Is Jesus God If He Has a God? by Kermit Zarley

Is Jesus God If He Has a God? by Kermit Zarley
(AKA Servetus the Evangelical)




Most Christians believe Jesus is God because that is what the institutional church has
taught. And it has asserted that if anyone does not believe Jesus is God, that person is not
a genuine Christian. But the Bible never supports this assertion.

For example, the Bible states repeatedly that Jesus had a God, he prayed to his God,
and he worshiped his God. Since the Bible constantly proclaims that there is numerically
only one God, Jesus having a God is prime evidence that he was not God.

The New Testament (NT) evidence that Jesus had a God is in the Gospel of John, the
Apostle Paul’s letters, and the book of Revelation. And in most of this sacred writ, it is
Jesus himself who is quoted as saying he has a God—the Father.

The first NT evidence that Jesus had a God and that he worshipped his God appears
in the narrative about Jesus encountering the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well (John 4.7-
26). Now, the Samaritans were half Jew and half Gentile, and they worshiped the God of
the Bible. But they disputed with Jews about the proper place on earth to worship God.
They claimed it was their Mount Gerizim, and Jews claimed it was their Temple Mount
at Jerusalem. When Jesus revealed to the woman that he was a prophet, she posed this
question about the proper place of worship. Jesus replied by saying of the Samaritans,
“You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from
the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the
Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is
spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (vv. 22-24). When
Jesus said, “we worship what we know,” he included himself among the true worshipers
of God. And notice that he called God “the Father.”

Jesus also revealed that he had a God ... only minutes after his
resurrection. Mary Magdalene—one of Jesus’ disciples from whom he exorcised seven
demons—came early that morning to Jesus’ tomb and discovered it empty (John 20.1-
18). She ran and told two of Jesus’ disciples, one being the Apostle Simon Peter. They
ran to the tomb, discovered it empty, and departed. Mary then returned to the tomb and
apparently became the first disciple who literally saw and conversed with the risen Jesus.
We read, “Jesus said to her, ‘Stop clinging to me, for I have not yet ascended to the
Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, “I ascend to my Father and your Father,
and my God and your God”’” (v. 17). So, the risen Jesus clearly called the Father
“My God.” ...

Five times the Apostle Paul writes unequivocally about God the Father being the
God of the Lord Jesus Christ. These texts are as follow:

• “glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 15.6).
• “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 1.3).
• “The God and Father of the Lord Jesus” (2 Corinthians 11.31).
• “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1.3).
• “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory” (Ephesians 1.17).

Six times the book of Revelation describes Jesus Christ as having a God, who is none
other than God the Father. These passages are as follows:

• Jesus “has made us to be a kingdom, priests to his God and Father” (Revelation 1.6).
• Jesus said, “I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of my God” (3.2).
• Jesus said, “I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God (3.12).
• Jesus added, “and I will write on him the name of my God” (3.12).
• Jesus added, “and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem” (3.12).
• Jesus added, “which comes down out of heaven from my God” (3.12).

The Old Testament (OT) states that the Messiah has a God. First, while Jesus hung on
the cross he quoted Psalm 22.1 and applied it to himself by crying out,
“My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” (Matthew 27.46; Mark 15.34).
Second, Isaiah foretold much about a righteous Servant of Yahweh (Isaiah Chs. 42—53), whom the Apostle Peter implied was Jesus (Acts 3.13; 4.27, 30). Isaiah represented this Servant as saying, “the justice due to me is with the LORD [=Yahweh], and my reward with my God…. For I am honored in the sight of YAHWEH, and my God is my strength” (Isaiah 49.4-5). Third, Micah prophesied that the Messiah would be born in “Bethlehem” and become “ruler in Israel” in “the name of YAHWEH his God” (Micah 5.2, 4).

So, fifteen times the Bible declares unequivocally that Jesus had a God, whom he
designated as “the/My Father.” Yet the Bible never conversely states that the Father has a
God, much less that he is the man Jesus Christ. One would expect this if the institutional
church has been right about its doctrine of the Trinity, that God is one essence existing in
three separate and distinct, co-equal and co-eternal Persons: the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit. On the contrary, the Johannine Jesus said, “the Father is greater than I” (John
14.28), so that they cannot be co-equal; he identified the Father as “the one and only
God” (5.44); and he prayed to the Father, calling him “the only true God” (17.3).
With such overwhelming evidence that God the Father is the God of Jesus Christ, it
is biblically incorrect to identify Jesus as God and morally irresponsible for the church 
to not accept people as genuine Christians only because they do not believe Jesus is God.
Paul clearly states, “if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your
heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10.9). ...

The above article was taken from:
Is Jesus God If He Has a God?

Some editing has been done on each article.

Is Jesus God or Subordinate to God? by Kermit Zarley

Is Jesus God or Subordinate to God? by Kermit Zarley
(AKA Servetus the Evangelical)



Nearly all Christians are what scholars call “traditionalists” due to their belief that
Jesus is God. The church doctrine of the Trinity says God is one essence existing as three
co-equal and co-eternal Persons: the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit.
But the New Testament (NT) repeatedly describes Jesus as subordinate to God to Father,
which seems to conflict with them being equal, and scholars label it a paradox. ...

This apparent conflict is most evident in the Gospel of John. Traditionalists and
others believe this gospel identifies Jesus as God more than perhaps the rest of the Bible.
Therefore, some NT scholars refer to this apparent conflict as “the Johannine riddle.”

The Johannine Jesus admits to this subordination by claiming that the Father sends
him, empowers him, and gives him all authority in heaven and earth, including raising the
dead and judging them. The paramount question is whether the Fourth Gospel portrays
Jesus as essentially subordinate or functionally subordinate to God the Father. According
to the church doctrine of incarnation, Jesus could only have been the latter.

When the Johannine Jesus was accused of making himself equal with God (John
5.18, he vehemently denied it by revealing his essential subordination to the Father. He
immediately said of himself, “the Son can do nothing of himself, unless it is something
he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in
like manner” (v. 19). And he adds, “I can do nothing on my own initiative” (v. 30). He
was referring to his having just healed the paralytic (vv. 8-9).

Closely associated with the subordination of the Son is his obedience to the Father.
Yet Jesus being God and obeying God are incompatible concepts.
Traditionalist C.K. Barrett explains, “It is simply intolerable that Jesus should be made to say,
‘I am God, the supreme God of the Old Testament, and being God I do as I am told.’”

If Jesus was essentially subordinate to the Father, then the Father was superior to
Jesus. Indeed, the Johannine Jesus said, “the Father is greater than I” (John 14.28). The
word in the Greek text here translated “greater” is meizon, meaning greater in rank and
dignity. Obviously, such a difference between the Father and the Son does not accord
well with the traditional view of their supposed equality.

Jesus’ subordination to God is related to his dependence upon God, which further
indicates he could not have been God. For Jesus depended upon God’s Spirit in order to
perform his miracles. The Apostle Peter preached, “Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to
you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through him”
(Acts 2.22). And Peter later preached likewise, “You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how
God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how he went about doing
good, and healing all who were oppressed by the devil; for God was with him” (10.38).
So, Peter attributes Jesus’ powers to God being with him, not Jesus being God.

The title applied to Jesus in the NT which signifies his subordination to the Father
more than any other title is “servant.” Peter preached to Jews, “the God of our fathers, has glorified His servant Jesus,… For you first, God raised up His Servant, and sent him to bless you” (Acts 3.13).
And Jesus’ disciples later prayed to the Father, “Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed,” so that “signs and wonders take place through the name of Your holy servant Jesus” (4.27, 30).

Second century church fathers sometimes identified Jesus as God’s “servant” (Greek
pais). But later fathers discontinued it. Joachim Jeremias observes that “the designation
of Jesus as pais theou [servant of God] is found in Gentile Christian writings up to 170 CE
only at 11 places and in three works…. From the 5th century pais disappears completely
as a term for Christ…. To the Gentile Church it was offensive from the very first because
it did not seem to bring out the full significance of the majesty of the glorified Lord.”
Identifying Jesus as Servant clashed with the view that he is God. ...

The Apostle Paul often relates in his NT letters the essential subordination of Christ
to God. He says, “Christ belongs to God,” and “God is the head of Christ” (1 Corinthians
3.23; 11.3). Thus, Paul certainly would have said that God is greater than Christ.

Indeed, Paul further relates that it is God the Father “who is the blessed and only
Sovereign” (1 Timothy 6.15). He explains that this will be demonstrated when the Father
“will bring about at the proper time” Christ’s return to earth. If the Father is the “only
Sovereign” (Greek monos dunastes), and Paul says this in relation to Christ and his
second coming, then Christ cannot also be equal in sovereignty to the Father.
The signal signpost of Jesus’ essential subordination to God is Paul’s prophecy about
Jesus’ final, revelatory act regarding the kingdom. Paul says of Jesus, “when he delivers
up the kingdom to the God and Father,... then the Son himself also will be subjected to
the One who subjected all things to him, that God may be all in all”
(1 Corinthians 15.24, 28; cf. 1 Chronicles 29.11).
Here is the ultimate act of subordination, and it is a voluntary one. Oscar Cullmann calls it “the key to all New Testament Christology.”

Jesus’ subordination to the Father is also seen in Paul’s prayers. After the salutations
in his letters, he often adds that he gives thanks to God in prayer for those to whom he
writes. And even though he occasionally appends Jesus’ name to his petitions and heartfelt
thanks made in prayer, Paul relates his view about the Father’s essential preeminence
over Jesus by always addressing these prayers solely to “God (the Father).”
In sum, Jesus’ essential subordination to the Father shows that Jesus was not God.

The above article was taken from:
Is Jesus God or Subordinate to God?

Some editing has been done on each article.