0:00 all
0:01 right
0:03 so how the debate is going to go uh the
0:07 title of the debate is "Did Jesus claim
0:08 to be God?" We're going to have opening
0:10 statements we're going to have rebuttals
0:13 we're going to have counter rebuttals
0:14 there will be clocks for the speakers to
0:16 see you guys won't see them and then uh
0:18 after all of that we're going to move
0:19 the the table to the middle and we're
0:21 going to do open dialogue and then after
0:24 that we're going to do some Q&A just
0:27 like we've been doing the past couple
0:28 nights ray Rock with the microphone do
0:30 not grab his microphone okay he's real
0:33 serious about it and so this is gonna
0:34 we're gonna go for I'd say at least two
0:36 hours tonight okay it's gonna be a fun
0:40 night and um we're going to have both
0:43 gentlemen give opening statements uh 20
0:47 minute openings okay and it's going to
0:49 be fun so uh let me introduce our
0:52 speakers for the night our debaters for
0:56 the night
0:58 first up who will be arguing the
1:00 affirmative ladies and gentlemen warm
1:03 round of applause for David Wood
1:13 oh yeah
1:16 the podium is right here
1:26 david Wood ladies and gentlemen
1:33 all right and all the way from
1:38 London England um I've I've had a blast
1:41 getting to know this brother for the
1:42 past couple days it's been super fun and
1:45 he's probably going to hate me for
1:46 saying this but he actually joined us on
1:47 his birthday weekend
1:51 all right
1:53 without any further ado ladies and
1:55 gentlemen warm round of applause for
1:57 Alex O' connor
2:13 all right oh yeah we're good let's You
2:15 ready tell us when you're ready so we
2:16 can start the clock i'm ready now
2:23 oh you started okay well
2:26 good evening good evening what a
2:29 beautiful audience
2:33 you're all breathtaking this is how you
2:35 uh charm a crowd in America son
2:39 like to thank uh Rustlan for arranging
2:42 this conference and this debates one of
2:47 many awesome debates taking place in
2:49 2025 pitting heroes against
2:53 villains i won't say who the villain is
2:56 in this debate i'll let all you lovely
2:58 Christians judge that for
2:59 yourselves based entirely on our
3:04 accents and speaking of British accents
3:06 I'd like to thank Alex for finally
3:10 showing
3:16 up you got to give me some wiggle room
3:19 on time
3:23 Rosean or you can all quit cheering for
3:26 Alex all right well I'd like to thank
3:28 Alex for finally showing up i was a
3:30 month and a half late but he finally
3:31 showed
3:32 up i'm teasing by the way uh people have
3:35 no clue how dangerous debatecon is
3:37 actually with the lineup they had and
3:39 the number uh and the volume of death
3:41 threats against uh multiple speakers so
3:44 uh plus he lives in what is rapidly
3:46 becoming the Sharia compliant hell hole
3:48 of the universe so good to take
3:50 precautions we don't want to lose Alex
3:53 by the way are you guys starting to miss
3:55 Jesus over there in the UK seems like
3:56 you should be missing Jesus by now
4:01 speaking of Jesus did Jesus claim to be
4:03 God
4:05 yes yes he did and I'm sure uh many of
4:07 you have some verses going through your
4:09 heads right
4:10 now however I'm convinced that the
4:14 primary way Jesus claimed to be God and
4:17 that his followers claimed he's God uh
4:19 gets overlooked by most Christians and
4:21 non-Christians because we've lost touch
4:24 with first century Jewish culture and we
4:27 just tend to uh not notice things
4:31 let me give you an example of what I'm
4:32 talking
4:33 about here's a quote from Daniel Boyerin
4:36 in his book The Jewish Gospels the story
4:38 of Jesus Christ the story of the Jewish
4:40 Christ he says "Most if not all of the
4:43 ideas and practices of the Jesus
4:45 movement of the first century and the
4:47 beginning of the second century and even
4:48 later can be safely understood as part
4:51 of the ideas and practices that we
4:53 understand to be the Judaism of the
4:55 period
4:58 the ideas of trinity and incarnation or
5:00 certainly the germs of those ideas were
5:02 already present among Jewish believers
5:04 well before Jesus came on the scene to
5:06 incarnate in himself as it were those
5:09 theological notions and take up his
5:11 messianic calling so the ideas were
5:13 there paving the way for Jesus who
5:16 embodied them now who's Daniel Boyerin
5:20 to say that Christian ideas like the
5:23 trinity and the incarnation were already
5:26 present in some form in first century
5:28 Judaism is he a Christian apologist no
5:32 he's uh he's a scholar of rabbitic
5:35 Judaism he's a Talmud scholar he points
5:37 out that a lot of the beliefs we now
5:39 think of as distinctively Christian
5:41 actually weren't the earliest Christian
5:44 church was embedded in first century
5:46 Jewish culture but as Christianity
5:49 spread it became dominated by gentile
5:52 Christians who tended to lose touch with
5:54 the Jewish framework and something was
5:57 happening within Judaism as well as
6:00 Jewish orthodoxy was forming in the
6:02 second century the rabbis tended to weed
6:04 out certain ideas that had once been
6:06 familiar in Judaism but which had been
6:09 adopted by Christians the rabbis wanted
6:12 to clearly distinguish Judaism from
6:14 Christianity and some of the ideas that
6:16 were present in first century Judaism
6:18 were soon deemed
6:20 heretical so Christians lost touch with
6:22 the Jewish framework of early
6:24 Christianity and Jews abandoned some of
6:26 the Jewish ideas that became part of
6:28 Christianity and the result is that
6:30 today it's easy for us to miss a few
6:33 things when we're reading the Bible
6:35 claims that would have been uh
6:37 understood by listeners at the time
6:38 might not be understood by us here in my
6:41 opening statement I'm going to briefly
6:43 discuss the forgotten Jewish idea that's
6:46 most relevant for understanding how
6:47 Jesus claimed to be God and then I'll
6:49 show how this forgotten Jewish idea
6:51 illuminates various passages in the New
6:54 Testament some of you are familiar with
6:57 the early Jewish belief in the two
7:00 powers in heaven ellen Seagull the
7:02 Jewish scholar drew attention to this in
7:04 his 1977 book Two Powers in Heaven and
7:08 lots of people especially Christians
7:10 have been interested in the topic ever
7:11 since here's the idea in a nutshell the
7:14 Old Testament is very clear that there's
7:17 one true
7:19 God but there are numerous passages in
7:22 the Old Testament where we see two
7:24 divine figures i'll give a few quick
7:26 examples there are tons of these
7:29 sometimes God seems to be in two
7:31 different places doing two different
7:33 things common example is the story of
7:35 Sodom and
7:36 Gomorrah the Lord appears to Abraham and
7:40 tells him that he's going down to Sodom
7:42 and Gomorrah to see firsthand how bad
7:44 the people are so he goes down to Sodom
7:46 and Gomorrah and what happens genesis
7:49 19:24 then the Lord rained on Sodom and
7:52 Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord
7:55 out of heaven the Lord on earth rained
7:58 down fire from
8:01 the from the Lord out of heaven this
8:03 thing reboot every couple minutes uh it
8:05 sounds like there are two lords here
8:08 watch what happens in Zechariah 2 pay
8:10 attention or you'll miss it come Zion
8:14 escape you who live in daughter Babylon
8:17 for this is what the Lord Almighty says
8:20 who's speaking the Lord Almighty and he
8:24 says "After the glorious one has sent me
8:28 the Lord was sent by the glorious one
8:31 against the nations that have plundered
8:33 you for whoever touches you touches the
8:35 apple of his eye I will surely raise my
8:37 hand against them so that their slaves
8:39 will plunder them then you will know
8:42 that the Lord Almighty has sent me." The
8:44 Lord Almighty was sent by the Lord
8:47 Almighty next paragraph shout and be
8:50 glad daughter Zion for I am coming and I
8:53 will live among you declares the Lord
8:55 Yahweh many nations will be joined with
8:58 the Lord in that day and will become my
9:00 people i will live among you and you
9:02 will know that the Lord Almighty has
9:05 sent me to
9:06 you the Lord Yahweh will live among them
9:10 and they will know that the Lord was
9:12 sent by the Lord Almighty
9:15 so Yahweh rains down fire from Yahweh
9:19 yahweh is sent by Yahweh plenty of
9:21 passages like
9:23 these then we got a mysterious figure
9:25 called the angel of the Lord whenever
9:27 you think uh whatever you think of when
9:29 you think about angels just get rid of
9:30 that uh the angel of the Lord is no
9:32 ordinary angel because this angel is
9:34 somehow the Lord angel just means
9:37 messenger in Hebrew it can refer to a
9:39 human messenger a spirit messenger or in
9:42 this case the Lord himself look at
9:44 Judges
9:46 6 the angel of the Lord came and sat
9:48 down to talk to
9:50 Gideon the angel of the Lord appeared to
9:53 Gideon then it switches to the Lord
9:56 turned to
9:57 him the Lord answered then it goes back
10:00 to the angel of the Lord then when
10:04 Gideon realized that it was the angel of
10:06 the Lord he exclaimed "Alas sovereign
10:08 Lord I have seen the angel of the Lord
10:10 face to face." But the Lord said to him
10:12 "Peace do not be afraid you are not
10:15 going to die if you see the Lord in all
10:17 his glory you're dead but if you see the
10:20 angel of the Lord who is somehow the
10:22 Lord you might survive." One more
10:25 example of this here's Jacob blessing
10:28 Joseph in Genesis 48 then he blessed
10:32 Joseph and said "May the God before whom
10:35 my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked
10:37 faithfully the God who has been my
10:39 shepherd all my life to this day the
10:42 angel who has delivered me from all harm
10:45 may he bless these boys." He singular so
10:51 the God the God and the angel are all
10:54 referring to the same being the angel is
10:57 God but the angel is the messenger of
11:01 God this is all over the place in the
11:04 Old Testament from Genesis all the way
11:05 to the prophets we just don't pay
11:08 attention to it when we're reading uh
11:10 but there were ancient Jews who paid
11:12 very close attention to passages like
11:14 these and they realized that something
11:16 very very strange is going on there's
11:19 one God but there were two powers two
11:22 authorities in heaven
11:25 if you put all of the passages together
11:28 it seems like there's God you can't be
11:31 around because his presence would
11:33 destroy you and God you can be around
11:37 somehow there's God you can't be around
11:39 and God you can be around the God you
11:41 can't be around is distinct from the God
11:44 you can be around they interact with
11:45 each other one sends the other and yet
11:47 they're both
11:48 God this was all very very confusing to
11:52 first century Jews
11:54 if there's one God why are there two
11:58 powers in heaven why are there two
12:02 powers who both act like God they tried
12:05 to deal with this problem in a number of
12:06 ways but mainly they were confused and
12:09 then Jesus came along and he says in
12:13 effect you know those two powers that
12:15 you've been reading about in the
12:16 scriptures you know those two powers
12:18 that you're so confused by i can tell
12:20 you about those two powers because I'm
12:23 one of
12:24 them that's the primary way Jesus claims
12:27 to be God it's the primary way his
12:29 followers claim that he's God it's a
12:31 primary way uh it's primary issue that
12:33 enrages his
12:34 opponents but did Jesus really claim to
12:37 be one of the two powers in heaven since
12:39 Jesus is a highly controversial figure
12:41 and since there's a skeptic in our midst
12:44 I would suggest that if we want to know
12:46 what someone like Jesus is claiming
12:47 about himself we can look at six things
12:51 we can look at what Jesus says and what
12:53 Jesus does what he says and does as they
12:56 relate to our topic we can look at what
12:58 his friends say and what his friends do
13:00 here I mean what they say and do in
13:02 reaction to him and we can look at what
13:04 his enemies say and what his enemies do
13:06 again in reaction to him so what Jesus
13:08 says what Jesus does what his friends
13:10 say what his friends do what his enemies
13:12 say what his enemies do i would put all
13:14 of that together and say that's our
13:16 evidence that we need to account for and
13:18 that will give us the best indication of
13:19 what Jesus was claiming about himself i
13:21 don't have a ton of time left so we'll
13:23 consider a few things Jesus says and
13:25 does and a few things his friends say
13:26 and do along the way we'll see um the
13:28 reactions of some of his enemies and
13:30 maybe I'll add a few more uh examples in
13:32 the
13:33 rebuttals what does Jesus say jesus
13:36 claims to be one of the two powers in
13:38 heaven in multiple ways i'll give you
13:40 three the most familiar is the father
13:43 son language he uses jesus claims to be
13:46 the son of God now someone can be a son
13:49 of God in various ways in the Bible
13:50 blessed are the peacemakers for they
13:52 shall be called sons of God but Jesus
13:55 claims to be the son of God in a unique
13:57 divine sense one example Matthew 11:27
14:01 all things have been handed over to me
14:02 by my father and no one knows the son
14:05 except the father and no one knows the
14:08 father except the son and anyone to whom
14:10 the son chooses to reveal him all things
14:14 were handed over to the son by the
14:15 father no one knows the son except the
14:17 father obviously the people around jesus
14:19 knew him in some sense but they didn't
14:22 really know him only the father really
14:24 knows him and no one knows the father
14:27 except the son and anyone to whom the
14:29 son chooses to reveal him no one can
14:32 know the father unless the son chooses
14:34 to reveal him this should sound somewhat
14:36 similar to the old testament idea that
14:38 there's god you can't be around and god
14:40 you can be around two powers father and
14:43 son jesus is the
14:45 son mark 12 while Jesus was teaching in
14:48 the temple courts he asked why did the
14:50 teachers of the law say that the Messiah
14:52 is the son of David david himself
14:55 speaking by the Holy Spirit declared
14:57 "The Lord said to my Lord sit at my
15:00 right hand until I put your enemies
15:02 under your feet." David himself calls
15:04 him Lord how then can he be his son
15:08 whose So whose son is the Messiah he's
15:11 the son of David but David calls the
15:13 Messiah his Lord how many lords do we
15:17 have here
15:18 the Lord said to my Lord according to
15:20 Jesus the second Lord here the Lord of
15:23 King David is the Messiah so we've got
15:25 two powers in heaven and Jesus is one of
15:28 them on a side note if you're a
15:30 Christian and you're wondering why we're
15:32 talking about two powers instead of
15:33 three where's the Holy Spirit uh he's
15:35 there
15:38 but but we're focusing on how Jesus
15:40 claimed to be God and that's connected
15:42 to the two powers in heaven mark 14
15:45 again the high priest asked him are you
15:46 the Christ the son of the blessed and
15:49 Jesus said I am and you will see the son
15:51 of man seated at the right hand of power
15:53 and coming with the clouds of heaven and
15:56 the high priest tore his garments and
15:58 said what further witnesses do we need
16:00 you have heard his blasphemy what is
16:02 your decision and they all condemned him
16:04 as deserving death what do the what do
16:07 the enemies say this is
16:10 blasphemy what do they do tear their
16:12 garments That's what they do when
16:14 they're outraged about blasphemy and
16:15 condemn him as deserving death why do
16:18 they react like that the son of man
16:20 that's Jesus' favorite title for himself
16:22 who will be seated at the right hand of
16:25 power so there's the power which sounds
16:28 like God and there's the son of man
16:30 coming with the clouds of heaven how
16:32 many powers in heaven i see two here and
16:34 Jesus claims to be one of them so who's
16:37 gle who is Jesus claiming to be at his
16:39 Jewish trial he's claiming to be the son
16:42 of man prophesied in Daniel 7:13-14
16:46 daniel says "In my vision at night I
16:48 looked and there before me was one like
16:49 a son of man coming with the clouds of
16:52 heaven he approached the ancient of days
16:54 and was led into his presence he was
16:56 given authority glory and sovereign
16:58 power all nations and peoples of every
17:00 language worshiped him his dominion is
17:03 an everlasting dominion that will not
17:04 pass away and his kingdom is one that
17:06 will never be destroyed."
17:09 So there's the ancient of days God but
17:12 there's also the son of man who will be
17:15 worshiped by all nations whose dominion
17:18 is
17:19 everlasting and who comes with the
17:21 clouds in the Old Testament Yahweh is
17:24 the one who rides the clouds humans
17:26 don't angels don't isaiah 19 see the
17:30 Lord rides on a swift cloud psalm 104
17:33 the Lord wraps himself in light as with
17:35 a garment he stretches out the heavens
17:36 like a tent and lays the beams of his
17:38 upper chambers on the waters he makes
17:41 the clouds his chariot and rides on the
17:43 wings of the wind so God comes with the
17:45 clouds so we've got the ancient of days
17:48 who sounds like God and we've got the
17:50 son of man coming with the clouds of
17:52 heaven who sounds like God two powers in
17:55 heaven and Jesus claims to be one of
17:57 them
17:59 jesus claims to be one of the two powers
18:01 in heaven multiple times multiple ways
18:04 in multiple sources jesus says a lot
18:07 more than that but what does Jesus
18:09 do jesus judges the world in the Old
18:12 Testament David says "The Lord abides
18:15 forever he has established his throne
18:18 for judgment and he will judge the world
18:20 in righteousness." Who's the judge here
18:23 yahweh
18:25 but in Matthew 25 Jesus declares "But
18:27 when the Son of
18:29 Man comes in his glory and all the
18:31 angels with him then he will sit on his
18:33 glorious throne all the nations will be
18:36 gathered before him and he will separate
18:38 them from one another as the shepherd
18:40 separates the sheep from the goats."
18:42 Jesus goes on to say that he will admit
18:44 certain people into heaven and cast
18:46 others into hell why is Jesus the final
18:50 judge he tells us in John 5 "For the
18:52 Father judges no one but has given all
18:55 judgment to the Son that all may honor
18:57 the Son just as they honor the Father."
19:00 Whoever does not honor the Son does not
19:03 honor the Father who sent him if you
19:06 don't honor God you can be around you
19:09 don't honor God you can't be around
19:12 jesus also raises the dead at the
19:14 resurrection according to the Old
19:16 Testament Yahweh is the one who raises
19:18 the dead 1st Samuel 2:6 the Lord kills
19:21 and makes alive he brings down to shol
19:23 and raises up but Jesus says he's the
19:27 one who raises the dead at the
19:28 resurrection john 5 truly truly I say to
19:31 you an hour is coming and now is when
19:33 the dead will hear the voice of the son
19:35 of God and those who hear will live for
19:38 just as the father has life in himself
19:40 even so he gave to the son also to have
19:42 life in himself and he gave him
19:44 authority to execute judgment because he
19:46 is the son of man
19:49 do not marvel at this for an hour is
19:50 coming in which all who are in the tombs
19:52 will hear his voice and will come forth
19:55 those who did the good deeds to a
19:56 resurrection of life those who committed
19:58 the evil deeds to a resurrection of
20:00 judgment so Jesus claims by what he says
20:03 and what he does that he's one of these
20:05 two powers in heaven and that means he's
20:07 claiming to be
20:09 God and his friends got the message how
20:12 do his friends react what do the early
20:13 Christians say in Philippians 2 Paul
20:16 quotes an early Christian song or poem
20:18 or creed about Jesus goes like this in
20:21 your relationships with one another have
20:23 the same mindset as Christ Jesus who
20:25 being in very nature God did not
20:28 consider equality with God something to
20:30 be used to his own advantage rather he
20:32 made himself nothing by taking the very
20:34 nature of a servant being made in human
20:37 likeness and being found in appearance
20:39 as a man he humbled himself by becoming
20:40 obedient to death even death on a cross
20:43 therefore God exalted him to the highest
20:45 place and gave him the name that is
20:46 above every name that at the name of
20:48 Jesus every knee should bow in heaven
20:50 and on earth and under the earth and
20:52 every tongue acknowledged that Jesus
20:54 Christ is Lord to the glory of God the
20:58 Father what's the name that is above
21:00 every
21:02 name yahweh and at the name of And at
21:05 the name of Jesus every knee should bow
21:07 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus
21:08 Christ is Lord this is a reference to
21:11 Isaiah 45 in verse 18 Yahweh says,"I am
21:15 the Lord and there is no other." Then in
21:18 verse 23 he says,"Before me every knee
21:21 will bow by me every tongue will swear."
21:25 The early Christians said "That's
21:27 Jesus." So Jesus was in very nature God
21:31 then he humbled himself by becoming
21:33 obedient to death then God exalted him
21:35 how many powers do you see
21:37 here two and Jesus is one of them paul
21:41 quotes that and obviously agrees with it
21:43 but look at how Paul describes the two
21:45 powers for us there is one God the
21:48 Father from whom are all things and for
21:49 whom we exist and one Lord Jesus Christ
21:52 through whom are all things and through
21:54 whom we exist there is one God the
21:58 Father you see Jesus can't be God it's
21:59 only one
22:00 God well keep reading and one Lord Jesus
22:04 Christ does that mean that Jesus is Lord
22:06 but the Father isn't
22:08 all Paul does here is take two titles
22:11 for God and says,"I'll call the father
22:13 God and Jesus
22:15 Lord." Two powers and Jesus is one of
22:19 them what about John 1 in the beginning
22:21 was the word and the word was with God
22:23 and the word was God he was in the
22:25 beginning with God all things were made
22:26 through him and without him was not
22:27 anything made that was made there's God
22:30 and there's the word but the word was
22:32 God how many powers two and Jesus is one
22:36 of them if you really want a fun verse
22:37 later in the same chapter try John 1:18
22:40 no one has ever seen God the only God
22:43 who is at the father's side he has made
22:45 him
22:46 known sounds like two powers it's what
22:49 the early Christians say among other
22:51 things what do they do wrapping up they
22:53 worship him they pray to him they sing
22:56 hymns to and about him they baptize in
22:59 his name they compose liturgy and
23:01 doxologies to honor and praise him in
23:03 other words they give Jesus the full
23:05 array of religious
23:07 honors what could convince a bunch of
23:10 first century Jews that a carpenter from
23:12 Nazareth was one of the two powers in
23:15 heaven probably the same thing that
23:17 convinced his enemies that he was guilty
23:19 of
23:20 blasphemy would have to be something big
23:24 either really big claims of Jesus or a
23:26 really big
23:27 misunderstanding we'll uh see which
23:30 option Alex goes with
23:37 all right that is David Wood's opening
23:42 statement and Alex is going to take the
23:45 podium for his 20 minute opening
23:49 statement david went over 1 minute and
23:52 14 seconds
23:56 so we will give Alex a grace period of 1
23:58 minute and 14 seconds
24:02 can everybody hear me through here
24:05 yes David didn't factor in the clapping
24:07 i always factor in clapping into the
24:08 timing of my speeches good evening
24:11 ladies and gentlemen
24:13 [Music]
24:14 thank you or as we say in England
24:16 assalamu
24:23 aalaykum i I I must apologize for the
24:27 previous debate fiasco david's right
24:29 that most people don't know what
24:30 happened a lot of accusations thrown my
24:32 way but I suppose that is the essence of
24:34 our debate this evening people thinking
24:36 they know a thing or two about a person
24:38 without hearing it from their own mouth
24:41 to which effect I was thinking about how
24:43 to approach this given that I didn't
24:45 know which approach David was going to
24:47 take i woke up this morning in this fine
24:48 resort
24:50 um opposite Legoland which means that
24:53 there's a a roller coaster just outside
24:56 of my room and being a bit jet-lagged I
24:58 woke up quite late to the most peaceful
25:00 of noises that is the sound of children
25:02 screaming for their
25:04 lives hearing the sound of innocent
25:06 children screaming for their lives of
25:07 course reminded me to read the Old
25:10 Testament
25:11 and I wanted to
25:14 begin with a
25:18 verse that was too
25:22 easy i factored that into my time as
25:25 well i want to begin with a verse from
25:27 the Old Testament which might become
25:29 relevant momentarily and that is well a
25:32 psalm not in its entirety but Psalm 82
25:35 psalm 82 is a curious psalm because it
25:38 opens by saying that God presides in the
25:40 great assembly he renders judgment among
25:43 the gods elohim that is definitely the
25:46 word for gods this seems to be an
25:48 indication that God is talking about or
25:50 the psalmist is talking about the
25:51 so-called divine council which also
25:53 shows up in Job for example later in the
25:55 psalm he says "I said you are gods you
25:58 are all sons of the most high." The
26:00 psalmist is referring to beings here who
26:02 are definitively not Yahweh but calling
26:05 them gods which is kind of interesting
26:07 i'm not trying to make a point out of
26:09 that jesus is going to do that for me as
26:11 we turn to what I think is the most
26:12 important christoologgical gospel of the
26:14 four which is of course John's gospel
26:16 many people think that I just dismiss
26:18 John's gospel because it's written too
26:19 late or something it is of course the
26:21 least historically reliable of the
26:22 gospels but I'm willing to just treat it
26:24 as if it's historically reliable for the
26:26 purposes of this debate and see what
26:28 Jesus actually says about himself the
26:31 question we're interested in in here is
26:33 the relationship that Jesus has to his
26:34 father david has been speaking about the
26:37 two powers in heaven heresy and saying
26:39 that Jesus's relationship to the father
26:41 is the kind of relationship that people
26:44 who believed in these this two powers
26:46 was talking about well let's investigate
26:47 that in Jesus's own words there is one
26:50 place in the gospels where Jesus is
26:53 directly accused of claiming to be God
26:56 do you know where it is it's in John
26:59 chapter 10 in John chapter 10 his Jewish
27:02 opponents come to him and say "If you're
27:03 the Messiah tell us plainly." And Jesus
27:05 responds by saying "I and the Father are
27:08 one." I'm told by Christians this is a
27:10 direct christoologgical claim who can
27:12 claim to be identical to the father
27:13 except for someone who is
27:16 God and there was no confusion about
27:18 this the Jewish opponents picked up
27:19 stones to stone him to death for making
27:22 this claim now how does how does Jesus
27:24 respond does he agree with them or does
27:26 he correct them he
27:29 says in response to the Jews "Is it not
27:32 written in your law I have said you are
27:35 gods?" Quoting as you'll probably
27:38 realize the psalm that I just quoted and
27:39 explained briefly a moment ago so
27:41 directly asked about his
27:43 christoologgical status Jesus decides to
27:46 quote a psalm which is explicitly
27:48 talking about beings who are not in fact
27:50 Yahweh and yet are called gods why would
27:53 he pick that psalm if the message he
27:55 wanted to convey was that he is in fact
27:57 in some sense God that is identical to
28:00 Yahweh jesus continues "If he called
28:02 them gods why wouldn't he call me God
28:05 the one who the father has sent and set
28:07 aside so why then do you accuse me of
28:08 blasphemy because I said I am God's
28:11 son?" Like in the divine counsel you
28:14 shall be called gods that is sons of the
28:16 most high so it's a misunderstanding
28:21 jesus immediately afterwards clarifies
28:23 further and
28:25 says believe the works that is the works
28:27 of my father through me that you may
28:28 know and understand that the father is
28:30 in me and I am in the father another
28:34 pretty intense christoologgical claim
28:36 what does it mean let's turn to the most
28:39 important christoologgical chapter in
28:40 John's gospel which is of course chapter
28:43 17 jesus is praying first for his
28:45 disciples then for all of his believers
28:49 remember in John chapter 10 so far Jesus
28:51 has made two claims i and the father are
28:53 one and I am in the father and the
28:55 father is in me addressing the
28:58 relationship that he has to his father
29:00 which David thinks is the two powers in
29:02 heaven what does Jesus say in his own
29:04 words john 17 20 onwards my prayer is
29:08 not for them alone the disciples i pray
29:10 also for those who believe in me through
29:11 their message that is all of you that
29:14 all of them may be one hen hen the same
29:17 Greek word used in John 10 father just
29:20 as you are in me and I am in you may
29:23 they also be in
29:25 us this is crucial this is pivotal when
29:28 Jesus is asked to clarify his
29:29 christoologgical status what is his
29:31 relationship to the father he says "I'm
29:33 in the father and the father's in me."
29:34 He then later prays that all of us will
29:36 one day be in God in the same way just
29:39 as cathos in the Greek which doesn't
29:41 just mean as it means in the same way as
29:43 just as if this is supposed to indicate
29:46 that Jesus is claiming to be identical
29:48 to Yahweh what does that make the rest
29:50 of us and how I'm interested in knowing
29:53 is David going to interpret these verses
29:56 where Jesus is specifically asked to
29:58 clarify his relationship to the father
30:00 and tells us that he is only in
30:02 relationship with him in such a way that
30:04 everybody else can be in relationship
30:05 with them too the same thing is true of
30:07 another important quote from John's
30:09 gospel which is when Philillip asks
30:12 Jesus to show him the father what does
30:14 Jesus say anyone who has seen me has
30:18 seen the father another intense
30:20 christoologgical
30:22 claim he then follows up by saying how
30:25 can you say show us the father don't you
30:27 believe that I am in the father and the
30:28 father is in me the words I say to you I
30:31 do not speak on my own authority rather
30:33 it is the father living in me who is
30:35 doing his work so again Jesus clarifies
30:38 his relationship to the father this time
30:39 saying that he doesn't speak on his own
30:41 authority but there's more in the same
30:44 chapter this time chapter 14 just a few
30:46 verses later he says to those same
30:48 disciples who he's just told I that if
30:51 you've seen me you've seen the father
30:52 because the father is in me and I'm in
30:55 the father he speaks of a future day
30:57 past his crucifixion and says on that
30:59 day verse 20 on that day you will
31:01 realize that I am in my father and you
31:03 are in me and I am in you so to recap
31:07 Jesus is directly asked to clarify his
31:09 relationship and his christologology to
31:11 the father and he says that I'm in the
31:12 father and the father's in me and guess
31:14 what you'll all be one with us too one
31:16 day if this is a claim to be Yahweh then
31:19 well lucky us I
31:22 suppose now it's difficult to know where
31:25 to take this because of course there is
31:26 a third really important
31:27 christoologgical claim in John's gospel
31:28 which is in chapter 8 i think it might
31:30 be relevant to talking about the
31:32 understanding of ancient Jews and we'll
31:35 see where this goes of course
31:37 famously in chapter
31:39 8 Jesus is talking about eternal life
31:42 and his Jewish opponents say to him they
31:44 challenge him and say "Well our father
31:46 Abraham he died are you saying you're
31:48 greater than him?" And Jesus replies "If
31:50 I glorify myself I glorify my glory
31:53 means nothing your father Abraham
31:55 rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day
31:57 and he was glad." They say "What you
31:59 you're not even 50 years old and Abraham
32:01 has seen you." And he says "Truly I tell
32:04 you before Abraham was I
32:07 am." Why is that important two reasons
32:10 firstly he seems to claim pre-existence
32:12 to Abraham which is pretty significant
32:14 but also this invocation of the word I
32:17 am in Greek ego am which many people
32:19 think is a call back to the divine uh
32:22 name of God given to Moses in Exodus
32:26 3:14 in Exodus 3 Moses asks God "Who
32:31 shall I tell them has sent me?" And God
32:32 says Asha which means I am that I am i
32:36 am who I am so go and tell them that I
32:39 am has sent you it's interesting but of
32:42 course the New Testament is not written
32:44 in Hebrew it's written in Greek and it's
32:46 well known that the authors of the New
32:47 Testament were using a Greek translation
32:49 of the Old Testament called the
32:51 Septuagent this is something that was
32:53 pointed out by J.R daniel Kirk so I'm
32:55 indebted to him for this
32:58 if you read the Septuagent that the New
32:59 Testament writers were using and we have
33:01 very good evidence to suggest that John
33:02 as well is using the Septuagent how is
33:04 this verse rendered exodus 3 god says to
33:08 Moses "Ego Amy
33:24 hon." And it's used commonly like this
33:27 in John chapter nine the blind man is
33:29 healed by Jesus he runs into town they
33:30 say "Is this not the man who was born
33:32 blind?" And he says "Ego Amy it's me."
33:36 When Jesus is asked by the woman at the
33:38 well the woman at the well says "I'm
33:39 expecting the Messiah to come." Jesus
33:41 says "I am he." Ego Amy once
33:45 again that is how it is often used so in
33:50 the Greek Septuagent we have I am
33:52 hon go and tell them that Hon has sent
33:55 you in the Greek Septuagent in other
33:56 words the abbreviation of the divine
33:59 name is not ego Amy it's Hon and it's
34:02 ego Amy that Jesus says and in fact
34:03 Jesus says the words ego Amy six times
34:06 in chapter 8 of John's gospel and yet
34:09 this is the only time it seems to annoy
34:10 anybody why is that well maybe because
34:12 it's got more to do with the fact that
34:13 Jesus seems to be claiming eternality
34:16 but supposing for a moment that this
34:17 really were uh an invocation of the
34:20 divine name I'm just willing to grant it
34:21 let's say okay he was meaning to evoke
34:24 this imagery of Exodus 3 by saying I am
34:27 here we have to understand as David is
34:29 quite right to point out the cultural
34:31 context of early Judaism and there is a
34:34 tradition in early Jewish texts or at
34:37 least texts of around the contemporary
34:39 time to the gospels of
34:43 endowing beings who are not Yahweh with
34:47 Yahweh's name and thereby enabling them
34:50 to exert his authority as his
34:52 representative on earth david has
34:54 already talked about the angel of Yahweh
34:56 and there is the suggestion that the
34:57 angel of
34:58 Yahweh is
35:01 Jesus that doesn't seem to make much
35:03 sense to me for a start if you turn to
35:05 Hebrews chapter 1 the very first verse
35:07 says "In the past God spoke to our
35:09 ancestors through the prophets at many
35:12 times and in various ways but in these
35:14 last days he has spoken to us by his
35:16 son." in these last days if Jesus is the
35:19 angel of the Lord way back in Exodus the
35:22 story of the Exodus why is it that
35:24 Hebrews says he's only spoken to us
35:26 through the sun in the last few days
35:28 likewise in Acts chapter 6 Steven is
35:31 recounting a history of the Jews and in
35:34 it he says that an angel spoke to Moses
35:37 through the burning bush not Jesus but a
35:39 messenger of Yahweh it's a little bit
35:42 strange but suppose we just accept that
35:44 the angel of Yahweh is a bit difficult
35:46 to unpack augustine himself by the way
35:48 said that the angel is correctly termed
35:49 an angel if we consider him himself but
35:52 equally correct he is termed the Lord
35:54 because God dwells in him what does that
35:57 mean i think it's an invocation of the
35:59 divine name this is most elucidated for
36:02 me when we turn to non-scriptural Jewish
36:05 writings of around the same period for
36:07 example in well actually in third Enoch
36:11 Metatron is called the little
36:15 Yahweh invoking the divine name and in
36:18 fact to the extent that the Talmude
36:19 warns Jews not to confuse Metatron with
36:22 Yahweh because that seems to be the
36:23 implication of what he's saying but he
36:25 is in fact just invoking the name the
36:27 most important example of this for me is
36:29 the apocalypse of Abraham written around
36:30 the same time as the
36:32 Gospels a Jewish text which tells the
36:34 story of Abraham who hears the voice of
36:37 God and he's terrified and he hits the
36:39 ground and God he hears the voice of God
36:43 speaking to an
36:44 angel and he speaks to an angel saying
36:47 "Go Yahweh," that's the name of the
36:49 angel of the same name through the
36:51 mediation of my ineffable name
36:53 consecrate this man for me and
36:55 strengthen him against his trembling
36:57 through the mediation of my divine name
36:58 which he's given to the angel Yahawel
37:00 Yahel by the way Yah and
37:03 L it is a substitute for the ineffable
37:06 name of Yahweh the writing of which is
37:08 forbidden and that's why he's called
37:09 Yahawel and in fact at one point God is
37:12 himself addressed as Yahawel in this
37:15 text Abraham is told by this angel
37:18 Yahawel "Stand up Abraham go without
37:20 fear be right glad and rejoice for I am
37:24 with you for eternal honor has been
37:26 prepared for you by the eternal one i
37:28 have appointed to be with you and the
37:29 generation prepared for you so the angel
37:32 invoking the divine name by the way says
37:33 to Abraham
37:35 "Rejoice for I'm preparing for you
37:37 essentially redemption and it will come
37:40 from your generation." And by the way
37:42 when Yahawel when Abraham finally stands
37:44 up one of the descriptions of Yahel's
37:46 appearance is that his hair is white
37:47 like snow where have we heard that
37:49 before
37:50 but interesting isn't it let's think
37:52 about the context of John 8:58 a lot of
37:54 people forget that we're talking about
37:55 Abraham why are we talking about Abraham
37:57 why is it here that Jesus says "Before
37:59 Abraham was I am." Well if I'm right
38:01 that he is just identifying himself and
38:03 the thing that's important is the
38:04 Abraham claim could this stem from a
38:07 similar tradition this is what Andrew
38:08 Perryman has suggested recently that
38:10 when he says I mean this whole thing
38:12 gets kicked off because Jesus says
38:15 "Abraham rejoiced to see my
38:17 day." Well hold on a second and in the
38:19 apocalypse of Abraham the angel Yahawel
38:21 says to Abraham "Rejoice for from your
38:24 generation will will come one who will
38:26 you know redeem
38:28 you." So is it possible that a common
38:32 tradition has Jesus referring to the
38:34 fact that Abraham rejoice to see his day
38:36 because he was promised this redemption
38:38 from the beginning of time it's possible
38:41 it's a suggestion i think it's quite an
38:43 interesting
38:44 one but it is a little strange that
38:47 Jesus claims to be pre-existent he uses
38:50 the present tense I am it's worth
38:53 bearing in mind that the Bible sometimes
38:54 does this when it is talking about plans
38:56 that are pre-ordained from the beginning
38:57 of time for example in Revelation 13 we
39:01 hear about the lamb who was slain from
39:03 the creation of the
39:04 world it's talking about Jesus there
39:06 jesus wasn't crucified at the beginning
39:08 of the world but it talks about it
39:09 almost in the like in the present tense
39:11 or at least as if it happened there and
39:12 then why because the plan for this
39:15 redemption through the lamb was set in
39:17 stone from the beginning of time so it
39:19 talks about it as if it's in the present
39:21 tense similarly famously in the book of
39:23 Jeremiah God says to the prophet
39:24 Jeremiah "Before I formed you in your
39:26 mother's womb I knew you." He also says
39:28 "Before you were born I consecrated you
39:31 as a prophet." How can you consecrate
39:33 someone as a prophet who doesn't exist
39:35 yet that means that Jeremiah must be
39:37 pre-existent right he must be No not
39:39 necessarily it just means that God had
39:41 this plan it's a poetic way of saying
39:43 that God already knew what was going to
39:44 happen and had planned this from the
39:45 beginning of time so putting all of this
39:47 together there is an interesting
39:49 interpretation of Jesus saying that
39:52 Abraham rejoices here my day and the
39:54 Jews not understanding him not getting
39:55 it he says "Look before Abraham was I am
39:58 i am the fulfillment that was promised
40:00 to Abraham and was from the beginning of
40:02 time and here I am now of course this is
40:06 all exesus and it's a little uh sort of
40:09 spotty but the most important question
40:11 is probably about blasphemy david
40:12 mentioned blasphemy in a different
40:13 context earlier why is it that they pick
40:15 up stones to to stone him to death
40:17 because of course if I'm looking for a
40:18 sound exesus of correctly interpreting
40:20 the words of Jesus I turn to his Jewish
40:22 opponents who consistently throughout
40:23 the gospels are always understanding him
40:25 correctly no the theme of the gospels
40:28 especially John's gospel is how
40:31 comprehensively the Jews misunderstand
40:33 what Jesus is saying when he says "I and
40:34 the father are one." They say "Ah you're
40:36 claiming to be God." And he said "No no
40:37 you're not getting me." When he says
40:40 that he forgives sins and they say "Ah
40:42 you know who can forgive sins but God
40:43 alone?" He says "You're not
40:44 understanding me." And hopefully we can
40:45 get into that actually and here of
40:48 course when they say
40:49 "Ah we're going to stone you." We're not
40:51 told exactly what blasphemy they think
40:52 he's
40:53 committed do we now just think that they
40:55 got it right that they correctly
40:56 understood what he was saying i'm not so
40:59 sure especially considering
41:02 that if you look in Acts again I've
41:04 already mentioned Acts 6 this is Steven
41:06 steven is telling the story of the Jews
41:08 to the Jewish authorities who he's been
41:10 brought before on charges of
41:12 blasphemy he's eventually stoned to
41:14 death why because he has a vision in
41:17 Acts 7 filled with the Holy Spirit he
41:20 gazed into heaven and saw the glory of
41:22 God and Jesus standing at the right hand
41:24 of God notice God not the father look he
41:27 said I see the heavens opened and the
41:29 son of man standing at the right hand of
41:31 God at this the Jews cover their ears
41:34 run up to him and stone him to death
41:37 notice the similarity by the way between
41:39 this depiction looking up and seeing the
41:40 Son of Man sat at the right hand of God
41:42 or stood at the right hand of God in
41:43 this case and the claim that Jesus makes
41:44 in his trial it's quite interesting
41:47 steven is stoned to death for this did
41:49 Steven claim that Jesus was God here did
41:52 Steven claim that he was God here
41:54 sometimes Christians act as if the only
41:56 way to commit blasphemy is to claim to
41:58 be God that is simply not the case in
42:01 fact in Acts chapter 6 we're told that
42:03 Steven has been fraudulently accused of
42:05 blasphemy they're making up charges
42:07 against him here are the charges that
42:08 they that they throw at him to bring him
42:10 before the court for blasphemy this man
42:12 never stops saying things against this
42:14 holy place and the law for we'd heard
42:16 we've heard him say that Jesus of
42:18 Nazareth will destroy this place and
42:20 change the customs Moses has handed on
42:22 to
42:23 us ladies and gentlemen if changing the
42:26 customs that Moses has handed on to us
42:28 is enough to get somebody convicted of
42:30 blasphemy I'm not sure we should read
42:32 too deeply into the accusations of
42:34 blasphemy against
42:38 Jesus there's so much to say i've got
42:41 everything I want to respond to we have
42:42 rebuttal periods so if I haven't
42:44 responded to everything David has said
42:45 hopefully I'll get the opportunity then
42:46 but this idea of the divine name being
42:49 invested into people and him having and
42:51 them having the authority of God without
42:53 being Yahweh themselves is I think the
42:56 important ticket here one slightly less
42:59 biblical example is a story recorded by
43:02 Josephus which came to mind when David
43:04 was speaking when Alexander the Great
43:06 approaches Jerusalem in an attempt to
43:07 conquer it the crisis is
43:10 averted when a priest whose merit bears
43:14 the tetragrammaton Yahweh bears the name
43:16 of God comes out and what does Alexander
43:18 do he bows down before the priest was
43:22 Alexander bowing down before the priest
43:24 or was he bowing down to the divine name
43:26 that was in him when every knee will bow
43:30 to Jesus what is the context jesus has
43:32 been given the name that is above all
43:35 other
43:36 names given it this is a common theme
43:39 and so David's right that we need to
43:41 understand what how the early Jews were
43:43 interpreting the the various verses that
43:45 we were reading but I don't think it
43:46 lends too nicely to his interpretation
43:49 jesus is constantly talking as if he's
43:51 not speaking with his own
43:52 authority he's doing this all the time
43:55 the most instructive example for me is
43:57 in John 12:44 when Jesus cries out
43:59 "Whoever believes in me believes not in
44:01 me but in the one who sent me." That's
44:04 if you read the NRSV the NIV adds in the
44:06 word only "whoever believes in me
44:08 believes not in me only but in the one
44:11 who sent me." That word simply isn't in
44:13 the Greek it's a little bit strange i
44:16 want to talk more about that i want to
44:17 talk about authority and where it comes
44:20 from i want to talk about the forgiving
44:22 of sins i want to talk about worship for
44:25 sure and whichever roads we whichever
44:27 one of those roads we go down is
44:28 essentially up to David Wood but I'm
44:30 ready for any of them so we'll see what
44:32 comes up thank you for
44:33 [Applause]
44:36 listening all
44:38 right so that is Alex O'Connor's
44:42 20-minute opening so David is going to
44:44 go back up to the podium he is going to
44:46 do a 12minute rebuttal round all right
44:48 thank you Alex in my opening statement I
44:51 showed that in the first century there
44:53 was an interesting discussion within
44:55 Judaism uh about the two powers in
44:57 heaven they had various ways of dealing
44:59 with this um and we can see why when we
45:02 read passages like Genesis 22 the story
45:05 of Abraham and
45:09 Isaac but the Lord uh but the angel of
45:12 the Lord called out to him from heaven
45:14 abraham Abraham here I am he
45:17 replied uh wait no then God said "Take
45:19 your son your only son whom you love
45:22 Isaac and go to the region of Mariah
45:24 sacrifice him there as a burnt offering
45:26 on the mountain on a mountain I will
45:28 show you." So this is God saying to
45:31 Abraham "Take your
45:33 son." Verse 11 "But the angel of the
45:36 Lord called out to him from heaven."
45:38 Abraham Abraham is when he uh starts to
45:40 do it "here I am," he replied "do not
45:42 lay a hand on the boy," he said "do not
45:44 do anything to him now that I know now I
45:48 know that you fear God because you have
45:49 not withheld from me your son your only
45:52 son so this is the angel of the Lord
45:55 saying you haven't withheld from me your
45:57 only
45:58 son and it was God who answer who
46:01 ordered Abraham to do this um so we have
46:04 we have situations like this and I argue
46:06 that Jesus enters the discussion uh when
46:09 they're confused about the two powers in
46:10 heaven and claims to be one of them and
46:14 so there we looked at what Jesus says
46:15 what Jesus does what his friends say
46:17 what his friends do uh what his enemies
46:19 say and what his enemies do uh Alex uh
46:22 seems to suggest that the there could be
46:25 some sort of uh angel or something like
46:27 this or even a person who's in who's
46:29 endowed with this kind of divine
46:31 authority uh you got problems with this
46:33 even uh even here in uh Genesis uh so
46:37 look at what this said then the Lord
46:39 Genesis 33 then the Lord said to Moses
46:41 "Leave this place you and the people you
46:43 brought up out of Egypt and go up to the
46:44 land I promised on oath to Abraham Isaac
46:46 and Jacob saying I will give it to your
46:48 descendants i will send an angel before
46:50 you and drive out the Canaanites
46:51 Amorites Hittites Perizzites Hisites
46:53 Jebusites go up to the land flowing with
46:55 milk and honey but I will not go with
46:57 you because you are stiff necked people
46:58 and I might destroy you on the way." Who
47:01 is accompanying them and guiding them
47:02 well the angel of the Lord but here he
47:05 says "I'm not going with you this time."
47:07 So this is the Lord speaking it's not
47:09 the angel of the Lord and you say "Oh
47:10 this is the Lord." This is the Lord
47:11 speaking this is the Lord speaking says
47:13 "I'm not going up with you now." When it
47:14 was the angel of the Lord who was
47:16 accompanying them so these are the sorts
47:17 of things you have and people tried to
47:21 figure out how to deal with this and
47:22 they came up again with all sorts of
47:24 ways and Jesus entered the picture and
47:27 claimed to be one of the two powers in
47:30 heaven so what Jesus says we went
47:32 through three examples of Jesus claiming
47:35 to be one of the two powers he's the
47:37 divine son of the father he's the lord
47:39 of king David and he's the son of man
47:41 coming with the clouds of heaven and we
47:44 saw how people reacted to him claiming
47:47 to be the son of man coming with the
47:48 clouds of
47:49 heaven um in
47:52 response Alex was quoting uh he quoted
47:55 Psalm 82 and then Jesus uh using this
47:58 using this passage so let's go ahead and
48:01 take a look at this so they accuse Jesus
48:04 of claiming to be God
48:07 and Jesus answered them "Is it not
48:08 written in your law I have said you are
48:09 gods if he called them gods to whom the
48:11 word of God came and scripture cannot be
48:13 set aside what about the one whom the
48:15 father set apart as his very own and
48:18 sent into the world?" So Jesus is sent
48:20 into the world according to this passage
48:22 why then do you accuse me of blasphemy
48:23 because I said I am God's son uh this is
48:26 not and I have no idea how you would
48:28 ever read the gospel of John like this
48:31 let alone anything else Jesus said this
48:33 is not Jesus saying what you're
48:34 misunderstanding i'm just a regular
48:38 dude i again if you if this were the
48:40 only verse in there maybe you because if
48:42 if given the rest of what we read in the
48:44 Gospel of John and the rest of the
48:45 Gospels Jesus is not claiming to be a
48:47 regular
48:48 guy he's using a legal technicality here
48:51 that they should be aware of they're
48:53 saying "Hey here's what you're claiming
48:54 you're claiming to be a son of God this
48:55 means you're claiming to be equal to God
48:56 and so on and therefore uh this is
48:59 blasphemy."
49:00 And Jesus response is "Well that really
49:03 well in the Psalms." In the Psalms God
49:06 calls people
49:07 Elohim therefore you can't just say
49:10 calling someone some divine title is
49:13 blasphemous and deserves a death
49:14 sentence you have to show that it's some
49:17 that the title is not from God that it's
49:19 not true that it's false have you done
49:20 that no okay you can't kill me you can't
49:23 just say there's a claim and therefore
49:25 we will kill you over it so that's a
49:26 legal technicality again if you're if
49:28 you're somehow reading this as "See
49:29 Jesus is just claiming to be a regular
49:32 guy."
49:34 Wow all right so we have John
49:38 17:5 and now Father glorify me in your
49:41 presence with the glory I had with you
49:42 before the world began why alex quoted
49:44 John 17 to show that Jesus is uh just
49:48 claiming some some uh regular
49:49 relationship that we can all have with
49:50 God or something along those lines what
49:52 does Jesus say in the same chapter that
49:53 Alex is quoting and now Father glorify
49:56 me in your presence with the glory I had
49:58 with you before the world
50:00 began that sounds like Jesus is claiming
50:03 to have glory with the Father before the
50:04 world began doesn't sound like he's
50:06 claiming to be a regular guy doesn't
50:07 sound like he's saying "Oh you guys are
50:09 just misunderstanding everything I said
50:11 it's just one big
50:13 misunderstanding." So what Jesus does
50:16 what Jesus does we've looked at it he I
50:19 think he said he's going to respond to
50:20 it so what does Jesus do he's the judge
50:23 he's the final judge of all people
50:26 according to him uh again the Old
50:28 Testament says that Yahweh is the one
50:30 who's going to sit on his throne in
50:31 judgment jesus said "Yeah that's
50:34 me." The Old Testament says that that
50:37 Yahweh is the one who raises the dead
50:39 jesus says that he's the one who raises
50:40 the dead at the resurrection the people
50:42 in their graves are going to hear the
50:44 voice of the son of God now that is very
50:47 strange if that's oh that's how we all
50:49 are we're all going to be raised from
50:50 the dead by the son of God if that's him
50:53 saying "Oh we're all just the same and
50:54 yeah we we can all you you'll be in me
50:55 and I'll be in you." Very strange way of
50:58 putting
50:59 things what his friends say now this is
51:02 interesting alex quotes Steven in Acts 7
51:06 now this is a this is an awesome passage
51:08 because this this kind of proves
51:10 everything I was saying in my opening
51:11 statement look at this
51:14 so
51:16 Steven rebukes the Jewish leaders in the
51:19 harshest terms you can possibly rebuke
51:22 someone watch what he says you stiff
51:23 necked people your hearts and ears are
51:25 still uncircumcised you are just like
51:27 your ancestors you always resist the
51:29 Holy Spirit was there ever a prophet
51:31 your ancestors did not persecute they
51:33 even killed those who predicted the
51:35 coming of the righteous one and now you
51:37 have betrayed and murdered him you who
51:39 have received the law that was given
51:40 through angels but have not obeyed it
51:43 that is absolutely brutal guess what
51:46 they get mad they don't get
51:48 violent which what happens when the
51:50 members of the Sanhedrin heard this they
51:52 were furious and nashed their teeth at
51:53 him but Steven full of the Holy Spirit
51:56 looked up to heaven have they gotten
51:57 violent yet looked up to heaven and saw
52:00 the glory of God and Jesus standing at
52:03 the right hand of God look he said I see
52:06 heaven open and the son of man remember
52:09 that the son of man standing at the
52:12 right hand of God oh you got God and
52:14 then just someone
52:16 else how many powers in heaven
52:21 when do they get upset what watch when
52:23 they get
52:24 upset i see I see heaven open and the
52:27 son of man standing at the right hand of
52:29 God two powers in heaven and Jesus is
52:31 one of them now watch how they react at
52:34 this they covered their ears and yelling
52:36 at the top of their voices they all
52:38 rushed at him dragged him out of the
52:39 city and began to stone him meanwhile
52:42 the witnesses laid their coats at the
52:43 feet of a young man named Saul when do
52:44 they get
52:46 violent when he says Jesus is one of the
52:49 two powers in heaven that's what that's
52:51 exact that is the precise moment when
52:53 they get
52:54 violent jesus is one of the two powers
52:57 in heaven so keep in mind this actually
52:59 supports me right i mean this is one of
53:02 this this is one of the early Christians
53:04 who gets stoned to death for saying that
53:07 Jesus is one of the two powers in heaven
53:09 and if you're thinking he's just h just
53:11 a just a regular guy hanging out in
53:13 heaven first of all um you might want to
53:15 check about someone being in the
53:17 presence of God and what sort of person
53:19 you'd have to be but look look what look
53:21 what uh look what he I mean Oops do I
53:23 have
53:24 it oh I don't have it right right right
53:26 after this is when when uh Stephen I
53:29 don't have it on a slide uh right after
53:30 this is when Stephen looks up and says
53:34 what lord Jesus receive my spirit is
53:38 that just a regular guy in the presence
53:40 of God up there no that's someone
53:42 who receives the spirits of people that
53:46 a regular
53:47 guy so Alex thinks this is just God
53:49 endowing someone with authority um does
53:53 not look like that jesus seems to be the
53:55 authority here and this not only gets
53:59 Steven killed this sets Paul on a
54:00 rampage paul says "I have to wipe this
54:02 stuff out." Why we're told in the book
54:06 of Acts what really sets Paul off uh
54:10 when Ananas is told that Paul is coming
54:14 well Saul back then he says that he's
54:17 been told to apprehend everyone who
54:20 calls on this name why is that an issue
54:23 calling on the name that's that's how
54:25 you describe prayer in the Old Testament
54:27 calling on the name calling on the name
54:29 of Yahweh and Paul sees the Christians
54:33 calling on the name of Jesus the way
54:34 they're supposed to call on the name of
54:36 Yahweh why is this relevant paul
54:39 converts to Christianity about 2 years
54:41 after the
54:43 crucifixion when is this taking place
54:46 this is not something that happens 50 or
54:48 60 years after the time of Jesus we have
54:53 Christians calling on the name of Jesus
54:55 as they call on the name of Yahweh and
54:57 we can trace it to within two years of
54:59 Jesus crucifixion so if this is a
55:01 misunderstanding that's a pretty big
55:03 misunderstanding and Jesus must be the
55:06 worst communicator of all
55:07 time uh Alex brings up the Septu the
55:10 Septuagent responding to John i didn't
55:13 uh I I didn't uh rely on the passages
55:15 he's responding to uh but if you want to
55:17 go to the Septuagent in in terms of uh
55:19 interpreting uh interpreting the claims
55:20 of the New Testament let's go to Luke
55:23 luke 6:46 why do you Jesus says "Why do
55:26 you call me Lord Lord and do not do what
55:29 I
55:30 say?" If you want to talk about the
55:33 Septuagent there's only one other
55:34 there's only one other place outside the
55:37 outside the Gospels where they use this
55:40 Lord
55:41 Lord that's the Septuagent and it's a
55:45 translation of Adoni
55:49 Yahweh God Adoni Yahweh so it's the Lord
55:54 Yahweh but in Greek they would translate
55:57 Adonai and Yahweh as curios so it's
56:00 curios curios in the se in the
56:02 septuagent and here Jesus says why do
56:04 you call me Lord Lord and not do what I
56:07 say and so if you want to if you want to
56:09 interpret Jesus based on the Septuagent
56:11 claiming to be Yahweh here you go there
56:13 it is and it's in the gospel of
56:16 Luke so at the end of the day uh the
56:18 claim is that everything is just some
56:20 sort of big
56:22 misunderstanding this is very very very
56:24 strange to me because you're basically
56:26 saying Jesus was not a good
56:29 communicator you know you think about
56:31 the biatitudes and this the sermon on
56:34 the mount and the parable of the
56:36 prodigal son and the parable of the good
56:38 Samaritan and the golden rule and so on
56:40 and so on and so on
56:43 jesus seems like the best communicator
56:44 of all
56:46 time he's a he's careful about what he's
56:49 saying and sometimes he unveils things
56:51 in different ways but when he he makes a
56:54 point seems people get this point uh if
56:56 all of his followers just seem to
56:58 misunderstand him and start worshiping
57:00 him and praying to
57:02 him making doxologies for him and so
57:07 on putting their liturgy around him then
57:12 you're saying Jesus was just a terrible
57:13 terrible communicator and that I have to
57:16 say is the one option I cannot accept
57:20 [Applause]
57:23 here all right
57:26 [Applause]
57:27 all right so now Alex is going to go up
57:30 to do his
57:32 12minute rebuttal it gets a bit messy
57:34 I'm afraid ladies and gentlemen because
57:36 of course we're responding to each other
57:38 across purposes i respond to an opening
57:40 he responds to my opening i sort of have
57:41 to take it back a few places but I'll
57:43 try to make it
57:44 interesting we heard about the angel of
57:46 Yahweh and the suggestion that this
57:48 might indeed just be Jesus it might be
57:50 look I I don't claim to be
57:53 uh the sort of final authority on exesus
57:56 here i'm simply asking you to consider
57:58 what you think is a more appropriate
58:00 explanation i've suggested the uh divine
58:03 namebearing model as opposed to the two
58:06 powers in heaven and when I look at
58:07 passages such as Exodus 23 20 to 21 see
58:11 I am sending an angel ahead of you to
58:13 guard you along the way pay attention to
58:15 him and listen to what he says do not
58:17 rebel against him he will not forgive
58:19 your rebellion since my name is in him i
58:23 just ask which interpretation lends
58:24 itself more nicely to the passages uh
58:27 David's rebuttal there seemed to suggest
58:30 that I was under the impression that
58:31 Jesus is just some dude that is far far
58:35 from the case especially in John's
58:38 gospel where Jesus seems to posit
58:40 himself as something of a model of faith
58:42 for his disciples and for what it's
58:44 worth this is kind of the image that I
58:45 get of Jesus reading through the gospels
58:47 what is he supposed to be something like
58:49 an idyllic faithful servant of God and
58:53 certainly in a special position if you
58:56 include the the epistles in particular
58:58 then Jesus is of course exalted um but I
59:03 want to get into that but I suppose I
59:05 should turn to Philippians chapter 2
59:06 which David mentions of course we're not
59:09 talking Jesus's own words anymore but
59:10 it's it's still quite interesting what
59:12 people came to believe the mindset of
59:15 Jesus Christ who being in very nature
59:17 God did not consider equality with God
59:19 as something to be used to his own
59:21 advantage but rather made himself
59:22 nothing as I'm sure you all know that
59:25 word grasp there harpagmon or something
59:28 like that I'm not very good at
59:29 pronouncing the Greek but it means
59:31 something like to
59:33 steal to
59:36 seize isn't it a bit strange that if
59:39 Jesus is God he didn't consider equality
59:41 with God as something to be seized
59:44 to be stolen that's how that word is
59:46 used in the Greek language how can he
59:48 steal something that's already
59:49 rightfully
59:51 his and
59:53 indeed because he then died on the cross
59:56 and humbled himself even to death
59:59 therefore he was given the name that was
60:01 above all other names therefore whatever
60:05 exalted position Jesus is given here in
60:08 Philippians 2 and by the way he is given
60:10 it he's given it because of his
60:12 crucifixion therefore he's given the
60:14 name above other names again which
60:16 interpretation lends itself more nicely
60:19 to these
60:20 passages um I mean for what it's worth
60:24 my favorite interpretation I was
60:25 discussing this the other night at
60:26 dinner with well not with David actually
60:28 without be giving too much away but is
60:30 this so-called Adamic uh James Dunn has
60:33 written about this the sort of Adam
60:34 christologology as applies to
60:36 Philippians 2 who being in the very
60:38 nature of God this this word uh meaning
60:40 like the form of God if we consider that
60:43 Jesus is supposed to be the answer to
60:45 Adam's sin Adam's sin and Jesus redeems
60:48 Adam is made in the image of God and
60:50 considers equality with God as something
60:52 to be grasped to be seized when he takes
60:54 of the fruit and eats it and that is how
60:56 man falls so how is man redeemed
60:59 While Jesus Christ though also being
61:00 made in the form of a God in the image
61:02 of God did not consider equality with
61:05 God something to be seized not him but
61:06 humbled himself therefore Jesus is
61:10 exalted we're told in Hebrews chapter 2
61:11 that for a time Jesus is made lower than
61:13 the angels presumably while he's here on
61:16 earth again it just reads to me as if at
61:19 least while on earth Jesus is certainly
61:21 not approximating Yahweh but he's also
61:23 not just some
61:27 dude david mentioned the glory that's
61:30 given to Jesus in John 17:5 the same
61:33 chapter that I was using yeah verse 5
61:37 father glorify me in the presence that I
61:38 have with you before the world was
61:40 created let's keep reading John 17 and
61:43 see what Jesus wants to do with that
61:45 glory in fact the very passage that I
61:47 quoted my prayer is not for them alone i
61:50 pray that all may be one Father just as
61:52 you're in me and I am in you may they
61:54 also be in us blah blah blah immediately
61:56 afterwards so they may brought be
61:58 brought into complete
62:00 unity then they will know I've copied
62:03 the wrong passage actually jesus says
62:04 that the glory you've given me I will
62:07 give to
62:08 them in John chapter
62:11 17 he says "The glory you've given me I
62:15 will give to them." the
62:17 disciples we're told in Isaiah in the
62:20 book of Isaiah that God shares his glory
62:22 with nobody and this is
62:23 sometimes a suggestion that's made is
62:26 sometimes that because Jesus says
62:28 "Glorify me God." In John chapter 17 he
62:30 must be God because God shares his glory
62:32 with nobody but people just seem to
62:34 forget that in the same chapter Jesus
62:37 says that he will give the glory that he
62:38 has been given by the father to the
62:40 disciples too again all I'm asking you
62:42 to consider is however you interpret
62:44 these verses where Jesus is given glory
62:47 Jesus is given the judgment and be bear
62:49 in mind that Jesus is given all of these
62:51 things what he then does with those
62:53 things and whether he delegates them to
62:56 other people because if he does then
62:58 it's clearly not just something that can
62:59 be delegated to God himself only God
63:03 judges only God can judge but Jesus says
63:06 that he will judge jesus also promises
63:09 judgment over the 12 tribes of Israel to
63:12 the disciples so are the disciples
63:15 God jesus forgives sins and only God can
63:18 forgive
63:19 sins in John chapter 20 21 he says as
63:23 the father has sent me again cathos
63:26 cathos as just as the father has sent me
63:28 I'm sending you if you forgive people's
63:31 sins their sins will be forgiven if you
63:32 do not their sins will be retained i'm
63:34 told that only God forgives sins but
63:36 then Jesus gives that ability to his
63:40 disciples in other words all of these
63:42 things which are supposed to indicate
63:44 that God that Jesus has a special
63:45 relationship with God of course he does
63:46 but it's a relationship that he hopes
63:48 and literally prays that will be shared
63:51 with everybody also this Luke 6:46 thing
63:54 that David put up I want to make sure
63:55 I'm understanding this correctly as far
63:57 as I understand in Luke 6:46 when it
64:01 when it quotes Lord Lord you know and as
64:04 far as I understand David was saying
64:06 that in the Hebrew this is presumably
64:08 Yahweh Adonai right is that right David
64:13 Yahweh Adonai in the Hebrew perhaps
64:15 he'll address it in his second rebuttal
64:17 and then said ah but you know in the
64:18 Greek Septuagent this is translated as
64:20 curios curios because it's Lord twice
64:22 which translation of the Old Testament
64:24 are the New Testament writers
64:26 the Septuagent so the passage that they
64:28 read would have said curios curious Lord
64:31 twice it wouldn't have said Yahweh and
64:33 then Adonite or rather the other way
64:35 around I think it is it would have said
64:36 curios curios so of course they're
64:38 willing to use this in Luke's gospel
64:40 because it says the same word twice
64:41 which to them just means Lord because
64:43 that's the that's the translation that
64:45 they're reading also this idea that
64:47 Jesus is a perfect
64:49 communicator sort of David is like
64:51 mocking this idea saying is am I
64:52 supposed to understand Jesus as just
64:54 being a terrible communicator well if
64:55 you look at the way that the Jews were
64:57 interpreting him like kind of at the
65:00 very least people were deeply
65:02 confused everybody was confused not just
65:04 his Jewish opponents because they were
65:06 hardened of heart his disciples
65:07 regularly struggled with his teachings
65:08 too asking him to expand and explain
65:10 what on earth he meant it even says at
65:12 one point that Jesus was speaking in
65:13 parables so that quoting a psalm again
65:16 they will be ever seeing everlooking but
65:18 not seeing ever hearing but not
65:20 understanding the gospels tell us that
65:22 Jesus was speaking intentionally in such
65:24 a way that people would misunderstand
65:26 him and then it says "But when he was
65:27 alone with his disciples he explained
65:29 everything." So no I don't actually
65:31 think that Jesus's public ministry was
65:33 entirely clear to everybody who was
65:35 listening in fact that's part of the
65:36 point we're told that Jesus is
65:38 constantly trying to hide his identity
65:40 because he has to be careful about how
65:41 he expresses himself which by the way
65:43 seems to raise a cont a
65:46 contradiction when you consider the fact
65:48 that we're told that in at least John's
65:49 gospel Jesus is going around willy-nilly
65:51 calling himself God in the full view of
65:53 his disciples and also his opponents he
65:56 invokes the divine name and anybody
65:57 listening would have completely
65:58 understood what he was saying and yet
66:01 throughout the synoptic gospels there is
66:03 a motif the messianic secret so it's
66:05 called that every time he reveals his
66:07 identity he tells them not to tell
66:09 anybody don't tell them I'm the Messiah
66:12 but it's fine for them to know that I'm
66:13 God i don't know about
66:16 that
66:18 um I think the best way of understanding
66:22 who Jesus is is like I say a sort of
66:24 idyllic human being take when Jesus
66:25 walks on the water for example another
66:27 uh example that's often given as a high
66:30 christoologgical moment because of
66:32 course in Job 9 it says that only God
66:34 treads upon the waves of the ocean sure
66:36 but people then also forget that Peter
66:38 also walks on the water just
66:40 afterwards but Peter starts sinking and
66:44 Jesus says "You don't have enough
66:45 faith." What does that imply that if
66:47 Peter had enough faith he could have
66:49 kept walking on the water what are we to
66:52 take from this if Jesus is supposed to
66:54 be God because he walks on the water but
66:57 then Peter walks on the water too i
67:00 don't think that's a very good
67:01 interpretation
67:03 in other
67:04 words we're told that God forgives
67:07 sins but then the disciples are given
67:11 the authority to forgive sins in John
67:12 chapter 20 we're told only God warts on
67:14 the water but then Peter does this
67:16 immediately afterwards we're told that
67:18 only God can have the authority to judge
67:20 as David says but the disciples are
67:22 promised judgment over the 12 tribes of
67:24 Israel that's not the only time the
67:25 judgment is uh delegated by the way
67:28 we're told that Jesus explicitly claims
67:30 identity with God by saying he and the
67:32 father are one but then Jesus prays that
67:34 his disciples will be one in the same
67:36 way we're told that God will share his
67:38 glory with nobody else but Jesus claims
67:40 to have had glory with the father before
67:41 he was born but Jesus then says he wants
67:44 to share that glory with the disciples
67:47 we're told that Jesus only rightly
67:48 accepts worship this is interesting by
67:50 the way David flashed on a few passages
67:53 of Jesus accepting worship in the
67:56 Gospels the word most commonly
67:58 translated as worship in the New
67:59 Testament is
68:00 progyno which means to bow down or
68:02 prostrate before a higher authority and
68:05 of course Jesus received this proaneo
68:07 worship therefore he must be
68:11 God if that is the
68:14 case then we have to consider the fact
68:17 that David in the Septuagent for example
68:20 bows down proc before Esau that Joseph's
68:23 brothers proc before him when he's
68:26 governor of Egypt that the entire nation
68:28 of Israel offers proc
68:31 worship to King David as well that Lot
68:35 procano before two angels proskano is
68:38 littered throughout the old and also the
68:40 New Testament by the way uh in the
68:42 parable of the unmerciful servant when
68:44 one of the servants returns he offers
68:46 procoo to his master and this is a story
68:48 that Jesus is saying also let's not
68:51 forget that in
68:52 revelation Jesus promises that his true
68:55 followers his their enemies will proc
68:58 worship before them Jesus himself in
69:01 revelation is saying that human beings
69:04 will receive proc worship if procaneo
69:06 worship is something that only god can
69:08 receive then all of these people sinned
69:12 all of them the entire assembly of
69:14 Israel sinned when they bowed down
69:16 before David i don't think that's a good
69:18 interpretation there is another word
69:20 that's sometimes translated as worship
69:21 which is latruo this is religious cultic
69:24 worship that is only offered to God
69:25 nowhere in the gospels is this offered
69:28 to Jesus how many times is procao
69:31 worship how many times is any kind of
69:33 worship accepted by Jesus in Luke's
69:34 gospel does anybody know zero the word
69:38 comes up three times twice in the
69:40 temptation of the desert where it's
69:41 discussed and once at the end after
69:43 Jesus has ascended so he can say nothing
69:45 about it and in a verse that's contested
69:46 in our manuscript traditions how many
69:49 times in Mark does Jesus accept worship
69:53 this time the answer is two but one of
69:55 those is the demon legion it's usually
69:57 translated as throws himself at his feet
69:59 before Jesus and the other is when the
70:01 Roman soldiers mockingly worship Jesus
70:04 they offer Proscono why because he's the
70:07 king of the Jews because procire worship
70:09 is something offered to kings higher
70:11 authorities i'll keep going perhaps in
70:13 my further rebuttal but if worship is
70:15 something that is only due to God then
70:18 there are a lot more sinners in the
70:19 Bible than we think okay
70:26 thanks all right so now David Wood is
70:29 going to do his second six-minute
70:33 rebuttal and then that will be followed
70:35 up by Alex's six minute rebuttal all
70:40 right alex says we're looking for the
70:42 best explanation i would submit that the
70:44 best explanation for Jesus claiming to
70:47 be one of the two powers in heaven um
70:50 and for claiming to do things like judge
70:52 the world and raise the dead at the
70:55 resurrection and for why his followers
70:58 are praying to him and worshiping him
71:00 and calling him God and the son of God
71:03 and doing the same thing doing the exact
71:05 same thing that Jesus does namely
71:06 claiming to be one of the two powers in
71:08 heaven and for his enemies to repeatedly
71:11 accuse him of blasphemy ultimately sends
71:13 him to death and then people who say the
71:14 same thing like Steven uh also uh find
71:17 themselves uh being executed And I would
71:20 say that the best explanation of that is
71:23 Jesus was claiming to be
71:25 God that that's just me uh it's like if
71:28 if if I met if I met like five if
71:31 suppose I never heard a word from Alex
71:32 but I meet like five of his biggest fans
71:34 and they say "Yeah we love Alex he's the
71:36 Messiah." And then I run into five of
71:38 his harshest critics and they say "Man
71:39 we can't stand that dude Alex he thinks
71:41 he's the Messiah." Even if I never heard
71:43 a word from Alex I'd be thinking he was
71:45 claiming to be something like that and
71:47 that's what's giving his friends and
71:48 enemies that
71:51 indication likewise with Jesus even if I
71:53 didn't have any words of Jesus if I just
71:55 know if I just knew these guys were were
71:57 uh people were being put to death for
71:59 making these kinds of claims and that
72:00 his followers are going around
72:01 worshiping him and praying to him I
72:03 would think he's saying
72:05 something now uh Alex thinks that
72:07 apparently thinks that the best
72:08 explanation is this divine uh name
72:11 bearing scenario if so Jesus did a
72:13 really terrible job of getting that
72:14 message across and uh it doesn't seem
72:17 like anyone really got the point unless
72:18 we do some creative interpretations of
72:20 some passages alex again quotes Exodus
72:22 to say that uh that the the angel of the
72:25 Lord is just some representative who
72:27 bears the name again I quoted the exact
72:29 same book he quoted where Yahweh says
72:31 that I'm not going along with you
72:32 anymore which is Yahweh saying that he
72:35 was the angel of the Lord who was
72:37 guiding them um he says that his view is
72:40 that Jesus is presented as the ideal
72:41 servant of God the ideal servant of God
72:45 convinces people to bow down and worship
72:47 him and pray to him and so on this is
72:49 this is what the ideal servant of God
72:51 would do that's a that's a very strange
72:52 ideal servant of God since that's kind
72:54 of precisely what you shouldn't do if
72:57 you're not God uh he says that proano
72:59 can mean bow down yes you the word
73:01 procaneo depends on the cont if it's a
73:04 religious context it refers to worship
73:06 if it's but you can yes someone can just
73:08 bow down to you out of respect and that
73:12 would that would be you can bow down to
73:14 a normal human but guess what we have
73:16 clearly clearly religious context in
73:19 some of these passages for instance
73:21 Matthew 14:33 they are freaked out those
73:23 who are in the boat worshiped him saying
73:25 truly you are the son of God that's a
73:28 different sort of context than I want to
73:29 ask you for a favor and I want to bow
73:31 down out of respect as for Philippians 2
73:34 uh he he it sounded like he was uh Dun's
73:37 Dun's theory that this is just saying
73:40 that when it says who was in very nature
73:42 God it's actually it's actually the form
73:44 of God but this is just saying that he's
73:46 a regular he was a a human being a human
73:49 being and since he found himself as a
73:50 human being like we're all the image of
73:52 God he humbled himself and therefore he
73:56 was eventually exalted and so on uh this
73:58 just it just doesn't work let me just
74:00 read it who being in very nature God or
74:03 just you can just make up a translation
74:04 say image of God for for fun who being
74:08 in very nature God did not consider
74:09 equality with God something to be used
74:11 to his own advantage yes that can mean
74:12 sees it can uh also mean used to his
74:15 advantage you look at what makes sense
74:16 in context did not consider equality
74:19 with God something to be used to his own
74:20 advantage rather he made himself nothing
74:23 by taking the very nature of a servant
74:26 being made in human likeness
74:30 the the decision to humble himself is
74:32 before is is what led to him being made
74:35 in human likeness this isn't a human
74:37 being who's sitting around going "Hey
74:39 I'm in the image of God you know I could
74:41 strive to be like God you know like like
74:43 Adam did but I'm going to humble myself
74:45 instead." This is a divine being
74:48 humbling himself by becoming a human
74:50 being and then being found in appearance
74:53 as a man he humbled himself by becoming
74:56 obedient to death even death on a cross
74:59 therefore God exalted in the highest
75:01 place and gave him the name that is
75:02 above every name that at the name of
75:04 Jesus every knee should bow in heaven
75:05 and on earth and under the earth and
75:06 every tongue acknowledged that Jesus
75:07 Christ is Lord to the glory of God the
75:09 Father alex seems to think that if
75:11 you're a a human being and you humble
75:12 yourself in this way that God can just
75:14 exalt you to to the status of of Yahweh
75:17 and apply these passages that are just
75:19 Yahweh when when Yahweh says there
75:21 there's no one there's no one else but
75:22 me that's what's being quoted there from
75:25 Isaiah as for curios curios um Alex says
75:30 well well what would they be using they
75:31 would be using the Septuagent the Greek
75:34 translation yeah and they went to a
75:37 passage they they they used the
75:39 formulation curios curios which is
75:41 specifically referring to Yahweh that's
75:44 what Jesus uses he's quoting curios
75:47 curios he's calling himself curios
75:49 curios the only other use of that is the
75:50 septuagent where it refers
75:53 to adoni so why is Jesus using that and
75:56 again I only brought up that point
75:58 because he he brought up the point about
75:59 the Septuagent and using it to interpret
76:01 the claims of Christ so I said "Fine
76:03 let's go with it." And we got in Luke
76:04 and therefore that's him claiming to be
76:07 Yahweh was Jesus a bad communicator he
76:10 says "Ah but Jesus wasn't clear and he
76:12 uh veiled his statements." So yes I
76:13 grant all of that jesus was a careful
76:15 communicator he was careful about how he
76:18 communicated certain things he tend he
76:20 tried to unveil certain things over time
76:22 when people were ready for it that's not
76:24 that's not what I consider a bad
76:26 communicator i consider all of that part
76:27 of being a very good communicator if
76:29 you're saying that the people who all
76:32 heard Jesus all got it wrong somehow or
76:35 that we we don't really have uh the
76:37 records of the people who somehow got it
76:38 right that his friends got it wrong
76:40 because they continue and they build
76:42 their church around him and his enemies
76:44 are sentencing him to death um I would
76:48 say that's a really really really bad
76:49 communicator and that just does not line
76:51 up if everyone is concluding the same
76:54 thing about this guy that he's claiming
76:56 to be God that he's claiming to be one
76:58 of the two powers in heaven the best
77:00 explanation is not some idea that no one
77:03 got the best explanation is very simple
77:05 he was making those claims that's why we
77:07 have all this
77:11 evidence all
77:13 right all right check check check check
77:16 check okay so now Alex is going to do
77:18 his second six-minute rebuttal okay i
77:21 suppose I really want to nail down on
77:22 this worship point since I was kind of
77:24 getting at that at the end and David
77:26 says "Yeah procoo can mean just simply
77:29 bowing down." But in a religious context
77:31 it means something else like what do you
77:34 mean how do you know that without
77:35 begging the question like I say let's
77:38 actually evaluate that's what I was sort
77:39 of going through how many times proca
77:41 worship is given to Jesus in the New
77:44 Testament or at least that Jesus accepts
77:46 it in the New Testament it doesn't
77:47 happen once in Luke's gospel
77:50 it basically doesn't happen once in Mark
77:52 because it happens twice and one of
77:53 these is a demon and one of these which
77:55 I suppose is an interesting thing to
77:56 explore in itself but one of these is
77:58 then simply mocking Jesus because he's
78:00 the king why would they consider mocking
78:01 him with proso worship if he was
78:03 claiming to be king of the Jews because
78:05 that's what proco means if procaneo can
78:08 mean actually worship of the kind that
78:11 latruo usually gets at that is worship
78:13 cultic worship of a religious figure as
78:15 David suggests here's a riddle for you
78:18 why isn't it given to Jesus after Jesus
78:22 ascends why isn't it that people are
78:24 offering procao worship after Jesus
78:26 ascends except at the moment of his
78:28 ascension at the end of Luke's gospel
78:30 which as I as I say is contested in our
78:33 manuscript tradition anyway why
78:36 not because it refers to a physical
78:39 action because it's not referring to
78:41 worship of the kind that David wants it
78:43 to be in this context in John's gospel
78:46 which we didn't get to how many times
78:47 does Jesus accept
78:51 worship the answer again is
78:54 once just once it happens in John
78:57 chapter 9 this is the man who was born
78:59 blind who I mentioned earlier in verse
79:00 38 he says to Jesus "Lord I believe."
79:03 And he worshiped
79:05 him except he doesn't say so
79:09 in papyrus 75 he doesn't say so in codec
79:12 sinaticus doesn't say so in codeex
79:15 washing tonianis in other words this
79:18 verse isn't present in our earliest
79:20 manuscripts we're pretty confident that
79:23 there are elements of the gospels which
79:25 are later interpolations most famously
79:27 the ending of Mark's gospel which is not
79:29 in a manuscript and the story of the
79:31 adulterous woman let he who is without
79:34 sin cast the first stone which are not
79:35 in our early manuscripts i'm interested
79:38 as to whether David thinks that there
79:39 are things in the gospels which didn't
79:41 actually happen either because they're
79:43 recorded incorrectly or because they are
79:44 later interpolations but at least in
79:46 this case of worship it seems to be a
79:47 later interpolation but at best we've
79:50 got one instance of Jesus accepting
79:51 worship in John's gospel and our
79:53 manuscript evidence seems to suggest
79:54 that there's none if worshiping Jesus is
79:57 supposed to be some indication of his
79:58 divinity then why is it only Matthew's
80:00 gospel who seems to mention anything to
80:02 do with worship and uses a term when
80:04 there's another one available to
80:06 indicate cultic religious worship to
80:09 someone who's divine yet he chooses a
80:12 word which just means physical
80:14 prostration before someone who has a
80:16 higher authority like I don't know maybe
80:18 the
80:19 Messiah like the disciples bow down and
80:22 worship Jesus at what point do you think
80:24 they began to get the picture that he
80:26 was God they knew that he was the
80:27 Messiah for a long time but I genuinely
80:29 don't know when David thinks they began
80:30 to realize that this person was God do
80:33 you think there might be an instance of
80:34 them offering procal worship to Jesus
80:36 before they'd fully realize that i think
80:38 so because procao worship is a physical
80:41 action that's given to people who are of
80:44 a higher authority just to belabor this
80:47 point in the Septuagent here are some
80:49 examples of procao worship lot worships
80:52 two angels in Genesis abraham worships
80:55 the Hittites isaac blesses Jacob to have
80:59 all the nations on earth worship him in
81:02 Genesis jacob worships Esau joseph's
81:04 brothers worship him abigail worships
81:06 David's servants in 1 Samuel Saul
81:09 worships the dead Samuel in 1 Samuel the
81:13 sons of prophets worship Elijah in 2
81:15 Kings david worships the temple
81:18 in Psalm 5 all the people of Israel
81:21 worship King David in 1 Chronicles this
81:23 is the same term procano if David wants
81:25 to suggest that sometimes this proc
81:27 worship can mean cultic religious
81:29 worship even though there's another word
81:31 available that people use to mean that
81:32 but it's not being used in this instance
81:34 for some reason i want to know what that
81:35 distinction is and how we can know which
81:38 kind of worship is being given without
81:40 simply begging the question and saying
81:41 that well when it's given to Jesus it's
81:43 obviously of the religious kind
81:45 otherwise as far as I'm concerned this
81:46 worship point is essentially bunk some
81:50 of you might be thinking hold on a
81:51 second in the temptation in the
81:53 desert Satan asks Jesus to worship him
81:57 and what does Satan say do you know he
82:01 says "Worship it is written worship God
82:04 and serve him only." So you're only
82:07 supposed to worship God and people say
82:10 that this is an indication that any
82:12 worship of anybody other than God would
82:13 be immoral that interpretation cannot be
82:16 the case firstly because it would
82:18 condemn all of the people that I've just
82:20 listed to be sinners including the
82:21 entire assembly of Israel that can't be
82:24 it let's look again at this passage
82:27 jesus is quoting a passage which by the
82:29 way he's actually changed in the Old
82:31 Testament the passage that he's quoting
82:32 says "Fear
82:34 God rather than worship God." But
82:36 besides the point the word only here
82:40 qualifies not the word worship but the
82:42 word serve worship God and serve him
82:45 only worship here is procoo which we
82:48 know that Jesus can't be saying only
82:51 proaneo towards God because all of these
82:53 people including people that Jesus talks
82:55 about himself are offered proc worship
82:58 indeed process worshiped uh is promised
83:00 to all of you in revelation so we know
83:02 that he can't mean only worship god in
83:04 that sense but only qualifies the word
83:06 serve worship god and serve him only
83:08 what is the word serve which which Greek
83:10 word is translated in this passage to
83:12 serve does anybody know
83:14 latruo cultic religious worship so this
83:17 is a reaffirmation of point that proc
83:21 worship is fine but latrua worship is
83:24 something special that can only be be
83:25 given to God the key text here is James
83:27 Dun's um did the early Christians
83:30 worship God and as he rightly points out
83:33 there is no talk anywhere once in the
83:36 entire New Testament of latruo worship
83:39 being offered to Jesus why not
83:45 all right okay so that concludes Alex's
83:50 second rebuttal round we're going to
83:52 move to open discussion all right all
83:54 right all right
83:56 well shall we spark it off gentlemen
83:59 whatever you like let's do it open
84:00 dialogue who would like to take the lead
84:03 uh well I have some questions perhaps to
84:06 ask David about his position on Jesus's
84:08 relationship to the father with
84:10 particular regards to the authority that
84:12 he derives from the the father so one
84:15 question for example why do you think
84:17 that Jesus
84:19 prays before raising Lazarus from the
84:23 dead
84:25 um the the Old Testament says that God
84:27 is the God of all flesh if um if a
84:34 divine being were to become incarnate as
84:36 is claimed of Jesus and that divine
84:41 being really became a flesh and blood
84:45 human being like Jesus then um if he
84:51 is if he's also had an eternal
84:54 relationship with the
84:56 father then I I don't know if I'd expect
84:58 him to be an atheist when he entered
85:01 into creation so I in other words in
85:04 other words if if if the Christian
85:06 picture is correct you've got father and
85:09 son for all eternity son enters into
85:11 creation
85:12 um what's he going to be an atheist if
85:14 he is going to if as part of it is if
85:16 he's going to be the ideal human or
85:18 something like that yeah and so the son
85:20 of man one might say as far as uh as far
85:23 as what Jesus is going to do um you
85:26 would continue the eternal relationship
85:28 that you've had with the father and you
85:31 would do that through prayer so what I
85:33 mean to say is could Jesus have have
85:36 risen Lazarus from the dead of his own
85:38 accord on his own authority
85:41 i suppose yeah you suppose
85:44 that all authority has been given to
85:46 himself been given to him by God right
85:47 which the way that I read that is that
85:49 the father has delegated the authority
85:52 that is rightfully his to Jesus and it's
85:55 often said to me that Jesus raising
85:57 people from the dead of his own
85:58 authority is actually an indication of
85:59 his divinity because we have Old
86:01 Testament passages of people raising
86:03 people from the dead like Elijah and
86:04 Elisha and the point is always made that
86:06 well they pray before they they rise
86:09 from the dead jesus doesn't pray but
86:11 before he raises Lazarus in Johnap 11 he
86:15 looks upward and says,"Father I thank
86:17 you for having heard me i know that you
86:19 always hear me but I've said this for
86:22 the sake of the crowd standing here so
86:24 they may believe that you have sent me."
86:27 And when he says this he cries out with
86:29 a loud voice "Lazarus come out." So
86:33 Jesus is not only praying before raising
86:35 Lazarus but also saying that I always do
86:38 this it's just I'm doing it right now
86:40 publicly so there's no confusion that
86:42 you're the one who sent me to do this
86:44 and so even in instances where Jesus
86:47 appears to perform miracles of his own
86:48 accord such as calming the storm or
86:50 indeed raising other people from the
86:52 dead like the the widow's child he tells
86:56 us here in John's gospel that he always
86:59 is in communication with God beforehand
87:01 but right now he's saying so publicly so
87:03 that people will know that he sent him
87:04 why does Jesus need to pray before he
87:06 raises Lazarus from the dead um I mean
87:09 this is the exact same chapter where
87:11 Jesus declares himself the resurrection
87:13 and the life that's right and it's in
87:16 the same book where Jesus says that he's
87:19 the one who raises the dead at the
87:21 resurrection everyone who's in their
87:23 graves
87:25 will hear the voice of the son of God
87:28 mhm and so uh if if you're if you're
87:31 thinking that when we talk about Jesus
87:35 we're thinking of him as some rogue
87:37 deity who does things on his own I mean
87:39 that's basically the the entire meaning
87:41 of John chapter 5 john chapter 5 is
87:45 basically one response to this um Jesus
87:50 uh
87:51 Jesus heals on the Sabbath and this
87:54 freaks him out because they say "Hey
87:55 what are you doing?" He says "Well the
87:56 father's working until now i'm working
87:58 too yeah and so since the father's
88:00 working I get to work you all don't get
88:02 to work i get to work and then they
88:04 accuse him of claiming to be equal to
88:06 God and then he explains it that it's a
88:10 verse that Muslims use they say he says
88:12 by my own self I can do nothing but if
88:14 you look at what he's saying it's I can
88:15 do nothing separately from the father
88:18 but that's the same chapter where he
88:19 claims that he's the final judge where
88:22 he claims that he's the one who raises
88:23 the dead at the resurrection and he
88:25 explains it and says um for the father
88:28 judges no one but has given all judgment
88:30 to the son that all may honor the son
88:32 just as they honor the father the only
88:34 way you'd honor the son the same way you
88:37 you honor the father is if they have the
88:38 same nature and attributes you wouldn't
88:40 honor anyone else like you honor God
88:42 interesting do you believe that so Jesus
88:43 is saying
88:45 that the reason he's the one who judges
88:48 everything is because is so that we
88:49 honor him the same way we honor the
88:51 father that doesn't that that sounds Do
88:52 you believe do you believe that the
88:53 father has a distinct loving
88:55 relationship to the son compared to the
88:57 loving relationship he has to all of us
88:59 say
89:01 yep only because I' I've heard you make
89:02 this point before that he says that it's
89:05 that word as is quite important what you
89:06 just said so that he will honor uh so
89:09 that they will honor me just as they
89:11 honor the father that word just as is
89:13 cathos which I mentioned earlier that's
89:14 also used when Jesus says "So they will
89:17 know that you have loved me just as you
89:20 have loved them." So if we if we're
89:23 going to be consistent in our usage of
89:24 the term here if if Jesus saying like uh
89:28 that they will honor you just as they'll
89:30 honor me just as uh just as you honor
89:32 the father then the loving relationship
89:35 has to be treated in the same way right
89:38 well I think you could say I'm trying to
89:40 think if you say that you know I could
89:43 say I love this person just as I love my
89:46 wife and yeah you'd be right i could say
89:48 well I just mean I love both of them but
89:50 not in you know that wouldn't
89:51 necessarily be saying I love that person
89:52 exactly as I That's why there are two
89:54 words in the Greek that's why there's
89:55 like the word for no and finally I'm
89:57 talking about you have to interpret
89:58 words in context and what's what's the
90:00 context of this it's Jesus jesus claims
90:05 Jesus claims that that that since the
90:08 father is working he's working also mhm
90:11 and it's interesting because the
90:12 discussion among the rabbis was does God
90:15 work on does God work on the Sabbath and
90:17 so Jesus is working so God works on the
90:18 Sabbath because he's upholding and
90:20 sustaining the universe therefore I get
90:21 to work on the Sabbath as well and then
90:25 hey you're claiming to
90:26 be like they think he's claiming to be
90:28 another God and he clarifies no no no by
90:31 myself I can do nothing he points us he
90:33 he points this out and in this context
90:35 he's the final judge and so it's you
90:38 will honor the son just as you honor the
90:41 father there in context it would be very
90:43 strange to say well I just mean honor me
90:47 in some sense like you honor the father
90:49 but not not in that way it's I mean the
90:51 old testament Yahweh is the one who sets
90:54 up his throne to judge jesus is the one
90:56 who says all judgment is given to him
90:59 given Yeah yeah and so if it's if all
91:03 judgment is given to him and keep in
91:05 mind the Old Testament Yahweh is the one
91:06 who's going to judge and you're saying
91:08 Yeah but it's given to Jesus
91:12 and he says it's so that we honor him
91:14 the same way we honor the father yeah
91:16 okay so I want to talk about this
91:17 Sabbath moment because this is quite
91:19 important this is in John chapter 5 as
91:21 well this whole episode sort of hinges
91:24 on the idea that Jesus is working on the
91:25 Sabbath he says "My father is working so
91:28 am I." So your interpretation of this is
91:29 to say that well my father in heaven
91:32 that is God is working on the Sabbath so
91:34 so am I therefore I'm God this story of
91:37 Jesus working on the Sabbaths is
91:39 reported in multiple gospels in Mark's
91:40 gospel when he's found working on the
91:43 Sabbath and the Pharisees say to him
91:45 this is Mark chapter 2 look why are they
91:48 doing that which is not lawful on the
91:50 Sabbath what does Jesus say in response
91:56 have you not heard what David did have
91:58 you not read what David did when he and
92:00 his companions were hungry and in need
92:01 of food and they enter the house of God
92:03 and take the food which is not lawful on
92:04 the Sabbath so
92:07 Jesus justifies his breaking of the
92:10 Sabbath by referring to another human
92:12 being who also broke the Sabbath he then
92:16 tells us that the Sabbath was made for
92:18 mankind and not mankind for the Sabbath
92:21 a very famous quote the Sabbath was made
92:23 for man and not man for the Sabbath
92:25 bearing in mind that although the son of
92:27 man is lord of the seven yes bear in
92:28 mind that although in the in the Greek
92:31 the definite article is given to Jesus
92:33 when he uses the term son of man it's
92:36 complicated by the fact that son of man
92:38 without the definite article is just a
92:40 way of saying human being so there are
92:42 some scholars such as Morris Casey who
92:44 believe that these son of man sayings
92:45 have been corrupted at least some of
92:47 them from originally saying a son of man
92:50 or the son of man in the sense of just
92:51 meaning a human being now why would that
92:53 interpretation be correct here because
92:55 Jesus says firstly when he's accused of
92:58 breaking the Sabbath he says "Well David
93:00 did the same thing was David sinning?"
93:02 The implication is no which means it
93:04 can't just be God who breaks the Sabbath
93:06 he then says that the Sabbath was made
93:08 for man humans not humans or man for the
93:12 Sabbath therefore he says the word is
93:17 therefore the son of man is Lord of the
93:20 Sabbath if the son of man in some
93:22 context just means a human being that's
93:23 how early church fathers interpreted it
93:26 for example in fact some of the early
93:27 church fathers translated the son of man
93:29 as the son of Mary because they thought
93:31 it was Jesus indicating that he was the
93:33 son of a human being and he was only
93:35 born of Mary given that undertone for
93:38 this phrase the son of man how else can
93:39 I read this passage except Jesus saying
93:42 "Yeah I'm working on the Sabbath." So
93:43 did David and that wasn't wrong the
93:45 Sabbath was made for mankind therefore
93:47 mankind is Lord of the Sabbath if it's
93:50 only God who can work on the Sabbath
93:51 then why does Jesus appeal to David um
93:55 you're you're you're talking about two
93:56 completely different passages you're
93:57 talking about this this situation and
93:59 Jesus I was talking to a Jewish guy in
94:01 Israel and he he was he's not a
94:03 Christian but he said "Hey Jesus way won
94:05 jesus way actually won jesus Jesus the
94:08 way of Jesus won." Oh sure he he viewed
94:11 Jesus as like a a religious reformer um
94:14 sent against uh religious extremism and
94:16 so on um there Jesus is talking about
94:19 like preserving life and so on the
94:21 accusation in John in John five is
94:24 different but I'm I mean I'm I'm
94:26 pointing to John because you you're
94:28 going with John in John five he says the
94:30 father's working
94:33 and so he gets to work too that's right
94:36 and again if you read this there's
94:38 there's no way to interpret this as
94:40 Jesus claiming to be some you know just
94:43 another human being or something like
94:45 that well I don't think Jesus is
94:47 claiming to be just another human being
94:49 but although we are talking about two
94:50 different passages here if the reason
94:52 that Jesus gives because bear in mind
94:54 there are multiple ways to interpret
94:55 this when he says "Well God's working so
94:57 why not I?" There are multiple ways to
95:00 interpret this either Jesus is again
95:02 quite explicitly claiming to be God
95:04 which again is quite mystifying given
95:06 that this doesn't seem to provoke the
95:08 same kind of reaction and if it's well
95:09 recognized that God is the Lord of the
95:11 Sabbath and Jesus is claiming himself as
95:13 a title the son of man to be Lord of the
95:15 Sabbath or in this instance just
95:17 claiming the authority because God is
95:18 working so so am I it's strange that it
95:21 doesn't cause the same kind of fuss but
95:24 the other interpretation is that Jesus
95:26 is saying well if God can work on the
95:27 Sabbath why not anybody else if God can
95:29 work why not me and that just doesn't
95:31 your interpretation just doesn't square
95:33 with me with Mark's gospel i mean the
95:35 question I asked is why does he refer to
95:37 David in justifying talking about we're
95:39 talking about John yes you can you can
95:41 you can have you can have different
95:43 reasons for doing things in different
95:45 situations i mean as far as John so
95:47 Jesus because he was doing these things
95:48 on the Sabbath the Jewish leaders began
95:49 to persecute him in his defense Jesus
95:52 said to them my father is always at his
95:54 work to this very day and I too am
95:56 working for this reason they tried all
95:58 the more to kill him not only because he
96:00 was breaking the Sabbath but was even
96:01 calling God his own father making
96:04 himself equal with God yes and so that's
96:08 when Jesus goes and and if he's trying
96:10 to say that if he's trying to say
96:13 something about it's okay to break the
96:15 Sabbath or you don't have to work on the
96:17 Sabbath anymore or something like that
96:19 it's a it's a strange direction to go in
96:21 that he makes all these claims um he can
96:24 do only what the father sees because
96:26 whatever the father does the son also
96:30 does for just as the father raises the
96:32 dead and gives them life even so the son
96:34 gives life to whom he is pleased to give
96:36 it mhm the father judges no one but is
96:38 entrusted all judgment to the son that
96:39 all may honor the son just as they honor
96:41 the father whoever does not honor the
96:42 son does not honor the father that's
96:44 when he goes on to say that he's the one
96:46 who raises the dead a time is coming and
96:47 has now come when the dead will hear the
96:49 voice of the son of God and those who
96:51 hear will live for as the father has
96:53 life in himself so he has granted the
96:54 son also to have life in himself and he
96:57 has given him authority to judge because
96:58 he is the son of man and then he goes on
97:00 to say that uh the dead are going to be
97:03 raised my point is zeroing in on one
97:06 little point and saying ah well you know
97:07 maybe this is just you're missing kind
97:10 of the big picture this is but I'm
97:12 noticing the words granted and given or
97:14 authority there uh this idea that Jesus
97:17 raises the dead is not exactly clear in
97:20 John chapter 5 like if we if we look at
97:22 the words that we're actually dealing
97:23 with here the father judges no one but
97:26 has entrusted all judgment to the
97:28 son presumably the father could judge if
97:30 he wanted to he's made a decision to
97:32 entrust this to the son meaning that the
97:34 son doesn't have this power necessarily
97:36 if the son has this power necessarily
97:38 it's not something that needs to be
97:39 entrusted to him in the way that the
97:41 father then would not have it he then
97:44 says "Very truly I say to you whoever
97:46 hears my word and believes him who has
97:49 sent me has eternal life." And goes on
97:52 to say that the dead will hear the voice
97:54 of the son of God and those who hear
97:56 will live the voice of the son of God
97:58 yeah now he's the son of God right jesus
98:00 that's right agreeing that he's claiming
98:01 to be the son of God yeah so they'll
98:02 hear his voice and they'll be raised
98:03 from the dead but how do we like who is
98:05 doing the raising here and how do you
98:07 know
98:13 um you wait you're you're saying we're
98:15 going to hear people are going to So
98:17 you're saying someone else is raising
98:18 them god when they hear the voice of the
98:20 son of God so they're dead they're just
98:23 bones they hear the voice of the son of
98:26 God and then someone else raises them
98:28 for as the father has given has life in
98:30 himself so he has granted the son to
98:32 also have life in himself life in
98:34 himself yes any power that Jesus has
98:37 here is given to him by the father why
98:40 is Jesus if God in need of being given
98:43 this power by the father
98:46 um you not you have the this is the
98:48 exact same issue that you have in um in
98:53 Daniel 7 where the uh the son of man
98:57 coming with the clouds of heaven
98:58 approaches the ancient of days and he is
99:01 given authority glory and sovereign
99:02 power so it's why is he being given
99:04 authority and glory and sovereign power
99:06 yeah but even before that it's the son
99:09 of man coming with the clouds of heaven
99:11 that's how he approaches but again it's
99:12 Yahweh who comes with the clouds so he's
99:15 Yahweh and then something happens and
99:17 then he's he's given the son of man is
99:19 Yahweh do you think that that was how
99:21 Daniel 7 was interpreted by anybody
99:24 before Daniel saw a vision that's right
99:26 but this this is this is this is one of
99:27 the issues as far as the this is one of
99:29 the issues that comes up in um in the
99:31 two power the two powers in heaven
99:33 because it's again Yahweh is the only
99:36 one who comes with the clouds in the Old
99:38 Testament and here you have the son of
99:40 man who receives uh worship and so on
99:44 and is worshiped by all nations and but
99:46 notice he approaches he approaches and
99:49 then he's he's given authority glory and
99:51 sovereign power mhm but if you if you if
99:54 you line that up with the creed in
99:56 Philippians if you line that up with
99:57 John 1 and so on you get you get kind of
99:59 a big picture and you can you can take
100:02 like John 1:1 in the beginning was the
100:03 word the word was with God the word was
100:04 God and then the word became flesh and
100:06 dwelt among us that's after all things
100:08 are created through him and you find the
100:10 same thing in Philippians 2 early
100:13 Christian creed uh when it's uh in your
100:16 relationships with with one another have
100:17 the same mindset as Christ Jesus who
100:19 being in very nature God did not
100:20 consider equality with God something to
100:22 be used to his own advantage um rather
100:24 he made himself nothing taking the very
100:25 nature of a servant so these are you you
100:28 have someone who is in nature God over
100:30 here someone who is the word who through
100:33 whom all things are created and then
100:36 enters creation
100:38 and if you so then lives as Jesus dies
100:43 and I would I would interpret it since
100:45 you have uh the ending in Matthew where
100:49 Jesus approaches and he's worshiped
100:51 there and he says that all authority in
100:53 heaven and earth has been given to him m
100:55 so the idea is he becomes a servant he's
100:58 in very nature God he takes on the
101:00 nature of a servant and then he lives as
101:03 a servant and the the irony of the
101:05 statement where where he says the son of
101:07 man came not to be served but to serve
101:09 and to give his life as a ransom for
101:10 many the irony there is he's the son of
101:12 man he's supposed to be served in by all
101:14 and he says that he came to serve and so
101:17 he's living as a servant during this
101:20 life then he dies he rises from there's
101:23 there's a lot here right yeah i I want
101:24 to go right back because we started with
101:26 this idea of the son of man coming on
101:28 the clouds meaning that he's Yahweh do
101:30 you think that's how Daniel interpreted
101:32 his vision do you think that's how I
101:34 believe Daniel saw a vision and recorded
101:36 his vision do you think that's how the
101:37 Sanhedrin interpreted Daniel 7 when
101:39 Jesus comes for his trial and he says
101:42 and he quotes Daniel 7 and says that
101:44 you'll see the son of man riding on the
101:46 clouds of heaven do you think that the
101:49 problem there was that Jesus was
101:51 claiming to be God and that's something
101:52 that no human being can do because
101:56 Daniel 7 is part of the Jewish scripture
101:58 they were expecting the coming of this
102:00 son of man so if it's obvious that the
102:02 son of man was going to be Yahweh then
102:03 the Sanhedrin should have expected that
102:05 the coming son of man would have been
102:06 Yahweh they might have thought that
102:08 Jesus wasn't him but do you think that
102:09 the Sanhedrin were expecting whoever the
102:11 rightful son of man was who was to come
102:13 would be identical to Yahweh and if not
102:16 why did they not read that into the
102:17 passage as obviously as you think that
102:18 they should have done people were
102:20 basically confused by these passages
102:22 that's the impression you get they go in
102:23 all sorts of different directions and oh
102:25 this is referring to the Messiah no this
102:27 is referring to some sort of angel no
102:28 this is referring to this no that's I'm
102:30 talking about what the text says the son
102:32 of man comes with the clouds of heaven
102:34 all before that all before that it's
102:36 always Yahweh who comes on the clouds
102:38 and so if you were looking at that and
102:41 you didn't if you if you didn't have the
102:43 idea of wait a minute it it just can't
102:45 be it it's impossible that that is
102:47 referring to God because you've got the
102:50 ancient of days right there if you're
102:52 not reading I and really I I don't know
102:54 I don't even know what to do if you're
102:55 saying that I'm not talking about you
102:57 i'm talking about anyone if you're
102:58 reading that and going "No it doesn't
103:00 seem like this is God he comes with the
103:02 clouds of heaven but then he's worshiped
103:04 by all nations and has an ever an
103:05 everlasting kingdom." Mhm if you're just
103:07 reading that if if put it this way if
103:09 you didn't have the ancient of days in
103:10 the picture and you're reading this
103:11 description comes in the cloud of
103:12 heavens worship all nations say
103:13 obviously God yes the the the mystery
103:16 comes in the mystery comes in when it's
103:18 wait a minute we've got the ancient of
103:19 days here so this is sounding like
103:21 That's right two divine beings and we
103:24 just can't real quick so we we've gone
103:26 through about 20 minutes david are you
103:28 comfortable staying here or do you want
103:30 to ask Alex some questions now
103:33 we
103:35 we just of course the point was or is in
103:39 the christoologgical dispute that Jesus
103:41 is accused of blasphemy at his trial and
103:44 that this is evidence that he was
103:46 claiming to be God through his
103:47 identification with the divine son of
103:49 man because that's how it's
103:51 interpreted by the high priest because
103:54 he accuses him of blasphemy does that
103:56 mean that the high priest was expecting
103:57 the son of man to be Yahweh himself do
104:00 you think that that is the
104:01 interpretation that the high priest had
104:03 of the Danielic vision of the son of man
104:05 i would say they would obviously have
104:09 interpreted the uh that that passage in
104:12 Daniel or claimed to be the son of man
104:14 in in that sense if you were just if
104:16 you're just saying hey I'm a son of man
104:17 I think they'd be fine with it um well
104:19 yeah of course in in the Aramaic in
104:21 which Daniel 7 is written it's one like
104:23 a son of man one like bar nash which
104:25 just means one like a human being yeah
104:27 so you you'd clarify that and that's the
104:29 point like like a human being and yet he
104:32 comes with the clouds of heaven so he's
104:33 he's coming with clouds of heaven he's
104:35 Yahweh and yet he's like the son of a
104:36 man that's right you understand history
104:38 as far as as far as how they would
104:40 interpret it they could have a range of
104:42 interpretations that we don't know what
104:44 this means but we know that the the guy
104:47 who built my cousin's table in Nazareth
104:51 should not be making this claim sure so
104:54 is that enough to be So suppose that
104:56 their interpretation was a a messianic
104:59 vision of Daniel 7 this carpenter
105:01 claiming to be the Messiah would that
105:03 have been enough to accuse him of
105:04 blasphemy claiming to be the Messiah is
105:07 not a not a death sentence all all kinds
105:09 of So the reason I'm pressing this point
105:11 is because when I say did the high
105:13 priest believe that the son of man was
105:15 going to be Yahweh himself i think
105:16 that's quite implausible and I think you
105:18 recognize that in saying well look there
105:20 are loads of ideas that they could have
105:21 had was quite confusing but if Jesus
105:24 wouldn't be accused of blasphemy for
105:25 merely claiming to be the Messiah if you
105:27 had a messianic interpretation he
105:29 wouldn't be accused of blasphemy for
105:31 claiming to embody the nation of Israel
105:32 if you have the idea that the son of man
105:34 represents Israel which is another view
105:36 it has to be Israel comes on the clouds
105:38 of it has to be and is worshiped by all
105:39 nations i'm not that's my interpretation
105:41 i'm saying that in the history of the
105:43 interpretation of Daniel 7 that has been
105:45 a popular interpretation of course the
105:47 four beasts which come before represent
105:48 different nations and the one like the
105:49 son of man is Israel but the question
105:50 I'm asking you is surely you recognize
105:52 that if the idea is that claiming to be
105:54 the Messiah or something like that is
105:56 not enough for a death sentence that's
105:58 right then what Jesus has to have done
106:00 in that trial in order to get a death
106:02 sentence must have been to say something
106:05 that the high priest immediately
106:07 interpreted as him claiming to be Yahweh
106:09 that means that he has to expect that
106:10 the coming son of man would be Yahweh
106:12 himself
106:14 i understand what the high priest
106:16 thought of Daniel's vision one you're
106:18 you're you just made an awesome case for
106:20 me right if he's just thinking of if
106:22 he's just thinking of the the son of man
106:24 coming with the clouds of heaven uh as
106:26 the Messiah then oh okay this guy
106:28 claimed to be the Messiah let's uh let's
106:30 uh maybe we have to deal with the Romans
106:31 or something like that but it's not it's
106:33 not uh it's not this uh terrier
106:35 blasphemy sort of thing um what you find
106:38 in that passage people struggle with
106:40 that again the reason the reason is
106:43 because it sounds like it's talking
106:45 about Yahweh when the ancient of days is
106:48 Yahweh that's it so you come up you try
106:51 to you try to explain it in other ways
106:52 could this be the Messiah that does it
106:54 just doesn't fit could this be the
106:55 nation of Israel it doesn't fit there
106:57 all these interpretations but it's clear
107:00 if a guy says "You will see the son of
107:01 man coming with a uh at the right hand
107:03 of power and coming with the clouds of
107:04 heaven." Yeah doesn't seem like they
107:07 were taking that to just be a claim to
107:08 be the Messiah that interpretation and
107:10 and you're right that I'm bolstering the
107:12 case here that Jesus must have been
107:13 claiming to be Yahweh what I'm saying is
107:15 that if your position is correct and
107:18 that is the only thing that he could
107:19 have been accused of blasphemy for then
107:20 you have to presuppose that the high
107:22 priest had that interpretation of Daniel
107:24 7 which which just seems so implausible
107:27 to me that that's what they thought
107:29 Daniel 7 meant that that's what they
107:31 thought at that time that it meant that
107:33 this son of man who they did expect to
107:35 come would be Yahweh himself is is that
107:38 what you think they they thought because
107:39 you have to for this to run i don't have
107:42 the records of the high priest if he
107:44 says "This guy just claimed to be the
107:46 son of man coming with the clouds of
107:48 heaven." And again this if you just read
107:50 the if you just read the passage if you
107:52 just read in Daniel 7 if you didn't have
107:55 the ancient of days there it would be
107:56 indisputable this talking about this
107:58 talking about God but you've got the
107:59 ancient of days there so what's the
108:01 context of this first century they're
108:02 dealing with this two powers in heaven
108:04 issue and they don't know how to deal
108:06 with it they're coming they're coming up
108:07 with all sorts of explanations for what
108:09 they for what this second power is and
108:11 then Jesus claims to be one of them when
108:14 does the two powers in heaven uh like
108:16 idea heresy if you want to call it that
108:18 now like when does that begin to emerge
108:20 uh BC what evidence do you have of the
108:23 popularity of the 2 heaven idea in
108:27 second temple Judaism you well I mean
108:31 the the main discussion that's that's
108:33 used like in uh in um uh in Seagal's in
108:36 Seagull's book
108:37 is the the later rabbitic commentaries
108:40 but so you have yeah in like the late 1
108:42 and 2 century right
108:44 yeah that's when that's when they're
108:46 talking about because it's a big deal uh
108:49 yeah that well that's when that's when
108:50 Jewish orthodoxy is is forming so in
108:52 other words it's a relatively fringe
108:54 position beforehand
108:56 no it's it's it was fairly popular
108:58 what's your evidence for uh as far as I
109:00 understand it's it's a relatively fringe
109:01 position okay so you have one you have
109:03 one you have all these issues that are
109:04 in the Old Testament but then you have
109:05 the the Targums you have the Tarans that
109:07 are that are um they're they're putting
109:10 Old Testament passages into Aramaic and
109:12 so on and they start giving some
109:15 interesting uh some interesting
109:17 translations of uh of some of these
109:20 passages and so on and
109:22 treating there's a lot of other issues
109:25 like even with even with the name and
109:27 with the word and that's why boy that's
109:29 why Borieran says the ideas the the
109:31 ideas are already there because you have
109:33 passages where they're in where they're
109:34 interpreting uh the word where they're
109:36 interpreting uh the word of God as a
109:40 personal agent and so on so the idea is
109:42 that uh that uh that would you know
109:44 here's drawing a parallel between that
109:46 and and John's gospel here's James James
109:49 McGrath on on the two powers the
109:51 evidence surveyed thus far gives no
109:53 support for dating the origins of the
109:55 controversy even to the second century
109:57 it is of course possible that the
109:58 controversy did arise in the second
109:59 century but it has not yet been
110:01 sufficient had sufficient impact to
110:02 leave any clear or explicit trace in the
110:04 traditions and literature from that
110:06 period
110:09 um you when you ha when you have when
110:12 you have the rabbis forming Jewish
110:13 orthodoxy they're clearly responding to
110:15 the issue of the two powers in heaven
110:17 yeah when's that happening yeah that's
110:19 later but they're talking about things
110:20 that things that happened earlier but
110:22 because remember what we're talking
110:23 about here is the idea of the son of man
110:26 that the high priests would have had at
110:28 Jesus's trial if the 2,00 heaven idea is
110:31 something that only emerges in the late
110:32 1st and second century no that's that's
110:34 when it's being labeled a heresy that's
110:36 when they're declaring it a heresy and
110:38 they're set they're setting out what I'm
110:39 asking is is why is it that if this is
110:41 already a controversy that has emerged
110:44 and is extent to the ex to to the extent
110:47 that the high priest believes it then
110:50 why is it leaving no trace in our
110:52 traditions and literature from that
110:54 period why is it why in other words what
110:56 traditions do you have from what what
110:58 commentaries are you talking about from
110:59 the first century well that's a that's a
111:00 silence thing because I'm I don't have
111:02 commentary I could what commentaries do
111:03 I have that don't mention it that's a
111:05 bit of a broad question and I'm asking
111:06 what to do if you're if the rabbis are
111:09 talking about these earlier
111:10 controversies and they're dealing with
111:12 because you have you have the Christians
111:14 went went one way with it you had the
111:15 Gnostics became an issue for the
111:17 Gnostics because the Gnostics
111:18 interpreted they believed in the two
111:20 powers in heaven and they said they're
111:22 basically in conflict the two powers are
111:23 in conflict and so the Gnostics ran with
111:26 that and then you had uh Jewish mystics
111:29 Jewish mystics who were running with the
111:31 issue do you think the Gnostics believed
111:33 in the two powers in heaven heresy as as
111:37 you've described it
111:40 they believe they believed in the two
111:41 powers
111:44 they went they went in a completely
111:45 different direction so they so the
111:48 Christian direction was father was
111:50 father and son you've got father and son
111:52 you've got son of man coming with the
111:54 clouds in ancient of days you've got um
111:56 God and the word of God you've got Paul
111:58 calling u the father God and calling
112:01 Jesus Lord and so on so you see it all
112:04 over there they have the two powers but
112:06 the two powers are in harmony and have
112:08 always been so yeah the Gnostics
112:10 believed in the two powers and they
112:13 believe that they're in they're believe
112:15 that they're in
112:17 conflict and so then you so anyway the
112:20 point okay look I and I I really don't
112:22 know here but I'm I think that this
112:24 hinges on the evidence that the two
112:28 powers in heaven idea is a popular
112:30 enough
112:31 controversy in the time of Jesus's in
112:35 Jesus's lifetime that the high priest
112:39 seek would have believed it and and as
112:41 far as I can see the you can tell what
112:42 he believed by how he reacts so so you
112:45 do think that this is what he believed
112:46 then like you're committing yourself to
112:48 that view in other words that this is
112:49 the view that the high priest had of
112:51 Daniel 7 that the son of man would be
112:53 Yahweh that even before Jesus came along
112:55 this high priest must have read Daniel 7
112:57 no idea he have a range of ideas so you
112:58 just say you can't have no idea because
113:00 if your if your whole claim is that
113:02 Jesus couldn't have been accused of
113:03 blasphemy for anything other than
113:04 claiming to be God i've never said that
113:07 in this instance like what other
113:09 interpretation of Daniel 7 do you think
113:11 would would this Let me put it this way
113:12 what interpretation other than the one
113:14 that I've just described of Daniel 7
113:16 could the high priest have that would
113:18 cause him to accuse Jesus of blasphemy
113:19 based on the words that he said as as
113:21 far as we you can tell in commentary
113:23 they can't figure out what it means
113:25 right and
113:26 so the question is how is the high
113:29 priest interpreting what Jesus is saying
113:32 so how are they interpreting what Jesus
113:34 is saying and he Jesus is identifying
113:36 himself as the son of man who they
113:38 already expected to come from Daniel 7
113:41 and they interpret that as him claiming
113:44 to be Yahweh
113:47 it really looks like that i think that's
113:49 what you have to say right you have to
113:51 say that they think he's claiming to be
113:52 Yahweh but in order to say that you have
113:54 to believe that that is how he
113:56 interpreted Daniel 7 look no I don't he
114:00 could have a range of interpretations
114:01 and like like put it this way look at
114:03 what the high priest is doing when he
114:05 says "Don't keep us in suspense any
114:07 longer are you the Christ the son of the
114:09 the son of the blessed?" He's asking for
114:11 clarification on what he's saying what
114:12 are you saying what are you telling us
114:14 okay so bearing in mind that one
114:15 interpretation of Daniel 7 throughout
114:17 history even after the advent of
114:18 Christianity is that Daniel 7 is a
114:20 messianic prophecy about the coming
114:22 Messiah if Jesus is asked "Are you the
114:24 Messiah?" And he responds by quoting
114:26 Daniel 7 if one of the interpretations
114:28 of Daniel 7 is that it's talking about
114:30 the Messiah then why would they not just
114:32 think he was claiming to be the Messiah
114:34 they he obviously didn't give them them
114:37 them that impression if they they said
114:40 he deserves death for it and by the way
114:43 by the way this is connected you can you
114:44 can actually tell what happens i mean
114:45 you brought up the passage in Acts 7 i
114:48 mean Stephen Steven is giving his entire
114:51 case for belief in Jesus as the Messiah
114:54 they never get violent then he rebukes
114:56 them the harshest way you can possibly
114:58 all your you you killed all the your
115:00 ancestors killed all the prophets and
115:01 you guys killed the Messiah mhm if
115:03 they're just going to get ticked off at
115:05 rebuke or insults or something like that
115:07 that would have been the time to do it
115:08 it's when he says "I see the son of
115:10 man." It's when I see the son of man
115:12 that's when they cover their ears they
115:14 cover their ears they charge him and
115:16 they kill him so you can do the same
115:19 thing why are they inter why why is it
115:20 why why are they interpreting as why
115:22 aren't they interpreting that as he's
115:24 just saying that Jesus is the Messiah
115:25 that's exactly right yeah why do they
115:27 think that we got we we got to we got to
115:29 move to to Q&A we've gone way over the
115:31 open dialogue so if you have a question
115:34 line up over there while I let you guys
115:36 finish your thoughts um guys hey oh
115:42 gosh two
115:45 all right so check it out right here
115:46 where Ray is right here where Ray is you
115:48 guys go to Ray Rock right here in the
115:50 very front check check check yes we get
115:52 four minutes on the on the clock for the
115:54 conclusions
115:56 all right in my opening statement I
115:57 point out you you basically have a
115:58 controversy
116:00 um we know that there's a controversy uh
116:02 going on and we see how we see how
116:05 Christians are responding to that
116:08 and basically up until orthodoxy defines
116:11 the uh two powers issue as a heresy um
116:16 you had a wide range of views a wide
116:18 range of uh interpreting these various
116:20 texts and so on it's pretty clear what
116:22 happens
116:23 when Jesus comes along and we looked I
116:29 actually qu it's interesting I quoted
116:31 multiple passages in Mark and I quoted
116:33 uh Q as far as Jesus saying that
116:37 um all things have been handed over to
116:39 him by his father no one knows the son
116:40 except the father no one knows the
116:42 father except the son and anyone to whom
116:43 the son chooses to reveal him you have I
116:45 quoted those because I assumed that that
116:47 he was going to reject John and so I was
116:50 quoting the uh the the some of our
116:51 earlier material and then the creed in
116:53 Philippians and so on where know if you
116:55 noticed but everyone seems to be doing
116:57 the same thing and it's the same issue
116:59 that arises in the Old Testament you
117:01 have Yahweh sending Yahweh you have
117:03 Yahweh sending the angel of the Lord but
117:05 the angel of the Lord is Yahweh and
117:06 Yahweh says that he's the angel you have
117:10 the uh ancient of days and the son of
117:13 man coming with the clouds of heaven so
117:14 you have these issues and people are
117:16 confused about it but then you look to
117:18 the New Testament they're doing the
117:20 exact same thing that was going on in
117:22 the Old Testament but now they're
117:23 defining it as father son God and the
117:25 word but the word is is also God um Paul
117:30 saying God the father is God and Jesus
117:33 is Lord um and they also bring in the
117:36 the son of man in the ancient of days
117:38 with uh with Jesus and so on so you've
117:41 got all these pastors they're all doing
117:42 the same thing it's kind it's pretty
117:44 clear it's pretty clear what's going on
117:47 and the question is we look we look at
117:50 what Jesus says he sounds like he's
117:52 claiming to be one of the two powers in
117:53 heaven in multiple ways we look at what
117:54 Jesus does he's claiming to do things
117:56 like judge the world and raise the dead
117:59 at the resurrection we look at what his
118:01 followers say uh we look at what his
118:03 followers do we look at what his enemies
118:05 say we look at what his enemies do and
118:07 everything we can look at gives the
118:09 indication that this guy was making
118:11 claims that cause people to either uh
118:15 worship him and start praying to him and
118:17 doxologies and so on or saying that this
118:20 guy has to
118:21 die and if that's all just a
118:24 miscommunication this is like beyond
118:26 anything else you want to say Jesus
118:28 wasn't the greatest communicator and so
118:29 on because he slowly unveiled things for
118:31 people who weren't ready to hear it uh
118:32 that's very different from saying
118:34 everyone got the message horribly
118:36 horribly wrong and so I just wanted to
118:39 conclude here with uh the last minute uh
118:41 wanted to revisit the
118:45 uh famous quote from CS Lewis famous
118:48 quote from CS Lewis um that the
118:51 trillemma the problem with the trillemma
118:52 was that it didn't rule out uh it didn't
118:55 include certain other options so it's
118:57 presented as Lord liar lunatic but
118:59 you've got the legend possibility that
119:02 it doesn't include what if all this is
119:03 later legendary development well we've
119:05 seen that can't be the case because
119:07 everyone concludes this it's all over
119:09 the place it's in our earliest material
119:10 we can trace this back to two year
119:12 within two years of the formation of the
119:14 church when Paul is persecuting the
119:15 church what's he doing he was
119:17 persecuting people for calling on the
119:18 name of Jesus the way they're calling on
119:20 the name of the Lord this means that the
119:21 early church um had this view and the
119:25 other option would
119:26 be Jesus is a terrible communicator and
119:29 everyone misunderstood him and that I I
119:32 just have to say again given how Jesus
119:34 taught I can't believe that everyone was
119:36 horribly misunderstanding and so when we
119:38 rule those out I think we can agree with
119:40 CS Lewis who said "I'm trying to prevent
119:42 anyone saying the really foolish thing
119:43 that people often say about him i'm
119:46 ready to accept Jesus as a great moral
119:47 teacher but I do not accept his claim to
119:49 be God." That is the one thing we must
119:51 not say a man who was merely a man and
119:53 said the sort of things Jesus said would
119:55 not be a great moral teacher he would
119:57 either be a lunatic on the level with
119:59 the man who says he is a poached egg or
120:01 else he would be the devil of hell you
120:03 must make your choice either this man
120:05 was and is the son of God or else a mad
120:08 man or something worse you can shut him
120:10 up for a fool you can spit at him and
120:11 kill him as a demon or you can fall at
120:13 his feet and call him Lord and God but
120:15 let us not come with any patronizing
120:17 nonsense about his being a great human
120:18 teacher
120:19 or a terrible communicator he has not
120:22 left that open to us he did not intend
120:25 to
120:27 all right sure
120:30 alex for a minute closing
120:34 all right for a minute closing from Alex
120:36 yeah i mean there I guess there are a
120:37 few important things to say first is
120:38 that I totally forgot in that entire
120:40 section that I really really did want to
120:41 hear what David thinks about Jesus
120:43 implying all throughout John chapter 17
120:46 that the relationship he has with the
120:48 father is the same as the relationship
120:49 the father and he wish to have with all
120:52 Christian believers i find it quite
120:54 stunning that when specifically asked to
120:56 clarify his christoologgical position he
120:59 describes his relationship with the
121:00 father in terms that he then attributes
121:03 to first his disciples and then the rest
121:04 of Christian believers absent everything
121:07 else that we've been saying that alone
121:08 should be pretty stunning what can it
121:10 possibly mean for Jesus to describe his
121:13 relationship to the father and then say
121:15 "In the same way that I'm in him and
121:17 he's in me I want you all to be in us so
121:19 we can all be one all of us." What can
121:21 that possibly mean we didn't even get to
121:23 discuss this maybe some people in the
121:25 Q&A have some answers but on its own
121:27 that is enough to raise some serious
121:30 question marks of course a lot of
121:32 David's case has relied on this two
121:33 powers heresy and we were sort of
121:34 getting a bit caught in the weeds there
121:35 about the dating i read a quote from
121:37 James McGrath which I didn't finish
121:38 because it's quite long but he goes on
121:40 to say and this is in uh the only true
121:45 God early Christian monotheism in its
121:47 Jewish context he says of course
121:49 conversely the absence of evidence for
121:51 the existence of the heresy in this
121:53 period surveyed so far does not prove
121:55 that it did not yet exist of course
121:57 that's true however in view of the clear
122:00 palemic against two powers in later
122:02 writings and the complete absence of
122:04 such pmic in earlier writings this at
122:07 least strongly suggests the possibility
122:08 that the two powers only became an issue
122:11 for whatever reason in the period after
122:13 those documents were put in their
122:14 present form in other words this two
122:15 powers discussion doesn't seem to crop
122:17 up at all until it's too late to have
122:19 influenced the high priest and I want to
122:22 know why I suppose that's the case i
122:26 want to know why it is that Jesus also
122:27 says that the glory he receives from the
122:29 father will be given to the disciples
122:31 and given to everybody else i want to
122:33 know why Jesus is given the authority to
122:36 forgive sins which at least is
122:38 interpreted by his Jewish opponents as
122:40 something only God can do and then gives
122:42 it to his disciples the same authority
122:44 at the end of chap John chapter 20
122:46 saying as the father has sent me I'm now
122:48 sending you what is going on here why is
122:51 Jesus passing on all of these divine
122:53 prerogatives in unity to his disciples
122:55 in precisely the way that he got them
122:57 from the
122:58 father if any of these instances any of
123:01 these divine and the same thing with
123:02 judgment by the way which David keeps
123:03 coming back to which God also delegates
123:06 to other people again we haven't heard
123:08 much response on these ideas of it's not
123:10 just Jesus who gets to judge but Jesus
123:12 also delegates that judgment the example
123:13 I gave was delegating judgment of the 12
123:15 tribes of is Israel to his disciples
123:17 which is something we're pretty sure he
123:18 historically actually said because he
123:20 says that the 12 of you will sit on 12
123:23 thrones judging the tw 12 tribes of
123:25 Israel meanwhile Judas is currently
123:27 present so it's likely he actually said
123:30 this because it's not something a later
123:31 Christian writer would make up there are
123:33 Christian interpretations as to why he
123:34 would have still said 12 of course but
123:36 it's an unnatural thing for someone to
123:38 have made up so we think he actually
123:39 said it he's delegating his judgment why
123:41 is Jesus taking all of these divine
123:42 prerogatives and giving them to human
123:44 beings if he's more than just a human
123:47 being himself but of course he's not
123:48 just a human being qua his position he's
123:51 a very special kind of human being
123:53 someone who according to the uh the
123:55 non-gosspel New Testament sources is
123:57 exalted given the name above every other
123:59 name interesting implication for the the
124:02 divine name bearing model by the way
124:05 what is the best interpretation is all I
124:07 basically have to ask of all of these
124:08 points i mean we got quite caught caught
124:10 up in there in the in the nature of
124:12 blasphemy and what Jesus could have been
124:14 claiming again I'll just press the point
124:16 that if you want to accept that Jesus
124:18 couldn't have been accused of blasphemy
124:19 for anything other than claiming to be
124:21 Yahweh and yet all he really did was
124:24 quote Daniel 7 then you have to believe
124:26 that at the time of Jesus's trial it was
124:29 popular enough within Jewish thought to
124:31 expect that the coming son of man as
124:33 prophesied in Daniel 7 would be Yahweh
124:36 himself i don't see any evidence for
124:38 that at all so for these considerations
124:39 I think it a suspicious reading of the
124:42 New Testament to say that Jesus was
124:43 claiming identity with Yahweh all right
124:46 before we go to the first question I got
124:47 one question for Alex and and I would
124:49 love to hear your answer on this i'm
124:50 going throw a monkey wrench in this
124:52 whole thing um you've brought this up
124:54 before the idea in Eastern Orthodoxy of
124:57 theosis or deification does that solve
124:59 the dilemma that you're referring to uh
125:02 theosis the process of humans attaining
125:04 likeness to and union with God
125:06 participating in the divine energies uh
125:09 divine nature and experiencing community
125:11 with the holy if we're adding the
125:13 Eastern Orthodox position which is
125:14 within the realms of orthodoxy as
125:16 Protestants would probably call that
125:17 glorification right they're giving very
125:19 specific language your dilemma is Jesus
125:21 is God and then he's given this god-like
125:22 authority to his disciples could you
125:25 concede potentially that that solves the
125:27 dilemma only if that also describes how
125:29 Jesus relates to his own father because
125:31 of Constantly Jesus is using the word
125:33 cathos or cathos cathos which means just
125:37 as in the same way as so sure maybe this
125:40 is talking about a kind of elevation of
125:43 humans to share in the likeness of God
125:45 in in in some other kind of way but
125:47 deification yeah
125:48 deification but then Jesus would have to
125:50 see himself in the same way which is in
125:52 so many words what I'm trying to say
125:54 Jesus was in fact doing so yes okay cool
125:58 all right we're going to go to questions
125:59 um so uh let's All right we have got it
126:02 we're gonna get through this real quick
126:04 we got a question from Avery all right
126:07 oh hold the mic okay all right for sure
126:10 uh what's going on guys so this is a
126:12 question for Alex man how you doing man
126:14 hey um you mentioned God logic yes yes
126:17 sir you mentioned uh in Hebrews 1 where
126:20 you know God is speaking you know God uh
126:23 spoke to our you know you know uh
126:25 through prophets now he speaks to us
126:27 through his son and you're saying where
126:29 was Jesus then you know back then he
126:31 should have been active and so you know
126:34 regarding Hebrews I want just want to
126:36 read you this and get your thoughts on
126:37 this okay it's Hebrews 11 regarding
126:39 Moses it says by faith Moses and I'm
126:42 going just skip down to 25 and 26 for
126:44 time choosing rather to be mistreated
126:47 with the people of God than to enjoy the
126:49 fleeting pleasures of sin he considered
126:52 the reproach of Christ greater wealth
126:55 than the treasures of Egypt for he was
126:58 looking to the reward so how is it that
127:01 Moses can be considering Christ's
127:04 disapproval if Christ wasn't around for
127:07 him to disapprove
127:10 yeah that is a great question so Christ
127:13 there he regarded disgrace for the sake
127:16 of Christ as greater value than the
127:18 treasures of Egypt because he was
127:19 looking ahead to his reward
127:22 now that's something which I I think
127:25 yeah I I think it's a good point i I
127:27 mean of course I can offer a
127:28 christoologgical interpretation of this
127:29 which sort of says that Christ is
127:32 promised as the redeemer of mankind and
127:34 we're looking at this in retro where
127:35 where's he gone oh there you are we're
127:38 looking just dropped it and left and I
127:41 suppose we're we're looking at this in
127:42 retrospect and he regarded disgrace for
127:44 the sake of Christ yeah I do I do think
127:46 that in this instance Hebrews is
127:48 probably presenting Jesus
127:52 as I don't know about the angel of
127:54 Yahweh but certainly we're looking at a
127:56 high christologology in in Hebrews yeah
127:57 so close
128:00 yeah yeah yeah i see what you're saying
128:03 all right let's go to the next question
128:05 cuz we want to go he's so close guys but
128:07 I I I have no I I for what it's worth I
128:10 have no problem saying that Hebrews has
128:12 a high christologology uh that that's
128:14 not that's kind of that's kind of not an
128:15 issue to me but I think it is
128:16 interesting to suggest that as a retort
128:19 to the idea of the angel of Yahweh being
128:21 Jesus i think that is an excellent point
128:23 yeah yeah great job all right um
128:27 uh we got a question for David Wood real
128:30 quick gentlemen thank you for a
128:32 wonderful debate um Dr would uh
128:35 regarding the I am statements of Jesus
128:38 in the Gospel of John the most palpable
128:40 powerful divine statements by Christ why
128:43 do you believe that they are omitted
128:45 from Mark from Q from Matthew and Luke
128:48 our four earliest gospels and then John
128:51 comes along and these statements are
128:52 present in John and missing from all of
128:54 our other sources did I bring up I am
128:57 statements
128:59 who brought them up
129:02 that's the question it it it is
129:05 fascinating if you walk in and you say
129:06 "All right I'm going to quote all these
129:07 passages in John." They go "Ah it's too
129:09 late it's the latest source you can't
129:11 trust that it's uh clearly made up later
129:14 and so on." And so you say "Okay let me
129:16 just go with the earliest material go Q
129:17 Mark and Paul." And then it's what what
129:19 about John that's uh very interesting so
129:22 I can't quote John but they can quote
129:23 John these are these are uh these are
129:24 awesome times um
129:29 uh one I I think the I think the uh I
129:31 think the synoptic gospel writers are
129:33 focusing on different
129:36 theological issues um and so in in in
129:40 Mark for instance you have the you have
129:44 the announcement you have the
129:46 announcement that John the Baptist is
129:48 preparing the way for Jesus but he
129:50 actually quotes uh Isaiah that the
129:53 messenger is going to prepare the way
129:55 for the Lord and so if you look if you
129:58 look at how it unfolds it's raising all
130:00 these questions who is this guy who says
130:01 he can forgive sins this guy calls him
130:03 this guy says that he's the Lord of the
130:04 Sabbath u you you you do have you do
130:08 have an I am statement uh there in Mark
130:12 6:50 but there are p there are passages
130:15 where it could just be it could just be
130:16 translated as as it is I which is why I
130:20 don't point to these but they are they
130:21 are there and that's the context where
130:22 it would make sense um because this is
130:26 this is a this is a really powerful
130:29 religious moment for them so you could
130:30 interpret it that way but since uh since
130:33 it's kind of ambiguous I don't but as
130:35 far as far as why material is quoted in
130:39 John that's not quoted in other gospels
130:42 again I think they're focusing on
130:44 different issues you look at Mark it's
130:45 very action-based jesus went here did
130:47 this jesus went here there and did that
130:49 um and yet you have it um unfolding to
130:53 who Jesus is claiming to be um he event
130:56 he eventually gets to the point where
130:58 once his followers grant that he's the
130:59 Messiah then he starts modifying
131:01 people's expectations of what the
131:03 Messiah is that's when you have him
131:05 saying "Well how does David call the
131:06 Messiah Lord if he's just the son of
131:08 David?" And then you eventually get to
131:10 the trial and it's this guy has to die
131:12 but this is just Jesus went here and did
131:13 this it's not focusing a lot on Jesus
131:16 teaching and then you get Matthew he
131:18 takes the same material but he includes
131:20 uh he includes some long sermons and so
131:22 on so he's including that material um
131:24 Luke focuses more on parables and so on
131:27 and John just focuses John just focuses
131:30 more on personal encounters with Jesus
131:33 that's why you get his interactions with
131:35 uh Nicodemus and the woman at the well
131:37 and uh Mary and Martha and Lazarus
131:39 focusing on personal encounters and some
131:42 of the christoologgical claims but one
131:44 of the mistakes people make is saying oh
131:46 these and this lots of scholars make
131:48 this mistake is John must be late
131:49 because of all this this highris high
131:51 christologology and christoologgical
131:53 statement it doesn't make any sense
131:54 because we know when Paul was writing
131:57 and you can't say John is somehow has a
132:00 higher christologology than what you
132:01 find in Paul so we know the we know the
132:03 extremely high christologology is very
132:05 very early um but yeah I think I think
132:08 the writers are focusing on on different
132:09 things all right I'm going try to sneak
132:11 in two real quick here's a quick one hey
132:14 Steven Nelson from Cross Bible um I have
132:16 a question about Philippians 2 6-7 is it
132:19 about the Greek you both argued about it
132:21 yeah uh you you use different
132:23 translations of the Greek word morphi so
132:26 on one side we have the translation of
132:28 form and on the other side we have the
132:30 translation of nature now nature's is
132:32 coming from the NIV who being in the
132:34 very nature in very nature God and then
132:37 take the NASB for Morphe who as he
132:40 already existed in the form of God and
132:43 Morpheu and then he takes on the form of
132:45 a servant morphidulu so can you guys
132:48 justify why you prefer those specific
132:51 translations that you used of the Greek
132:53 word Morphe in the Christ hymn in
132:55 Philippians 2 let's start with Alex sure
132:58 um so I was the context in which I think
133:01 I brought that up unless I'm
133:02 misremembering is James Dunn's
133:04 interpretation of the passage so I
133:06 suppose I'm trying to make that passage
133:08 make sense in in light of my view um it
133:12 could be wrong it could be the wrong
133:13 idea it could mean existing in the form
133:15 of God in the sense of being like an
133:16 exalted being uh exalted to the to the
133:19 level of God that might be the case i
133:20 don't exactly have a preference to me
133:22 the question
133:24 of the question of Paul's
133:26 christologology is secondary to the
133:28 question of Jesus claiming to be God of
133:30 course it is interesting why Paul might
133:31 have a high christologology although
133:32 that that itself is of course debated um
133:35 but I think it's an interesting idea to
133:37 explore but I'm happy for the sake of
133:39 argument to just grant that Paul had a
133:40 high christology so I don't know which
133:42 is the best interpretation i think you
133:43 would be a much better person to to to
133:45 inform and in fact I'd like to know your
133:47 opinion i I spoke to this this chap
133:49 earlier and and you sort of you run a
133:52 biblical Greek cross comparison uh
133:54 website so I I would love to know what
133:56 your interpretation of the verse is or
133:58 the word I mean morphe
134:00 um yeah as yeah that was asked to both
134:03 of us I think but uh as far as yeah I
134:05 mean the morphe would the most obvious
134:07 translation would be like form or or
134:09 shape or something like that what the
134:10 NIV writers are doing is saying if
134:11 someone's in the form of God what are
134:13 you what are you saying if I say he was
134:14 in the form of God then this happened um
134:19 sounds like you're saying somehow in
134:21 nature God and so that's their interpret
134:24 that that's the interpretation i think
134:26 that's good so I'm I'm fine i think
134:28 that's the meaning and therefore the NIV
134:30 the NIV frequently translates according
134:32 to the meaning and not like a a literal
134:34 definition but if someone's in the form
134:36 of God um I think it makes sense to say
134:39 um in nature God what doesn't make sense
134:41 is what Dun does is he takes it as like
134:44 this means the image of God and it it
134:48 just doesn't make sense with the with
134:49 the rest of the passage something that
134:50 is worth pointing out I suppose is that
134:52 the same word morphe is used in the long
134:54 ending of Mark where Jesus appears in a
134:57 different form to two of them so if
134:59 morphe is supposed to mean sort of
135:02 essence as in the morphe of God meaning
135:04 like having the same sort of essence as
135:05 God if that's what it's supposed to mean
135:07 then it's unclear why the writers of the
135:08 long ending of Mark would say that he
135:10 appeared to two other people in a
135:12 different morphe it seems to maybe imply
135:14 no that makes perfect sense if I say
135:16 someone changes appearance or something
135:18 like that then that makes perfect sense
135:20 if I say someone is in the form of of
135:22 God
135:23 what could that possibly mean what what
135:25 does it mean to be in the form of God
135:26 that's what they're saying what does it
135:27 mean to be in the form of God you have
135:29 to be there's got to be
135:31 something there's got to be something
135:33 about being a nature God
135:36 what else is in the form of God i can
135:37 understand what if I if I could form I
135:40 know what it would mean to change into
135:41 the form of that guy
135:43 i don't know what it would be to change
135:44 in the form of God if Dun's
135:45 interpretation is correct which I don't
135:47 know if it is but I think it's an
135:48 interesting one to consider then Morphe
135:50 in that context is talking about being
135:52 made in the image of God and so to be in
135:54 the form of God means to be made in the
135:55 image of God and so to appear someone in
135:57 a different form means to look different
135:59 perhaps it seems perfectly consistent in
136:01 other words I don't think it just makes
136:03 no sense because that's before he makes
136:05 himself nothing by taking the very
136:06 nature of a servant being made into yeah
136:08 that's the problem i think that's
136:08 problem with with Dun's interpretation
136:10 here but it's not a problem with the
136:11 word which we can discuss that if you
136:12 like as far as the as far as far as the
136:14 translation totally fine in the form of
136:16 God and then made himself nothing uh it
136:19 depends on how deep the form goes but
136:22 the the key is that in verse 7 he takes
136:24 on the form of a servant so he starts
136:27 out in a divine form and then descends
136:30 into taking his human form which I think
136:32 is what David was getting at as well
136:33 right
136:34 well thank you thank you excellent i'm
136:36 going to sneak this last one in here
136:38 sure fine by me appreciate it so um this
136:40 one's for Alex primarily okay so in the
136:43 Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 38b there's
136:46 a discussion a rabbitic discussion about
136:47 Daniel chapter 7 and they're asking
136:49 about the verse I looked till thrones
136:51 plural were placed says uh uh one throne
136:55 is for him and one throne is for David
136:57 this is the statement of Rabbi Aka Rabbi
136:59 Yose said to him aka blah blah blah
137:02 rather the correct interpretation is
137:04 that both thrones are for God as one
137:07 throne is for justice and the other is
137:08 for mercy so why would the rabbis cuz
137:12 You're asking about what did the high
137:13 priest interpret the passage to mean so
137:16 so why would the later rabbis of the
137:18 second century or of the late 1st
137:21 century have come up with an
137:23 interpretation saying the son of man is
137:25 God after the advent of Christianity
137:28 right okay so so the passage says that
137:30 there are two this is from Sanhedrin
137:31 right yes that there are two thrones one
137:33 for justice one for mercy yes and this
137:35 was this is referring to the the
137:37 rabbitic uh concept of hamidot the two
137:40 uh the two forms of god uh justice and
137:42 mercy elohim and Adonai sure okay so in
137:45 this interpretation which is Jesus and
137:48 which is the father uh well I if what I
137:51 mean to say is if this is the
137:52 interpretation in mind you need to
137:54 clarify your point which is the father
137:56 and which is Jesus justice or mercy
137:58 which is which
138:00 no no no i this is this is a this is I
138:03 mean no no i'm I'm simply asking I'm
138:05 simply asking cuz cuz you said that
138:06 there's there you said it was
138:08 implausible to suggest that the high
138:10 priest would have interpreted that the
138:11 son of man is say what you said at the
138:13 beginning first about who who said what
138:15 and what what the response was so Rabbi
138:18 Aka said uh one throne is for the holy
138:21 one and the other is for David meaning
138:22 the messiah and then Rabbi Jose rebukes
138:25 him and says no no no both thrones the
138:27 ancient of days and the son of man are
138:29 for God so that would be identifying the
138:31 son of man as God i see and so the son
138:34 of man in this instance is mercy and god
138:36 is justice or is it the other way around
138:38 it's I don't that's all Rabbi Yay says
138:41 but he then says that he then explains
138:42 what the two thrones are for right what
138:44 does he say the two thrones are for he
138:45 says one one is for one is for justice
138:48 justice and one is for mercy so the two
138:50 thrones are just the ancient days and
138:52 the son of man the ancient of days is
138:54 justice and the son of man is no let me
138:57 clarify let me let me clarify yeah so
138:59 the the point the point is when it talks
139:01 about when it talks about the two
139:02 thrones the two thrones being brought um
139:05 that Rabbi Aka says uh okay one is for
139:09 God and one's for the Messiah and
139:10 someone else resp whoa whoa whoa whoa
139:12 whoa whoa whoa whoa you cannot say that
139:14 one of these thrones is for the Messiah
139:18 it they both have to be from they both
139:21 have to be for God they both have to be
139:22 for God so they're interpreting the
139:25 thrones as both having to be for God and
139:26 they sort of describe it as God's
139:29 attributes are on these thrones the
139:31 point that's why I don't know why
139:34 anybody groaned at the question I was
139:35 asking if it's if it's God's attributes
139:37 which are on the throne and this is
139:38 being discussed this is a later
139:40 commentary the point is when you say
139:42 this is a human being that the son that
139:44 the the son of man the son of man is a
139:48 human being rabbi Aka said "Hey that's
139:50 the Messiah." And other people said
139:52 "Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa you
139:54 can't say that because this is clearly a
139:56 throne for the divine but there's only
139:58 one God and therefore both thrones are
140:00 for God and we got to separate." Maybe
140:02 I'm still just misharing this but after
140:03 saying after saying that the explanation
140:06 is that the two thrones one is for
140:07 justice one is for mercy which you desri
140:09 described as God's attributes oh sorry i
140:12 shouldn't take all my So so if I have
140:17 been brought back up to clarify my
140:18 question i'm so sorry i've been brought
140:21 back up to clarify my question so come
140:24 back Alex what I'm asking is so which
140:27 figure is justice and which one is mercy
140:30 was not is not really uh it doesn't
140:32 really it's not really relevant here i
140:33 mean I'm just saying it's it's rather
140:36 that this is showing that rabbis after
140:39 the advent of Christianity were
140:41 recognizing the son of man in Daniel 7
140:43 as an explicitly divine figure because
140:46 when Rabbi Aka says "Oh it's the
140:48 Messiah." He says "No no no both figures
140:50 the two distinct figures are God." Oh
140:53 sorry yeah okay so wait so after the
140:55 advent of Christianity
140:57 so when are you talking about you said
140:58 after the advent of Christianity when
141:00 he's saying that they've had this
141:01 argument already and that within the
141:03 Jewish Talmud they're arguing about this
141:05 throne with two gods the point is there
141:08 are rabbis who interpreted the son of
141:10 man as
141:12 God okay okay look
141:16 I I for for fear of uh
141:20 cuz you said it was implausible that's
141:21 what he was responding to so earlier you
141:23 said it was implausible i understand
141:24 that part for for fear of further
141:26 misunderstanding and further groans from
141:28 the audience i fear I would want to read
141:32 that passage on paper in front of me
141:34 which maybe where where's he gone there
141:36 you are can you speak to me after class
141:43 let's give him a round of applause oh my
141:46 gosh all right
141:49 all right ladies and gentlemen that
141:52 concludes Alex O' Conor versus David
141:55 Wood the Jesus claim to be
141:58 God you guys are getting a standing
142:02 applause that was fun yeah it's
142:06 done you guys can do better than
142:09 that wow
142:13 happy birthday
142:17 dear happy birthday to you i did not
142:22 tell them to do that that was completely
142:25 unprovoked thank you
Chrome Extension