Trust and Belief

Peter Enns has written a phenomenal book, "The Sin of Certainty." I am not going to take the time to write a review now, but maybe some day in the far, distant future. What I will say, however, is that this book is worth your while to read. If you claim to be a Christian and your heart is still beating, you should definitely plunge in. It is written on a popular level rather than an academic one.

It is an easy read, but it will no doubt challenge certain aspects of your walk with God, and this is a great thing. If you find it heretical (like this group) and decide to burn the book after you finish it (or only begin), then you are all the better for having sharpened your defenses and become more equipped to fight the wiles of the devil, who, apparently, parades through the halls of Eastern University.  

While reading a bit of Hans Küng’s “Christianity” (as I do from time to time for fun), I came across a couple of statements where he had the same critique as Peter Enns in "The Sin of Certainty":

“Jesus nowhere said, ‘Say after me’, but rather ‘Follow me. . . . Faith is now no longer understood, as it is in the New Testament, as primarily believing trust (in God, Jesus Christ) but above all as right belief, as orthodoxy, as a conviction of the correctness of particular doctrinal statements of the church sanctioned by the state.” 

Küng, Christianity: Essence, History, and Future, 50, 198.

So if you don't want to read Enns then read Küng. 

P.S. Enns is funnier.

Let’s Be On Our Way – John 14:25-31

“For it is not right that a worshipper of God should be injured by another worshipper of God.”

–Lactantius[1]

            Historically, it is no secret that diverse Christianities have had difficulties dwelling together peacefully. Strife among God’s people can be traced almost anywhere, anytime to anything imaginable under heaven.

C. S. Lewis famously remarked that the quickest way to a desired destination – if a wrong turn has been taken – is to get back to the right road. The individual making an about-turn first, though seemingly counter-productive, is the most progressive.[2]

Doctrinal dissension has arguably proven to be divisive and destructive throughout the history of the Church.[3] This text is a prime example of such a battleground. It is a theological lithosphere of christological, pneumatological and ultimately Trinitarian layers which shifted[4] early and shook Christianity to its core for centuries.[5] Not only is there what some see as a proto-Trinitarian formation,[6] there is also an unavoidable subordinationist Christology present.[7]

As it happened, to argue that Jesus was equal in divine majesty to God the Father required “considerable literary ingenuity”[8] to explain these texts. The result was a widened rift between the subordinationists and those in favor of the Nicene Creed. Gregory of Nyssa described, 

“If in this city you ask anyone for change, he will discuss with you whether the Son is begotten or unbegotten. If you ask about the quality of bread, you will receive the answer that, ‘the Father is greater, the Son is less.’ If you suggest that a bath is desirable, you will be told that ‘there was nothing before the Son was created.’”[9]

Having personally been involved in unavoidable, chaotic feuds merely for being open-minded theologically, I am more convinced than ever that relating to our brothers and sisters in Christ with peaceful and humane dialogue is the only way forward. One’s conviction on any given text is never grounds to degrade or deride a perceived theological opponent or, in consideration of Church history, use violence. “Loving one another,”[10] as so frequently and plainly taught within the Johannine corpus, should never be annexed for that which is speculative, and the subject of constant debate.

Regardless of one’s Christology, Jesus – as God’s executive agent and revealer[11] – has given a supreme example of perfect peace.[12]  Though conflict came to him, 

“Christ did not become what men were; he became what they were meant to be, and what they too, through accepting him, actually became.”[13]

Before actually leaving, Jesus prayed: “[that] they may be one, as we are one” (John 17:22 NRS). Believers in Jesus have the hope that he will indeed return, 

“He is the promise, but the Father is the fulfillment. What Jesus says here about his own death applies also to the death of individual Christians.”[14] 

Until that time, we have the responsibility of emulating his example to love each other, even if our theological, doctrinal or political views don’t always mesh. By grasping onto the theme of the Prince of Peace we can bring the shalom[15] of the age to come into our present, one selfless action at a time. Let’s make an about-turn and get-on. “Let us go from here.” Let’s keep conversing, but be of the same mind and in the same love through humility while we do.[16]

---

[1] A Treatise on the Anger of God, 13.99 (ANF 7.271).

[2] C. S. Lewis, “Mere Christianity,” The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics (New York, NY.: Harper One, 1952, 2002) 33.

[3] Swartley seems to imply that some are not as prone toward provocations of this nature: “Even among Mennonites, historically considered sectarian, one finds both high christology adhered to be some and a considerably lower christology adhered to by others.” Willard M. Swartley, Covenant of Peace: The Missing Peace in New Testament Theology and Ethics (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2006), 296 (fn. 48).

[4] Hans Küng, Christianity : Essence, History, and Future (New York, NY.: Continuum Publishing Co, 1996), 170-71.

[5] See Professor of Conflict Resolution Richard Rubenstein’s excellent book, When Jesus Became God: The Epic Fight over Christ’s Divinity in the Last Days of Rome (Orlando, FL.: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1999), 7-8.

[6] George R. Beasley-Murray, Word Biblical Commentary: John, vol. 36 (Dallas, TX.: Word, Incorporated, 2002), 261; Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, MI.: Baker Academic, 2003), 2:976.

[7] C. K. Barrett, “The Father is Great Than I,” Essays on John (London, SPCK, 1982), 19-36; Karl-Josef Kuschel, Born Before All Time? : The Dispute Over Christ’s Origin, trans. John Bowden (New York, NY.: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1992), 388.

[8] Charles Freeman, A.D. 381: Heretics, Pagans, of the Monotheistic State (New York, NY.: Overlook Press, 2009), 60.

[9] Joseph H. Lynch, Early Christianity: A Brief History (New York, NY.: Oxford University Press, 2010), 166.

[10] John 13:34-35; 15:12, 17; 17:26; 21:15-17. Even the Johannine Epistles carry this theme: cf. 1 Joh 3:10-11, 14, 16, 18, 23; 4:7-8, 11-12, 16-21; 5:2; 2 Jo 1:5.

[11] Barrett 1982, 23.

[12] F. F. Bruce points out, “the world can only wish peace; Jesus gives it.” F. F. Bruce, The Gospel of John: Introduction, Exposition and Notes (Grand Rapids, MI.: Wm. B. Eerdman’s Publishing Co., 1983), 307 (Fn. 14).

[13] John A.T. Robinson, The Priority of John, ed. J. F. Coakley (Oak Park, IL.: Meyer-Stone Books, 1985), 378.

[14] Ernst  Haenchen, Robert W. Funk, and Ulrich Busse, John 2: A Commentary on the Gospel of John, Chapters 7-21 (Philadelphia, PA.: Fortress Press, 1984), 128. See (Keener 2003, 982).

[15]  “Peace was believed to be a feature of righteous royal rule and of the messianic age.” Marianne Meye Thompson, John: A Commentary (Louisville, KY.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015), 316

[16] Phil 2:1-3.

Hans Küng on John's Christology and the Shema

In a little reading of Hans Küng's Judaism; Between Yesterday and Tomorrow, I came across these statements:

“In this Gospel [John] ... there cannot yet be any question of a ‘metahistorical drama of Christ’, the objection often put forward by the Jewish side. Precisely in this late, fourth Gospel, we still have statements like: ‘And this is eternal life, that they may know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.’ Or, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. Here there is a clear distinction between God and Jesus Christ.

No, this Gospel too does not contain any speculative metaphysical Christology – torn from its Jewish roots – but rather a christology of sending and revelation associated with the world of Jewish Christianity. However, its statement about pre-existence, understood in an unmythological way, takes on heightened significance: ‘John does not investigate the metaphysical nature and being of the pre-existent Christ; he is not concerned about the insight that before the incarnation there were two pre-existent divine persons who were bound together in the one divine nature. This way of conceiving of things is alien to John. So too is the conception of a 'begetting within the Godhead.' 'I and the Father are one.' This statement has nothing to do with any dogmatic-speculative statements about the relationship of the natures within the Godhead.' So what was John's positive concern? What stands in the foreground is the confession that the man Jesus of Nazareth is the Logos of God in person. And he is the Logos as a mortal man; but he is the Logos only for those who are prepared to believe, trusting God's word in his word, God's actions in his praxis, God's history in his career, and God's compassion in his cross’ …

If the Jewish tradition has always held unshakeably to a basic truth of Jewish faith, then it is the ‘Shema Israel’, Hear, O Israel, Yahweh is our God, Yahweh alone! … This confession of the unity and uniqueness of God meant the strict repudiation not only of any dualism but also of any trinitarianism.”

Hans Küng, Judaism; Between Yesterday and Tomorrow (Continuum, 1991), 382-3.

Immanuel - Our God is With Us - Part VII - The Development of Incarnation Theology

This is the seventh and final installment of a series on Isaiah 7:14. 

“Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.” Isaiah 7:14 (Cf. Matt 1:23)

There is no question that in the line “God being with us”, lies incarnation theology. The problem arises when we affix to that incarnation theology a much later developed incarnation christology that focuses on a pre-existent deity taking on “human cloths." Rather than Jesus being born of or from Mary as the text says, being created by the Spirit of God in her, he is thought (as demonstrated in later creeds) to have come through her or that he came into her.[1] This metaphysical concept is foreign not only to the tradition of the Hebrews and their scripture, but also to the NT. N.T. Wright describes: 

“Part of the problem here…lies in the confusion that still occurs about the meaning of Messiahship. To say that Jesus is ‘the Christ’ is, in first-century terms, to say first and foremost that he is Israel’s Messiah, not to say that he is the incarnate Logos, the second person of the Trinity, the only-begotten son of the father. Even the phrase ‘son of god’, during Jesus’ ministry and in very early Christianity, does not mean what it came to mean in later theology…”[2] 

and 

“‘Son of God’ in the first century was first and foremost a title for Israel, and then for the true Messiah… which to begin with certainly didn't imply any doctrine of incarnation...‘Son of God’ didn't get the full meaning that it now has within Christianity until much later...We may therefore safely say that, for the New Testament writers, the virginal conception of Jesus was not a way of asserting that he was, as it were, genetically divine on one side and genetically human on the other. That is a gross category mistake.”[3]

Thus, one of the defining characteristics of this view on the incarnation is that Jesus personally pre-existed his birth (as a divine, quasi-divine or often thought, the logos).

“In the first sense, an incarnational theology is one that affirms God’s involvement in human life. Thus in acting within human history (as depicted throughout the Hebrew Scriptures) God is present with us in the flow of time. The basic thought here is that human life and history are important to God, who is at all times ‘Immanuel’, God with us. In this first sense all versions of Christianity are incarnational; and so also are Judaism, Islam and Sikhism...This first and most general sense of incarnational thought is not in question here. A Christian theology can be incarnational in the sense of declaring not only that God is always involved in human life, but also that in the life of Jesus God was involved in a particular and specially powerful and effective way. In other words, Jesus was not just an ordinary man, but one who’s relationship to God as a universal significance.”[4]

It is the ecclesiastical incarnation christology defined at the Chalcedonian Council that

“the assent to belief in the ‘incarnation’ becomes at the same time assent to the substance language of physis, hypostasis, and ousia.”[5]

Basically, for Jesus to fit the developing philosophical and Hellenistic eisegetical method of defining “God”, Jesus had to be redefined. Did they see a human or not, and what was the relationship between his divine and human selves? Was he (as the monophysites had it) “only one divine person”? How was he to be explained? In order to have an orthodox opinion of this matter, the Chalcedonian creed was of necessity, since there was no uniform opinion prior.

“As is well known, christology began quite modestly ‘from below’, from the perspective of the Jewish disciples of Jesus: not with lofty metaphysical speculations but with the questions ‘who is this?’ and ‘can any good come out of Nazareth?’ If we wanted to judge Christians of the pre-Nicene period after the event, in the light of the Council of Nicaea, then not only the Jewish Christians would be heretics but also almost all the Greek church fathers (at least in essence), since as a matter of course they taught a subordination of the ‘Son’ to the ‘Father’ which according to the later criterion of the definition of ‘sameness of substance’ (homoousia) was regarded by the Council of Nicaea as heretical. In the light of this we can hardly avoid the question: if one wants to make just the Council of Nicaea the criterion instead of the New Testament, was anyone at all orthodox in the early church of the first centuries?... [The exaltation of a human Messiah as Son of God] was suppressed by an incarnation christology beginning above (Logos christology), which ontologically intensified the lines of the Gospel of John or the individual statements about pre-existence and mediation at creation in the hymns in Colossians and Hebrews: the pre-existence and incarnation of the Son of God whose emptying and humiliation are the presupposition for his later exaltation to God. We can also say that in Old Testament terms, for the ‘ascending christology’, divine Sonship means an election and assumption as Son (exaltation, baptism, birth). It is now supplemented or even replaced by a ‘descending’ christology. For this christology, divine Sonship means an essential begetting of a higher kind-always to be described more precisely in Hellenistic terms and notions. Indeed, think of all that has been read into the New Testament a legitimated as apostolic!...Had people kept to the New Testament, they would have spared themselves the notorious difficulties which now arose over the relationship of the three persons ‘in’ God, all the speculations over the numbers one and three.”[6]

The idea of God present and dealing with the world through an anointed or appointed means is presented in passages such as:

Acts (10:38, 40, 42-43),

“God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the powerful holy spirit…God raised him on the third day and he was revealed. He commanded us to proclaim to the people and to confirm by our testimony that he is the one appointed by God as judge of those living and dead. All the prophets testify that forgiveness of sins is received through his name by all who believe in him.”

Acts 17:30-31

“…those epochs of ignorance God overlooked (for judgment). Now he [God] commands all men everywhere to repent, because he [God] has established a day in which he [God] is going to judge the world by a righteous standard, by the man [messiah] whom he [God] appointed. He [God] furnished everyone with trustworthy evidence for this coming event by raising him [messiah] from the dead.” 

Luke 1:67-70

“Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied: Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, because He has visited and provided redemption for His people. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David, just as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets in ancient times;”

Luke 7:16

“A sense of reverential awe swept over everyone, and they glorified God saying: ‘A great prophet has come on the scene among us’ and ‘God has visited his people.’”

These passages are just a few of the many that could be cited, where God has “visited”, “tabernacled”, “dwelt” or “come among” his people in and through Jesus the Messiah. The Messiah was filled with the “presence” of God (Isaiah 61:1, Matt 11:5, Luke 4: 18, 7:22). In the same way that God’s presence filled the tabernacle and the temples, it did not make the fabric tent and poles nor the blocks of stone “the God of Israel”. The tent and buildings were not God, rather God’s presence and glory filled and rested upon them. That is why the author of 1 Pe. 2:5-6 says,

“Moreover, you, yourselves[we us], as living stones are being constructed into a spiritual structure [temple], a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices suitable to God through Jesus Christ. Therefore, this text is included in Scripture: Observe this: I am positioning a stone in Zion, A select, first-rate keystone. And the one who believes in him will never be ashamed.”

This passage is about Jesus being the “chief cornerstone”. Paul states,

“God was in Christ [not was Christ] reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Cor. 5:19). 

To the Colossians it was said,

“Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elemental forces of the world, and not based on Christ. For in Him [Messiah] the entire fullness of God's nature dwells bodily…”

The spirit of God is the fullness of God. God is spirit. Anyone with whom the “spirit” of God dwells has the “fullness of God” (Col. 2:8-9).

It also needs to be remembered that the Hebrews are strict monotheists. They believe in one God as revealed in the ages past (as revealed to the Fathers and prophets - Luke 1:67). They adhere to the Sh’ma, as Jesus himself taught (Deut. 6:4, Mark 12:30), where there is no sense of a humanoid half-God-half-man figure present. There is no homoiousian, homoousios or hypostatic union taught anywhere in the Scriptures. If God incarnate glasses are worn, it is God incarnate that will be seen, even if it means distorting the text and context. If play-dough is shoved through a triangular tube, it will come out the other end triangular.

The starting point of any exegetical inquiry should begin with what the OT clearly reveals instead of making assumptions based on anachronistic readings of the NT. Not for reasons of one being inferior to the other, but on the grounds that the NT assumes its audience has a familiarity with the OT; the NT is built on the foundation laid in the OT, and therefore does not try and redefine its content, including the revelation of the God of Israel. It begins with the premise that its readers already believe in the God of Israel as defined by the Hebrew Scriptures and seeks to show why Jesus, Yeshua of Nazareth, the promised coming one is “he”. Professor Anthony Buzzard put it,

“There is not a word in the New Testament about any such revolutionary changes in the definition of God. There is nothing in the recorded ministry of Paul which points to a new definition of who the God of Israel and thus of Christians is. I am alarmed at the hostility encountered by anyone questioning the dogma of the triune God. Instead of the Protestant principle of free and independent inquiry, there reigns a frightening atmosphere of anger and indignation that anyone might suggest that Jesus was not a Trinitarian. Have we forgotten that our Savior was a Jew?”[7]

In many ways, “God is with us” is a good way to describe the whole story of the Scriptures. God is fixing this broken world, and is with his people to do so. Eden, a place where intimacy with God was known, has been inaugurated through the New Creation done in and through the Messiah, Jesus, although the eschatological fullness of restoration on a renewed earth has yet to take its final shape.

“God, you would say, has already begun that ultimate, final world of new creation; by baptism and faith you have left behind the old order of sin and death, and by God’s spirit within you, you have God’s own resurrection power to enable you, even in the present, to resist sin and live as a fully human being at last; you must therefore live, in the present, as far as possible like you will live in the future.”[8]

The statement of covenantal promise:

“I will be their God and they will be my people”[9]

is echoed in the final statement of Revelation,

“The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all” (Rev. 22:21).

Immanuel, God is still with and for his people. There is much hope, so live like it.

____________________________

End Notes:
[1] “the earliest and best manuscripts agree in introducing the passage with the words: ‘The beginning (γένεσις) [genesis] of Jesus Christ happened in this way’…Matthew began his Gospel by detailing the ‘book of the γένεσις’ [genesis, beginning] of Jesus Christ (i.e., his genealogical lineage; 1:1), making it somewhat more likely that he would here (v. 18) continue with a description of the γένεσις [genesis] itself. And so the majority of textual scholars agree that γέννησις [gennesis] represents a textual corruption, created perhaps out of deference to the following account of Jesus’ birth. At the same time, something more profound may be occurring here. Both γένεσις [genesis] and γέννησις [gennesis] can mean ‘birth,’ so that either one could be appropriate in the context. But unlike the corrupted reading, γένεσις [genesis] can also mean ‘creation,’ ‘beginning,’ and ‘origination.’ When one now asks why scribes might take umbrage at Matthew’s description of the ‘genesis’ of Jesus Christ, the answer immediately suggests itself: the original text could well be taken to imply that this is the moment in which Jesus Christ comes into being. In point of fact, there is nothing in Matthew’s narrative, either here or elsewhere throughout the Gospel, to suggest that he knew or subscribed to the notion that Christ had existed prior to his birth.” Bart D.Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 2011), 88-89.

[2] N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, (Fortress Press, 2003), 24.
[3] N.T. Wright, Who was Jesus (William B Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1992), 79.
[4] John Hick, The Metaphor of God Incarnate: Christology in a Pluralistic Age, 2nd ed. (Westminster: John Knox Press, 2006), 9f.

[5] Ibid.,10
[6] Hans Küng, Christianity: Essence, History, and Future (Continuum Publishing Co., 1994), 103, 173.
[7] Anthony F. Buzzard, Jesus Was Not a Trinitarian, A Call to return to the Creed of Jesus (Morrow, GA.: Restoration Fellowship, 2007), 9.

[8] N.T. Wright, Surprised by Scripture, Engaging Contemporary Issues (HarperOne, 2014), 95.
[9] Gen. 17:8; Jer. 24:7; 31:1, 33; 32:38; Ezek. 37:23, 27; Zec. 8:8.

Immanuel - Our God is With Us - Part VI - A Biblical Truth, Not Abstract Metaphysics

This is the sixth installment of a series on Isaiah 7:14. 

“Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.” Isaiah 7:14 (Cf. Matt 1:23)

With everything already examined in mind, a closer look at name and Immanuel is in order. It is of great importance to note that in the world of the Hebrews, name denotes reputation, what an individual represents. Author, writer and teacher Skip Moen summarized it this way:

“Names have power. Names designate essence. ‘In the name of’ carries the same authority as though the one named spoke the words. In this case, the divine name is a summary of the divine being. Therefore, when John says our sins are forgiven through His name, he does not mean that the phonetic expression of the name is some magical formula. He means that the name implies the full personality behind it. We are forgiven because of whom Yeshua is, not because His name is pronounced in a certain way. This is essentially the same idea that is contained in the use of YHWH as a name in the Tanakh. The divine name is who YHWH is. It is not just a collection of arbitrary consonants.”[1]

God being “with” his people is also an important element to stress. The way that God is with his people varies. When Isaiah spoke to Ahaz,

“Devise a plan, but it will be thwarted; State a proposal, but it will not stand, For God is with us” (Isa. 8:10)

he was quoting a phrase with which the Hebrews were already well acquainted. He was reminding the present generation in their current distress that God was with his people. The statement was an affirmation that God was for his people in the present and provided hope for the future. For example, starting with Abraham:

“God is with you [Abraham] in all that you do” (21:22); 

“Sojourn in this land and I will be with you [Isaac]...Do not fear, for I am with you, I will bless you” (Gen. 26:3, 24);

“I am with you [Jacob] and will keep you wherever you go…return to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you” (28:15; 31:3);

“The LORD was with Joseph.... The LORD was with him…God will be with you” (39:2, 21, 23; 48:21);

“I will be with you [Moses]…God will be with you…My Presence shall go with you” (Exo. 3:12; 18:19; 33:14);

“Just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you [Joshua]” (Jos. 1:5);

“Thus Samuel grew and the LORD was with him” (1 Sam. 3:19);

“I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite…the LORD is with him [David]…Saul was afraid of David, for the LORD was with him…David became greater and greater, for the LORD God of hosts was with him” (1 Sam 16:18; 18:12; 2 Sam 5:10).

Even to the whole of Israel God is said to be “with you”:

‘‘These forty years the LORD your God has been with you; you have not lacked a thing’” Deut. 2:7; 

"May the LORD our God be with us, as he was with our fathers; may he not leave us or forsake us” (1 Kings 8:57, said by Solomon);

"The LORD of hosts is with us; The God of Jacob is our stronghold.” Psa. 46:7

Even in the pages of the NT we find the reaffirmation of the model portrayed in the Hebrew Scriptures:

“Rabbi, we know that ... no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him” (John 3:2);

“He who sent me is with me” (8:29);

“I am not alone because the Father is with me.” (16:23)

Just because extensive details are not given relating to a child by the name Immanuel, does not mean it didn’t happen (cf. 8:8-10). The obvious must also be pointed out, that Jesus’ name was not Immanuel (in English prose), nor was his name (in English understanding) wonderful, counselor or the above, rather, his name is Yeshua. This does not mean that who he was did not signify the same promise of salvation that the original “Immanuel” sign did. Those things have to do with character and depictions of a certain reality.

It has been traditionally argued that because the Matthean author quotes Isaiah 7 in the infancy narrative, 

“Immanuel, which translated means, ‘God with us’”

he must intend to hint at the incarnation, meaning this Jesus is God in the flesh. Catholic priest, scholar and theologian Hans Küng raises the question:

“Do Christian theologians do justice to the Hebrew Bible when they heighten the divine inspiration of the Bible and regard it as a book of deep Christian mysteries which they attempt to unveil with the help of the allegorical, symbolic method, so that they even think that they can discover a Trinity of Father, Son and Spirit in the ‘Old Testament’”?[2]

In this case (at the time of Isaiah), the reality is that their enemies were closing in, God was there in their trouble, Ahaz rejected it with an appearance of godliness. Can we see any similarities to Jesus’ day?[3]

Names can play a substantial role in perpetuating misunderstanding or enlightening their character. In the scriptures, many names contain the simple ancient Semitic world for God, el. For example: Israel (Yisra-El) means contender with God (El).

Of course Immanuel (Immanu El) means, “with us is our God.”
Elijah’s (El Yah) name literally means “Yahweh is God” but nobody says the prophet was really Yahweh.
Ezekiel (Yehezki El) means “strengthened by God.”
Bithiah means “daughter of Yahweh” but nobody argues that she must be the sister of Jesus (1 Chron. 4:18, KJV).
Eliab’s name means “my God is my Father” no one argues that Eliab is the Messiah.
Joel’s (Yo El) name means “Yahweh God” and Elihu means “my God himself.”
Eli means “my God.”
Ithiel means “God is with me”, and no one is contending on these premises that he is God manifested in the flesh.

That a name contains Yah(weh) or el, does not indicate divinity, rather aspects of God’s character being revealed or working through that individual.

“Israelite prophets could give names to individuals in accord with a specific message that they were trying to communicate. In the same way that Hosea named his three children to correspond with his message, so Isaiah noted, ‘I and the children whom Yahweh has given me are for signs’: Shear-jashub, meaning ‘a remnant will return’; Maher-shalal-hash-baz, meaning ‘swift is the booty, speedy is the prey’; and Immanuel, meaning ‘God is with us.’”[4]

God was with his people in and through the Messiah. Even the last verse in Matthew (the book which begins alluding to God being with his people via a child of promise) verifies this understanding with a literary recapitulation,

“I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (28:20).

Matthew’s message was, “even as God was with our fathers, so he will be with us.” Isaiah did not make a “virgin birth” the emphasis of any narrative, but rather on the sign of the birth of a child. The sign of Immanuel meant that God was once again with his people to bring salvation.

Reverend Moses Stuart wrote in a letter defending the doctrine of Jesus’ deity:

“To maintain that the name Immanuel proves the doctrine in question [incarnation, deity of Jesus] is a fallacious argument; although many Trinitarians have urged it. Jerusalem is called ‘Jehovah our Righteousness.’ Is Jerusalem therefore divine?”[5]

After Ahaz, Hezekiah (Ahaz’ son, king of Judah), found himself in a similar situation as his father. In 2 Chronicles it states,

“Be strong and courageous, do not fear or be dismayed because of the king of Assyria nor because of all the horde that is with him; for the one with us is greater than the one with him. With him is only an arm of flesh, but with us is the LORD our God [immanu YHWH eloheinu] to help us and to fight our battles.” (2 Chron. 32:7-8; cf. 1 John 4:4).

____________________________

End Notes:

[1] Skip Moen, “The First Letter of John in Light of Revelation 13:8,” Hebrew Word Study – Skip Moen, www.skipmoen.com: http://skipmoen.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/john-1-revelation-13.pdf (Dec, 11, 2013), 4.

[2] Hans Küng, Christianity: Essence, History, and Future, (Continuum Publishing Co., 1994), 168.
[3] It is prudent to remember the fact that the Gospel narratives were written long after the fact, and are reflections of an earlier time.
[4] Bruce Metzger, The Oxford Guide to People & Places of the Bible (Oxford University Press, 2001), 107.
[5] Moses Stuart, Letters to the Rev. WM. E. Channing, 3rd ed. (Flag and Gould, 1819), 115.

The next segment will examine the doctrinal developments that gave rise to Orthodox Incarnation Theology.