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Excerpts from e-mail interchange with a Jehovah's Witness
Recently a member of the Watchtower Society (also known as Jehovah's Witnesses) and I exchanged a lot of e-mail messages. Here are questions he asked and responses I gave. This is almost like a blog of our conversations.
- Jehovah's Witness question: Look at Mark 15:34 and Matthew 27:46. Was Jesus asking himself why has he forsaken himself?
- My answer: Do you really want to know what Jesus was saying in those Scriptures?
First of all, it must be noted that Jesus is here quoting words from Psalm 22.
I realize you have brought up these words of Jesus from the cross to say that they show a clear separation between the Father and the Son. That's a mistaken interpretation. With his cry, Jesus was not expressing a belief that God had forsaken him. What Jesus was doing was quoting the words of a Psalm about the Messiah!
So, what was Jesus saying by quoting that Old Testament Scripture? Well, in the scrolls used in the synagogues during Jesus' day, individual Psalms were not numbered. So, when Jews wanted to refer to a particular psalm, they quoted its opening lines -- much like we would do today when we use song titles. Indeed, speakers today use this technique of quoting a phrase or two from a song or poem in order to make their listeners think about the whole song or poem. Preachers often quote a short phrase from a song, knowing that just a few words will make their audience remember the whole song. I'm guessing that speakers in Jehovah's Witnesses congregations may well do the same thing.
As Jesus was dying on Calvary, He wanted those watching Him die to think about all of the things which Psalm 22 says. Go read Psalm 22. You'll see that it is a psalm that speaks of the Messiah. That Jesus knew God had not actually forsaken Him is clear from that very psalm to which he made reference. For instance, verse 24 says: "He (meaning God) has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; nor has He hidden His face from Him; But when He cried to Him, He heard."
That day on Calvary, Jesus was declaring to his accusers that they were seeing the fulfillment of Psalm 22 -- which even in His day was commonly understood to be about the coming Messiah, the Suffering Servant. The psalmist himself understood that the "forsaking" of God was not abandonment, but a lifting of His Sovereign protection according to His divine plan so that the threats of Jesus' enemies could be carried out in fulfillment of prophecy.
In fact, there were several times when Jesus' enemies sought to kill him (John 5:16 and 8:59, for example). They were not able to because, as Jesus said, His "hour" was not yet come (John 12:23-28). Even as Jesus' crucifixion approached, He declared to Pilate, "You would have no power over Me if it were not given to you from above" (John 19:11). That Scripture makes it clear that the Son knew clearly that the Father would not abandon Him on on Calvary.
Therefore, don't be looking at Jesus' cry in Matthew 27 and Mark 15 as something to disprove the divinity of Christ. If you're going to look for proof against the divinity of Christ, you'll have to look elsewhere in Scripture. What we have here are words that called into the minds of Jesus' listeners a Psalm which proclaims the coming of a divine Messiah. It is a Psalm that says, among other things, "All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord."- Jehovah's Witness question: What does this scripture means when it said we have a helper with the Father, and it give us the name of that helper, Jesus Christ? (1 John 2:1) "We have a helper with the Father, Jesus Christ, a righteous one."
- My answer: You picked a Scripture which clearly illustrates the truth that, while there is only one God (Yahweh), He exists in three persons and each of those persons is fully God.
John is the only New Testament writer to use the particular Greek word -- parakletos -- that is here translated as helper or advocate. John uses that Greek word four times in His gospel in addition to what he says in this letter written to the churches in the area of Ephesus.
The word carries the meaning of "being called to one's aid." Because of the challenges of trying to translate all the nuances of the Greek word, many people use "Paraclete," an English version of the Greek word.
This advocate or Paraclete of whom John speaks must be a person since that particular title carries the sense of being a person's defender before the Judgment seat. What is fascinating about this is that John uses a word that can be translated "lawyer" to describe the Holy Spirit as well as Jesus.
The Scriptures in which John uses this word strengthen the case for the Holy Spirit being a person rather than the "it" of "God's influence." How can someone's "influence" act as the lawyer for someone else? If I have to go to court, I don't want somebody's influence to show up; I want a real person there to defend me.
1 John 2:1 is a great affirmation of the understanding of God as triune: Father, Son and Holy Spirit (one God, eternally existing in three persons). This Scripture is clear: God the Father and God the Son are two distinctly different persons. This is not a logical contradiction because personhood and essence are two different things (a point on which a lot of people get hung up).
Essence is a "what" and personhood is a "who." 1 John 2:1 illustrates this clearly by calling Jesus "righteous." That is significant because just a few verses before (in 1 John 1:9) that same identical word -- righteous -- is applied to God. Do you see what John is saying? 1 John 1:9 says God is righteous. 1 John 2:1 says Jesus is the righteous one. This is just one more indication that Jesus and Yahweh are of the same essence!
1 John 2:1 shows Jesus' role in the Trinity as our Advocate before God the Father. Jesus Christ is the only one who can fulfill that role. That's because He as God Incarnate is the only sinless one who died a sacrificial death and was then resurrected. As the perpetual mediator between God and human beings, God the Son is perpetually distinguished from God the Father. However, both Father and Son are God.
Why is God the Son our Advocate? Is it because the God the Father is reluctant to save us? Is the desire that we be saved from our sin a desire only of the Son? No, it is not. Jesus' advocacy for us manifests the intense longing by Yahweh (without distinction of Person) for our salvation.- Jehovah's Witness question: If Jesus was God incarnate, wouldn't that mean that there would not be a father for Jesus to go to if Jesus was already there in the flesh existing as the father?
- My answer: Aren't you misunderstanding what I'm saying? God is one and yet He is also three separate persons. The Father is not the Son. The Son is not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not the Father. The Father is not the Holy Spirit. Yet, all three are of the same essence. There is a unity and yet a separateness.
Think of H20, the chemical designation for that compound whose molecules contain two atoms of hydrogen for every atom of oxygen. In its liquid form, H20 is called "water." However, H20 can also exist as steam or vapor. It can even exist in solid form as ice or snow. Which of those three forms is really H20. Well, they all are. Is steam the same as ice? No, but it is exactly of the same essence, isn't it? Is liquid water the real H20? Well, it is H20, but H20 exists in two other forms as well.
Now, this metaphor is not perfect. It can be "pushed" too far, but it still is one illustration of what Scripture says about God.
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Howard Culbertson, Southern Nazarene
University, 6729 NW 39th, Bethany, OK 73008 | Phone:
405-491-6693 - Fax: 405-491-6658
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