{"id":1829,"date":"2016-08-12T17:45:44","date_gmt":"2016-08-12T22:45:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/veritasfidei.org\/en\/?p=1829"},"modified":"2016-09-01T00:03:22","modified_gmt":"2016-09-01T05:03:22","slug":"the-deity-of-jesus-a-defense-part-46","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/veritasfidei.org\/en\/the-deity-of-jesus-a-defense-part-46\/","title":{"rendered":"The Deity of Jesus: A Defense. Part 4\/6"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jesus Shares the Names<\/em> of God<\/span><\/h1>\n

In this series of 6 blog posts<\/a>, I show\u00a0that, using only historical data that critical\/skeptical scholars grant<\/em>, it is possible to build a cumulative case demonstrating that Jesus not only was considered God by his followers and the early church, but that he claimed to be divine and acted consistently with such claim.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the previous post<\/a>, we argued that Jesus is God because he shares\u00a0the\u00a0<\/span>Attributes\u00a0of God<\/em><\/strong>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Now we follow along the same line, arguing that Jesus is God because he Shares the Names\u00a0of God:<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Part 4.\u00a0Jesus Shares the Names<\/em> of God<\/span><\/h1>\n

In the nativity narratives (another \u201cQ\u201d passage) Jesus is named as such because he will \u201csave his people from their sins\u201d since Jesus means \u201cYahweh Saves.\u201d Again, in the Jewish context, only God has the prerogative to save. The early church always baptized into<\/em> the name of Jesus as an identification with the early gospel message (See argument for the early creed of\u00a01 Cor. 15:3-7 in the next post<\/a>) with Jesus\u2019 death and resurrection. All this comes from sources that critics grant such as 1 Cor. 1:13-15; cf. Rom. 6:3; Gal. 3:27.1<\/a><\/sup> Early pre-Pauline sermons in Acts confirm that Jesus Christ is \u201cthe name\u201d under which people receive forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38), can be saved and that Jesus is the cornerstone rejected by men but approved by God (see acts 4:11-12 as a direct reference to Psalm<\/em>s 118:22). This predates Paul but coincides with the Pauline message (Rom 10:13).<\/span><\/p>\n

The use of Lord to refer to Jesus as deity is well known but usually dismissed by critical scholars; however, there is a key \u201cQ\u201d passage in which Jesus refers to himself as \u201cLord, Lord\u201d (\u03ba\u1f7b\u03c1\u03b9\u03b5 \u03ba\u1f7b\u03c1\u03b9\u03b5<\/strong><\/em>) saying,<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c\u201cNot everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven.\u201d2<\/a><\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But, is the double repetition of the word \u201cLord\u201d a rhetorical resource or does it have special significance? As it turns out, \u201cthis double form of address occurs repeatedly in the Septuagint in place of the Hebrew \u2018Lord YHWH\u2019 [\u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 \u05d0\u05d3\u05e0\u05d9] (Deut. 3:24; 9:26; 1 Kings 8:53; Ps. 69:6; Ezek. 20:49; Amos 7:2,5) or \u2018YHWH Lord\u2019 [\u05d0\u05d3\u05e0\u05d9 \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4] (Ps. 109:21; 140:7; 141:8), but never in reference to anyone but YHWH.\u201d3<\/a><\/sup> We already argued that Rom. 10:9 is quoting the name of the \u201cLord\u201d Jesus as a direct reference to \u201cYHWH\u201d in Joel 2:32. The same reference to Joel happens in the early and pre-Pauline Acts sermon in 2:21:<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.\u201d\u00a04<\/a><\/sup><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Paul uses the term \u201ckurios\u201d (Lord) extensively as a reference to \u201cYahweh\u201d in Old Testament texts.5<\/a><\/sup> One prominent example already mentioned is Philippians 2:10. This passage affirms that in the name of Jesus \u201cevery knee should bend and every tongue confess,\u201d and belongs prominently to Isaiah 45:23. The Septuagint uses similar language to leave no doubt that Paul is equating Jesus to God\u2019s name:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTo me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance\u201d<\/span> [\u03ba\u1f71\u03bc\u03c8\u03b5\u03b9<\/span> \u03c0\u1fb6\u03bd<\/span> \u03b3\u1f79\u03bd\u03c5<\/span> \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f10\u03be\u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u1f75\u03c3\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 <\/span>\u03c0\u1fb6\u03c3\u03b1<\/span> \u03b3\u03bb\u1ff6\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1<\/span>].<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Compare with Philippians 2:10:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cevery knee should bend\u201d<\/span> [\u03c0\u03b1\u0342\u03bd<\/span> \u03b3\u03bf\u0301\u03bd\u03c5<\/span> \u03ba\u03b1\u0301\u03bc\u03c8\u03b7\u0345<\/span>] and \u201cevery tongue shall swear allegiance\u201d<\/span> [\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u0300 \u03c0\u03b1\u0342\u03c3\u03b1<\/span> \u03b3\u03bb\u03c9\u0342\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1<\/span> \u03b5\u0313\u03be\u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03b7\u0301\u03c3\u03b7\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9<\/span>].<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even without Greek knowledge, the reader may appreciate the same word usage<\/em> in the text of the NT and the Septuagint.<\/span><\/p>\n

The conclusion is simple: in the oldest and most historical passages from from the New Testament, \u00a0the first followers of Jesus equate his\u00a0name with the name of YHWH unequivocally. They considered him to be divine.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the next post<\/a>\u00a0we will see that Jesus is God because he shares the deeds<\/em>\u00a0of God.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

To be Continued…<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n
    \n
  1. Ibid., 1371. Kindle. ↩<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  2. This Q source comes from Matt. 7:21-22; Luke 6:46. See also Matt 25:11 ↩<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Bowman, 1738. Kindle. ↩<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  4. In fact this is the first recorded sermon of Peter.. ↩<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  5. For en extensive review of all Pauline texts see Gordon D. Fee, Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Theological Study<\/em> (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007). ↩<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Jesus Shares the Names of God In this series of 6 blog posts, I show\u00a0that, using only historical data that critical\/skeptical scholars grant, it is possible to build a cumulative case demonstrating that Jesus not only was considered God by his followers and the early church, but that he claimed to be divine and acted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1797,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[275,269,1003,268,928],"tags":[961,940,966,965,960,962,964,963],"class_list":["post-1829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apologetics-en","category-historicity","category-jesus-as-god","category-new-testament","category-skepticism","tag-deification-of-jesus","tag-divinity-of-christ","tag-is-christ-god","tag-is-jesus-god","tag-jesus-is-divine","tag-man","tag-messiah","tag-myth"],"views":464,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritasfidei.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritasfidei.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritasfidei.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritasfidei.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritasfidei.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/veritasfidei.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritasfidei.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritasfidei.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritasfidei.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritasfidei.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}