Significance of "begotten," whether God created Jesus, meaning of "Jesus is Lord,"
and learning about the Bible
- The "only begotten son" phrase used in older English
Bible translations of John 3:16 does not mean generated or created. Instead, the Greek word
translated as "begotten" is a reference to a relationship without reference to origin.
- The words "one God, the Father . . . and there is but one
Lord, Jesus Christ" in 1 Corinthians 8:6 do not mean, "Instead of many gods and
lords, there is only one of each." What Paul means is that the idols worshipped in Corinth have
no power.
- The Holy Spirit is one of the best Bible teachers we can have.
8. Responses to a Jehovah's Witness questions
"As usual, Paul entered there and . . . discussed the Scriptures with them." --
Acts 17:2
Excerpts from an email exchange with a Jehovah's Witness
One sad thing about our email exchanges is that my Jehovah's Witness friend rarely
responded to my answers or asked me follow-up questions. So we had very few real
"conversations" discussing anything in-depth.
- Jehovah's Witness question: Doesn't "only begotten" clearly mean
that Jehovah created Jesus?
- My response: The Greek word translated as "only begotten" is monogenes.
That word is used several times in Scripture and particularly to describe Jesus in John's
writings. Monogenes is a compound word made up of two other words. The King James
Version translators liked to translate word-for-word when possible. So when they came to the
compound word monogenes, they translated mono as
"only" and genes as "begotten."
There's no question about monos being the equivalent of "only." It's the genes
part of that word that needs some reflection. Some have assumed it comes from a Greek word
that means "give birth" or "beget." Others say that the last half of monogenes comes
from the Greek noun genos that most often means "kind" or "type."
Thus, many modern translations will use the phrase "one and only" or "one of a kind" in passages
like John 3:16.
Some scholars see monogenes as a strengthened form of monos meaning "alone,"
"unique," and "incomparable." Supporting this is the way the Septuagint (Greek translation of the
Old Testament) renders Psalm 25:16, "Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely
(monogenes) and afflicted" (NASB). In this passage monogenes clearly means
"alone" rather than having anything to do with descent. It means "the only kin or kind," hence,
"the only." In John 3:16, "begotten" does not mean generated or created. "Begotten" is instead a
reference to a relationship without reference to origin.
Have you read any writings by C.S. Lewis? He's the author of things like The Screwtape
Letters and The Chronicles of Narnia. In his book Mere Christianity, Lewis
says:
"To beget is to become the father of something;
to create is to make something. When you beget something, you beget something that is the same
kind as yourself. A man begets human babies, and beaver begets beavers, and a bird begets eggs
that become baby birds. But when you make, you make of a kind different from yourself. Birds
make nests, beavers make dams, a man makes a wireless set. . . What God begets is God; just as
what man begets is man. What God creates is not God; just as what man creates is not
man."
Lewis is saying that if God "begat" Jesus, then Jesus was God. If John had not meant equality in
terms of essence, mind, and heart, he would have said God created Jesus.
When "only begotten" refers to Christ, it means "unique" and "only beloved." Only begotten
expresses Christ's eternal union with the Father in the Godhead. What monogenes does
is to direct our attention to God's character, will, love, and grace as it is conveyed in the person of
Jesus Christ.
- Jehovah's Witness question: Did you know that Jesus is the only
thing God actually created? According to John 1, it was Jesus who then created everything.
- My answer: I'm glad that you agree Jesus was the Creator of all things. Furthermore,
does it say anywhere in Scripture that God "created" Jesus? No, it does not. Having
established that, let's look at the following Scriptures:
- "Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth." -- Genesis
14:19
- "But Abram said to the king of Sodom, 'I have raised my hand to the LORD, God Most
High, Creator of heaven and earth, and have taken an oath'" -- Genesis 14:22
- "Is this the way you repay the LORD, O foolish and unwise people? Is he not your Father,
your Creator, who made you and formed you?" -- Deuteronomy 32:6
- "Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator
of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can
fathom." -- Isaiah 40:28
Don't these passages clearly refer to Yahweh as Creator? If
Yahweh is the Creator, and Jesus created all things (as you agree that John 1 says He did), then
Jesus must be Yahweh. . . . unless, of course, you're going to say we shouldn't take those
Scriptures literally. To be sure, you have said: "The scriptures decide what is literal and what
is not literal, not us." In none of these passages is there any indication the words are not to be
taken literally. Therefore, following your principle, we must take these words literally.
Right?
As Paul talks about Jesus in his letter to the Colossians, he
says that "all things were created by him and for him" (Colossians 1:16). If Jesus had been the
Michael the Archangel -- rather than Yahweh himself -- would he have really created all things
for himself? Would an angel - even an archangel -- have dared to do that? Would not such a
statement be directly contrary to Isaiah 43:7, which says God or Yahweh created "everyone ... for
my glory"? If Jesus was fully God, then there's no contradiction between the passage in Isaiah
and the one in Colossians. If Jesus was not Yahweh, then don't you have two contradictory
statements?
- Jehovah's Witness question: How do you explain 1 Corinthians 8:6
("Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live;
and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we
live")?
- My answer: First, let's look at the whole chapter. To really understand any Scripture
verse, we need to see it in the original context in which it appears. The principal issue in 1
Corinthians 8 is what Christians in Corinth were to do about buying food that had been
previously sacrificed to idols.
In that discussion, Paul declares to the Corinthian believers that the idols they see throughout
their city have no power. Most people in Corinth followed religions that had multiple gods. Paul
declares to the believers in Corinth that there is only one God and one Lord.
Paul is not trying to say to the Corinthians: "Instead of many
gods and lords, there is only one of each." Paul is saying there is only one God, only one Lord.
Isn't that clear when he uses the exact same phraseology to describe both God the Father and
Jesus Christ ("through whom all things came and through whom we live")? Also, as Paul
continues the discussion in verse eight, he doesn't continue talking about both God and Jesus as
though they were separate. He only talks about God.
In chapter nine, Paul mentions Moses. Didn't Moses refer to
Yahweh as "Lord" numerous times in his writings (the
Hebrew word that Moses uses is Adonai)? Among those would be Genesis 16:13: "She
gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: 'You are the God who sees me." Another example
would be the clear reference to Yahweh as Lord in Genesis 24:12: "Then he prayed, 'O Lord, God
of my master Abraham.'"
Now, if the Holy Spirit
inspired Moses to refer to Yahweh as Lord and the same Holy Spirit inspired Paul to say there is
only one Lord and that Lord is Jesus, wouldn't that mean that Jesus is Yahweh?
In Paul's writings, the opportunity for Gentiles to be converted is built on Isaiah's description of
what will happen when the Messiah has come, and there will be a light to the nations, "a light to the Gentiles." That phrase comes from Isaiah 42 where the prophet also writes, "This is what God the
Lord says" (Isaiah 42:5).
Paul says, "There is only one Lord." Do you think Paul had forgotten about all those Old
Testament Scriptures which refer to God as
"Lord"? Had he just badly misunderstood them?
Or, did he purposefully use that wording to proclaim that Jesus was God Himself?
- Jehovah's Witness question: How long have you been knowing the
Bible, and who taught you the Bible?
- My answer: Two great questions. I'm hoping you're asking these sincerely and not
just hoping to find something to criticize me for.
The Bible has been a part of my life for six decades. I
actually read it all the way through -- cover to cover -- when I was about 10 years old. To be
sure, there were lots of things I didn't understand in that first reading. However, that initial
reading was very valuable because it gave me a sense of the storyline running all through those
66 documents. It gave me a sense that the Bible was not just a collection of
stand-alone stories or thoughts that were randomly thrown together. It also made me think of
each of the individual books as a unified document rather than a compilation of verses
(thoughts) that didn't build on each other and that had little or no connection to each
other.
As to who taught me the Bible, the first "teacher" that came
to mind was the Bible itself. Doesn't, for example, Moses' re-telling of the events of Exodus and
Numbers in Deuteronomy, in a sense, become a teaching of what the content of Exodus and
Numbers means? Doesn't Jesus' use of passages from Leviticus and Deuteronomy in answer to
the question about the "greatest commandment" teach us what we should see as key principles in
the Old Testament? Doesn't Hosea's life story teach us something about the phrase in John 3:16
that says, "God so loved the world"? Doesn't the "faith chapter" in Hebrews teach us the key
point about several Old Testament personages? Doesn't the book of Habbakuk teach us what
Proverbs 3:5-6 means ("trust in the
Lord with all your heart . . .")? Doesn't Peter's
sermon on the day of Pentecost become a teaching about what the life of Christ recorded in the
gospels means?
Well, I could go on and on, but hopefully, you get the idea. I think the various books of the Bible
are sometimes the best at explaining what other books in the Bible have to say.
In addition to the Bible books themselves, another good
teacher I've had of the Bible is God the Holy Spirit. John 16:7-13 records the words of Jesus:
"Very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate
will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. When He comes, He will prove the
world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do
not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me
no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned. . . When
He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth."
So, the Holy Spirit has been one of my great Bible teachers.
As to human teachers, I think of people who've taught me
through what they've written. There was a man named John
Wesley who lived in the 1700s and whose writings have been key to understanding God's call to
holy living as it is revealed in scripture. There was William Carey
whose writings in the early 1800s were a call to see how often God's heart for all peoples of the
earth shows through in the Bible. There was Ray Stedman, a pastor from California, whose book
Body Life was helpful in seeing clearly what passages in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12,
and Ephesians 4 were saying about the Church. The writings of Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, a German pastor who died in one of Hitler's concentration camps, emphasized
for me the Biblical call to be totally sold out to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom.
The writings of missionary-to-India E. Stanley Jones have been very valuable in comprehending
Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.
In high school, I spent a year with young friends working through Paul's letter to the Romans. By
the end of that year, we knew its wording forwards and backward. Those friends -- although
they were just high school students -- were some of my teachers concerning the book of Romans.
Key pastors who helped guide my learning of scripture have included men like Hardy Powers,
Millard Reed, Harold Daniels, E. S. Phillips, and Ponder Gilliland.
Some wonderful Sunday school teachers who were key in my journey with the Lord (and the
Bible) are Peggy Poteet, university professor of English, Vera Clark, who ran a trucking business
with her husband, Harper Cole, a university business school professor, and Jim and Shirley
Posey, a respected lawyer, and his wife.
Then, there is my friend Marty Michelson, who has studied the Old Testament so in-depth that I
get the feeling he had coffee this morning with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. There is Hal
Cauthron, whose specialty is the writings of John and who has helped me see clearly the themes
running through those writings.
Well, I could go on and on with the list of people who've been instrumental in my understanding
of Scripture. But, I think you get the idea that it has been a lot of wonderful people from
different walks of life and even a variety of different centuries.
-- Howard Culbertson,
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