Jesus Is Jehovah/Jehovah Is Jesus (page 6)

CHILD

Congratulaions, snowbird. My GPA is 3.4. What is her major?

snowbird

Congratulaions, snowbird. My GPA is 3.4. What is her major?

Her majors are Business and International Studies.

Did I mention that she learned to read before she began talking?

Sylvia

possible-san

CHILD.

How is Jesus Christ a symbol? I do not wish to be argumentative, but this makes no sense to me. As a Christian, I allow the bible to teach who the Father is and who Jesus is. If you don't believe in the historical Jesus, who do think he is?

First, I told you as follows.
"When I was active Jehovah's Witnesses, if someone asked me in this way, I suspected first, "Is that person's motive sincere?""

At this point, I felt that this "question" of yours is not sincere.
Therefore, this time, I infer that it is not necessary to reply to your question earnestly.

I think it completely wrong to interpret the Scriptures "literally."
And for me, it is low-level talk.

Well, I myself am a person who believes in God deeply.
I have not said a word "There is no God."

The difference between you and me is only that I interpret the Scriptures always symbolically and figuratively.

possible
http://bb2.atbb.jp/possible/

sacolton

Possible-San, sincerely, how is Jesus Christ a symbol?

possible-san

sacolton.

Possible-San, sincerely , how is Jesus Christ a symbol?

I think that I have explained although it was simple.

I quoted from the Scriptures.

And I also explained that the address of my website is that meaning.
That is, it is that "God presence within you."

In that meaning, Jesus is "I AM."
And "I AM" means the name of Jehovah as you know.

possible
http://bb2.atbb.jp/possible/

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=w3M6cboaOKk

John Doe

I'll bet it has!

Yeah, I quit working for it, something I needed to do for my major. First two years of undergrad I had a 4.0, last two years I had a 3.2. Cummalative was a 3.6. I don't think my gpa is bad, but it's not something I'm proud of because I could have done a lot better. My junior and senior year, however, I was working 2 part time jobs and studying wasn't high on my priority list.

Leolaia

possible-san....The kind of empirical observation I made, that Paul applies OT scriptures referring to YHWH to Christ Jesus, is hardly "thoroughly refuted" by the biblical distinction of the Father and the Son as "two separate persons". Nor does this have any bearing on the range of trinitarian theologies that similarly acknowledge and give full credit to the same distinction. What it refutes is a kind of modalism, which is certainly not the same thing. Furthermore, I am not arguing in favor of a kind of systematic theology like the "trinity" which was the object of the "refutation" attempted by the Society in that publication. I am not interested in a post-biblical integration and synthesizing of the different christologies of the NT into a single coherent system (although what you say about your own theological understanding is quite interesting). My interest is in the dimensions of the simpler christological views of individual writers and how they fit into the broader conceptual context of first-century Judaism and Hellenistic thought.

The contextual analysis I presented in my last post made the simple observation that Paul applied to Jesus passages from the OT that referred to the Lord God. What you make of this fact will depend on the kind of interpretive analysis you make of the author's theology, but it needs to be given full recognition. The Society avoids it by interpolating the name "Jehovah" into the text of the NT and imposing an interpretation that requires a shift of reference from Jesus to Jehovah in these passages. As I showed in my last post, there is no shift in reference -- the quoted passage from the OT are directly applied to Jesus Christ. There are at least nine passages that mention God as kurios (in the LXX translation that Paul uses, originally YHWH in the Hebrew) which Paul makes Jesus the referrent (or one of the referrents), with varying levels of clarity:

[1] Joel 2:26-32 LXX: "And eating you shall eat and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord your God in regard to the marvelous things he has done with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame. You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel and I am the Lord your God, and there is none other but me. And my people shall never again be put to shame. And it shall be after these things, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy and your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female slaves, in those days I will pour out my spirit. I will give portents in the sky and on earth, blood and fire and the vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord comes. And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved, because in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be one who escapes as the Lord has said, and people who have good news announced to them, whom the Lord has called".
Romans 10:9-13: "That if you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess for salvation. As the Scripture says, 'Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame'. For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile -- he is the same Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him for, 'Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved".
[2] Isaiah 45:18-25 LXX: "Thus says the Lord who made heaven -- this is the God who displayed the earth and made it, he himself marked its limits -- I am, and there is no other. I have not spoken in secret nor in a dark place of the earth... I am, I am the Lord, speaking righteousness and declaring truth... I am God and there is no other besides me; there is no righteous one or Savior expect me. Turn to me and you shall be saved, you who are from the end of the earth. I am God and there is no other. By myself I swear, 'Verily righteousness shall go forth from my mouth, my words shall not be turned back, because to me every knee shall bow and every tongue confess to God saying, "Righteousness and glory shall come to him and all who separate themselves shall be ashamed." ' By the Lord shall they be justified, and all the offspring of the sons of Israel shall be glorified in God".
Romans 14:8-11: "If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living (i.e. to all). You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat. It is written: 'As surely as I live,' says the Lord, 'every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God' ".
Philippians 2:9-11: "Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
[3] Jeremiah 9:23-24 LXX: "This is what the Lord says: Let not the wise boast in his wisdom, and let not the mighty boast in his might, and let not the wealthy boast in his wealth, but let him who boasts boast in this: that he understands and knows that I am the Lord when I do mercy and justice and righteousness in the earth, because in these things is my will, says the Lord".
1 Corinthians 1:28-31: "He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things, and the things that are not, to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before God. It is because of him that you are inChrist Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God, that is, righteousness, holiness and justice. Therefore, as it is written, 'Let him who boasts boast in the Lord' ".
2 Corinthians 10:7-8, 15-18: "If anyone is confident that he belongs to Christ, he should consider again that we belong to Christ just as much as he. For even if I boast somewhat freely about the authority the Lord gave us for building you up rather than pulling you down, I will not be ashamed of it... Our hope is that, as your faith continues to grow, our area of activity among you will greatly expand, so that we can preach the gospel in the regions beyond you. For we do not want to boast about work already done in another man's territory. But, 'Let him who boasts boast in the Lord' ". For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.
Galatians 6:14: "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world".
[4] Isaiah 40:9-14 LXX: "Say to the cities of Judah, 'See, your God!' See, the Lord comes with strength, and his arm with authority; see, his reward is with him, and his work before him.... Who has known the mind of the Lord, and who has been his counselor to instruct him? Or with whom did he consult, and he instructed him? Or who showed him judgment? Or who showed him the way of understanding?"
1 Corinthians 1:24, 2:10-16: "To those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God... We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit.... The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment: 'For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?' But as for us, we do indeed have the mind of Christ."
[5] Malachi 1:6-7, 12, 2:11-12 LXX: "And you said, 'How did we despise your name?' By bringing defiled loaves to my altar. And you said, 'How did we defile them?' When you say, 'The Lord’s table is despised, and the food laid on it is despised'. ... But you profane it when you say that the Lord’s table is defiled, and its food set forth is despised.... Judah profaned the sacred things of the Lord with which he loved and busied himself with foreign gods. The Lord will utterly destroy the person who does this".
1 Corinthians 10:19-22, 11:27-31: "Do I mean then that a sacrifice offered to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord's table and the table of demons. Are we trying to arouse the Lord's jealousy? Are we stronger than he? .... Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have died. But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment. When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world.
[6] Numbers 21:6 LXX: "And the Lord sent among the people deadly snakes, and they would bite the people; many people of the sons of Israel died".
Deuteronomy 6:13-16, 32:21 LXX: "The Lord your God you shall fear, and him you shall serve, and to him you shall cling, and by his name you shall swear. Do not go after other gods from the gods of the nations around you, because the Lord your God, who is present with you, is a jealous god. Lest the Lord your God, being angered with wrath against you, destroy you utterly from the face of the earth. Do not put the Lord your God to the test, ...And the Lord saw it and was jealous, and he was provoked on account of the wrath of his sons and daughters. And he said: I will turn away my face from them, and I will show what will happen to them at the end, for it is a perverse generation, sons who have no faithfulness in them. They made me jealous with what is no god, provoked me with their idols".
1 Corinthians 10:9, 19-22, 11:27-31: "We should not test the Lord, as some of them did -- and were killed by snakes. And do not grumble, as some of them did -- and were killed by the destroying angel.... Do I mean then that a sacrifice offered to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord's table and the table of demons. Are we trying to provoke the Lord's jealousy? Are we stronger than he? ... Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have died. But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment. When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world.
[7]Psalm 24:1 LXX: "The Lord’s is the earth and its fullness, the world and all those who live in it; it is he that founded it on the seas and prepared it on the rivers".
1 Corinthians 10:21-26: "You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord's table and the table of demons. Are we trying to arouse the Lord's jealousy? Are we stronger than he? 'Everything is permissible' -- but not everything is beneficial. 'Everything is permissible' -- but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others. Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for, "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it' ".
[8] Exodus 34:33-35 LXX: "And when he stopped speaking to them, he placed a veil over his face. But whenever Moses would enter in before the Lord to speak with him, he would remove the veil until coming out. And when he came out, he would tell all the sons of Israel what the Lord commanded him. And the sons of Israel saw the face of Moses that it was charged with glory, and Moses put a veil over his face until he went in to converse with him".
2 Corinthians 3:7-8, 13-18, 4:4-6: "Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, fading though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? ... We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away. But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflectthe Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit...The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord".
[9] Zechariah 14:5 LXX: "And the valley of my mountains shall be blocked up, and the valley of the mountains shall be joined up to Azel, and it shall be blocked up as it was blocked in the days of the earthquake in the days of King Uzziah of Judah. And the Lord my God will come will all his holy ones".
1 Thessalonians 3:12-13: "May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones".

Many more examples of this can be multiplied from elsewhere in the NT (especially in Revelation) as well as the writings of the early fathers. For one early discussion of how Jesus is the "Lord God" of the OT (that is, the one who reveals God to mankind), see the following statement by Justin Martyr:

"For at this time, when Moses was ordered to go down to Egypt and bring out the Israelites who were there, and while he was tending the sheep of his mother's brother in the land of Arabia, our Christ talked with him in the shape of fire from a bush. Indeed, He said: 'Put off your shoes, draw near and hear.' When he had taken off his shoes, he approached the burning bush and heard that he was to go down into Egypt and bring out the people of Israel who were in that land; and he received great power from Christ who spoke to him under the form of fire. . . .Even now, all Jews teach that the ineffable God [the Father] spoke to Moses. . . .Because the Jews did not know the nature of the Father and the Son, Jesus Christ likewise upbraided them, saying: 'No one knows the Father except the Son; nor does anyone know the Son except the Father, and those to whom the Son will reveal Him.' Now, the Word of God is His Son, as we have already stated, and He is called Angel and Apostle; for, as Angel He announces all that we must know, and [as Apostle] He is sent forth to inform us of what has been revealed, as our Lord Himself says: 'He that hears me, hears Him that sent me.' This will be further clarified from the following words of Moses: 'And the Angel of God spoke to Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush and said,"I AM WHO AM, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of your fathers; go down into Egypt, and bring forth my people." ' If you are curious to know what happened after this, you can find out by consulting these same Mosaic writings, for it is impossible to recount everything in this work. What has been written has been set down to prove that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and His Apostle, being of old the Word, appearing at one time in the form of fire, at another under the guise of incorporeal beings, but now, at the will of God, after becoming man for mankind, He bore all the torments which the demons prompted the rabid Jews to wreak upon Him. . . . The Jews assert that it was the Father and Maker of all things who spoke thus. Hence, the Prophetic Spirit reproaches them, saying: 'Israel has not known me, and my people have not understood me.' And again, as we have already shown, Jesus, while in their midst, said: 'No one knows the Father except the Son, nor does anyone know the Son except the Father, and those to whom the Son will reveal Him.' The Jews, therefore, always of the opinion that the Universal Father spoke to Moses, while in fact it was the very Son of God, who is styled both Angel and Apostle, were justly reproached by both the Prophetic Spirit and by Christ Himself, since they know neither the Father nor the Son. For, they who claim that the Son is the Father are reproached for knowing neither the Father nor that the Father of all has a Son, who, as the First-born Word of God, is also God." (1 Apology 62-63).

cabasilas

Great post, Leolaia!

Even the Watchtower Society has admitted that Joel 2:32 and Romans 10:13 are actually speaking of Christ. See the May 1, 1978 Watchtower, p. 12:

There are verses in the Hebrew Scriptures about Jehovah that are quoted in the "New Testament" in a context speaking about the Son. (Isa. 40:3—Matt. 3:3—John 1:23; Joel 2:32—Rom. 10:13; Ps. 45:6, 7—Heb. 1:8, 9) This is understandable, for Jesus was the Father’s foremost representative. In fact, in a similar way even an angel was spoken of as if he were Jehovah, because he was serving for Jehovah in a representative capacity. (Gen. 18:1-33)

I think this is a one time admission, however. I believe that whenever these verses are discussed elsewhere they no where else apply it to Christ. The reason for that, I believe, is obvious. This is one of their key verses to "prove" that Christians must use the name Jehovah to be saved. If it can be admitted that this verse, in fact, speaks about calling upon the name of Jesus that would destroy one of their key doctrines.

willyloman

Well, Leo's pretty convincing. And I no longer believe that anything the dubs taught me is automatically true.

I fail to see how any of this matters, though. What what possible difference does it make whether Jesus is Jehovah or not? Isn't it just an intellectual argument? As far as I can tell, it has nothing to do with real life.

Leolaia

cabasilas....Thanks, I didn't know they printed that. Their point about Jesus speaking as YHWH's representative is partly valid because much of the early christology about Jesus' role was centered on him as an agent of God and intermediary. But what they omit is that Jesus was commonly believed as having in some sense the being of God while at the same time distinguished from the Father and subordinate to him. The simple undeveloped Pauline view is that in the resurrection God exalted Christ by filling him with his own spirit and glory (such that the "Spirit of God" and the "Spirit of Christ" are the same, cf. Romans 8:9-11, 2 Corinthians 3:17-18, Galatians 4:6, etc.) and by investing in him his name such that he may receive the same worship and praise and prayer that he himself receives, reversing the "emptying" of glory that Christ experienced in the incarnation.

This is a form of binitarianism that gives the Son an exaltedness that in Jewish monotheism would be reserved for God alone while still affirming the tenant that God is one and alone should be worshipped. This has roots in Jewish theological speculation that treated an attribute of God like his presence or name or power or glory as a distinct hypostasis of God that made the invisible God visible and present among men. There were a wide range of expressions of binitarian christology (e.g. the Son as an emanation of the Father, or as begotten of the Father, or as manifesting the Father in himself, or as containing God within himself, or as having the identical nature of God) but all went beyond a mere concept of Jesus as a representative of God: "He was in God's form" (Philippians 2:6), "God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him [the Son] ... for in Christ all the fullness of Deity lives in bodily form" (Colossians 1:19, 2:9), "The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being" (Hebrews 1:3), "The Word was with God and theos is what the Word was", i.e. the Word had the exact same theos nature as God (John 1:1), "the Father is in me and I in the Father" (John 10:38), "our God Jesus Christ was conceived by Mary by the dispensation of God ... who is theos in man, both of Mary and of God" (Ignatius, Ephesians 7:2, 18:2), "there is one God who manifested himself through Jesus Christ his Son who is his Word proceeding from silence" (Ignatius, Magnesians 8:2), "as in nature when a fire kindles another without losing anything and remaining the same, so the Word of wisdom who is this God begotten from the universal Father is the Word and wisdom and power and glory of him who begot him" (Justin Martyr, Dialogue 61), "this power was generated from the Father by his power and will but not by abcission, as if the being of the Father were divided ... enkindled fires are indeed distinct from the original fire which, though it ignites many other fires, still remains the same undiminished fire" (Justin Martyr, Dialogue 128), "the Logos is the result of a distribution of the Father but not a separation" (Tatian, Oratio 5), "he rose from the dead as theos, being by nature both theos and man ... his Deity was hidden in his flesh for the same one was simultaneously theos and perfect man" (Melito of Sardis, Peri Pascha 8, fragment 6.21-30), "God had his own Word internal within his bowels and begot him, emitting him along with wisdom before all things" (Theophilus of Antioch, Ad Autolycum 2.10), "the Son is the measure of the Father since he contains the Father ... through this same Word the Father was displayed, all saw the Father in the Son for the Father is the invisible of the Son and the Son is the visible of the Father" (Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 4.4.2, 4.6.5), "the Father is Lord and the Son is Lord and the Father is God and the Son is God for he who is born from God is God, and thus God is shown to be one according to the essence of his being and power" (Irenaeus, Demonstratio, 47), "when a ray is projected from the sun, it is a portion of the whole but the sun will be in the ray because it is the sun's ray, nor is it a division of nature but an extension ... thus what has proceeded from God is God and God's Son" (Tertullian, Apologeticus 21.10-14), etc.

Jesus Is Jehovah/Jehovah Is Jesus

Share this