John 1:1

[Dan_Parker]

Obviously you don’t “get that part.” There was nothing other than the Godhead (You keep misquoting and saying ‘Father" - Theophilus says "God’) alone, the Word being intimately united to the archon, before creation (again using a temporal expression to designate a philosophical rather than a real construct since creation was from the begining). There was no “before creation” since in the ‘mind’ of God all always was and will always be. Nothing comes into or is removed from His knowledge.

Dan:
I am quoting him correctly, see below. What kind of theology would have someone other than the Father begetting the Son? I have never heard of that heresy!

Chapter XXII.—Why God is Said to Have Walked.
ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf02.iv.ii.ii.xxii.html

You will say, then, to me: “You said that God ought not to be contained in a place, and how do you now say that He walked in Paradise?” Hear what I say.** The God and Father, indeed, of all cannot be contained, and is not found in a place**, for there is no place of His rest; 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. For the divine writing itself teaches us that Adam said that he had heard the voice. But what else is this voice but the Word of God, who is also His Son? Not as the poets and writers of myths talk of the sons of gods begotten from intercourse [with women], but as truth expounds, the Word, that always exists, residing within the heart of God. For before anything came into being He had Him as a counsellor, being His own mind and thought. But when God wished to make all that He determined on, He begot this Word, uttered, the first-born of all creation, not Himself being emptied of the Word [Reason], but having begotten Reason, and always conversing with His Reason. And hence the holy writings teach us, and all the spirit-bearing [inspired] men, one of whom, John, says, “**In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,” John i. 1. showing that at first God was alone, and the Word in Him. **Then he says, “The Word was God; all things came into existence through Him; and apart from Him not one thing came into existence.” The Word, then, being God, and being naturally That is, being produced by generation, not by creation. produced from God, whenever the Father of the universe wills, He sends Him to any place; and He, coming, is both heard and seen, being sent by Him, and is found in a place.

A modern day Catholic would NEVER say that the Father was alone, would they?

 

[Danno2281]

Dan:
I am quoting him correctly, see below. What kind of theology would have someone other than the Father begetting the Son? I have never heard of that heresy!

Chapter XXII.—Why God is Said to Have Walked.
ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf02.iv.ii.ii.xxii.html

You will say, then, to me: “You said that God ought not to be contained in a place, and how do you now say that He walked in Paradise?” Hear what I say.** The God and Father**, indeed, of all cannot be contained, and is not found in a place, for there is no place of His rest; 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. For the divine writing itself teaches us that Adam said that he had heard the voice. But what else is this voice but the Word of God, who is also His Son? Not as the poets and writers of myths talk of the sons of gods begotten from intercourse [with women], but as truth expounds, the Word, that always exists, residing within the heart of God. For before anything came into being He had Him as a counsellor, being His own mind and thought. But **when God **wished to make all that He determined on, He begot this Word, uttered, the first-born of all creation, not Himself being emptied of the Word [Reason], but having begotten Reason, and always conversing with His Reason. And hence the holy writings teach us, and all the spirit-bearing [inspired] men, one of whom, John, says, “**In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,” John i. 1. showing that at first God **was alone, and the Word in Him. Then he says, “The Word was God; all things came into existence through Him; and apart from Him not one thing came into existence.” The Word, then, being God, and being naturally That is, being produced by generation, not by creation. produced from God, **whenever the Father **of the universe wills, He sends Him to any place; and He, coming, is both heard and seen, being sent by Him, and is found in a place.

A modern day Catholic would NEVER say that the Father was alone, would they?

Neither does Theophilus! Stop seeing words and read the whole sentence :"AND the Word in HIm"… He was never without the Word, even if It had not yet (again a temporal expression for that which cannot be temporal) been spoken. I realize that we look at things through what Kant would call the a priori form of time, but time has no part in the discussion of Him Who Is (timeless)… Theophilus is talking from a philosophical perspective, not an historical one.

 

[Dan_Parker]

Neither does Theophilus! Stop seeing words and read the whole sentence :"AND the Word in HIm"… He was never without the Word, even if It had not yet (again a temporal expression for that which cannot be temporal) been spoken. I realize that we look at things through what Kant would call the a priori form of time, but time has no part in the discussion of Him Who Is (timeless)… Theophilus is talking from a philosophical perspective, not an historical one.

Do modern Catholic say **“at first God was alone, and the Word in Him”? **

 

[Danno2281]

Do modern Catholic say **“at first God was alone, and the Word in Him”? **

I speak for no one but myself, but if what is meant is that the universe did not exixt until it was called into existence, that nothing existed but God alone (keeping in mind what has been said about God’s timelessness), I have no problem with that, nor, I should think, would any other Catholic.

 

[Dan_Parker]

I speak for no one but myself, but if what is meant is that the universe did not exixt until it was called into existence, that nothing existed but God alone (keeping in mind what has been said about God’s timelessness), I have no problem with that, nor, I should think, would any other Catholic.

You are changing the wording. Here it is again:

"at first God was alone, and the Word in Him"

What you have done is change the way the word “alone” is being used. To say that God was “alone” means without companion and to say that nothing exists but God alone is quite different.

You omitted the part about the Word in Him because that you have you say:
at first nothing existed but God alone, and the Word in Him.

To say this would mean also among other things that there was no person called the holy spirit either.

As a modern Catholic, can you use the words the same way as Theophilus did?

at first God was alone, and the Word in Him

 

[Danno2281]

You are changing the wording. Here it is again:

"at first God was alone, and the Word in Him"

What you have done is change the way the word “alone” is being used. To say that God was “alone” means without companion and to say that nothing exists but God alone is quite different.

You omitted the part about the Word in Him because that you have you say:
at first nothing existed but God alone, and the Word in Him.

To say this would mean also among other things that there was no person called the holy spirit either.

As a modern Catholic, can you use the words the same way as Theophilus did?

at first God was alone, and the Word in Him

There is a very important word that you choose to ignore -AND- which negates the alone concept as you would have it. Please go back and look at the words again… “God alone AND the Word with Him.”

 

[Danno2281]

You are changing the wording. Here it is again:

"at first God was alone, and the Word in Him"

What you have done is change the way the word “alone” is being used. To say that God was “alone” means without companion and to say that nothing exists but God alone is quite different.

You omitted the part about the Word in Him because that you have you say:
at first nothing existed but God alone, and the Word in Him.

To say this would mean also among other things that there was no person called the holy spirit either.

As a modern Catholic, can you use the words the same way as Theophilus did?

at first God was alone, and the Word in Him

Theophilus is commenting with reference to John’s prologue. The Holy Spirit, not mentioned in the prologue but being the very love of God, is understood by any Christian to be God, even if not mentioned by “name”. What you fail to see is the absolute unity of God; you are trying to separate what is more one than any created thing or concept, and so you grasp at ideas that can only vaguely or analogously confer meaning that is essentially incomprehensible by the finite mind. You are demandin g that God limit Himself to your understanding of Him.

 

[Dan_Parker]

There is a very important word that you choose to ignore -AND- which negates the alone concept as you would have it. Please go back and look at the words again… “God alone AND the Word with Him.”

I did not ignore it. At first God was alone (as in no personal companion) and at the same time the Word was in him.

**Theophilus said: **
But when God wished to make all that He determined on, He begot this Word, uttered, the first-born of all creation, not Himself being emptied of the Word [Reason], but having begotten Reason, and always conversing with His Reason.

God here must be the Father because He begot this Word. The next sentence continues this thought and applies this to John 1:1.

**Theophilus continues: **
And hence the holy writings teach us, and all the spirit-bearing [inspired] men, one of whom, John, says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,” John i. 1. showing that at first God was alone, and the Word in Him.

Theophilus interprets John 1:1a with in the beginning was the Word as a statement that God was alone and the Word in Him. He sees the next part of John 1:1 as a description of the results of the begetting of the Word, that the Word was with God (as a person).

To Theophilus, the Word always existed in the Father and that while in this state the Father was without companion. It seems you object to my saying God here was the Father, but you have yet to identify any theology whereby it is someone other than the person who Jesus called his Father who begot him.

So again I ask you the question you will not answer:
Can a modern Catholic state that the phrase “In the beginning was the Word” has the sense of “at first God was alone, and the Word in Him.”?

 

[Dan_Parker]

Theophilus is commenting with reference to John’s prologue. The Holy Spirit, not mentioned in the prologue but being the very **love **of God, is understood by any Christian to be God, even if not mentioned by “name”. What you fail to see is the absolute unity of God; you are trying to separate what is more one than any created thing or concept, and so you grasp at ideas that can only vaguely or analogously confer meaning that is essentially incomprehensible by the finite mind. You are demandin g that God limit Himself to your understanding of Him.

I was just reading a post in another thread where some are trying to figure out the difference between Trinitarianism (three persons, one God) and Modalism (Three Modes, one God and one Person).

The thought occurred to me that Theophilus’ description of John 1:1a (in the beginning was the Word) as being God with His Reason sounds very modalistic. Now you say he was also with Love which was the holy spirit. That sounds very Sabellian. Perhaps not precisely so, but certainly very close.

If the process by which the Son and Holy Spirit become persons in your understanding were reversed, would that not be modalism?

Did the Father have a choice as to whether or not to beget his Son and to send his spirit in the Trinitarian sense? Reverse that process and you have Modalism.

 

[Danno2281]

I was just reading a post in another thread where some are trying to figure out the difference between Trinitarianism (three persons, one God) and Modalism (Three Modes, one God and one Person).

The thought occurred to me that Theophilus’ description of John 1:1a (in the beginning was the Word) as being God with His Reason sounds very modalistic. Now you say he was also with Love which was the holy spirit. That sounds very Sabellian. Perhaps not precisely so, but certainly very close.

If the process by which the Son and Holy Spirit become persons in your understanding were reversed, would that not be modalism?

Did the Father have a choice as to whether or not to beget his Son and to send his spirit in the Trinitarian sense? Reverse that process and you have Modalism.

If you could understand the philosophical concept of necessry being, a being which cannot not be and cannot be other than it is, you would not ask your question, because, as applied to God, the question has no validity. The Son is the necessary self-realization of the Father; the Father does not choose to beget the Son as if He could choose not to beget Him. He is in the Fsther, and the Father is in Him as necessitated by the divine nature. You are trying to apply human limitations to the Unlimited. This unity is the result of the absolute love that the archon (the Father) has for what He knows perfectly of Himself (the Logos) and He loves with the whole of Himself all of Himself. The Logos, identical in being with the Father, loves the Father with that same perfect and total love, a love that IS what both the Father and Son are, and which procedes from both the Father and the Son. This mutual and complete love which encompasses the total being of both the Father and the Son, proceding from both the Father and the Son, is the Holy Spirit. This is why John can say: “God is love,” rather than “God always loves.”

 

[Danno2281]

The following, by Msgr Charles Pope, appears in the 9/27/09 website for the archdiocese of Washington, D.C.
The Mystery of Eternity – Lastly there is the mystery of what we call “eternity.” Most people misunderstand the word eternity simply to mean a long, long, time. But that is not what is meant by the word. When the Greeks coined the word eternity, (Aeon) they meant by it “the fullness of time.” That is to say, Eternity is the past, present and future all being experienced at once. I cannot tell you what this is like, but I can illustrate it. Look at the clock to the upper right. The time is 1:15 in the afternoon. That means that 10:00 AM is in the past and 6:00 pm is in the future. But consider the dot at the center of the clock and see that at that spot 10 AM, 1:15 PM, and 6 PM are all the same, they are equally present to the center. We live our life in serial time, on the outer edge of the clock. But God does not. God lives in eternity. God lives in the fullness of time. For God, past, and future are the same as the present. God is not “waiting” for things to happen. All things just are. God is not waiting and wondering if you or I will get to heaven. He is not watching history unfold like a movie. In eternity, 10,000 years ago is just as present as 10,000 years from now. Scripture hints at God’s eternity in numerous passages. For example, But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day. (2 Peter 3:8). Psalm 139 says, Your eyes foresaw my actions; in your book all are written down; my days were shaped, before one came to be. (Ps 139, 15). Psalm 90 says, For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night. (Ps 90:4). And then there is simply the God’s name: “I AM” In this Name, there is no past, no future, just an eternal now, the present tense. Jesus declared to the crowds, “Before Abraham ever was, I AM.” (John 8:58). So here is the most awesome mystery of time, the fullness of time, eternity.

 

[Dan_Parker]

If you could understand the philosophical concept of necessry being, a being which cannot not be and cannot be other than it is, you would not ask your question, because, as applied to God, the question has no validity. The Son is the necessary self-realization of the Father; the Father does not choose to beget the Son as if He could choose not to beget Him. He is in the Fsther, and the Father is in Him as necessitated by the divine nature. You are trying to apply human limitations to the Unlimited. This unity is the result of the absolute love that the archon (the Father) has for what He knows perfectly of Himself (the Logos) and He loves with the whole of Himself all of Himself. The Logos, identical in being with the Father, loves the Father with that same perfect and total love, a love that IS what both the Father and Son are, and which procedes from both the Father and the Son. This mutual and complete love which encompasses the total being of both the Father and the Son, proceding from both the Father and the Son, is the Holy Spirit. This is why John can say: “God is love,” rather than “God always loves.”

John teaches that the Father is love, not another Person called the Holy Spirit

You should really read the passage in context and also study up on your own Catholic reference materials. The God that is love sent his only Son into the world. That can only be the Father.

NAB 1 John 4:6 We belong to God, and anyone who knows God listens to us, while anyone who does not belong to God refuses to hear us. This is how we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit. 7 (1 )Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. 8 Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him.

NAB Notes (1Jo 4:7)
<1> [7-12] Love as we share in it testifies to the nature of God and to his presence in our lives. One who loves shows that one is a child of God and knows God, for God’s very being is love; one without love is without God. The revelation of the nature of God’s love is found in the free gift of his Son to us, so that we may share life with God and be delivered from our sins. The love we have for one another must be of the same sort: authentic, merciful; this unique Christian love is **our proof that we know God and can “see” the invisible God. **
​

 

[Dan_Parker]

The following, by Msgr Charles Pope, appears in the 9/27/09 website for the archdiocese of Washington, D.C.
The Mystery of Eternity – Lastly there is the mystery of what we call “eternity.” Most people misunderstand the word eternity simply to mean a long, long, time. But that is not what is meant by the word. When the Greeks coined the word eternity, (Aeon) they meant by it “the fullness of time.” That is to say, Eternity is the past, present and future all being experienced at once. I cannot tell you what this is like, but I can illustrate it. Look at the clock to the upper right. The time is 1:15 in the afternoon. That means that 10:00 AM is in the past and 6:00 pm is in the future. But consider the dot at the center of the clock and see that at that spot 10 AM, 1:15 PM, and 6 PM are all the same, they are equally present to the center. We live our life in serial time, on the outer edge of the clock. But God does not. God lives in eternity. God lives in the fullness of time. For God, past, and future are the same as the present. God is not “waiting” for things to happen. All things just are. God is not waiting and wondering if you or I will get to heaven. He is not watching history unfold like a movie. In eternity, 10,000 years ago is just as present as 10,000 years from now. Scripture hints at God’s eternity in numerous passages. For example, But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day. (2 Peter 3:8). Psalm 139 says, Your eyes foresaw my actions; in your book all are written down; my days were shaped, before one came to be. (Ps 139, 15). Psalm 90 says, For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night. (Ps 90:4). And then there is simply the God’s name: “I AM” In this Name, there is no past, no future, just an eternal now, the present tense. Jesus declared to the crowds, “Before Abraham ever was, I AM.” (John 8:58). So here is the most awesome mystery of time, the fullness of time, eternity.

Scripture does teach us that time to God is different that time to man. That is what those verses explicitly say… that a day to God is like 1000 years to us. That evidence is contrary to the belief that God is outside of time.

You speak of how the Greeks viewed eternity and then you give Scriptures that are written in GREEK but which don’t use that word or reflect that concept explicitly. If the first century bible writers viewed eternity the way you do, it is certainly not apparent from their writings.

Your philosophy which is borrowed from the Greeks comes from the science of their day. The elements were earth, wind, fire and water. There was no such thing as mixtures for according to Aristotle a drop of wine put into a large body of water turns into water!

How do you know that time is not merely an abstraction? For example the past is history, the present is fact and the future is a potential?

 

[Danno2281]

John teaches that the Father is love, not another Person called the Holy Spirit

You should really read the passage in context and also study up on your own Catholic reference materials. The God that is love sent his only Son into the world. That can only be the Father.

NAB 1 John 4:6 We belong to God, and anyone who knows God listens to us, while anyone who does not belong to God refuses to hear us. This is how we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit. 7 (1 )Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. 8 Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him.

NAB Notes (1Jo 4:7)
<1> [7-12] Love as we share in it testifies to the nature of God and to his presence in our lives. One who loves shows that one is a child of God and knows God, for God’s very being is love; one without love is without God. The revelation of the nature of God’s love is found in the free gift of his Son to us, so that we may share life with God and be delivered from our sins. The love we have for one another must be of the same sort: authentic, merciful; this unique Christian love is **our proof that we know God and can “see” the invisible God. **
​

Look again at v. 6 "This is how we know the spirit of truth (Now look at Jn. 15:26). That spirit, which procedes from the Father, is how we know the love of the Father. The Father and the Spirit proceding from Him cannot be separated, or God is divided into parts. If the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, and the Spirit that procedes from the Father and the Son (see Jn. 20:22), the Spirit abides in the Father and the Son, essentially, substantially, en morphe Theou, morphe having the meang of form as in Aristotle’s formal cause - that which makes what is what it is.

 

[Danno2281]

Scripture does teach us that time to God is different that time to man. That is what those verses explicitly say… that a day to God is like 1000 years to us. That evidence is contrary to the belief that God is outside of time.

You speak of how the Greeks viewed eternity and then you give Scriptures that are written in GREEK but which don’t use that word or reflect that concept explicitly. If the first century bible writers viewed eternity the way you do, it is certainly not apparent from their writings.

Your philosophy which is borrowed from the Greeks comes from the science of their day. The elements were earth, wind, fire and water. There was no such thing as mixtures for according to Aristotle a drop of wine put into a large body of water turns into water!

How do you know that time is not merely an abstraction? For example the past is history, the present is fact and the future is a potential?

Just in passing, what happens to the drop of wine in the ocean? It becomes indistinguishabvle from the ocean. If you believe that their philosophy came from science, it is obvious that you know little of Plato, just for openers. Yes, Aristotle commented on “scientific” matters (Physics), as well as ethics, poetry, music, art, and metaphysics, and a host of others, but to categorize Greek philosophy as dependent upon Greek science betrays a great ignorance of their philosophy.
I did not say that God is ouitside of time, but that He is not subject to it. Re-read the article and see the He is IN the fullness of time.
Now, if you object to my observations on time, tell me how far back time goes. Does it have a beginning? How do you define it? Does it end? Is God in charge of it? You find it easy to snipe at my observations, so let’s hear yours. And please, no citations from the Greeks, like time being a measurement of motion.

 

[SimonArizona]

Can a modern Catholic state that the phrase “In the beginning was the Word” has the sense of “at first God was alone, and the Word in Him.”?

John 14:10 “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me?”

“In the beginning was the Word.” St. John is illustrating to us here that the Word was before all creation. In the beginning… and he continues with “he was before all things that exist.” AND alll things owe their existence to him. Just so you didn’t miss the point, the Holy Spirit then inspires him to say “NOT one thing was made that he didn’t make.”

If Rev 3:14 says Jesus is the arche origin of the creation of God. Then he isn’t one of the things created. If he is before all things. Is it honest to insert the word (Other) there? It’s just not the bible, the holy spirit didn’t inspire that word to be there.

We can really hit this out of the park now if you’d like…

All creatures under God are Greek: *dolous *(servants), but Christ did not exist in the form of dolous, he humbled himself and *took upon *the form of dolous. If he was any type of creation at all, he would not have humbled himself and “taken upon servanthood.” He would already be a servant. The angels are syn-dolous “fellow-servants” of God alongside Christians. (Rev. 19:10; 22:19.) Christ emptied himself and took upon the form of a servant.

 

[Tomster]

Messiah
The word Messiah means anointed and is rendered Christ. Note that it is the Christ or anointed of the Lord, that is God.

NAB Revelation 11:15 Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet. There were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world now belongs to our Lord and to his Anointed, and he will reign forever and ever.”

NJB Revelation 11:15 Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and voices could be heard shouting in heaven, calling, ‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.’

Living God
The adjective living when applied to God emphasizes he gave life to all things.
NAB Acts 14:15 "Men, why are you doing this? We are of the same nature as you, human beings. We proclaim to you good news that you should turn from these idols to** the living God, ‘who made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them**.’

It is also a contrast between lifeless idols and the one true and living God.
NJB 2 Corinthians 6:16 The temple of God cannot compromise with false gods, and that is what we are – the temple of the living God. We have God’s word for it: I shall fix my home among them and live among them; I will be their God and they will be my people.

Yahweh is living God and the true God.
NJB Jeremiah 10:10 But Yahweh is the true God. He is the living God, the everlasting King. The earth quakes when he is wrathful, the nations cannot endure his fury.

Messiah, the Son of the living God

While others were called anointed (cp Lu 4:3) in Scripture, they prefigured the superior and unique office of the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Son of God
While others are called sons of God including spirit creatures (Job 2:1-2) and humans such as Adam (Lu 3:38) who was created by God, the title Son of God takes on heightened meaning when applied to Jesus and also refers to his pre-existence as the Word (John 1:1,14).

In addition he claims to be not just the Son of God but that his relationship to his Father as the Son of God is not shared with other sons of God but that it is his **own **Father (see **IDIOS **in John 5:18, 43), a relationship that belongs to him as an individual.

Therefore he could claim: NAB John 14:6 "I am the way and the truth and the life.** No one comes to the Father except through me**. (Jn 14:6, NAB)

The living God is the Living Father who gave life to his Son
It was mentioned that the living God was the one who gave life to everyone. Jesus said that this also applied to him as well. He said he has life **because **of the Father and that life in himself was something he had because the Father gave it to him, not because he had it because of his nature.

NAB John 6:57 Just as **the living **Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.

NAB John 5:26 For just as the Father has life in himself, so also he gave to his Son the possession of life in himself.

Therefore, the title Messiah, the Son of the living God is one which honors both the living Father and the exalted office he have bestowed upon his Son.

Dan,

Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying: What think ye of the Christ? Whose son is he? They say unto him: the son of David. He sayith unto them: How then doth David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying: The Lord said unto my Lord: Sit thou on my right hand, till I put thy enemies underneath thy feet? If David then calleth him Lord, how is he his son? And no one was able to answer him a word, neither did any man from that day forth ask him any more questions. - Matthew 22: 41-46

And Jesus answered and said, as he taught in the temple: How say the Scribes that the Christ is the son of David? David himself said in the Holy Spirit: The Lord said unto my Lord: Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thy enemies the footstool of thy feet. David himself calleth him Lord; and whence is he his son? And the common people heard him gladly. - Mark 12:35-37

And he said unto them: How say thry that the Christ is David’s son? For David himself saith in the book of Psalms: The Lord said unto my Lord: Sit thou on my right hand, Till I make thy enemies the footstool of thy feet. David therefore calleth him Lord, and how is he his son? - Luke 20:41-43

cont.

 

[Tomster]

Dan,

These texts record the last discourse of Jesus in the temple. A large multitude is assembled, and the Pharisees are present in great numbers. They had expected to entrap Jesus in the cunning question about the tribute money, but their trick recoiled on themselves, and they were put to shame before the people. Jesus now addresses to them a question concerning the Messiah. It is evident that the Pharisees had distorted the idea of the Messiah into the idea of a mere temporal monarch, a descendant of David, who should raise Judea out of her thraldom, and make her a great nation. They removed all notion of a divine character from the Messiah. The great spiritual order of the new Dispensation was an unknown world to them. Their Messiah was not to be the Son of God, consubstantial with the Father, but a great king of this world, who should fullfill the ambitious worldly hopes of Israel. With these false ideas they deceived the people (Cf. John 1:10-11), so that Israel was unprepared to receive the Messiah from the fact that she had not contemplated him in his true character.

All Israel acknowledged that the Messiah should be David’s son. The Davidic descent of the Messiah is a leading thought in all the Messianic psalms and prophecies. Thus it is written in the Eighty-ninth Psalm (Vulgate 88) 35:36:

Once have I sworn by my holiness;
I will not lie unto David;
His seed shall endure forever,
And his throne as the sun before me.

Isaiah is more explicit: For unto us a Child is born, unto us a son is given; and his government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be Wonderful, Councellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with judgment and righteousness from henceforth even forever.

Jeremiah also announces the Messiah is David’s Son: Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteos shoot, and he shall reign as King and deal wisely, and shall execute judgment and justice in the land. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, The Lord, our justification.

cont.

 

[Tomster]

Dan,

Every man in Israel had recognized this truth. Son of David was with them a usual appellation of the Messiah. Even the blind beggars of Jericho addressed Jesus as the Son of David. Now it was not the intention of Jesus to repudiate his Davidic sonship. The error was not in placing him as the Son of David according to the flesh; but the error was to consider him as the mere human son of David, and to deny his Divinity. Jesus was the Son of David, but he was also the Son of God. As a mere human son of David, Jesus could not save the world. It was the divine sonship that wrought the world’s Redemption.

Two errors, therefore, existed in Pharisaic opinion. First, they conceived a false idea of the Messiah that was to come, believing that he would be merely a great King of this world, a man who would come in God’s name, but who would not be God. Secondly, they erred in refusing to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah. In his present address to them, Jesus treats only of the first error. Prescinding for the moment from his own character, he offers them an argument from the Psalms for the Divinity of the Messiah.

The Lord quotes from Psalm 110 (Vulgate 109), the first verse. The sentence stands thus in the original: Yahweh said to my Lord: Sit thou at my right hand until I make thy enemies the footstool of thy feet.

Variants exist in the Gospels regarding the second clause. Some codices have “the footstool of thy feet”; others have " - underneath thy feet." Both phrases express the same thought, and the inspired writers were free to use either expression.

cont.

 

[Tomster]

Dan,

The term by which David in the psalm designates the Messiah can be used of God and men. It was the common name for lord, which we also attribute to God and to men. It is the context that determines whether the term refers to God or to men. Now the Saviour’s argument is built on the following basis: David, the great king of Israel, looking forward with prophetic eye through the ages of time, sees the great glory of the Incarnate Word, as he returns to His Father, after the accomplishment of the Redemption. Everything in the utterance clearly indicates that David, in calling the Messiah Lord, declares thereby the Messiah’s superiority over himself. It is also manifest that this superiority is greater than that which raises one man above another. If the Messiah had been merely the human son of David, David could not acknowledge in him the superiority expressed by this title. David was the greatest of Isreal’s kings. The glory of Soloman was great, but he does not occupy the place in Holy Scripture given to David. By God’s own declaration, David was exalted above every human eminence. His throne was made the type of Heaven. But in the passage quoted from this psalm, it is evident that David gives to the Messiah an eminence compared to which his own exaltation is as nothing. Now, in the psalm, it is not merely David who is speaking. As Mark very accurately records, Christ declared that David said these words in the Holy Spirit. Hence they have absolute force of a direct message from Heaven. They are the prophetic declaration of a man inspired by the Holy Spirit, that the Messiah is above all men, that he is the Lord of lords, and the King of kings. This argument had a peculiar force against the Pharisees, who professed to accept the teachings of the Old Testament. The authority of David was held in high regard by every Jew, and this passage clearly made David a witness of the Divinity of the Son of God. David spoke in the Spirit of God, and clearly acknowledged in the Messiah the superiority of the Divinity.

cont.