Christ on the throne
By Michael Bell
This is Part 7, of a multi-part series looking at the deity of Christ. Here are the links to the Introduction and Table of Contents.
In my previous post, I looked at John 1:1 and how Jesus, as the Word of God, was equated with God, and had all the attributes and qualities of God. This is a difficult verse to discuss with a Jehovah’s Witness as I found out in conversations a number of years ago. “The word God is not accompanied by a definite article”, he protested, “so you must understand that Jesus is being called a God, and not The Lord God Almighty”.
This view is invalid for two reasons:
- It does not conform to the Greek grammar that we discussed in Part 6
- It puts a secondary lessor god next to the Almighty God, something which is quite unacceptable to God as we discussed in Part 1.
I continued my conversation with the Jehovah’s Witness. “So you believe”, I said, “that when the Greek word for God is accompanied by a definite article it refers to the Lord God Almighty, but when it is not accompanied by a definite article it refers to a lessor God?”
“That is correct”, he affirmed.
So I asked him to turn to another passage where God is referred to using the definite article.
John 20:28-29 (NIV) – Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed.”
What was Thomas asked to believe? If we look at the entire chapter, we find that Thomas doubted that Jesus had risen from the dead. When he faced the risen Jesus, he finally realized who he was facing. He believed, not only that Jesus had risen from the dead, but he believed that Jesus was God. Jesus did not condemn Thomas for this statement, but instead pronounced a blessing on those who had no seen him, but believed as well.
My Jehovah’s Witness friend did not have a response. What we have shown here wasn’t answerable by one of the list of “pat answers” that he had been programmed to respond with.
While he never got to the point where he was willing to beleive as Thomas did, the Apostle Paul teaches us, that ultimately everyone will confess that Jesus is Lord.
Philippians 2:9-11 (NIV) – Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Notice how the verse says that at the name of Jesus “every knee shall bow and every tongue confess”. Paul is equating Jesus and God here in a way that none of contemporaries would miss. Note the words of God himself in Isaiah 45 says:
“Turn to me and be saved,
all you ends of the earth;
for I am God, and there is no other.By myself I have sworn,
my mouth has uttered in all integrity
a word that will not be revoked:
Before me every knee will bow;
by me every tongue will swear.
Paul knew from this Old Testament scripture that all would bow in worship and confess God. My drawing the parallel with this scripture, Paul is doing nothing less but proclaiming Jesus to be God. Paul also knew that if all bow in worship and confess that Jesus is Lord, this brings glory to the Father, as the Old Testament scripture would be fufilled when Jesus is worshiped as God.
In our next post we will be looking at how Jesus is worthy of worship, and in a future post we will discuss the significance of the phrase “name above every name.”
Michael Bell
Joshua Hearne
Tim Melton
Joel Black
[...] Confessed as God [...]
I had never actually connected Paul’s writings in Philippians with the words of Isaiah. That was an interesting insight.
Trying to prove the deity of Christ to a JW is quite a task. They are better prepared to have a sword fight than most Christians. Doing battle with a word-warrior though, is always unnerving for them and I am sure that your accurate explanation will have stayed with him at some level.
Good post.
Hi Cynthia,
Thanks for the comment. There are a surprising number of links that can be made like this, as I will be demonstrating over the next few weeks.
Mike Bell
[...] Previously, we had looked at how Christ is confessed as God, and that every knee will bow to Christ, just as every knee will bow to God. [...]
Mike,
From your fellow Orthodox Quaker–whatever that is…
I stumbled on your blog a while back, and I was impressed with your eclectic/ecumenical tone. I also like your reflections on Jesus as “fully God and fully human.”
BTW, when Paul says that every tongue shall confess that Jesus is “Lord,” it is scandalous and confronts the error of JW’s. Here’s why: If the Hebrew for the divine name is YHWH (not Jehovah), and the Jews were cautious not to misuse his name, by time the Jewish Scriptures were translated into Greek, the lingua franca of the Mediterranean world in the centuries before Christ, they substituted “Kyrios” for YHWH. That means that when Paul said Jesus was “Kyrios,” he was equating him with YHWH in the OT!!! That means that Jesus IS Jehovah, and, therefore, God.
Keep up the good work.
[...] As discussed in a previous post that is why it is at the name of Jesus that every knee will bow and tongue confess, just as it will bow and confess to God. [...]