How can Jesus see seed in Isaiah 53:10?

Michael Brown just posted a good video on the subject. He's responding to Tovia Singer, and one of the points Brown makes is that Singer not only neglects some points Christians have made about the passage, but also neglects what other Jewish sources have said on these issues. I made the same point in an exchange I had with Singer in one of his YouTube threads last year. (You can find other responses to Singer in our archives.)

For more about the Suffering Servant prophecy and the Servant Songs in general, see here.

Craig Keener And Michael Brown On Their Upcoming Commentaries

Michael Brown recently interviewed Craig Keener. During the course of the interview, both men talked about some Biblical commentaries they're working on, Keener on Mark and Brown on Isaiah. Go here for the beginning of that discussion and here for some further comments during a later segment of the interview. It looks like both commentaries are a long way from being completed, and Keener's should be a multi-volume one.

Muhammad in the Bible? Live with Dr. Michael Brown

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ6K7K5MbWo&feature=youtu.be

Chickenpox

@DrMichaelLBrown

When your little girl has chickenpox, do you bring her to the children's church on Sunday and say, "I have faith that none of the other children will be affected," or do you keep her home? I think you get the point.

https://twitter.com/DrMichaelLBrown/status/1241473584083673088

Yeah, I get the point. 

i) The problem lies not with the hypothetical example but the implied comparison. Brown uses an example that no reasonable Christian can take issue with.

The problem is not the example but what he's using it to illustrate. A more accurate analogy would be canceling all church services because a parishioner might by asymptomatically infected with chickenpox. Brown's illustration loses all plausibility when you spell out the parallel situation.

ii) Surely the irony is not lost on some readers that Brown is one of the world's most prominent charismatics, and he's not a charlatan, unlike many high-profile charismatics. But given his charismatic theology, it doesn't seems unreasonable to say "I have faith that none of the other children will be affected."

The "angry Calvinist" trope

Context: Michael Brown plugged Steve's post "Straining Trumpian gnats while swallowing Democrat camels", in which Steve defends Michael Brown against Randal Rauser's criticisms, then out of the blue someone named Stephen J. Graham decided to call Steve an "angry Calvinist". See here:

https://twitter.com/DrMichaelLBrown/status/1227774795812626432 or https://twitter.com/sjggraham/status/1227856666605039616

I'd add:

Suppose my "normal description" of Graham, who is Irish, is that he's a drunken Irishman, simply because "it's the most fitting", even though there's no reason for me to think Graham is drunk. Suppose I just assumed Graham is a drunken Irishman whenever I read a tweet from Graham, even though there's zero evidence his tweet was sent in a state of inebriation. That would be unfair of me to do, to say the very least! Yet that's evidently how Graham treats Steve: Graham's default setting is that Steve is an "angry Calvinist" even in writings or works which have nothing to do with Calvinism.

Also, ironically, many freewill theists call for universal love, but they defame and malign Calvinists for no good reason.

Brown isn't a bigoted homophobe

Some (lightly edited) comments I left on Randal Rauser's post "Is Michael Brown a Bigoted Homophobe? You Decide.":

Rauser is so myopic. He misses the forest for the trees. He can't see beyond the personal character contests or grudge matches to see there are far bigger stakes involved. Heterosexual sexual sins violate the moral standard, but homosexuality seeks to destroy the moral standard itself and raise up an entirely new standard. Homosexuality is fundamentally worse in that respect. It's never solely been about Trump and Mayor Pete as persons but their policies as well.

[The Atheist Missionary:] Homosexuality is pervasive throughout the animal kingdom and I submit that science will soon allow us to predict a child's sexual orientation with a remarkable degree of accuracy while a child is in the womb.

1. This runs into the is-ought problem on atheism and neo-Darwinism.

2. However my reply wasn't predicated on atheism, or even a debate between atheism and Christianity, but it was predicated on conservative Christianity inasmuch as Rauser is attempting to call the conservative Christian Michael Brown a hypocrite given Brown's beliefs. I'm responding as a like-minded conservative Christian as Brown. Rauser needs to put himself into the conservative Christian's shoes if he wants to understand our beliefs and values rather than constantly imputing his own beliefs and values onto Brown and acting like Brown violated his own beliefs and values when at worst Brown violated Rauser's beliefs and values.

Understanding why religious conservatives would vote for Trump

"Understanding Why Religious Conservatives Would Vote for Trump" by Andrew T. Walker.

Walker is a Southern Baptist professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

I don't necessarily agree with everything, but it's a more nuanced reply than someone like Randal Rauser is willing to give conservative Christians like Michael Brown credit for.

Straining Trumpian gnats while swallowing Democrat camels

https://randalrauser.com/2020/02/is-michael-brown-a-bigoted-homophobe-you-decide/

But surely, Brown cannot be surprised about this: after all, nothing riles evangelicals like gays and gay marriage. As Jeff Lowder said on Twitter, “If only [evangelicals] thought gay sex caused global warming, then they might care about global warming.”

Rauser's MO is to impute his own viewpoint to evangelicals like Brown, then accuse Brown of hypocrisy for failing to act in consistency with his imputation. Many evangelicals don't believe global warming. Or they don't believe in anthropogenic global warming. Or they may believe it, but think the threat is wildly exaggerated. Or believe nothing can be don't about it because developing countries like India and China are the main polluters, and they won't agree to cut back on carbon emissions. So the comparison is fallacious. 

I am not criticizing Brown’s critique of Pete Buttigieg simpliciter but rather his censure of Buttigieg while supporting Trump. The issue is moral consistency.

i) But he never demonstrates that Brown is morally inconsistent. All he ever does is to impute moral inconsistency to Brown and like-minded evangelicals. 

ii) It's not necessarily or even presumptively morally inconsistent to support Trump's reelection and oppose Buttigieg. That's because not all moral norms are equally normative. For instance, Christian can believe that lying is generally wrong, but also believe it's permissible or even obligatory to lie to save innocent lives. You can grant that some of Trump's behavior is immoral, but the policies of Buttigieg, if elected, will be far worse, so you support the reelection of Trump. There's nothing morally inconsistent about that.

This is the time where Brown should really consider some of Jesus’ other words on religious hypocrisy, as when he called hypocritical religious leaders whitewashed tombs, blind guides, vipers, and even children of the devil. 

Again, he keeps making pejorative assertions without proving the point. Also, a person can be morally inconsistent without being hypocritical. To be hypocritical a person must be willfully morally inconsistent. 

But let’s be clear on what a lie is: to lie, one must believe that-p and communicate to others that not-p with the intention that they come to believe that not-p. Thus, for me to be lying here, I must first believe that it is false that Brown falls over himself to excuse Trump’s gross immorality. But I don’t believe that is false. I believe it is true. So by definition, I am not lying. It’s a false charge.

Rauser's intent is to deceive his readers about Brown. 

Thus, we see that Brown has falsely accused me, a fellow disciple, of lying. 

Once more, he imputes his own viewpoint to Brown, as if it's a given that Brown regards  him as a fellow disciple. 

Even more troubling, what about Trump’s ongoing attempt to subvert the rule of law? 

i) Notice how he chronically imputes his own viewpoint to Brown (and like-minded evangelicals), then accuses him of hypocrisy, as if Brown agrees with his viewpoint but makes excuses for Trump in spite of that. Yet Rauser hasn't documented that Brown shares his interpretation of Trump's actions regarding the rule of law. 

Hypocrisy hinges on the viewpoint of the accused, not the accuser. Rauser keeps blurring that key distinction.

ii) Moreover, even if you did think Trump sometimes bends or breaks the rule or law, Brown also believes the Democrat nominee, if elected, will be far more lawless.

iii) For that matter, there's nothing sacrosanct about the rule of law. Consider the Nuremberg laws or Jim Crow. I'm sure one of your concerns is that if Democrats control the executive and legislative branches (not to mention the judiciary), they will promulgate evil laws and regulations, or "reinterpret" the law to coerce evil. 

If ever there were a case of straining gnats and swallowing camels, this is it.

Actually, Trump is the gnat compared to secular progressive camels in the Democrat party. 

if that double-standard is not evidence of bigotry and homophobia, then what is?

But he caricatured Brown's opposition. As Brown details in his response to Rauser, his primary objection is to the punitive agenda of politicians like Buttigieg. It's about public policy, backed by the force of gov't. (Not to mention the alliance between Democrat politicians and Big Tech.)

https://stream.org/i-will-say-what-the-political-leaders-cannot-say-about-pete-buttigieg/ 

Jewish Zombies??!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiZ-cuLq20g&feature=youtu.be

Is Michael Brown a hypocritical bigot?

https://randalrauser.com/2020/02/if-hypocrisy-were-an-olympic-sport-evangelicals-would-get-the-gold/

Like most folks, I am sick unto death of pointing out the morally vapid hypocrisy of American evangelicals when it comes to Donald Trump.

i) What makes Rauser imagine he speaks for most folks? Does he have polling data to back that up?

ii) Why is a Canadian theologian so obsessed with an American president? Why is he constantly attacking Trump but only very rarely has anything to say about Justin Trudeau?

Brown is aware that he will be called a homophobic bigot. But it is worth highlighting why the charge seems so plausible in this case. Evangelicals like Brown fall over themselves to excuse Trump’s grotesque immorality. 

I've seen and read several things by Brown in which he's critical of Trump's personal morality. On the face of it, Rauser's allegation is willfully uninformed and slanderous. 

By contrast, Buttigieg’s sin, being married to a man, makes him unfit for public office. It is on that topic that these leaders suddenly believe morality matters and that they must draw a line in the sand.

i) What's required to show that Brown's position is hypocritical? It's certainly not enough to show that Trump's past sexual behavior violates Brown's moral standards, because a sophisticated ethical system will have a priority structure in which some standards rank higher than others, or where it's a combination of violated standards that makes the difference. So Rauser hasn't shown, or even attempted to show, that Brown's position is hypocritical. 

ii) It's revealing that Rauser keeps comparing homosexual "marriage" to heterosexual marriage, as if they're morally analogous. But sodomites can't cheat on each other. Only straight married couples can cheat on each other. Homosexual activity is sinful whether that's with a so-called homosexual "husband," or callboy, or rentboy, or boyfriend (or lesbian counterparts). Homosexual activity is sinful whether that's with one partner for life or multiple partners.

iii) Moreover, homosexual "marriage" defiles the divine institution of marriage in a way that heterosexual adultery does not. Adultery is a sin against particular marriages, but it doesn't redefine the God-given nature of marriage. While adultery is a grave sin and potentially damnable, it's not sacrilegious–unlike homosexual "marriage". 

iv) Does Brown only draw a line in the sand with respect to homosexual candidates in a queer marriage? Does Brown not also draw ideological lines in the sand with respect to straight Democrat candidates? Is Brown okay with Elizabeth Warren? 

Yeah, that sure does look like homophobic bigotry. Behavior and reasoning like this provide very plausible evidence that Christians like Brown have an irrational fear of and/or antipathy toward gay people.

That's just demagoguery. This isn't about fear of/antipathy towards homosexuals, but about empowering homosexuals to make public policy decisions that punish virtue while promoting vice. 

Is John 8:58 about predestination rather than preexistence?

In his debate with Michael Brown:

https://www.21stcr.org/one-god-over-all-videos/debate-dr-dale-tuggy-vs-dr-michael-brown/

Around the 2:26 mark, Dale Tuggy takes Jn 8:58 to be an example of Jews characterizing predestined events as having always been. 

But a basic problem with his interpretation from Tuggy's own perspective is that Tuggy is an open theist. For instance:

https://trinities.org/dale/threeroads.pdf

According to open theism, the future is indeterminate. There are multiple potential futures in play, any one of which might become the actual future. There is no one future until the dust settles. So how does Dale's God predestine an indeterminate future? 

Praying to Jesus

As part of his opening statement, in his recent debate with anti-Trinitarian Dale Tuggy, Michael Brown said the following:

That’s why Paul could pray to the Father and Son together in 1 Thessalonians 3:13, saying, “Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you,” using a singular verb for the Father and Jesus. And why else would Paul include Jesus in a prayer to the Father, let alone pray to the Father and Son using a singular verb in the Greek – unless they are one? (See also 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17, where Paul puts Jesus first in the prayer, using a singular verb again: “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.”)

https://askdrbrown.org/library/dr-brown%E2%80%99s-opening-comments-debate-dr-dale-tuggy-january-11-2019

I've seen that challenged on Twitter. Here's what some recent, major commentators say, in support of Dr. Brown's interpretation. Notice that this is not an argument from authority. I'm not simply quoting scholarly opinion. Rather, they present exegetical arguments for their interpretation:

But in this prayer, as in 2 Thes 2:16-17, the Lord Jesus is the one to whom prayers are directed alongside God the Father. To address prayers to the Lord Jesus (so 2 Thes 3:5,16) in the same breath with God the Father implies a very high Christology. This prayer would be proper only if the apostles held to the divinity of Christ. This point is even clear in the prayer of 2 Thes 2:16, where the order of the names is reversed, "May our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father". G. Green, The Letters to the Thessalonians (Eerdmans 2002), 176. 

This means that by comparing two similar Pauline prayers, the reader arrives at a sublet but undeniable attestation of the divinity of Christ. In both cases, God the Father and the Lord Jesus are petitioned in prayer, and one or the other might answer the prayer. What Paul explored a few times in explicit propositions (Rom 9:5; Phil 2:6; Tit 2:13) becomes clear when he turns to God and the Lord Jesus in prayer; it is in prayer that he shows who he really thinks the Lord Jesus is. G. Shogren, 1 & 2 Thessalonians (Zondervan 2012), 307. 

The second part of the prayer, the divine source, is striking not only because of the addition of the intensive pronoun "himself" but even more for the use of two subjects ("our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus") with a singular verb. The similar use of a compound subject with a singular verb occurs elsewhere in the NT (e.g., 1 Cor 15:50; Mt 5:18; Mk 4:41; Jas 5:3). These examples, however, virtually always involve a conventional word pair ("flesh and blood," "heaven and earth," "wind and sea," "gold and silver") so that the parallel with two persons mentioned in the transitional prayer of 3:11 is not exact. 

Indeed, the repetition of the definite article for both nouns suggests that Paul views God the Father and Jesus our Lord as two individual entities and so avoids the danger of a complete merging of the two figures to whom he prays. On the other hand, that these two individual figures are closely linked by a singular verb–a grammatical construction that Paul repeats (though in reverse order) in another prayer for the Thessalonians (2 Thes 2:16-17)–suggests that Paul views Jesus as sharing the deity of God and so avoids the danger of a complete separation of these two figures to whom he prays…As Marshall (1983: 100) declares, "It would be more exact to say that Paul assumes the divinity of Jesus–to call him "Son of God' in the way in which Paul uses the phrase cannot mean anything else".

As Milligan (1908: 108) observes, "We have another striking example of the equal nor ascribed to the Son with the Father throughout these epistles" J. Weima, 1-2 Thessalonians (Baker 2014), 236, 561.

The prayer itself, however, begins in a way that should catch everyone's attention. Here is a Jew, born and bred in, and deeply committed to, a monotheism where a person regularly repeated the traditional "creed" of all Judaism, the Shema of Deut 6:4: "Hear, Israel, Yahweh your God, Yahweh is one." But a couple of centuries before Paul, Yahweh's sacred name was no longer spoken aloud, apparently so that no one would take it "in vain" and thus break the third commandment. So in the oral reading of the Hebrew text, Adonai ("Lord") came to be substituted for Yahweh. This in turn was taken up in the Septuagint, where kyrios ("lord") was consistently substituted for Yahweh, this translating the oral substitution for the written word. So the oral Shema now took the form, "Hear, Israel, kyrios your theos, kyrios is one." What Paul himself did with this most sacred tradition–and well before writing this letter–is remarkable indeed. He is now praying to the one theos as "our God and Father" and to the one kyrios as "Jesus," whom he had earlier identified as "God's Son" (1:10)…the remarkable inclusion of the on as the compound subject of the singular verb seems to exist in anticipation of the rest of the prayer, which is directed solely to Christ.

Two further matters need to be noted, both christological. First, one should observe (a) that Paul can pray to both God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ together as one (v11), (b) that he can pray to both together but single out one as the object (grammatical subject) of the concerns of prayer at a given time (vv12-13), and (c) that in these earliest two letters he can pray to either separately (for the Father see 1 Thes 1:2-3; 5:23; for Christ see 2 Thess 3:5 and 15). 

Second, even though the first emphasis in this case is on God the Father, the final focus of the prayer is altogether on the Lord Jesus…Indeed, this same phenomenon happens in reverse in 1 Thes 2:16-17, where Christ is mentioned first (including with the autos ["himself"]) while the pickup, exactly as in the present case, is with prayer addressed to the second divine person mentioned at the outset, namely God the Father….together these realities indicate the very high place Christ had in Paul's understanding of God's identity. Here is a strict monotheist praying with ease to both the Father and the Son, focussing first on the one and then on the other, and without a sense that his monotheism is being stretched or is in some kind of danger. G. Fee, The First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians (Eerdmans 2009), 130-31. 

I'd mention in passing that on a unitarian interpretation, this is yet another way in which unitarianism parallels Catholicism. Just like in Catholicism, you can pray to "exalted humans" (Mary) as well as God–in unitarianism, you can pray to God and the merely human Jesus alike. 

Framing the Tuggy-Brown debate

https://www.proginosko.com/2019/01/an-observation-about-the-tuggy-brown-debate/

Tuggy v. Brown

I listened to the recent debate between Dale Tuggy and Michael Brown. I think Brown made a powerful case. Here's his opening statement:

https://askdrbrown.org/library/dr-brown%E2%80%99s-opening-comments-debate-dr-dale-tuggy-january-11-2019

In this post I'm going to focus on Dale's side of the debate. This will be a long post.

In a way I'm surprised that Dale didn't do better. On the one hand, Brown wears many hats. A debater. Bible commentator. Messianic Jewish apologist. Culture warrior. Globe-trotting missionary. President of FIRE. And so on. 

By contrast, Dale is a single-issue guy who spends all his leisure time expounding unitarianism. That's his professional specialization. He's been honing his arguments for years. He's debated Bible scholars like Michael Heiser, Larry Hurtado, and Lee Irons on his podcasts. And Dale had the home-court advantage on philosophical theology. So I expected him to turn in a stronger performance. As such, it was striking to see how often he floundered.

Brown's opening statement

With permission, I'm posting Dr. Michael Brown's opening statement in his recent debate with Dale Tuggy:

Debate with Dale Tuggy About the One True God

Thanks so much for coming out tonight and for tuning in to our livestream, and thanks, Dr. Tuggy, for your comments, which I’m quite eager to rebut. The fact is, you claim that Jesus is simply a glorified man, and I want to declare in the clearest possible terms that the Son of God of the Bible – the one we rightly worship as God – is infinitely more than a glorified man. To make Him into a glorified man is to deny the clear and consistent witness of Scripture. To make Him into a glorified man is to neuter the gospel, since the idea that a glorified man died for our sins is hardly a demonstration of the immeasurable love of God. To the contrary, when God sent His Son to pay for our crimes, He was giving of His very self.

So, again, I’m eager to rebut Dr. Tuggy’s opening comments, and it’s clear that a lot of his difficulties come from the fact that Son took on human form, hence praying to the Father and having the Father as His God. But for now, in my opening statement, I will lay out the clear scriptural case that the Son is fully divine, and since there is only one God, then God must be complex in His unity. Simply stated, this one God has revealed Himself to us as Father, Son, and Spirit, and if we are to accept the testimony of the Scripture, this is the only fair conclusion.

For Dr. Tuggy and others, this is a logical contradiction, but the day we can fully wrap our minds around the nature of God is the day we’ve reduced Him to our level, thereby making a god in our image. The God of the Bible is marvelous and transcendent, without beginning and without end, rightly called in Judaism the eyn sof – the infinite One – and, according to the Scriptures, clearly complex in His unity. Will we accept the biblical witness, or will we try to create a god based on our own limitations and perceptions? 

In the Old Testament, the Lord stated categorically that He would share His glory with no one. As written in Isaiah 42:8, “I am the LORD; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols.” (See also 48:11, “For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.”)

Yet we see in the New Testament that massive glory and honor are given to the Son. As Revelation records, “Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, ‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!’ And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!’ And the four living creatures said, ‘Amen!’ and the elders fell down and worshiped” (Rev. 5:11-14).

Either God has gone back on His Word, and another, created being is sharing in His unique honor and glory, or the Son is one with the Father, equally God. And note here that all creation worships the Lamb, meaning that He Himself is not created.

Having interacted with religious Jews for the last 47 years, I can assure you that if the Son did not share in the divine nature, to worship Him like this would be blasphemous. That, indeed, would be detracting from the worship of the only God and engaging in some form of idolatry. This is not like one candle lighting another candle without the first candle losing its light. This is like the second candle becoming predominant – in this case, having millions of people praising and glorifying Jesus, often without mentioning the Father. If the Son is not God, then He has taken glory from the Father.

What makes this all the more interesting is that throughout Isaiah 40-48, God repeatedly says of Himself, “I am” or “I am He” (translated into Greek as ego eimi), yet that is the very language Jesus uses of Himself in John, most decisively in John 8:58: “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” (again, ego eimi) – not, “I was,” but “I am.”

So, not only does Jesus share in the Father’s glory, but He identifies Himself with the eternal God, saying, “I am” (or, “I am He”), also declaring His external preexistence. And just as the Lord says in Isaiah 48:12, “I am he; I am the first, and I am the last,” so also, in the book of Revelation, both the Father and Son are called the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last. See Rev 21:6, speaking of the Father, who says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end,” then Rev 22:13, where Jesus says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”  (See also Rev 1:8, “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.’” And note Rev 1:17.)

He is clearly and unequivocally identifying Himself with Yahweh. No created being could utter such words. Only the eternal God could say, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” The Son is the eternal God!

That’s why in the Old Testament, Yahweh’s words remain forever (Isa 40:7-8) but in the New Testament it is Jesus’ words that will remain forever (Matt 24:35).

The Lord declared in Isaiah 43:11, “I, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior,” yet throughout the New Testament, Jesus is hailed as our Savior. Either He is one with God, or there is more than one true savior. Paul leaves us no doubt, referring to “our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” in Titus 2:13. That’s the most obvious and clear sense of the Greek. Jesus is our great God and Savior.

We also learn from this same section in Isaiah that when Yahweh created the universe, He did it alone. As written in Isaiah 44:24, “I am the LORD, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself.” Yet the New Testament tells us explicitly that the Son was involved in creation.

In John 1:1, John uses the language of Genesis 1:1 in the Septuagint, saying that the Word was in the beginning (en arche), and explaining that what God was, the Word was. And, he continues, “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:3-4). And, John tells us, it is this preexistent Word, this Word through which all things were created, which became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14).

And that’s why John the Immerser explained that Jesus “ranks before me, because he was before me” (John 1:30). That’s why Jesus said that He was from above, that He came down from heaven, that He came from God and was returning to God (John 3:13; 6:38, 41; 8:23; 13:3).

That’s why Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 8:6, “yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.” Even more emphatically, he wrote, “For by him [meaning the Son!] all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-- all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:16-17).

The text is clear. The Son is eternal. The Son is uncreated. All things were created through Him and for Him. 

You really have to engage in a hopeless series of exegetical gymnastics to deny the plain sense of these words. And remember: In Isaiah, Yahweh said no one was with Him when He created the universe, yet these texts say He created all things through His Son. That can only mean one thing: The Father and Son are one God! And that’s why Jesus explained that it was His Father’s will “that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father” (John 5:23).

There are other texts which explicitly point to the Son’s eternal preexistence. In John 17:5, Jesus prays to the Father, “And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” Once again, the text is clear.

John also tells us in chapter 12 that when Isaiah saw the Lord’s glory (meaning, Yahweh in His glory in Isaiah 6), it was the Son of God he saw, the one who suffers and dies in Isaiah 53. Isaiah saw the Son of God, and the Son was called Yahweh.

That’s why Paul tells us explicitly in Philippians 2 that Jesus existed in the form of God yet emptied Himself and became a servant, dying for us. And that’s why Paul uses a text speaking of Yahweh in Isaiah 45:23, where God swears that every knee will bow to Him and every tongue swear to Him and applies the verse to Jesus, saying that every knee will bow to Him and every tongue confess that He is Lord. If the Son is not deity, that’s blasphemous, and it cannot possibly be to the glory of the Father. Just think if the verse were referred to an angel, rather than Yahweh. It’s unimaginable.

Note also that Paul in this passage uses the example of Jesus in Philippians as an example of humility. He didn’t take what rightly belonged to Him – namely, the privileges of deity – but rather emptied Himself on our behalf. He who was eternally God came to earth as a servant to die for us!

That’s why Jesus says that He had often longed to have mercy on Jerusalem, but it was not willing (Matthew 23:37). He was the one wooing His people throughout Old Testament times.

That’s why Hebrews 1:8, quoting from Psalm 45:7, says to the Son, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.” Yes, the Son is God and has an eternal throne! (The plain sense of the Hebrew and Greek texts is quite clear and the major reason there is any debate in how to translate the words is because of theological objections to the Messiah being God.)

Not only so, but Hebrews continues, quoting from Psalm 102 and applying these words to the Son, “And, ‘You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands;  they will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment, like a robe you will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will have no end.’” (Heb 1:10-12) The Son is the eternal creator, the one who always was and always will be. That’s what Scripture states!

We don’t need to play games with this text and try to make it say something it is not saying. The text clearly and indisputably speaks of the Lord creating the heavens and the earth, which will ultimately wear out, but He – the eternal Lord – will remain the same. Yet Hebrews applies this to the Son! And Psalm 102 makes frequent reference to Yahweh, yet the psalm is referred to the Son in Hebrews 1. Not only so, but the Greek text speaks of the Lord creating the universe in the beginning (archas). There is no denying the plain truth of these words!

And Hebrews makes the consistent argument that the Son is greater than the angels, yet in first-century Judaism, the very context of these words, there was no one higher than the angels other than God Himself. 

That’s why Isaiah said in 9:6 that one of the Messiah’s titles would be, “Mighty God,” yet in Isaiah 10:21, it is Yahweh who is called “Mighty God.” That’s why Thomas said to the risen Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” in John 20:28. The text is totally clear! Thomas called Jesus his Lord and his God. And that’s why Paul wrote in Colossians 2:9 that “the whole fullness of deity” dwelt in bodily form in Jesus.

Peter is clear as well, writing in 2 Peter 1:1 about “the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.” And it is very likely that Paul speaks of Jesus as God in Romans 9:5, while it is most likely that in 1 John 5:20, John states that Jesus Christ is “the true God.”

That’s why Jesus could say that the Father was in Him and He in the Father (John 14:9-11). That’s why Paul identifies the Spirit of God with the Spirit of Christ in Romans 8:9-11. That’s why Paul could pray to the Father and Son together in 1 Thessalonians 3:13, saying, “Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you,” using a singular verb for the Father and Jesus. And why else would Paul include Jesus in a prayer to the Father, let alone pray to the Father and Son using a singular verb in the Greek – unless they are one? (See also 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17, where Paul puts Jesus first in the prayer, using a singular verb again: “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.”)

And that’s why prayer is offered directly to the Son in the New Testament. Stephen prays to Him in Acts 7:59 (“Lord Jesus, receive my spirit”); we are taught to pray, “Maranatha,” which in Aramaic means, “Our Lord, come!” And John calls out to Him in prayer in Revelation, “Even so, come Lord Jesus!” (Rev 22:20). Jesus even told us to ask Him for anything and He would do it (see John 14:14).

And that’s why, in Revelation 22, we read that “the throne of God and of the Lamb will be” in the New Jerusalem, “and his servants will worship him” – not them, but Him, God and the Lamb, one divine Being and one throne. And that’s why, in Revelation 22, we read that “the throne of God and of the Lamb will be” in the New Jerusalem, “and his servants will worship him” – not them, but Him, God and the Lamb, one divine Being, and in the end, one throne, not two. “They will see his face” – not their faces – “and his name” – not their names – “will be on their foreheads” (Rev. 22:3-4).

The very thing that Dr. Tuggy tries so hard to resist is the very thing that Scripture teaches.

To review: There is no question whatsoever that the Son is eternal, preexistent, and fully divine, the one through whom all things were created, and the one who is worthy to receive praise, honor, and glory and to whom prayer can be directed. That’s why He is called God in a number of texts, and that’s why we worship Him as God – one with His Father. And that’s why, when Jesus returns to the earth and His feet touch the Mount of Olives, as promised in Acts 1:11, Zechariah tells us that it will be Yahweh’s feet that touch down (see Zech 14:3-4). And that’s why we baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Matt 28:19). A glorified man has no place between the Father and the Spirit. 

In fact, as we look at the scriptural evidence, we see that lying to the Spirit is lying to God (Acts 5:3-4), that the Spirit can be grieved (Isa 63:10; Eph 4:30), that the Spirit teaches, guides, speaks, intercedes, appoints leaders, and bears witness (e.g., 2 Sam 23:3; Neh 9:19-20; Rom 8:14; John 14:26; Acts 13:2; 1 Tim 4:1; Rom 8:26; Acts 20:28; 5:32), that the Spirit is manifest through wisdom and knowledge (1 Chr 28:11-12; 1 Cor 12:7-8), and that the Spirit is eternal (Heb 9:14). The Spirit also is God!

That’s why Paul could speak of “the love of the Spirit” (Rom 15:30). And that’s why Paul could invoke this benediction, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Cor. 13:14; and note carefully, you do not have “fellowship” with a thing; you have fellowship with a person).

That’s why Christians concluded that God was triune, one God, made known to us as Father, Son, and Spirit. In the New Testament, the Father is primarily known as “God,” the Son is primarily known as “Lord,” and the Spirit is given various titles to explain His work and mission (although He is sometimes called “Lord” too, as in 2 Corinthians 3:17-18; and, of course, the Son is sometimes called God and the Father is sometimes called Lord).

That’s why Jesus could say things like this, in John 15:26: “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me.”

And that’s why blasphemy against the Spirit – not against an impersonal force but against God Himself – was a damnable sin. You are damned for sinning against a divine someone, not just a powerful something.

And it is only when we understand God’s tri-unity that we can understand how people saw God in the Old Testament, yet the Bible says no one has ever seen God. The Father remains hidden, and it is the Son who makes Him known. That’s why Jesus could say, “If you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father” (John 14:9). And that’s why He could say, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Luke 10:22). You can’t say those words about a glorified man.

Nor can you say that God created the world through a glorified man (Heb 1:2) or that a glorified man “is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature” (Heb 1:3, NET).

That’s why Jacob in Genesis 48 described God as, “The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day, the Angel who has redeemed me from all harm” (Genesis 48:15-16). Yes, Jacob equated the one true God with the angel who redeemed him. This was his way of describing the preexistent Son, who appeared sometimes in the Old Testament as the Angel of the Lord. Jacob encountered Him too! And just as Paul prayed to Jesus and the Father as one, using a singular verb, so also here Jacob appeals to God and His redeeming Angel – one being! – in the singular as well.

As a Jewish follower of Jesus, there has always been pressure on me to deny what Scripture plainly teaches, namely, that Jesus the Son is eternal deity and that God’s unity is complex. But because the Word is so clear on this, I could not and would not yield to this pressure. (For the record, I could have brought much, much more support from the Old Testament, but there is simply not enough time to review the massive amount of scriptural truth affirming the deity of the Son.)

I urge each of you to fall down at the feet of the glorious Son and worship Him as God. This will please the Father, who sent His Son to be the Savior of the world, and who continues to work among us by His Spirit.

After Paul laid out God’s extraordinary plan to save both Jews and Gentiles in Romans 9-11, he wrote these incredible words, quoting from the Old Testament as well: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?’ ‘Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?’ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Rom 11:33-36).

Let’s stop trying to put the infinite and eternal God into the tiny box of our limited minds, as if we in ourselves could figure out or define him or reduce him to a mathematical formula, and let’s instead worship our triune God with reverence and awe. That is humility and that is wisdom.

Why don't more pastors speak out?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOPB2hbrqsM

Should your past make you a pariah?

The Kavanaugh controversy is ephemeral. One way or another, it will probably be over with by next week. I'm discussing it because it raises some perennial ethical issues. 

But what if he is guilty? Should the Senate Judiciary Committee vote against his nomination?

Let’s put our past sins into four different categories, responding to each category in turn.

Foolish Things

The first category consists of the foolish things we did as teenagers and young people. But these transgressions are known, open, and a distant part of our history.

For example, my personal testimony, “From LSD to Ph.D.” is well-known.

It is well-known that I was a heroin-shooting, LSD-using, hippie rock drummer before coming to faith in Jesus at the age of 16 in 1971.

It is well-known I broke into a doctor’s office with a friend and stole drugs.

It is well-known that I was a proud, angry rebel.

As our daughters grew up, I shared my story with them. Now my grandkids know my story.

My story is known and out in the open, and it’s a testimony to God’s grace.

Since 1971, I have not used an illegal drug or abused a legal drug. And, despite drinking heavily at times in my teen years, I have not had a sip of alcohol since 1971.

If Brett Kavanaugh got drunk with his friends and assaulted another teenager that would be grave and ugly. But if this was something that was known, open, and unrelated to his behavior and conduct ever since then, it should not disqualify him from service today. (To be “known and open” would also mean that he had made things right with his alleged victim.)

Lots of us did stupid things when we were kids and teenagers. But as we became responsible adults, we put those things behind us.

Some of us even did reprehensible things as adults. But we made proper restitution, we were completely rehabilitated, and we have made something worthwhile out of our lives.

Such stories are noble and inspiring.

Past Behavior Honestly Addressed

The second category consists of sinful behavior in our past that we covered over, hoping it would never be discovered.

What happens when these old skeletons are suddenly discovered in our closet? If the behavior was totally uncharacteristic, if it did not lastingly wound or injure someone else, and if it was never again repeated, you can make a case for overlooking it — but only if the response today was proper.

In other words, if it came to light that, when you were a 16-year-old boy, you had consensual sex with your 16-year-old girlfriend, but since then, your moral behavior was impeccable, you shouldn’t be disqualified from public service today. But only if you responded properly when confronted.

A proper response would require full acknowledgment of guilt, not lying about the incident, and pointing to the changes you made to live rightly ever since.

To say that these sins of our youth make us unfit to serve today is to render unfit a vast percentage of the population. How many of us have an unblemished past?

Cover-ups

The third category consists of lying today when confronted with sinful behavior from the past. That would be the bigger issue to me with Justice Kavanaugh.

Did he do something reprehensible as a drunken teenager? Perhaps he did, but again, that is just an accusation at this point.

The big question for me is: Is he telling the truth today?

We’re not looking to confirm teenager Kavanaugh. We’re looking to confirm Judge Kavanaugh.

His present behavior is far more important to me than his teenage behavior. Can the man be trusted?

When Past Becomes Present

The fourth category consists of sinful behavior in the past that still carries over until today.

If Kavanaugh did, in fact, sexually assault his accuser more than 35 years ago, does that reflect his attitude towards women ever since? Is he an abuser? Does he view women as sexual objects? Does he look on his alleged past transgressions as just a bunch of guys having fun?

https://stream.org/past-sins-disqualify-today/

Much of what Brown says here is sage pastoral and practical advance. But I have three caveats:

Is Jesus David's heir?

A Jewish objection to the messiahship of Jesus is that he wasn't a genealogical heir of David. The stock Christian response is that he was a Davidic descendent via his mother and a legal heir via his stepfather. Jews have counterarguments. For a defense of the standard explanation, cf. M. Brown, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus (Baker 2007), 4:84-97.

However, I'd like to take a different approach. David wasn't the founder of the Davidic monarchy. David was himself an heir. In 2 Sam 7, Yahweh is the king of Israel, while David is his vicegerent. It parallels the relationship between a royal father and a royal son by adoption, or a king and the crown prince. 

So David isn't actually the founder of the dynasty. Rather, he's a stand-in for Yahweh.

If Jesus is Yahweh Incarnate, then the kingship reverts to the true king (Yahweh) who temporarily delegated kingship to David and his successors. The divine messiah isn't David's successor, but the very God who raised David to the throne in the first place. Now Yahweh reclaims the crown in the person of the incarnate Son. It was ultimately his all along. Messiah isn't David's heir; rather, David was messiah's heir. The relation is teleological rather than chronological.  

Messianic prophecy in a nutshell

https://askdrbrown.org/library/dr-brown-notes-debate-yisroel-blumenthal-real-jewish-messiah

Michael Brown on healing

What was my conclusion after these years of intensive study and prayer? I concluded that healing was God’s ideal will for His obedient children, and that rather than praying, “Lord, if it be Your will to heal,” we should pray with the expectation that it was His will, sometimes even rebuking the sickness at its root.

Since then, have I seen other precious believers die of cancer? Yes, tragically, including some people very close to me, after years of prayer and fasting for their healing.

Have I prayed for blind eyes that were not opened and deaf ears that were not unstopped? Quite a few times, I’m sorry to say.

Yet I still believe the testimony of Scripture, since my theology is based on the Word rather than on personal experience. And when I have experienced miraculous healing in my own life – including from Hepatitis C, apparently contracted when I was a drug user from 1969-1971 but not manifest until the mid-1990’s, after which I was healed – I have been thankful for divine confirmation of the Word.

https://askdrbrown.org/library/why-wasn%E2%80%99t-nabeel-qureshi-healed

It sounds pious and faithful to say that when push comes to shove, his theology is based on Scripture rather than experience, but the obvious problem with his dichotomy is that, as he interprets Scripture, Scripture predicts for a particular kind of experience. He thinks Scripture obligates us to expect miraculous answers to prayer. So he can't neatly dichotomize Scripture from experience if, by his own lights, Scripture itself fosters the expectation that we should experience a particular kind of answer when we pray. 

Brown has created a situation in which his interpretation of Scripture is unfalsifiable. If you exercise expectant faith, and the prayer is answered, that confirms your charismatic interpretation–but if you exercise expectant faith and the prayer goes unanswered, somehow that's still consistent with your charismatic interpretation. 

Fact is, even mundane prayer is risky in the sense that when you pray you leave yourself wide open for disappointment. Prayer puts you in a vulnerable position. And if you exercise expectant faith, that aggravates the opportunities for disappointment. How many times can you exercise expectant faith before you lose faith in prayer, because your expectations are so often disappointed? How many times can you get burned before you need a skin graft? To be frank, miraculous intervention is unpredictable and unreliable. That's something you can pray for and hope for, and it's something you ought to pray for, but it's not something you can bank on. More often than not, God does not intercede in tangible, miraculous ways. You queue yourself up for disillusionment and make apostasy more likely if you constantly psyche yourself up for something that rarely if every happens to you. There's nothing impious about striking a balance. Some professing Christians need to lower their expectations before they crash and burn. In reality, it often seems like you're on your own in life. Ordinary providence is the norm. Better get used to it.