Who Is Jesus? — The oneness of God & solving a first century Jewish mystery.

Who really is Jesus?

The mystery of this Jewish man was predicted in the Hebrew Scriptures centuries in advance. This video will help unveil the truth about His identity.

— Defenders of the Faith

The Crucifixion in Prophecy

One of the clearest prophecies of the crucifixion of Messiah is found in Psalm 22:16

"For dogs have surrounded Me;
The congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me.
They pierced My hands and My feet." (NKJV)

Written centuries before the coming of Christ, this prophecy is not only amazing because of the time-span between the writing and the fulfillment; the unlikelihood of a Jewish person to be killed by crucifixion was, at the time the prophecy was written, very unlikely to say the least. That method of execution would not be invented until centuries later.

Also, Jewish people would usually apply capital punishment by stoning in cases of blasphemy (which was the charge brought against Jesus by the Sanhedrin); what are the odds they would kill him any other way?

In the Book of Zechariah there are more scriptures that speak of the piercing of his hands:

"If someone asks him, 'What are these wounds on your body?' he will answer, 'The wounds I was given at the house of my friends.'" (Zachariah 13:6)

And then again:

"And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son." (Zechariah 12:10)

The context makes it clear that Messiah is in view.

The Bible, in spite of its critics, proves time and again that it is the Word of God. The exactness of its prophecies are one more evidence that it was really God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16).

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The Apostolic Doctrine of God, Part 2

In the first part we asserted that Jewish monotheism was the basic and fundamental belief during the Old Covenant and there could be no other God but YHWH.

Strangely, when Jesus comes on the scene, He demanded and His disciples offered Him the same kind of worship that only YHWH God should have,(1) they gave Him the exclusive titles of God,(2) became witnesses of His Name,(3) notwithstanding they were people of the covenant, Jewish monotheists that would repeat the Shema on a daily basis. In fact, the Apostle Paul goes so far as to modify the Shema and includes Jesus in the monotheistic confession of fundamental faith.(4)

How can this be explained? David S. Norris believes that “Christology, then, must be defined within its Jewish provenance…”(5) Scholar Richard Bauckham asserts that such an approach should be the hermeneutical key to the study of Jesus in Scripture.(6) If we are to approach Scripture with such an understanding, and read what the Apostles wrote about Jesus being God, then we must conclude that by “God” they meant only what a Jewish monotheist would mean, that is: “YHWH,” the only true God. Scripture makes no room for another, neither should we.

The doctrine of the incarnation, revealed in 1 Timothy 3:16, is the answer to the dilemma of how Jesus could be called God. “Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh.” Jesus is the revelation of God in human flesh.(7) YHWH of the Old Testament coming to earth to “seek and to save that which was lost,”(8) fulfilling His promise of redemption.(9) God becomes a Son in the fullness of time.(10) In the man Jesus God dwells, not the presence of a second “God,” nor another “Person”(11) of God, but the fullness of the one Godhead.(12) That is, everything that God is was revealed in Jesus Christ (13) so that whoever has the Son has the Father also,(14) for the Father was in the Son (15) reconciling the world unto Himself.(16) Therefore, the confession of Thomas upon seeing the resurrected Jesus, “My Lord and my God,”(17) is in reality a reaffirmation of the Old Testament confession of faith in YHWH (18) rightly applied to Jesus, God manifest in the flesh.


Notes:

1. John 5:23; Revelation 5:12.
2. Romans 10:13; Philippians 2:11; John 1:1; 20:28; Titus 3:5; Romans 9:5; 2 Corinthians 5:19, etc. Cf. Isaiah 9:6 where Messiah is called El Gibbor (Mighty God) the same title give to YHWH in Isaiah 10:21.
3. Acts 1:8; 9:15; 8:12; 4:12; 5:40-42.
4. “As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one. For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,) but to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.” (1 Corinthians 8:4-6.) Emphasis mine.
5. David S. Norris, I AM the God WHO IS in Covenant, unpublished paper, p. 161.
6. “the understanding of Jewish monotheism… will function as the hermeneutical key to understanding the way in which the New Testament texts relate Jesus Christ to the one God of Jewish monotheism.” (Bauckham, God Crucified, p. 26.)
7. 2 Corinthians 4:4-6; John 14:9-11;
8. Matthew 1:21, “And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.” Jesus literally means “YHWH Savior” or “YHWH is become salvation." See also Luke 19:10.
9. “Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.” (Isaiah 35:4-6). Jesus applied this Scripture to Himself in Matthew 11:3-5.
10. John 1:1, 14, 18; Galatians 4:4.
11. The word “Person” as applied to God is not used by the New Testament writers in the Trinitarian sense not even once. It would be Tertullian who would invent such extra-biblical words to try to explain his nascent trinitarian belief. In Tertullian’s view, however, the members of the Trinity were not co-equal, but there’s a subordination of the Son and Holy Ghost to the Father.
12. See Colossians 2:9-10. The oneness of the Jewish God is reaffirmed in the New Testament in such passages as Romans 3:30; Galatians 3:20 and James 2:19.
13. John 12:44-45.
14. 1 John 2:23.
15. John 14:10-11.
16. 2 Corinthians 5:19.
17. John 20:28.
18. “Stir up thyself, and awake to my judgment, even unto my cause, my God and my Lord.” (Psalm 35:23) Emphasis mine.

“I’d rather obey Jesus than Peter”

Sometimes when talking to Trinitarian friends we hear the phrase, “When it comes to baptism, I’d rather obey Jesus than obey Peter.” This usually comes after we’ve shown them Acts 2:38,

“Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”

The part that bothers them is that Peter said to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and they see that as contradicting what Jesus said in Matthew 28:19,

“Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

Which is the right way to be baptized?

When a Trinitarian friend says that they’d rather obey the words of Jesus they imply that Peter may have been mistaken, but Jesus, of course, could never be mistaken. By asserting this they essentially shot themselves in the foot, among others, for the following reasons.

1. He is admitting there’s a contradiction in the Scriptures. He assumes Peter was wrong when he said baptism was in Jesus’ name. Then, ALL Scripture would NOT be inspired of God as Paul asserts in 2 Timothy 3:16. No true Christian should ever make such an affirmation. It destroys the trustworthiness of the Bible.

2. If there's a contradiction between both scriptures, then the Holy Spirit made a mistake, because Peter had just received the anointing of the Holy Ghost (Acts 2:1-4) and this was supposed to have given him the power to be a witness of Jesus (Acts 1:8).

3. If the Holy Ghost can make a mistake, then, how can we trust the rest of the Scriptures? How can we know which parts are true and which are in error?

4. We must also remember that Jesus never wrote an epistle. Matthew is the one that reports Jesus commanded to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. This would not be a case of Jesus vs Peter, but Matthew vs Peter (IF there was a contradiction).

5. If there was such a disagreement between Peter and Matthew, why did Matthew, on the day of Pentecost, say nothing but rather stood with the other Apostles backing up what Peter was preaching? Why did Matthew not correct Peter, if Peter was mistaken? (Acts 2:14).

6. Why did Jesus give Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven if He knew that the day Peter was to receive the Holy Spirit he would disobey and betray His instructions?

The only solution to harmonize this apparent contradiction is to see in Matthew 28:19 the commandment and in Acts 2:38 the fulfillment or obedience to the commandment of Jesus. Both scriptures are true. The “name” of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is Jesus!

In other words, the Spirit that was in Peter reminded him of the words of Jesus, and gave him the Name that should be called on the baptismal waters. Matthew, being present, full of the same Spirit, was in total agreement with Acts 2:38. The rest of the Apostles understood Jesus’ words in Matthew 28:19 in the same way since they consistently baptized calling on the name of the Lord. (Please do take the time to study the following scriptures: Acts 2:38; 8:16; 10:48; 19:5; 22:16.)

For Apostolic Pentecostals “all Scripture is inspired of God” (2 Timothy 3:16). There are no contradictions in the Holy Word of God. There’s perfect harmony between Matthew 28:19 and Acts 2:38. There’s a Name revealed for our salvation, a Name so high and glorious that manifests the identity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That name is the name of Jesus (Please see Hebrews 1:4; Ephesians 1:21-23).

"Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." (Acts 4:12 NKJV)

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