Six Myths of Christianity – Part 12
Posted By Brett on June 14, 2010
It will probably be November 2010 before I finish my review of the November 2009 issue of the Watchtower. This post is a continuation of my interaction on their treatment of the Trinity. The previous posts on the Trinity are here:
Anti-Trinitarian Verses
Compare these Bible verses: Matthew 26:39; John 14:28; 1 Corinthians 15:21, 28;
Colossians 1:15, 16
Following are the verses that the Watchtower lists under their “Compare these Bible verses” section.
In many of these instances it would be helpful if they were to explain why they think a verse causes trouble to the doctrine of the Trinity. Based on past conversations with them, my guess is that because Jesus prayed to the Father they think that he is not the same as the Father. But we agree. The Father and the Son are two distinct persons so they can talk to each other, love each other, send each other, etc. Two persons in one God. No analogy is perfect, but we can see clear distinctions between the past, present, and future. They are all part of the one time continuum. There are not three time continuums, only one. But the present is not the past and the past is not the future. Water has also been used to describe the Trinity. There can be liquid water, water vapor, and ice. All three are 100% water, yet there are clear distinctions between them. When talking about water or time or space (whatever analogy you want to use) we are speaking of essence or ontology. But water can subsist in three forms. When we speak of God we speak of his essence, yet God subsists in three persons. Understanding this is essential to understand what the doctrine of the Trinity is. If you do not understand these distinctions, then you have no right to offer a rebuttal. We have no problem when one person of the Trinity speaks to another person of the Trinity.
It is the phrase “the Father is greater than I” that is key here. The reasoning is, if the Son is God, and nothing is greater than God, then the statement that the Father is greater doesn’t make any sense. Matthew 20:25 says, “But Jesus called them to Himself and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them.’” Does this mean that these “great” ones were a different class of beings? There are us normal humans then there are these “great men” who are a different class of beings. Obviously not. When Jesus says that the Father is greater, it should be understood in terms of authority as is clear in Matthew 20:25.
The same problem occurs here. The church has always held that God the Son is subservient to God the Father. The existence of authority structures does not imply ontological inferiority.
This is a passage that is actually strong support for the deity of Christ. The reason that Jehovah Witnesses use it is because of the term “firstborn.” They suggest that this means that the Son was created and therefore can’t be God. This, however, is a misunderstanding. For the sake of argument, let us take “firstborn” in a wooden literal sense. To be born, there must be a mother and a father. They need to be intimate and so conceive a child. This child is of the same nature as the parents. God to not bear lamas. Is this what the Jehovah Witnesses want to suggest? Are we to take this term in its normal literal sense? Since the Jehovah Witnesses affirm that God the Father is the father, then there would also have to be a divine Mother. And when she conceived she bore a divine Son. They would never affirm this and so we can safely dismiss this as a possibility as well as dismiss any insistence they have to a “literal” reading since this is where it leads.
But if we are to take it in a figurative sense, what figure shall we assign to it? The Jehovah Witnesses would suggest that Jesus was the archangel Michael, and that God they Father does not have a significant other, and that Jesus being His Son does not mean that Jesus is divine. Instead they suggest that “firstborn” should mean “first created” and that is where the similarities with its normal usage end. But where in scripture do we see “firstborn” ever used in that sense? No where do you see “firstborn” mean “the chronologically first created thing of its kind that is of a different nature from its creator.” That understanding will not be found in scripture.
Instead, “firstborn” should be understood as “preeminent.” In Deuteronomy 21 God says:
Here we see that the father was not to transfer the preeminent status that belonged to the firstborn to one who was not the firstborn. We see both uses of “firstborn” in this passage. We see this link once again in 1 Chronicles 26:10 “for though he was not the firstborn, his father made him chief.”
Thus in Exodus 4:22 God says, “Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son.” Israel was not the first created nation. Rather Israel was the nation that God favored. Israel was, in God’s sight, the preeminent nation. Psalm 89 is about David (vs 20) and yet we see this declaration in v 27 “And I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.” David was not the firstborn of Jesse, in fact he was the last.” Yet God calls him “firstborn.” Neither was he the first king, he was the second or third (depending on if you count). The text itself explains the meaning of firstborn as the preeminent one.
In Jeremiah God says that Ephraim was his firstborn. But in what sense? Not chronologically. The answer is in Genesis 48.
17 When Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him, and he took his father’s hand to move it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head. 18 And Joseph said to his father, “Not this way, my father; since this one is the firstborn, put your right hand on his head.” 19 But his father refused and said, “I know, my son, I know. He also shall become a people, and he also shall be great. Nevertheless, his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his offspring shall become a multitude of nations.”
Ephraim was the preeminent one, not the first chronologically. Thus when Colossians 1 says that Jesus was the firstborn, we should not understand that as the first created thing of a different nature from its creator (a meaning nowhere found in scripture) but rather as the preeminent one. This meaning is not only the consistent non-literal usage, but it is even applied in verse 18 “He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.” He was not the first one to die, nor was he the first one to be raised from the dead. But he is the preeminent one. He is the head, the source, the preeminent one. That is the proper meaning.
Comments