In Celebration of Heresy

I and the Father are ^[a]one.”  John 10:30  NASB

One – The Trinity.  A doctrine that divided Christianity—not only from Judaism but from itself.  In the early centuries of Christian development, the split over the proclaimed divinity of Christ broke the Christian world in two.  Arius and Athanasius.  It wasn’t a happy separation.  Accomplished by murder, kidnapping, slander, bribes, torture, and political backstabbing, the eventual victors claimed God exonerated them.  After all, they won.  But the cost was world-transforming.

“ . . . the intra-Christian violence of the fifth- and sixth-century debates was on a far larger and more systematic scale than anything produced by the Inquisition and occurred at a much earlier stage in church history.”[1]

“In the long run, these schisms led directly to the collapse of Roman power in the eastern world,  to the rise of Islam, and to the destruction of Christianity through much of Asia and Africa.”[2]

Should we be surprised?  Consider the language of the Church Council:

“May those who divide Christ be divided with the sword, may they be hewn to pieces, may they be burned alive!”[3]

The ultimate result was the victory of the Latin Church (the Roman Catholic Church), the dominant force in the culture of the West for the next 1500 years.  Is it any wonder that modern Christian preachers assert that anyone who does not believe that Jesus is God cannot be saved?  Consider the statements of Philip Jenkins, who clearly articulates the horrors perpetrated in God’s name over this doctrinal divide:

“. . . belief in Jesus Christ demands combining two utterly different categories of being.”[4]

“In the New Testament, Jesus says quite explicitly that he is identical with God: ‘I and the Father are one,’ he declares.”[5]

“The opening words of the gospel of John identify Christ with the Logos, God’s Reason or creative Word:”[6]

“For over 1,500 years now, Chalcedon has provided the answer to Jesus’ great question [‘Who do you say that I am?’].”[7]

“Failing to understand Christ’s nature properly made nonsense of everything Christians treasured:”[8]

A verse like this one in John’s Gospel has been used time and again as justification for the claim that Jesus believed he was God.  The NASB footnote offers this explanation:  “Or a unity; or one essence.”  This is why Jenkins writes that the idea requires “two utterly different categories of being.”  In the end, Jesus isn’t really human, at least not in any way that we are human.  He is the God-Man, a different class of being than all other humans.  Millard Erickson admits that this is utter equivocation and rationally illogical—but that, of course, is why we must believe it!

Unfortunately, even the Greek text isn’t quite as clear as the doctrine supposes it to be.  George R. Beasley-Murray, a Greek New Testament scholar, makes the following point:

“ . . . from earliest times it has been observed that Jesus says, ‘I and the Father are one’ (Greek: ‘hen’) not ‘heis’, i.e. one in action, not in person.”[9]

Beasley-Murray isn’t the only one to recognize this.  Tasker, Sanders, Bernard, and Kuschel make the same point.  But it is the minority view because it does not support the long-standing doctrine incorporated into the text.

And when we examine the context of this statement, we find it is all about purpose, that is, what God is doing is the same thing that the Messiah is doing.  This does not require ontological identity any more than my doing the same job as my father would require that I am my father!  But you will notice that the NASB footnote suggests the Greek word means one in essence.  Essentially, the NASB translators read the text from a Trinitarian perspective, and interpret it accordingly.  But the Greek does not demand such a reading.  In fact, it suggests something quite different, something logically and reasonably understandable, something common to human experience.

And now the last point.  Jesus wasn’t speaking Greek.  Oh, it’s nice to have a Greek translation of what he said, but what he said originally was in Hebrew.  He probably used ʾeḥad.  According to TWOT, ʾeḥad “stresses unity while recognizing diversity within that oneness.”^[10]  But this is unity in purpose, as is clear “from the fact that ʾeḥad has a plural form, ʾăḥādîm.”^[11]  This leads Wolf to write:

In the famous Shema of Deut 6:4, “Hear, O Israel … the Lord is one,” the question of diversity within unity has theological implications. Some scholars have felt that, though “one” is singular, the usage of the word allows for the doctrine of the Trinity. While it is true that this doctrine is foreshadowed in the ot, the verse concentrates on the fact that there is one God and that Israel owes its exclusive loyalty to him (Deut 5:9; 6:5). The nt also is strictly monotheistic while at the same time teaching diversity within the unity (Jas 2:19; 1 Cor 8:5–6).^[12]

The passage that anchors God’s absolute uniqueness is found in Deuteronomy 4:35 (“You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord, He is God; there is no other besides Him”).  By the time of the prophets, Israelite monotheism was an essential aspect of cultural practice and thinking, and was certainly the view of virtually all Jews during Yeshua’s ministry.  The context of John 10:30 indicates that Yeshua’s point is about observable signs of his agency, his representation of the Father.  When some pick up stones, claiming his statement is blasphemous, he does not reply with a theological argument concerning his ontologically divine status.  He points to what he does, admonishing his detractors for not seeing the reflection of the Father in his acts.  “ If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father” (John 37-38).  No wonder Paul writes, “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus,” (1 Timothy 2:5).

Is it possible for you to read the text without the doctrinal overlay?  Can you disconnect from 1500 years of Church teaching, reflect on the Hebrew point of view, and recognize that purpose is not the same as identity?  If so, welcome to the heretics club, that place where differing opinions are celebrated because we only learn when someone disagrees.

Topical Index: Trinity, hen, heis, ʾeḥad, Deuteronomy 4:35,  Deuteronomy 6:4, 1 Timothy 2:5, John 10:30

[1] Philip Jenkins, The Jesus Wars, p. xii.

[2] Ibid., p. xiv.

[3] Second Council of Ephesus, 449 CE

[4] Ibid., p. vii.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid., p. viii.

[7] Ibid., p. xi.

[8] Ibid., p. xii.

[9] George R Beasley-Murray, World Biblical Commentary, Vol. 36, p. 174.

^[10] Wolf, H. (1999). 61 אֶחַד. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 30). Chicago: Moody Press.

^[11] Ibid.

^[12] Wolf, H. (1999). 61 אֶחַד. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 30). Chicago: Moody Press.  Also consult Jeffrey H. Tagay, Deuteronomy: The JPS Torah Commentary, p. 76 and pp. 433-435.