Reading Isaiah like an Early Christian (1): "The Lord has sent me and his Spirit" (Isaiah 48:16)

Introduction

Isaiah 48:16 in Context

Echoes of Isaiah 48:16 in the Gospel of John

Early Christian Interpretation of Isaiah 48:16

Conclusion

Introduction

This is the first part of a series of posts in which I hope to explore the Christological significance of certain passages in Isaiah.¹ Early Christians drew extensively on the Jewish Scriptures to form their understanding of the person and mission of Jesus Christ, and few books influenced them more in this respect than Isaiah. Some of this influence is attested through direct quotations of Isaiah in the New Testament. For example, all four Gospels quote from Isaiah 40:3 to explicate John the Baptist's role in the divine purpose.² However, the New Testament (NT) does not contain a verse-by-verse commentary on the Old Testament (OT); indeed, the NT only provides us with an Christological interpretation for a relatively small number of OT texts.

Should we conclude that only those OT texts that are explicitly quoted in the NT are legitimate Messianic texts? Or when we read that Jesus "interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures" (Luke 24:27) and that Apollos "powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the scriptures that the Messiah is Jesus" (Acts 18:28), should we suppose that these Scriptures are strictly those cited elsewhere in the NT? Of course not. The OT, when read with the light of Christ, is saturated with Christological significance, and explicit NT quotations only scratch the surface of this.

In this article, we will examine Isaiah 48:16, an OT text that is never quoted in the NT but that (it will be argued) has enormous Christological significance. But before we turn to this passage, we need to ask a question: how can we know that an OT text is Messianic if the NT doesn't say it is? Are we not then merely imposing our own subjective opinions onto the text? Well, not quite. There are at least three lines of evidence by which such a claim can be evaluated objectively. 

These are: (i) mysterious or enigmatic features in the text; (ii) literary or conceptual echoes of the text in the NT; (iii) the witness of early Christian writers. First, the text may contain enigmas that point the reader toward some deeper significance. An NT example of this phenomenon can be seen in Acts 8:26ff. The Ethiopian eunuch is puzzled about the identity of the Servant figure as he reads Isaiah 53. The mysterious character of the text becomes an opening for the Spirit, speaking through Philip, to reveal the text's Christological significance. Second, even if a text is not explicitly quoted in the NT, there may be allusions or faint echoes that suggest that it had influenced the NT writer's ideas about Christ. Third, early post-apostolic Christian literature testify to how the early Church interpreted OT texts, and in some instances these writers are likely reporting traditional interpretations handed down to them from previous generations of believers. Thus, the temporal and linguistic proximity of these writers to the NT make their witness far more weighty than your or my private opinion.

One last thing needs to be said before we turn to Isaiah 48:16. To assert that a particular OT passage has a Messianic application is not to assert that this is its only meaning. Au contraire, there are arguably very few texts in the Jewish Scriptures that refer at the grammatical-historical level of meaning to the eschatological Messiah—and arguably none that refer to Jesus of Nazareth!³ Rather, Christological meaning, if present, operates as sensus plenior—a subtler spiritual, moral, or eschatological sense that may have been lost on the human author but was intended by the Divine Author. This distinction between grammatical-historical and theological interpretation must be borne in mind or misunderstandings are inevitable.⁴ One cannot accept the NT as Sacred Scripture and yet insist that the grammatical-historical sense is the only valid meaning of the text, because this is not how the NT writers interpret the OT.⁵

Isaiah 48:16 in Context

Isaiah 48:16 occurs in the middle of an oracle in which Yahweh addresses Israel concerning the people's disobedience and his divine mercy and redemptive purpose. It is clear that Yahweh is speaking in the first person:

12 Listen to me, O Jacob, 

      and Israel, whom I called:
     I am He; I am the first,
     and I am the last. 

13 My hand laid the foundation of the earth,
    and my right hand spread out the heavens; 

    when I summon them, 

    they stand at attention.⁶

The first-person address continues in v. 15: "I, even I, have spoken and called him..." and again v. 17 opens with "Thus says Yahweh..." But in v. 16 we have this:

Draw near to me, hear this!
From the beginning I have not spoken in secret,
from the time it came to be I have been there.
And now the Lord Yahweh has sent me and his spirit.

Considering only the first three lines, there is nothing to suggest that the speaker is other than Yahweh, who has been speaking throughout this oracle. Yahweh has been making calls to "Hear" and "See" throughout the oracle (vv. 1, 6, 12, 14). Yahweh emphasises throughout this and other oracles in Isaiah 40-55 that he has existed and declared things from the beginning (vv. 3, 5, 12-14),⁷ and has not spoken in secret (45:19). Yet the speaker of the last line is obviously distinct from Yahweh, as he says he has been sent by Yahweh.

Who then is the speaker? Even according to the grammatical-historical sense, this question has proven puzzling for biblical scholars; there is no consensus as to its answer. John N. Oswalt summarises the problem and the scholarly positions:

The first three cola of the verse are clear enough, as has just been explained; but the last two constitute a problem that, in turn, raises problems about the first three. The difficulty is in identifying the speaker. It clearly cannot be God, yet there is no indication of a change. Does this mean that the speaker in the first part of the verse is, despite initial impressions, not God? Four basic positions have been taken. (1) The subject of the entire verse is the prophet... (2) the subject of the first three cola is God, and the subject of the last bicolon is the prophet... (3) the subject of the last bicolon is the Messiah... (4) the last bicolon is disarranged from some other place, either accidentally or on purpose...⁸

According to Claus Westermann, "Editors are unanimous" that the words of v. 16c ("But now, the Lord Yahweh has sent me and his spirit") "cannot possibly be explained in their present context"; he concludes that this fragment is a late addition to the text.⁹

The Septuagint (LXX) Greek translation of Isaiah, which dates to perhaps the second century B.C.,¹⁰ follows the Hebrew Masoretic Text (MT) closely.¹¹ A translation of the Septuagint Greek is:

Draw near to me, and hear these things! 

From the beginning I have not spoken in secret; 

when it happened I was there, 

and now the Lord has sent me and his spirit.¹²

The Septuagint text proves that, if the last line of Isaiah 48:16 MT is due to a textual disturbance, this disturbance was established by the second century B.C. and was thus almost certainly part of the Scriptures as known to Jesus and the earliest Christians. If it is a corruption, it is a canonical corruption and thus its significance for Christian theology cannot be dismissed.

One question that arises from the last line of Isaiah 48:16 is whether the Spirit is the subject or object: is it "the Lord and his Spirit sent me" or "the Lord sent me and his Spirit"? It happens that the syntax is ambiguous in both the Hebrew and the Greek, but as Oswalt notes, "While the former is grammatically possible, it is unlikely, both syntactically and theologically. See 11:2; 32:15; 44:3; 59:21; 61:1, where in all cases the Spirit is the one sent."¹³

Thus, to summarise, both the Hebrew and Greek versions of Isaiah 48:16, as they were known at the time of Jesus, contain an enigmatic line in the midst of speech by God where an unidentified speaker said that he and the Spirit have been sent by the Lord.

Echoes of Isaiah 48:16 in the Gospel of John

We have already mentioned that Isaiah 48:16 is never quoted directly in the NT. However, in this section I will argue that echoes of Isaiah 48:16 can be heard in the Gospel of John, and that these echoes indicate that this Evangelist interpreted the unidentified speaker—not only of the last line but of the entire verse—to be the preexistent Logos, the divine Son.

We will observe that there are echoes in John of all four lines of Isaiah 48:16.

Draw near to me and hear these things.

Just as the speaker of Isaiah 48:16 calls on Israel to "Draw near to me" (pros me in LXX), so Jesus in John calls on people to "come to me" (pros me, John 5:40; 6:35, 37, 44, 45, 65; 7:37). Likewise, just as the speaker of Isaiah 48:16 calls on Israel to "Hear this,"¹⁴ so in John it is by "hearing" Jesus that people may have eternal life (John 5:24, 25; 10:3, 16, 27; 18:37). Now someone may object that there is no striking parallel here since coming near to and hearing are generic, commonplace ideas. But let us go on.

From the beginning I have not spoken in secret.

The speaker of Isaiah 48:16 declares that he has spoken from the beginning and not in secret (ouk ap' archēs en kryphē elalēsa). At his trial, according to John, Jesus tells the high priest that "I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all the Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret (kai en kryptō elalēsa ouden)" (John 18:20). Moreover, Jesus in John is one who has spoken from the beginning: he is the Word who was in the beginning (John 1:1), and when asked, "Who are you?" he gives the enigmatic reply, "What I have told you from the beginning" (John 8:25).¹⁵ Jesus also tells his disciples that he did not tell them something from the beginning (John 16:4), which implies that he did tell them other things.

When it happened I was there.

The speaker of Isaiah 48:16 declares, "At the time when it happened (or, came into existence), there I was."¹⁶ This statement very closely parallels the language about the Logos in John 1:1-3, though it is only apparent from the Greek. In Isaiah 48:16 LXX, the line is hēnika egeneto, ekei ēmēn. The verb egeneto is an aorist of ginomai, which has a broad range of meaning including "come into existence" and "happen."¹⁷ Notably, egeneto is used frequently in Genesis 1 LXX to describe the happenings of the creation story.

The verb ēmēn, meanwhile, is an imperfect of eimi, meaning "be." Now here is the fascinating bit: just as in Isaiah 48:16 the aorist egeneto is juxtaposed with an imperfect of eimi, so also in John 1:1-3. Here we read that the Word "was" (ēn, third-person imperfect of eimi) in the beginning with God and that all things "came to be" (egeneto) through him. The shift in verb and tense implies a contrast: while everything else came into existence or happened, the Word simply was. The same contrast is found in Isaiah 48:16: when it came into existence or happened, there I was. The imperfect probably has a durative sense in both cases: things happened, but the Logos/I was there throughout.¹⁸

There are other Johannine texts similar to this line from Isaiah 48:16 in John 1:15, 30,¹⁹ John 8:58,²⁰ and John 17:5,²¹ all of which contrast Jesus' primeval and continuous existence with the coming into being of some finite reality.

And now the Lord has sent me and his Spirit.

The theme of Jesus as the one sent by the Father is mentioned many times in the Gospel of John, and significantly, Jesus draws a parallel between the Father's sending of him and the sending of the Holy Spirit:

...the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me... the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. (John 14:24, 26) 

But now I am going to him who sent me... Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. (John 16:5, 7)

Isaiah 48:16 is, in fact, the only text in the entire OT that speaks of God sending two figures, one of whom is his Spirit. The order is also striking. In other texts, God sends his Spirit upon people, who then prophesy;²² but here the speaker is sent before the Spirit, just as the Son is in John.

To summarise, then, all four lines of Isaiah 48:16 are closely paralleled in the Fourth Gospel's depiction of Jesus. He is the one who calls people to come to him and hear him. He is the one who has not spoken in secret from the beginning. He is the one who "was" there when things "came to be." He is the one who is sent before God's Spirit. It is not a stretch to say that Isaiah 48:16 functions as a program statement for John's Christology, and has influenced John's view that Christ is both God and distinct from God (John 1:1, 18).

Early Christian Interpretation of Isaiah 48:16

The earliest extant quotations from Isaiah 48:16 in Christian literature are found in the writings of Origen. In his work Contra Celsum, the great Alexandrian exegete writes:

Since, however, it is a Jew who raises difficulties in the story of the Holy Spirit's descent in the form of a dove to Jesus, I would say to him: My good man, who is the speaker in Isaiah that says 'And now the Lord sent me and his spirit'? In this text although it is doubtful whether it means that the Father and the Holy Spirit sent Jesus or that the Father sent Christ and the Holy Spirit, it is the second interpretation which is right. After the Saviour had been sent, then the Holy Spirit was sent, in order that the prophet's saying might be fulfilled (1.46).²³ 

In a briefer comment in his Commentary on Matthew (13.32), Origen follows the same interpretation (the Father sent the Son and the Spirit). In his Commentary on John, however, he takes the opposite view on the "doubtful" issue mentioned above:

How is the Spirit honored, as it were, above the Christ in some Scriptures? In Isaias, Christ admits that he has not been sent by the Father alone, but also by the Holy Spirit (for he says, 'And now the Lord has sent me, and his Spirit')... And if our Lord says, according to Isaias, that he has been sent by the Father and the Spirit, it is possible even there to allege of the Spirit which sent the Christ, that he does not excel him in nature, but that the Savior was made less than him because of the plan of the incarnation of the Son of God which was taking place. (2.79, 81)²⁴

For Origen, therefore, it is clear that the speaker of Isaiah 48:16 is Christ. A few decades later, the same interpretation is attested in the writings of Eusebius of Caesarea, who comments on the passage both in his Eclogae Propheticae ("Prophetic Extracts") and in his Proof of the Gospel, both of which are ante-Nicene works.²⁵ Some of Eusebius' statements sound very Arian, and he would in fact defend Arius during the Arian controversy but ultimately accepted the creedal formula and anathemas of the Council of Nicaea.²⁶

No English-language translation of the Eclogae Propheticae has yet been published, but—with some assistance from Dr. Logan Williams, for which I am most grateful—I have attempted a translation of the relevant passage below:

‘Draw near to me, and hear these things: from the beginning I have not spoken in secret; when it came to be, I was there. And now the Lord, the Lord has sent me and his spirit.’²⁷ Seeing as the person who is speaking these things is one, now who else might be the Lord ‘who created heaven and established it, and made the earth firm,’²⁸ who says, ‘I am the first, and I am forever,’²⁹ and sets things in order, according to all those having interpreted the divine Scripture, ‘and now the Lord God has sent me, and his spirit,’ or [might it be] the sacred Word of God, the first God named after the uncreated beginning of all created things, about whom also it is written elsewhere, ‘he sent his word and healed them,’³⁰ for he is the one ‘through whom all things came into being,’³¹ even ‘things in heaven and things on earth, whether visible or invisible,’³² whom also the Lord God the Father sent—and with him also the Holy Spirit—so that he will steward the salvation of men? 

But it may be that what is stated is adapted toward the Jews, teaching that the other is the Lord who crafted all things with the God of all, by whom he confesses to having been sent, saying, ‘And now the Lord has sent me,’ and it may be he by whom the Father commanded nature, [saying] ‘Let there be light,’³³ at the creation of the world, and ‘Let there be some things and other things,’ and, ‘Let us make man according to our image,’³⁴ for this also in Psalms is inscribed, ‘He spoke and they came into being, he commanded and they were created.’³⁵ For it is evident that the one commanding and saying something commands and orders another besides himself. Indeed really, to examine each word of the passage does not belong to the present undertaking. (Eclogae Propheticae 4.23)³⁶

Eusebius later offers a similar interpretation in his Proof of the Gospel,³⁷ and still later in his Commentary on Isaiah (which post-dates the Council of Nicaea).³⁸

Thus, both extant Christian interpretations of Isaiah 48:16 from the ante-Nicene period hold that the speaker of this scriptural text is Christ, the pre-existent Word. One might object that two witnesses does not constitute overwhelming evidence. Perhaps not, but on the other hand there is zero evidence for any non-Christological interpretation of this text in the early Church.

Conclusion

We have seen that there are three lines of evidence supporting a Messianic interpretation of Isaiah 48:16: (i) the enigmatic character of this text in the original Hebrew; (ii) the echoes of this text in the Gospel of John; and (iii) the testimony of two early Church Fathers, namely Origen of Alexandria and Eusebius of Caesarea. If we accept that Christ is the speaker in the sensus plenior of this passage, what are the Christological implications? Firstly, the text implies Christ's pre-existence, not only because he is able to speak through the words of an OT prophet who prophesied long before his birth, but also because he expressly declares that he has been speaking from the beginning—meaning, in the Isaianic context, the beginning of creation. Secondly, the text implies Christ's divinity, because—apart from the last line about being sent—the speaker of this text claims prerogatives that deutero-Isaiah elsewhere says are exclusively God's. Thirdly, Christ does not make himself God in a Sabellian sense (as though he is the Father himself), but distinguishes himself from God and his Spirit. Just as the Gospel of John says, he is God but also sent by God. In fact, what we have here is an explicit mention of all three Trinitarian persons together, in the Old Testament!

• 1 See my previous article on Isaiah in John for some background on the Book of Isaiah and "deutero-Isaiah" in particular.
• 2 Matt. 3:3; Mark 1:3; Luke 3:4-6; John 1:23.
• 3 By grammatical-historical meaning, I mean the sense that the human author of the text intended to convey to his contemporary readers.
• 4 See the Introduction to my article on Genesis 1:26 for a case in point.
• 5 For two obvious examples, see Matthew's interpretation of Hosea 11:1 in Matthew 2:15 and Paul's interpretation of Deuteronomy 25:4 in 1 Corinthians 9:9-10.
• 6 Bible quotations are from the NRSV unless otherwise indicated, with the exception that "LORD" is substituted with Yahweh for linguistic clarity.
• 7 Cf. similar statements in Isaiah 40:21, 41:4, 41:26-27, 43:10-13, 45:18-19, 45:21, 46:9-10.
• 8 The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 40-66 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 278. Oswalt's own view is that the oddity results from "the close identity between God and the prophet"; the prophet switches temporarily from speaking Yahweh's words to speaking in his own person.
• 9 Isaiah 40-66: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox, 1969), 202-203.
• 10 Rodrigo F. De Sousa observes that the translator understands "Tarshish" in Isaiah 23 to refer to Carthage. This may indicate that the destruction of Carthage by the Romans in 146 B.C. was regarded as a fulfilment of this prophecy, in which case the translation must be no earlier than 146 ("Isaiah," in The Oxford Handbook of the Septuagint, ed. Alison Salvesen and Michael Timothy Law [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021], 249).
• 11 One difference is that, while אדני and יהוה are each usually rendered by kyrios in the Septuagint, אדני יהוה is here translated with a single kyrios rather than κύριος κύριος. Interestingly, the Greek text known to Eusebius of Caesarea (discussed below) does have a double kyrios, and Eusebius sees great theological significance in this, as highlighting the superiority of the Father's Lordship to the Word's: "And yet though the Word of God is Himself proclaimed divine by the word ‘Lord,’ He still calls One Higher and Greater His Father and Lord, using with beautiful reverence the word Lord twice in speaking of Him, so as to differentiate His title. For He says here, ‘The Lord, the Lord has sent me,’ as if the Almighty God were in a special sense first and true Lord both of His Only-begotten Word and of all begotten things after Him, in relation to which the Word of God has received dominion and power from the Father, as His true and Only-begotten Son, and therefore Himself holds the title of Lord in a secondary sense" (Proof of the Gospel 5.6, trans. W. J. Ferrar, The Proof of the Gospel, Being the Demonstratio Evangelica of Eusebius of Caesarea [2 vols.; London: SPCK, 1920], 1:251).
• 12 Moisés Silva, "Esaias," in New English Translation of the Septuagint, ed. Albert Pietersma and Benjamin G. Wright (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 861-62. The Greek text is as follows: προσαγάγετε πρός με καὶ ἀκούσατε ταῦτα· οὐκ ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς ἐν κρυφῇ ἐλάλησα· ἡνίκα ἐγένετο, ἐκεῖ ἤμην, καὶ νῦν κύριος ἀπέσταλκέ με καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα αὐτοῦ. (Septuaginta, ed. Joseph Ziegler [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1983], vol. 14.)
• 13 Book of Isaiah, 274 n. 61.
• 14 In the MT the verb is שמע, used famously in Deuteronomy 6:4, the Shema.
• 15 This translation occurs in a footnote in the NRSV; the main translation is, "Why do I speak to you at all?" The Greek of Jesus' reply, tēn archēn ho ti kai lalō humin, is notoriously difficult; see my comments here, where I argued that "What I told you at the beginning" is a plausible translation.
• 16 The adverb hēnika has the sense "at the time when" (BDAG 439).
• 17 Here, it translates a form of היה, the Hebrew verb meaning "be" (but which, like ginomai, can also mean "happen"). Incidentally, the divine name Yahweh is etymologically related to the verb היה, as is evident from Exodus 3:14.
• 18 The Greek imperfect conveys the incompleteness of the action, and often indicates duration over time. For instance, in Job 29:5 LXX, Job reminisces about former days "when I was (ēmēn) very much a person of substance and my children were around me" (NETS).
• 19 Here, John the Baptist—who is first introduced in the Gospel with the verb egeneto in 1:6 (literally, "there came into existence a man")—says that the one coming after him has surpassed him, because "he was (ēn, imperfect) before me."
• 20 Here, Jesus declares, "Before Abraham was (genesthai, aorist infinitive), I am (eimi, present tense)." I have commented in more detail on this text here.
• 21 Here, Jesus petitions the Father to glorify him "with the glory that I had (eichon, imperfect) in your presence before the world existed (einai, present infinitive)."
• 22 See, e.g., Num. 11:29; 3 Kgdms 10:6; 2 Chr. 20:14-15; Isa. 59:21.
• 23 Trans. Henry Chadwick, Contra Celsum: Translated with an Introduction and Notes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), 42.
• 24 Trans. Ronald E. Heine, Origen: Commentary on the Gospel according to John, Books 1-10 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1989), 114-15.
• 25 According to Aaron P. Johnson, the former work (which is the surviving part of Eusebius' General Elementary Introduction) was written before Eusebius became Bishop of Caesarea in 313, while the Proof of the Gospel was written during the period 314-324 ("Narrating the Council: Eusebius on Nicaea," in The Cambridge Companion to the Council of Nicaea, ed. Young Kim [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021], 203). W. J. Ferrar dates the Proof of the Gospel to 314-318, reasoning that some of theological language is too "unguarded" to have been written after the Arian controversy erupted c. 319 (The Proof of the Gospel, 1:xiii).
• 26 Eusebius has sometimes been accused of selling out on his theological convictions at the Council of Nicaea, but Johnson ("Narrating the Council") argues that the Council's language was in fact compatible with Eusebius' theology.
• 27 Isaiah 48:16. Eusebius actually quotes Isaiah 48:12-16 but for sake of brevity my translation begins from v. 16.
• 28 Isaiah 42:5.
• 29 Isaiah 48:12.
• 30 Psalm 106:20 LXX.
• 31 Cf. John 1:3, 10.
• 32 Colossians 1:16.
• 33 Genesis 1:3.
• 34 Genesis 1:26.
• 35 Psalm 32:9; 148:5 LXX.
• 36 Greek text in Thomas Gaisford, Eusebii Pamphili, Episcopi Caesariensis: Eclogae Propheticae [Oxonii: E Typographeo Academico, 1842], 205-206.
• 37 "See now how He that says, ‘I am the first, and I am the last. He that established the earth and the heaven,’ clearly confesses that He was sent by ‘the Lord, the Lord,’ calling the Father Lord twice, and you will have undeniable evidence of what we seek. And He says that He is first among beings begotten in all reverence since He allots Being, original, unbegotten, and beyond the first, to the Father. For the customary meaning of first in the sense of ‘first of a greater number,’ superior in honour and order, would not be applicable to the Father. For the Almighty God of course is not the first of created things, since the idea of Him does not admit of a beginning. He must be beyond and above the first, as Himself generating and establishing the First, and the Divine Word alone is to be called the First of all begotten things. So if we ask with reference to the words, ‘He spake and they were made, he commanded and they were created,’ to which of the begotten beings He gave the command to create, we see now clearly that it was given to Him, Who said, ‘My hand has laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand has made the heaven strong’: Who also confesses that He was sent by One greater than Himself, when He says: ‘Now the Lord, the Lord has sent me, and his Spirit.’ And it must be the Word of God Who said also, ‘By the word of the Lord were the heavens made firm,’ if we compare the Psalm. And yet though the Word of God is Himself proclaimed divine by the word ‘Lord,’ He still calls One Higher and Greater His Father and Lord, using with beautiful reverence the word Lord twice in speaking of Him, so as to differentiate His title. For He says here, ‘The Lord, the Lord has sent me,’ as if the Almighty God were in a special sense first and true Lord both of His Only-begotten Word and of all begotten things after Him, in relation to which the Word of God has received dominion and power from the Father, as His true and Only-begotten Son, and therefore Himself holds the title of Lord in a secondary sense" (Proof of the Gospel 5.6.1-7, trans. Ferrar, Proof of the Gospel, 1:250-51); "You have here the Lord sent and the Lord sending, that is to say the Father and God of the Universe, entitled Lord twice as was usual" (Proof of the Gospel 6.22, trans. Ferrar, Proof of the Gospel, 2:43-44).
• 38 Eusebius indicates that it is "the Word" who is speaking in this passage, and comments, "For when the Father planned these things, I was with him, and now the Lord himself, who is God over all, sent me his Spirit of holiness in order that I might accomplish once and for all the things that he has ordained." (Eusebius, Commentary on Isaiah 305-306, trans. Jonathan J. Armstrong, Eusebius of Caesarea: Commentary on Isaiah [Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2013], 239).

The Parts of John's Prologue that Unitarians Neglect

Despite being a Catholic and a Trinitarian myself, I'm a regular listener of unitarian apologist Prof. Dale Tuggy's trinities podcast. As someone who has written a fair bit on the Prologue of John, I was keenly interested to listen to his latest episode, What John 1 Meant. This was an edited version of a talk Tuggy gave at the 2021 Unitarian Christian Alliance conference.

At the beginning of the talk, Tuggy read John 1:1-18 from the NRSV. This—together with the episode's title and 76-minute length—made very hopeful that he was going to do something that I seldom see/hear/read unitarians do when discussing this text: offer careful exegesis of the whole Prologue. For, as I wrote a few months ago in my in-depth review of Buzzard and Hunting's polemical work, The Doctrine of the Trinity: Christianity's Self-Inflicted Wound (p. 30), there are portions of this passage that unitarian exegetes tend to neglect when arguing for a particular meaning of the Word (ho logos). I refer specifically to vv. 5-13 and 14c-18. 

Alas, I was to be disappointed once again. Tuggy lavishes time upon John 1:1-4 and 1:14ab and pre-Christian parallels to the language of both. As for the other parts? Verse 5 is discussed briefly in connection with 1-4. He states that he is going to skip vv. 6-9. Verses 10-11 then receive a brief cameo, with 12-13 then passed over in silence to arrive at v. 14. Even within this verse, the first two clauses ("And the Word became flesh and lived among us") command far more attention than the third. As he begins to wrap up, Tuggy announces that there isn't time to discuss vv. 15-18, but that it does not matter, as these verses contain no difficulties for unitarians. He does provide the briefest aside on what he thinks v. 15 means (spoiler alert: "he was before me" does not indicate that he existed before me), and then gives his own paraphrase of the entire Prologue, including the verses he's skipped over. (He also, on a couple of occasions, voices his support for the minority textual view that 1:18 calls Jesus monogenēs huios rather than monogenēs theos.)

Why should it be concerning or frustrating that a 76-minute talk on "What John 1[:1-18] Meant" (in the Christological sense) dedicates almost no airtime to vv. 5-13 and 14c-18? After all, if the main difficulty of John's Prologue is to correctly interpret the term ho logos, shouldn't we focus on the verses that use this term? Well, context is king, as they say. If John 1:1-18 is a literary unit within John's Gospel, surely we cannot neglect any part thereof if we hope to understand the whole.

If all we had in the Prologue were John 1:1-4 and 14ab, our efforts to identify who or what the Word is might devolve into a Sisyphean struggle of opinioneering. Fortunately, those other, sometimes neglected parts enable us to settle the matter decisively.

I have written in some detail about these verses in my article Jesus Christ in the Prologue of John: The Word Per Se, or the Word Made Flesh Only? (see also my review of Buzzard & Hunting, pp. 28-30), so I will just give a bullet-point overview of the exegetical arguments from the "other verses" of the Prologue.

First, concerning 1:5-13,

• "The light" (to phōs) is—like ho logos—an abstract noun that can easily be used—and probably is, in vv. 4-5—in a purely abstract sense (and there was little Jewish precedent for regarding it as personal.) Nevertheless, it is unmistakable that from v. 7 onward, to phōs refers to a person. Otherwise, the author's clarification about John, "He was not the light," is superfluous, even absurd.
• This person, the True Light, is in view throughout vv. 9-12, where we learn that the True Light is identical with the Word (from the parallels between 1:3a and 1:10b and between 1:7b and 1:15a) even as it remains obvious that the True Light is a person (from the words "believe in his name," amongst others). The Word and Light imagery are both drawn ultimately from Genesis 1.
• The True Light imagery gives no idea of an ontological transition from one thing (the pre-existent Word) to another (the man Jesus). The language is seamless: he who was in the world is he through whom the world came to be. The transition is a spatial one: he comes into the world, to his own.
• If any reader were in doubt at this point as to which person the True Light (= the Word) is, they could not remain so after reading the rest of the Gospel, which is replete with parallels to 1:8-12:
• "He was not the light" (1:8a) = "I am not the Christ" (1:20; 3:28)
• "the True Light" (1:9a) = "I am...the Truth" (14:6); "I am the Light of the world" (8:12; 9:5)
• The light "was coming into the world" (1:9b) = "I came into the world as light" (12:46); "you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world" (11:27); "I...have come into the world" (16:28; 18:37)
• "He was in the world" (1:10a) = "I am in the world" (9:5); "now I will no longer be in the world" (17:11)
• "He came to his own" (1:11a) = "He loved his own in the world" (13:1)
• "His own did not receive him" (1:11b) = "You do not receive me" (5:43); "Your own nation and the chief priests handed you over to me" (18:35)
• "But to those who did receive him" (1:12a) = "Whoever does receive his testimony..." (3:32-33)
• "he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe" (1:12ab) = "believe in the light, so that you may become children of the light" (12:36)
• "believe in his name" (1:12b) = "many began to believe in his name" (2:23); "believed in the name of the only Son of God" (3:18)

Second, concerning 1:14c-18,

• "The Word" (ho logos) is the referent throughout vv. 14-16. This is often overlooked because the statements from 14c-16 are clearly also statements about Jesus Christ:
• 1:14c equates the Word's glory with "glory as of the Father's only Son"
• 1:15a quotes John's testimony about the Word using the same words John will proclaim about Jesus in 1:30
• 1:16a speaks of the Word's fullness and grace, which is linked via the conjunction hoti to a statement about grace coming through Jesus Christ in v. 17
• But the syntax is unambiguous: the three occurrences of the pronoun autos in vv. 14c ("we saw his glory"), 15a ("John testified about him") and 16a ("From his fullness we have all received") all have ho logos in 14a as their antecedent.
• Thus, it is not that we have one statement about the Word, "The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us," followed by other statements about the man who figuratively embodies the Word. The syntax disallows such a reading. Rather, "The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us" is one statement about the Word per se that is followed by several other statements about the Word per se.
• If these statements about the Word per se are also statements about Jesus Christ, it follows inexorably that Jesus Christ is the Word per se.
• Again, the statements about the Word in 1:14c-16 have parallels elsewhere in the Gospel.
• "We have seen his glory" (1:14c) = "Jesus...so revealed his glory" (2:11); "Isaiah...saw his glory" (12:41)
• "the only begotten of the Father" (1:14c) = "the only begotten God/Son" (1:18); "only begotten Son" (3:16, 18)
• "he was before me" (1:15e; cf. 1:30) = "In the beginning was the Word" (1:1); "What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?" (6:62); "Before Abraham was, I am" (8:58); "the glory that I had with you before the world was" (17:5)
• 1:18 causes some difficulties for unitarians if, as the UBS committee considered "almost certain" (B rating), the correct reading is monogenēs theos. It is not just that there would then be biblical warrant for the much-maligned phrase "God the Son." It is also that this would be an instance of the literary technique of inclusio, by which the Prologue is deliberately bookended by references to someone other than the Father as theos. The implication is that the one called theos in 1:1 is the one called theos in 1:18, thus reinforcing that the Word = the Son.

Given the abundant exegetical data concerning the identity of the Word in John 1:5-13 and 14c-18, can the reader blame me for feeling exasperated when a unitarian apologist devotes an hour-long lecture on John's Prologue to verses 1-4 and 14ab, giving only cursory attention to the rest of the material?

"Lord of lords" and "King of kings" as Hebraic Superlatives

 Introduction

This article delves briefly into the meaning of the expression "Lord of lords" as used in Scripture and, in particular, draws out the Christological implications of its application to Christ in two passages (Rev. 17:14; 19:16).

The New Testament books were all composed in Greek. However, because nearly all of their authors were Jews and they contain frequent quotations and echoes from the Hebrew Scriptures, an understanding of Hebrew can sometimes shed light on the meaning of New Testament expressions. The argument of this article is that "Lord of lords" is a Hebraism and should be understood as a superlative with a sense equivalent to "greatest Lord" or "supreme Lord." Before turning to the New Testament, we need some background on the construct chain superlative in biblical Hebrew.

Construct Chain Superlatives in the Hebrew Bible

Coulter H. George, Professor of Classics at the University of Virginia, explains an important difference between modern English and biblical Hebrew:

For, in contrast to English, where adjectives are inflected for three different degrees—positive (old), comparative (older), superlative (oldest)—Hebrew adjectives do not have this option, so the comparative or, as here, superlative has to be expressed differently, with the phrase 'X of Xs' being a favored way of getting across the idea 'the most X.' But since this is a structure that requires a plural and a construct chain, and therefore works better with nouns, we can see part of what it means for Hebrew to be a language that lets nouns do a little more work relative to adjectives than would be the case in English.¹

Thus, a singular noun in construct state followed by the same noun in the plural is one way of expressing a superlative in biblical Hebrew.² Bruce K. Waltke and M. O'Connor note that the construction need not to repeat the same noun but may consist of two similar nouns.³

Let us look at a few examples from the Hebrew Bible.⁴ In Noah's curse on Canaan in Genesis 9:25, he declares that Canaan will be a "slave of slaves" (עבד עבדים) to his brothers. "Slave of slaves" is a literal ("formally equivalent") translation of the Hebrew, but a dynamically equivalent translation, one that conveys the sense, would be "lowest of slaves" (NRSV).⁵ 

The Torah's instructions for the tabernacle in Exodus 26:33-34 distinguish an area designated "the holy" (הקדש) from an area designated the "holy of holies" (קדש הקדשים). The latter place could only be accessed by the high priest, and even then only once per year, on the Day of Atonement. "Holy of holies" here conveys the sense, "most holy" (NRSV).

In Qoheleth [Ecclesiastes] 1:2, Qoheleth famously declares, "Vanity of vanities!" (הבל הבלים). Again, a dynamically equivalent translation would be, "Absolutely futile" (NET) or "Utter vanity!" Another book traditionally attributed to Solomon uses a construct chain superlative in its title: "The Song of Songs" (שיר השירים, Song of Solomon 1:1). The sense here is, "the greatest song," "the most wonderful song."⁶

In Isaiah 34:10, an oracle against Edom foretells that no one will pass through it for "perpetuity of perpetuities" (לנצח נצחים). The sense is "forever and ever," "for all eternity." A similar construction occurs in Daniel 7:18 (composed in Aramaic), where Daniel is told that the holy ones of the Most High would possess the kingdom for "perpetuity of perpetuities" (עלם עלמיא). The Old Greek version of Daniel renders this expression into Greek as eōs tou aiōnos tōn aiōnōn ("until the age of ages"), and a nearly identical phrase occurs in Greek Daniel 3:90. This construct chain superlative may therefore have influenced the phrase eis tous aiōnas tōn aiōnōn ("to the ages of ages"), which occurs frequently in the Greek New Testament (especially in the Book of Revelation) with the sense, "forever and ever."⁷

There are other examples,⁸ but our main interest lies in construct chain superlatives that are used of God. Certain human emperors such as Artaxerxes and Nebuchadnezzar are referred to (by themselves, and even by God) as "king of kings" (מלך מלכיא in Ezra 7:12, Dan. 2:37 Aramaic; מלך מלכים in Ezek. 26:7). Recognised as a construct chain superlative, this title can be dynamically translated, "greatest king" or "supreme king." In similar fashion, the biblical writers refer to Yahweh himself as אל(הי) אלהים ("God of gods", Deut. 10:17; Josh. 22:22; Ps. 50:1; 84:8; 136:2; Dan. 2:47)⁹ and אדני האדנים ("Lord of lords," Deut. 10:17; Ps. 136:3).¹⁰ Daniel is informed via a vision of a wicked future king who would rise against the שר שרים ("Prince of princes," Dan. 8:25); scholars debate whether this title refers to God himself or to Michael.¹¹ The Hebrew Bible thus uses superlative constructions to describe Yahweh as "the greatest God" and "the supreme Lord."¹² The title "king of kings" is also applied to God in Second Temple Jewish literature, though not in the Hebrew Bible itself.¹³ Notably, in the Old Greek version of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar qualifies his use of "king of kings" as a self-reference by acknowledging (after his seven-year humiliation) that it is the Most High, "God of gods and Lord of lords and Lord of kings," who has established him on his throne.

To summarise, then, the Hebrew Bible can refer to powerful human rulers as "king of kings," and (possibly) to an archangel as "prince of princes," but the titles "God of gods" and "Lord of lords" are reserved exclusively for Yahweh. All of these titles should be understood as superlatives, i.e. "supreme God," "supreme Lord," "supreme king," etc. Subsequent Jewish literature increasingly uses "King of kings" for God, applying the title to human rulers only in a qualified manner.

King of kings and Lord of lords in the New Testament

With this background in hand, we can turn to the New Testament. The expression "God of gods" does not occur, but "Lord of lords" and "King of kings" occur thrice each, always together (1 Tim. 6:15; Rev. 17:14; 19:16). In the first instance, the referent is God:

I charge you 14 to keep the commandment without spot or blame until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which he will bring about at the right time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords. 16 It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honor and eternal dominion. (1 Tim. 6:14-16 NRSV)

This passage is plainly emphasising God's exclusive divine status: note the repeated use of the adjective monos ("only"; "alone"). We should understand the author to be using the titles "King of kings" (ho basileus tōn basileuontōn) and "Lord of lords" (kyrios tōn kurieuontōn) as Hebraic superlatives; hence "supreme King" and "supreme Lord." These titles emphatically convey God's unique divine status and power.

Within the wider context of the Hebrew Bible, Second Temple literature and this text from 1 Timothy, it is therefore remarkable to find that in the Book of Revelation, the Jewish Christian author uses the titles "Lord of lords" and "King of kings" for Christ. In Revelation 17, John sees a vision that has obvious resonances with Daniel (e.g., evil kings represented by horns on a beast). An angel explains part of the vision to John, stating that these kings "will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords (kyrios kyriōn) and King of kings (basileus basileōn) ." In view of the Danielic connections, it is impossible not to see here an allusion to the "God of gods and Lord of kings" of Daniel 2:47, as well as to occurrences of the exact title "Lord of lords" in Deuteronomy 10:17 and Psalm 136:3.¹⁴ The author of Revelation therefore deliberately assigns a divine title to the Lamb, with meaning equivalent to "the Supreme Lord and King." Not content to do so once, the titles are repeated in Revelation 19:16, as the climax of a fearsome Christological vision.¹⁵

Christological Implications

What are the Christological implications of Jesus Christ being designated as "the supreme Lord and King," using a title ("Lord of lords") that is reserved exclusively for God in the Hebrew Bible? Two implications will be drawn out here: one concerning the Christological significance of the title kyrios and the other concerning the idea of Christ's supremacy.

Firstly, the application of this title to Jesus gives the lie to those who—to preserve a "low" Christology (or a confessional commitment to unitarianism)—downplay the Christological significance of the title kyrios. Such interpreters insist that, as used of Jesus Christ in the New Testament, kyrios designates master or ruler in an earthly sense.¹⁶ They emphasise that "God" (theos) is very rarely used of Christ in the New Testament, but overlook that "Lord" (kyrios)—one of the most common New Testament titles for Jesus—is just as lofty a title. Not only is kyrios the usual Greek translation of the Hebrew divine title אדני (which unitarians acknowledge is used only for God), but it is also the word usually used in the Septuagint to render the divine Name itself, יהוה, into Greek! If Christ, then, can be described as "the supreme Lord," can this be anything other than a divine claim? (This is not to deny, of course, that kyrios can be used in a mundane sense like "sir," "lord," "master," and is sometimes used of Jesus in this sense in the Gospels. But it is precisely texts like Revelation 17:14 and 19:16 that show conclusively that a much loftier sense is in view.)

It appears to this writer that, rather than the New Testament writers shying away from calling Christ theos and opting for what they saw as an inferior title, kyrios, they witness to the emergence of a pattern whereby the Father is typically designated theos and the Son kyrios (with some exceptions on both counts), these both being divine titles.¹⁷ The most striking occurrence of this pattern occurs in 1 Corinthians 8:6, where Paul quotes a creedal tradition that—according to the majority of New Testament scholars—splits the language of the Shema` (Deut. 6:4) between "one God, the Father" and "one Lord, Jesus Christ."¹⁸ It is remarkable that this text (like Ephesians 4:4-6) can profess belief in "one Lord" alongside "one God," without any qualification in light of the fact that Second Temple Judaism professed belief that God is the one Lord.¹⁹

Secondly, let us move beyond titles and reflect on what "supreme Lord and King" conveys conceptually about Christ's majesty and power. I am reminded of a post from several years ago on a unitarian apologetics Facebook page that commented on a 6th-century Byzantine depiction of Jesus as "Christ Pantokrator." The writer notes, "'Pantoraktor' [sic] is the Greek word for 'almighty.' Note that Scripture never refers to Jesus in this way; it is a title reserved exclusively for God." He goes on to observe that, in the painting, Christ looks beyond and away from the viewer, which "reflects the imperial aloofness with which Jesus was now associated. He is no longer a man: he is a god-emperor, like the original Caesars."

There are several problems with this argument. It presupposes a false dilemma, as though Jesus can either be human shepherd or divine emperor but not both, and that an artist who depicts him as one denies the other. If we take scenes from the New Testament, would we expect an artist painting the Transfiguration or the Ascension—or Jesus as envisioned in Revelation 1:12-15, for that matter—to depict him as making relatable eye contact with the viewer? A second problem with the argument is that it dwells too much on the title Pantokrator. While it is true that pantokratōr ("almighty"; "omnipotent") is not used of Christ in the New Testament, it is not a common word there (occurring only ten times, and in two books). Further undermining this argument from silence is the observation that the concept conveyed by pantokratōr is applied to Christ. Pantokratōr is a compound formed from pas ("all") and kratos ("might"; "power"; "sovereignty"). The operative question, therefore, is whether the New Testament ascribes universal power to Jesus. In the title "supreme Lord and King," we already have our answer. Of course, the evidence goes far beyond this. Since nine of the ten NT occurrences of pantokratōr for God are in Revelation, it is significant that this book twice ascribes kratos ("might") to the exalted Christ.²⁰ Moreover, if we consider the occurrences of pantokratōr in Revelation, it is unlikely that the word is intended to emphasise God's power as distinct from Christ's.²¹ Meanwhile, other New Testament writings describe the exalted Christ as having been given "All authority in heaven and on earth" (Matt. 28:18), as "Lord of all" (Acts 10:36), as having "power that enables him...to bring all things into subjection to himself" (Phil. 3:21), as "before all things" (Col. 1:17), and as sustaining "all things by his powerful word" (Heb. 1:3). The question arises: what power is lacking in Christ, exactly, that he must be not be called Pantokratōr?²²

Conclusion

In conclusion, then, with the Christological title "Lord of lords and King of kings" properly understood as designating Jesus the supreme Lord and King, we can recognise that the Book of Revelation offers a high Christology, in which Christ shares in the exclusive prerogatives of deity, such as absolute sovereignty over the cosmos. While this title is unparalleled in other New Testament texts, it is congruent with the high Christology that emerges from the letters of Paul and the letter to the Hebrews.

• 1 Coulter H. George, How Dead Languages Work [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020], 211.
• 2 This is by no means the only way that superlatives are expressed in biblical Hebrew. For a broader discussion, see D. Winton Thomas, "A Consideration of Some Unusual Ways of Expressing the Superlative in Hebrew," Vetus Testamentum 3 (1953): 209-24.
• 3 Bruce K. Waltke and M. O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 267.
• 4 Most of these are drawn from Waltke and O'Connor, Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, 267.
• 5 The Septuagint translator has also understood the expression to be idiomatic and has rendered it with pais oiketēs ("house slave"), which perhaps represents the lowest rank among slaves.
• 6 The New Living Translation conveys the superlative sense with a gloss: "This is Solomon’s song of songs, more wonderful than any other."
• 7 E.g., Gal. 1:5; Eph. 3:21; Phil. 4:20; 1 Tim. 1:17; 2 Tim. 4:18; Heb. 13:21; 1 Pet. 4:11; Rev. 1:6; 1:18; 4:9-10; 5:13; 7:12; 10:6; 11:15; 15:7; 19:3; 20:10; 22:5. Revelation 14:11 uses the anarthrous construction aiōnas aiōnōn. That this verse departs from the ordinary usage in Revelation is interesting, since Revelation 14:11 alludes to Isaiah 34:10, where a construct chain superlative occurs. The phrase eis tous aiōnas tōn aiōnōn is attested once in the Greek Old Testament, in Psalm 83:5. However, Psalm 84:5 MT does not have a construct chain superlative. The concept of a future eternity is nearly absent from the Hebrew Bible.
• 8 Jeremiah 3:19 is an interesting case. The KJV renders, "How shall I put thee among the children, and give thee a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the hosts of nations?" It follows the MT, which has צבי צבאות, literally, "beauty of hosts" of nations. However, many scholars argue that this should be emended to צבי צבות, literally "beauty of beauties." R. Abma states, "The word צבאות in the apposition צבי צבאות גוים is, in spite of the א, to be understood as a plural of the noun צבי ('beauty') rather than of the noun צבא ('host'). This is the only case that the noun צבי is found in the plural, so that this plural form may be an unconscious adjustment to the common plural צבאות (cf. the expression 'Yhwh of hosts'). The construction of two identical nouns with the second in the plural expresses a 'superlative idea'... which explains the translation 'an inheritance most beauteous among the nations." (Bonds of love: Methodic Studies of Prophetic Texts with Marriage Imagery (Isaiah 50:1-3 and 54:1-10, Hosea 1-3, Jeremiah 2-3) [Assen: Van Gorcum, 1999],  231). Hence, the NRSV has, "the most beautiful heritage of all the nations." In Jeremiah 6:28, Yahweh describes his people as סרי סוררים (literally, "rebels of rebels"). A dynamically equivalent translation would be, "the most stubborn of rebels" (NET).
• 9 Daniel 2:47 (composed in Aramaic) reads אלה אלהין. The Old Greek version of Daniel adds several further references to God as the "God of gods" ([ὁ θεὸς τῶν θεῶν] in 3:90, 4:30a, 4:30c, 4:34, and 11:36.
• 10 The nearly equivalent expression מרא מלכין ("Lord of kings") occurs in the Aramaic of Daniel 2:47, while the Old Greek version of Daniel 4:34 refers to the Most High as "God of gods and Lord of lords and Lord of kings."
• 11 See Amy C. Merrill Willis, "Heavenly Bodies: God and the Body in the Visions of Daniel," in S. Tamar Kamionkowski and Wonil Kim (eds.), Bodies, Embodiment, and Theology of the Hebrew Bible (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 29-30 n. 63.
• 12 The expression "the greatest God" (like its literal rendering, "God of gods") might seem to undermine monotheism, since it implies the existence of other gods. However, it is clear that monotheism is a concept that develops through the course of biblical revelation. In earlier strata of biblical literature one finds Israel called to monolatry (exclusive worship of God), who is understood as the highest member of a council of divine beings. The status of these other "gods" is gradually degraded until they are reduced to sub-divine beings like angels or demons.
• 13 E.g., as (ὁ) βασιλεὺς (τῶν) βασιλέων in 2 Maccabees 13:4, 3 Maccabees 5:35.
• 14 The Septuagint of both of these passages has the title in the form (ho) kyrios (tōn) kyriōn.
• 15 That the one seen in this vision is Christ is evident not only from his wearing a robe dipped in blood, and the allusion to Psalm 2:9 ("he will rule them with a rod of iron"), but also from the correspondences with the vision in Revelation 1:12-18, where one who likewise has eyes like a flame of fire and a sharp sword coming from his mouth identifies himself to John as the one who lives and had been dead.
• 16 See, for instance, my recent review of a unitarian polemical work, Review of and Response to The Doctrine of the Trinity: Christianity's Self-Inflicted Wound, especially pp. 9-10, 25-27.
• 17 The Father is more commonly called kyrios than the Son theos, but this is to be expected due to (a) it being the established practice in Hellenistic Judaism to use kyrios for God, and (b) the application to the Father of biblical quotations containing the word kyrios.
• 18 See further discussion of this text on pp. 16-18 of my recent Review and Response.
• 19 See Deuteronomy 6:4 and Zechariah 14:9 (both MT and LXX). Note also the Old Greek version of Daniel 3:17, where Daniel's three friends testify, "there is one God who is in heaven, our one Lord, whom we fear, who is able to deliver us from the furnace of fire" (New English Translation of the Septuagint).
• 20 "To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion (kratos) forever and ever. Amen." (Rev. 1:6 NRSV). A hymn in the throne vision of chapter 5 ascribes "blessing and honour and glory and might (kratos) forever and ever" "to the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb" (5:13). In 1 Peter 4:11 and 5:11, two doxologies ascribe kratos to Christ and to God, respectively.
• 21 For instance, in the first instance (Rev. 1:8), the Lord God introduces himself as "the Alpha and Omega...the one who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty." "Alpha and Omega" (or its semantic equivalent, "first and last," drawn from deutero-Isaiah) are applied repeatedly to Christ in this book (1:17-18; 2:8; 22:13). In another instance, heavenly saints sing to "Lord God Almighty...king of the nations," in what is described as "the song of Moses...and the song of the Lamb." Since Revelation contains other songs sung about the Lamb but none sung by the Lamb, some scholars take the second genitive as objective: "the song about the Lamb" (see David E. Aune, Revelation 6-16 [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998], 872-73; Keith T. Marriner, Following the Lamb: The Theme of Discipleship in the Book of Revelation [Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2016], 174 n. 447). If so, the Lamb is at least indirectly included in the title pantokratōr. Moreover, God's "almighty" status is characterised in terms of his being "king of the nations," which is equivalent to what the book says elsewhere about Jesus, who is "ruler of the kings of the earth" (Rev. 1:5). In Revelation 19:15, it is Christ who treads out in the wine press the wrath of God Almighty. In Revelation 21:22, the new Jerusalem has the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb jointly as its temple.
• 22 Note that the Church Fathers applied the title Pantokratōr to Jesus long before the famous sixth-century painting. According to Lampe's Patristic Greek Lexicon, the term is applied to the Son or the Logos already by second- and third-century writers like Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Hippolytus of Rome (G.W.H. Lampe, Patristic Greek Lexicon [Oxford: Clarendon, 1961], 1005.

Review of "The Doctrine of the Trinity: Christianity's Self-Inflicted Wound," by Anthony F. Buzzard and Charles F. Hunting

My blog has remained dormant for some time mainly because I have been busy with a larger work: a detailed review of and response to a work of unitarian apologetics by Sir Anthony Buzzard and the late Charles Hunting. It is not a new book (published 1998), but I had not read it until Anthony kindly mailed me a copy earlier this year. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then rebuttal must be a close second: it indicates that the work was worthy of careful study. I hope that readers will find this a useful contribution to the ancient and still-ongoing theological debate concerning the nature of the Christian God.

Link to download (PDF)

Unitarians and the Offering of Prayer to Jesus

Adorantist and Non-Adorantist Christologies in Unitarianism

The other day I came across a discussion on a Christadelphian Facebook page on the topic of praying to Jesus. Christadelphian participants alternatively expressed strong support and strong opposition to this practice. In fact, the debate is not a new one, but goes back to the dawn of Unitarianism in 16th-century Europe. Among the Unitarian congregations of Poland and Transylvania, two distinct positions emerged that are known to historians as adorantism and non-adorantism.1 The adorantists, such as Marcin Czechowic, Fausto Sozzini (Faustus Socinus), and Giorgio Biandrata, believed that it was appropriate to worship, adore, and pray to Christ. The non-adorantists, such as Jacobus Palaeologus, Ferenc Dávid, and György Enyedi, believed that this was wrong, since Jesus is not God and God's majesty is not shared with another. Dávid argued that prayer to worship of Christ set one on the slippery slope to the Papist polytheism (as he saw it) that had necessitated the Reformation, while Sozzini saw non-adorantism as a slippery slope to Epicureanism and atheism. Sozzini spent months in 1578-79 trying to persuade Dávid to change his mind, and after he failed, he advised his followers to have nothing to do with Dávid. Shortly thereafter (at whose behest is not clear), Dávid was charged with having violated a law against religious innovation, and thrown in prison, where he died. The non-adorantists were gradually suppressed and had vanished from Transylvania by 1638, while the (adorantist) Unitarian church in Transylvania survives up to the present day. 

As for Christadelphians (the sect to which I formerly belonged), no clear position has been taken on this issue,2 but my experience suggests a hybrid liturgical practice: non-adorantism in prayer and adorantism in song!3 Public prayers—which are spontaneous as opposed to formulaic—typically end with words such as "in Jesus' name, Amen" or "through Christ we pray, Amen," but it would be atypical to address a public prayer to Christ, and doing so would ignite controversy in many ecclesias. On the other hand, Christadelphian hymn books contain numerous hymns addressed to Christ, and these are sung without controversy.

In Trinitarian ecclesiastical traditions, the question of whether or not it is appropriate to pray to Jesus does not arise. The practice is universal. In Evangelical circles, the "sinner's prayer" that is believed to secure salvation takes various forms, but the addressee is usually Christ. In Roman Catholic liturgy, prayers to Christ are recited at every Mass.4 The appropriateness of praying to Jesus is an obvious corollary of his deity. The historical relationship between belief in Jesus' deity and practices of worshiping/praying to Jesus is a matter of debate among scholars of earliest Christianity.5

In Unitarian circles, arguments against praying to Christ (for non-adorantism) may emphasise the implications of the first of the Ten Commandments, read against the backdrop of Unitarian monotheism.6 Whatever and whomever is not God cannot be adored, worshipped, or addressed as God is addressed; otherwise the uniqueness of God's deity is compromised. Non-adorantist Unitarians allow for Jesus' role as heavenly high priest and mediator, but stress that our prayers to God are offered through Christ but not to him. Dr. John Thomas, the founder of Christadelphians, offered an argument against prayer to Christ that relied more on scriptural precedent. For instance, Christ functions as our high priest, so it is as unsuitable for us to pray to Christ as for the Israelites of old to pray to Aaron.7

Unitarian arguments for praying to Christ (for adorantism) typically stress the relational aspect of Christ's role in the ecclesia and in the life of the believer. If Jesus Christ is our Lord, Saviour, and Advocate, if he is alive and in heaven, how can we love and serve him without communicating with him? Moreover, if Jesus Christ is the Son of God, in a perfect union of love with the Father, how could God feel threatened or slighted by prayer or worship being directed to Jesus? When we glorify Christ do we not in so doing glorify the Father? As one Unitarian apologetic work states, 

It is our contention that any Christian can ask the Lord Jesus to do for him anything that would help him do the works that Jesus did... You might look at it as having both a Father and a 'big brother'... whenever one glorifies, exalts, confesses, looks to and calls upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is God who ultimately gets the glory.8

Adjudicating the Adorantist Controversy

From a Catholic perspective, there are some good and true instincts behind both the non-adorantist and adorantist positions. Non-adorantists rightly highlight the absolute uniqueness of God over against all other reality, and the implications of this uniqueness for worship and prayer. Honour and glory must be given in proportion to the nature and merits of the recipient; otherwise it is mere flattery. In Paul's words, "Honour to whom honour is due" (Rom. 13:7). Who would liken the reflected brilliance of the moon to the radiated brilliance of the sun? Or, to borrow an analogy from the Book of Hebrews, the builder of a house deserves more honour than the house.9 If Christ is merely the foremost creature of God, clear distinctions would have to be maintained between the honour ascribed to Christ and that ascribed to God. Otherwise, it is not just a question of God feeling threatened or slighted as though God were petty and insecure. It is rather a question of denying the nature of reality, of blurring the absolute distinction between Creator and creature. Moreover, if the line between "worthy of worship, adoration, and prayer" does not pass through the infinitely large gap between God and his foremost creature, why should it pass between the foremost creature and another wonderful creature (e.g., an archangel)? Thus, non-adorantists are right: there is a real danger that adorantist Unitarian Christology could devolve into idolatry.

On the other hand, adorantists rightly emphasise the relational intimacy between God and Christ and between Christ and his disciples. If believers in Christ on earth communicate with one another to mutual edification, how much more fruitful might communication between disciple and Master be? (In fact, this analogy is fundamental to the Catholic practice of offering prayers and veneration—not worship—to angels and saints.10 Thus, adorantists are right that deity is not a requirement for being prayed to. We can pray to Christ qua our heavenly and yet human high priest, mediator, intercessor, and advocate. To rule out all prayer to Christ as dangerous and unprofitable on the grounds of his not being God would be unjustified, and thus adorantists have a valid point.

To draw together the dialectic, under a Unitarian worldview it seems that adoration and prayer offered to Christ is justifiable in light of his high and heavenly office, great virtue, and closeness to God. At the same time, praise and prayer to Christ must be carefully qualified so as not to blur the ontological distinction between creature and Creator. It must always be clear that the honour given to Christ is not of the same character and quality as that given to God. Prayers offered to Christ are brought in his capacity as mediator in the hopes that he will then intercede with God; prayer to Christ is not an end in itself. The situation is analogous to how Catholics view the angels and saints versus the Trinity. Catholics venerate Mary but do not worship Mary; Catholics pray to angels and saints as intercessors but not as sovereigns who could grant their petitions outright. In short, praise, honour, and petition offered by Unitarians to Christ is not finally offered to Christ but only through Christ to God.

A Trinitarian Evaluation in the Light of the New Testament

The orthodox view of God and Christ that has been normative among Christians for well over sixteen centuries, since the great ecumenical councils of the fourth and fifth centuries, holds that Christ is by nature both God and man. Because Christ is a human high priest and mediator, much of what adorantist Unitarians believe and practice can be affirmed by Trinitarians. We can follow Jesus' example by praying to the Father (for instance, using the words of the Lord's Prayer). We can offer prayers to the Father through Christ as mediator and intercessor. Moreover, even in his deity, Christ is a Son whose identity derives from the Father: "born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made."11 By virtue of their shared nature and unity with the Holy Spirit in perfect love, all honour and glory given to Christ does bring honour and glory to God the Father.

However, here is the key distinction: from a Trinitarian perspective, prayer, worship, and adoration offered to Christ is also an end in itself. That is, honour given to Christ does not leave Christ to attach to the Father. It attaches to the Trinity because of their perfect unity. For this reason, Trinitarians can praise, worship, and pray to Christ without any limitation or qualification. In the fullest possible sense, they can "honour the Son just as they honour the Father" (John 5:23). In light of what we observed earlier about honour being necessarily proportional to merit, we cannot say that we honour the Son only because we want to honour the Father and the Father commands us to do so. An imperative to honour the Son just as we honour the Father is only possible if the Son is worthy of that honour. The true God does not ask us to honour the Son above his due, that is, to flatter him.

If we return specifically to the issue of prayer, we find that there is considerable precedent in the New Testament for praying to Jesus. As discussed above, the bare notion of praying to Jesus as heavenly human intercessor is consistent with both Unitarian and Trinitarian Christologies. However, if we look closely at the New Testament precedents for praying to Jesus, we find that not all of them fall into the category of asking him to intercede with the Father. Jesus' mediatorial role in the context of prayer is certainly in view in passages such as 1 Timothy 2:5, Hebrews 4:14-15, and 1 John 2:1. However, there are numerous instances where it is clear that Jesus, when addressed in prayer, is not merely a conduit to the Father's throne but is himself being petitioned to answer the prayer. Both aspects of Jesus' role in prayer are on display in John 14:14 and 16:23. In the latter text, Jesus promises his disciples, "Whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you." Here Jesus is the intermediary whose name grants access to the Father. In the former text, however, the best reading is probably, "If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it."12 

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is addressed with pleas for salvation from death. During a violent storm at sea, the disciples "came and woke him, saying, 'Lord, save us! We are perishing!'" (Matt. 8:25). When Peter attempted to walk on water and then began to sink, "he cried out, 'Lord, save me!'" (Matt. 8:30). Christadelphian founder John Thomas dismissed such "petitions to Jesus for temporal favors in the days of his sin-flesh" as irrelevant to the issue of praying to Christ.13 However, the Gospel narratives are not merely journalistic, biographical accounts; they are theological compositions intended to convey heavenly realities. These two stylised narratives both lead to profound questions or pronouncements about Jesus' identity. Many thousands of sermons or exhortations have been based on them down the ages, and most of these have not focused on the perils of sea voyages, but have rightly seen in the cry, "Lord, save me!" the universal cry for deliverance from human weakness, from sin and death. Besides this, no biblically literate Jew could have failed to connect these petitions with the cries to the Lord for salvation that saturate the Book of Psalms.14 In a similar "petition for a temporal favour" in Luke 5:12, a leper addresses Jesus as Lord. Remarkably, both his "prayer" and Jesus' response operate on the premise that the outcome hinges on what Jesus wills.

In Acts 1:24 the disciples pray, "You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which of these two you have chosen..." While the author has left the addressee ambiguous—itself a significant point—the wider context suggests that it is Christ.15 The prayers of the dying Stephen unambiguously identify the "Lord" he addresses as "Jesus" (Acts 7:59-60). These prayers, like that in 1:24-25, display no intercessory character but directly petition Jesus to exercise the lofty prerogatives of receiving the spirit of the dying disciple and forgiving sin.

The letters of Paul characterise Christians as "those everywhere who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours" (1 Cor. 1:2) and declare that salvation is predicated on confessing "that Jesus is Lord," the "Lord of all, enriching all who call upon him" (Rom. 10:9-12). To justify this scripturally, he quotes from Joel 3:5: "For 'everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved'" (Rom. 10:13). Yet "calling on the name of the Lord" is a stereotypical Old Testament expression for praying to the one God of Israel. Indeed, the kyrios ("Lord") of Paul's quotation from Joel 3:5 translates the divine name YHWH from the Hebrew. Unmistakably, Paul places prayer to Jesus in the same category as prayer to God. Paul's letters also provide evidence that liturgical prayers to Jesus date back to the earliest days of the church. In 1 Cor. 16:22, he writes, "Marana tha." This transliterated Aramaic prayer means, "Come, Lord." That Paul could assume the Greek-speaking, Gentile congregation in Corinth would understand him probably indicates that he had handed on to his Gentile converts a piece of the earliest Jewish Christian liturgy.16 In 2 Corinthians 12:8-10, Paul describes having "begged the Lord" thrice to remove some difficulty in his life. Paul's description of the answer he received makes it clear that "the Lord" here is Christ. And the text depicts Christ as answering the prayer (albeit not in the way Paul hoped).

We could write more of doxologies addressed to Christ in the epistles and in Revelation,17 or of a prayer in the psalms addressed to God that Hebrews says is addressed to Christ.18 We could also write much on the biblical idea that prayers—even those offered to Christ—are analogous to the incense offerings to God prescribed in the Torah (Rev. 5:8-14; cf. Ps. 141:2; Ex. 30:1-10, 34-38). However, enough has been written to accomplish our main aim: to show that New Testament witness concerning prayers offered to Christ cannot be explained in terms of the role of priestly human intercessor alone. Prayers are addressed to Christ that Christ himself answers.

Conclusion

The best resolution, it seems, to the adorantist/non-adorantist dilemma among Unitarians is to embrace the fullness of Christian orthodoxy. The doctrine of the Trinity embraces what is good in both horns of this dilemma. On one hand, God's unique majesty and sovereignty cannot be compromised or diluted in favour of a creature. On the other, the instinctive Christian practice of worshipping and praying to Jesus—one that has persisted from the apostles' days in Jerusalem down to the present—is of God, and cannot be toned down, restrained, or qualified. Only orthodoxy truly upholds this great "Both/And."

• 1 For a brief history of this controversy, on which this paragraph is based, see Mihály Balázs, "Antitrinitarianism," in A Companion to the Reformation in Central Europe (ed. Howard Louthan and Graeme Murdock; Leiden: Brill, 2015), 172-194.
• 2 As I've discussed elsewhere, there is arguably no such thing as an official doctrinal stance among Christadelphians, because of their lack of any centralised or representative decision-making structure outside the local ecclesia. The closest thing one can get to official doctrinal positions are those laid out in statements of faith that are used widely in the sect, such as the Birmingham Amended Statement of Faith. This statement says nothing for or against praying to or worshipping Christ.
• 3 This statement reflects my own quarter century of experience of Christadelphian public worship (spanning several countries, fellowships, and degrees of formality).
• 4 These include the Kyrie ("Lord, have mercy; Christ, have mercy; Lord, have mercy"), the Gloria (addressed to the Father and the Son), the Mysterium Fidei (in all three of its forms), the Rite of Peace, and the Agnus Dei.
• 5 For an overview of different views, see chapter 1 of Larry W. Hurtado, How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God? Historical Questions about Earliest Devotion to Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005).
• 6 As in the arguments of Palaeologus, referred to above.
• 7 Thomas addresses the matter in answer to a reader's question, "Is Prayer to Christ Scriptural?" The argument rests more on scriptural precedents than theological principles; Thomas seeks to show that "the scriptural procedure" consists of praying to the Father in the name of Jesus. To the extent that it is theological, the argument focuses less on the uniqueness of God's nature and prerogatives than on Christ's role in the drama of salvation, which is that of Elder Brother (an example to follow) and priestly mediator. He is our example, so we pray to the Father because he did. He is our mediator, so we pray to the Father through him. See The Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, December 1855, pp. 282-83 (quoted here but misattributed to April 1855).
• 8 Mark H. Graeser, John A. Lynn, and John W. Schoenheit, One God & One Lord: Reconsidering the Cornerstone of the Christian Faith (3rd ed.; Indianapolis: Christian Educational Services, 2003), 290-92.
• 9 See Heb. 3:3. Of course, in Hebrews the analogy is used to infer the divine Christ's superiority to Moses.
• 10 If the "communion of the saints"—as the Apostles' Creed calls it—cannot be broken by any earthly power, either by death or height (Rom. 8:38), then surely communion can exist between believers on earth and the holy ones (angelic or human) in heaven. (Of course, Christadelphian readers might object to the notion of human saints in heaven, but would surely allow for the presence of at least Enoch and Elijah there.) Communion requires communication; hence prayers to the angels and saints.
• 11 English translation of the Nicene Creed used in the Roman rite of the Mass.
• 12 "Either the unusual collocation, 'ask me in my name,' or a desire to avoid contradiction with 16.23 seems to have prompted (a) the omission of με in a variety of witnesses... or (b) its replacement with τὸν πατέρα... The word με is adequately supported... and seems to be appropriate in view of its correlation with ἐγώ later in the verse" (Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament [2nd ed.; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994], 208). The commentary classifies this reading "B," meaning almost certain.
• 13 op. cit., 282.
• 14 For a few examples, see Psalm 3:8; 6:5; 7:2; 55:17; 106:4; 106:47; 107:13; 109:26; 116:4.
• 15 The disciples have addressed Christ as "Lord" in 1:6 and 1:21 refers to the "Lord Jesus"; God is not referred to as "the Lord" unambiguously until two OT quotations in 2:25 and 2:34. Accounts of Saul's conversion and other visionary experiences involving Stephen, Ananias, and Paul have persons addressing Jesus directly as "Lord." Only in the prayer of Acts 4:24-30 is God unambiguously addressed as "Lord."
• 16 The Greek translated form of the prayer occurs in Rev. 22:20 ("Come, Lord Jesus"), reinforcing the idea that this is a liturgical form.
• 17 E.g., 2 Pet. 3:18; Rev. 1:5-6; 5:12.
• 18 Heb. 1:10-12 cp. Ps. 102:25-27.