Category: Historical Jesus

Book Plunge: Jesus Was Not A Trinitarian Chapter 2

Who was the God of Jesus? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So we’re continuing our look at Anthony “Have I mentioned the Shema enough” Buzzard’s horrid book. In this second chapter, he’s going to ask who the God of Jesus was. At the start, if you’re an Arian and say Jesus has a God, that’s not going to be a problem to us. Jesus was also a human being who wasn’t an atheist.

So right off, Buzzard tells us that it’s a problem that nowhere in the New Testament does God mean the triune God and that’s a problem. Even if that is true, the response is “So what?” Buzzard doesn’t tell us why this is a problem. If what is being discussed is the relationship between Christ and the Father, then of course we won’t expect the word “Theos” to refer to the Trinity.

He later will say that God is never described as begotten, but Jesus is, which means Jesus had a beginning of His existence. Of course, this entirely begs the question and Buzzard posts this as if no one in church history ever said “Wow. Jesus is begotten! Imagine that!”

Trinitarian relations in understanding have always noted differences in how the persons are. The Son is begotten. The Holy Spirit proceeds. The Orthodox branch of Christianity can disagree with Catholics and Protestants on the filoque, but there is agreement that the Spirit proceeds. Since this is part and parcel of Trinitarian doctrine, it’s hard to see how this is an objection to it.

Here is what the Athanasian Creed says. (Keep in mind Orthodox Churches would disagree with “And the Son” in describing the proceeding of the Holy Spirit, but that is not our focus here.)

The Father was neither made nor created nor begotten; the Son was neither made nor created, but was alone begotten of the Father; the Spirit was neither made nor created, but is proceeding from the Father and the Son.

So here we have something saying the Father is not begotten and saying the Son is and somehow, Buzzard saying the same thing is supposed to be a problem? Also, the writers of the creed didn’t see a problem with the Son being begotten and also being eternal. Either they were all idiots who didn’t recognize a contradiction, or Buzzard is the one who isn’t understanding something. Decisions, decisions….

For those wondering, I view Jesus as begotten in the sense of that which is always in the Father being brought forth from Him. Since God is eternal, this is an eternal activity. The same follows with the Holy Spirit regardless of how many persons in the Trinity were involved.

Continuing in my look, more highlights I have are simply Buzzard making the same claims of Unitarianism over and over. There is a little change when we get to Paul and Buzzard says

Only a very deficient sense of history would permit the impossible notion that Paul believed the God of Israel to have been the Trinitarian God. This is widely admitted.

Unfortunately, Buzzard doesn’t tell us who this is widely admitted by. One wonders what he would think about the things Bart Ehrman would say are widely admitted in New Testament scholarship. There is plenty of scholarship out there anyway that will say Paul did believe in a triune concept of God, but Buzzard is not seriously interacting with that.

He then goes on to quote The New Bible Dictionary.

The Old Testament witness is fundamentally to the oneness of God. In their daily prayer, Jews repeated the Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4, 5: “The Lord our God the Lord is one.” In this they confessed the God of Israel to be the transcendent creator without peer or rival. Without the titanic disclosure of the Christ event no one would have taken the Old Testament to affirm anything but the exclusive, i.e., unipersonal monotheism that is the hallmark of Judaism and Islam. Note carefully this candid admission. Reading the Hebrew Bible , on which Jesus was reared and which he affirmed as holy Scripture and which Paul claimed he believed, no one could possibly have imagined God to be more than one divine Person. The Hebrew Bible, says the dictionary, affirmed the unipersonal, non-Trinitarian God. Jesus echoed that affirmation precisely.

First, this can be debated as the intertestamental literature, as pointed out in the Wisdom of Solomon speaks of Wisdom in deified terms. This is not an exception. That being said, is it really a powerful argument to say no one understood it this way until Jesus came?

No, because it’s also true no one understood the Messiah would be born of a virgin (Which I do affirm), grow up among men, live a sinless life, die on a cross as a sacrifice for sins, be buried and raised again bodily in the middle of space and time instead of at the end of the age as would be understood, and would ascend to the right hand of God. Notice in this I didn’t include the deity of Christ since Buzzard wouldn’t agree to that.

So based on Buzzard’s words, since no Jew would have understood that from the Old Testament before, then we should reject it today. That would be nonsense for us. Now that we know the gospel, we can look back and see it there, much like once you know who the criminal is, you can look back on the mystery later and reailze it.

He then quotes someone else who says the Trinity in the New Testament is left implicit and undefined. He says the reader is left to wonder what that means. I could figure it out easily. It means the Trinity is there, but it is not spelled out. It is drawn out from taking the Scripture as a whole and it’s undefined meaning there’s no explicit definition of the Trinity.

He also refers to 1 Cor. 8:4-6. Buzzard is aware of Bauckham’s work, but doesn’t interact with him on this. Bauckham sees this passage as Paul actually putting Jesus in the Shema with the one God being the Father and the one Lord being Jesus. If Bauckham is right, then this totally blows apart Buzzard’s understanding as you have Paul, a devout Jew, seeing Jesus in the divine nature and this early on.

Buzzard later says

Admissions that “language is inadequate” to spell out the Trinity clearly have not prevented the printing of oceans of words attempting to explain the Trinity, using the non-biblical language of Greek philosophy, that the One God of the Bible is three hypostases in one essence, and that the Son of God was, incredibly, “man” but not “a man.” ( Did you know that this is what official Christendom believes?) The Bible nowhere, however, calls God “an essence” and never speaks of “three hypostases.” And any reader of the New Testament should be able to see that Jesus was a man.

This is such a bewildering statement! First, this is what official Christendom believes? Show where. Not just that’s what you think we believe, but show the statement. It doesn’t exist. Finally, we all agree Jesus was a man. Either Buzzard is incredibly ignorant here or he is incredibly dishonest. Neither is good.

He also says Paul had a warning against those trying to define God in terms of philosophy in Colossians 2:8. No. He had a warning against vain philosophy. That’s not the same thing.

So once again, I walk away from Buzzard’s work more convinced. Will anything be remotely persuasive in here? We’ll find out.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

Book Plunge: Jesus Was Not A Trinitarian Chapter 1

What is the foundation of Christology? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I don’t know if this one will be as long as the prologue since Buzzard’s whole argument seems to be to reference Mark 12:29, Deut 6:4, and say “Shema” and “Monotheism” over and over. He does reference Ken Samples talking about the importance of the Shema, which all Trinitarians would agree with. At the same time, he does seem to reference Ken Samples as if Samples would agree with him. He would not. I have interviewed Samples and he is indeed an orthodox Trinitarian.

Buzzard does say there is not a word of such revolutionary changes in the nature of God in the New Testament, but this could also be because the idea of a multiplicity in the Godhead was not unfamiliar to the Jews. There is no interaction with the intertestamental literature thus far that I have seen that did inform the Jewish background of Second Temple Judaism Jesus lived in. ONe such work would be the Wisdom of Solomon where Wisdom is presented in terms reminiscent of that of God in passages like the Exodus. I highly encourage readers to read How God Became Jesus. (Unfortunately, my copy is back in Tennessee.)

Buzzard also writes about how a Calvinist pastor once called him a heretic. This is seen as an unloving attitude, but is it? If the pastor really thinks that, is that not more of a warning to Buzzard? We can say all we want that perhaps the tact wasn’t there, but how are we to assume it was done out of an unloving spirit.

Despite this, the next part talks about him speaking and some older ladies in the church come up after his talk and beg he and his family to repent lest they face eternal hellfire. Whatever you think about the doctrine of Hell, I have no doubt the ladies came from a place of love, but Buzzard is apparently upset about that as well. It could just be that Buzzard doesn’t like to be challenged. He also says they seemed unaware of the Unitarian creed (Assumption again) of Jesus and any knowledge of the history of the development of the doctrine of the Trinity was absent.

Ah yes. If only those stupid old ladies were as informed as Dr. Buzzard is. They should be grateful that he just graces them with his presence.

When we get to the history of the doctrine, he talks about the controversy after Arius and says that the fact that there was such controversy should alert us that there is a problem. There wasn’t any of this with the doctrine of God in the ministry of Jesus. In this, there is a big question unanswered.

Why were Jews at the time upset about the ministry of the early church following in the footsteps of Jesus? What were Jesus and His followers doing that was so shocking? Buzzard has already said it wasn’t their doctrine of God, so what was it? What created such a scandal? Thus far, I have no idea from Buzzard.

Also, when the Arian controversy started, it wasn’t the Trinity that was the new doctrine bringing about chaos. It was Arianism. In other words, had someone not been upsetting the apple cart, there would have been no controversy. Also, as was said before, there were problems in actions on both sides. Buzzard will only give you one side.

He also writes about how the average Englishman (Which Buzzard is) who believes in the Trinity doesn’t often understand it. So what? For one thing, if you fully understand your doctrine of God, you have a pretty small God. One problem comes with the question of asking if Jesus is God.

While He is, when we say this, we are using shorthand. It is a statement that Jesus fully possesses the nature of God in His being. It does not mean that Jesus is the Father. We are speaking of God in a sense of nature.

Buzzard also says Jesus foresaw a time of killing coming in John 16:2. Why does Buzzard need to look to the Arian controversy? That killing started with Stephen and keep in mind, Buzzard can’t say it was over the doctrine of God by his own position, so what was it?

He also says that in Matthew 16 Jesus could have said about His identity “I am God, and upon this rock, I will build my church.” Sure. That would have solved everything. Then the question would be “Are you the Father?” This is why the understanding of the Trinity was a gradual matter. Jesus had to show who He is and He also had to show He is not the Father. He trusted us to work it out.

Buzzard actually knows this because he says the same thing when replying to Witherington. He goes a step further and says that any claim to be the God of Israel would have been nonsensical. No Jew would understand it. First off, if that’s the case, then it’s obvious why Jesus didn’t say it. Second, would it be nonsensical? Buzzard has not told us why. He has just assumed it.

The final section has Buzzard saying that the creed was unitarian and thus if Jesus was said to be God, then there would have to be two gods since God is unipersonal. Thus, Buzzard’s assumption that the Shema is Unitarian, which he has not demonstrated, drives his doctrine. We all agree that if God is unipersonal, then two persons cannot be God. The question is “Is God unipersonal?” I can fully say I agree with the Shema. How could I not? I just don’t agree with Buzzard’s interpretation of it.

We will continue next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Jesus Was Not A Trinitarian

What do I think of Anthony Buzzard’s book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So as one who is interacting a lot with JWs on Facebook, I was looking through my Kindle library to find a book arguing against the Trinity and came across this one. I had read a few years ago a book he co-authored on the Trinity as Christianity’s self-inflicted wound. I figured I would go through this one.

Unfortunately, this book is just awful. If you played a drinking game every time you see the term “Shema” or “Unitarian” or anything of that sort, you would die quickly of alcohol poisoning. Thus far, Buzzard really has one argument and he repeats it over and over and over again.

Let’s look at this first instance.

“In these chapters I return often to the central creed of Jesus, the Shema (Deut. 6: 4; Mark 12: 29). I carry on a running dialogue with many distinguished scholars who have commented on Jesus and his strict monotheism. I propose that a vast amount of Christian literature confirms my thesis that Jesus insisted on this unitarian creed.”

Let’s analyze this. The first sentence has the Shema as the central creed. That’s fine. Every Jew would know the Shema well as the defining statement of monotheism of Israel. However, we have a problem when we get to the second sentence when he talks about Jesus and His strict monotheism.

Question. What is meant by strict monotheism? As a Trinitarian, I contend I am a strict monotheist. Is Buzzard saying that strict monotheism equals Unitarian? Is he stating that Trinitarians aren’t monotheists? He has not said what is meant by this term and is likely packing in some assumptions.

However, the final sentence really clinches that possibility. He makes a statement in the first sentence about this being a creed, in the second about strict monotheism, and then all of a sudden in the last sentence a monotheistic creed has become inextricably a unitarian creed. No argument has been made for this position.

The big problem is that Buzzard consistently does this throughout this book. Mark Twain once said that if you took “And it came to pass” out of the Book of Mormon, you’d have a pamphlet. I wonder what he would say if he read Buzzard’s book where he makes the same argument time and time again.

Looking back at this, this is really a sleight of hand that most readers will not catch. For the sake of argument, Buzzard could be right that the Shema is unitarian. However, he needs to argue that and not just assert it.

He does the same thing again here:

I do not think that the New Testament ever reports Jesus as claiming to be the God of Israel, the one true God. Why then should Jesus’ followers adhere to a belief which Jesus gave no indication of holding? If being a Christian means following Jesus Christ, then a Christian’s first aim would be to share the same view of God as expressed by Jesus. The creed of Jesus would automatically be the creed of his followers. Jesus, as the scriptural records reveal, made it perfectly clear who he believed God to be. But churches have done much to make Jesus’ perception of the identity of God at least bewildering if not incomprehensible.

Look at this. The first part of Jesus’s claims is highly questionable as I will demonstrate in later chapters. However, notice this. At the start, Buzzard says this is his opinion that Jesus never claimed this. Fine. However, then he asks why His followers should hold a belief Jesus gave no indication of holding. There is that switch again. We have gone from opinion to a fact that Jesus gave no indication that He had this opinion of Himself. Then once again, Buzzard points back to the creed, AGAIN.

Later, he says that when the church got power in the time of Constantine, they took to persecuting heretics. There is no mention that the Arians were also doing their own persecution. Why was Athanasius in exile? Why was he falsely accused of crimes? He was accused of murdering the bishop Arsenius.

When the charges were brought, the accusers brought forth a human hand they said belonged to Arsenius. Athanasius had a powerful rebuttal when he brought in Arsenius to the courtroom, alive and well, and showed that he still had two hands. Arians were hardly sugar and spice and everything nice.

Buzzard won’t tell you that. He only tells you about what those evil Trinitarians were doing. He even goes so far as to say that could it be the church held a non-Jewish creed because they were really anti-Semites? Such a statement tells me little about the early church, but it tells me volumes about Buzzard.

So thus far, I hope you’ve seen that this will be an interesting one. We’ll see if we get any interesting arguments sometime and I could possibly do a word search sometime through Kindle to see how many times certain words are overused. Keep an eye out for smuggling in assumptions. It seems to be something Buzzard is proficient at.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Things Atheists Say That Simply Make No Sense

What do I think of Patrick Prill’s book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I was given this book by a friend when he told me he had an extra copy and I found it intriguing. I was pleased to see in the table of contents that indeed, there was something saying that one dumb thing that is said is that Jesus never existed. Seriously atheist community. If you meet one of your own who is saying this, it’s best to ask him to please be quiet on your behalf.

I would ultimately describe this book as a gateway book. Each chapter is short and thus good for the purpose of small group discussion. You don’t have to read any prior chapter to understand the latter ones. You can just go to whatever you’re dealing with to see what is said.

This is also largely dealing with the new atheists, which is just fine because it’s more likely the lay Christian will also be engaging with your common internet atheist types who will be using new atheist material. The book deals with objections relating to the universe, to God, to Jesus specifically, to morality, etc. There is a final section introducing atheists who became theists. Not all of them became Christians, but they became theists.

So the positives. First off, as I have said, the chapters are short and they do have several references so you can look beyond this book and get more information. Notes are extremely helpful to see and yes, they are footnotes. Prill lets you know where he gets his information from.

I think my favorite chapter was the one on religion leading to war. There is information here that I found quite helpful for this common question. As I said, this is entry-level, but on this question this is an excellent entry.

For some criticisms, I do think that when Josephus is talked about, there is not enough said about the different versions we have of what Josephus said. Your average internet atheist will know about this and it could very well catch a  Christian unaware. This is also important since sadly, this is one of the most common objections I come across. (Again atheists, please clean up your own house. I know there are a lot of you that recognize this claim as nonsense thankfully.)

My biggest criticism though is in a chapter on asking if God is required for objective moral values to exist. If I had a hand in any sort of rewriting of a second edition of the book, this is the chapter I would change the most. As a Thomistic thinker, I was really stunned when I got to one part of this.

Prill asks if the question of if morality could exist if God didn’t and the answer is, perhaps.

Whoa.

This isn’t just about morality anymore. This is dealing with everything else. If it is possible for something to exist if God does not, then this means that ultimately, God is not the grounding of everything that exists. Scripture says about Jesus regularly in the New Testament in places like John 1, 1 Cor 8, Col, 1, and Hebrews 1, that Jesus is the means by which God created everything else and without Him, nothing else would exist. The logical conclusion, one I am sure Prill would deny but unfortunately a statement like this leads to, is that God is not foundational for existence. It would mean that it is not God’s nature to be, but that being is something He possesses.

Definitely fix that in any future entries. After all, if God doesn’t exist, then really nothing else exists at all. There is no ground of being.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Can God Be Tempted?

If Jesus is fully God, how can He be tempted? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I was in a JW discussion group on Facebook recently and one of them shared about how in James, it says that God cannot be tempted, but in Matthew 4, Jesus is tempted. Well, that seems to be a problem. If Jesus is God, how can He be tempted?

Let’s right off say that when someone says Jesus is God, they are using theological shorthand. We are not saying Jesus is the Trinity or Jesus is the Father, something 99% of the arguments in this group are unaware of. We are saying that Jesus fully partakes of the divine substance.

We can say also that Jesus in His deity cannot be tempted, but in His humanity that is a different matter. That would be enough to settle the matter. However, there is another nuance I want to bring to this.

When James talks about temptation, he is talking about temptation from within. Where do our struggles ultimately come from? They come from within because of wrong desires we have within us. James is saying that God is not tempted from within.

In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, in Psalm 105:14 and 77:41 (Psalm 106 and 78 for us), both of them use the exact same word for tempted that James uses to describe what Israel did to God in the wilderness. My opponent in the group had said that temptation is tempted when I tried to explain the different temptations. The problem with this is that if you play that route, then you will have a contradiction. After all, if that is the case, then James is wrong and God was tempted.

James is not wrong. James is saying that the Israelites were trying to get God to do something and God wasn’t having it. It was completely ineffectual. After all, what could you tempt God with anyway? Can you make some kind of threat to Him? Can you offer Him anything that He needs? It’s nonsensical.

If anything, we could even perhaps see a parallel here. Israel tempts God in the wilderness. The devil tempts Jesus in the wilderness. This is not saying Israel is the devil, but both of them were playing roles of tempting the deity. Neither of them were successful.

The problem with anti-Trinitarian arguments like this and so many others is that they are basically lazy arguments. There is no attempt to look and see if anyone in 2,000 years of church history has ever answered such a question before. This is what I largely see from Jehovah’s Witnesses, unfortunately. They don’t know what their opponents believe and most of their arguments are against modalism.

The other sad news is that many Christians are unaware of this and will fall for weak arguments because they were never taught about what is really meant by the doctrine of the Trinity. We need to do better. We have a unique doctrine of a unique God and we need to be able to better defend that and show what a difference it makes.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Excavating The Evidence for Jesus

What do I think of Titus Kennedy’s book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This book is certainly thorough. Kennedy goes step by step through the Gospels showing how archaeology impacts every aspect of what goes on, even starting before the birth of Jesus by giving us a look into the culture of the time and who was on the throne in Rome and who was on the throne in Judea. When we get to the birth of Jesus, this will even include looking at the census and his explanation for where the magi came from.

One aspect I found interesting of the early years was that of the massacre of the children of Bethlehem. It is said that this didn’t happen because Josephus doesn’t mention it, but Kennedy says Josephus never mentions the incident of Pilate bringing golden shields into Jerusalem as well. It would be a mistake to take the one major source we have on Jewish history at the time and assume he must have mentioned everything.

Not only that, but there had been an omen made according to Suetonius before the birth of Augustus that a king of the Romans would be born. The Senate tried to prohibit the rearing of any male child born that year, but it never worked because some Senators had pregnant wives and they would have wanted to be the father of the king.

From here on, Kennedy explains in what seems like minute details the life of Jesus. Simple stories you think wouldn’t have much are looked at and at times you wonder just how much more can be told about this account. This leaves me looking at the end and thinking this would be a good book to use to give an introduction to the life of Jesus.

Of course, a good portion of the book is spent on the last week of the life of Jesus including the resurrection. Here, he looks at accounts like the crucifixion of Jesus to see what happened and also as with other areas, to discuss where it happened. We don’t just jump to the resurrection though. Nope. We have to go through the burial too and here we will look at claims such as the Talpoit tomb theory and see what we can learn about the James ossuary.

That’s another benefit as this is based on the latest research. You will see replies to Talpoit and the James Ossuary, but also to the Karen King finding asserting that Jesus had a wife. There are also numerous resources listed that you can go to to get further information. This book gives you the start and then tells you where to go.

There is only one problem I have and that is no footnotes. All that is listed is the sources for further reading. It would have been good to know exactly where Kennedy gets a lot of his information instead of just having to point to what he says. If it comes from experience he has personally as an archaeologist, at least tell us that. If an updated version of this comes out, I hope it has footnotes.

Despite that, I still highly recommend this book.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Book Plunge: The Trinity

What do I think of Gilles Emery’s book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Emery’s book is stated to be a book on Catholic doctrine on the triune God. That being said, the Trinity is a doctrine for all branches of Christianity. If you are Protestant or Orthodox, there is still a lot you can get from this book.

Actually, as I read it, I found myself thinking the book read very much like a Protestant book on the Trinity could read. This is not at all to knock Catholics or imply that they are thinking like Protestants, but I did see the constant emphasis on pointing to Scripture primarily. About the only major difference it looks to me is that Catholics tend to cite more Catholic sources and Protestants tend to cite more Protestant sources. A Protestant like myself would not likely go and cite the Catechism in order to demonstrate the Trinity.

Something else refreshing is that while Emery is writing about deep topics, and sometimes it could be hard to follow, generally, it isn’t. Emery doesn’t come off as if he’s writing to academics. He’s writing to the layman, but at the same time, he is encouraging the layman to go deeper. You will find talk about divine simplicity, for instance, and how that works with the Trinity.

Yet as you are going into these “deeper waters” (couldn’t resist) of the Trinity, Emery takes your hand step by step. This is not a sudden plunge. This is a gradual wading as the Trinity is explained at a steady rate until one gets into the deeper topics. You start with just examining the confessions of the Trinitarian faith and then end with discussing the saving action of the Trinity.

For instance, consider the word God. What does this mean? It is a mistake of groups like the JWs and others to assume that God means Father. The first mistake these groups make is the assumption that God is unipersonal. If you make a one-to-one equivalent of God and Father, you have a problem, but if you realize God is not referring to a person alone but rather speaks of a nature that is fully embraced by a tripersonal being, it fits.

Thus, when we say Jesus is God, it is easy to take that to mean that Jesus is the Trinity or some modalistic sense, but what is really meant is that Jesus is a person who fully possesses the nature of God. The same applies to the Spirit and the Father. This doesn’t mean that there is no difference in relation as the Father is usually seen as the origin and the Son and Spirit exist both because the Father exists as well.

The Trinity is not an easy doctrine to understand, if one can really understand it all as it is more likely to be apprehended. However, with resources like Emery’s, Christians can have a better grasp on it. I recommend this reading not just to Catholics, but to Protestants and to Orthodox as well. The chapters are long, but not too long. A dedicated reader can go through one per day and thus finish the book in a week, a worthwhile investment.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Why The Gospel?

What do I think of Matthew Bates’s newest book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Matthew Bates is a friend of mine and when he got in touch with me about his newest book, I was happy to help out. Something I really like about Bates is that I see him as a scholar for the people. He is writing books that many people see as directly relevant to their own lives. He takes the work that is done in the academy and breaks it down for the average person in the pew.

In this one, he’s talking about why people should come to the gospel. It’s a question many of us don’t think about and if we do, we give the usual answer. The forgiveness of sins. That is the good news. Right?

When I hear people doing evangelism, I hear this kind of thing often. What’s the goal of Christianity? To get to Heaven. I remember a pastor who used to say the same prayer at the conclusion of every sermon so much that I had it memorized.

“Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, and without you, I cannot get to Heaven, so come into my heart and be Lord of my life from this day forward. Thank you for my salvation. Amen.”

Nothing about repentance. Nothing about the resurrection. If anything, this is just saying Jesus is my ticket to Heaven so God, do this for me.

Definitely, nothing about Jesus being a king.

As I read that again I thought, imagine asking someone out and using something similar. Approach them and tell them you want them to be with you for all the things they can do for you. Imagine going to a job interview and telling them they should hire you for all the things you want them to do for you. Wouldn’t really work would it?

Bates’s contention is that we have to have Jesus as a king. On location 164 (All future references with a number will assume location from now on) of the Kindle form, he says we should never think of Christ as a name. It is not. This is something Islam and Mormonism miss as well seeing as they regularly say Jesus is the Messiah, but they don’t grasp His being a king. When we say Jesus is the Christ, we mean Jesus is the king.

He says on 385 that faith is not just mental acceptance, but it has an outward focus as well. It is to be lived out in allegiance to the one. Thus, when we say Paul says we are saved by faith and James says faith without works is dead, who is right? Answer: Both of them. Faith is that which saves us and works are those which show where our allegiance lies.

This also means that the idea that internet atheists have of blind faith would make sense whatsoever to the biblical writers. Faith wasn’t just something in the head. It was lived. Commitments like that were serious. Christians knew they were signing up to something serious when they became Christians.

At 1264, he warns us that the gospel is not just all about the cross. This might sound scandalous to some, but it shouldn’t. Jesus tells us early on in Mark to repent and believe the good news. (gospel.) There was no cross yet. People were still expected to believe.

If we just say the cross is all that matters, then the resurrection can be an add-on. If all of it was to show the deity of Jesus, then why not have Him stay on Earth to show that? No. Jesus is taken to Heaven instead. Why?

If it’s to show He’s the king, you see why. He has to rule. He has to go to His throne. He has to sit at the right hand of God.

Of course, the cross and resurrection are important. The cross was the intention of man to shut down Jesus. it was the place of utter shame for Him, but it was also where He went to pay the price for sins as well, fighting the enemy of His people head-on. The resurrection is God’s vindication. It is God saying “Yes. This is the King.”

Bates urges us to put kingship before forgiveness. If we don’t, Jesus becomes mainly a means to an end for us, a means of forgiveness. That’s backward. If anything, we are the means to the end of the glory of God. God has inherent glory that cannot be changed, but He also has ascribed glory that can be seen as His reputation in the world and we can affect that. That doesn’t change the nature of God for those concerned, but it does change how the world perceives Him.

If we start with Jesus as king, we come to realize that we need forgiveness because we are all guilty of divine treason against this king. We have sought to be the king instead and we need to change our allegiance and say we are on the side of Jesus.

I also like his idea that we should go with goodness, truth, and beauty to show the work of the king, even to those who don’t think God exists. (A great look at this kind of approach I started recently is Rembrandt in the Wind) In my own works of video games and theology, I regularly point to this along with the impact of a story on people.

Aside from content also, this book was meant to be read by groups. The chapters are short enough that people can read them in a week’s time and meet together and discuss the questions together. Would that more people would do this. I would encourage anyone wanting to do evangelism to read this book. Frankly, I would encourage you to read anything by Bates. You won’t be disappointed.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Why I Don’t Like “He Lives.”

Is this really a good hymn for Easter (Or any other time)? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

The day after Easter, I posted on Facebook the little safe flag meme with the message of that I was marked safe from singing “He Lives” at church yesterday. Some people were surprised by that. Why would you not like this song? You hold to the resurrection, don’t you?

Of course, I do. That’s why I don’t care for the song. I think the view that it gives is not a biblical view of the resurrection but honestly, more of a Mormon view. You can meet plenty of New Testament scholars who can say Jesus was risen in some spiritual sense. The way it could be described could match just fine with the song.

We have reached an age of subjectivism in the world today of Christianity. There is less emphasis on the Bible and more emphasis on our personal experience. We have views that we consider to be “traditional” in that we are to ask God what He would have us to do and listen for His voice. This is the exact opposite of the stewardship that we are told to do in that God puts matters under our responsibility and expects us to make the wise decision.

Unfortunately, people rarely even question this idea. When I hear a sermon where the speaker starts talking about God speaking to you and leading you and matters like this, I just shake my head. I find it so amazing that those who like me are Protestants and supposed to be people all about Scripture have it more about what we feel and that is supposedly what God is telling us.

Sorry. My feelings aren’t that trustworthy. I don’t want to base a major decision on my feelings. If you do that, then when the feeling dies, you are more likely to change your mind. (I do think that contributes to divorce in our culture today as the culture has a similar epistemology.)

Hence, when I hear that He walks with me and talks with me, well sorry. I have never had a conversation with Jesus where we had a back-and-forth. Also, I am told to walk as Jesus walked. It means the way I live.

Yet the worst part for me is asking how someone knows He lives. He lives within my heart. Tou can say your dead loved ones live in your heart just as much. When I make a claim that Jesus lives, it’s not that He lives within my heart. It’s that He lives at the right hand of God the Father.

When Mormons want to tell me how they know Mormonism is true, they point to a testimony in their heart. We have to have better than that. Jesus did not leave a testimony in the hearts of people alone. He also appeared to many people. He left behind an empty tomb. If you ask me how I know Jesus lives today, I won’t point to an experience floating in the air. I will point to the historical evidence for the resurrection.

When we go out into the world, we need to have this knowledge. If you go to a Kingdom Hall, the Jehovah’s Witnesses in their services train. Now picture your average Witness against your average Christian in a debate. I hate to say it, but my money is on the Witness getting the upper hand. They know better how to defend and propagate a false doctrine than Christians do a true one. Heck, most Christians will even describe the Trinity in modalistic terms.

Hence, if I was at a church and heard this song, I would definitely not stand and sing at all. I miss the older hymns that taught really good theology. (Holy, Holy, Holy anyone?) We need better hymns and we need better sermons and we need better teaching.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Good Friday and Evil

What has Good Friday to do with evil? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Imagine if the Democratic National Committee got together every November and remembered the day when John Kennedy was murdered and called that Good Friday. It wouldn’t make sense to us. One would think most Democrats would see this day as a tragedy. Heck. Many Republicans who would not support Kennedy would still say the president being assassinated as a tragedy.

However, every year Christians get together and think about the day that Jesus was crucified and call that Good Friday. Of course, one could say that Jesus did rise again, yet that is a reason why one would call the day of resurrection good. That makes sense. Why call this day good? Wouldn’t it make more sense to call it Dark Friday or Black Friday or something of that sort?

Many people reject Christianity because of the problem of evil. On an emotional level, one can understand why this is troublesome. Most of us do what we can to avoid suffering. It’s easy in suffering to ask where God is, yet one could ask why do we do that? God never promised us everything would be perfect.

It could be often we have an entitlement idea in our minds. We are owed a good life aren’t we? When I talk about the problem of evil, I do bring up something like this. The first point I want to ask about is “Does God owe use anything?” If anything is owed us, it is justice for what we have done.

It’s not like we gave God any special benefits when we showed up on the scene. One can say the devil was the first sinner and rightfully so, and yes, we listened to the temptation, but we still did the wrong in the end and we bear the responsibility and we have all been suffering the effects of that since then and the creation God made has suffered.

So yeah, we were given a great gift and we committed treason against the giver and decided to take it for ourselves.

Still want to talk about what we deserve?

God could have left us alone in that. He could have abandoned everything and still had immense joy within Himself for all eternity. We don’t better Him. We don’t bring Him more joy.

We were owed nothing, after all. He could have done this. No one could charge Him with doing anything wrong.

This is not what happened. God somehow chose to enter into our suffering. God chose to live a life where He came as a baby who had to pass through the birth canal and came out bloody and needing to be cleaned regularly and would poop his diapers and wet Himself and everything. He would be absolutely helpless and dependent on His parents.

In fantasy, we can easily understand the concept of a deity or deities coming to live in the world. Having them come as a baby is not how we normally picture it. They come in power and glory or if they do come in a weakened state, they’re at least capable of fighting right at the start and build themselves up with acts of glory defeating their villains.

The closest we get to Jesus as a fighter is Him making a whip and even then, He’s not taking on gangs of Pharisees at that point.

Jesus came in a way no one would notice who He was immediately and lived an ordinary life, a life that would still have suffering. Isaiah 53 describes Him as a man of sorrow, familiar with suffering, hardly the way you would want to describe the coming of your deity. This is just the beginning.

Jesus came to die and came to die not just a death, but the worst possible death at the time. It was not just a death, but a shameful and painful and enduring death. It was public and everyone would know about it. It would be unable to be separated from the Christian account, hardly the best motivator to get people to join your movement.

What is amazing about this and evil is that somehow, God entered the suffering we went in. No. I’m not talking about the idea of Patripassianism where somehow, God the Father suffered on the cross. There is no doubt that God the Son suffered. How this works entirely, I will not claim to understand.

What is known is that Jesus didn’t remain aloof from evil. He entered into it. He lived it. He took it on when He had no requirement to do so. It was an act of love.

It’s odd to say that evil is an objection to Christianity. Evil is part and parcel of the story. If there is no evil, there is no crucifixion and there is no resurrection.

Good Friday is good then because this is where the battle took place and Jesus took on the suffering and justice for us. Jesus demonstrated the love He has for the creation. At the same time, He demonstrated the love He has for the Father which in turn shows how the Father loves us.

It is sad to think about what happened on this day. It is a great evil that was done that day. What we learn from Christianity is that this evil was reversed. The promise is also that all evils will be reversed someday. Arguing against Christianity because of evil is a way of really removing hope of overcoming evil while still keeping the evil. It doesn’t make sense.

Today, we celebrate Good Friday. We mourn the evil that we have done, but we celebrate the love God has for us. We look forward to the resurrection on Sunday, and we look forward to the resurrection of all creation in the end.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)