Summary of Chapters

Let’s begin this ending by summarizing our findings. In this series I have argued that the New Testament literature does not identify Jesus as the unique, one true God, Yahweh, of second temple monotheism. I have argued that the language in the New Testament which to us seems to identify Jesus as Yahweh would not have been thus understood at the time and place of its composition and proclamation. The language used to describe Jesus in the New Testament fits perfectly within the world of second temple Judaism and is applied in numerous texts to figures other than Jesus, without implying the deity of those figures.

In chapter one, we saw that the transfiguration of Jesus, rather than pointing to Jesus’ deity, points to Jesus’ status as prophet in the line of Moses and Elijah. Jesus’ transfigured appearance recalls that of Moses whose face reflected the glory of Yahweh when he had been enveloped in the cloud on the mountaintop. The transfigured appearance of Moses and Jesus is an expression of their proximity to God, not of any divine essence within themselves.

In chapter two, we looked at the title “son of God” and saw that in the ancient world, it implied royalty. It is also a term that is applied to all believers because of their elect status. It is adoption language, applied to David, Solomon, Jesus, and a host of others. It simply means that God has chosen this human being (or group) and has established a unique relationship with them.

In chapter three, we looked at the title “son of man” and saw that it had multiple senses, none of which implied deity. We looked at Jesus’ trial, and the charge of blasphemy against Jesus made by the high priest. We saw that when Jesus claimed to be the “son of man coming on the clouds,” Jesus was making a threat against the temple, and so the charge of blasphemy was that of blasphemy against the temple. We further saw that when they taunted him, they taunted him as a false prophet, not as a false god.

In chapter four we examined the claim that talk of Jesus sitting on God’s throne implied Jesus’ deity, on the assumption that God does not share his throne with others. We saw, to the contrary, that the idea of the human messiah sitting on God’s throne and sharing God’s prerogative of eschatological judgment was something that second temple apocalyptic Jews did not find to be incompatible with monotheism. It was a temporary sharing of God’s unique prerogatives with the agent of his choosing that is in view, and we noted strong parallels here between the Similitudes of Enoch and 1 Corinthians 15, both of which envision as temporary the Son of Man’s possession of the divine throne. It is a temporary privilege granted until all things are accomplished.

In chapter five we examined the claim that Jesus is worshiped as God in the New Testament, and we saw that the worship offered Jesus is not different than the worship offered to a number of human and angelic agents of God throughout the Hebrew Bible and second temple literature, preceding and contemporaneous to the Christian scriptures. We saw that the act of worshiping the agent of God was not an infringement of monotheism precisely because it was understood in the ancient world that by worshiping the agent one was in reality worshiping the one who sent the agent—the authority behind the agent. We further noted that in the second temple period, the one form of worship that was reserved for the true God alone was that of sacrificial worship. Since Jesus himself offered sacrifice to God, and since no one ever offered sacrifices to Jesus, it is clear that Jesus is never depicted as being worshiped as God in the New Testament.

In chapter six we examined the few occasions in which God’s unique name is either ascribed to Jesus by someone else, or ascribed to Jesus by himself, and we looked at numerous examples of this phenomenon occurring both in the Hebrew Bible and in Jewish literature of the second temple period and later. We saw that the idea of God’s unique name being conferred upon an angelic or human agent was not incompatible with monotheism and did not imply the deity of the agent. We noted that in the ancient world this was an extension of the function of a royal emissary, who was given the authority to speak and act on the monarch’s behalf, and who also bore the monarch’s name or seal. We saw that in the Gospel of John, this is precisely how the application of the divine name to Jesus is to be understood. They accuse Jesus of setting himself up in God’s place, and he denies the accusation, and says that he is truly sent on God’s authority, and further elaborates this point by stressing that his words and deeds are in full submission to the one who sent him: he cannot act on his own. This is precisely the concept of agency, and is not at all inconsistent with monotheism. When Jesus appears to have been misunderstood by his detractors as claiming to be God, Jesus corrects them and shows them from their own scriptures that the title “God” is applied to “those to whom the word of God came” (i.e., Israel at Sinai); in the same way, his claim to be God’s son expresses that like Israel at Sinai, God has spoken to him and commissioned him to be a light to the world. We further noted that instances in which Jesus forgives sins, which are often claimed to be evidence of his “claim to deity,” in fact imply no such thing. The explicit meaning of the account in Matthew 9 is that God has conferred the authority to forgive sins to a human being, as his agent. In sum, to be “invested with the divine name” is to have special authority conferred upon the agent. It says nothing about the “divine essence” or “divine nature” of the agent, and such an understanding would have been unintelligible in that context.

In chapter seven we looked at texts which ascribe or perhaps ascribe the title “God” to Jesus, and quite simply laid out the data from the Hebrew Bible and the second temple Jewish literature. We saw that the title “God” had wide application, even within a monotheistic context. In the Hebrew Bible, angels, judges and kings are all called “God” at various times without infringing upon the uniqueness of the one true God. We also saw that this understanding was amplified in the second temple period. Moses, Adam, the High Priest, angels, archangels, the Logos, and others are all called “God” even while it was understood that none of these were the one true God. The title “God” could imply agency when applied to one of God’s servants, and such an application was not considered inappropriate by the literature of the period (and even some later literature). The term “God” also had the general meaning of a “power,” or a “sovereign.” It is used as a title for angels who govern particular regions, and so can have the sense of “governor” or “ruler.” It could be taken to be synonymous with “lord” or “master.” (Paul even calls Satan “the god of this world,” without qualification. This does not mean for Paul that Satan’s rule is legitimate. It simply indicates that the word “god” could just mean “ruler.”) Given the environment in which the language of “God” was sometimes applied to Jesus, it is infinitely more likely than not that this would have been understood as a general title for Jesus’ authority which was conferred upon him by the one Jesus himself called “my God” (John 20:17), and the “one true God” (John 17:3).

In chapter eight we looked at the concept of preexistence. It is sometimes argued that because Christ is said to have been preexistent, this implies his status as deity. We showed beyond any doubt that this is not the case. In the second temple period and later, preexistence was ascribed to anything and everything. The patriarchs were said to have existed before the foundation of the world. Like Jesus, Jacob was said to have been the “firstborn of all creation,” and was said to have had a heavenly existence prior to his incarnation as the human being Jacob. Moreover, the Torah, the temple sanctuary, the bridal gown of Joseph’s wife Aseneth, the Messiah, and the entire generation of the Messiah, among other things, were all said to have existed “before the foundation of the world.” We noted that this language is metaphorical, a poetic expression of the belief that God had everything mapped out from the beginning and that no power can thwart God’s plan. We looked at several texts in the New Testament that speak of Jesus as having had existence prior to the foundation of the world, or as having been “slain before the foundation of the world,” and saw how they represent more instances of the same common phenomenon from the second temple period. Christ’s “preexistence” is a metaphor expressing God’s plan to redeem the world, which was in God’s mind from the beginning.

In chapter nine we looked at the wisdom tradition in the Hebrew Bible and the second temple literature, examining it as another facet of the “preexistence” motif. We looked at passages in the New Testament which say that Jesus was present at creation, and that all things were created through him. We noted that this implied agency, and we also showed how this language is an application of the pervasive wisdom tradition to Jesus. We noted that as in Col 1:15, wisdom is also regularly (and consistently) described as the first created thing, and the “being” through whom God created all other things. But we also showed that this idea of “personified Wisdom” was a metaphor, and was everywhere understood to be so. Nobody actually believed “Wisdom” was a real person or being that God created: it was a powerful poetic image expressing the belief that God created all things according to his wisdom (a characteristic of God, not a person). We then showed that the application of this metaphor to Jesus is a powerful expression of the Christian belief that God’s wisdom, God’s hidden plan for creation, has come to full expression in Jesus. Nobody would have understood statements about Jesus’ agency in creation to be literal. They understood that this was “wisdom language,” and that Wisdom wasn’t a real person. We noted, however, that even if it is possible that the language was meant to be taken literally (though certainly not plausible), it still does not claim divinity for Jesus. If the texts are literal (again, highly unlikely), then Jesus is being identified as the first created being.

In chapter ten we looked at the Logos tradition in Philo. We saw that for Philo, a staunchly monotheistic Jew who wrote in the same century but prior to the time of Paul and John, the Logos was God’s first created being, an archangel, and a mediator between God and humankind. We saw that for Philo, the Logos was the “image of God,” after which Adam was made. The Logos was a copy of God, and Adam was the copy of the copy. We also saw that Philo was able to call the Logos “God,” or “Second God,” without infringing upon his monotheism. This did not mean that the Logos was a second person in the Godhead sharing in the divine essence. It meant rather that “God” was a title conferred upon the Logos because of his status, but did not mean that he was to be identified with the one true God. God and the Logos were both called God, but clearly distinct, and the title was only true of the former, though not inappropriate for the latter.

In chapter eleven we looked at the prologue to John’s Gospel and showed twelve points of strong parallel to the wisdom tradition. We showed that John was applying very standard and pervasive wisdom images to Jesus. We noted strong parallels to the idea of “incarnation” found in John 1:14. We saw how this was based upon the image in Sirach 24 and Baruch 3-4 of personified Wisdom coming down from heaven and taking the form of Torah, and “dwelling among men,” Just as the Logos/Wisdom is said in John to have become flesh and “dwelled among us.” We argued that in both cases this is metaphor. Sirach and Baruch do not mean that the Torah literally preexisted as a being called Wisdom and that this being Wisdom literally came down from heaven and took on the shape of a book. In the same way, John does not mean that the Logos really existed as a person, and that this Logos literally came down from heaven and became a human. Both of these are expressions of the belief that the wisdom according to which God created and ordered the universe is displayed in Torah and in Jesus respectively. It is highly doubtful that anybody who understood John’s language in light of the traditions from which John was drawing would have taken John literally, and the fact is, the traditions from which John was drawing were a part of the Septuagint Bible that John and his readers would have used—so their familiarity with the wisdom traditions is unquestionable. Moreover, we noted in chapter fourteen that even if it was meant to be taken literally, the writings of Philo show that the identification of the Logos as “God” in John 1:1 would not have been taken to mean that the Logos was the same being as the one true God.

In chapter twelve we looked at the first two chapters of Hebrews, and the exalted language for Jesus found therein. We saw that, like John and Paul, the author of Hebrews ascribed wisdom language to Jesus, which does not imply divinity, and should be taken as metaphor expressing a profound truth about what God was really doing through Jesus. But we also noted that the primary argument of chapters 1-2 is that Jesus is the representative human and ideal king through whom God has delivered humanity from subjection to angelic powers, reestablishing all humans as God’s special children, in the place of preeminence over the rest of the created order. We saw that the ascription in Hebrews 1 of titles such as “God” to Jesus were part of a string of royal or messianic passages applied to Jesus, and implied Jesus’ agency as the ideal, obedient king. We saw that the culmination of the argument of chapters 1-2 was the exaltation of all humanity to the same status as Jesus: lords over all creation (including, once again, the angels), and children of God.

In chapter thirteen we looked at Colossians 1 and saw the same wisdom traditions being applied to Jesus, in which Jesus is said to have been the agent of creation. We showed that if these texts are taken literally, then what is in fact claimed is not that Jesus is God, but that he is the first created being through whom God created the rest of creation. We looked at parallels from the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, and other second temple texts that made this abundantly clear. But we also argued that the language is a metaphorical expression of the profound truth that God’s wisdom is fully displayed in the man Jesus and his self-sacrifice. We saw that the real-world truth expressed in metaphor was that the same creative power through which God originally made the world is now at work again through God’s agent Jesus as God is re-creating all things, starting with Jesus himself whom God raised from the dead and exalted.

Finally, in chapter fifteen we looked at Philippians 2:5-11 and argued that this hymn is a powerful Adam christology. The hymn retells the story of Adam’s fall from glory into slavery and death, but it retells the story with a twist. This time, the role of Adam is played by Jesus, who instead of choosing to grasp at equality with God (like Adam) chooses instead to pour himself out as a sacrifice to God, thereby undoing the curse of Adam. As a result of Jesus’ making the right choice, God exalts him and restores to him the dominion that was given to Adam, as representative human. We saw that in the next chapter of Philippians, Paul says that the same glory given to Jesus in his exalted state will also be given to those who have been reincorporated into him, the Second Adam. We showed how this narrative parallels Paul’s theology elsewhere (Roman 7:7-25; 1 Cor 15:21f), and that of Hebrews, and follows closely the logic of Wisdom of Solomon 2:23-3:8, which was composed a century or two prior to the Philippians hymn. We also showed that the exaltation of Jesus and the title (“Lord”) conferred upon him in Phil 2:10-11 is a strong expression of the logic of agency, as any cursory amount of attention paid to Isaiah 45 (which is quoted in the Philippians hymn) makes plain, wherein Cyrus is appointed by God as his agent, is given a name by God, implying that authority is conferred upon him, and is given worship by the nations—all, in the words of the Philippians hymn, “to the glory of God the Father.” Finally, we noted that although the Philippians hymn seems to ascribe preexistence to Jesus, what is actually happening is that Jesus is playing the role of Adam: it is not Jesus’ story that is being told, so much as Adam’s with a twist. We showed how this phenomenon of a son of Adam playing the role of Adam is paralleled in Romans 7:7-11 and elsewhere (e.g. Wis. 2:23-24).

Revisiting Jesus’ Humanity

Before we proceed to discuss the implications of the data outlined above, let’s take a look at a number of texts whose meaning should become much plainer to us, in light of our findings throughout this series. These texts identify Jesus as human, and also distinguish Jesus from God in clear ways. Through a Trinitarian grid, they have simply been interpreted as emphasizing the “fully human” side of the so-called “God-Man.” But with our new understanding of the exalted language about Jesus in the New Testament, we no longer have to treat these texts in such a manner.

We have already noted several, one of the most significant being 1 Corinthians 15:21-28, in which it is clear that Jesus is exalted as a human and that his reign over all things in the place of God is only temporary. Once everything has been accomplished, God’s human agent will also be subjected to God, although until that time he enjoys functional equality with God. Paul also makes sure of this distinction between God and his anointed agent earlier in 1 Corinthians 11:

But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the husband is the head of his wife, and God is the head of Christ. (1 Cor 11:3)

The problem of patriarchy aside for now, the hierarchical structure here is clear. The wife is inferior to the husband. The husband is inferior to Christ. Christ is inferior to God. Paul does not say that “God the Father is the head of God the Son.” He says that God outranks the Anointed—the highest ranking human. Everything in its proper order. Another Pauline text further distinguishes the two:

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. (Eph 4:4-6)

Here, Jesus as Lord is distinguished from the “one God and Father of all, who is above all,” including the one Lord. This distinction is made clearer in another text from the Pauline tradition:

For there is one God, and one mediator between God and humankind—Messiah Jesus, a human. (1 Tim 2:5)

Here it is absolutely clear that Jesus is distinguished from the “one God.” That Jesus is the “one mediator” means that he is God’s appointed agent. And we note that it is emphasized that this mediator is a human. Why is this stressed? Trinitarians might be tempted to read this as an attempt to emphasize Jesus’ “human side.” But the point of stressing Jesus’ humanity as mediator is to distinguish this mediator from the angels through whom the old covenant was mediated to Moses (Gal 3:19), and also to stress Jesus’ identification as the prophet like Moses. Both are mediators of the covenant. Note also what Paul says with regard to mediating in Gal 3:20: “Now a mediator represents more than one party; whereas God is one.” In other words, God and the mediator cannot be the same entity: the mediator represents human beings, and God. But this does not mean that the mediator is both human and God (was Moses?). No, the mediator represents humans because he is a human, but that he represents God does not make him God because, as Paul says, “God is only one.” As elsewhere, Paul is careful here to maintain the distinctiveness of God from God’s chosen mediator.

Let’s look at the primitive confession of Peter, preserved in Acts. Peter begins by identifying these days as the “last days” in which God pours out his Spirit upon all flesh (2:17). He then goes on to identify “Jesus of Nazareth” as “a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you” (2:22). Jesus is a man, whom God confirmed as his elect, through signs and wonders that “God did through him.” In other words, it was not Jesus who performed the signs, but God through Jesus. This is the language of agency. If Peter believed Jesus to be God, why did he identify him as a man who is distinct from God, and why did Peter use the language of agency? Peter continues: “This man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified. . . . But God raised him up” (2:23-24). Again, everything about Jesus is God’s doing. Jesus was a part of God’s plan, and it was God who raised him up. Peter then quotes a psalm of David:

I saw the Lord always before me,
for he is at my right hand so that I will not be shaken;
therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced;
moreover, my flesh will live in hope.
For you will not abandon my soul to Hades,
or let your holy one experience corruption.
You have made known to me the ways of life;
you will make me full of gladness with your presence.
(Psalm 16:8-11 via Acts 2:25-28)

Here “the Lord” is not Jesus. Peter is quoting the psalm in the voice of Jesus. “The Lord” is who Jesus saw always before himself. The Lord is who raised Jesus from the dead. Here, “Jesus” speaks as an inferior who depends upon God.

This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you both see and hear. (Acts 2:32-33)

Note here that Peter says Jesus received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father! What? If the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus, how does Jesus receive his own spirit as a promise from God? What Peter is saying, rather, is that the Holy Spirit which God promised to pour out on all flesh in the last days was given first to Jesus as representative human, and now upon those who proclaim God’s deeds through Jesus to Israel.

Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified. (Acts 2:36)

Here again, the title of Lord is conferred upon Jesus by God. It is not something Jesus possessed prior to his exaltation, but was given to him as a result of his righteousness, exemplified in his martyrdom. It is God who exalts Jesus, the man he foreordained, the man who is a “servant of God” (Acts 3:13). Paul concurs later in Acts when he identifies Jesus as “the man God has appointed” (Acts 17:31). Note also that Jesus is here presented in counterdistinction to the “one man from whom God made every nation of men” (17:26). This is another example of primitive Christian Adam christology. Jesus was understood as the representative human being who reversed the curse of Adam, and so he was proclaimed, even to the Gentiles.

And then there are the texts in which Jesus distinguishes himself from God. One of the most often overlooked is in the temptation narrative. Like Israel, Jesus is in the wilderness for a period of forty (years/days). Like Israel, Jesus is tempted to worship a god other than Yahweh. Satan promises Jesus that if Jesus will worship him, he will give Jesus all the kingdoms of the earth for his dominion. We recall that Paul identifies Satan as “the god of this world” in 2 Cor 4:4. Because the world is presently subject to Satan as the world’s “god” (read: sovereign), presumably Satan could make good on his offer. He is offering Jesus a messianic shortcut, as it were. Jesus’ response is to quote the scripture:

Jesus answered him, “It is written,
‘Worship the Lord your God,
and serve only him.’” (Luke 4:8)

Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written,
‘Worship the Lord your God,
and serve only him.’” (Matt 4:10)

What does this imply? Not just that Jesus refused to worship Satan, but also that Jesus must worship Yahweh his God. Where Israel failed, their new representative succeeds. Jesus worships God as the faithful corporate personality.

And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. (Matt 23:9-10)

Here Jesus talks about his own uniqueness, but he does not describe his unique significance as God incarnate. Rather, there is only one Father. Jesus’ uniqueness revolves around his being Israel’s teacher. Christians often consider it a denigration to refer to Jesus as a “good teacher.” As it happens, that is how he identified himself. Well, actually, he didn’t even go that far!

As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” (Mark 10:17-18)

Eighteen hundred years worth of apologetics have had a field day with this one. The best they have come up with is that Jesus responds this way in order to remind the man what was really important. In other words, Jesus isn’t distinguishing himself from God, really, he’s just making the man think about the truism that only God is truly good, in a way that would have the unfortunate effect of deterring the man from identifying Jesus with God. It hardly need be argued that Jesus is rebuking the man out of good old fashioned piety. Re-reading this text in light of our investigation makes it fully intelligible.

In Matthew 19, of course, this account reads differently:

Then someone came to him and said, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good.” (Matt 19:16-17)

Some scholars think that whereas for Mark, Jesus was seen as a human, by the time Matthew writes, Jesus is beginning to be seen as divine, which is why Matthew changes the wording, so that Jesus is not deflecting praise. But this is hardly the case. It could simply be explained by a variant in oral tradition, or perhaps Matthew thought it threatened the notion of Jesus’ sinlessness, which was (apparently) necessary if he was to be presented as an acceptable sacrifice. Whatever the case, Matthew hardly presents Jesus as God. It is worth our while to revisit the account of the healing of the paralytic in Matthew 9:

And just then some people were carrying a paralyzed man lying on a bed. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.” Then some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man is blaspheming.” But Jesus, perceiving their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic—“Stand up, take your bed and go to your home.” And he stood up and went to his home. When the crowds saw it, they were filled with awe, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to human beings. (Matt 9:2-8)

This story is often recounted by Christians as proof of Jesus’ divinity. The irony is that these Christians seem to agree more with the polemicized scribes than they do with Jesus and Matthew! Jesus forgives the man’s sins and the scribes say, “Hey! Only God can do that.” Jesus responds, “Actually, God told me I could. Here, I’ll prove it.” So he heals the man. What happens next? Matthew says, “When the crowds saw it, they were filled with awe, and they glorified Jesus because he proved that he was God in the flesh!” But Matthew doesn’t say that, does he! If Matthew really believed Jesus was God, now would be the perfect opportunity to spell that out. Instead, he goes the other direction (the direction everybody else would have taken it too, as it happens). Jesus’ miracle didn’t prove that he was God. It proved that God really had given a human being the authority to forgive sins. That’s how the crowd understood it, that’s how Jesus framed it, and that’s the message Matthew wants us to take away. In fact, in John 20:23, Jesus confers the authority to forgive sins upon his disciples, just as God had conferred it upon him. He also promises that they will do greater things than he did (John 14:12).

And now we’ve come to John. John is often considered to make the strongest, most exalted claims about Jesus. The big one that set off his detractors is in John 10:30. Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.” His detractors misunderstood him and thought he was claiming to be God (ironically, a mistake Jesus’ own followers have continued to make). Jesus corrects them. He quotes a psalm that he interprets to mean that the Israelites who received the law at Sinai were called “gods.” He says, “If they could be called gods by the scriptures (which can’t be broken), why are you flipping out when I call myself God’s son?” In other words, Jesus is denying the charge of blasphemy on the grounds that he’s not setting any new precedent. The idea is, those to whom the word of God comes can be properly referred to as “gods” because God has elected them as his own children.

But remember that the misunderstanding ensued from his saying, “I and the Father are one,” because he said, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” Christians today say: “Well, it’s blasphemy if it isn’t true, but it’s true, so it isn’t blasphemy.” In other words, some Christians are as pedantic and dense as Jesus’ polemicized detractors. In the same gospel, Jesus also said:

You will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. (John 14:20)

And again:

Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. (John 17:11)

Well, since when Jesus claimed to be one with his Father he obviously meant that he shared in the unique divine essence, he obviously must also mean that his disciples share in the unique divine essence, because they are “in Jesus” just as Jesus is “in his Father.” Moreover, all his disciples must be the Dodekanity—twelve persons, one essence—because they are one just as Jesus and God are one!

Or, Jesus was simply saying that he was aligned with God’s purposes, precisely because he is in submission to God. Which he in fact does say. “I do nothing on my own, but I speak these things as the Father instructed me” (John 8:28). If that isn’t clear enough, Jesus goes onto say:

But now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. (John 8:40)

Wow! Right there in the Gospel of John, supposedly the gospel with the highest christology in the canon. Jesus self-identifies as a human being, and distinguishes himself clearly from God, and claims to be (what?) a prophet. Jesus does not present himself as God in the Gospel of John. He distinguishes himself from God at every turn:

And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. (John 17:3)

Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” (John 20:17)

Not only does Jesus call himself a man, a prophet of God, he also calls God “my God,” and what’s more, he does so to make the point that his relationship to God is now identical to our relationship to God. “My Father and your Father, my God and your God.”

With all this in view, Jesus’ words from the cross are infinitely more profound, and significant:

“Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34)

Implications of the Data

I believe this investigation has shown quite definitively that the exalted language used to describe Jesus in the New Testament literature was entirely at home in the world of second temple Jewish monotheism. In this context, the language used to express Jesus’ exalted status would not have been controversial. What was controversial was its application to a peasant from Galilee who happened to have been crucified as a failed messianic rebel. But the exalted language itself was not inappropriate, according to all the evidence we have from this period. In fact, this sort of exalted language was so commonplace that it is clear that the language of the New Testament about Jesus could not and would not have been understood in the way Christians in later centuries came to understand it.

That is to say, if the writers of the New Testament were attempting to convey some new idea about God becoming human yet remaining fully God, we would have expected to see much in the literature by way of explanation and justification of these novel claims. As it is, we see nothing of the sort. For instance, Paul had novel ideas about Torah and its significance for Jews and Gentiles in light of Jesus. Paul’s ideas were so controversial that he was forced to expound upon them, defend them, support them, and clarify them, at length, pervasively. His ideas about Torah pervade his writings precisely because they were so controversial. He writes about his ideas in much detail. On the other hand, Paul’s exalted language about Jesus is of an entirely different character. It is stated matter-of-factly, as if it were accepted by all, uncontroversially. Nowhere does Paul go into the kind of detail about how Jesus is to be understood as God as he does about how we are to understand the significance of Torah.

The same is true for all the exalted language about Jesus throughout the New Testament. It is true that claims about Jesus had to be defended, but we never see this occurring with regard to the exalted language. The claims about Jesus that had to be defended were claims about his being the expected messiah. In the case of Paul, the vast majority of the claims about Jesus that Paul had to defend were in fact Torah related: Paul had to defend his claims that Jesus’ significance was such that the relationship of God’s people to Torah had been fundamentally altered. But all of the exalted language about Jesus in the New Testament is stated without defense, usually in hymnic or poetic contexts, in prologues, introductions and benedictions, or as spur of the moment exclamations.

Even when it is used in doctrinal statements, it is used as a proof within a thesis unrelated to Christ’s exalted status. For example, in Col 2:9, Paul states matter-of-factly that in Jesus, the fullness of God dwells in bodily form. But this is used as a proof within a larger paraenetic argument about the proper behavior of Christians in a world which offers many paths to security. Paul uses the exalted language as a given, in order to show the Colossians that they already have everything they need from the one true God mediated to them through Jesus. The point is, the exalted language is not the point of dispute. If it were controversial, it would have to be defended itself, and could not therefore be used as a proof in a rhetorical argument. What this means is that the exalted language was not controversial, and the reason for this is that it would have been understood as one species of a common language that was spoken throughout second temple Judaism.

How It All Went South

What we have in first century christologies is the mixing of a wide range of second temple apocalyptic Jewish metaphors. The question of how this language came to be misunderstood by later Christians is not difficult to answer. It almost seems inevitable that once these texts became enshrined in a Christian canon and were removed from their context in second temple apocalyptic Judaism, these mixed metaphors would begin to be read literally, by people unfamiliar with the texts that principally informed early Jewish-Christian christology. After the painful divorce of Christianity from its apocalyptic Jewish context, the language of christology was like a ship without an anchor, drifting whichever way the winds of interpretation would take it, and that fact is reflected in the sharp disputes that emerged over the first few centuries concerning how Jesus is to be understood. As the data has shown, the Ebionite Christians (Jewish followers of Jesus who denied Jesus’ deity but affirmed his exalted status) were probably the faction that most closely resembled the christology of the apostolic testimony (even though they differed with Paul, a bastard apostle, about the controversial issue of Torah). The dispute between the Arians and the proto-Trinitarians was misguided on both sides. Both misunderstood the nature of second temple monotheism, and neither did they understand second temple monotheism’s deep roots in an earlier polytheistic cosmology. Moreover, both were wrong in taking metaphorical language literally. But the Arians were correct so far as their literal interpretation went. (That means the Jehovah’s Witnesses are a bit closer to Paul than the Evangelicals, as far as exalted christology goes. But they still miss the point.)

Yet what is clear is that the Trinitarian view has no basis in the text of the New Testament. It developed because of a misunderstanding of New Testament language that was the result of not having access to the semantic context of second temple apocalyptic Judaism. The results of these disputes were also helped along by a Roman imperial agenda, which was interested in Christianity as a tool for uniting a divided empire. As a result, “heretics” were born, and “heresy” officially outlawed. It just so happens that, novel as it was, the trinitarian doctrines that were formulated in this context had the effect of easing polytheistic Romans into “monotheistic” Christianity—all for the good of the empire.

So What’s the Point?

Good question. What does this all mean? If the language doesn’t mean that Jesus is God, what does it mean? That’s a question we’ve been answering throughout, but I’ll bring it to boiling point right here: it means that Jesus’ life is a model for his followers. No doctrine, in fact, has been more disastrous for Christian ethics than the doctrine of Jesus’ divinity. What it frequently leads to is this: “Well, of course Jesus was perfect. He was God! We can’t do what he did, but that’s why he died for our sins.” Of course, this is very bad theology, and I’m not claiming that it’s representative, but there’s a real truth to this. The idea that Jesus is God detracts from the ethical implications of the gospel. The whole point of the gospel is that Jesus’ representative righteousness has been used by God to redeem all those who follow the path he trailblazed. That means, to paraphrase John Howard Yoder, you have to go through the cross to get to the resurrection. Jesus’ full humanity is the message of the New Testament. It was his complete and utter humanity that God was able to use to redeem us broken humans.

Not only that, in his complete humanity, Jesus showed us what it means to be human, and how to behave again like human beings. Jesus was important to his followers because he showed them how to stand up against tyranny, and how to thwart the economics of exploitation—by coming together. Jesus restored human dignity by showing that scavenging and greed led to desolation, whereas cooperation and self-abnegation led to abundant life—together.

He was the representative human, whom God exalted precisely because he represented what God intended Adam and his children to be. By wisdom God created the world, and that wisdom has been made manifest in Jesus, who taught wisdom, and manifested the wisdom of self-denial, and love of enemy, in anticipation of the inbreaking of God’s justice. Because Jesus believed God was soon breaking into the world to make all things right and new, Jesus could advocate an ethic of hope, that did not look inwardly toward one’s own needs, but outwardly toward the needs of others, even the radical Other—the enemy, the stranger, the outlaw, and the unclean. Because Jesus modeled a way through the chaos, because he demonstrated an alternative wisdom to the “wisdom of the world,” it was right and good to speak about him as the manifestation of God’s wisdom in the flesh—just as they often spoke about Torah, and for the same reasons.

The other thing the exalted language ascribed to Jesus meant is precisely this: in Jesus, humanity is being exalted again to its rightful place of honor in creation. The powers that determine human fate against our own wills are no longer in control—they have been subjected again to human beings. And come the inbreaking of God’s consummate kingdom, those very powers will be judged and condemned by none other than us. Our destiny will again be in our own hands, as God intended. We will be “Gods” on earth—immortal, bearing God’s image, legitimate children and rightful heirs of the divine name. In sum, the exalted language ascribed to Jesus really is meant to say as much about us as it does about him: for he has gone on ahead to prepare the way. What is true of him now will be true of us soon. That is the message. That is the hope. . .

. . . that has yet to materialize.

Questions and Answers

To conclude, I will answer some of those questions I know are still bothering you about all this.

Q: How does this affect New Testament theology?
A: It doesn’t. It affects one aspect of our understanding of New Testament theology. The New Testament still says the same thing it always did! And everything is still pretty much the same for us too. The New Testament still teaches that Jesus is resurrected and exalted, currently reigning in heaven waiting to subdue all enemies under his feet. The only difference is (to our understanding), when the job is done, Jesus gives the kingdom back to God and joins the rest of us exalted and immortal human beings on the new earth—as our older brother. The only difference is, really, he’s not the second person of the Trinity. But I mean, really, who cares! You’ll still be worshiping God, and Jesus will still be given special honor above all other creatures. Trust me, when you die and it all goes down, you won’t notice the difference.

Q: How does this affect salvation?
A: Not one bit. But it does help to warn us away from cheap grace. Jesus’ humanity puts the impetus back on us to be obedient to God’s will and really listen to and obey the hard demands of our teacher. “But Jesus was God!” is no longer an excuse for our unwillingness to do what we know we ought to do.

Q: What about God Crucified?
A: Well, it still sort of works. It wasn’t God on the cross, but it was still God revealed on the cross. It wasn’t “God” who came to die for our sins, but it was God’s character that was revealed by the man who did. So although Jesus may not be divine, we can still affirm that God is jesusy.

Q: Can I still worship Jesus?
A: I don’t see why not. Just don’t offer any sacrifices to him. That would be blasphemy. But worshiping Jesus honors the God who sent and exalted him, so go for it.

Q: Can I still pray to Jesus?
A: Yes! Jesus is your mediator. Your only mediator, actually. So pray to him as any good Catholic prays to his or her saints.

Q: Can I still think of Jesus as God?
A: If it makes you feel better, I suppose so. I don’t really care what you think. What’s more important is what you do and how you treat people. So think of Jesus as God all you want to, but don’t ostracize, ridicule, dehumanize or evangelize people who rightly deny his deity in the name of monotheism. (You’d be the one in the wrong. It’s like the speck/plank thing, except there was never a speck—just your plank.)

Q: Am I going to hell if I deny Jesus’ divinity?
A: If you deny Jesus’ divinity, you may go to hell, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s because you denied Jesus’ divinity. It may have been something else. There’s no way to be sure until it all goes down. So good luck.

Q: What am I supposed to do with the Trinity thing then?
A: I actually like a lot of Trinitarian theology. I’m not denying the value of some Trinitarian theology, I’m just saying that it’s inconsistent with the New Testament. Some people have to have all their theology line up with the New Testament. If that’s the case, then you should probably shelve the Trinitarian thing. If that’s not the case for you, then keep it in your pocket. It may be useful some day. For instance, I like the way it can sometimes be used to support notions of mutuality, plurality, and democratic ideals. Good Trinitarian theology is all about affirming diversity. But that’s not necessarily how it got started. It got started on pretty spurious grounds. So I wouldn’t use it because I affirm its ontology; I’d use it pedagogically or pragmatically. In sum, I’m not here to deny you your Trinitarian theology. I’m just here to show that it’s incongruous with the New Testament christology once we understand New Testament christology within its context of second temple Jewish apocalypticism. But apart from that, I have no qualms with it. Nevertheless, I would hope that it would be something that you would be able to let go of if the context demanded it. Don’t try to defend it to a Muslim or a Jew (or anybody who disagrees with it). There are much more important things to talk about. If you want to find common ground with a Muslim about Jesus, don’t talk about Nicaea or Chalcedon. Talk about Mark, talk about John. Jesus was a prophet. That doesn’t denigrate him. Admit that Jesus isn’t the one true God to a Muslim, and suddenly you have a friend with whom you can have very fruitful conversations about Jesus and whatever else. But I’m not saying to deny Jesus’ divinity just for the sake of the conversation. I’m saying that such a denial is perfectly acceptable because it also happens to be true.

Q: Should I become a Jehovah’s Witness or a Unitarian?
A: Whatever you think is right. But my advice is don’t be anything other than what you are.

Q: Are Mormons really going to become gods on their own planets?
A: Is Jesus really going to come back from heaven and raise you from the dead as an immortal?