Confusing the Lord God
and the Lord
Messiah
(Written in 1994 by Anthony Buzzard)
At a time when Christological speculation is bursting the bounds of propriety and common sense (Barbara Thiering now declares that Jesus was married, had several children and was divorced [1]), there is a need to restate the facts about what expectation the Hebrew Bible presents in regard to the identity of the promised Savior. A longstanding inaccuracy has plagued the discussion about who Christ is and needs to be cleared up.
A small booklet, entitled The Deity of Jesus Christ, by Professor V.A. Spence Little, makes a fundamental point about the identity of Jesus:
The striking passage in the opening verse of Psalm 110, "The Lord (Jehovah) saith unto My Lord (Adonai)," is confirmed as a designation of Christ by the Lord himself, when he said to a company of Pharisees, "David therefore calleth him Lord," etc., as recorded in Matthew 22:44, Mark 12:36, and Luke 20:42. The nature of the statements attributed to the Lord Jehovah, concerning a certain "Lord" or "My Lord," are of sufficient importance in our argument to entitle this passage to further attention.
The contents of the first verse of this Psalm receive much prominence in various places in the New Testament. Beside their use by the Lord in reference to Himself, as referred to above, St. Peter cites this verse in his Pentecostal Sermon (Acts 2:34), upon which he makes the comment that "God made that same Jesus both Lord (Kurios, the Old Testament Septuagint title for Jehovah) and Messiah."
Again the epistle to the Hebrews (1:13) cites this passage and applies it to Christ, whom this writer has just before addressed as "God." And he again refers to the statement in the Psalm, "The Lord said unto My Lord, sit Thou on My right hand," in the comment, "This Man (Jesus) sat down on the right hand of God" (10:12), referring to the session of the ascended Lord. . . .
Whoever this Personage is who is described by so august titles and offices, as the Rod of Jehovah’s strength, and the deliverer come out of Zion, which St. Paul refers to in Romans (11:26), the Redeemer of Israel and Judge of the Gentile nations in preparation for the inauguration of God’s Kingdom on earth as referred to in the Revelation (19:11-16), at least this inference must be accepted that this Lord Adonai, both by nature and office, is acknowledged both in Psalm and in many New Testament interpretations thereof as a Divine Personage and on equality with Eternal Deity (e.g. Matt. 22:44; Acts 2:34; Eph. 1:20; Col. 3:1).
When Kurios of the Septuagint is applied to Christ, it is specially and directly explained in the Old Testament, as in Psalm 110:1, "The Lord (Jehovah) saith unto My Lord (Adonai), sit Thou at My right hand." These words were quoted by the Lord with comments, by which He definitely implied that this divine Name, Adonai, indicated Himself (Matt. 22:43-45; Mark 12:36, 37). [2]
There is no doubt about the supreme importance of Psalm 110:1 for New Testament Christology. Not only does Jesus declare himself to be the second Lord mentioned in the divine utterance (Matt. 22:43-45), but Peter confirms that Jesus has received at his ascension the office of Lord as defined by Psalm 110:1 (Acts 2:23-34). This is obviously Christological truth on the highest authority. The question then is, what is meant by "Lord"?
It is amazing that commentators, for
example the one cited above, misstated the facts about the language used
to describe the Messiah. A whole tradition
confidently asserts that Psalm 110:1 contained the word
Adonai, the equivalent of Yahweh, as the proper
title for the Messiah. The Hebrew word in question,
however, is not Adonai
at all, but
Adoni, "my lord." And Adoni, in its more than 150 occurrences in the Hebrew Bible [3], never once
refers to the Deity, but always to human (or occasionally angelic) superiors
other than God Himself.
Adoni is the favorite title for the king of Israel and is thus entirely
appropriate as the Messianic address par excellence.
The Messiah
therefore is a man, not Deity.
By an extraordinary confusion, perpetuated by the misreading of Adonai for Adoni, Jesus has been declared the Lord God rather than the Lord Messiah. It is the latter title which he receives from the angels who announced to the shepherds that "today in the city of David there is born for you a savior who is the Lord Messiah" (Luke 2:11). When Jesus is called "Lord" the New Testament does not mean that he is Jehovah but a Lord distinct from the One Lord God. He is the Lord Christ or, more fully, "the Lord Jesus Christ." There are indeed two lords, but the second is not Deity but the Son of God and Messiah. Jesus’ and Peter’s witnesses to Psalm 110:1 as the key to Jesus’ Lordship need urgent confirmation throughout the church which has long traded on a misunderstanding fostered by the confusion of two similar Hebrew words with vastly different meanings. The rediscovery of Psalm 110:1 as the basis of New Testament monotheism and Christology will help to put to an end centuries of metaphysical speculation which could not have occurred if the Hebrew Bible had been allowed a controlling hand in Christological definition.
Confusing the Two Lords
(Written in 1992 by Anthony Buzzard)
In the editorial of the Winter, 1992, issue of this journal [4] we urged a reconsideration of traditional Christology in the light of the all-important oracle provided by Psalm 110:1. This verse is precious to New Testament writers, who quote it or allude to it more than any other text of the Hebrew Scriptures. The importance of Psalm 110:1 lies in its simple description of two divine Persons, Yahweh and David’s "Lord," the latter designated as the one destined to remain at the Father’s right hand until he comes as conquering Messiah to subdue his enemies. The scheme thus revealed is the framework of the entire New Testament outlook on the present session of Jesus in heaven and his expected return to establish the Messianic Kingdom of prophecy in a renewed earth.
Yahweh and David’s "Lord" are clearly two persons, in the modern psychological sense of that term. There is no possible route from the psalm to the complex definition of "person" which created in Nicene theology so many intractable problems. The Messianic Christology of Psalm 110:1 places the Messiah in a subordinate, yet highly exalted position relative to Yahweh who remains a distinct person in a class of His own. There is no question of compromising the unrestricted monotheism of the Hebrew Bible. The one God of Israel commands the Messiah to wait until the time comes for His final vindication. As Yahweh’s agent the Messiah is David’s adon or lord. The form of the word as it appears in the Hebrew of Psalm 110:1 is adoni ("my Lord"). It is a striking fact that the Lord God is nowhere addressed as adoni. This title is reserved for kings, prophets, human superiors in general, and angels.
Under the strain of having to ascribe coequality and coeternity to the Messiah, some commentators have shown a curious tendency to declare, against the facts of the Hebrew text, that in Psalm 110:1 Yahweh speaks to adonai. The latter title is, of course, an alternative for the divine name and is used exclusively of Yahweh. Now if David’s oracle had indeed stated that Yahweh spoke to adonai, there would be a basis for the development of belief in a godhead of more than one person. The text as it stands, however, provides no support for the deity of the Messiah in a Trinitarian sense. Examples of an unconscious reading of Trinitarian theology into Psalm 110:1 are found in commentators of the present and the last centuries.
A.R. Fausset, writing in 1866, comments on Psalm 110:1, "Jehovah said to Adonai or ‘my Lord’. . . Jehovah, in verse one represents God the Father, and Adonai, God the Son." [5] But this is to create a potential Trinitarianism which is not in the text, since the Messiah is called adoni not adonai. Reginald Fuller states that "in the Hebrew [of Psalm 110:1] the first ‘Lord’ is the tetragrammaton, the second [the king] is adhonai." [6] Fuller goes on to say that adonai may be used of an earthly ruler. But examples are not cited. In a subsequent chapter he reads the Hebrew correctly and says that the second "lord" of our text is (1) adhoni. [7] The confusion of adonai with adoni is compounded when Fuller questions whether the New Testament church would have conceded to Jesus a title which was reserved for deity. [8] But adoni was not a title for deity. It referred to the king, and supremely to the Messiah, as God’s legal agent.
V.A. Spence Little misreads the Hebrew of Psalm 110:1 explaining the verse: "The Lord [Jehovah] saith unto My Lord (Adonai), Sit thou at My right hand." He argues for the deity of the Messiah when he states that Jesus "definitely implied that this divine Name, Adonai, indicated Himself (Matt. 22:43-45)." [9] The argument is based, however, on an inaccurate reporting of the Hebrew text.
John Stott defends Chalcedonian Christology when he maintains that because early Christians addressed Jesus as kurios they meant that he was God, since kurios was the LXX translation of the divine name. [10] However, this is to overlook the fact that kurios was also the translation of Psalm 110:1’s adoni which was not a title for deity. Kurios, as used of Jesus, could most appropriately designate the Lord Messiah as distinct from the Lord God (see Luke 2:11; Rom. 16:18; Col. 3:24).
The celebrated Smith’s
Dictionary of the Bible shows how
pervasive is this fundamental confusion of the two Lords. The dictionary makes
the claim that Peter’s use of the title "Lord" for Jesus in Acts 2:36
establishes his deity:
"After the Ascension the Apostles labored to bring
the Jew to the knowledge that Jesus was not only the Christ, but was also a
Divine person, even the Lord Jehovah." Psalm 110:1 is then quoted as proof of
this amazing assertion: "St. Peter, after the outpouring of the Holy
Ghost on the Day of Pentecost by Christ, says, ‘Therefore let all the house of
Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have
crucified, both Lord [kurion, Jehovah] and Christ.’ " [11]
It is only in a footnote that a later editor corrects the obvious flaw in the argument: "In ascribing to St. Peter the remarkable proposition that ‘God hath made Jesus Jehovah,’ the writer of this article appears to have overlooked the fact that kurion (‘Lord’) in Acts 2:36 refers to to kurio mou (‘my Lord’) in verse 34, quoted from Psalm 110:1, where the Hebrew correspondent is not Jehovah but adon, the common word for ‘lord’ or ‘master.’ " [12]
The recovery of the Old Testament as the basis of Apostolic Christianity will put an end to the age-old desire of commentators to find in the text of Scripture cherished beliefs dating from the post-biblical Councils. The misreading of Psalm 110:1 as support for the deity of Jesus is the symptom of a widespread confusion over the identity of the two Lords.
It is a mistake to claim that Jesus is Jehovah when in fact he is the Messiah appointed to that supreme office by Jehovah. The Smith’s Bible Dictionary footnote deserves to become a headline summoning us to belief in Jesus as the Messiah, not God.
Anthony Buzzard
[1] N.T. Wright, Who Was Jesus? Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993, 19.
[2] London: The Covenant Publishing Co., Ltd., 1956, 14, 15, 58.
[3] Adoni occurs 195 times in the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament).
[4] A Journal from The Radical Reformation. Available from the Church of God General Conference
[5] A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, by R. Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and D. Brown, Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1866, 346, 347.
[6] The Foundations of New Testament Christology, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1965, 68.
[7] Ibid., 185.
[8] Ibid., 198.
[9] The Deity of Jesus Christ, London: The Covenant Publishing Co. Ltd., 1956, 58.
[10] The Authentic Jesus, revised ed., Marshall Pickering, 1992, 27.
[11] Reprinted by Baker Book House, 1971, 3090.
[12] Ibid.
The above two articles were taken from
Volume 3, Issue 3 (Spring 1994) Editorial
and
