Honesty

Posted on 10/21/2014 by Paul Pavao

So today (yesterday by the time you read this) I got stung by believing something that was false. I jumped on a guy who downplayed my complaint about the Roman Catholic practice of enforcing celibacy on their clergy, when Scripture says those “clergy” should be the husband of one wife.

When he said it was unimportant, I brought up the recent scandal in the RCC with priests and children. In my mind, enforced celibacy was related to a high occurrence of child molestation.

It’s not. Someone said that correlation is not causation, which I am well aware of. Somehow, though, I got it in my mind that this issue was a settled, firm case.

So I looked it up. It’s not. Not only is there no causation, there is no correlation.

It was really embarrassing. I jumped all over that commenter because I was offended. Had I been correct, I would have been rightly offended. I wasn’t, though, so I was just really rude.

Now I’m going to use this mistake to jump subjects entirely.

Being wrong like that brought back unpleasant memories of another experience I had 20 years ago.

In 1995, I watched 3 episodes of a creationist show put on by the Creation museum. They told me they were equipping me for battling the evilutionists who were being used by satan to get us to quit believing Genesis and thus throwing doubt on all of Scripture.

I should have been more on my toes. In the late 1980’s, I had read a book, put out by InterVarsity Press and written by three scientists who were Christians, that complained about the dishonesty in the creationist movement.

I didn’t pay much attention because I had such a hard time believing that Christians, especially leading, in-the-public-eye Christians, would be purposefully dishonest.

I was new to the internet then. I was only familiar with CompuServe. I knew of people who had been “out there.” They had gone into the World-Wide Web, and they had returned unscathed.

I limited myself to the CompuServe religious forum, where I used my knowledge of the early Christians to take on all comers in debate. I’m good at debating, I gained bit of a following, and I took way too much pride in considering the CompuServe Religion Forum my own private domain.

Then …

A pack of evilutionists showed up in “my” CompuServe forum.

No problem. I was prepared. I had seen three TV shows done by the Creation Museum.

I immediately pulled out my favorite weapon from my extensive, 3-hour training history: “Lucy,” the supposed ape-human link.

Borrowing information from the program, I “proved” Donald Johanson, the discoverer of Lucy, to be a fraudulent and deceitful man.

They were not impressed. “Really?” they asked. “Are you just going to pull out the same lies you guys always pull out? Do you have nothing new?”

With the immense amount of preparation I had, I answered, “Huh? What are you talking about?”

They gave me a link that sent me out into the world of the internet for the first time. There I read an article exposing the shameful misconduct of Christians in fabricating the slander against Dr. Johanson.

I was every bit as horrified then as I was horrified today to have so boldly and harshly defended a false rumor.

That makes today worse. I made a commitment 20 years ago to do proper research. I would never just trust what I heard. I would make sure there were good sources for what I said.

And if there weren’t? Well, the Creation Museum had taught me not to trust even prominent Christians, so I wasn’t going to believe what did not have good evidence. The only word I would just accept is God’s.

Correlation and Cause

When Ben called me on the Roman Catholic issue I mentioned, I knew what to do. I had to find out if anyone had checked on whether celibacy had anything to do with causing pedophilia.

I’ve learned over the years that anti-evolutionists don’t like research much. They prefer to ask questions and leave them unanswered. “What if” and “maybe” are two of the most preferred answers to questions in the creationist movement.

I don’t like to leave things there; leaves too much room for lying, er … dishonesty.

So I looked up Ben’s suggestion. I’m not going to leave things at “maybe”; not if I don’t have to.

The results were pretty painful. Crow is hard to swallow. I was wishing I’d done the research before I wrote.

Still, I thought I’d try to rescue something useful from the incident.

Things are much clearer when they are not left at “could be.”

Posted in Evolution | Tagged , | 41 Comments

My Thoughts on Roman Catholicism

Posted on 10/17/2014 by Paul Pavao

I got a question from a woman who was struggling with the claims of Catholicism. She wrote, “What are your thoughts?”

Here’s my thoughts.

Are there Christians in Catholicism?

Definitely. Some have done so well in obeying our King throughout their lives that I cannot imagine how any Christian could dare question their salvation or their lives. I am horrified and angry at the judgment of some Protestants against Mother Teresa. She has the right to look down her nose at pretty much all the rest of us who name the name of the King, but of course she was above such behavior.

My wife volunteers weekly at a Roman Catholic church that has been feeding the homeless each morning for well over a century. Two saints run that ministry, and they take responsibility for it morning after morning, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks per year.

Rather than question the salvation of people who obey Jesus better than we do, we should call them saints, and maybe we’ll get to share in their rewards if we help them (Matt. 10:42).

That said …

Is the Roman Catholic Church what it claims to be?

No. No way. Their claim is outrageous, and their official stance on the role of the pope, that he is the “vicar of Christ,” is blasphemous. The history they have invented to support that claim is fictitious.

They claim to be those that have preserved apostolic truth unchanged (so says Vatican II), but the unchanged truth has needed some further revelation (again, says Vatican II), which has included the teaching that Mary was born without sin, lived without sin, and was assumed into heaven.

The further revelation has also included the idea that some saints have done so much good, that they have leftover merit from God that can be applied to others in order to relieve them of “temporal punishment.”

This is a lot of further revelation they are asking us to accept!

Let’s think about this.

Both 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 tell us that overseers and elders (which are the same thing in Scripture) are to be the husband of one wife. The RCC teaches us that the office of overseer is what their bishops hold and that the office of elder is what their priests hold. Yet neither their bishops nor their priests are allowed to marry.

Now I admit that it might be plausible that an overseer or elder might be allowed not to marry. It’s possible that what Paul was trying to forbid was a church leader with more than one wife. In fact, the early churches believed that Paul meant that overseers and elders were not to remarry even if they were widowed.

What is not possible is that Paul meant that bishops or elders should be forbidden to marry at all!

If the RCC can’t get something as simple and obvious as this correct, then how can we trust them on their other claims?

The Ten Commandments

Let’s go one further. Did you know that the RCC has a different list of the ten commandments than the Protestants?

Yeah, that’s right. You won’t believe what the difference is.

The RCC ten commandments leaves out the Protestant’s second commandment: “You shall not make any graven image or any likeness that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them.”

Do they really expect us to believe that their magisterium left out that command because it’s hard to tell where to make the divisions in the commandments God gave on Mt. Sinai rather than because they were hiding this commandment from their members, who happened not to be allowed to read the Bible in their own language lest they interpret it wrongly?

The RCC replaced that commandment by splitting the Protestants tenth commandment into two. Only they didn’t actually split it into two.

Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor any thing that is your neighbor’s. (Ex. 20:17)

From this the Roman Catholic magisterium got:

9. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.
10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods. (reference)

Really?

One might make a better argument that this command should have been split into two if one had actually split it, rather than pulling the second of a list of six items.

Roman Catholics, of course, are famous both for making statues (graven images) and for bowing down and praying in front of them. Think of “Our Lady at Fatima” or other Catholic shrines. I was in a Catholic school in 5th and 6th grades, and our entire class was made to walk up to a statue of Mary and bow down and kiss its feet.

I say “made to.” By that, I mean it was an obligation, like anything else in elementary school. I do not mean that any of us tried to object or to refuse.

I feel pretty comfortable drawing the conclusion that somewhere down the line, a pope, a group of cardinals, or an influential bishop decided a commandment, from Moses, forbidding both the making of statues and bowing down to them, was a bit more than what they wanted out in public; so they hid it away for centuries in their Latin Bible that only clergy were able to read.

Protestants vs. Catholics

Often, the answer I hear to these charges of mine is that Protestants have done worse things or that Protestants are just as far off or futher away from apostolic teaching than the Catholics.

Perhaps. Perhaps the followers of Confucious were worse than the Catholics.

I don’t see how any of that is relevant.

The Roman Catholics claim that their pope is the vicar of Christ, God’s representative here on earth. They claim that their magisterium has preserved the truth, and by the power of God has even explained and expanded it. They will not admit to “adding to” it, but their beliefs about Mary make that denial a lie.

With such grandiose claims ought to be grandiose results, not errors that could be corrected by anyone who has made one trip through the Bible while knowing Roman Catholic beliefs. Such grandiose claims should certainly not come with the hiding of one of the ten commandments!

Many More

We could do many more. It is not explanation, expansion, or revelation that leads to the Scripture calling all Christians saints and the Roman Catholic Church calling some Christians saints and only after death. It is not explanation, expansion, or revelation that leads to Scripture referring to all Christians as priests and the Roman Catholic Church referring to only elders as priests.

Those aren’t small errors. Those are egregious errors.

I am asked occasionally if I really dare trust my judgment against the judgment of this great and ancient church that has “preserved” the faith through the centuries (and murdered anyone who dared translate the Bible, along with pretty much anyone who publicly disagreed with them for centuries).

Yes, actually. I do dare.

Posted in Roman Catholic & Orthodox | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 120 Comments

The Kingdom Gospel and Its Influence

Posted on 10/15/2014 by Paul Pavao

For many years I looked for something I dared call “the church”; something I was confident would be the recipient of the promises of God that are made only to “the church.” Perhaps the greatest of the promises I hoped to see the fulfillment of was Philippians 1:6. Were the members of that church, across the board and with few exceptions, growing and being dealt with by God?

I had never encountered such a church.

The other qualification I was looking for was a church that had not crystallized. I really didn’t believe it was possible in our modern society, with so much truth lost and Christians so comfortable with ignoring large portions of Scripture, that a church could really have recovered everything. Thus, a church that is following Jesus their King and learning infallibly from the Holy Spirit (1 Jn. 2:26-27), should be learning, and thus changing, on an ongoing basis.

I finally found such a church, and I have remained with them for 20 years. Thus, I change, too.

Yesterday, I referenced my Christian history site, and I cringed just a bit. I have had the site since 2009, and I long to go back through it and make some adjustments.

Don’t get me wrong. I was careful with the historical parts of the site, and they are based on solid history. However, I’m hardly the kind of person who stands idly by to let history speak for itself. Too many people ignore history. I can’t just write about it; I have to apply it.

I don’t want to retract those applications, the “proclamation” parts of the site. They’re not incorrect. I just want to improve them.

In specific, I have only recently come to understand the kingdom of God. About a year ago, I had someone sit down and show me what the Scriptures have to say about “the Gospel of the Kingdom.” I was astonished that I missed it, and as my understanding of the Kingdom Gospel has grown, so has my respect for the importance of it.

I have the privilege of being the publisher for my friend’s book on the subject, called Forgotten Gospel, which I am thrilled to recommend. We are hoping for a late November release date. Stay tuned at gsetpublishing.com.

The Gospel of the Kingdom has infiltrated its way into everything I teach, everything I say. It affects my life, and I have been running across missionaries and theologians who have learned and preach the Gospel of the Kingdom.

I would love to revamp the teaching parts of Christian-history.org to infiltrate the Kingdom Gospel into it the way it’s integrated into my current teaching.

Quote concerning the Kingdom Gospel: “The things Paul shared out here about the kingdom were incredible. It changes the way you read the scriptures. Make sure you hear about it. Go to a gathering in Memphis! Then ask him to share what he shared here. And make sure your kids are there listening.”

What is the Gospel of the Kingdom?

Simply said, it is the Announcement that there is a new King, and that King is Jesus of Nazareth. That King is chosen by God, and he will destroy all other governments and reign forever. He is given authority by God to rule over the living and the dead, and one day he will judge everyone who has ever lived.

In the early days of the faith, the Announcement of the new King was done by those who witnessed his resurrection. The resurrection was the proof that Jesus is this prophesied King.

Today, the Announcement of the new King should be made by those churches who have descended from that original message and those original churches. Those churches, according to the King himself, can prove to the world by their unity and love that he is King (Jn. 13:34-35; 17:20-23).

Frightening, isn’t it?

What is frightening is that Christians are known for division and bickering, not unity and love. How are we to prove that he is King without witnesses of the resurrection and without the breathtaking spiritual unity and love that descends from heaven?

Not to worry. We’re prone to thinking about the universal church, but the universal church has very little practical application in our lives.

I am not denying that the universal church, that great cloud of witnesses, may have an important influence on our lives by their prayers and a general spiritual connection. And I am certainly not denying that the universal church is important. I am saying, however, that if you want a real and ongoing impact on your life, it’s the local church you need.

It’s the local church that will exhort you daily (Heb. 3:13), consider how to provoke you to love and good works (Heb. 10:24), assemble with you (Heb. 10:25), bear your burdens (Gal. 6:1-4), listen to your confessions and pray for you (Jam. 5:16), do their part to grow together with you into Jesus (Eph. 4:16), protect you from deception (Eph. 4:11-13; 1 Jn. 2:26-27), rebuke and correct you (2 Tim. 3:16), share their possessions with you (2 Cor. 8:13-15), and in every way be the family of God and support of the truth with you (1 Tim. 3:15).

Whether “christendom” reveals the love and unity that the Spirit of God creates, we, as the local body of the King, who is our head, can devote ourselves to one another. We can—by the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit and by the guidance of the anointing of God—give ourselves to maintaining the unity of Spirit in love and to building each other up in obedience to our King who has bestowed on us the Spirit of God.

We, together, can prove the Gospel message, that Jesus is King.

Posted in Gospel | Tagged , | 8 Comments

Athanasian Creed: A Review

Posted on 10/13/2014 by Paul Pavao

Who am I to “review” the Athanasian Creed?

I do not review it on my own authority. I review it on the authority of the teachings of Jesus, the apostles, and of the Christians, churches, and councils that preceded the production of the Athanasian Creed.

I make two assertions:

1. It is impossible for someone to promote the Athanasian Creed if he knows what the Nicene Creed teaches.
2. The number of Protestants and Catholics who know what the Nicene Creed teaches are very, very few.

We’ve discussed the Nicene Creed over the last few days. Let’s look at the Athanasian Creed today. It is wordy and repetitive, so we’ll just address parts of it today. The whole text is all over the internet. For example, it’s at theopedia.com or at christian-history.org (my site). If you want to read the whole thing, you’ll need to read it there.

The Athanasian Creed begins by saying that anyone that does not hold to the Catholic Faith as described in the creed, they shall “without doubt” perish eternally. In that case, if the Athanasian Creed is indeed accurate, then the bishops who formed the creed of Nicea went straight into the fires of Hades.

For the sake of brevity, I am going to have to leave out lots of words in my quotes from the Athanasian Creed. Feel free to go check the entire text of the creed against my abbreviations. You will find the abbreviations accurate.

Athanasian Creed: We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in unity.
Nicene Creed: We believe in one God … and one Lord … also in the Holy Spirit.

Athanasian Creed: So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. And yet they are not three gods, but one God. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Spirit Lord. And yet not three lords, but one Lord.
Nicene Creed: We believe in one God, the Father … and one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God … also in the Holy Spirit.
Scripture: For us there is but one God, the Father … and one Lord, Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 8:6).

I hope you can tell the difference in terminology here.

One can argue that this is just semantics, but wrong semantics lead to wrong teaching, which leads to wrong believing and wrong obeying.

I can tell you one major negative result of the ideas inherent in these statements from the Athanasian Creed, which is that most Christians have forgotten that the Son is really the Word of God.

No, I mean really the Word of God.

Let’s dispense with the word “Word,” just for a moment. The Greek word Logos is a much bigger word than “word.” It’s definition is far wider. Here’s Tertullian’s best shot at explaining what the Logos might be inside of God by comparing it with logos inside of us.

Observe, then, that when you are silently conversing with yourself, this very process is carried on within you by your reason, which meets you with a word at every movement of your thought … Whatever you think, there is a word … You must speak it in your mind … Thus, in a certain sense, the word is a second person within you, through which in thinking you utter speech … The word is itself a different thing from yourself. Now how much more fully is all this transacted in God, whose image and likeness you are? (Against Praxeas 5)

Tertullian actually discusses the word Logos and argues that it is better translated “Reason,” but he also chooses the translation of Logos, as do most early Christians, based on the specific work that God is doing through his Logos.

When the Logos was inside of him, then he was Reason. He was the thoughts and ideas of God as explained in Tertullian’s example above. When he was ready not just to plan, but to do, then he birthed his Logos as his Son. From then on the Logos would not just be Reason, but he would be Word, for God does all things by speaking. His first words were, “Let there be light,” or, more precisely, “Light, be!”

In this very real sense Jesus was God’s Word. We say it, and we find ways to express it, but most of us have never heard that he was literally the Word of God. We have never heard that the very fact that God spoke in Genesis was a testimony to the pre-existence of the Son of God, the divine Logos, born before the beginning.

And of course we don’t think about that truth because we have forgotten, or never heard, that the Son of God was begotten of God before the beginning. Even that great and simple truth has escaped us.

How many times have I seen a Christian squirm when a Jehovah’s Witness pointed out that Jesus is called the firstborn over all creation? Many. We try to remake the word to mean the one with priority or the ruler over all creation, but the word remains, giving us fits.

Yet if we were merely to believe our inheritance, the faith that has been passed down to us, then we would rejoice over that verse and others as testimonies of the faith of the apostles.

If you read the Athanasian Creed earlier, then about now you should be pointing out to me that it confirms that the Son is begotten, while the Father is unbegotten. In fact, it points it out more than one time.

This is true, but we do not repeat the Athanasian Creed today. Some know about it, but only some, and only a rare few have read it. The part we know about is right at the beginning: “We worship one God in Trinity.”

That, in itself, is not false, We should worship one God in Trinity. One God the Father, from whom is one Lord, the Son of God—truly divinity from divinity and light from light, sharing one divine substance with the Father—and from whom proceeds one Spirit.

We have also managed to remember that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, but that is mentioned in the Nicene Creed as we know (and recite) it today. Also, the Scriptures are much more vague about the person of the Holy Spirit (though not vague at all about his role), so he seems, if I may, different than the Father and the Son.

The Son, however, is active and personal. He speaks in audible words. Even under the old covenant, before his birth as a human, he appeared and was visible and touchable.

When we are not reminded that he is the divine Logos, born of the Father before the beginning, we forget. Most western Christians have forgotten. We wonder in what way he is different or distinct from the Father. What does he do that the Father does not do?

He is equal to the Father, we are told, which is true in divinity, but not at all in role. The Son does the will of the Father, not vice versa. The Son is sent by the Father. In fact, we read that the Son is sent by God. You will never read that the Father is sent by anyone, and you will certainly not read that the Father is sent by God. The Son is never spoken of as the Father’s God, but the Father is spoken of as the Son’s God regulary. Even in Hebrews 1:8, where the Son is addressed as God, even there we read that “your God” is sending him.

I’ll quit there and leave you to compare the one creed with the other.

Athanasian Creed
Nicene Creed

Posted in Early Christianity, Modern Doctrines | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

Monkery Business: Martin Luther Faith vs. Works Debate

Posted on 10/12/2014 by Paul Pavao

Anyone want to help me think this through? I have friends so hostile to Martin Luther it might be impossible.

I have read a lot about Martin Luther, but I’ve only read a little by Martin Luther. Almost everything I’ve read has been from the 7 or 8-volume series of his Complete Sermons.

Here is my debate proposal. Like a high school debate team’s proposal, I am proposing it not because I have one side or the other, but because I am hoping to discuss it. If you have friends that would care to give their input, please invite them.

Proposed:

1. that Martin Luther rejected only the good works that he described as “monkery” (prescribed by monasteries)
2. that Martin Luther would have rejected the doctrine of eternal security
3. that Martin Luther required good works to prove a person was a Christian

I will tell you in advance that this is not a bizarre proposal. I can find, and am collecting, a number of quotes to back up these proposals. I suspect, however, that he contradicted himself on these subjects. Anyone care to take up one side or the other?

Possible formats:

1. We discuss this in the comments, and I will pull pertinent comments for ongoing posts to keep the discussion going.
2. I give someone, or maybe two or more someones, the opportunity to debate this on the blog. I cannot take the negative side because it requires too broad a familiarity with Luther’s writings, though I hope to increase my knowledge through this debate. I could do an acceptable job on the pro side if I can’t find someone to do it better.
3. I’m going to try a Reformed blogger to take the negative side if one of my readers does not volunteer.

Posted in Miscellaneous, Modern Doctrines, Protestants | Tagged , , , | 21 Comments

Eternally Begotten of the Father

Posted on 10/10/2014 by Paul Pavao

Maybe over the last three days, I’ve complicated things too much. Maybe the simplest way to get modern Trinitarians to understand the early churches’ definition of the Trinity is get them to acknowledge that the Son was begotten, not just in the flesh at Bethlehem, but in eternity past as well.

I know that for me, once someone explained to me, some 30 years ago, that the Son was begotten before the creation, all the Scriptures that touch on the Trinity fell into place.

Posted in Modern Doctrines | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments

Rinse and Repeat

Posted on 10/09/2014 by Paul Pavao

Well said, Glenn!

Greg Kaiser's avatarGrowing Forward

1. False god promises greater joy through disobedience to God.

2. Person believes the lie.

3. Real life happens.

4. False god’s lie is exposed for what it really is.

Rinse and repeat.

View original post

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Jesus: God of the Old Testament?

Posted on 10/09/2014 by Paul Pavao

Is Jesus Yahweh, God of the nation of Israel?

I cannot definitively say that it is the view of the early churches that it was the Son of God, the divine Logos [Word], that interacted with Israel as their God, but I can make a very strong Scriptural case for it.

Christophanies

A “theophany” is an appearance of God so that he can be seen by humans. “Christophany” is the word we Christians use to describe appearences of God in the Hebrew Scriptures that we believe to have been the Son of God rather than the Father.

The early churches believed that every theophany was actually a Christophany. They based this on two things.

  1. The apostle John tells us that no one has seen God at any time (Jn. 1:18).
  2. God fills everything. He cannot be confined to one place. His Son, the Word of God, can appear in one place.

You may not like that second point, but I would be lying to you if I did not tell you that was one of the arguments they used.

The God and Father of all truly cannot be contained, and is not found, in a place … but his Word, through whom he made all things, being his power and his wisdom, assuming the person of the Father and Lord of all, went to the garden in the person of God and conversed with Adam. (Theophilus. To Autolycus II:22. AD 168.)

Whether you agree with their second argument or not, the first seems ironclad. If you’ve read the posts leading up to this one, then you know that when the Scriptures say “God” without further explanation, at least in the apostles writings, they are referring to the Father alone, not all three persons of the Trinity. In John 1:18 there is no doubt that John is specifically referring to the Father as the one who has never been seen because he immediately follows with a reference to the Son.

No one has seen God at any time. The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has explained [lit. “exegeted”] him.

No one has seen the Father at any time, but lots of people have seen the Son.

Specific Examples

What more majestic view of God was ever given than the revelation of God to Isaiah described in Isaiah 6? God was seated on his throne in the temple, surrounded by dragons crying out “Holy, holy, holy; the whole earth is full of your glory.” The temple shook, smoke billowed, and Isaiah was terrified.

John tells us that was Jesus, the Son of God, before his birth on the earth.

These things Isaiah said, when he saw his glory and spoke of him. (Jn. 12:41)

If you look at John 12:41, you’ll find that the “things Isaiah said” are found in Isaiah 6:10. Take a look at the context of John 12:41, and you’ll see that the “he” clearly refers to Jesus, the Son of God, not the Father.

It was the Son, the Word of God, sitting on the throne in Isaiah 6.

It was also Jesus who appeared to Moses in the burning bush. Is there any other explanation for Jesus’ statement that “Before Abraham was, I am”? (Jn. 8:58).

Jesus claimed in the same chapter that he was the one who appeared to Abraham, infuriating the Jews by informing them that “Abraham rejoiced to see my day” (8:56).

If Jesus was the one who appeared to Abraham repeatedly, and if he was the great I Am who appeared to Moses, and if he is the One that Isaiah found seated on the throne in heaven, then is it unlikely that he was also the One who wrestled with Jacob at Penuel and ascended in the smoke of Manoah’s (father of Samson) offering?

Yahweh the Sent One

It seems blasphemous to suggest that Yahweh, God is Israel and Creator of the universe, was ever sent anywhere by anyone.

Yet Yahweh himself, speaking through the prophet Zechariah, says he was.

For thus says YHWH of hosts, “After glory He has sent me to the nations which plunder you, for he who touches you, touches the apple of His eye. For behold, I will wave My hand over them so that they will be plunder for their slaves. Then you will know that YHWH of hosts has sent me. Sing for joy and be glad, O daughter of Zion; for behold I am coming and I will dwell in your midst,” declares YHWH. “Many nations will join themselves to YHWH in that day and will become My people. Then I will dwell in your midst, and you will know that YHWH of hosts has sent Me to you.” (Zech. 2:8-11. NASB.)

I used the NASB to quote that passage, but you can read it in any translation you like, and it will read the same. The Septuagint translates it this way. Even the New World Translation—the Bible of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who do not like this passage at all—makes it clear that Jehovah is sending Jehovah, though they try to disguise it with carefully placed quotes.

How could Yahweh of Armies possible be sent anywhere by anyone?

The answer is simple if the Yahweh who spoke through the prophets is Jesus as the pre-incarnate Word. The Father has always directed the Son, and the Son’s will has always aligned with the Father’s will because the Son is the begotten Word and Reason of the Father.

Just as the Father sent the Son to the earth to save us all, so he sent the Son to speak to the nation of Israel.

This revelation of the Son was hidden from the Jews, of course, though it leaked out in prophecy over and over, such as in this passage in Zechariah, and in the two Yahweh’s mentioned in Genesis 19:24.

There is more to be said on this matter, especially concerning Jacob’s wrestling with God at Peniel, but those things are too long for a blog post. Pray, please, for my use of time, and I hope to get to more things like that which we have forgotten over the centuries.

Forgotten Teachings

I mention that we have forgotten things over the centuries. If we have forgotten them, how do I know them?

I am not a prophet. I am simply a researcher. I did not get a college degree to do that research. I was almost a decade old in the Lord before someone told me about the existence of the EARLY church fathers. We tend to think of church fathers as being people like Augustine and Jerome, but Augustine and Jerome belong to the 5th century. They were teaching some 400 years after Jesus.

There are many others who were teaching much closer to the time of Jesus and the apostles. In AD 185, over two centuries before Augustine and Jerome were in disagreement, Irenaeus, a missionary/church planter in barbarian Gaul, wrote this:

The Church, having received this preaching and this faith, although scattered throughout the whole world, yet, as if occupying one house, carefully preserves it. She believes these things … and she proclaims them, teaches them, and hands them down with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth. (Against Heresies I:10:2)

All I have done is read the writings of these early Christians and be taught by them. I have been astounded at how the Scriptures have fallen into place as a result.

Recently, a friend wrote to me and said:

When interpreting scripture, it is not right to take a vague verse, or one that can have 2 meanings to overturn many concrete verses that have an obvious different meaning.

The idea of “clear” verses and “difficult” verses is bandied about a lot in Protestant Christianity. There is some truth to it if it is really applied to a “vague” verse. In my experience, though, “vague” verses almost always means “verses that I don’t believe.”

I have almost zero “vague” verses anymore because I have listened to the teachings that the earliest Christians said were given to them by the apostles. Difficult verses are a concept that I have been able to forget about and leave behind because Jesus opened the Scriptures to his apostles, his apostles explained the Scriptures to the churches, and now I have learned from their churches the things they passed on.

It’s something anyone can do. You will notice I reference my early church quotes. You can read their writings at http://www.ccel.org/fathers, the source I usually reference, but there are many others. One of the best is http://earlychristianwritings.com/.

If you don’t want to read them directly, stay tuned to this blog, and I will keep passing on their teachings to you.

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God in the Plural?

Posted on 10/08/2014 by Paul Pavao

Is God plural?

You will not understand the answer to that question if you don’t read yesterday’s post, “The Early Christian Definition of the Trinity.” If you don’t want to read two of my posts today, yesterday’s is more important … by far.

So, go there first.

I’m not going to argue for the early Christian definition of the Trinity today. I have written an entire book on it (Decoding Nicea). I have posted the Trinity chapters of my book online. I have also posted a scriptural defense of Nicea online.

The definition of the Trinity I gave yesterday is the definition given by the early Christians, and it is also the definition given in the Nicene and Apostles creeds.

There is no doubt that this was the teaching of the early churches, and it answers numerous Scriptural difficulties left to us by the modern definition of the Trinity (e.g., Jn. 17:3; 1 Cor. 8:6).

Today, I am going to point out one more way that the Nicene definition of the Trinity meshes with Scripture better than any other view.

God in the Plural

In preparation for this post, I asked my FB friends, over 500 of them, if they knew of any verses in which God is addressed with a plural you.

As I point out regularly, though modern English does not distinguish between a singular and plural you (except in dialect, such as “y’all” or “youse”), King James English did. In the King James Version, the words thou, thee, and thy are singular, and ye, you, and your are plural.

It’s been almost 30 years since I read a Greek interlinear New Testament that claimed that God is addressed as “ye” in Scripture. The book gave no reference, and in almost 30 years I have never found that verse. Admittedly, I don’t usually read the KJV, so it would be hard for me to find.

So, as I said, I got on Facebook and asked for help.

I didn’t think to ask about verses which refer to God as “they,” or the verses in which God says “us,” but my friends did, so I address those below.

Saying What Scripture Says

Today’s teaching is a side issue. The purpose of the Scriptures is to equip us for every good work (2 Tim. 3:16-17). I cannot imagine how this subject will affect the way you or I live.

So why cover it?

As I pointed out yesterday, we have forgotten what the apostles taught about the Trinity. The church held on to that teaching for centuries, finally codifying it in the Nicene and Apostles creeds. It was only afterwards, in the doctrinal battles with the Arians during the fourth century, that the definition of the Trinity was lost to the modern one. The reasons that happened don’t need to be recounted here, and they can’t be determined with certainty. Suffice it to say that the fourth century is when the definition of the Trinity began to change in the west.

It has never stopped amazing me that millions of Christians recite the Apostles Creed week after week after week without even knowing, much less believing, what it teaches about the Trinity.

Knowing what the early Christians taught makes the Scriptures significantly clearer, so I bring their Trinity teaching up here and there.

One of the principles I espouse, in this modern, divided, and confused age, is that we learn to say what the Scriptures say, without adjustment, even if we don’t know why the Scriptures say it.

My favorite example is James 2:24. It is not an ignored verse. It is mentioned regularly, but in the Protestant world, it is almost always mentioned in order to explain it away. It conflicted with Martin Luther’s theology so much that he called James’ letter “an epistle of straw.” He offered his doctor’s cap to anyone who could reconcile Romans 3:28 with James 2:24. (I make my bid for Luther’s cap at Christian-history.org.)

James 2:24 is never quoted, at least in the Protestant world, then left alone to say what it says. In many churches if you simply quote the verse, then argue that it is true “as is,” you could get yourself ejected from the church.

So today, I am hoping to make Scripture clearer.

Is God “They”?

By our modern Catholic/Protestant version of the Trinity, God can legitimately be referred to as “they.” The one God, we say, consists of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Thus the one God can be “they.” “Plurality in unity,” it’s been said to me.

I don’t think this is controversial. I think most or all modern Trinitarians would agree that is what they believe.

In Scripture, in early Christianity, and in the creeds, however, God would never be referred to as they, only “he.” The one God reveals himself though the Son and the Spirit, but the one God is the Father.

I believe in God the Father … and in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord … (Apostles Creed)

We believe in one God, the Father, … and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, … (Nicene Creed)

For us there is but one God, the Father … and one Lord, Jesus Christ. (1 Cor. 8:6)

One early Christian gave the reason for this terminology.

I shall follow the apostle [Paul], so that if the Father and the Son are alike to be invoked, I shall call the Father “God” and invoke Jesus Christ as “Lord.” But when Christ alone [is invoked], I shall be able to call him “God.” As the same apostle says, “Of whom is Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever” [Rom. 9:5].
   For I should give the name of “sun” even to a sunbeam, considered by itself. But if I were mentioning the sun from which the ray emanates, I would certainly withdraw the name of sun from the mere beam. For although I do not make two suns, still I shall reckon both the sun and its ray to be as much two things—and two forms of one undivided substance—as God and his Word, as the Father and the Son. (Tertullian. Against Praxeas 13. c. AD 210)

You will find this instruction by Tertullian to be universally followed in Scripture, in the pre-Nicene Christian writings, and in the Nicene and Apostles creeds. None of those sources will ever use the terminology “God the Son” or “God the Holy Spirit” even though, “when Christ alone is invoked,” the Scriptures and early Christians do call him God. None of those sources ever use the word “God” to refer to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together.

It wouldn’t take much to refute this teaching. All you have to do is find a reference to “God” as plural, though a New Testament reference would prove a much better defense of modern terminology concerning the Trinity than an Old Testament reference would.

Here’s why.

Plural References to God in the Hebrew Scriptures

My request on Facebook netted several decent replies. In particular, Brian Williamson (whom I don’t even know) directed me to a web page called “Trinity: Plural References to God in the Old Testament”. It’s on the Bible.ca site, which I consider a good reference.

The problem is, as I have pointed out, the early Christian definition of the Trinity is forgotten by almost everyone (except the Orthodox churches), so the article does not address their view.

Here’s why the plural references to God in the Hebrew Scriptures are not refutations of what I’ve written above.

Elohim and “Us”

As many of you may know, the Hebrew word for “God,” Elohim, is a plural word. In Hebrew, there are two ways to use plural words. One way is to indicate plurality, as we do in English, and the other is to indicate majesty or greatness.

Thus Elohim can mean “God” or “gods” or even “great men” or “rulers” in the Scriptures. (Here is one reference. I don’t usually use Yahoo! answers as a source, but in this case the first answer is given by an Orthodox Jewish rabbi. It was hard to find good references, but if you want to research it further, you will find that what I say here is true.)

The article referenced by Mr. Willamson argues that the use of Elohim at least suggest plurality. He goes on to say that the use of “us” in Genesis 1 and Isaiah 6:8 is a reference to the Trinity as well.

That is all entirely plausible, but it really doesn’t address the early Christian definition of the Trinity. (In fact, how can anything in the article be a refutation of the early Christian view when it references the early Christians as authorities?)

Review of New Testament and Early Christian Terminology

Tertullian argued that proper terminology is to refer to the Father as God and Jesus as Lord when they are referenced together. When the Son is mentioned apart from the Father, only then should he be referred to as God.

Further, there are but six places in the New Testament where the “one God” is mentioned (Mark 12:32; Rom. 3:30; 1 Cor. 8:6; Eph. 4:6; 1 Tim. 2:5; James 2:19). In four of those cases, the phrase is a clear reference to the Father apart from the Son. In the other two, no determination can be made.

Thus, Scripture confirms the terminology of the early Christians while specifically disagreeing with our contention that the one God should be described as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together.

One last statement. I am repeatedly accused of denying the divinity of the Son by teaching what all the early Christians taught, but of course, I am not. I’m hoping that tomorrow’s post might establish that more firmly for you.

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The Early Christian Definition of the Trinity

Posted on 10/07/2014 by Paul Pavao

A friend of mine is very concerned about my position on the Trinity, despite the fact that I have proven that what I say is not only the view all the apostles’ churches, but also the definition confirmed in the Nicene Creed, formulated at the first Council of Nicea. It is also the view repeated, but not understood, by hundreds of millions of churches every week all over the world in the form of the Apostles Creed.

The definition of the Trinity found in the Nicene and Apostles Creed is difficult to understand if you cannot disengage yourself from modern adjustments made to the doctrine, but it is really quite simple if you can.

The early churches held to these tenets:

  1. There is one God, and that one God is the Father.
  2. The one God has a Son, who was begotten (or generated or emitted) in eternity past, before the beginning began. The Son is his Reason/Word, which was inside of God until he was begotten. God then created all things through the Word, his Son.
  3. There is a Holy Spirit.

For example:

When God wished to make all that he determined, he begot this Word, uttered, the firstborn of all creation, not himself being emptied of the Word [or Reason], but having begotten Reason, and always conversing with his Reason.And this is what the holy writings teach us, as well as all the Spirit-bearing men, one of whom, John, says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God” [Jn. 1:1], showing that at first God was alone, and the Word in him. (Theophilus. To Autolycus II:15)

God and Matter

To the early Christians, there were two substances in the universe. One was the uncreated, eternal substance of God, and the other was matter, which at that time was a term for the material God used to create everything, whether angels, humans, animate organisms, or inanimate objects.

One apologist from the late second century wrote:

The multitude … cannot distinguish between matter and God, or see how great the interval is which lies between them … we … distinguish and separate the uncreated and the created, that which is and that which is not. (Athenagoras. A Plea for the Christians 15, AD 177)

Because, for the most part, Christians have long forgotten this teaching, we miss it when it is mentioned in Scripture:

Since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think divinity is like gold, silver, or stone, carved by art and men’s plan. (Acts 17:29)

This is the same context in which the early Christians point out the difference between divinity and matter. The worship of idols is forbidden because they are matter, like us. We must worship only what is eternal, only God, the only true divinity.

The Firstborn of all Creation

The Son of God, says Paul, was the “firstborn of all creation” (Col. 1:15). The creed so many of us recite every Sunday says he is “begotten, not made, one in substance with the Father.”

While the angels, humans, animals, and everything we see is created from matter, which had a beginning and is therefore temporary, the Word of God that was born “before the beginning began” came from inside of God.

At first God was alone, and the Word in him. (Theophilus, to Autolycus II:22, AD 168)

For before all things God was alone … He was alone, because there was nothing external to him but himself. Yet not even then was he alone; for he had with Him that which he possessed in himself … his own Reason. … even then, before the creation of the universe, God was not alone, since he had within himself Reason, and, inherent in Reason, his Word, which he made second to himself by agitating it within himself. (Tertullian. Against Praxeas 5. c. AD 210)

The Word (Gr. Logos) was not of temporary matter, but of the eternal substance of God because he was birthed from out of the heart of God.

Divinity and the Substance of God

The early Christians liked to refer to this substance as “divinity.”

Paul referred to the substance of God this way as well, as you may have noticed above.

For in him dwells all the fullness of divinity bodily. (Col. 2:9)

The King James Version has “the Godhead” here rather than divinity. “Godhead,” however, is just a 17th-century way to say “Godhood,” or divinity. (This dictionary is just one of many that can be found with a search for “define godhead.”)

If this teaching seems a little strange to us today, it is simply because we are not used to the explanation of it that is throughout the writings of the early Christians.

We employ language which makes a distinction between God and matter, and the natures of the two. … we acknowledge a God, and a Son his Logos, and a Holy Spirit, united in essence [or substance]. (Athenagoras. A Plea for the Christians 24)

Nor let anyone think it ridiculous that God should have a Son … The Son of God is the Logos of the Father. (ibid. 10)

The early churches claimed this teaching was passed to them from the apostles.

This post was actually supposed to be on a different aspect of the early Christians’ definition of the Trinity, but this foundation was necessary first. Tomorrow we will address the plurality of God.

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