V1. n.10. Loosening Your Grip on Jesus

The path away from Jesus and New Testament Christianity is a slippery slope. First you question whether Jesus’ teaching and death and resurrection are the only way to God. Then you imagine that all religions are equally valuable and all really teach the same thing. This is a very pleasant route to take. No one will say to you “Who do you think you are?” “How can you say you are right and all those others wrong?”

Loosening your grip on Jesus can be even more subtle. You can dissolve Jesus’ hard Gospel teachings and the New Testament’s insistence on believing and doing what Jesus taught into vague pronouncements about “Jesus.” This technique also eases the burden of having to defend the exclusive teachings of Jesus. “Jesus” language is rather impressive, until someone points out that Jesus cannot be divorced from his Gospel and teachings. He said that we are not to shrink “from me and my Gospel, me and my words” (Mark 8:35, 38).

Paul did not shrink from declaring what? Declaring “Jesus”? No. “The whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27).

Abraham believed God by believing what God said, what He promised. So Jesus uses that same clear language: “He who hears my word and believes in the One who sent me….” (John 5:24). “Believing in Jesus,” “accepting Jesus” is not believing in Jesus at all until his word is understood, received and acted upon. Faith is believing inspired words.

Jesus calls his word the “word about the Kingdom” (Matt. 13:19) — all about the King and how you can become heir to the Kingship of the world with the King himself. It is a royal story from start to finish.

One more point: Some today think they have found a verse which justifies a “personal relationship” over intelligent understanding of the teaching of Jesus. They tell us that Jesus said to the Pharisees: “You search the Scriptures because in them you think you have eternal life, but you will not come to me to have that life” (John 5:39). It is a mistake to think that Jesus was playing down a search of the Scriptures in favor of a “personal relationship.” Jesus went on to say that believing in him means “believing my words” (John 5:47). Jesus’ words are now part of Scripture and “faith comes by hearing and hearing from the [Gospel] message of the Messiah” (Rom. 10:17). The Scriptures are sufficient to provide patience and hope (Rom 15:4) and “the wisdom that leads to salvation” — through Christ and his gospel.

V1. n.10 The Kingdom of God: Jesus’ Favorite Gospel Topic

Treat yourself to some serious reflection on contemporary religion. It is the duty of all Christians to search and investigate the Bible and compare it with what goes under the name of Jesus in our time. Nothing could be more rewarding than some in-depth probing into what drove the ministry of Jesus Christ, whom so many claim as their savior.

The Jesus of the Bible is defined by his teaching and his titles. He is firstly “King of the Jews.” This should alert us to one of the great hazards of Bible study: do not approach the Bible with the assumption that Jesus stood for and campaigned for all the ideals which you as one living in the 20th century hold dear. The Jesus of the Bible is the King of the Jews, the Messiah. He is also the Son of God, entitled to that description because of his supernatural creation in the womb of Mary (Luke 1:35).

Jesus came with a public message, a message from the God of Israel for whom he spoke as a prophet — in fact the ultimate prophet promised by the Hebrew Bible (see Deut. 18:15-18 and Acts 3:22; 7:37). Jesus came with a public announcement about what we as the human race need to believe and do, if we are to comply with the designs and intentions of the Creator, for us and the whole of the world. The Jesus of the Bible was interested in more than dying for the sins of the world, essential as that part of his mission was. Jesus’ overarching task was to preach the Gospel about the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is the comprehensive summary title of his whole work. To understand and respond to Jesus, we must understand his Kingdom message. Below we reprint from the celebrated Hastings Dictionary of the Bible the description of the Kingdom as reported by Matthew who documented the work of Jesus. The data gathered in the following article is not hard to understand. The learned Oxford Bible scholar who penned this summary deserves our thanks for his insightful work on the heart of the Gospel:

“The Kingdom — The central subject of Christ’s doctrine [Is it the central doctrine of today’s churches which claim to be representing Jesus?] was the near approach of the Kingdom of the Heavens. With this he began his ministry (4:17), and wherever he went he taught this as Good News [Gospel] [It is fair to ask ourselves: Is this true of me and my ministry?]. The Kingdom he taught was coming, but not in his lifetime. After his ascension he would come as Son of Man on the clouds of heaven (16:27-28; 19:28; 24:30), would send his angels to gather together his elect (24:31; 13:41) and would sit on the throne of his glory (16:27; 19:28; 25:31). This would happen immediately after the great tribulation accompanying the destruction of Jerusalem (24:29); but God alone knew the exact day and hour (24:36) [proving that Jesus, as God’s representative, was not God Himself, since he was not omniscient]. Then the twelve Apostles would sit on twelve thrones administering the twelve tribes of Israel (19:28).

“In the meantime he himself must suffer and die, and be raised from the dead. How else could he come upon the clouds of heaven? And his disciples [until his coming] were to preach the Good News [Gospel] of the coming Kingdom (10:7; 24:14) [Has anyone ever seen a contemporary tract where the gospel is defined in those terms?] among all nations making disciples by baptism (28:19). The body of disciples thus gained would naturally form a society bound by common aims (16:18; 18:17). They would be distinct from the existing Jewish society, because the Jews as a people, ‘the sons of the Kingdom,’ i.e., those who should have inherited the Kingdom [notice: not ‘gone to heaven’] (8:12) would definitely reject the Gospel (21:32, 42-43; 22:7). Hence the disciples of the Kingdom would form a new spiritual Israel (21:43, ‘a nation’) which would include many who came [at the return of Jesus on the clouds of heaven] from east and west [including the resurrected patriarchs].

“In view of the needs of this new Israel of Christ’s disciples, i.e., of the true sons of the Kingdom (13:38), who were to await his coming on the clouds of heaven, it is natural that a large part of the teaching recorded in the gospel should concern the qualifications required in those who hoped to enter the Kingdom when it came [notice: not ‘hoped to get to heaven when they died’]. They were still to live in allegiance to the revelation of God made in the Old Testament, which was permanently valid…but they were to search beneath the letter of the Law for its spiritual meaning. Their ‘righteousness was to exceed that of the Pharisees,’ because they were to interpret the Law of Moses in a sense which would make it more far-reaching in its effects upon conduct than ever before (5:21-48)….In relation to their fellow men they were to cultivate humility and to suppress self-assertiveness (18:1-14); to exercise forgiveness (7:1-5).”

V1. n.10. Gospel and Law

The impassioned writings of Paul show that he believed salvation to be a knife-edge operation. Jesus’ community of believers throughout the present age needed guidance in order to avoid the pitfalls of false teaching. Nothing stirred the heart of Paul more than the threat of a return to the Law of Moses as a basis for being right with God. Paul grapples with the deadly foe of legalism on a number of occasions.

For those of us who have seen that Jesus was a Jew and his Christian teaching (Christianity must be founded on the teaching of Christ!) proceeds from the very Jewish matrix from which Jesus’ theology was developed, there is a special danger. It is this: The fact that the Gospel of Jesus about the Kingdom is Jewish in its origin, being based on the Covenant made with Abraham (Gal. 3:8), does not mean that New Testament Christians were bound by the Laws of Moses. Paul makes a rigid distinction between Law and Gospel. Yes, Jesus was a Jew who come to confirm the promises made to the fathers (Rom. 15:8). Yes, Jesus was the Messiah destined to be the recipient of the land and prosperity promises made to Abraham. But no, the teaching of Jesus, particularly as it is developed through Paul, the servant of Jesus, does not require a Christian to adhere to the Law of Moses as means of salvation.

The choice is a clear-cut one: “Did you receive the spirit by hearing the Gospel Message [of the Kingdom and the name of Jesus, Acts 8:12] or by keeping the Law?” “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Messiah’s Message [Gospel of the Kingdom]” (Gal. 3:2; Rom 10:17). For Paul salvation begins and is sustained by faith: faith of the same quality as Abraham’s, faith in the promises made to Abraham and faith in the Christ as the promised seed. But we dare not mix faith with Law. It is an “either or” situation. Black and white. Faith in Jesus means faith in his Gospel preaching: “Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness” (Rom. 4:3). Christians believe as Abraham did in the promises of God in Christ. Believing in Jesus means believing the words and promises of Jesus.

Paul’s caution is this: You cannot begin with faith and mix that faith with Law. This would mean beginning in the spirit and continuing in the flesh (Gal. 3:3). Paul then recalls the history of God’s dealings with Israel. The Law was introduced as a parenthesis in God’s arrangements with the chosen people. It was added to promises made to Abraham, but on a provisional basis and only until the seed (the Messiah) should appear. “But now that faith has come, we are no longer under the tutor” (Gal. 3:25).

Paul’s argument reaches a fever-pitch of intensity: “Tell me, you who want to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?” In other words, let me show you from the Old Testament that law as a means of pleasing God, and faith in the Gospel of Jesus as a means of being right with God, are two mutually exclusive things. They cannot be mixed. It is a matter of two incompatible covenants: The first covenant was given at Sinai and the products of that covenant of law are slaves (Gal. 4:24). The present Jerusalem shows what happens to the offspring of that now obsolete system. She and her children are in bondage. They have not received Jesus as rabbi and Lord. They are not pleasing to God, even though they are striving to measure up to the requirements given by God through Moses (the classic case of zeal without knowledge, Rom. 10:2). This is a hard pill for some to swallow. Paul is radical certainly, but then New Testament Christianity is not just a repeat of Judaism with Christ at its center.

“The Jerusalem above,” Paul goes on, “is our mother” (Gal. 4:26). The Jerusalem above, of course, has nothing to do with the popular notion of “heaven for disembodied souls at the moment of death.” In true rabbinical style Paul is thinking of the Jerusalem of the future now prepared in heaven, the Jerusalem in which the faithful will reside when the Messiah comes back. And what are the conditions for successful participation in that coming restored Jerusalem, the inheritance of the earth to be granted to the Christian meek (Matt. 5:5; Rev. 5:10)?

The word is: Stay away from legalism. Stay away from promoting the Law as your badge of righteousness. The Sinai Law includes the whole concept embraced by physical circumcision. It includes the observance of the Saturday Sabbath or Holy Days as a supposed Christian distinction. It is Sinai that comes under criticism here, not just a part of the Sinai contract, but the whole principle of Law as a means to righteousness. “I testify again to every man who receives circumcision that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law. You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be put right with God by Law; you have fallen from grace. For we through the spirit are waiting for the hope of righteousness” (Gal. 5:3-5) — the fulfillment of the hope of the inheritance of the Kingdom when Jesus returns.

Movements such as the Armstrong Worldwide Church of God fell headlong into the trap against which Paul warns with such fervor. The book of Galatians was and is the bane of all who think that special understandings of the Hebrew calendar, particular dates for the keeping of Pentecost or Passover, expert insights into the pronunciation of the divine name or the insistence on Hebrew names carry any weight with God.

The apostles wrote in Greek and translated Hebrew names into Greek with complete freedom. Some, however, have wanted to go beyond what is required and have stamped their followers with the strangeness of Hebrew terminology, feast-keeping as a matter of obligation, even tithing (first, second and third tithe) as an absolute rule. It is all too easy to be enticed into a “righteousness” which exceeds that of Jesus. (The condemnation of the use of alcohol even in strict moderation is another fine example of self-made standards which exceed Jesus’ and actually condemn him — “Look at that liberal Jesus turning all that water into wine!”)

The one new man formed of Jew and Gentile is certainly an ideal based on the hope of the covenant made with the father of the Jews. Jesus was and is the Messiah, a Jewish king. But he is a universal Jewish King, destined to embrace Jews and Gentiles with his saving Gospel of the Kingdom. Why then would Christians want to go back under the Law, when the warnings of Paul are so uncompromising? There is a perennial tendency in fallen human nature for special recognition with God, special marks of sanctity — but what model of the faith are we presenting when we insist that Saturday is the correct and only day to meet? It may be pleasing to perpetuate a long-standing tradition of adherence to special days or foods, and we may argue that we are not doing these things for salvation, but then, why are we benefited one wit by our “Jewish” observances? What example are we setting the unconverted world? It is striking that John refers to the Holy Days of Israel as the “Feasts of the Jews.” Odd use of language, if his object was to make sure we all understand that those feasts are really the Feasts of the Christian Church.

Perhaps the desperation of the original Worldwide Church and some of its present offspring will make the point we are urging: How did they deal with Paul’s warnings not to “come under the Law”? Faced with the impossible, adherents of the Christianity-by-keeping-Laws school did not hesitate to re-translate the text. What Paul said really, it was maintained, was this: You should not go back under the penalty of the Law.

Bible study is not that difficult! Paul meant what he actually said: Don’t go back under the Law. If you do you will be cut off from Christ, “severed from Christ” (Gal. 5:4). “If you are circumcised you will be obligated to keep the whole Law” (Gal. 5:3). The implication is that a Christian is not obliged to keep the Law. “Faith working through love” (Gal. 5:6) sums up the whole duty of those who have received with intelligence the seed/Gospel of the Kingdom (Mark 4:11-12; Luke 8:11-12; Matt. 13:19).

Are Christians, then, without law? Obviously not. There is a law for Christians, but it is not the legal system given to Israel by Moses. Jesus openly modified the law of divorce and remarriage, restricting the permission for the dissolution of marriage to one exception (porneia = marital unfaithfulness). Paul gave a straightforward description of Christian law: he knew himself to be “within the law of Christ” (I Cor 9:21) This law of Christ he contrasted with the Law of Moses. He was not under that Law, though on occasion he would concede to the weaknesses of those whom he hoped to win. (Timothy was circumcised as a concession to Jewish feeling.)

The Law which is no longer binding on Christians concerns those prescriptions which divided the Jew from the Gentile, forming a partition wall.

A distinguished Dutch theologian and life-long student of Paul wrote:

“The law no longer has an unrestricted and undifferentiated validity for the church of Christ. In a certain sense the church can be qualified as ‘without the law.’ The law of God is not thereby abrogated. This continuing significance of the law can be qualified as ‘being bound by the law of Christ.’

“That the law in its particularistic significance as making a division between Jews and Gentiles is no longer in force constitutes the foundation of Paul’s apostolate amongst the Gentiles. He speaks of it as ‘the law of commandments contained in ordinances’ and as ‘the middle wall of partition’…[This law] has been pulled down and rendered inoperative (Eph. 2:14ff; cp. Gal. 2:14; 4:10; 5:2ff; 6:12; Col. 2:16ff; 3:11. Also Rom. 2:26ff; 3:30; ch. 4; I Cor. 7:18, 19). This holds above all for circumcision, but in general for ‘living like a Jew’ (Gal. 2:14), as a description of those regulations which had the effect of maintaining the line of demarcation between Israel and the Gentiles in a ritual-cultic and social respect…In Colossians 2:16ff, with regard to the keeping of dietary regulations, feasts, new moons or sabbath days, we find the typical expression: ‘which are shadows of the things to come, but the body is Christ’s’…All these prescriptions are but provisional and unreal, as a shadow exhibits only the dim contours of the body itself. Herein is the important viewpoint that with Christ’s advent the law, also as far as its content is concerned, has been brought under a new norm of judgment and that failure to appreciate this new situation is a denial of Christ (Gal. 5:2).

“There can thus be no doubt whatever that the category of the law has not been abrogated with Christ’s advent, but rather has been maintained and interpreted in its radical sense (‘fulfilled’; Matt. 5:17); on the other hand, that the church no longer has to do with the law in any other way than in Christ and thus is ‘within the law of Christ’” (Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology, pp. 284, 285).

V1. n.10. “You Must Be Born Again….”

Jesus’ statement is clear and uncompromising. To gain immortality in the coming Kingdom we “must be born again” (John 3:3, 5, 7). How, according to the New Testament, does this essential rebirth (regeneration) take place?

To understand a biblical teaching it is necessary to encompass all the relevant data bearing on a chosen topic. A partial or selective approach will result in a defective understanding. At present Jesus’ major discussion on rebirth is usually ignored. We are not referring to the verses cited above, which are well known. Jesus had much more to say about the process of rebirth. Please read on.

In his conversation with Nicodemus Jesus teaches that rebirth is through the spirit of God. He also mentioned water (John 3:5-7). Let us see how the trained Apostles of Jesus understood their Master’s central teaching. James says that we are born again through the “word of Truth” (1:18). But just what is that “word of Truth”? Peter gives us more information. He connects rebirth with Hope: “God has caused our rebirth into a living Hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an incorruptible inheritance…[of the coming Kingdom].” Christians are “born again, not from corruptible SEED, but incorruptible SEED, through the word of God which abides forever…This is the word which was preached to you as the Gospel” (I Pet. 1:3-4, 23-25).

So the essential ingredients of the rebirth process, so far, are clear. There is a word or Gospel. There is spirit. Rebirth launches us into a living Hope in view of a future inheritance of the Kingdom of God. And the whole process is traced to the action of “the incorruptible SEED.” Without the SEED the process malfunctions.

Seeds, of course, are responsible for the creation of life, human, animal and vegetable. Seed is also the agent of the rebirth which is the absolute necessity for salvation.

But what is that “word of Truth,” “Gospel,” “Seed” with which we must make contact?

Seed brings about the generation or creation of new life. So Paul writes: “If anyone is in Christ [a Christian] he is a new creation” (II Cor. 5:17). Paul describes the same regenerating process elsewhere as “the washing of rebirth and the renewing of the holy spirit” (Titus 3:5).

John speaks often in his letters about Christians being “begotten” by the Father. In I John 3:9 he refers to the essential SEED of God which remains in the believer.

It is at this point that many attempted descriptions of rebirth fail. They fail because they omit to trace this essential Christian teaching to the Master-Teacher himself, Jesus. Jesus gave by far the fullest account of how the SEED of rebirth/regeneration/conversion operates. This foundational teaching about Rebirth, the teaching on which the brief remarks of Peter, Paul, John and James depend, is found in the “Parable of the Sower,” which we might also call “the Parable of the SEED” (Matt. 13; Mark 4; Luke 8).

The Bible provides an exact definition of the SEED. Jesus said, “Whenever anyone hears the word about the Kingdom and fails to understand it, the wicked one [the Devil] snatches away what was SOWN in his heart” (Matt. 13:19). Others receive the SEED and retain it for a while but fall away under the pressure of persecution. Still others receive the SEED but anxiety and other preoccupations choke the SEED and it bears no fruit. The fourth category is successful. These people receive the SEED and bear fruit in varying degrees (see Matt. 13:18-23).

Mark and Luke report the same full account of how rebirth through the vital SEED occurs. Luke reports Jesus as saying that “the SEED is the word of God” (Luke 8:11) (cp. James: “word of Truth,” Peter: “word preached as Gospel”). Remember that Matthew gives us the full definition of that word: It is the word/gospel about the Kingdom. Satan, knowing how the salvation process works, deliberately tries to frustrate God’s creative, sowing activity. The Devil “comes and takes away the word [of the Kingdom, Matt. 13:19] from hearts [minds] so that they cannot believe it and be saved” (Luke 8:12).

This precise instruction from the lips of Jesus is most enlightening. Salvation, says Jesus, begins when the creative Gospel/word of the Kingdom/Truth lodges in the mind of a person and when he gives it an intelligent reception. That word must remain as the vital SEED in the believer until he is finally immortalized in the resurrection when Jesus comes back (I Cor 15:23, 50-52; Rev. 11:15-18, etc.).

Mark’s version of Jesus’ teaching on rebirth through SEED emphasizes a further point about the process of salvation. Jesus says: “To you [who receive the Gospel with intelligence] the mystery of the Kingdom has been made known, but to those outside everything comes in parables, so that seeing they may see, yet not understand, and hearing they may hear and yet not understand what they hear. If they did, they would be converted and their sins would be forgiven them” (Mark 4:11-12).

Do you see that Jesus here makes intelligent reception of the Kingdom Message/Gospel/Word the indispensable condition of conversion, repentance and forgiveness? Can the Gospel be successfully preached, then, if the Kingdom of God is not presented to the potential convert? Can Christ be accepted apart from Christ’s own saving Gospel — the Gospel of the Kingdom?

Once the Kingdom Message of Jesus comes to the listener, he makes a choice to receive it or not. Without understanding it he cannot receive it. Without receiving it he cannot be forgiven. Such is the rebirth procedure as Jesus teaches it.

It is important to observe that Jesus was not at this stage of his ministry speaking of the other great factor in salvation: Belief in his atoning death and his resurrection. These great teachings were later incorporated into the salvation program. (Jesus first mentions his death only in Matt. 16:21, Mark 8:31 and Luke 9:22.) The Kingdom/Seed/Gospel remained, of course, as the most fundamental element for salvation. Jesus indeed had taught regeneration through reception of the SEED message of the Kingdom, and he expects his Gospel of the Kingdom to be spread to all nations until his return at the end of the age (Matt. 28:19-20).

To be “born again,” “born of the Spirit,” “born again through the word,” “the word of Truth,” “the Gospel,” or to be a “new creation” means to receive the saving SEED of immortality sown by Jesus and the Apostles with their Gospel about the Kingdom of God.

Paul agreed entirely. He states the same great truth in other words: “Abraham had two sons, the one [Ishmael] by a slave girl, the other [Isaac] by a free woman. The child of the slave girl was born according to the flesh [cp. Jesus: “he who is born of the flesh….” John 3:6] and the other, the son of the free woman, was born from the PROMISE…Now we, brothers, like Isaac, are children born from the PROMISE. But, as then, he who was born from the flesh persecuted the son who was born of the spirit, so it is now” (Gal. 4:22-23, 28-29).

The Promise is in fact the Promise of the Kingdom. Christians are “heirs of the Kingdom which God has promised to those who love Him” (James 2:5). Abraham received as Gospel (Gal. 3:8) the same promise of the Kingdom: “The Promise to Abraham and his seed that he would be heir of the world…” (Rom. 4:13). So the spirit is transmitted in the Promise presented in the Gospel. Paul actually calls the spirit the “holy spirit of the promise” (Eph. 1:13, see KJV and Henry Alford’s comment).

Rebirth is the key to God’s creative activity, His New Creation through the preaching of Jesus and the death and resurrection of Jesus. Rebirth, being “born again,” means hearing, understanding and receiving the Gospel preaching of Jesus himself as the model evangelist. A word in the Bible is the instrument of God’s creative energy and action. It was by a word that God said “let there be light.” It is by the word of the Truth, the Gospel that He lights a light in our understanding, a light which we are then commanded to take to others (Mark 4:21-25). It is by the SEED/word of the Kingdom (Matt. 13:19) that God, through the Son, sets in motion the creation of immortal persons. No wonder then that the Devil is enraged when that saving, creative word and spirit are successfully conveyed to a willing, receptive mind. The Devil tries (hopefully in vain!) “to snatch away the Gospel/Word of the Kingdom so that we cannot receive it and be saved.” What a brilliant intelligence report from Jesus whose mind was steeped in the spirit and insight of God, his Father.

V1. n.9. The Jewish Roots of Christianity

Some today suppose that there is a special virtue attached to being Jewish in their approach to the Christian faith. There is a danger here. There is a biblical Jewishness which the New Testament demands of all believers. That Jewishness means recognizing that Jesus is the Messiah — a Jewish Old Testament word for the expected King of Israel promised in the covenants made with Abraham and David. Biblical concern for Jewish roots means also recognizing that the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, contains the basis of New Testament faith. Paul said that the Gospel had been preached to Abraham (Gal. 3:8). He found the Gospel of God in the writings of the prophets of Israel (Rom. 1:1-2). Paul knew that Jesus had come to reaffirm the promises made to the Old Testament fathers (Rom 15:8): “Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the Truth of God [the Gospel] to confirm the promises made to the fathers.” All these concerns fully justify a “Jewish” approach to the New Testament. Christians should be following the Jew Jesus.

However, a warning is in order. It is all too easy to be carried away with the concept of “Jewish roots” and lose sight of the fact that Paul, as the agent of Jesus, taught a freedom from the Law of Moses. Christianity is not just a “repeat” of Judaism. Paul, for example, considers circumcision in the flesh to have no value for the Christian. In Romans 14:14, 20 Paul states categorically that “there is nothing unclean in itself,” and “all things indeed are clean.” He uses here the exact words found in the Old Testament passages which demand a careful distinction between “clean” and “unclean” foods.

Mark 7:19 notes that Jesus revised the code forbidding certain foods under the Law. Jesus taught in Matthew 19:8 that Moses had allowed certain divorce practices in Israel which were not God’s absolute ideal, but which He had allowed because of their hardness of heart. Jesus then went on to revise the Law of Moses in this matter of divorce. He appealed to an earlier and more absolute standard for marriage — a standard which God had instituted in Genesis at the beginning (Matt. 19:8-9). Jesus allowed only one exception in the right to divorce and remarriage: fornication, i.e. unrepented breaking of the marriage bond by sexual infidelity.

Christianity therefore is not just a continuation of Judaism with the Messiah as its leader. The Gospel is rooted in the Old Testament, certainly. But the practice of the faith is revised under the terms of the New Covenant. Circumcision in the flesh falls away. The Ten Commandments and thus the covenant made with Moses and Israel are actually (and this point is seldom realized by Christians today) compared to bondage and likened to the offspring of Hagar. Hagar was the slave-girl. Sarah is the model of freedom and her children are the true Christians who are products not of the Sinai covenant but born of the spirit of the Promise. A careful reading of Galatians 4:21-31 is essential for a good grasp of this newness of the New Covenant. It is a dramatic and eye-opening revelation of what it means to be free in Christ.

Note now the practical effects of this teaching. God spoke to the New Testament Christians in a variety of languages at Pentecost. There is absolutely no religious value in using only a Hebrew name for Jesus (Jeshua). If you are amongst Hebrew speakers Jeshua is perfectly reasonable but the Hebrew name carries no “magic” quality or sanctity. The inspired Apostles wrote in Greek, and they used the Greek word for the Lord (kurios) and the Greek form of the name Jesus. It is pointless and divisive to insist (sometimes as a matter of salvation!) on a special pronunciation of the Divine Name YHVH. The New Testament writers refer to God as “Lord” (again, kurios). It is bizarre to write G-d rather than “God” for fear of contamination. The sound of the word is unimportant. Christians should be most careful not to clothe the faith in strange practices which invite ridicule and obscure the real truth of Christianity.

There is a grave danger of putting up a barrier between yourself and the world you hope to win for Jesus by insisting on certain Jewish, Old Testament practices which were shadows of the New Covenant. I have in mind obligatory Sabbath and Holy Day observance or keeping the New Moons. These collectively are “a shadow of things to come” (Col. 2:17). Christ has replaced them. The New Testament Christians did not keep the Passover once a year. The old Passover became an ongoing (whenever the church met) celebration of the Lord’s Supper (see I Cor. 11:17ff.). John’s Gospel refers to the Old Testament festivals as “feasts of the Jews.” How very improbable, then, that John thought of the very same festivals as Christian celebrations. “Let us therefore keep the feast” (I Cor. 5:8) means “Let us be permanently celebrating the Feast,” with the unleavened bread of sincerity and Truth. A good commentary will point to the meaning of the continuous sense of the present tense Greek verb, “Let us be celebrating.”

The shadow of the Law has passed away and the substance found in Christ has taken its place. Thus no animal sacrifices, the heart of Jewish ritual, are necessary for the Christian.

So the Jewish roots of our faith are fine as long as we do not fall back under the Law of Moses. This is a serious issue. Those who are trying to keep the Law of Moses as Christians risk being cut off entirely from the Messiah (Gal. 4:30; 5:4). The covenants cannot be mixed. Biblical Christianity is a new faith, though it is rooted in the promises made to Abraham which pre-dated the arrangements made with Moses (see the whole Book of Galatians and request our booklet “The Law, the Sabbath and New Testament Christianity”).

V1 n.9. Seeing God in Jesus

Jesus is the fullest possible expression of God in a human being

The unique beauty of the Christian faith is that God is revealed in Jesus, the Son of God. Jesus is not just a man, if by that you mean he is merely an outstanding man. Jesus is unique. He is the head of the New Creation, the counterpart to Adam. Jesus did not commit sin, yet he was tempted as all human beings are (Heb. 4:15). Jesus was created supernaturally by the action of God’s spirit — His creative energy — working in the Virgin Mary. Jesus was “pre-planned,” “pre-appointed.” This is the belief of Peter (I Pet. 1:20), a leading spokesman for the Christian faith and one who was personally trained by Jesus and gave his life for the faith. Peter and the Apostles taught that Jesus came into existence in Mary’s womb and was thus begotten (=brought into existence) by the Father. All sons are by definition the products of their Father. Jesus is no exception. The word “Son” and the word “begotten” are completely meaningless if one thinks that Jesus is “coequal and coeternal with his Father.” In an attempt to cover up their confusion, traditional systems of belief have claimed that Jesus was “eternally begotten.” But such language has no recognizable meaning. It is much like speaking of “square circles.” To be begotten means that you have a beginning. But if you exist eternally you have no beginning. Jesus the Son of God was begotten. Therefore the Son had a beginning. His beginning was his conception miraculously brought about by God.

Only the Father is the One God. “There is One God, the Father” (I Cor. 8:4-6). Jesus called God, His Father “the only one who is truly God” (John 17:3; 5:44). God is described by singular personal pronouns (singular pronouns define a person as one and not more) over 11,000 times. Jesus is the Lord Messiah, the adoni (my lord) of Psalm 110:1. This Psalm is the great key to understanding, and it expressly says that Jesus is not the Lord God (adonai) but adoni the supreme human lord (adoni in all of its 195 occurrences never refers to God).

Some modern translations bend the text of the original Greek to imply that Jesus was alive before he was born. Here is an example. Open the NIV translation at John 16:28. You will read there that Jesus intended to go back to the Father. But check other versions (KJV or NASV, or the original Greek). There is nothing in the text about going back. Jesus was going to the Father, not going back. In John 20:17 Jesus spoke of ascending to the Father (NASV). But the NIV changes the sense entirely by making Jesus say “I am returning to the Father.” Jesus’ words in the original merely affirm that he was going to ascend to the Father, not return to the Father.

Such mistranslations should alert readers of the Bible that systems of belief are sometimes inserted into the Bible instead of being found there. Translation can easily become a subtle form of interpretation which justifies a particular belief system.

The best way to study the Bible is to ask: What is the broad view of a given subject across the pages of the whole Bible? It is particularly important to search the Old Testament for its view of who God is and who the Messiah is. Does the Hebrew Bible have anything to say about the Son of God being alive before his birth? The answer is positively “no.” The Hebrew prophets foresee the coming of the Son who in the future (future to the time of the prophecy) will come on to the scene of history. Thus, in the classic prophecy of the future appearance of the Son of God who is also the Son of David, God announces to David a thousand years before the birth of the Messiah “I will be his Father and he will be my Son” (2 Sam. 7:14). We note that God said nothing at all about that Son already existing with Him in heaven.

The Son of God is to be the unique agent of God who will arise from the line of David and, because of the miraculous creative conception effected by God, will be designated Son of God. The precious instruction given us by the angel Gabriel needs to be repeated constantly. It is “for that reason” — the action of God in Mary — that the Son to be begotten (brought into existence) will be the Son of God (Luke 1:35). To maintain that “Son of God” means you are actually God Himself makes a nonsense of this simple, elementary teaching of the Bible. In a fine statement of the facts, a leading theologian in our time says: “To be called ‘Son of God’ in the Bible means that you are not God.” (This should be self-evident, but the pressure of tradition and ecclesiastical councils threatening anathemas to all who might question their dogmas, makes it very difficult for Bible readers to enter the Jewish world of the Bible.) This world of Jesus and the New Testament is delightfully free of the complicated and mysterious doctrines about God devised some 400 years after Bible times. Our readers should learn to distinguish how much of what they have learned in church really comes from the Bible and how much has been accepted as biblical without careful examination.

The climax of God’s dealings with man arrived when God spoke “at the end of those days” in a Son (Heb. 1:1-2). God, this letter to the Hebrews says, spoke in many different ways to the “fathers” but gave his final Message (word) in a Son. That Son, says the same author, is superior to angels, to Moses, to Joshua and to Levi. (If the author really believed that Jesus was God it is very strange that he labors to show that he is superior to God’s prominent spokesmen in Old Testament times. All he needed to do was say “Jesus is God.” But he never said this, nor did any New Testament writer.)

When challenged by hostile Jewish religious authorities that he was making a claim to be “equal with God,” Jesus gave a very interesting answer to set the record straight. He denied that he “was God.” He compared himself to the judges of Israel whom God had called “Gods.” Obviously this use of the word “God” for human judges meant that they represented the One God, not that they were actually “God.” If those important human Israelite agents of God were “God,” then, Jesus argued, he was entitled to be called “Son of God.” In no way did Jesus claim equality with God. His highest claim was to be “Son of God.” (This whole episode should be carefully studied in John 10:34-36.) Many contemporary writers simply leave out the words of Jesus when he responded to the charge that he was making himself equal with God. Some jump to the conclusion that Jesus’ enemies precisely understood what Jesus was saying. That is not so. Jesus had to clarify his claims and he did it by comparing himself to the human judges of Israel. His position was as the supreme revealer of God’s Plan. Jesus’ teaching gives us insight into what God is doing and what He expects of us. Jesus is God’s word — God’s mind and thought — manifested in and through a perfect human being. “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself” means that God was carrying out His salvation purpose by using Jesus as His final missionary agent to rescue the world from the grip of Satan. Thomas was slow to realize Jesus’ uniqueness and Jesus chided him with these words: “Have I been so long with you and you do not recognize that if you have seen me you have seen God?” (John 14:5-11; 12:45). The God whom Thomas finally recognized in Jesus was the God of Jesus also. Jesus is like a perfectly clear window giving us a view of God. Jesus is as much God as can be contained and revealed in a human person.

Various passages in some Bible translations force the original to say what it does not say. Here are two examples. I Timothy 3:16 states that “God was manifested in the flesh…” Modern versions, following a better manuscript reading, read “He who was manifested in the flesh….” I John 5:7 inserts a statement which reflects times long after the completion of the writing of the Bible. This verse is found in the KJV but has been rightly dropped from all modern translations. It is universally known to be a forgery and should never be used as the basis of a doctrinal argument. It appears in no Greek manuscript until the 15th century!

The Bible comes alive for its readers in a new way when we recognize the Jewishness of Jesus and the original “faith once and for all delivered to the people of God” (Jude 3). Jesus subscribed wholeheartedly to the cardinal tenet of Judaism found in Deuteronomy 6:5: God is One Lord and there is none beside Him. This we call unitary monotheism. This is the creed of Jesus and the Bible writers. As a leading scholar at Cambridge recently wrote, “John is as undeviating a witness as any in the NT to the fundamental tenet of Judaism, of unitary monotheism (Rom. 3:30; Jas. 2:19; John 5:44; 17:3)” (J.A.T. Robinson, 12 More NT Studies, p. 175). In other words, John and Jesus believed that God was one Person, not three. This creed has a simple beauty, and it is likely to win the attention of Jews today and of course Moslems. The Church has a long history of erecting an unnecessary barrier between itself and the Jewish and Islamic communities by proposing the very strange and inexplicable idea that God is mysteriously three and yet one. Jews and Moslems will instinctively reject such a notion. Jews will deny — and rightly — that any idea of a three-Person God is found in the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament, the Bible which nurtured Jesus). And Moslems know that their Koran, which recognizes Jesus as at least a prophet (and virginally conceived) will fight hard against the traditional view of God as three in one. What a marvelous new opportunity for evangelism! The God of Jesus is One Lord. Jews know that God is One and so do Muslims.

V1. n. 9. A Challenge to Students of the Bible

The following quotations from leading authorities on the Bible should cause us to “examine all things carefully.” Popular majority opinion is not necessarily correct. Many professional scholars oppose it: May we respectfully request of our readers that they pay careful attention to the issues raised below. “Gut reactions” and “knee-jerk responses” should be avoided!

“It may be said at once that there is no trace of a doctrine of a Trinity in the Gospel of John.” [1]

“The notion of the Holy Spirit as a third divine personality is one of the most disastrous importations into the Holy Scriptures.” [2]

“There is no trace of the idea of ‘three divine persons in one’ in the New Testament…No Apostle would have dreamt of thinking that there are three divine persons…The mystery of the Trinity proclaimed by the Church did not spring from biblical doctrine.” [3]

“The Trinitarians edited their notorious Trinitarian text into the first Epistle of John [I John 5:7, see the KJV and compare it with all modern versions].” [4]

“Arguments for the Trinitarian dogma do not exist in the Bible as they were later preserved in Orthodoxy.” [5]

“Paul would have had no knowledge of a dogmatic Trinity, since that came into the world only centuries after his death.” [6]

“The Jew Jesus knew of a Trinity in a dogmatic sense just as little as the Jew Paul.” [7]

“The image of God in the primitive Church was unitary [= God is one Person, not three].” [8]

“During the bloody intra-Christian religious wars of the fourth and fifth centuries, thousands upon thousands of Christians slaughtered other Christians for the sake of the Trinity.” [9]

“Many Christians are genuinely concerned and many Jews justifiably frustrated trying to find in the Trinity the pure faith in One God.”[10] (Muslims often reject the Christian faith outright because of the strange doctrine that God is three in One.)

“The doctrine which follows from the identification of Jesus with a pre-existent divine being is ultimately incompatible with the unity of God.” [11]

“Most Christians probably escape from the dry abstractions of Augustinian orthodoxy by reinterpreting it tritheistically. In the last resort [this] implies the existence of three divine centres of consciousness — in other words, three Gods.” [12]

“The Church has not usually in practice (whatever it may have claimed to be doing in theory) based its doctrine about Christ exclusively on the witness of the New Testament. Doctrine about Christ has never in practice been derived simply by way of logical inference from the statements of Scripture.” [13]

“[If] the eternal Son assumes a timeless human nature, or makes it timeless by making it his own, it is a human nature which has nothing essential to do with geographical circumstance; it corresponds to nothing in the actual concrete world; Jesus Christ has not after all ‘come in the flesh.’” [14]

“The clear evidence of the Gospel of John [is that] Jesus refuses the claim to be God…Jesus vigorously denied the blasphemy of being God or His substitute.” [15]

“Paul nowhere definitely equates Jesus with God.” [16]

“Jesus never calls Himself God, but ever claims to be the Son of God.” [17]

“Jesus is not God but God’s representative, and, as such, so completely and totally acts on His behalf that he stands in God’s stead before the world…The Gospel of John clearly states that God and Jesus are not to be understood as identical persons, as in 14:28, ‘the Father is greater than I.’” [18]

“The Gospel of John, like other early Christian witnesses, thinks of Jesus as legal agent, and apostle of God, who was physically and personally a human being (“low Christology”), but legally he was equal to God (“high Christology”). Jesus held a status that was legally equal to God (John 10:33), but, on the other hand, the Father (as the principal) was greater (John 14:28) than the Son, who was the agent.” [19]

“It would be ridiculous to imagine that Jesus is God, tout simple. The New Testament writers do not claim this for him; they know he is very much one of us.”[20] (This author writes as a Trinitarian, but still recognizes that the statement “Jesus is God” without further qualification is misleading.)

“Should we then say that Jesus was confessed as God from earliest days in Hellenistic Christianity? That would be to claim too much. (1) The emergence of a confession of Jesus in terms of divinity was largely facilitated by the extensive use of Ps. 110:1 from very early on (most clearly in Mark 12:36; Acts 2:34ff.; I Cor. 15:25; Heb. 1:13): “the Lord says to my lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.’” Its importance lies in the double use of ‘lord.’ The one is clearly Yahweh, but who is the other? Clearly not Yahweh, but an exalted being whom the psalmist calls ‘lord.’ (2) Paul calls Jesus ‘lord,’ but he seems to have marked reservations about calling Jesus ‘God.’ Rom. 9:5 is the only real candidate within Paul’s letters (but even there the text is unclear). Similarly he refrains from praying to Jesus. He prays to God through Christ…At the same time Paul affirms Jesus is ‘Lord’ he also affirms ‘God is One,’ ‘There is only one God’ (Deut. 6:4). Hence also Rom. 3:30, Gal. 3:20, I Tim. 2:5 (cp. James 2:19)…The point for us to note is that Paul can hail Jesus as Lord not in order to identify him with God, but rather, if anything, to distinguish him from the One God (cp. particularly I Cor. 15:24-28).” [21]

The information quoted above gives the substance of statements made by leading theologians. The inquiring reader will want to know how it is that the dogma of the Trinity has been declared to be the hallmark of true Christianity, while recognized biblical scholars deny that any such dogma is found in the writings of leading, biblical Christians. Why not allow yourself to be challenged by these extraordinary facts?

Millions of churchgoers accept without question what they are taught about God. It is perilous, however, to follow majority opinion blindly, especially when distinguished experts declare them to be untrue. The only safe path is to examine the Bible for yourself.

Does the Bible ever speak of a Godhead consisting of three Persons? Traditional Christianity has been based on the dogma of the Trinity for some 1600 years. Much evidence is available to show that the Trinitarian dogma was forced on believers and that it has no biblical basis — that it actually negates the heart of the Bible’s teaching that there is One God who is One Person, the Father (I Cor. 8:6; John 17:3; 5:44; I Tim. 2:5; Eph. 4:4-6).

Some say that since Jesus is “worshipped” he must be God. This argument is entirely fallacious. The word “worship” in the Old Testament and New Testament is used in different senses. (1) To denote religious service to the One God. (2) To denote homage paid to superior personages including, supremely, the Messiah. In I Chronicles 29:20 David the King is “worshipped” along with God (see KJV). In Revelation 3:9 the Christians are going to be “worshipped” (see again the KJV). The same word is used here as is used also for the worship of the One God, the Father. Jesus is worshipped in the Bible as the Messiah, not as the One God.

The identity of God and Jesus are critically important issues for all students of Christianity. Effective worship must be based on Truth (John 4:24). Nothing is more essential than a biblical understanding of the One God and His relationship to His Son, the Messiah Jesus.

Footnotes:
[1] E.F. Scott, D.D., The Fourth Gospel, p. 341.
[2] W. Beyschlag, N.T. Theology, Vol. II, p. 279.
[3] Emil Brunner, Christian Doctrine of God, Dogmatics, Vol. 1, p. 226.
[4] Pinchas Lapide and Jürgen Moltmann, Jewish Monotheism and Christian Trinitarian Doctrine, p. 40.
[5] Paul Tillich, A History of Christian Thought, p. 287.
[6] Pinchas Lapide and Jürgen Moltmann, Jewish Monotheism and Christian Trinitarian Doctrine, pp. 38, 39, 40.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Hans Kung, “Antwort an Meine Kritiker,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 22nd May, 1976.
[11] Geoffrey Lampe, God As Spirit, The Bampton Lectures, 1976, p. 141.
[12] Ibid., p. 227.
[13] Maurice Wiles, The Remaking of Christian Doctrine, The Hulsean lectures, 1973, pp. 54, 55.
[14] Geoffrey Lampe, God As Spirit, p. 144.
[15] J.A.T. Robinson, Twelve More New Testament Studies, pp. 175, 176.
[16] W.R. Matthews, D.D., The Problem of Christ in the Twentieth Century, The Maurice Lectures, 1949, p. 22.
[17] Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, Extra Vol., p. 312.
[18] Jacob Jervell, Jesus in the Gospel of John, 1984, p. 21.
[19] G.W. Buchanan, Biblical and Theological Insights Based on Ancient and Modern Civil Law, to be published, pp. 128, 129.
[20] The Truth of God Incarnate, ed. Michael Green, p. 23.
[21] Unity and Diversity in the New Testament, James Dunn, p. 53.