Who is God?

Welcome friends. We're delighted to have you here at this session sponsored by Reformed Theological Seminary. As you've attended things at TGC this week, you've had the opportunity to hear from a number of folks from the RTS family. And I'm delighted that you're going to hear from two of our outstanding scholars tonight. Scott Swain who is the president of Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando but is also a widely regarded systematic theologian and his area is the doctrine of God. Uh I I've taught the doctrine of God for 35 years. I've learned things in the last five years from Scott Swain that I wish I had known 35 years ago. So, you are really in for a treat as he takes you through an exploration of what the Bible teaches us about God through the biblical divine names. And then you're going to later be able to hear from Dr. Mike Krueger, the president of RTS in Charlotte, but also a world-renowned New Testament and early Christianity scholar. So, these these folks are leaders, but they are also outstanding communicators and professors and theological educators. and it'll be a blessing for you tonight. I can't wait to hear along with you and learn from them. I do want to mention just a couple of things before Dr. Swain comes up. One is that the RTS mobile app is available to you for free. So, if you go to your whatever kind of phone you have to the app store and look up Reformed

Theological Seminary mobile app, you can download that for free. There are 45 brand new courses on there entirely free. Nothing on the app cost you anything and uh we want to provide that to the entire world for the edification of God's people and for the church. So please know the RTS mobile app is there including courses by Dr. Krueger and by Dr. Swain. So like if you get excited about the doctrine of God, you can hear more about the doctrine of God on the RTS mobile app. Um, secondly, I want to tell those of you who are pastors and you're interested in doing further theological education, our doctor of ministry program is housed at both RTS Charlotte and RTS Orlando. And uh, if you want to know more about this, we've actually got a number of folks from RTS tonight. I know Jack Royston from from RTS Charlotte is here. He's waving his hand over there. I saw Dr. Sutanto who teaches at RTSD is here. I'm here. any of us connected to RTS, think Dave Velcamp is here tonight. Any of us, our chief communications and chief marketing officers are here. If we can answer any questions about RTS for you, we'd be delighted to do that. Do not hesitate to approach us. We want to talk to you uh if we can answer your questions. So, the Doctor of Ministry program. And then finally, the the Master of Theology program, the THM program has just been launched at RTS Orlando. And if you're

interested in studying uh at at a level just above the Master of Divinity degree, going deeper into your study of theology, the RTS Master of Theology degree is a great great thing to look into, and we'd love to tell you about that. Well, there's nothing more important than God. We're the Gospel Coalition, but the best news in all the world is God himself. There's nothing better than God. And knowing God is absolutely essential to the Christian life because God is the one in whom we live and move and have our being. So there could be no better topic to think about tonight than who is God. And there's no better person to guide us into that than Dr. Scott Swain. Scott, would you come and lead us in this study? Welcome. [Applause] Well good evening. Good to see you tonight. Uh, if you would, let's bow in prayer before we get started. Our Father in heaven, your name is great.

It is greatly to be praised and your greatness is unsearchable. We ask that by your spirit and through your risen son, you would teach us tonight about your greatness through your word as you've revealed yourself to us. Help us to understand what we can understand. Help us to bow before what we cannot. And above all things, we ask that you would strengthen our faith and our hope and our love in you who are worthy of all of our love. And we ask it in Jesus name. Amen. Well, I'm glad Grace Sutanto is here because Grace Sutanto is a Herman Bavink scholar and I'm going to start by quoting you, Herman Boavink. Uh, but says this about our topic tonight.

He says, "God and God alone is the highest good of man." God and God alone is the highest good of man. If that's true, and it is, then there's no topic more worthy of our study. There's nothing more important to know. There's no one more important to serve. there is nothing uh more desirable to enjoy than God. Well, if that is the case, and it is the case, then knowing God and the way that God makes himself known is the most important thing we could ever want to do. And scripture teaches us that God makes himself known in primarily two ways. He makes himself known through what the Belgic confession calls the book of nature. We see the heavens above and Psalm 19 says the heavens declare the glory of God. We look within ourselves to our own conscience and we have an awareness that there is someone to whom we are accountable. But far beyond the glory that God reveals about himself in the book of nature, God reveals himself more fully, more wonderfully in the book of

scripture. And the primary way that God reveals himself in scripture is by his names. We see a kind of central text for understanding this point in Exodus 34 where Moses has been interceding on Israel's behalf after the sin of the golden calf. And he's been trying to propose options to the Lord that the Lord might not destroy Israel because of her sin. And he keeps throwing one option out and the Lord rejects it. He throws another option out, the Lord rejects it. And finally he throws his hands up in the air and says, "Show me your glory." And the point is, "I don't know what to ask of you if I don't know you. If I don't know your glory." And it says in Exodus 34 that the Lord came down and proclaimed his name. And of course, this is that famous proclamation of God's name. The most famous proclamation of God's name in all the Old Testament. Lord is abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Well, that picture in Exodus 34 is exactly how we should understand the divine names in scripture where we look at the heavens and we realize that for all their vast glory and majesty, they are the work of someone who far transcends the

heavens. In scripture, that same God stoops down to us and speaks about himself in our language. He he takes up our ordinary languages and and he transforms it to a holy end that of making himself known. And he does so of course through a number of names in scripture. In Exodus 34, it's that divine name. Four Hebrew letters we know as the tetra grammaton. We don't exactly know how to pronounce it. Sometimes we pronounce it Yahweh. Uh other suggestions have been made as well. He makes himself known by the common name God. Very common name in the ancient near east, Greco Roman religion and so forth as well. He makes himself known by titles such as El Shadai, LL Yan. And he makes himself known supremely in Christ by the personal names Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In his recent book, God has a name, John Mark. Comr tells us that it is good for us that God has a name and indeed it is good news. Comr says the fact that God has a name means for starters that God is a personal being. By person I mean he's a relational being and this is comr not an

impersonal energy force or a chapter in a systematic theology textbook. That kind of hurts Dr. Duncan or a world religion. He's a relational being who wants to well relate to people like you and me. So far so good. He goes on to say all of this leads to a vision of a God who responds. And how does he respond? According to Comr, God responds to us in prayer. He says, "Prayer can move the hand of God. Prayer can get God to change his mind." Think about the gravity of that. In prayer, we are invited to join him in directing the course of this world. So that's the good news that God has a name. According to Comr, he's relational being. He's a being whom we can influence through prayer in prayer and indeed help guide the world through prayer. Well, I want to suggest you tonight that it is good news that God has a name, but that it would be terrible news if the God whose name we know was a God we could change.

if it was up to us to help God guide this universe. And and there there's something of the the Christian influencer vibe, if I may say it, in the way Comr kind of makes his entire argument, you know, you have heard it said, but I say to you as someone who's read these four Hebrew letters, here's the truth about God. But the fact of the matter is in the ancient world, every god had a name. And every god was someone you could change through religious interactions, right? And that's true if you look in the ancient near east. It's true if you look in Greco Roman culture. So, so actually the god that is being presented by Goomer is is very run-of-the-mill. Well, where does Comr go wrong? There's a number of places, but I want to suggest that the main place he goes wrong is is in failing to see that while scripture reveals God's name, he's the Lord. He's God most high, God almighty, and so forth, the primary way it tells us about this God is by what it says about him.

When when Christian theologians have spoken about the names of God in the history of theology, they're not just talking about God's proper name, the Lord. They're not just talking about God's title, but they're actually talking about all the ways that scripture speaks about God, right? Not just speaking of God as subject, but what does scripture predicate about that subject? That is where the heavy lifting is done when it comes to the revelation of God's name. You see, idolatry doesn't merely consist in predicating divine things of a creature. You remember the sin of the golden calf. What what did Aaron do? He he creates this golden calf and he tells Israel, "Behold your gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt." Well, the golden calf is is not a god and and that's a form of idolatry predicating divine things of a creature. But there's another form of idolatry and that involves talking about the wrong the right God but saying the wrong things about him, predicating creaturely things about God. True religion among other things consists in predicating divine things about God. So it is indeed good news that God has a name. But in revealing God's name, scripture reveals that God is God. He's

not a man. He is in very significant ways not like us. And it's only in so far as we understand how he is not like us that we can understand why it is such good news that he's revealed his name to us that we can even understand the ways in which he is like us. You don't understand how God is like us apart from the foundation of understanding how he is not like us. That's the the basic argument that I want to make tonight. And I want to look for a few minutes at Numbers chapter 23 and how the divine name is presented in this passage. I had a moment of trembling right before I came up here because I was putting my notes in in my Bible at Numbers chapter 23 and then I remembered Lian Duncan's probably most famous teaching he sermon was from Numbers. And so I realized I'm immediately putting myself in my boss's shadow uh by looking at Numbers. But here we are. Numbers chapter 23.

In Numbers 22, 23, 24, you've got a series of of of very odd events in the history of Israel's uh wilderness journeys. Bailo, who has seen Israel on its way, has called upon the prophet Balum, and he's asked Balum to curse God's people. He He knows they're a threat. He's heard the rumors of what happened in Egypt. He's heard the rooms rumors of what has happened to other great ancient near eastern kings. And he sends Balum to curse Israel. And and and it's kind of a humorous story. He he starts at one place and he says, "Look at Israel here and and and Balam won't curse there." And he moves to another place. Well, look at it here. And the idea is like, "Can we find a weakness? Can we find a a soft spot in the armor? Can we find something where where we can curse?" And of course, time after time, Balum says, "I I cannot curse the one that God has blessed." Well, it's in the second oracle of Balum that we see something about why God's people are invulnerable to cursing, why God's people are destined for blessing instead. And the answer, it turns out, has nothing to do with

Israel and everything to do with God, with the name of the one who backs up the promises of blessings that have been given to Israel. So, let me read in verses 13 uh down to about verse 26 and then talk about how this passage what this passage teaches us about the divine name. So Numbers 23:13, and Bailo said to him, "Please come with me to another place from which you may see them. You shall see only a fraction of them, and shall not see them all. Then curse them for me from there." And he took him to the field of Zofim and the top of Pisca, and built seven altars, and offered a bull and ram on each altar. Balam said to Bao, "Stand here beside your burnt offering while I meet the Lord over there." And the Lord met Balam and put a word in his mouth and said, "Return to Bao, and thus you shall speak." And he came to him, and behold, he was standing beside his burnt offering and the princes of Moab with him. And Baal said to him, "What has the Lord spoken?" And Balam took up his discourse and said, "Rise, Ba, and hear.

Give ear to me, oh son of Zippor. God is not man that he should lie or a son of man that he should change his mind. Has he said and will he not do it? Or has he spoken and will he not fulfill it? Behold, I received a command to bless. He has blessed and I cannot revoke it. He has not beheld a misfortune in Jacob, nor has he seen trouble in Israel. The Lord their God is with them, and the shout of a king is among them. God brings them out of Egypt and is for them like the horns of the wild ox. For there is no enchantment against Jacob, no divination against Israel, now it shall be said of Jacob and Israel, "What has God wrought? Behold, a people as a lioness it rises up and as a lion it lifts itself. It does not lie down until it has devoured the prey and drunk the blood of the slain. And Bailo said to Balam, "Do not curse them at all, and do not bless them at all." But Balam answered Bailo, "Did I not tell you all that the Lord says I must do?

Now, there there are two things I want you to notice in this passage that really teach us a lot about how scripture reveals God's names. First, scripture reveals God's names by telling us what God is not. Second, scripture reveals God's names by telling us what God is like. And I want to suggest you it's only by understanding what God is not that we can properly understand what God is like. Well, we see the first point in numbers 23:19. God is not man that he should lie or a son of man that he should change his mind. The the basic point here is God is not guilty of duplicity. He's not guilty of doubleness, right? He doesn't say one thing on one day and then say something the next day or he doesn't mislead us by by promising to do something he's not actually going to do. God does not lie.

God does not change his mind. And again, there there's there's they're probably not saying exactly the same thing. You know, lying we of course understand is a sin. Try to mislead somebody regarding a state of state of affairs. Uh you you you you you hedge your bets or whatever it is. Not changing your mind. That's probably not quite the same thing, right? Sometimes we make promises to people not because we were trying to deceive them, but because we really didn't count the cost of the promise we made, right? But then circumstances change and we realize, boy, we didn't plan ahead. We didn't realize what it was going to cost us, what it was going to cost others. We didn't realize, you know, what might happen that to change circumstances. And so, we have to change our mind. We have to change our course of action. Well, it's both of these things that the Lord is saying he doesn't do. He doesn't lie. He doesn't change his mind. And and on one level, you say, "Okay, well, that's that's why Balam can't curse Israel. God doesn't lie.

God's promised to bless him. He's not going to change his mind." But here's what I want you to notice about this passage. It doesn't just say that God doesn't lie. And it doesn't just say that God doesn't change his mind. It tells us why God doesn't lie and why God doesn't change his mind. And and what's the reason? Because he's not man. Because he's not a son of man. It's interesting. This is a theme that that is firmed across scripture. the truthfulness of God and and the unreliability of man. Just this morning looking at Psalm 12 and and the psalmist is lamenting those who who speak against him with flattering lips, right? Who who intend to destroy him through their trust in their own words. And he contrasts those words with the way God speaks. And listen what he says in verse six. He says, 'The words of the Lord are pure words like silver refined in a furnace on the ground purified seven times. God is a God of not duplicity but in his speech simplicity. Simplicity here means

unmixed. His speech is not sometimes true, sometimes false. It's always true. Purified like silver seven times. As pure as it could possibly be. Well, what is it about the fact that God is not a man or a son of man that that explains his non duplicitous nature? his the simplicity of his speech. You you get you know what you're getting when he speaks to you. Well, if the fact that God is not double in his speech, that that God is simple in his speech that that's his truthfulness. The ground according to Numbers 23 of God's truthfulness in his speech of his simplicity in his speech is the simplicity of his being. God doesn't change in his speech because God doesn't change in his being. All creatures are characterized by change. Right? This is something that Psalm 102 reflects on. We we grow, we flourish, and then what? We fade away and we die. But you, Psalm 102 says, are the same. God doesn't change. And it's the unchangeability of God's nature that is the ground of the unchangeability of

his promises. God is not susceptible to duplicity in speech because he is not a duplicitous being. The Lord is one. The Lord is simple. John says it like this in 1 John 5. God is light and in him is no darkness at all. nothing contrary nothing changing. He is the father of lights with whom there's no variation or shadow due to change. Now it's interesting when you look back at uh ancient philosophy, this theme of divine simplicity becomes a pretty important theme in ancient philosophy. Uh it starts out though not in terms of speaking about ontological simplicity that God's being is not composed of parts. It doesn't he's not part light, part darkness, part power, part wisdom or whatever. Ancient Greek philosophers when they first started talking about divine simplicity, they first started talking about it in the way that Numbers 23:19 talks about it. Ethical simplicity. that God is not or a true God, a good God is not duplicitus in his speech. And so there's a passage in Plato's Republic where they're trying to figure out what are the laws we're going to make for for a good republic. And one of the first laws they have to talk

about is well, we need to have laws for how we talk about the gods and which gods we're going to let uh be taught in our schools to the children because if we teach the wrong kinds of gods, they're going to set bad examples for the children. They won't live virtuous lives and so forth. And so one of the first rules they lay down for their republic for how you have to speak about God or what kind of gods you're allowed to speak about. You can't speak about gods who are duplicitous. You can't speak about gods who who say one thing or present themselves in one way but are in fact another way. And so it's interesting there's there's a a very similar sort of idea here. A true God, a good God is a God who doesn't lie. And that's the only god who could be the model for Plato's republic. Well, a little further down the road in imoplatonism is is when the idea of ontological simplicity comes into play. And ontological simplicity comes into play as philosophers continue to reflect on the nature of the gods that they talk about and their relationship to the world and as they seek to understand a first cause of everything. Why is there something rather than nothing? Where does everything come from? And by the time you get to middle platonism, which is right about the time of the New Testament, there's an increasing tendency among ancient philosophers toward a monotheistic answer to the

question, why is there something rather than nothing? Where did everything come from? Okay? And this is when they start talking about ontological simplicity. Why? Because the idea is this. We know this world is composed of many different things and of many different things, it has parts. Well, things that have parts, like you and me, we've got arms, we've got legs, we've got eyes, we got ears, right? Things that have parts, but that are actual, you know, holes, not just a pile of rubble or something like that. Things that have parts that are that are a viable living hole. They presuppose a composer, someone who put those parts together. And the argument is you can't go back in kind of an infinite regress to composer composer composer composer. At some point, you have to have an uncomposed composer. In other words, you have to have a simple God.

Well, it's it's in the context of these kind of developing ideas that that initially Jews and then Christians when they come on the scene said, "Well, have we good have we good news for you?" Right? We know the name of the God who doesn't tell lies, who indeed cannot lie. And in Titus 1:2, it says God cannot lie. It's not just like a a practice he occasionally, you know, he's good at. No, he cannot lie. And we know the name of the God who created everything from nothing. And and so this idea of ethical simplicity and ontological simplicity that God's not double in his speech. He's not double in his being. He's simple. Okay, is something that you find taught by Jews, Christians, and eventually a large part of Greor Roman culture. Well, here here's what's interesting to note. It's not just Numbers 23:19 that speaks about God, that teaches us about God's name by way of negation. As soon as you're kind of alert to this point, you realize that's one of the most common ways that scripture tells us about God. And you have to say, why is that?

Well, the answer is it's easier to know what a transcendent God is not than to know what he is. Right? It's easier to know that he's uncreated than to know what it means to be uncreated. Right? It's easier to know that he has no beginning or end than to know what eternity means. And Gustin, I can't define eternity. I can't even define time. How could I define eternity? And so this habit of speech speaking about God by way of negation is very common in scripture. So let me just give you a few examples. Okay according to scripture whereas all things depend upon God depends on nothing. Do you hear the negation? Paul says to the Athenian philosophers in Acts 17 says, "God is not worshiped and served by human hands as if he needed something." You hear the negation. God does not need anything from us. Well, that's the doctrine of divine independence or a God does not need us. But it's a negation. It's not telling us something positive of God.

It's telling us what he's not. He doesn't need us. God does not change. Mentioned James 1:17 already. He is the father of lights from whom every good and perfect gift proceeds and with him there is no variation or shadow due to change. You hear the negation with God there is no change. And it's true when it comes to time. Scripture says God has no beginning. Scripture says God has no end. Scripture says God does not have parts of his life that that come and go. He is the great I am. Now, negations, God's not composed. That's what we mean when we say God is simple. He's not composed of parts. He's not composed of contrary parts. God is not changeable. God is not dependent. God is not temporal.

Sometimes we hear these negations and we worry, well, boy, that sounds like a very cold and distant deity, right? Boy, when I want when I want to get to know somebody, I want to know something positive about them, right? Don't just tell me that he doesn't like avocados, although that would be a positive sign if you were to learn that about somebody. They don't like avocados. It means they have good taste. Um, I don't like avocados. But we we want to know more. Do do these negations, God's timelessness, his unchangeability, do do they suggest perhaps that God isn't personal, right? That perhaps God doesn't or or cannot relate to us? Well, the answer we know is no, right? It's the God of the covenant who says he's not a man that he should change or a son of man that he should lie. Okay? So, so how are we to understand these negations? Well, let me give you an important little distinction that we have to grasp when it comes to thinking about these negative divine names. These names which tell us what God is not. These are negations not privations. They're negations, not privations. Let me explain what that means. To say for

example that God is not composite or that God does not change is not to say that God lacks something change. That God lacks something. Um so think about an oak tree. We know a lot of things about oak trees. How do they start off? They're start off as an acorn. How do they grow? You got to plant it in the ground. It needs water. It needs nutrients and so forth. And and first the sapling comes up. Then it grows. And it takes, you know, sometimes hundreds of years to reach the kind of potential size of a full grown oak tree. And you start thinking, okay, what are the qualities that I know about oak trees? You think about their color. You can think about their capacity for um providing shade. You can do a great picnic under an oak tree, right? And they say, "Well, what about things that are not true of an oak tree?" Can oak trees hear? No. Okay. Can oak trees see? No.

Uh, can oak trees talk? Uh, not in our world. In Middle Earth, maybe. Okay. And so forth and so forth. So, okay. So, let's think about this. It's one thing to note oak trees brown, oak trees green, whatever. Oak trees don't see, oak trees don't hear. That those are all true things about oak trees. But would it be true if I said oak trees are blind? Oak trees are deaf. Is that is that an appropriate way of speaking? No. So hold on. I can say oak trees don't see, but I don't say oak trees are blind. I can say oak trees don't hear but I can't say oak trees are deaf. Why? Because the former is a negation. The second would be a privation. But what do we mean by a privation? Okay, a privation is something that can only apply to something that in its proper nature when it's in good order and good health you expect to see. Okay. So only a creature endowed with the capacity for sight is capable of being described as blind because what you're lacking something that is proper to your nature. And here's what I want to suggest to you. A lot of times we get confused when we hear about these negations. God does not change and God is not in time and so forth. And we think, "Oh, that's a privation because every person I know is

capable of change. every person I know lives in time and so forth. But actually what we're doing when when we let that happen is we're making creaturely persons creaturely relations the standard for divine personhood for divine relations right and so to say that God is not temporal to say he l it would be to say he lacks something that's required for personal relationships to say that God has not changed and say he lacks something that's required for personal relationships but no no No, right? These negations are not about saying God lacks something. They're about saying God transcends something. And what does he transcend? All that applies to creatures. He transcends time. He transcends change. He transcends composition. He transcends beginnings and endings.

far from robbing him of his personal nature, his ability to relate to us. It actually is what grounds his ability to relate to us the way he does which leads to a second point. This passage and the rest of scripture teaches us about God, teaches us about the divine names by telling us what God is not. And that is a necessary step to a second thing that we see in this passage and indeed in the rest of scripture. That scripture not only teaches us what God is not, it also teaches us what God is like. But here's the key. We can't really understand what God is like unless we understand what he's not. Numbers 23 applies a number of different names to God. We we see that proper name, the Lord, the tetetrogrammaton. He's described as God.

He's described in the language of a king. And he is compared to the horn of a wild ox. So think about this. Think about all the different ways that that that scripture can can speak about God in a human way. Ascribing to him a proper name like you and I have proper names. Nancy, David, Gray. These are proper names. It can ascribe a common name to him, God. Talk about human beings, dogs, oak trees, and so forth. These are common names. But then it can compare God to a king. It can compare God to the horn of a wild ox. What is going on here? Well, while God is not a creature, God created a world full of creatures that in their own distinct and different ways refract something of his simple and unchangeable light.

And so in scripture, God teaches us what God is like by means of an almost endless array of creaturely analogies and comparisons. Now to to to get this point, we need to talk a little bit about how analogies work. Analogies in in the basic sense are a manner of speaking where you speak about one thing in terms of another thing. Analogy is a way of speaking about one thing in term of another thing. So if I say to you, Ligan Duncan captains the ship at RTS. I'm speaking in terms of an analogy. What's the analogy? Well, I'm speaking about Ligan Duncan and specifically I'm speaking about Ligan Duncan in his role at Reformed Theological Seminary. But I'm speaking of Lian Duncan in terms of what a captain of a ship and and actually in analogies without getting too fancy, you're usually comparing four things.

Okay? So it's ligan in relationship to RTS, captain in relationship to a ship. And and we do this all the time, every day. And if I say Ligan is the captain of the ship at RTS, you know exactly what I mean. But here's the thing about it. The reason you know exactly what I mean when I say Ligan is the captain of the ship at RTS is because you first and foremost know that Lian is not a captain of a ship and you simultaneously know something about what it means to be the captain of a ship. See, you see the only reason your your mind can can hear that and immediately say, "Okay, so he's in charge to determine where you're heading. He's in charge of determining how you're going to get there. He's the one when circumstances get a little troubling and the waves roar, he's got to steer a straight path, right? The only reason you can do that, okay, it's because you know that he is not literally a captain.

But because you know something of what a captain is like, the second you make the comparison, all of a sudden you understand something about what it means to be the chancellor of an educational institution in a way you wouldn't have apart from the analogy. There's a there's a transfer that happens. Something about the the the the we learn something about the the target domain from the the source domain and vice versa. Well, this is how analogies work in scripture. God repeatedly speaks about himself in terms of something else, something that we're much more familiar with, creatures. We know something about kings. We know something about wild ox. And through these things, God would teach us something about himself as well. Now, I want to look at at a couple of these analogies very quickly. Numbers 23:22, God brings them out of Egypt and is for them like the horns of a wild ox.

It's interesting when you look at the the Hebrew term that is translated horn here. It's actually not a word that means horn. Okay? It's referring to a horn. Okay, but that's not the lexical meaning of the term. The term just means peak. And the second you realize that, you say, "Okay, well, I can see why you would describe a horn of an oxen as a peak." Okay? And and these are this is an an extinct animal that apparently was characterized by very long, sometimes 30 inches long horns. Okay? But the word used here to describe the the horn of an oxen, the peak, the high point is the same word used to describe a mountaintop because mountains also have what? Peaks. There's a high point comes to a point there. It's a term that can be used to describe the choicest silver.

And you say, well, why would it be used to describe the the choicest s silver? Because the purest s silver is the what? Most valuable s silver. It's the top of the value scale. It's the peak. Well why would this language be used to describe God's power? Well, throughout this passage, through this oracle that is revealed to Balam and through Balum to to Bailo, the Lord is portrayed as the peak not only of divine power, but the peak of divine wisdom and the peak of divine goodness. And here's the point. If you thought he was a man, you could not understand these things about him. His wisdom transcends human wisdom. His power transcends human power. His goodness transcends human goodness. What is God like? He is God most high, preeminent in wisdom, power, and goodness. And you see this a number of ways in this passage. We see his super imminent wisdom in verse 21 where he says that he has not beheld

misfortune in Jacob. He has not seen trouble in Israel. Now again those are negations. He has not seen something. Is this implying that that the Lord is ignorant of something about Israel? No. But it's saying his knowledge of Israel transcends the way we would know Israel, the way Israel's enemies would know Israel. Uh in many ways, Numbers is this is a kind of a wild book for that kind of statement to be made because Numbers has been a book that puts Israel's misfortune and misdeeds on display time and time again. They can't accept God- ordained leadership. They they can't accept their place in the camp. There there's there's going to be the the sins with the the the women of Minion in in a few chapters from here. Yet God doesn't see it. What does that mean?

Well, God's transcendent knowledge of Israel and God's transcendent knowledge of us is not like our knowledge. Paul says it like this in Romans chap 11 speaking of the depths of the riches and of the wisdom in the knowledge of God. Says, "How uncarchable are his judgments, how inscrable are his ways, for who has known the mind of the Lord? or who has been his counselor? Well, that last question is really the clue to what's going on here. What's the point? Who has known the my lord? Who has been his counselor? In other words, the question asks, "Who has ever taught God anything?" Right? If you graduate with a degree from RTS, you'll get a diploma, you can put it on the wall, and someone walks in your office and they'll say, "Oh, you're an RTS graduate. Did you study with Mike Krueger? Did he teach you how to interpret the Greek New Testament? Did you study with Ligan Duncan? Did he teach you about the church fathers? Right? And that's what it that's what a degree that's what a diploma tells you. It tells people who taught you something. And Paul in Romans 11 says, "Who has taught God anything?" And the answer of course is no one. God's knowledge is independent. And therefore, what God sees in his people is not ultimately dependent on his people. It's dependent on the good

things that he has decreed for them. It's true of God's superminent power as well. We see this in verse 22. The Lord their God is with them and the shadow of the king is among them. God brings them out of Egypt and is for them like the horns of a wild ox. Deuteronomy 4 will say that God bringing out of Israel, bringing Israel out of Egypt is an unprecedented thing in the history of the world. It says, "Ask from the beginning of the world whether this has ever been done where God has gone down to one nation and brought another nation out of the middle of it." And the idea is this. The same God who brought the world into being out of nothing displayed his supereminent transcendent majestic power in bringing Israel out of Egypt. That's the kind of power that stands behind God's promises and God's purposes. When when Paul speaks about God's power in at the end of his prayer in Ephesians chapter 3, he he does a crazy thing with with with language and and and and it's it's it's well letter and New Testament professor talk about this later.

But he comes to the conclusion this prayer that that Christ would dwell in our hearts through faith that we would be filled with all the fullness of God. and and and he concludes his doxology says, "Now unto him who is able to do and in Greek it's like this latter stacking. He's able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think according to his power that works within us." In other words, he goes, "Go as far as you can in excess and then abundantly beyond that." That's the nature of God's super imminent power. That's what it means to say that God is like the horns of a wild ox when it comes to power.

But then this passage also says that the Lord is a God of transcendent goodness. And you see this in verse 24. Behold a people as a lioness it rises up and as a lion it lifts itself. It does not lie down until has devoured the prey and drunk the blood of the slain. Israel is a people that according to Balum's second oracle is destined for lionlike exaltation. They're destined for blessing and not cursing. And this is why nothing that Balum could say against them can thwart God's good purpose for Israel. Well, what is that good purpose according to this passage? It's fascinating in in in in the various ways that the Lord is described positively in verses 21 and and 22. You you've got a theme that is repeated throughout these two verses.

The Lord their God is with them. The shot of the king is among them and God is for them. What is the the transcendent goodness that that that God is going to do for Israel? What is it that that what's the reason we describe their exaltation as a lionlike exaltation? Because God brought Israel out of Egypt to bring them to himself, to be for them, to be with them. And this is why a shout of a king is in the camp. God's presence is Israel's highest good. And Israel's praise of God is Israel's highest dignity. Well, let me wrap things up. God and God alone, Boig says, is man's highest good. And scripture reveals an abundance of divine names to us so that we might know God as our highest good. That we might serve him as our highest good. That we might enjoy him as our highest good. Well, according to Numbers 23, we may expect God to keep all of his good

promises towards his people first and foremost because God is not like us. He's not a changeable human being. He's not a changeable creature. And that is very good news. But we can also expect God to keep his promises to us because we do know something of what he is like. He's a God of super imminent wisdom, power, and goodness. He is like the horns of a wild ox for us. But I want to conclude noting one little ambiguity in Numbers 23 that is just too delicious not to notice. Numbers 23 in verse 21 says the shout of a king is among them.

And this this passage it read commentators it's a question. The shot of a king is among them. Shot of a divine king. Is this Are we describing the Lord in the midst of the camp, the shot of a human king? Well, you read Numbers 23 and you're going to lean towards a shot of the divine king. We're talking about the Lord who's with them. The shot of the king is among them is there's their praise of the Lord their God. But you read the next chapter and you read the next oracle and you say, "Well, maybe it's a human king." Because in the third oracle in Numbers 24:17, it says, "A star shall come out of Jacob and a scepter shall rise out of Israel." And then it'll go on to use imagery from Genesis chapter 49 that all refers to the lion of the tribe of Judah, a human king, a human descendant of Jacob. So the shot of a king is among them, a divine king or a human king.

Well, I want to suggest you that at the end of the day, it's not an ambiguity we have to resolve. According to Numbers 23, God's people are invulnerable to cursing. God's people are destined for blessing because God is not a man. Because God is for them like the horns of a wild ox. And because at the fullness of time, without ceasing to be God, God became man. And in the next hour, we're going to talk about how the New Testament reveals God in Jesus Christ. And what we're going to see is in the man whom God became, we have a man who bears God's name. That singular name, the tetra grammaton that is held by God alone in the Old Testament. Jesus shares that name.

We have a man who shares all the divine attributes in their fullness. The fullness of divine wisdom, divine power, and divine goodness. We have in the God man, a man who ultimately came to confirm all of God's promises for God's people. Not only by becoming the lion of the tribe of Judah in whom we are exalted, but by becoming the animal that God did see in Genesis 22. You remember when Abram Abraham was ascending the mountain and Isaac said, "Where's the lamb?" What was Abraham's response? God will see the God man became the lamb of God to take away the sins of the world to confirm all of God's co covenant promises to his people to overrule all cursings that have been brought against God's people from the beginning to the end of the world to dethrone the accuser from the heavenly throne throne room and to exalt us lionlike in his presence to the glory of his great and

wonderful name. Let's pray. Our father in heaven, we are grateful that you are a promisekeeping God, but that you also reveal to us what are the grounds of your promisekeeping. the greatness of your name. Grant that we may trust your name, that we may set your hope, our hopes in your name, that we might proclaim your names to the end of the earth, that all your people may glorify you. And we ask it in Jesus name and for his sake. Amen. If you want to read or hear more of Dr. Swain's teaching, you can go to the RTS mobile app or you can go to rts.edu and find out what he's teaching. You can also go to scottrswain.com and get a lot of his writings there. Now, as Dr. Dr. Swain has already hinted the next way we're going to look at the issue of God is what did early Christians think about Jesus Christ. There was a very popular novel written about 25 years ago that claimed that early Christians really

didn't believe that Jesus was God. That was only something that was invented by the church many years later. Well, our next speaker is an expert not only in New Testament but in early Christianity. and he's going to talk to us about the identity of Jesus Christ and what the earliest Christians thought about the divinity of Christ. Uh you can hear more of his teaching at michaeljrugger.com and he is the president of Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte and the Sam Cpatter uh professor of New Testament and early Christianity. Welcome Dr. Krueger. Well, good evening everybody. Great to be with you. So excited to be part of this breakout session sponsored by Reform Theological Seminary. I hope you're enjoying yourself. And I want to thank my friend Dr. Scott Swain for that wonderful first hour together on this topic about who is God. and he took us through this journey through the divine names of the Old Testament and just gave a wonderful setup. Actually, the funny thing is we didn't actually coordinate the setup or the transition, but he laid it out quite perfectly because we're going to discover in this hour something you already know, which is that the God of the Old Testament is manifest, of course, in the person of Jesus. Now, you can see on the screen behind you there

are uh slides. I don't normally use slides on a on a presentation like this, but today I plan to because some there's some exciting things I want to show you about early christologology, but you can see the title of my session there in this talk is Jesus the God of the Bible. So Scott dressed who is the God of the Bible? And I'm going to ask is Jesus the God of the Bible? We're going to be exploring high christologology and early Christianity. So, yes, I'm going to be wing into this very complex, controversial longstanding scholarly debate about the identity of Jesus. Was he just a man? Was he a man who was so holy and special that he was exalted to some sort of semi- divine status? Or was he the God of the universe that actually pre-existed before all time and made all things? Scholars debate this. scholars question this and we're going to dive into that tonight in a very special way and I'm excited about this because this is not only an area of research of mine but it's also so central to the Christian life all of us here want to be reassured that when we talk about Jesus as Lord that he actually is Lord that he wasn't just sort of an invention of the early Christian movement okay so let me begin with a word of prayer and then we'll dive into this question about Christologology in early Christianity Lord, we do pause and pray in the name

of Christ. As we've just heard, he is Lord and he is God. He is the God man. And we'll discover more about that in the second hour. And Lord, we pray that you would bless us as we dive into this question of the divinity of Christ in the early church. We pray all this in his name. Amen. Okay. Okay, I want to begin tonight by taking you back for a moment to the first century. There we learn, of course, about one of the most remarkable men who ever lived. Before he was born, his mother was told by a messenger from heaven that her son would be no mere man, but the very son of God. He would be divine. And in his adult years, this man lived a remarkable life. He went from village to village preaching his message to the people, performed amazing miracles. He healed the sick. He casted out demons, even raised the dead. And he had a band of disciples that gathered around him as his ministry grew and his popularity expanded. And eventually, he caught the eye of the governing authorities. And they began to worry about his impact. After all, he was a man who presented himself as divine.

Even his disciples began to think that he was divine. So eventually this man was arrested and he was put on trial and he was put to death. And after he was put to death, this man made an appearance to his disciples. And he made such an appearance that his disciples were absolutely convinced that he was risen from the dead. And not just risen from the dead, but glorified, ascended on high to the holy places. And that man's name was Appalonius of Tyiana. That's right. Appalonius of Tyana. Now, you probably never heard of the name of Appalonius of Tyiana. Even if I read off all the descriptions about this man I described, I imagine in your mind you're thinking to yourself, "Well, surely this is an RTS professor. Surely he's describing the person of Jesus Christ. Surely the only person in the ancient world that met these criteria was Jesus of Nazareth." But what scholars will point out is that Jesus was not the only person who ever was seen as divine.

In fact, they will point out that there are other people in the ancient world that were looked at as divine in some sense whose followers begin to think that in some sense they were the very son of God. And so you can imagine what they do with stories like Appalonius of Tyiana. They say, "Oh, you Christians think that Jesus is God." Well, yeah. Well, there were lots of gods in the ancient world. You Christians think Jesus was God. Well, they thought Appalonius of Tyiana was God. And so what Jesus is is just another part of this pantheon of Greor Roman gods. He's not really the god of the universe. He's someone who was elevated to some sort of semi- divine status by his followers. No different than Appalonius of Tyiana. Now when I was an undergraduate at UNC Chapel Hill a number of years ago, I heard exactly that narrative. And scholars have not changed that narrative for the last 30 years. In fact, what they will say about Jesus is basically something like this. That Jesus himself was just an ordinary man. He was just an prophet in the ancient world who was considered by his followers to be holy and special. In fact, they considered him so special, they figured that he had accomplished so many things in his life that God must have exalted him to some sort of divine status. So, he started off as a man, but then later Christians began to believe that he was exalted to some status of semi- divinity.

And then scholars take the narrative further. They argue that Jesus by his later followers was regarded not just as someone who was exalted to some sort of semi- divinity, but his later followers began to reason themselves, well, wait a second, if he was exalted to God, maybe he was always God. And so some of the later followers of Jesus began to think that maybe he was a pre-existent God that had always been like that from the dawn of time and was in the v and was the very creator of the universe. So here's what I want you to see about the scholarly paradigm. you'll hear in the world out there. They view that the development of ideas about the person of Jesus was progressive. It changed over time. The earliest followers thought Jesus was merely a man. Then later, they thought he must be semi- divine, exalted to divine status. And only later, usually a lot later, did he ever take on the status that you and I believe he has now. But that was a later development. At the earliest phases, he's just an ordinary man like everyone else. just an ordinary man like Appalonius of Tyiana. But is that true? Is it true that the earliest Christologology was low and it was only later that Christologology was high and that Jesus started off being viewed by his followers as merely human and only later maybe at the council of Nika viewed as fully divine. You can imagine that's exactly the narrative I want to challenge tonight in our time together.

So here's how we're going to do it. We're going to just break this down into two parts. I want to look first at what the New Testament has to say and find out whether it presents Jesus as starting off as merely human and progressing only later to a more divine status. And then I want to talk about what the early Christians had to say particularly in the second century and whether that matches with what the earliest Christians said in this New Testament time period. So that is our plan and let's dive in and we'll start with this very first Roman numeral. Jesus as God in the New Testament. Now I imagine if I had a little chance to take a pop quiz today and I had a chance to ask each of you, hey, if you're talking to your non-Christian neighbor about whether Jesus is God and you wanted to prove that he was viewed and viewed himself particularly as God and not just a semi-od, but the God of the universe, where would you turn? I imagine I could guess pretty quickly where you might go. Almost all of us, including myself, would naturally turn probably to the Gospel of John. You might think maybe John 1:1, the very first verse in John is the best place to start. In the beginning was the word.

The word was with God. The word was God. How do you get a more plain statement than that? Maybe we should just stop and pray right now. Our work is done. Right? Or if you wanted to go a little further, John 8:58, when Jesus is confronted by the Jewish leaders in that place, he makes an amazing declaration before Abraham was born. I am even invokes a form of the divine name. Surely that proves that Jesus is fully God and even the God of the Old Testament. Or maybe you can go to John 10:30 where Jesus makes the statement which is pretty remarkable. I and the father are one. And that statement was understood so plainly to refer to the full divinity of Jesus that the fellow Jews were looking for stones to stone him. So in some sense we could say, well Dr. Krueger, what what's the conversation about? This seems so obvious, but I think you might know what the conversation about is about. Scholars will look at the Gospel of John and say, "Well, of course John says that." But John was the last gospel written. In fact, not only was it the last gospel written, it was written always to the end of the first century.

And by then, of course, Christology had developed, but if you go back to the earliest gospel, say the Gospel of Mark, Jesus presented in a very different way. They'll argue. They'll say he was presented as a mere man. So they're not persuaded at all that the Gospel of John proves our case. In fact, they think it proves their case. They think it proves that Jesus started off as merely man and then later in the Gospel of John now is fully divine. So how are we going to crack this particular puzzle? What can we do? Now you might think, well, let's go into the Gospel of John or sorry, let's go in the Gospel of Mark and prove that Jesus is divine from the Gospel of Mark. And by the way, that can be done and done uh has been done by many scholars and I've actually written on that myself. But I actually have a different route I want to take with you in our time together tonight. I want you to see that the earliest statements about Jesus's divinity go back even further than Mark. So if John was dated in the '9s and let's say Mark is dated in the 60s and we could prove Jesus's divinity from the Gospel of Mark, which I think we can. Do we have evidence even earlier than that? And we do. Do you realize that our earliest evidence for the full highest divinity of Jesus predates the Gospel of Mark because it comes from a person by the name of Paul of Tarsus? The Apostle Paul has our earliest statements on the christologology of the early Christian movement and they are as high as they possibly can be. Here's the thing that's remarkable.

We're going to only look at two passages in Paul in this first point and they're two passages you already know. And here's the thing you may not know. In both of these passages, scholars believe that Paul actually is recording there and passing down their inherited tradition that he got from an earlier source. In other words, what Paul is saying in these passages, Christians had already believed before Paul. And as you'll discover, both of these passages come from somewhere in the 50s of the first century. But if Paul is using earlier sources, that means his views of Jesus come from the 40s of the first century, which is exactly what we're going to see. So what are these two passages? Let's start with the first one here. And this is one, you know, Philippians 2, verses 5 through 11. When I was a student at the University of North Carolina years ago, the guys in my house that I used to live with decided that we would memorize Philippians chapter 2. And certainly that has stuck with me over the years. In Philippians chapter 2 is a very famous passage about Jesus. This section of verses 5-11 is the core of it. This was written probably somewhere in the late 50s of the first century by Paul. And as I said also predates Paul because almost every scholar thinks this this passage is probably one of our earliest Christian hymns. Probably what we would consider one of our earliest Christian creeds. I know you know it, but I'll read it for us. You can follow it along on the screen.

Paul writes, "Have this mind among yourself which is yours in Christ Jesus." And this is where he describes Jesus who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. So at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Now, there's so much in that passage to talk about. There's a lot I won't talk about, but let me make a few quick observations on this passage. First, I want you to notice the kind of divinity in view here. Is this the kind of divinity where Jesus starts off as a man and then later gets exalted to God status? No. You read the passage. Actually, the opposite is ina is the case. He is actually already God and takes the form of a servant. In fact, takes on human form. Did you catch that language in verse 7 and in verse 8?

In other words, the order is the opposite of what the scholars are saying. They're saying that Jesus was a man who later became God. But Philippians 2 says that Paul views Jesus as originally God who became man. It's the exact opposite of what the critics claim. Here's a second observation in this passage that's remarkable and this often gets overlooked and that is the focus on worshiping Christ. Worshiping Christ. You may not know it, but if you were to walk up to a first century monotheistic Jew, which Paul was, and you were to ask a first century monotheistic Jew, hey, what what characteristics make God God? I mean, how do I know God when I meet God? What is the thing that sets God apart and distinctive? A first century monotheistic Jew would mention two things that make God God. Number one, he's the creator of all things. He made the world. He himself is not made. We'll come back to that later. But here's the second thing a monotheistic Jew would say. How do I know God is God? Because he's the only one you worship. Do you realize for monotheistic Jews, monotheism wasn't often what we think it was? We tend to think that monotheism is merely about the number of gods that there are. And by the way, that is part of the issue. Christians and Jews of course believe there's only one God. Obviously, that's the case. But it's not just about the number of gods that there are. For the early Christians and early Jews, the key thing about monotheism is that that's the only God you worship because he's the only God and

the only true God. In other words, monotheism at its core is about worship. And you have to understand this. Jews and Christians were very, very picky about making sure you worship no one but the one true God. Notice in this passage, what does Paul say about Jesus? He is worshiped. You don't get a higher view of God as a monotheistic Jew than this. This is not some semi- divine God. This is not some angelic being. This is not someone in the pantheon of gods. This is the kind of worship that you give Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament only. Did you notice the language here about the worship of Jesus that every knee should bow and every tongue confessed? Do you know that comes from the book of Isaiah? Isaiah 45:23. God of the Old Testament himself, Yahweh speaks. Here's what Yahweh says in Isaiah 45:23. To me, every knee shall bow and every tongue declare. And then notice what Paul says about Jesus. Every knee shall bow and every tongue declare. Make no mistake about it. Paul who's monotheistic and a Jew says, "Yeah, I'm not going to worship anyone other than God, but I am going to worship Jesus because he is that one true God." Here's the last thing I'll mention on Philippians 2, and that is the very uh uh name of Jesus. And this is the thing that Scott mentioned in his first session with us. I thought set this up so well because he talks about

the names of God. You'll notice in verse 9 here says, "Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name." What is the name that is above every name? Well, people assume that it's always the name of Jesus. And certainly that's mentioned here, but really the context, most scholars think that the name above every name that Jesus bears is the name Yahweh. It's God's covenantal name. that the unique name of God is implicitly granted to Jesus. Here, by the way, that would never be said of Appalonius of Tyiana. Appalonius of Tiana would never be considered someone that a monotheistic Jew would regard as the one true god of the universe. And remember, Philippians 2 written probably in the late 50s is earlier tradition that Paul's inherited, which takes us back even to the 40s. All right, let's look at a second passage here, which is a passage that you may be familiar with, although much less popular than Philippians 2, and that's in 1 Corinthians 8. What's interesting about this particular passage about the divinity of Jesus, it was written by Paul around 51 AD, the book of 1 Corinthians, and as I said, this looks like inherited tradition that goes back to the 40s also. But this gets overlooked in christoologgical discussions. Why? because it's tucked away in this section on meat sacrificed to idols. And if you've ever read these passages on food sacrificed to idols, you probably do what lots of us do. We kind of yawn and think, "Wow, that was a

controversy that was back then." And there's not much about that now. And I think I'll just skip this part. And what you don't realize is that embedded within this section about food sacrificed to idols is one of the highest christoologgical statements in the entire New Testament. Let me read it for us. Paul writes starting in verse four here, "Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that an idol has no real existence, and that there's no God but one. For although there may be socalled gods in heaven or on earth, and indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom all things from whom are all things or for whom we exist and one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things and through whom we exist. Now again, this little passage has so many little fascinating pieces to it. Let me just make a few observations here. First, I want you to notice that this entire passage is essentially about monotheism. Paul is saying, "Yeah, yeah, these this food are sacrificed to idols, and yeah, they're they're sacrificed to these gods." And and you can see Paul with his finger quotes in the air, but they're not really gods. They're effectively idols. Why are they idols?

Because there's only one true God. So Paul in this passage makes a couple very interesting observations. First, he says, "These gods are not real because they're idols." And then he affirms the oneness of the one true God. What does that mean? That means for Paul, there's no category for a semi- divine status of anyone here. Remember what scholars are going to say? They're going to say, "Well, the earliest Christians thought that Jesus was a semi- divine being like Appalonius of Tyiana." But if you're a monotheistic Jew, there's no category for a half God. There's no category for a semi- divine being. There's God and there's only one of them and everything else is an idol and a false god. So there's no category that Paul has to exalt Jesus to except for the full divinity that he knows as a monotheistic Jew. But here's the second thing about this passage and this is where things get absolutely fascinating and maybe you picked up on it. Do you realize that in this passage, Paul takes the core monotheistic creed of Judaism in Deuteronomy 6 and applies it to Jesus. If you don't know about this creed in Deuteronomy 6, you've heard it before. It's known as the Schma. And the reason it's called the Schma is because the first Hebrew word in the statement is Schma, which means here. Here, O Israel, the Lord is our God. The Lord is one. Deuteronomy 6:4. Actually, in my office at Reformed Theological Seminary, I have a a small little fireplace in my office. And on the mantle of my office,

I have engraved in Hebrew, reading from right to left the schma. Every day when I walk in to work, I look on there, Schma, Israel, Adon, uh, Adonai, Elohu, Adoni, Ekad. Here, O Israel, the Lord is our God. The Lord is one. It's the core monotheistic creedle statement of every Jew. It affirms that there's only one God and his name is Yahweh the Lord. But you notice what Paul does here. He takes that schma, that orthodox monotheistic creed, and he wraps it around the person of Jesus. Look what he says here again. He says, "There is one God, the father, from whom are all things and one Lord, Jesus Christ." The original schma has the phrase one God and one lord. And now Paul takes that original phrase of one God and one lord and ref refers to the father with the one God and to Jesus with the one lord. There is no more stunning moment in early Christology than to recognize that Paul a monotheistic Jew himself takes the schma and applies it to Christ. You can't get any higher than that. In fact, there's a paradox here. I don't know if you picked up on it. The paradox is that Paul uses the term one twice. I'm just going to say that again.

Paul uses the term one twice. One God and one Lord. You can imagine someone in the back of the class raising their hand. Sorry, Paul. I'm no mathematical genius here, but I thought you said there was one God, but now you just mentioned two persons, the Father and the Son. And Paul would be like, "Yep, that's exactly what I did." Because in that one God's identity is the father and the son. And you see the beginnings of full trinitarian theology in 51 AD, but really in the 40s of AD, long before a single gospel has even been written. And who is saying this? Paul, a monotheistic Jew. The final thing to note here about 1 Corinthians 8 is what I said a moment ago. Remember when I said that for any any ancient Jew, what are the things that make God God? Well, you only worship God. That's one of the things that's his distinctive quality. The other thing is is that he's the creator of all things. So on top of invoking the schma, what does Paul do? He calls Jesus creator. Look at the very last phrase there. One Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things and through whom we exist. In the ancient world of first century Judaism, you have a ledger in front of you. God monotheistically is on one side and everything he made is on the other side. You have the creator and the creature. Which side of the ledger does Jesus fall on? According to Paul on

the God side. And for Paul, this is not a new God. It's not a second God. It's not adding him to the pantheon of gods. He's adding him. He's considering Jesus in a manifestation of the one true God of Israel. all before the 50s of the first century. What does that mean? Here's what that means before we leave this first point. That means all the hubbhub of the New Testament being this evolutionary progressive christologology that culminates in the gospel of John's highristologology is completely flipped. Yes, the gospel of John has a high christologology in 90 AD, but guess what? Paul has the same exact christologology in 50 AD. And he had it even before that because it was inherited before that in the 40s of the AD and Jesus died in the 30s of of the first century. Is that an example of evolutionary uh Christologology? No. What that tells us is that as far back as we can see in any Christian source, Jesus is fully God in every way imaginable. He's not an angel. He's not a half god. He's not a semi-od. He's not someone who people think is just super special, but he's the very God of the universe. Now, here's what we want to do now. We want to ask, well, maybe we're misunderstanding these passages. How do we know we're reading this rightly?

Well, here's what we're going to do to test it. We're going to look at second century sources for a moment. We're going to ask, well, did Christians in the early church after the New Testament share this same high view of Jesus? To put it another way, what would happen if we read these New Testament texts like we're reading them and concluded that Jesus was viewed as fully divine and then we got to the second century and we discovered that the earliest Christians viewed him as just an ordinary man. Well, at that point, we might think, oh, well, there's something to miss there and maybe we've misread the New Testament. But as you might imagine, what we're going to discover is that exactly what Paul said, exactly what John said, and exactly what early Christians have said from the very beginning is exactly what the second century Christians continue to affirm. So, let's look at a few examples here as Jesus as God in the second century. By the way, I have a book on second century Christianity that I tackle some of these issues in. It's called Christianity at the Crossroads: How the Second Century Shaped the Future of the Church. And you can dive into some more of these issues there where I tackle some early christoologgical debates. And there's so much that can be said about the second century. So how do I want to tackle this? Let me just mention a few things about the second century that I want to point out for you that shows that this very high view of Jesus just simply continued on in the same trajectory.

Here's the first observation about the second century. People continued to worship Jesus and him alone. You know what's interesting about christologology debates is there's lots of different ways to discover christologology. Lots of different ways to think about uh christoologgical debates. You can think about proving Jesus's divinity by what Jesus says about himself or you can prove Jesus's divinity by what Jesus what people say about Jesus or you can prove Jesus's divinity by the miracles he does or whatever happens to be. But here's a way to talk about proving people's belief about the divinity of Jesus. Did they worship him? Did they worship him as fully and completely God? And here's what we realize about our sources in the second century is there's so many that do this. I just went back through these in preparation for our lecture tonight and there's so many. I I just started making a list of the sources because there's so many. Dedicay talks about the worship of Jesus. First Clement talks about the worship of Jesus. Ignatius martyrdom of Polycop, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus. Almost every second century source talks about the worship of Jesus. But here's a source you probably don't expect. Do you realize that even non-Christian sources talked about Christians worshiping Jesus? Let me mention one for you that's particularly fascinating. And here's where I think you can see it on the screen if it pops up. This is a quote from someone by the name of Plenny the Younger. I know you probably don't know anything about Plenny the Younger, but

he was a pagan emperor in Bethnia in the second century. And as an emperor, he was a non-Christian. And one of the things that Plenty began to observe in his district was that Christians were springing up almost like they were coming out of the ground. In fact, so popular were Christians in his in his district that he began to describe them as a as a contagion as like a virus or a disease that he couldn't control. And so here's what Plenny did. He wrote a letter to the emperor. Remember, he's just a governor. He wrote a letter to the emperor, Trajan. And in this letter, he complains about the Christians. In fact, it's a very long, rambly letter. And one of the things he says, he says, "I'm a little worried about Christian, what Christians are doing in their secret meetings. They're getting together in secret, and we're worried about what they're doing in there." And by the way, you probably know that in the ancient world, it was common for people to have rumors about what Christians did in their in their secret meetings. There was discussions that maybe uh these were sexually promiscuous meetings because there were both men and women there which was unusual in the ancient world. Some people hypothesized that maybe there was cannibalism going on in these secret meetings probably because they heard things about eating the flesh and blood of Jesus. And so what does Plenny do to find out what Christians are doing in these secret meetings? He finds a couple Christians to torture.

In fact, he finds two female Christians and he tortures them to find out what's going on in their secret meetings. And when he writes to Emperor Trajan, he says, "Well, I discovered what's going on in these secret meetings and actually it's not at all nefarious." Sorry, two girls I tortured. Um, but looks like their meetings are actually fairly uh ordinary. So, what did Plenny discover Christians do in their meetings? Well, this is the quote that you see on your screen. Here's what he discovers after torturing two Christians. Here's what Christians are busy doing. He he writes, "On an appointed day, Christians rise before daybreak and sing a hymn to Christ as God and bind themselves to oath, not for the commission of any crime." And at the conclusion of their ceremony, it was their custom to depart and meet again to take food. Here's one of the remarkable things about Plenty is he recognizes that what Christians are doing these meetings is they're worshiping Jesus. and they're worshiping Jesus as God. And then do you realize that in these secret meetings he also says, and by the way, these aren't nefarious meetings where they're plotting the demise of the Roman Empire.

Look at the language here. They're actually binding themselves to oath not to commit any crime. In other words, these Christians are pursuing righteousness, not wickedness. And they're worshiping Jesus, and they come back to take food, which is no doubt a reference to the Lord's Supper. Here's an amazing thing you find in the early Christian movement is that Christians were busy doing lots of things and they were busy doing amazingly good deeds. They were binding themselves to oaths to not commit crimes and they were working to bless the Roman Empire all around them. But the thing that occupied Christians more than anything was worship. They worshiped Jesus. And they worshiped Jesus not as a semi- divine being, not as just an exalted philosopher or teacher or prophet. They worshiped him as Lord and as the God of the universe. In fact, if we had time, we don't, but if we had time, we could talk about some of our early Christian hemps. There's all kinds of studies that have been done on the way people worship Christ in the early centuries, but this is one of the tidbits I wanted to share with you is how central worship was to the early Christian movement. Okay, that's the first thing I want you to see is just this sample from the second century. Let me mention a second sample from the second century. And this is an epistle that you've probably never heard of. There's a book called the epistle to Diagnus. The epistle to Diagnus is part of a group of writings called the Apostolic Fathers. because we don't actually know who the author was, but he

writes to this person by the name of Diagnus. And he's clearly a Christian leader in the second century. And in this letter, the epistle to Dionus, he talks a lot about Jesus. And when he talks a lot about Jesus, he makes some of the most remarkable christoologgical statements that we find in all of early Christianity. Let me show you this quote. Now, when you look at that quote, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Mike, it's 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday of the second day of the conference, and you put up a single line quote like this, and you expect me to track with this?" Believe it or not, I did. Um, but I think you can track with this, and there's a lot here that's amazing. Try your best to follow along. I know you've had a long day, just like we all have. But this statement about Jesus, I think, is one of the most phenomenal and overlooked in the early Christian movement. And this is middle 2 century. Here's what the epistle says about uh Jesus. He writes, "But the truly all powerful God himself, creator of all and invisible, set up and established in their Christians hearts the truth and the holy word from heaven which cannot be comprehended by humans."

And then he goes on to say this. He did all this, but he sent who did he send to do all this? He sent the craftsman. He sent the craftsman and maker of all things himself. By whom he created the heavens. By whom he encloses the sea within its own boundaries. By whom from whom the sun was appointed to guard the courses that runs during the day and whom the moon obeys when he commands it to shine at night. Whom the stars obey by following the course of the moon. By whom all things are set in order and arranged and put into subjection. And at the very end of all this, he says, "So then, uh, did he God, as one might suppose, send him his son to rule in tyranny and fear?" Not at all. But he sent him as God, as human to human, so he might bring salvation. Now, I know not all that quote was on the board in front of you, but here's the thing I want you to see about this epistle to Diagnosis is he makes it clear that when God sent Jesus, God sent God. He didn't just send an angel. He didn't just send a creature. He sent the very Lord of the universe. In other words, this is not the kind of divinity where Jesus gets exalted to be God.

Rather is the kind of divinity in fact that he had already before he became human. In other words, what epistle to Diagnus does is exactly what Philippians 2 does and exactly what 1 Corinthians 8 does. Okay, that brings me to my final little tidbit from the second century. And this one's going to be fun. Well, at least it's going to be fun for me because I think this is fascinating. And I hope it's fascinating for you because I think it's going to be another uh uh way to dip your toe into the world of early Christianity, perhaps in a way you didn't expect. And here's the way this is going to go. One of the ways we see how the early Christians viewed the divinity of Jesus is not just statements from the church fathers, which I've already given you, and pictures of how early Christians did worship, but also the way early Christian scribes treated the name of Jesus. One of the things you may not realize, but Scott, Dr. Swain did mention it in his first lecture if you caught it, that Old Testament scribes during the era of Judaism actually did something to the divine name in the Old Testament manuscripts to set it apart as special.

The divine name Yahweh in Old Testament manuscripts was known as the tetetrogrammaton, which is the four-letter Hebrew name for Jehovah or Yahweh or God. So holy, so special, so distinctive was that divine name in Old Testament manuscripts that scribe paid honor to the name. And how did they do this? How did they show devotion and honor to the divine name in Old Testament manuscripts? They did something in the text itself to set the name apart. In the Old Testament, how did they do this? Well, usually they'd write the the the name of God in different types of Hebrew letters called PaleoHebrew. Sometimes they would do different things with the vow pointing to indicate a different pronunciation. Whatever it might be, here's what I want you to see. Judaism already set a precedent that when you come across God's name, you abbreviate it or set it apart in a way that shows it honor and devotion and reverence. So here's what we can wonder. Did Christians do that? When we look at early Christian manuscripts, did they ever do anything with the name of Jesus and God that set it apart in a special way that showed that they viewed Jesus as divine? The answer is absolutely yes. And this is a practice known as the nomen of sacra.

The nomen of sacra is a reference to a latin phrase that just simply means sacred names. And one of the things that we find in early Christian manuscripts is that there were four names that early Christian scribes set apart with honor and reverence. And here's were the four names. God, Lord, Jesus, and Christ. These were the four words that early Christians set aside. God, Lord, Jesus Christ or in the Greek, theos, curios, Yesus, Christos. How would they set apart these four names in the manuscripts? They would write the first letter and the last letter of the name only and put a horizontal line over the top. This is the way they formed the nomen sacra and it highlighted the specialty of these divine names. On the screen in front of you is a manuscript known as Paparus 66. This is a second century copy of the Gospel of John. Doesn't really matter what text this is because what's interesting about the nomen of Sakura is they occur in every single Christian manuscript we can find. So ubiquitous are these abbreviations that as far back as we look, they're there. As far wide as we look, they're there. We can hardly find a Christian manuscript that doesn't have these abbreviations. Even Christian letters have these abbreviations. In fact, you know, a doc document was Christian by virtue of these abbreviations. And what are the abbreviations? They're God, Lord, and Jesus Christ. In the screen in front of

you, I give you an example of just two of those. And I'll highlight it a little closer. On the left of your screen is fu and the genative with a line over the top. And on the right is Yesus, yoda sigma with a line over the top. This is a way of abbreviating God and Jesus. Now, why does this matter so much? Because I want you to notice the four names. The first two are God and Lord. Where does that come from? It comes from the Schma. God and Lord is a reference right out of Deuteronomy 6, which is the one God of Israel. And the other two names, Jesus and Christ. All of these names together are set apart and honored with reverence and devotion by the early Christian scribes showing that Jesus and Christ were viewed on the same level as God and Lord. What does that mean? And that means when you look at the earliest Christian movement, particularly the scribal culture, already embedded within it was a devotion and reverence and honor to the divine name, which included Jesus, in the exact same way they would have honored the divine name in the Old Testament, which was Yahweh. And to do it, they take two words from the Schma, God and Lord, and they match them with the the most popular names for Jesus, which are Jesus and Christ.

Now, you may wonder, okay, Dr. Krueger, so these scribes did this, but how far back did these scribal abbreviations go? Well, as I've already indicated, they are everywhere in our earliest Christian sources. They're all over our sources in the second century and beyond. But here's the amazing thing. Scholars have argued, and one of those main ones who've made this argument is my former doctrinal adviser, Larry Gutado, has made the argument that this scribal convention goes back as early as the 70s of the first century. in our earliest Christian manuscripts, scribes, even in the first century. We're not even talking about the first century anymore. We've already talked about that. We're now in the second century, but we can even take this all the way back in the first century. And we learn very quickly that in the first century, scribes are already setting Christ as Lord and God, just like the God of the Old Testament. Now, there's so much more I wish we had time to share, but let me sort of draw this to a close about early Christology. Remember the paradigm that we're dealing with here.

It's a paradigm that is all over the academy, all over the internet. It's the idea that Jesus starts off as merely human. Over time, people begin to think, well, maybe he's so special, we should think of him as exalted to some some sort of semi- divine status like Appalonius of Tyiana. And then later, only later, does he finally get full divine status. Probably by the time you reach the Gospel of John. But it's all progressive. It's all evolutionary. And if you go back to the earliest centuries, Jesus was just a man. But we've challenged that. In fact, we've challenged that by showing that you don't need the Gospel of John to see that Jesus is divine, although he's obviously divine there. You don't even need the Gospel of Mark to show that Jesus is divine, even though I would argue he's divine there. Paul himself shows that Jesus is divine as you could possibly get by the 50s of the first century and uses sources even earlier than him well into the 40s of the first century which completely shoots down any idea that Jesus is being modeled after Greco Roman deities. Jesus's divinity is modeled after the God of the Old Testament. He's being ma modeled after the God of the Bible, which means that Jesus is the divine Lord and creator of all things. And as we celebrate that tonight, both Scott's message and this message I've just given you on Jesus as fully divine, I think it's fitting that

we do that in the year 2025. Because as we do that in the year 2025, it celebrates the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nika. And of course, you know, because you've probably recited it many times in your churches. In 3:25 AD, they gathered together to form the greatest christoologgical creed the church has ever made. But here's the thing I want you to see about that creed. And the next time you recite it, remember this is that what the church articulated in 325 AD was not a new idea. It was not something that they developed. It was not something that they created. They were not innovators. They were excavators. They uncovered what was always true of the church from the very beginning. And what was always true of the church from the very beginning? This is what was true of the church from the very beginning. The church with one voice said this. I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, cosubstantial with the Father, and through him all things were made. Amen.

Let me pray for us. Lord, we rejoice in that great Nyian creed. But Lord, we know that that Nyian creed is merely the result of what you already revealed about yourself in your word. And what you already revealed about yourself in your word was already true from eternity past. That Jesus our Lord is the one true God from beginning of time, the maker of all things and our Lord and Savior. We rejoice in that tonight. We celebrate that tonight and we pray in his great name about that tonight. Amen. Thanks, Mike. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. And thank you, Scott, for those wonderful presentations. RTS has been delighted to host you tonight. Thank you for being here. rts.edu if you'd like to follow up on other resources. The Lord bless you and have a good evening and a good conference day tomorrow. Good evening.

[Music]