From an Email Sent to Me: Consider 1 Cor. 8:6. Paul's concern is this context is explicitly monotheistic. The issue of eating meat offered to idols and participation in temple banquets is an instance of the highly traditional Jewish monotheistic concern for loyalty to the only true God in a context of pagan polytheistic worship. What Paul does is to maintain this Jewish monotheistic concern in a Christian interpretation for which loyalty to the only true God entails loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ. He takes up from the Corinthians' letter (at the end of verse 4) the typical Jewish monotheistic formula "there is no God except One" in order to agree with it and to give, in verse six, his own fuller monotheistic formulation, which contrasts the "many gods and many lords" of the Corinthians' pagan environment (verse 5) with the one God and one Lord to whom Christians owe exclusive allegiance.
Verse 6 is a carefully formulated statement:
a. but for us [there is] one God, the Father,
b. from whom [are] all things and we for him,
c. and one Lord, Jesus Christ,
d. through whom [are] all things and we through him.
The statement has been composed from two sources, both clearly recognizable. One is the SHEMA', the classic Jewish statement concerning the uniqueness of God, taken from the Torah itself, recited twice daily by all observant Jews. It is now commonly recognized that Paul has here adapted the SHEMA' and produced, as it were, a Christian version of it [see F.F. Bruce, 1&2 Corinthians - a must read scholar]. Not so widely recognized is the full significance of this. In the first and third lines of Paul's formula [labeled a and c above], Paul has in fact reproduced all the words of the statement about YHWH in the SHEMA', but Paul has rearranged the words in such a way as to produce and affirmation of both one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ. It should be quite clear that Paul is including the Lord Jesus Christ in the unique divine identity. He is redefining monotheism as christological monotheism. If he were understood as adding the one Lord to the one God of whom the SHEMA' speaks, then, from the perspective of Jewish monotheism, he would certainly be producing not christological monotheism but outright ditheism. The addition of a unique Lord to the unique God of the SHEMA' would flatly contradict the uniqueness of the latter. the only possible way to understand Paul as maintaining monotheism is to understand him to be including Jesus in the unique identity of the one God affirmed in the SHEMA'. But this is in any case clear from the fact that the term 'Lord' , applied here to Jesus as the 'one Lord', is taken from the SHEMA' itself. Paul is not adding to the one God of the SHEMA' a 'Lord' the SHEMA' does not mention. He is identifying Jesus as the 'Lord' whom the SHEMA' affirms to be one. Thus, in Paul's quite unprecedented reformulation of the SHEMA', the unique identity of the one God consists of the one God, the Father, and the one Lord, his Messiah. Contrary to what many exegetes who have not sufficiently understood the way in which the unique identity of God was understood in Second Temple Judaism seem to suppose, by including Jesus in this unique identity Paul is clearly not repudiating Jewish monotheism, whereas were he merely associating Jesus with the unique God, he certainly would be repudiating monotheism.....I hope this letter finds you thinking clearly.
Reply: I have Gerald O'Collins Christology and he also explains your *splitting* of the shema in the same way, but even he calls this a "redefining of Jewish monotheism." p.138
But O'Collins also reminds of the semantic range of the term "Lord".
"Let us review the range of usage for this term in the entire NT. (1) Kyrios could be simply a respectful way of addressing other people (e.g. Matt. 21:30;25:11;27:63; John 4:11;12:21; Acts 16:30) (2) It could be a way of addressing a ‘teacher' or ‘rabbi' (Matt. 8:25; see Matt. 17:15; Mark 4:38;9:17). (3) The designation can suggest authority, in the sense of one with power to perform mighty works (e.g. Matt 8:25). (4)Kyrios may denote the owner of property (Mark 12:9; Luke 19:33) or the master of slaves (Luke 12:42-7; Eph. 6:5; Col. 4:1) In some parables ‘the mater' or Kyrios is a metaphor for Jesus (e.g. Matt 25:18-24, 26). (5) Because of their power, political rulers (Matt. 27:63) could lay claim to a certain divinity and as ‘lords' even demand worship (see Acts 25:16). (6) ‘Lords' might also refer to so-called gods who were supposed to have rights over human beings (1 Cor. 8:5). (7) Finally, The NT speaks not only of God (e.g. Matt. 5:32; 11:25; Mark 12:29-30; Acts 2:39;4:26; Rom. 4:6-8; 11:2-4) but also of Jesus as Kyrios and often does so in a way that raises him above the merely human level (e.g. Mark 12:36-7;Luke 19:31; John 13:13-14; Phil. 2:11; Rev. 22:20-1)." p.139But does "Lord" have to have a religious sense when applied to Jesus? The following is an example from John 4:11: Here the Samaritan woman has just met Jesus, he has not yet told her that he is the Messiah. They have just met, yet she addresses him as kyrios, which in the New American Bible is translated as "sir."
"The woman said to him, Sir (kyrios), you do not have a bucket and the cistern is deep."The word in this passage is kyrios. It is applied to Jesus, and it is used as a term of respect, as "sir."
The Apostles used this title as a term of respect for Jesus just like the term "master." This is why Jesus is called Lord in the NT. He is our King, our master, our Lord. Like the Lord of a castle/ kingdom. He is the Lord of the kingdom of God.
Is Paul here borrowing "Lord" from the shema in Deuteronomy and applying it to Jesus in 1 Corinthians?
"With the Hebrew Bible in mind, Paul carefully distinguishes, in a critical creedal statement, between the "one God, the Father," and the "one Lord Jesus Christ." Paul has not split the Shema of Israel between two persons. This would be to abandon his precious Jewish creed. Paul in fact makes a clear unitarian declaration: "There is no God but One...There is One God, the Father" (1 Cor. 8:4,6) He then claims for Jesus a lordly status based on the central Christological affirmation, by divine oracle, that he is the promised "my lord, the King Messiah, the lord's anointed" )Ps. 110:1; Luke 2:11): "There is one Lord Jesus Messiah" (1 Cor. 8:6) This is his full official title. Peter had likewise proclaimed in Acts 2:34-36, with apostolic authority derived from the Messiah, that Jesus was the appointed Lord Christ, in accordance with Psalm 110:1, as distinct from, and as the servant of, the Lord God." The Doctrine of the Trinity-A. Buzzard p.53What do others have to say about Paul, the early Christians and their view of Christ?
"Apparently Paul did not call Jesus God" (Sydney Cave, D.D., Doctrine of the Person
of Christ, p. 48).
"Paul habitually differentiates Christ from God" (C.J. Cadoux, A Pilgrim’s Further
Progress, pp. 40, 42).
"Paul never equates Jesus with God" (W.R. Matthews, The Problem of Christ in the
20th Century, Maurice Lectures, 1949, p. 22).
"Paul never gives to Christ the name or description of ‘God’" (Dictionary of the
Apostolic Church, Vol. 1, p. 194).
"When the New Testament writers speak of Jesus Christ, they do not speak of Him nor
do they think of Him as God" (J.M. Creed, The Divinity of Jesus Christ, pp. 122-123).
"Karl Rahner [leading Roman Catholic spokesman] points out with so much emphasis
that the Son in the New Testament is never described as ‘ho theos’ [the one God]"
(A.T. Hanson, Grace and Truth, p. 66).
"The clear evidence of John is that Jesus refuses the claim to be God…Jesus
vigorously denied the blasphemy of being God or His substitute" (J.A.T. Robinson,
Twelve More New Testament Studies, pp. 175, 176).
"In his post-resurrection heavenly life, Jesus is portrayed as retaining a personal
individuality every bit as distinct and separate from the person of God as was his in
his life on earth as the terrestrial Jesus. Alongside God and compared with God, he
appears, indeed, as yet another heavenly being in God’s heavenly court, just as the
angels were — though as God’s Son, he stands in a different category, and ranks far
above them" (Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 1967-68, Vol. 50, p. 258).
"What, however, is said of his life and functions as the celestial Christ neither means
nor implies that in divine status he stands on a par with God Himself and is fully God.
On the contrary, in the New Testament picture of his heavenly person and ministry we
behold a figure both separate from and subordinate to God" (Ibid., pp. 258, 259).
"When [first-century Christians] assigned Jesus such honorific titles as Christ, Son of
Man, Son of God and Lord, these were ways of saying not that he was God but that he
did God’s work" (Ibid., p. 250).
"The ancients made a wrong use of [John 10:30, "I and the Father are one"] to prove
that Christ is...of the same essence with the Father. For Christ does not argue about the
unity of substance, but about the agreement that he has with the Father" (John Calvin,
Commentary on John).
"The Pauline Christ who accomplishes the work of salvation is a personality who is
both human and superhuman, not God, but the Son of God. Here the idea, which was to
develop later, of the union of the two natures is not present" (Maurice Goguel, Jesus
and the Origins of Christianity, Harper, 1960).
"Jesus is never identified simplicitly [absolutely] with God, since the early Christians
were not likely to confuse Jesus with God the Father" (Howard Marshall, "Jesus as
Lord: The Development of the Concept," in Eschatology in the New Testament,
Hendrickson, p. 144).
Now, you can view these separate scriptures in a long letter that even went longer than I what I included here. But we have to take the Bible as a whole, and not just dwell on a few scriptures here and there. If you take a look at the Bible as a whole, we find powerful evidence that Christ was a created being:
Prov 8:22 "The LORD created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old." RSV
Col. 1:15 "which is the image of the invisible God, first begotten of all creatures"
Rev. 3:14 "This saith (amen) the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creatures of God."
Jn 5:26 "Life comes from the Father himself. So the Father has allowed the Son to give life."
Jn 6:57 "Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me."
Jesus is either subordinate to, depends upon, or reveres his Father:
Isa 11:1,2 "But there shall come forth from a shoot the stock of Jesse, And a sprout from his roots shall bear fruit; And the spirit of Yahweh shall rest upon him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and might, The spirit of knowledge and reverence of Yahweh" Rotherham's Emphasized Bible
Heb 2:7,8 "For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels; and hast crowned him with glory and honor, and hast set him ruler over the works of thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet." Lamsa's Translation of the Aramaic Peshitta
1 Cor 11:3 "God is the Head of the Christ" 20th Century NT
Jn 17:3 "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." KJV
Mark 10:18 "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone." NASB
Jn 5:19 "I most solemnly say to you, the Son can do nothing by Himself, except as He sees the Father doing." Williams NT
Jn 6:38 "I came down from heaven, not to do what I want but what He wants who sent Me." Beck
Jn 7:16 "Jesus answered them and said, 'My doctrine is not Mine but His who sent Me"
Matt 20:23 "Truly, you will take of my cup: but to be seated at my right hand and at my left is not for me to give, but it is for those for whom my Father has made it ready. BBE
Luke 22:42 "He prayed saying 'Father, if Thou art willing, remove this cup from Me; nevertheless, not My will, but Thine be done'" Worrell NT
Heb 5:8 "Although a Child, Jesus learned obedience through suffering." Inclusive Version
Rev 1:1 "This is the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him to show his servants the things that must happen soon." ISV
Acts 5:31 "Him has God exalted by his right hand as leader and saviour, to give repentance to Israel and remission of sins." Darby
1 Cor 15:27,28 "the Son himself will also be made subordinate to God" NEB
Phil 2:8,9 "and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient [even] unto death, yea, the death of the cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted him
Jn 14:28 "I go on to the Father, because my Father is greater than I." Young
Mark 13:32 "As for that exact day or minute: no one knows, not even heaven's messengers, nor even the son, no one, except the Father." Funk, Hoover
And that he has someone who is God to himExactly how many times does scripture have to attest to the subordination of the Son to His God and Father before it is actually believed?
Micah 5:1-4 "In the majesty of the name of the LORD, his God." Smith&Goodspeed
Matt 27:46 "Jesus cried out...My God, my God, why have you abandoned me." God's Word
Jn 20:17 "I am going to ascend to My God and your God" New Berkeley Version
Rom 15:6 "So that you may together give glory to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with one heart. NJB
2 Cor 1:3 "Let us give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." TEV
2 Cor 11:31 "To God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" Geneva
Eph 1:3 "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" BLE
Eph 1:17 "The God of our Lord Jesus Christ" Moffatt
Heb 1:7-9 " That is why God, your God, anointed you with [the] oil of exultation more than your partners." NWT
1 Pet 1:3 "Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Lattimore
Rev 1:6 "unto his God and Father" Montgomery
Rev 3:2 "in the sight of my God" Phillips
Rev 3:12 "the temple of my God....the name of my God...out of heaven from my God" Jewish NT
1Cor.8:6 identifies the "one God" as the Father who is the source of creation. Jesus is explicitly excluded when he is next identified as the "Lord" who is simply the agent of the one God. 1Tim.2:5 states there is "one God" but then specifically EXCLUDES Jesus from being that one God by saying he is the "mediator" between GOD and humans. Without equivocation or replacing the word God with father, explain how can Jesus be the same God he is mediator for?
Far from being Almighty, Jesus is said to have a God over him before, during and after he came to earth (Mic.5:4, Rom.15:6, Rev.1:6; 3:2,12). Rather than being equal in power, Jesus is said to be in subjection to God even when he is as high as he ever gets (1Cor.15:27,28, Eph. 1:17; 19-22). Mat.28:18,19 says that when Jesus returned to heaven he had to be "given" all authority (power-KJV). If Jesus were equal to God in power, then why exactly would he need to be "given" any authority? (Mt.28:18; 11:27, Jn. 5:22; 17:2; 3:35; 2Pet.1:17) cf. (Mat.11:26-27, Dan.7:13-14, Phil.2:9).
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