David K. Bernard Presents Dissertation Research in Urshan Deans' Lecture Series

welcome to the lecture series it's so great to have many of you here many of you coming in now for a great evening talking about the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ the deans lecture series was designed to bring in scholars both inside and outside of the urchin community and we have plans in the future to kind of go insider-outsider and to just increase the scholarly impact of the urchin system both version college and the urchin graduate school of theology our speaker we've been blessed by his leadership but I think we also can be blessed by research and we can bless others and to think of the impact we see from our speaker tonight dr. Barnard is the general superintendent being a Pentecostal church and to think about the founding of the church he founded in Austin Texas 16 additional churches coming out of that being our president here in the ocean system person college Anderson Graduate School of Theology he earned his master and doctor theology a New Testament from the University of South Africa as well as his Doctor of Jurisprudence with honors from the University of Texas and his Bachelor of Arts magna laude in mathematical sciences and managerial studies from Rice University we've been blessed by his books he's the author of 34 books circulation of 900,000 he has been published in 37 languages administered in 66 countries on six continents and Mina's wife Connie had three children and several great-grandchildren I'm very excited to have him here tonight we've seen him minister at General Conference we seen him minister and preaching baby continues minister through his leadership skills but I'm glad to see him ministering to us blessing through his research and he will be speaking on the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ would you please help me welcome our leader dr. every once great to be here tonight and just to give you the background years ago like when I was teaching in Jackson College of ministries I thought it'd be nice to go ahead and get a degree in theology so I enrolled Weston seminary took the year of Greek but then life took me a different course and I ended up starting to end up coming here as associate editor then I'm starting to turn interestingly I met my great professor by security at Association theological schools he would intervene and I remembered him so it was a memorable experience maybe ever taken three but anyway when we started grad school of theology was officially we started with the initial staff in 2000 open the doors class in 2001 so I thought well if I'm going to be the president of a seminary I need to go ahead and pursue my degree so in 2001 I started on my masters in theology finished in 2005 I think the green was born in 2006 so I took a year off and I started doctorate 2007 and 2010 I became generous with your tenant so that kind of got a cramp on my time but I did turn it in 2011 it took a year for them to evaluate I had a very possible commentator because he must have googled me or he recognized my name even though I made no comment about oneness pentecostalism in the original thesis he said we cannot allow the foremost polemicist of oneness pentecostalism to advance his theology through his doctoral thesis my professor had no clue what he was talking about he thought maybe I was Baptist or something you could imagine why anybody would and be opposed to me he said either I'm totally miss reading her thesis or he's telling us refuses because you're saying nothing that's offensive or pollinating and as if this guy doesn't have a position as if this guy doesn't use his scholarship to promote his agenda and so he advised me what you need to do is you need so I had to explain I'm number one is for the Consul we didn't know what that was so I had to give him a little bit TRO and then I said you know I have written a number of books and I am the drill superintendent and so this is a high no and he said well that makes sense because I'm using some conservative research to build my case but the people whose research I'm using do not want to be promoters of what has been cost ism so they have to take a stand against my use of their material so he says the way you've got to deal with this you've got to put in there that you are one this pentecostal that you're using that lens by which to approach the scripture and this is a legitimate thing because there loads of one is for the fossils and the scholarly community needs to engage what has been apostles and therefore this is your perspective your you're not you're not trying to be political but you are acknowledging as postmodern hermeneutics insists you must acknowledge where you're coming from he says once you do that you can't touch you because you have now claimed a status for yourself and he cannot muzzle that status he cannot you're actually an outsider you're a minority and he cannot attack you for being who you are he couldn't read pratik your exegesis and actually he had said my exegesis was good which didn't really makes sense but he didn't like my conclusions so he said once you identify where you're coming from then they can accept it or reject it but they can't just say you're it's an invalid exercise so it took me an extra year and considerable amount and then of course it took another year to go back through the process and and so I finished in 2014 and was awarded degree in 2015 and I haven't received the official contract yet but des Eaux has stated they will publish it in time for the SPS movie next year and so I've talked to David or CEO or president where every ISM the number of occasions Chris Thomas has edited it which he only did minimal change I suggested maybe some significant revisions but he only had minor suggestions mainly to soften the blow somewhat a few passages where Trinitarian Pentecostals may not have you know agree before I had to say he suggested a few qualifiers that would you know make it easier for them to read it and so it is positioned as a oneness Pentecostal exegesis or discussion and so it's it going to be in the Journal of the Pentecostal theology supplement series so it's gonna costal whoa so actually my heart's pretty probably helped me get it published because it is now positioned as there probably be the first one is Pentecostal exegetical book at least dealing with our own oneness distinctive so so therefore the j p TS that becomes something of a work for them because they don't have anyone that's been impossible work at all so anyway that's a little bit of the background and I'll try to hit the highlights and then perhaps you'll have questions but a what a credit Robyn Johnston or giving me the idea for the non-technical title the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ and that's a reference to second Corinthians and so let me read this I'll read it in the NIV but what I chose to do is look at seven three themes 3:16 or six as as to narrow the subject of the thesis I had to choose something pretty narrow so I chose that passage but it's a window into the larger issues that I want to address and maybe I've seen before I read it let let me explain those larger issues what are you insane is two premises and the first premises first century Judaism was strictly monotheistic that's debatable we'll talk about that the second premise is the early Christian writers such as Paul use the language of deity for Jesus they spoke in terms they use terms that otherwise we're reserved for God alone so given those two premises there's a big question that needs to be answered why with a strictly monotheistic Jewish group ascribe deity to Jesus that would violate everything they've been taught that would alienate them from their own closest associates what would motivate them to do that now I was writing for a secular University University of South Africa so they don't want to hear anything about because they have a revelation of truth God inspired them they encountered deity and Jesus they don't want to hear anything like that so I'm supposed to do with sociological probes which may throw some people off but I'll just say I'm not denying the truth of inspiration or of theology you know in fact I would say you know that the most important thing was their phenological approach their understanding of the Old Testament their encounter with Jesus Christ that their experiences of God being full of the Holy Spirit visions such as the road to Damascus but if you go to postmodern hermeneutics everything has to be interpreted so just say well they encounter G the resurrected Christ that's why they Leakey's God no you just asked the question well why would they interpret it that way you know because the second second of purpose or that you know there's a little scenario right right move your yes you might interpret that is a meteorite so you can't just say the answer is this supernatural experience you have to say well why we're gonna interpret their supernatural experience this way and so I'm not denying anything we believe according to as far as a supernatural inspiration scripture I just don't rely on that in step because I would say from a theological point of view well you know God used whatever needs culture or and and so the course we come from warning would Paul come to this conclusion about Jesus and why would he speak of that to his contemporaries what would motivate him to do that and the answer whatever age you give in sociological terms again you could say well God used that means God knew this is what would be effective and he orchestrated so luck I don't deny that but I'm just not using that because my study is not about inspiration or supernatural encounters it's about associate socio rhetorical situation why what would motivate a monotheistic July Paul to talk about Jesus in terms of deity when that finally so many things it seems to be counter if he's trying to establish churches that seems you the worst way to do that so why would he do that and that's what I was trying to discuss because in when you this intersects with the early high Christology of course I rely on these conservative scholars such as done retardo Baulkham right who who actually have created a new conservative consensus actually a new scholarly consensus it's a majority people that across the theological spectrum from extreme conservatives to extreme liberals even agnostics and people like Bart Ehrman who's an agnostic the consensus is the early Christians did worship Jesus as deity either during his life or shortly after his death so even the Liberals like Herman that's what they say that's that's the evidence and so that's been documented over and over again but the critiques of these early high Christology people he says they don't explain why they've proven that it's true but they don't explain why these Christian Jewish Christians would do that and so really I carved out space this has not been adequately researched why would Paul do this what would motivate him to do this and when I say Paul the earlier the Christian so I chose the second Corinthians and here's why first of all in this passage you hit a lot of key themes of the deity of Christ you also hit a lot of Jewish themes which so gonna substantiate my point that this was not a Hellenistic development this was a Jewish develop which the early hyper styles of people say and have to say to maintain your position this comes out beautifully in second Corinthians which is really a Midrash along on the early testament so it fits perfectly this is not a Hellenistic theological exercise this is a Jewish Christian exercise rooted in the Old Testament and yet Jesus is given these terms that if you study them from the Old Testament through the interim Testament period are very radical terms of deity so I chose second Rifkin's because that passage really brings it out also what's interesting about second opinions it's an undisputed early text so if I chose a lot of other passages they would say it wasn't written by Paul or what was very late you know John's varieties or whatever but most of 2nd Corinthians are by Paul they are early that would be one of the earliest Christian documents of all so if I can prove my case with them then I have proven to my satisfaction at least early high Christology none of that Seventeen's is unique and that it's part of an ongoing con sation Paul has made some of these statements and first print these now in second derivatives he's facing people from Jerusalem Palestinian Jewish leaders who come saying Paul is a heretic and we are apostles we are super apostles we come from apparently Peter in the Church of Jerusalem and so Paul was wrong a radical in his statements and first corinthians he could have corrected that not it really mean that or no I'm not being controversial no I accept what the Jerusalem apostles so insane radians the main theme he's trying to defend his Apostleship and defend his gospel so he was making an outlier statement about the deity of Jesus first of all that would not be the place to do it when you're trying to defend yourself against attacks you don't throw in some new radical statements that you know everybody's going to reject and if there were some of those statements in first reasons he would explain correct justify or modified them so second Corinthians becomes a unique opportunity see Paul evidently did not think his statements of Jesus were controversial he thought that was the common inheritance of the Palestinian Jews such as Peter and the people from Jerusalem that he was struggling with their holistic Jews such as Paul in the degrees or the even the pinyon such as the Corinthian students right to form opinions so evidently Paul thought that whatever he had to say about crisis and Rincon's will be given across the board would not be controversial he was not trying to prove anything about the deity of Christ he was just a Sunni act to make his further point so this becomes a little infant what was non-controversial taken for granted about Jesus by the earliest Christians okay so that's the background let's read from the NIV second Corinthians chapter three verse two steam and of course this is in the middle of a narrative or a dialogue worth where he's referring back to Exodus when God revealed himself to Moses God spoke to Moses face-to-face that when Moses came to the people his face was shining with glory he had to put a veil on his face so when he went to the people he put the veil on his face when he went to God you took the veil and so in chapter 3 verse 16 but whenever anyone turns to the Lord the veil is taken away now the Lord is the spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom and with all of unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory and and we are food with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory our body transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory which comes from the Lord who is the spirit therefore since through God's Minister of mercy we have this ministry we do not lose heart rather we renounce secret and shameful ways we do not use deception nor do we distort the Word of God on the contrary by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone's conscious on the side of God and even if our gospel is veiled it is veiled to those who are perishing the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ who is the image of God for what we preach is not ourselves but Jesus Christ is Lord and ourselves as your servants for Jesus sake for God who said let light shine out of darkness may his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory display in the face of Jesus Christ I can see why I chose the passage he talks about the war and what the classic statements here of the early Christians which we see in chapter 4 and verse 5 Jesus Christ is there okay that's the earliest confession Jesus Christ is Lord but notice that word Lord the Lord who is the spirit and then he says this Lord is the image of God and he is the delivery of God the glory of God is revealed in the face of Jesus Christ so what you have in Jewish terms is Jesus is being described with all the verbs that are used uniquely for God and if you're going to come from a later Trinitarian perspective God here would usually be identifies the father and you have Jesus in some way identified with Father Son and Holy Spirit so left so that turn eteri theologian do acrobats to say that the Lord is the spirit and they will say well yes they're equivalent and experience but their distinctive person they will say the Lord who is the spirit he's talking about the spirit that is the substance of God you know God is a spirit so all three members of the Trinity or spirit or they'll say the Lord is the spirit of the only covenant you know a lot of gymnastics to say no don't confuse the members of the Trinity of course I just say that I've cast that aside so you know he wasn't talking Trinitarian terms so let's just not even go there that's his talk in the context of what he could have been and let's see what we come up okay so our two premises are Jewish monotheism and of course my my reviewers they wanted to push me really hard on that because one of the responses of those who don't literally hunt for self - and one of the responses of many to Therese is to say well the Jews already had a very flexible monotheism that they could allow for a second divine peace and so those are really a big step for the early Christian's to go ahead and start talking about Jesus in terms that some of the Jewish texts have they have exhausted angels exalted patriarchs etc etc and of course actually the early high Christology people say those aren't very good explanations there are some parallels that nowhere near and per title I think has a plenty argument because which I elaborate on okay maybe there are some and these texts are really non-standard texts they're not majority text they're they're sectarian or minority texts that the rabbi's of the latest 1st century in 30 seconds if you just roundly rejected but let's just say there's all that is there any evidence did the Jews of that day you were sofy these like a little more than a memory where they offering sacrifices to a second person called glory or spirit firm no this is all a theoretical exercise even more so when you get ready Paul's writings do you think he there were some these exalted patriarchs like Adam or enough or these various angelic beings that are mentioned in some of these texts is there any indication that there are people actually worshipping these these people no is there any indication that Paul was gravitating towards those kind of people and comparing us actually no when you look at his right he says Jesus is not an angel we said the work to painters you know he makes Jesus very different from Moses and from the angel so if anything his language parallels the rabbis who were attacking this doctrine so whatever he thinks of Jesus it's in a very different context of all these things suppose it parallels so basically I say the clincher is this even those who say well there was a kind of a Vinatieri in view and in ancient Judaism that could have been used even the people would say that they have Yahweh as the supreme and these other deities is very much inferior and that so they say that's not true modernism and I say building on Hurtado and others but wait a minute when you talk about more so when you talk about who is the creator when you tell me who is the savior in our monotheistic if you wanna if you want to kind of stretch model use and say well if you believe in angels you're not monotheistic or if you have some exalted picture she's not Martha see but that's not what I'm talking about okay is the work worship of one God we acknowledge another God but that doesn't solve my problem let's say the early Christians were elastic in them you're talking about Jesus as some little guy over here that we were talking about him as Yahweh so that explanation explains nothing it doesn't address the root of the matter why would they speak of Jesus and terms reserved only for Europe why would they say he's the creator why would they say he's the savior why would they say he's worthy of worship there see those parallels also fall drastically shorter than so for our purposes that choose were monotheistic of course are there texting you know the Old Testament text if you go to the rabbi's if you go to even in or test our room text if you go to people are Josephus if you even go to fire look who had this crazy language which is a subject of much debate I conclude is mostly mostly metaphysical philosophical he knows we'll be thinking of a second person because even he comes hard on we only believe in one God so so all these there's a flow of witnesses from the Old Testament intertestamental period and even first century then it essentially the Jews were monotheistic and so that's my first premise I also talked about paid in monotheism because there are parallels there so some people say well you know but paetynn monotheism yes elder Condit said a philosophical monotheism that someone you can listen this guy and you can worship that God but we wouldn't always be the same guy or you can worship Zeus and you can worship these other lesser views but they're all manifestations of Zeus but the early Christians weren't saying you can worship Zeus and you can learn some Isis and we converse of Jesus and it's really all work neural they were saying Jesus is exclusively God so once again the pagan monotheism the pagan perils don't explain anything that's going on here because they're not the same at all the Christians are talking exclusive terms Jesus is really immerse them as the Supreme God as the Creator has the savior and so there are no one will taken parallels and there are no real Jewish parallels so ok so I established that so now I'm talking a little bit more about the deity of Jesus if you look at the text that I just read to you you know it talks about Moses appearing before God which would be odd with nobody questioned them and then you have this 3:16 but whenever anyone turns to the Lord the veil is taken away and so there's a big debate who is the Lord and so you'll have across the spectrum is the father is the son and it's the Holy Spirit and I say ok in the context of Exodus who is the Lord that Moses were running to Yahweh no question so you're going to start with that text it has to be godly but he says when anyone turns to the Newark that is actually a technical term in the New Testament for conversion to Jesus Christ the book of Acts people turn to the Lord so it's not that Paul is confusing persons because these are you thinking that what he's doing is taking a Old Testament text and appalling it to Jesus a Jewish midrashic exegesis he's saying this other Testament text is relevant in our days were applied to Jesus so he's not confusing anything he says just like Moses or some Yahweh said we and when he worship Yahweh he took the veil off so when we were subpoenas we're doing the same thing so yeah he was Jesus so so is near the outer ears of Jesus I think both that's the point it's Yahweh when looking at Moses if Jesus when looking at guys Paul is telling you the revelation of Yahweh is Jesus and so then he went ego says now the liver is the spirit so then there there's another debate who's the ward here is it father son or a spirit and I said well it really doesn't matter because what he's saying is this little Yahweh who is a background is Jesus but in our lives today how are we encountering as the spirit don't know where is the spirit the we are way who was revealed in Christ is not physically present but when we turn to the Lord when we convert to Jesus what happens we've received all these period so what the answer is the limit is Yahweh who is Jesus then we receive a spirit so it's a luminous text if you try to throw it in turn and turn turn you got confused another three persons and as I said you have to do gymnastics to try to keep them separate but if you see the oneness flow yeah I didn't part of it really let me go in front and then then if you look at verse 18 who comes from the Lord who is the spirit so another just clear statement that most people who do not have a theological theological agenda will say this is one of the place in the Bible where Jesus is equated the Holy Spirit okay when you go into Christ is the image of God and the glory God that has a rich history in the Old Testament and an interest in the literature the image of God is not seen as a different person but God be manifested disciplined and prime example is Ezekiel 1 well that also gives me the glory because glory is seen as a visible manifestation so in Ezekiel 1 and also in in Isaiah 6 you have these prophets seeing God is described as they saw God's glory so this image and literally actually become technical terms in the rabbinical literature the the intertestamental injured and the rabbinic literature for god's visible manifestation so when Paul says Jesus is the image of God and the Word of God he's not just making generic statements he's actually using prenups technical language to say Jesus is the visible revelation of the invisible God now the image of God you you have this debate is it an Adam Christology or a wisdom for subtlety in other words now Adam was called the image of God so is he just saying Jesus is like a perfect man also you have the meter test villager filing wisdom has kind of gods personifications god's image and i say that's the point he's bringing them together when he said Jesus is this perfect man but he's also the revelation of God because he's not just using language of humanity throughout this passage he's using language of deity throughout this passage so you can't limit it to well Jesus is the image of God like Adam was and that's all there is to it no when he says the glory of God God's glory is identified with God himself so these are very strong statements that Jesus is the visible manifestation our representation of visible dog now when I got into this the question becomes why would Paul think that and I believe that his conversion is key he gives three counts of his conversion and acts every one of them talks about a visual component Ananias or Paul says he saw the Lord so I think what psychologically happened or spiritually happened when Paul was stricken on the road to Damascus he saw Jesus Christ radiating the glory of God and that convinced him Jesus Christ is God manifests the blessing in a way that nothing else could you know of course his experience had to be interpreted so if he was prone to believe in three persons he might have interpret Jesus the second person but that wasn't his background his background in Jewish monotheism so when he saw this apparently divine being and for some how he had recognized him edit and identify him as Jesus he was faced to with a dilemma and the only way he could understand it is Jesus is the guy I've been worshiping unknowingly and so that was a turning point in his life and he began to preach Jesus so this language again is not just theoretical when he says the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus that's what he saw that was his little experience it wasn't theoretical that's 400 and he interpreted through the lens of the Old Testament he interpret through the lens like Ezekiel would have liked Isaiah would have which by the way there are lots of intersections with John here I briefly ran the parallel John in Chapter 12 basically said Isaiah saw Jesus so what my point being when the monotheistic Jew has an encounter with a supernatural being ready in the morning God they say that's jolly and so Paul said that's Yahweh and so then he is appalling into the experience of the believers in essence he's saying just like on on the road to the as I saw Ottawa revealed as Jesus so when you are converted when you're filled with the spirit you don't necessarily have a vision like I did but when you receive the Holy Spirit when you turn to Jesus you ask to receive the glory of God in your life through the spirit so just like our income of the glory of God in visible everyone and I realize that's Jesus so you will encounter the glory of God an invisible spiritual form and you say that's Jesus so Jesus is the glory of God whether it's the visible revelation like the disciples saw in the resurrection accounts or like Paul saw and the Rhoda massive or whether it's invisible when we receive the Holy Ghost is still a comparable experience you are giving them the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ so see how that ties the oneness of God is all connected here so of course that is really the heart of my thesis is what I want to say is these early high christanja people they're on the right track but the way they describe the need of Jesus all sort of the oven I went through and I don't have time to do all for all this but I went through first and second Corinthians and I tried to go through every single passage that spoke of Jesus and someone try to categorize it and not just to prove oneness but prove anything and what I found is of course many times Paul spoke of Jesus as a man he died he rose August evening but sometimes his both of Jesus as yawns there are very few passages and a number of ingredients and of course I argue the protects honestly his work where he takes her bitters scriptures for Yahweh and applies them directly to Jesus so you can't just say that Paul thought of Jesus as mean you can't even just say Paul part of Jesus like the earrings or the Jones witness because a number of texts he says Jesus is Yahweh so how you how do you reconcile it and so I said well it could be he was just hopelessly contradictory that would be the answer that my professors were like for me to give them there was no answer he's just crazy actually I asked my professor one time I said what do you intro this is why I think Paul was mentally unstable and he was trying to consolidate power over these old churches so that he would be in control so you can't reconcile what he says it if he was he was mixed up he was mentally off so you know so I was contradictory you know maybe there is no sleep we usually try to find the coherence even if we think that guy is wrong we try to find where he's coherent in what he's trying to say so if you do assume there's a coherent pattern here what Paul is saying is Jesus is God Yahweh manifested in the flesh so you have to speak of him in distinction of God with regard to his humanity but when you speak of him as God he doesn't speak of him as a second person he speaks of him as God and he speaks of him as the son he doesn't speak of his inclusion in the Godhead but outside the guy in other words when it says God in any oh I didn't write down the text but if you look at the text that talk about God and the Lord Jesus Christ or God who raised him from the dead you're obviously looking at a human in the way he's descended from God is according to his humanity he's not many in distinction with any God he's using the term God his description of Jesus as outside that tongue God and if that's all of this passage you had you just say Jesus was a man but when you have these Yahweh passages you have to say he was talking in two different ways both as God and as a man at the same time and of course I tried to explain you how this all fits together and so then I come to the conclusion although probably most of my time is spent on explaining that Paul didn't really speak of Jesus as God and not as a second person not as a finitary or vegetarian or Aryan construct but as Yahweh and how could that be because what tends to happen in the scholarship is that we go to once we string with the other they will say that the later those who don't believe your own hype result they say this the early Jesus Freak monotheists so there's no way they could have spoken Jesus is God very early on or the other solution is the early hiker stylus they say well though he didn't speak of Jesus as God so they must have thought it was definitely a second person because that's the only way you could have a high Christology and I'm secondary missing it take the two halves of their argument yes the Jews were strict monotheists oh no you couldn't have an early development of Ben attorneys there's another alternative where they thought of Jesus as the manifestation of the other way then you could have an early high Christology without ability approach and I say historically does that make sense and the answer is yes because when binitarianism developed just in its old they didn't develop as co-equal it took a century of Miller to elevate the second person up salute the Apostles had a better term concept of God to political persons then the subsequent generations completely missed it and it took them a couple of hundred years to get back to where the apostles were historically that is not a very credible narrative of how this could've happened but if you are so if you assume dirt arianism is solution it took several centuries to get to the right cleanser but if you assumed that Jesus could be God manifest in flesh you don't have to embrace binitarianism to have a high crystal and so people like baulkham safe forever by Christology an explosive development unprecedented immediately the earliest Christian who was the highest Christology and he says here's is some kind of uh you know dude but what does he say he doesn't like to use the term Vinatieri so much he uses include whenever the divine identity you know and then Hurtado uses finitary thing and my my my reviewer slamming now you're misrepresenting him while user everywhere but then I noticed the last year to start a safe died attic because he got so much flak there's no way these guys were Vinatieri that is a later to go oh yes so their diet is Diana and hand so I'm saying no you don't have to go to that to explaining early hypersonic yeah that might have been but anyway so I'm going to get to the conclusion here so I explain how you could have an early high Christology without inserting a dualistic concept in other words the early highest ologists say and there's some dramatic liners like Hurtado says there was a mutation in their beauty so they send your heck there was still monotheistic you know they they give everything and then they try to take it back they need the early Christians follow Jewish monotheism it was a development of Jewish Boniface Piper Solomon and they say but it was a significant mutation of monotheism they had to define one of these in a different way and I would say no they didn't have to define monotheism in two differently but they they saw that God revealed himself in a new way God didn't change that the definition of God didn't change but the real reason of God was unprecedent so yes it was a struggle for Jews to understand this Namie to understand a new version of monotheism the thing never thought of before but to understand that God had actually manifested himself in flesh that was what was hard and then we did the historical question becomes lived that have been possible for them to think like that and I would say well yes the second culture there were many examples of people believing that god any God could be manifested as a human it might have been a stretch for the Jews but it wasn't a strange concept the idea that that monotheism could be redefined to a Minotaur in a Trinitarian mode that is unprecedented samples of deity becoming flex or flesh becoming deity so even though the Jews would have been reluctant to go there I argue you can't exclude that option from the scholarship so all the scholars on both sides seem to be saying the only solution of a hot result was military redefining loyalties I'd say you're missing the obvious they didn't have to redefine modernism they just had to say God could reveal himself in a new way in flesh so who knows the question which I had hit the very end was why would Paul think this way and even if he was convinced why would so let's say the answer for him is well as releasing him but still why would his followers who didn't have that experience why would they accept this if Paul was learning something rather than Jesus is Yahweh and you can say well he was convinced as he saw Christ he had this psychological spiritual whatever but then the question is why didn't he like this why would he hide it you know even if he thought it's true would this be a mark against him he's trying Finn his episodic identity his Jewish roots how he's in continuity with the early church so if this is a radical new revelation to overthrew monotheism or really heard among Jews see how human downplayed it as much as possible so what do you think keeps it exalted and why would the early Christians say yeah that's right you know the Jewish Christian why don't they say yeah this makes sense and why are we the Gentiles now you can understand the Gentiles accepting Jesus as another deity but why would the Gentile say yeah this is it you know why would the early churches go for this that's the unanswered question of the early life through stodgy people why did this make sense now what caused this the only high Crisanta people are saying you cannot explain the five angelic appearances and military and thought it's unprecedented why what's why can't you explain this why came up a fourth four points in solution and Daniel warrior in who's uh Steven Beardsley recommended him he's a radical Jewish scholar but he made a statement that really resonated and it made sense and so I made it keep component of my paper and this is he said the right explain early Christianity it's a combination of Hebrew monotheism and great longing for universals if you study Greek philosophy Plato Socrates Plato Aristotle they're excited to find a universal explanation for human knowledge and even in the Roman Empire there is this universalizing impulse to find commonalities among all people that was the political social philosophical context so you have that seems to be two irreconcilable points khipu monotheism exclusive our God is the only God all of your gods are false and the culture says but everybody's the same we're a multicultural all have something in common looks like today and so Christianity was their way to answer this and the reason why resonate with people is it made sense because it combined Hebrew monotheism this exclusivist we have the truth with this truth is the same for everyone every nation every race all across the Empire it works because see the Jews work they didn't trust alike they didn't they work they didn't expect some sincere people because of their high ethical standards and they're teaching them on accusing but they really they were ridicules and persecuted tolerated that they were seen as you know different but Christianity swept through the empire and so I say think about it if that's really what why Christianity was so successful think about the identity of Christ isn't that exactly what happens with the high Christology oneness of God Hebrew monetarism but the doctor of Christ explains how God is now accessible to every race God is not the god of the Hebrews but God is in Christ God became the man so now God can be for every human being so here come the central impulse of Christianity if Borden is writing is served by this doctrine of God in Christ not a Trinitarian that that would have fitted all but this one guy is a isn't as for every race that's what this doctrine does that's why resonated with Paul and his contemporaries and if you look at the the apocryphal acts which were the common people's writings of the second century Papa makes us great point he says forget about the philosophical developments just and all that that was just a small intellectual exercise it wasn't on people the common people said Jesus is the only God stop worshiping Zeus and your gods worship he's the only guy he's the savior and this is conserved modalism and they bought them even says well you took this to the extreme it would be mobile ISM and basically you know just insubordination ISM chain out into trinitarianism and that was the solution but basically just like in theology he does the same in history he gives it all to oneness and he tries to take it back of the very end but he does more than he says he says there were two ways of trying to reconcile the deity of Christ the subordination is to became the Trinitarians and the motifs which represented a common people and the worship of the second century I'm thinking do you know what you just said but anyway so that's the first point the second point I'm just about finished the monotheistic identification of Jesus D at deity of Jesus gave me the early Christians a social cohesiveness and identity now as a as a Christian on Pentecost I'm not arguing thanks they created his doctrine to serve their social interests but I am saying the reason why this doctrine was accepted because it fit and you can also argue God is the one who orchestrated is because here's the dawn of the early Christians then we're Jews that thought they were Jews they identify the Jews Paul said you know I'm a Jew love affair see the Pharisees but if they just believed the oneness of God God would not have distinguished the rest of Judaism they would just been absorbing the just business or back in Judaism so what made them different from their fellow Jews Jesus and this instinctively knew that what has made us different is Jesus we're not allowed to play in the world because we believe only one God but we're not accepted to that in Jews because we believe in Jesus so instinctively a new convert who had an encounter with God through Christ even though we didn't have a full understand one is when powered priest Rehim it makes sense because I know my identity has to be focused on Jesus I'm here because of Jesus so when you explain who Jesus is now it falls the place so my second point is being the deification of Jesus can a hardened theistic context gave them their identity and they would just been a sect of Judaism they never would have been were to be on that if they would just identify Jesus as one of several deities they would have been just like the pagans around them it would have been no big deal what maybe do distinct from both sides because their doctrine borrowed you might say for each side was monotheism but that one God manifested the flesh to Jesus third point would be their soteriology again their salvation centered on Jesus they mean that they were delivered from sin to salvation why Jesus it working everybody understood that instinctively so appalled explained Jesus is God therefore he has power to forgive you and save you Jesus is Mary and he died for you can pay you the price it makes sense they are knew that Jesus was to say there darted bleeding Jesus Savior this doctrine help make sense of their sociological experience and their their explanation and then for Missy ology this was the way that they were able to reach the world going back to what I said earlier this you know the Jews couldn't really explain to their average pagan neighbors why you should be a dude and they mostly did try the Christians were intensely nuisance Arian from the very outset they were very evangelistic and so this was the way of doing your pagan friends to become Christian not to a philosophical discourse not to a Venator and Trinitarian exercise but through sent Jesus is your God Jesus is the supreme you've got a Jesus is your Creator and your Savior and that's what worked now again I'm not saying they pick the doctor because it work I'm saying you dirt because it was God's plan but I'm giving you the practical reason why did their pagan neighbors accept this because this doctor worked this fit so I have the four reasons it's a combination of the Hebrew model Hisle Roppongi universals it gave them a unique social identity it affirmed their soteriological experience and it created a missiological movement in other words the boundary markers of the Jews would be thinking about how it is that this kind of like an exercise what made the Jews to the Sabbath monotheism and the dietary laws okay what made the world a boundary Marcus with early Christians monotheism but interpreted as Jesus don't ya the worst day but they instead of the Sabbath day but it's reinterpreted in in terms of Christ and the dietary laws of course it were done away in Christ but the communion and so forth and so what I'm saying is they had boundary markers but they're all we interpreted in terms of Jesus every boundary marker was related to Jesus and so that so one of my creepy critics said okay and he wasn't hostile with he said how would you prove this empirically this sounds good he spoke one sound good how do you put how you prove them and so it forced me talk about baptism in Jesus name because and of course post-fire hermeneutics is you know everything is interpreted you have to look more than just what they say what did they do okay objectively in reality Rizzoli what a minute Kristen become a person it was the baptismal ceremony or the gain one thing they said I am NOT a pagan I'm not a Jew I'm a Christian okay so the central focus of your identity in the eyes of your community leaving your own lavinius baptism if I'm right everything is on Jesus their whole identity is around Jesus Jesus would somehow be pretty important in the baptism ceremony and I say wow the early Christians baptized in Jesus name so I explained that through that and then I said now look the alternate explanation what if christologies started off as kind of immaturity and gradually a murder to Trinitarians it looks like you would have a vegetarian form it would gradually become a Trinitarian one but you don't you have a Jesus name formula and we know when people have Justin start playing around with it he still includes the name of Jesus in his formula it's like I can't just focus on exclusive young Jesus but I can't get rid of the name of Jesus either because everybody knows that Jesus has to be there and even the earliest Trinitarian or three phone formulas both with Justin and Irenaeus both actually include the name Jesus the earliest records I can find two Father Son and Holy Spirit was a legend the Gnostics valentinus used that allegedly according to Marcellus of I'm sorry who's not a neutral observer but anyway that's what he said and the earliest explicit the alundra mr. Toole who uses father son and spirit and does not use Jesus so I argue when you study dad my interpretation fits the evidence that the early formula shows high histology and so the whole identity was focused on who Jesus is that was the big deal becoming Christian was who you who do you think Jesus is and so the baptismal for confits there so anyway what I say is that what happened is this move the the early faith beyond Jewish ethnicity and Jewish boundary murmurs so it became a universal monarchy seventy an exclusive monotheism away still monotheism or ethnic qualities among could say it became a universal magnetism and so I say that's what created a distinctively Christian faith it was the identity of Jesus that made the Christian Bank and so that's why I call it a glory of God all right so first question here and a lot of distance this was kind of the question I had - yeah how does the Priestly Blessing number six fit into your argument particularly with regard to God's face shining on you and turning his face forward furthermore what is assumed was sorry what is the significance of this blessing being said by the priest to put the name of God on his people well I have to be afraid - brother Norris or bringing my attention to this in his writings but I think it fits very well I didn't have time to go into it but I tried to systematically look at the creaking correspondence what I found that the deity of Jesus has demonstrated in various rhetorical forms the benedictions the implications prayers utterances from heaven all the different uses of variety of forms and many of these forms are actually the scholars say are borrowed from earlier Christians like when he says Maranatha in first 1516 are more to come that's the air make one and it's considered a player okay it's really unfreedom to Jesus as Network and Paul uses Maranatha meaning it was the air mail so it must have predated him it must have come from Palestinian Judaism it must have been such a common place of even Gentiles who didn't speak Aramaic understood it just like when we say hallelujah everybody knows all of the world because it comes to the earliest strata of Christianity and so so this I'm getting around to the answer here so Paul is using these different forms and so in first us first Benton's one he says this is written to all that name the name of Christ that call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and I say that's a pretty technical phrase it it means to use the name so this parallels to the only Testament invoked Yahweh over the people the new test and also when Paul talks about the offender in 1st Corinthians he invokes the name of the Lord over them in judging and so he's using the name of Jesus in various rhetorical context for prayer for invocation or authority just like the only Testament uses Yahweh and so part of my aunt's and also one of the one the critics try to denigrate this day or there's no sacrif there's no true once of Jesus because they get in sacrifice and I say but when it says call on the name of the Lord that's the new test and equivalent of the Old Testament sacrifice and likewise in first Corinthians 10 when they talk about the table of the Lord and how you don't have communion with idols you don't the worship is but you have community or well that's paralleling Old Testament sacrifice to New Testament worship of Jesus so I do say no you don't have sacrifice literally in the New Testament but you do have New Testament equivalent of sacrifice given to Jesus with the invocation of the name so I answered we're the death but part of that is yes I would say that's one of the parallels are made just like the only Testament they would vote the name of Yahweh over people the New Testament they revoked in England Jesus over thee all right that's more coming here here's a here's one question I think this might what implications does your word and for our view of Christ's incarnations of the workers incarnate form and the question is the relationship of his deity to vanity of how we should view the nature price humanity the decision well it's obvious depth all spoke of Jesus as a real human being but yet at the same time you could identify him as Yahweh and and so I would say that our Christology should reflect that that we should be very comfortable in speaking of Jesus as a human and speaking of Jesus as God and not see a contradiction between the two but it's integrated into the concept of the Incarnation and what I said about the image of God he's both he's the perfect man but he's also the manifestation of God and furthermore that is linked to the atonement via 2nd Corinthians 5:19 which I argue strongly is properly translated by the King James a New King James God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself and so this concept of incarnation is linked to his ability to reconcile in a tone for us so we have to keep one is tied to the other here's a question more this more aggressive kind of your methodology for saying value since you make a place or phenomenology by considering the insider's perspective of Jewish monotheism and you talk about the syncretism of Jewish truth combined with Hellenistic eminence new oneness pentecostals scholars have some fruitful evidence here to explore the what's worth there kissers history of religions yeah well you know the early history of religions approach TM had a lone result what it said was the early Jude very Jewish persons were monotheists therefore there's no way they could have fought in Jesus's deity but over the course of the first century as the church tempted to Hellenism then it was easy to think of Jesus as a God but the early high Crisanta people actually come with a new history religious approach to say that's false because the original Palestinian Jews were already hellenizing Palestinian Judaism plus Helena stick already so that's a poor explanation everything that developed in Christology could have developed in a Jewish context so I basically would say I'm using a history of religions approach not like the only one that denies you know the possibility of the supernatural the Diwali but saying okay I mean that's not the only way to look at it but when you use a history religions approach you're kind of bracketing out the supernatural which is falling we're not denying the supernatural we say can we understand this in human terms and as I said you can easily come back later and say well now we see the hand of God in orchestrating this but we don't have to deny how this happened just like a person coming to God today you could say well my neighbor witnessed to me you know this happened to me I had a trial I was open to thinking of something because my beliefs had been shattered by this situation and so you can have a a next place of how you came to faith in Christ just by all these things or you can step back and say but God was orchestrating all that and so that's kind of how I do it with a history religions approach I think obviously we have to be careful both not to let our methodology be tainted by agnostic assumptions but also not to be misunderstood by where we're trying to communicate with that that we don't believe in the divine inspiration so we got to be careful here but I think there is a place for saying you know strictly in historical or sociological terms what are we what do we think happened and that's what I'm trying to do here's another one what would your response community to claim that every visible or visible manifestation well I would say that is a retrofitting that doesn't doesn't give justice to the way the terms is using the investment so for example Paul uses the term Lord hundreds of times the word Christ hundreds of times he uses the term son seventeen times and so I went through every one of them and every one of them the context is humanity the son died the son was raised every single one of them the focus is on son is on a human identity so I would say the manifestations of the Old Testament cannot be described that way because they might be visible they might have a human appearance but they're not the flesh blood human being it's the essence of what Paul talks about when he talks about son and of course if you go beyond Paul I think it's a classic definition Luke 1:35 Gabriel's feast of Mary of the Holy Spirit will overshadow you therefore the Holy Child which shall be born of you shall be called the Son of God there is the clearest definition you have a new testament of what the son of god means because god's spirit would overshadow Mary therefore Jesus would be called the son so it's related to the conception and the Incarnation and the burroughs and none of that applies the Old Testament so I would just say that's using incorrect terminology - we read the Old Testament through a completely different it's not even New Testament it's a New Testament turner but it's not use us for a meeting event it's a post New Testament use of the term put back on the Old Testament use it I don't know maybe this is a quick question but it's an interesting one in reference to Jesus being worshiped as eating what then becomes of what's the proper explanation when Jesus says whoever blasphemes the son of a we've given the mudra blackstein's the Holy Spirit will not be well I think of it in this way worse than that net passage you have to go to the context of you have Jewish religious leaders saying that Jesus to do it work by the power statement so you have knowledgeable people who should know the work of God you should know God's Spirit and they're saying what Jesus is doing this is the evil spirit so Jesus now he didn't say they had blaspheme but he warned him oh wait a minute you can speak against me all you want and you can be forgiven but you speak against God's Spirit there's no hope now the Trinitarian irritation doesn't even make sense because okay you can disregard one member regalia just don't disregard the other the Apostle Paul asking Christ really but he still was sincere is he not so when God spoke to him on the road to Damascus he was capable recognizing that's God and he was people reevaluating his opinion of Jesus so you might have a wrong view of Jesus and still be able to hear from God and correct your wrong what if the means that God has to touch you if you deny that how are you gonna be touched so let's say I pray for you that God would touch you and God touches you and you say all that psychological manipulation oh that's a demonic spirit here yes what else is God gonna do what's the next step God's gonna do he has no other means so I see it's not that God cuts us off it's not that God says you blaspheme so bad that even I won't for you anymore are you blasting so many times you want one more time too many I'm cutting you off it's really the person has maneuvered themselves into a position they can no longer recognize God's Spirit lose and therefore there's no there's no other alternative and and that would seem to be someone who's knowledgeable rather so what about having experience with God not just a random person so that I would a practical pass through level as somebody comes to me that concern I say well if you're going to start about it's obvious you have not done at that point you know so don't worry about God but don't worry that you blaspheme the Holy Ghost this is a one for people who are insensitive who don't care who are not worried about how much more time you have here yeah I have two competing through black question 19 what is it with our meeting 8:30 8:30 a.m. so we gotta we gotta doctor um okay so this question relates to your final point your fourth point about young Miss Jones the important is tell me I'm pointing out that a lot of Trinitarian proponents argued that the self existent nature of the Trinity the Father is sending the son the father and the son sending the whole spirit which I destroyed the Anglican Church is going to them as suggested exiting the Filioque okay but have that so over against that how does a oneness theology provide a president an example for instance I'm also in charge of the entire continent your talk you know obviously I'm not saying we develop doctrine out of a utilitarian sense my argument more subtle bit the doctor is true because it's the one of God but practically speaking God's people have accepted it because it fits it makes sense and so I want to answer a question like that I would say I don't see that the doctrine the Trinity has ever really been of missiological value I think what really happened in the fourth century was they had reinterpreted the Godhead in terms of Greek philosophy and so that was a mr. logical value say try to interpret their doctrine in a context that made sense to the philosophical people in their day but what the danger the problem that occurred Greek philosophy had God is reload impassible incapable of being touched capable of interacting directly with the simpler world and so in various ways the Gnostics Marcion and even Justin all had to separate the Creator the Supreme Being from the being to interact with our world because that's what Greek philosophy demanded of him so when you come to the the 4th century they're wrestling with the deity of Christ is he really God or is he not and the Arian so well known and so they just carry to the logical clusion here's the Supreme God of Greek philosophy who can't interact in the world Jesus is this lower being who can deny the end of subject and and so the Trinitarian the early trend turns like afternoon systems that can't be right Jesus is the savior we pray to Jesus we worship Jesus he can't be something for your being so given the fact that God can't come in the world but yet Jesus is God how really okay we've got two persons and their sequel but one of them could come down and one of them come down and it's not completely illogical but at least it makes Jesus God and it makes it human pleases Savior and the holy spirit we're not so sure about but you know holy-o's in the same thing so I really think I'm unsympathetic personally to Nicaea because there were leased to what earlier called civilians at and I see a Marcel office and Sarah in who stays here some Antioch who sided with African Asia's they didn't agree with the Trinity they agreed with the deity of Christ and I suspect had we been there we would have voted against areas not for the Trinity but for the deity of Christ because that was the real issue it wasn't in in history is the turning point for the Trinity but at the time it wasn't the adoption of the Trinity it was the next step and in retrospect was the decisive step but it wasn't obvious at that moment that it was the decisive step so when you look at it historically Nicaea was not totally bad it was a vindication to the president this gives back to my point now it was a given that great philosophies true given that the Greek philosophical concept have gotten to truth that's an absolute our culture says that we can't even video God another way or the only way that Jesus could be God is to somehow create a space but what if you said let's go back to the Hebraic concept of God let's let's challenge the fundamental presuppositions of our culture that God is remotely and movable and passive in a while then you don't have to do this dodge narrow you can look at the Bible God is grieved God is happy God loves God hates God ask God here means all that kind of God nobody could come down in the flesh and really I didn't have time to bring this out but I say the alternate solution which I did invent the which but the way to describe early high Christology instead of Bennett Aryan dyadic all this separation that I just described it came from read philosophy trying to know Jesus God yet separating from God so you don't violate the fundamental tenets of Greek philosophy no and I say who cares about the fundamental tenets of Greek philosophy if you consider transcendence and imminence and in the Old Testament God is transcendent he's the high and holy one God also says he dwells with those of a humble and contrite spirit soul idea is I gave you some old test examples as to the past him to say the Hebrew concept is God clarity transcendence which Bree Fox he's so insistent on but that's incentives doesn't mean he couldn't find a way to stood down to the lowest level and so if you look at Jesus in terms of transcendence and eminence this the transcendent God could become eminent in Christ there's your solution at this point and this is kind of idea there's one big question the address again brushed by it but the Old Testament emphasis on the coming of the Messiah was that expectation was the invitation that Messiah will be going incarnate or was it just above me you know why did you make too much I didn't do a whole lot of that because I would say reading the Old Testament I think yes the Old Testament does say the Messiah would be young however I don't think that was a prominent thought in first century Jewish thought in other words I don't think the first introduced were looking for God to come they carefully read Isaiah they could have figured it out but I think just like the the Helenus had this stumbling block how could God become in a sinful world the Jews had a similar thing how could God become a man they didn't see my God could do that and after all God had never done that before and and I do think in their own lady were stuck now there is some I did find a little bit in the Dead Sea Scrolls that talk to the Messiah as as elegant but it is seem to be a prominent emphasis so whether you know el-amin can be a little elastic so whether they were really trying to say the one true God Yahweh and his fullness is becoming the Messiah there's not enough to substantiate that there is some language they would expect Yahweh to be God really but I didn't know I only had a slight I just rushed past it because it was there but it wasn't a main emphasis and I didn't try to base anything I didn't I didn't base it on the idea that okay Paul deduced that Jesus was the Messiah therefore he deduced that Jesus was God to come into place yet I don't think it really worked that way I think it worked in the way he was the Messiah but then there almost had to be a separate or apart or further understanding well it must who is really the Messiah he's really got a manifested it sounds like you wondered maybe though that's the impact of all material ism or we need an use of the word Lord really does float into that so are hardly were when they call Jesus Lord another thing might argue that the very name Jesus was used by the early Christians for divine connotations and that I was hit on that pretty part because the Trinitarian st. Jesus is just a human name it has no divine connotations but I looked at Philippians chapter 2 and it's really interesting because the majority of scholars say you know the name is above every usage of the name because everything is born okay so I said okay maybe that's right but let's think about this carefully of course they will say that's a Yahweh passage that Jesus isn't or he's given the name Yahweh was just fit very well but I say but look at it carefully God has given him that name that's above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and I actually found some Trinitarian scholars like up longenecker who said this so most of the scholars and I got attacked you're trying to make that negatives about your name is Jesus it's not Jesus it's y'all so let's carefully look at this the name is bothering okay it is Yagami in an Old Testament sense and so Jesus is given the name Yahweh but don't stop there if Jesus is given the name Yahweh and we know the name Jesus means yahweh is salvation' what's Paul taking the next step to say now in the New Covenant been Jesus has replaced the name Yahweh and so instead of saying jesus infant has been exalted so that any always give a deal it may be done way around Yahweh is coming to place the name Jesus is given day long yeah and so you end up instead of signing the highest name is Yahweh and Jesus is recognized somehow you end up saying well you start with the highest things Yahweh when you get done now Jesus is the fulfillment act and it doesn't say that the name of Yahweh every knee shall bow it says at the name of Jesus and the connotation you can go back to love art and Gingrich they're their book if the connotation is at the mention of the name with the name and you have you can find several references they look at this and the judgment in in the name she's assisted funny image distances is between everybody drops so it's not it starts with Yahweh Yahweh it's everybody's isn't Jesus so I think we're still right I mean we can still argue so I I've tried to argue okay let's take you to John way but you're gonna end up then for Paul Jesus was not just a human name it was one of his ways of saying this Jesus Christ of Navi is Yahweh in the flesh and the very name Jesus been adaptive which goes back to Matthew and I didn't try to focus on other authors too much but whenever there are parallels I was trying to say you know Paul was on outlier he was actually just echoing a common consensus and it's why I tried to make those points whenever I could one final question okay all right this is to be the Lego company and the world's done five minutes in this in your settings how well this is how had your conception one is about change or you think we did it how how did your content since you wrote your book the oneness of God how is it how would it all contrast with the contrast originally well you know my book the oneness of God was written in nineteen well it was published in 1983 so over in 1982 so I was 26 years old so I'm 58 now so to say that my nothing has changed would be 19 I think the fundamental idea has not changed what I think has happened over the years I've gotten a greater appreciation for the humanity of Christ and for the proper way to describe the community parks so in my first it is not having it's a second edition now mm I just changed a few words I didn't it wasn't enough to change the page numbers I just changed a few words a few paragraphs but they were crucial because what I said which you know the oneness of God in Italy backtrack I don't claim this completely or primarily original I was trying to give a consensus but in a coherent way and the reason why I wrote the one is of God there was really no book that I felt put it all together there were some good books like God and two Testaments and folders they mainly prove Jesus is Jehovah which is great stuff for us but a knowledge of the trinitarian would read the whole book and say yeah fine end of subject because her parents believe Jesus is Joel now that well the bill average convert it's a revelation but to the triggering scholar you didn't say anything I don't hardy bleed so I had to somehow say okay and then I want to get him historical perspective I want to give a comprehensive perspective and so I was articulating very common statements under the hood and so I talked about Jesus having two natures and the way you explained the prayers of Christ is the human nature brain well as I thought this through over the years and you could see my oneness view of Jesus Christ comes along and tries to not change it but articulating more effectively and so I've got really that magnitude you're by nature and demon nature first of all I said you know that's a philosophical term it's not long but is it unnecessarily conceding Trinitarian categories why would I even have to use that term what are they speaking with Jesus as an authentic human being praying to God and so I would say the many differences I've tried to emphasize the humanity of Christ more the Incarnation as union of God and humanity getting away from the terms two natures are one nature doing this it wasn't a nature that praying was Jesus in second and so I tried to explain that so that would probably the number one biggest thing no I'll just throw in this because it it treating so one of the things they wanted me to do in my revisions interact with systematic theology with it so how this plays out so I said okay what am I going to do so I'd like to say no it's explaining how Paul's view of Christ is God I get a man and Calculon I said you know the Trinitarians really have this very same issue for instance you have the quintessential example that alter interviews is Jesus the garden distantly praying to God how would you explain that our very simple less level you say here's a man he's pregnant God that's easy but that man is somehow he divine terms of use of him you've got a problem now Karl Rahner who's probably the most prominent CEO Catholic feel up to the 20th century he makes this amazing admission and I putted the English translation and I went back to his German all don't really know German they wanted me to read German and quote German so I did so I had a German lady in my church she taught me some but when he got to be a lot of it was translated as go to the original German accorded and he says very interesting that the guy who is United Father send the Holy Spirit all participate equally in all the activities of the guided that's standard Trinitarian theology he says so when we find Jesus praying to God we have to say Jesus is praying to the second person of the Trinity if he's praying to the first personal entry he has to be praying to the second person he said while this is theologically accurate it's not carry matically appropriate in other words don't preach because he's saying the people will not understand yourself so although it is appropriate to say that Jesus adored the Son of God and worship the Sun God we don't use that terminology and I thought wow I mean this under what what even the society the Pentecostal studies when I gave my first presentation 19 the number one question how explain Jesus print and the real interest that's there for them to the second person of the Trinity so does that mean Jesus is a different person from the second person eternity now you've got four persons a car the car water would be those prayers to prove two persons you never have the Father Son and Holy Spirit now you have a fourth person and so it's really not an issue for us it's the Incarnation and so I just dabbled in that a little bit to say you know that is so that explanation doesn't explain anything so now let's go back and see what could be an explanation and what could be next places Jesus it's just trying to portray Jesus as a human being pray to God and therefore the issue of the Trinity is not is it vegetarian Trinitarian that doesn't even come up that's not even what's going on here you're talking about the Incarnation and and so that's how I handle death but to me it's fascinating because another thing that you can use on that is not how will but thine be done and Trinitarian say two wills two verses I said well no you don't know your Trinitarian theology the Council of Constantinople in 687 to will is one person there's the human will and there's the undividable to Trinity because if the different persons of Trinity's have your freedom of wills you know you're in outright try to use them so trinitarianism says God only has one will so the two wheels do not prove two persons the two whittles prove the Incarnation because you have the will of the Trinity and the will of Jesus and so that's kind of the same thing so it's very interesting so how I would say that's the main you know the main emphasis that I think the and you can see it in the position paper we adopted at the UPC are tuna it's in the in the aftermath of the Tecna Miriam situation called the truth Humanity of Jesus Christ so I was part of a committee but I did the draft so that would reflect how I explained things in more recent times

Channel: David K. Bernard

Views: 6,823

Rating: 4.9736843 out of 5

Keywords: UPCI, Pentecostal, Oneness, Christology, Early High Christology, David K. Bernard, Apostolic, Oneness Pentecostalism, Jesus Name, United Pentecostal, Trinitarianism

Id: CQI9Bv_FHPg

Length: 90min 54sec (5454 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 05 2019