In my most recent three posts, I have presented a thorough refutation of the trinitarian “prooftexts” for the position that the human Jesus Christ is also the supreme God, Yahweh, and an exposition of the evidence for unitarianism (admittedly, not comprehensive). However, I have recently been made aware of another category of “prooftexts” that trinitarians use to support the belief that Jesus is Yahweh; these are prophecies, pertaining to Yahweh, that are re-applied in the New Testament to Christ. For example, Joel 2:32 states that “everyone who calls on the name of Yahweh shall be saved”, whereas Romans 10:13 quotes this as “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord [in context, meaning Jesus] will be saved”.
When I first encountered this idea, I was blown away by how blatantly this ignores the ancient concept of agency! In the ancient world, whenever a king or person of authority sent an envoy (or “agent”) to another party, the envoy was to be treated as the person who sent him, and he could speak with the authority of that person [1]. This idea of agency appears throughout the Bible, in both the Old Testament and New Testament. In this article, I will demonstrate that this is how we are to understand Jesus’ relationship to Yahweh - not as Yahweh Himself, but as an envoy, or agent, sent to carry out His will.
The “Angel(s) of Yahweh”
Throughout the Old Testament, a mysterious figure called the “angel of Yahweh” repeatedly appears to Israelite individuals to relay messages from Yahweh; oftentimes, this angel actually speaks as though he was Yahweh. Many modern Christians interpret the appearances of Yahweh’s angel as Christophanies (appearances of the so-called “pre-existent Christ”), and so take the fact that this angel speaks as though he was Yahweh as further evidence for the deity of Christ. However, as I shall demonstrate in this section, the “angel of Yahweh” is actually a title used for any envoy sent by Yahweh, and is in fact a perfect example of the concept of agency in the Old Testament.
First of all, it is necessary to dispense with any preconception about there being only one unique “angel of Yahweh”. The word “angel” in Hebrew, malak, simply referred to a messenger, envoy, or agent, and so in this sense anyone who was sent by Yahweh for some purpose could be called “the malak of Yahweh”. In a similar way, the title “the servant of Yahweh” appears to be in the definite form, and so only refers to one person, and yet it is applied to many different people (Gen. 26:24; Num. 14:24; Deut. 34:5; Josh. 24:29; Isa. 42:1; Hag. 2:23); this is simply a necessity of Hebrew grammar, so the title “the angel of Yahweh” could equally be translated “an angel of Yahweh”. In fact, when translated into Greek in the LXX, many instances of “the angel of Yahweh” were rendered as merely “an angel of the Lord” (e.g. Gen. 16:6; 22:11; Exod. 3:2; Judg. 2:1; 6:11).
In this way, even regular humans were called “the angel of Yahweh”; for example, in Hag. 1:13, Haggai is said to be “the angel of Yahweh”, and in Mal. 2:7 it is said that the priest is “the angel of Yahweh of hosts”. It is very likely that in Exodus 23:20-23 and Numbers 20:14-16, Moses was being referred to as “the angel of Yahweh”, as also in Isaiah 63:9-12 Moses was called “the angel of His presence” and “the arm of His glory”. Moses, along with the prophets and priests, was called Yahweh’s angel precisely because he was personally commissioned by Yahweh (Exod. 3:10), thus becoming Yahweh’s representative agent.
But if “the angel of Yahweh” simply refers to any agent commissioned by Yahweh, then why do these agents often speak in the first person as though they were Yahweh? For example, see Genesis 16:7-10, 22:11-18; Judges 2:1-4; 6:11-22; and Zechariah 3:2-10. In some of these instances, the angel is even called Yahweh, and the people fear because they have “seen Yahweh”! But, as I will show, these angels were certainly not Yahweh Himself, but merely representatives of Him. For a pertinent example, see Exodus 3:
And the angel of Yahweh appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.” So when Yahweh saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses... I am the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” (Exod. 3:2-4, 6 NKJV)
The angel goes on to even identify himself as “I am who I am”, and entrusts Moses with the personal name of Yahweh for the first time in history (vv. 14-15). Moses is told that “Yahweh God of [your] fathers... has appeared to you” (4:5). And yet, later on in the Bible, we are actually told that this was not Yahweh, but a mere angel, and that God commissioned Moses by the hand of this angel, therefore proving that this angel cannot have been God Himself (Acts 7:30, 35).
So how are we to understand this encounter? Either it is an irreconcilable contradiction, or else this is a perfect example of the concept of agency in the Hebrew Bible: the angel that was personally sent by Yahweh is able to claim the authority of Yahweh and even use His name, and can be considered representationally and functionally equivalent to Yahweh, and yet the angel is not ontologically equal to Yahweh in any sense.
Furthermore, none of the other examples of the angel of Yahweh can be understood as referring to Yahweh Himself either, and this was understood by the Hebrews to whom this was written. We know this because the first century Jews who wrote the New Testament believed that Yahweh God had never been, nor could ever be, seen by a mere human being:
No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared [Him]. (John 1:18 NKJV)
“And the Father who sent me Himself hath testified concerning me; ye have neither heard His voice at any time, nor His appearance have ye seen” (John 5:37)
“not that any one hath seen the Father, except he who is from God, he hath seen the Father.” (John 6:46)
[God] only is having immortality, dwelling in light unapproachable, whom no one of men did see, nor is able to see (1 Tim. 6:16)
No one has ever seen God (1 John 4:12)
These passages demonstrate beyond a doubt that no person has ever truly seen God, showing that there could not have been an actual theophany in the Old Testament. Rather, whenever someone in the Old Testament claims to have “seen Yahweh”, or seen the shekinah glory of God, they actually either saw only an agent sent by God (in the cases of the “angel of Yahweh”) or a representation of His being (such as in Isaiah 6 and Ezekiel 1).
Sidebar: Is Moses Yahweh?
Another perfect example of agency in the Old Testament can be found in the words of Moses himself, twice in the book of Deuteronomy.
And Moses called all Israel, and said to them... “And it shall be that if you earnestly obey My commandments which I command you today, to love Yahweh your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, then I will give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil.” (Deut. 5:1, 11:13-14)
Now Moses called all Israel and said to them... “You have not eaten bread, nor have you drunk wine or similar drink, that you may know that I am Yahweh your God.” (Deut. 29:1, 6)
Twice in his lengthy speeches to Israel throughout this book, Moses slips into talking in the first person as Yahweh without first using the traditional “Thus says Yahweh” introduction. (Go ahead, you can check for yourself.) If we didn’t understand the concept of agency, we would have to conclude that Moses was claiming himself to be Yahweh God. Especially for trinitarians, who seem bent on twisting Jesus’ words into a claim of divinity (including simple statements like “I am He”), this should be a field day; we finally have absolute proof that a man can be God, because Moses quite literally said “I am Yahweh your God”!
However, if we understand that Moses was merely a commissioned agent (or “angel”) of Yahweh, then these passages make more sense. By being an angel of God, Moses has the authority to speak in Yahweh’s name, even while presenting God’s words as his own.
This also happens several times throughout the prophetic books of the Old Testament, where the prophets slip into the first person without first using the proper introduction “Thus says Yahweh” (or vice versa); see Isaiah 3:1-4; 34:2-8; 53:10-12; Hosea 14:1-4; Micah 1:6-16; and Zechariah 14:1-3. Are these prophets all claiming to be Yahweh? Obviously not, but they are claiming to be agents of Yahweh (prophets can be called “angel of Yahweh”; Hag. 1:13), thereby being allowed to speak for Him.
Other examples of agency in the Bible
The specific case of the “angel(s) of Yahweh” is perhaps the best example of agency in the Bible. However, there are other cases where a person who has been sent by God can be considered on the same level (representationally) as Him. One of the clearest examples of this can be found in the book of Judges, where it is said that
Nevertheless, Yahweh raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those who plundered them... And when Yahweh raised up judges for them, Yahweh was with the judge and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for Yahweh was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed them and harassed them. (Judg. 2:16, 18)
We are told, almost in the same breath, that it was the judges who delivered Israel, and yet also it was Yahweh who delivered Israel. Does this prove that the judges were actually God incarnate? No, no more than Moses saying “I am Yahweh your God” proves that Moses was God incarnate. The judges, by carrying out God’s purpose, were in some way acting as Yahweh, but they were not literally Yahweh.
Another good example of agency in the Old Testament is in Exodus 3. Here, the angel of Yahweh in the burning bush (speaking as Yahweh) says that He will personally go down to Egypt and free His people:
“I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land” (3:7-8 NKJV)
And yet, it is not God Himself who goes down to Egypt to save His people, but instead it is His commissioned agent, Moses, as the angel goes on to say in verse 10. So then, it is Moses who fulfilled Yahweh’s own words that He would Himself go down to Egypt to free the Israelites. But this does not mean that Moses is himself Yahweh; rather, it simply means that Moses is God’s chosen agent.
A third example of agency (which, in the interest of keeping this article short, will be the last discussed here) can be found in Exodus 7:
Thus says Yahweh: “By this you shall know that I am Yahweh. Behold, I will strike the waters which are in the river with the rod that is in my hand, and they shall be turned to blood”... And Moses and Aaron did so, just as Yahweh commanded. So he lifted up the rod and struck the waters that were in the river (Exod. 7:17, 20)
Here, God tells the Egyptians that they will know that He is Yahweh when He strikes the river with the rod in His hand. And yet, just a few verses later, it is Aaron who strikes the river with the rod in his own hand! If Aaron fulfilled a prophecy that was personally about Yahweh, does that mean that Aaron is God? Certainly not; but he is the agent of God, for just a few verses earlier, God tells Moses and Aaron that they will be “[as] God to the pharaoh” (v. 1).
The Messiah: the ultimate agent of God
Throughout the Old Testament, and in the New Testament as well, the Messiah is presented as someone who would be the ultimate and greatest agent of Yahweh - someone who, though being a human, would be the perfect fulfillment of God’s will, thereby being the greatest representative agent possible. In one of my previous posts, I touched upon this idea when expounding the meaning of Jesus Christ’s title, “the image of God”; for a briefer summary of what I’m about to say, check out that post.
The idea of Jesus, the Messiah, as the greatest agent is best explained in the first chapter of Hebrews:
In many parts, and many ways, God of old having spoken to the fathers in the prophets, in these last days did speak to us in a Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He did make the ages; who being the brightness of the glory, and the impress of His subsistence, bearing up also the all things by the saying of his might — through himself having made a cleansing of our sins, sat down at the right hand of the greatness in the highest, having become so much better than the angels, as he did inherit a more excellent name than they. (Heb. 1:1-4)
Although this passage has been twisted by trinitarian interpreters in the past to prove the “deity of Christ”, the central meaning should be obvious: though Yahweh in the past spoke through imperfect agents, the prophets, He now speaks through His most perfect agent and Son, Jesus Christ.
The meaning of the phrase “impress of His subsistence” can be confusing to modern readers, because we aren’t familiar with the idiomatic usage of these words. The first word, χαρακτηρ, literally means an “impress” or “stamp”, but was often used to describe the royal seal stamped upon coins and official documents. The second word, υποστασις, literally means “substance”, but was figuratively used to describe support, confidence, or assurance of a thing; see its usage elsewhere in Hebrews (3:14; 11:1). Therefore, the phrase “impress of His subsistence” might be better translated idiomatically as “seal of His assurance”, like the modern idiom, “seal of approval”.
So what does it mean for Christ to be God’s “seal of assurance”? This simply means that Christ is now the guarantee of God’s covenant with Israel, as the promised Messiah and King descended from David. This same idea is reflected in Malachi 3:1, which describes the coming Messiah as the “the angel [malak] of the covenant”. So, this is yet another way to say that Christ is God’s ultimate agent through which the covenant is carried out.
At this point, the author of Hebrews goes on to write about how Christ is “so much better than the angels”, and he continues to talk about this point through chapter 2. Trinitarians like to point to this and say, “See! Christ is better than the angels, and only God is higher than the angels, so Christ is God!” It is most likely that “angels” here is referring to spirit beings, because the Hebraist later contrasts the angels with humans and descendants of Abraham (Heb. 2:5-9, 16). However, the Hebraist’s entire argument is that Jesus is better than the angels because He is an exalted human who has been “crowned with glory and honor” and “made perfect” (Heb. 2:9-10). Rather than showing that Jesus is God Himself, this shows quite the opposite — God has always been perfect, so He could not be “made perfect”!
Now, let’s take a look at what Jesus said about Himself. Throughout the gospel accounts, Jesus repeatedly claims to have been sent by His Father, God (Matt. 10:40; John 4:34; 5:30; 6:40; etc.) This doesn’t mean that He had any heavenly “pre-existence” in mind when He said this, but rather that He is the commissioned agent of God, the Messiah. See how He describes His relationship with the Father throughout the gospel of John:
[Jesus] also called God his own Father, making himself equal to God. Jesus therefore responded and said to them, “Verily, verily, I say to you, the Son is not able to do anything of himself, if he may not see the Father doing anything; for whatever things He may do, these also the Son in like manner doth. For, as the Father doth raise the dead, and doth make alive, so also the Son doth make alive whom He willeth; for neither doth the Father judge any one, but all the judgment He hath given to the Son, that all may honour the Son according as they honour the Father; he who is not honouring the Son, doth not honour the Father who sent him.” (John 5:19-23)
Trinitarians point to this passage as proof that anyone who does not worship Jesus on the same level as the Father is not honoring God, and therefore, Jesus is God. Likewise, they say, if Jesus was making Himself equal to God, He must be God. But this is not how the first-century Jews would have understood this statement. The context shows that Jesus was talking about how the Father has granted authority to the Son both to resurrect and to judge; that is, He has been given authority as the agent of God. If Jesus were God Himself, obviously it wouldn’t be true that “the Son is not able to do anything of Himself” (since God is self-existent), but this is true of the representative agents of God.
Understanding that this passage is about agency, and not deity, completely changes the interpretation of vv. 18 and 23. In the ancient world, a king’s envoy was expected to be received with the same honor as the king himself, and anything else would be greatly dishonorable to both the king and his envoy. So, when the Jews heard Jesus say this, they would have understood him as saying something like this: “The Father has given me authority as His agent, the Messiah; acknowledge me as you would the Father, or else you dishonor us both”. This is not a statement that Jesus is God, but rather a statement that Jesus, as the Messiah, is the ultimate agent/envoy of God the Father.
“Whoever may receive one of such children in my name, doth receive me, and whoever may receive me, doth not receive me, but Him who sent me.” (Mk. 9:37 cf. Matt. 10:40; Lk. 9:48; John 13:20)
And Jesus cried out and said, “He who is believing in me, doth not believe in me, but in Him who sent me; and he who is beholding me, doth behold Him who sent me” (John 12:44-45)
These two passages are about as blatant a statement of agency as possible. Those who believe in and receive Jesus as the perfect agent commissioned by God - the Messiah - also receive and believe in the Father who sent Him, in accordance with the concept of agency.
All of these passages show that the Messiah, Jesus, was considered the ultimate agent of God as the perfect “image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). Now, keeping this concept of agency in mind, let’s take a look at the passages considered by trinitarians to prove that Jesus is one and the same as Yahweh.
Is Jesus Yahweh?
The following pairs of verses will be taken mostly from Matt Slick’s article “Jehovah is Jesus“, from his “Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry” website, although a few are taken from other trinitarian apologetics resources.
“Turn to Me, and be saved, all ends of the earth, For I [am] God, and there is none else. By Myself I have sworn, Gone out from my mouth in righteousness hath a word, And it turneth not back, That to Me, bow doth every knee, every tongue swear.” (Isa. 45:22-23)
that in the name of Jesus every knee may bow — of heavenlies, and earthlies, and what are under the earth — and every tongue may confess that Jesus Christ [is] Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Php. 2:10-11)
In the first passage, we are told that every knee will bow and every tongue swear allegiance to Yahweh, and yet in the second passage Paul says that every knee will bow and every tongue swear allegiance to Jesus Christ. Does this mean that Jesus is one and the same as Yahweh? Absolutely not - this is merely the concept of agency being emphatically expressed.
As Jesus said, “he who is believing in me, doth not believe in me, but in Him that sent me” (John 12:44). Because Jesus is the ultimate agent of Yahweh, to swear allegiance to Jesus is to swear allegiance to God. To this effect, Paul adds that every tongue confessing that Jesus is Lord is “to the glory of God, the Father”, precisely because those who accept Jesus are accepting the one who sent Him: Yahweh God.
“Every one who calleth in the name of Yahweh is delivered” (Joel 2:32)
whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord [Jesus], he shall be saved. (Rom. 10:13)
Does this mean that Jesus is Yahweh? Well, first of all, there is no indication that Paul is actually trying to quote Joel 2:32 in this passage; it is not preceded by “thus says the scripture”, which is how Paul usually cites the Old Testament.
But even if Paul were trying to quote Joel 2:32 here, this is still merely using the concept of agency. Those who call upon Jesus are, in effect, calling upon the one who sent Him, as Jesus Himself explained several times (Matt. 10:40; John 12:44; 13:20), just as the angels of Yahweh in the Old Testament (including Moses and the prophets) often used His name. Therefore, this comparison is certainly not enough to prove that Jesus is Yahweh; again, it is merely an emphatic expression of the concept of agency, by which those who call upon Jesus are in effect calling upon God who sent Him.
“And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for him as one grieves for a firstborn.” (Zech. 12:10)
Lo, he doth come with the clouds, and see him shall every eye, even those who did pierce him, and wail because of him shall all the tribes of the land. Yes! Amen! (Rev. 1:7)
In the first passage, Yahweh prophesies that Israel will look upon “Me whom they have pierced”, whereas in the second passage, John writes that every eye will see Jesus, even “those who did pierce Him”. Does this not prove that Jesus is Yahweh? First of all, the grammar of this passage is not clear in the Hebrew, and there are certain textual variants which indicate that the original reading may have been “look on him whom they pierced”. In fact, this very verse is quoted in the gospel of John as, “They will look on the one they have pierced” (19:37).
However, even if this verse did originally read “look on Me whom they pierced”, this is no problem for unitarianism when the concept of agency is properly understood. Jesus said in John 5:23 that those who dishonor Him also dishonor the One who sent Him, the Father, via the ancient concept of agency; so it could indeed be said that, when Jesus was pierced, Yahweh who sent Him was likewise figuratively pierced. Those who see Jesus can have said to have seen Yahweh as well (John 12:45; 14:9), just as Moses and several others in the Old Testament saw an “angel of Yahweh” and claimed to have seen Yahweh Himself.
Furthermore, Yahweh goes on to speak of this same one “whom they have pierced” in the third person, demonstrating that He cannot be one and the same as Yahweh. Instead, He must be an agent of Yahweh, as the original readers of the passage would have understood it.
A voice is crying — in a wilderness — “Prepare ye the way of Yahweh, Make straight in a desert a highway to our God.” (Isa. 40:3)
“Lo, I am sending My angel, And he hath prepared a way before Me, And suddenly come in unto his temple Doth the Lord whom ye are seeking, Even the angel of the covenant, Whom ye are desiring, Lo, he is coming,” said Yahweh of hosts. (Mal. 3:1)
As it hath been written in the prophets, “Lo, I send My angel before thy face, who shall prepare thy way before thee — A voice of one calling in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, straight make ye his paths” (Mk. 1:2-3 cf. Lk. 1:76)The trinitarian claim is that, because Isaiah and Malachi prophesied an angel who would prepare the way for Yahweh, whereas John the Baptist only prepared the way for Jesus Christ, Jesus must be Yahweh. However, this ignores the immediate context of Malachi 3:1, which in the same breath says that the prophesied angel (John the Baptist) would prepare the way for “Me” and “the angel [agent] of the covenant”. As I hope I made obvious in the first section of this post, this would have been understood as referring to an agent of Yahweh, who could simultaneously be considered representationally equivalent to Yahweh and yet ontologically distinct and inferior.
Israel doth wait on Yahweh, For with Yahweh [is] kindness, And abundant with Him [is] redemption. And He doth redeem Israel from all his iniquities! (Ps. 130:7-8)
[Christ] did give himself for us, that he might ransom us from all lawlessness, and might purify to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works (Titus 2:14)
I fail to understand the logic in grouping these two verses together. It seems to be similar to how some trinitarians argue that because God is the only savior (Isa. 43:11), and Jesus is a savior (Lk. 2:11), Jesus must be God. However, there are many other verses in scripture that say that certain humans are saviors, raised up (i.e., commissioned as agents) by Yahweh: Othniel ben-Kenaz (Judg. 3:9), Ehud ben-Gera (v. 15), David (2 Sam. 3:18), Jeroboam ben-Jehoash (2 Kings 14:27), and many unnamed human saviors (Neh. 9:27, Obad. 1:21).
Does this mean that all of those humans were actually God in the flesh? No! As described already, Judges 2:16-18 says that Yahweh was with the judges when they saved Israel, and so it can be said that both God and the judges were saviors, even though God is ultimately the only source of salvation. In the exact same way, Paul writes that God was through Christ reconciling the world to Himself (2 Cor. 5:18-19). Therefore, these two passages combined do not prove that Jesus is God; again, all that they prove is that God was acting through Jesus as His ultimate agent, the Messiah.
Conclusion
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