of scripture, "scoring (grammar) points" in a few verses of scripture cannot possibly, in and of itself, prove or disprove a theological view. I'm not knocking the technical work of the grammarians, not at all. Without their contributions, we would be up a creek without a paddle. My point is, the grammarians disagree, all the time, so to understand the truth of scripture, we must weigh grammatical arguments with the overall message of scripture. I think the Bible is a simpler book than what many theologians have made it. What did Moses teach? What did God tell us through Abraham? How did the Hebrews understand God's promises concerning a Messiah? I think it odd that trinitarian apologists have argued that we must interpret the Hebrew scriptures by the NT scriptures, when in fact, the opposite must be true.
Take, for example, the disputed doctrine of the pre-human existence of Jesus. No matter one's interpretation of the prologue, for example, and one can even bring his interpretation of Hebrews 1 and/or Colossians 1 alongside his interpretation of the prologue, this alone does not determine the truth of who/what Jesus is, whether one is a Trinitarian, Arian, or Biblical Unitarian. I was a Trinitarian, with a brief stop as a Binitarian/Arian of sorts, and I landed on Biblical Unitarianism because I think it is the best paradigm for understanding the totality of scripture. I don't say that to fight with those of the Arian persuasion. I admit that some passages of scripture, without taking the totality of scripture into account (which some of them would counter by saying the same in return against the BU view), seem to support the Arian view. I just don't think it's the best fit with all of the scriptural data. That God is triune, on the other hand, is preposterous, in my opinion. My point is, I don't think that BU interpretations of the prologue (or Col. 1, or Heb. 1, or some of John's sayings) prove the BU position by themselves, but the same goes for Arian interpretations of those same passages, so I think we should show wisdom and restraint instead of thinking "my" view of a certain passage (or grouping of a few passages), alone "proves my point." The more I have come to understand the Kingdom message of the scriptures, to me, the BU interpretations fit better, and consequently who/ what Jesus is made more clear. I think we should all remember, while textual variants and grammatical disputes can be instructive, the Kingdom message of God is bigger than those few disputed passages. What paradigm allows us to look at them as having cohesion with the revelation of God through the Hebrews about the Messiah/Christ, a human being? This, I think, is the proper paradigm for interpreting the passages mentioned above.
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GregYahweh is good and upright... (Psalm 25:8a REV).
No one should say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself does not tempt anyone (James 1:13 REV). As I understand things, in our universe, all things fall under the rules of physical necessity (essentiality, laws of nature) - or - the rules of moral action (free will, choices, laws of moral agency). The ability to do good falls under the rules of physical law (the ability itself is not chosen). Actual goodness falls under the rules of moral action (it is freely chosen, it is volitional). There are only two options for explaining how or why God is good. 1. God's goodness is "physically" essential because of who/what he is. Goodness is a part of his "physical" essence. 2. God's goodness is by choice; it is an active and free moral action. Accordingly, there are only two options for explaining the fact that "God cannot be tempted by evil." It is due to: 1. A physical necessity 2. His firm determination to be holy. In other words, it isn't about an inability, but rather an aversion to evil. I think the answer in both instances is number 2. Otherwise there would be no virtue in God's goodness, because it would be physically necessitated, and not the result of moral agency. Moreover, since human beings are moral agents like our Creator, the command to be holy as God is holy must be founded on moral principles rather than physical necessities, for we have no control over our physical constitution. We do, however, have free will and we are expected to do good and eschew evil. I think it is important to understand that God is a free moral agent like his creatures. God has the ability to do right or wrong, but God in his perfect holiness always chooses to do good. This is why I take the phrase "God cannot be tempted by evil" as a volitional aversion to sin, not a physical necessity. God could choose to be unloving or unholy, but he never has, nor will he. There is nothing, to my knowledge, that could motivate God to be unholy. Yet things are different for human beings, and this includes the Lord Jesus. The scriptures teach us that Jesus was tempted in all ways that we are, though he never sinned. Temptation itself is not sin. It was not a sin for Jesus to be tempted. Jesus had normal human appetites, due to the laws of physical necessity. God has created all human beings with certain appetites, and they can be fulfilled lawfully or unlawfully, or even denied altogether. The claim by some "Jesus is God" believers is that Jesus only faced "external" temptation and he didn't have real human appetites that would cause that which was forbidden to him to still appeal to his flesh, but that is just nonsense. Jesus was resolute in his denial of that which was forbidden to him, but that doesn't mean he didn't feel the pull of temptation. He was a real man, plain and simple. Humans have appetites that God does not feel. Jesus experienced the same appetites as all human beings. Jesus could not be tempted by these appetites (in his human nature) and also not tempted by these appetites (in his so-called divine nature), as trinitarians claim - that just doesn't make sense. This is one way that we know Jesus is not God in the trinitarian sense of the word. God's goodness is the result of choice, not physical necessity. He is unable to be tempted in all ways that we are, but he does have the ability to be unloving or unjust (as we do), yet he always chooses what is good and right (we have not). If his holiness is not the result of choice, it is not virtuous or praiseworthy. Nothing less than volitional conformity to moral law can be holiness, or righteousness, and that is true of God, and of all moral agents. Goodness (and evil) is a moral matter, not a constitutional matter. GregJohn 8:58 is commonly used by trinitarians to teach that Jesus is God, and by proponents of arianism to teach that Jesus had a pre-human existence. As a biblical unitarian, I affirm that the passage teaches nothing about the deity or literal pre-human existence of the Messiah.
First, a quote about the translation of John 8:58: "The Septuagint translates the “I am that I am” of Exodus 3:14 as “ego eimi ho on.” Ego eimi is simply the “be verb” and not a name or an identity. God said “I am (ego eimi) ho on.” Thus, ho on is God’s name, not ego eimi. Scholars admit that ho on is difficult to translate, but it roughly means the self-existing one. So in Exodus 3:14 God said, “I am (ego eimi) the Self-Existing One (ho on). If Jesus had wanted to say he was God in John 8:58, he simply could have said, “I am (ego eimi) that I am (ho on),” or “I am (ego eimi) the Self Existing One (ho on).” But he didn’t. He simply said, “before Abraham was born, I am the one” or “I am the Christ ” or “I am the Son of Man.” (John 8:58 Before Abraham Was Born, I Am - onegodworship.com). I think this grammatical argument is very important. As for an explanation of the passage, I would like to point out first of all, that in John 8, the distinction between Jesus and God is clear. God sent Jesus. God is the Father of Jesus. It is also important to realize that these people talking with the Lord Jesus did not want to hear what he had to say. They did not accept that he was the Messiah. They were rejecting him and his words because they were already rejecting God. They honored God with their lips, but their hearts were far from him. Jesus said that whoever follows him would not see death. This was not acceptable to his listeners. In rejecting Jesus, they sought to appeal to someone they considered to be a real "authority", that person being Abraham. But Abraham had died. Who did this man think he was? John 8:53 - are you greater than our father Abraham? Jesus didn't say he was God, he said he knew God. He said he was sent by God. That gave him authority. Being the Messiah, the Son of God, he had God's authority, as God's Messianic agent. Their dullness was revealed in that they asked the wrong question. Jesus said that Abraham rejoiced to see his day. They acted as though he said he had seen Abraham. In response, Jesus claimed his superiority... and I think it has a time element, as well a declaration of superiority, though no declaration of a literal pre-human existence. Even before Abraham was born, the Messiah was predestined by God to rule the world. The Messiah existed in the plan of God before Abraham was born. Jesus claims he is that one, I am he - he is the predestined Messiah and is greater than Abraham, their father according to the flesh. The term "ego eimi" occurs many times in the Greek text of the scriptures, and in fact, the man born blind uses the same exact phrase in John 9:9 (ego eimi, again, translated as "I am" in John 8:58), yet the translators supply additional words in John 9:9 and other places to convey what is being said (KJV - I am he; NIV - I am the man; NET, NASB95 - I am the one). Why haven't they supplied the additional wording in John 8:58? In Luke 21:8, the scriptures say: "And he said, Take heed that ye be not deceived: for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and the time draweth near: go ye not therefore after them." The word "Christ" is italicized because, as it is well-known, the KJV translators italicized words that they added to the text for clarity. So in the Greek text, Jesus actually said, "for many shall come in my name, saying, I am..." It is inexplicable why they would not add the additional word also in John 8:58. It seems like it could be the bias of the translators, and other versions have followed this tradition, except many supplied the word "he" instead of "Christ" (NIV, NET, NASB95, RSV - I am he). They all fail to add these words to John 8:58 and it has created confusion. To claim that Jesus is claiming for himself the name of God (he wasn't, see the explanation above from onegodworship.com) is simply inaccurate, and the actual claim of Jesus, that he is the Messiah, is obscured. God is not his Messiah, and the Messiah is not his God. As Jesus clearly said, God is his God and Father (John 20:17) and is greater than Jesus (John 17:3) (*note - he did not say "greater than my human nature" - a trinitarian concoction to help "prove" the dual nature theory). Here are some translations that get John 8:58 right: Revised English Version - I am the one One God Translation - I am the Messiah Kingdom of God Version - I am the one Improved Version - I am he Some trinitarians like to argue that the Jews wanted to kill Jesus because he claimed to be God. At no point in time did Jesus ever claim to be God or the second person of a triune god. Even at his trial, this accusation was not brought against him, because it never happened. So why were they trying to kill him? God spoke through Moses, saying that a prophet would arise one day on his behalf, and that he was to be obeyed. The Lord Jesus was no "mere" prophet, but the apostles claimed that Jesus was indeed this prophet (see Acts 3:19-26; Acts 7:37; John 1:45; John 5:45-46; John 6:14). Notice what was said: “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet. This is what you requested of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said: "If I hear the voice of the LORD my God any more, or ever again see this great fire, I will die." Then the LORD replied to me: "They are right in what they have said. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command. Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable. But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak - that prophet shall die" (Deuteronomy 18:15-20 NRSV). The rebellious Jews thought that Jesus was a false prophet for claiming to be the Messiah. They did not think he was speaking the words of God, therefore they believed that he needed to die, following the words of the passage above. See this presentation at Restitutio.org for a further look at translations of John 8:58. |
Greg and KariWe are a Christian couple committed to following the one true God, the Father, and the one Lord Messiah, his only begotten Son. Categories
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