@Blotty
John 4:24 neither excludes Christ from worship nor establishes a “zero-sum” economy of devotion. Jesus is answering a Samaritan dispute about sacred geography; the point is that henceforth true worship is “in Spirit and in truth.” In Johannine idiom ἀλήθεια is not an abstraction but a person: “I am … the truth” (14:6). Worship “in truth” is therefore worship mediated by, and ordered around, the incarnate Logos. The Fourth Gospel immediately illustrates the point: the man born blind confesses “Lord, I believe,” and ἐπροσκύνησεν αὐτῷ—he worshipped Jesus, an action the evangelist records without censure (9:38). The narrative culminates when Thomas addresses the risen Christ “My Lord and my God!” (20:28). John 5:23 then supplies the theological key: the Father wills “that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father; whoever refuses such honor to the Son refuses it to the Father.” Far from delimiting Christ’s cultic status, John 4 prepares for it.
The Arian reading assumes John 4:24 establishes an exclusive worship of the Father, yet this overlooks the narrative arc of John’s Gospel, where Jesus positions himself as the focal point of true worship. The Samaritan woman’s question about the proper location of worship (Mount Gerizim or Jerusalem) is transcended by Jesus’ declaration that worship will now occur “in spirit and truth,” a shift not merely about interiority but tied explicitly to his own person. As Lozano notes in his analysis of John 9:38 (pp. 148–154), the healed man’s act of proskuneō toward Jesus is a climactic confession of faith, accepted without rebuke, aligning with Jesus’ self-identification as “the truth” (John 14:6). Far from excluding the Son, John 4:24 presupposes his mediatorial role: worship “in truth” is worship through Christ, who embodies the divine presence (cf. John 2:19–21, where Jesus is the new temple). The Arian isolation of this verse from its Christological framework distorts its meaning, ignoring how John consistently depicts Jesus as the recipient of worship (e.g., John 20:28, “My Lord and my God!”) within a monotheistic paradigm.
Psalm 45:7(6 MT) does not license addressing any Davidide as “God” in a polytheistic/henotheistic sense. The decisive witness is Hebrews 1:8, which cites the verse in the LXX form, “Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever,” and applies it to the Son. Modern translations that cumbersome the syntax into “God is your throne” are primarily driven by dogmatic discomfort, not by Hebrew grammar—the construct reading required is “extremely unusual” where a pronominal suffix is present, as specialists have long noted. Lozano’s monograph sums up the scholarly consensus: the author of Hebrews deploys the catena precisely to show that the Son is addressed with titles, functions and honors proper to YHWH, and that the angelic προσκύνησις of Hebrews 1:6 “most closely approximates the ideal celestial worship of God enthroned in heaven”.
he Hebrew text’s ambiguity (“Your throne, O God” versus “Your throne is God”) is resolved in Hebrews 1:8–9, where the NT explicitly applies this verse to the Son, identifying him as “God” (theos) in a fully divine sense, not a human king granted honorific divinity. Lozano’s discussion of Hebrews (pp. 164–185) highlights how the author contrasts the Son’s eternal throne with the angels’ subservience, commanding all angels to proskuneō him (Heb 1:6). This is not henotheism but a radical inclusion of Christ within God’s identity, fulfilling the psalm’s ultimate intent. The Arian suggestion that biblical writers were henotheists lacks evidence; Second-Temple Judaism fiercely guarded monotheism, and the NT’s application of divine titles to Jesus (e.g., YHWH texts like Joel 2:32 in Rom 10:13) reflects this continuity, not a departure into polytheism.
The vocative reading of Hebrews 1:8 has historically dominated not because of arbitrary theological preference but because it best fits the syntax and rhetorical parallelism with the surrounding verses, both in Hebrews and in the Septuagint version of Psalm 45:6 (44:7 LXX). The claim that the verb “is” is not present and can be supplied in various places in the clause is correct, but this is a common feature of classical and Koine Greek, which frequently omits the copula when the sense is clear. Context and expected usage—especially in royal or liturgical addresses—support the vocative reading. The construction “ὁ θρόνος σου, ὁ Θεός” finds its closest parallels in vocative utterances elsewhere in Greek literature, and to interpret ὁ Θεός here as nominative requires a forced, awkward syntax that is not natural for the context of direct address, especially in a passage framed by addresses to persons.
The attempt to make the definite article before Θεός determinative for the nominative reading is unconvincing. The presence or absence of the article with theos in the NT does not rigidly determine whether it is definite, qualitative, or vocative. Indeed, in the Septuagint and in the NT alike, the article can and does appear with vocatives, especially in poetic and elevated contexts. To assert otherwise is to ignore the flexibility and complexity of Koine usage, as has been thoroughly demonstrated in modern studies of Greek grammar.
Psalm 45 is undoubtedly a royal wedding psalm addressed, in its immediate context, to the Davidic king. However, this does not mean the psalm’s Christological application is illegitimate, nor does it preclude a higher, theological sense in which the king is addressed as God. The ancient Near Eastern context reveals that the Davidic king, as God’s anointed, stood in a unique covenantal relationship with YHWH, even being called God’s “son” (cf. Psalm 2:7). But nowhere is a merely human king called “God” in such an absolute and unqualified manner as occurs in Psalm 45:6. The explanations offered in various study Bibles and by certain commentators—that the king is called “god” only in a representative sense or as a courtly hyperbole—fail to do justice to the unique language of the psalm. When the NT author, under inspiration, selects this passage to describe Christ, he is not simply reproducing an honorific for an ancient king, but is presenting Christ as the eschatological fulfillment and the ultimate referent of the Davidic covenant.
The consistent testimony of the NT is that the OT passages about the Davidic king reach their fullness and proper meaning only in Christ (cf. Acts 2:29-36; Luke 1:32-33). The early Church, steeped in the Septuagint, recognized in such passages a typology that pointed forward to the Messiah’s divine status. The argument that calling Jesus “God” in this context is no more significant than calling an ancient Israelite king “god” is anachronistic and fails to appreciate both the Christological hermeneutics of the NT and the qualitative difference introduced by the resurrection and exaltation of Christ as “heir of all things” (Heb. 1:2).
The context of Hebrews 1 further militates against the anti-Trinitarian reading. The entire chapter is a sustained argument for the Son’s superiority over angels, employing a catena of OT quotations that ascribe to the Son prerogatives and honors reserved for God alone: the Son is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (v. 3); he is the Creator and Sustainer of all things (vv. 2-3, 10-12); he sits at God’s right hand (v. 3, 13); and he is worshiped by all angels (v. 6). In this context, the direct address of the Son as “God” (ho theos) is not an anomaly but the culmination of the author’s argument.
Appeals to “representative” language—wherein the king or Jesus is called “God” only as a regent or agent—fail to account for the unique absolute language and the immediate context of Hebrews 1:8-9. The passage does not merely attribute a functional role to the Son but ascribes to him the eternal throne and scepter of divine righteousness. The subsequent citation in Hebrews 1:10-12, which explicitly applies to the Son a passage about YHWH as Creator (Psalm 102:25-27), leaves no doubt that the author intends his audience to understand the Son as sharing fully in the identity and prerogatives of the one true God.
The frequent attempt to dilute the force of Hebrews 1:8 by reference to Jesus being “anointed” by God (v. 9) is equally misplaced. The anointing of the Messiah in Psalm 45 and its fulfillment in Christ does not entail ontological inferiority but points to the messianic office, a theme common to NT Christology. The anointed King of Psalm 2 is declared to be “begotten” of God (a title which, in the NT, is taken up in the highest sense in reference to the preexistent Son), yet he is the object of the nations’ worship and the possessor of universal dominion. To say that Jesus’ anointing by God negates his deity is a category error, conflating the incarnational economy with the Son’s eternal divine status.
The oft-invoked analogue of 1 Chronicles 29:20 proves nothing. As Lozano observes, classical Greek freely uses a single finite verb with two objects of unequal status—divine and human—without implying identical reverence; the Chronicler’s audience knows that David is mortal whereas YHWH alone is the object of cult. The NT itself exploits that polyvalence: Peter rejects Cornelius’ prostration (Acts 10:25-26) and the angel forbids John’s (Rev 19:10; 22:8-9), establishing a literary contrast by which Jesus’ ready acceptance of προσκύνησις marks him out as sharing the divine identity. The Chronicler distinguishes between divine worship (proskuneō to YHWH) and royal homage (proskuneō to David), with the king’s authority clearly derivative. Lozano notes (pp. 38–41) that such acts of reverence to humans in the OT never blur the Creator-creature divide, unlike the NT’s portrayal of Jesus. In Revelation 5:13–14, by contrast, the Lamb shares the divine throne and receives identical proskuneō and doxology with the Father, a unified worship that transcends mere homage. The Arian claim that this grouping under one verb implies a lesser worship for Jesus ignores the qualitative leap in the NT, where Christ’s proskuneō is cultic, not civil, as evidenced by its rejection when offered to Peter (Acts 10:25–26) or angels (Rev 19:10).
The argument that Mosaic Law’s elasticity allows worship of a human figure without idolatry if God commands it is irrelevant to the NT’s context. Under the old covenant, no human—king or otherwise—receives cultic worship; the Law (e.g., Deut 6:13) reserves this for YHWH alone. The NT, operating under the new covenant, presents Jesus not as a human intermediary but as the divine Son incarnate, worthy of proskuneō in a way that fulfills, not violates, monotheism. Lozano’s analysis across the Gospels demonstrates that Jesus’ acceptance of proskuneō (e.g., Matt 14:33; Luke 24:52; John 9:38) consistently signals his divine status, not a sanctioned human honor. The Arian appeal to pre-Christian flexibility thus fails to account for the Christological redefinition of worship in the new covenant.
The patristic citations appealed to as proto-Arian are no help to an Arian thesis. Justin Martyr explains to his pagan audience that Christians “worship [σεβόμεθα] the Fashioner of the universe” and that they do so through “the Son who came from Him and taught us these things” (1 Apology 13). Justin’s own liturgical description is explicit: in the Eucharist the community “chants hymns and prayers to the Father through the name of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (1 Apology 65–67), thereby coordinating the Three within a single act of worship. Origen is still clearer: Christians render “entire and undivided worship [σέβας ἀδιαίρετον] to the supreme God through His Son, the Logos” (Contra Celsum 8.12). “Through” (δι’) is no demotion; it is the same preposition Paul uses for creation itself (1 Cor 8:6). Patristic theosis texts do not flatten the Creator–creature distinction. When Clement says that “the Word of God became man in order that you might learn from Man how man might become god” (Prot. protr. 1.8), he is describing participatory transformation by grace, not an ontological elevation to unbegotten Deity; Clement expressly restricts latreía to the one uncreated God.
Origen’s theology, while complex and occasionally subordinationist in tone, does not deny the Son’s deity. In Contra Celsum 8.12, he asserts the Son is not a different God, but the same God as the Father, affirming a shared divine essence despite hierarchical language. Justin Martyr, in Dialogue with Trypho 56, calls the Son “another God” in a functional sense, yet in First Apology 13, he unequivocally includes the Son as worthy of worship alongside the Father, consistent with early Christian practice. The Arian claim of henotheism—worshipping multiple gods with one supreme—mischaracterizes these writers, who operated within a monotheistic framework that included the Son within the divine identity, not as a separate deity. Clement’s reference to “men becoming God” (Stromata 7.10) and Athanasius’ echo of this in On the Incarnation 54 (“He became man so that we might become God”) are soteriological, not ontological, statements about deification through participation in Christ, not an endorsement of Arian creaturely status. Lozano’s work (pp. 10–16) underscores this by tracing how proskuneō in the NT elevates Jesus beyond mere homage, aligning with patristic affirmations of his deity rather than a henotheistic dilution.
Appeal to Augustine’s latreía/proskýnēsis distinction is likewise misplaced. Augustine does reserve latreía for the sacrifice owed to God alone (City of God 10), yet Revelation applies that verb to the unified “throne of God and of the Lamb”: “His servants shall λατρεύσουσιν αὐτῷ” (22:3). Lozano rightly notes that the singular pronoun embraces both Father and Son within a single sovereignty and a single cultic service, contradicting attempts to confine latreía to the Father alone. Conversely, proskynēsis can indeed be illegitimately offered to idols or men (Dan 3; Matt 4:9-10); its very prohibition shows that in certain contexts it denotes the kind of honor that competes with God. The NT writers harness that semantic range to theological ends: every creature that mistakenly receives it rebukes the gesture, whereas Jesus consistently approves it. Greeven’s verdict still stands: “When the NT uses προσκυνεῖν, the object is always something—truly or supposedly—divine”.
The suggestion that biblical and patristic authors were “henotheists” misconstrues Second-Temple and early-Christian monotheism. Jewish monotheism distinguishes God from every created power by two exclusive prerogatives: sole sovereignty over all things and sole worthiness to receive cultic worship. The NT repeatedly extends both prerogatives to Christ (e.g., Col 1:15-20; Rev 5:13-14; Heb 1:2-3, 8-12). Precisely because the writers are committed monotheists, they must explain rather than negate their own devotional practice; their explanation is Christ’s inclusion within the unique divine identity. The Fathers follow suit: Justin, Origen, and even the highly philosophical Clement never speak of independent deities but of one God who is Father, Son and Spirit.
Ray Lozano’s exhaustive study closes by noting that every canonical author who depicts Jesus as the recipient of προσκυνέω does so in a way that uniquely associates him with the God of Israel and “presents him as a divine figure included with God as a legitimate recipient of the kind of worship … reserved for God alone”. The patristic writers simply continued that reading of Scripture. The Arian alternative can be maintained only by excising texts, redefining lexica in a circular fashion, and overlooking the unbroken liturgical witness of the church catholic. It therefore fails the tests of linguistic, literary and historical coherence, leaving the Nicene confession intact: to worship the Son is to worship the Father in the unity of the Spirit, for the one throne of God is shared by the Lamb.
Finally, the semantic distinction between proskuneō (general reverence) and latreuō (divine worship) as a bulwark against Christ’s worship is untenable. While latreuō is tied to temple service and never directly applied to Jesus in the Gospels, Revelation 22:3—“His servants will latreuō Him”—uses a singular pronoun for both God and the Lamb, indicating shared divine worship in the eschatological temple. Lozano (pp. 196–232) emphasizes that Revelation’s throne-room scenes equate proskuneō to Jesus with cultic worship, not mere obeisance, as seen in its rejection by angels and its universal scope (Rev 5:14). The Watch Tower’s rendering of proskuneō as “obeisance” for Christ but “worship” elsewhere lacks lexical support; standard lexica (BDAG, LSJ) and NT usage (e.g., Matt 28:17; Heb 1:6) confirm its cultic force when context demands, as it does with Jesus.
In conclusion, the Arian position misreads John 4:24 by isolating it from its Christocentric context, misrepresents early Christian writers as henotheists despite their monotheistic commitments, and misapplies Psalm 45:6 and 1 Chronicles 29:20 by ignoring their NT reinterpretation and narrative distinctions. The elasticity of worship under the Mosaic Law is irrelevant to the new covenant’s revelation of Christ as divine. The NT, as Lozano’s study affirms, presents Jesus as the proper object of proskuneō and, implicitly, latreuō, not as a secondary figure but as co-equal with the Father in the divine identity. Trinitarian theology does not fracture monotheism but fulfills it, recognizing that to worship the Son is to worship the one God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—in the fullness of his self-revelation. The Arian critique, rooted in selective exegesis and historical revisionism, cannot displace this canonical and theological coherence.