Is Jesus God? Part 3

John 1 and the Eternal Logos

We're now going to conclude with part three of our debate. This is going to feature a 20-minute period of questions from our studio audience, which may be directed to either side or to a specific panelist.

So the individual or team addressed will be allowed two minutes to answer, and it may be followed by comments from the opposing side of up to 90 seconds. So let's begin part three, and we'll ask our first member of the studio audience with their question to tell us who you are and ask your question into the microphone and tell us who it's for.

My name is Jeff Durbin from Phoenix, and this question was really for Dr. White, but really to try to get a further explanation from Dr. Buzzard on the response. Dr. White, the question really is can you exegete John chapter 1, A, B, and C from the Greek text and see if we can get some sort of a response from Dr. Buzzard more than just lowering the capital letter to a lower case?

Well, you know, we looked at that, but let me just briefly reiterate the assertion that I made, and that is there are two verbs used in the prologue of John. You have the imperfect form of I, me that is used when it's speaking of the logos, which does not refer to a point of origin in time or a point of creation.

But as far back as you want to push the beginning, the logos is already in existence. And that's what you have in John 1, 1. In the beginning was the Word. The Word has eternally existed. The Word was prostantheon, face to face with God, and the Word was as to His nature, theos, God.

All things were made through Him. Now, the term autu that is used there can be masculine or neuter, but all modern translations that I know of say Him because it is the one who becomes flesh in John 1, 14.

It is, I think, an eisegetical insertion to say, well, no, this is just sort of a plan or some type of a concept that's eternally existed with God because this same one is described in John 1, 18 as the monogamous theos, the unique God.

This is the one who has exegeted the Father. You have to see that 1, 18 and 1, 1 are bookends. And so if you don't allow 1, 18 to inform who the logos is here, you have a plan up here, but now you have the monogamous theos here.

That creates an imbalance and, I think, a contradiction in the text.

Okay, Dr. Buzzard, 90 seconds if you could respond. Yeah, I just differ, obviously.

I think logos is not a person until it becomes a person in the 14th verse. And I will make this grammatical point that will be of interest to you, that if you look at the light, which is a neuter word in Greek, you'll find it's neuter, naturally enough, afto, the light.

When you get to verse 10, remarkably, it's become afton, a person, because Jesus has now come on the scene after John the Baptist shows up. That's where the logos, it, the wisdom and plan of God, has gone from a neuter, a thing, to afton, the light is now a person walking.

And that's where, as James White says so well, that's where the monogamous son comes in. Jesus is what wisdom and word became.

Thank you very much. Our next question. Tell us who you are and who your question's focused on.

The Shaliach and the Worship of Jesus

I'm Sam from Chicago. My question's directed to the Unitarians, particularly Joe, I think is his name. Is that his name, Joe? Not Sir Anthony Buzzard, the other gentleman. It has to do with the concept of shaliach.

He kept saying that Jesus could receive the worship that belongs only to God because he's God's agent. Well, my question is this. The apostles were also the agents of God and Christ, respectively. And in the book of Revelation, if you read chapter 22, verse 6 and 16, Revelation chapter 22, verse 6 and 16, it says that the angel who spoke to John was the agent of God and Christ, respectively.

With that said, could the apostles go around saying, I am Jesus Christ, or God the Father, therefore worship me, because they were the agents of God and Christ? And if so, then why did the angel refuse to receive worship, seeing that he was the shaliach, the agent of God and Christ, respectively?

So that's my question directed to the Unitarians. Okay.

Okay. I'd like to read two definitions of, according to Jewish law, what a shaliach is. Which is, the word means an agent, and it's called the law of agency. First is from the Jewish encyclopedia. The law of agency deals with the status of a person known as the agent, acting by direction of another, the principal, and thereby legally binding the principal in this connection with the third person.

The person who binds a principal in this manner is his agent, known in Jewish law as a shaluach or shaliach, one that is sent. The relation of the former to the latter is known as agency. Now, the bottom line on this, this is from the Babylonian Talmud, Kedoshim 41b, but it's actually quoted in the Mishnah, which is much earlier, is a man's agent is like himself.

Wait, another paper. This is from the Encyclopedia of the Jewish Religion. The main point of the Jewish law of agency is expressed in the dictum, a person's agent is regarded as the person himself. Now, as you drop on down in this, you're told that the person sending the agent will specify what he's allowed to do, what his power is.

In the case of, in the case of Yeshua, all power was given to him from above. He was acting as God on earth, but I don't believe that he was God on earth. The agents, the apostles, when they were sent out, they were limited in what they could do, just like Moses in the first coming.

He was a sith one. He was a shaliach, but he was limited. He couldn't call down plagues at will. It came as it was directed by the father. So that would be the difference between the two. Thank you. And a rebuttal, 90 seconds.

Yeah. All of the issues that were raised haven't been addressed to this moment. For example, John 12 saying that the glorious Lord that Isaiah saw was Jesus in Isaiah, the sixth chapter. So all of these arguments about shaliach and the sent ones are completely irrelevant.

The sent one was not from the beginning. If he was from the beginning, which is explicit in John one and explicit in Hebrews, the chapter one and explicit in first John one, one and other texts, the agent was not an uncreated eternal being and the one that created the whole universe.

And when he came into the world, even the demons said, you are the holy one of God. They recognized who he was. They didn't just say, you know, you've been sent by the big man and we're scared of the big man.

They said, no, we know who you are and we are in big trouble. So let's just go with the explicit texts that say who he is and not be dissuaded or pushed to the side. Also, it's very interesting that early rabbinic literature makes reference to the followers of Jesus worshiping two powers.

Where did they get that idea from? It's because they understood the worship of him as divine, but they didn't understand God's triunity because they rejected the revelation of the Messiah. Thank you.

The Meaning of Echad in the Shema

Next question from our studio audience, your name, who your question is directed to in your question.

My name is Sandy Zimmerman from Phoenix, Arizona. My question is, if Yeshua is not God, why is God allowing him to be worshiped in revelation, breaking the first commandment? Directed to?

The non-trinitarian group. Okay. Yeah. He is worshiped as the Messiah. There's a Greek word, Latrevo, which is used of religious worship. It's not used of Jesus in the New Testament. That's my point.

Very important distinction. Secondly, in the book of Hebrews, the first chapter, he labors to show that Jesus is superior to angels. Do you remember it? Superior to angels. Think about that. If you think Jesus is God, why would you bother arguing that he's better than the angels?

It's silly. The idea had not entered the writer's head to think that he is God, that would make two gods. No, he has to argue with text after text after text that Jesus is superior to an angel. Think about that.

Why not just say he's God for goodness sake, get on with it? It's a very simple issue at stake here.

Hebrews chapter one actually says exactly that. We were just told it was silly to demonstrate that Jesus is superior to the greatest created things and yet the writer of the Hebrews does exactly that in Hebrews chapter one, identifying Jesus as Yahweh and saying he created all things.

But then we just said, well, letruo is not used of Jesus. Listen to these words in Revelation chapter five, and I heard every creature in heaven on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all that is in them.

That's every creature. If Jesus is a creature, he'd be worshiping himself, saying to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever. And the four living creatures said, amen, and the elders fell down and worshiped.

Now the term worship there is proskuneo. The idea being that's somehow less than letruo, except this is the worship being given by all of creation and all the living creatures to him who sits upon the throne, which we all agree around this table is truly God, but it's given to him who sits upon the throne and to the lamb.

That would be absolute idolatry if the lamb is a created being. The text says every created being enters into this worship. Is the lamb a created being? Then he's worshiping himself. The text is very plain.

And I also would point out that although Anthony has told us that why doesn't the writer of Hebrews one just go ahead and say he's God? He does. And Anthony said that's one of the explicit places in the New Testament where he does so.

I don't believe in two gods, only one. We're giving you the simple answer for what the Bible is saying.

Okay, next question from our studio audience, your name and who your question is directed to.

The Perfect Sacrifice and Salvation for Non-Trinitarians

I'm Mike and I'm from Oceanside, California. I'd like to address this question first to Dr. Brown and then have Dr. Buzzard respond to it if he would. And the question is, if Jesus is not every bit as much God as Yahweh, then he cannot be the perfect sacrifice for sin as Trinitarians claim he is.

What then do non-Trinitarians place their trust in for the sacrifice for their sins and can a non-Trinitarian truly be saved in the Trinitarian's point of view?

Let me first address the last part of that. Can a non-Trinitarian be saved? That's for God to decide. I have grave concern for the gentlemen across from me, as I've told them plainly, because of their denial of the scriptural testimony of who Jesus is, because of what I see as idolatrous things being said about a man, as opposed to God tabernacling among us.

So I have grave concerns, ultimately God is the judge, but if we deny the explicit testimony of the word in many, many, many different places, can we be saved? I have grave concerns over that when it pertains to the person of Jesus.

As to could a mere man save us, an immortalized man, a glorified man, a man appointed as the son of God, no, absolutely not, because God alone is the savior and God alone is the redeemer, and a human being alone does not have the power to pay for the sins of the entire human race.

Even a perfect human being, who is in fact the second Adam, he comes from heaven, as the scripture says over and over and over again, it is the divine son who comes down from heaven, takes his residence among us, and dies for the sins of the world.

If not for that, we do not have hope. Would you like to add? No, I just wanted to emphasize my concern likewise with Dr. Brown is based upon not some type of unfriendliness toward the gentlemen across from me, who seem to be wonderfully kind gentlemen, but my conviction is that as the Apostle John himself said, if you do not confess the son, you do not have the father either, and I do not believe that a son who merely came into existence at the time of Bethlehem is what's described.

And if I really believe this is true, then the greatest act of love that I can extend toward either of these gentlemen is to try my best to communicate these things to you. It is not out of hatred. It is not out of some political thing from the past.

If I, certainly you must agree, if I believe what I'm saying, then I must express my concern about your eternal life.

So must we. I've been told that I don't believe in God because I believe there's a devil. I've been told that I don't speak in tongues enough that I couldn't be saved. I've heard this from every single denomination.

This is nothing new. I simply don't think that it's wrong for God to appoint a sinless virginally born person who has no human father. If God chooses to appoint him as the lamb to die for my sins, I'll accept it.

I don't see the evidence for a second Yahweh. I keep hearing about Yahweh and Yahweh. This is very frightening to me. There's a Yahweh in heaven who doesn't come to the earth, then there's a Yahweh in the womb of Mary.

That sounds awfully like two Yahwehs to me. That gives me great concern.

Joseph, do you want to add anything to that? As they expressed their concern, to see Yeshua as God, to me, is by reverse, it's idolatry. I don't believe that the Jewish believers of the first century, I don't believe that Paul, I don't believe that the passages that are used, that are interpreted in the way they are today, that that's how they were understood in that time.

Can I add something? I think I'll give a clarification, at least from where I'm coming. You ever see the movie Back to the Future? The young man goes into the 30 years back in time from the 1980s to the 1950s, and he goes into the drugstore, and the man asks him, what will you have?

And he says, well, give me a tab, and he says, you don't get a tab until you check out. So he says, give me a Pepsi free, and he says, well, the only kind of Pepsi you get is one you pay for. So he says, well, give me something sugar free, so he gives him black coffee.

Now he said everything right, but somewhere in there, over 30 years, the meanings for these words had changed. And I believe that people are looking at the passages here and interpret them in a different light than the way they were understood originally.

Thank you very much. I think we have time for one more question from our studio audience. Tell us your name, your question, who it's directed to.

The Shema, Echad, and Monotheism

My name is Sally Miller, and I live in Phoenix, Arizona. My question is, in the Shema, it says, hear, O Israel, the Lord is one. And the Hebrew word for one is echad. Now I know they mentioned this already, but it's my understanding that echad encompasses multiple dimensions in this unity.

And the scripture where the husband and wife, Adam and his wife are one, is also echad, and they certainly are different dimensions. So how do you respond, the non-Trinitarian side respond, to this comment?

Dr. Buzzard? Yeah. There are 970 occurrences of the word echad. It means one. I would invite you to ask any Jewish child this high to put up one finger. It means one. It's just exactly like the English word one, exactly.

One single. Go to any lexicon, check it out. One single Lord. That's good to me. There is a prodigious piece of nonsense, if I may put it that way, impolitely, out there in internet land, to suggest that echad is really compound one.

Go to the dollar store, pay your dollar, and go to the counter, and it says it's compound one, $13. It's false. It's a language trick of major proportions. Echad means one single. Abraham was only one person.

Guess what the Hebrew word is there? Echad. Everything is plural. If you want to take cells in Abraham or arms and legs, everything is plural. But you're being played a grand trick when you're being told that echad means more than one.

It's a numeral adjective meaning one single item. 970 times, I invite you to go through every one of them. As our friends have done, we've done it endlessly. Echad means one single, just like one.

Joseph, you've got your Hebrew open there, so I think you want to add something to that.

In the book of Joshua, it's talking about the kings that were conquered by Joshua when the people came into the land, and it has a list of them, 31 of them. It starts off, the king of Jericho, it says one, but the Hebrew word is echad.

It's not Yahid. Echad is used there for a singular one. It can be used for a singular one. It can be used for like a husband and a wife, but it's not restricted to that. So you can't make a case from the Shema on that.

Not two fleshes. One flesh. Not two fleshes.

Okay, rebuttal. 90 seconds. Yeah, you know, I've got to be honest here. That's a miserably disappointing answer from sincere guys. I've got to be honest. First, check the counts, you know, all the references to numbers.

Like you mentioned, Sir Anthony, 7 ,000 references to Yahweh, you know, that's an incorrect number by hundreds. Either way, just check the references rather than re-quote them, okay? But the bottom line is, echad just means one.

We believe in one God. What's a good number to use? How about one? So echad means one. It can refer to one couple. It can refer to one team. It can refer to one pen. It can refer to one debate. Here, Exodus chapter 35, verse 13, they made 50 gold clasps used to fashion the two sets of curtains together so that the tabernacle was a unit.

What's the word used? Echad. So Genesis 1, that Lila and Yom, the night and day, is one day. So the word echad simply talks about one God, and he's the only God that we worship. That's the primary revelation in the Old Testament.

So when you look in the Torah, the Hebrew Scriptures, the argument is not, what's the nature of God? Is he three in one or two in one or what? No, no, it's only worship this one God because there's only one Yahweh.

There's not a Yahweh in this town, this town, this town. One God, we worship him exclusively. And echad simply uses the word one, just like in English. Very very simply, proving monotheism does not prove Unitarianism.

We are monotheists. The question is, is that one being of God shared by three divine persons as the Scriptures teaches, or do we have to close one eye and say, well, we're defending monotheism. I am a monotheist.

I have defended monotheism over and over and over again against many many different perspectives. But proving monotheism is not proving Unitarianism.

Gentlemen, thank you very much for your excellent responses. We're going to conclude now with a closing statement from each of our experts, again limited to two minutes, at which time I'm going to conclude with prayer.

Gentlemen, let's begin with your two-minute closing statements, and we're going to begin with the Trinitarians.

The Deity of Christ in Scripture and Early Christian Witness

I think what's clear is that we haven't had a need to quote many many other scholars perpetually, although we easily could. We've quoted Scripture after Scripture after Scripture after Scripture. The fascinating thing is the earliest witnesses to these Scriptures, the disciples of the first apostles, writing at the end of the first century and beginning of the second century, made explicit reference to the deity of Jesus, even more explicit language than the New Testament used.

Where did they learn that from? Did they learn it from something that came hundreds and hundreds of years later, or did they learn it from the apostles themselves? So here's what we've looked at. We've looked at divine appearances like Genesis 18 and Isaiah 6 and other passages that have not yet been refuted, not even a drop, speaking of God appearing bodily in the Hebrew Scriptures and explicitly identified at times as Jesus in the New Testament.

Jesus said of himself that he came down from heaven. It says he came from God, was going to God. It says in Philippians 2 that he existed previously in the form of God. He says of himself, not I represent the Alpha and the Omega, but I myself, the very same thing said about Almighty God elsewhere in the book of Revelation, two other passages, Jesus says about himself and takes even further in Revelation chapter 22, I am, he says, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

It is impossible for a created being to say those words. That's why Hebrews 1 clearly calls him God. That's why Thomas said, my Lord and my God. That's why the Scriptures says explicitly passage after passage in the New Testament that through him the universe was made.

That's why every created thing in heaven and earth will bow down and worship him the exact same way they worship God. That only goes to an eternal divine being. I'm only concerned with being faithful to the Scriptures.

I worship one God, one God only, as he has revealed himself to us. That's plain. Thank you, Dr. Brown. Dr. White. Not much I can add to that, so let me simply read to you the words of Melito of Sardis written at the end of the second century, one of the earliest writers that we have again in that early time period.

And so he was lifted up upon a tree and an inscription was attached indicating who was being killed. Who was it? It is a grievous thing to tell, but a most fearful thing to refrain from telling. But listen as you tremble before him on whose account the earth trembled.

He who hung the earth in place is hanged. He who fixed the heavens in place is fixed in place. He who made all things fast is made fast on a tree. The sovereign is insulted. God is murdered. The king of Israel is destroyed by an Israelite hand.

This is the one who made the heavens and the earth and formed mankind in the beginning. The one proclaimed by the law and the prophets. The one enfleshed in a virgin. The one hanged on a tree. The one buried in the earth.

The one raised from the dead and who went up into the heights of heaven. The one sitting at the right hand of the father. The one having all authority to judge and save. Through whom the father made the things which exist from the beginning of time.

This one is the Alpha and Omega. This one is the beginning and the end. The beginning indescribable and the end incomprehensible. This one is the Christ. This one is the king. This one is Jesus. This one is the leader.

This one is the Lord. This one is the one who rose from the dead. This one is the one sitting at the right hand of the father. He bears the father and is born by the father. To him be the glory and power forever, amen.

This is the faith of the early church, the first ones who received the inspired scriptures. They believed the testimony. They didn't have to wait for hundreds of years. They didn't have to wait for the council of Nicaea.

They saw that the one described in the text of the New Testament cannot merely be a man. He was truly man. He was truly a man. They did not deny that. But they recognized. They had both eyes open. They saw the fullness of the revelation.

Believe there is one true God, yes. But they saw the fullness of the revelation and recognized who Jesus truly was. That's my prayer for everyone this evening as well.

Thank you Dr. White. And our non-trinitarians, Joseph, you want to start?

One God the Father and the Need to Search the Scriptures

In 1 Corinthians chapter 8, verse 6, it declares that there's only one God, the father. And over and over, as we read through the Gospels, we find that Yeshua, he prays to God his father. He acknowledges that Hashem is his God.

I disagree with many of the points that have been taken by the other side tonight. And they disagree with us. All across the country, as I travel, the majority of the people that I'm meeting with, that I'm talking with, are in the Messianic Jewish movement.

And I know that a lot of people are coming up and asking. I have numbers of ministers or pastors or congregational leaders that are coming up and they are asking questions about whether Yeshua is God or not.

Now this is a really serious matter. The bottom line is that we're not going to settle it in a debate. The main thing that I think that we probably hope for is to raise questions. To raise questions and for people to go and to look and to search and to diligently search and to pray and to be careful and let your conscience guide you.

Be prayerful in it, but go in and the things that have been raised here, we're very... We have our sides. I mean, you can tell that. We have our sides, but at least you need to know what the issues are so that you can examine it, so that you can go in, you can see, you can start to ask the question.

Don't be afraid to ask any of the questions. Ask yourself. It's not unfaithful to God to ask these questions. It is something that every believer should search out and examine and do it over and over and over because you're the one that's going to stand ultimately before God.

So I hope in that way, I hope that we have brought it to the table for many people. Thank you, Joseph.

And Dr. Busselton. Yes, we're all doing our best here. In my own case, we got on our knees 45 years ago and we said, God, give us the truth. We want the truth at all costs. We're traitors across the earth.

It doesn't make us right. But I would urge you all to get Erikson's book. This is the best the Trinitarians can do. This is sophisticated stuff. The best the Trinitarian argument can do. His conclusion.

He says, to be a Trinitarian, you have to say they is one or he are, I can't even say, he are three. He admits with a very acute logical mind. It's fundamentally nonsense to say this is Yahweh, this is Yahweh, this is Yahweh makes one Yahweh.

It doesn't. It never will. Buy this book. I'm not a salesman for it. This is the best that can be done. And it's really logical nonsense. You go before the judge of the earth and say, I think that three is really one, you might be in trouble.

Work out echad. Not that hard. Echad is one single. Check the lexicons. Communicate with us, all of us. Get the points of view. Say to God, if I'm deceived, please send somebody to undeceive me. I still want to know the truth.

And then be ready to give up everything for it. Give up your church if necessary. You may antagonize your spouse, let me say. Jesus said to you, and to me, if you're not willing to give up everything for the truth, you ain't going nowhere fast, as we say in Georgia.

That's my point to you. Try that method and see where it gets you. We'll meet again in a few years.

Gentlemen, thank you very much for a truly thought-provoking evening. Let's thank our panelists for a job well done. And thank you to our studio audience for being so attentive. And to you at home for watching.

And my prayer for all of you, our prayer for all of you, is that these complex issues will drive you to prayer and study of the word for yourself. Study to show yourself approved, a workman unto God who need not be ashamed.

Let's all pray. Lord, we thank you for what we've heard tonight. A challenge to each and every one of us to study the word of God for ourselves. I pray, Lord, that this debate would drive each one that listens to it to prayer and to discern the truth, to rightly divide the word of God.

And all of us can agree on this, that Yeshua died that we might have life. And we thank you for sending him into this world to atone for our sins, that we might know you, that we might be restored to you and have the gift of eternal life.

Thank you tonight, Lord, for this opportunity to gather together around your word. We bless you. We lift up the name of your son. And we pray this in Yeshua's name. Amen. Amen.