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Yahweh of the Old Testament
Fred R. Coulter
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I have quite a stack of books:
- Miguel’s Hebrew/English Interlinear
Hebrew reads from right to left, and their books open from back to front. When you look at this, you will see the Hebrew and it actually goes from right to left and that’s why they can’t put the words directly under each other like they do with a Greek Interlinear.
There is one combined Interlinear that does that, which I’ve seen, but you almost go cross-eyed trying to read it. After reading the English word from left to right, your eyes are moving from right to left. It’s very difficult to follow; it has keyed over it the numbers of Strong’s Concordance. I took one look at that fine print and said I didn’t need that.
- Rashi—Rabbi Rashi is the leading expert that the Jews have as far as their commentaries go. He’s noted as the leading expert.
- The Greek Old Testament—Septuagint—many places in it may be suspect because of what we covered before concerning the Septuagint. But in many cases it appears to be accurate.
- The Jewish Publication Society—which is the stable version—JPS/OT (Old Testament)
- The Englishman’s Hebrew Concordance
The reason that I have these is that this week I was sent some things from someone who is following along with this series. He was very helpful in sending me some very important information, which we will cover.
To just let you know, what we are covering in this series—Who Is Jesus?—is a very important profound subject. Just to give you a little history of what we are doing.
{referring to handout, throughout}
From the commentary in Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, quoted by Anthony Buzzard as proving that Elohim is a phrase that is used to give to human magistrates or rulers.
From: Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament:
Elohim, then the next initials represent ‘nominative, masculine plural’ (nmpl).
- pl in number—means plural—next to it you have a little cross and an ‘a’—rulers/judges, either as the divine representatives at sacred places or as reflecting Divine majesty and power.
Scholars like to make it difficult for ordinary folks. They like to make so it looks so intelligent that no one can understand it, thereby they can hide a lot of their errors. But we’ve got them, and I will prove it; that’s why I have all of this.
Elohim (Exo. 21:6)—onk (an abbreviation for the Septuagint)…
Then it lists a couple other places and after all those initials we have:
…but gods. Then you have Josephus and Philo (both Jewish writers)
He is quoting for his authority Josephus and Philo That’s what I want you to understand. He only gave the reference there in Exo. 21:6; 22:7-8—which we have here—and we’ll look and see what it really says. Then it gives a lot of references and different things.
Divine ones—superhuman beings, including God and angels.
The Greek letter ‘C’ is pronounced ‘ps’; guess what the scholars use that sign for so you will never know what it’s referring to—it’s referring to psalm—‘ps’
They try and make it so difficult, that you look up Brown-Drivers-Briggs and start looking at it and you’ve got all of these abbreviations that make you go crazy and you wonder what on earth it is; that is to the average person. So, the average person will throw their hands up in the air and say, ‘I can’t understand that; it must be right.’ But we’re going to see that he’s not right!
What he’s trying to prove that the word ‘Elohim’ applies to human beings. What you have to do is whenever there is a quote in any of these commentaries, read what they quote. Because what they quote in numbers and not quoting the whole thing may not be really be true as to what they’re trying to prove.
Psalm 8:3: “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You care for him? For You have made him a little lower than God…” (vs 3-5). The King James Version says ‘angels’—not God.] …and have crowned him with glory and honor. You made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet” (vs 3-6).
When this is quoted in the book of Hebrews, the word for angels is ‘angelos’ which is the Greek for angels, which is almost the same as English.
Angels—God—most modern translations. Genesis 1:27: “Let Us make man in Our image…” If Philo, along with Jeremiah we interpret Elohim as God’s consultation with angels. This is where Rashi says that God asked ‘the lower for Their permission to make man.’
Someone would look at that and say that ‘he’s an authority.’
Books of Enoch—in the Apocrypha, in the Septuagint; and jubilees—in the Septuagint; Philo, Jude 6 and Josephus, most ancient fathers and modern critics against usage are sons of princes, mighty men (onk, rab) sons of God, the pious.
What he’s doing is quoting authorities for these interpretations other than the Scriptures, except one or two or three that are in there.
Pious, Theodosis—Christsom, Jermone, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, etc.
The reason I’ve gone through it is because the average person in reading this would just hopelessly give up because it doesn’t make any sense. So, I said, ‘Ah ha! Let me get out my handy-dandy little things that I have here.’ I got out my Rashi:
Elohim—God or judges—Rashi
Exodus 21:6—Elohim
Exodus 21:5: “And if the servant shall plainly say, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my sons. I do not want to go out free,’ His master shall bring him to the judges…” (vs 5-6)—‘elohim.’
You look at that and think sure enough, it means judges. So then, you get out your handy-dandy concordance and there are only four instances where they are called judges from the word ‘elohim.’ That is found in Exo. 21-22. No place else in the entire Bible is the word ‘elohim’ translated judges—period! Yet, it is put as the #1 definition in Brown-Drivers-Briggs.
Look at Rashi: Verse 6: “His master shall bring him to the judges [elohim]….” Rashi’s comment:
Unto the judges, i.e. the court. He must take council with those who have sold him to his master (ibid).
Exodus 22:8: “If the thief is not found, then the master of the house shall be brought to the judges [elohim], whether he has put his hand to his neighbor’s goods.” Rashi has it this way:
Unto the judges [elohim] shall come, the case of both parties, whom the judges [elohim] will condemn shall pay double unto his neighbor.
Notice that right in the middle of that writing, Exodus 21:13—because here again ‘elohim’ is used. Here is where we get confused:
Exodus 21:12: “He that strikes a man, so that he dies, shall be surely put to death. And if a man does not lie in wait, but God [‘Elohim’] delivers him into his hand, then I will appoint you a place where he shall flee” (vs 12-13).
If you look at the Rashi commentary. He couldn’t say judges—could he? God is the One Who is involved! It seems very strange that right after you get done with the first commandment in Exo. 20—you shall have no other ‘elohim’ before Me—that all of a sudden we find four places where ‘elohim’ is used for judges. Is that a correct translation? or Are we on to something?
Verse 22: “If men strive and strike a pregnant woman, so that there is a miscarriage, and no harm follows, he shall surely be punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him. And he shall pay as the judges determine.”
What word do you think is for judges there? You would think that it should be ‘elohim,’ if the word ‘elohim’ means judges. But it doesn’t! It’s an entirely different word.
Englishman’s Hebrew Concordance—it gives the numbers for Strong’s Concordance: #6414 is the main root; the #6419 is a secondary use of it, with a slightly different pronunciation.
It’s not ‘elohim.’ Can you see the difference between ‘elohim’ and this word ‘paliyl’—the Hebrew letters for ‘elohim’ and ‘paliyl’ are different. This is the way to get technically into something and to write a thesis; to put out a paper. This is part of the basic research that ought to go into it before someone presumptuously publishes something that undermines the Truth of the Bible and the faith of believers.
What is the other word for judges that is used throughout the Old Testament? Don’t you think that that would be a reasonable thing to do; find that out?
Strong’s word for judges is #8199—‘shaphat’; and I put in enough references for the noun judge. You will please note the Hebrew lettering for #8199, which is different than the Hebrew lettering for ‘elohim.’ It’s a different word.
I’m not trying to teach you Hebrew, but what I’m trying to do is show you enough so we can see that what is claimed is not true.
Miguel’s Interlinear—it’s still ‘elohim’—judges. I cut out these same verses:
Exodus 21:6: “His master shall bring him to the judges [elohim]….” Notice what Miguel does; he has a little footnote #5: Hebrew: God. He is to bring him to God!
Exodus 22:8: “If the thief is not found, then the master of the house shall be brought to the judges [elohim]…” There’s another footnote here, #4: Hebrew: God!
I thought we were really on to something! Rashi was not honest enough to put the footnote to call ‘elohim’ what it should have been: God! These are the only places in the entire Old Testament that ‘elohim’ is used and translated judges. We’re going to see that it does mean God, not judges! That’s what it literally means.
Septuagint:
This is the Greek Old Testament. Exodus 21:6: “His master shall bring him to the judgment seat of God…” They elaborated that just a little bit; they added the judgment seat.
Exodus 22:8: “If the thief be not found, the master of the house shall come forward before God….” After all, who are the judges to judge for? God! So, they are literally coming before God. God is establishing the fact that they’re coming before God.
v 9: “…proceed before God…”
v 11: “an oath of God…”
JPS/OT:
Exodus 21:6: “Then his master shall bring him unto God…”
So, the official translation by the Jewish text by the Masorites were afraid to ascribe to human beings God-like character and names. So, they translated it properly God. We have disproved any qualification of a meaning that ‘elohim’ means rulers, judges or super-human beings. It is not a correct definition, even though some of the experts have put it in here. Their proof on that does not stand the scrutiny of thorough minute examination.
Before this booklet was written: Who Is Jesus? by Anthony Buzzard, why was this not done? As you know, when we get into some of these topics, that’s all I’m thinking on and studying on as far as the Bible is concerned; my mind is on nothing else. That’s why I don’t want to go one week on prophecy, another week on something else and come back to it. It needs to be total concentration on what we have here, because we are up against some very sophisticated reasonings and doctrines.
Verse 22: “If men strive together and hurt a woman with child so that her fruit depart, yet, no harm follow, he shall be surely fined according as the woman’s husband shall lay upon him, and he shall pay as the judges determine.”
Correct translation:
Exodus 22:8[transcriber’s correction]: “If the thief is not found, then the master of the house shall be brought to the judges, whether he has put his hand to his neighbor’s goods; for every case of trespass, whether it is for ox, for donkey, for sheep, for clothing, for any kind of lost thing, which another claims to be his, the cause of both parties shall come before God. Whom God shall condemn, he shall pay double to his neighbor” (vs 8-9).
What is the long and short of what we have just gone through? This proves that the correct translation of ‘Elohim’ is God! It is incorrect, even according to the official Jewish Masoretic Text, even according to what Miguel footnoted here, that he was honest enough and had enough fear of the Word of God, so that he would have it right.
Then we find Rashi—who is supposed to be the great authority on Hebrew—is not honest to do so. Then we have found that those who are writing papers and doing different things are not thorough or honest enough in their research to really find out whether that is so. The depth of their research goes to a dictionary, to open it up to see what the dictionary says, and that’s what they quote without any further examination. That, brethren, is not the way to establish doctrine—period!
I need to make a correction concerning Psa. 110:1: “The LORD [Yahweh] said unto my Lord [Adonai]…”
I have said in two or three sermons that this is Yahweh; this is not Yahweh, this is Adonai. A little different. Adonai can refer to Lord, as God, and it can also refer to masters, as human beings, or like ‘my lord the king.’
Let’s look at this and analyze it a little bit more and see, even though I quoted the wrong word and did not get it exactly correct, did we miss the meaning?
This is a Psalm of David; and we know that all the way through where it is “The LORD… [Yahweh; that is the Lord—no question] …said unto my Lord [Adonai]…”
- Who was David’s Adonai?
- Was there any human master that David reported to? God!
Yahweh = LORD
Adonai = Lord
Adonai applies to Yahweh and God
How did David use the word ‘Adonai’ as well as ‘Yahweh’?
Psalm 8:1: “O LORD our Lord [Adonai]…” Our master! It doesn’t take anything away from Yahweh; not a thing!
Psalm 12:4: “…who is lord over us?”
Psalm 45:11: “…He is your Lord, so honor Him.”
Psalm 97:5: “…at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth.” That’s Yahweh! But here the term ‘Adonai’ has been used to refer to God.
Psalm 105:21: “He made him lord of his house, and ruler of all his possessions.” This is talking about Joseph, where he was made lord, or ruler, over his house. So, here’s an instance where Adonai is used in that particular sense by David.
Psalm 114:7: “…at the presence of the Lord…”
The context tells us when Adonai refers to God and when it refers to another human being. It is so noted in the way that it is translated. When we come to Psa. 110:1, we are still confronted with the same problem.
If Yahweh said unto my Adonai, then who is David’s Adonai? The Lord! It’s just another description of the Lord, so we end up with two Lords regardless of how you do it, whether it’s Yahweh or Adonai. We’ve seen conclusively that in a good number of cases, so even though the word ‘Adonai’ is there, it doesn’t change what we have learned: that “The LORD said to my Lord…”
Now, let’s go on and look at some other interesting things. This was sent by Anthony Buzzard to Dell Olsteen. This is talking about the Trinitarian dogma:
The origin of Jesus:
It’s important to realize that the official Trinitarian dogma states that Jesus is really God with human nature, but not a human person…
That’s not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that Jesus was a human person—absolutely!
…this is said to be a mystery.
Armstrong’s concept of Jesus implies the same thing. Armstrongism makes little attempt to explain how God became man…
We just covered that in part seven of this series. He emptied; voided Himself as being God!
…or how it is possible for God to die…
That’s the whole question! God as God cannot die! But God, having relinquished being God to become human, can die! As we saw before, nothing is impossible for God!
…or be tempted, or not know the day of His second coming?
You see how it’s approached here?
None of these traditional problems arise when we accept that Jesus came into being at His birth. Luke’s account of the birth of the Son of God should be read carefully. It’s interesting that it has embarrassed many orthodox theologians since in pre-existence Christology.
A conception by the Holy Spirit in Mary’s womb does not bring into existence the Son of God. (written by Raymond Brown: Birth of the Messiah).
Yahweh did not become the Son until He became the Son.
So, it is literally true that the Son per se did not exist for eternity, but Yahweh did! Then He became the Son by emptying Himself from being God to become a human being.
Luke says that Mary’s conception does call into being the Son of God. For this reason the miraculous conception, the Holy thing shall be called the Son of God. According to Armstrongism and orthodoxy, the conception of by Mary does not created the Son of God. He has been the Son of God since eternity.
That’s not what the Bible teaches! I don’t think that’s what the Worldwide Church of God use to teach, because I never taught that when I was in the Worldwide Church of God. Even though I was in the Worldwide Church of God, believe me, I never preached Armstrongism!
I told someone who called me from Alabama. She wanted the long and short as to why I came into the Church and why I left. I gave it to her very simply. I came into the Church because when I heard Herbert Armstrong and Garner Ted Armstrong preaching, they said:
Don’t believe me, believe the Bible. If it’s not in the Bible, don’t believe me. And don’t follow me, follow Christ. I’m not an apostle, I’m just a minister.’
Then all of those things changed, so those are the same things that got me out of the Church. It was:
Believe me in spite of the Bible; follow me in spite of Christ.
So, I said, sayonara. No more of this!
That’s the shortest explanation of going into the Worldwide Church of God and coming out. Obviously, I left a lot of detail out. But that’s the long and short of it. If indeed Armstrongism did teach that the Son existed eternally as the Son, that is an incorrect statement. But the One Who was Yahweh existed eternally, Who became the Son of God.
Luke and orthodoxy cannot be reconciled. Luke does not describe the transformation from eternal being into a human being, but the creation through miraculous conception of the Son of God as a lineal descent of David, Abraham and Adam. This is significant that Adam was also called ‘the son of God.’
Jesus got His human nature from Mary, from the line of David, of the tribe of Judah, of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That’s plenty clear! Jesus referred to Himself as the Son of man and the Son of God.
Scholars admit that Luke knows nothing of Jesus’ pre-existing His birth, nor does Matthew. Peter speaks of four ordination—or foreknowledge—but not of pre-existence or incarnation of a previously existing person.
Peter was a leading spokesman for the Church.
But John was the one who finished the canonization of the Bible {see part 7 this series}; and John was the one who has given us the full revelation of Who Jesus was.
Judged by the standard of later orthodoxy, both Peter and Luke were quite unorthodox. Unorthodoxy is built on a belief that an eternal person came into the world through Mary. But this person seems to owe nothing by way of personality to His lineal descent from David through His mother.
That is the way the Catholics teach it; by saying that Mary had, in her conception—when she was conceived by her mother—was an immaculate conception, and no other human being was involved.
(go to the next track)
By 1854 there was the first proclamation that Mary had been assumed bodily into heaven and that she was the immaculate conception, and she was the Queen of Heaven.
What they’re saying here about the trinity and its lacks are generally true. If Mary were immaculately conceived so that she wouldn’t have human nature, so she would not pass on human nature to Jesus—Who also was immaculately conceived. That part of the Trinitarian doctrine is wrong; absolutely wrong! Completely!
The concept of the pre-existent Divine Son reduces the real social culturally conditioned personality of Jesus to a metaphysical abstraction: “human nature.” The universal humanity of Jesus is an abstract notion.
In other words, philosophers have said that ‘Jesus could not have the personality of a human being, but He had a universal personality for all human beings.’ That’s where theologians go bonkers, and reason in circles!
It is hard to conceive of the universal manhood as the real human nature of a particular individual rooted and formed by the society and culture of His own place in time.
According to this view of Christ, orthodoxy and Armstrongism, the eternal Son assumes a timeless human nature.
We never taught that! That is absolutely incorrect! The Worldwide Church of God never taught that! If this is referred to as an Armstrongism, it sounds like somebody has done a little editorializing to add to it, to build their own case. But that is not true! I will state here very specifically: Jesus had His own peculiar, individual human nature! He had to have!
It is a human nature which owes nothing essential to geographical circumstances, as it corresponds to nothing in the concrete world, Jesus Christ has not, after all, really come in the flesh.
What they’re doing, they’re arguing and reasoning in a circle, that you can’t have God and man in the same body. So therefore, if you can’t have that, then Jesus had to be wholly human—which it says that He came in the flesh—and He could not have been any part of any sort of metaphysical god who sort of manifested himself in the form of a human being, but really had different flesh than we did.
If He really had different flesh than we had, then the question automatically philosophically becomes: How could He be tempted like me, or you, if He metaphysically had a different human nature? That’s the whole long and short of the argument.
When people leave the Bible and get into all of these silly things, it’s what you come down to. It’s important that you know it. Brethren are being bombarded by these things.
The same group that said that we should not fast on the Day of Atonement is now going for a Friday crucifixion. A little leaven leavens the whole lump! Wait, there will be more! I cannot handle every false doctrine that everybody is sending to me, but we are getting a little experience as to what the first century church went through when they were inundated with all these false prophets.
He quotes from God Free Lamp, God is Spirit (SM Press, London, p 144):
Notice the lack of in depth Scriptural proof and verification of anything on this one page:
We must add that under the traditional theory the person of Jesus seems to owe nothing to the descent of David. Can this person really be Jesus the Messiah in the Bible? Can someone Whose ego is God really be a human person?
Just remember, when Jesus quoted, ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord is our One Lord’ the question was not Who is God? The question was: Which was the primary commandment, the first commandment? That’s under the intelligence of a scribe.
The Man Christ Jesus:
The first Ecumenical Council of the Church was held in Nicaea in A.D. 325. The purpose of this council was to silence the views of Bishop Arius that Jesus is not God, but God’s Son.
This has been going on a long, long time! It’s necessary for me to bring you in acquaintance with these things so that you can at least have an understanding of it. Try and teach it simply enough—out of the Scriptures, which it is—so that we understand the Word of God, not some philosophical thing. Remember what Paul said? Let no man spoil you through vain philosophies!
Docetism and Polyanarism Rampant:
Docetism is the ancient heresy that Christ was really a spirit being Who only seemed to have a body.
Polyanarism is the heresy that the only thing human about Jesus was the body of flesh and blood.
The long and short of it is that these scholars have an awfully difficult time trying to equate, trying to understand how that God could become a human being, be fully human, give up almost everything of Himself being God, except for being filled with the Holy Spirit of God, and still be human. The answer is that they haven’t studied their Bible! As strange as that may seem, when you’re writing for theological seminaries, for dissertations or papers submitted to professors, your very life depends upon whether they accept it and go along with it or not. Try sending something to a professor anywhere that goes absolutely against the grain of what he’s teaching and see what kind of grade you get.
This happened to me when I was going to the College of San Mateo. I was taking Econ. 101, A & B. I told the professor that I really didn’t believe the theories that were here. He said, ‘Why don’t you write them; I would like to read them.’ I said, ‘If I wrote it, you wouldn’t give me a decent grade.’ He said, ‘Well, I would give you at least a B.’ I said—because I wanted an A: ‘Why should I do that and get a B, when I know I can get an A?’ Guess what I did? I got the A!
It’s the same way in theological seminaries. You have your pompous tenured theological professors who have DDDs and PhDs after their name, and they get so far off into philosophy they’ve left the Bible. I’m sure there may be some few here and there that still follow the Bible to a good degree, but it is all here for us to find and we’re going to find it and we’re going follow the Bible.
What are these people trying to prove? That the Bible is not the Word of God? Essentially, that’s what they end up doing, even though they may not literally say it in their mind! That’s essentially what they’re doing. All I’m trying to do is show you some of the ways that they do it. It’s really something when you get in there and really challenge them!
How would it be if I said, ‘Okay, brethren, I’m going to tell you on the authority that I’m a minister, that ‘Elohim’ can never mean a judge, and you better accept that because I say so’? That doesn’t mean a thing, does it? Not a thing! It’s either it is or it isn’t. It’s either provable or not probable. If it’s provable and it’s truth, then we need to get in and find it out. If we have to do a little digging to get to it, we will.
That’s how to study something! To study something is not to read a study paper and say ‘Oh, that’s correct.’ The way to study something is to really get in the Scriptures and know.
Matt. 11, and you’ll know exactly what we’re talking about here, but I want to reiterate it again and add a little bit more meat to it. This is very, very basic:
Matthew 11:25: “At that time Jesus answered and said, ‘I praise You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent… [Jesus even did it then with the doctors of the law and with the scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees and chief priests] …and have revealed them to babes.” That’s us, brethren! We’re babes!
It doesn’t matter—it really doesn’t make a bit of difference—how much knowledge a person may have or education that they may have. That’s nothing! When you start stacking it up to what God knows and what He can teach us, that’s nothing! Whenever we start getting the Nebuchadnezzar attitude—how great I am—be careful, because you’re going to be headed for a fall!
Verse 26: “Yes, Father, for it was well pleasing in Your sight to do this. All things were delivered to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; neither does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son personally chooses to reveal Him.”
So, we went through and proved that the Father was not Yahweh of the Old Testament; could not have been Yahweh of the Old Testament, because Yahweh of the Old Testament was revealed:
- to Adam
- to Noah
- to Abraham
- to Isaac
- to Jacob
- to Moses
- to the children of Israel
- to the Prophets
- to the kings
Down through the nation of Israel, He was revealed!
Jesus was doing something absolutely new! He was revealing the Father! Let’s look at the rules for understanding the Father. Remember what Jesus told the Pharisees? IF God were your Father, you would have believed Me!
John in finishing the Gospels is clarifying and giving to us things that we need to understand concerning Jesus.
John 6:41: “Then the Jews were complaining against Him, because He said, ‘I AM the Bread that came down from heaven.’ And they were saying, ‘Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? Why then does He say, “I came down from heaven”?’” (vs 41-42).
It’s the very same problem that we’re reading of with these theologians. How can He exist as God before He’s human?
Verse 43: “For this reason, Jesus answered them and said, ‘Do not be complaining among one another. No one can come to Me unless the Father, Who sent Me, draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Therefore, everyone who has heard from the Father, and has learned, comes to Me. No one has seen the Father except He Who is from God; He has seen the Father” (vs 43-46).
Does that not prove that Yahweh of the Old Testament could not have been the Father, because Jesus clearly said, “No one has seen the Father…”
Does this not prove that Yahweh of the Old Testament could not have been the Father? Because Jesus clearly said, ‘No one has the seen the Father.’
- Who did Moses see?
- Who did Abraham talk to?
They talked to Yahweh (the One Who became Jesus Christ), not the Father, because the Father wasn’t revealed. Jesus is saying, “No one has seen the Father except He Who is from God… [He’s referring to Himself] …He has seen the Father” (v 46).
- Very important verses!
- Very plain verses!
Verse 65: “And He said, ‘For this reason, I have said to you, no one… [no man, no person, no woman] …can come to Me unless it has been given to him from My Father.” Very, very profound and important.
Again John 14:6, we know it absolutely and memorize it because this is a key to understanding the Scripture, but also as one man said, ‘This is narrow-minded.’ I would like to see him shake his fist at God at the resurrection and say, ‘God, You’re narrow-minded.’ He isn’t going to do that! He’s going to say, ‘O God, I was wrong!’
There is one way, which is the way, which is the right way! People can go out and sin and do anything they want, and believe anything they want, it is narrow! I think of something that’s going through a black hole.
John 14:6: “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.” That’s one Scripture you can think on, you can study on, you can really profoundly grasp—it’s simple, it’s easy to understand. “…no one comes to the Father…”; that is:
- know the Father
- understand the Father
- be able to worship the Father
unless they first come to Christ!
This is why the New Testament is superior to the Old Testament. It brings us to the Father! Isn’t it interesting that all of these are out of John?
John 5:36: “But I have a greater witness than John’s; for the works that the Father gave Me to complete, the very works that I am doing, themselves bear witness of Me, that the Father has sent Me. And the Father Himself, Who sent Me, has borne witness of Me. You have neither heard His voice nor seen His form at any time…. [no one has seen God the Father] …And you do not have His Word dwelling in you, for you do not believe Him Whom He has sent” (vs 36-38).
John 1backs up and clarifies this very clearly, which proves that God the Father was not revealed in the Old Testament except alluded to in a few little place that we have covered.
John 1:18: “No one has seen God at any time…” That covers an awful lot of ground and history!
“…the only begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father… [at the time that this was being written] …He has declared Him” (v 18). No one has seen the Father!
So therefore, the Father was not Yahweh of the Old Testament! All of this is in John; why are all of these in John? Because John was clarifying the heresy they was already starting in his day! I am positive of it, just from what he wrote. It’s just like: What do I preach? I preach what the topic is, or what’s going on! I’m glad that John went through all of this and that God had these words recorded and preserved for us, otherwise we would be helpless victims before the onslaught of all kinds of theological rubbish!
John 8:18: “‘I am one Who bears witness of Myself, and the Father, Who sent Me bears witness of Me.’ Then they said to Him, ‘Where is Your Father?’ Jesus answered, ‘You know neither Me nor My Father. If you had known Me, you would also have known My Father.’” (vs 18-19).
- you can’t come to the Father except through Jesus Christ
- no one has seen the Father except Jesus Christ
- no one has heard His voice at any time, except Jesus Christ
- no one has seen the shape of God the Father except Jesus Christ
Verse 54: “Jesus answered, ‘If I glorify Myself, My glory is nothing. It is My Father Who glorifies Me, of Whom you say that He is your God. Yet, you have not known Him…. [Again, they did not know Him because He was not revealed.] …but I know Him. And if I say that I do not know Him, I shall be a liar, like you. But I know Him, and I keep His Word’” (vs 54-55).
Jesus was not the nice, soft, supple little Son of God running around with a halo so they could identify Him by His beautiful long hair and halo.
John 9:27: “He answered them, ‘I have already told you…’”
This Man came by, made spittle out of clay, put it on my eyes and said to go to the pool of Siloam and wash; I went and washed and I see.
“…‘and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you desire to become His disciples, too?’ Then they railed at him… [the man who had been born blind] …and said, ‘You are His disciple, but we are Moses’ disciples. We know that God spoke to Moses….’” (vs 27-29)—which means that it was not the Father, because:
- no one has seen Him
- no one has heard His voice at any time
Yet, even they knew that God spoke to Moses.
We just want to definitely conclude and prove that the Father, as revealed in the New Testament, was not Yahweh of the Old Testament.
It said in this booklet—Who Is Jesus?—by Anthony Buzzard that Peter says nothing about Jesus except the foreknowledge of Him. Therefore, Jesus was only a thought in God’s mind, and He foreknew Him by His thought.
1-Peter 1:1: “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the elect strangers scattered in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia; who have been chosen according to the predetermined knowledge of God the Father…” (vs 1-2).
It’s not talking about the foreknowledge of Jesus as a thought by God the Father, but the foreknowledge of God the Father calling the saints, who are in these areas that were just mentioned.
“…by sanctification through the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace and peace be multiplied to you” (v 2).
So, it’s a misnomer to say that Jesus was a foreknowledge of God in 1-Peter. The word ‘foreknowledge’ here has nothing to do with Peter, but the foreknowledge of God and those individuals that God would call through Jesus Christ.
You’ve got to check up on everything that they say, because what they say, it makes you wonder how they read.
*****
Answering questions:
‘When the voice came out of heaven, this is My beloved Son, with Whom I’m well pleased’ (John 1; Matt. 15; Mark 9)—was that the voice of the Father?
‘No one has heard His voice or seen His shape at any time’ had to be the voice an angel announcing what the Father told him to announce.
Just to clarify and make sure that everyone understands: The Son did not eternally exist as the Son. He eternally existed as Yahweh, then became the Son!
It means that He was in the Godhead, and we’re not talking about a Trinity, we’re talking about the Father and the One Who became the Son.
What does it mean where it says that the Father has to draw him; that none can come to Jesus unless the Father draws him?
Does this take away from belief in Jesus?
Is it that Jesus cannot draw anybody, because He would be putting Himself above the Father? Not necessarily!
With the Father’s intent, Jesus could call someone, like He did Saul, before He became Paul. He knocked him off his horse as he was galloping off to Damascus.
It isn’t going to be against the Father’s will. In other words, you’re not going to come to the Father unless He draws you, and you’re not going to come to the Father unless you go through Jesus Christ. You aren’t going to come to Jesus Christ unless it’s by the Spirit of the Father. We are begotten by the Spirit of the Father, so we are His Family, and because the Father is greater than Jesus, because He is the Father!
Just exactly how that is in finite detail, the Bible doesn’t tell us. So, we can’t answer that question entirely. We can only answer what the Bible reveals to us. But that doesn’t discount Jesus at all from that point of view. It is the Father Who is calling us because we are the firstfruits. There’s no doubt that it is the Father Who is calling us, rather than anything less than the Father.
Comment: the doctor and the demons can be very much alive in the Church because a lot of these people are supposed to be spiritual people. The Bible talks about those who came in unawares; you didn’t know this was going to happen.
Even when Jesus called the twelve, He also called Judas Iscariot, and he was a demon, so right in the middle of the apostles that was there. This is nothing new, brethren!
I will have to state right here that there is no place that anyone is going to be safe at all—period—from having to prove any of these doctrines, whether they’re true or not, whether you are in the Church or out of the Church, in a group—big or small—whatever. As we have seen in Worldwide, the doctrine came unglued from the top, within!
Everyone is going to sit there and say, ‘This is God’s Church, so these are God’s ministers, so we will believe what they say, and that’s a perfect position that Satan wants you to get into, because then he’s going to ‘slip you a mickey’ and you’re going to have had it, and you’re going to be spiritually drunk and not know which end is up. You will be one of the five foolish virgins who says to those who are wise, ‘give us of your oil for our lamps are going out.’ When you find out about it, it’s going to be too late.
Then they’re making a liar out of God if they twist the things that are the Truth, or give part of the Truth and then draw a wrong conclusion. One of these days, God’s going to say, ‘Who told you to speak for Me?’
1-Peter 1:17: “And if you call upon the Father, Who judges according to each man’s work without respect of persons, pass the time of your life’s journey in the fear of God; knowing that you were not redeemed by corruptible things, by silver or gold, from your futile way of living, inherited by tradition from your forefathers; but by the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot; who truly was foreknown before the foundation of the world…” (vs 17-19).
God knew what was going to be before He made the world. He knew that! He was foreordained before the world!
“…but was manifested in these last times for your sakes; even for you who through Him do believe in God, Who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope might be in God” (vs 20-21).
It’s a little bit off the subject, but 1-Peter talks about one of the fallacies of born again, because that’s also under question.
1-Peter 2:1: “Therefore, having put away all wickedness, and all deceit, and hypocrisies and jealousies, and all slanders, as newborn babes… [the conclusion is you are born again] …yearn after the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow, if you yourselves have indeed tasted that the Lord is gracious. To Whom coming, as to a living Stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God, and precious, you also, as living stones…” (vs 1-4).
- Who are you?
- Are you a newborn babe?
or
- Are you stone?
- What is the answer?
You are neither! These are analogies as to the type of things that you need to reflect, not what you are.
You have not been born again, because the resurrection is not here; but you’re to have an attitude of a newborn who is not distracted by all of the things in the world around, but goes after the sincere milk of the Word to grow. Then as lively or living stones; so it shows another aspect of Christian growth. So, people come in and say, ‘Well, that means we’ve been born again.’ A comparison means the exact reality of something. A person could say, ‘Your forehead shines like a brand new car.’ Are you a brand new car? No! But your forehead shines. Whatever it may be.
Any analogy is not the reality, it’s only an analogy to express a feeling, express a point. That’s all this is, an analogy as newborn babes; that’s our attitude to be, as living stones, not dead ones:
“…are being built up as a spiritual house—a Holy priesthood—to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (v 5).
We’re going to have something very interesting here in 1-Peter 3:17: “For it is better, if it is the will of God, for you to suffer while doing good than to suffer for doing evil, because Christ indeed once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God; on the one hand, He was put to death in the flesh; but on the other hand, He was made alive by the Spirit, by which… [referring to the Spirit] …He also went and preached to the spirits in prison [‘tartarus’], which… demons or spirits] …disobeyed in a past time, when once the long-suffering of God was waiting in the days of Noah…” (vs 17-20).
When were those spirits disobedient? It doesn’t say! But they were sometime in the past. He didn’t know exactly when, but before Noah.
The One Who became Jesus, by the Spirit, to preach to the demons who were in prison during the days of Noah. What does this tell us? That the One Who became Jesus had to exist before He became a human being and was actively doing a work of God in preaching to the demons while Noah was making the ark! Have to be! There’s no other way to read it, and that’s exactly what it means in the Greek.
“…while the ark was being prepared…” (v 21). That’s when He preached to them! If He didn’t exist until He was conceived in Mary’s womb, how could He have preached to the demons who were in prison while Noah was making the ark. These were spirits who, sometime in the past; it doesn’t tell us, but it’s at the time of a Noah that they were disobedient.
All the answers are right here in the Bible if we just get in and dig; they’re right there! These books are all helpful if we know how to use them, but we don’t have to go to the writings of men to understand the Word of God. We go to the Word of God to understand the Word of God. That’s what’s so exciting! You can’t go wrong by going by the Word of God! It’s Truth!
Any of us, including myself, can be rats, miserable, carnal, and we have our own sins and problems to overcome. But that doesn’t take away from the Truth of God. We can find out from the Truth of God, and it’s fantastic! It all fits together! Believe me, it all fits together!
I wanted to be sure and cover this, because we are told that Peter knew nothing of the pre-existence of Jesus. What did he write here? He had to know something of the pre-existence of Jesus.
How many times have people read this and never understood it? A lot of people think that he went there when His body was in the grave for three days and three nights that He went by spirit during that time!
When His body lay in the tomb for three days and three nights, it doesn’t say when Noah was building the ark, which was a couple of thousand years before Jesus appeared on the scene. How are you going to get around this? There’s no way to get around it! Jesus did exist as Yahweh before He became human! Peter shows it!
Scriptures from The Holy Bible in Its Original Order, A Faithful Version
Scriptural References:
- Psalm 8:3-6
- Exodus 21:5-6
- Exodus 22:8
- Exodus 21:12-13, 22; 6
- Exodus 22:8, 9, 11
- Exodus 21:6, 22
- Exodus 22:8-9
- Psalm 110:1
- Psalm 8:1
- Psalm 12:4
- Psalm 45:11
- Psalm 97:5
- Psalm 105:21
- Psalm 114:7
- Matthew 11:25-26
- John 6:44-46, 65
- John 14:6
- John 5:36-38
- John 1:18
- John 8:18-19, 54-55
- John 9:27-29
- 1 Peter 1:1-2, 17-21
- 1 Peter 2:1-5
- 1 Peter 3:17-21
Scriptures referenced, not quoted:
- Exodus 20
- Matthew 15
- Mark 9
Also referenced: Books:
- Miguel's Interlinear—a Hebrew/English Interlinear
Strong's Concordance
Rashai
- The Greek Old Testament known as the Septuagint
- The Jewish Publication Society
- The Englishman's Hebrew Concordance
- Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament
- Josephus
- Who Was Jesus? by Anthony Buzzard
FRC:bo
Transcribed: 8-14-13
Reformatted/Corrected: 2/2020
