Was Jesus God in the Flesh? – Examining the Scriptures

 

Trinitarians believe that the Godhead consists of three persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit, distinct from each other, but one in substance. The words of the Nicene Creed, which defined the Trinity are –

I believe in one God the Father Almighty; Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made; who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried; and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father; and he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Ghost,* the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceedeth from the Father [and the Son]; who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified; who spake by the prophets. And one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.

* The Nicene Creed ended here. Appended to it, however, was the following anathema: "But those who say that 'there was once when He was not,' and 'before He was begotten He was not,' and that 'from the not being He came to be'; or those who say that the Son of God is 'of another substance or essence,' or 'created,' or 'alterable,' or 'mutable,' the Catholic Church anathematizes."

 

The anathema (or curse) is directed specifically against Unitarians, who believe that only the Father is God Almighty and that Jesus is a person created by Him (therefore not co-eternal) and sent to the earth. Unitarians don’t believe in the Trinity, don’t believe that Jesus is God in the flesh. They believe that 'there was once when Jesus was not,' and 'before he was begotten he was not,' and that 'from the not being he came to be'; or those who say that he is 'of another substance or essence,' and 'created.'

Both Trinitarians and Unitarians claim to base their beliefs on the Bible. How is it that such vastly differing views as Trinitarianism and Unitarianism are formed from the same Bible? Which of the two sets of beliefs is the truth? First, we need to understand how we form our beliefs from the Bible. Most people form their beliefs not after a thorough, neutral and objective study of what the Bible says about a particular topic. They are "taught" certain beliefs by their parents or others in the church, with Bible verses to support these beliefs. How have the parents or Bible teachers formed their beliefs? Generally, in exactly the same way! They too have formed their beliefs not after a thorough, neutral and objective study of what the Bible says about a particular topic. They too were "taught" certain beliefs by their parents or others in the church, with Bible verses to support these beliefs. Very few question these beliefs and fewer still undertake a thorough, complete, systematic, unbiased, neutral and objective study of the Bible to check whether these beliefs are according to what the Bible really says. Even if they want to, very few have the appropriate tools or the discipline or the time or the capability to carry out such a study. The result is that the beliefs continue getting propagated from generation to generation.

Even after this, when some of us do take to studying the Bible, all our human weaknesses come into play. We go by our "natural" inclinations and latch on to the Bible verses which support our beliefs, ignoring or rationalizing away others which contradict them. When we read the Bible, a "picture" of what it says about a particular topic is formed in our minds. However this "picture" may not be an accurate reflection of what the Bible actually says about the particular topic, because of the following reasons:

(repeated from Objectively arriving at "What the Bible says")

  1. We may not have examined all passages relating to the topic, we may have formed the "picture" based only on a few passages.
  2. Certain verses and passages have a naturally stronger appeal to us, with a stronger tendency to stick in our minds, because they are more according to our natural inclinations, or according to what we have been taught since our childhood. Conversely, we subconsciously tend to play down and ignore verses and passages that go against our "grain," or natural bias, or theological training.
  3. Many a times, we go by the "sound" and "feel" of the passages, not seeing exactly what they say
  4. Many a times, we take the verses and passages out of their contexts, giving them a meaning which may be different from what they actually mean when seen in their contexts. This is a very common mistake in popular writings.
  5. We may not take into account the genre of the verse or passage and may apply different rules. The Bible consists of passages of many genres – historical sections, poetical sections, wisdom literature, prophetic books, letters, apocalypse. The gospels themselves contain historical narratives, parables, and prophecies. A literal/ historically oriented person may interpret poetical/ prophetic passages literally and reach wrong conclusions. Historical passages have to be interpreted the way any other history is interpreted; poetical passages the way other poetry is interpreted. Otherwise the results can be erroneous. If poetical passages are interpreted literally, the results can be quite funny.
  6. Closely connected with genres is the use of figures of speech, which appear in most of the books of the Bible, in all genres. All kinds of figures of speech – similes, metaphors, personifications, apostrophes, hyperboles, euphemisms, antithesis, oxymorons, epigrams, ironies, puns, metonymies, synechdoches, transferred epithets, litotes, interrogations, exclamations, climaxes and anticlimaxes all make up the rich language of the Bible. In fact, many of the examples of figures of speech in Wren and Martin’s "English Grammar and Composition" are drawn from the Bible! A person who insists in literally interpreting such verses is going to come up with ridiculous interpretations! "Give ear to my words, O LORD…" says the psalmist (Psa 5:1). Is the Lord to literally give His ear away?
  7. Many a times we fail to recognize the big difference between a verse "might" mean something, and the verse "does" say or mean something. We assume that a verse does say or mean something when actually it just might mean that; there may be other meanings which we have missed out because of our in-built biases.
  8. Connected with this, many a times, we use ambiguous passages to base our beliefs on, generally because one of their meanings "fit" in with our natural mold or our pre-formed bias. Such passages may sensibly have more than one meanings, and the correct one may be the one we have rejected! Worse are the biased translations from ambiguous Hebrew/ Greek originals. Being in black-and-white hard print and looking unambiguous in English, we assume that the originals are also unambiguous! Whereas the black-and-white hard print is only a translator’s bias or theological training showing through!
  9. Even unambiguous Greek originals face the translation problem. We use translations for our normal reading, and these translations are many a times, wrong! Although translations are necessary for regular reading, when it comes to establishing doctrines, there is no shortcut to going back to the original Hebrew/ Greek. This is all the more necessary since translations are also done by people who already have theological bias built into their belief systems, and translate verses in a biased manner.
  10. People try to find hidden meanings in the Bible, using complicated schemes to arrive at them. The Bible was given by God with the purpose of communicating his message to human beings who were generally simple, uneducated folk. Jesus also spoke in the plainest possible language in such a way as to be understood by the simplest, uneducated people – people like fishermen, farmers etc., using everyday language and examples. If there were hidden meanings in the Bible, the fundamental purpose of clear communication itself would have been defeated. God is a good communicator and He does not play "find the hidden meaning" games with us. The "Bible Codes" fad of today is plain rubbish. The message of the Bible from beginning to end is essentially – get right with God by repenting of your sins. "Repenting of sins" is the one thing man does not like to do, and will go to any extent to avoid it. He will come up with his religions, his complicated theologies and his hidden meanings; all to avoid repenting of his sins.
  11. With prophetic and apocalyptic passages, we can tend to superimpose our imaginations on what the passage actually says, giving meanings to them, which may not be the correct ones.
  12. We can make the mistake of considering analogies as proofs. Analogies don't prove anything. They are very useful for communicating, and all good writers and orators use them extensively for that purpose. They communicate clearly and simply what may be difficult-to-understand concepts. However, they don't "prove" anything, nor are they any good as evidence. In a court of law, analogy goes nowhere. The opposition has it thrown out as irrelevant as soon as it raises its head. How many Christians would accept as truth, Krishna’s two analogies in the Bhagavad Geeta to illustrate the principle of re-incarnation (2:13, "As the embodied soul passes in this body from boyhood to youth to old age, similarly the soul passes into another body" and 2:22, "As old and worn out garments are given up and new ones are accepted by a man, the soul similarly gives up the old and worn out body and accepts another new body.") None! Yet in popular Christian books, analogies are regularly touted as proofs, and blindly accepted by many.
  13. Another big mistake we can make is "generalization from a few specifics". And if the "few specifics" are actually "exceptions to the rule", we end up drawing a conclusion which is the exact opposite to what the Bible teaches. An example of this is in 2 Chron. 20, where God tells Jehoshaphat he will not have to fight the battle (v 17), but that God will give him victory. Many take this example and use it to arrive at the doctrine "Leave all your spiritual battles to the Lord, He will deliver you". But the general teaching of the Bible is that spiritual battle is primarily our responsibility. From Eph 6:10-18, who is to "put on the full armor of God" – we, or God?
  14. Closely connected with this is the mistake of using passages which are dealing with a different issue, to arrive at conclusions regarding another issue. In the example of 2 Chron. 20, the issue is a physical war that Jehoshaphat was facing with the Moabites and Ammonites. To deal with the issue of spiritual warfare which we face, we have to turn to passages like Eph 6:10-18, which specifically deal with the issue of spiritual warfare.
  15. We use human logic and reasoning to arrive at inferences and deductions from various passages in the Bible. This has its place of course and is many a times necessary for Bible interpretation, but has to be done with extreme caution. Human logic and reasoning can be faulty and the inferences drawn may be incorrect, especially if some of the above rules are ignored.
  16. When it comes to passages which contradict our understanding, we tend to ignore them, minimize their significance, give inadequate or unreasonable explanations or simply brush them under the carpet. Those who are more advanced in religion, use more pious-sounding phrases like "It’s the mystery of God; you have to take it by faith," and the cover-ups become more sophisticated.

We can now easily see how such vastly differing, indeed opposing, views get to be formed from the same Bible. Pick and choose certain passages while ignoring others, take them out of context, give meanings to them which were never intended, impose your imaginations on them, use analogies as proofs, and you can easily make the Bible say whatever you want it to say! In fact just as a good lawyer can argue convincingly from either side and win the case, just as a good debater can debate on either of the opposing positions and still win the debate, a good arguer can present a convincing case for either Calvinism or Arminism, Trinitarianism or Unitarianism! Unfortunately, most popular books are more like one-sided cases presented by lawyers who are more interested in winning their cases and not in arriving at the truth. And truth is not arrived at by a lawyer presenting his case, but by a judge sifting through evidence presented by both the sides in a critical, neutral, unbiased and objective manner.

However, we (those who are interested not in winning cases, but in arriving at the truth, and living by it) can’t afford such luxuries as are offered by the pandering to our emotions by the sixteen escape routes above. Our objective is to arrive at what the Bible as a whole says, in a neutral, unbiased and objective way. And to do that, we have to guard against the above natural and subjective tendencies and weaknesses in ourselves. Based on the above tendencies and weaknesses I have seen in myself and others, I now personally use the following principles (corresponding to the sixteen problems above) to arrive at what the Bible actually says about a particular issue or topic, and which we would be using in the pages to follow as we examine particular passages:

  1. Use all scriptures pertaining to the issue, leave out none. There is to be no picking and choosing of scriptures according to our likes and dislikes, natural inclinations, natural strengths or weaknesses.
  2. Guard especially against your natural inclinations. Be aware of your natural likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, theological training. Be aware that certain verses will tend to naturally and easily stick into your minds because of your natural inclinations and in-built biases.
  3. Don’t go just by the "sound" and "feel" of a verse. See exactly what it says.
  4. All these scriptures have to be understood in their contexts. As the well known saying goes – "anything taken out of context is a pretext." Yes, a pretext to bolster your favorite opinion without regard to the original meaning of the verse or passage.
  5. Interpret the various passages according to their genres – historical sections as history, poetical sections as poetry, prophetic books as prophecies, letters as letters etc , with the rules of the genres that they fall in, applied to them. This means that the normal, commonsense rules we apply to understand history are to be applied to historical passages, rules of poetry to poetic portions, rules of parables applied to parables etc.
  6. Recognize the important place figures of speech occupy in the Bible. They are effective communication tools, which bring home the message sharply and clearly, and the Bible uses them generously. They have to be understood and interpreted according to their category. When Jesus said, "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" (Matt 19:24, Mark 10:25, Luke 18:25), he was using a figure of speech called "exaggeration." To be bull-headed and say that Jesus was not given to exaggerations and we have to take him literally, is to miss his point. How do we know that it was not a very common saying in those days to denote "a very difficult thing", not to be taken literally but as a sharp, effective communication tool to communicate to simple, uneducated folk?
  7. Recognize the verses which might mean something, and the verses which definitely do say or mean something. For establishing doctrines, use only the ones which definitely do say or mean something. Ignore verses or passages which may have more than one meaning, because you may erroneously choose the incorrect one!
  8. Do not use ambiguous passages for establishing doctrine. Do not even use verses which seem clear in what they are saying when looked at in a standalone manner, but which appear in ambiguous passages. For establishing doctrine, first use only those scriptures which are clear and unambiguous, and which speak directly about the subject. Fit the unclear and ambiguous scriptures, and scriptures which speak incidentally or make passing references to the subject, around the unambiguous and direct reference ones. This is like the way we build up the picture of complicated jigsaw puzzles – first fix the positions of the pieces we are sure about – the corner pieces, the side pieces and the obvious ones; then fix the remaining ones.
  9. Translation has to be accurate. Don’t use any of the translations for establishing doctrine, use the original Hebrew/Greek to arrive at the correct translation. Is this contradictory to the previous rule? No, for two reasons. First the Hebrew/ Greek words used in the Bible were all familiar day-to-day words for the hearers and readers, who would have had no problems in understanding them in their simplest, most direct, commonly understood meanings without having any need for translation or interpretation. However, they are not familiar words to us. Hebrew and Greek are not our natural languages and we need the translations. But the translations have to be according to the commonly understood and accepted meanings in the first-century A.D., not in the twentieth or twenty-first centuries. Secondly, translations are done by scholars with their own biases, using Greek dictionaries also written by biased scholars! This naturally results in biased translations, which has to be taken into account before the correct meaning can be arrived at!
  10. Don’t try to find hidden meanings and messages in the Bible. The Bible has been given by a loving God to be understood by the simplest of folks, and he has not hidden messages in it. He does not play guessing games with us, and He did not expect "the real message of the Bible" to be hidden until the computer came and made possible complicated analysis.
  11. Prophetic and apocalyptic scriptures many a times use symbols. Meanings can be given to symbols only when –
    1. the Bible itself does so e.g. Daniel 8:19-25
    2. there is total unanimity about it e.g. although the Bible does not explicitly state who the "lamb, looking as if had been slain" in Rev 5:6 is, there wouldn’t be a single Bible-knowledgable person in the whole world (non-Christians included) who disagrees that it refers to Jesus!
  12. Analogies are not to be considered as proofs, not even evidence. They are to be seen correctly as effective communication tools to communicate difficult concepts easily. Doctrines certainly cannot be built on analogies.
  13. No generalization to be drawn from one or a few examples. A generalization can be drawn only when it is taught specifically, or when there is no exception to the examples given. Even here the generalization has to be treated cautiously.
  14. To arrive at what the Bible says about a particular issue, use only the passages that deal directly with that issue. There may be principles in other issues which may not be applicable to the issue being examined.
  15. Use of human logic and reasoning to arrive at inferences and deductions from various passages has to be done with extreme caution.
  16. Adequate, reasonable and sensible explanation is to be given for apparently contradictory scriptures. They cannot be brushed under the carpet just because they don’t fit into your belief system.

These rules may seem like gigantic hurdles, but they are necessary to correctly arrive at what the Bible actually says about a particular topic. Over the years, they have served me well to keep my sanity intact. If we don’t have these rules, anybody can prove anything from the Bible! And indeed they have tried to, over the past two thousand years, with the result that today there are hundreds of sects in Christianity, each basing their beliefs on the same Bible. Even non-Christians use the Bible to "prove" something that the Bible clearly contradicts, and which no Christian would agree to (whatever be the denomination he belongs to). I have seen people use the Bible to support the belief of re-incarnation (didn’t Jesus say about John the Baptist, "he is the Elijah who was to come" in Matt 11:14?) Taking this as an example, see how it violates some of the above rules:

Rule 1: It violates rule 1 since it does not take into account many verses and passages in the Bible which clearly say that after death, there is judgment, with only two destinations – heaven or hell; there is no place for re-incarnation or purgatory. e.g. Mt. 25:31-46, Jn 5:26-29, Heb 9:27, Rev 20:11-15 etc.

Rule 2: Such an interpretation is generally advanced by people (like Hindus) who have a natural inclination to believe in re-incarnation; never by people (like Muslims) who don’t! If the ones using Matt 11:14 to support the belief of re-incarnation were aware of their natural inclination and natural in-built bias, they would be slower to attribute such an interpretation to Matt 11:14. To objectively arrive at what the Bible says about life-after-death, a Hindu has to be consciously aware of the fact that from his childhood, he has been taught re-incarnation, it has been repeated to him a large number of times, and that process itself has created in him a natural bias towards that belief.

Rule 6: Figures of speech are commonly used in the Bible, and metaphors were freely used. A metaphor is an implied simile. While a simile states that one thing is like another (e,g, "a righteous man is like a tree planted by streams of water" Psa 1:3 and "the wicked are like chaff that the wind blows away" Psa 1:4), a metaphor takes that for granted and proceeds as if the two things were one (e.g. "whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother", Mat 12:50, Mark 3:34, Luke 8:21 and "This is my body…" – Matt 26:26, Mark 14:22, Luke 22:19 and "This is my blood…" Matt 26:28, Mark 14:24, Luke 22:20). In Matt 11:14, Jesus was most probably referring to fact that the spirit and power of John the Baptist was so much like Elijah’s (Luke 1:17) that the two could be identified together – "John is the Elijah…" just as "This is my body…" and "whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother"

Rule 13: Even if one were to forcibly interpret the verse as "John the Baptist is a re-incarnation of Elijah," it would still not prove re-incarnation as a general rule, because it could very well be the one exception to the general rule! The exception about Elijah was that he did not die once like all other men! He was directly taken up into heaven without tasting death. Everybody else dies, and the general rule spelt out specifically and categorically in Hebrews 9:27 is that "man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment." Since Elijah did not "die once," perhaps he had to be re-incarnated as John the Baptist so that he could "die once" to fulfil this specific rule. Such an interpretation seems too forced to me, but the point is that even if it were true, Biblical support for re-incarnation cannot be drawn from this particular case because it could be the one exception to the general rule.

Thus if any of the above sixteen rules are violated while interpreting a verse or a section, the interpretation will most probably be wrong. These rules help us to correctly arrive at what the Bible actually says about a particular subject, prevent us from going astray, and keep our sanity intact and us safe from with wild fantasizing of imaginative men.

 

With these clear guidelines and rules in place, we will look at the way Trinitarians advance verses from the Bible as proofs supporting the doctrine of the Trinity or the divinity of Jesus. When examined against these rules, it becomes clear that many of such "proofs" are no proofs at all, they are only attempts to make the verses fit a pre-formed belief. The interpretations imposed on these verses by Trinitarians violate many of the above rules, just as the interpretation of Matt 11:14 being supportive of the belief of re-incarnation violates many of the above rules.

The following is a compendium of verses generally used by Trinitarians to support the doctrine of the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus. Their Trinitarian interpretation has been examined in the framework of the above rules, and it is clear that their forced Trinitarian interpretations generally violate some rule or the other. When you have such violations, the interpretation arrived at is generally wrong, like the interpretation of Matt 11:14 that the "Bible supports the belief of re-incarnation." The rest of this essay is built on the above rules. So if you are not agreed with these rules, you might as well stop reading here and save yourself some time and effort. For those who are interested in knowing the truth about the subject, and consider the above rules to be valid objective tools to arrive at the truth, the following pages may prove to be food for thought.