Christ on the throne
By Michael Bell
This is Part 5, of a multi-part series looking at the deity of Christ. Here are the links to the Introduction and Table of Contents.
In Parts 3 and 4 we looked at how Jesus was called both the Image of God and the Brightness of God’s Glory. We want to continue with the Hebrews 1:3 passage and look at the next phrase:
Hebrews 1:3 (NIV) – The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.
We will get into the phrase “sustaining all things” in a future post. We want to first look at the word “word”, and see how else this is used in scripture. Our minds are immediately drawn to probably the most famous passage dealing with the deity of Christ, John Chapter One”
John 1:1, 14, 15, 29, 30 (NIV) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the on and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, “This was he of who I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”… The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look the Lamb of God, who takes saway the sin of the world! This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”
I used a longer section of the passage here than is normally quoted, just so that it is perfectly clear that the one who is identified as the Word of God in verse 1, is positively identified as Jesus through the connections in verses 14, 15, 29, and 30.
This same Jesus then, in verse 1 is said to be both with God, and to be God himself.
Three questions naturally spring from these statements:
- What do we understand by this phrase “The Word”?
- What exactly do we mean when we say that the Word was God?
- How can you be with God, and be God at the same time?
We will look at the first of these three questions in this post, and will tackle the others in the next posting.
Many years ago, I was given a booklet by some Jehovah’s Witnesses coming to my door. It was called “The Trinity.” In it was a section on what the Church Fathers believed. Among other Church Fathers, they quoted Tertullian, one of the most prolific writers of the early church. According to the booklet, Tertullian had written:
For before all things God was alone—being in Himself and for Himself universe, and space, and all things. Moreover, He was alone, because there was nothing external to Him but Himself.
What my visitors did not know is that I had recently read Tertullian’s works, and knew that they were only giving a partial picture. I asked them to come back on another day, and in the mean time, started to read through Tertullian and the other Fathers to find out where their quotations had come from. (They had supplied no source references.)
I found what they had written in Tertullian’s text “Against Praxeus”, Chapter Five (written circa 208 A.D. when Tertullian was about 63).
For before all things God was alone—being in Himself and for Himself universe, and space, and all things. Moreover, He was alone, because there was nothing external to Him but Himself. Yet even not then was He alone; for He had with Him that which He possessed in Himself, that is to say, His own Reason. For God is rational, and Reason was first in Him; and so all things were from Himself. This Reason is His own Thought (or Consciousness) which the Greeks call λόγος, by which term we also designate Word or Discourse and therefore it is now usual with our people, owing to the mere simple interpretation of the term, to say that the Word was in the beginning with God;
I love this comment from Tertullian. In one fell swoop he does a number of things:
- Helps us counters the J.W. claim that the Deity of Christ was a concept introduced by Constantine during the Christian Council at Niceae in the forth century.
- Helps us show that the leadership of the Jehovah’s Witnesses were intentionally misleading their followers, by only giving a short section of a text which has a completely different meaning when a larger text is taken in concept. (When my visitors came back I had them read directly the various passages from the church fathers. I made it clear that they had been intentionally deceived. By the looks on their faces, I knew that they knew it too.)
- Perhaps most importantly he shows that the concept of “The Word”, goes far beyond, God’s spoken commands, but extends right into the very thought of God.
As God’s logos, Christ’s intertwining with God, extends down to his very thoughts. But Christ is more than God’s thoughts, he is God’s thoughts expressed and acted upon. In this sense he is “The Word” of God, acting as God’s spoken agent in the world. Future posts will discuss what this means for both our creation and salvation.
In our next post however we will discuss how “The Word” is both with God and is God.
As usual your thoughts and comments are welcome.
Michael Bell
Joshua Hearne
Tim Melton
Joel Black
[...] The Word of God: Part A [...]
I greatly enjoy when scripture is broken down and discovered slowly like this. It is what I crave. As a life long follower of Christ , things become familiar, Your series is giving me food for thought.
Thank you for the kind words Cynthia. I just wish I could put these out a “little” faster. I guess that is what happens when you have three kids and a full time job.
Mike Bell
The terms “Word” or “Logos” used as titles seems a little misleading. The meaning of Logos seems to be, as Tertullian points out, God’s reason. His Mind. In the philosophy contemporary of the time it was thought that since God made everything in the universe, he couldn’t have any of the qualities of the universe since they did not exist before Him. They felt there had to be a kind of buffer between God, who doesn’t exist in any way we normally define things as existing, and this universe we inhabit. That buffer was god’s reason or wisdom. It’s the reason why things are the way they are, the laws of nature in a sense.
The Jews were paralleling the Greeks in these ideas. you can see in Jeremiah 10:12 where God makes the world with his power, wisdom, and understanding. I’m not sure if you could really say that a person and their mind are really distinct entities in a real way.
I think though for some early Jews it was a a useful way of working up a kind of feminine counterpart to God as His Wisdom(like its Greek counter part Sophia, a feminine word). Like the Christian appropriation of Christmas to work in a popular pagan practice, Wisdom as creator replaces the extremely popular Asherah. I think she was being viewed as not merely YHWH’s wife but as his creative spirit. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asherah#In_Israel_and_Judah
Note that in the quotes found its not YHWH and his wife Asherah, but “his Asherah” like she is an attribute of him. So Wisdom lets you have a female aspect of God with out all the pornographic idols associated with Asherah. Reason and wisdom personified gave the Apostles a framework for worshiping something that seems separate from God without violating the rule that God is one. I’m not sure though if equating Jesus of Nazareth with God’s mind is completely satisfactory. I’ll have to read the rest of your articles. Once again thank you for your site and the time you put into it.
Hi Mike,
Thanks for your comments. Sorry about the delay in posting and responding.
I do have a few issues with your choice of words. Not sure if they are intentional or not, but they convey a meaning with which I am not comfortable.
For example: “Like the Christian appropriation of Christmas to work in a popular pagan practice.” Christians did not appropriate Christmas, rather they appropriated pagan fesitival days, and used those days for their own purpose, the celebration of Christ birth.
Secondly, you write that “wisdom as creator replaces the extremely popular Asherah. I think she was being viewed as not merely YHWH’s wife but as his creative spirit… Note that in the quotes found its not YHWH and his wife Asherah, but “his Asherah” like she is an attribute of him. ”
In scripture, the worship of Asherah was widely condemned. The associated of Yahweh and Asherah, while attested to outside of scripture, is not present in Scripture. The Jews constantly had to struggle against syncretism, and the
introduction of other Gods. Did they use the “wisdom” of God as a way to get away from Asherah? Seems somewhat speculative, although not outside the bounds of possibility. Who these people were outside of scripture who associated Yahweh and Asherah? I don’t think it really matters, because it was a association that does not occur in scripture, furthermore, the worship of Asherah is condemned.
However, I do like your final lines: “Reason and wisdom personified gave the Apostles a framework for worshiping something that seems separate from God without violating the rule that God is one. I’m not sure though if equating Jesus of Nazareth with God’s mind is completely satisfactory.”
Whereas, reason is associated with Christ, I believe that wisdom, is more often associated by the Church Fathers with Spirit. I will look at that a little bit more when I get into the Church Father posts.
Mike Bell
Thanks for your reply Mike. You are right, calling Christmas Christmas before Jesus would be a bit of an anachronism
The Asherah/Wisdom association is speculative, a sentence written on a scrap millinia ago doesn’t make a case. But I am intrigued by the prospect of trinitarian like ideas being present among the Jews before the Greek philosophers. I had before thought that the trinity was utterly against Jewish thinking and something new so Christians could justify worshiping a man. I think now that it may not be without precedent, and while some claim that Paul did not preach Christ as God, I have to admit that some of his language virtually puts Christ on that pedestal.
Sorry about the long winded post, but I haven’t had a chance to have these sorts of discussions since my sunday school days, thanks again guys.