Response to False Teacher #Gino #pastorjennings #falseteacher #apologetics

Welcome Back and the Need to Discern False Teaching

Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Eli Ayala, and I'm really happy to be here to discuss something very interesting with my good friend, Dr. Tony Costa. He is going to be addressing the errors and heresies of a very popular preacher that has been making rounds on TikTok and other areas in social media, a man by the name of Apostle Pastor Gino Jennings, okay?

And if you don't know who that is, you look at the thumbnail on the YouTube link here. Hopefully you'll recognize his face, but be that as it may, if this is the first time you've heard of him and we're gonna play some video here and you recognize his face, you know to beware.

False teachers come in many different flavors, let's just say, and sometimes they can say really good things in certain contexts, and oftentimes within those good things, for example, this particular person that we're gonna be interacting with has said lots of things that we would, as Christians, agree with in terms of social issues, like homosexuality and abortion and all these sorts of things.

We might find agreement, but baked into some of the things that sound good is some very dangerous false teaching. Those who are seasoned in the area of apologetics will be familiar with this topic that we're gonna be discussing, but I think those who don't know, I think it's important to understand because as Dr. Tony Costa is gonna interact with genogenics, you're going to learn some important, basic, essential Christian theology.

For example, you guys know that I do presuppositional apologetics and I talk a lot about philosophy and there's a lot of ambiguous philosophical terminology, but when all is said and done, some of the most important and vital and repetitious information that I constantly return to is really the basic doctrinal truths of the Christian faith.

I don't talk about transcendentals and preconditions of intelligible experience with the guy in the street. It's usually debating issues of the Trinity, justification by faith alone, the deity of Christ and these sorts of things.

Dr. Tony Costa and the Basics of Trinitarian Theology

So those basic essentials are gonna become important here, especially the issue of the deity of Christ. So without further ado, to help me interact with this particular false teacher, I have Dr. Tony Costa, who has been on my channel before.

He received a BA in a specialist program in religious studies at the University of Toronto. I won't say the years, brother, so people don't, you know, it's like, oh, that's a long time ago. But we'll keep your age ambiguous, right?

You still look young. You look the same when I first saw you.

It's the old overlay, man, it's the old overlay.

He received the MA in biblical studies at the University of Toronto as well, and his PhD at Radboud University in the Netherlands. And he is a professor of Islam and apologetics, or is it Islamic apologetics?

Both of them, yes.

Okay, so that's his area. He's also knowledgeable in a bunch of other areas as well. He's also an adjunct professor at Emanuel Bible College, and he does some teaching in other areas as well, and he's a preacher and a teacher, and he loves the Lord, and he has been super insightful for me, both through watching his videos, which I highly recommend folks check out his channel, and he actually came on a few times to discuss Eastern Orthodoxy.

So super helpful, brother, and it is an honor and a privilege to have you on with us today. Why don't you share a little bit more about yourself and what you're doing, and then we'll jump right into our topic for tonight.

Yeah, I mean, I think you've covered most of it, my academic work with Toronto Baptist Seminary. I also teach as an instructor at the University of Toronto, and I've written a couple of books. My last book was on early Christian creeds and hymns.

I've got a new book coming out shortly called, No King But Christ, The Bankruptcy and Collapse of Second World Views, and so that should be out shortly. But other than that, keeping busy, doing the Lord's work, I'm busy with teaching, speaking at conferences, speaking at the Strong Tower Conference this fall is September in Southern California.

And yeah, keeping busy, just doing the Lord's work.

The Trinity, the Deity of Christ, and the Hypostatic Union

Awesome, and people might be interested to hear too that you've engaged in quite a bit of debates with noted Muslims. I know that you did maybe a few debates with, what's his name? Oh, now it's I'm sorry?

Shabir Ali?

Shabir, why did I forget that? As I'm very familiar. So Shabir Ali, and what are some other folks you've debated as well?

Yeah, I've debated Shabir Ali at least 12 times, and I've debated other Muslims, Shadid Lewis, Osama Abdallah, there's quite a number of them. They're all on my YouTube channel, Nadir Ahmed. I've also debated with Mormons, the Mormon president of the Toronto East Mission here, up here in Toronto, Canada.

And I've also taken on atheists as well.

Excellent, very good. Well, let's jump right into our topic. Before we play the video, I think a couple of basic definitions need to be established. So some of the things, some of the important things that need to be playing in the background of our mind when we're especially interacting on like this very, which people are gonna see a very theologically important topic.

Can you define for us biblically the doctrine of the Trinity? What is the Trinity? What isn't the Trinity? And then we'll go into another question and then we'll jump right in so that people have some context here.

Right, the doctrine of the Trinity basically is the biblical teaching that there's only one true God. And in the being of that one God, there are three distinct persons, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. There are three distinct persons, eternal, co-eternal, co-substantial.

And these three persons are of the same nature. They share the same essence. And that these three persons also work together to accomplish creation, the redemption of humanity, the incarnation involved the triune God.

The life of Christ was Trinitarian. His resurrection was Trinitarian. And so the biblical doctrine of the Trinity is so fundamental that to deny it is to deny the full deity of Jesus Christ. It's to deny the very person of God himself.

And so the Trinity is not three persons in one person. The Trinity is not three separate beings. It's not three gods. The Trinity was not invented at the Council of Nicaea.

And so

Are you sure? Are you sure?

Yeah, Dan Brown got it wrong. But this, you know, Constantine is always in the doghouse when it comes to these theories and these things. So the Trinity is an essential doctrine and it is fundamental.

That's why it always begins first in the creeds. It's always with, you know, the confession of God, the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit. So the Trinity does not mean that Jesus is the Father. It doesn't mean that God has three modes where he is the Father and then he becomes the Son and he becomes the Holy Spirit.

That's not the Trinity. And the Trinity is not pagan. It's not a pagan derivation. The pagans did not believe in the idea that there were three eternal persons in one God. Paganism has always been polytheistic.

So the Trinity then, once again, is that in the one being, the one substance of God, there are three persons. And so it's been described as three whos and one what. Three whos, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, one what, one God.

And so that is absolutely central. And that language is incredibly important because, you know, in medicine, Eli, if a doctor doesn't know the difference between appendicitis and tonsillitis, it could be a matter of life and death.

And in a court of law, if a judge doesn't know the difference between a felony and a misdemeanor, you could be going into jail for life or a parking ticket and being let off on murder. And so language is important in medicine, it's important in law, and it is equally important in theology.

Excellent. Now, if you could define for us now, so we have the Trinity, that's playing in the background of our mind, and then now, of course, which is also an essential feature of the Christian faith, what is the doctrine of the deity of Christ?

And then perhaps you can speak a little bit about the hypostatic union. What does it mean to say that in the person of Jesus, there is two natures, both human and divine?

And so in Christology, we believe the Bible teaches that the Lord Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God. Now, this is essential because this is exactly what Geno Jennings will deny, that the Lord Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God, distinct from the Father and the Holy Spirit, and that He is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit in nature.

And so we're talking about a distinct person. So the Lord Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God who was sent into the world. And then in the incarnation, the Son of God or God the Son took on an additional nature, He took on flesh.

And so the Word becomes flesh, He dwells among us. And in that union, in the incarnation, what you have is one person, not two persons, that's the heresy of Nestorianism. You have one person with two natures, divine and human.

And it's important to note that Jesus Christ is not 50 God, 50 man. Jesus Christ is 100 God, 100 man, fully God and fully man. And we also need to understand that He will remain the God-man for all eternity.

He will never relinquish His humanity because He was made like unto His brethren and He will forever be identified with His people as their federal head. In one of his theology, and Geno Jennings doesn't believe this point here about the eternal incarnate Son, they believe that a time will come when He will slough off His humanity at His second coming, at the end.

And so it's important to realize that the hypostatic union means that in the union of the one person of the Son, there are two natures, the divine and the human. And so in this case, we've got one who and two whats.

One who, the Son, and two whats, divine and human. Those natures do not intermingle, they are distinct, but yet they're united to the person. And so the hypostatic union is absolutely essential because it undergirds the redemptive work of the Son that He took on flesh so that He could become, He can make atonement on behalf of His people.

And then He would be the representative, a real representative, a real mediator, who is truly God and truly man. And therefore He can represent both God and man and unite them together as the great mediator.

Excellent, and all of this is, I mean, this is Christianity 101, right? This is why it's important. I know you mentioned the term Nestorianism with respect to a particular heresy. Those are historical terms that the church has known about and has condemned explicitly, right?

Various heretical views with respect to the nature of God and the nature of Christ. And so it's very important that Christians be in touch with the history of their own faith. And so I know a lot of what you're going to say is going to be right in line with what Christianity has taught.

And people like Pastor Geno Jennings needs to be marked. I know people who are familiar with theology will already know this, but those who find his little snippets that we see on the internet, they find it convincing and persuasive.

We need to be very careful to separate, right? The things that sound good and the things that are dangerously false. They're not just, you know, coincidentally like, oh, I disagree with that. These are essential, essential things.

This man is not a Christian. No, he's not a Christian, flat out. I mean, he's a false teacher. He is someone who is the object of gospel preaching. You would share the gospel with someone like this because this person is not a believer.

We have as Christians, and I know Dr. Acosta will agree, we have the authority to declare certain individuals outside of the faith in as much as they explicitly deny what the Bible teaches as essential to the gospel as the Apostle Paul speaks about in the book of Galatians, that someone who brings to you another gospel or even another Christ, right?

Let that person be anathema. So these are really, really important issues that I think are really vital to understand. Now, before we jump into the video, Dr. Acosta, I wanna now, now that you've laid out the theological foundation, the kind of the theological backdrop that we need to be paying attention to, I wanna now shift gears to now talking about the power of rhetoric and persuasiveness.

Now, this guy is a very, at least within the Pentecostal context, is a very persuasive speaker. Now, he might not be persuasive to the scholarly type that doesn't really cater to the yelling and the theatrics, but to the average person or the person who's looking for those quick little snippets like, oh man, that was great.

There is a persuasiveness to how he speaks. I grew up in a Pentecostal context. I grew up within the assemblies of God denomination. Now, we need to make a distinction that what he teaches is not what the assemblies of God teaches, right?

I might have disagreement with the assemblies of God and a bunch of other issues, but they affirm the Trinity and they affirm the deity of Christ, whereas Pastor Geno Jennings denies that, right? So we wanna make that distinction.

But when Pastor Geno Jennings speaks and Dr. Costa responds, I want you to allow these video clips to be a training for your mind. Try to look beyond the rhetoric, the theatrics, and look for the substance of what's being said.

So not only is Dr. Costa gonna help us with how to respond, but also allow this to kind of be a training to see through persuasive theatrics that is often seen from Pentecostal pulpits, more specifically, but this individual.

You'll see, he's got his little stage hands that help him read the scriptures and he's looking, he's having a conversation. That's kind of fun to watch, actually. It's really engaging. But anyway, let's jump right in.

I'm gonna put the quote here. Now, for folks who don't know, when I play this video, this video is not original. There's not the original recording. There's some response. I guess there's some explanation.

It clips away to another person, but it's very brief. And so I'll let that play and then it'll get right back into the main point. So you ready to jump in?

Ready.

All right, let's do this. Okay.

1 Corinthians 15, Resurrection, and Flesh and Blood

That's right.

What's over there?

But some men will say.

What's on YouTube?

Some men will say.

Some men.

That's right.

What's over there?

But some men will say.

You find me a flesh and blood Jesus in heaven, I make you lick it up.

Oh, that's right.

I said, I'd make anyone lick it up that believe flesh and blood is in heaven.

Anyone. Anybody.

That's right.

Even Paul said flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom.

Of God.

No, we can stop there.

We can stop there.

Yeah.

Yeah, so he says flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. And he's referring to 1 Corinthians 15, 50, which is the resurrection chapter. And so he's taking that phrase flesh and blood, and he's saying, well, that means that you can't have a, and I'm assuming by flesh and blood, he's talking about a bodily person.

But the problem with that is that he isolates that one verse. And if you continue to read, the apostle Paul equates flesh and blood with corruption. And so the phrase flesh and blood usually is used in the New Testament to refer to our fallen human nature.

So for example, Ephesians 6, 12, we wrestle not against flesh and blood. We're not wrestling against a fallen human nature. We're wrestling against the spiritual powers Paul says. In Matthew 16 and 18, when Peter confesses Jesus as Messiah and son of the living God, Jesus says flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father, which is in heaven.

So notice how Jesus contrasts human fallen nature with God. And that flesh and blood language, Paul uses in Galatians one, where he met the risen Christ and he says, I did not confer with flesh and blood when he met the risen Christ.

And so Paul goes on to define what he means by that. Because he goes on to say that we shall be changed. I tell you a mystery, we shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye.

And then he says, this corruptible must put on in corruption. This mortal, referring to the body, must put on immortality. In other words, the body has to be changed into an immortal state. So the only person we know who has a glorified, incorruptible, immortal, resurrected body is the Lord Jesus Christ.

He is the first fruits among them that have slept, the firstborn from the dead. And therefore the Lord Jesus Christ was bodily raised from the dead. Now he describes that resurrection in Luke 24 as flesh and bone, Luke 24, 39 to 43.

Look and see, touch me and see a ghost or spirit does not have flesh and bone as I do. And so there is no doubt about the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man Jesus Christ is right now, as you and I are talking right now, Eli, he is right now, as the old hymn says, there's a man in the glory.

So 1 Timothy 2 .5 is crystal clear. There is one God and one mediator between God and men. Ho Anthropos Jesu Christu, the man, the human Christ Jesus. And so Paul tells us that right now, and he uses the present tense, there is one God.

There is a man in the present tense. And so

This is after the ascension. So he's already in heaven.

30 years after the ascension. Remember the pastoral epistles are written near the end of Paul's life towards his death. And so 30 years after the ascension, Paul is calling Jesus Christ the mediator, the man, literally the Greek word Anthropos means the human.

It's generic. The human Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus. And so you've got 1 Timothy 2 .5, Colossians 2 .9, for in him dwells the fullness of deity in bodily form. Paul again is using the present tense. Right now, Jesus Christ is, he says, the fullness of deity and the word theotis there, the word we translate deity or Godhead in the King James Version.

It's a hypoxel gomenon, which means it only appears once in the New Testament. And it means, theotis means the state of being God, Godhead. And so, but he is that in bodily form. So right now, the Lord Jesus Christ is the incarnate one, God the Son, enfleshed in heaven as a man mediating between us and the Father.

And then of course, there's Acts 1 .9 -11, as the Lord ascended, he ascended visibly, personally, bodily, and as he went, so shall he come again.

That's good stuff. I remember when I first read that passage in scripture where it says that he's the first fruits of the resurrection. And as a kid, I remember reading that in a Spanish Pentecostal church.

So I couldn't understand Spanish. So I was just reading my Bible all the time. And I remember thinking, I was like, well, Jesus wasn't the first person to ever rise from the dead. I mean, he raised a little girl, he raised the man at Nain in the gospel of Luke.

Until I realized that he's the first person to ever rise from the dead with a glorified body. And in that sense, he is the first fruit. I thought that was really helpful. And again, coincidentally, it's actually a very important theological truth to know.

So. All right, well, let's continue on.

Isaiah 9:6, the Prince of Peace, and the Father of Eternity

Please.

That's right.

You see, God come along. Being the king, he made a prince. God is not a prince.

Okay.

Yeah, so God is a king and he made a prince and God is not a prince. Well, the problem I find with Geno Jennings is that he betrays any knowledge of Hebrew and Greek. He has no knowledge of the original languages as far as I can tell.

Because if he had known that, he would realize that Isaiah 9, 6, the Messiah is, the birth of the Messiah is predicted there that unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. So that becomes very important in the New Testament, the son who was given, God sent forth his son in the fullness of time.

And so the child that is born, he's born, he's a physical human baby, but he's also a son who has been given. So here you have the son who was given and then he is a child, he is incarnate. But notice that Isaiah goes on to say, and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, El Gabor, and then he calls him Sar Shalom, the Prince of Peace and the Everlasting Father, or in Hebrew it's Ab Ad, meaning the Father of Eternity.

But right there past Dr. Acosta, what happens when someone says, I mean, if Gino Jennings is right here, he's like, but he's called the Everlasting Father. You see, the father is the son. You know, he's a

That's right, brother, that's right, brother.

I sound like the wolf man.

Slap your neighbor in the neck,.

Someone tell somebody to get ready, you know?

That's right.

So how would you respond to that, where they say, that's a really bad, I did a really bad impression, I apologize. But what happens when someone says, well, he's called the Prince of Peace, but he's also called the Everlasting Father.

So there's kind of this unitarianism that's here.

Yeah, so the first thing we need to realize is that the word prince is applied to the God-man, Jesus Christ. So El Gabor there in Isaiah 9, 6 is the mighty God. And if someone says, well, that means like a mighty God, in the next chapter in Isaiah 10, 21, Yahweh is called El Gabor.

He's called the mighty God, the Redeemer of Jacob. And so you can't have two El Gabors, you can't have two mighty gods, that'd be polytheism. So the child that is born, the son who was given is the mighty God.

He's also the wonderful counselor. These are only titles used of God in the Bible. Only God is called wonderful. And only God is called the wonderful counselor. And only God is called the eternal one, the father of eternity.

So when they quote Everlasting Father, they take that term to mean the first person of the Trinity. The problem with that is that the Hebrew doesn't really say Everlasting Father. It says Ab Ad, it means the father of eternity.

And in Hebrew, when you wanna say that you possess something, you usually are described as being the father of that thing. So for example, you have in the Hebrew Bible, it talks about Abraham being the father of so many hundreds of years or being so old.

And so when in Hebrew, you wanna say that someone possesses a certain quality, you usually refer to them as the son of that thing or the father of that thing. So the Hebrew word Ab Ad means that this one who was born, the son who was given is the father of eternity, meaning that he is the eternal one.

And this coincides with Micah 5, 2 that prophesies that the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem of Ephrathah. And then it says, whose goings forth have been from the days of antiquity, or the King James says, his goings forth are from everlasting.

And so the child born in Bethlehem, he's truly born in Bethlehem, the city of his ancestor, David, but he is also his goings forth, his origins are from everlasting. So there you have, again, the hypostatic union.

The eternal one becomes flesh in the child, in the incarnation.

Excellent, excellent, very good. Let's continue on.

The old man, a prince is one that inherits power.

Actually, I'm gonna stop here. I have a question. So, okay, so I kind of jot this down. So he says, God being a King, he made a prince. God is not a prince, he'll say. A prince is one that inherits power.

God didn't inherit power. God said all power that he says that he will say, God has all power. God made a prince and that which was made was the express image of the personality of the father. And then he goes on to say that God is not a Jew.

When you see me, you see the father, Jesus said that. And he's like, how can this? My question is, how can, well, he says this, how can this be since Jesus had skin and hair, right? What does that mean?

Where is he inserting the false doctrine there? Where he says that if Jesus inherited a name, how can he also be God? God cannot inherit a name.

The Inherited Name of Jesus, the Divine Name, and the Septuagint

Yeah, yeah.

Well, he gets the inheritance part wrong because the name that Jesus inherits, and remember, we're talking post-incarnation, after the incarnation, the name that he inherits is not Jesus. You see, the one is Pentecostals are also known as the Jesus only movement.

They think that the name of God is Jesus. And that is not the name that he's inherited. And they base this on Philippians two, that God gave him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus, every knee would bow, et cetera.

The problem with that is that Jesus is not the name above all names. Jesus is, it was a common Jewish name, right? From Yehoshua, Joshua. And it was truncated to Yeshua. And you know, if you watch baseball, Eli, there's a lot of Jesus out there, right?

A lot of Jesus. I have an uncle.

There you go, Jesus, right? So that's not the name that the incarnate Christ inherits. The name that he inherits is the divine name, Yahweh. And that is why in Philippians two, it says, every knee will bow and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Kurios, that he is Yahweh. The backdrop to Philippians two, nine to 11, is Isaiah 45, 23, where Yahweh says, to me, every knee will bow and to me, every tongue shall confess. And so what Paul is saying is that the exalted Christ takes the name of God himself.

And that is why all the cosmos worships him. So we got to get rid of those hymns. You know, those hymns, Jesus, name above all names.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Those hymns are, they are anathema.

You know, they're not true.

They're just not true. Because that's not the name above all names.

The name is Yahweh.

But he confuses the name, the word prince in Hebrew actually means ruler. It means a ruler. You know, he's thinking of medieval kings and princes and princesses, but the word sar in Hebrew also means a ruler, right?

So Jesus Christ is called in Revelation 1 .5, he's called the ruler of the kings of the earth. Now the Greek word there could also mean, and King James, I think has it as prince or something, or Satan is called the prince of this world, but it also means the ruler of this world.

So I think the idea that, you know, when Jesus says, whoever sees me sees the father, well, of course, because he is the image of the invisible God, Colossians 1 .15. And he says, the father is in me, and I'm in the father.

There's this, in Trinitarianism, we call this co-inherence. The father, the son, the Holy Spirit, they co-inhere in each other. We also call this perichoresis, which is a big word that means that they, it literally means to dance around, but it means that the persons of the Trinity share in the glory.

It's not that one is deprived of glory from another, they share in that glory. And when he says that he is the express image of his personality, he's actually going to a piece of scripture that devastates his position, because in Hebrews 1 .3, it says that Jesus Christ is the express image, the express imprint of his hapostosaios, is the Greek word there.

It means nature or substance or being. The King James, unfortunately, translated it the express image of his person. And the King James does the same, but the Greek word hapostosaios means being or nature.

And Paul's, the writer of Hebrews is using that example of taking a dye and pressing it on wax, so that the copy that is on the dye is impressed on the wax. And what Hebrews 1 .3 is saying is that Jesus Christ is the exact representation of his nature.

The nature of God is imprinted in the wax. What is the wax? It's humanity, God himself incarnate in humanity. And then in Hebrews 1 .2, it says that it's through the son that God has created the worlds, the universe.

And then in Hebrews 1 .6, it says, God says to the angels, worship him. Let all the angels of God worship him. And then in verse eight, the father is talking to the son and says, your throne, oh God, is forever and ever.

The scepter of your kingdom is a righteous scepter and you loved righteousness and hated wickedness. And then in verse 10, the father addresses the son as Yahweh, as Lord. And you Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth.

The heavens are the work of your hands. They will all wear out, but you and you're forever. Your years shall have no end. So in Hebrews 1, the father addresses the son as God, as Lord, the two divine titles, God and Lord, and that the son is the creator of the universe.

And the universe will perish, but he will remain forever. So here's the distinction between the father and the son that Jennings denies. The father and the son are two distinct persons. And the father is calling the son, God and Lord.

And so

And that's not polytheism.

No.

Because they share the same nature.

Exactly.

So in one is theology, the son is the humanity of Jesus. It's the human Jesus. The father is his divine nature and the son is his humanity. And here's the problem. And the problem here is that they confuse being with person.

They take the nature of something and they treat that nature as if it's a person. And philosophically, those two words are different words. They're not the same at all.

Excellent. Now, before I press play, you did say something that I would imagine someone who is sympathetic to Gino's position is you said that the name that Jesus inherited is not the name Jesus. It's Yahweh.

And then you said he's called Lord. And then you said Lord or kurios refers to Yahweh. Now there's some background to that. So I would assume that the word in Greek kurios, which is translated English Lord.

Can you explain a little bit about the backdrop of the Septuagint's use of that term and how it actually supports the idea that to call Jesus kurios is to call him Yahweh?

Right.

Yeah, the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament was, it started around 250 BC. It started with the Torah first, then it expanded to the prophets and the writings. But what we find in the Septuagint is that when the Jews translated the Hebrew into the Greek, this again was after the exile, obviously.

And what they did was they refrained from writing out the divine name. Now there are some Greek manuscripts by people like Aquila and Theodosian. These are Jews who translated the Hebrew into Greek. And what they did was they tried to insert the divine name by using what's called paleo Hebrew letters, old Hebrew letters.

Some of them actually tried to pronounce it like Yahweh in Greek. But the Septuagint proper, the Septuagint that was used by the early church, they used the word kurios because the Jews came to regard the name of God, Yahweh, to be so sacred that it could not be uttered.

And so what ended up happening was that the Jews began to use what we call substitutes or circumlocutions, that is words to substitute for the divine name. And one of the words that the Jews came up with was the word Adonai.

And Adonai in Hebrew means my lords or the Lord. And sometimes they would refer to it as Hashem, the name. And so after the exile, the Jewish people became very safeguarded about the name of God so that it would not be blasphemed among the Gentiles.

They would refrain from uttering it. And so the Jews would come to the divine name, Yod, Hev, Av, He in Hebrew, and they would see it and the vowel markings would point out that it's to be pronounced Adonai.

And so when they gave the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, they continued that tradition by using the Greek equivalent of Adonai, which is Kurios. So we know that Kurios in Philippians 2 .11 is Yahweh because the backdrop of that text is Isaiah 45 .23, where Yahweh is saying, to me, every knee will bow, to me, every tongue will confess.