Can we Trust The Trinity?

Well welcome along to another edition of Unbelievable here on Premier Christian Radio. I hope your

Saturday afternoon is treating you well and whether you're listening live or via the internet you're welcome along to this and we're really pleased to have back with us in the studio

James White. He was with us last week. I'll introduce him in a moment's time. If you want to get in touch with the programme though I'm going to be giving you details of how to do that.

Plenty of people get in touch every week by email and phone and I'm sure you're going to be interested in the topic we're bringing you today and the guest who's going to be speaking by phone from America.

Let me introduce you to them here on Unbelievable. Today we're looking at the

Trinity. We're asking can we trust the Trinity and the guest from America in a sort of strange twisted way is actually

English and my guest in the studio is American. Sir Anthony Buzzard joins us on the line from the

US of the Restoration Fellowship. He's going to be telling us why he came to doubt the doctrine of the

Trinity and why he's written several books against it and we're going to be hearing a response from Christian James White who's going to be explaining why he believes we can trust wholeheartedly in the doctrine of the

Trinity as revealed in scripture and well we'll just see where the discussion goes as we usually do here on the programme.

So do hope you can stay with me right through till four o 'clock this afternoon. Well James White joins us again.

He's on a little sojourn over here in the UK taking in some of the sites and doing some debates and he's very kindly agreed to come back and do this debate with us after his encounter last week with Adnan Rashid but let me first of all

I think introduce Anthony who's new to this programme. Sir Anthony Buzzard I should say.

Anthony tell us how did you how did you acquire your title? I'd love to know that. That's easy.

That's an inherited title. It's the lowest form of inherited title. One stage above the title knight.

The knighthood you know which dies with you. My grandfather was positioned King George V and VI and then my father was

Director of Naval Intelligence. Didn't get the title for that but inherited it from his father and then I got it as the eldest son.

So it's an interesting conversation point in America. I'm sure it is. Tell me though how do you end up in the

States? Well maybe start from the beginning. Have you always held the view that you have that you don't believe in the

Trinity or were you at one time a believer in a Trinitarian view of scripture and came to change that view?

Jason that's very easy. I'm a CV boy and you will relate to this more easily than some of American friends that in the

CV we didn't do the Bible so to speak. We sang hymns and listened to sermons and as we know many

Englishmen only go to church to be hatched matched and dispatched. That was me until I was taken to the

University of Oxford Christ Church in 1957 and up there on a language scholarship.

Language is a thing I did better much better than other subjects. Not very good at history or math or anything like that and so I was given a

Bible and I was then invited to quote get saved and I thought that's interesting and I went and got saved and I went back to my room there and thought what have

I done and that then launched I suppose a 50 -year career about now studying the

Bible very badly initially I think made horrible mistakes but through some promptings from two areas

I may just be brief here. The scholarly world in the 1980s when I began to look at this whole issue actually earlier than that 1970

J .T. Robinson and all those guys at Cambridge were talking about the very subject we're debating today we're discussing today.

At the same time the Christadelphians were at my door saying that I should not believe that the Son of God pre -existed which

I thought was ludicrous I mean I was up in arms I had all my proof texts ready. However after some discussion with them and looking at what

Jeffrey Lamp was doing at Cambridge and many others and trying to read the history of this thing in German and French and so on it seemed to me that the

Unitarians, may I call them the Unitary Monotheists had a good case and that's how

I got launched. Right and you now represent something called the Restoration Fellowship in Georgia.

Tell us a little bit about that particular community. Thank you for that. The Restoration Fellowship is really the

British wing of the Church of God Abrahamic Faith from the 1850s. These were people who picked up their

Bibles in the 1850s and were part of the Adventist revival not Seventh Day I hasten to add and so my second and perhaps major greater interest is in eschatology and the second coming and all those things.

So they kindly allowed me to go and work for them then I went and got a Master's in Theology at Bethany Seminary which is a

Church of the Brethren not not linked to the Church of God Abrahamic Faith. So this as you know has a long tradition not only since 1850 but it's a great mistake to imagine that anti -non -Unitarians pop out of the blue you know and sort of suddenly get a new idea.

This is a huge subject but much of the literature has been buried obviously. Well we'll get into the literature in the course of the program today and thank you for joining us by phone at an early hour of the morning there in the

States and well we'll hear more and James White returns.

James thank you for coming back and speaking into this issue this is something that you've done a lot of debates in fact the last time we had you in the studio in in 08 you would we were talking about the

Trinity but with a Muslim. Where do you come from on this because very often when this subject comes up you know that people are saying well the

Trinity well the word doesn't even appear first of all in Scripture and secondly it's one of those if you like add -ons it was something that was formulated later it was it arrived late on the scene it was something that kind of the

Church invented more or less and you won't find it directly there in Scripture.

What's your general approach to responding to those kinds of criticisms? Well I believe in the

Trinity because I believe in all of what Scripture says and if I apply the same kind of hermeneutics and exegesis that I do to for example the crucifixion, the resurrection, the nature of the

Church, creation, whatever it might be, I am forced to recognize that the

Scriptures teach there is only one true and eternal God creator of all things but then I'm introduced to three distinct persons.

The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, the Spirit is not the Father. They use personal pronouns of one another when

Jesus prays in John 17 5. He's praying to the Father saying glorify me

Father together with you with the glory which I had with you before the world began. You don't use those types of words if we're not talking about persons.

And then finally we have the the texts that present the equality of these persons not in the sense of doing the same thing.

It's clear the Spirit does not do the same thing the Son does. The Son does not do the same things the Father does.

And yet the one name Yahweh is used of the Father. Jesus is identified as Yahweh a number of times in the

New Testament especially in Hebrews chapter 1 verses 10 to 12. And so you are forced by the weight of consistent exegesis to deal with all of these things.

And any group, you know, I started off dealing with Mormonism primarily as a young man.

That was the first group that I dealt with and so my focus there was upon the monotheism passages because Mormonism is probably the most polytheistic religion

I've ever encountered. Many Mormons defying the concept of an unlimited infinite number of gods. And then

I moved on to Jehovah's Witnesses from along with that. And so there you're dealing with the deity of Christ, things like that.

And then since then, you know, Islam, so on and so forth. So I've encountered a wide variety of arguments.

And interestingly enough, first of Sir Anthony in a debate that he did with Shabir Ali, I found it to be just a fascinating thing to listen to because there really wasn't a whole lot to debate because there was so much agreement as far as, well,

Jesus is a man and we agree that he's not God. And so it's interesting to listen to that encounter a number of years ago.

I don't know when it was recorded, but that was my first exposure to Anthony Buzzard's position.

And since then, of course, knowing that I was coming over here and when you raised the opportunity, I've been listening to everything

I can get my hands on and the books and so on and so forth so that we can have a meaningful discussion.

Now you have produced a number of books, Anthony, and one of them has an interesting subtitle,

The Doctrine of the Trinity, Christianity's Self -Inflicted Wound. You see this as something that has really damaged

Christianity, the Doctrine of the Trinity? I think to use Bishop Enti's good phrase, it's a grand muddle.

It's called a mystery. I would call it a muddle. I don't think we need it. I think we can explain the New Testament happily with a unitarian, unitary,

I should say, monotheistic point of view. Jesus was a Jew, recited the Shema, agreed with the Jew. I don't see any need for Trinity.

But of course, there's a huge overlap with what James White has just said. I also believe that in looking at Jesus, you're seeing

God. If you've seen me, you've heard me and so on, you've seen and heard God. But may I coin,

I mean, I use this word, it actually is an American and a British word, it's an agentival relationship.

And when that's confused with an ontological relationship, then all the trouble begins. James Dunn is doing this material extremely well for us currently, when he says that if we just stuck with the incarnation of God, rather than the incarnation of the

Son of God, then all would be clearer. So the identification of Jesus as Yahweh, I think, needs to be modified in the sense that he isn't

Yahweh as one to one, that makes two Yahwehs. But he is Yahweh as agent, as reflecting

Yahweh in a unique sense. So you would say that we need to be careful that the

Bible is talking about Jesus as the reflection of God rather than the same person as God?

Absolutely. Yeah. Can I just add this to James's good point about the personal pronouns? If you look at the history of this

Unitarian view, and it's nothing to do, by the way, with Unitarian Universalism, we need to make that quite clear, nothing at all to do with that.

But if you look at this view, you will see that they found the singular personal pronouns most convincing.

And I love the way James White argued in his book, which I have in front of me here, against the modalists, and he said, clearly the

Son is not the same person as the Father. I totally agree with that. But having said that, I do think that God, the

Father, speaks of himself as an I, in the Boston street man's sense of personal pronoun.

One singular person, just thousands and thousands of times. That convinces Judaism that God is a single person.

So I'm rather agreeing with James White on the importance of the singular pronouns there. James, what do you make of Anthony's suggestion here that Jesus shouldn't be seen as the incarnation of the

Son of God, but rather the incarnation of God, meaning in some sense, Jesus reflects in a unique way, the attributes of Yahweh.

This would, though, place Jesus in purely human terms, but who had a particular special relationship, spiritual nature, compared to other human beings.

Well, and that's why it's just not enough. It just doesn't go far enough. Anyone can say that Jesus as a man greatly reflects the very glory of God and so on and so forth.

But the New Testament goes far beyond that. And that's what caused so much of the conflict with the

Jews. You wouldn't have the conflict that you have in the Gospel of John with the

Jews, if this was all that Jesus was claiming for himself. But when he says to the

Jews, unless you believe that ego I am me, you will die in your sins, and then says before Abraham was,

I am. And then when he says I am to the soldiers, they fall back upon the ground and the garden.

And he quotes from Isaiah 43 .10 and John 13 .19, I am. That goes far beyond merely representing agentively

God. That's not just simply a perfect man. That's not the description that is given of Jesus in so many texts, key texts, the

Carmen Christi in Philippians 2, 5 through 11, or Paul's argument against the Proto -Gnostics in Colossians. They go far beyond that.

And so Sicinianism gives us a rationalistic Jesus, a Jesus who's a perfect man.

But it's not a New Testament Jesus. The key texts that identify him as God, Titus 2 .13,

2 Peter 1 .1, are left out, or are redefined in a way that really,

I feel, takes a tremendous amount of - Give us those texts, and we'll have Anthony respond to them. Well, Titus 2 .13,

where there Paul is talking about Jesus, and he's talking about the coming of Christ.

And he's only talking about one individual in this context. And it's interesting to me. He uses, in verses 13 and 14, language specifically that Jehovah is described as the

Redeemer of his people in the Old Testament. And it says, we are looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great

God and Savior, Christ Jesus. This is what's called a Granville Sharp construction, the original language. And I tried to look, and Jesus was not a

Trinitarian, the book, for explanation. And all I got was, well, maybe the King James version was right here.

The Granville Sharp construction was formulated after the King James was translated between 1604 and 1611. Granville Sharp did not live until the end of the 17th century, 18th century.

So the point is that both God and Savior are referring to one person, and there's only one person mentioned in this text, who gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed.

So that's just one of many texts where Jesus is described in a way that I don't think a

Shema -quoting Jew, and I agree, Jesus quoted the Shema. I believe in the Shema.

I just recognize that since the New Testament applies that one name of Yahweh to the

Father and the Son, the Spirit is the Spirit of Yahweh, that there's more to the divine revelation than that kind of Unitarian monotheism.

You might want to pick up on that issue of the verse from Titus that James quoted there,

Antony, but ultimately James is saying you're not going far enough. And the

New Testament went far because they were reacting against something, those people who rejected Jesus. That's exactly right.

And the Unitarian monotheist says you're going too far. You've gone beyond the limits. You've broken the

Unitarian monotheistic Shema and the John 17 .3, where the Father is said to be om monos elikinos theos.

By the way, I'm using modern Greek pronunciation just for our listeners. That's the way we've chosen to teach it at Atlanta Bible College, so I'm not mispronouncing the

Greek words. But when you say you are the only one who is truly God, you're making a typically Jewish unitary monotheistic statement.

But back to the Titus passage, I would agree with Bultman and many others. There are only two passages, two applications of opheos,

God, to Jesus in the New Testament, which are certain. I had the chance of discussing the

Titus 2 .13 at length with Nigel Turner when he was alive, and if you look in the

Moulton Milligan grammar, you'll see that there's absolutely no certainty that you had to repeat the article in order to separate the two persons there.

It's not clear at all. It's ambiguous. Even Henry Alford, who's a stickler for the Trinity in very detail.

So I'm simply not convinced that Jesus is called the great God and Savior there. But, of course,

I agree with James. He makes a very good point when he points out that the Yahweh texts are applied to Jesus in the

New Testament. Of course they are, because he's representing Yahweh. What Yahweh does,

Jesus does. Yahweh's feet stand on the Mount of Olives. Yahweh is pierced in Zechariah, and rabbis said in the

Talmud, for example, that that's the Messiah being pierced. They didn't think that Yahweh himself could be pierced, but they recognized that what

Messiah did was being done in the name of Yahweh and as Yahweh. So we're back to that agentival representation sense, and I want to go as far as I possibly can with that, and not say that Jesus is just a man, or a mere man.

He's a sinless, virginally begotten man, reflecting God in a way that no prophet ever did, and yet he is still the prophet in whose mouth

God has placed his words. So it's a balance. I mean, the key thing here, surely then, is that you ascribe a lot to Jesus, and enough that you think would have made him, as it were, rejected in the eyes of those early

Jews and Pharisees, but you don't ascribe to him pre -existence.

You don't put it on that level, that he was pre -existent with God, because obviously there are passages which

I'm sure James and others would know, the Philippians one is perhaps a classic, you know, that Jesus, being in very nature

God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. I mean, those kinds of passages, what do you say of those?

In what sense are they agentival? This is a completely new term to me. I discovered it the other day.

Thank you for using agentival, I suppose. It's a good word, in a way. I think we need to get it on the table.

But is it my turn again? Just to clarify what we do with those passages. Well, first of all, let me tell you that Luther, for example, does not find pre -existence in Philippians 2.

Secondly, your reading of the NIV there is pushing the language. It doesn't say anything about being in very nature

God, being in the form of God. There's a vast literature contradicting the idea that any pre -existence is there, including, of course,

James Dunn, Colin Brown, and a huge literature, as I discovered. It doesn't make it right, by the way, and it's a minority literature, but I simply don't think that Paul is talking about a pre -existing son there.

He's saying, look at the man Messiah, Jesus, and copy him. It's a bit vague to say, well, imagine being billions of years old or from eternity, and now decide to become a man.

Now you do that. Much better to say, look at the historical Messiah and copy his lifestyle.

Two things. I would direct folks to more modern work on the Granville Sharp construction, specifically the work of Dr.

Daniel Wallace. His doctoral dissertation on all possible Granville Sharp constructions in the

New Testament was published just recently. I think Brill did it, so that means it's outrageously expensive, ridiculously expensive, in fact, but it may be out there.

It was an academic publisher, but I would refer folks that it is not ambiguous. In Bible college, I studied every possible

Granville Sharp construction in both Peter and Paul and getting Granville Sharp's original work, and so I would very strongly challenge that on a grammatical basis.

But as to Philippians 2, Luther didn't see this, and Lutherans to this day apply this to the ministry of Jesus, but exegetically.

It's interesting. I've heard Sir Anthony give the argument he just gave as to what this whole text is talking about, and I would like to point out that what

Paul is doing here is he's saying to the Christians after verses 1 through 4, saying that they have to view one another with humility of mind.

Topanas of frune is what he uses, humility of mind. What does that mean? Having certain rights, laying them aside in service to others.

Don't always be looking to your own things. Look to the service of other people. That's the key to peace in the local church.

Then he says, have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus. And so that becomes the key contextual way of interpreting the

Carmen Christi. Well, what would it be—what would illustrate humility? To be a creature who does not try to grasp at equality with God?

Is that humility? No, actually. I think we might know something about a creature who tried to grasp at equality with God in the

Old Testament called Satan. That's not humility. That's just not doing blasphemy.

But what if you are, as I believe the verse is correctly translated, eternally existing in the very morphe, teutheu, form of God?

He's going to be made—later it's going to talk about having the form of a bondservant. That's his true nature, and that's why the

NIV renders it in that way. If you exist eternally in the very form of God, but did not consider that position, that equality you had with God, something to be held on to at all costs, but voluntarily for the service of others laid that aside, is that not the greatest example of humility that Christians could ever be called to emulate?

Having equality with the Father, laying that equality aside, and as a result of that, you have the flip side of this.

And that is, isn't it, Paul? Exaltation is always a result of going through suffering. So Jesus lays aside the equality he has with the

Father. He becomes humble to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him, given the name which is above every name, the name of Jesus every new

Shabbat, once again applying Yahweh language from the Old Testament. And this was an issue that came up with Bauckham when

I had him on the program. He very much sees that idea of giving him the name that is above every name as being a direct reference to, well, what is the name above every name?

Yahweh. It is essentially in the very earliest Christology passages of, you know, of what the early church was proclaiming.

They were proclaiming Jesus as Yahweh. So if this, and I'd like to get to Bauckham's take on 1 Corinthians 8, 4 through 6, a little bit later on, but if this is in fact an early fragment of a hymn from the most ancient church, which many people believe that it is, then it seems that this is not some lengthy development all the way down.

You have not only a preexistent one, and that preexistence has shown the fact that he did not give consideration.

He was doing something as a person prior to the incarnation. But you also have very strong language emphasizing the deity of Christ in this text.

And so I think that is a much greater contextual way of seeing the humility being given to us as an example.

Responses from you, Ansel. Yes, thank you. Thank you so much. First of all, ipachon in Greek does not mean existing in eternity.

Adam was also ipachon. Man is also ipachon. That's pushing the language.

And being in the nature of God, in the form of God, is obviously difficult for all of us. But it's compared with being in the form of a slave, something like the status of God.

And he has that. I would argue there with modern exegetes who take this view of Philippians 2, that Jesus was equal with God.

He was equal with God, that he didn't use that equality. After all, he says, if you've seen me, you've seen

God. I am as God. I like Murray Harris's title. Jesus is as God.

He has that equality with God, but he doesn't use it for his own exploitation. He washes the dishes.

That's a marvelous exercise in humility. But the subject of discourse there is the man

Messiah Jesus. That's what Paul called Christ Jesus. After all, 550 times in the

New Testament, he's the Messiah. It's an awful stretch for me to imagine that the Messiah, the Lord's anointed, is actually the

Lord. Granted, of course, that the name, the authority of Yahweh is placed on him. But in Philippians 2, this is all done to the glory of God.

And that wonderful word, opheos, 1 ,300 times in the New Testament is clearly the Father of Jesus.

So it all winds up to the glory of God. But yes, Jesus has been given absolute authority under that one

God, Yahweh. Well, just very briefly, I think that is being used in eternity, because notice the contrast in context, saying that he existed, and that's the term we're translating as existed, in the very form of God.

And then he has equality with God, and then verse 7 gives the contrast. But he emptied himself.

He made himself of no reputation. And so the contrast there is where you get that. But I think the most important thing to see here is that while the term theos is the normative term for the

Father in the New Testament, the normative term for Jesus is hakureos, the Lord. And of course, that's the very term used in the

Greek Septuagint of Yahweh. And I think it's important that we get into, I think, some of Sir Anthony's primary arguments here, specifically in Psalm 110 .1.

I'd like to have him present that, because we end up with a situation in Sir Anthony's position of having two

Lords. We have the Lord Yahweh, who is the Father, and then we have the Lord Messiah, who is Jesus. We end up with two

Lords, even though Paul said we have one Lord. And I think that the weight of that identification of Jesus as kurios, as Lord, needs to be recognized in so many texts, saying no one can say

Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. And then Jesus being identified as not simply the one carrying the authority of Yahweh, but in Psalm 110, he is identified as carrying the nature of Yahweh.

Immutability, unchangeability is ascribed to the Son, specifically as the Son, in Hebrews 1 .10

-12. And I think that's important to say. We're going to go take a quick break. Before we go there, just so people can be mulling it over during the break, what is

Psalm 110 .1, just for those who don't have a dictionary for a brain like me?

Like you! It's quoted more often, if I may just give a brief answer. It's quoted more often than any other verse in the

Old Testament. It's an umbrella text, very, very important. The Lord said, this is Yahweh, says to Adonai, my

Lord, Messiah, sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool. It doesn't actually say Messiah. We'll need to look at that.

We'll look at that anyway. But that's the text we're going to be looking at in the next section of the program. Do stay with me here on a very specifically scholarly, biblical look at a particular aspect of Christian doctrine, the

Trinity. And we've got with us in the studio, James White, Director of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

You can visit them at aomin .org. And also on the line from the States, Sir Anthony Buzzard, who has written a number of books in which he believes the

Trinity has, well, it's a bad doctrine for Christianity. It's been misunderstood. It doesn't actually exist as far as he's concerned.

And we'll be posting up the links for Sir Anthony Buzzard's website as well, and how you can find out more with the podcast as usual.

You can find that at premiere .org .uk forward slash unbelievable. Join us again in a couple of minutes time.

You're listening to Unbelievable on Premiere Christian Radio. You certainly are.

It's the weekly Saturday show that brings you up to speed with the very latest areas of Christian apologetics in the form of debates between Christians and non -Christians.

Sometimes we feature inter -Christian debates. I'm not quite sure where this one falls. I suppose certainly Sir Anthony Buzzard doesn't fall in line with what is perceived as historic

Christian orthodoxy as far as the Trinity is concerned. And you were saying that this was kind of the area that first got you into apologetics,

James, because you were coming into contact with Mormons, with Jehovah's Witnesses.

I think the Trinity is probably one of the major sticking points very often for those who do diverge from orthodox

Christian practice and faith. Why does it come up again and again?

Why do people find it so hard to, or some people at least, to see the Trinity in the way that you see it?

Well, I think the vast majority of instances it's because of the acceptance of an external source of authority. I mean, with the Mormons, you have prophets and apostles and books of scripture.

With Jehovah's Witnesses, you have the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses. And it allows those groups to distinguish themselves from orthodox

Christianity. They have to have some type of a selling point, some way of getting the foot in the door. So with those particular groups,

I think that's the case. But historically, I think it all does come back to the fact that there is a scandal in not only a crucified

Messiah, but remember, it's the Lord of Glory that they crucified, in Paul's terminology.

And this is the highest element of God's revelation. I believe the revelation of the

Trinity takes place between the Old and New Testaments. It is in the incarnation of Christ, His crucifixion and resurrection, and the outpouring of the

Holy Spirit. I believe the original apostles were experiential Trinitarians. Think of Peter.

He stood on the Mount of Transfiguration. He heard the Father speak. He walked with Jesus. He was now indwelt by the

Holy Spirit. He's an experiential Trinitarian. And that's why the language, it just, the

New Testament is soaked in this language. I highly recommend to folks, since people's names keep mentioning,

I'm not big on mentioning names, but since lots of names keep getting mentioned, if there's a mountain of Unitarian writings, then there's a mountain range of Trinitarian writings.

And B .B. Warfield, the great Princeton theologian, his material on the

Trinity is just so rich and challenging and yet devotional. I really tried to model some of my writing after his and trying to communicate to folks, this is not a doctrine.

I heard Sir Anthony in a debate with a Biola professor. I'm not sure when the debate took place. It was very odd.

I'd like to find out from him, did it take place outside? Unfortunately, it did. It was a terrible venue.

Oh, was it? Because I kept hearing crickets and there were crickets going during the entire debate.

I'm wondering how on earth this took place. Was that a commentary on the presentations or just what was going on?

But I listened. And in his opening statement, he said something I could agree with on many grounds.

And he said that for most Christians, the Trinity is just simply a doctrine that they are taught. It's not something that they actually experience.

And in fact, he said this is reflected in their prayers, that most prayers are simply monotheistic prayers. They're not

Trinitarian prayers. And I would have to agree with him in a majority of instances there.

That's one of the reasons I wrote the book that I did. I call it The Forgotten Trinity. That's not the case in my church.

We have Trinitarian worship and Trinitarian prayers. But it is, to me, the very central defining aspect of the

Christian faith. Let's go to this issue of the psalm, 110 verse 1.

And I may not be quoting it to either your satisfaction, but I think it's along the lines of, my

Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool.

I always get shown up when I've got Bible scholars in the studio. It's terrible. But anyway,

Sir Anthony, what would be your particular view then on this? Because as you say, it is actually, funnily enough, the most quoted

Old Testament verse in the New Testament. And so it was obviously very relevant to those who were writing the

New Testament. What's your view on it? Well, it's a key proof text. It's one that they use across the board, including

Jesus, who with this psalm silenced everybody, remember? This is the question he asked them finally, after they'd asked him questions.

How do you explain that Jesus, that David, I'm sorry, that David could have a Lord and a son? And the text there simply says

Yahweh 7 ,000 times, the one God, always singular verbs, and I, always 14 forms of the singular personal pronoun, which to me shrieks single person.

Yahweh speaks to Adonai, who is my Lord, that Adonai 195 times in the Old Testament, always refers to a non -deity superior.

That's just a fact of the language. Comes over as kiriosmou in the Greek, septuagint, this is reflected in the

New Testament quotation of it, and that kiriosmou is quite distinct. We have four or five of the major lexicons make this good point, that the

Yahweh, one God term, is carefully distinguished by Jews who don't model God with man. Yahweh is quite distinct from my

Lord. In the New Testament, my Lord is the Messiah. My Lord, it's remarkable that Elizabeth has to say how great it is that the mother of my

Lord has come to see me, and Luke has just told us he's the Lord Messiah in 2 .11,

and 2 .26 he's the Lord's Messiah. Beautiful distinction. And then you get, they've taken away my

Lord in John, and where have they taken him to? So my Lord does not refer to God the Father in the New Testament, I think you'll find.

It's a messianic title, it's the messianic title, and my major point would be, this is mine, it's not mine, but this particular branch of thinking, insists that the

Church is founded on the crowning decision that Jesus is the Messiah. Who do you say that I am?

Not, well, I am Yahweh, second member of the Trinity, I am the Messiah, the Son of God, and honestly

I find that historically very odd to imagine anybody thinking of that statement about Son of God and Messiah, meaning

I am Yahweh, literally. James, your response? Well, it's been fascinating over the years that I've heard

Sir Anthony making this particular argument that he emphasizes very strongly the

Hebrew vowel pointing here. Now even if we take Adonai as the proper reading, and that is what you find in the

Masoretic text, the fact that Jesus is the King of the Kingdom of Heaven, so on and so forth, that would fit.

But I think what we need to recognize is, of course, that in the days of the writing of the New Testament, there was no vowel pointing.

If we look at the Isaiah scroll, if we look at the Dead Sea Scrolls, the vowel pointing is a

Masoretic invention that comes long afterwards. It is in essence a Jewish interpretation of the

Old Testament text, and without the vowel pointing, Adonai and Adonai are the exact same forms in the

Hebrew language. And so the question we have to ask is, were the Masoretic scribes, who of course rejected the deity of Christ, which is why they're

Jewish, is their commentary reflected in New Testament usage, or is this a later development that finds itself in the

Hebrew text? And clearly, the Greek Septuagint's use of kurios, yes, kurios can be used of a mere human individual, but it's also thousands of times the

Greek Septuagint's translation of the name Yahweh. And so when Jesus is called Hakurios, and when we are told that the very name that we suffer is the name of Jesus, who is

Kurios, and that the Bible of the New Testament church is the

Greek Septuagint, then we ask the question, is Psalm 110 .1 as it is used in the

New Testament, reflecting this distinction that Sir Anthony bases so much upon between Adonai and Adonai?

And the fact of the matter is, it is not. And in fact, its interpretation of the text demonstrates the highest view of who

Jesus is. But I want to make sure that everyone sees, to judge between two sides, you have to look for consistency.

And in this case, Sir Anthony focuses upon the Hebrew Masoretic text and insists upon Adonai.

I hope that we'll have time to look at Hebrews chapter 1, verses 10 through 12, where at that point, he will abandon the

Masoretic text and opt for the Greek Septuagint for his explanation of why a

Yahweh passage, which cannot be applied to a creature, because it is about Yahweh's unchanging nature, the fact that he's the creator of all things, and yet he himself never changes, that couldn't be applied to any creature, no matter how exalted that creature is.

At that point, the Hebrew text will be abandoned, and the Greek Septuagint will be opted for at that point.

And that, to me, as I have listened, tried to listen very carefully to Sir Anthony's presentations from his

MP3s and his website and things like that, is, I think, one of the major things that he needs to address, is the inconsistency in the exegesis that I detect at that point.

Well, let's have a response, Anthony, both to this issue of the vowel pointing and whether there is actually any difference between Adonai and Adonai.

And secondly, then we can move on, perhaps, to the Hebrews issue. Yeah, absolutely. First of all, there's no evidence at all of any corruption there.

I'm more than willing, when commentaries and other explorers, you know, find evidence of differences in the text, then we can suspect a fiddling of the text.

There's nothing here at all suggesting that anybody's played with the vowel points. And not only that, the

Kyrios Mu in Greek, you see, reflects the Adonai. So we have confirmation, 2 or 300

BC, from the Septuagint, we have inscripturated LXX version in the

New Testament, which I hold as scripture, showing that Adonai and Kyrios Mu fit perfectly well. I've detailed this in my second book.

One can take on the whole of scholarship and say, all these dictionaries are wrong, to make that distinction. It's not my distinction.

Secondly— Sir Anthony, may I please, just a word of clarification, because that's not what I said.

I did not indicate there's a textual variant here. My assertion was, and this is the assertion of all scholarship that I know of, if you know of anything other than this, please let me know, but the

Hebrew text of the days of Jesus had no vowel pointing. And so the consonantal text of Adonai and Adonai are identical to one another.

Right. You're absolutely right. So I wasn't saying there was a textual variant. I was asking you, if you are—is it not the case that you are basing your entire argument on the

Adonai, which is a later interpretation by Jewish scribes, is it not?

No, because the Septuagint and New Testament scripture are rendering Adonai when they say

Kyrios Mu. So I'm pleading now for New Testament scripture as representing what is clearly

Adonai, not Adonai. Because Adonai would not be represented by Kyrios Mu. Why would it—what would it be represented as?

Adonai is the Lord, Kyrios. And so is Yahweh. And by the way, you cannot have my Yahweh.

So one can talk about Kyrios reflecting Yahweh, of course, but you don't talk about my Yahweh anyway.

So as you know, in the New Testament, Kyrios, without the article just alone, is normally Yahweh, not—absolutely invariably.

And certainly Jesus is called the Lord Messiah 67 times. So I'm not impressed with the idea that when he's called the

Lord, he—it means anything other than Messiah, because he's called the Lord Jesus Christ, as I think from the

Lord Jesus Yahweh, over and over again. That seems to fit the whole of the New Testament well.

James, you're shaking your head. You don't seem to quite understand— No, I'm not following this, because clearly in the days of Jesus, there was no distinction between Adonai and Adonai in this text.

And given that this is a—the speech is being addressed to him, the

Hebrew would be identical either direction. And so to—the whole point he's making is, this proves that Jesus is merely a human.

Well, it doesn't prove that at all, especially given the use of Kyrios in the New Testament and the fact that—I'm not even trying to say,

I'm not even making the point that Psalm 110 is talking about Jesus as Yahweh. I'm not saying that. This is

Yahweh speaking to someone else. There's no question about that. There are places in Isaiah 53 where Yahweh speaks to the

Messiah. No question about that, because as a Trinitarian, I believe the name Yahweh is used of Father and Son and Spirit.

That's why when we demonstrate that Jesus is identified as Yahweh, not merely agentivally, but personally, and in his actions that cannot be done by a creature, this is what illustrates to us the doctrine of the

Trinity. But I think we've at least expressed ourselves on that. But the point is, the

Hebrew text is being taken as the final authority here. If we look at Hebrews chapter 1, verses 10 through 12, if Sir Anthony uses the same explanation that I've heard in his recorded materials, he's going to abandon the

Hebrew text and go to the Greek Septuagint. This isn't quite right. Can I just put this in? It's exactly the Greek text that I'm pleading for in the

Adonai thing. Adonai is given us as kirios mu, which is not my Yahweh.

So I'm appealing to the New Testament, which is in Greek, and I'm appealing in Hebrews to the writer's use of the

Septuagint, not mine. It's the writer of Hebrews who abandons the Masoretic text and uses the

Greek text. I didn't invent this. This is what the Hebrew writer has done. Let's bring up this issue of Hebrews.

I mean, can you just give us the context, the verses that are particularly at stake here when it comes to this issue of...

If 110 is the... and I would certainly admit the hardest text, if you like, for this position. Not, I think, insuperable, because if Bruce helps us a lot...

Can you actually read the verses out for us, if you would? I will, absolutely. There's a katina, as the scholars say, a chain of proof texts in Hebrews 1 to show that Jesus is superior to angels.

This is an extraordinary notion in itself. If one thinks that Jesus is flat -out Yahweh, one has only to say so.

But the author there labors to show, by proof texting, that Jesus is superior to angels.

And he quotes various verses, including the famous, Today I have begotten you, and we perhaps can get to that later.

But at the end of this sequence, to prove that Jesus is superior to angels, he uses a text in Psalm 102, which is complicated because the writer there is quoting the

Septuagint and not the Masoretic Text. He has every right to do that. He's writing scripture. And in the

Masoretic Text, we find God speaking to someone else whom

God calls Lord. And it's very easy to imagine, then, that writer saying, Well, this must be the

Messiah, because Psalm 102 is all about the Messianic Kingdom and it's written for the age to come, and so on.

So it's a very normal thing to happen. It's complicated because you won't find this version in your

Bible, which is coming, of course, from the Masoretic Text. Just so that I can literally have the verse in my head as well, could you read out the actual verses that are in Hebrew?

Sure. This is the text. Of old you founded the earth. I'm reading from Psalm 102 here, not

Hebrews 1. Of old you founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. Even they will perish, but you endure.

All of them will wear out like a garment. Like clothing, you will change them, and they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will not come to an end.

Psalm 102, 25 -27, which is then quoted from the Greek Septuagint in Hebrews 1.

I didn't really hear Sir Anthony's explanation here. Basically, what he's saying is that, as F .F.

Bruce points out in his commentary on Hebrews, there is a variation between the Greek and the

Hebrew. In the Greek, this is God speaking, whereas in the

Hebrew, it is not. My understanding of Sir Anthony's argument is this is

God speaking to a Lord, who is the Lord Messiah, and he limits this creative activity of his, based on moving ahead in the text of Hebrews 2, to a new creation.

He is Lord of this new creation. That's how Hebrews 1, verses 10 -12 is to be understood.

I'm glad I summarized that correctly. The problem is, that's not even what

F .F. Bruce says. F .F. Bruce, after making that observation about who is speaking here, says, if in the preceding quotation, the

Son is addressed by God as God, in this one, he is addressed by God as Lord, and we need not doubt that to our author, the title

Lord conveys the highest sense of all the name, which is above every name. No wonder that the Son has ascribed to him a dignity which surpasses all the names angels bear, nor is our author the only

New Testament writer to ascribe to Christ the highest divine names or to apply to him Old Testament scriptures, which in their primary context refer to Yahweh.

I think the thing that needs to be emphasized is that in the Hebrew Masoretic text, this is about Yahweh.

And interestingly enough, in the Septuagint, the word Lord, kuri, in the evocative, has been inserted in here.

But you, O Lord, at the beginning. Of course. And so I would ask, Sir Anthony, every use of kurios in all of Psalm 102, who is it about?

The use of kirios, kiriye, the evocative there, which you quote and is quoted by the

New Testament scripture, is a reference to someone who isn't Yahweh. God is now speaking to a kiriye, who is obviously the

Lord Messiah. Again, Jesus is the Lord Messiah, not the Lord God. That distinction, I think, runs through the entire

New Testament. In fact, the whole Old Testament anticipation. Nobody imagined that the Lord's anointed would be the

Lord. Granted, as we said earlier, that agentivally, lots of Yahweh texts apply to Jesus.

And some of the suffering servant texts, for example, apply to Paul. He can use those

Old Testament passages and direct them to himself. So I fully grant that he is equal to Yahweh in the sense that he's functioning as Yahweh.

And that's what the Jews didn't like. Uniquely as Yahweh. I do, however, object to the notion that he is identified with Yahweh.

James Dunn tells me that's heresy. Now, that's a strong word. I don't like that word. But James Dunn and many others find the idea of identifying

Jesus with Yahweh is difficult. Because now, how many Yahwehs are we talking about?

Well, unfortunately, that wasn't an answer to my question. What I asked you was, in the Greek Septuagint of Psalm 102, the term kurios, or kuri, appears a number of times.

Every other time that it's used, who is it used of? Yahweh, quite clearly. Kurios is the standard, as we agree, is the standard term for the

Lord God. So in this quirky verse at the end, which is very strange. The article by Bacon in 1902, by the way, unpacks this very nicely.

It's awfully complicated. The God here, the Yahweh, of the main subject, is addressing someone else who is

Yahweh. Jews do not think that Yahweh addresses Yahweh. But notice now the presuppositions are coming out.

If it's a verse that causes a problem, it's quirky. It's not really quirky at all. It's very clear how the

Jews would have understood the words of Psalm 102. This person being described is immutable.

This is the creator. This is the one who has created all things and does not change. These are absolutely unique definitional aspects of Yahweh's being applied by the writer of the

New Testament to Jesus. That cannot be agentival. And you're worried about what it leaves us with as well, which is this concept of two lords.

That's exactly my point, the Yahweh. I mean, well, on the one hand, you, Antony, have a problem that you end up with two

Yahwehs. James has a problem with the end up with two different lords when Paul says there is one lord.

I don't end up with two Yahwehs. I end up with a Yahweh and the Lord Messiah, who is unchanging.

As from his exaltation, he's going to last forever. That's exactly Hebrew's point. But notice that's not the point of Psalm 102.

And that's not the point of Hebrews 1. Hebrews 1 is demonstrating his supremacy. And as F .F. Bruce said, if he has already been addressed as God, now being addressed with Yahweh language that can only be applied to Yahweh, this cannot be taken.

This cannot be demoted down to mere agentival. That is why, as you pointed out when you had

Richard Baucom on the program, he has looked at that classical, almost creedal text in 1

Corinthians 8. When you have there the Shema brought into a Christian expression there in describing for us, over against all these pagan gods, there is but one

God, the Father, and one Kurios, Jesus Christ. And you look at the prepositions that he uses there.

One God and then his role as the one decreeing these things, one

Jesus Christ, the one through whom these things take place. That's why the broad band of New Testament scholarship has recognized not only the preexistence of Christ very clearly in those ways, but likewise sees the use of Kurios in a very important way.

It's fascinating stuff. I'm afraid we just haven't got time to unearth. There's many more texts where we could go do back and forth on it.

And I do encourage people to pick up the books and have a look for themselves. And I will, as usual, be posting up links to both of your gentlemen's sites.

I mean, let me give the context and details. And then I'd like to maybe move on to a kind of pastoral issue surrounding this, which

I think is something that does come into this, apart from just debating the doctrine of it. If you want to respond to anything you've heard on the program today, the usual way to do that, unbelievable, at premier .org

.uk. You can also phone 08456 525252 and select option 5 to leave me a voicemail message.

Do hope you can get in touch that way. And don't forget to check out the podcast. Download the

MP3 at the website premier .org .uk forward slash unbelievable. Many other programs and particularly issues on the

Trinity that can be downloaded in the podcast archive right there. Unbelievable with Justin Brierley.

Now, leaving aside in one sense, though, we can never entirely leave it aside, the biblical proof texts and all that sort of thing.

What would it leave us with? Anthony, when you have dispensed with the doctrine of the

Trinity, what difference does that make to you as to the role

Jesus plays in the salvation story? Is Jesus still the one whose death atones for sin and everything else?

It's just that he never has this actual, as it were, equality with God that James ascribed to him.

Justin, what we're discussing, if we can put it in its most core sense, is the nature of preexistence.

We're differing only on this. I say that the Son of God did not preexist as God the Son. The word preexisted.

And what's so interesting is that even Walter Martin of fame, recent fame of an anti -cult person and others,

Warfield, I believe in the two Hodges, who are the stalwart pillars of Trinitarianism, were shaken by the notion of the eternal generation of the

Son. And I wanted to get to that, too. And so this undermining of the eternal generation suggests that they believed in the

Word of God preexisting, and Dake's Bible, and so on, and Barnes, and so on. There have been many, Adam Clark, who have objected to the notion of the

Son being prior to his begetting, his coming into existence. So that's one point.

For me, the Bible becomes very clear when you've got one God and one mediator between God and man, the man,

Messiah, Jesus. I think that should be the end of the argument, 1 Timothy 2 .5. But on the pastoral point, what

I'm finding is that folk have always been troubled by this Trinitarian thing from their early church days.

And when you put this to them, this doesn't make it right, of course, it simply clarifies a lot of things. And the greater point would be this, that a billion

Muslims and millions of Jews are no longer standing aghast at the notion that we can talk about more than one person being

Yahweh. James, what does it do for you to the Gospel if you take

Jesus down that peg, but that all -important peg, in one sense, to being an elevated, being a kind of, you know, this...

I forget on the term already, but... Well, it is the ontological divide. It is between that which is created and that which is not created.

This was the issue in Arianism. This was those who said there was a time when the Son was not.

The idea of the word pre -existing, even those people that were just mentioned would believe that the word was personal in his pre -existence.

And that is the major issue here, is that in a Sassanian Christology, you have a word that is nothing but a plan.

A plan becomes flesh. A plan is the one for whom and through whom and by whom all things are created.

That then becomes impersonal. And I think it greatly impacts the doctrine of the atonement. It certainly has in historical

Sassanianism. I think Sir Anthony would have to admit that his view of the atonement is not the historical

Sassanian view of the atonement at all. And in fact, I think Sir Anthony is the only person that I've encountered, at least living and speaking, that combines those things together.

And I think that speaks too. But I do believe that this has tremendous pastoral impact because we're talking about the

God that we worship. Who do we worship? Are we to be known as the early Christians were as those who called upon the name of Jesus Christ?

That epikaleo means to pray to. Can we have real worship when we're not sure the object of our worship?

I think it's vitally important. We're going to take a quick break, and then we'll just have final thoughts from both our gentlemen, both represented here in the studio in the form of James White, Director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, and of course,

Sir Anthony Buzzard by phone from Georgia in the States. And he's part of the Restoration Fellowship.

So do join us again in a couple of moments time. Welcome back to the program. This is Unbelievable on Premier Christian Radio, Saturday afternoon.

Don't forget, lots more to come this Saturday afternoon if you're listening via our DAB service or a medium wave in London or indeed via the internet to our streaming service.

Do check out Hip Rock UK coming up after this program. Loretta Fenton presents a little later on in the afternoon.

But if you're listening at the same time next week, you may want to know that what we'll be doing is looking back at the special Expelled event that we put on a few weeks ago.

We're going to be hearing the audio of the debate that took place after the screening with special guests including

Steve Fuller and Susan Blackmore, and looking at the whole issue of intelligent design and the themes of the film.

So if you weren't able to get along, you'll want to hear it. If you were there, perhaps you'll hear yourself asking a question in the question and answer session.

That's at the same time next week here on the show. You're listening to Unbelievable on Premiere Christian Radio.

Welcome back for this, the final part of the show today. Don't forget you can find us online at premiere .org

.uk forward slash unbelievable. We'll be hearing some of your feedback to previous programs, including last week with Adnan Rashid when

James White was in the studio debating the Quran and the Bible with him. But we've been looking at the

Trinity today asking can we trust the Trinity? And we've had some fascinating interactions.

Finishing up there, Anthony with James explaining why he believes, as it were, taking

Jesus's equality pre -existence out of the equation. Well, both makes difficulties for understanding various aspects of scripture, but ultimately fundamentally changes the way we view salvation and the way we view

God. I mean, ultimately, it may sound like what you're presenting to people is, well, here's

Christianity, but without the difficult bits of the Trinity. I mean, aren't you actually presenting something that's actually quite radically different ultimately to Christianity?

It's radically different from the tradition that has prevailed starting from the second century. Of course,

Trinity was not there, as we know it from Nicaea, even Nicaea that didn't know what the Holy Spirit was exactly.

So historically, the Trinity does not go back well to the pages of the New Testament. But having said that, the marvelous thing that God has done,

I think, is to present a sinless human model as his agent. And he can do that.

He can choose whomever he will to be his agent. I treat Jesus no less seriously than James White.

He is the exalted, immortalized human being at the right hand of the Father. All authority has been given to him.

And James is right that we experience Christianity Trinitarianly with a small t, in my case,

I'm using the word, because we cannot distinguish between the Father and the Son in terms of spirit. The spirit of Jesus, the spirit of the

Father, and the Holy Spirit all come to us, I think, as one. That's Trinitarian. What I object to, though, is the multiplication of Yahweh.

It's important to know that God is not a what. In James's wonderful explanation in his book, he talks about three who's in one what.

I simply don't see God ever being described as a what. And none of the 11 ,000 accounts of the word for God ever means the triune

God, I would argue. James. Well, a couple of things. The early church writer

Ignatius Vantioch referred to Jesus as God many, many times in his letters. That was around 107.

So it's very, very early and very primitive to believe in these things. There's even Trinitarian allusions in that material. So I don't think we can necessarily go there.

But I think the best way to wrap up for me would be to go to one of the texts that Sir Anthony presents all the time.

That's his Jesus High Priestly Prayer in John 17. And in John 17, three,

Jesus says, this is eternal life. To have eternal life, you have to take in knowledge of two persons. He says, you, whom he's addressing, who he's identified as the

Father, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he was sent. Now, Sir Anthony focuses upon that and says, see, the

Father is the only true God. Jesus cannot truly be God. And yet any text is defined by its context.

And within just a matter of words, Jesus in this prayer says, and now glorify me together with yourself,

Father, with the glory which I had at your side before the world came into existence.

Now, those are not only personal pronouns indicating a person, but here's a person who recognizes his preexistence and that it was glorious.

It was a glorified preexistence. Those are not the words of a plan. Those are not the words of an angel.

Those are not the words of anyone, but the one who John himself had just identified a few chapters earlier.

In John 12, the end of Jesus' public ministry, John identifies Jesus as Yahweh.

By quoting from Isaiah 6, remember Isaiah's temple vision where he saw Jehovah sitting upon the throne? When you ask

Isaiah, who did you see sitting upon the throne? He would say, I saw Yahweh. When you ask John, who did

Isaiah see sitting upon the throne? He would say, he saw Jesus. That's the message of the gospel text, and that's the

Jesus that is worthy of worship and worthy of our service as disciples. We are out of time, gentlemen.

I'm sorry, the last word always has to kind of end with someone saying something, and I appreciate there's so much more that could be said in response,

Anthony, but we will, of course, direct people to your website and some of the articles you've got there.

And I hope we might be able to link up again at some point in the future. Thank you for your gracious approach to the whole subject.

And thank you for joining us. That's Anthony Buzzard, Sir Anthony Buzzard, an Englishman not in New York, but in Georgia on this occasion.

It's been fun having an Englishman on the phone from America and an American in the studio for today's program.

It's been an interesting one, and thank you for spending a couple of programs with us, James. It's been really...

I always enjoy it, Justin. You do a wonderful work. I am one of your podcast listeners, so very proud to do that.

And so just think of me bicycling through the desert listening to Justin Brierley.

Well, who knows where I turn up on people as people are doing all sorts of things.

But thank you, James, for coming in and all the best. Take our best back with you to Arizona and the ministry you've got there.

And we look forward to perhaps seeing you on another occasion in the future. Well, you've been listening to Unbelievable.

Looking today at the Trinity. Don't forget you can find more online at premiere .org .uk forward slash unbelievable.

Other episodes I'll post up there that James has contributed to on this very subject. And other episodes that deal in general.

We've already... James referenced a few times there Richard Borkham's contribution on this subject. I'll put a link in there as well because there's interesting stuff to be found in his interactions.

So do keep listening, though, as we hear some of your feedback to the last couple of weeks of programming.