"Jesus is God" Denies that Jesus is the Christ
Listen to this teaching on the One God Report podcast episode #108, or here on YouTube.
When I
first came to understand that the man, the human person Jesus of Nazareth, is
God’s Christ (the Messiah המשיח),
the human Son of God, quite a few of my former Trinitarian and deity-of-Christ-believing
friends accused me of “denying Christ”.
Here I
was confessing and proclaiming that Jesus is the Christ, yet many people were
saying I was denying Christ!
I understand
what they were thinking, since I probably would have thought something similar
10 years ago. To the Trinitarian, or deity of Christ believer, to “deny Christ”
can mean several things, but chief among those things is to “deny” that Jesus
is literally God; more specifically, to deny that Jesus is one member of a tripersonal
god who became human. So, in a sense, they were right. I was denying that.[1]
But is
that what the New Testament means by “denying Christ”? There are several New
Testament scriptures that speak of “denying” Christ (Matt. 10:32-33, 2 Tim.
2:12, Jude 4, 1 John 2:22). The verse I would like to focus on is 1 John 2:22,
which states: “Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ?”.
Now let’s
read closely. This Scripture does NOT say that the liar is the one who denies
that Jesus is:
- God
- a God-Man
- co-eternal (“pre-existing”) and co-equal to
the God the Father
- of the same substance as God, the Father.
- One person of a trinity in a godhead.
- God who took on human flesh.
All these
claims are human inventions – not what the Scripture says – wrong interpretations. We need to be careful not to twist or distort
the Scriptures and insist they say something which they do not say.
What did
the author of 1 John mean when he said the liar is the one who “denies that
Jesus is the Christ?”[2]
“Jesus”
is the name of the human person, the human being, born in Bethlehem. “Jesus” is
not the name of an eternally existent deity (Matt. 1:25, Luke 2:21). We don’t
learn anywhere in the Hebrew scriptures of a 2nd divine god figure
called Jesus. In fact, the one God of the Hebrew scriptures is YHVH.
This
human Jesus is the Christ (Messiah). Many people seem to think
that “Christ” is a title for deity. It most definitely is not. “Christ/Messiah”
is never, never, ever deity or God Himself in the Bible.
“Christ”
(Hebrew, משיח Messiah) means “anointed”, in the Bible, anointed by
God. God anointed Jesus. The Anointer (God) is not the Anointed (the human
person, Jesus).
So, I discovered
that biblically, to “deny Christ” is something very different from what mainstream Christianity claims. I discovered that biblically
to “deny Christ” means that someone denies that the human person, Jesus of
Nazareth, is the Christ. And even more: I suggest that belief in the “incarnation”
- that “Jesus is God in human flesh” – that belief is a denial
that “Jesus is the Christ.”
Why? Because
the deity of Christ claim is a denial that the human person, the human being,
Jesus of Nazareth, is the Christ. The deity of Christ believer denies
that the human person Jesus who came to be in the womb of Mary is the Christ. Instead, to mainstream Christianity, no
human person Jesus came into being at that conception or at any other time;
rather, the eternal 2nd person of the godhead, God the
Son, a non-human being, somehow infused himself into the fleshy body that was conceived
and grew in Mary’s womb.
Since Trinitarian theologians claim that the
person “God the Son took on humanity”, then Jesus was never was a human person.
Otherwise, Jesus would be two persons: one eternal divine person and one human
person who had a beginning in the womb of Mary.
True,
most Trinitarian, deity of Christ believers don’t think about this or realize
this. They’ve never been taught or thought through the implications of what “incarnation”
teaching really means. But it needs to be thought through. Like the apostle Peter
claimed, we don’t want to be following cleverly devised myths (2 Pet. 1:16).
Here
are a couple ways that I think help people understand that the incarnation doctrine
(that “God took on flesh”) is an attempt to eliminate the human person, Jesus
of Nazareth.
1.
Can the man Christ Jesus function
independently of an incarnated deity just like you, I and all humans do? If the man Christ Jesus is not able to
function independent of an incarnated deity, what is he missing that you, I and
all men have? If indeed he is missing something that you, I and all men have,
he is obviously not fully man...[3]
In
other words, if the deity, the god-person is removed from Jesus, what is left?
There would remain only person-less flesh. A sort of limp lump of a person-less
human body. That person-less body is certainly not “fully human” or “truly human”.
2. How many persons were in the triune godhead
before Jesus became “incarnated”. Answer: 3
How
many persons are in the triune godhead after the incarnation? Answer:
3
So, no
new person, no human person, came into being at the incarnation. No human person
came into being and became a member of the triune God. Otherwise, there would
be four persons in the triune god, and god wouldn’t be a trinity anymore.
They would be three divine persons, and one human person.
Instead,
according to deity of Christ belief, a previously existing, eternally existing “god
person” infused himself into human flesh. If, as the incarnation doctrine must
insist, no human person came into being at the flesh conception (or any other
time), there never was a human person, Jesus of Nazareth – only human flesh
that a god person came into.
Therefore,
the deity of Christ belief, the doctrine of the incarnation, is a denial that
Jesus is the Christ. The deity of Christ incarnation belief is a denial that
the human person, Jesus of Nazareth, is the Christ, because that human person NEVER
EXISTED.
This is
the spirit of antichrist, a denial that the human person Jesus is the Christ.
What seems
to actually be going on is that mainstream Christianity is guilty of the very
thing they accuse people like me of! Mainstream Christianity accuses people who
believe that the human person Jesus is the Christ - of denying Christ! But in fact,
it is the doctrine of the incarnation which denies that the human person Jesus
is the Christ.
Some
Psychological and Sociological aspects to accusing those who believe that Jesus
is the Christ of “denying Christ”
First of
all, the “deity of Christ” accusation is a type of hypocrisy – doing something
which you accuse someone else of doing (even though in this case the someone
else isn’t doing it!).
The accusation
is a kind of “cancellation” by spreading a lie. People who believe in the
incarnation of god into man tend not to be interested in having healthy, civil
discussions about the issues. Sure, they may have a verse or two they think
claim that Jesus is literally God. But they really aren’t interested in understanding
the problems with their interpretations and better ways those few verses are
understood.
People
who believe in the incarnation of God tend to want to stifle and end
conversation with name-calling labels. In the political and social world today,
calling someone a “facist” or a “racist” is a way to cancel another viewpoint
and end conversation. In the religious world people accuse someone of “denying Christ”,
of being a “heretic” or being part of a “cult.” “Don’t pay any attention to
that person – he’s a heretic.”
There is
a certain kind of insecurity in the deity of Christ world that needs to stifle honest
questioning or different opinions. Often fear and intimidation is used as a tool
to manipulate others. Fear of social isolation or fear of eternal damnation.
The
Trinitarian name calling, “they deny Christ!” is also a kind of deflection – a known
tactic in the social-political world: "accuse enemies of exactly what you are
doing". The politician who has taken bribes accuses his opponent of taking
bribes to deflect attention from himself.
"Accuse
your enemies of that which you are guilty”: a nation accuses another of
starting a war when in reality the first nation started the war.
Is
there a man, a human person at God’s right hand, or not
Let’s ask
Trinitarian, deity of Christ believers this question. I’ll ask it in various ways for clarification:
Do have a problem
with God exalting a human person, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, to His (God’s)
right hand? Do you deny that the human person, the human being,
Jesus of Nazareth came into being, was born, lived, was put to death, was raised
from the dead by God and exalted to God’s right hand? Are you ashamed of the human
person, Jesus of Nazareth? Do you think who this human person is and what this
human person did is not sufficient to be the one mediator between God and man? Again,
is there an exalted, glorified human person at the right hand of God? Do you
have a problem with that?
#deityofchrist,
#trinity, #biblicalunitarian, #billschlegel, #denyingchrist, #antichrist
Listen on podcast: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/CfQf3W7GwDb
Or on YouTube: https://youtu.be/mQMBh-Hhiw4
Scriptures
1 John
2:22-23
Who is
the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the
antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. 23 No one who
denies the Son has the Father; everyone who confesses the Son has the Father
also.
Note 1
John 3:2, my concern for Trinitarians: Are they part of the world that does not
recognize the children of God? The children of God are those who believe that
Jesus is the Christ (1 John 5:1). The implication is that for those who don’t
recognize the children of God: “they did not know Him (God).”
1 John
4:2-3, “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that
Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not
confess Jesus is not from God. And this is the spirit of the antichrist, of
which you have heard that it is coming; and now it is already in the world.”
2 John
7, “Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess that
Jesus Christ has come in the flesh; any such person is the deceiver and the
antichrist.”
1 John
5:1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and
everyone who loves the parent loves the child.
Jude
1:4, “…who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only
Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”
Matt. 10:32-33, “Everyone therefore who acknowledges
me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but
whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.”
2 Tim.
2:12, “…if we deny him, he will also deny us…”
[1] Ryrie
study Bible commenting on 1 John 2:18-22: “The ones of whom John was speaking…denied
the reality of the incarnation of Christ, and his relationship to the Father…The
supreme liar is the one who denies that Jesus Christ came in the flesh, that
is, that he was both man and God.”
Bethel Church of God, https://www.bethelcog.org/to-deny-christ-what-does-it-mean/
“Christ, the Son of God, appeared on this Earth as a physical human being….Prior
to His human birth, Christ was the God of the Old Testament”
Sam Storms, https://www.samstorms.org/all-articles/post/2-timothy-2:11-13:-can-a-true-believer-deny-jesus
“Make no mistake about it: to deny Jesus, to repudiate
him, to declare that he is not the Son of God incarnate…”
[3] Greg
Logan comments on Jesus Christ is not a Human Person. https://landandbible.blogspot.com/2020/08/jesus-christ-is-not-human-person.html
Comments
Isaiah 9:6 is describing the birth, according to the promise of God to David, of a king of Judah, a descendant of David, probably Hezekiah (who yes, is a type of the ultimate king of Judah and all Israel, Jesus).
“Mighty God” and “Everlasting Father” are “theophoric names”, “God carrying” names, given to human beings. Every name in Hebrew given to a human means something. With “God carrying or bearing” names, the name is given to a human being to declare a truth about who God is or what God’s relationship is to us. The names are not a declaration of the essence of the human person who has the name. Take for instance the name Jehu, the King of Israel that Elisha anointed, and who wiped out the worship of Baal from the Northern Kingdom. Jehu’s name means “He is Yahweh!”. No, Jehu was not Yahweh incarnate, but his name declared that Yahweh was God and that Yahweh was acting through the man Jehu to wipe out Baalism from Israel.
The name “Mighty God” can be understood and translated with the present tense form of be, “is”: “God is mighty”. “God is Mighty” El Gibbor, does not mean that the person bearing the name is Mighty God, but that God is mighty. The God of Israel showed himself to be mighty in the days of the Prophet Isaiah and the Davidic King Hezekiah. In one night, the God of Israel decimated the mighty Assyrian empire’s army. Assyria was attacking Judah. But one morning the Judeans woke up and the mighty Assyrian army “were all dead bodies” (Isaiah 37:36). Indeed, Hezekiah’s God is a Mighty God.
This is why the child to be born was also called “Everlasting Father”. The name “Everlasting Father” alone shows the Trinitarian appeal to this verse is wrong. If you want to say that Jesus is a “Mighty God” from Isaiah 9:6, then Jesus is the Everlasting Father. But the truth is that the name, Everlasting Father, is given to a human being as a reminder that our God, the one true God, is Father to us. He cares for us and has our well being in mind, forever. By the way, I personally know a couple people named “Everlasting Father” (Aviad). None of them think they are God Almighty. But their name declares a truth about God. Also by the way, I personally know about five Immanuels. None of them think they are God incarnate.
These names in Isaiah 9:6 had application to a person born in the days of Isaiah the prophet, otherwise Isaiah the prophet was a liar. We must interpret the Scriptures in their historical grammatical context. Most likely these theophoric names have reference to King Hezekiah of the House of David. In Hezekiah’s days Yahweh proved Himself to be a Wonderful Counselor, a Mighty God, and an Everlasting Father.
No one in the New Testament appeals to Isaiah 9:6 to prove the "deity of Christ". Does your friend no more than Jesus and the apostles?
For more information, see about 1/2 to 2/3 the way down in this article. The whole article is applicable.
https://landandbible.blogspot.com/2021/12/finding-evidence-for-deity-of-christ-in.html
Or, you can hear the audio on One God Report Podcast #60, 61. 62.
-Kris
Obviously not all uses of the word lord refer to the Tetragrammaton. But in cases such as when Christ said not all who come to me saying lord lord will enter the kingdom of heaven. The grammar is awkward as written yet is reminiscent of the old testament saying lord LORD, or in Hebrew Adonai YHWH.
We also see similarities in Jesus’ “I am” statement and YHWH’s “I am” statements in the Old Testament. The writers of the new testament illustrate this purposefully to testify that Christ is he, the great I Am, YHWH.
•Isaiah 33: 22 For YHWH is our judge, YHWH is our lawgiver, YHWH is our king; he will save us.
YHWH is judge and king yet here you are giving those titles to someone you claim is merely a man.
•Jeremiah 17: 10 I YHWH search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.
•Mathew 16: 27 For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.
•John 5: 22 For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son:
Revelation 22: 12 And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.
•Revelation 2: 23 …and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.
Here we see in Jeremiah it is YHWH who judges man, searching their hearts and giving to them according to their works. Yet in the new testament we see Jesus himself says the father judges no man, yet Christ does.
•Isaiah 43: 11 I, even I, am YHWH; and beside me there is no saviour
Here YHWH says he alone is our savior. How come the New Testament writers attributed that title to Jesus?
•Isaiah 9: 6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, THE MIGHTY GOD, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
Isaiah wrote the messiah would be the mighty God (El Gibor) a title reserved specifically for YHWH as we see in Isaiah 10:21
•Isaiah 62: 5 For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.
•Isaiah 54: 5 For thy Maker is thine husband; YHWH of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.
Here in Isaiah we see YHWH is the bridegroom yet if we look at the new testament…
•Mark 2: 19 And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? as long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.
20 But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days.
•Revelation 19:7 Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.
Here in the new testament we see Christ is the bridegroom.
I could go on forever but I think the point has been made. The writers of the new testament testified that Christ is YHWH in a million different ways. The Jews charged Jesus with blasphemy precisely because he claimed to be God. Either Christ is who he said he is, or you’re right and he’s not. Yet the resurrection proves otherwise. Jesus Christ IS YHWH God in the flesh!!!
Mathew 4:14-16 references Isaiah 9. Mathew undoubtedly held to the belief the child prophesied was Jesus.