Two conclusive arguments for universal salvation

     Argument #1 (God will save all people)

Premise 1. God has mercy on, and hardens, whomever he wills according to his will [thelēma] (Rom. 9:18; cf. Eph. 1:4-5, 11)

Premise 1*. God can save anyone that he wills. [This is a weaker form of Premise 1 which leads to the same conclusion.]

Premise 2. God’s will [thelēma] is that all people ultimately be saved (1 Tim. 2:4; cf. Isa. 45:22; Ezek. 33:11; Matt. 5:44-45, 48)

Conclusion. God will ultimately have mercy on and save all people.

     Premise 1

For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who shows mercy. For the scripture says to Pharaoh, “I have raised you up for the very purpose of showing my power in you, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he chooses, and he hardens the heart of whomever he chooses. (Romans 9:15-18, NRSV)

This passage makes it clear, in no uncertain terms, that one’s current position as either having been shown mercy or having been hardened is not according to one’s own will, but the will [thelēma] of God. Although Arminians would dispute this notion, largely on the basis that God would not arbitrarily assign people to ‘eternal damnation’, this is made absolutely clear elsewhere in scripture as well. Those who have been saved in this lifetime are repeatedly called the “chosen” or “elect” (Matt. 20:16; 22:14; Rom. 8:33; Col. 3:12; Tit. 1:1; 1 Pet. 1:1; too many others to cite).

    Furthermore, many other passages show that our faith is itself a gift from God, predestined to us long before any choice that we ourselves make:

At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants” (Matt. 11:25, NRSV)

Then the disciples came and asked him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” He answered, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.” (Matt. 13:10-11, NRSV) 

“No one can come to me [Jesus] unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day.... But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.” (John 6:44, 64-65, NRSV)

The combination of these three passages shows that not only does the Father determine who is able to perceive the mysteries of the kingdom and come to Jesus, but also determines the reverse — in fact, Jesus says that the very reason why some of his disciples would later leave and betray him is because the Father predestined it. This only makes sense if both faith and unbelief are predetermined by God.

For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all... For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. (Rom. 11:32; 12:3, NRSV)

Paul distinguishes between those to whom God has shut up in disobedience (all people), and the few to whom God has allotted a measure of faith (Christians). Again, in both cases, it is God who ultimately causes one’s faith or unbelief respectively — human ‘free will’ has no part in it.

He [God] chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will... In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him [God] who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will (Eph. 1:4-5, 11, NRSV)

[God] saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began (2 Tim. 1:9, NRSV)

Like in Romans 9:15-18, Paul twice remarks in Ephesians 1:4-11 that our faith and salvation has been predestined to us according to God’s will [thelēma]. Therefore, we can conclude that our faith is not out of ourselves, but is a gift from God, as Paul explicitly states elsewhere in this same epistle (Eph. 2:8-9). Furthermore, Paul says in both of these passages that God gave this grace to us before the world was created, only now manifesting it to us (as he also says elsewhere, esp. Titus 1:2-3). This makes clear that our having been given grace can’t be dependent on a choice that we ourselves make, since the choice was already made by God even before the creation of the world.

For he has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well (Php. 1:29, NRSV)

Here, again, Paul clearly says that our belief in Christ has been granted to us; and not only that, but even the suffering that the Philippian church experienced was brought about by God, showing that the unbelief of others is ultimately part of his will as well.

[Christ is] “A stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. (1 Pet. 2:8, NRSV)

In this verse, Peter says in no uncertain terms that anyone who disbelieves the gospel was appointed to that unbelief. This is in accord with his statements elsewhere that those who believe in this lifetime are “elect” or “chosen” by the Father (1 Pet. 1:1-2; 2:9; 5:13).

    These are far from the only passages that teach that God controls both faith and unbelief: for example, see John 1:12-13; 15:16; Acts 13:48; Rom. 8:28-30; 1 Cor. 1:27-28; 3:5-9; 1 Thess. 1:4; 2 Thess. 2:13; 2 Tim. 2:25-26; Heb. 6:1-3; and Jude 4. In summary, the faith or unbelief of humans today is not based on our own choices that we make, but God’s choosing us according to his will [thelēma]. A discussion of whether free will truly exists in the libertarian sense is not the main topic of this article (although I do not believe it does [1]), but these passages make clear that even if it does, our faith is not based on those ‘free will’ choices. Thus, we have arrived at Premise 1: God has mercy on, and hardens, whomever he wills according to His will [thelēma].

    Premise 1*

The Bible clearly teaches that our faith is a result of God’s grace toward us, a decision that he made before the world was created, which we therefore could have had no part in. Even if the Bible didn’t tell us this, however, it follows directly from God’s omniscience (infinite knowledge). If indeed God knows everything, then he knows what circumstances would be required for each person to come to faith in him. If there are no circumstances in which a person could possibly be saved, that means the person was damned from the beginning, which is equivalent to hyper-Calvinist double predestination (that the vast majority of Christians rightfully reject). God’s omnipotence (infinite power) also means that he can bring about these circumstances. Thus, as a logical consequence of God’s omniscience and omnipotence, we can arrive at Premise 1*: God can save anyone that he wills.

    Premise 2

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (1 Tim. 2:1-4, NRSV)

According to this passage, God wills (thelei) that all mankind would be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Calvinists dispute that this passage actually refers to all mankind, and argue that either (1) it is simply saying that God wills all the elect to be saved, or else (2) this refers to God’s preceptive will and not his providential will.

    The first objection, that this passage is merely referring to all the elect and not all mankind, is false. Calvinists are correct to point out that “all” (pas) does not always mean all without exception (for example, in Matt. 3:5-6 and Luke 2:1), because it is sometimes used hyperbolically, but the referent of the “all” in 1 Timothy 2:4 is clearly all mankind (pantas anthrōpous) and not simply the elect. There are no qualifications or contextual indications that anything less than every human without exception is meant here, unlike in the other verses that Calvinists point to where “all” does not mean all without exception. How much more clear could Paul have been that God does indeed will all people to be saved? It’s eisegesis to suggest that this means only “all the elect.”

    Furthermore, just two verses earlier, Paul establishes that one of the groups which God wills to be saved is “kings and all who are in authority”. At the time that this epistle to Timothy was written, the king in power was the Roman emperor Nero, who was about as far from the elect as one can get — he’s considered to be one of the worst tyrants in Roman history, who initiated the first widespread persecution of Christians. In fact, many preterists believe that Nero was Antichrist, the fulfillment of the ‘Beast’ prophecy of Revelation 13:1-10. If Paul was including him in the category which God wills to be saved, it’s impossible that 1 Timothy 2:4 is only referring to all the elect and not all mankind.

    However, even if we were not sure that 1 Timothy 2:4 were truly referring to all mankind, other passages make clear that God does indeed will all mankind to be saved. One of the key passages that proves this is Matthew 5:43-48:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous... Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matt. 5:43-45, 48, NRSV)

This passage shows that the Father loves even his enemies, and that this love of all people — including the enemies of God — is integral to his very perfection. If God ceased to perfectly love all people, then he would no longer be perfect, and therefore he would no longer be God.

    And what is love, fundamentally? Love is that which does no harm to another (Rom. 13:10), and which works for the ultimate good of the object of love, despite any temporary chastising that may occur (Heb. 12:6-11). The prophet Jeremiah tells us that, although God sometimes justly brings grief and affliction to those he loves, he always afterward shows compassion (Lam. 3:31-33). Therefore, because love is fundamental to God’s very being (1 John 4:8), and his love for all people (even his enemies) is integral to his perfection, it’s inconceivable that he could not work toward the ultimate good of all people — meaning that God indeed wills that all mankind (without exception) would eventually be saved.

    The second Calvinist objection to the view that God’s will is for all people to be saved is that this verse is describing God’s preceptive will — meaning His general call for people everywhere to be saved — and not God’s providential will, by which He works all things. However, this verse, in saying that God wills all people to be saved, uses the same Greek verb (thelei) that Paul uses in Romans 9:18 when he writes that “[God] has mercy on whom he wills [thelei], and whom he wills [thelei] he hardens” and in Ephesians 1:6, 11 when describing the will by which God works all things. This is God’s will [thelēma] — in the same way that God has mercy on and hardens whom he wills, he also wills that all people should ultimately be saved.

    In summary, the Bible is clear that God wills the ultimate salvation of all mankind, meaning truly all people without exception. This fact is confirmed by Ephesians 1:10 (NASB), which states that “the mystery of His will [thelēma]... [is] to bring all things together in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.” In fact, God’s perfect love for all people, including his enemies, is integral to his very being and perfection, which means that he must work everything for the ultimate good of all people. This leads us to the second premise: God’s will [thelēma] is that all people ultimately be saved.

    Conclusion

If God has the ability to provide faith and unbelief to people in accordance with his will [thelēma], and if God’s will [thelēma] is that all people will ultimately be saved and shown mercy, the only possible conclusion is that God will ultimately have mercy on and save all people. This conclusion follows directly from the premises. Since, as I showed in the last two sections of this post, both of these premises are proven by scripture beyond a doubt, the conclusion of universal salvation is also, beyond a doubt, the biblical truth.

    Although this argument stands on its own as irrefutable proof of universal salvation, there are also several passages that teach this truth directly. For example,

For to this end we toil and struggle, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe. (1 Tim. 4:10, NRSV)

He [God] has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth. (Eph. 1:9-10, NRSV)

Therefore God also highly exalted him [Jesus] and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Php. 2:9-11, NRSV)

Note: Paul is referencing a passage in Isaiah (44:22-24) in which God swears by Himself that all people will bow and swear allegiance to him — this is a promise that God made and will, beyond a doubt, come to pass (Num. 23:19; Heb. 6:18). Since no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the holy spirit (1 Cor. 12:3), this certainly describes the salvation of all people everywhere.

The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is plain that this does not include the one who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all. (1 Cor. 15:26-28, NRSV)

For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all. (Rom. 11:32, NRSV)

Thus, God’s will for all to be saved shall, undoubtedly, come to pass. The fact that God will ultimately save all people is taught by scripture, both directly and by logical necessity.

    One common (particularly Calvinist) objection to this is that not all people are part of the “elect”, and so not all people have been chosen to receive salvation by God. After all, Jesus said that “many are called but few are elected” (Matt. 22:14), that few find the narrow path to life (Matt. 7:13-14), and that not even all who say to him, “Lord, Lord,” will enter his kingdom (Matt. 7:21-23). Furthermore, the book of Acts implicitly states that not all people have been appointed to “eternal life” (13:48). Does this not prove that not all people will be saved, and render the above argument invalid?

    Actually, this exact same argument can be used against these imaginary detractors: because we know beyond a doubt that God will save all people (see the above), and yet God does not elect some people to “eternal life”, not being elected to “eternal life” must not be incompatible with one’s eventual salvation. And as a matter of fact, the scriptural evidence supports this conclusion.

    The phrase translated as “eternal life,” zōē aiōnios (translated better as “life of the [Messianic] Age”), actually refers to receiving life and reigning with Christ in the Messianic Age, as I argued extensively in this series of posts regarding the definition of aiōnios. Only those who are saved in this life will receive this life of the Age and reign with Christ. However, the salvation of all will not be accomplished until Christ gives up the kingdom to the Father and stops reigning (1 Cor. 15:24-28), which will occur at the end of the ages. [2] Therefore, not receiving the life of the Age is compatible with eventual salvation, because all people will not be saved until after the Messianic Age (and thus after the life of the Age).

    Argument #2 (Jesus will save all people)

Premise 1. Jesus loves all people, including his enemies, in accordance with God’s precept “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 5:43-48; 22:39-40; Mk. 12:31). If he failed to keep this precept, he would be a sinner.

Premise 2. Jesus has the authority to give salvation to anyone who has been placed under his command (John 17:2).

Premise 3. Jesus has been given all authority over heaven and earth (Matt. 28:18) and over living and dead (Rom. 14:9), which includes all people that have ever lived.

Conclusion. Jesus will save all people that have ever lived.

    Premise 1

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous... Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matt. 5:43-45, 48, NRSV)

This passage is in the larger context of the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus presents a new interpretation of the law for Israel to follow. Jesus’ command to love one’s enemy as oneself is, therefore, to be considered one of the precepts of the law. This is confirmed elsewhere in the gospel accounts:

And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matt. 22:35-40, NRSV)

In this statement, Jesus brings the commandment “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18) out of obscurity and establishes it as one of the two foremost commandments, upon which the entire law hangs. And as he stated in the Sermon on the Mount, this same love applies not only to one’s neighbor, but even to one’s enemies. Since Jesus obeyed (and continues to obey) the law perfectly, never sinning (2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15; 1 Pet. 2:22; 1 John 3:5), we can be certain that Jesus perfectly loves all people at all times. In fact, if Jesus failed to love all people, then he would be found a sinner, and his death would be worthless.

    As described earlier in this post, love is that which does no harm to a neighbor, and which works for the ultimate good of the object of love, even if it involves temporary affliction and chastisement (Rom. 13:10; Heb. 12:6-11; cf. Lam. 3:31-33). Therefore, we can be certain that Jesus never harms a single person without making sure that it works for the ultimate good of that person; otherwise, as said already, he would be found a sinner, and his death made worthless. We have now arrived at our first premise for argument #2: Jesus loves all people, including his enemies, in accordance with God’s precept “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

    Premise 2

After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:1-3, NRSV)

As proven in my defense of premise 1 (and 1*) of argument #1, God the Father has the sovereignty to give whoever he wills the gift of faith and salvation. According to this passage, that same sovereignty has been given to Jesus, who has the authority to provide “eternal life” to anyone whom the Father has given Him. Since Jesus immediately defines “eternal life” as knowing God and Christ, [3] this means that Jesus has the authority to supply whomsoever He wishes with a saving faith.

    This very thing — Christ gracefully providing a person with saving faith — is explicitly described at least once in scripture, in the case of Saul of Tarsus (Paul). When Saul was on the road to Damascus, he was “still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1). And yet, as soon as Christ appeared to him in a vision, his grace powerfully overwhelmed Saul and provided him with the faith he needed to be saved. This is confirmed in Paul’s own writings:

I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the foremost. (1 Tim. 1:12-15, NRSV)

Jesus’ grace was more than abundant to provide Paul with the “faith and love that are in Christ Jesus,” even though he had been a blasphemer and persecutor with no hope of redemption. In fact, we are told that the very reason that Jesus provided Paul with grace is because he acted ignorantly in unbelief, for “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Therefore, we can be certain of the second premise of this argument: Jesus has the authority to give salvation to anyone who has been placed under his command.

    Premise 3

Keeping in mind that Christ has the authority to give faith to anyone who has been placed under his authority, we might ask, how many people have been placed under his authority? In fact, this is answered in the very same verse that we just examined: God has given Him authority over “all flesh” (John 17:2). But there is still some ambiguity in this: does Christ only have authority over those who are currently living, or only over humans, or humans and angelic beings, or is it literally all conscious beings?

    This question is answered elsewhere in scripture:

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” (Matt. 28:18, NRSV)

For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. (Rom. 14:9, NRSV)

Jesus’ authority extends over all things in heaven and on earth — this includes not only humans, but also angelic and demonic beings (cf. Eph. 6:12). Furthermore, his authority extends over both the dead and the living, and these categories likely encompass all conscious beings that have ever lived, even animals, which are called nephesh chayyah or “living souls” (Gen. 1:20-21, 24). Even if we take “dead and living” in Romans 14:9 to refer to only humans, which is a possible interpretation, this still includes every human that has ever lived.

    Thus, we have arrived at Premise 3: Jesus has been given authority over all people (at least including all humans and angelic beings) that have ever lived.

    Conclusion

If Jesus truly loves all people, meaning that he wills their ultimate good, and if he has authority to provide anyone under His power with a saving faith, and if Jesus has been given authority over all conscious beings that have ever lived, the only logical conclusion is that all people that have ever lived will be saved by Jesus. Like in argument #1, the conclusion follows directly from the premises, and the premises are clearly supported by scripture.

    This argument stands on its own as proof of universal salvation, but again, this truth — that Jesus will save and reconcile all people — is also affirmed directly by certain passages. For example:

For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all — this was attested at the right time. (1 Tim. 2:5-6, NRSV)

For in him [Jesus] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. (Col. 1:19-20, NRSV)

But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many... Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. (Rom. 5:15, 18-19, NRSV)

Note: Although some detractors claim that, because the “all mankind” of v. 18 is elsewhere called “the many,” this needn’t refer to all people without exception. However, it is clear from the context that “the many” refers to all people without exception, because it is the same amount of people who died and were made sinners that will be given grace and made righteous. Humanity as a whole is simply being referred to as “the many” as a contrast with “the one [man].”

For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. (2 Cor. 5:14-15, NRSV)

Therefore, we can be sure that Christ will bring about the salvation and reconciliation of all people, whether in the heavens (angelic beings) or upon the earth (human beings). This fact is taught in scripture both directly and by logical necessity, as also in argument #1.

    But what about ‘hell passages’?

    These two arguments have shown that universal salvation is clearly taught in scripture, both directly and by logical necessity. However, there are some passages that non-universalists consider to be difficult for universal salvation. These passages fall into three categories:

1. Passages that state that certain people will be judged and punished, but without stating specifically the length of the punishment or whether there is hope of redemption (e.g., Matt. 10:28; 13:49-50; Php. 3:18-19).

2. Passages that state that certain people will be punished and/or destroyed eternally (e.g., Matt. 25:46; Mk. 3:29; 1 Thess. 1:9; Jude 7).

3. Passages that state that less than all people will be saved (e.g., Matt. 7:13-14, 21-23; Acts 13:48).

    The first category of passages actually provides no evidence against universal salvation, and is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what universalists believe. The arguments above only prove that all people will, ultimately, be saved and reconciled. There’s no argument against the idea that God punishes people at all, a fact that is also clearly taught in scripture. The question is not whether God will punish people at all, but whether that punishment will be eternal and without hope of redemption. According to the biblical authors, God punishes people in order to restore them (Lam. 3:31-33; Heb. 12:5-11), which goes against the idea of hopeless, eternal punishment.

    The second category of passages, those which state that people will be punished and/or destroyed eternally, is based on an unfortunate mistranslation of scripture. Those passages which characterize punishment as “eternal” do not use the Greek words that mean strictly “without end”, like aidios and ateleutos, but the Greek word aiōnios, which literally means “age-lasting” or “pertaining to/of the Age.” [4] Other passages describe this punishment as eis tous aiōnas tōn aiōnōn (Rev. 14:11; 20:10), meaning literally “for the ages of the ages,” the same period for which Christ will be reigning over the kingdom (Rev. 11:15). Both the life of the Age and punishment of the Age prophesied in scripture will last only until the end of the Messianic Age, when sin and death will be abolished, Christ will step down and voluntarily subject himself to God the Father, and God will finally be all in all (1 Cor. 15:24-28).

    The third category of passages, which are interpreted by non-universalists as saying that not all people will be saved, is based on a misinterpretation of scripture. There are no passages which say that any person will never be saved. The passage parallel to Matt. 7:13ff in the gospel of Luke (13:23-30) makes clear that this is about entering the Messianic kingdom, as are all of Jesus’ other parables which describe the “casting out” of people from the kingdom. Since few people actually enter the Messianic kingdom, and all others will instead be saved only at the end of the Messianic Age, this provides no challenge to the belief that all people will eventually be saved. Likewise, other passages which state that certain people will not receive “life of the Age” (e.g., John 3:36; Acts 13:48) have no bearing on whether all people will be saved after the Messianic Age.

    Because all of the prooftexts for non-universalism fall into three categories, being either based on misunderstanding, mistranslation, or misinterpretation, there is really no good evidence against universal salvation. Furthermore, even if a few passages (especially Matt. 7:13-14; 25:46; Mk. 3:29; and Rev. 14:11 which are the most commonly used against universalists) can be interpreted in a way that contradicts universalism, this in no way addresses the above arguments which show that the broad themes of the Bible, like God’s love for and sovereignty over all people, necessitate the eventual salvation of all. We should rejoice in the truth that Paul tells us to “insist on and teach”: that God is the savior of all mankind, especially of those who believe (1 Tim. 4:10-11).

______________________________

[1] Based on passages like Job 23:13-14; Ps. 33:14-15; Prov. 16:1, 4, 9, 33; 19:21; 20:24; 21:1; Isa. 45:5-7; Jer. 10:23; Lam. 3:37-39; Dan. 5:23; Acts 17:25, 28; Php. 2:13; Jas. 4:13-15; Rev. 17:17.

[2] See the original Greek of Lk. 1:33 and Rev. 11:15, both of which state that Christ will reign “for the ages” (eis tous aiōnas).

[3] As noted above, the term “eternal life” or “life of the Age” refers to living and reigning with Christ in the Messianic Age. However, in the Johannine corpus, it has a more specific meaning. According to John, we already “have” the life of the Age in the present tense if we believe (John 3:36; 5:24; 6:47, 54; 1 John 5:11, 13). It is defined as “knowing God and Christ” (John 17:3). This is more than a mere intellectual knowledge, and involves God and his Son actually coming to dwell in communion with us (John 14:23; 1 John 1:3; 2:24; 3:23-24; 4:12-13). The love of God is being “perfected” in those who are in communion with the Father and the Son (1 John 2:5; 4:12, 18). This is a spiritual blessing which believers possess now. The fact that Jesus can grant this blessing shows that he, like God, is sovereign over our salvation.

[4] The word aiōnios is the adjective form of the word aiōn, meaning “age.” Furthermore, as I argued extensively in another series of posts, the words aiōn and aiōnios (along with their Hebrew equivalent olam) are used all throughout scripture to describe lasting (but not everlasting) things. See the fifth post in the series for a comprehensive debunking of ‘eternal punishment’ interpretations.

Is Jesus God? Answering Answers in Genesis (part 2 of 2)

Part 1: https://universalistheretic.blogspot.com/2022/05/is-jesus-god-answering-answers-in.html

     In the first part of this series, we dealt with the arguments for the deity of Christ put forth by Answers in Genesis in their article, “Is Jesus God?“ In their article, they asserted that Jesus possesses many of the names, titles, attributes, and works that rightly apply to God alone, like being the creator or receiving worship. However, all of those arguments were shown to be false in one of two ways: either (1) the name, title, attribute, or work does not actually apply to Jesus and has been misinterpreted, or else (2) the name, title, attribute, or work is also applied to other humans throughout the Bible. The fact that such arguments can so easily be shown to be false from scripture alone certainly says something about the validity of the doctrine of Christ’s deity.

    In the second section of their article, Answers in Genesis (AiG) defends the doctrine of the Trinity against unitarian detractors (such as myself). First, they define the Trinity and provide some scriptural evidence in favor of it, and then set up straw-man unitarian “objections” to trinitarianism and the deity of Christ. Let’s take a look at their arguments.

    Defining the doctrine of the Trinity

The deity of Christ is intimately connected to the doctrine of the Trinity. This doctrine affirms that there is only one God and that in the unity of the one godhead there are three coequal and coeternal persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Let us briefly consider the evidence for this doctrine.

Since many trinitarian organizations define the Trinity in different ways, let’s break down AiG’s definition of the Trinity so that we can better critique it as we go on.

1. There is only one God.

2. There are three persons within the one God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

3. These three persons are all equal in status to one another.

4. Propositions 1 - 3 are eternally the case.

Now that we have a better understanding of AiG’s definition of the Trinity, let’s take a look at their evidence for it.

    There is one God

In the course of God’s self-disclosure to humankind, He revealed His nature in progressive stages. First, God revealed that He is the only true God. This was a necessary starting point for God’s self-revelation. Throughout history, Israel was surrounded by pagan nations deeply engulfed in the belief that there are many gods. Through the prophets, God communicated to Israel that there is only one true God (Deuteronomy 6:4, 32:39; Psalm 86:10; Isaiah 44:6). Even at this early juncture, however, we find preliminary indications of the Trinity (Genesis 1:26, 11:7; Isaiah 6:8, 48:16). God’s oneness is also emphasized in the New Testament (Romans 3:29–30; 1 Corinthians 8:4; Galatians 3:20; 1 Thessalonians 1:9; 1 Timothy 1:17, 2:5; James 2:19; Jude 25).

I agree with AiG that scripture clearly states that there is only one true God. However, they completely pass over the fact that scripture also says that “God is one” (not three or ‘three-in-one’), even in the very passages that they cited (Deut. 6:4; Rom. 3:30; Gal. 3:20; 1 Tim. 2:5; Jas. 2:19), and furthermore, that this title of “the one God” is repeatedly used of the Father and distinguished from Jesus Christ (Jn. 5:43-44; 17:3; 1 Cor. 8:6; Eph. 4:5-6; 1 Tim. 2:5). In fact, in virtually all of the examples they provided of verses that prove monotheism, God uses singular pronouns to describe Himself, which precludes the existence of more than one consciousness or “person” within the one true God [1].

    The instances of “preliminary indications of the Trinity” in the Old Testament which they provide amount to nothing more than wishful thinking on the part of the trinitarian. There are only four passages which use plural pronouns in reference to God (Gen. 1:26; 3:22; 11:7; Isa. 6:8), and these cannot offset the literally thousands of instances where God uses singular pronouns to describe Himself - even at critical junctures like Psalm 86:10 and Isaiah 44:6, where Yahweh describes His unique status as God, He still uses only singular pronouns [2].

    Let’s take a look at the other supposed “preliminary indication of the Trinity” in the OT:

“Listen to Me, O Jacob, even Israel whom I called; I am He, I am the first, I am also the last. Surely My hand founded the earth, and My right hand spread out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand together. Assemble, all of you, and listen! Who among them has declared these things? Yahweh loves him; he will carry out his good pleasure on Babylon, and his arm will be against the Chaldeans. I, even I, have spoken; indeed I have called him, I have brought him, and He will make his ways successful. Come near to me, listen to this:”

“From the first I have not spoken in secret, from the time it took place, I was there. And now the Lord Yahweh has sent me, and His spirit.” (Isa. 48:12-16 NASB)

Because God is the one speaking in Isaiah 48:12-15, whereas Isaiah 48:16 says that “the Lord Yahweh has sent me”, this is supposed to show the so-called plurality within Yahweh. However, even if the speaker in v. 16 is one of the “persons” in the Trinity, the subject must change between vv. 15 and 16 (if only between “persons”), since the speaker clearly changes from the Caller to the one called.

    There is no reason to believe that, when the speaker changes between vv. 15 and 16, it is changing between two different “Yahwehs” and not simply between Yahweh and a human. And indeed, the context shows that the one speaking in v. 16 is not another “Yahweh”, but is actually Cyrus king of Persia. Throughout chapters 45 - 48 of Isaiah, the focus is on God’s judgment of Babylon which would be carried out by Cyrus; that this is still in view is confirmed by 48:14, which states “he will carry out his good pleasure on Babylon, and his arm will be against the Chaldeans.” Thus, the one who was sent by Yahweh in v. 16 is Cyrus, not another ‘person’ of Yahweh. This is not a “preliminary indication of the Trinity,” but is again merely trinitarians’ wishful thinking.

    The Father is God

As history unfolded, God progressively revealed more about himself. It eventually became clear that while there is only one God, there are three distinct persons within the one godhead, each individually recognized as God (Matthew 28:19).

The Father, for example, is explicitly called God (John 6:27; Romans 1:7; Galatians 1:1; 1 Peter 1:2). He is also portrayed as having all the attributes of deity—such as being everywhere-present (Matthew 19:26), all-knowing (Romans 11:33), all-powerful (1 Peter 1:5), holy (Revelation 15:4), and eternal (Psalm 90:2).

You will find no argument from me that the Father is not God. He is repeatedly revealed to be God throughout the New Testament, in fact, to the exclusion of any other “person” being God (Jn. 5:43-44; 17:3; 1 Cor. 8:6; Eph. 4:6). He is also called the God of Jesus (Jn. 20:17; Rom. 15:6; 2 Cor. 1:3; Eph. 1:3; 1 Pet. 1:3).

    However, I do object to AiG’s assertion that Matthew 28:19 proves that “there are three distinct persons within the godhead, each individually recognized as God”. This is what Matthew 28:19 says:

“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the holy spirit” (NASB)

All that this verse shows is that the Father is separate from the Son, who is separate from the holy spirit, and that baptism occurs by the authority of all three. This does not show that all three of these are recognized as God, or even that all three are personal beings (which is probably untrue of the holy spirit, as Sean Finnegan argued in an article that I featured earlier on this blog).

    The Son is [not] God

Jesus is also explicitly called “God” in Scripture (Titus 2:13; Hebrews 1:8). And He, too, has all the attributes of deity—including being everywhere-present (Matthew 28:20), all-knowing (Matthew 9:4), all-powerful (Matthew 28:18), holy (Acts 3:14), and eternal (Revelation 1:8, 17).

You should note that none of these verses (with the exception of Acts 3:14) actually teach what AiG claims they teach. However, I already dealt with most of these passages in the first part of my rebuttal, so I won’t rehash the same points here - please go read that post instead.

    The Holy Spirit is God

The Holy Spirit is also recognized as God (Acts 5:3–4). He, too, possesses the attributes of deity, including being everywhere-present (Psalm 139:7–9), all-knowing (1 Corinthians 2:10–11), all-powerful (Romans 15:19), holy (John 16:7–14), and eternal (Hebrews 9:14).

It is true that the holy spirit is indeed God, although AiG’s characterization of the holy spirit as a “he” rather than an “it” is questionable. The holy spirit is not a “person” separate from the Father, but is the means by which the Father interacts with the world, and which indwells believers in order to connect them to both God and Christ. For a more detailed study on the biblical definition of the holy spirit, and the question of its personality, see Sean Finnegan’s article that I featured earlier on this blog.

    Three-in-Oneness in the Godhead?

Scripture also indicates there is three-in-oneness in the godhead. In Matthew 28:19, the resurrected Jesus instructed the disciples, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). The word name is singular in the Greek, thereby indicating God’s oneness. However, the definite articles in front of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (in the original Greek) indicate they are distinct personalities, even though there is just one God.

These distinct personalities relate to each other. The Father and Son, for example, know each other (Matthew 11:27), love each other (John 3:35), and speak to each other (John 11:41–42). The Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus at His baptism (Luke 3:22), is called another comforter (John 14:16), was sent by the Father and Jesus (John 15:26), and seeks to glorify Jesus (John 16:13–14).

Again, AiG appeals to Matthew 28:19 as proof that God is three “persons” in one “being”. Let’s take a closer look at this verse:

“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the holy spirit” (NASB)

First, it is argued that because the word “name” is singular here, the Father, Son, and holy spirit must somehow all have the same name (which AiG would presumably claim is Yahweh). But this is absolutely false. The “name” of something or someone simply refers to the authority of that thing or person, as prophets and kings often did things in “the name of Yahweh” in the Old Testament (Deut. 18:5-7, 22; 1 Sam. 17:45; 2 Kings 2:24; etc.) Furthermore, singular “name” can be used to refer to multiple people with different names, as the following passages demonstrate:

“The angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the boys; and may my name live on in them, and the name [singular] of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and may they grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.” (Gen. 48:16 NASB)

The three older sons of Jesse had followed Saul to the battle. And the name [singular] of his three sons who had gone into the battle were Eliab the firstborn, and second to him, Abinadab, and the third, Shammah. (1 Sam. 17:13 NASB)

In order to stay grammatically accurate, most Bible versions translate the above instances of (singular) “name” as the plural “names”. If these translators wish to be consistent and not misleading, they should translate Matthew 28:19 as “in the names of the Father and the Son and the holy spirit”. But until then, this verse remains another instance of trinitarian translator bias, which is unfortunately common throughout the Bible.

    Next, AiG demonstrates that all three of the “persons” of the Trinity are separate from one another, contra modalism. Since I agree with this assertion, I won’t spend too much time talking about their argument here. However, I should note that - although not all unitarians are agreed on this point - I don’t believe the holy spirit to be an actual personality, but simply the means through which God interacts with the world, which is occasionally personified in scripture (see this article for more information).

    More ad hominem

Again, like at the beginning of their article, Answers in Genesis feels the need to inform its readers that all unitarians are simply cult members and followers of false religions.

Cults and false religions often raise objections against both the deity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity. In what follows, key objections will be briefly summarized and answered.

Apparently, they find it difficult to believe that anyone could come to the conclusion that the Trinity is false, and that Christ is not God, based on their own honest and independent study of scripture. So instead they resort to ad hominem attacks, spreading the falsehood that all unitarians are simply indoctrinated into their beliefs by cults and false religions.

    As I showed in the first part of my rebuttal, the most recent surveys do not support the assumption that all, or even most, unitarians are part of cults like the Jehovah’s Witnesses. In fact, although 96% of US Evangelicals profess a belief in the Trinity, fully 65% of them also believe that Jesus is a created being, and 37% did not agree with the statement that the Son of God existed prior to Jesus’ birth. It seems that most unitarians are simply regular Protestants, although they profess themselves to be trinitarians. AiG’s assertion that all unitarians are cult members and followers of false religions is simply poisoning the well.

    Jesus is the Son of God

Some claim that because Jesus is the Son of God, He must be a lesser God than God the Father. Among the ancients, however, an important meaning of Son of is “one who has the same nature as.” Jesus, as the Son of God, has the very nature of God (John 5:18, 10:30, 19:7). He is thus not a lesser God.

It is absolutely false that a meaning of “son of [God]” is “one who has the same nature as [God]”. This is simply a lie, and I’m not sure why AiG feels comfortable lying to their readers like this. As R. C. Sproul said,

...we see the difference between the title “Son of Man” and “Son of God”... both of these titles have within them elements that refer to His deity and to His humanity. But if anything, the emphasis on the two is just the opposite of what we would normally expect. The title “Son of God” is given, in the first instance in Scripture, to those who manifest obedience to the Father. Sonship is defined predominately, not in biological terms here, but in terms of being in one accord or submissive towards, and so on. Remember Jesus Himself, in His discussions with the Pharisees, who claimed to be “sons of Abraham,” Jesus rebuked them and said, “You are the children of Satan. You are the children of the one whom you obey.”

In the Old Testament, the “son of God” language is usually used of kings, specifically the king of Israel [3]. For example, see the following passages:

Then King David rose to his feet and said... “Of all my sons (for Yahweh has given me many sons), He has chosen my son Solomon to sit on the throne of the kingdom of Yahweh over Israel. He said to me, ‘Your son Solomon is the one who shall build My house and My courtyards; for I have chosen him to be a son to Me, and I will be a Father to him.’” (1 Chron. 28:2, 5-6 NASB)

“But as for Me, I have installed My king upon Zion, My holy mountain... ‘You are My son, today I have fathered You.’” (Ps. 2:6-7 NASB)

Likewise, the council of Israelite judges in Psalm 82 are referred to as both “gods [elohim]” and “sons of the Most High”. This is highly significant, because Jesus applies this passage to Himself in Jn. 10:34, implying that He is the “son of God” in the same way that they were sons of God - by being Yahweh’s anointed ruler over Israel. This is confirmed by the gospel of Luke, as it is written there that

“He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end... Holy spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; for that reason also the holy Child will be called the Son of God.” (Lk. 1:32-33, 35 NASB)

Here, we are given two reasons why Jesus will be called the Son of God: first, because He will rule over the house of Israel on the throne of David, and second, because of His miraculous conception (note that it says “for that reason also“). There is certainly a special sense in which Jesus is the Son of God, because He was miraculously conceived by holy spirit, thus making Him the “only-begotten Son”. But there is nothing here about Him being “of the same nature” as God, or being “eternally generated” by God, because these are not the meanings of “son of God”.

    Often, trinitarians bring up another passage, John 5:18 (which AiG did cite above), to support the idea that being the Son of God means being of the same nature as God. Let’s take a look at this verse:

For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.

There is definitely a sense in which Jesus is “equal with God”, and that is in a representational sense. As the divinely appointed Messiah and king, He has representational equality with Yahweh. But this was actually true of all the human Davidic kings of Israel in the Old Testament; it was in this sense that David was allowed to be worshipped by the people of Israel (1 Chron. 29:20), and that the unnamed Davidic king of Psalm 45:6 (probably either Solomon or Ahab) was called “God”.

    In the Old Testament, the human king of Israel from the Davidic line was said to sit on the throne of God (1 Chron. 29:23; 2 Chron. 9:8), rule over the kingdom of God (1 Chron. 28:5; 2 Chron. 13:8), be called the “son of God” (1 Chron. 28:6; Ps. 2:6-7), and be worshipped alongside God (1 Chron. 29:20). These all indicate representational equality with God, based on the deity-ruler relationship, and all of these are also said of Jesus in the New Testament. However, other passages make clear that Jesus was not equal to God in an ontological sense (e.g., Jn. 14:28; 20:17; Rom. 15:6).

    The Father is Greater than Jesus

Some cults argue that because Jesus said the Father is “greater” than Him (John 14:28), this must mean Jesus is a lesser God. Biblically, however, Jesus is equal with the Father in His divine nature (John 10:30). He was positionally lower than the Father from the standpoint of His becoming a servant by taking on human likeness (Philippians 2:6–11). Positionally, then, the Father was “greater” than Jesus.

Notice how AiG again poisons the well by saying that some “cults” argue that the Father is greater than Jesus. And furthermore, they put “greater” in scarequotes, making it seem as though the Father isn’t really greater than Jesus, even though there are explicit statements in the Bible that the Father is greater than Jesus. But I digress.

    AiG argues that Jesus was only inferior to the Father in His human nature. This means that once He regained His exalted position after His resurrection (Php. 2:9-11), He would no longer be inferior to the Father. However, even after Christ’s resurrection, the Father is repeatedly referred to as the God of Jesus (Jn. 20:17; Rom. 15:6; 2 Cor. 1:3; Eph. 1:3; Heb. 1:8-9; 1 Pet. 1:3), clearly demonstrating that the Father is still greater in status than Jesus. This alone demonstrates that AiG’s argument is absolutely false.

    They then appeal to John 10:30 to supposedly prove that Jesus is “equal with the Father in His divine nature”. Let’s take a look at that passage, then:

“I and the Father are one.”

But wait, by citing only a single verse, AiG is removing it from its entire context. Does this really show that Jesus is ontologically equal with the Father? Let’s look at the overall context:

“My sheep listen to My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give them eternal life, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one”...

The Jews answered Him, “We are not stoning You for a good work, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.”

Jesus answered them, “Has it not been written in your Law: ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods... are you saying of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?” (Jn. 10:27-36 NASB)

Notice, Jesus does not say that He is equal to God. In fact, just before making the declaration that “I and the Father are one”, He says that “My Father... is greater than all”, implying that the Father is greater than Him. And when the Jews try to stone Him for “making Himself God”, Jesus refutes their charge of blasphemy by telling them that He is not God in the same sense that Yahweh is God, but in the sense that human kings can be called gods and sons of God, as in Psalm 82 (see above).

    Furthermore, in John 17:21-22, Jesus prays for believers that “they may be one in us even as we are one”. This means that the sense in which Jesus is one with the Father cannot be in “being” or “nature”, unless believers too will become equal to God (which is clearly false).

    But if this is true, in what sense are Jesus and the Father “one”? The answer must be, in the same sense that Paul and Apollos are said to be “one” in 1 Corinthians 3:6-8, which is that they are of one mind, or agree as one. Both Jesus and the Father agree as one on the issue of giving eternal life to the sheep who follow Him. This is the only interpretation that does not directly contradict the surrounding context and the many other passages that show the Father to be ontologically greater than Jesus.

    Jesus is the firstborn

Some cults argue that because Jesus is the “firstborn of creation” (Colossians 1:15), He is a created being and hence cannot be truly God. Biblically, however, Christ was not created but is the Creator (Colossians 1:16; John 1:3). The term firstborn, defined biblically, means Christ is “first in rank” and “preeminent” over the creation He brought into being.

I actually agree with AiG on this point, for the most part, because I don’t believe that Jesus is the first created being as Arians do (instead, I believe that He began to exist at His conception). However, note again their insistence that it is only “cults” that disagree with their belief in the deity of Christ - these ad hominem attacks are absolutely unacceptable, because as I noted earlier, fully 65% of Evangelicals actually believe that Jesus was the first created being. This is simply poisoning the well.

    Jesus is not all-knowing

Some cults argue that because Jesus said no one knows the day or hour of His return except the Father (Mark 13:32), Jesus must not be all-knowing, and hence He must not be truly God. In response, Jesus in the Gospels sometimes spoke from the perspective of His divinity and at other times from the perspective of His humanity. In Mark 13:32, Jesus was speaking from the limited perspective of His humanity (see Philippians 2:5–11). Had he been speaking from His divinity, He would not have said He did not know the day or hour. Other verses show that Christ, as God, knows all things (Matthew 17:27; Luke 5:4–6; John 2:25, 16:30, 21:17).

It’s very interesting that AiG tries to argue that Jesus’ limited knowledge is only in His human nature, because just a few paragraphs earlier they attempted to show that the title “Son of God” refers to His divinity, and yet this verse states that “the Son” does not know the day or hour.

    However, even if we grant them that this verse might be compatible with trinitarianism, there are still many other passages that show that Jesus isn’t omniscient. For example, elsewhere we are told that He only knew and taught those things that the Father revealed to Him (Matt. 11:27; Jn. 8:40) and that He needed to learn (Heb. 5:8). By making it seem as though the unitarian case is based on a single verse, AiG is setting up a straw man that they can easily knock down.

    Jesus prayed

Some cults argue that because Jesus prayed to the Father, He could not truly be God. Biblically, however, it was in His humanity that Christ prayed to the Father. Since Christ came as a man—and since one of the proper duties of man is to worship, pray to, and adore God—it was perfectly proper for Jesus to address the Father in prayer. Positionally speaking as a man, as a Jew, and as our High Priest—“in all things He had to be made like His brethren” (Hebrews 2:17)—Jesus could pray to the Father. But this in no way detracts from His intrinsic deity.

It appears that AiG has resorted to arguing that everything they don’t like about Jesus is just part of His “human nature”. This is not a valid argument, because to have the “nature” of something just means that you possess the characteristics of that thing. So if Jesus truly had the nature of God, because God is inherently greater than all things (Eph. 4:6), it would be impossible for Him to be positionally inferior to the Father.

    However, even if we grant AiG’s argument that Jesus was only positionally inferior to the Father in His humanity, we would expect that He became on the same level as the Father when His human nature was exalted to His current position after His resurrection, according to trinitarians (Php. 2:9-11). Instead, we see that even after His resurrection, the Father was called the God of Jesus (Jn. 20:17; Heb. 1:8-9; etc.), and that Jesus still prays to and petitions the Father for our salvation (Heb. 7:25). This proves AiG’s argument to be false and unscriptural.

    The Trinity is illogical

Some cults claim the Trinity is illogical (“three in one”). In response, the Trinity may be beyond reason, but it is not against reason. The Trinity does not entail three gods in one God, or three persons in one person. Such claims would be nonsensical. There is nothing contradictory, however, in affirming three persons in one God (or three whos in one what).

No, actually, the Trinity is entirely against reason. According to the orthodox doctrine of trinitarianism, as laid out in the creedal statements of the fourth and fifth centuries, each of the three “persons” fully encompasses what God is, and each one can be said to be fully God. However, they are also affirmed to be distinct persons, or “whos” as AiG says, and not merely manifestations of the same person, God. This can be summed up in six statements:

1. The Father = God

2. The Son = God

3. The Holy Spirit = God

4. The Father =/= the Son

5. The Son =/= the Holy Spirit

6. The Holy Spirit =/= the Father

If each of the three “persons” is numerically identical with God, and yet each of the three is not numerically identical with one another, this breaks all rules of logic. Traditionally, this has led to three main “heretical” schools of thought that attempt to resolve this problem: modalism (which argues that the three are merely manifestations of the same person), tritheism (or “social trinitarianism”, which argues that the three are separate Gods), and unitarianism (which argues that only the Father is God).

    Unitarianism is the only option that is compatible with both scripture and logic, but trinitarianism breaks the simple rule of logic that a thing is always equal to itself. Essentially, if trinitarianism is true, logic states that God is not God, which is about as heretical and anti-biblical as one can get.

    The Trinity is pagan

Some cults have claimed the doctrine of the Trinity is rooted in ancient paganism in Babylon and Assyria. In response, the Babylonians and Assyrians believed in triads of gods who headed up a pantheon of many other gods. These triads constituted three separate gods (polytheism), which is utterly different from the doctrine of the Trinity that maintains that there is only one God (monotheism) with three persons within the one godhead.

I, personally, am not familiar with this objection to the Trinity, and I don’t know of any knowledgeable unitarian who would make this argument in good faith. I suspect that this is a straw-man of the unitarian argument that the Trinity was not developed in its modern, orthodox form until several centuries after Christ (which is indeed true). But either way, I am not knowledgeable enough about this subject to fully engage with it.

    Conclusion: Jesus is [not] God

We have seen that Jesus must be viewed as God by virtue of the facts that He has the names of God, the attributes of God, and the authority of God; He does the works of God; and He is worshiped as God. We have also seen persuasive scriptural evidences for the doctrine of the Trinity. Our triune God is an awesome God!

Well, we’ve made it to the end of AiG’s article. We had to suffer through multiple outright lies about what the Bible says, many straw-men of unitarian arguments, and the repeated insistence that all unitarians are members of cults (which is patently false). Ultimately, none of their arguments for Christ’s deity really prove that Jesus is God beyond a doubt, whereas there are many passages of scripture - indeed, every single time that God is described as separate from Christ [4] - that show that Jesus is not God. If you are a trinitarian reading this, I hope you will challenge your presuppositions about the nature of God and study this issue with an open mind - because worshipping a triune God is really worshipping an idol of man’s own creation.

______________________________

[1] Since both Jesus and the Father, supposedly “persons” of the Trinity, also use their own singular pronouns in the New Testament, and when spoken of together use plural pronouns (e.g., Jn. 14:23). Thus, if God were truly a being that included both Jesus and the Father, He would need to use plural pronouns to accurately describe Himself in the passages that prove His uniqueness (Deut. 32:39; Ps. 86:10; Isa. 44:6; etc.) Instead, He chose to use singular pronouns to describe Himself, which shows that there cannot be more than one “person” within the “godhead”.

[2] These four instances can be explained by the Hebrew use of the “plural of majesty” (sometimes called the “royal we”), in which a singular person of great authority uses a plural pronoun or verb to express their intentions. For example, King Artaxerxes uses the plural of majesty in Ezra 4:18: “The king [singular] sends this reply: ‘The letter you sent us has been read...’”

[3] “A parent-child relationship between the gods and the king was common imagery in the ancient world. Such imagery supported the authority of the king and portrayed his role as mediator between the divine realm and the world in which he was to maintain order.” (Commentary on Psalm 2:6 by John Walton)

[4] Which is literally dozens of times in the New Testament. See the following passages: Matt. 4:9-10; 9:8; 19:17; Mk. 9:18; 16:19; Lk. 1:68-69; 3:7-8; 18:19; 22:69; Jn. 1:18; 3:16-17; 34; 6:29; 7:16-18; 13:3; 16:27-28; 17:3; Acts 2:22; 24; 33-36; 3:13-15; 26; 4:10; 5:30-32; 7:55; 10:38-42; 13:30; 37; 17:31; Rom. 3:24-25; 8:3; 34; 15:6; 1 Cor. 3:23; 8:6; 11:3; 15:15; 24; 2 Cor. 1:2-3; Gal. 4:4; Eph. 1:3; 17; 20; 4:4-6; Col. 1:3; 2:12; 3:1; 1 Thess. 3:11; 2 Thess. 2:16; 1 Tim. 2:5; 6:13; 2 Tim. 4:1; Heb. 2:8-10; 9:14; 12:2; 23-24; 1 Pet. 1:3; 2:4; 3:21-22; 1 Jn. 3:9; Rev. 1:6; 3:2; 3:12; 7:10; 12:10; 14:4

Is Jesus God? Answering Answers in Genesis (part 1 of 2)

     I was recently made aware of an article by the creationist ministry, Answers in Genesis, which attempts to defend the traditional Christian doctrine of the “deity of Christ”. Since I’ve been discussing the Trinity and related doctrines for the past month on this blog, I decided that taking a look at the article, and debunking the arguments within, would be the perfect ending to this series on the Trinity. This article presents basically all of the scriptural arguments for the deity of Christ that have been made by trinitarian apologists, and so the fact that all of these arguments are so easily refuted surely says something about the truth or falsity of this doctrine.

    Before beginning my critique of their article, I would like to point out one thing. Their arguments for Jesus being God all rest upon the assertion that Jesus possesses names, attributes, and works that only rightfully apply to Yahweh, the one true God. For this reason, their argument falls entirely apart if it can be shown that the titles, attributes, and works can apply to anyone other than Yahweh. Please keep this in mind when reading through my post.

    Is unitarianism a cult?

Interestingly, Answers in Genesis (AiG) chooses to start off their article with an ad hominem attack on unitarianism itself:

Is Jesus God? There are many cults and false religions today that deny it. The Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, believe Jesus was created by the Father billions of years ago as the Archangel Michael and is hence a “lesser god” than the Father. The Mormons say Jesus was born as the first and greatest spirit child of the Heavenly Father and heavenly mother, and was the spirit-brother of Lucifer. New Agers claim Jesus was an enlightened master. Unitarian Universalists say Jesus was just a good moral teacher.

This gives the readers of this article the impression that unitarianism is something that is only believed by cults. There are certainly cults today that believe in unitarianism, like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, but these are by no means the majority of unitarians. Instead, most unitarians, in my own experience, are simply Christians who came to a different understanding of God’s nature based on the clear teaching of the Bible (like myself).

    In fact, although 96% of Evangelicals profess a belief in the Trinity, 65% believe that Jesus was created by God, and 37% did not agree with the statement that the Son of God existed prior to Jesus’ birth. It seems that belief in trinitarianism is simply a professed, creedal belief, and not one that most Protestants fundamentally agree with. Many US Protestants would be better categorized as unitarian, or at the very most “confused trinitarian”. This just goes to show how AiG’s categorization of unitarians as cult members is false, and bound to poison the well for Christians who are simply seeking biblical truth.

    Does Jesus have the names of God?

AiG begins their argument for Christ’s deity by attempting to show that Jesus possesses the names and titles of God.

Jesus is Yahweh. Yahweh is a very common Hebrew name for God in the Old Testament, occurring over 5,300 times. It is translated LORD (all capitals) in many English translations of the Bible.

We first learn of this name in Exodus 3, where Moses asked God by what name He should be called. God replied to him, “I AM WHO I AM. . . .Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you’ ” (verse 14). Yahweh is basically a shortened form of “I AM WHO I AM” (verse 15). The name conveys the idea of eternal self-existence. Yahweh never came into being at a point in time for He has always existed.

Jesus implicitly ascribed this divine name to himself during a confrontation He had with a group of hostile Jews. He said, “I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58). Jesus deliberately contrasted the created origin of Abraham—whom the Jews venerated—with His own eternal, uncreated nature as God.

Actually, the title of God in Exodus 3:14 should almost certainly be translated, “I will be who I will be”. In the original Hebrew, this title is ehyeh asher ehyeh. The word ehyeh is elsewhere translated as the future tense of the verb “to be”, and was in fact used that way just two verses earlier:

And He [God] said, “Assuredly I will be [ehyeh] with you [Moses], and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain.” (Exod. 3:12 NASB)

Essentially, what God is saying here is, “I will be with you, and I will be who I will be” (meaning, “I will be whatever I need to be for my people Israel”). Today, this is the majority scholarly interpretation of this passage. J. Washington Watts, a professor at Syracuse University, wrote that

Such a translation as ‘I am what I am’ appears to be ruled out completely by the fact that the verbs here are imperfects. ‘I am’ is the normal translation of the Hebrew perfect, not an imperfect... The translation offered here relates this explanation of the name to covenants with the patriarchs. As such it was a basis of assurance concerning Yahweh’s presence and support. This thought is made explicit in the verse that follows, and the proper name Yahweh, the memorial name, is made synonymous with the description ‘I shall continue to be what I have always been.’ This makes the description a restatement of Yahweh’s faithfulness and assurance that he will fulfill the covenants with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. [1]

Therefore, God’s title in Exodus 3:14 should be properly translated as “I will be who I will be”. This is how it was understood by several ancient translators as well, since both Aquila and Theodotion from the second century AD translated this title as εσομαι ο εσομαι (meaning “I will be what I will be”).

    However, even if the title is meant to be a declaration of God’s eternal self-existence, as both AiG and most modern translators seem to want it to be, this still would not be translated into Greek as εγω ειμι (which is what Jesus says in John 8:58). The Septuagint, which is the Greek translation that was used in Jesus’ day, even by the writers of the New Testament, translates the full title as “εγω ειμι Ο ΩΝ”, meaning “I am the ONE WHO IS”, and the shortened title as simply “Ο ΩΝ”. Since Jesus never identified Himself as either the “I will be” or the “ONE WHO IS”, there is no evidence to suggest that He saw Himself as the recipient of the titles in Exodus 3:14.

    Instead, the gospel of John repeatedly develops “εγω ειμι” as a Messianic title, not a divine one. When the Samaritan woman remarks that she has heard that the Messiah is coming, Jesus responds, “εγω ειμι”, meaning “I am [the Messiah]” (Jn. 4:25-26). Jesus tells the Jews that, unless they believe that “εγω ειμι”, they will die in their sins (Jn. 8:24); since we are told elsewhere that the message by which they are saved is that “Jesus is the Messiah” (Jn. 20:31), this again is not a claim to deity, but the implied statement is “I am [the Messiah]”. Jesus again states, “εγω ειμι”, where the implied predicate is clearly “Son of Man”, also a Messianic title (Jn. 8:28 cf. Mk. 14:62). In response to a Messianic prophecy, Jesus claims, “εγω ειμι”, meaning “I am [the One prophesied]” (Jn. 13:18-19).

    We should give the author of the gospel of John enough credit to assume that he knew what he was talking about. John wouldn’t have translated Exodus 3:14 with such an inaccurate phrase as “εγω ειμι”, nor would he have expected his audience to know what he was trying to say if that were the case (since “εγω ειμι” is not how any other translation from that day translated Exod. 3:14). Jesus wasn’t claiming to be God here; He was claiming to be the Messiah.

Jesus is Kurios. The New Testament Greek equivalent of the Old Testament Hebrew name Yahweh is Kurios. Used of God, Kurios carries the idea of a sovereign being who exercises absolute authority. The word is translated Lord in English translations of the Bible.

To an early Christian accustomed to reading the Old Testament, the word Lord, when used of Jesus, would point to His identification with the God of the Old Testament (Yahweh). Hence, the affirmation that “Jesus is Lord” (Kurios) in the New Testament constitutes a clear affirmation that Jesus is Yahweh, as is the case in passages like Romans 10:9, 1 Corinthians 12:3, and Philippians 2:5–11.

Like the claim that Jesus’ “εγω ειμι” statements refer back to Exodus 3:14, this is blatantly false. There are three different Hebrew words that are translated into Greek as κυριος (kurios): the title adon (used of human lords), the title Adonai (used of God alone), and the personal name Yahweh. In fact, κυριος is repeatedly used of humans in the New Testament; in one place, Paul exhorts all Christian κυριοι to submit to their κυριος in heaven, Jesus (Col. 4:1)!

    There is simply no evidence to suggest that the writers of the New Testament saw Jesus as Yahweh or Adonai rather than simply adon (human lord). However, there is evidence that they saw Him as an adon rather than Adonai. The Messianic prophecy of Psalm 110 uses adoni in reference to the coming Messiah:

The LORD [Yahweh] says to my Lord [adoni]: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” (NASB)

This prophecy is quoted or alluded to no less than twenty-four times in the New Testament as fulfilled by Jesus [2]. However, it does not describe the Messiah as Yahweh, or even as Adonai, but as merely adoni  (“my lord”) — a title meant for human rulers which is not once applied to God Himself. This is strong evidence that the title κυριος, when applied to Jesus, is not a claim to divinity, but merely to superiority. Unfortunately, most translations mask this fact by capitalizing “Lord” when applied to Jesus and God, and keeping it uncapitalized when applied to anyone else.

    To be clear, this doesn’t mean that I believe that Jesus was merely a “good moral teacher”, which is the caricature of unitarians that AiG paints. I believe that He is the greatest human being who ever lived, who died and was resurrected, and is now exalted to the highest possible position for a created being to hold, at the right hand of God. But the title of Adonai cannot be applied to anyone other than Yahweh Himself, whereas the title of adon applies to anyone apart from God who has authority. Since Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18), He is the greatest adon — the only one who can properly be called our (human) Lord.

Jesus is Elohim. Elohim is a Hebrew name that is used of God 2,570 times in the Old Testament. The name literally means “strong one,” and its plural ending (im in Hebrew) indicates fullness of power. Elohim is portrayed in the Old Testament as the powerful and sovereign governor of the universe, ruling over the affairs of humankind.

Jesus is recognized as both Yahweh and Elohim in the prophecy in Isaiah 40:3: “Prepare the way of the Lord [Yahweh]; make straight in the desert a highway for our God [Elohim].” This verse was written in reference to John the Baptist preparing for the coming of Christ (as confirmed in John 1:23) and represents one of the strongest affirmations of Christ’s deity in the Old Testament. In Isaiah 9:6, we likewise read a prophecy of Christ with a singular variant (El) of Elohim: “And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God [El], Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

The argument based on Isaiah 40:3 commits an error that I like to call the “fulfillment fallacy”. According to this argument, anyone who fulfills a prophecy about God, or a statement that God will do something, must be God Himself. However, if this argument were applied consistently across the entire Bible, we would have to conclude that not only is Jesus God, but Moses was God (Exod. 3:7-10), Aaron was God (Exod. 17:17-20), all the judges of Israel were God (Judg. 2:16-18), and so on.

    The fact is that God often acts out His will through the use of intermediary agents, and when those agents fulfill His will, it can be said that He is the one doing those things. I wrote a lot more about this subject in my earlier post, “Understanding the concept of agency”, and if you are curious, please go and check out that article.

    In the other verse quoted here, Isaiah 9:6, we are told that the coming Messiah would be called el gibbor, which is usually translated as “Mighty God”. However, the title el gibbor is by no means unique to God alone; in fact, in one of the only two other places in the entire Old Testament where this title is used, it is applied to human rulers (Ezek 32:21), where it is usually translated as “mighty chiefs” or similar. This is the result of trinitarian translator bias. The Jews of that time would have had no concept of Yahweh Himself coming down to be born as a human, and the title el gibbor (which is elsewhere applied to humans) certainly wouldn’t get that idea across. It should more likely be translated here as “Mighty Chief” or “Mighty Hero” rather than “Mighty God” [3].

Jesus is Theos. The New Testament Greek word for God, Theos, is the corresponding parallel to the Old Testament Hebrew term Elohim. A well-known example of Christ being addressed as God (Theos) is found in the story of “doubting Thomas” in John 20. In this passage, Thomas witnesses the resurrected Christ and worshipfully responds: “My Lord and my God [Theos]” (John 20:28).

Jesus is called Theos throughout the rest of the New Testament. For example, when a jailer asked Paul and Silas how to be saved, they responded: “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household” (Acts 16:31). After the jailer believed and became saved, he “rejoiced, having believed in God [Theos] with all his household” (verse 34). Believing in Christ and believing in God are seen as identical acts.

In fact, there is only one place in the entire New Testament where Jesus is called θεος (theos) with certainty, and that is in Hebrews 1:8-9. That passage is a quotation of Psalm 45:6-7, a psalm which was originally written about an unnamed king of Israel who was being married to the daughter of the king of Tyre (go ahead, read it for yourself). Scholars are divided on who exactly this psalm was originally written for, but there are two main viewpoints: either it was written for Solomon, or for Ahab. Either way, it should be clear that this psalm was not originally written for God, and so interpreting its quotation in Hebrews 1:8-9 any differently simply shows trinitarian bias.

    But then, if Psalm 45:6-7 is referring to a human king, how can it call that king “God”? And why does Hebrews 1:8-9 call Jesus “God” if not in the same sense that Yahweh is God? The fact is that throughout the Bible, those who work out God’s will on His behalf are sometimes called “God” in a representational sense. For example, when Moses was told that his brother Aaron would speak on his behalf to the pharaoh of Egypt, Yahweh told him that he would be God to Aaron (Exod. 4:16), and again in Exodus 7:1, Moses is said to be God to the pharaoh. In Psalm 82:1, 6, God tells the human judges of Israel that they are elohim (gods) because of the authority which He has given them. Even the burning bush in Exodus 3 who entrusted Moses with the personal name of God is later said to be merely an angel through whom God commissioned Moses (Acts 7:30, 35).

    Therefore, even when Jesus is called θεος in Hebrews 1:8-9, this does not mean that Jesus is actually the same as Yahweh (at least, not any more than Solomon or Ahab are the same as Yahweh, one of whom Psalm 45 was originally written about). Rather, He is the representational agent through whom God works out His will, as I discussed in my earlier article, “Understanding the concept of agency”. As for John 20:28, I gave several unitarian interpretations of this verse at the end of another post, so please go check that out if you are curious.

    Finally, I find it curious that AiG states that “Believing in Christ and believing in God are seen as identical acts” and sees this as evidence that Jesus is God. This doesn’t mean that Jesus is God, but rather corresponds quite nicely to what Jesus Himself told us earlier about His relationship to the Father who sent Him:

“Whoever receives one child like this in My name receives Me, and whoever receives Me does not receive Me but Him who sent Me.” (Mk. 9:37 NASB)

Now Jesus cried out and said, “The one who believes in Me, does not believe only in Me, but also in Him who sent Me. And the one who sees Me sees Him who sent Me.” (John 12:44-45 NASB)

“Truly, truly I say to you, the one who receives anyone I send, receives Me; and the one who receives Me receives Him who sent Me.” (John 13:20 NASB)

Because Jesus is God’s representative agent, those who believe in Him believe in the Father who sent Him, in the same way that those who receive His disciples are also receiving Him. This certainly doesn’t prove that Jesus is God any more than it proves that Jesus’ disciples are Jesus.

    In summary, there is no evidence from scripture that either Jesus or the writers of the New Testament saw Him as ontologically the same as God, such that all the titles of God apply to Him. In the only place in the New Testament where Jesus is called θεος with certainty, Hebrews 1:8-9, this is a quotation from a psalm that was originally about the king of Israel; so Jesus can no more be considered God than Ahab or Solomon can be considered God.

    If the writers of the New Testament wanted to prove that Jesus was God, they could have easily done so. There is one title that is applied to God, and only God, in the Greek Septuagint, and that is “Ο ΩΝ” (the “ONE WHO IS”). All that the writers of the New Testament needed to say is “Jesus is the ONE WHO IS” (“Ιησους εστιν Ο ΩΝ”); their silence on this issue truly speaks volumes.

    Does Jesus possess the attributes of God?

Answers in Genesis next tries to convince us that Jesus is God by showing us how Jesus possesses attributes that only rightfully belong to God.

Jesus is eternal. John 1:1 affirms: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The word was in this verse is an imperfect tense, indicating continuous, ongoing existence. When the timespace universe came into being, Christ already existed (Hebrews 1:8–11).

Setting aside for a moment the fact that the “word”, or λογος, in the prologue of John should almost certainly be understood as God’s wisdom, and not the “pre-incarnate Christ”, this argument is still false. The imperfect tense in Greek indicates any ongoing action, but does not require the action to continue prior to the time in question. To say that “in the beginning was the word” means just that: that the word existed in the beginning, but says nothing about whether it existed before the beginning.

Jesus is self-existent. As the Creator of all things (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:2), Christ himself must be uncreated. Colossians 1:17 tells us that Christ is “before all things, and in Him all things consist.”

These first three texts are the main prooftexts for the position that Jesus created the universe. However, there are several other passages that clearly distinguish between the Creator of the universe and Christ, which would be rendered nonsensical if Jesus were the one who created the universe (Mk. 10:6; Acts 17:24, 31; Heb. 2:10). If the three texts that AiG cites truly prove that Jesus created the universe, this would seem to create an irreconcilable contradiction. So let’s take a look at each one in turn:

All things came into being through it [the word], and apart from it not even one thing came into being that has come into being. (Jn. 1:3)

This passage is supposed to prove that Jesus created all things, because the “word” in John 1:1-13 is said to be the “pre-existent Christ”. However, this is not a view that is inherent in the text; it must be eisegeted into the prologue of John, not exegeted out of it. The context indicates that the “word” here is the divine wisdom that became embodied in Jesus, but was not conscious prior to His birth. See this article for more information on the prologue of John and its relation to both biblical and extra-biblical wisdom literature.

in him [Christ] was created the all things in the heavens and upon the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or lordships or rulers or authorities, the all things has been created through him and for him. (Col. 1:16)

This passage is also cited to show that all things were created by Jesus. However, this passage is not referring to the original creation, but the new creation of all things in Christ. In the beginning, what was made was “the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1); here, what is being made is “all things in the heavens and upon the earth”, which shows that it is not referring to the original Genesis creation.

    Furthermore, throughout Paul’s writings, the term “in Christ” refers to those things that have been redeemed (cf. Col. 1:14), and so by saying “in him was created the all things”, he is clearly referring to the new, redeemed creation which has been made in Christ and through Christ. See the following comparison between 2 Corinthians 5:17-18, a passage describing the new creation, and Colossians 1:16:

So then if anyone [is] in Christ, [he is] a new creation. The old passed away; lo, the all things has become new! Now the all things [are] out of God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ (2 Cor. 5:17-18)

in him was created the all things in the heavens and upon the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or lordships or rulers or authorities, the all things has been created through him and for him. (Col. 1:16)

From these contextual clues, it is clear that Colossians 1:16 is not referring to the original creation, but to the new creation, which was indeed made in Christ and through Christ.

upon these last days [God] spoke to us in a Son, whom He established inheritor of all things, and through whom He made the ages. (Heb. 1:2)

This is the last text thought to prove that Jesus was the one who created all things. However, the only reason to think that it is referring to the original creation is because most Bible versions translate the last part of this verse as “through whom He made the world” or even “the universe” rather than “the ages”, which is the literal translation of τους αιωνας. This is another clear case of trinitarian translator bias.

    This is not saying that Jesus created the universe, but that God has created the ages through Him, referring to the oncoming ages during which Jesus will be reigning, and we alongside Him (Lk. 1:33; Eph. 2:6-7). Therefore, none of these three texts prove that Jesus created the universe in the beginning; instead, they are either referring to God’s wisdom by which He created the universe (Jn. 1:3), or else they are referring to the new creation (Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2).

    However, it should be noted that even if Jesus was the creator of the universe, this does not prove that He Himself was uncreated, as AiG wants us to think. Many unitarians, especially Arians, do indeed believe that Jesus was the conduit through whom God created the universe. This does not prove that Jesus is uncreated, much less that Jesus is God, but (if true) it would merely show that God created through Him.

Jesus is everywhere-present. Christ promised His disciples, “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). Since people all over the world gather in Christ’s name, the only way He could be present with them all is if He is truly omnipresent (see Matthew 28:20; Ephesians 1:23, 4:10; Colossians 3:11).

Just because Jesus is with believers does not mean that Jesus is truly omnipresent. Rather, Jesus is supernaturally connected to the members of His body through the holy spirit which God gives to us, and through that spirit He lives within us (Jn. 16:12-14; Rom. 8:9-11; Gal. 4:6; Eph. 3:14-17). This does not show that He is everywhere at once, but merely that He is with those who believe in Him, which is in no way incompatible with the biblical depiction of Christ Jesus as the human Son of God who has been exalted to God’s right hand in the heavens.

Jesus is all-knowing. Jesus knew where the fish were in the water (Luke 5:4, 6; John 21:6–11), and He knew just which fish contained the coin (Matthew 17:27). He knew the future (John 11:11, 18:4), specific details that would be encountered (Matthew 21:2–4), and knew from a distance that Lazarus had died (John 11:14). He also knows the Father as the Father knows Him (Matthew 11:27; John 7:29, 8:55, 10:15, 17:25).

Again, this does not show that Jesus is omniscient, but merely that He knows far more than a regular human would. This is not incompatible with the unitarian view that Jesus is a human being, a man who was filled by God with holy spirit without measure (Jn. 3:34). In fact, He cannot have been truly omniscient, as He only knew those things that the Father revealed to Him (Matt. 11:27; Jn. 8:40), needed to learn (Heb. 5:8), and did not know the time of His return (Mk. 13:32).

Jesus is all-powerful. Christ created the entire universe (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:2) and sustains the universe by His own power (Colossians 1:17; Hebrews 1:3). During His earthly ministry, He exercised power over nature (Luke 8:25), physical diseases (Mark 1:29–31), demonic spirits (Mark 1:32–34), and even death (John 11:1–44).

The assertion that Christ created the universe has already been dealt with and shown to be unscriptural. The fact that Jesus is sustaining the universe by His power is not incompatible with His current position at the right hand of God, with all things in heaven and earth having been put under His authority (Matt. 28:18). And though Jesus certainly performed many miracles throughout His life, He also explicitly stated that He could only do those things that the Father gave Him the authority to do (Jn. 5:19-23). This means that Jesus cannot be omnipotent, although as the Son of God, He certainly has been given much power.

Jesus is sovereign. Christ presently sits at the right hand of God the Father, “angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him” (1 Peter 3:22). When Christ comes again in glory, He will be adorned with a majestic robe, and on the thigh section of the robe will be the words, “KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS” (Revelation 19:16).

Of course I do not disagree that Jesus is sovereign. But AiG seems to be unaware that the fact that all things have been made subject to Christ actually disproves the idea that He is God. God, who created the heavens and the earth, is already inherently the Lord of all things (Acts 17:24). Jesus needed to be given His authority (Matt. 28:18; 1 Cor. 15:27-28; Php. 2:9-11; Heb. 2:8-9), which means that He cannot be inherently the Lord of all, but as Peter said, God has made Jesus both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36). At the consummation, Jesus will be King of all kings, and Lord of all lords, subject only to the One who subjected all to Him (1 Cor. 15:24-28).

Jesus is sinless. Jesus challenged Jewish leaders: “Which of you convicts Me of sin?” (John 8:46). The apostle Paul referred to Jesus as “Him who knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus is one who “loved righteousness and hated lawlessness” (Hebrews 1:9), was “without sin” (Hebrews 4:15), and was “holy, harmless, [and] undefiled” (Hebrews 7:26).

Jesus is indeed sinless, and the death of a sinless being was necessary to effect the redemption of all. But the fact that Jesus is sinless does not mean that Jesus is necessarily God — and thank God for that, because if He were God, He wouldn’t have been able to truly die (1 Tim. 1:17; 6:16)!

    Does Jesus possess the authority of God?

Jesus always spoke in His own divine authority. He never said, “Thus saith the Lord” as did the prophets; He always said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you. . . .” He never retracted anything He said, never guessed or spoke with uncertainty, never made revisions, never contradicted himself, and never apologized for what He said. He even asserted, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away” (Mark 13:31), hence elevating His words directly to the realm of heaven.

This is a surprisingly common claim made by trinitarians - “surprising”, I say, because it is complete and utter nonsense. It is simply false that the prophets always said “Thus saith the LORD [Yahweh]” before quoting Yahweh’s own words. In fact, there are many instances in the Old Testament where a prophet begins speaking in the first person as Yahweh without using the formulaic expression “Thus says Yahweh” first. See the following examples:

And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them... “Yet to this day Yahweh has not given you a heart to know, nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear. And I [Moses] have led you in the wilderness for forty years; your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandal has not worn out on your foot. You have not eaten bread, nor have you drunk wine or other strong drink, in order that you might know that I am Yahweh your God.” (Deut. 29:2, 4-6 NASB)

“For behold, the Lord Yahweh of armies is going to remove from Jerusalem and Judah both supply and support, the entire supply of bread and the entire supply of water... And I will make mere boys their leaders, and mischievous children will rule over them” (Isa. 3:1, 4 NASB)

“For Yahweh’s anger is against all the nations, and His wrath against all their armies. He has utterly destroyed them, He has turned them over to slaughter... For My sword has drunk its fill in heaven; behold it shall descend for judgment upon Edom, and upon the people whom I have designated for destruction. The sword of Yahweh is filled with blood” (Isa. 34:2, 5-6 NASB)

“Return, Israel, to Yahweh your God, for you have stumbled because of your wrongdoing. Take words with you and return to Yahweh... I will heal their apostasy, I will love them freely, because My anger has turned away from them.” (Hos. 14:1, 4 NASB)

“Behold, a day is coming for Yahweh when the spoils taken from you will be divided among you. For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be taken, the houses plundered, the women raped, and half of the city exiled, but the rest of the people will not be eliminated from the city. Then Yahweh will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fights on a day of battle” (Zech. 14:1-3 NASB)

Although there are many more examples of this in the Old Testament (e.g., Micah 1), these should suffice to show that it is not true that prophets always introduced Yahweh’s words with the formula “Thus saith Yahweh”. If these prophets were given the authority to speak in Yahweh’s name, how much more Jesus, the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15 cf. Jn. 1:18; 12:45; 14:9) and perfect representative of God on earth?

    Furthermore, even though Jesus never introduced His words with the formula “Thus saith Yahweh”, He did make it explicitly clear that the words He spoke were not His own, but those of His Father.

“I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me.” (Jn. 8:28 NASB)

“For I did not speak on My own, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak.” (Jn. 12:49 NASB)

“The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own, but the Father, as He remains in Me, does His works.” (Jn. 14:10 NASB)

“Now they have come to know that everything which You have given Me is from You; for the words which You gave Me I have given to them” (Jn. 17:7-8 NASB)

Therefore, the trinitarian argument that, whereas the prophets spoke on the authority of God and introduced His words with “Thus saith Yahweh”, Jesus spoke on His own authority, is patently false and duplicitous. It not only ignores clear evidence to the contrary, that the prophets were allowed to speak on the authority of God without using the introductory formula first, but also contradicts Jesus’ own statements that He was speaking the words that the Father gave to Him.

    Did Jesus perform the works of God?

Jesus’ deity is also proved by His miracles. His miracles are often called “signs” in the New Testament. Signs always signify something—in this case, that Jesus is the divine Messiah.

Some of Jesus’ more notable miracles include turning water into wine (John 2:7–8); walking on the sea (Matthew 14:25; Mark 6:48; John 6:19); calming a stormy sea (Matthew 8:26; Mark 4:39; Luke 8:24); feeding 5,000 men and their families (Matthew 14:19; Mark 6:41; Luke 9:16; John 6:11); raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11:43–44); and causing the disciples to catch a great number of fish (Luke 5:5–6).

The miraculous signs which Jesus performed certainly show Him to be God’s anointed one, the Messiah, but not that He is “the divine Messiah”. In fact, “divine Messiah” is an oxymoron, since the Messiah was repeatedly prophesied in the Old Testament to be a human king of the Davidic line, separate from Yahweh (as I argued in a previous post).

    The miracles of Jesus demonstrate that He is a man given much authority by God, but not that He is God Himself. One example that trinitarians often like to give is Jesus’ forgiveness of sins in the synoptic gospels, quoting Mark 2:7, “who can forgive sins but God alone?” However, they conveniently ignore the fact that the gospel of Matthew explicitly states that He was a man given authority by God to forgive sins:

“But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—then He said to the paralyzed man, “Get up, pick up your stretcher and go home.” And he got up and went home. But when the crowds saw this, they were awestruck, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men. (Matt. 9:6-8 NASB)

As a matter of fact, this applies to all of Jesus’ other miracles as well. As Jesus said to the Jewish leaders,

“Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in the same way. For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.” (Jn. 5:19-20 NASB)

Based on these passages, it can be clearly seen that Jesus’ miracles are not evidence that He is God. Instead, they simply show that He is a man who was given much authority by God, as His Son and anointed one.

    Was Jesus worshipped as God?

Jesus was worshiped on many occasions in the New Testament. He accepted worship from Thomas (John 20:28), the angels (Hebrews 1:6), some wise men (Matthew 2:11), a leper (Matthew 8:2), a ruler (Matthew 9:18), a blind man (John 9:38), an anonymous woman (Matthew 15:25), Mary Magdalene (Matthew 28:9), and the disciples (Matthew 28:17).

Scripture is emphatic that only God can be worshiped (Exodus 34:14; Deuteronomy 6:13; Matthew 4:10). In view of this, the fact that both humans and angels worshiped Jesus on numerous occasions shows He is God.

No one would doubt that Jesus was and is worshipped, this is made absolutely clear in the passages cited above by AiG. Furthermore, the Bible also makes clear that the worship of Jesus was considered to be okay and not against any commandment of God; after all, the Father actually commands the angels to worship Him (Heb. 1:6). However, this does not mean that Jesus is the supreme Deity, as I will show in this section.

    The word “worship” is translated from shachah in Hebrew and προσκυνεω in Greek. These words literally mean “to bow down” and “to kiss [the hand] toward”, respectively, both of which were actions that expressed respect and reverence in ancient society. However, these words are used in the Bible to describe worship of both God and others (including humans). See the following examples:

So Abraham stood up and bowed [shachah] to the people of the land, the sons of Heth. (Gen. 23:7 NASB)

But he himself [Jacob] passed on ahead of them and bowed down [shachah] to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother [Esau]. (Gen. 33:3 NASB)

Now Joseph was the ruler over the land; he was the one who sold grain to all the people of the land. And Joseph’s brothers came and bowed down [shachah] to him with their faces to the ground. (Gen. 42:6 NASB)

“So the slave fell to the ground and prostrated himself [προσκυνεω] before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will repay you everything.’” (Matt. 18:26 NASB)

“Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan, who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie—I will make them come and bow down [προσκυνεω] before your feet, and make them know that I have loved you.” (Rev. 3:9 NASB)

These practices were never condemned by God and were considered to be innocuous gestures of respect. In fact, Jesus proclaims that He will force one group of people to worship (προσκυνεω) the human members of the church at Philadelphia. Furthermore, in at least one case (that of the divinely appointed kings of Israel), it seems to have been institutionalized and encouraged by God. David, the “man after God’s own heart” (Acts 13:22), not only worshipped others but also accepted worship, and was never condemned for doing so:

Afterward, however, David got up and went out of the cave, and called after Saul, saying, “My lord the king!” And when Saul looked behind him, David bowed [shachah] with his face to the ground and prostrated himself. (1 Sam. 24:8 NASB)

And Joab fell on his face to the ground, prostrated himself [shachah], and blessed the king (2 Sam. 14:22 NASB)

They informed the king [David], saying, “Nathan the prophet is here.” And when he came into the king’s presence, he prostrated himself [shachah] before the king with his face to the ground. (1 Kings 1:23 NASB)

Then David said to all the assembly, “Now bless Yahweh your God.” And all the assembly blessed Yahweh, the God of their fathers, and bowed down and paid homage [shachah] to Yahweh and the king. (1 Chron. 29:20 NASB) [4]

Clearly, then, worship (either shachah or προσκυνεω) is not limited to Yahweh God alone, and was often received by humans as well. But how can this be reconciled with the passages quoted by AiG, which appear to say that worship does belong to Yahweh God alone? The context of these passages (Exod. 34:14-15; Deut. 16:13-14; Matt. 4:8-10) makes clear that these commandments are only forbidding the worship of false, pagan gods, and not forbidding the worship of humans in a position of authority (of which Jesus is absolutely one; Matt. 28:18). This is because biblical “worship” simply refers to the act of paying respect and honor to either a ruler or a deity.

    Unfortunately, in the vast majority of Bible translations, the exact same words that are translated as “worship” when used in reference to God and Christ are variously translated as “bow down” or “pay homage” when used in reference to other humans. This obfuscates the true meaning of the word “worship”, making it seem as though Jesus is God, and is yet another example of blatant trinitarian translator bias. In summary, yes, Jesus is worshipped - but worship is not, nor should it be, limited to God [5].

    Do Old Testament parallels prove that Jesus is God?

A comparison of the Old and New Testaments provides powerful testimony to Jesus’s identity as God. For example, a study of the Old Testament indicates that it is only God who saves. In Isaiah 43:11, God asserts: “I, even I, am the Lord, and besides Me there is no savior.” This verse indicates that (1) a claim to be Savior is, in itself, a claim to deity; and (2) there is only one Savior—the Lord God. It is thus highly revealing of Christ’s divine nature that the New Testament refers to Jesus as “our great God and Savior” (Titus 2:13).

This trinitarian argument, like so many others, is simply sheer nonsense. Certainly, God is the only savior, but this does not preclude the clear scriptural fact that many humans can also be called saviors. Many other passages in the Bible state 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 other humans were actually God incarnate? Certainly not! The fact is that God is the only savior only in the sense that He is the ultimate source from whom all salvation comes, but He often acts out this salvation through the use of intermediaries. See, for example, Judges 2:16-18:

Then Yahweh raised up judges who saved them from the hands of those who plundered them... And when Yahweh raised up judges for them, Yahweh was with the judge and saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for Yahweh was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who tormented and oppressed them.

In almost the same breath, we are told that the judges saved Israel (making them, by the most basic definition of the word, “saviors”) as well as that Yahweh is the one who saved Israel. Which is correct? Both, because although the judges were the immediate cause of Israel’s salvation, God was the ultimate source of their salvific actions, being with them “all the days of the judge”. In the same way, we are told by Paul that “God was in Christ conciliating the world to Himself” (2 Cor. 5:19).

    But what about Titus 2:13, which AiG quotes to ‘prove’ that Jesus is both God and Savior? As a matter of fact, this verse could either be translated as “our great God and Savior Jesus Christ”, or “the great God and Jesus Christ our Savior” (in which case it would not be calling Jesus “the great God”). To use the Granville Sharp Rule in order to make this verse prove the deity of Christ is actually circular reasoning, as I argued in a previous post, because that rule requires that only one individual is in view (which is not true if Jesus isn’t the same as God). All that this verse definitely shows is that Jesus is our savior, which neither trinitarians nor unitarians would deny.

Likewise, God asserted in Isaiah 44:24: “I am the Lord, who makes all things, who stretches out the heavens all alone, who spreads abroad the earth by Myself” (emphasis added). [sic] The fact that God alone “makes all things” (Isaiah 44:24)—and the accompanying fact that Christ is claimed to be the Creator of “all things” (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:2)—proves that Christ is truly God.

As shown in the previous section, none of those three verses actually prove that Jesus was involved in the original Genesis creation of “the heavens and the earth”. Other verses show that Jesus was not involved in the original creation (e.g., Acts 17:24, 31; Heb. 2:10). Jesus is the creator of the “new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17-18), not the old creation, and so this argument for the deity of Christ also fails.

    In the next part of this critique of Answers in Genesis’ trinitarian apologetics, we will deal with their defense of the Trinity doctrine against “unitarian objections”. Spoiler alert: many of their so-called “objections” are complete straw men of actual unitarian arguments, and don’t engage with any of the objections that I raised in this post.

Part 2: https://universalistheretic.blogspot.com/2022/05/is-jesus-god-answering-answers-in_01051501047.html

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[1] From A Distinctive Translation of Exodus With An Interpretive Outline

[2] Matt. 22:44; 26:64; Mk. 13:36; 14:62; 16:19; Lk. 20:42-43; 22:69; Acts 2:34-35; 5:31; 7:55-56; Rom. 8:34; 1 Cor. 15:25; Eph. 1:20; Col. 3:1; Heb. 1:3, 13; 8:1; 10:12-13; 12:2; 1 Pet. 3:22-24.

[3] Martin Luther’s translation translates el gibbor as simply “Held”, meaning “hero”.

[4] Notice the similarity of the Israelites worshipping “Yahweh and the king”, and Thomas’ exclamation in John 20:28, “My Lord, and my God!” In both cases, it seems likely that the worshippers are worshipping God along with someone else (in these cases, David and Jesus).

[5] Although there is definitely a sort of reverence that God alone deserves, which is why Jesus commands us, “the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mk. 12:29-30). This sort of reverence is deserved by the Father alone, however, which is why Jesus says “the Lord our God” at the beginning of this passage rather than “the Lord your God” (cf. Jn. 20:17), and why Jesus elsewhere says that true worshippers worship the Father (Jn. 4:23-24).