Introduction: This is the final part in a series of articles in which I defend the doctrine of The Trinity from a single gospel. None of these articles need to be read in order, despite being part of the series, and this one is no different. Though interested readers are more than welcome to check out “Defending The Trinity From Matthew Alone”, “Defending The Trinity From Mark Alone”, and “Defending The Trinity From Luke Alone” if they so desire. The biblical evidence for The Trinity is overwhelming, and the purpose of this series is to show that I can adequately defend it even if I restrict myself to only 1 book out of the 66 books of The Bible. My methodology in this essay will be the same as in the former ones; I will examine biblical passages from only the gospel of John. Old Testament references will be brought in only as needed to provide missing background information to the Johannine verses that would not have needed exposition in the minds of Tanakh-literate Second-Temple Jews, but do for modern Western readers. The Doctrine of The Trinity will be defended as a systematic theological conclusion that follows from 5 biblical teachings; (1) There is only one God, (2) The Father is God, (3) The Son Is God, (4) The Holy Spirit is God, and (5) The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit are distinct persons. The argument is one from explanatory scope. Arianism can make sense of teachings 1, 2, and 5, but not 3 and 4. Modalism can make sense of teachings 1-4, but not 5. The Trinity happily accomodates all of the biblical data. Thus, the doctrine of the Trinity is the preferred hypothesis concerning the nature of God.
(1) There Is Only One God
In John 5:44, we read “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” (ESV)
This was the only explicit statement of Monotheism I could find in the gospel of John, but one is the minimum of all I need for each point. Jesus rhetorically asks his opponents how they can believe since they seek glory from their fellow man rather than the glory “that comes from the only God”? Jesus affirms that there is only one God.
Now, I need to make a clarifying remark here. When I say “There is only one God”, I am not saying that there is only one divine being that exists. I am saying that there is only one Yahweh; one God (Deuteronomy 6:4, Isaiah 45:5) who is omnipotent (Revelation 19:6, Job 42:2), omnipresent (Psalm 139:7-10, Jeremiah 23:23-24), omniscient (Psalm 147:5, 1 John 3:20, Hebrews 4:13), uncreated (Psalm 90:2, 1 Timothy 1:17), perfectly good morally (Psalm 145:9, Mark 10:18, James 1:17), and is the Creator of all things other than Himself (Genesis 1:1, Colossians 1:16, Isaiah 44:24). There is only one type of God like this. The Bible affirms the reality of other gods. For example, Deuteronomy 32:8-9 says,“When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. But the LORD’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.” (ESV) When God divided the nations, he set “the sons of God” over the nations (the number of nations and sons of God corresponding to each other). Genesis 10-11 which tells of the story of the tower of Babel is the only place in The Bible where we find Yahweh dividing up the nations. These celestial beings were given to rule over the nations after Yahweh disinherited them, but they became corrupt and drew the nations away into worshipping them rather than worshipping Yahweh. They took on the persona of the pagan gods of the nations. For this, Yahweh judges them in Psalm 82. Psalm 82 is very clear in calling “The Sons of The Most High” by the term “gods” (elohim in Hebrew) in verses 1 and 6. The Apostle Paul confirms this in The New Testament when he says in 1 Corinthians 10:20, “No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons.” (ESV) Paul was probably drawing on Psalm 106:37 which says“They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons;” (ESV) and Deuteronomy 32:17 which says “They offered sacrifices to demons, which are not God, to gods they had not known before, to new gods only recently arrived, to gods their ancestors had never feared.” (NLT). [1]I quote from the NLT of Deuteronomy 32:17 because it has the best reading. The ESV here makes it sound contradictory when it has Moses saying“They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to … Continue reading Genesis 12 begins the story of Yahweh God beginning the mission to reclaim the nations from these gods, which is a story that goes throughout the entire Bible to the very end. [2]For the gold standard biblical theology on what I’m talking about – The Divine Council Worldview and its correlary; the Deuteronomy 32 Worldview, see the book “The Unseen Realm: … Continue reading So, the gods of the nation are real, and The Bible acknowledges them. However, none of them are anything remotely like Yahweh. Dr. Michael S. Heiser frequently says “Yahweh is an elohim. But no other elohim is Yahweh” and that “Yahweh is species unique”. Only Yahweh has all of the “Omni” attributes. All other elohim are created beings who either serve Yahweh in his council (1 Kings 22:19-23) or are in rebellion against Him.
In philosophical circles, the concept of God The Bible talks about is called “A Maximally Great Being” and is frequently mentioned in discussions on The Ontological Argument For God’s Existence. Yahweh is a Maximally Great Being, and there is only one Maximally Great Being. So to say “There is only one God” is just to say there is only one Maximally Great Being, not that the supernatural realm is devoid of powerful supernatural beings save for Yahweh. Going forward in this essay, when I say things like “Jesus is God” or “The Holy Spirit is God”, this is the God I will be referring to, and of which the context of the biblical texts will bear out.
(2) The Father Is God
That Jesus’ Father is God is not something that Arians or Modalists dispute, so I will spend as little time on this as possible. However, for the sake of completion, let me offer a reference or two from John’s gospel.
Exhibit A: The Temple – My Father’s House
In John 2:13-16, we read “The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple, he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, ‘Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.'” (ESV)
Jesus calls The Temple, his “Father’s house”. The Temple in Jerusalem is the temple of Yahweh. This proves that The Father of Jesus is God. God The Father.
Exhibit B: God Gave His Only Son
John 3:16, one of the most famous verses in The Bible, says “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (ESV)
The text identifies Jesus’ Father as God.
Exhibit C: Jesus’ Conversation With The Samaritan Woman
In John 4:21-24, we read “Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.'” (ESV)
Jesus identifies The Father as God. He discusses the proper location of worship with the Samaritan woman and tells her that a time is coming when worship of The Father will neither be done on the mountain in Samaria, nor in the temple in Jerusalem. Worship of The Father. And Jesus says that true worshippers of The Father will worship Him in spirit and in truth. The text is clear that The Father is God.
(3) The Son Is God
We now come to one of the more controversial premises in our case for The Trinity. Arians and Modalists typically don’t have a problem with saying that there is only one God and that The Father is Him(othy). Arians have a problem with saying that Jesus Christ is God. They will deny that, saying Jesus was merely a human prophet, or perhaps an incarnate angel (as the Jehovah’s Witnesses teach). Modalist groups such as The Oneness Pentecostals gladly affirm that Jesus is God, but deny that The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit are distinct persons. They would argue that they are all the same person. Hence, premises 2 and 5 are the most controversial and therefore, I will expend more space to defend these.
Exhibit A: Jesus Is God, The Creator Of The Cosmos, With The Father “In The Beginning”.
In John 1:1-3, we read “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (ESV, emphasis mine in bold)
John opens his gospel right out of the gate explicitly calling Jesus (The Word) God! John says “The Word Was God”! The Word was God! Interestingly, he says the Word was “With God” and “Was God”. The Word is somehow simultaneously supposed to be identified as God and yet is somehow a distinct thing from God. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” If you’ve read or heard me exposit this text before, you already know where I’m going with this. John 1 not only asserts (explicitly) that Jesus is God, but also is distinct from The Father. See, if John meant the same thing by “God” in both sentences, then he would be contradicting itself. A cannot be A and yet with A. If A is WITH A, then the second A is B. Most likely, John refers the first and third usages of “God” (Theos in Greek) to refer just to The Father, while the second usage is meant to refer to the divine nature itself. The Word was with The Father, and The Word is divine. This heavily implies the concept of a Godhead. This one passage is strong evidence for points 2 and 5 simultaneously, killing two heretical birds with one stone!
The text then says that Jesus created all things! Not one thing that came into being came into being without the agency of The Word who is God! Could John possibly be any more explicit?! I have to say that if you can read the gospel of John and conclude that it doesn’t teach that Jesus is God, then I am extremely skeptical of your ability to read! Creation of the cosmos is an act reserved for Yahweh Elohim alone. Genesis 1 depicts one sovereign God speaking all of creation into being through His word. Both Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1 begin with the phrase “In the beginning…” I looked it up in my resources in Logos Bible Software, and I discovered that the Greek phrasing is not identical between the Greek of the gospel of John and the Greek of the Septuagint reading of Genesis 1:1, but nevertheless John deliberately echoes Genesis’s opening. John uses “ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν” (in the beginning was) with evident allusion to Genesis’s opening. As Marvin R. Vincent says “In the beginning was (ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν). With evident allusion to the first word of Genesis. But John elevates the phrase from its reference to a point of time, the beginning of creation, to the time of absolute pre-existence before any creation, which is not mentioned until ver. 3.” [3]Marvin Richardson Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament, vol. 2 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1887), 24. Vincent goes onto say “This heightening of the conception, however, appears not so much in ἀρχή, beginning, which simply leaves room for it, as in the use of ἦν, was, denoting absolute existence (compare εἰμί, I am, John 8:58) instead of ἐγένετο, came into being, or began to be, which is used in vv. 3, 14, of the coming into being of creation and of the Word becoming flesh.” [4]See Marvin Richardson Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament, vol. 2 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1887), 24.Thus, there is probably an allusion to Genesis 1 even without the verbatim wording as it occurs in English translations.
Now, at this point, I need to respond to a very common counterargument from the Jehovah’s Witnesses. In a nutshell, they take John 1, re-translate it, and make it say“In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was a god” (NWT). Their reason for doing so is that the second instance of the word for “God” is not preceded by a definite article. The word for “The” in Greek is “ho” or “ὁ”. They argue that whenever Yahweh, the God of Israel, is the subject, it is prefaced by the definite article. “Ho theos”. Since that isn’t the case when the word “Theos” is applied to the Word (Logos), then it must mean the word was “a god”, not “God”. This counterargument can be a problem for Christians wanting to defend their faith to the JWs that visit their homes, because most Christians are not experts in Greek. And neither am I for that matter, all Greek knowledge I convey on this site has come from scholars I’ve read. Therefore, perhaps there’s a way to respond to this that even a Monolingual American Christian can give?
First, I would point out that John 1:3 has The Word being the Creator of the entire universe. This is a problem for JWs who claim to accept The Bible as inspired, for if John presents Jesus as even being so much as a co-creator demi-god alongside the Father, there is a contradiction in the canon. Isaiah 44:24 (NWT) says “This is what Jehovah says, your Repurchaser, Who formed you since you were in the womb: ‘I am Jehovah, who made everything. Istretched out the heavens by myself, And I spread out the earth. Who was with me?” In this verse, from the Jehovah’s Witness’ own translation, we read that Jehovah stretched out the heavens BY HIMSELF. Stretching out the heavens is an act of creation, typically alluding to what I call “Dome Cosmology” in which God spreads out the firmament over the flat disk-shaped Earth like how a nomad would spread out the covering of his tent over himself. [5]Note; I am NOT a Flat Earther. I do think The Bible contains descriptions of a flat disk-shaped Earth covered by a dome, but my view of inspiration allows for what scholars call “Divine … Continue reading If Jehovah created the cosmos BY HIMSELF, then the only way for John 1 not to contradict Isaiah 44:24 is for Jesus to be Jehovah Himself. Jehovah not only says “I stretched out the heavens by myself”, but he also rhetorically asks “Who was with me?” Given that the context of this verse is a whole chapter in which Jehovah is exalting himself above pagan gods, this would seem to be a rhetorical question, with the corresponding answer being “No one”. But if that’s the case, then how could Jesus be a created theos/elohim “With God” creating the universe with God in the beginning? Unless Jesus is God, The Bible contradicts itself. And that seems problematic for a view of divine inspiration (2 Timothy 3:16-17). I am an inerrantist because I don’t believe God would “breathe out” a book full of blunders. Now, a Modalist could avoid the contadiction, since he believes Jesus is the same God as The Father. The problem here is that John 1 is pretty clear in distinguishing Jesus from The Father in the same breath in which he unabashadly asserts Jesus’ divinity “The Word was with God, and The Word Was God”. And so, it seems to me like The Trinitarian reading of John 1 is the inference to the best explanation.
Secondly, the text clearly asserts on which side Jesus belongs in the Creator-creature distinction. The Creator-Creature divide is a concept theologians refer to in explaining Jehovah’s relation to everything He created. John 1:3 says “All things came into existence through him, and apart from him not even one thing came into existence.” (NWT) I want you to notice which translation I’m quoting from. I’m quoting from The New World Translation. That is the translation that The Watchtower Society approves of! This verse in The New World Translation says “ALL THINGS”,“All things came into existence through him”. The text is clear that all things came into existence through the Word. As if John wasn’t being emphatic enough here, he goes on to say “and apart from him not even one thing came into existence”. (emphasis mine in bold). Not even one thing came into existence apart from The Word? If that’s true, as even the NWT of John 1:3 says, then that would seem to include The Word Himself. But The Word couldn’t have brought Himself into being, that is a logical impossibility. To bring yourself into existence, to be the cause of yourself, you would have to exist before you existed. You would have to pre-exist your existence. But if you already existed, then there would be no need to create yourself! And if you didn’t exist, then you’d have 0 properties and therefore, would have no causal properties, and therefore would not be able to cause yourself to come into existence! So, if “all things” came into being by the word, and “not even one thing” came into being except through The Word, then The Word is not a created, lowercase g god. He is God; the Creator of all things. He is on the Creator side of the Creator-Creation divide.
These two answers alone are enough to show that The WatchTower’s view of Jesus being a created god who creates all other things is wrong. And you don’t need to know any Greek to refute this. But the thing is, even if you don’t know Greek, you can show that Greek doesn’t require for Theos to be preceded by a definite article for Jehovah God to be the reference. And the ironic thing is is that you can demonstrate this using The Kingdom Interlinear Translation; freely available on JW.org! [6]https://www.jw.org/en/library/bible/kingdom-interlinear-greek-translation/books/john/1/
John 1:18 says “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” (ESV) Again referring to Jesus, John says that no one has ever seen God except “The only God, who is at the Father’s side”
.
Greek is an inflected language, which is why the most literal translation reads weirdly in interlinears. “God no one has seen at any time” rather than “No one has seen God at any time”. But here, you can see that the word Theos is used to refer both to Jehovah (the first instance, which JWs will concede) and to The Logos, who the Interlinear team decided to render as a lowercase g “god” in the second instance. But why? Because of the lack of a definite article? Well, God The Father doesn’t have a definite article prior to him being called “God”. By their logic, shouldn’t that make Jehovah a “god”, not “God”? But they don’t want to say that.
In conclusion; Jesus is God. He is the Creator of all things, and yet somehow he is distinct from The Father. John 1 is a very Trinitarian text. But it gets even better. John 1:14 says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (ESV) God became a human being and made His dwelling among us! This is an explicit reference to the doctrine of the incarnation! But what is lost in translation is a theological concept of what it means for God to dwell. In the Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, Andreas Kostenberger says the following; “The Word became flesh (1:14). Rather than using the term ‘(hu)man (being)’ (anthrōpos) or ‘body’ (sōma), John here employs the almost crude term ‘flesh’ (sarx; cf. Rom. 8:3). The affirmation that ‘the Word became flesh’ takes the opening statement (‘in the beginning was the Word’) one step further: That same Word has now taken on human nature. While John does not elaborate on the precise way in which Jesus did so, his contention that deity assumed human nature in Jesus would have been anathema for Greeks, who held to a spirit-matter dualism and could hardly have imagined immaterial Reason becoming a physical being. The idea of gods appearing in human form in itself was not uncommon to the ancients. But John makes clear that the Word did not merely manifest itself as an apparition—as was alleged by the Docetists (from dokeō, “seem”)—but that it literally became flesh.” [7]Arnold, Clinton E.. John, Acts: Volume Two: 002 (Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary) (Kindle Locations 618-624). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. Kostenberger goes on to say “And made his dwelling among us (1:14). The Greek word for ‘made his dwelling’ (skēnoō) literally means ‘to tabernacle’ (from the word for ‘tent’). This rare term, which is used elsewhere in the New Testament only in the book of Revelation (Rev. 7:15; 12:12; 13:6; 21:3), suggests that in Jesus, God has come to take up residence among his people once again, in a way even more intimate than when he dwelt in the midst of Israel in the tabernacle (Ex. 40:34-35 …. Jesus’ ‘making his dwelling among us’ is here related to the Incarnation, that is, his assumption of human flesh. In a slightly different application, both Paul and Peter refer to the human body as a ‘tent’ (cf. 2 Cor. 5:1, 4; 2 Peter 1:13-14). The Matthean equivalent is Jesus as Isaiah’s Immanuel, ‘God with us’ (Matt. 1:23; cf. Isa. 7:14; 8:8, 10; Matt. 18:20; 28:20).” [8]Arnold, Clinton E.. John, Acts: Volume Two: 002 (Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary) (Kindle Locations 626-633). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
John 1:1-3, 14
Summary Of Data Points
1: The text explicitly says “The Word Was God.” Verse 14 makes it clear that The Word is Jesus.
2: Says the Word was both “With God” and “Was God”. This is very Trinitarian sounding language.
3: The Word created the entire universe; an act The Old Testament says God alone did (Isaiah 44:24).
4: The Text says The Word “Tabernacled” Among Us”.
Honestly, if we stopped here, this would be enough to establish the point that Jesus is God. However, there is so much more evidence in the gospel of John.
Exhibit B: John The Baptist Prepares The Way For Yahweh.
In John 1:19-23, we read “And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, ‘I am not the Christ.’ And they asked him, ‘What then? Are you Elijah?’ He said, ‘I am not.’ ‘Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, ‘No.’ So they said to him, ‘Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?’ He said, ‘I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.’ (ESV)
When priests and Levites from Jerusalem go into the desert to ask John The Baptist who he is, John The Baptist responds that he is the voice of one crying in the wilderness, that voice cries “Prepare the way for The Lord”. John says that this is something the prophet Isaiah said would occur. The allusion is to Isaiah 40:3 which says “A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” (ESV, emphasis mine in bold). Whose way is being prepared? The LORD’s. Notice that LORD is in all caps. If you know why English translators do this, then you’ll know that the underlying Hebrew is the Tetragrammaton; YHWH. This is the covenant name of The God of Israel. It is His way who is being prepared by the voice in the wilderness. Isaiah goes on to say “Make straight in the desert a highway for our God”. It is God’s way who is being prepared by the prophet. However, in the gospel of John, it is Jesus’ way who is being prepared. John 1:26-27 (ESV) says “John answered them, ‘I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.'” (ESV) It is likely that this is an allusion to Jesus not only because there aren’t any other plausible candidates but also because verse 29 introduces the human Jesus onto the scene for John The Baptist to introduce to his disciples. Although not as explicit as the grand opening to the gospel, John presents Jesus as God. He is The LORD whose way John The Baptist had prepared.
Exhibit C: Jesus Is The Renaming One
In John 1:40-42, we read “One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon the son of John. You shall be called Cephas'” (which means Peter).” (ESV)
Andrew brought his brother Simon to meet Jesus (John 1:40-42) after apparently having previously been a disciple of John the Baptist (John 1:35-40) and being one of the two to whom Jesus’ messiahhood was told in John 1:29. We’re not told what kind of reaction Simon might have had to his little brother spontaneously telling him that the Messiah was in town, but I like how Manga Messiah and The Chosen depict him as being a bit skeptical prior to meeting him. Whatever the historical Simon’s reaction was, upon being brought to Jesus, Jesus renamed him Cephas, which means Peter or Rock (John 1:42).
Now, why is this significant? Because in The Old Testament, during very important moments in redemptive history with very important people, Yahweh changed people’s names. The first occurrence of this was changing Abram’s name to Abraham (Genesis 17:5) because Abram means “father of a nation” and Abraham means “Father of many nations,” corresponding to what Yahweh would do through his lineage to bless all the nations of the Earth through him (Genesis 12:3; 18:18). At the same time that God changed Abram’s name to Abraham, he changed Sarai’s name to Sarah (Genesis 17:15). A couple of generations later, God would change the name of Abraham’s grandson Jacob to Israel (Genesis 32:28) after Jacob met Yahweh in human form in the dead of night and wrestled with Him until daybreak (Genesis 32:24-30).
While it isn’t a silver bullet proof that Jesus is God (Changing someone’s name isn’t some exclusive prerogative of Yahweh or anything), the renaming of important people in crucial redemptive-history is suggestive, and in light of John’s already explicit Christology stated in the first three verses of his gospel (John 1:1-3), John the evangelist probably wants us to interpret this as “There goes Yahweh changing peoples’ names again!”
I do think, however, that the point can be made stronger when one does a study of “The Angel Of The Lord”. Very often this is no ordinary angel, but, as in Jacob’s wrestling match, is Yahweh in humanoid form. Sometimes this gets very interesting because there are passages like Genesis 19:24, Exodus 23:20-33 and Judges 6:11-24 which identify The Angel Of The LORD as The LORD but The LORD is a distinct disembodied presence also present in the episode; a Yahweh on Earth and a Yahweh in Heaven. On my YouTube channel, I go into this topic in great detail in a video called “The Angel Of The Lord and A Two Person Godhead In The Old Testament”. If the humanoid Yahweh was the pre-incarnate Jesus as it seems to be, then the same person who renamed Jacob to Israel is that same person who renamed Simon to Peter, but this time, actually being human, not just appearing human. The Two Powers In Heaven background would heighten the antecedent probability even more that this is how we are to read John 1:42.
Exhibit D: Jesus Is El Roi, The God Who Sees Me
Speaking of The Angel Of The Lord interacting with Old Testament figures, I would like to draw your attention to the calling of Nathaniel. In John 1:43-51, we read “The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’ Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.’ Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’ Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, ‘Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!’ Nathanael said to him, ‘How do you know me?’ Jesus answered him ‘Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.’ Nathanael answered him, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ Jesus answered him, ‘Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.’ And he said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.'” (ESV)
This is the calling of Nathaniel. There is a clear allusion to The Angel Of Yahweh and His interaction with Hagar in Genesis 16. In Genesis 16, the Angel Of YHWH speaks in the first person plural as if He is YHWH Himself, indicating that this is no ordinary angel. Hagar had run away from Sarai because Sarai had been mistreating her. The Angel Of YHWH shows up and tells her to return to Sarai and to submit to her. The Angel Of YHWH then tells Sarai that he will surely multiply her offspring, and then tells her a little bit about who her son will be. Hagar says “You are The God Who Sees Me”. In John 1:48, Jesus is the God who saw Nathaniel under the fig tree.
I made this observation myself when reading through John one day, so I did some digging to see if I was alone in this, and it turns out that I’m not. Damaris U. Avila has explicitly drawn this parallel in her 30 day devotional on the gospel of John, noting that just as Hagar encountered God who “sees” her in the wilderness, Nathanael is similarly seen by Jesus in his solitary place under the fig tree. [9]Damaris U. Avila, Come and See: A 30-Day Devotional of John 1 (Eugene, Oregon: Resource Publications, 2019). So I’m not alone in this observation. The connection operates on multiple levels. In Genesis, God reaches into Hagar’s isolation and hears her aching heart, seeing her troubled eyes. [10]See Damaris U. Avila, Come and See: A 30-Day Devotional of John 1 (Eugene, Oregon: Resource Publications, 2019) Nathanael is likewise alone under a tree, and Jesus sees him in this concealed, quiet place just as he saw Hagar. [11]ibid. Both encounters involve divine omniscience. Both have a God-figure demonstrating supernatural knowledge of someone in their moment of spiritual vulnerability. The theological resonance deepens when you consider what each encounter accomplishes. Jesus reaches Nathanael’s heart by hearing and seeing him, helping him recognize that Jesus had seen him all along. This mirrors Hagar’s recognition of divine presence and care in her abandonment.
However, my search results did not indicate whether this specific connection has been widely discussed in scholarly literature or church history beyond the one contemporary devotional commentary. While scholars have discussed the significance of the fig tree in John 1:48, most allegorical proposals about it have garnered little scholarly support. [12] Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary & 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2012), 486. The Hagar-Nathanael connection may represent a less-traveled interpretive path, though it’s theologically coherent and spiritually compelling.
My observation taps into John’s broader pattern of Old Testament resonance; the Gospel consistently echoes Genesis and other scriptures to establish Jesus’s identity. Whether this particular Hagar-Nathanael parallel has been formally documented in academic or historical theological sources would require more research on my part.
Finally, something else about this passage I’ve noticed that is interesting is that Jesus’ first and final words to Nathaniel form a nice inclusio. He begins and ends with references to Jacob, interestingly, someone who The Angel Of The LORD wrestled with, as noted in the previous sub-subsection (Genesis 32:24-30).
In John 1:47, Jesus says “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” One of the meanings of Jacob’s name was “Deceiver” (Genesis 27:36). Jesus seems to note an irony that Nathaniel descended from someone whose very name means “Deceit” and who historically did do deceiving, such as in his interactions with Esau (Genesis 27:1-40) and Laban (Genesis 31:1-55). But Nathaniel is someone so honest that Jesus can say that he is a descendant of Jacob, but unlike Jacob, in him there is no deceit.
At the very end of their interaction, Jesus tells Nathaniel “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (John 1:51), which is an allusion to the ladder Jacob saw in Genesis 28:12, where angels were using this stairway to ascend and descend. I smile when I think about the possibility that Jesus was thinking in the back of his mind “Yeah, that Jacob guy. I remember breaking his hip.”
Exhibit E: If You Are Someone’s Son, You Have The Same Nature As That Someone
In John 5:17-18, we read “But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is working until now, and I am working.’ This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.” (ESV, emphasis mine in bold)
This comes after the healing of the invalid by the pool of Bethesda in John 5:1-14. Jesus healed on the Sabbath, the Jews didn’t like that because it broke their man-made rules around the Sabbath, and Jesus answered, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” (verse 17). Then verse 18 says the Jews wanted to kill Jesus even more because he called God His Father, and in their eyes, this made Jesus equal to God.
Biblical scholar D.A Carson wrote “The Jews understood what Jesus meant by ‘My Father’ (v. 17). Even though other men were referred to as sons of God, Jesus’ unique use of the expression in this context… meant that he was claiming a relationship with God far exceeding that enjoyed by the most devout Jew. By speaking of God as ‘my own Father,’ he was putting himself on the same level as God, a blasphemous arrogation of equality in the minds of the Jewish authorities… John himself, of course, entirely agrees with the Jewish assessment of the meaning of Jesus’ claim.” [13]D. A. Carson, “The Gospel According to John (The Pillar New Testament Commentary)”, page 247, Eerdmans, 1991.
Biblical scholar Leon Morris wrote “The Jews were perfectly clear as to what he meant. He was not just calling God his Father in the general way in which pious men might do. He was calling him his own Father (the Greek is emphatic). This was understood as meaning that he was claiming essential equality with God, that he was making himself God’s equal… If the claim was true, it was important. If it was false, it was blasphemous, and blasphemy was punishable by death. Hence the increasing intensity of their desire to kill him.” [14]Leon Morris, “The Gospel According to John”, rev. ed. (Eerdmans, 1995), 289.
Christian Apologist C.S Lewis wrote “The Son of God is begotten, not created. What does it mean? Begetting means becoming the father of; creating means making. And the difference between a thing that is begotten and a thing that is made is just this: a thing which is begotten is of the same kind as the begetter, but a thing which is made need not be of the same kind. A man begets human babies, but he makes things like statues or bootjacks. God begets Christ; He creates us. Where that which is begotten is a Person, that which begets is a Person. Where that which is created is a thing, that which creates is a thing. Christ is eternally begotten of the Father; He is not a creature made by the Father.” [15]C. S. Lewis, “Mere Christianity” Chapter 2, “The Three-Personal God” Generally published by HarperOne/Macmillan; chapter reference is key.
C.S Lewis’ analogy perfectly captures the underlying logic of the Jewish response in John 5:18. In the Jewish Understanding, when Jesus claimed God was his “own Father” (patera idion), the Jewish authorities understood this claim in the natural sense: the one begotten shares the nature of the begetter. The offspring of a dog is a dog. The offspring of a cat is a cat. Ron Minton, my father, is human, and I am also human. Therefore, if God (Divine Nature) is the Begetter, the Son must also be God (Divine Nature), which is why they concluded Jesus was “making himself equal with God” (John 5:18). Jesus would have had all the attributes of God, as the son of God, just as I have all the attributes of humanity, being the son of a human. Lewis uses the human example (man begets man, but makes things of a different kind) to show that Jesus’s unique use of “Son of God” must mean a relationship of shared essence, distinct from how humans are merely “created” by God.
Granted, created beings are sometimes called “sons of God” (e.g angelic beings in Psalm 82, Christians in John 1:12), and they’re not equal to God. So one could object that the religious leaders simply misunderstood Jesus. However, Jesus doesn’t correct their misunderstanding in the narrative. And neither does John, as the narrator, set the record straight for his readers. John did this in John 2 when Jesus said “Destroy this temple and I’ll rebuild it in three days.” There, John said “He meant the temple of his body. He was referring to his death and resurrection.” Neither Jesus in the narrative nor John as the narrator say that Jesus was “a” son of God in the sense that the divine council members or born-again Christians are. This indicates that perhaps The Jews were correct in their assessment. If they were correct in their assessment, then Jesus claimed to be God.
Exhibit (F) The Son Can Only Do What He Sees The Father Doing
In John 5:19-21, we read “So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.” (ESV)
Biblical scholar Grant Osborne talks about the Christological significance of this passage as follows; “The rest of this section (5:19–30) clarifies the right of Jesus to claim equality with God. Jesus’ response is that the power of life and judgment belong only to God, yet they have been turned over to the Son.” [16]Grant Osborne, Philip W. Comfort, Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, Vol 13: John and 1, 2, and 3 John (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2007), 82. Osborne goes on to say “In 5:19, we have what Lightfoot calls a ‘defense of Christian monotheism’: Jesus does not act independently of the Father but rather is at all times dependent on him. He is equal yet in his incarnate state ‘does only what he sees the Father doing.’ While some (e.g., Dodd) call this a hidden parable, it is better to see this as an illustration built on the idea of a son as an apprentice learning his father’s trade—something Jesus did when he was apprenticed to his stepfather Joseph, learning to become the village carpenter at Nazareth (so Beasley-Murray, Carson). Here, Jesus viewed himself as the ultimate apprentice to his true Father. Jesus is at one and the same time the one and only God (1:14, 18) and submissive as his Son. Both are critical to a proper understanding of the second member of the Trinity.” [17]Grant Osborne, Philip W. Comfort, Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, Vol 13: John and 1, 2, and 3 John (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2007), 83. The passage’s Christological weight intensifies through its claims about divine prerogatives. The powers of life-giving and judgment, which belong only to God, have been delegated to the Son. [18]See ibid. This represents an extraordinary assertion: Jesus exercises God’s exclusive functions. Just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son gives life to whom he will. [19]See Robert Louis Wilken, Michael A. Thomas, and Bryan A. Stewart, eds., John: Interpreted by Early Christian and Medieval Commentators, trans. Michael A. Thomas and Bryan A. Stewart, The Church’s … Continue reading
Exhibit G: Honor The Son In The Same Way You Honor The Father
In John 5:22-23, we read, “For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.” (ESV)
This seems significant as Jesus says that all should honor the Son the way that they honor The Father. Well, how do we honor God The Father? We worship him! John 5:23 calls for worship of the Son, and this represents a staggering Christological claim that early theologians recognized as foundational to understanding Jesus’s deity.
Jesus explains that the Father has committed all authority to him precisely “that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.”[20]Stephen J. Wellum, The Person of Christ: An Introduction, ed. Graham A. Cole and Oren R. Martin, Short Studies in Systematic Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 56. This is not a modest request for respect! This is a demand for the same veneration reserved exclusively for God!
Jesus claims equal homage with the Father on the ground of his oneness with him. [21]David B. Ford, “Scriptural Evidence of the Deity of Christ,” Bibliotheca Sacra (1860), 557. The passage doesn’t soften this claim through metaphor or analogy; it grounds equal honor in essential unity. This makes John 5:23 one of the New Testament’s most explicit assertions of Christ’s divinity! Moreover, this gives biblical grounds not just for the deity of Christ, but for the rationale of why those who reject the deity of Christ (Arian groups like Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example) are not considered true Christians. A true Christian is one who is allegiant to King Jesus. Jesus is the King, and like any king, he demands allegiance (pistis) (see John 3:16, Ephesians 2:8-9). Biblical scholar Matthew Bates has made a compelling argument that in the context of what efficates salvation, the Greek word “pistis” which is translated as “faith” in the aforementioned references, refers to allegiance or loyalty. [22]See Matthew Bates’ book “Salvation By Allegience Alone: Rethinking Faith, Works, and The Gospel Of Jesus The King”, Baker Academic, March 14th 2017. [23]See also my essays “Evangelism: Non-Violent Conquest Warfare” and“How Gospel Allegience Solves Two Of The Church’s Biggest Problems” where I incorporate the theology of … Continue reading There is no king who has ever lived who would put up with disobedience from those in the land in which they rule. Loyalty saves, disloyalty damns (John 3:16b). Now, as I have argued in essays like “Jesus Christ Is A.L.I.V.E” and “The Gospel Eyewitness Argument For Jesus’ Resurrection”, we can establish on extremely good historical grounds that Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead. If Jesus rose from the dead, then that means God The Father vindicated Jesus’ ministry. He isn’t a blasphemer, but the divine King he claimed to be! And so, given that Jesus really is the King of Kings, it means we ought to obey what He says. And yet Arian groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses cannot obey Jesus’ command to honor him in the same way they honor The Father. Not without being extremely inconsistent at the very least! And yet, this is what Jesus commands. So, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christadelphians, and other modern day Arians cannot give the proper pistis to King Jesus that he commands. And if they cannot give the proper pistis that King Jesus commands, then they cannot be saved. “For by grace you have been saved, through allegiance, and this is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Not by works so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9, Matthew Bates’ translation)
But this isn’t a mere inference based on John 5:23, though it’s a very good inference, Jesus says this explicitly in John 8:24, “I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.” (ESV, emphasis added in bold) The phrase “I am he” is significant. The Greek is “Ego Emi” The Greek phrase “egō eimi (I am)” appears without a predicate, which is significant. The simple egō eimi indicates that the claim Jesus makes is momentous indeed! He is no ordinary Messiah! [24]John M. Frame, The Doctrine of God, A Theology of Lordship (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2002), 657. In the context of Isaiah 43:10-13, where God declares himself the only Savior, Jesus points to himself as the agent of salvation. Isaiah 43:10-13 says “‘You are my witnesses,’ declares the LORD, ‘and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. I, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior. I declared and saved and proclaimed, when there was no strange god among you; and you are my witnesses,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I am God. Also henceforth I am he; there is none who can deliver from my hand; I work, and who can turn it back?'” (ESV) Unless you believe that Jesus is the speaker of Isaiah 43:10-13, you will die in your sins. This is why I let Jehovah’s Witnesses into my living room. I don’t want them to be condemned to Hell! I don’t want them to die in their sins!
Exhibit H: Before Abraham Was Born, I Am.
The “I am He” thing I just talked about provides a nice segue into the next piece of evidence for Christ’s divinity. In John 8, Jesus is again having a conversation with his Jewish opponents. There is a lot of things to unpack in chapter 8, but the crucial section for our purposes here has its context beginning in verse 39.
The dialogue begins with the Judeans claiming status through their ancestry, asserting, “Abraham is our father” (v. 39). Jesus counters by distinguishing between biological descent and spiritual “oneness,” arguing that if they were truly Abraham’s children, they would act like him rather than seeking to kill the one speaking God’s truth (vv. 39-40). As the debate sharpens, Jesus moves from challenging their conduct to identifying their spiritual source, famously declaring that their desire to reject the truth proves they are of their father the devil (v. 44).
The conversation turns personal and vitriolic as his opponents accuse Jesus of being a demon-possessed Samaritan (v. 48). Jesus ignores the slur and pivots back to his authority, promising that those who keep his word will never see death (v. 51). This prompts the final, fatal question: “Are you greater than our father Abraham?” (v. 53). When they ask who he claims to be, Jesus brings the argument full circle by stating that Abraham actually rejoiced to see Jesus’ day (v. 56). When the crowd scoffs at the idea of a man under fifty years old having seen Abraham, Jesus delivers the explosive climax: “Before Abraham was, I am” (v. 58), a direct invocation of the divine name that leads them to immediately pick up stones to execute him for blasphemy (v. 59). The Jews in Jesus’ audience realized that Jesus was claiming to be the “I Am”. This is the name that God claims for himself in Exodus 3:13-14 when, in response to Moses asking the name of the one who sent him, God responds, “I Am who I Am”. That “I Am” in John 8:58 seems likely given the grammatical weirdness of it, and the allusion to Jesus’ pre-existence such that he was around to see Abraham.
Most scholars point out that Jesus doesn’t just claim to be older than Abraham; He claims a different mode of existence entirely. For example, Andreas Kostenberger says “The contrast between genesthai (signifying ‘to come into being’ or ‘to be born’) and eimi (signifying ‘to be’) is very sharp. Abraham had a beginning in time; Jesus claims the eternal ‘I am’ of the divine name… It is not merely a claim to pre-existence, but to a timeless, self-existent mode of being.” [25]Andreas J. Köstenberger, John, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 271.
Richard Baukham says “Jesus’ use of the absolute ego eimi (‘I am’) without a predicate is the most authentic expression of His divine identity. By placing this claim in direct contrast to the created existence of Abraham, He identifies Himself with the God who spoke to Moses from the burning bush, the one who simply is.” [26]Richard Bauckham, “Jesus and the God of Israel” (Paternoster, 2008), 40.
At this point, I would like to respond to the objection of the “Present of Past Action” (PPA) rule, which some use to argue Jesus just meant “I have been.” However, Daniel Wallace, a premier Greek grammarian, notes that while the grammar could allow for “I have been,” the context and the Jews’ reaction make the divine claim the most likely intent. Daniel Wallace says “While ego eimi can sometimes be translated as ‘I have been’ in certain contexts (the PPA), the stark contrast with the ‘becoming’ of Abraham and the immediate attempt to stone Him for blasphemy suggests that John intended his readers to hear the echo of the divine Name.” [27]Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (Zondervan, 1996), 530.
The grammar is essentially the “smoking gun” of the passage. By saying “Before Abraham came into being, I am,” Jesus is contrasting a creature (who has a beginning) with the Creator (who has no beginning).
Exhibit I: The Good Shepherd Discourse – “I And The Father Are One.“
In John 10, we read of Jesus’ Good Shepherd discourse. Jesus begins with a “figure of speech” regarding the sheepfold, contrasting the thieves and robbers who climb over the walls with the true Shepherd who enters by the gate and whom the sheep recognize by His voice (vv. 1-5). When His audience fails to understand the metaphor (v. 6), Jesus clarifies His role with two “I Am” statements. First, He declares, “I am the door of the sheep,” explaining that He is the only legitimate way to find safety and “abundant life” (vv. 7-10).
Second, He proclaims, “I am the good shepherd,” emphasizing that unlike a hired hand who abandons the flock at the sight of a wolf, He is willing to lay down His life for the sheep (vv. 11-13). Jesus highlights the intimate, reciprocal knowledge between Himself and His followers, even mentioning “other sheep” (Gentiles) that He must bring into the one fold (vv. 14-16). He makes it clear that His coming death and resurrection are not accidents of history, but a voluntary act of authority granted by the Father (vv. 17-18).
The discourse reaches its peak during the Feast of Dedication (Hanukkah) when the people surround Him, demanding a plain answer as to whether He is the Christ (vv. 22-24). Jesus points to His works and the security of His sheep, asserting that “no one will snatch them out of my hand” (vv. 25-28). He concludes with the staggering claim of essence and unity: “I and the Father are one” (v. 30), a statement so clear in its claim to divinity that his opponents immediately pick up stones to stone Him for blasphemy (vv. 31-33).
A lot of people pick up on Jesus’ closing statement, “I and the Father are one”, meaning Jesus and The Father are one in essence, or one in nature, and rightly see this as a claim to be God. But what is more often overlooked is the fact that Jesus was technically claiming to be God throughout the whole discourse. Jesus claims to be “The Good Shepherd”. Do you know who was referred to as a Shepherd of God’s people in the Old Testament? Yahweh. In Psalm 23, one of the most well-known and most beloved of the Davidic Psalms, we read “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.” (verse 1, KJV) Of course, prophets could also be referred to as shepherds (or under shepherds), as in Ezekiel 34. So maybe that’s why the Jews didn’t pick up stones to stone him right away. Near the end though, it becomes apparent just what kind of shepherd Jesus is claiming to be. In John 10:28-29, Jesus says “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” (ESV) Now, leaving aside the debate over the so-called “Once Saved, Always Saved” debate VS. whether apostasy is truly possible, let’s not miss the significance of what Jesus is claiming here. Whatever Jesus means by “no one can snatch them from my hand”, he says that He is the one who gives the sheep eternal life. He does it. And when he does it, we will never perish. No one can pluck us out of Jesus’ hand. He follows up in a sort of synonymous parallelism in saying“The Father who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one will be able to snatch them out of The Father’s hand.” So, whose hand are we in? Jesus’ hand, or God’s hand? The answer is yes. We’re in The Father’s hand, we’re in Jesus’ hand. No one can snatch us from Jesus’ hand. No one can snatch us from The Father’s hand. This is because they are, in a sense, the same hand! It’s the hand of God. The whole Trinity is at work in protecting us from spiritual evil. This explains why Jesus immediately says after this, in verse 30, “I and The Father are one.” Verse 30 was not a spontaneous claim to be God out of the clear blue. It had a context. And the context was Him teaching in synonymous paralellism that the hand of God The Father is essentially the hand of Jesus, because they are one. This provides context for the whole Good Shepherd discourse. At this point, they knew “Oh! You’re claiming to be THAT Shepherd! You’re claiming to be God!” they accused Jesus of blasphemy, and picked up stones to stone him.
Before I respond to an objection from the Jehovah’s Witnesses, I want to pre-empt the Modalist in thinking this is a passage that works in his favor. The word “one” in verse 30 (hen) is neuter, not masculine. Scholars like Leon Morris and A.T. Robertson point out that this indicates Jesus and the Father are not “one person” (which would be masculine), but “one essence” or “one thing.” A.T Robinson says “Jesus does not say ‘I and the Father are one person’ (heis), but ‘one thing’ (hen). This is a claim to essential unity of nature, not a confusion of the persons of the Father and the Son.” [28]A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, vol. 5 (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1933), 186.
In The WatchTower Society’s booklet “Should You Believe The Trinity”, they say this in response to John 10:30, “But Jesus himself showed what he meant by his being ‘one’ with the Father. At John 17:21, 22, he prayed to God that his disciples ‘may all be one, just as you, Father, are in union with me and I am in union with you, that they also may be in union with us, . . . that they may be one just as we are one.’ Was Jesus praying that all his disciples would become a single entity? No, obviously Jesus was praying that they would be united in thought and purpose, as he and God were.” [29]The WatchTower Society, “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” — https://www.jw.org/en/library/brochures/Should-You-Believe-in-the-Trinity/Should-You-Believe-It/
At face value, this does seem like a decent rebuttal. And I know of some Trinitarians who won’t even use John 10:30 to support the deity of Christ because, although they think the deity of Christ is supported by other biblical texts, they don’t think that this is one of them. The problem is that this takes Jesus’ statement in John 10:30 in complete isolation from the context. In context, Jesus claimed to be The Good Shepherd. The reason Jesus’ claim to be the “Good Shepherd” was so “explosive” is that in the Old Testament, Yahweh Himself is the Shepherd of Israel. In Ezekiel 34, God issues a scathing indictment against the “shepherds of Israel” (the leaders) for feeding themselves instead of the flock (Ezek. 34:2-10). Yahweh then makes a stunning promise: “I myself will search for my sheep and look after them” (Ezek. 34:11). By calling Himself the Good Shepherd, Jesus is explicitly stepping into the role that Ezekiel 34 reserved for Yahweh. On top of this, Jesus claims to be the eternal life giving one who has the people of God in his hand. In synonymous paralellism, Jesus says “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” (ESV) To be in Jesus’ hand is to be in The Father’s hand and vice versa. We’re in Jesus’ hand and we can’t be plucked from his hand. We’re in the Father’s hand and we can’t be plucked from his hand. This is the basis on which Jesus says “I and The Father are one”. You just don’t have this with Jesus claiming that the disciples are all one in John 17:21-22. If you took the statement “I and The Father are one” out of context, it could be ambiguous enough to mean what the Watchtower says it means. But unfortunately for them, the context of John 10:30 only reinforces the high Christological interpretation.
Exhibit J: Thomas Calls The Risen Jesus “God”.
In John 20:26-29, we read, “Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’” (ESV)
Thomas calls Jesus “My Lord and my God!” And Jesus doesn’t have a problem with it. He doesn’t tell Thomas that he’s committing blasphemy or anything like that. His silence is an admission of agreement. Some will try to argue that Thomas was merely making an expletive in excitement over seeing Jesus risen from the dead. He was basically saying “Oh my God!” If you saw someone die a brutal death that there was no possible way you could come back from, and then they showed up at your house 3 days later, you would likely respond the same way, yet you wouldn’t necessarily be calling that person God. Others will try to say that Thomas called Jesus Lord, but then sort of motioned upwards before saying “and my God”. This second way to get around the text is so silly that I don’t even feel the need to respond to it. But was Thomas basically just saying “Oh my God!” in surprise?
The Greek text is the strongest refutation of the “expletive” theory. The phrase is Ὁ Κύριός μου καὶ ὁ Θεός μου (Ho Kyrios mou kai ho Theos mou).
- The Nominative for Vocative: In Koine Greek, when someone is addressed directly with a title, the “nominative with the article” (like we see here) is frequently used as a vocative (direct address). This means Thomas isn’t just shouting a title into the air; he is speaking to someone.
- The Direct Object: The text explicitly says, “Thomas answered him [Jesus]…” (apekrithē Thōmas kai eipen autō). Grammatically, the words that follow are the content of what was said to Jesus. You don’t “answer” someone with an expletive directed at the ceiling.
As D.A Carson says “This is not an exclamation of surprise directed to God… The text says Thomas said to him [to Jesus]. Moreover, such an exclamation would have been viewed as a profane use of the Name by a devout Jew, and it is inconceivable that the Evangelist would have recorded it as a climax of faith.” [30]D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Eerdmans, 1991), 648.
Murray J. Harris says ““The address is unmistakably to Jesus… The use of the definite article (ho) before both ‘Lord’ and ‘God’ indicates that Thomas is identifying Jesus with the Yahweh of the Old Testament. This is the functional and ontological equivalent of the ‘I and the Father are one’ claim from chapter 10.” [31]Murray J. Harris, Jesus as God: The New Testament Use of Theos in Reference to Jesus (Baker, 1992), 273.
Besides it being grammatically implausible in the Greek, as Carson says, this would be taking the Lord’s name in vain (Exodus 20:7). To a first-century Jew, using God’s name as a casual expletive (the “Oh my God” theory) wasn’t just rude, it was a huge sin. It is highly improbable that Thomas would “slip” into a blasphemous exclamation while standing in awe of a resurrected man. Jews back then, as today, don’t even like saying YHWH even when reading scripture out loud! They will use substitute terms like “Hashem” (The name) or “Adonai” (a generic word for “lord”). Honestly, this whole idea is reading modern American slang into the mouth of a first-century Jew. Moreover, some scholars have suggested that John 20:28 is supposed to be a literary inclusio formed with John 1:1. The gospel of John begins explicitly calling Jesus God and it ends explicitly calling Jesus God. Raymond E. Brown is one such scholar who says “The Gospel began with the Prologue’s proclamation that the Word was God (1:1); it reaches its climax as Thomas confesses Jesus to be ‘My God.’ This is a perfect inclusio that brings the reader back to the starting point of the faith.” [32]Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John (XIII-XXI), Anchor Bible 29A (New York: Doubleday, 1970), 1046. D.A Carson is another. [33]D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 648–649.
Excursus: Johannine Proof Texts AGAINST The Deity Of Christ
After all we’ve read, one would think that the gospel of John would be the last place you’d want to look for proof texts arguing that Jesus is not God. And yet, in my 15 years of experience as a Christian Apologist, John’s gospel is where the vast majorty of them come from. Before moving on to the final two premises in our case for The Trinity, let’s examine some of these counter texts.
John 3:16-18 – Jesus is “only begotten”.
Arians try to argue that John 3:16 shows Jesus is a creature. However, this contradicts the rest of what the gospel of John teaches about Jesus. We should let scripture interpret scripture. Moreover, the early church fathers, and The Nicene Creed talk about Jesus being begotten by The Father in the sense of eternal procession. Jesus is “Begotten, not made”. It is also possible that “monogenes” means “one and only”, and if that’s the case, then the objection is a non-starter. The Septuagint does use this term to refer to Isaac as Abraham’s “only son” (in Genesis 22) despite Ishmael existing. Isaac was Abraham’s “only son” in a special sense. He was the son through whom the people of Israel would come about and through whom all the nations of the Earth would be blessed.
John 14:28 – Jesus says “The Father is greater than I.”
People argue that if Jesus were really God, and if the doctrine of The Trinity were true, the Father wouldn’t be greater than Jesus or vice versa. They’d be equal. Again, in light of the overwhelming and plentiful evidence for the deity of Christ we’ve seen in the gospel of John so far, this suggests an extremely low antecedent probability that this is the correct interpretation. If this is what Jesus meant, then there is a contradiction in John’s christology. So Jesus, or John the author must not have thought Jesus meant that. So what other possible alternative could there be? Well, let’s look at the context, the entire verse says “You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.” There is something about Jesus’ going away that should cause the disciples to rejoice. Jesus is going to The Father, and this is good because “The Father is greater than I.” Jesus’ going to The Father seems to be proposed as a solution to this issue of God The Father being greater than Jesus. But how? Well, let’s remember how John’s gospel begins; Jesus exists “in the beginning”, “with God” and created the entire universe! (John 1:1-3) But then “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14) Jesus sat on the highest throne in the universe as the pre-incarnate second person of The Trinity, but then he became incarnate. The God of all gods became a drooling, pooping, crying, baby boy who grew up to be a man who got tired, hungry, thirsty, etc. Theologians refer to this as the “humilation” of Christ. God humbled Himself by becoming a man. The Apostle Paul lays this out for us in Philippians 2:5-9, but the idea is certainly here in the gospel of John as well (seeing as I’m “Defending The Trinity From John Alone”), it’s just not spoon fed to us like it is in Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Ben Witherington III called Jesus’ journey a “V shape” in which Jesus begins in glory, descends into the human experience in a fallen world, and after dying and being resurrected, ascends back to glory to sit at the right hand of God. [34]Ben Witherington III, Paul’s Narrative Thought World, 95. The Father never became incarnate. The Father never had to deal with the limitation of being human as Jesus did. The Father did not need his diaper changed, need to find food, The Father did not die on the cross. The Father is not incarnate. And so, it seems to me, that when all of John (never mind all of The Bible) is taken together, the sense in which The Father is greater than Jesus is in that The Father is still on the cosmic throne. Jesus and The Father won’t have this unequal dynamic once Jesus returns to sit at The Father’s right hand.
In the book “The Case For Christ”, Lee Strobel interviewed biblical scholar D.A Carson. Carson said to Strobel who raised this issue that “When you use a category like ‘greater,’ it doesn’t have to mean ontologically greater. If I say, for example, that the president of the United States is greater than I, I’m not saying he’s an ontologically superior being. He’s greater in military capability, political prowess, and public acclaim, but he’s not more of a man than I am. He’s a human being and I’m a human being. So when Jesus says, ‘The Father is greater than I,’ one must look at the context and ask if Jesus is saying, ‘The Father is greater than I because he’s God and I’m not.’ Frankly, that would be a pretty ridiculous thing to say. Suppose I got up on some podium to preach and said, ‘I solemnly declare to you that God is greater than I am.’ That would be a rather useless observation. The comparison is only meaningful if they’re already on the same plane and there’s some delimitation going on.” [35]Strobel, Lee. Case for Christ Movie Edition: Solving the Biggest Mystery of All Time (p. 178). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
John 17:3 – The Only True God and Jesus Christ
In John 17:3, we read “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (ESV)
The appeal to John 17:3 and the assertion that “Never did her refer to God as a deity of plural persons”. While not parsed in this way in this portion, Unitarians often appeal to John 17:3 because Jesus is speaking to the Father and says “This is eternal life; that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent”. And the claim is that “Well, Jesus says The Father is the only true God and distinguishes himself from him, so Jesus can’t also be the only true God”. However, would this really be a problem for the Trinitarian? I see how it would be a problem for the modalist. Jesus is clearly distinguishing himself from The Father. Indeed, by the very act of carrying on a conversation with His Father and addressing Him in second person terms, a distinction of the persons is assumed. Otherwise, we’d be forced into the absurd notion that Jesus is literally talking to Himself as though He were another person. Moreover, remember that the doctrine of The Trinity asserts that “The Father is God”. If The Trinity were true, of course, Jesus would say to His Father “You are the only true God!” The Father would also say that of the Son. Does He? Well, in Hebrews 1:8-10, we read “But about the Son he says, ‘Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.’ He also says, ‘In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.’” (NIV) In John 17, The Son asserts the divinity of The Father. In Hebrews 1, The Father asserts the divinity of The Son and credits Him with the creation of the cosmos! Now, I know my methodology is to only use John to defend The Trinity. My quotation of Hebrews 1 here is only to show that if Jesus calling The Father “the only true God” in John 17:3, means The Father is God and Jesus is not. Then that same logic would force you to conclude in Hebrews 1 that Jesus is God and The Father is not. If The Trinity is true, then it isn’t a surprise that one person of The Trinity should say of another “You are the only true God”, “You laid the foundations of the Earth”, “Your throne, O God, will last forever and ever” or any other thing we would say of God. God The Father could say of God The Holy Spirit “Long ago, you hovered over the surface of the waters and poke light into being” (referring to Genesis 1:2-3) and that would not be a denial on The Father’s part that He likewise created the universe. [36]In my biblical studies, I have found that when it comes to “The Economic Trinity”, there are two big miracles in which all three persons are accredited depending on which passage you … Continue reading John 17:3 is only a proof text against the deity of Christ if you beg the question in favor of a non-Trinitarian view!
John 20:17 – How Can God Have A God?
In John 20:17, Jesus tells Mary Magdalene after He’s resurrected “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” (NIV) Well, there you go, Jesus can’t have a God He is God. I’ll respond to this with a quote from GotQuestions.org; “Why would God call Himself ‘My God’? It has to do with Christ’s relationship to His Father. Even though Christ is the eternal God Himself incarnate, He is still a different person from the Father. As a man and as man’s representative …, Jesus’ person was dependent on the Father and, like us, looked to the Father for strength, guidance, wisdom, etc. Therefore, God the Father was the God of Jesus. The Father is the God of the Son, but it doesn’t imply inferiority, only a difference in roles.” [37]GotQuestions.org, “If Jesus Was God, Why Did He Call God, ‘My God’?” — https://www.gotquestions.org/Jesus-say-my-God.html
In conclusion, there simply is no good reason to not believe that Jesus is God. The gospel of John teaches in 4K what the synoptics teach more subtly. The synoptics have just as high of a Christology as John, but you need Old Testament background knowledge to catch most of them. But with John, you could be completely illiterate of the rest of The Bible and you can still see that Jesus is God in John. John makes it so easy that a Cave Man could do it! Indeed, I have even had to choose not to use some examples for premise (3) The Son Is God, simply because I don’t like it when my essays get so long that the WordPress text editor starts lagging.
(4) The Holy Spirit Is God
Since this article is becoming longer than even I had anticipated it to be, I’ll try to only briefly go over the evidences that The Holy Spirit is both God and is a person in his own right (rather than just God’s active force as some claim). Readers are encouraged to look up the references if they wish to read them.
Exhibit A: Personal Pronouns and Direct Speech
Jesus consistently used personal pronouns when referring to the Holy Spirit (John 15:26; 16:13), [38]Tony Evans, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2019), 43. and in three significant passages in John, Christ refers to the Spirit with the masculine personal pronoun ekenos (John 14:26; 15:26; 16:13-14). [39]Geerhardus Vos, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. and trans. Richard B. Gaffin Jr. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012–2016), 1:70–71. This grammatical choice is deliberate and meaningful. Jesus treats the Spirit as a “he,” not an “it.”
Exhibit B: The Paraclete Title
John’s use of the term “Paraclete” is unique to his Gospel (John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7) and brings out more clearly the personal nature of the Spirit by comparison with usage elsewhere, which may suggest the Spirit is little more than a divine force or influence. [40]I. Howard Marshall, New Testament Theology: Many Witnesses, One Gospel (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 522.
The term originally meant a legal helper, hence translations like “advocate” or “counselor,” though the traditional translation is “comforter.” The word conveys the idea of a friend or helper at court. [41]Walter A. Elwell and Barry J. Beitzel, “John the Apostle, Life and Writings Of,” in Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 2:1196.
Exhibit C: Active Personal Functions
As Walter A. Elwell says in his commentary “The Paraclete is identified with “the Spirit of truth” (Jn 14:16, 17; 15:26; 16:13) and with “the Holy Spirit” (14:26). Jesus told the disciples that the Holy Spirit would be with them forever (14:16), bearing witness to Jesus (15:26) and teaching them and reminding them of all that Jesus had told them (14:26).” [42]Walter A. Elwell and Barry J. Beitzel, “John the Apostle, Life and Writings Of,” in Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 1196. Geerdhard Vos says “like the Son, He teaches, proclaims, and witnesses, and that for Him these acts, just as is true for the words of Christ, result from a hearing and receiving (John 16:13–14).” [43]Geerhardus Vos, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. and trans. Richard B. Gaffin Jr., vol. 1 (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012–2016), 70. These are all personal attributes. They are not the kinds of things an impersonal force does. Gravity doesn’t teach you, lead you, bear witness to something, and so on.
(5) The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit Are Distinct Persons
And now, for the final premise. So far, the Sabellians would agree with everything I’ve written. There is only one God, The Father is God, The Son is God, and The Holy Spirit is God. But they would say that they are all the same person just undergoing different modes or handling different roles. But the evidence in the gospel of John ,while affirming the equal divinity of The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is also abundantly clear that they are distinct persons.
Exhibit A: The Word Was WITH God
Since I already kind of played my hand when discussing John 1 earlier, I’ll just briefly reiterate what I said there. John 1:1-2 – John says the Word was WITH God. He does say “The Word Was God”, but he also says that the Word was WITH God. The Greek Word translated “With” typically means “Face To Face”. [44]The Lexham Analytical Lexicon to the Greek New Testament (Logos Bible Software, 2011). While John identifies Jesus (The Word) as God, in the same breath, he says Jesus was “With God”, face to face with God. He uses the word “God” in two different ways here. My take is that when God is used in the first instance, it is referring exclusively to The Father. In the second instance, it is referring to the entire being we call God. Jesus is not the Father, but Jesus is a member of the Godhead, and thus, in an “is” of predication, we can say “The Word Is God”. Twice, John asserts that “The Word” is distinct from “God” even while he calls The Word “God” and says that He is the Creator of all things. John ‘s wording is a bit confusing, but I think that what John means to say is “The word was with The Father, and The Word was divine”. He is with God The Father, He is Himself God The Son.
Exhibit B: The Father Has Given All Things To The Son
John 3:35 – “The Father loves The Son and has given all things into his hand.” The distinction of the persons is clear here. John The Baptist is not saying that God loves himself and his given all things into his own hands. That would be incoherent babble!
Exhibit C: Jesus Doesn’t Testify To Himself Alone, The Father Also Attests To Him.
In John 8:14-18, we read “Jesus answered, ‘Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid because I know where I have come from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. You judge by human standards; I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is valid; for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. In your law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is valid. I testify on my own behalf, and the Father who sent me testifies on my behalf.'” (NRSV)
Jesus says that he doesn’t testify about himself alone, but he has another who also testified about Him: God The Father. Jesus is appealing to the Old Testament law about something being established on the basis of two or more witnesses (Deuteronomy 17:6). What Jesus is saying here would make no sense on modalism. If Jesus and the father were the same person, then you would not have two witnesses. You would have only one witness wearing two different faces at two different times. You would not have two different persons, the fact that Jesus appeals to his own testimony, as well as to the testimony of God, the father shows very strongly that Jesus and God the Father are distinct persons, And thus modalism is not true. Jesus is God, but Jesus is not God the Father. If you and two of your friends are voting on where to have lunch, they’d laugh at you if you said “Me, myself, and I vote for Burger King, so that means there’s one more vote than that of the two of you who voted for Pizza Hut.” You are one person, so you get one vote. Jesus’ testimony would not be two testimonies if He and The Father were the same person.
Exhibit D: The Holy Spirit Won’t Come To You Unless I Leave
John 14:25-26 – Jesus says that he will leave and when he leaves the Holy Spirit will come to his disciples. He says that the Holy Spirit will not come later on (John 16:7) unless he goes away. But if Jesus and the Holy Spirit were the same person, then this would make no sense. Jesus would basically be saying that He cannot come to them unless He goes away. He has to go away so that he can come to them. But why would that be good for them? On Modalism, He’d already be among them!
Conclusion
We have seen that the doctrine of The Trinity is abundantly attested to in the gospel of John. Now, before writing this, I knew I would have a field day with John, since John has the most in-your-face explicit Christology of all 4 of the gospels. If you have read “Defending The Trinity From Matthew Alone” or “Defending The Trinity From Mark Alone”, you’ll see that while the synoptics have just as high of a Christology, they’re not obvious unless you really know the Old Testament which the author of Matthew’s gospel and the Jews in Jesus’ audience would. John’s supplimental gospel records those instances in which Jesus makes claims that wouldn’t have been lost even on someone not literate in the Jewish scriptures, and tells you point blank that Jesus is God from the opening chapters.
The doctrine of The Trinity is a conclusion that follows from 5 biblical teachings; (1) There is only one God, (2) Father is God, (3) The Son is God, (4) The Holy Spirit is God, (5) The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct persons. Just taying inside of one gospel alone, we’ve supported all 5 of these facts. The issue is one of explanatory scope. Arianism can accomodate points 1, 2, and 5 easily. But it has no room for 3 and 4. Modalism makes sense with facts 1, 2, 3, and 4, but breaks down at 5. The Trinity can happily explain all of the biblical data. There is more I would have liked to talk about, but I think enough has been said that one can see that the doctrine of the Trinity is amply supported from John’s gospel.
References
| ↑1 | I quote from the NLT of Deuteronomy 32:17 because it has the best reading. The ESV here makes it sound contradictory when it has Moses saying“They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded.” So…. they sacrificed to beings that weren’t gods….but were gods? The first use of the term elohim is likely referring to the God of Israel, not to multiple gods. “Not to God”. It makes more sense grammatically and theologically. |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | For the gold standard biblical theology on what I’m talking about – The Divine Council Worldview and its correlary; the Deuteronomy 32 Worldview, see the book “The Unseen Realm: Recovering The Supernatural Worldview Of The Bible” by Dr. Michael S. Heiser. A second edition was most recently released. |
| ↑3 | Marvin Richardson Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament, vol. 2 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1887), 24. |
| ↑4 | See Marvin Richardson Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament, vol. 2 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1887), 24. |
| ↑5 | Note; I am NOT a Flat Earther. I do think The Bible contains descriptions of a flat disk-shaped Earth covered by a dome, but my view of inspiration allows for what scholars call “Divine Accommodation”. Yahweh did not seek to correct the science of the ancient Israelites when he revealed his divine truths to them, but rather, he accommodated His revelation to their physical description of the world. The reality is that the Earth is quite round, but this fact does not mean The Bible is in error. It depends on how you define inerrancy. If you define inerrancy, as I do, like this; “The Bible is inerrant in all that it intends to teach”, then there is no issue. As long as The Bible isn’t intending to teach cosmology, then The Bible isn’t in error for containing these descriptions of the earth and heavens that we now know, thanks to science, are not accurate. For those wanting to read more about ancient cosmology in The Bible, you can check out the BioLogos blog post “From The Mailbag: Why Would God Allow Scientific Errors In The Bible”, by Ted Davis, Gregg Davidson, and Christy Hemphil. –> https://biologos.org/articles/from-the-mailbag-why-would-god-allow-scientific-errors-in-the-bible. You can also check out Kyle Greenwood’s article “Teaches Or Assumes?: Ancient Near Eastern Cosmology”, Henry Center For Theological Understanding, September 11th 2018, –> https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/2018/09/teaches-or-assumes-ancient-near-eastern-cosmology/ |
| ↑6 | https://www.jw.org/en/library/bible/kingdom-interlinear-greek-translation/books/john/1/ |
| ↑7 | Arnold, Clinton E.. John, Acts: Volume Two: 002 (Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary) (Kindle Locations 618-624). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. |
| ↑8 | Arnold, Clinton E.. John, Acts: Volume Two: 002 (Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary) (Kindle Locations 626-633). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. |
| ↑9 | Damaris U. Avila, Come and See: A 30-Day Devotional of John 1 (Eugene, Oregon: Resource Publications, 2019). |
| ↑10 | See Damaris U. Avila, Come and See: A 30-Day Devotional of John 1 (Eugene, Oregon: Resource Publications, 2019 |
| ↑11 | ibid. |
| ↑12 | Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary & 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2012), 486. |
| ↑13 | D. A. Carson, “The Gospel According to John (The Pillar New Testament Commentary)”, page 247, Eerdmans, 1991. |
| ↑14 | Leon Morris, “The Gospel According to John”, rev. ed. (Eerdmans, 1995), 289. |
| ↑15 | C. S. Lewis, “Mere Christianity” Chapter 2, “The Three-Personal God” Generally published by HarperOne/Macmillan; chapter reference is key. |
| ↑16 | Grant Osborne, Philip W. Comfort, Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, Vol 13: John and 1, 2, and 3 John (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2007), 82. |
| ↑17 | Grant Osborne, Philip W. Comfort, Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, Vol 13: John and 1, 2, and 3 John (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2007), 83. |
| ↑18 | See ibid. |
| ↑19 | See Robert Louis Wilken, Michael A. Thomas, and Bryan A. Stewart, eds., John: Interpreted by Early Christian and Medieval Commentators, trans. Michael A. Thomas and Bryan A. Stewart, The Church’s Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2018), 166–167. |
| ↑20 | Stephen J. Wellum, The Person of Christ: An Introduction, ed. Graham A. Cole and Oren R. Martin, Short Studies in Systematic Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 56. |
| ↑21 | David B. Ford, “Scriptural Evidence of the Deity of Christ,” Bibliotheca Sacra (1860), 557. |
| ↑22 | See Matthew Bates’ book “Salvation By Allegience Alone: Rethinking Faith, Works, and The Gospel Of Jesus The King”, Baker Academic, March 14th 2017. |
| ↑23 | See also my essays “Evangelism: Non-Violent Conquest Warfare” and“How Gospel Allegience Solves Two Of The Church’s Biggest Problems” where I incorporate the theology of gospel allegience popularly defended by biblical scholar Matthew Bates into my respective theses. |
| ↑24 | John M. Frame, The Doctrine of God, A Theology of Lordship (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2002), 657. |
| ↑25 | Andreas J. Köstenberger, John, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 271. |
| ↑26 | Richard Bauckham, “Jesus and the God of Israel” (Paternoster, 2008), 40. |
| ↑27 | Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (Zondervan, 1996), 530. |
| ↑28 | A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, vol. 5 (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1933), 186. |
| ↑29 | The WatchTower Society, “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” — https://www.jw.org/en/library/brochures/Should-You-Believe-in-the-Trinity/Should-You-Believe-It/ |
| ↑30 | D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Eerdmans, 1991), 648. |
| ↑31 | Murray J. Harris, Jesus as God: The New Testament Use of Theos in Reference to Jesus (Baker, 1992), 273. |
| ↑32 | Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John (XIII-XXI), Anchor Bible 29A (New York: Doubleday, 1970), 1046. |
| ↑33 | D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 648–649. |
| ↑34 | Ben Witherington III, Paul’s Narrative Thought World, 95. |
| ↑35 | Strobel, Lee. Case for Christ Movie Edition: Solving the Biggest Mystery of All Time (p. 178). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. |
| ↑36 | In my biblical studies, I have found that when it comes to “The Economic Trinity”, there are two big miracles in which all three persons are accredited depending on which passage you read; the creation of the world and the resurrection of Jesus. In John 10, you have Jesus saying he’ll raise himself from the dead, in Romans 8, you have Paul saying The Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead. For example. |
| ↑37 | GotQuestions.org, “If Jesus Was God, Why Did He Call God, ‘My God’?” — https://www.gotquestions.org/Jesus-say-my-God.html |
| ↑38 | Tony Evans, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2019), 43. |
| ↑39 | Geerhardus Vos, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. and trans. Richard B. Gaffin Jr. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012–2016), 1:70–71. |
| ↑40 | I. Howard Marshall, New Testament Theology: Many Witnesses, One Gospel (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 522. |
| ↑41 | Walter A. Elwell and Barry J. Beitzel, “John the Apostle, Life and Writings Of,” in Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 2:1196. |
| ↑42 | Walter A. Elwell and Barry J. Beitzel, “John the Apostle, Life and Writings Of,” in Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 1196. |
| ↑43 | Geerhardus Vos, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. and trans. Richard B. Gaffin Jr., vol. 1 (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012–2016), 70. |
| ↑44 | The Lexham Analytical Lexicon to the Greek New Testament (Logos Bible Software, 2011). |
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