We are living in times in which an increasing number of theologians are rejecting the doctrines on the Holy Trinity and, particularly, the deity and eternal self-existence of the Lord Jesus. This problem is not only the product of modern theological thinking but emanated from age-old Christological errors. We will go back very far in church history to determine the origins of these doctrinal deficiencies and wrong teachings.
In the Old Testament, there are two primary names used for God: Yahweh and Elohim. Each has a special significance. Elohim is the first name to be used, and is mentioned well over two thousand times. Though the name Yahweh (the eternal I AM) is paramount, there is a special significance about the name Elohim that God does not want us to miss. Dr. Richard Bennett (1998:45-46) explains the meaning of this name as follows:
“In the English language we talk in the plural if we wish to speak of more than one. And we use the singular if we refer to just one. But the Hebrew language can be even more precise, for it uses the dual when referring to two and then the plural when referring to more than two. The distinction between dual and plural (between ‘two’ and ‘three or more’) is very significant in the first name in the Bible that is used for God. ‘Elohim’ is in the plural. However, in another clear statement about God the Bible also says: ‘The Lord our God is one Lord’ (Deut. 6:4). So in the very first verse in the Bible, which is God’s revelation of Himself to man, we are introduced to a three-in-one and a one-in-three concept of God. ‘In the beginning God [Elohim] created the heavens and the earth’ (Gen. 1:1). This tri-unity has sometimes been called the Trinity.”
The term ‘one’ which is used in Deuteronomy 6:4 to describe the Lord (Yahweh) our God (Elohim), is echad in Hebrew, which refers to a composite unity as opposed to an absolute unity. It is important to correctly understand this concept since plurality and singularity are combined with the same word. In Genesis 2:24, echad is also used as a composite unity: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
That ‘Elohim’ refers to one God in its singular form and to three or more in its plural form is clearly demonstrated by the personal pronouns used for God. Elohim said about the creation of humans: “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness; … So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Gen. 1:26-27). The Triune God can indeed say: “Let Us make man”, and then, “… male and female He created them” (emphasis added).
Before His incarnation as Son of God, Jesus was, and still is, the self-existent and eternal God. The apostle John refers to Him as the Logos, who existed since the beginning as God (John 1:1). He was with Elohim and He Himself was Elohim. The third Person is the Spirit of Elohim (Gen. 1:2). He is “the eternal Spirit” (Heb. 9:14) who also has an eternal self-existence as a Person in the Godhead.
The three co-eternal, co-equal, and co-self-existent Persons in the Godhead are described as follows by the apostle John in his first Epistle: “For there are three who bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one” (1 John 5:7). All three Persons may be described and addressed as Lord (Heb. Yahweh; Gr. Kurios) and God (Heb. Elohim; Gr. Theos). Paul addressed the incarnate Lord on the road to Damascus: “Who are You, Lord [Yahweh]? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:5). In Romans 9:5 Paul says of Him: “Christ … is over all, the eternally blessed God [Elohim].” These titles apply to Him during all periods of His timeless existence.
People who do not believe that the title Lord, or Yahweh (the eternal I AM), applies to Jesus cannot have their sins forgiven. He said to the unbelieving Jewish leaders: “If you do not believe that I AM, you shall die in your sins … . When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you shall know that I am He… Truly, truly, I say to you, Before Abraham came into being, I AM!” (John 8:24, 28, 58; MKJV). The Amplified Bible renders John 8:58 as follows, including the cross-reference to Exodus 3:14: “Jesus replied, I assure you, I most solemnly tell you, before Abraham was born, I AM. [Exod. 3:14].” He was not only a human prophet but also God in a human body.
We need to seriously and thoroughly reflect on the deity of Jesus Christ and on his pre-eminence over all things. That can be done by objectively and honestly studying the Bible under the guidance of the Holy Spirit: “For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God” (1 Cor. 2:10). Paul gave a great revelation of Jesus Christ when he said:
“He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the pre-eminence. For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself – by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross” (Col. 1:15-20).
In this section, seven unique characteristics pertaining to the creative work, pre-eminence and supremacy of Christ are mentioned. Jesus Christ is:
1. The image of God. He revealed God to humanity, as all who have seen Him have seen the Father (John 14:9). When we hear the glorious gospel of the saving grace of the Lord Jesus the image of God shines on us (2 Cor. 4:4).
2. The firstborn over all creation. As He is God, the self-existent I AM, and Himself the Creator, the term ‘firstborn’ cannot, of course, refer to His being born prior to the incarnation, but that after having emptied and humbled Himself to become Man, He is “the last Adam … the second man … the Lord from heaven … the heavenly man” (1 Cor. 15:45-49) and became at His resurrection “the firstborn from the dead” (Col. 1:18), therefore He is the firstborn of a new creation and Head of a new order of humanity. Geisler (1983:672) says: “The whole point of the passage (and the book) is to show Christ’s superiority over all things. Other statements about Christ in this passage (such as Creator of all [1:16], upholder of Creation [1:17], etc.) clearly indicate His priority and superiority over Creation. The ‘Firstborn’ cannot be part of Creation if He created ‘all things’. One cannot create himself.”
3. The creator of the universe. All things were created through Him and for Him, and in Him they consist (1:16-17). He is the instrumental Cause, the final Cause and also the conserving Cause of all creation (Geisler, 1983:673). John confirms this profound statement about the creative work of the Word, Jesus Christ: “All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. … He was in the world, and the world was made through Him” (John 1:3, 10).
4. The head of the church. Geisler (1983:673) says: “Besides being the Lord of the universe He is also the church’s Head (cf. Eph. 1:22-23; 5:23). The reference here is to the invisible or universal church into which all believers are baptised by the Holy Spirit the moment they believe in Christ (1 Cor. 12:13). … It is a special body in which there is ‘neither Jew nor Gentile’ (Gal. 3:28) but a whole new creation of God (Eph. 2:15). The church is a ‘mystery … which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men’ (Eph. 3:4-5; cf. Rom. 16:25-26; Col. 1:26).”
5. The first-born from the dead. Christ was the first to rise from the dead in an immortal body (1 Cor. 15:20), and as such He heads a whole new order of people who all obtain the resurrection to a new life from Him. They will all be raised in new bodies at the coming of Christ for His saints (1 Cor. 15:22-23; Phil. 3:20-21; 1 Thes. 4:16-17).
6. The fullness of God. Colossians 1:19 is a powerful description of Christ’s deity. Later in the same letter Paul says: “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power” (Col. 2:9-10). John says that the Lord Jesus is “full of grace and truth. … And of His fullness have we all received, and grace for grace” (John 1:14, 16).
7. The one who reconciles everything to God. The “all things” reconciled to God are limited to good angels and redeemed people since only the things in heaven and on earth are mentioned. The things “under the earth” (Phil. 2:10) are not reconciled. An important statement is made that people are reconciled to God – it is not God that is reconciled to people. Mankind is estranged from God: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way” (Isa. 53:6). We now need to be led back to the Lord. The statement that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them” (2 Cor. 5:19), points to the fact that all people on earth can potentially be saved because Jesus has “made peace through the blood of His cross” (Col. 1:20). But all of us have to take a decision on this critically important matter, hence the earnest appeal by Paul: “We implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20). The church history of almost 2 000 years indicates that only a minority of humanity has made this choice and also abides by it.
In the fullness of time the Word, who created all things Himself, became flesh: “In the beginning was the Word … . All things were made through Him; and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. … And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1-4, 14). With the incarnation of the Word He temporarily surrendered His glory but not His essential deity.
In self-sacrificing love He condescended from His throne position in heaven to take upon Himself the likeness of men. He even came in the likeness of a servant who had no comeliness or beauty that we should desire Him (Isa. 53:2). He humbled Himself to be scoffed at and be crucified to die a cruel and despicable death on behalf of all sinners: “Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:5-8).
Robert Lightner (1983:654) says: “Christ’s humiliation included His making Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, and being made in human likeness. These statements indicate that Christ became a man, a true human being. … He emptied Himself. … ‘Likeness’ suggests similarity but difference. Though His humanity was genuine, He was different from all other humans in that He was sinless (Heb. 4:15). Thus it is seen that Christ, while retaining the essence of God, was also human. In His incarnation He was fully God and fully man at the same time. He was God manifest in human flesh.” He was truly Immanuel – God with us (Matt. 1:23).
For Jesus Christ to be able, according to God’s standards, to become the Saviour of the world, He had to be the perfect God-Man. He had to be born from a human lineage (the house of David in the tribe of Judah) to become the Son of Man. At the same time, a man could not beget Him as He would then have inherited the sinful nature of fallen man. Through divine intervention He had to be born from a virgin to also be called the Son of God: “The virgin’s name was Mary. … And the angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:27, 35).
Though He is eternally self-existent as God, the I AM, Christ Jesus was begotten of God the Father as a Human Being, and consequently the Father, as God, is greater than Him as Man (John 14:28).
Jesus, the Word of God that became flesh, “was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him” (John 1:10). He was not recognised as God in human likeness (John 14:8-9). During His incarnation, the Word took upon Himself a human form and nature that He did not have previous to the incarnation. Apart from still being God, He also became a human being – the Son of man: “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman” (Gal. 4:4). However, the incarnation of the Word in no way diminished His essential deity (cf. Reeves, 2011a)..
During different historical periods there were always church fathers who proclaimed the truth about the deity and self-existence of the Lord Jesus, as well as the fact that He is co-equal with the Father and the Holy Spirit. But there were also those who questioned and completely distorted biblical Christology. Through their views these deluded fathers deceived millions of other people. Examples will be given of true as well as false views about Jesus.
Evidence indicates strong convictions held by the apostles and early church fathers on the eternal deity and incarnational sonship of the Lord Jesus. Kelly (1977:92-93) refers to the godly church father, Ignatius (35-107 AD), bishop of Antioch, who was later martyred for his faith, as a good source of theological thought of his time: “The centre of Ignatius’ thinking was Christ. … [He] even declares that He is ‘our God’, describing Him as ‘God incarnate’ … and ‘God made manifest as man’. … In His pre-existent being ‘ingenerate’ (the technical term reserved to distinguish the increate God from creatures), He was the timeless, invisible, impalpable, impassable one Who for our sakes entered time and became visible, palpable and passable. His divine sonship dates from the incarnation … .’ [Kelly comments]: In tracing His divine sonship to His conception in Mary’s womb, he was simply reproducing a commonplace of pre-Origenist theology; the idea did not convey, and was not intended to convey, any denial of His pre-existence. So far as Ignatius is concerned, he definitely states that He existed with the Father before all ages.”
In saying that Christ was ingenerate, Ignatius would have rejected any idea of His eternal generation. In stating that His divine sonship dates from the incarnation, i.e. from His conception in Mary’s womb, Ignatius would also have rejected any idea of Christ’s eternal sonship – He was God form all eternity, and only became man in the fullness of time. The truth about Jesus Christ, the Word was, throughout the ages, strongly opposed – not only by other religions but also by humanist ideologies with a strong basis of Greek philosophy.
Since the time of the early Christian church theological development was strongly influenced by philosophy. Initially, it was the pagan Greek philosophy of Plato that had the greatest impact on religious thinking. Since the first century, Gnosticism developed concurrently with evangelical beliefs on the deity and incarnation of the Lord Jesus. This philosophy was derived from the concept “gnosis” (intuitive religious knowledge) and teaches that knowledge, rather than faith, is the key to salvation. This philosophy enjoyed great support until the sixth century and during that time perverted the truth of various theological concepts. It was developed with the purpose of making the Christian religion more acceptable to Greek-speaking intelligentsia, but in the process the biblical concept of God was fundamentally distorted.
The Gnostic love for knowledge was shaped by the mystic beliefs of Plato, as well as his concept of God as the “Absolute,” which is not compatible with the biblical concept of the Holy Trinity. After these views were mixed with Christian concepts it was argued that there is a singular Creator-God, the Father, and that He created Jesus as a lower order God, or even as an angel. That was a vicious attack on the deity and incarnation of the Lord Jesus. Geisler (1983:677) says: “Both Christ’s deity and humanity were challenged by this early Gnostic-like heresy. Those heretics diminished Christ to an angel whose ‘body’ was only apparent, not real.” But Paul defended the deity of the Lord Jesus, as well as His real human body, i.e. He was God manifest in flesh: “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9). He was fully God and fully Man.
Paul said that philosophical knowledge derived from mystical sources is futile as it is not based on the Bible. Instead of pursuing hidden knowledge outside of Christ, people should endeavour to understand the mystery of the Father and of Christ, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words. … Beware lest anyone should cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ” (Col. 2:3-4, 8). Serious spiritual deception came from Gnostic philosophy.
One of the fallacies which was devised to present the Word as a created being and subordinate God is the so-called “Logos theology”. In His eternal pre-existence Jesus is, according to John 1:1, indeed described as the Word (Gr. Logos) who is also God Himself. In the Gnostic Logos theology, however, Greek philosophical concepts were borrowed to formulate the paradigm of the Absolute God in which it is alleged that God the Father created the Word and then used the Word to do the rest of His creative work. Other Scriptures were also wrongly harnessed to support this theory, e.g. by applying the Proverbs 8 exposition of God’s attribute of wisdom in such a way that it would support their view of the Word having been created.
Prof. Young (1991:35) summarises the Logos theology as follows, from which the synthesis between pagan philosophical concepts and the Bible is very obvious: “This Logos was the only-begotten of God, the Word projected forth as the instrument through whom God created, as the Wisdom who was beside Him fashioning all things. … It was this Word which came to the prophets – indeed to Socrates and all genuine teachers of the truth, and in the last days, it was this Word which was incarnate in Jesus Christ.” This view of the Word is unrecognisable from Scripture, and even goes to the extreme of attributing the wisdom of Socrates (c. 470-399 BC), the father of Greek philosophy, to divine illumination by the pre-incarnate Logos. This is nothing more than pagan philosophy dressed up in Christian robes.
The philosophical perversion of the Logos concept may be the reason why it is rarely used in the New Testament as a title for Jesus. Sproul (1983:42-45) confirms that “by the time the Gospels were written the notion of the logos was a loaded philosophical category … one pregnant with meaning against the background of Greek philosophy.”
In relating the Logos theology to Proverbs 8, it was wrongly assumed that the wisdom referred to in this chapter represents the pre-incarnate Word. Proverbs 8, verses 21 to 31 were taken to refer to Him and, as a consequence, Arius, the 4th century heretic (whose teaching the so-called Jehovah’s Witnesses perpetuate) wrongly concluded that the Word was created before the foundation of the world. He is depicted as a subordinate onlooker at the creation: “When He [Yahweh] prepared the heavens, I was there, … when He marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside Him” (Prov. 8:27-30). The wisdom described in Proverbs is an attribute of the Triune God and not a reference to Christ, even though wisdom is one of His characteristics (Buzzell, 1985:922). Solomon describes wisdom as a woman whom we should regard as our sister (Prov. 7:4). It is exegetically unjustified to personify wisdom as Jesus Christ and, in terms of this Scripture, to regard Him as a created being.
The church father, Origen (185-254 AD), became engrossed in the philosophy of Plato as he received his education in the Greek philosophical schools of Alexandria (Bray, 1997:78). He was the first great Christian scholar whose work was regarded with suspicion, even in his own day, and was later branded a heretic. Young (1983:40-42) says that Origen identified the God of the Jewish Scriptures with the ultimate One of Platonic thought and, since he was so strongly influenced by Platonism, having been educated under a leading Platonist philosopher, may be labelled a Christian Platonist.
The writings of Origen clearly reveal that he was influenced by the Platonic monotheistic concept of a singular ‘Ultimate One’, the abstract Absolute. He said: “I am of the opinion that the will of the Father ought alone to be sufficient for the existence of that which He wishes to exist … thus also the existence (Lat. subsistensia) of the Son is generated by Him. For this point must above all others be maintained by those who allow nothing to be unbegotten, i.e. unborn, save God the Father only” (Roberts & Donaldson 1878:23). In saying this, Origen was, in effect, denying the self-existence of the Word as the eternal I AM (John 8:58) and that the Holy Spirit is the “eternal Spirit” (Heb. 9:14) who, as a Person in the Trinity, also has a timeless self-existence. Kelly (1977:263) says: “Origen, … basing himself on John 1:3, had taught that the Spirit must be included among the things brought into existence through the Word.”
According to Berkhof (1958:93) Origen, in the third century, was “one of the very first to speak of the generation of the Son.” In allowing “nothing to be unbegotten, i.e. unborn, save God the Father only,” Origen appears to have completely overlooked the fact that Christ claimed to be the self-existent I AM, and implied that the pre-incarnate Word was dependent upon the Father for His very existence, hence, in effect, denied the truth of His eternal self-existence as the I AM, co-equal and co-eternal as God, with the Father in the eternal triune Godhead. In also teaching that the Holy Spirit was “brought into existence through the Word,” Origen was clearly denying the Holy Spirit’s eternality (cf. Heb. 9:14) and self-existence as God. Origen thus, in effect, denied the deity of both the Word and the Holy Spirit. Although some less crucial aspects of his teachings were later questioned and rejected, e.g. his Platonic view of the soul, many theologians, including those who formulated the 4th and 5th century creeds, held him in awe as a great scholar and authority of the development of theology and Christology. The effects of his theology persist to this day.
Trigg (1983:95-99) also exposes the pagan philosophical concepts in the theology of Origen, which moulded his understanding of God: “Origen quickly began to interpret the Christian faith in Platonic categories. The doctrine of God par excellence was the doctrine of God the Father since for Origen the Son and the Spirit are ‘God’ only by attribution ... . The Son as a mediating hypostasis is inferior to the Father and represents a lower stage in the cosmological scale. Only the Father, Origen said, is truly God; the Son is God only by participation in the Father.” The Son, for Origen, is not God but the image of God which clearly shows that Origen did not regard the Son as God but as inferior to the Father!
Origen equated the Father with the Ultimate One of pagan philosophy and held that only the Father is unbegotten since the existence of the Son was generated by Him. In terms of John 1:3 he also argued that the Holy Spirit must be included among the things brought into existence by the Word (Kelly 1977:263). The deity and eternality of Christ and the Holy Spirit are denied in this way.
In the fourth century, Arius gave new impetus to the theological view of a created Word who was not equal with the Father. Prof. Young (1983:59, 62) identifies this serious heresy as follows: “Arius claims that … [t]he Son is not co-eternal with the Father. … He accepted the traditional view that Wisdom in Proverbs 8 is identical with the Logos, and on the basis of verse 22 concluded that the Logos was God’s creature.” It was the traditional view that Wisdom in Proverbs 8 is Christ, which led Arius into heresy. This view, also referred to as Arianism, holds that Christ was the first, greatest and most perfect of God’s creatures, thus denying His deity. Following the example of his mentor, Origen, Arius transformed the living God of the Bible into the ‘Absolute’ of the philosophical schools (Young 1983:61).
What does God say about the servile observance of theological traditions formulated by imperfect men? “This people honour Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandments of God, you hold the tradition of men … . All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition” (Mark 7:6-9). Creeds and other ecclesiastical documents become part of the theological traditions of a particular denomination, and are in most cases even more rigidly adhered to and defended than the Bible itself. The end result is that a form of godliness is instilled in people by pressurising them to conform to church rules and traditions. In this way, believers become loyal members and followers of a church, rather than followers of the Lord Jesus. They confess church dogma instead of pure biblical truths, the former often being more of an intellectual exercise than a truly spiritual statement.
In Roman Catholicism, tradition is more important than the Bible; consequently, the Bible is interpreted in the light of theological traditions handed down from the church fathers (Boettner, 1966:103-105). Unfortunately, many of these heresies are also perpetuated by a number of Protestant churches. What was the reason for this? The Reformation was incomplete as it compromised by not outrightly denouncing the heresies of Origen and Arius, who presented Christ as a created being. Dave Hunt (2002:33-74) presents irrefutable evidence that the Reformation was incomplete by not addressing some of the unbiblical traditions of the Roman Catholic Church, which this church inherited from some of the early fathers. Reformers such as Calvin leaned heavily on early church fathers, notably Augustine who is also highly revered by the Vatican, thereby perpetuating a number of serious errors.
An influential and much-loved British preacher and lecturer in theology who held strong views on the deity and eternal self-existence of the Lord Jesus was William Romaine. He played a big part in the evangelical revival in England. On his death John Newton said of him that he was “inflexible as an iron pillar in publishing the truth, and unmoved either by the smiles or frowns of the world.” Reproduced below are important excerpts from a sermon he gave on the self-existence of Jesus Christ (Romaine 1755:1-12):
“In the unity of the divine essence there are three Persons equal in all perfections and attributes, so that none is before or after the other, none is greater or less than another, but the glory is equal, the majesty co-eternal. The Trinity in unity is thus expressed in Scripture, 1 John 5:7: ‘There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.’ The ever-blessed Trinity took the names of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, not to describe in what manner they exist as divine Persons, but in what manner the divine Persons have acted for us men and for our salvation. These names were to give us ideas of the different offices which the Trinity had agreed to sustain in the economy of our redemption. … ]
“According to the plan of this covenant one of the divine Persons agreed to demand infinite satisfaction for sin, when mankind should offend, and to be the Father of the human nature of Jesus Christ, and our Father through Him: and therefore He is called God the Father, not to describe His nature, but His office. Another of the divine Persons covenanted to become a Son, to take our nature upon Him, and in it to pay the infinite satisfaction for sin, and therefore He is called Son, Son of God, and such like names, not to describe His divine nature but His divine office. Another of the divine Persons covenanted to make the infinite satisfaction of the Son of God effectual by inspiring the spirits of men, and in disposing them to receive it, and therefore He is called the Holy Inspirer, or Holy Spirit, and the Spirit of God, not to describe His divine nature, but His divine office. …
“The Scripture makes no difference between the divine Persons, except what is made by the distinct offices which they sustain in the covenant of grace. ... Christ, who was from eternity co-equal with the Father, did not make Himself inferior because He covenanted to become a Son, nor did the Holy Spirit, who was from eternity co-equal with the Father and the Son, make Himself inferior because He covenanted to make the spirits of men holy by His grace and influence. Son and Holy Spirit are names of office, and the names of their offices certainly cannot lessen the dignity of their nature, but should rather exalt them in our eyes, for whose salvation they condescended to sustain these offices. Our blessed Lord was Jehovah [Yahweh] when He covenanted to be made flesh and to become a Son. The very nature and terms of the covenant prove that at the making of it He must have been a Person of the self-existent essence, because He had thereby such offices committed to Him, as none but the true God was able to sustain. The whole economy and government of the world, from the time of its creation to the final dissolution, was put into His hands; and therefore the Scripture expressly assures us that He created it, and He governs it by His providence, that He redeemed His people by His blood, and that He is to come again at the last day in all His glory to judge it. And He, who was Almighty to create all things, who was all-wise to govern all things, who had infinite merit to redeem His body, the church, and who is to be God the Judge of all at the last great day, certainly this Almighty, this all-wise, this all-meritorious and divine Judge, must be self-existent and being possessed of these offices, He might truly say I AM … because He was the First Cause, who gave existence to every other being and thing. … Christ is the great and eternal I AM, true and very God, equal in all things with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
“The Lord Jesus said, ‘If ye believe not that I AM, ye shall die in your sins.’ Denying Christ to be self-existent is not a small crime, it is the greatest that a man can commit; for what is it to deny the king’s title to the crown? Is it not high treason? And what is it then to deny the Godhead of the King of kings and Lord of lords? Is it not high treason against the supreme majesty of heaven? … The Scripture we have been considering is most awful and solemn and holds out to us a doctrine of eternal importance, viz. that we must die in our sins, unless we believe the self-existence of Jesus Christ. … Let it be no hindrance to your owning His divinity, that the Scripture calls Him Son, Son of God, Son of Man, etc., for Son is a name of office and not of nature. He was the true, self-existent God. … He took the name of Son when He covenanted to become a Son, and to be made flesh for us and for our salvation.” (End of quote from William Romaine’s sermon).
Barnes (1962) so memorably comments on the deity of Jesus: “On earth He was the brightness of the divine glory, and the express image of His Person. It was by Him, eminently, that God was made known to men – as it is by the beams of the sun that that is made known. He bore an exact resemblance to God. He healed diseases – like God. He raised the dead – like God. He wielded the power which God only can wield, and He manifested a character in all respects like that which we should suppose God would evince if He appeared in human flesh, and dwelt among men. And this is saying much. It is in fact saying that the account in the Gospels is real, and that the Christian religion is true. Uninspired men could never have drawn such a character as that of Jesus Christ, unless that character had actually existed.
“The attempt has often been made to describe God, or to show how He would speak and act if He came down to earth. … But Christ is GOD IN HUMAN NATURE. The form is that of man; the Spirit is that of God. He walks, and eats, and sleeps as a man; He thinks, and speaks and acts like God. He was born as a man – but the angels adored Him as God. As a man He ate; yet by a word He created food for thousands, as if He were God. Like a man He slept on a pillow while the vessel was tossed by the waves; like God He rose, and rebuked the winds and they were still. As a man He went, with affectionate interest, to the house of Martha and Mary. As a man He sympathised with them in their affliction, and wept at the grave of their brother; like God He spoke, and the dead came forth to the land of the living. As a man He travelled through the land of Judea. He was without a home. Yet everywhere the sick were laid at His feet, and health came from His touch, and strength from the words of His lips – as if He were God. As a man He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane; He bore His cross to Calvary; He was nailed to the tree; yet then the heavens grew dark, and the earth shook, and the dead arose – as if He were God. As a man He slept in the cold tomb – like God He rose, and brought life and immortality to light. He lived on earth as a man – He ascended to heaven like God.
“And in all the life of the Redeemer, in all the variety of trying situations in which He was placed, there was not a word or action which was inconsistent with the supposition that He was the incarnate God. There was no failure of any effort to heal the sick or to raise the dead; no look, no word, no deed that is not perfectly consistent with this supposition; but on the contrary, His life is full of events which can be explained on no other supposition than that He was the appropriate shining forth of the divine glory, and the exact resemblance of the essence of God. There are not two Gods – as there are not two suns when the sun shines. It is the One God, in a mysterious and incomprehensible manner shining into the world in the face of Jesus Christ. As the wax bears the perfect image of the seal – perfect not only in the outline, but in the filling up – in all the lines and features, and letters, so is it with the Redeemer. There is not one of the divine perfections which has not the counterpart in Him, and if the glory of the divine character is seen at all by men, it will be seen in and through Him.” (End of comments by Dr. Albert Barnes).
There are many people who, to their eternal ruin and downfall, reject the deity and atoning work of the Lord Jesus. The Jewish leaders have clearly taken notice of the statements by Jesus that He and the Father are equal, but they refused to accept it. The problem is they did not know the Father, and that accounts for their spiritual ignorance in matters related to the Messiah. The knowledge of the Triune God was replaced by man-made theological constructions and religious traditions (Mark 7:6, 9, 13). The opinions of the rabbis were more important to them than the Word of God.
The spiritual blinding that was caused by the inadequacy and deceptive nature of the traditions and teachings produced by generations of rabbis was so intense that they could not recognise the Messiah who came from the Father. Instead of accepting Him as the long-awaited Messiah they utterly rejected Him and condemned Him to the death of a criminal. Their theology was so far removed from the truth of Scripture that they could not within its framework recognise Jesus as Messiah. They were also not able to relate the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament to Jesus. Because of denying the One who is the only door to the kingdom of God, the deceived religious leaders barred the whole Jewish nation from obtaining salvation. Jesus said to them: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in” (Matt. 23:13).
It was basically because they did not understand the concept of a Triune God (Elohim) that they could not accept the claim of Jesus to be the eternal I AM who is equal with the Father, and also one with Him. The Jews accused Him of blasphemy for claiming to be the Son of God. Jesus rebuked them for their ignorance: “It is my Father who honours Me; of whom you say that He is your God. Yet you have not known Him … but I do know Him and keep His word” (John 8:54-55).
The agnostic Jewish leaders did not keep God’s Word because they were strangers to Him: “He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God” (John 8:47). It is understandable that if they did not truly believe in God and His Word, they would also reject Jesus as the Word that became flesh, since He witnessed about the Father whom they did not know. It is obvious that if they did not know the Father they would also betray the Son and resist the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:51-52). To their utter disgust they heard from Jesus that they actually had the devil as father (John 8:44).
The agnostic Jews told Jesus the most serious accusation against Him was that He who was a mere human made Himself God (John 10:31-33). Jesus ascribed their erroneous notion as being a direct result of ignorance: “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Matt. 22:29). A poor knowledge of the Father and His Word inevitably leads to a poor knowledge about His Son.
The unsaved, orthodox Jews were so extreme in their rejection of Jesus that they expelled all people from the synagogues who confessed His Name as Messiah (John 9:22). The Lord Jesus had warned His disciples against this persecution, which emanated from a lack of knowledge about God: “They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me” (John 16:2-3). These are the harsh, antichristian actions of people who do not truly know God the Father and His divine Son.
We are living in the end-time, shortly before the revelation of the Antichrist and the coming of Christ. Satan and his accomplices are preparing the way for themselves to be accepted and worshipped world-wide by trying to prohibit and eradicate the knowledge of God in the largest circles of human society. Their aim with this evil campaign is to convince governments not to have Christian constitutions, but multireligious ones in which all faiths are equally recognised. Christian education should be discontinued to ensure that the young generation grow up without knowledge of the Bible and the God of the Bible, and would thus become easy victims of the coming cosmic Christ of all faiths. For the same reason, the truth of the Bible is also questioned by apostate theologians who entertain the same multireligious and antichristian vision.
In the same way in which many church fathers in the early centuries bowed the knee to the idol of the pagan Greek philosophy of Socrates and Plato, there are also many modern theologians who, in religious matters, prefer not to be guided solely by the Bible but by philosophy, psychology, the natural sciences, and the holy books of the non-Christian religions. They elevate reason above faith and submit to knowledge produced by the humanistic sciences. The primary objective of deceived theologians, who obviously do not know God, is the rejection of Christ’s deity, His uniqueness and exalted position over the idols of the non-Christian religions, the redemptive significance of His atoning death on the cross, the truth of His Word, and the reality of heaven and hell.
Because of the general acceptance of these and other false teachings, a world-wide process of spiritual decline has been set into motion to create a climate which is conducive to promoting the lies of Satan instead of the truth of God’s Word: “Now the Spirit expressly says that in the latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons” (1 Tim. 4:1). False prophets will parade in Christian robes and proclaim the most far-fetched teachings of Satan (2 Cor. 11:3-4, 13-15), thereby trying to give scientific and theological credibility to their heresies. In this way, false foundations are offered to people to build their lives on them, thereby denying the biblical message of salvation.
We are clearly living in the time of intensive exposure to doctrines of demons, which should motivate us to ensure that the true knowledge of God and His Word does not become a vanishing phenomenon in our lives and in the lives of our children. We have no excuse to be deceived by false prophets since, in the Bible, we have the full revelation of the Triune God and His plan of salvation for a lost humanity. We have to believe in God and His Word, confess the Lord Jesus as the only Saviour of the world, and defend the true message of salvation – even though many churches and their leaders may be ignoring or refuting these truths. As in Israel of old, Jesus Christ is still, to a lesser or greater degree, despised and denied by false religious leaders. They only have “a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!” (2 Tim. 3:5).
Special spiritual significance is attached to the fact that the rejected Lord Jesus suffered outside the city walls of Jerusalem to sanctify us (Heb. 13:12). In the next verse, His true disciples are thus challenged: “Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach.” Are you prepared to go to Him outside the camp of your man-made religious dogma or organisation to bear His reproach? These “camps” could be churches based on perverted creeds, aimed to offer false spiritual security and a convenient comfort zone to their deceived supporters.
Zane Hodges (1983:812) says the following about this verse: “Jesus also suffered outside the city gate … to make the people holy. … The readers … should not hesitate to share in the disgrace He bore (cf. 12:2) by abandoning the camp of Judaism and identifying with Him. If the readers actually were acquainted with sectarian encampments in their region this exhortation would have had special force. The readers’ home was no camp or city that then existed, but the city that is to come (cf. 11:10, 16; 12:22).”
Do we really know the Lord Jesus and are we prepared to proclaim His wonderful Name and all His divine attributes? Bernard Reeves (2003:7) says: “Could anything be more important than restoring a higher view and a more truly Scriptural doctrine of the glorious divine Persons of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, and of the eternal, essential oneness of the awesome, self-existent, triune Godhead? Time is short – Christ’s second coming draws ever closer, as world events indicate, so let us not risk being reproved by Him for holding any wrong doctrines about Him and the Holy Spirit, and thus be put to shame before Him. … Let us all ‘earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints’ (Jude v.3).”