Jesus Didn't Become God; the Earliest Christians Believed Him to Be Divine

In his excellent new book, God Among Sages, Kenneth Samples has done a wonderful job in combining an apologetic showing the Gospel accounts reflect the historic person of Jesus of Nazareth and how the Jesus of the Gospels is markedly different from the founders of Eastern religions, such as Krishna, who was also thought to be a god taking on human form.

The comparison is interesting, especially considering the charge made by many modern skeptics that the Christian belief of Jesus as God incarnate was foreign to Jesus's first followers and only grew as a later addition to the new religion. Bart Ehrman's book How Jesus Became God is one such challenge. Samples answers it well when he writes:

But just what did the earliest Christians believe about the nature and person of Jesus Christ? A major textual breakthrough over the last couple of decades has al1owed scholars to see more dearly what the earliest Christians believed about Jesus Christ, particularly as expressed in their church services.

Biblical scholarship (in this case, a type of form criticism) has discovered primitive Jewish-Christian creeds, confessions, and hymns woven into Scripture. The early Christians in their worship services used these compact confessions of faith long before the New Testament was written. As New Testament scholar Ralph Martin explains, "The church of the New Testament is already a believing, preaching, and confessing community of men and women. This implies the existence and influence of a body of authoritative doctrine ... which was the given and shared possession of those who formed the nascent Christian communities in the world of the Roman Empire."1

I've written before on the creed found in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 and how it shows the resurrection account existed as a foundational belief from the earliest moments of Christianity. Here, Samples is arguing that there are other early creeds recorded within the pages of the New Testament showing a very early belief in the divinity of Jesus. Some of these passages are actually central to the case of understanding Jesus as the God-man.

Philippians 2:6-11, a key passage discussing how Jesus existed in the form of God, but humbled himself and became man, is the first example. Because of differences in its language and its poetic approach separate it from the rest of the epistle lead scholars to believe this was an early Christian hymn.2 Paul wrote the epistle to the Philippians around AD 62, which means a hymn exalting the incarnation of God in the man of Jesus was well established within thirty years of Jesus's crucifixion.

Jesus Seen As God Very Early

Pointing to Craig Blomberg's work, Samples highlights two other passages (Colossians 1:15-20 and 1 Peter 3:18-22), also written around AD 62. He then notes "the hymnal and creedal portions of those letters date much earlier, possibly back to the Jewish expressions of Christianity in the 40s or even earlier in the 30s."3 These early dates make it impossible for the deity of Christ to be ascribed to either later legend or Gentile influence. It places the central theology of the Trinity at the very beginning of Christianity itself! This is all the more remarkable given that as Jesus first followers were Jews, they would've strongly resisted any claims to divinity that would impeach Yahweh as the one and only God. Remember, this is exactly why Paul sought to kill Christians to begin with.

The early creedal statements within the epistles written by both Peter and Paul—two key founders of the Christian church—show that the incarnation, like the resurrection, was a formative doctrine of Christianity. Jesus didn't "become God" as Ehrman puts it, but was always seen as God. What could have made such a scandalous claim seem palatable to the first Jewish Christians? Nothing other than a resurrection, I believe.

I highly recommend you grab a copy of God Among Sages for yourself. There are so many good things here Samples has given us, this being just one nugget. It's a fresh approach to the question of the historical Jesus and how he compares to other religions' founders.

References

1. Samples, Kenneth Richard. God Among Sages: Why Jesus Is Not Just Another Religious Leader. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2017. 71. Print.

2. Samples, 2017. 72.
3. Samples, 2017. 73.
Image courtesy Lawrence OP and licensed via the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0) license.

How Can You Love God Fully If You Can't Show Jesus' Divinity?

Before the advent of instant communication, separated sweethearts would communicate via handwritten letters. Receiving a note from one's beloved from across the ocean was a source of great joy and comfort and the recipient would pour over the letters, treasuring them and reading them multiple times. Many times the couple actually became more familiar with each other as their thoughts and feelings were transferred to the written word. One could see how his or her beloved thought and which matters they deemed important by their continual exchange.

The New Testament offers the Christian a similar experience as we await the return of our bridegroom, Jesus. Even though we are temporarily separated from him, we are not left without a way to draw closer to him and to know him more intimately.

In their book, Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ, Rob Bowman and Ed Komoszewski have given us a wonderful resource for not simply arguing for Jesus's deity with non-Trinitarians, but a way to more deeply experience who Jesus is:

It's easy to be tempted to focus our efforts on making Jesus "relevant" to today's cosmopolitan, postmodern tastes. Non-Christians are becoming increasingly guarded—if not hostile—toward traditional Christian beliefs. By emphasizing Jesus' humanity, some Christians are, indeed, bending over backward to make Christianity-and Christ himself-more "approachable" They may not deny the deity of Jesus, but in practical terms his humanity overwhelms his deity. In the end, though, a lack of appreciation of Jesus' identity as God makes him less approachable. As New Testament scholar Grant Osborne warns, some of us have lost the holy reverence and awe that we should have toward Jesus:

Christians are guilty of the syndrome "Your Jesus is too small." We have made Jesus our "big brother" and "friend" to such an extent that we have lost the sense that he is also our sovereign Lord. We must recapture capture the realization that he too is our God and worthy of worship at the deepest level."

If we are to experience a healthy relationship with God, we need to be intimately acquainted with the biblical teaching about the divine identity of Jesus. This involves more than merely knowing about, and agreeing with, the doctrine of the deity of Christ, though that is certainly essential. It must become come more to us than a line we say in a creed. We need to know what it means to say that Jesus is God and why it matters. We need to see Jesus as God. We need to think about Jesus and relate to him in the full light of the truth of his identity. We need to appreciate the significance of his divine identity for our relationships with God and others. 1

I've written before on Putting Jesus in His Place and the HANDS argument therein. This is an important book that you should pick up if you don't yet own it.

References

1. Robert Bowman and J. Ed Komoszewski. Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ (Kindle Locations 135-149). Kindle Edition.

Does "The Father is Greater than I" Undercut the Trinity?

One of the benefits of moving to a new home is my new address isn't "marked" by Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons and I get to engage with those who would knock on my front door. Today, I received my first call from two ladies representing the Jehovah's Witnesses. They began by asking if I believed people could live forever on earth. I replied that in a sense I did believe that, but I followed it up with one of my own, asking just who those are that qualify for such a blessing. The older lady responded by reading John 17:3, which is a standard verse the Witnesses use: "This means everlasting life, their coming to know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ" (NWT).

The verse led us to the nature of who Jesus is. If one is to know Jesus, then one must properly understand how the Bible portrays Him. It is very clear that over and over again, the Bible equates the person of Jesus of Nazareth with Jehovah God. One can clearly see this in how Jesus forgives sins in Mark 2:10, how the Father commands even the angels to worship him in Hebrews 1:6, and how he even ascribes the very names of God to himself in Revelation 22:13 – basically an outline of the HANDS argument. I also had them read John 1:3, and explained how Jesus cannot be a created being, but must be the eternal God.

The ladies directly asked if I believed in the Trinity, and one explained how she simply could not. She said passages like John 14:28 where Jesus states "The Father is greater than I"(ESV) show that Jesus could not be God. Other passages seem to reinforce this idea. 1 Corinthians 11:3 declares, "the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God" (ESV). These verses show Jesus's subordination to the Father.

My Witness friend offered this analogy:

You have a father, right? You may see your father as a really great man. Imagine if he is a really great man. You would listen to your father. You wouldn't consider yourself to be your father. You would follow your father's rules and would recognize his authority over you.

I agreed that such a picture of authority properly reflects the passages. But I said that isn't the whole story:

Let's continue with your analogy. Imagine all is as you said and a thief broke into our house one evening to rob us. While inside, either my father or myself woke up and went to investigate. The thief shot and killed the investigator but was later apprehended. Now, let me ask you a question. Is the crime more severe if the man the thief shoots is my father and not me? Wouldn't the homicide be equally wrong no matter if it was my father or myself who was murdered? I think we can agree it would be. That's because the authority one recognizes is different than the inherent worth of the person. While I may choose to place myself under my father's authority, it doesn't make his humanity more human than mine. A general and a private are both equally valuable human beings, the only difference is one where a person chooses to recognize the authority of another.

The ladies agreed that this was reasonable. I continued:

The Bible tells us that Jesus who was in the form of God did not see equality with God a thing to be grasped, but placed himself in submission to the Father (Phil. 2:6-8). So, passages where Jesus says the Father is greater are simply reflecting his submission to the Father's authority, not to some difference in their essence.

Their first reply was "So, you believe in the Trinity," which I saw immediately closed them off to exploring the topic further. In their minds, the word Trinity was forbidden and they began immediately writing off whatever else I said on the topic, ultimately dismissing themselves. This was a shame, as they agreed with all I said up to that point.

I pray that our conversation will give these ladies more to think about. But they shouldn't have to think that because Jesus submits to the authority of the Father means Jesus is not fully God as well as fully man. His essence is divine, as it has been from all eternity. His relation to the Father is as the Son, which means he submits himself to the Father. The two concepts are different.

The Big Deal Over Jesus' Birthday

Last week, I published a three-part series on why the date of Christmas is not based on Roman or pagan holidays. While the claim is popular, history argues differently. As I said there, some want to believe in the paganism aspect so they can hold onto the trappings of a secular Christmas without any charge of hypocrisy.

The reaction I received was surprising. I expected several atheists or skeptics to doubt the claim, but there were quite a lot of people who identify themselves as Christians who were deeply offended that Christmas wasn't pagan and simply didn't want to give up on the idea. They pointed to things like Christmas trees, even ripping Jeremiah 10:1-10 wholly out of context as a command not to have them! They just KNEW Christmas was pagan and they were better Christians than I was because they didn't celebrate it!

While people of the 21st century tend to reduce the celebration of an event such as Jesus's birth to "Jesus's Birthday," Christians of the fourth century had an entirely different motive. They weren't focused so much on marking a birthday as we would be, but marking a pivotal point of history: the day the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The early church wanted to celebrate the incarnation of God into man, which is precisely what Christmas was meant to do. They wanted to uphold the foundational teaching of Jesus as the God-man.

The Heresies Against Jesus's Humanity

People who are open to the evidence believe Jesus existed, even if they don't believe he was divine. Even strong critics of Christianity such as Bart Ehrman maintain that not only did Jesus exist; it is foolish to believe he was mythical. Ehrman even wrote that one shouldn't deny "what virtually every sane historian on the planet—Christian, Jewish, Muslim, pagan, agnostic, atheist, what have you—has come to conclude based on a range of compelling historical evidence. Whether we like it or not, Jesus certainly existed."1

The bigger problem the early church faced was not as much whether Jesus lived or if he was in some way divine, but whether he was truly God and truly man at the same time. Many Gnostics taught that Jesus wasn't a physical being at all. He was a spiritual entity that would appear as physical. This view is known as Docetism, coming from the Greek word meaning "to appear."2 Interestingly, Bishop Serapion of Antioch condemns this view in a letter that is dated right at the same time Hippolytus offers the December 25th date for the birth of Christ.

The importance of celebrating Christ's entrance into the world is to recognize that Jesus who existed as God really did humble himself "being born in the likeness of men" (Phil. 2:7). Jesus was a real human being in every respect, and just like all humans, he entered this world by being born. Because Jesus was born, he is considered a kinsman of Adam, and thus the only one who could redeem all of Adam's offspring from sin, as Paul explains: "For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead" (1 Cor. 15:21). The book of Hebrews agrees, stating ""Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people" (Heb. 2:17). Paul also tells Timothy "There is One God and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 2:5). We celebrate Christmas because of the miracle of God becoming man. That's a much different concept than simply having a birthday party.

The Danger Facing Christmas Today

But even if it were true that December 25 was originally a pagan holiday, that doesn't taint the holiday. Taking the date from a pagan celebration doesn't mean those celebrations are pagan any more than it means I'm honoring the Norse god Thor by writing Thursday on my checks or honoring the Roman god Juno by calling the sixth month June. The names of June and Thursday have lost all pagan value and are simply common parlance.

The real danger Christmas faces today is a similar one. We've forgotten why it is absolutely crucial to our salvation that Jesus was both fully God and fully man. Those who can rail against the pagan origins of Christmas cannot seem to see the importance of underscoring Jesus's humanity. If we dismiss Christmas altogether, we are in danger of missing part of the story of our redemption. That's something I'm not willing to throw away.

References

1. Ehrman, Bart D. "Did Jesus Exist?" The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 20 Mar. 2012. Web. 24 Dec. 2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bart-d-ehrman/did-jesus-exist_b_1349544.html.
2. González, Justo L., and Catherine Gunsalus. González. Heretics for Armchair Theologians. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008. Print. 37-38.
Image courtesy Plum leaves and licensed via the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) license.

The Trinity, Firstborn, and the Dead

The Trinity is central to Christianity. If you deny the triune nature of God, then you've denied the historic Christian faith. Some like the Mormons deny there is only one God. Others like the Jehovah's Witnesses deny that Jesus was God at all. New Testament writers like Paul strove to describe the distinction between the Father and the Son while still honoring both as God, but those very passages can be taken out of context and twisted to carry a meaning the original author never intended.

One example of this is the phrase "firstborn" that Paul uses in Colossians 1:15-17. It reads:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.1

In this passage, Paul is trying to stress how Jesus is creator, master, and lord over all of creation. This role has been traditionally understood as God's. The Bible even begins with the grand claim that "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Psalm 8 directly attributes the creation to Jehovah, stating "When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him?" Even we ourselves are the direct creation of God, as Psalm 100:3 admits, "Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his." As we see, over and over the Old Testament ties God to all of creation and uses it to show his rightful lordship over that creation.

Firstborn Doesn't Mean First Created

Despite this, the Witnesses and others point to Colossians 1:15 to try and prove that Jesus was the first created being of God. To do this, they must redefine Paul's use of the word firstborn in that verse to mean first created. On its face, the mistake can be an easy one to make if you aren't paying attention. Western cultures no longer abide by traditional patriarchy and inheritance traditions where the first born son becomes the chief of the family.

So, when we hear the word firstborn, we simply think of "first-born," that is the order of coming into the world. But the Greek word it is ranslated from, prototokos, carries a much richer meaning than simply birth order. It more properly is understood in Colossians as "pre-eminent" or "primacy in rank."2Of course, many Witnesses have resisted this interpretation, claiming that we should take the word firstborn in its natural meaning. I can understand their desire; a more literal rendering of words is usually the first choice of translators unless the context shows otherwise.

Given that most people on both sides of this debate have not mastered Greek, how are we to show that the meaning of firstborn I've offered is to be preferred over the more literal rendering? In fact, it's very easy and context is the key. All we have to do is to keep reading Colossians 1, for in the next two verses we read "And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent." Note verses 15-17 above and verses 18-19 here are both in the same paragraph. They are all one thought and the word firstborn appears not once, but twice! In the second instance, Paul claims that Jesus is "firstborn from the dead." If we are to use the natural rendering of this word, it would mean that dead people give birth! That doesn't make much sense at all. Jesus wasn't born from a dead person when he rose from the dead; that isn't a resurrection. In fact, Paul explicitly unpack the meaning of the word in verse 19, explaining that "in everything he might be preeminent." Paul is using prototokos to refer to Jesus's pre-eminence! He tells us that very plainly.

The big takeaway here is that it isn't necessary to have mastered a biblical language to answer folks like the JWs when they charge that the Bible makes Jesus out to be less than God. Many times, we just need to read the verses in context and carefully. The meaning can show itself in plain English.

References

1. Colossians 1, all other scriptures taken from the English Standard Version (ESV). Bible Gateway. Web. 28 Sep. 2015.
2. "prototokos." Theological Dictionary of the New Testament: Abridged in One Volume. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdsmans, 1985. 968. Print.

Defending the Trinity Against World Religions (podcast)

The Trinity is the central doctrine of Christianity and the one belief that separates the Christian view of God from all other faiths. This class will help believers defend critical challenges against the Trinity such as the clam that it's a logical contradiction, the word Trinity is not found in the Bible, and the Trinity is too mysterious and unintelligible for us to understand.

• Defending the Trinity Against World Religions (part 1)
• Defending the Trinity Against World Religions (part 2)
• Defending the Trinity Against World Religions (part 3)
• Defending the Trinity Against World Religions (part 4)

What Makes the Persons of the Godhead Different from One Another?

Some claim the concept of three persons in a single being we call God is somehow contradictory. I've shown previously this isn't so. But how can we understand the difference within the Trinity? The first piece is to distinguish between personhood and being, as this article clarifies. Once that difference is understood, then one can begin to appreciate the persons within the Triune being of God. Yet, while there are three separate persons in the Father, Son, and Spirit, they share all the attributes and qualities of God while still remaining one.

In his wonderful book The History of Christian Thought, Jonathan Hill describes how the Cappadocian Fathers of the 4th century (Basil the Great, his brother Gregory of Nyssa, and their friend Gregory of Nazianzus) understood and clarified the doctrine of the Trinity. Their explanation shows that there is no distinction between any of the members, except for their relation to one another:

Basil invites us to consider the difference between, on the one hand, the word human and, on the other, the names Peter, Paul and Timothy. Human is a general term; it refers to a class of beings; the names pick out particular members of that class. In the same way, when we talk about "God," or the divine substance, we are using a general term. The three Persons are three separate manifestations of that substance, just as Peter, Paul and Timothy are three separate manifestations of human nature.

This seems pretty strange. If the three Persons of the Trinity are three in the same way that three people are three, then there are three Gods! It looks as if we have drifted away from monotheism altogether. But the situation is more complex than this. Gregory of Nyssa helps to explain it. He points out that when we have several different members of one class, there are usually certain ways to tell them apart: they may be different sizes, shapes or colors; and most fundamentally they must all be in different locations in space. But none of these things apply to the divine nature. God is incorporeal, a fact that Gregory, like Origen, is quite insistent on. So although the three Persons are different members of the one class, they cannot be distinguished from each other in the normal way.

In fact, there is only one difference between them: their mutual relations. This central idea was first articulated by Gregory of Nazianzus, in his famous Theological Orations. The Father has no characteristic that the Son lacks, and vice versa-because otherwise they would not be equally God. The only thing that is true of the Father but not the Son is that he is the Father of the Son; and similarly the Son is the Son of the Father. And the Spirit is the only one that proceeds from the Father. In every other respect except their mutual relations, the three are identical.

Gregory of Nyssa repeats the same idea and also points out that it is impossible to think of anyone Person without also thinking of the others. To talk of the Spirit is to think of the Son who sends him, and to talk of the Son is to think of the Father who begets him. Gregory likens the process to a chain: pull one end and the rest follows.

Jehovah's Witnesses, the Bible, and Bias (video)

The Jehovah's Witnesses claim that both the Bible we read and orthodox Christian theology has been some kind of trinitarian bias that unwittingly leads us to believe Jesus is God. However, when looking at the doctrines of the Jehovah's Witnesses and their  sponsoring organization, Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, it becomes clear that the only bias on display is their own.

Watch this short clip as Lenny explains how the JWs misunderstand the name of God,  proper biblical interpretation, and how they deliberately change passages of Scripture to try and dodge the conclusion that Jesus is God.

Image courtesy Steelman and licensed under the CC BY-SA 2.5

Defending the Trinity Against World Religions (video)

The Trinity and the Atonement are the doctrines that most differentiate Christianity from all other faiths. It's no surprise then that it's also one of the most attacked doctrines from those of other faiths. What makes the Trinity so unique and why is it such a crucial concept? How should Christians understand the doctrine of the Trinity and how should we best defend it against skeptics and objectors?

In this video class, Lenny helps believers defend critical challenges against the Trinity such as the claim that it is logically contradictory, the word Trinity is not found in the Bible, and the Trinity is too mysterious and unintelligible for us to understand. Plus we look at common objections to the Trinity from Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses and others.

Why The Trinity Is Not a Contradiction (video)

One of the main criticisms of Christianity is it's description of God as a Triune being. Others have charged that the concept of three-in-one is a contradiction, but most don't understand just what the doctrine of the Trinity entails. Here, in this short video, Lenny offers a deductive argument to prove that the doctrine of the Trinity is not contradictory.

The "Big Bang" in Jews Worshiping Jesus as God

One popular answer today among those who do not believe in Jesus as God is that the belief evolved over a period of centuries. They suggest that the earliest Christians, who were Jews, thought of Jesus as simply a rabbi or a prophet, a holy and wise man. They theorize that as Christianity spread outward and became more and more dominated by Gentile (that is, non-Jewish) believers, those Gentiles, accustomed to assigning divine honors to their heroes, did the same for Jesus.' Eventually, a form of Christianity emerged that explained the divinity of Jesus as a unique incarnation of God and dismissed all alternative views of Jesus as heresy. Some critics of the doctrine that Jesus is God claim that this belief did not appear until well after all of the apostles had died-perhaps, some say, as late as the fourth century Council of Nicea.

The facts are very much otherwise. The practice of giving Jesus divine honors—of religious, spiritual devotion to Jesus—was an established, char­acteristic feature of the Christian movement within the first two decades of its existence. Larry Hurtado, professor of New Testament at the University of Edinburgh, described the emergence of devotion to Jesus as "a veritable 'big bang: an explosively rapid and impressively substantial development in the earliest stage of the Christian movement'? According to Martin Hengel, a New Testament scholar at Tubingen University in Germany, more happened in the development of Christian beliefs about Jesus in the twenty years between his death and Paul's earliest epistles "than in the whole subsequent seven hundred years of church history:')

The apostles and other early Jewish Christians did not just lavish high praises on Jesus. They accorded him honors that in Jewish teaching, as au­thoritatively set forth in their Scriptures, were due to the Lord God of Israel and no one else…

It was in this context of exclusive religious devotion to one God, the Lord, that the early Jewish followers of Jesus were expressing the same sort of de­votion to Jesus. They worshiped him, sang hymns to him, prayed to him, and revered him in a way that believers in Judaism insisted was reserved for the Lord God alone. To make matters worse, the Christians agreed that such honors were rightly given only to God—and then proceeded to give them to Jesus anyway!

    — Robert M. Bowman, Jr. and Ed Komoszewski. Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ.
Grand Rapids: Kregel Books, 2007. 29-30.

If You Ignore the Trinity, You Ignore the Gospel

Over at Patheos' Progressive Christian Channel, Presbyterian Church USA pastor Mark Sandlin posted an article entitled "No Trinity For Me, Please." Given Sandlin had previously written in the same space that he denies the deity of Jesus, this shouldn't come as a huge surprise. However, in this article Sandlin argues in a way that may sound convincing even to evangelicals. He writes:

Admittedly, the Trinity is an interesting theory and it certainly quelled some of the early Church's division on the nature of God, but it is just that – a theory.

…I'm not saying the theory of Trinity is wrong. I'm just not saying it's definitively right, which is exactly what many of its adherents do when they say that if you don't believe in the Trinity, you can't be Christian.

Here's the thing, if the Trinity is that important, doesn't it seem like Jesus or the book of Acts or Paul or James or Peter or John would have talked more directly about it?

The lack of biblical witness leaves me to believe that either there simply was no understanding of a Trinitarian God at the time books of the Bible were written, or that the concept was so unimportant to their faith that it mostly wasn't mentioned.

So, why do we make it so important?1

Many conservative Christians believe perhaps some of what Sandlin says above. They think that while the Trinity is a concept that helps theologians overcome certain obstacles in reconciling some snippets of scripture, it is more esoteric and "head knowledge" than the central message of the gospel, which is the message we should truly be sharing.

If you believe something like this, may I tell you in the kindest way possible that you are completely wrong? Because you are. As Dr. Fred Sanders wrote in his compelling book The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything, "the doctrine of the Trinity inherently belongs to the gospel itself."2 Let's look at some aspects of the work of Christ's atonement on the cross to see just how dependent it is on the concept of the Trinity.

The Trinity Demonstrates God's Sacrifice is the Greatest

The Trinity is necessary for understanding the total sacrifice of Christ for our sins. Paul in Romans 5 puts it this way:

For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.3

Notice how Paul makes a distinction in the passage above with the words God and Christ. He argues that a person giving up his own life for a righteous man would be a great sacrifice; it would mean more that a person gave up his life for an unrighteous man. However, we have been "reconciled to God by the death of His Son." It's one thing to lay down one's own life, which Jesus did in following the will of the Father. It's a completely different level of sacrifice to lay down the life of your beloved son for the sake of an enemy! Without the concept of the Trinity, this level of sacrifice is missed.

The Trinity Allows Jesus to Atone for All Humanity

Jesus' offering of Himself to the Father reconciles us to God. But only the blood of the second person of the Trinity could possibly atone for the sins of all humanity. Anything less wouldn't have a universal effect. Romans 8:3-4 is very clear here: "For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." The writer to the Hebrews completes the thought:

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

…So Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

Jesus needed to appear in the heavenly realms, in the true Holy of Holies to atone for sinful humanity. He couldn't be just a man, as a righteous man might be able to pay for the sins of an unrighteous man, but Jesus paid for the sins of all flesh.

The Trinity Makes Resurrection Possible

The atonement is not the full Gospel. Any presentation of the Gospel message must not stop at Christ's death, but also include His resurrection. We know that without the resurrection of the dead, "you are still in your sins."4 Jesus said that his resurrection was his own to do,5 and Paul tells us that our future resurrection from the dead depends on God's Holy Spirit, who also raised Jesus: "If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you."6 Thus, without the Trinity, there would be no resurrection and no hope for us. We would be "of all people the most pitied."

The Trinity is necessary for the gospel. One cannot be separated from the other. Sanders sums it up nicely in his book:

Nothing we do as evangelicals makes sense if it is divorced from a strong experiential and doctrinal grasp of the coordinated work of Jesus and the Spirit, worked out against the horizon of the Father's love. Personal evangelism, conversational prayer, devotional Bible study, authoritative preaching, world missions, and assurance of salvation all presuppose that life in the gospel is life in communion with the Trinity. Forget the Trinity and you forget why we do what we do; you forget who we are as gospel Christians; you forget how we got to be like we are.7

References

1.Sandlin, Mark. "No Trinity For Me, Please." Patheos. Patheos, 20 Aug. 2014. Web. 04 Sept. 2014. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thegodarticle/2014/08/no-trinity-for-me-please.
2.Sanders, Fred. The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, Kindle Edition, 2010. 9.
3. Romans 5:7-10,ESV Study Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Bibles, 2007. Print.
4. 1 Cor. 15:17.
5. John 2:21, John 10:18
6. Romans 8:11
7. Sanders, Ibid.

Is the Trinity a Contradiction?

In my recent series on the essential beliefs of Christianity, I received a comment from a reader who claimed that I hadn't offered a cogent argument for the Trinity. This isn't the first time I've heard the claim that the Trinity is a contradictory concept. The doctrine of the Trinity has been challenged by everyone from Jehovah's Witnesses to Muslims as contradictory.

What is a Contradiction?

A contradiction occurs when someone asserts a claim resulting in the conclusion that A does not equal A at the same time and in the same way. To briefly understand what I mean, take this well-worn example of a syllogism:

      1. All men are mortal

      2. Socrates is a man

These two premises are not really controversial. But we can know something else about Socrates by looking at them:

      Conclusion: Socrates is mortal.

This conclusion follows necessarily from the premises. There is no escaping it. Socrates is part of the set "all men" and if everyone in the set of all men are mortal, Socrates must be mortal, too.

But what if I make an additional claim about Socrates, such as:

      3. Socrates is immortal

If I assert premises #1, #2, and #3, I would have a contradiction. Socrates cannot be both mortal (from #1 and #2) and immortal (from #3) at the same time and in the same manner. Premise #3 could of course not be talking about the physical body of Socrates but referring to his work. In such a case, statement #3 holds no bearing on the other two statements, since they are completely different concepts. But if statement #3 means immortal in the same sense that statement #1 does, then Socrates cannot be a man and immortal because it would mean that Socrates is mortal and while he is at the same time the opposite of mortal. Both cannot possibly be true.

The Argument Against Contradiction

Since we know now what it takes to call an idea contradictory, we can use this understanding to see if the Trinity fits the definition of a contradiction.

      1. If the doctrine of the Trinity defines God as being both one and more than one at the same time and in the same manner then it is contradictory and therefore false.

Next, we declare that God is monotheistic. This is a staple of Christian belief:

      2. There is one God.

But Christianity teaches of a plurality within God. Supported by scripture, it makes the claim that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit can express themselves differently. The Son may pray to the Father or submit to His will. The Father may send the Spirit, and so on. But they are each called God. So, we get another premise:

      3. The person of the Father is God, the person of the Son is God, and ;the person of Holy Spirit is God.

      4. Therefore, God is one being comprised of the persons of Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit (from 2,3).

If we are to now claim that the Father is a being, the Son is a being, and the Holy Spirit is a being, we would have a contradiction. You would have God is three beings and God is one being. Certainly both cannot be true. However, that is not the Christian doctrine. The Christian doctrine is that God is one being comprised of three persons. In my last post I showed how personhood is separate from being. We can create a sub argument here from the facts of that post:

               5a. Personhood is not the same as being if the number of persons of an entity differs from the number of beings present in itself.

               5b. A plant is an entity whose number of persons (zero) differs from the number of beings (one) present in itself.

               5c. Therefore, personhood is not the same as being.

So, because we've clarified the concept of personhood and being, we can add an additional proposition to our argument:  

      6. Therefore, God can be one being comprised of a different number of persons without contradiction (from 4,5c).

      7. Therefore the doctrine of the Trinity is not contradictory ( from 1,6)

By arguing thusly, one can see that the doctrine of the Trinity is not contradictory. One must add additional premises to the argument, and those premises must properly reflect Christian doctrine.

A Christian Must Believe in the Trinity

In this recent series, I've been working through some of the essential beliefs that identify someone as a Christian. Previous posts have discussed Christianity as a monotheistic faith. We believe there is only one God who has ever existed throughout all of reality. But monotheism isn't exclusive to Christianity. Most people will recognize that Judaism and Islam are also monotheistic.  Christians hold to a very unique type of monotheism. We've also talked about how Christianity holds to the divinity of Jesus, but that Jesus is not the same being as God the Father. In order to be considered a Christian, one must believe that Jesus is God the Son.

At first glance, it seems that the two statements are contradictory. There is only one God, yet there is God the Father and God the Son and one is not the other. To explain exactly how this works, though, has tongue-tied many people throughout the centuries. Add to this another complication as Christians also believe the Holy Spirit is God, and yet He is distinct from the Father and from the Son. How can such a seemingly illogical position be true? The answer lies in the concept of the Trinity,

The Trinity – What is it?

To describe the Christian belief of the Trinity is actually quite simple, but it takes a bit of careful thinking to make sure the concept is properly understood. To say God is a Trinity is to say that God is one being comprised of three persons. The term "Trinity" was first used for the three persons comprising God by the early Church father Tertullian around AD 200.1 Tertullian saw a distinction between what it means to be a person and what it means to be a being. Our difficulty today is primarily because most people think the terms are synonymous. We see a person and we say that the person is a human being. One person = one being.

However, it isn't always the case that the attributes of a being are the same as the attributes of a person. To prove my case, let's proceed downward rather than upward. When Tertullian talks about a being, he means that there is one substance that makes up the entity of God. When we look at our own bodies, we see that every part that properly belongs to our body should be considered human. Every cell is a human cell. We are made up of human "stuff" if you will. Similarly, every part that makes up a plant is "plant stuff." A plant is also a being; it is a living thing that exists. But no one would claim that a plant is a person. That would be foolish!

So, we have two cases here. We recognize a plant as a being, but it has no personhood within it. It has a personhood count of zero, if you will. We also recognize a human as a being that has a personhood count of one. This means that personhood is different from being, as a being can exist without personhood. It then follows that it isn't contradictory to say that God is a being with a personhood count of three. It may be the case that we see no parallel here on earth, it may be the case that there is no other being in all of reality that can claim multiple personhood. However, it is clear that the claim of one being in three persons is not a contradiction, any more than claiming a plant is a being with no personhood should be considered such.

The Trinity – Its Necessity

The Bible clearly recognizes God the Father as God. That claim is usually not disputed. However, as I mentioned last time, it also recognizes Jesus as God and it identifies the Holy Spirit as God, too (Matt. 28:19, Acts 5:3,5, Isa 63:10, 1 Cor. 2:10-11). These three persons are each recognized as fully God and yet God is one. If one denies the triune nature of God, then one is forced into denying some portion of scripture.

Beyond the reconciliation of Scripture, the doctrine of the Trinity holds additional advantages. I've argued this before, but it is through the relationship within the Trinity that God can be considered completely without need. Only a being like the Trinity can be all-loving, and only within a trinity can God express His own humility.

Of course, no one can say exactly how all the aspects of the three-in-one work. That shouldn't be a surprise, though. Scientists today have really good data on quantum models of matter, but you don't have to be able to explain all aspect of quantum mechanics to believe it's true. When talking about God, one is referring to a being that transcends humanity; therefore one should expect that there would be aspects to His nature beyond our comprehension. But that doesn't mean that we cannot apprehend the basic understanding of the Trinity. God is three persons who comprise one being and each is fully God.

References

1. Carl, Harold F. Ph.D. "Against Praxeas – How Far Did Tertullian Advance the Doctrine of the Trinity?" Global Journal of Classical Theology. (April 2009) Available online at http://www.phc.edu/UserFiles/File/_Other%20Projects/Global%20Journal/7-1/HaroldCarl.pdf

A Christian Must Believe That Jesus is God

I've begun a series of blog posts talking about the necessary beliefs one must hold to be considered a Christian. As a guide, I've been looking at the Nicean Creed to formulate the basic beliefs that define the Christian faith. One clear aspect of the Christian faith is the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
Right on the heels of declaring monotheism, the church fathers also declare that Jesus is God:

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.

Jesus is equal with the Father

Notice that the emphasis on this part of the creed is to place the Son on equal footing with the Father. That's why the repetition of "God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God" is used. In the early days of Christianity there were several heresies that cropped up trying to claim that Jesus is in some way lesser than God the Father. The Arians, like the modern day Jehovah's Witnesses, held that Jesus was God's first creation. Jesus is a "mighty god" but not "Almighty God."

Christians had long held that Jesus is God as much as the Father is God. He claimed the honors afforded to God and the attributes ascribed to God. He forgave sins only God would and received worship that is reserved for God alone.1 Robert Wilken writes that the Greek philosopher Celsus was offended by the Christian view of God even in the second century. In discussing his views, Wilken says Celsus is fine with those who would hold Jesus in some type of divine status, such as that reserved for the Caesars. Celsus wasn't convinced that Jesus even deserved this level of honor, but as long as those worshippers recognize the "high God" as greater than lesser deities, it would be OK. Wilken then writes, "The Christians, however, made even more extravagant claims: they said that Jesus was unique among the gods and that he should be worshipped to the exclusion of all other gods. To Celsus such excessive adoration set up Jesus as a rival to God and undercut the worship of the one God." 2

Jesus is different from the Father

While Christians recognize Jesus as being fully God, equal with the Father, they recognize that Jesus is not the same person as the Father. He is not the Father, but the Son. In scripture, we see Jesus coming from the Father (Jn. 5:37, 12:49), He prays to the Father (Mt. 26:39, Lk 23:34,Jn 17:1), He obeys the Father (Lk 22:42, Jn 6:38), and He humbles Himself before the Father (Phil 2:4-8). Jesus is distinct from the Father but both He and the Father are recognized as God.

The Arian view of Jesus was the motivating issue that caused the church fathers to gather from across the globe and convene the first church council in Nicea. The formulation of the Nicean Creed was the result. Its purpose was to clearly establish the equality of Jesus with God the Father while still maintaining the concept of a single God. The church fathers did this by distinguishing between the concept of personhood and being. Next time, I'll unpack the teaching of the Trinity a bit more. For now, recognize that one must believe that Jesus is God in order to be a Christian.

References

1. For a more conmprehensive understanding of the biblical case for why Jesus is recognized as God, see my post "The HANDS Argument for the Deity of Jesus" at http://apologetics-notes.comereason.org/2014/05/the-hands-argument-for-deity-of-jesus.html
2. Wilken, Robert L. The Christians as the Romans Saw Them. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984). 120.

Why We Should Expect God to be a Trinity

Many times when I discuss Christianity, those of other faiths get tripped up in the idea of a triune God. Skeptics claim the concept of God being three-in-one is a clear sign of the confusion that early Christians had in trying to elevate Jesus to deity while still maintaining a Jewish monotheism. Others, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, simply think that it is contradictory to claim God is both three and one at the same time. However, if you think hard about God and what He entails, you may soon see that the trinity actually solves more problems than it creates.

What Does God Need?

"Before beginning a Hunt, it is wise to ask someone what you are looking for before you begin looking for it."
— Winnie the Pooh1

I doubt that Winnie the Pooh will ever make a list of great theologians, but I think his advice is sound in this question. When we begin to discuss concepts of God, we should at least start with identifying some of the attributes we would agree He would possess. According to Anselm, God is a being "which nothing greater can be conceived."2 In other words, God has no limitations and no need for help. He is all-knowing (omniscience), all-powerful (omnipotent), all-loving (omnibenevolent), and requires nothing or no one else in His existence. This last attribute is referred to as aseity in theological circles, and most philosophers agree that God could not be God if He had to rely on something other than Himself.

But we get to an interesting conundrum here. If God is all-loving, who did He love before He enacted creation? The Bible tells us that God is love, yet how can this be if He exists apart from anything else? St. Augustine raised a similar question. He wrote that when he thinks of himself as expressing love "there are three things concerned—myself, and that which I love, and love itself. For I do not love love, except I love a lover; for there is no love where nothing is loved. Therefore there are three things— he who loves, and that which is loved, and love." 3 So, Augustine says there must be a lover, a beloved, and the relationship of love that exists between the two.


This would place a God who is described as love in a pickle. It would mean that God could not be all loving until He created someone or something to be loved. But if God needs to create something to "become" love, then does that mean God must rely on His creation before He can exercise that attribute? Does this call God's Aseity into question?

However, if God exists as three persons on one being, then God can show love within those three persons without the need for any external thing. The Father can love the Son and the very existence of a triune being means that God is love becomes definitively true. Thus, in a Trinity, God's all-loving attribute is preserved.

Additional Advantages

Beyond God's lovingness, there are other attributes that a Trinity makes possible. God can be a relational being from all eternity, since relationship has always existed within Him. God can have humility. Philippians 2:6-7 states that Jesus "Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men." Jesus expressed humility in his incarnation. He also acquiesced to the will of the Father (Luke 22:42). So, when we say that people should exhibit humility, we are saying that people should imitate God's nature.

Because God is triune, He can exhibit things like love and humility within Himself. They are not things that God chooses to be, but are part of His very being. This is a crucial difference between the Christian understanding of God and all others. When talking with those of other faiths, it is fair to ask how they can understand God to be without need of anyone or anything. Without a Trinity, God becomes something less than what we understand Him to be.

References

1. Powers, Joan. Pooh's Little Instruction Book. (New York: Dutton Children's Books, 1995).
2. Anselm. Proslogium. Fordham University Web. <http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/anselm-proslogium.asp#CHAPTER II> Accessed 4/30/2014
3. Augustine. On the Trinity (Book IX), Chapter 2. The New Advent. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/130109.htm Accessed 4/30/2014

Who Resurrected Jesus from the Dead?

During Easter, there tends to be more focus on the claims of Christianity than at other times of the year, and many groups seek to take advantage of that focus. I had noticed an increased amount of activity in our neighborhood by Jehovah's Witnesses, handing out their recent Watchtower magazine. A Frequently Asked Questions feature from the magazine makes the argument that the Resurrection proves that Jesus was not God. But does this make sense?

Quoting from the magazine, they ask "If Jesus is God, as some churches teach, who resurrected Jesus?" And they provide the following answer:

"Jesus is not God—whose name is Jehovah—but he is the Son of God. Jehovah resurrected Jesus from the dead" (Romans 10:9). One Bible scholar comments: 'It is unthinkable that anyone—even Christ—could raise himself.'"

The Watchtower's answer is a bit sparse. It references only Romans 10:9, which reads, "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Does this verse show that Jesus couldn't resurrect Himself?  No, it doesn't, and it's disingenuous to posture that a single verse is the end of the question.  So who is responsible for the resurrection of Jesus?

First, we can't ignore the testimony of Romans 10:9. However, that simply states that God raised Jesus from the dead. Even the Jehovah's Witnesses own New World Translation reads the verse as "For if you publicly declare that 'word in your own mouth,' that Jesus is Lord, and exercise faith in your heart that God raised him up from the dead, you will be saved." So, God did it.  This is consistent with other teachings that God alone has power over life and death.  Genesis 2:7 shows God is the one who breathes the breath of life into Adam. Jobs says God alone granted him life (Job 10:12), and gave him the breath of life (Job 33:4). Ecclesiastes 12:7 also confirms that on death, "the spirit returns to God who gave it." We thus conclude that only God has the power over the giving of life. Christians and Witnesses can agree on this point.

We now need to refocus on the first part of the question, is Jesus God? It seems to me that if Jesus had the power to resurrect people, it would clearly follow that Jesus is God. I can build an argument this way:

1.  Only God can to give life to a body.
2. Jesus gave life to His own body.
3. Therefore Jesus is God.

There are a couple of key verses where Jesus explicitly claims that He has the power over His own life. In John chapter 2, Jesus drives out the merchants and the moneychangers from the Temple and the Jewish religious leaders were incensed. They demanded to know what proof Jesus could offer to justify His judgment of spiritual propriety. Jesus responded "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." John then clarifies Jesus' statement and writes, "But He was speaking of the temple of His body."  Jesus reiterated His power over His own life and death in John 10:17-18 when He says, "My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father."

It is clear that Jesus claimed to have the power to resurrect Himself. The Bible also claims that God the Father raised Jesus from the dead, (see Acts 5:30, Galatians 1:1 among others) and that God's Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead (Romans 8:11, 1 Peter, 3:18). So we have all three persons of the Trinity involved in Jesus' resurrection. Given the crucial aspect of the Resurrection to God's plan, that is no surprise.

Of course the Watchtower doesn't mention any of this. Instead, they follow up their claim with a quote from some unnamed "Bible scholar" who says, "It is unthinkable that anyone—even Christ—could raise himself." But why doesn't the Watchtower say who this supposed scholar is? Why don't they cite the source of the quote? If death is the separation of the soul from the body as Ecclesiastes 12:7 states, then Jesus doesn't cease to be upon death but His spirit is active and capable of exerting power.  This isn't an unfathomable thing. The Watchtower doesn't like this conclusion, though, because it contradicts two main points of their skewed theology, that Jesus is God and that the soul survives death. Rather that undermining the Trinity, the fact that Jesus raised Himself from the dead strengthens His claim to deity. Any other answer simply falls short.

Theology That Makes a Difference

Last time, I told you about an opportunity I had to talk to a Mormon who was seeking answers after a lecture I had delivered on the problems in The Da Vinci Code. (If you are interested in that talk, you may purchase a copy on CD or DVD video from the Come Reason Store.)

As I said, she had been having a lot of difficulty digesting the concept of the Trinity. This is not unexpected. The Trinity is a difficult concept to grasp, even for Christians. I don't believe we'll ever fully understand it, even after we're with the Lord. However, that doesn't mean we should dismiss the idea as incomprehensible. The woman I spoke with told me that she had been asking Christians to better explain the Trinity for over eight years, and no one had ever been able to give her a satisfactory answer. Eight Years! Most, including pastors, when pressed for an explanation of the Trinity simply responded that "some things are just a mystery". Obviously, that wasn't good enough for her, but to her credit, she kept seeking.

Now, as I said, we don't fully comprehend the Trinity. But I believe we can apprehend the basic concepts and show that they aren't contradictory. In my talk with her, I highlighted the fact that a being is a single entity – something that has an essence. A being is a separate idea from personhood, which entails a center of consciousness. I also offered Frank Beckwith's example: a plant is a being with no personhood, a human is a being with one personhood and God is a being with three personhoods. God is single entity, but has three centers of consciousness – which is why the Son could pray to the Father and talk with the Spirit.

All of this is to exemplify my point that diligent study of the tough issues in theology is necessary for our evangelism. I haven't yet heard back from my discussion partner, but she said after our talk that for the first time she had received a response she felt gave her some answers. Because I had some credibility, I was also able to share God's plan of salvation with her. Now, she has a more informed view of two aspects of Christianity that she can think about and weigh more carefully. I will pray for her to come to that saving knowledge of Christ.

Knowing something about the Trinity allowed me to remove a stumbling block and witness more effectively. I pray that as you continue your studies, you will dig into the tough questions and not shy away from them because they are hard work. There can be much fruit gained from plowing rocky soil.

Photo courtesy CollegeDegrees360 and licensed via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.