jesus

THE UNIQUENESS OF JESUS CHRIST

“And eternal life is this: to know you the one true God, and him whom you sent, Yeshua the Messiah” (John 17:3, CJB).

The statement cited above was made by our Lord Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus Christ) as part of His prayer to God the Father. In the verse, He distinguished between Himself and the Father whom He called “the only true God” and He said eternal life is gained by knowing the two of them.

What did He mean when He called the Father “the one true God”? After all, the Psalmist called Jesus God (Psalm 45:6) and Isaiah called Him “Mighty God” (Isa. 9:6). Apostle John called Him God who was with God in the beginning (John 1:1). One of His disciples named Thomas called Him ‘My Lord and My God” (John 20:28). All these passages have revealed that the Lord Jesus Christ is God or a God Being.

However, Psalm 45:7 says God is His God. Hebrews 1:8-9 which is a quotation of Psalm 45:6-7 makes us understand that the Psalm refers to the Son of God and someone else who is called His God. We therefore see Jesus Christ as a God who has the Supreme Being as His God. Jesus Christ Himself called the Father His God while He was on earth here and after His ascension to heaven. On the cross, He cried out to God the Father saying, “my God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34). After His resurrection from the dead, He said to Mary Magdalene that God is His Father and His God (John 20:17). After His ascension to heaven, He made a very strong emphasis that God the Father is His God. He used the words “my God” four times in Revelation 3:12. Two glaring facts are seen in these texts – (i) Jesus Christ is God. What does that mean? (ii) There is a Supreme one who is the God and Father of Jesus Christ. The Supreme One is called the One God (Deut. 6:4; 4:35; Isa. 44:6, 8; 45:5; Mal. 2:10; Mark 12:32; 1 Cor. 8:6; 1 Tim. 2:5; Jam. 2:19; John 5:44; 17:3). Does this not mean that there are two Gods in the Bible? This article explains how the Godhood of Christ does not negate the oneness of God as clearly taught in the Bible.

The Dilema of Men Without Insight

The lack of scriptural insight has caused men to do wild speculations about God and His Son Jesus Christ. Some have said that since the Son is God, He is coequal with God the Father. Others have taken another extreme position by saying that inasmuch as God the Father is His God, the Son cannot be God. Some said that in His prehuman existence, the Son was archangel Michael, the first being created by God before God created all other things through Him. Oneness Pentecostals teach that the Father and the Son are not two separate and distinct persons. They teach that the Son was the Father in the flesh and, therefore, the name of the one God is Jesus Christ. On their part, Trinitarians say the one God is a union or conglomerate of three distinct, self-existed, coequal and coeternal Gods – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

These numerous speculations about God, His Son, and His holy spirit are clear evidences that many people who say they are Christians do not really know what the Bible teaches about God and the one He sent into the world to save the world from sin and death, the Lord Jesus Christ.

As rightly observed by Ellen Gould White (1827-1915), “The truth plainly revealed in the Bible have been involved in doubt and darkness by learned men who, with a pretense of great wisdom teach that the Scriptures have a mystical, a secret, scriptural meaning not apparent in the language employed. These men are false teachers. It was to such a class that Jesus declared, ‘You know not the scriptures, neither the power of God’… If there were no false teachers to mislead and confuse their [people’s] minds, a work would be accomplished that would make angels glad, and that would bring into the fold of Christ thousands upon thousands who are now wandering in error.”

There Is Only One God

Our Lord Jesus Christ said that the Father is the one true God. Put another way, although Jesus Christ possesses Godhood which He inherited by being the only begotten Son of God, He is not the one true God. Put yet in other words, He said the Father is truly the one God. This is one truth that was well understood by His disciples. They knew that the one Supreme Being is the one God. In their writings, they affirmed this fact. Apostle Peter wrote, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:3). Apostle John wrote, “To him [Jesus Christ] who loves us, and washed us from our sins by his blood, and he made us to be a Kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and the dominion forever and ever, Amen” (Rev. 1:6, WEB). Apostle Paul wrote severally that the Father is the one God. He wrote, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing…” (Eph. 1:3, WEB). He also wrote, “I ask the glorious Father and God of our Lord Jesus Christ to give you his spirit. The Spirit will make you wise and let you understand what it means to know God.” (Eph. 1:17, CEV).

It is evident from the verses quoted above, among many others, that Yahweh who is the one and only Supreme Being is the one God and He is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one and only self-existed Being. Every other being, including our Lord Jesus Christ, derived their existence from Him. There is no other being who came into existence by himself.

In the Old Testament, it is clearly and profusely stated that there is one God. In the New Testament, Jesus Christ and His apostles made it crystal clear that the one God is the Father of all beings. He is not the conjectured One God who is made up of three self-existent, coequal and coeternal Gods. If there are three self-existed Gods who are coequal and coeternal, none of them can ever claim to be the God of the other one. That teaching is totally at variance with the plain truth revealed in the Bible. In fact, there are only two God Beings known in the Bible – Yahweh, the Father and Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus Christ), the one and only begotten Son of God. Nowhere has the Bible said the holy spirit of God is itself God. The Godhood of the Son of God does not in any way deny the fact that the Father is the one God. This shall be explained in this article.

The only begotten of the Father

There are three classes of beings in existence. The first is the self-existent Spirit Being called God. The second class is composed of created spirit beings called angels (Heb. 1:7, 13,14). There is also the human being created by God (Gen. 1:26, 27). The angels and the human are called sons of God because they derived their lives from Him (Job 1:6; 2:1; Luke 3:38). Jesus is also called the Son of God because He derived His existence from God. But unlike the angels and the human who were brought forth out of nothing (Rom. 4:17; Heb. 11:3), Jesus Christ came out of God Himself, before the beginning. The eternal, self-existent God brought Him out of Himself through a divine, spiritual begettal which is different from and superior to our begettal by our parents. The Omnipotent One had no need of a female partner in order to bring forth another Spirit of His kind. See John 3:6 and John 4:24. That is why the Bible called the Son the “monogenes”, a Greek word which means “the only begotten”. He is the only Son of God who was begotten by God Himself. He did not self-exist. He derived His existence from God who begot Him.

By God’s divine and immutable law, every offspring of any living thing inherits the nature and attributes of its begetter (Gen. 1:11, 12, 21-25). That is why trees produce trees of their kind, animals bear animals of their kind, and birds, fishes, reptiles and insects produce offsprings of their own kind. This is why the offspring of a human being is a human being. It is by that same law that the one begotten by God is Himself a God Being. He has the same nature as God who gave birth to Him.

When, therefore, the Psalmist called Jesus God in Psalm 45:6 (compare Heb. 1:8, 9), it was not in the sense that He is the supreme, self-existent one. It is purely in the sense that He inherited the same God nature as God Himself who gave birth to Him. That is why in the very next verse the Psalmist said God [the Father] is His God. This fact is made plain by Apostle Paul when he wrote of the Son that “He always had the nature of God, but he did not think that by force he should try to become equal with God” (Phil. 2:6, GNB (TEV),1976 Edition). In many parts of the New Testament, Jesus Christ and His apostles testified to the fact that the one God is both God and Father to Jesus Christ.

The first thing that makes our Lord Jesus Christ unique is the fact that He is the only one who has the same nature as God Himself. This is so by virtue of His being the direct offspring of God. In His prehuman existence, He was not in the same class as humans (John 1:1, 14) neither was He in the same class as the created spirit beings called angels (Heb. 1:1-14). His becoming human amounted to a temporary break in His divinity so as to save us from the punishment that we deserve because of sin.

Life in Himself

Jesus Christ said, “For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself” (John 5:26, NASB).

This verse says that God has life in Himself. By the phrase “life in Himself” is meant that God has in Himself the “source” or “fountain” of life. It is from this fountain in God that life is derived. God is immortal because life resides in Him. By being the direct offspring of God, the Son got this attribute from God. So He too became a source of life. It is from this fountain that the Son gave life to all of God’s creation (John 1:3; Heb. 1:2; Col. 1:15-17). This power of creation was “given’ or “granted” to the Son by the Father (John 5:21-26). This is why the angels of God have a command to worship the Son (Heb. 1:6) because He is their creator. The Father who gave the Son to also have life in Himself is the principal creator.

We see therefore that another thing that makes Jesus Christ unique is the fact that He, like the Father, is a giver of life (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:6, 17; Col. 1:15-17). Being the one through whom God created all things is another reason He is called God like the one God. But we must always remember that the Father forever remains His God (Ps. 45:7; Rev. 3:12). Therefore the Godhood of the Son is derived from, subordinate to, and subsumed in, the Godhood of the only self-existent One who is “Supreme over Christ” (1 Cor. 11:3, GNB).

The Old Testament says that Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one (Deut. 6:4). The New Testament affirmed it that God is one and He is the one who made His “monogenes” a Creator, Saviour, Redeemer, Lord of lords, King of kings, etc, on a secondary or subordinate basis. But the principal Creator, Saviour, or Redeemer is God Himself. Though the Son is called King of kings or Lord of lords, the Supreme King of kings and Lord of lords is the Father. Only Him is God of gods. Only him is called God, the Almighty. Both the Father and the Son share the title of Alpha and Omega (Greek) or Aleph and Tau (Hebrew) because both of them were there at the creation of all things (Gen. 1:26, 27; John 1:1-3) and they’ll live forever and ever.

The Almighty God whose name is Yahweh or Yehowah is the one called God in the Bible. His Son whose name is Yeshua, although He has the same nature as God, is called the Son of God. There is no one called God the Son or God the Holy Spirit in the entire Bible. The Son will rule alongside the Father in the eternal Kingdom of God (Eph. 5:5; Rev. 11:15; Rev. 21:22-23) but not as equal Kings. The Son will rule over the Kingdom of God but in subjection to the Supreme authority of God the Father (1 Cor. 15:24-28).

Damnable Doctrines

Having seen the relationship of our Lord Jesus Christ to the Father, it is easy to point out some false doctrines that have been imbibed by uninformed Christians.

1. That God is made up of three persons or Gods- the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit.

2. The Son and the Holy Spirit are coequal with the Father.

3. The Father and the Son are one and the same person.

4. God is one Being who manifest Himself at different times as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

5. The name of the one God is Jesus Christ.

6. While Jesus Christ was on this earth, He was a perfect God and perfect man residing in the same body at the same time.

7. The Holy Spirit is the “third” divine person in a Trinity. He is also a giver of life.

These and many more are mere human conjectures and Satan has sown them into human hearts to cause confusion and to lead people into damnable heresies. Disappointingly, many ignorant but proud people have taught them to ignorant people who now resist and reject God’s truth.

Satan has always employed two weapons in his war against God’s people. He uses the force of persecution against the truthful ones of God and the fraud of perversion of the truth in order to lead people astray from the truth. All he wants is to ensure that people don’t know the true God. His schemes have been exposed to God’s people but those who are unwise and proud are falling prey to his evil traps. They get so deceived that they begin to falsely interpret the Bible. That is why some Bible translators have twisted Philippians 2:6 and made it say that Jesus Christ is equal with God. Many are doggedly defending the Trinitarian dogma which is manifestly contradictory to the doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ and His holy apostles. Many are refusing to accept the truth that there is no literal “third” divine person or God, the one Trinitarians call “God the Holy Spirit”. The fact that the Bible talks of only two divine Persons, God and His Son, makes the doctrine of Trinity which means “three divine Persons or Gods united in one God” a blatantly unbiblical, false and preposterous one.

The Spirit of God which is also called the Holy Spirit is within God just as man’s spirit is within him (1 Cor. 2:11). A man’s spirit is not another person from the man; it is part of the man. So too, is the Spirit of God, also known as the Holy Spirit, not another person from God. It is grossly illogical and absurd to imagine God having another God inside Him. How terribly deluded Trinitarians are!

The teachings of Modalists or Oneness Pentecostals who say that the one God is the one who manifests Himself in the Persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are also bizarre and incongruent with the revealed truth in the Bible. The one who became flesh or human being is the Son of God. God the Father Himself did not become flesh. The fact that two beings are called Father and Son are enough proof that they are two separate and distinct Persons. The Son is the one called Yeshua the Messiah or Jesus Christ. Those who say that the name of the one God is Jesus Christ only exhibit the fact that they have been strongly deluded (2 Thes. 2:10-12).

Jesus Christ is the one who became flesh (John 1:14; Heb. 2:14,17). He is the one who suffered and died (Rom. 8:34; Heb. 5:5-10) and who was raised from death the third day by God the Father (Acts 2:24,32; 3:15,26; 4:10; 5:30; 10:38-40; 13:33; Rom. 10:9; 1 Cor. 6:14; etc). The Son died on the cross to save us from our sins. He was buried in a borrowed tomb. On the third, the Father who alone is called the Almighty raised the Son from death. Now, the Son is sitting on a throne on the right hand side of the throne of God the Father and is making intercession for humanity (Rom. 8:34; Heb. 7:25). Salvation is gained by believing in God and His Son (John 14:1,6; 17:3). Two of them will rule in the eternal Kingdom of God (Eph. 5:5; Rev. 3:12; 11:15; 21:22-23), the Father as the Supreme King and the Son as the subordinate king (1 Cor. 15:24-28).

There are too many scriptures that show God and His Son are two separate Spirit-Beings. The Father is a Spirit-Being (John 4:24). As a Spirit-Being, He gave birth to another Spirit-Being (John 3:6). That is why His only begotten Son is also a Spirit-Being (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:6,17). He was sent to the earth in the form of a human being to die for our sins so that we can obtain the salvation of God. Even babes in the faith know that God and His Son are two separate Beings. But Modalists who are wise in their conceit have deluded themselves so much that they say that when God spoke to His Son in Gen. 1:26, He spoke to Himself. They say that whenever our Lord Jesus Christ prayed to the Father, He prayed to Himself. No wonder they find it easy to believe that the name of the one God is Jesus Christ. They forget that Christ or Messiah means anointed Saviour or Deliverer. How can the Supreme God have Christ as part of His name? Who will anoint the Most High God?

Our Lord Jesus Christ, while He was on the earth, was not a hybrid of divinity and humanity. He was in every respect like us (Heb. 2:17). This means that He was 100 percent human. That was why God had to anoint Him with His Spirit or power (Matt. 3:16; Acts 10:38) the same way God anoints all other human servants of His (2 Cor. 1:21). That was why our Lord had to hide each time the Jews tried to stone Him. He did that to avoid being killed before the time appointed by God for Him to be crucified (John 7:1-9; 8:59; Matt. 12:14-16). All the signs and wonders Jesus Christ performed on earth were the direct result of the spirit or power of God which was in Him (Acts 1:8; 10:38). It was not because He was God. On earth, He was purely human. All the miracles performed by Him were the work of God Himself (John 14:10; Matt. 12:28). Our Lord Jesus Christ was not God in the flesh. He was the Son of God in the flesh. God the Father was not, and is not, the Son. Neither was, or is, the Son of God the Almighty God who is the God and Father of the Son. Two of them are separate and distinct from each other.

The Uniqueness of Jesus Christ

Jesus Christ is unique because He possesses Godhood like God Himself. His Godhood was granted by God the Father. And this places Him in a unique position as the only God who has a God. He is superior to all beings except God alone. He is subordinate to only God the Father. God the Father who brought Him forth is the only Supreme Being. The Father is the only One called the Almighty. As the Supreme Being, the Father is the only one God. No one is coequal with Him. Jesus Christ is not coequal with God. If He were coequal with God, God will not be His God. By openly declaring that God is His God, our Lord Jesus Christ has made an admission that God is Supreme over Him.

The Son of God was the one used by God to create all that exists in creation. This includes the planets, the angels and humanity. As God’s agent of creation, He is superior to all the angels and all the other beings created by Him. Like the Father, He is also God to all of God’s creation. This is another fact about the uniqueness and the preeminence of Christ over all living beings except God Himself.

Did Peter and Paul Call Jesus God in 2 Peter 1:1 and Titus 2:13?

God God, jesus, paul, Peter, titus

“Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours” (2 Peter 1:1 NIV, bold emphases added throughout).

“…while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13 NIV).

Many English Bible translators have translated the two passages cited above with the grammar that make them say Jesus Christ is the one referred to as God or the great God in them. But is this interpretation what Apostles Peter and Paul had in mind? Let us consider the following points:

The Scriptures which the first century believers read was the Hebrew Bible which Christians now call the Old Testament. It should therefore be expected that the writings of the apostles would be influenced by the language of the Scriptures they had read. In the Hebrew Bible, the title “great God” is used for YHWH (Yahweh)in six places – Deut. 10:17; Ezra 5:8; Neh. 8:6; Psa. 95:3; Prov. 26:10; Dan. 2:45. The use of that title by Apostle Paul for God the Father is therefore not strange. He used in Titus 2:13 a title which has been used by many Old Testament prophets for YHWH (Yahweh).
Our Lord Jesus Christ has made it known that He will return to the earth with great power and glory. He said, “For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done. (Matt. 16:27 NIV). He also said, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne” (Matt. 25:31 NIV). Luke has this account recorded, “Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. (Luke 9:26 NIV). These verses make us know that our Lord Jesus Christ is going to come in the combined glory of His Father, His angels who will accompany Him, and that of Himself. It is therefore evident that Paul had two persons – our great God, and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ – in mind when he wrote Titus 2:13. Paul wrote of the glory of the great God and the glory of our Saviour Jesus Christ.
In all of Apostle Paul’s letters he consistently distinguished between God and the Lord Jesus Christ. In none of his letters did he equate Jesus Christ with God, even though he affirms the preexistence of the Son of God. Most of his letters begin with a salutation in which he mentions “God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:3; 2 Cor. 1:2; Gal. 1:3; etc).

Paul also used the same greeting in his letter to Titus. He greeted Titus saying, “To Titus, my true son in our common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. (Titus1:4 NIV). Paul could not have distinguished between God and Jesus Christ in his opening greeting and later in the body of his letter say Jesus Christ is that great God. Moreover, he said there is one God, the Father (1 Cor. 8:6). He also said that God the Father is the God of our Lord Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:17). He also told the Ephesian believers that there is “. . .one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Eph. 4:5-6 NIV). He told Timothy, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5 NIV).

It is crystal clear that whenever Paul used the title “God,” without an article, he was referring to God the Father of all beings, including our Lord Jesus Christ. At no time did Paul equate Jesus Christ with God. Therefore, to say that Paul referred to Jesus Christ as “the great God” in Titus 2:13 is to say that Paul contradicted himself in his writings. But the truth is that Paul affirmed nothing but strict monotheism. The Trinitarian teaching of one God made up of three coequal and coeternal Gods is nowhere found in Paul’s teachings.

The Granville Sharp Rule

Granville Sharp (1735-1813) was an English scholar and philanthropist, noted as one of the first advocates for the abolition of slavery. He was a diligent student of Greek and Hebrew. He published many treatises on biblical criticism.

In 1798 he published a monograph titled “Remarks on the uses of the definitive article in the Greek text of the New Testament: containing many new proofs of the divinity of Christ from the passages which are wrongly translated in the common English version.” The treatise has in it a part which became named “The Granville Sharp Rule.”

The Rule states, “When the copulative Kai [and] connects two nouns of the same case, if the article ho [the, this, that one, he, she, it, etc] or any of its cases, precedes the first of the said nouns or participle, and is not repeated before the second noun or participle, the latter always relates to the same person that is expressed or described by the first noun or participle.”

James Robert White clarifies the rule this way:

“Basically, Granville Sharp’s rule states that when you have two nouns which are not proper nouns (such as Cephas, or Paul, or Timothy), which are describing a person, and the two nouns are connected by the word “and” and the first noun has the article (“the”) while the second does not, both nouns are referring to the same person.”

Going by the rule will mean that the phrase “the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13) is a reference to one person instead of two persons. And that will mean that Jesus Christ is the one Paul referred to as the great God.

Does The Rule Apply in 2 Peter 1:1 and Titus 2:13?

The Granville Sharp Rule cannot be accepted as applicable in the two passages because that will make them run counter to the truth revealed in the Bible.

First, Jesus Christ Himself had said that the Father is the only true God (John 17:3) and that He is the Son of God (John 10:36). What does the term “son of God” mean? The basic meaning is that our Lord Jesus Christ derived His life or existence from the Father. The Father is the only self-existed being. There is no other one. Our Lord Jesus Christ did not self-exist. He is called the Son of God just like the angels and man because all of them got their existence from God (Eph. 4:6; Job 1:6; 38:7; Luke 3:38). But His Sonship is different from that of angels and mankind. He is the only one who came out of God by means of a begettal. That is why He is called the “monogenes,” the only one begotten of God. But contrary to what the Trinitarian theory has sold to Christendom, Christ is not a self-existed being. That is why He consistently referred to the Father as His God (Matt. 27:46; John 20:17; Rev. 3:12). The Lord Jesus Christ never at any time claimed equality with God who is both His God as well as His Father. When He said “My [the] Father is greater than I,” He did not use any figurative language. He made a plain statement and it should be so understood. There is no theory, principle, or rule that can qualify, vary, or annul it.

Secondly, the Apostle Paul at no time taught anything contradictory to what Jesus Christ had taught. All his teachings have been found to be consistent with the ipsissima verba of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Titus 1:4, Paul wrote, “To Titus, my genuine son in a common faith. Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior!” (Titus 1:4 NET). We see here that Paul distinguished between God the Father and Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. Paul would have reversed himself if he wrote in Titus 2:13 that Jesus Christ is the great God. But the truth is that the Trinitarian deception has caused many Bible teachers to misinterpret Paul’s writings as well as those of other writers (2 Peter 3:15-16).

All the teachings about the equality of our Lord Jesus Christ with God are products of the manmade Trinitarian theory of the fourth century CE which is grossly and blatantly repugnant to biblical revelation. All the translators and teachers who accept the Granville Sharp Rule as applicable to Titus 2:13 and 2 Peter 1:1 do so because of their theological biases. It is not because they found it hard to grasp the fact that two persons, God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, are in view in the two places.

It should be noted that Titus 1:4 and 2 Thes. 1:12 are similar to Titus 2:13. But I have observed that in the first two passages, many translators (e.g. NIV, ESV, NASB, NET, BLB, CSB, etc.) made a distinction between God the Father and Jesus Christ, our Saviour. But in Titus 2:13 that distinction was not made by them. Many of them placed the comma sign after the word “Saviour.” The distinction between the two persons would have been obvious if the comma sign was placed after “God.” But we all know that there were no punctuation marks in the original Greek manuscripts. Therefore by placing the comma sign after Saviour instead of God, these translators have exposed their biases in favour of the Trinitarian dogma which teaches that God the Father, the Son of God, and God’s Spirit are coequal and coeternal Gods.

Similarly, 2 Peter 1:2 makes mention of God and Jesus our Lord and Saviour just as it does in verse 1. These two verses have rubbished the Granville Sharp Rule. Apostle Peter couldn’t have said in verse 1 that Jesus Christ is God and our Saviour and in the very next verse say He is not God. The truth is that Peter talked about two persons in the two verses – (1) God, and (2) our Saviour and Lord, Jesus Christ. Compare Acts 2:36 where Peter, full of the holy spirit, said it was God who made Jesus both Lord and Christ (Messiah). The two verses have exposed the flaw in the Granville Sharp Rule and the Trinitarian bias of the translators who want us to believe that Peter and Paul called Jesus Christ God in 2 Peter 1:1 and Titus 2:13. It is crystal clear that the two apostles did not say so in the two verses.

Some True Witnesses

God has never left Himself without a witness. On this subject, some versions of the Bible have distanced themselves from the erroneous rendition of the second part of Titus 2:13. Some of them are cited below.

“. . .looking for the blessed hope and appearing of that glory of that mighty God, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ” – Geneva Bible (1599).

“. . .while continuing to expect the blessed fulfilment of our certain hope, which is the appearing of the Sh’khinah of our great God and the appearing of our Deliverer, Yeshua the Messiah” – Complete Jewish Bible (David Stern, 1998).

“. . .as we await the blessed hope, the appearance of the glory of the great God and of our Saviour Jesus Christ” – New American Bible (1986, 1991, revised 2010).

Equally gratifying is the fact that there are some versions that avoided the Trinitarian translation of 2 Peter 1:1. The second part of the verse is here cited from some of them:

“To those who through the righteousness of our God and of our Deliverer Yeshua the Messiah, have been given the same kind of trust as ours:” – Complete Jewish Bible.

“. . .to those who equally share with us in the advantages of faith, thro’ the veracity of our God, and of Jesus Christ” – Mace New Testament.

“. . .this letter to those who have been given a faith as valuable as yours in the righteousness of our God, and Saviour Jesus Christ” – J. B. Phillips New Testament.

These versions have made it clear that two persons, God, and Jesus Christ, were in the mind of Peter when he wrote 2 Peter 1:1. The proof of this is in verse 2 where the two persons were clearly distinguished from each other.

Conclusion

The Granville Sharp Rule is unreliable. The very fact that Granville Sharp himself said the rule does not apply where proper nouns are used is the same reason it cannot apply where common nouns are used. Titus 2:13 and 2 Peter 1:1 are clear instances of the failure of the rule.

The divinity of Christ has been clearly revealed in the Bible. But it cannot be established on the basis of flawed principles like the Granville Sharp Rule. Neither should we twist Scriptures to make them say what they did not say on the divinity of Christ. The Bible has made it known that our Lord Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God. This means He had the same God nature as the Father who begot Him (Phil. 2:6; Heb. 1:3). He is therefore a God-being like His Father who begot Him. But to translate Titus 2:13 and 2 Peter 1:1 in a way that makes the two verses call our Lord Jesus Christ God is an indefensible distortion. None of the two apostles call Jesus Christ God or the great God in the two verses under reference. They talked of two persons – God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ – in the two places.

DID JESUS SAY HE IS GOD THE FATHER?

God father, God, jesus

If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him. Philip said to Him, “Lord show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” Jesus said to him, Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father, so how can you say, “show us the Father” (John 14:7-9, NKJV)?

Some Christians, especially Modalists, have taken this passage as one of those which prove that God and His Son, Jesus Christ, are one and the same person. In other words, they are not two separate persons.

As Christians, our objective should not be to establish our own doctrines but have the desire to seek God’s truth in order to know it. And if we will know the truth, we must understand that biblical interpretation must be based on the immediate and the wider contexts of the word or subject being studied. All the proven rules of biblical interpretation are important to our study of the Scriptures. And these rules should not be selectively applied. We must faithfully, truthfully and consistently apply the rules so that we may know the truth and correctly apply it to our lives in all that we do or teach.

Both the immediate and the wider contexts of John 14:7-9 does not support the teaching that God and Jesus Christ are one and the same person. The immediate context in which our Lord made the statement was at the last supper He had with His disciples before His betrayal and crucifixion. The context runs from John 13:1 to John 17:26. Looking at this immediate context alone, there are many statements made by our Lord Jesus Christ which completely rubbish this interpretation. I state some of them below, from the NKJV.

“You believe in God, believe also in Me” (John 14:1) – 2 persons.

“I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). You must pass through Me to get to the Father. I am His receptionist. If I don’t open the door, you cannot get to Him – 2 distinct persons.

“I will pray the Father and He will give you another Helper” (John. 14:16). No one prays to himself. The Father is the one I pray to because He is greater than I.

“if you loved Me you would rejoice because I said “I am going to the Father,” for My father is greater than I” (John 14:28). The words “greater than” evidently implies two different persons; no one can be greater than himself.

Symbolically, “I am the true vine [I am the tree that produces wine] and My Father is the vinedresser” (John 15:1). The farmer and the plant (tree) are never the same person.

“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you” (John 15:9). Just as Christ and His disciples are not one person, so is He not one person with the Father.

“He who hates Me hates My Father also” (John 15:23). Note the word “ALSO” which means He and the Father are two separate persons.

“Now they have seen and also hated BOTH Me and My father” (John 15:24). The word “both” is used for two persons or things considered together.

“And this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God AND Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3). We know that the SENDER and the SENT (or Messenger) are not the same person. Note the word “AND” used by our Lord to distinguish between God and Himself.

“And the glory which You gave Me, I have given them, that they may be one just as WE ARE one” (John 17:22).

There is a plethora of other scriptures, outside the immediate context, which explicitly and convincingly prove that Jesus Christ is a separate and distinct person from God, the Father. Let us consider a few of them:

Angels are called the sons of God (Gen. 6:2,4; Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7). Adam is also called the son of God (Luke 3:38). They are called sons of God because God gave them life. He brought them into existence by creating them and they are not one and the same with God who brought them into existence. Our Lord Jesus Christ is also called the Son of God (Matt. 16:16; 14:33; Mark 1:1; John 1:34; 10:36; Rev. 2:18; etc). His Sonship stems from the same fact that He derived His life or existence from God. Like Adam and the angels, Jesus Christ is also a separate and distinct person from God.
Jesus Christ Himself called the Father His Father and His God (John 20:17). This statement was affirmed by His apostles. Peter said, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:3). John said, “and He [Jesus Christ] has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father – to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.” (Rev. 1:6, NASB). Paul said, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing… “(Eph. 1:3, NASB). Then in verses 16 and 17 he said, “[I] do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him.” It is illogical and indefensible to say that our Lord Jesus Christ is one and the same person with the one who is His God and Father.
Paul said, “But I want you to understand this: The head of every man is Christ, the head of a woman [wife] is the man [husband], and the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor. 11:3). Christ and man are not one and the same person, neither is the husband and his wife one and the same person. So also, God and Christ are not one and the same person. In this analogy, in each case, one is the superordinate while the other is the subordinate.
Paul also wrote, “As the scriptures says, ‘God put everything under his [Christ’s] control: When it says that “everything” is put under him [Christ], it is clear that this does not include God Himself. God is the one putting everything under Christ’s control. After everything has been put under Christ, then the Son himself will be put under God. God is the one who put everything under Christ. And Christ will be put under God so that God will be the complete (overall) ruler over everything” (1 Cor. 15:27-28, ERV).

I understand Paul saying here that in the eternal kingdom of God, Christ will rule over all of God’s creation as their king, but God will be the Supreme King over Christ and His subjects. This makes God the Supreme King in the eternal kingdom while Jesus Christ will be His deputy (Eph. 5:5; Rev. 3:12; 11:15; 21:22- 22:5).

In the vision given to Daniel (Dan. 7:9-13), Stephen (Acts 7:55-56) and John (Rev. 5:6-8), they saw God and His Son as two separate and distinct persons. They have never been one and the same person.
There are about 25-times it is recorded in the Bible when Jesus Christ prayed to God. His prayers would have been absurd if He were the Father. He is called the holy servant of God (Acts 3:13, 26; 4:27,30). He called the Father “my God” while on the earth and after His glorification (Matt. 27:46; Mark 15: 34; John 20:17; Rev. 3:12). It is evident that if the Father is His God, He cannot be the Father who is His God.

To set these biblical facts aside and conclude from John 14:9 that Jesus Christ is the same person as the Father would amount to grievous misinterpretation of scripture.

John 14:7-9 Explained

Now, what did our Lord Jesus mean when He said, “whoever has seen Me has seen the Father” and therefore Philip should not have requested Him to “show us the Father”?

By taking John 14:7-9 literally and without comparing scripture with scripture, many people have made the wrong conclusion that Jesus Christ claimed in this place to be the same person as God the Father. But Jesus was not saying that He was the Father manifested in the flesh. The Father was not the one who became flesh or human being. It was the Word (Jesus Christ) that became flesh (John 1:14).

“When Christ came into the world, he said to God, “You did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings. But you have given me a [physical] body to offer” (Heb. 10:5, NLT).

Jesus Christ obeyed the Father with complete obedience. He did and taught only what the Father told Him to do and teach (John 5:19, 20, 30; 12:48-50). The spirit of the fear of God which the Father had put in Him (Isa. 11:2) made Him obey God with perfect obedience. From His lips Jesus said, “I always do what pleases the Father” (John 8:29). On another occasion Jesus said, “The words I speak are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does His work through me” (John 14:10, NLT). It follows therefore that if the Father were to be physically present on the earth, He would not do or teach anything different from what His only begotten Son had done or taught. This is what made our Lord Jesus Christ say what John recorded in John 14:7-9. If He had meant in this place that He was God the Father, He would have contradicted the numerous statements He made in which He showed that He is the Son and Servant of God. Conclusively, Jesus Christ did not mean in John 14:7-9 that He is the Father who is both His God and Father.

This type of phraseology is often used by people when talking about two or more people who are almost identical either in looks or in their ways of talking or doing things, especially when their reasoning is the same. It is also used when one has so much influence on the other. The example given below is typical of the statement made by our Lord Jesus Christ in John 14:7-9.

In the mid 1960s, my late brother Alfred went to the house of a cousin, Goodluck, to borrow his fishing lines. He met Goodluck’s mother at home and told her the purpose of his visit. The woman refused to grant Alfred his request. When Alfred got back home, he told his mother (my father’s third wife) that Goodluck’s mother refused to give him the fishing lines. He told his mother that he would go back to make the request directly to Goodluck. But his mother quickly told him not to waste his time going back there. She said, “Once you have seen Goodluck’s mother, you have seen Goodluck already. Two of them have the same mind. Never expect him to give you the lines after his mother has declined your request. I know them very well.”

It is in this sense that Jesus Christ made the statement which John recorded in John 14:7-9. A Christian will be guilty of doing selective and faulty study of the Bible if he or she neglects the numerous passages which distinguish between God and Jesus Christ, bite into John 10:30 and John 14:7-9 like an alligator and come up with the fallacious theology that God and His Christ are one and the same person.

I Am In The Father And The Father Is In Me

According to John, our Lord Jesus Christ used the phrase “I am in the Father and the Father is in Me” four times (John 10:38; 14:10,11; 17:21). Modalists have said that this phrase has placed an irrefutable seal on the fact that the Father and Son are one and the same person.

On their part, Trinitarians like Matthew Poole (1624-1679) wrote “it means the most perfect and intimate indwelling of one of the persons in the Holy Trinity in the other.” Many other teachers of the Bible interpret the phrase as denoting the oneness of essence or divinity of the Father and the Son. John Gill (1697-1771) wrote “that they are one in nature, distinct in person, equal in power, and have mutual inhabitation and communion in the divine essence, all which is manifest, by doing the same works, and which are out of the reach and power of any mere creature”.

All the above interpretations by Modalists and Trinitarians are mere conjectures. The same phrase has been used by our Lord Jesus Christ as subsisting between God, Christ and believers. In John 17:21 Jesus prayed that “they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” Later, Apostle John used the same phrase when He wrote, “All who obey God’s commands live in God and God lives in them” (1 John 3:24, ERV).

If “being in one another” means a claim to oneness of essence or nature or equality in power, can anyone dare say that this is true of the believers’ relation with Christ and God? Can we say that we are one in essence with God and Christ and equal in power with them, since we dwell in them and they in us? Of course the answer is NO!

What the phrase means is that God and Christ have an intimate relationship with each other and they always have unity of mind. The prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ in John 17:11,21 is that this intimacy or affection and unity of mind should exist among those who are His followers. And this intimacy or affection, though an abstract thing, is made visible when anyone gives perfect obedience to God’s commands just as Christ always obeyed the Father.

In 1 John 1:3, Apostle John call this affectionate relationship and unity “fellowship” when he wrote, “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ” (NIV). This “fellowship” is not the mere gathering of people together in one place for any religious ceremony or rite. If the physical, periodic congregation of people for religious purposes were fellowship, then it is not possible to have fellowship with God and the resurrected Christ.

Conclusion

The Modalists’ view of Christ and God being one and the same person is not supported by the statement made by our Lord Jesus Christ in John 14:7-9. What Jesus Christ meant was that as long as He was teaching and doing exactly what God wanted Him to teach or do, it was pointless for Philip and his fellows to desire seeing the invisible God who dwells in unapproachable light that no mortal being has ever seen or can see. To see God would make no difference at all as Christ was doing exactly what God, the Father, would have done if He were physically present with the disciples. Jesus Christ did not mean that He was God, the Father of all beings. We have seen that God, the Father, is the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is obvious, therefore, that Jesus Christ cannot be God, the Father, the very One who is His God and Father.

Equally untrue is the Trinitarian idea of our Lord Jesus Christ being coequal with God, the Father. That false theology is not supported by any text of the Bible. Christ’s repeated reference to the Father as “my God” completely annuls that theological fallacy which was smuggled into Christian teaching in the fourth century AD – long after the apostles of Jesus Christ had all died. There are so many foolproof refutations of this fallacious teaching that one need not dissipate any effort on its rebuttal.

With every sense of concern, I shudder to see the alarming rampancy with which men, either ignorantly or deliberately, distort almost all scriptures to make them conform to their chosen belief. But every sincere and truthful Christian should assure himself or herself that whenever the teachings of men contradict the clear and explicit words of Jesus Christ, the only one who came from God in heaven, the words of Christ must be held as preeminent in our hearts. This must be our disposition because Christ taught exactly what God instructed Him to teach (John 7:16; 12:48-50). Those who teach doctrines which are at variance with the doctrine of Christ are proud, yet they know nothing (1 Tim 6:3; 2 Pet. 3:16). Those who truly believe in Jesus Christ cannot set His teachings aside in order to align themselves with the unbiblical, illogical and manipulated teachings of their denominations or leaders. May God deliver the church from the manipulating influence of Satan. Amen.

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THE UNIQUENESS OF JESUS CHRIST

Did Peter and Paul Call Jesus God in 2 Peter 1:1 and Titus 2:13?

DID JESUS SAY HE IS GOD THE FATHER?

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