A Defense of the Deity of Christ

All right, well, whenever it's around 2 o 'clock, genetically Baptists fall asleep. I'm not sure about Presbyterians, but it's a genetic thing. This is time for a, this is time for Baptanap. And so I always end up getting scheduled to speak while I'm supposed to be asleep.

And I realized that you all are only hanging around so that you can see the gripper later.

On.

What, no, has anybody asked you about that? I mean, people need to be, okay, good, good, I need to, I'm just trying to help the man continue to live in his old glories, you know? And so you're all waiting around for Eddie to speak.

And if you haven't asked him why I call him the gripper and why many other people in the world call him the gripper, then you need to, you need to do that. And he'll regale you with his fascinating stories.

But we have a limited amount of time. I forgot to look, actually, at the clock. I think I'm supposed to go to 3 .30. So I have a full hour and three minutes, something like that. That's pretty good. We'll take a shot at it here.

1 Peter 3:15 and the Call to Sanctify Christ as Lord

If you turn with me and your Bibles, please, to 1 Peter chapter 3. And you might be going, oh, great, 1 Peter chapter 3. We all know that one. If you go to any apologetics conference, if you go and listen to any presentation on apologetics, everybody knows 1 Peter chapter 3.

And every person who works in apologetics ministry has some talk that they are prepared to give based upon what you have here. Because, hey, apologetics, the very term itself is found in verse 15, but treat Christ as holy or sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to give pros apologion, always being ready to give a defense.

There's the whole concept of apologetics right there. Pros apologion, to anyone asking you a reason for the hope that is within you, yet with gentleness and reverence. And so there you go. You're supposed to start talking about the importance of the fact that each one of us has this responsibility.

This is not just addressed to the elders of the congregation, et cetera, et cetera. And as far as that goes, that's true. But I'm going to make a confession here, and that is, for many years, I would make reference to this text and I would give talks upon this text, and I had never really dealt with it in its own context.

And to be honest with you, I can't remember anybody else who had either. Listening to my fellow apologists, maybe I was tuned out, maybe I wasn't listening. I don't know. But the fact of the matter is, I'm starting here in talking about the deity of Christ because this is an extremely strong reference to the deity of Christ.

And I want to use it to introduce one of the key categories of evidence for the deity of.

Christ.

The Strongest Texts for the Deity of Christ

If I were to lay them out, we would have the texts that we argue about the most, and those are the texts that use the word theos, or God, of Jesus. John 1 .1, John 20 .28, Romans 9 .5, maybe 1 John 5 .20.

We have the issue of what's called the Granville Sharp Constructions in Titus 2 .13, 2 Peter 1 .1. The texts that utilize the very word God in description of Jesus. And you will find that your sharpest Unitarians know every single one of them, and can argue them in their sleep.

And so, for example, I've often said, if you're going to talk to Jehovah's Witnesses, you don't start with John 1 .1. That's exactly what they expect you to do. They have their answers down, they don't have to start thinking.

You want to try to get a Jehovah's Witness to start thinking critically. And if they're just simply re-quoting to you and regurgitating to you what they've said to 500 other people at the front door that morning, they're not going to be really listening to what you have to say.

And so you have those categories, and they're important, they're vitally, historically important. Then you have the categories of texts that describe Jesus in divine ways, that is doing divine actions.

And so, clearly, Colossians chapter 1, the description of Jesus as the creator of all things, whether in heaven and earth, is in that category. After John 1 .1, you've got John 1 .3. He's the one who's, you know, all things are made by him, without him was anything made that was made.

You have texts like Philippians chapter 2 that would fall into that. And the exalted language texts, where Jesus is associated with the Father, things like that. Then you have a bunch of other stuff that we almost never see as evidence of the deity of Christ.

And that was pointed out in, I think, one of the best books on the deity of Christ called Son of God, Lord of Glory, which I think you can get free online because it's way out of copyright. But I'm pretty sure Solid Ground Christian Books makes it available.

One of the best books I ever read on the subject of the deity of Christ. And in that book, it is pointed out that we generally ignore the strongest evidence, which is found in forcing those who deny the deity of Christ to give a coherent, meaningful presentation of who they believe Christ to be.

We as Christians generally allow ourselves to be put into the defensive mode, rather than saying to the Jehovah's Witness, okay, so you're telling me that Jesus is Michael the Archangel, the first and greatest of God's creations, right?

And so the Spirit is just God's impersonal active force. And so your interpretation of the Great Commission in Matthew 28 is, go and baptize them in the name of Jehovah God, Michael the Archangel, and an impersonal active force like running.

Water.

Right, that makes perfect sense. And we generally, they are good at putting us in the position of having to understand difficulty. We never do the same thing. Because when you think about it, there is just, Jesus is walking along and he'll say, anyone who believes my word will have eternal life.

And we're like, yeah, and then you stop and go, wait a minute, most normal people don't say that. And in fact, in that context, believing in my word, that's believing in the word of God,.

Really.

And so what's Jesus saying about himself? And you're making yourself central to whether you're going to have eternal life, and that's really God's prerogative. And there's just, we are so accustomed to reading the New Testament properly and recognizing the exalted status of Jesus, that we just go flitting over all these texts.

Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden. That's not what Moses says. Any true prophets pointing you to the one true God, Jesus is standing there, me, and we don't see it. And we don't push others to recognize that that is a massive category of information demonstrating that Jesus is something more than whatever it is the group you're talking to thinks he is.

Whether it's the Jehovah's Witness perspective, whether it's just a mere prophet, a mighty prophet of a law in Islam, whether it's whatever in the world the current crop of Unitarians are trying to come up with him to be, he doesn't fit into those categories, and we very frequently ignore that.

But this text fits into what I think is the strongest category of text, and given limitation of time, I want to try to make sure we get these texts down before we move into any of the other texts. Because believe me, I could spend this entire time on just Philippians 2, 5 through 11.

Really could. We could spend just this time in Colossians chapter 1, we could spend just this time looking at Colossians 2, 9. For in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. I mean, you have tremendous texts that, especially if you have memorized them and understood them in context, will place you in great stead to be able to give a reason for your belief in the deity of Christ.

And by the way, anymore, it's not just because you want to be ready on a Saturday morning when the J-dubs come by. In our context today, I would emphasize that believing in the deity of Christ is central to how we are giving a response to these social issues that we are facing.

I don't know if any of you saw it, but about three years ago, four years ago, I had the opportunity of being, when it was still on, on the Dr. Drew Show. And it was on the subject of transgenderism. And at one point, one of the hosts just completely murdered the doctrine of the Trinity.

And I had to sort of sit there and say, yeah, no, that's not what we believe actually. And he was like, it's not, that's not what you believe. And when I raised the reality that Jesus had taught that God created mankind, male and female, and that this was a good thing.

And of course, there are transgender folks, quote unquote, on the panel. One of the things that I said to one of the hosts was, and by the way, he predicted his own death and his own resurrection, and he left behind an empty tomb, and that gives him the authority to teach on these particular issues, an authority you don't have.

And so, it's no longer just, I want to be able to help that Jehovah's Witness come to know the truth about who Jesus is. That's a very good thing. I appreciated meeting someone here just last evening, or maybe it was this morning already, greeted a lot of folks who came out of that.

And that's what you needed. You needed someone who could really sit you down and show you what the scripture said. That's a fantastic, good, wonderful thing. We need to pray for Jehovah's Witnesses and seek to reach out to them.

But beyond that now, in our day, in a way that we really had not thought of in the not too distant past, we need to have in our own minds a proper recognition and understanding of the fact that when you present Jesus' teachings, you're not presenting the teachings of just another moral teacher.

You're presenting the teachings of the one who designed you. And every breath that you take and every beat of your heart is at His will. That gives Him ultimate authority. And so often when we have conversation with people, we have conversation with people who are limiting Jesus to just merely one of many historical perspectives, a nice guy, but limited.

No, if what we believe is true about who Jesus is, you cannot be neutral about Him and you cannot question His authority. That's what was so stunning to me about Daniel Kirk's statement in that debate I mentioned.

This morning.

Here is an ostensible Christian teacher. Well, Jesus is just a first century man. I mean, He didn't really understand all these things, you know, and we need to be able to move beyond His limited understanding of things.

That's not Christianity. That's not even close to Christianity. And so, keeping that in mind, these texts are becoming all the more important because you may be called upon to give an answer for why you believe that you should give more authority to Jesus' teaching than the Supreme Court, which in the not-too-distant future, whether we like it or not, unless God does something, is probably going to rule that you should lose all of your property and your civil rights if you dare to offend somebody who's transgender.

You say, that'll never happen.

Obergefell.

It's the only word I have to say. And just read the minority opinions. They see it coming. The justices and the minority opinions in that case, and of course, that was just merely opinions of the majority too, they saw it coming.

They recognized this opens the door to a complete reorientation of our entire structure of society, and they were exactly right. And so, are you going to be willing to lose it all? House, family, friends, relationships, based upon Jesus' teaching?

Then you better know who He was. You better know who He was. So these things have become important. So 1 Peter 3 .15, where is the deity of Christ? Well, you ready? You awake enough to do this? I'm not, I was a little hesitant, you know, in the afternoon, you know, I'm not sure how much caffeine is really in that stuff, and I don't drink coffee.

So if you're like me, I can't, I can't do caffeine.

It would kill me.

I'm a heart patient. So that would, that'd be, you know, that'd be the end of that. And I'm sure there'd be a lot of people would love to watch the video of that personally. That would be a big, that'd be a big YouTube sensation.

James White, you know, falls dead while every false religion on the planet would be claiming that one for themselves. They'd probably just blame you, Sam, because the camera would pan around, they'd go, hey,.

I know what happened. I know what happened.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway.

All right.

So where is it? Well, here's, there's some background stuff that this is be really important for you on all sorts of different levels. But one thing you want to have if you do not have access to the Greek New Testament directly is you want to have a translation of the New Testament that gives you a clear indication of when the Old Testament is being cited.

The old NASB did that by screaming at you. Of course, you're going, what? The New American Standard Bible, and I'm not sure what's going to be in the 2020 edition coming out, but the NASB has used block print in capital letters to indicate Old Testament citations.

The problem is that was done long before there was an internet and long before putting everything in caps is how you scream at people on the internet. And so now that you ever quote the New American Standard, it looks like you're screaming at everybody.

And that's a bit of a, that's a bit of a problem. So different translations will do it. Some translations won't do it at all. When I was in Russia, they're not only do their, does the almost, they only have pretty much just one translation that they use, the Russian Synodal Bible.

And not only does it not give any indication of Old Testament citations, it gives no indication of the use of the Tetragrammaton. What do I mean by that? When you're reading in the Old Testament, in your Bible translations, you see the words, the letters L-O-R-D in caps, even though the O and the R and the D are a smaller font size, but they're still in the capital forms.

That's the English Bible translator's way of telling you the underlying Hebrew term is the Tetragrammaton, Yod-Heh-Wau-Heh, Yahweh, or as we slaughter it in English, Jehovah. So it's very important to notice that.

It's very important to recognize when that's being used. It's used over 6 ,000 times in the Old Testament, so it's sort of good to know when it's there. But in Russia, they had no way of knowing when the name of Yahweh was being used.

They didn't know when the Old Testament was being cited. And that was troubling to me because there are some extremely important issues to be.

Found there.

So if you look at verse 14, the end of verse 14, do not fear them, neither be afraid nor troubled or something along those lines is normally the translation. Now if you look at your translation, is that indicated as an Old Testament citation?

Is it put in block quotes or italics or something along those lines? Maybe there's a note in a column or something like that, which we normally ignore those things. But this is a citation from the Old Testament.

And if you go back and you look, for example, you will find a number of texts in the Old Testament that are going to be somewhat related to what we're looking at here, but specifically if you look at Isaiah chapter 8 and you start reading through Isaiah chapter 8, you discover that there is this very, very interesting discussion of Immanuel, Immanuel, God with.

Us.

And some of the English translations aren't really good at being consistent in how they render this. But if you go to Isaiah chapter 8, verse 12, you are not to say it is a conspiracy in regard to all this people call a conspiracy.

You are not to fear what they fear or be in dread of it. There's your source. There is what Peter is making reference to in talking to the Christians who are the recipients of this letter. Isaiah 8, 12, you are not to say it is a conspiracy in regard to all this people call a conspiracy and you're not to fear what they fear or be in dread of it.

Now, you might look at that and just go, okay, so he found, you know, he looked through his Old Testament and found a text that had something about not being in fear and not being in dread. And it's sort of like one of those inspirational, you know, things you see in bathrooms, you know, to be the best you can be or some really bad Christian ones where people just were not looking at the context at all.

And still they may put a pretty picture and they sold it for 50 bucks. So all was well. But is that what Peter was doing? Well, don't think so. Because look at verse 13, it is the Lord of hosts whom you should regard as holy.

And look at the word LORD. You should notice that it's in all caps. The O and the R and the D are smaller font size, but it's in all caps. That is the English Bible translator's way of saying that is Yahweh.

So it is Yahweh of hosts whom you should regard as holy. So what's interesting is when you look at verse 15, I don't know of an English translation, I could be wrong about this, but I do not know of an English translation that continues the indication of Old Testament citation into verse 15, but they should.

They should, because it continues. Peter's still quoting from Isaiah 8. And in my Greek text, it is indicated as being a continuation of the Old Testament citation because they put the word LORD and sanctify, hagiacite, in italics, which is this way, this version's way of saying this is a citation from the Old Testament text.

And so the editors of the Nessiolan text recognized, yeah, Peter continued to quote. Ah, but what does that mean? Those first few words, LORD, but LORD, the Messiah, the Christ, hagiacite, treat as holy in your hearts.

Now that term kurion then, LORD, as it's coming through in Peter's citation, is in reference.

To whom?

Yahweh.

It is Yahweh of hosts that you are to treat as holy. So the word that has been added in by Peter is Messiah, Christos. So who is the Messiah? Because he puts Christos, it's Christon, it's in the accusative, kurion is in the accusative.

They're both a direct object of treat as holy. So treat as holy, set aside as holy, in the very center of your being, in your hearts, what? Kurion ton Christon, Yahweh the Messiah, because that's what it's being quoted from.

If we look back at Isaiah chapter 8, if we ignore the Old Testament background, if we close our eyes to it, then we might not see it. But this is one of those many places in the New Testament where the New Testament writers purposefully, knowingly, draw from an Old Testament text that was about Yahweh, and they apply that terminology and that language specifically to the Son.

And yet, often because of our translational issues and because we don't take the time to look back at Old Testament context, we don't see that right here we are being told to treat as holy in our hearts, kurion ton Christon, the Lord the Christ.

Now one of the reasons that I confess years worth of having handled this text without having seen this, is because the always being ready to give a defense, the apologetic part, is all subservient to this part.

It's all subservient to this part. If you are not, in your hearts, setting aside and treating as holy the incarnate Lord, the one who entered into human flesh, Yahweh God, in the person of the Son, then you're not really ready to be giving an answer for the hope that's within you, because the hope's going to be within you because you've got things right, first of all, in your heart.

And I never emphasized that. Whenever I addressed this text, I was just, we've got to get everybody excited about apologetics, got to get them excited about going out and talking to this group or that group.

But the point is, this text is addressed to every single Christian, and it's in the imperative. It's a command. And the command is to every single Christian, you are to order your heart and your life in light of treating as holy the incarnate one himself.

That's what orders all the priorities of your life. And when your life is prioritized and ordered in that way, then it will make such an impact upon how you respond to trials and difficulties and tragedies.

It'll have such an impact on how you are not going to be in love with the things of this.

World.

And if you have the love of those things, love the Father is not in you, happens to be a direct biblical citation, that the result is that people are going to see the hope that.

Is within you.

And they're going to go, hey, where did you get that? You're not like the rest of us. You're not responding the way the rest of us do. But you see, there is an order here, and we skip it if we don't recognize what comes first.

And it's a daily command to set aside Yahweh the Messiah as holy in your hearts. Recognize that you have been called to serve not merely a moral philosopher, but the very incarnate Son who entered into human flesh, who together with the Father and the Spirit share that one being of God identified in Scripture as Yahweh.

Now, that sermon was free. I was not asked to, well, not be charging Jeff or the church for that extra little bit of sermon there, but this is just one of many texts. Now, you've probably seen on the back of books and stuff like that, these charts where on the one side you have texts about Yahweh, Jehovah, and then on the other side you have texts about Jesus, and there's an arrow that goes between the two.

And it's like, see, Jehovah is this, Jesus is this. That's fine, but be careful, because sometimes some of those will say, Yahweh is king, Jesus is king. Does that make Jesus Yahweh? Because there have been lots of kings.

If kingship makes you Yahweh, then David was Yahweh too. So you have to be very, very careful in thinking through, was it the intention of the author to actually communicate identity in these words, or are we just simply talking about general categories?

God is loving, Jesus is loving, okay, therefore Jesus is God. That's not the best type of argumentation that can be made, because there are others who are loving in the universe as well. So it has to be something that actually communicates something about identity, something that's.

Unique.

Now, obviously, treating Yahweh as holy in Isaiah 8 is unique. You're not to treat anyone else as holy. You're not to worship anyone else. So the uniqueness aspect is found here. But there are those charts that can be helpful in some places, but in other places you're actually leaving yourself open to fairly easy reputation by someone who's really, really.

Sharp, okay?

Using Psalm 102 and Hebrews 1 Against Jehovah's Witnesses

Now, many years ago, I've told this story before. If you've heard it, I'm sorry, you're going to get to hear it again, but people have found this to be so useful when they've not heard it before. But many years ago I was asked to meet with three Jehovah's Witness elders in someone's home on a Saturday morning.

I came in, I was very open with them. I said, I teach at a local university, I lecture on theology and apologetics, I teach people what you believe. Now, normally with most Jehovah's Witnesses, that would be enough to start zipping up the book bag and heading for the road.

He ain't going to be taking any washed towels and wigs from us, so let's just not even worry about it. But these were elders, and there were three of them together, and I think that sort of made them like, you know?

And so I said, in fact, could I explain to you, could I tell you what I tell other people you believe? And they're like, okay. They found that to be interesting. And so I gave them just the best theocratic ministry school language presentation of what Jehovah's Witnesses believe, and using their language and sources and stuff like that.

And I get done, and they're like, wow, you could have given that at the Kingdom Hall. No one would have had any objections to anything you just said. And I said, well, I think it's important that you be accurate.

I think you need to represent the other side fairly and accurately. Having accurately represented them and shown them some respect and having done my homework, then I said, now, I'm a Trinitarian. I believe in the doctrine of the Trinity.

I know what your objections to the doctrine of the Trinity are, but I'd like to explain to you why I'm a biblical Trinitarian. And I said, I'd like to do it from the Bible. And they're like, okay, because they obviously don't believe there's any way to do that, any way to do that at all.

All right. So here's what I did. And I would suggest possibly following this same order, it will work best for you. I said, could you turn in your Bibles, please, to the Psalter, Psalm 102, and could you read some verses for me?

And it's okay to go ahead and use the New World Translation at this point. You don't need to get into an argument about the NWT that gets their defensive shackles up and they're all, and you can get into that at another point.

You'll run into some mistranslations during this, but get to it at a later point. You want, most Jehovah's Witnesses will not take literature from you. Some do, but very few. But I've never had a Jehovah's Witness leave their Bible behind.

And so if you can show them in the Bible, they'll take that Bible with them. All right. So could you read me Psalm 102, 25 through 27? And so they'll turn to Psalm 102, of old you found the earth and the heavens, 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, they will be changed, but you are the same and your years will not come to an end. And so I say, now, if you just go back just a few verses to verse 22, is not the name of Yahweh used.

And of course, in their translation, it's Jehovah. So it'll say in the kingdoms to serve Jehovah, verse 24, oh my God, do not take me away in the midst of my days, et cetera, et cetera. And so we're talking about Jehovah God here.

And I say, now, is there anyone other than Jehovah God who is unchanging, who founded the earth of old, the heavens, the work of his hands, they perish, you endure, all of them wear out like a garment, like clothing, you will change them, they will be changed, but you are the same and your years will not come to an end.

Is this not uniquely about the one true God, Jehovah? Well, yes, Jehovah is the one true God. Now, of course, they believe that the first and greatest thing that Jehovah God created was Michael, and then through Michael created all other things, and that Michael became Jesus, even though it became part, it's a little bit difficult to trace in their theology.

But that's the mindset that they have. But Michael is still a created being. He is still on this side of the creator-creation distinction. And so what you've done is you have put your finger on a unique attribute of Jehovah God, he is unchanging.

And it freaked them out a little bit that I was using their language and admitting, hey, Jehovah God, this is how Jehovah God is, there's only one true God, Jehovah God, et cetera, et cetera. You keep your hand or your finger in that and say, okay, in light of that, could you turn over to Hebrews chapter 1?

And again, you don't want to get into an argument about some of the other texts that you can get into an argument at about at this point, or you'll lose their attention. But it is important to recognize who's being addressed in Hebrews chapter 1.

And so at verse 6, and when he again brings firstborn into the world, he says, let all the angels of God worship him. Now, the Jehovah's Witness thinks firstborn means first created. Get to that at a later time.

You can deal with Colossians 1 .15 at a later point. The point is, let all the angels of God worship him. Of the angels, he says, who makes angels winds and administers the flame of fire, but of the sun, he says.

Now here, the sun is distinguished from the angels. That's also important in dealing with Jehovah's Witnesses. But don't go there right now either, because you'll mess it all up. The point is that verse 8 says, but of the sun, he says, your throne, O God, is forever and ever.

The righteous scepter is the scepter of his kingdom. You have loved righteousness, has hated lawlessness. Therefore, God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions. They're going to want to look at verse 9 primarily.

See, God has a God, can't have that. Their translation says God is your throne. Don't get into that. The whole point is that verse 8 says, but of the sun, he says. And then verse 10 says, and, comma, next quote.

So the point is this, even in their translation, this is about the sun. This is specifically about the sun.

Okay?

And you, Lord, the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens the works of your hands. They will perish, but you remain. They all become old like a garment. Like a mantle, you will roll them up like a garment.

They will also be changed. But you're the same, and your years will not come to an end. Direct citation from the Greek Septuagint initially about Yahweh here being applied to the sun. Now, there are Unitarians who try to find ways around this.

I believe that Brother Eddie is going to be addressing part of that in the next talk in regards to how one particular individual that I've debated. Some of you may have seen the debate that I did. And I had forgotten that there were a couple of troublemakers in the audience, one of whom is with us today, that day at the Jewish Voice broadcast where Michael Brown and I debated Anthony Buzzard and Joseph Goode on this, and this particular issue came up.

But I think Brother Eddie is going to be going into a little more depth on this. Most Jehovah's Witnesses have never seen this. And so, at this point, very, very, very practical piece of advice here. Very, very practical.

All depends on what your attitude is at this point. If you simply want to draw theological blood, then what you're going to do is you're going to pull out your nice, long theological sword, and you're going to aim it at the Jehovah's Witness heart, and you go, so what about that, buddy?

Okay?

And then you're going to pull it out and wave it around and go, Facebook, look at me! And that will be the end of the conversation. And the problem is that individual will come up with an answer. It may be the dumbest thing they've ever said in their entire life, but they will come up with an answer, and they'll probably go to their grave believing that answer because you forced them to.

You've got to do a heart check. Not with the sword, by the way. You've got to do your own heart check and say, what do I really want to accomplish here? And what really needs to be done is, if you can tell they've never been hit with this before, then you need to give them space to consider it.

You need to take the pressure off. Because they feel the pressure, as Jehovah's Witnesses, to give an answer to anything. That's their way of doing things. So what you've got to almost immediately do is say, now, if you've not looked at that before, it would be unfair of me to ask you to give an answer for that.

I would just ask you to look into that and to maybe get back with me. Now you're opening up the possibility of another meeting. Get back with me on that, and could I show you another? Now you see, if you just thrust your sword, you never get to show them the second one.

You're probably not going to ever have a second opportunity of talking to them. And they're not going to walk out going, I had never seen that before. I need to look at that. So, very practical application at that point.

Where did I go next? Because they said, I said to them, it wouldn't be fair. I said, can I show you another one? And I've never had a Jehovah's Witness say no. I can see that happening. But I've never had a Jehovah's Witness say no, whenever this has happened.

And so I said, okay, let me show you just one other. And this time, the order isn't overly important, but I think it's probably best simply to go to John chapter 12. And I have found it's very, very useful in talking to people to establish the context of the verses that you're looking at.