Jesus as God Pt.1

Prayer

Context for Col. 1:9-17

Paul writing to the Church in Colosse, explaining first why he and Timothy give thanks and pray for them ; hearing good report of their faith from Epaphras as well as other believers.

Prayer Formula

v.9-14 is the start of Paul explaining how they have been praying for the Colossians:

Col 1:9–14 9 For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 10 That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness; 12 Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: 13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: 14 In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:

Praying constantly

Desiring that they are filled(increasing) with knowledge of God’s will, with wisdom and understanding

They walk worthy of the Lord

Fruitful in every good work

Strengthened according to God’s power

Patient and longsuffering with joy

Giving thanks to the Father specifically for redeeming us through Jesus’ blood, making us co-inheritors

Focus verses for this lesson

Col 1:15–17 15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: 16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: 17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

Paul says Jesus is the image of God

Firstborn prōtotokos : adJ. preceding all others in time or space or degree; probably understood as still including all the rights and privileges that accompany being a physical firstborn

All things were made by him, for him.

All things consist or exist in him

Objections to the Trinity that still agree on at least one god

Paul made the whole thing up

“There’s no word Trinity in the Bible”

“There’s only one God.”

“Three can’t equal one.”

“No one has seen God.”

Monotheism : There is only one God Deut.6:4 etc. Jews, Muslims

Modalism : One God acting in different ways in different times, so no personhood ; Father is old test. God, Son is God of Gospels, Spirit is post-Pentecostal God. Mostly an early church heresy

Arianism : Christ is a created being, inferior to the father * JW’s.

Unitarianism : Complete denial of Christ’s divinity, explaining it as the empowering of a normal man, though admit his supernatural generation by the Spirit. Oneness Pentecostals.

Polytheism : there are multiple gods

Tritheism : The Trinity is commonly falsely called tri-theistic , its the belief that there are only 3 gods, which would be an outright denial of so many scriptures that claim that there is one God alone.

Mormonism : The god of the bible was just a man once like us , and we too can ascend to godhood, there are potentially infinite gods; along with other heresies like Satan and Jesus being brothers, literally conceived by a heavenly wife of the Father.

Complex Doctrine

The doctrine of the Trinity is indeed very difficult to comprehend ; nor do I think any one of us living ever will fully understand it. Isaiah 40:18 “To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?” Makes it clear that there is nothing we can compare God to, and so we must take what all of Scripture reveals to us about God.

Jesus in creation

Ge 1:1–3 1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

God created ; most will safely agree that this is Yahweh , or THE LORD in the old testament, and what people in the new testament call the Father.

The Spirit of God was on the face of the waters

God spoke and created ; the Word of God

Jn 1:1–14 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. 8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. 9 That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. 11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not. 12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: 13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. 14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

With John’s connection to the Word of God being Jesus made flesh, this gives support to Paul’s writings in Col.

v.1-2 We see the Word separate, with and given the title of God.

v.3, John uses masculine pronouns for the Word, indicating even more the separateness in personhood between the Word and God, while simultaneously making the Word God.

v.4-5 we’re told that in him was life, and that it was the light of men that darkness didn’t understand.

v.6-8 John the baptist is in view as Matthew in Matt.3:1-3 and the other gospels reveal him to be the prophet in Isaiah 40:3 “A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” ; which is another claim to Christ’s deity, as the prophet is clearly speaking about Yahweh, and its being applied to Jesus Christ our Lord.

v.9-11 That true Light lights pr gives life to every person, and even though he made the world and was present in the world, the world didn’t know him, in fact the very people he redeemed in the old testament did not receive him.

v.12-14, we receive the free gospel message along with this amazing finishing statement confirming the Word’s identity as Jesus Christ, the Light of the world.

Skeptics might still say that John’s off his rocker, and therefore influenced Paul and other Christians, or that John was written later after myths about Jesus and his divinity already gained traction.

JW’s go so far as to change the text of Scripture at John 1:1 in an attempt to deny the Trinity, adding the word ‘a’ and turning the last phrase into ‘ and the Word was a god.’ In the NWT study bible, which is free to check out for yourselves online, says that the Word was in fact God’s first creation, and that John probably didn’t mean that the Word was God, just that it was godlike ; while admitting that most translators prefer ‘ the Word was God.’

Who is ‘us’?

Going back to creation, we have another rather peculiar hint in the first chapter of Genesis, still dealing with creation.

Genesis 1:26 “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.””

God said - singular, “ Let us..our..”- plural. In fact we have another two verses like this in Genesis : Gen.3:22, when Adam and Eve ate the fruit, “ Behold, the man has become like one of us...” ; and Gen.11:7 at the Tower of Babel, “ Come, let us go down...” Then we have one more instance in Is.6:8, God is speaking saying, “ Whom shall I send, and whom will go for us?”

We’re made in the image of God, so the ‘us’ referenced here can’t be angelic spirit beings that would make up God’s court.

There’s an argument to be made about ‘the plural of majesty’, where a singular entity uses plural words to denote supreme power or authority, which makes sense if you were to take passages like the Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4 ““Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” in isolation.

Who’s Glory?

Later in John, Jesus performed many signs and miracles in Jerusalem, even predicting the type of death he would suffer, and how it would draw all men to him in chapter 12, but John 12:37–41 is our focus here ;

John 12:37-41 “Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said, “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.” Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him.”

v.37-38 says that even though Jesus performed many miracles , they didn’t believe him, and that this was to fulfill what Isaiah says in Is.53, THE most Messianic chapter of the whole bible, literally walking you through the Messiahs suffering and redemption of his people ; a whole study could be dedicated to that one chapter and the clear redemptive theology of Christ present in the Old Testament.

v.39-40 says they couldn’t believe because God had blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, Generally citing Is.6:10.

v.41 John tells us that Isaiah said these things because he saw Jesus’ glory, and that he’s speaking about Jesus. Well now we have another question.

Who did Isaiah say he saw?

Isaiah 6:1–5 “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!””

Isaiah says he saw The LORD sitting upon his throne, then further confirms his identity with another title only used for Yahweh, the LORD of hosts.

John is therefore making another connection to Jesus being God ; by claiming that Isaiah made those prophecies because he saw Jesus’ glory, John is making Jesus equal to God at the very least , which would have been almost unthinkable to the contemporary Jews of Jesus’ time.

How can we make sense of John’s logic here?

John was a close Disciple of Jesus, and would therefore know what Jesus taught and said about himself, and what comes to my mind is actually John 1:18 “No one has ever seen God; God the only Son, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” in combination with John 12:45 “And whoever sees me sees him who sent me.” ; and so i propose to you that almost every time someone in the Old testament says that ‘they’ve seen God face to face’ or something to that effect, they were actually interacting directly with the preincarnate Christ. We would call these types of interactions Christophanies, which you can think of like a shadow of Jesus who is to come.

The Angel of the Lord

Ge 28:10–22 10 And Jacob went out from Beer-sheba, and went toward Haran. 11 And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep. 12 And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. 13 And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; 14 And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. 15 And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. 16 And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not. 17 And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. 18 And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. 19 And he called the name of that place Beth-el: but the name of that city was called Luz at the first. 20 And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, 21 So that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God: 22 And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.

v.13-15 says that Jacob saw the LORD above the ladder to heaven, as this figure claims to be the LORD in their own words, and affirms the covenant that he had established with Abraham and Isaac.

v,16-19 shows that Jacob was clearly afraid, and marked the location of this dream as the house of God ; the gate of heaven

v.20-22 is our main focus for this section of Scriptue ; Jacob makes a vow to God, that if :

God is with him

Keeps him in the way he should go

Gives him bread and clothing so that he makes it to his fathers house in peace, then ;

The Lord would be his God

The stone set for a pillar would be God’s house

He would Tithe to the Lord of everything He gives him.

Ge 31:11–13 11 And the angel of God spake unto me in a dream, saying, Jacob: And I said, Here am I. 12 And he said, Lift up now thine eyes, and see, all the rams which leap upon the cattle are ringstraked, speckled, and grisled: for I have seen all that Laban doeth unto thee. 13 I am the God of Beth-el, where thou anointedst the pillar, and where thou vowedst a vow unto me: now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy kindred.

v.11-12 reveals the angel of God as the person speaking to Jacob in his dream, and that he had been watching Jacob and the unfair treatment he recieved from Laban.

v.13 the angel of God says that He is the God of Bether, that Jacob vowed his vow to him. Then for the last part of the verse, the angel tells him to go back to the land of his kindred ; signaling part of the promise the lord made to him in his dream at Bethel in Gen.28:15

There are a few other Angel of the LORD passages, like Hagar when she ran from Sarai Gen.16:7-14 and she calls the named the angel “ You are a God of seeing,” after the angel says He would make a nation from Ishmael ; or in Ex.3:1-14 when it says the angel of the LORD appeared to him in the burning bush, but then says when the LORD saw him turn aside, God called to him, and goes on to reveal himself as the I AM.

The Word would be sent out

Is 55:10–11 10 For as the rain cometh down, And the snow from heaven, And returneth not thither, But watereth the earth, And maketh it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: 11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: It shall not return unto me void, But it shall accomplish that which I please, And it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

Here we see that God is going to send forth his Word, and that it will accomplish and prosper in the thing God is going to send it ; so we see an aspect of God that is separate from him, yet very much still God in essence.

Is 48:12–16 12 Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel, my called; I am he; I am the first, I also am the last. 13 Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, And my right hand hath spanned the heavens: When I call unto them, they stand up together. 14 All ye, assemble yourselves, and hear; Which among them hath declared these things? The Lord hath loved him: He will do his pleasure on Babylon, And his arm shall be on the Chaldeans. 15 I, even I, have spoken; yea, I have called him: I have brought him, and he shall make his way prosperous. 16 Come ye near unto me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; From the time that it was, there am I: And now the Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me.

v.12 we have The LORD speaking, as we see with the titles of God used here ; I am the first and last

v.13 could loosely be interpreted as the Son and Spirit as God’s represented hands, though i wouldn’t personally use this as a strong argument. in the context of the passage God is dealing with issues pertaining to idols, and so we see the emphasis on God creating

v.14-15 starts off with God asking who among the idols have told the Israelites about the coming captivity that God has revealed to them because of their sin ; it then switches focus halfway through to what is most commonly believe to be Cyrus the great; Israels historic deliverer from Babylonian captivity, whom God mentions explicitly in Is.44:28 and Is.45:1. Cyrus historically fulfilled the prophecies about him in Isaiah, concerning his executing judgement on Babylon, freeing the captives, and restoring Jerusalem and its Temple.

v.16 is the real bombshell of this passage, it almost feels like a shift in character happens , though there is no indication of that happening in the text ; God goes on to tell us that He hasn’t spoken in secret , but has been there from the beginning, and now the LORD God, and his Spirit, has sent Him? ( most translations say ‘ sent me, and his Spirit.’) This is a clear indication that there is a separation of person’s within God.

Conclusion

With many more passages in our arsenal that we haven’t even broached, I believe we can safely say that Paul did not make up the Trinity, but was a very educated, very careful Jew who we see constantly tying new testament doctrine back to old testament teaching and prophecies.

I believe that even though we can agree with the idea of monotheism, we must accept the fact that scripture clearly shows a separation between the members of the Trinity and their roles/functions.

Modalism and unitarianism fails when held up to area’s like Jesus’ baptism, or the Mt. of Transfiguration, etc. where you have multiple persons of the Trinity interacting at the same time.

Polytheism must be wrong because of the numerous places in scripture that tells us that there is no other god besides our God, so any number of gods past one is automatically discounted.

Lastly, I'll give you a philosophical argument for God being triune in nature ; If God is love 1 John 4:8 “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” , and the character of God never changes Malachi 3:6 ““For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.” , then how could God ever be loving if He had no one to love before creation? If God is loving, it stands to reason that God had to have shared his love from eternity with the Son who is begotten and the Spirit who proceeds from the Father.

Therefore, I hope we all have a better understanding on how the Trinity is the only model that works with the totality of Scripture. What was just a shadow of things to come in the old testament, was fully revealed to us through Jesus, as Paul goes on to tell us about in Colossians 1:24–2:5 “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.”