Is Jesus God?

Posted on November 6, 2011 by Ryan Gustason

Well the simple answer is yes. The fullness of the godhead dwells in Jesus according to Col 2:9. But what does this verse actually mean? I will be teaching on the oneness of God at Heritage UPC in Bristol Connecticut this coming Wednesday. As a part of the class I use this verse to support the oneness theological position so I figured I’d take a deeper look into what this verse means. The pericope of scripture this verse is taken from teaches against thinking of Christ as yet another man made philosophy. The nature of God is not merely a philosophical point to debate but necessary to live an abundant life in God.

For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; Col 2:9 NKJV

οτι εν αυτω κατοικει παν το πληρωμα της θεοτητος σωματικως; Col 2:9 SNT

So we have the Greek of the 1550 Stephanus New Testament and the New King James Version above for comparison. Let’s take a look at each of the key words in this verse.

Dwells: According to Thayer’s definition there are two definitions of κατοικει.

to dwell, settle; metaphorically divine powers, influences, etc., are said to dwell in his soul, to pervade, prompt, govern it.
to dwell in, inhabit; God is said to dwell in the temple, i.e. to be always present for worshippers.

Fullness: Thayer’s definitions for πληρωμα are now listed.

that which is (has been) filled; a ship inasmuch as it is filled (i.e. manned) with sailors, rowers, and soldiers also in the NT, the body of believers, as that which is filled with the presence, power, agency, riches of God and of Christ.
that which fills or with which a thing is filled; of those things which a ship is filled, freight and merchandise, sailors, oarsmen, soldiers also completeness or fulness of time.
fulness, abundance.
a fulfilling, keeping.

Godhead: Next we’ll define θεοτητος.

deity; the state of being God, Godhead.

Bodily: Finally, the last word to flesh out is σωματικως.

bodily, corporeally; of the exalted spiritual body, visible only to the inhabitants of heaven.

The state of being God completely filled the corporeal body of the man Jesus Christ of Nazareth. God tabernacled or dwells in the body of Jesus Christ so completely as to fill every cell and every fiber of the body of Christ. This is explained further in the gospel of John.

¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. ⁴ In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. ⁵ And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. ¹⁴ And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

In this pericope of scripture we have John describing the godhead (state of being God) as the mind (thought, idea, expression both verbal and non-verbal) of God in which He created the universe and everything we humans can see and that logos became flesh and tabernacled (dwelt, inhabited) in the corporeal body of Christ.

So we see that Jesus refers to simultaneously the body of Christ (including flesh, soul and spirit) as well as the Spirit of God (whom Moses, Abraham, and Adam communed with also known as the Father and whom we modern Apostolics commune with known as the Holy Ghost).

Jesus Christ is both completely man and completely deity.

Tertullian: A sketch

Posted on September 10, 2011 by Ryan Gustason

For today’s post, I’d like to highlight some things about the man who is known as one of the founding fathers of western Christianity, and many say one of the fathers of the doctrine of the trinity.

Tertullian:

Born around 160AD and died around 220AD although these dates are not firm.
Full name was Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus.
He was born in Carthage, a city in North Africa.
He was the son of a Roman Centurian and later converted to Christianity.
He was a Montanist.

Here is a small excerpt about what Montanists believed:

Believed is seeking out persecution as well as corporal punishment.
One who has fallen from grace could not be redeemed.
In 177AD the movement was banned as heretical.
The movement almost completely vanished by the sixth century.

One of Tertullian’s most famous works discussing the trinity is found in ‘Against Praxeas’. In chapter three he states some enlightening things on his views of Christendom at his time. According to Tertullian the majority of believers in Christ are ‘simple minded’. He stated the majority of believers were startled at the doctrine of three-in-one. Why were they startled? Because most Christians at this time were under the belief (rightly so) that Jesus was God manifest in the flesh, and not a personhood of one god with three persons. This went against the Judaic beliefs that the Apostles taught as well as the teachings of Jesus Christ Himself!

He stated ‘The very rule of faith withdraws them from polytheism . . .’ which is true based on the teachings of only one God as found in the Sh’ema as well as the teachings of Christ. Those Gentiles who had just been drawn out of worshipping a pantheon of gods were now rightfully confused. Is God really three-in-one? What’s the difference then between the Christian God and the Egyptian god Ra who was also described as three-in-one, or the Hindu god Vishnu who was three-in-one?

Tertullian believed in his own oikonomia, or how he interprets and practices the canon. This is in line with his strict and rigid code that he practiced as a member of the heretical Montanist movement.

Tertullian writes ‘the numerical order and distribution of the trinity they assume to be a division of the unity . . .’ in chapter three. Tertullian’s theology implies an order or ranking of the persons of the trinity. Again he writes ‘in the Son and in the Holy Ghost, who have the second and the third places assigned to them,’. As you can see, Tertullian without a doubt believes that there is a pecking order in the trinity with God the Father assuming the highest role. Obviously, the other two hold to a lower position and stature. If you ask most trinity professing Christians today, they will say almost the same thing Tertullian proposes in his writings. His teachings have pervaded throughout Christendom to become the de facto standard in the way most Christians believe and perceive of God.

Lastly, in this post I’d like to leave you with Tertullian’s defense against modalists (which he admits is the majority of ‘simple minded’ believers) during his day. He said because modalists believe in angels who are with God and help perform heavenly tasks and are themselves spirit beings from God why should they be offended and reject a plurality of persons in the Godhead? So, basically, Tertullian would have them believe in the trinity because there are a multitude of angels so why not a multitude of persons in God.

Well, I believe I’ll stand upon what scripture tells me of the ontological and metaphysical nature of Christ. Christ was both fully man and fully God. In fact, I’ll even affirm the highlights from the council of Chalcedon in 451AD which were the following:

Christ is truly God
Christ is truly man
Christ has two natures
Christ is one person

Oneness in Isaiah

Posted on June 23, 2011 by Ryan Gustason

Isaiah is a wealth of prophetic prose describing the coming Messiah who is the God of the Old Testament, YHWH. Isaiah 9:6 is the classic example of this. “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the goverment shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. It is clear that Jesus Christ fulfilled all of these roles and is the mighty God spoken of by Isaiah.

Wonderful, A miraculous thing. Surely the world has not seen anything as miraculous as God the Father being born of a virgin as a tiny babe who would be the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

goverment upon his shoulder, shkem is translated into the English as “a place of burdens”. Goverment can also mean Empire in the Hebrew, or in other words the kingdom would be His burden. Jesus came to save the Jew first, and then the Gentile also. Jesus was always about His Father’s business. For Jesus is God manifest or made visible in the flesh, blood, and bone.

Our counselor comes from the Hebrew word ya’ats. It meand guide, to advise, to deliberate, etc . . . Jesus is the exsemplary example of what we are to be as Christians. To other role model is needed. He is our all and all.

Jesus is the subject of Isaiah 9:6 with no doubts for none other in history has fulfilled all these roles and made himself the ultimate sacrifice for mankind’s sin. That sin which continues to be inherited year after year from our father, Adam. Isaiah makes a plethora of allusions to the monotheism held dear by all blieving Jews of his day.

I will be continuing to explore the book of Isaiah over this weekend and demonstrate the oneness message it cries to all believers.

Oneness in Exodus

Posted on May 29, 2011 by Ryan Gustason

Exod 20.1 And God spake all these words, saying, 2 I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me. The first and foremost of God’s commandments is stated here in Exodus verse 20:1-2. God is a jealous God and will not share His glory with another. There can be no doubt that a monotheistic teaching was infused into the thinking of Moses. From the time of his forefathers, Moses was taught that there is only one God, the God revealed as the I AM in Moses’ encounter with God in the burning bush.

Korban Pesach
The korban pesach or קרבן פסח “sacrifice of Passover” also known as the “Paschal Lamb” is the sacrifice that the Torah mandates to be brought on the eve of Passover, and eaten on the first night of the holiday with bitter herbs and matzo.¹ This feast and holiday is described in Exodus chapter 12.

God restructured the Jewish calendar after this holiday. God made this the first month. An unblemished lamb of one year old was to be sacrificed for a single household. The Jewish household was considered a single entity lead by the patriarch or oldest male of the house. This was done in the home privately. The sacrifice was to be consumed in a single day, and the whole entity eaten. It was not to be soaked in water where it would disolve, but rather eaten whole as a single piece.

Consider some of its laws: a one-year old animal eaten in one group within one house; consumed as a whole entity without breaking any bone, and roasted that kept the meat as one entity rather than cooked where the meat disintegrates. Performed by Israel just prior to the Exodus, the unity within korban pesach unequivocally attests to G-d’s Oneness (Maharal, Gevuos Hashem Ch.36 & Ch.60).²

As can be seen, the ancient Israelites believed in their one true God. They believed so much in their monotheistic faith that they were willing to venture out into the unknown, face certain death, in order to place complete trust in the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob despite being surrounded by the polytheistic spread of Gods from Egypt. They knew the power of God and united behind Moses and stated “ALL THAT THE LORD hath spoken we will do.” This monotheistic nature of God continues to be one of the greatest attributes we know and understand about God. The incarnation of God made manifest in Jesus Christ does nothing to change the fact that there is only One God in heaven^{Due 6:4}, and only One God who is saviour of all peoples^{Isa 43:11}.

Footnotes
1. Taken from Wikipedia article on Korban Pesach accessed on 29 May 2011.
2. Taken from The Living Law- Parshas Vayikra, a blog provided by Torah.org and accessed on 29 May 2011.

The Doxa of God

Posted on December 17, 2009 by Ryan Gustason

What is happening in John 17? Here is a classic pericope of mis-interpretation. We have Jesus praying to the Father, and with an improper understanding of the Word, all too often people jump to conclusions assuming this is proof or evidence of the Trinity. Let me attempt to best explain this prayer.

The word glory is doxa, which means magnificence, excellence, preeminence, dignity and grace. The man Christ was asking God the Father to glorify [doxazo= to honor, do honor to, hold in honor] him with the same magnificence dignity and grace that God held as an attribute or characteristic of His godliness before the creation of the cosmos.

God’s Word [Logos=thought, idea or expression of thought] that was a part of Him in the beginning was exalted by His name. That name is YHWH which in turn is transliterated as Jehovah … Jesus means Jehovah-Savior coming from Yah (Je) which is a shortened form of YHWH and yâsha‛ (sus) which is Hebrew for saviour.

All in all, this passage is dealing with the man Christ Jesus talking to the deity of God. In verse 12 we see Jesus saying that He kept them in God’s name. This was symbolic of keeping them in the truths of the attributes of God. One of these attributes was the oneness of God. Jesus goes on to say ’sanctify them in truth. Thy word is truth.’ What we see is a prayer of the man Christ Jesus asking for God to protect those whom He must leave behind soon, until the comforter comes to lead them and guide them into that truth. The word is truth. The logos is truth… the logos was a characteristic or attribute that made God who He is. This was inseparable from God for it is a part of His identity. It was interwoven along with many other attributes of God forming who God is. Several other examples of His attributes include His omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience.

Did Jesus Create The World?

Posted on March 28, 2009 by Ryan Gustason

A question was brought up recently on a forum I frequent. The question posed is: “Did ‘Jesus’ create the world”? This is an extremely interesting, yet vague question. How would you answer this? My answer, in brief, follows.

I believe in the oneness of God, however the name Jesus can refer to either Jesus’ deity or His humanity. His humanity did not create the world. It was created by the one God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This one God chose to become our kinsman redeemer by shedding His blood and stepping in to take our burden of sin upon Himself. He did this by becoming flesh. This was the only way it could have been accomplished, and God knew this in the beginning. Because His plan was put into action from the beginning, the thought, idea, or expression (logos) of God was in the beginning with Him.

I don’t necessarily agree or disagree with the thought process that states Jesus is the name of the God of Abraham. Jesus, as noted previously, is the English rendering of Jehovah has become our salvation. This was not fully accomplished until His manifestation in the flesh of the Messiah, or the man Christ Jesus.

Oneness in Genesis

Posted on May 18, 2008 by Ryan Gustason

The oneness of God is written throughout the Bible. Starting in the book of Genesis, we see that the God of Genesis was quite different than the deities of the day that surrounded Abram. Abram grew up in a polytheistic culture. The predominate gods of the day was Ashur, Tiamot, Marduk, et.al.
According to Scripture, Abram traveled out of Ur of Chaldees and settled with his father in Haran. There Terah died. Abram was called out of his familiar surroundings and sent to follow his God to a land God had prepared for him. It was because of the faithfulness of Abram that he obeyed the Word of the Lord and followed the one and only true God. Out of the chaotic mess created by the philosophy of man, a single man hears the voice of God and we usher in an era of monotheism that takes us back to the monotheistic beliefs of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
Let us look into the text of Genesis and examine the Scriptures for the monotheism known by Abram and by extension all of Israel. In Genesis 1:1 we read of God being there in the beginning. God existed before the earth and the stars. In verse three God said let there be light. In order to have created light, light must have not existed. For light to not have existed, there must have been no energy, for light is but a visual form of energy in a wave length visible to our eyes. But that is straying a little from the purpose of this post.
The word God in both of the Scriptures referenced above is the Hebrew word Elohim. This is the plural form of the root word, Eloah which is defined as God. Ah, I see, because it is in the plural it must mean that God is a plurality of persons or beings right?
Not so fast. Elohim has plural morphological form in Hebrew, but it is used with singular verbs and adjectives in the Hebrew text when the particular meaning of the God of Israel (a singular deity) is traditionally understood. Thus the very first words of the Bible are breshit bara elohim, where bara is a verb inflected as third person singular masculine perfect. If Elohim were an ordinary plural word, then the plural verb form bar’u would have been used in this sentence instead. Such plural grammatical forms are in fact found in cases where Elohim has semantically plural reference (not referring to the God of Israel). There are a few other words in Hebrew that have a plural ending, but refer to a single entity and take singular verbs and adjectives, for example (be’alim, owner) in Exodus 21:29 and elsewhere.
Let us consider for a moment Genesis 1:26-27.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Again, Elohim is used with the word asah, which is ‘to do’ or ‘to make’. Tselem is also used, a plural masculine noun. Could this be considered evidence of a pre-incarnation trinity? No. The evidence is in the context of the next verse. The plural Elohim is again connected to a singular verb. What we see here is an example of a literary plural. In formal writing, a plural form is often used when referring to something that is above all else. In this form, God is speaking thus the use of the literary plural. In verse 27 we see the author reaffirming in his words, thus the use of the singular.

More posts will come, as I intend to do a series walking through the bible to explore the monotheism of God.

Oneness in Genesis… again

Posted on May 12, 2008 by Ryan Gustason

This is my second post in this series. I will be making a page with a table of contents shortly. Perhaps tonight or tomorrow time permitting. As discussed in the previous post, Hebrew words may have a plural morphology, yet mean a singular connotation based on the context in which it is used. For example, in English we have the word sheep. This can mean either a single animal, or a group of sheep and the only way to infer the author’s meaning is by the context of the words around it.
If I said there are many sheep in the pasture, how many am I referring to? Obviously with the usage of are and many, I am speaking of more than one sheep. If I said this sheep is sick, I am referring to a single sheep, rather than a flock.
Here are some other examples of Hebrew words which have a plural morphology and singular connotation:

biuthim- terror, anguish
chaim- life, refreshment
megurim- dwelling place
Mitsrayim- Egypt
teunim- toil, labor
tzaharyim- noon
tsammin- snare, perdition
shekulim- childlessness
urim- enlightenment
Yerushalayim- Jerusalem

A quote from Michael Heiser illustrates the point lucidly:
In the Hebrew Bible, there are roughly 2500 cases where elohim is used as a singular noun denoting the God of Israel (that figure is arrived at on the basis of grammar and logical context). It isn’t a guess.
Genesis 1:1 KJV In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
In this case elohim is singular because the verb (in red) is 3rd masculine singular in its grammar.
Genesis 1:26-27 TNK And God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth.”
Elohim (God) is singular because the verb is 3rd masculine singular. So why the plural pronouns “us” and “our”? You know I hold that those speak of the presence of the divine council here. How do I know elohim isn’t the referent? Keep going with the next verse:
TNK And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Three times we have a singular verb (create; Hebrew bara’). In verse 26 when we read “let US make mankind in OUR image,” if GOD were speaking [as though referring to himself as a plurality or to a group of the elohim, as though that’s what the word meant], we’d see PLURAL verbs here in v. 27, but we don’t.
Other examples in Genesis all point to a single God with none else beside Him. Please subscribe to my rss feed to stay updated with future articles.