A Review of a Pasugo Article on the Deity Of Christ : "Acknowledge Christ for who he truly is"
By Bro. Nathan
" Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have received a faith as precious as ours through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:" (2 Pt. 1:1) NRSV
I came across with an article from the Pasugo, the official magazine of the Iglesia ni Cristo, that discusses about the nature of Christ, whether be the Christology of the Bible tells us that Jesus is God or a human by nature, with no any meaningful analysis of each given text in the Bible and what the Bible actually tells you about the Son of God and his nature. with these, the Iglesia ni Cristo discusses with some text from the Bible (that is taken out of context) and taking a misrepresentation of the high Christological position on the deity of Christ and the humanity of Christ and have several things that has been misunderstood, which are the following.
1. On the distinctive qualities of Christ
Jesus is God's beloved Son (Mt. 3:17), Jesus is the one Lord man and Mediator between God and man and God made Jesus as Lord (Acts 2:36; 5:31; 1 Tim. 2:5), and Christ being a exalted being who is above all everything (Eph. 1:20-22). they argued that these are the reasons why Christ is worthy of praise yet it begs us the question, how? and why should we? who is he and why worship a human?
a.) Jesus as Lord - Christ has the title as a capital “L” Lord for several reasons and these reasons have something with his divinity. this title is understood not like how the Iglesia ni Cristo does since they understand the person being called by this title is a human by nature. in the Old Testament, the coming Messiah will be called Lord, as it is in Hebrew, אֲדֹנָי (adonay) wherein, the word itself is only used for beings that are deity and not non-deity like humans. the word is applied to Jesus Christ is Psalm 110:1-5 where both divine and non-divine titles were applied to Christ. אֲדֹנָי (adonay) and אדֹנִי (adoni). the psalm reads :
"Here is the LORD’s proclamation to my lord: “Sit down at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool!”" (Ps. 110:1) NET
לְדָוִד מִזְמֹור נְאֻם יְהוָה לַאדֹנִי שֵׁב לִימִינִי עַד־אָשִׁית אֹיְבֶיךָ הֲדֹם לְרַגְלֶיךָ
Notice what the text tells you. two titles for a reason. 1.) is that Jesus is a numerically distinct God from Heavenly Father, that to avoid any confusion, the writer in verse 1 used אדֹנִי (adoni) to distiguish the two beings in view and 2.) that the Davidic king is deity as seen in v. 5, he is deity and is a divine individual with the Father, thus, it does not support both Trinitarianian and Unitarian views of the nature of God. The early Church in fact teaches that Jesus and the Father are two numerically distinct divine beings (e.g Tertullian, Origen) quite similar to Latter Day Saint Theology than Trinitarianism that was later developed after. Jesus is both called לַאדֹנִי [adoni] and אֲדֹנָי (adonay) which shows us Christ is God and is subordinate and numerically distinct with the Father at the same time. "Lord" is used for a being that is deity, while "lord" (לַאדֹנִי) is used as "sir" of used for people that are of high position, angels, or to show respect (e.g Jdg. 6:13; Ps. 12:5; Jer. 22:18; 34:5; BDB Hebrew And English Lexicon). . אֲדֹנָי (adonay) is sometimes used to refer to the divine name, Jehovah (e.g Ex. 23:17; Dt. 10:17).
"The Lord [אֲדֹנָי-adonay] is at your right hand; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath." (Ps. 110:5) NRSV
אֲדֹנָי עַל־יְמִינְךָ מָחַץ בְּיֹומ־ אַפֹּו מְלָכִים
Furthermore, one author wrote :
- " Though some might argue that the psalmist makes a distinction between Yahweh and adoni, and conclude that Jesus (who is prophetically adoni in the Psalm) is not Yahweh, there are strong contextual reasons to conclude that this passages implies Christ’s deity.
- As mentioned, Jesus quotes Psalm 110:1 and applies it to Himself. In the Hebrew text we read, “The LORD [Yahweh] said to my Lord [adoni] . . .” The rest of Psalm 110 shows that the psalmist’s use of adon does not exclude the coming Messiah as God. Verse 5 reads, “The Lord [adonay] is at Thy [Yahweh, implied] right hand; He will shatter kings in the day of His wrath” . . . the wrath to come in Psalm 110:5 is adonay’s wrath, and therefore He is the eschatological judge (see also Ps. 2:5, 12). The point here is that in the Old Testament there are clear references to the wrath of Yahweh (Exod. 15:7; 22:24; 32:10, 11, 12; Num. 11:33; 25:11; see esp. Pss. 21:9; 38:1; 78:31, 38, 49; 79:6), and that therefore this divine attribute belonging to Yahweh also belongs to the Son. Second, the objection that adonay cannot be God (elohim) is made without reference to other Psalms where God and adonay are synonymous. Psalm 59:10-11 (vv. 11-12 in Heb.) states: “My God [elohim] in His lovingkindness will meet me; God [Elohim] will let me look triumphantly upon my foes. Do not slay them, lest my people forget; scatter them by Thy power, and bring them down, O Lord [adonay], our shield.”
- Third, there is evidence that adonay is also Yahweh, signifying that the terms are interchangeable. Exodus 23:17 states: “Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord [adonay] Yahweh [Yahweh].” In Isaiah 6 “the Lord [adonay] sitting on the throne” (v. 1) is identified as “the King, the LORD [Yahweh] of hosts” (v. 5). One more example shall suffice: “For the LORD [Yahweh] your God [elohim] is the God of gods and the Lord [adonay] of Lords” (Deut. 10:17). When all this evidence is considered, the adonay in Psalm 110, the coming Messiah, should be viewed as God." (Steven Tsoukalas, Knowing Christ in the Challenge of Heresy: A Christology of the Cults A Christology of the Bible [Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1999], 69-70).
Furthermore, the uniqueness of Christ can be seen in the plogoue of the epistle to the Hebrews where Jesus Christ is contrasted to the angels in heaven, describing Jesus Christ in many ways. Jesus is described as the very image of God and the exact copy of Heavenly Father’s being and he is the one who sustains all things and sitting at the right hand of God (Heb. 1:3). he is much supreior to angels and he holds greater authority than them (v. 4). most of all, he is called God in v. 8-9! grammatically where a nominative θεὸς (Theos) is supplanting as a vocative which directly predicated to Jesus Christ himself. Jesus is God according to this verse adnd makes him supreior over angels. a human being by nature alone is not in view here as supreior over angels and hold authority and power overall.
2. The Humanity of Jesus Christ
The article makes a chart of differences of the incarnated Christ with his human qualities with the divine qualities that deity has. we see here one of the things that the Iglesia ni Cristo and other Unitarians do when representing views of people that believe in the deity of Christ. we as Latter Day Saints, we believe that Jesus Christ is God and came down to earth to be born as a man. we call this the condescencion of God, i.e the Incarnation (Jn. 1:1-14; Phil. 2:5-11; Heb. 2:7-9). Jesus Christ when he came down here on earth, he setted aside all of his glory and divine qualities that are incompatible with humanity (i.e kenosis) which includes being immortal. setting aside these divine qualities allows Christ to be hunger, thirst, tire, to be tempted, have the ability to sin, and to die. Jesus Christ was fully human when he came down here on earth and if he still had fully those divine qualities, no pain in the garden of Gethsemane and in Golgotha would be inflicted on him fully. no Atonement for mankind will be made. Jesus Christ came here on earth to suffer and die in behalf of us, thus he is the man who is the mediator between God and man (1 Tim. 2:5). he is only the man that lived a sinless life (Mt. 3:12-17; Lk. 4:34; Acts 4:27; 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:14-15; 7:26; 9:14; 1 Pt. 2:21-22; 1 Jn. 2:1; 3:5). Jesus Christ was born here on earth through Mary and he himself grew and progressed also to exaltation (Lk. 2:52; Phil. 2:5-11; Heb. 5:6-10). he is God and these is why he had those human qualities being listed in that article which lacks context on the incarnation of Jesus Christ. kenosis i.e the self emptying of Jesus Christ in his incarnation is much more consistent with Latter Day Saint Theology rather than traditional views on the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ being veiled, i.e the Hypostatic Union of Chalcedon that Trinitarians believe. we Latter Day Saints do not believe in the Hypostatic Union. we believe that Jesus is God, we believe that Jesus is truly human through the incarnation and his kenosis, and we believe that Jesus Christ was exalted and has been perfected, having glory and all authority and power on heaven and earth (Mt. 28:18-19; Jn. 17:1-21; Phil. 2:5-11; Heb. 5:7-10).
3. The Father as the Only True God
Jn. 17:3 is one of their main proof textes to argue against the deity of Jesus Christ interpreting it as a reference to ontological existence and therefore Jesus Christ is not deity. this is quite problematic in may ways. we believe that Heavenly Father is the only true God but the title is not like how they understand it. the Greek word ἀληθινόν (alethinon) as an adjective in Jn. 17:3 was used in places also of the Johainne Gospel to show the instrictiveness of things e.g ἦν τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινὸν (en to phos to alethinon - that was the true light; Jn. 1:9) to show that Jesus is the true light (cf. 1 Jn. 2:8 ); with Jesus being the true light, that does not mean that we as disciples of Jesus Christ are false lights (Mt. 5:14). we are lights also, and we are representatives of the true light who is Jesus Christ. we represent the true light by being a good example to people. Jesus as stated above also said that he is the τὸν ἄρτον ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ τὸν ἀληθινόν (ton arton ek tou ouranou ton alethinon - the true bread from Heaven; Jn. 6:32-33) to show contrast with the bread i.e manna that was given to the Israelites at the times of Exodus but that does not mean that the manna that the Israelites ate is not real bread. Jesus is the true bread that gives eternal life to those who will eat it (Jn. 6:51-56). the manna made the Israelites alive from hunger and it is a representation of how Jesus made us alive with the eternal life that he provides (Jn. 3:16-17; 14:6; Rom. 5:1-17; Eph. 2:1-10). Heavenly Father is the τὸν μόνον ἀληθινὸν θεὸν (ton monon alethinon Theon - the only true God; Jn. 17:3) but that does not make Jesus a false god or not God. as for the uses of the adjective, Jesus is a copy of God's being; and therefore Jesus is also God; he also shares God's nature but the God that he represents is the true God, the only true God. This is also why Biblical Unitarian and INC arguments are problematic. In Latter Day Saint Theology, only Heavenly Father is God in an underived sense (autotheos), and with Jesus in participation with Heavenly Father, he is also God for he is God’s perfect represent nature. he represent God and his nature in all ways (Heb. 1:3; cf. Col. 1:15-17). this phrase in the intercessory prayer of Jesus Christ, does not disprove his deity as God the Son whose Father is the only true God; the only God who is underived.
These arguments given by the Pasugo article dose not disprove the deity of Christ. acknowledge Christ for who he truly is; the Divine Savior that saves those who believes in him. a false Jesus cannot save you. only Jesus who is truly divine can save you and give you Eternal Salvation if you obey.
__________________
Like and support our Facebook page and message us for your questions and get answers on : Facebook.com/ldswarriors2000
Visit our blog at : Ldswarriors2000.blogspot.com
Visit my Quora profile at : Quora.com/Nathan-Lerr
