JEHOVAH
“A remnant will
return, a remnant of Jacob will return to the Mighty God.” Isaiah 10:21 NIV
“This also
comes from the LORD of hosts, who
is wonderful in counsel and excellent in
guidance.” Isaiah 28:29 NKJV
JESUS
“For a child
will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on
his shoulders and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of
Peace.” Isaiah 9:6 NASB
JEHOVAH
“... He who is
the blessed and only Sovereign, the
King of kings and Lord of lords; who alone possesses immortality and
dwells in unapproachable light; whom no man has seen and can see. To Him be
honor and eternal dominion! Amen.” 1 Timothy 6:15b-16 NASB
JESUS
“... and the
Lamb will overcome them, because he is Lord of lords and King of
kings...” Revelation 17:14
NASB
JWs argue that although
Jesus is called Lord of lords he is never addressed as God of gods as Jehovah
is in the Old Testament:
“Give thanks to
the God of gods. His love endures
forever. Give thanks to the Lord of
lords: His love endures forever.” Psalm 136:2-3 NIV
The problem with this view
is that the title God of gods is
never used in the New Testament at all. The fact that the New Testament
authors would apply a title of Jehovah, “Lord of lords and King of kings,” to
Jesus affirms that they also believed he was “God of gods.”
This is evident by the
fact that in certain Old Testament passages, the titles “Lord of lords” and “God of gods” are
used synonymously:
“For Jehovah
your God is a God of gods and Lord of
lords, the Great God, mighty and awesome who shows no partiality and
accepts no bribes.” Deuteronomy 10:17
“The king said
to Daniel, ‘Surely your God is the God
of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you were
able to reveal this mystery.” Daniel 2:47 NIV
The phrase “Lord of kings”
is equivalent to saying “Lord of lords” or “King of kings” since a king was
viewed as lord over his people. (Cf. 1 Samuel 24:8; 2 Samuel 1:10)
Hence, that Jesus would be
addressed as Lord of lords and King of kings also meant that he is the very
God of gods as well.
The other problem with
this assertion is that it presupposes an Unitarian view of Jehovah; that is,
whenever the term Jehovah is used in the OT it is only referring to the Father
as opposed to the Trinity. But this is begging the question since it assumes
what JWs have yet to prove, namely that Jehovah is not a Tri-personal
Being.
JEHOVAH
“... so that all the
peoples of the earth may know that Jehovah is God and that there is no other.”
1 Kings 8:60
JESUS
“All this
actually came about for that to be fulfilled which was spoken by Jehovah
through his prophet saying: ‘Look! The virgin will become pregnant and will
give birth to a son, and they will call his name Immanuel,’ which means, when
translated, ‘with us is God’ (ho Theos, THE GOD) “ Matthew 1:22-23
NWT
“However, the
man from whom the demons had gone out kept begging to continue with him; but
he (Jesus) dismissed the man, saying: ‘Be on your way back home, and keep on
relating what things God (ho Theos, THE GOD) did for you.’
Accordingly he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city what things JESUS did for him.” Luke 8:38-39 NWT (Cf.
Mark 5:19)
The inspired writer Luke
affirms that Jesus identified himself as the God, since both Luke and the
demoniac realized that the very God who had done theses things was the same
Jesus who had cast out the demons from the man.
These two passages affirm
that Jesus is viewed as THE God in inspired Scripture, not “a god” of JW
theology.
“For in Christ
all the fullness of the Deity dwells (katoikei) in bodily form...”
Colossians 2:9
The term for dwell, katoikei, is a present participle
denoting continuous action or existence. Paul affirms that Jesus continues to
exist as absolute and perfect Deity in bodily form.
Noted Christian scholar,
Dr. Robert Morey, indicates:
“... The verb
katoikei ‘dwells’ is in the present
tense and indicates that Christ was, is, and always shall be the embodiment of
Deity... It is, thus, a mistake to restrict this verse to the incarnation. If
Paul had the incarnation in mind, he would have written the verb in the aorist
tense. But the present tense clearly indicates that absolute deity resides
bodily in Christ permanently... The
embodiment may have begun at the incarnation, but it is an ongoing reality in
heaven where the glorified body of Jesus resides until His return to judge the
living and the dead.” (Dr. Robert Morey, Trinity-Evidence and Issues [Grand
Rapids, MI; World Publishing Inc., 1996], pp. 359-360)
Greek grammarians Fritz
Rienecker and Cleon Rogers state:
“to settle
down, to be at home (Col. 1:19). The pres. act. ind. tense indicates the
continually state and points to the pres. reality.” (Rienecker & Rogers,
Linguistic Key to the Greek New
Testament [Grand Rapids, MI; Zondervan, 1980], p. 573)
William Hendriksen
affirms,
“Paul uses the
present tense. He does not say that the Word became flesh but that the fullness of
the Godhead dwells or is dwelling in Christ. And surely that indwelling did
not just begin with the incarnation. It is an eternal indwelling.” (Morey, Trinity, p. 360 bold emphasis
ours)
This implies that Jesus’
body did not disintegrate when he died, as JWs erroneously assume, since Paul
indicates that Jesus will continue to be fully God and fully man, having a
glorified body. This is precisely why Greek scholar Kenneth Wuest could
translate Col. 2:9 in the following manner:
“Because in Him there is
continuously and permanently at home all the fullness of absolute deity in
bodily fashion.” (Ibid., p. 358)
To try to then make this
passage read on Jesus’ pre-incarnate state to prove that Christ was made god
in a lesser sense by the Father, as Stafford does, cannot be sustained in
light of the Greek present tense. To do so would imply that Jesus had a body
before the Incarnation since this reference indicates that Deity’s fullness
resides in the body of Christ perpetually.
Speaking of the
Trinitarian interpretation on Colossians 2:9, Stafford states:
“The second point to note
is that Rhodes (Sam’s note- Trinitarian apologist), and others, ignore the
context of Colossians 2:9 in order to arrive at their interpretation of the
passage.
“For example,
in Colossians 1:19 we are told, according to the NIV, ‘For God was pleased to
have all his fullness dwell in him.’ The Greek word translated ‘please’ is...
eudokeo. In the Word Biblical Commentary we are told that ‘the verb
“be pleased” which often appears in the Old Testament to denote the good
pleasure of God (Ps. 44:3, 147:11, 149:4) is particularly used to denote
divine election.’ Similarly, the Exegetical Dictionary of the New
Testament makes these observations:
NT use of
eudokeo, a vb. Of the
will, is shaped by the influence of the LXX. The meanings alternate between want,
decide, and choose... In these examples the idea of the divine election
predominates in view of the singular and transcendent designation of Christ,
the only Son (the... [“beloved”]). The
same christological view is seen in Col. 1:19 (cf. Ps. 67:17 LXX);
according to the most probable interpretation the fullness... of the saving
riches that dwell in Christ (so that he may mediate them to humankind; cf.
2:9-11; Eph. 1:23) refers to the free and absolute decree of God.
“The Scriptures will not
sustain the view that Almighty God’s powers and attributes are something
contingent upon the ‘will’ or ‘decree’ of another. Such is the case, however,
with the Lord Jesus Christ. God ‘chose’ (Goodspeed), ‘decided’ (Beck),
‘willed’ (Moffatt) to have all His attributes displayed in the person of His
Son...” (Stafford, J.W.D., pp.
25-26)
Stafford erroneously
assumes that Jesus cannot be God since it was the will of another, namely the
Father, which allowed him to have the fullness of Deity. Several responses to
these assertions are in order.
Firstly, Stafford’s own
citations affirm that the term, eudokeo, refers to the Father’s divine
election. This must be understood in light of the Incarnation, that the Father
decreed for the Son to become man for our salvation. Hence, God was pleased to
allow the Son to retain his divine nature while becoming man, which is
precisely the point Paul makes in Philippians 2:5b-7:
“... who, being (Gr.- huparchon) in very nature God, did not
consider equality something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the
very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.” NIV
Jesus in accordance with
the Father’s will did not cease being God, but retained his Deity fully. This
implies that Jesus continued to remain at the Incarnation what he already was
prior to it, i.e. in nature God
This is made apparent by
the term “being,” which is a present participle implying a continuous
existence or abiding reality. Rienecker and Rogers indicate,
“The word [huperchon] expresses continuance of
antecedent state or condition.” (Op. Cit. p. 550)
Hendriksen concurs,
“The present
participle huperchon stands in a
sharp contrast with all the aorist which follow it, and therefore points in
the direction of continuance of being: Christ Jesus was and is eternally ‘in
the form of God.’ “ (Hendriksen, A
Commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians [London; Banner, 1963] p.
103, n. 82).
Dr. Morey states,
“... The verb
huperchon is a present active
participle and means that Jesus was the ‘essence of God’ not only before His
incarnation but after it as well. At no point before or after His incarnation
did Jesus cease to be the essence of God... Before His descent from heaven, Jesus
Christ was the essence of God. During
His time on earth, He was the essence of God. After His ascension back to heaven, He
was the essence of God. And today Jesus is still the essence of God. As Wuest
points out, ‘This is the impact of Paul’s use of the present participle.’ “
(Morey, Trinity, pp. 336-337)
Therefore, Colossians 1:19
does not refer to Jesus’ pre-incarnate existence as God. Rather, it refers to
the fact that it pleased the Father for Christ to remain what he already was
prior to the Incarnation.
Secondly, Trinitarians do
not believe that there are three independent Beings who have conflict of
purposes or ambitions. Jesus does nothing by himself, but perfectly fulfills
all that the Father desires since they are one in all things. Likewise, the
Holy Spirit does not act on his own accord, but in perfect harmony with the
Father and Son. (Cf. John 5:19, 16:13)
Thirdly, the fact that
Paul in Colossians 2:9 uses the present participle in relation to Jesus,
affirming that he continues to exist bodily with the fullness of God, serves
to reinforce that these passages must be understood in light of the
Incarnation. The citation cannot be referring to Jesus’ preincarnate state
since Scripture affirms that God is Spirit. Due to the fact that God is
Spirit, he does not have either a spiritual or material body. Hence, Jesus in
his preincarnate state existed in the nature of God and therefore had no
material or spiritual body.
The fact that God has
neither a spiritual or material body is seen in that God is not limited to a
localized area, since he infinitely fills all things without being contained
by anything. (Cf. John 4:24; 1
Kings 8:27; Psalm 139:7-10; Isaiah 66:1; Jeremiah 23:23-24; Acts 17:24-28;
Ephesians 1:23, 4:10)
This is precisely the
reason that Christ became flesh. Prior to the Incarnation Jesus, being God,
existed as Spirit.
In light of these factors,
Stafford’s point on eudokeo meaning
divine election only serves to reinforce the Trinitarian position of the Son
coming to do the will of the Father as the God-man.
(Note- At the Incarnation,
Christ took on a human will along with his divine will. Trinitarians believe
that the testimony of inspired Scripture is that Jesus is one divine Person
with two natures and two wills. [Cf. Matthew 26:39; John 5:19])
Stafford brings up another
point in trying to refute the fact that Jesus has always been the eternal
God:
“Another point to note in
the context of Colossians 2:9 is what follows in verse 10. It reads, ‘And so
YOU are possessed of a fullness by means of him’ (NWT); ‘and through union
with Him you too are filled with it.’ (C. B. Williams New Testament) Yes, the
Christians in union with Christ Jesus will also ‘be filled with the very
fullness of God.’ (Eph. 3:19, Goodspeed) This, however, does not make them
equal to God, the One who willed that they should possess such a fullness in
union with His Son.” (Stafford, J.W.D., p. 27)
Stafford erroneously
concludes that believers in Christ will also receive the fullness of Deity.
Yet, Stafford fails to quote the rest of the passage that explains the type of
fullness Paul had in mind. The fullness to which Paul is alluding is the
fullness of justification, that in Christ we have received the forgiveness of
sins and all the unsearchable riches of God’s wisdom and glory. Paul’s whole
point is to show that the fullness of all things pertaining to God’s glorious
riches have been given to us in Christ:
“I have become
its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in
its fullness- the mystery that has
been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints.
To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of
glory.” Colossians 1:25-27
NIV
“My purpose is
that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have
the full riches of complete
understanding, in order that they
may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, in who are hidden all the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge.” Colossians 2:2-4 NIV (Cf. Ephesians 1:3-23)
“... who is the
head over every power and authority. In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful
nature, not with a circumcision done with the hands of men but with the
circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised
with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.
When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful
nature, God made you alive with
Christ. He forgave us all our
sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was
against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the
cross.” Colossians 2:10b-14 NIV
“The Word
became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory
of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth…From the fullness of HIS grace we have
all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through
Moses; grace and truth came through
Jesus Christ.” John 1:14, 16-17
This is precisely why Paul
goes on to say, “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and
deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic
principles of this world rather than on Christ,” since in Christ we have the
perfect revelation and riches of God. (Cf. Colossians 2:8)
“In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1
This is one of the
clearest references to the Deity of Christ and perhaps the most controversial
as well.
The verse has caused
ongoing debate between Trinitarians and JWs in relation to its proper
interpretation and translation. The JWs NWT translates John 1:1:
“In [the]
beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the word was a god.”
The controversial point
that has led Trinitarians and JWs into rendering John 1:1 in such a
contradictory and conflicting manner stems primarily from the Greek
construction of John 1:b-c:
1:1b: Kai ho Logos en pros ton theon
And the Word was with the God
1:1c: Kai Theos en ho Logos
And God was the Word
In 1:1b we are told that
the Word is with a specific, identifiable person whom John calls the God. The God with whom the Word was is later identified by John as the
Father. (Cf. John 1:14, 18)
In 1:1c the Word is
called Theos without the Greek
article preceding it.
The reason why no article
precedes the noun is that it is a preverbal predicate nominative, and as such
does not require the article. It is when the predicate proceeds the verb that
the article is usually placed, and even then when it is a definite noun. By
definite is meant a noun referring to a specific person or thing as opposed to
a noun used to denote quality or class.
The argument is whether
the term Theos in relation to the
Word is to be understood as definite, indefinite, or qualitative. The problem
with saying that Theos is definite
is that in this particular clause it would make the Word the same person as the God he was with, ton theon. This would make Jesus God
the Father. This in essence would teach modalism, the belief that the Father
and Son are not distinct persons, but one person taking on different roles. If
this is what John wanted to convey he could have written kai ho Theos en Ho Logos, making the
Word the only person that is God.
The problem with viewing
the noun as indefinite, as JWs do, is that it gives the impression that Jesus
is a lesser god, “a god,” but not the true God, Jehovah. If this is what John
intended, the Greek ho Logos en
Theos (the Word was a god) would have sufficed. On the other hand, if
indefinite is understood to mean that Theos is not referring to a specific
person or thing and is not viewed as being qualitatively inferior, then the
noun is clearly indefinite.
That the noun is
qualitative implying that the Word is not the same person as the Father whom
he was with, but equally God, is evident in light of the following. As was
already pointed out, the Greek verb en
(was) is in the imperfect tense. The tense is used to imply continuous
existence in the past, in this case before the absolute beginning. That the
Word was continuously existing before the beginning implies that he is
eternal. Author Dr. James R. White states:
“The tense of
the verb expresses continuous action in the past... as far back as you wish to
push ‘the beginning,’ the Word is already there. The Word does not come into
existence at the ‘beginning,’ but is already in existence when the ‘beginning’
takes place. If we take the beginning of John 1:1, the Word is already
there. If we push it back further
(if one can even do so!), say, a year, the Word is already there. A thousand
years, the Word is there. A billion years, the Word is there. What is John’s
point? The Word is eternal. The Word has always existed. The Word is not a
creation. The New English Bible
puts it quite nicely: ‘When all things began, the Word already was.’ “ (White,
The Forgotten Trinity- Recovering the
Heart of Christian Belief [Minneapolis, MN; Bethany House Publishers,
1998], pp. 50-51)
Frederick Louis Godet
indicates:
The imperfect
en, was, must designate, according
to the ordinary meaning of the tense, the simultaneousness of the act
indicated by the verb with some other act. This simultaneousness is here that of
the existence of the Word with the
fact designated by the word beginning. ‘When everything which has
begun began, the Word was.’ Alone then, it did not begin; the Word
was already. Now that which did
not begin with things, that is to
say, with time, the form of the development of things, belongs to the eternal
order... The idea of this first proposition is, therefore, that of the eternity of the Logos. (Godet, Commentary on the Gospel of John
[Grand Rapids; Zondervan, n.d.], vol. 1, pp. 244-245 bold emphasis ours)
Murray J. Harris
concurs:
In itself John
1:1a speaks only of the pretemporality or supratemporality of the Logos, but
in his conjunction of... en (not egeneto) John implies the eternal preexistence of
the Word. He who existed ‘in the beginning’ before creation was himself without a beginning and
therefore uncreated. There was no time when he did not
exist. John is hinting that all speculation about the origin of the Logos
is pointless. (Harris, Jesus as God: The New Testament Use of
Theos in Reference to Jesus [Grand Rapids; Baker Book House 1992], p. 54
emphasis ours)
Robert M. Bowman Jr.
elaborates,
Had John wanted
to say that the Word was the first creation of God, or even simply say that
the Word existed before the rest of creation, there are a number of ways he
could have said so clearly and without any possibility of misunderstanding. He
could have written, ‘from the beginning,’ using the word apo instead of en, as he did repeatedly in his
writings in the expression ap’ arches
(John 8:44; 15:27; 1 John 1:1; 2:7, 13, 14, 24; 3:8, 11; 2 John 5, 6).
This would trace his existence back to the beginning without telling us
anything about his existence ‘before’ the beginning (if such existence were
possible). Or, he could have written, ‘In the beginning the Word came into existence,’ substituting for the
word en the word egeneto, which occurs repeatedly in
the Prologue (John 1:3, 6, 10, 14, 17). This would have settled the debate
forever in favor of the JW interpretation of the text, since it would be an
explicit affirmation of the creation of the preincarnate Jesus. Yet John wrote
neither of these things. Instead, he wrote what most naturally would be (and
as a matter of historical record has been) interpreted as a declaration of the
eternality of the Word. ‘In the
beginning the Word was’; the verb
was is the imperfect past tense
verb en, here unquestionably used
of durative, continuing existence. To continue existing at the beginning of
the time is to be eternal by definition.
(Bowman, Jehovah’s Witnesses,
Jesus Christ & The Gospel of John [Grand Rapids; Baker Book House,
1995], p. 23 emphasis ours)
Modern Greek scholar
Randolph Yeager concludes:
Thus the Word
existed before the beginning, since
He has always existed. With Him there
is no beginning. He is eternal and everlasting... It is impossible to
avoid the force of John’s grammar.
(Yeager, The Renaissance New
Testament [Grand Rapids; Eerdmans, 1973], vol. 4, p. 2 bold emphasis
ours)
For John to say that the
Word was (en) God, meant that Jesus as the Word
has eternally existed as God.
Scholars who agree that
the noun Theos is qualitative,
implying that Jesus is God in an absolute and eternal sense include:
F. F. Bruce,
The structure
of the third clause in verse 1, theos
en ho logos, demands the translation “The Word was God.” Since logos has the article preceding it, it
is marked out as the subject. The fact that theos is the first word after the
conjunction kai (and) shows that
the main emphasis of the clause lies on it. Had theos as well as logos been preceded by the article
the meaning would have been that the Word was completely identical with God,
which is impossible if the Word was also “with God.” What is meant is that the
Word shared the nature and being of
God, or (to use a piece of modern jargon) was an extension of the
personality of God. The NEB paraphrase “What God was, the Word Was,” brings
out the meaning of the clause as successfully as a paraphrase can. (Bruce, The Gospel of John [Grand Rapids;
Eerdmans, 1983], p.31 emphasis ours)
And,
Those people
who emphasize that the true rendering of the last clause of John 1.1 “the word
was a god” prove nothing thereby save their ignorance of Greek grammar.
(Bruce, The Books and the
Parchments [Old Tappan, NJ; Fleming H. Revell Company, 1963], pp. 60-61
note)
A. T. Robertson,
And the Word
was God (kai theos en ho logos). By
exact and careful language John denied Sabellianism by not saying ho theos en ho logos. That would mean that all of God was
expressed in ho logos and the terms
would be interchangeable, each having the article. The subject is made plain
by the article (ho logos) and the
predicate without it (theos) just
as in John 4:24 pneuma ho theos can
only mean “God is spirit,” not “spirit is God.” So in 1 John 4:16 ho theos agape estin can only mean “God is love,” not “love is God” as a
so-called Christian scientist would confusedly say... So in John 1:14 ho logos sarx egeneto, “the Word
became flesh,” not “the flesh became Word.” Luther argues that here John
disposes of Arianism also because the Logos was eternally God, fellowship of the
Father and Son, what Origen called the Eternal Generation of the Son (each
necessary to the other). Thus in the Trinity we see personal fellowship on an
equality. (Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament
[Grand Rapids; Baker Book House, 1932], vol. 5, pp. 4-5, emphasis ours)
Kenneth Wuest,
And the Word
was as to His essence absolute
deity. (The New Testament: An
Expanded Translation [Grand Rapids; Eerdmans, 1956] emphasis ours)
John L. McKenzie,
The Word theos is used to designate the gods of
paganism. Normally the word with or without the article designates the God of
the Old Testament and Judaism, the God of Israel: Yahweh. But the character of
God is revealed in an original way in the NT; the originality is perhaps best
summed up by saying that God reveals Himself in and through Jesus Christ. The
revelation of God in Jesus Christ does not consist merely in the prophetic
word as in the OT, but in an identity between God and Jesus Christ. Jn 1:1-18 expresses this by contrasting
the word spoken by the prophets with the word incarnate in Jesus. In Jesus the
personal reality of God is manifested in a visible and tangible form. In the
words of Jesus and in much of the rest of the NT the God of Israel (ho theos) is the Father of Jesus
Christ. It is for this reason that the title ho theos, which now designates the Father
as a personal reality, is not applied in the NT to Jesus Himself; Jesus is the
Son of God (of ho theos). This is a
matter of usage and not of rule, and the noun is applied to Jesus a few times.
Jn 1:1 should rigorously be translated ‘the Word was with God [= the Father],
and the Word was a divine being.’
Thomas invokes Jesus with the titles
which belong to the Father, ‘My
Lord and my God’ (Jn. 20:28). ‘The glory of our great God and Savior’ which is to appear can be the glory of no
other than Jesus (Tt.[Titus]
2:13). (McKenzie, Dictionary of
the Bible [New York: Macmillan, 1965], p. 317 emphasis ours)
That McKenzie understood
Jn 1:1 as declaring Jesus as God in an absolute sense, is evident from his
statement that both John 20:28 and Titus 2:13 refer to Jesus as the great God.
This is solidified by the fact that McKenzie addressed Yahweh as a divine
being as well:
This name needs
no defining genitive; Yahweh is the God of Israel without further definition.
The name implies that a divine personal being has revealed Himself as the
God of Israel through the covenant and exodus; it designates the divine personal reality as
proclaimed and experienced. (Ibid, p. 317)
Murray J. Harris,
In the first
proposition of verse 1 John affirms that the Logos existed before time and
creation and therefore implicitly
denies that the Logos was a created being. In the second, he declares that
the Logos always was in active communion with the Father and thereby implies
that the Logos cannot be personally identified with the Father. In the third,
he states that the Logos always was a partaker of deity and so implicitly denies that the Logos
was ever elevated to divine status. The thought of the verse moves
from eternal preexistence to personal
communion to intrinsic deity:
only because the Logos participated
inherently in the divine nature could he be said to be already in existence
when time began or creation occurred and to be in unbroken and eternal fellowship with the Father. This would
justify regarding theos as
emphatic, standing as it does at the head of its clause. (Harris, Jesus as God, p.71, emphasis
ours)
Amazingly, Stafford
misquotes Harris, giving a misleading impression as to what the latter
actually said:
“Compare Murray
J. Harris... who states that ‘from the point of view of grammar alone... could
be rendered “the word was a god”... But
the theological context, viz., John’s monotheism, makes this rendering of
1:1c impossible’...” (Stafford, J.W.D.,
p. 186, f. 53)
Here is what Harris
actually said,
“Since the
basic function of the article is deictic, to add precision to thought by emphasizing
individuality or identity, the nonoccurrence of the article with a noun may
point to the nonparticularity, indefiniteness, of the concept. Accordingly,
from the point of view of grammar alone, theos en ho logos could be rendered
‘the Word was a god,’ just as, for example, if only grammatical considerations
were taken into account, umeis ek tou
patros tou diabolou este (John 8:44), could mean ‘you belong to the father
of the devil. But the theological context, viz, John’s monotheism, makes this
endering of 1:1c impossible, for if a monotheist were speaking of the
Deity he himself reverenced, the
singular theos could be applied only to the Supreme Being, not to an inferior divine being or emanation as if theos were simply
generic. That is, in reference to
his own beliefs, a monotheist could not speak of theoi nor could he use theos in the singular
(when giving any type of personal
description) of any being other
than the true God whom he
worshiped.” (Harris, Jesus as
God, p. 60 bold emphasis ours)
Murray’s point on John’s
theology relates to the fact that a
monotheist, as JWs claim that they are, would never call any being apart
from the true God theos or its
Greek equivalent. Harris goes on to say,
“The
translation ‘a god’ as found in the New World Translation, Jannaris (‘Logos’
24, but ‘a God’ on p. 20), and Becker (65, 68, 70: ‘ein Gott’). The reasons for rejecting this rendering- represented in none of the major English
translations of the twentieth century- have been set out in &D.3.a (1)
above.” (Harris, Jesus as God, p.
68 emphasis ours)
James Moffatt (Bible
translator),
“The Word Was
God... And the Word became flesh,” simply means “The Word was divine... and
the Word became human.” The Nicene
faith, in the Chalcedon definition, was intended to conserve both these truths
against theories that failed to present Jesus as truly God and truly man...
(Moffatt, Jesus Christ the Same
[Nashville; Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1945], p. 61 emphasis ours)
B. F. Westcott,
The predicate
[”God”] stands emphatically first, as iv.24. It is necessarily without the
article [theos not ho theos] inasmuch as it describes the
nature of the Word and does not identify His Person... No
idea of inferiority of nature is suggested by the form of the expression,
which simply affirms the true deity of the Word. (Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John
[Grand Rapids; Eerdmans, 1958 rp.], p. 3 bold emphasis ours)
C. H. Dodd,
On this
analogy, the meaning of theos and ho
logos will be that the ousia
[”essence”] of ho logos [”the
Word”], that which it truly is, is rightly denominated theos... That this is the ousia of ho theos (the Personal God of Abraham,
the Father) goes without saying. In
fact, Nicene homoousios to
patri [”of one essence of the Father”] is
a perfect paraphrase. (Dodd, New Testament Translation Problems II, p.
104 bold emphasis ours)
Dr. Philip B. Harner,
As an aid in understanding
the verse, it will be helpful to ask what John might have written as well as
what he did write. In terms of the types of word-order and vocabulary
available to him, it would appear that John could have written any of the
following:
A. ho Logos en ho theos (the Word was the
God);
B. Theos en ho Logos (God was the
Word);
C. ho Logos Theos en (the Word God
was);
D. ho Logos en Theos (the Word was a
god);
E. ho Logos en Theios (the Word was
divine);
...Clause D
with the verb preceding an anarthrous (without the article, ‘the’) predicate,
would probably mean that the logos
was ‘a god’ or a divine being of some kind, belonging to the general
category of theos but as a distinct
being from ho theos... John
evidently wished to say something about the logos that was other than A and more than D and E... But in all these
cases the English reader might not understand exactly what John was trying to
express. Perhaps the clause could be translated, ‘the Word had the same nature as
God.’ This would be one way of expressing John’s thought, which is, as
I understand it, that ho logos (the
Word), no less than ho theos (the God), had the nature of theos (God). (Journal of Biblical
Literature, Vol. 92, pp. 84-85, 87 bold emphasis ours)
To summarize John’s point
in writing his prologue, we are told:
1.
The Word was eternally existing before anything ever came into
being
2.
The Word eternally existed in an interpersonal relationship with the
One called the God, i.e. the
Father
3.
The Word was eternally God.
The preceding points based
on the inspired Greek text shatters any attempt to view Jesus simply as a
lesser god created by Jehovah.
“So because
Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. Jesus
said to them, ‘My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too,
am working. For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not
only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father,
making himself equal with God.” John 5:16-18
NIV
The inspired Apostle
affirms that it was Jesus, not the
Jews, who was calling God his Father as well as claiming equality with him.
This is not the only time where Jesus claims equality:
“I
give them eternal life, and they shall never perish;
no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them
to me is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s
hand. I and the Father are one.” John
10:28-30 NIV
The context does not limit
oneness to unity, as JWs assume, but oneness in all things. Christ, like his
Father, is able to preserve his followers from perishing, guaranteeing them
eternal life. Christ has both the power to preserve life and the quality of
eternal life to impart to others, things true only of God. Hence, oneness here
implies oneness in essence and nature.
“And I heard a
loud voice saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God (tou Theou- the God) is with men, and he will dwell with them. They will
be his people and God (ho Theos- the God) himself will dwell with them and be their
God.’ He who was seated on
the throne said, I am making everything new! Then he said, ‘I am the Alpha and
the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water
of life. He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and
he will be my son.’ “ Revelation 21:3-7 NIV
That the one speaking is
the Lord Jesus Christ becomes evident when comparing the italicized portions
with the following citations:
“All this took
place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will
be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’-
which means, ‘God with us.’ “
Matthew 1:22-23 NIV
“Jesus answered
her, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you
would have asked him and he would have
given you living waters’... Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks of this
water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I
give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a
spring of water welling up to eternal life.’ “ John 4:10, 13-14 NIV
“On the last
day, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to ME and drink. Whoever believes in ME, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ “ John 7:37-38
NIV
The similarities between
the words of Christ and that of Revelation strongly suggest that Jesus is the
one referred to as God. This is clearly seen in the fact that the Bible
indicates that it is Jesus who is to come in visible glory and reign over the
nations, not the Father. (Cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:8; 1 Timothy 6:14; 2 Timothy
1:10, 4:1, 8; Titus 2:13; Hebrews 9:28; Revelation 1:7) The only sense in
which the Father can be said to be coming is in the person of his Son through
whom he both enacts judgment and reigns with the saints. The Scriptures
nowhere speak of him coming visibly.
A possible objection that
might be raised is that the speaker indicates that a believer who overcomes
will be his son. This seemingly refers to the Father since believers are
pictured as Christ’s brethren, not his sons.
Logically, it does not
follow that the statement “he will be my son” means the Father is speaking. If
this were so, the Apostle Paul would also be claiming to be the Father in the
following passage:
“I am not
writing this to shame you, but to warn you, as my dear children. Even though you
have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in
Christ Jesus I became your father through the
gospel.” 1 Corinthians 4:14-15 NIV
Furthermore, Isaiah 9:6
would prove that Jesus is the Father if this logic were to be sustained:
“For to us a
child id born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his
shoulders. And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father (Abi Ad, Father of Eternity), Prince of
Peace.”
Neither Trinitarians nor
JWs take this to mean that Jesus is God the Father, but that he is the author
of eternal life.
(Note - There are
Christians who use this verse to try to prove that Jesus is the Father, since
they believe that there are not three Persons but one Person assuming three
different roles. This belief is known as modalism, a teaching adhered to by
modern Oneness Pentecostals or “Jesus Only” churches.)
This logic would also
prove that Abraham was God the Father as well:
“Therefore, the
promise comes by grace, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to
all Abraham’s offspring- not only to those who are of the law but also to
those who are of the faith of Abraham.
He is the father of all. As it is written: ‘I have made you a father of many nations.’ He is our father in the sight of God,
in whom he believed- the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that
are not as though they are.” Romans 4:16-17 NIV (Cf. Acts 7:1-2)
This would also include
the Apostle John:
“I have no
greater joy than to hear that my
children walk in truth.” 3 John 4 NKJV
Hence, “son” need not
imply that the Father is being addressed since the term can refer to the
children that the Father has given the Son to raise up and glorify:
“All that the Father gives
me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I
have come down from heaven to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the
will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me,
but raise them up at the last day.” John 6:37-39 NIV
“And again he
says, ‘Here am I, and the children God
has given me.’ “ Hebrews 2:13b NIV
Thus, Christians are
viewed as the children of Christ in the sense that he is their very life and
the power that grants them immortal glory. (Cf. Philippians 3:20-21;
Colossians 3:3-4)
| Home Page | Religious Groups | The New Age Movement | The Occult, Wicca, Witchcraft, Paganism, etc. | Apologetics | Theology | Spiritual Abuse | Ethics & Issues | Links to Other Sites |