The Divinity of Jesus: Before the Creeds

[_Rick_C]

Note: I edited this post on March, 29, 2008.
Dan Wallace's understudy emailed me and helped clarify a few things.
I may make a new post but want to reply to the email first (which has required further study, why the delay).
I apologize for any inconveniences.

Was Jesus viewed as divine before the Council of Nicaea?
I would say absolutely, yes.
But when was he first seen as divine?
I maintain from the very beginning: And not at around 60AD or thereabouts.

This topic came up on the Parchment & Pen blog today. I made a post but it has apparently been blocked as spam. At any rate, I've decided to post on this here since I put a fair amount of work into my P&P post.

Michael Patton linked me to an ETS paper by Dan Wallace....

We must remember that these [the] disciples were Jews, steeped in their rich tradition of monotheism—a monotheism that reached a new pinnacle after the stench of the Babylonian deities filled their nostrils for seven decades. They simply had no ready category for thinking of this Galilean carpenter as God in the flesh. We must not confuse their loyalty to Jesus as an embracing of his deity.

To which I replied:
I think Dan's mistaken (and realize he's not here to reply).

In his ETS paper, Dan continued saying:

Although I will not develop it here, I believe that R. T. France was on the right path when he declared,

"It is in this light [the strict Jewish monotheism out of which nascent Christianity grew] that we must understand the fact… that the explicit use of God-language about Jesus is infrequent in the NT, and is concentrated in the later writings… It was such shocking language that, even when the beliefs underlying it were firmly established, it was easier, and perhaps more politic, to express these beliefs in less direct terms. The wonder is not that the NT so seldom describes Jesus as God, but that in such a milieu it does so at all" (R. T. France, “The Worship of Jesus—A Neglected Factor in Christological Debate?”, Vox Evangelica 12 (1981) 25.

(Dan continues):
Although many would see the apostles embracing the deity of Christ immediately after his resurrection, I suspect it took somewhat longer for this to become a settled conviction. There are no more than half a dozen NT texts that speak of Jesus as qeov (Greek, theon, "God"), and all but one of them occur in the 60s or later. To be sure, there are plenty of other NT texts that seem to imply his deity, especially those that quote OT passages which originally referred to YHWH. But when these texts were used by the apostles, and especially when their implications were clearly understood by the apostles, is not something that yields facile answers.

I commented:
Larry Hurtado, and others, have demonstrated that the earliest Christians saw Jesus as divine and worshiped him as such from the very beginning. In Hurtdao's book, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity he provides in-depth proofs on this theme. He successfully refutes "Jesus Seminar" ideas that the divinity of Jesus was something that "developed" and/or wasn't present from the very start. Ironically, perhaps, Hurtado also varies from Dan Wallace's views also (as he expressed above).

My post continued with:
In this article by Hurtado from 2003,
Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity: Recent Scholarly Developments....

[That in his book] One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism ...I confirmed the judgment of some other scholars that devotion to Jesus as divine, in fact, erupted in Jewish-Christian circles of the very earliest years, far too early to account for it through the influence of Gentile converts and by a strung-out process of development. Also, I showed that all of the earliest expressions of belief in/about Jesus clearly reflect the influences and resources of the Jewish religious tradition, which was the religious matrix of earliest Christianity. Now, in a much larger study with a chronological scope that runs from the beginning of the Christian movement down into the late second century, I offer an analysis that is intended to compete with Bousset’s classic study: Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Eerdmans, 2003).

In these and other publications of the last decade and more, I have emphasized that the most remarkable and eloquent indication of Jesus’ exalted place in their faith was a constellation of devotional actions that comprised what I termed a “binitarian” devotional pattern in which Jesus was reverenced uniquely along with God. In fact, in these actions, which are taken for granted already in our earliest extant texts, Jesus was given the sort of reverence that was otherwise reserved for God alone in all known circles of devout Jews of the time.

Lastly, I referred to Hurtado's article:
What Do We Mean by "First-Century Jewish Monotheism"? which further demonstrates that the "monotheism" of [some, but not all] Jews of the first century and/or Intertestamental Period did, in fact, allow for the inclusion of the worship of divine mediator figures, right along with the 'regular worship' of the Jewish High God. Hurtado, others, and myself contend that Jesus was one such figure.

Lastly, I added: I realize this post may be beyond the scope of this blog, that your focus is on post-apostolic (trinitarian) theology. I just wanted to make the very important point that Jesus was seen as divine from the very start! Thanks.
_______________________________________________________________

That ended my P&P post which got posted (I didn't know if it would). Btw, Michael Patton and I are good friends (from Paltalk) and I don't recall "talking" with Dan Wallace much there.

[Guest]

I think we have to be very clear about what we mean by "The Divinity of Jesus". According to some understandings of the phrase, I would have to say I believe in Jesus' Divinity. According to other understandings, I would have to day I disbelieve in his Divinity.

The phrase "God in the flesh" smacks of the understanding which I disbelieve. Since I disbelieve that Jesus is the same Individual as the Father (Oneness, Modalism), and since I disbelieve that God is Triune, (A compound God consisting of 3 divine Persons), then I can't accept that "God came to earth and was born as a human being."

Jesus made a very clear statement in his prayer to his Father, a statement which is incompatible with both Oneness and Trinitarianism:

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

In this statement, Jesus not only calls his Father "the only true God", but distuinguishes himself from "the only true God" by adding the phrase "and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."

It is also necessary to consider John 1:1 in this discussion:

In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with the God, and the Logos was God.

This is one of the main statements in the NT which affirms the Divinity of Christ.

The definite article before the first instance of the word "God" indicates that the referent is the Father. If the second "God" also had a definitite article, this would be saying that the Logos was the Father. In that case,
the second phrase would contradict the first.

If the words "the Logos was God" were in natural order, then the meaning would be "the Logos was a God" or perhaps "the Logos was a god" as in the New World Translation of Jehovah's Witnesses.

However, the word order in this phrase is inverted: "God was the Logos".
This particular order in Greek indicates that the word "God" is the kind of thing that the Logos was. The same inversion is used where it is written "God is love" and "You word is truth". In Greek, the underlined words come first, indicating the "love" is a qualilty of God, and "truth" is a quality of "your word". Similarily "God" (or "Divinity") was a quality of "the Logos" in John 1:1

Martin Luther, whatever else he was, was a good Greek scholar. He put the matter very succinctly:

The lack of an article is against Sabellianism; the word order is against Arianism.

So there is no doubt, as you say, Rick, that Jesus "was viewed as divine before the Council of Nicea."

Second-century Justin Martyr spent a great deal of time in his debate with Trypho and other Jews , trying to convince them from OT writings that Christ was divine and could be called "God"
.

[_Rick_C]

Post edited March 29, 2008.

Paidion,

I don't want to debate or discuss post-apostolic views on this thread.

Why I did my P&P post was: I got linked to the paper by Dan Wallace, one of the world's most respected texual critics, and who is noted to be a theologically conservative evangelical scholar.

He said things in his paper, (albeit a few years ago, and he may have changed his views by now?), that seemed to virtually agree with what liberal scholars in the Jesus Seminar have said. Namely, that the divinity of Jesus was a "later development." The Jesus Seminar holds to a view of a "developing Christology" (that Jesus wasn't initially seen as divine). Dan Wallace has said this developed in the first century. The Jesus Seminar may see it as, possibly, going on into the second century. It seems like Dan may not think Jesus was considered to be divine from the very beginning(?).

There's no doubt about it: Larry Hurtado has proven that Jesus was considered divine from the very start: That is to say, from the time of his resurrection/enthronement on.

At any rate, some time back I emailed Dan Wallace with some questions about the Sinaitic Syriac text of Matthew one. But one of his students (an understudy of Dan's) replied. I've given this guy, a nice guy, the link to this thread and am waiting to see if he replies. I more or less "urged" him that this thread (or what I posted above) be brought to Dan's attention.

That's all I got for now, thanks.

[_Rick_C]

Post edited on March 29, 2008.

Btw, Dan Wallace posts on the P&P blog as one blog author. But on the particular blog I posted on, Dan wasn't involved. I know he's a busy man so I just went ahead and emailed his understudy.

I got a PM today with someone asking me some questions, to which I add:

Was Jesus viewed as divine before the Council of Nicaea?
I would say absolutely, yes.
But when was he first seen as divine?
I maintain from the very beginning: And not at around 60AD or thereabouts.

By "from the very beginning" I meant at least from his resurrection/ascension; that it wasn't a "later development" like around 60-70AD (after the the Epistles and the Gospels had been written), or otherwise, even later than then, as some liberal scholars say.

Thanks.

[Guest]

The phrase "God in the flesh" smacks of the understanding which I disbelieve. Since I disbelieve that Jesus is the same Individual as the Father (Oneness, Modalism), and since I disbelieve that God is Triune, (A compound God consisting of 3 divine Persons), then I can't accept that "God came to earth and was born as a human being."

Out of interest, are you aware of churches that accept this understanding? I hold very similar, but I do consider myself a trinitarian in a primitive and traditional sense, but would feel uncomfortable speaking of 'one compound God consisting of 3 divine persons'.

In this statement, Jesus not only calls his Father "the only true God", but distuinguishes himself from "the only true God" by adding the phrase "and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."

Yes, alot of scholars would recognise that the early Christians distinguished between the Father as 'the God' - ho theos - and Jesus as 'theos' or fully divine. It is this primitive trinitarianism that I hold.

However, the word order in this phrase is inverted: "God was the Logos".
This particular order in Greek indicates that the word "God" is the kind of thing that the Logos was. The same inversion is used where it is written "God is love" and "You word is truth". In Greek, the underlined words come first, indicating the "love" is a qualilty of God, and "truth" is a quality of "your word". Similarily "God" (or "Divinity") was a quality of "the Logos" in John 1:1

Sounds to me like you believe in the kind of trinitarianism taught by the early church, and at the Council of Nicaea.

[Guest]

Out of interest, are you aware of churches that accept this understanding?

I assume you are inquiring about churches which hold the "Oneness" view. The United Pentecostal Church holds this view as do most or all of the "Apostolic" churches.

It is this primitive trinitarianism that I hold.

I cannot find a "primitive" trinitarianism. Trinitarianism began to be promoted in the fourth century. The only earlier writer who seemed to teach it was Tertullian (around 200 A.D.). But possibly Tertullian's writings were interpolated by later Trinitarians.

Sounds to me like you believe in the kind of trinitarianism taught by the early church, and at the Council of Nicaea.

Nope. I don't believe in any kind of trinitarianism. I believe that Jesus was begotten (not created) by the Father at the beginning of time.
Unlike Arius, I do not believe "there was a time at which the Son did not exist" since there was no time before the beginning of time. Indeed it is meaningless to speak of "before the beginning of time. If time had a beginning there was no "before" since "before" is a temporal concept.

I believe the Holy Spirit is not a third divine Person, but the very Persons of the Father and the Son. Jesus said, "The Father and I will make our home with you". The Father and the Son indwell Christ's disciples. That is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a mere force as some teach, but the very Persons of the Father and the Son.

[Guest]

I believe that Jesus was begotten (not created) by the Father at the beginning of time.
Unlike Arius, I do not believe "there was a time at which the Son did not exist" since there was no time before the beginning of time. Indeed it is meaningless to speak of "before the beginning of time. If time had a beginning there was no "before" since "before" is a temporal concept.

I believe the Holy Spirit is not a third divine Person, but the very Persons of the Father and the Son. Jesus said, "The Father and I will make our home with you". The Father and the Son indwell Christ's disciples. That is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a mere force as some teach, but the very Persons of the Father and the Son.

Well I don't have much disagreement, other than over your position on the Holy Spirit. I would prefer to say the Son was begotten 'before all ages' to keep it vague, and not venture beyond that.