Critique of "The Human Jesus" (Part 2)

This section is a long one so don't hold your breath while you reading you could die before you get to end. The British sounding dude says that the "Word" in the beginning was a "Thought." That God had a thought and then created Jesus. But the Bible says that Yeshua was the only begotten of God. Nowhere does it say that the Son was created. When we think created we think of Adam created from the dust of the earth and Eve from one of his ribs. Since then man is begotten because we come out of Adam and Eve. Yeshua was begotten because He came out of God and was not created from the dust of the earth or the stardust of heaven.

The word "Word" in the Hebrew is Davar. In the Greek it is Logos. In both instances it means speech or an utterance. It is a spoken or a written thought. The Hebrew words for a thought that are not spoken are: Zamam, Chashab and Palal. Though the passage doesn't say, as they point out, "In the beginning was Yeshua," it also doesn't say, "In the beginning was the thought." (Zamam, Chashab or Palal).

Did God have a thought? Of course and thank Him very much. But when He uttered the thought it became Davar, or Logos. When God spoke the world into existence He did so by His Davar or logos, His word and not His thought. God said, "Let there be light." His thought then became His word. So John says that the Word, not thought, was in the beginning. The word was with God, and the word was God. Note that last statement: The word was God. It doesn't say a thought was God. Now in verse fourteen John makes it so abundantly clear that Balaam's Donkey could understand. "And the word (God) became flesh (Yeshua) and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14) Yeshua then says this of Himself, "And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was." (John 17:5)

Now we come to Psalm 110:1. They hold claim that David is speaking of Adoni and not Adonai. This is true. David uses the word lord in lower case as apposed to Lord God. Let's here what Yeshua says about this verse. "While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, 'What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?' They said to Him, 'The Son of David." (Matthew 22:41) There were two schools of thought in the days prior to and including Yeshua's day. One school of thought was that the Messiah was a human being only, and the other thought was that He was God in the flesh. The Pharisees adhered to the former, while Yeshua's disciples, the Essenes, and anyone else who followed Yeshua believed that Messiah was God in the flesh. Yeshua is clearing up the problem and He uses this Psalm of David as proof that the Messiah is God in the flesh. He uses Hebraic culture and reasoning for this purpose. "He said to them, 'How then does David in the Spirit call Him 'Lord,' saying: The Lord said to my lord, Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool? If David then calls Him 'lord,' how is He his son?" (Matthew 22:43-45) In Hebraic culture the word lord is used to denote authority or eldership. A father, in the role of both eldership and authority, would never call his son lord. Therefore David would never call a descendant of himself lord. He would call someone who had more authority or was older than himself lord. So the Son of God had to come before David and not after him. Yeshua made his point that the Son of God doesn't come from David but from God. "And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare question Him anymore." (Matthew 22:46) Yeshua, using Psalm 110:1, made it so clear to the Pharisees that the Messiah was the Son of God and indeed God in the flesh that they could not come up with anything more to say about Yeshua's authority. Again this idea is seen when John the Baptist, upon seeing his cousin Yeshua approaching said this of Him. "This is He of whom I said, 'After me comes a Man who is preferred before me, for He was before me.'" (John 1:30) Though John was born six months prior to his cousin, Yehsua, John says that Yeshua was before him. John understood that Yeshua was the Lamb of God, the Son of God, and God the Son. They also claim that nobody has seen God. This isn't entirely true. Nobody has seen God in His pure form. Abraham seen God as an "Angel of the Lord." Genesis 18:1 says that Yaweh talked to Abraham. It is quite clear that the Angel of the Lord was God who was clothing himself in a body so Abraham could see Him without dying. Even Moshe saw the back side of God. Jacob also wrestled with the "Angel of the Lord."

In this video, the Unitarians make claim that the Spirit and the Father are God, for they say the Father created the son. This is amazing! How can they then claim to be strictly Unitarian, having said that the Spirit and the Father are God? Yet they criticize Christians and those who adhere to the triune nature of God as pantheist. Are they not "Dualist?" We too believe that the Spirit is God, and the Father is God, but we also claim that Yeshua is God as well. We don't believe God is three Gods, and neither do Unitarians believe that God is two Gods, yet their rhetoric would lean to that belief in establishing the Spirit and the Father as God. Yet they do not see the irony in this! How they cannot see that God can be three and yet not be three Gods is amazing. Do they not posses the ability to see more of one. Rabbinical Jews can see seventy interpretations from one verse but cannot fathom three aspects of God.

They claim that there is no Scriptural evidence supporting the necessity for sacrifice to take away sins and therefore bring salvation. Again, they show their ignorance of Hebraic culture and the Bible. "For when we were still without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:6-8) "And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission." (Hebrews 9:22) "For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins." (Hebrews 10:4) "By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." (Hebrews 10:10) "But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified." (Hebrews 10:12-14)

Again, while condemning Christianity for taking things out of context, they seem to have no problem doing so themselves. They claim that the sole purpose of Jesus' life was to be a model for humanity. Where does it say that in the Bible? Nowhere of course. Though Yeshua was a model of how we should live, the Bible doesn't say that was His sole purpose. They say that Jesus is not God because God cannot be tempted. The man Yeshua was tempted as we are tempted, yet the Bible says, He was without sin. The deity side of Yeshua could not sin because He was God. The Bible says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. If Yeshua was just a man and not God He then could and would sin. He couldn't sin because he was the glory of God on earth in the flesh as man. I will conclude my three parts next week. Shalom.