Specific objections to "Is the God of Christianity the God of the Bible?"

     Since I wrote my critique of trinitarianism, “Is the God of Christianity the God of the Bible?“, I’ve received a number of objections from Christians who do believe in the Trinity. In this article, I’d like to go through eight of the major trinitarian “prooftexts” used to argue against my position as a unitarian, including John 1:1, John 8:58, and Colossians 1:16, and explain why they don’t really hold up under examination. If you haven’t read my previous article, I suggest you go read that first.

    The Word of God

One passage that is always brought up in debates about trinitarianism is the prologue of John 1, which is often considered the best “prooftext” of the Trinity: 

In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was what God was; this one was in the beginning with God. All things through it came into being... And the word became flesh, and did tabernacle among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of an only begotten of a Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-2, 14)

Trinitarian interpreters believe that, because Jesus is elsewhere called the word of God by John (Rev. 19:13), and it is said that the word became flesh within Him, the fact that the word was in the beginning with God and was God implies at least a duality within God (and implies that Jesus is God).

    However, to interpret the prologue of John 1 in this way is to ignore all of the cultural context surrounding the imagery of the “word of God”. In intertestamental Judaism, the word (or Logos, or Memra) of God was considered to be His impersonal, yet personified, spoken word. This was not a personal or conscious being, but instead the literal words of God. This idea of the “word of God” has precedent in the Old Testament as well; for example, see the following passages:

So will My word be which goes out of My mouth; it will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the purpose for which I sent it. (Isa. 55:11 NASB)

By the word of Yahweh the heavens were made, and by the breath of His mouth all their lights. He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap; He puts the depths in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood firm. (Ps. 33:6-9 NASB)

In this passage, the literal spoken word of God is presented as something that created the heavens and earth, and can be considered to have been alongside Him in the beginning, and yet it is not a personal being. Similar to this conception of “the word” is Wisdom, in the book of Proverbs:

Yahweh founded the earth by wisdom, He established the heavens by understandingBy His knowledge the ocean depths were burst open, and the clouds drip with dew. (Prov. 3:19-20 NASB)

“The Lord created me [wisdom] at the beginning of His way, before His works of old. From eternity I was established, from the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth. When there were no ocean depths, I was born, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I was born; while He had not yet made the earth and the fields, nor the first dust of the world.

“When He established the heavens, I was there; when He inscribed a circle on the face of the deep, when He made firm the skies above, when the springs of the deep became fixed, when He set a boundary for the sea so that the water would not violate His command, when He marked out the foundations of the earth; then I was beside Him, as a master workman; and I was His delight daily, rejoicing always before Him.” (Prov. 8:22-30 NASB)

From these passages, it can be said that “in the beginning was the wisdom, and the wisdom was with God, and the wisdom was what God was”, and that “through her [wisdom] came into being everything that came into being” (exactly what is said of “the word” in John 1:1-3). And yet, this ‘wisdom’ is not a personal, conscious being, but a personified aspect of God Himself, namely His understanding and knowledge.

    Therefore, it is improper to believe that when John writes, “in the beginning was the word”, he really meant “in the beginning was the Son”; the word, or Logos, or Memra of God was considered in Jewish thought to be the impersonal aspect of God’s literal utterance. John was poetically referring to the divine word and wisdom (the “word”, “wisdom”, and “Torah” were used interchangeably in intertestamental Jewish literature; see Sirach 24) by which the heavens and earth were created in the beginning, not a personal, pre-incarnate Christ.

    But what did John mean by “the word became flesh”? Well, again, in ancient Jewish literature we find precedent for this statement. According to the book of Sirach, a piece of intertestamental literature, the high priest Simon of Cyrene was the embodiment of the wisdom of God, and shared all of the attributes of Wisdom (Sirach 50:5-10 cf. 24:13-17). Likewise, throughout the works of Philo, Moses is considered to be the Torah incarnate [1]. Even in the canonical book of Proverbs, it is said that an ideal wife will have the same characteristics as Lady Wisdom (31:10-31 cf. 8:1-21), thereby being the embodiment of wisdom in Jewish thought.

    Should John’s statement, “the word became flesh”, be understood in the same way? Well, we are told elsewhere in scripture that Jesus has become the wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24, 30) and that He is the fulfillment of the Torah (Matt. 5:7), and so He would have also been considered the embodiment of the  (impersonal) word of God (since, as noted already, the “word”, “wisdom”, and “Torah” were considered interchangeable in intertestamental Jewish literature).

    Therefore, it is not the case that the “word of God” has always been numerically identical to Jesus Himself, nor that His being the embodiment of the word means that He pre-existed His birth (any more than Simon and Moses being the embodiment of the wisdom and Torah means that they pre-existed their creation). Rather, it is that Jesus, by being the perfect fulfillment of God’s will, is the true embodiment of the word (or Logos, or Memra) of God. His being the “word of God” has not always been true, but became true only when “the word became flesh” at Jesus’ conception.

    Whereas modern readers, with their preconceptions based on the second-century idea about Jesus being the eternal Logos of God (a theory based in Greek metaphysics rather than the proper Jewish context of the New Testament), read “the word became flesh” and think “the pre-existent God the Son took on flesh and became incarnate in the person of Jesus”, the original readers of the Bible would have understood this to mean that “the divine yet impersonal word of God became embodied in the person of Jesus”. I challenge any trinitarian reading this article to think outside of the box and try to see the Bible from the perspective of its original, first century readers, and see if they interpret this passage in the same way.

    The Image of God

Another title of Jesus Christ, which appears twice in Paul’s writings, is the “image of God”:

the Christ... is the image of God (1 Cor. 4:4)

the Son of His love... who is the image of the invisible God, first-born of all creation (Col. 1:13, 15)

This same idea is reflected in John 1:18 and Hebrews 1:3, expressed somewhat differently:

God no one hath ever seen; the only begotten Son, who is on the bosom of the Father — he did declare Him.

[Christ is] the brightness of the glory [of God], and the impress of His subsistence

Surprisingly, I have seen these verses used as proof for the Trinity and supreme Deity of Christ! However, the fact that Jesus is the “image of the invisible God” and the “impress of His subsistence” precludes His being numerically identical with Yahweh.

    As an analogy, imagine that I showed you a picture of my sister. I could accurately say that “this is my sister”. I could also say, truthfully, that “he who has seen this picture has seen my sister” (cf. John 12:45; 14:9-10). But is the picture literally, numerically identical to my sister? Obviously it is not. In the same way, Jesus, being the perfect expression of God’s will and desire, such that it can even be said that the Father is the one speaking through Him (John 12:49; Heb. 1:2), is the “image of the invisible God”; but He cannot be numerically identical with Yahweh, just as a picture of my sister can never be the same as my sister herself.

    The fact that no one has ever seen, or will ever see, God should be a major tip-off to the fact that Jesus is not God, because obviously, many people saw Jesus Christ both before and after His ascension (1 John 1:1-3). And yet, this is a fact that is repeatedly expressed throughout scripture, even by the disciple John who was closest to Jesus; for example, see Exod. 33:20; John 1:18; 5:37; 6:46; 1 Tim. 6:16; and 1 John 4:12. So, although those who see Jesus are able to perceive the Father through Him due to His being the “image of the invisible God”, He cannot be God Himself because no human has ever seen God.

    Answering some trinitarian prooftexts

    John 8:58

“Abraham, your father, was glad that he might see my day; and he saw, and did rejoice.” The Jews, therefore, said unto him, “Thou art not yet fifty years old, and Abraham hast thou seen?” Jesus said to them, “Verily, verily, I say to you, before Abraham’s coming [or before Abraham was] — I am” (John 8:56-58)

This passage, along with John 1:1, is one of the most common trinitarian prooftexts. Trinitarians believe that Jesus, by saying εγω ειμι (“I am”), is declaring Himself to be Yahweh per Exodus. 3:14. However, this argument fails to stand up to the original Greek, because God’s title in Exodus 3:14 (in the LXX) is not εγω ειμι but Ο ΩΝ (“the Being”); if Jesus were declaring Himself to be Yahweh, John would have written “εγω ειμι Ο ΩΝ” here to accurately represent what Jesus meant. For more on the meaning of εγω ειμι, go read my previous article that touches on this point.

    It’s impossible that Jesus in v. 58 could have been identifying Himself with the God of the Old Testament by saying, “εγω ειμι”, because just four verses earlier He identified His Father alone with the God of the Old Testament (v. 54). Instead, we should recognize that the vast majority of instances where Jesus says εγω ειμι, He is saying “I am the Messiah” (see Mk. 13:6 cf. Matt. 24:5; John 4:25-26; 8:28; 13:18-19; 18:4-5). Thus, Jesus was not claiming to be the God of Israel in this passage; instead, this statement can at most be made to describe Christ’s “pre-incarnate existence”, not His deity [2].

    The usual trinitarian objection to this interpretation is, if Jesus was simply claiming to be the promised Messiah, then why did the Jews pick up stones to stone Him? Doesn’t this show that He was blaspheming by claiming to be God? No, because in fact, claiming to be the Messiah was also a capital offense, if they did not back up their claim with miracles in front of a rabbinic tribunal [3]. The Pharisees saw Jesus as a false and demonic teacher (Matt. 12:24), so of course they would have viewed His Messianic claim as false, explaining why they attempted to stone Him.

     John 10:30

“I and the Father are one.”

This verse is interpreted by trinitarians as stating the “Shema unity” (Deut. 6:4) of Jesus and the Father, therefore proving that they are together the one God. However, this is very clearly refuted by John 17:20-22, in which Jesus repeatedly prays to the Father that “they [believers] may be one in us as we are one“. If Jesus and the Father are one in that they are together Yahweh, then we would have to conclude that believers, also, will eventually become part of Yahweh in a sort of extended ‘Trinity’.

    So then, if Jesus and the Father are not literally “one”, in what way can they be considered “one”? Well, if we look forward to 1 Corinthians 3:6-8, we read that “I [Paul] planted, Apollos watered... and he who is planting and he who is watering are one“. Paul and Apollos are not literally “one”, but agree as one; a modern idiom that matches this Greek phrase would be “of one mind”. As the context of John 10:30 shows, what Jesus meant by saying “I and the Father are one” is that Jesus and the Father are of one mind on the issue of giving age-during life to believers who follow Christ (vv. 25-30).

    At this point, the trinitarian usually objects that, because the Jews immediately picked up stones to stone Jesus for blasphemy (vv. 31-33), He must have been declaring Himself to be God, not merely that He was of one mind with God. However, the Jews were misunderstanding what Jesus meant by “I and the Father are one”, as His response to them shows: “’Is it not having been written in your Law: “I say, ye are gods?”’” (v. 34). Jesus corrected their misunderstanding by showing that He was not God in the same sense that Yahweh is God, but in the sense that humans can be called gods (as in Ps. 82:6).

    John 17:5

And now, glorify me, Thou Father, with Thyself, with the glory that I had before the world was, with Thee

This is another common trinitarian prooftext, as it is interpreted to say that Jesus both pre-existed the creation of the world, and that because Yahweh does not give His glory to another (Isa. 42:8), Jesus must be Yahweh. This second argument is easily refuted, because Jesus goes on to say in v. 22 that believers have been given the same glory that He was given, so unless believers are also part of God - which, again, is obviously untrue - Yahweh must give His glory to at least some others. The context of Isaiah 42:8 shows that it is merely talking about false gods and idols, not that God never gives glory to anyone else.

    Furthermore, this passage does not even show that Christ pre-existed the creation of the world (although, it is important to remember, some unitarians do believe that Christ pre-existed, so this point is not fundamental to the argument against trinitarianism). This verse is merely referring proleptically to the post-resurrection glory of Christ, because Jesus goes on to say that believers already have the same glory (v. 22), and yet we will not have this glory until the second coming of Christ (Col. 3:4). Just as those in the body of Christ were given grace before times of ages, even while we did not yet exist (2 Tim. 1:9), in the same way Jesus Himself was proleptically glorified before the foundation of the world even before He existed.

    We are told elsewhere that Jesus was glorified because He was obedient to God unto His death (John 12:23; Lk. 24:26; Php. 2:8-9; Col. 1:18; Heb. 2:9; 1 Pet. 1:11, 21), and that He had not yet been glorified during His earthly ministry (John 7:39), which necessarily means that He did not have glory before the foundation of the world or at any time prior to His resurrection. Any reference to Christ’s glory prior to the resurrection - including John 17:5 - must therefore be understood proleptically.

    Philippians 2:6-9

[Christ Jesus], being in the form of God, thought [it] not robbery to be equal to God, but did empty himself, the form of a servant having taken, in the likeness of men having been made, and in fashion having been found as a man, he humbled himself, having become obedient unto death — death even of a cross, wherefore, also, God did highly exalt him, and gave to him a name that [is] above every name

Trinitarians believe that this passage provides a contrast between the “pre-incarnate”, “incarnate”, and “post-incarnate” states of Jesus. However, if this passage is read without any trinitarian presuppositions, it actually becomes one of the strongest arguments against the position that Jesus is Yahweh. For example:

  • If Jesus is God, then why did Paul write that Jesus was “in the form [μορφη, ‘outward appearance’] of God” rather than just that Jesus was God?
  • If Jesus is God, then why would He have “thought it not robbery [alt. transl. ‘something to be grasped’] to be equal to God”? Wouldn’t He already be equal to God by virtue of His very being?
  • If Jesus is God, then how was He exalted and given a “name above every name” by God?
  • According to trinitarians, Jesus’ “name above every name” is Yahweh; but if that is true, then how could Jesus have been given the name “Yahweh” by Yahweh?
This passage does not prove trinitarianism, by any means; being in the “form” or “outward appearance” of God is simply related to Christ’s being “the image of God” (see above), not His equivalence with God. At most, it can be made to prove that Christ pre-existed His conception as a human being, a statement which Arian unitarians would agree with.

    However, even the pre-existence of Christ is not definitely alluded to in this passage, if we examine it without any preconceptions about such a notion. According to the “Second Adam” reading of Php. 2:6-11 - an interpretation which many trinitarian scholars hold to as well - this passage is only describing the earthly ministry of Christ, and the fact that He never abused His power as the Son of God, but remained obedient to God throughout His life (“having taken the form of a servant”). This is because “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve” (Matt. 20:28). Rather than using His power as “the form/image of God” for His own benefit, He took the form of a servant instead, and humbled Himself to the point of death; an example for the church at Philippi to follow (Php. 2:5). Therefore, this passage definitely does not prove trinitarianism, nor does it necessarily indicate that Christ pre-existed His conception as a human being.

    Colossians 1:16

[Jesus Christ] is the image of the invisible God, first-born of all creation, because in him were the all things created, those in the heavens, and those upon the earth, those visible, and those invisible, whether thrones, whether lordships, whether principalities, whether authorities; all things through him, and for him, have been created, and himself is before all, and the all things in him have consisted. (Col. 1:15-17)

First of all, it’s important to note that this passage, even according to the trinitarian interpretation (in which Christ is the personal creator of all things), does not prove that Christ is Yahweh. All that it proves is that Christ pre-existed His birth as a human being, and was the conduit through which Yahweh created all things (cf. 1 Cor. 8:6). Arian unitarians will have no problem with the traditional reading of Colossians 1:16.

    However, I don’t believe that this passage actually demonstrates that the “pre-existent Christ” was the conduit through which all things were created. In Isaiah 44:24, Yahweh clearly says that nobody was beside Him at the creation of the world, and Jesus agreed with this fact, distinguishing Himself from the Creator of the world in three separate places (Matt. 19:4; Mk. 10:6; 13:19). Likewise, Paul distinguished between God the Creator and Jesus, the man whom He ordained (Acts 17:24, 31), as did the author of Hebrews (Heb. 2:10). Therefore, if this passage were saying that Jesus was the personal creator of the universe, it would create a contradiction.

    So what is Colossians 1:16 saying, if not that Jesus Christ is the creator of the universe? Well, just a few verses earlier, Paul wrote that “in Him we have the redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of the sins” (v. 14), so by saying that “all things were created in Him“, Paul is simply referring to the fact that all things have now been made anew and redeemed in Christ (something that he says again just a few verses later in v. 20). This need not refer to the original Genesis creation, since Paul uses the exact same language elsewhere of all things being a creation in Christ, and through Christ, when referring to the new creation (2 Cor. 5:17-18).

    Therefore, this passage doesn’t show that Christ was the personal creator, or even conduit of creation, of the universe; instead, the context clearly shows that it refers to the fact that all things have now been created anew in Christ.

    Colossians 2:9

in [Christ] doth tabernacle all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 2:8-9)

Along with John 1:1, this passage is often considered one of the definite “prooftexts” of trinitarianism, that proves beyond a doubt that Jesus is the supreme Deity (Yahweh, the living God). However, if we look just a few verses earlier, we read that “it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell” (1:19) - that is, the fullness of the Deity living in Christ is something that was granted to Him by the Father, not inherent to His being. This is actually evidence against the position that Christ is Yahweh. It would be meaningless to say, “it pleased God that all the fullness of Himself should dwell in Himself”, because, being Yahweh, He is already inherently the fullness of the Deity.

    Furthermore, according to Ephesians 3:19, it is also possible for believers to have “all the fullness of God” within themselves (cf. 2 Pet. 1:4). If “the fullness of the Deity” were something that could dwell only in God Himself, then that would mean that believers also can become God, which is obviously false. So what does it mean to have the “fullness of the Deity” within oneself? The answer can likely be found in John 3:34, which says that “the One whom God has sent [i.e., Christ] speaks the words of God, for God gives the spirit without measure”. Anyone whom the Holy Spirit indwells, both Christ and believers, can be said to have “the fullness of the Deity” within themselves.

    Hebrews 1:10

And, “Thou, at the beginning, Lord, the earth didst found, and a work of thy hands are the heavens; these shall perish, and Thou dost remain, and all, as a garment, shall become old, and as a mantle Thou shall roll them together, and they shall be changed, and Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail.” But unto which of the messengers [angels] said He ever, “Sit at My right hand, till I may make thine enemies thy footstool?” (Heb. 1:10-13)

This is considered to be a prooftext for trinitarianism because the quoted passage, Psalm 102:25-27, refers to Yahweh, but appears to be applied to Jesus by the author of Hebrews. However, according to the previous verses, Jesus was anointed to His current position at the time of His resurrection (Heb. 1:5, 9 cf. Acts 13:33). This passage cannot be saying that Jesus is Yahweh (since Yahweh’s power is underived). Likewise, as described earlier in the section about Colossians 1:16, several passages distinguish Jesus from God the Creator (especially Acts 17:24, 31 and Heb. 2:10), and so Jesus cannot have been the one who personally created the heavens and earth. Therefore, the trinitarian reading of this passage, which makes Jesus out to be both Yahweh and creator, cannot be correct.

    In contrast to the trinitarian reading, the context makes clear that vv. 10 - 12 is referring to the Father, not Jesus. This is because, each time the author of Hebrews begins a new section of his argument, he starts the section with the Greek conjunction και (“and”), and finishes the section with the conjunction δε (“but”); since verse 10 begins with και, the author is starting a new section of the argument, and changing the subject from Jesus to Yahweh (who was also the subject of the original passage in Ps. 102:25-27). By combining Ps. 102:25-27 with Ps. 110:1 (“Yahweh said to my Lord, sit at my right hand...”), the author is making the point that Jesus, by sitting at the right hand of Yahweh, now has control over the entire creation which Yahweh created.

    To maintain that the subject remains the same between vv. 8 - 9 and vv. 10 - 12, as the trinitarian must do, is entirely arbitrary and not at all clear in the text. Because the author is starting a new section of his argument in verse 10, there is no reason to believe that he is keeping the subject as Jesus. The most natural reading is that, just as in the original passage in the book of Psalms (which the original readers of Hebrews should have been most familiar with), this is describing Yahweh the Father, as part of an argument that Jesus is now preeminent over all things [4].

    In the preceding sections, I obviously haven’t grappled with every single prooftext used by trinitarians. However, all of the rest of the prooftexts for the Trinity either (1) have better manuscript evidence for an alternate, unitarian reading, for example: Acts 20:28; 1 Corinthians 10:9; 1 Timothy 3:16; 1 John 5:7-8; and Jude 4; or else (2) the Greek is ambiguous as to whether the trinitarian reading is correct, for example: Acts 20:28; Romans 9:5; Ephesians 5:5; 2 Thessalonians 1:12; 1 Timothy 5:21; 6:14-16; 2 Timothy 4:1; Titus 2:13; 2 Peter 1:1; and 1 John 5:20.

    The seven passages that I discussed above, as well as the few passages discussed in my previous article, are the only prooftexts of the Trinity for which the Greek is unambiguous. As I hope I have made clear, each of these texts, when examined in their contexts, do not support the idea that Jesus is Yahweh; in fact, many of them provide evidence against the trinitarian position when they are properly understood. Essentially, the doctrine of the Trinity does not have a biblical leg to stand on.

    Am I “denying the deity of Christ”?

The most common non-scriptural objection to my unitarian beliefs, by far, is the argument that I “deny the deity of Christ”. Apparently, to “deny the deity of Christ” is one of the greatest sins that one can accomplish, even though the “deity of Christ” is not something that is ever fleshed out in scripture, and (if the “deity of Christ” is the position that Jesus Christ = Yahweh) there is actually much scriptural evidence against it.

    My answer to this objection is this: Yes, if by “deity of Christ”, you mean the belief that the man Jesus Christ is one and the same as Yahweh, the supreme Deity, I do deny the “deity of Christ”. But by that definition, even Christ denied the “deity of Christ”! As shown in Mark 12:28-34, Jesus believed that Yahweh, the true and living God, was one (not three) and affirmed the traditional Jewish understanding of the Shema (which is that Yahweh is one God in one Person, the Father). He also called His Father “the only true God” and distinguished Himself from that title (John 17:3).

    However, if by “deity of Christ” it is meant that Christ is the Word and the Image of God, who fully reveals the Father in His actions, and is the Son of God, then of course I do not deny this - this is one of the most clearly revealed facts in scripture, that Jesus is the greatest man who ever lived, and was made Lord over all after His resurrection, as He now sits at the right hand of God in the heavens. But, for all His greatness, He is not the one true and living God; that is a title that goes only to His Father, Yahweh.

    The problem with using unbiblical terminology like the “deity of Christ” to define the faith is that it places arbitrary and unscriptural constraints on our doctrine. If the Bible does teach such a thing as “the deity of Christ” (that Christ is God and Yahweh), then let scripture speak for itself; but if it does not teach such a thing, then it is unwise to place such a constraint on the text to force it to teach Christ’s deity (which, unfortunately, many Christians do).

    Conclusion

In this article, I have shown that every “prooftext” used by trinitarians to show that Jesus is the one true and living God, Yahweh, has been misinterpreted to support this doctrine. This includes John 1:1; 8:58; 10:30; 17:5; Philippians 2:6-9; Colossians 1:15-16; 2:9; and Hebrews 1:10 (along with some of the “prooftexts” covered in the previous article, like Isaiah 9:6 and Hebrews 1:8). None of these passages, when properly understood, actually teaches that Jesus is the supreme God. Instead, the overwhelming testimony of scripture is that Jesus is separate from Yahweh God, being His (human) Son and Messiah.

    Now, some people will accuse me of trying to take away the glory of Jesus Christ for some perverted purpose. This is just completely untrue. I only believe that Jesus is not God because that is what the Bible teaches, based on my best understanding of scripture. But just because Jesus is not God does not mean that He shouldn’t be glorified and praised; He is the greatest human to have ever lived, who lived His entire life in perfect obedience to the will of God, even humbling Himself to the point of dying on the cross in order to save and reconcile all of humanity - after which God raised Him up to be at His right hand and exalted Him to be Lord over all, a position which He still occupies, as we await His return.

    However, to say that Jesus is God is an insult to both God and Christ. To praise them both as one God does not give the proper glory and praise to either one, and, as I showed in the previous post, essentially amounts to idolatry (since they are not worshipping “the living God”). Obviously, trinitarians are not purposely idolaters, because they are simply following the doctrine that they believe to be taught in the Bible; but then again, very few idolaters in biblical times knew that they weren’t worshipping the one true God, either. We must always be careful to search the scriptures to see if our doctrine is coming from the Bible, or if we are imposing our own man-made doctrines onto the text; as I believe I have shown in these last two posts, trinitarianism is (regrettably) an example of the latter.

______________________________

[1] “perhaps, since Moses was also destined to be the lawgiver of his nation, he was himself long previously, through the providence of God, a living and reasonable law“ (Life of Moses I.28.162),
[Moses] was both a king and a lawgiver, and a high priest and a prophet... the king is at once a living law, and the law is a just king” (Life of Moses II.1.4)

[2] Unitarians are divided on this point between Arians who believe that Christ did indeed pre-exist and was created at the beginning of creation, and Socinians who believe that Christ did not exist before His conception. I am a Socinian, for reasons that are too long to get into in this post, whereas many unitarian denominations (like the Jehovah’s Witness cult) are Arians.

[3] According to one tradition, albeit a likely untrue one, the rabbi Bar Kokhba was killed for claiming to be the Messiah and being unable to back up his claim. See this article for more details.

[4] The argument of the author in Hebrews 1:10-13 can be summarized like so:

Premise 1. Yahweh created, and is pre-eminent over all things (Ps. 102:25-27)

Premise 2. Jesus, the Messiah, has been anointed to the right hand of Yahweh (Ps. 110:1)

Conclusion. Jesus, the Messiah, is now pre-eminent over all things [this conclusion is reached in Heb. 2:7-8].

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