|
Man is made to adore and to obey:
but if you will not command him, if you give him nothing to worship, he will
fashion his own divinities, and find a chieftain in his own passions.
—Benjamin
Disraeli, Coningsby
 The critical difference between Jesus’ teachings and the Trinitarian
formula lies in elevating Jesus to divine status—a status Jesus denies in the
gospels:
“Why do you call me good: No one is good but One,
that is, God.” (Matthew 9:17, Mark 10-18, and Luke 18:19)
“My Father is greater than I.” (John 14:28)
“I do nothing of myself, but as the Father taught
me, I speak these things.” (John 8:28)
“Most assuredly, I say to you, the son can do
nothing of himself …” (John 5:19)
“But I know Him, for I am from Him, and He sent
me.” (John 7:29)
“He who rejects me rejects Him who sent me.” (Luke
10:16)
“But now I go away to Him who sent me …” (John
16:5)
“Jesus answered them and said, ‘My doctrine is not
mine, but His who sent me.’” (John 7:16)
“For I have not spoken on my own authority; but the
Father who sent me gave me a command, what I should say and what I should
speak.” (John 12:49)
What does Pauline theology say? That Jesus is a partner
in divinity, God incarnate. So whom should a person believe? If Jesus, then
let’s hear what else he might have to say:
“The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear O Israel, The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” (Mark 12:29)
“But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the
angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Mark 13:32)
“‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only
you shall serve.’” (Luke 4:8)
“My food is to do the will of Him who sent me …”
(John 4:34)
“I can of myself do nothing … I do not seek
my own will but the will of the Father who sent me.” (John 5:30)
“For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own
will, but the will of Him who sent me.” (John 6:38)
“My doctrine is not mine, but His who sent
me.” (John 7:16)
“I am ascending to my Father and your
Father, and to my God and your God.” (John 20:17)
My italics in the above verses do not imply that Jesus
spoke with that emphasis, although nobody can claim with certainty that he
didn’t. Rather, the italics stress the fact that Jesus not only never claimed
divinity, but would be the first to deny it. In the words of Joel Carmichael,
“The idea of this new religion, with himself as its deity, was something he
[Jesus Christ] could never have had the slightest inkling of. As Charles
Guignebert put it, ‘It never even crossed his mind.’”
So if Jesus never claimed divinity, then what was he
exactly? He answered that question himself:
“A prophet is not without honor except in
his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house.” (Mark 6:4)
“But Jesus said
to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and
in his own house.” (Matthew 13:57)
“It cannot be that a prophet should perish
outside of Jerusalem.” (Luke 13:33)
Those who knew him acknowledged, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee” (Matthew 21:11), and “A great prophet
has risen up among us …” (Luke 7:16). The disciples recognized Jesus as “a prophet mighty in deed …” (Luke 24:19. Also see
Matthew 14:5, 21:46, and John 6:14). If these statements were
inaccurate, why didn’t Jesus correct them? Why didn’t he define his divinity
if, that is, he truly was divine? When the woman at the well stated, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet’” (John 4:19),
why didn’t he thank her for her lowly impression, but explain there was more to
his essence than prophethood?
Or was there?
Jesus Christ, a mere man? Could it be? A good part of
the religiously introspective world wonders, “Why not?” Acts 2:22 records Jesus as “Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested by God to you
by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through him in your midst, as you
yourselves also know.” Jesus himself is recorded as having said, “But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told
you the truth which I heard from God …” (John 8:40). Strikingly, a
similar quote is found in the Holy Qur’an:
“He [Jesus] said: ‘I am indeed a servant of Allah: He has
given me Revelation and made me a prophet’” (Quran 19:30)
So was Jesus a “servant of Allah (i.e., servant of
God)?” According to the Bible, yes. Or, at least, that is what we understand
from Matthew 12:18: “Behold! My servant whom I have chosen …”
Furthermore, Acts of the Apostles traces the growth of the early church for the
first thirty years following Jesus’ ministry, but nowhere in Acts did Jesus’
disciples ever call Jesus “God.” Rather, they referred to Jesus as a man and
God’s servant.
In fact, the only New Testament verse which
supports the doctrine of the Incarnation is
1 Timothy 3:16. However, with regard to this verse (which
states that “God was manifest in the
flesh”), Gibbon notes, “This strong expression might be justified by the
language of St. Paul (I Tim. iii. 16), but we are deceived by our modern bibles.
The word ë (which) was altered to qeèv (God) at Constantinople in the beginning of the sixth century: the true
reading, which is visible in the Latin and Syriac versions, still exists in the
reasoning of the Greek, as well as of the Latin fathers; and this fraud, with that
of the three witnesses of St. John, is admirably detected by Sir Isaac
Newton.”
Fraud? Now there’s a strong word. But if we look to
more modern scholarship, it’s a word well applied, for “some passages of the
New Testament were modified to stress more precisely that Jesus was himself
divine.”
The Bible was modified?
For doctrinal reasons? Hard to find a more appropriate word than “fraud,”
given the circumstances.
In a chapter
entitled “Theologically Motivated Alterations of the Text” in his book, Misquoting
Jesus, Professor Ehrman elaborates on the corruption of 1 Timothy 3:16,
which was detected not only by Sir Isaac Newton, but also by the eighteenth
century scholar, Johann J. Wettstein. In Ehrman’s words, “A later scribe had
altered the original reading, so that it no longer read “who” but “God” (made
manifest in the flesh). In other words, this later corrector changed the text
in such a way as to stress Christ’s divinity…. Our earliest and best
manuscripts, however, speak of Christ ‘who’ was made manifest in the flesh,
without calling Jesus, explicitly, God.”
Ehrman stresses that this corruption is evident in five
early Greek manuscripts. All the same it was the corrupted, and not the
“earliest and best,” biblical manuscripts which came to dominate both the
medieval manuscripts and the early English translations. Consequently, from
medieval times on, the tenets of Christian faith have suffered the corrupting
influence of a church devoted more to theology than to reality.
Ehrman adds: “As Wettstein continued his investigations,
he found other passages typically used to affirm the doctrine of the divinity
of Christ that in fact represented textual problems; when these problems are
resolved on text-critical grounds, in most instances references to Jesus’
divinity are taken away.”
Given the above there should be little surprise that
twentieth-century Christianity has expanded to include those who deny the
alleged divinity of Jesus. A significant sign of this realization is the
following report of the London Daily News: “More than half of England’s Anglican bishops say Christians are not obliged to believe that Jesus Christ was
God, according to a survey published today.”
It is worth noting that it was not mere clergy that were polled but bishops,
no doubt leaving many parishioners scratching their heads and wondering who to
believe, if not their bishops!
Copyright © 2007
Laurence B. Brown; used by permission.
The above excerpt
is taken from Dr. Brown’s forthcoming book, MisGod’ed, which is expected
to be published along with its sequel, God’ed. Both books can be viewed
on Dr. Brown’s website, www.LevelTruth.com.
Dr. Brown can be contacted at BrownL38@yahoo.com
|
