Shalom! My name is Adam Pastor

Welcome to ADONI MESSIAH which means
"My Lord Messiah" -
a fitting epithet to who Jesus (or Yeshua) is!

Here, I attempt to present the Apostolic Truths according to the Scriptures, that there is
One GOD, the Father, namely, YAHWEH,
and One Lord, GOD's only begotten Son,
Yeshua the Messiah.

And that one day YAHWEH will send His Son back to Earth to inaugurate the Everlasting Kingdom of GOD



Enjoy!


Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Did Thomas Call Jesus “My God” in John 20.28? by Kermit Zarley

Did Thomas Call Jesus “My God” in John 20.28? by Kermit Zarley
(AKA Servetus the Evangelical)


When the risen Jesus appeared to his gathered disciples [after his resurrection],
the Apostle Thomas was not present (John 20.19-24). The disciples later told him they
had seen Jesus. Thomas said he would not believe unless he saw Jesus for himself (v. 25).

One week later the risen Jesus appeared again to his gathered disciples, with Thomas
present. Jesus spoke to him, and Thomas replied, “My Lord and my God” (John 20.28).

Most Christians have believed that Thomas then called Jesus “God.” And most New
Testament (NT) scholars claim it is the strongest biblical evidence that Jesus is God.

On the contrary, no other NT character calls Jesus “God,” which would depart from
Jewish monotheism. Plus, John records two occasions when Jesus’ antagonists accused
him of making himself out to be God, which he then denied (John 5.18-47; 10.30-37).

Thus, Christians have exceedingly misunderstood Thomas’ words “my God.” Their
interpretation of them ignores this gospel’s context, which unlocks their meaning.

First, John records that the risen Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene a week prior to
the Thomas incident. He told her, “go to my brethren, and say to them,
‘I ascend to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God’” (John 20.17).
So, the risen Jesus called the Father “My God.”
The question arises: How can Jesus be God if he has a God?

Indeed, John would not have meant that Thomas called Jesus “my God” when this author
had just recorded that Jesus called the Father “My God.”

Then, one verse after Thomas’ words John concludes his gospel by writing, “Many
other signs therefore Jesus also performed … but these have been written that you may
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (John 20.30-31). This statement would
be anti-climactic following Thomas’ words if he indeed called Jesus “God.” And calling
Jesus “the Son of God” is not synonymous with “God.”

Moreover, John records a conversation that Jesus had with the apostles Thomas and
Philip at the Last Supper, only ten days prior to Thomas’ Confession. Jesus told them he
would soon go to “my Father’s house” (John 14.2), referring to his heavenly ascension to
soon follow his death and resurrection. Then John adds,

4 “And you know the way where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going, how do we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me. 7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.” 8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own initiative; but the Father abiding in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me.
Jesus’ words, “the Father is in Me,” must have left a strong impression on Thomas.
Indeed, they are the key to correctly understand what doubting Thomas later meant when
he said to Jesus, “my God.” That is, Thomas acknowledged what Jesus had taught ten
days prior, that God the Father is in Jesus.

Jesus had taught the same thing many days earlier. He had said, “I and the Father are
one” (John 10.30). His Jewish opponents misunderstood him and were about to stone
him. They accused him of “blasphemy,” saying, “You, being a man, make yourself out to
be God” (v. 33). Jesus implicitly denied this and explained the oneness as “the Father is
in Me, and I in the Father” (v. 38). Scholars call this the Mutual Indwelling.

...

Once when he attended a feast at Jerusalem, “Jesus cried out and said,
‘He who believes in me does not believe in me, but in Him who sent me.
And he who beholds me beholds the One who sent me’”
(John 12.44-45). Again, Jesus was talking about God the Father. In fact, the Father
sending the Son is the most prominent theme in the Gospel of John, occurring 40 times.

This indwelling of God in Christ, and God sending Christ, reflects the concept of
agency. In antiquity, especially in the business world and among Jews, a principal would
select someone to represent him as his agent. It was common knowledge that a man’s son
usually proved to be the best candidate as his agent. So, with the son as agent, dealing
with a man’s son was akin to dealing with the man himself, as if the father was in his son.

The Johannine Jesus taught this concept of agency in various ways. He often said the
Father had given him his words and deeds (John 12.49; 14.10, 24; 17.8). And he said of
the Father, “My teaching is not mine, but His who sent me. If anyone is willing to do His
will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from myself”
(7.16-17). Notice he distinguishes himself from God. Another time he said, “I have come
in my Father’s name,” and he then called the Father “the one and only God” (5.43-44).

To rightly understand Jesus in the Gospel of John, Agent Christology can hardly be
over-emphasized. It is the corrective to misinterpreting several Johannine texts in which
Jesus is wrongly identified as God, claiming to be God, or God becoming a man.

Moreover, in this gospel Agent Christology, also called Sending Christology, is the
primary focus of saving faith for believers (John 16.27-30; 17.8). As God’s supreme
agent, the Johannine Jesus functioned as God without actually being God.

In my book, The Restitution of Jesus Christ (2008), I devote 17 pages to Thomas’
words “my God” in John 20.28 and cite 38 scholars in doing so. In using John 14.9, 11 as
key to understanding Thomas, I regard this as the pinnacle of my research in this book. It
is a God-in-Christ interpretation as opposed to the traditional Christ-is-God interpretation.

The above article was taken from:
Did Thomas Call Jesus “My God” in John 20.28?

Some editing has been done on each article.

Did Jesus Claim to Be God in John 10.30? by Kermit Zarley

Did Jesus Claim to Be God in John 10.30? by Kermit Zarley
(AKA Servetus the Evangelical)





Ask most Christians who know the Bible, “Where does the Bible say Jesus claimed
to be God?” and they’ll likely answer, “He said in John 10.30, ‘I and the Father are one.”
But that is a far cry from saying, “I am God,” or the like. One is struck with the thought,
“Is that the best evidence Christians can provide that Jesus claimed to be God? If so,
perhaps he never made such a claim.”

This is a very important issue for Christians. Most of them assert that a person must
believe that Jesus is God in order to be a genuine Christian and thus possess salvation and
the hope of eternal life. That’s what the institutional church has always insisted. But
interpreting Jesus’ saying in John 10.30 as a claim to be God ignores its context.

Jesus was attending the Feast of Dedication at the temple in Jerusalem. We read,
“The Jews therefore gathered around him, and were saying to him, ‘How long will You
keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.’” (John 10.24). Jesus
responded by mentioning his marvelous works that he had been doing and how they
testify to his intimate relationship with God (vv. 25-29).

So, when Jesus then said that he and God the Father were “one,” he meant that they
were unified, being in complete harmony regarding Jesus’ mission of doing good works
and drawing disciples to himself. This is confirmed by Jesus’ so-called “high priestly
prayer” he made the night he was betrayed and arrested. It, too, is recorded only in the
Gospel of John. In anticipation of his crucifixion, death, resurrection, and ascension,
Jesus prayed to the Father concerning his eleven apostles, “Holy Father, keep them in
Your name, the name which You have given me, that they may be one even as we are
(John 17.11). And he soon added, “The glory which You have given me I have given to
them, that they may be one, just as we are one; I in them and You in me, that they may
be perfected in unity” (vv. 22-23). So, Jesus asked the Father for the same oneness for
himself and his apostles that he said, in John 10.30, he and the Father had. To say that
“one,” there, means Jesus is God requires that it means the same here, which is ludicrous.

Yet Jesus’ antagonistic listeners thought like many Christians later have, that he
claimed to be God when he said he and the Father were “one.” When Jesus asked them
why they were picking up stones to stone him to death (John 10.31), they replied, “For a
good work we do not stone you, but for blasphemy; and because you, being a man, make
yourself out to be God” (v. 33). That is, they thought Jesus was claiming to be God by
declaring that he was “one” with God.

...

Jesus then asked his interrogators, “do you say of him, whom the Father sanctified
and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?”
(John 10.36). John A.T. Robinson insists that Jesus here made the following important
points:
(1) he implicitly denies the Jews’ allegation that he said he was God,
(2) he distinguishes himself from God, and
(3) he affirms his true identity as Son of God.

Now, Jesus never went about declaring publicly that he was the Son of God. But he
often implied it by calling God his “Father.” Until then, Jews had recognized their God
Yahweh corporately as the father of the Jewish nation; yet individual Jews rarely or
never had identified God personally as their father, as Jesus regularly did.

Then Jesus clarified what he meant by him and the Father being one. He declared,
“the Father is in Me, and I in the Father” (John 10.38). Later, Jesus affirmed it again by
telling his apostles, “Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me” (14.11).

Scholars call this concept “the Mutual Indwelling.” It clearly represents a disavowal
that being one with God means that Jesus claims to be God. Rather, Jesus here affirms
God-in-Christ Christology as contrasted with the traditional, incarnational, Christ-is-God
Christology that Christians later developed. The Apostle Paul explained half of this
concept, “that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Corinthians 5.19).

Jesus’ opponents seem to have accepted this clarification about being one with the
Father, in which he denied claiming to be God, because they never brought this charge
against him during the interrogation of him by the Jewish Sanhedrin (Council).

In sum, when Jesus said, “I and the Father are one,” he did not mean that he and God
the Father were one in essence, making himself God, but one relationally, resulting in a
functional unity. If this brief saying of Jesus in John 10.30 is the best that traditionalists
can muster to support their assertion that Jesus claimed to God, we can be pretty sure that
Jesus never made such a claim.

In my extensive book, The Restitution of Jesus Christ (2008), I devote ten pages to
explaining what Jesus meant in John 10.30 when he said, “I and the Father are one.” And
in doing so, I cite forty-four scholars and four church fathers.

The above article was taken from:
Did Jesus Claim to Be God in John 10.30?

Some editing has been done on each article.

Powered By Blogger