A Deafening Silence
NUMBERS 23:19, “God is not a man, that He should lie nor a son of man, that He should repent.”
The doctrines of the Trinity, the deity of Christ and the “Incarnation,” the belief that in Jesus “God the Son became a man,” are Foundational to Institutional Christianity.
Christianity developed from the ancient faith of Israel. All of the first Christians were Jewish or Gentile proselytes to Judaism. The Book of Acts makes clear that the early church in Jerusalem did not immediately discard all Jewish beliefs, traditions and customs. In the first third of Acts the Gospel was only proclaimed to Jewish audiences. It was opened to Gentiles only as a consequence of Divine intervention as recorded in Acts chapter 10. The early church did not see itself as a “new religion” distinct from the faith of Israel. Rather it was a messianic movement within Judaism in which the promises of the scriptures of Israel were fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
The books of the New Testament demonstrate the early church was not free of conflict and division. The letters of Paul, for example, were written to specific congregations in order to deal with particular issues. The Apostle was never shy about exposing and confronting problems.
Many of the controversies dealt with in the New Testament represent the sorts of problems one would expect from a movement linked to Judaism that accepted uncircumcised Gentiles as members. From the day the Gospel was offered to Gentiles disputes arose over circumcision, Jewish dietary restrictions, Sabbath keeping and the observation of feast days (ACTS 11:1-3, ROMANS 14:1-20, GALATIANS 4:10, 5:2-3, COLOSSIANS 2:16).
Non-Christian Jewish contemporaries of Paul found key aspects of Jesus’ life objectionable, particularly his crucifixion by Roman authorities. Paul described the proclamation of a crucified messiah as an “offense to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (1 CORINTHIANS 1:23). He used the same Greek word (skandalon) in GALATIANS 5:11 for the “offense of the cross.” Skandalon originally referred to a “trap” or “snare” a hunter used to catch animals. It later acquired the sense of something that offends, scandalizes, is a stumbling block.
Crucifixion was a Roman form of execution used especially for rebellious slaves and political revolutionaries. To Roman citizens crucifixion was the most dreaded and shameful form of death, so much so that in polite Roman society it was a social blunder to even mention it. Roman law forbade the execution of its citizens by crucifixion. The usual form of capital punishment for a condemned citizen was decapitation. One purpose of crucifixion was to shame the condemned. This is precisely why he was crucified naked and his body left to rot on a cross. It also demonstrated Rome’s irresistible power to any and all potential enemies of the State.
The crucifixion of Jesus was acutely offensive to devout Jews. The idea that Rome, Israel’s worst enemy, executed God’s promised messiah in such a dishonorable manner was beyond the pale. A “crucified messiah” was a contradiction in terms. Did not the Mosaic Law teach that anyone “hung on a tree” was under God’s curse and by definition outside the Law and covenant of Israel (GALATIANS 3:10, DEUTERONOMY 27:26)? Not only did Paul make no attempt to explain away this “embarrassing” fact, he proclaimed “Christ crucified” to be God’s very “power and wisdom” (1 CORINTHIANS 1:24). He boasted that God’s long hidden mystery had now been revealed in the cross of Christ. In an ironic twist the very attempt to stop God’s purposes by killing His messiah procured the overthrow the “powers, principalities” and “rulers of this age” that instigated it (1 CORINTHIANS 2:6-8).
Foundational to the faith of Israel was the absolute oneness of God. The Shema repeated daily by devout Jews began with the proclamation, “hear, O Israel, Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one.” Isaiah wrote, “thus says Yahweh, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, Yahweh of hosts: ‘I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god’” (44:6). The Law claimed God is “not a man” or flesh, but a spirit who fills heaven and earth (NUMBERS 23:19, ISAIAH 57:15, JEREMIAH 23:24).
Concepts developed in later Nicene Christianity such as the Trinity and the Incarnation would have caused vociferous objections from devout Jews in Paul's day. The novel idea of one God existing in three persons would be seen as self-contradictory and a threat to Jewish monotheism. Was not the belief that God “became a man” contrary to scripture? While expectations about the messiah varied among Jews of Second Temple Judaism, none conceived of a messiah who was God “incarnated” in human flesh. Even today many Christians find the concept of one God “existing in three persons” incomprehensible. While later Christians might accept this as a matter of faith, they are hard-pressed to produce rational explanations of it. How much more would a Jew of Paul’s day find this idea inexplicable and theologically offensive?
Why is there no evidence in the New Testament of Jewish objections to the doctrines of the Trinity, the deity of Christ or the Incarnation? The New Testament records disputes over the notion of a crucified messiah, circumcision, Sabbath keeping, Jewish dietary customs, eating food offered to idols, sexual matters and so on. It provides evidence of the early rise [of] several heresies. Moreover, ideas like the Trinity and God “becoming man” are so unique and difficult to comprehend that one would expect a thoroughgoing teacher like the Apostle Paul to have taught them constantly, yet nowhere in his epistles is there any example of him attempting to explain the inexplicable to his congregations. This is a lesson that would have required constant repetition.
What one does not find in the New Testament is controversy about the Trinity or deity of Christ.
What one does not find in the New Testament is controversy about the Trinity or deity of Christ.
This is a Deafening Silence that calls for explanation.
The above article is taken from:
A Deafening Silence
