The Church of Jesus Christ

Mr. Davis’ latest post is here. My previous post is here, just as a starting point.

Let me first discuss that my starting point for all my theology is what the bible says and I believe that the best avenue to what the bible says is the original languages. I have a frequent interest acquaintance that will from time to time quote Latin. Some of my friends are KJVO (KIng James Only) and they only use the KJV in their doctrinal discussions. I do my best to approach it from the mind set of the Apostles that actually wrote the works that I am quoting. I enjoy the Greek and I believe that it is a language much more suitable to theology (Granville Sharp’s Rule). Granted, some Greek words have a certain amount of ambiguity built in, but since it is an old language, and it has lent itself to great works of philosophy, religion, politics, and history the concepts behind such words can be great.

With that said, we must be careful not to import into the Greek any extra theological meaning or anything preconceived. Nor can we apply definitions used by the high church (in this case, the ancient Greek Philosophers) forgetting that the Greek spoken in the New Testament was koine. We have to let the Greek speak, essentially, for itself, while understanding both the historical and cultural context in which the author and the audience both lived. We have to remember that the New Testament for only the author’s personal use, but for certain intended audiences.

So, let us move on to a response to Mr. Davis’ excellent post. I want to take this time to say again that Mr. Davis has been polite and civil during this discussion. I hope that I can do the same.

Mr. Davis first quotes Romans 8:3, saying:

As far as I understand it, Modalists usually regard “the Son” as the human manifestation of God, when the Father became incarnate in the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth. This humanity is what was begotten in time by the divine power of God in the womb of the Virgin Mary.

However, in this passage we see the Son being sent in the likeness of sinful flesh. Clearly “the Son” is personally distinct from the Father (otherwise how could God send Him?), and the Son existed separately from human flesh and prior to His Incarnation (otherwise what does sending the Son “in the likeness of sinful flesh” mean?).

Mr. Davis is right when he suggests that Modalists regard the Son as the human manifestation of God and that the humanity began that moment that he was conceived. Mr. Davis says that this passage is clear in representing the Son as pre-existing. The first thing that we have to remember is who the Son is. It is the Logos. Unless you have a proper understanding of what the Logos actually is, then your understanding of who the son is will fall short of the truth.

Throughout the Old Testament, God sends prophets to proclaim His word. Did the Prophets preexist from eternity? Surely the plan was where, because God told Jeremiah that He knew the prophet before he was born. So, we can safely assume that the plan, message, logos was from the very beginning, and yet understand that vessel that carries it was not. Unlike the prophets who were indeed separate from God, the logos was not. It was the Logos of God that was incarnated.

If preexistence of the divine Son is such a cornerstone fact then where are the examples from the Old Testament? A prophecy reveals things that will soon come to pass, not the things that are. So, if God speaks a prophecy about the New Covenant, does that mean that the New Covenant is already in effect? Hardly.

Let me skip a verse and go to John 6:38, where Mr. Davis says:

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, states here that He came down from heaven. This cannot refer to the humanity of Christ, yet it cannot refer to the Father as He also says that He was sent to do the will of Him who sent Him. He who sent Him and whose will He did is personally distinct from this divine being from heaven.

I skipped here for a reason. In Wisdom 18:15-16, we read:

Thine Almighty WORD (logos in the Greek) leaped down from heaven out of thy royal throne, as a fierce man of war into the midst of a land of destruction, And brought thine unfeigned commandment as a sharp sword, and standing up filled all things with death; and it touched the heaven, but it stood upon the earth.

Most Protestants will recoil at the thought of reading the Deuterocanonicals; however, to proper understand the meaning behind John’s Logos, you have to trace it back to the source. What it Philo or something else? This is John’s logos. Not something uniquely distinct from God, but God’s action. Christ is the revealer of God, but not distinct from God. He God’s commandment, and yet He is God. Notice in Isaiah 55:11,

The Hebrew Translation reads:

So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. (KJV)

While the Greek from the New English Translation of the Septuagint reads:

So shall my word be, whatever goes out from my mouth; it shall not return until whatever I have willed is fulfilled, and I will prosper your ways and my commandments.

Here again is God speaking action that fulfills His will. Christ said that he came from heaven (refer to Wisdom) to do the will of God. Christ is God’s action, but the action is not separated from the actor.

Back to John 5:18:

It is in the Son’s relation to the Father as the divine Son that He is equal with God. It is this divine Sonship, not a supernatural birth produced without a human father that is the problem for the Jews (and for Modalists).

Mr. Davis, fails to rightly divide the word here. Refer to John 10:30-33

I and my Father are one. Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.

It not the divine Sonship that bothered the Jews, or bothers even Modalists today; it is the fact that Christ plainly said that he is God. (Which is no bother to Modalists who rightly know that Christ is God) Logically, if the Son and the Father are one, then he must be God. Barnes comments that the language implies that the Jews said that Christ claimed to be God. Surely, throughout the book of John at least, Christ could have corrected this view with something pointing to the Trinity, but He did not.

(I will lightly touch this, and if their is any concern, then I will further post on this topic later. “Son of” is a Hebraism that indicates that the “son of” person possesses the attributes of the ‘x’. Hence, son of Belial, or son of pride, etc… so when Christ said that He was the Son of God, the Jews rightly understood Him to say that He was claiming to be God. I could be wrong on the use of Hebraisms here, but the Jewish leaders, theologians, got pretty hot when Christ said that He was the Son of God.)

Remember what it says in the prophets concerning equality with God. If there is no equal, nor anyother God beside Him, then He who is claiming to be equal with God must be claiming to be God.

In Isaiah 40:25 God says:

To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One

So, if there is no equal with God, then how can the Son be His co-equal?

Or again, in Isaiah 44:8,

Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any.

Turning to Galatians 4:4, and briefly because some of this is discussed in Hebrews 1:5, but I want to tackle the second and third clause of the verse:

God sent forth his son

Vincent, in his fact (verses opinion) states that the Greek here means that God sent forth from Himself the Son.

made of a woman

Thayer remarks in his definition that γίνομαι means: to arise, appear in history, come upon the stage. When the appointed time came, when the logos was to be fulfilled, God sent away from Himself the logos, to be born of a woman, born under the law… This verse does not lend itself to a preexistent son. The only thing preexistent is the logos, because the logos is inseparable from God.

In an even more quicker fashion, 1 John 1:1-3 does not serve the trinitarian position no better than it does the modalist position. Yes, we acknowledge that the Logos was preexistent, and by this Logos God created life. It is clearly seen though that it was the Logos that revealed the Father, but again the image or the action is inseparable, or without distinction, from the action maker.

Now, I struggled with Isaiah 48:12-16 for sometime, nearly all day, because here, a quick reading of the English seems to portray a triad of consciences, however, upon further study, one sees the One God and Isaiah.

Mr. Davis says:

Clearly this is the eternal God, the creator of all things, and yet He is distinct from the Father and the Holy Spirit, and is sent by them. This is the eternal, divine Son, not His temporal humanity, which accords perfectly with the doctrine of the Trinity.

This is his central argument concerning this passage, so this is the only one that I will focus on, and primarily on v16, which reads:

Come ye near unto me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I: and now the Lord GOD, and his Spirit, hath sent me.

The evidence that this refers to the Son as a member of the Trinity is too slight to lay the foundation for such an argument. Trinitarians can gain nothing by causing the truth to be forced by misinterpretations. One must ask himself if the eternal God created all things and is the Father, then how did the Son come into existence? Doesn’t the title ‘Son’ required a certain amount of creation and inequality? If the Son is the Eternal God who created all things, then is He not the Father?

Calvin says:

This verse interpreters explain in different ways. Many refer it to Christ, but the prophet designs no such thing. Cavendoe autem sunt nobis violentoe et coactoe interpretations - (such forced and violent interpretations are to be avoided).’

Keil and Delitzsch states:

Consequently the Spirit is not spoken of here as joining in the sending (as Umbreit and Stier suppose, after Jerome and the Targum: the Septuagint is indefinite, καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα αὐτοῦ); nor do we ever find the Spirit mentioned in such co-ordination as this (see, on the other hand, Zec 7:12, per spiritum suum). The meaning is, that it is also sent, i.e., sent in and with the servant of Jehovah, who is speaking here. To convey this meaning, there was no necessity to write either וְרוּחוֹ אֹתִי שָׁלַח or וְאֶת־רוחו שׁלחוי, since the expression is just the same as that in Isa 29:7, וּמְצֹדָתָהּ צֹבֶיהָ; and the Vav may be regarded as the Vav of companionship (Mitschaft, lit., with-ship, as the Arabs call it; see at Isa 42:5).

The NETS reads:

Draw near to me, and hear these things! From the beginning I have not spoken in secret: when it happened I was there, and now the Lord as sent me and his spirit.

To force an interpretation that involves the Trinity is to force theology upon the text when the text should force theology upon you. In reality, instead of the Father and the Spirit sending the Son (which is what Mr. Davis and other recent commentators suggest) we see the Father sending the Prophet in/by His spirit.

For Hebrews 1:1, 2 I’ll make the following points:

As I stated, God revealed Himself through His logos/Son. God has spoken through various things in the past. Mr. Davis furthers says,

“The Son” as the Son was present at the creation of the universe and was distinct from the Father.

Remember, who the Son is; it is the Logos of God. God spoke the world into existence through His logos. Modalists agree on this, and yet we do not see a distinction between the two.

Since this has taken some time to complete, I will continue the rest tomorrow.