May 2022 -

Hebrews 1:10-12 is typically seen as a declaration about the preexistence of Jesus. Set within a series of contrasts between the Son and the angels, it quotes a passage from Psalm 102 in which the Psalmist declares to the Father that “You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands.” Most theologians think this quote is repurposed in Hebrews 1 to identify the Son as the creator and therefore consider it key evidence for the doctrine of the Trinity.

Tagged Christ as Creator, Creation, Creator of Heavens and Earth, Deity of Christ, Hebrews 1:10

Is Christ the Creator in Hebrews 1:10?

Hebrews 1:10-12 is typically seen as a declaration about the preexistence of Jesus. Set within a series of contrasts between the Son and the angels, it quotes a passage from Psalm 102 in which the Psalmist declares to God, “You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands.” Most theologians think that Hebrews 1 repurposes this line such that God speaks it to Jesus. Therefore they consider it key evidence for the doctrine of the Trinity.

However, the Psalm’s original context tells a different story. It records the desperate prayer of a man about to lose his life at the hand of his enemies. He understands this threat to be God’s impending judgment upon him, and he implores YHWH not to take him away “at the mid-point of my days.” He then acknowledges YHWH as the creator of the heavens and earth who will judge the wicked but establish the righteous, and bases his hope for deliverance upon this fact.

Prayer for deliverance is a common theme in the Messianic Psalms cited in the New Testament. For example, in the synoptic gospels, Jesus quotes portions of the prayers from Psalm 22 and Psalm 31 while hanging on the cross.¹ Even the author of Hebrews places a prayer from Psalm 22 on the lips of Jesus in Hebrews 2:12. Thus the Messianic Psalms are consistently interpreted by the authors of the New Testament as the Messiah’s prayer to the Father. However, it is thought that Hebrews 1:10-12 violates the established pattern by presenting the Psalmist’s prayer as the words of the Father to the Messiah.

When an interpretation involves such an unusual and counterintuitive reversal of speaker and addressee, we have good reason to consider whether it is in fact correct. We will therefore look at three specific passages in the book of Hebrews that shed a great deal of light on how the author views the quote in Hebrews 1:10-12. Then we will consider an alternative reading of Hebrews 1 that better aligns with the evidence presented.

Hebrews 12:23-26 – The Judge of the Heavens and Earth

When Hebrews 1:10-12 is used for apologetic purposes, the act of creation in vs. 10 is usually emphasized. But the rest of the quote is equally enlightening because it tells us that the creator of the heavens and earth is the same person who will eschatologically judge them:

Hebrews 1:10-12 (ESV) — 10 And, “You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth [ge] in the beginning, and the heavens [ouranos] are the work of your hands; 11 they will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment, 12 like a robe you will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will have no end.”

Since the creator and the judge are the same person, if the judge is clearly identified somewhere else in the book, that will also tell us who the creator is in Hebrews 1:10-12. Fortunately, there is just such an identification. Trinitarian theologian Thomas Ferrar notes:

…the passage most similar to Hebrews 1:10-12 in its usage is Hebrews 12:23-26. This is the only other passage in which both ouranos [heavens] and ge [earth] appear. Furthermore, both texts prophesy impending trauma for the heavens and earth. Hebrews 12:23-26 is therefore a very important part of the context of Hebrews 1:10-12, and a close study of the one is likely to shed much light on the other.” ²

Ferrar highlights this parallel in order to refute alternative readings of Hebrews 1:10-12 which claim that “heavens” and “earth” refer to something other than the original Genesis creation. For our own investigation, however, the significance of the parallel between Hebrew 1:10-12 and Hebrews 12:23-26 is that God and Jesus are distinguished from each other in the latter passage, with Jesus presented as the mediator and God the Father presented as the judge:

Hebrews 12:22-26 (ESV) — 22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. 25 See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. 26 At that time his voice shook the earth [ge], but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens [ouranos].

Ferrar shows that “heavens” and “earth“ in Hebrews 1:10 refers to the original Genesis creation. But in so doing, he misses the greater point: Hebrews 12 identifies God the Father as the one who will judge them.³ This means the creator in Hebrews 1:10-12 is the Father, since the judge and the creator are there identified as the same person.

Hebrews 5:7 – The Identity of the Petitioner in Psalm 102

A central theme in the book of Hebrews is the fact that Jesus became our eternal High Priest through the suffering of death. Hebrews 5:7 makes the point that Jesus prayed for God to deliver him from death but ultimately learned obedience by choosing to go to the cross.

When we compare Hebrews 5:7 to the Greek Septuagint translation of the Psalm 102,⁴ it becomes apparent that the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane is understood to parallel the prayer of the Psalmist. There are no less than five exact linguistic matches to Ps. 101:1-6 LXX, as well as another key match to Ps. 101:25 LXX, where the petitioner explicitly implores YHWH not to let him die:

Psalm 101:1-6, 25 LXX (NETS)

Hebrews 5:7 (ESV)

1 A prayer. Pertaining to the poor one. When he is weary and pours out his petition [deesis] before the Lord. 2 O Lord, listen [eisakouo] to my prayer, and let my cry [krauge] come to you. 3 Do not turn away your face from me. In the day when I am afflicted, incline your ear to me; in the day when I call upon you, listen to me speedily, 4 because my days [hemera] vanished like smoke and my bones were burnt up like firewood. 5 My heart was stricken like grass and it withered, because I forgot to eat my bread. 6 Due to the sound of my groaning, my bone clung to my flesh [sarx]…25 Do not take me away at the mid-point of my days [hemera], while your years are in generation of generations!”

In the days [hemera] of his flesh [sarx], Jesus offered up prayers [deesis] and supplications, with loud cries [krauge] and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard [eisakouo] because of his reverence.

The author of Hebrews has thus identified the petitioner in Psalm 101 LXX as the Messiah. Immediately following this plea for YHWH not to take him away “at the mid-point of my days,” we come to the portion of the Psalm quoted in Heb. 1:10-12. Here the tone of the Psalmist changes from desperate plea to reverent faith. He is facing God’s judgment at the hand of his enemies, but he worships YHWH all the same, since he knows that at the final judgment YHWH will restore Zion and her people according to the promise of a New Covenant.⁵

From a Messianic perspective, this section of the Psalm represents the turning point when the Messiah’s plea for deliverance gives way to humble submission. He longs to avoid the cross, but knows it is necessary to mediate the New Covenant. Therefore he acknowledges God as creator and judge and places his faith in God’s eternal promises despite the suffering that must come first. It is especially fitting for the Messiah to be identified as the speaker in Ps. 101:26-29 LXX, given the Father’s prophetic address to the Messiah in Is. 42:5-7:

Father to the Messiah (Is. 42:4-7)

Messiah to the Father (Ps. 101:26-29 LXX)

5 Thus says God, the LORD [YHWH], who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it: 6 “I am the LORD [YHWH]; I have called you (Messiah) in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, 7 to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.

26 At the beginning it was you, O Lord, who founded the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands. 27 They will perish, but you will endure, and they will all become old like a garment. Like clothing you will change them, and they will be changed. 28 But you are the same, and your years will not fail. 29 The sons of your slaves shall encamp, and their offspring shall prosper for ever.

It is very unlikely that the author of Hebrews would subvert the Psalm’s original context by putting the prayer of the Psalmist on the lips of the Father in Hebrews 1:10-12, only to revert back to the original context and identify Jesus as the petitioner in Hebrews 5:7. The more plausible scenario is that the author expected the quote to be read according to its original context in Hebrews 1, so that the striking correspondences between the Psalmist and the Messiah could be further explored in Hebrews 5.

Hebrews 1:7 – The Creator of the Heavens and Earth

In Hebrews 1:7, the author describes the angels with a quote from Psalm 104 that depicts them attending God the Father as he creates the heavens and earth:

Psalm 104:1-5 (Brenton) — 1 A Psalm of David. Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, thou art very great; thou hast clothed thyself with praise and honour: 2 who dost robe thyself with light as with a garment; spreading out the heaven [ouranos] as a curtain. 3 Who covers his chambers with waters; who makes the clouds his chariot; who walks on the wings of the wind. 4 Who makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flaming fire. 5 Who establishes the earth [ge] on her sure foundation: it shall not be moved for ever.

Hebrews 1:7 only mentions a snippet of this complete thought, because it assumes the reader is familiar with the original context. The portion quoted in Hebrews is not easily divorced from this background, since it is sandwiched in between two statements about God performing the act of creation. The obvious implication of the Psalm is that the one who makes his angels “winds” and “a flaming fire” is the same person who creates the heaven and earth. In Hebrews 1:7, this person is understood to be the Father.

We may also observe that the description of angels as a “flame of fire” in Psalm 104:4 recalls YHWH’s descent upon Sinai in “fire” (Ex. 19:18) with a “fiery law” coming from his right hand (Deut. 33:2). Strikingly, the Jewish scribes who produced the Greek Septuagint substituted the word “angels” (Grk=angelos) for “fiery law” (Heb=eshdath) in the latter verse.

Psalm 104:32 further hints at the Sinai event by stating that YHWH is the one who “looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke” – a description of the violent theophany that occurred when the law was delivered (cp. Ex. 19:18). This frightening scene is also suggestive of the final judgment. In Psalm 104:35, David calls upon YHWH to remove the “lawless” (Grk=anomos) ones from the earth.

The author of Hebrews has these connections in view. Hebrews 2:1-2 notes that the angels delivered the law and violators were justly judged. Later, Hebrews 12:18-29 portrays the Sinai event as a small scale picture of the final judgment. It describes YHWH’s descent on Sinai in “blazing fire” and “whirlwind,”⁶ both terms which hearken back to the description of angels in Hebrews 1:7. As the mediators of the law, the angels would attend YHWH at the final judgment just as they had attended him at the creation.

Thus the quote in Hebrews 1:7 establishes the Father – attended by his angels – as the creator and judge of the heavens and earth.⁷ This precedent is strategically placed just before Hebrews 1:10–12, preparing the reader to identify the Father as creator and judge there as well.⁸

Revisiting Hebrews 1

The above passages show that the author of Hebrews views Psalm 102 according to its original context, interpreting it as the words of the Messiah to the Father and not the other way around. We will therefore reexamine the arguments laid out in Hebrews 1 with this in mind.

STRUCTURE

Interpreters generally agree that Hebrews 1 contains a series of contrasts between the Son and the angels which are made by quoting various passages from the Old Testament. Most interpreters think the final contrast begins in Hebrews 1:7, which contains a quote about the angels, and concludes with Hebrews 1:8-13, which is assumed to be two successive Old Testament quotes about the Son: But of the Son he says X and Y.

This is, of course, a grammatically valid way to read the text. But we have shown that such a reading wrenches the quoted Psalm out of context and conflicts with the author’s own interpretation of the quote. That gives us cause to take a closer look at how the word “and” (kai) is used at the beginning of vs. 10.

As one might expect, the author of Hebrews frequently strings together multiple Old Testament quotes about the same subject with the conjunction “and” (kai). But it turns out that every time the author does this, he also adds the word “again”:

Heb 1:5 (ESV)– 5 For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”? Or [kai] again [palin], “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son”?
Heb 2:11-13 (ESV) — 11 For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, 12 saying, “I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.” 13 And [kai] again [palin], “I will put my trust in him.” And [kai] again [palin], “Behold, I and the children God has given me.”
Heb 4:4-5 (ESV) — 4 For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” 5 And [kai] again [palin] in this passage he said, “They shall not enter my rest.”
Heb 10:30 (ESV) — 30 For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And [kai] again [palin], “The Lord will judge his people.”

When we consider how this phrase “kai palin” is used particularly in Hebrews 1, we find that it indicates multiple Old Testament quotes are being applied to the Son within a given contrast. On the other hand, when “kai” stands alone, it signals the start of a new contrast between the angels and the Son.⁹ This is shown below:

Contrast 1

Vs. 5: For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”? And [kai] again [palin], “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son”?

Vs. 6: But [de] when he again brings his firstborn into the world he says. . .

Contrast 2:

Vs. 7: And [kai] of the angels he says. . .

Vs. 8: But [de] of the Son. . .

Contrast 3:

Vs. 10 And, [kai] “You Lord, laid the foundation. . .”

Vs. 13 But [de] to which of the angels has he ever said. . .

Since the kai in vs. 10 is not followed by palin like it is in vs. 5, the author is most likely beginning a new contrast between the angels and the Son.¹⁰ The structure of the third contrast above is very similar to Hebrews 10:37-39, which also launches into a standalone quote about the Father coming in judgment and then draws a contrast with the people of God using the word “but” (de):

Hebrews 1:10-14 (NET)

Hebrews 10:37-39 (NET)

10 And, “You founded the earth in the beginning, Lord, and the heavens are the works of your hands. 11 They will perish, but you continue. And they will all grow old like a garment, 12 and like a robe you will fold them up and like a garment they will be changed, but you are the same and your years will never run out.”

13 But [de] to which of the angels has he ever said, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”? 14 Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to serve those who will inherit salvation?

37 For, “Just a little longer and he who is coming will arrive and not delay. 38 But my righteous one will live by faith, and if he shrinks back, I take no pleasure in him.”

39 But [de] we are not among those who shrink back and thus perish, but are among those who have faith and preserve their souls.

PURPOSE OF THE FINAL CONTRAST

It is often claimed that Hebrews 1:10-12 can’t be read in its original context since a quote about the Father wouldn’t contribute anything to this series of contrasts between the Son and the angels. After all, angels are never explicitly mentioned in the passage. But it turns out that the author has carefully prepared the reader to assume their presence.

Hebrews 1:7 lays the groundwork with a quote from Psalm 104, which in context depicts the angels attending the Father at the creation. The Psalm later implies they will do the same at the judgment.¹¹ This points to the presence of angels in Hebrews 1:10-12, since it similarly quotes a Psalm that describes the Father as creator and judge.

Indeed, it was understood that the Father would carry out the judgment mentioned in Hebrews 1:10-12 by means of his angels.¹² As mediators of the law, they had been given the authority to execute its sentence. But while the angels are God’s powerful agents of the judgment in Hebrews 1:10-12, the Son is the one seated beside the Father in authority over them, as the contrast in Hebrews 1:13-14 points out.

Yet there is another layer of significance behind the quote in Hebrews 1:10-12. Though virginally conceived Jesus was nevertheless mortal, born under the sentence of the law, and thus “made a little lower than the angels” like the rest of mankind.¹³ His flesh intensely desired to avoid what his mission required: suffering at the hand of his enemies, who would falsely accuse him, flog him, and brutally murder him. This is undoubtedly why Hebrews 5:7 identifies the plea for deliverance in Psalm 102 as a Messianic prayer.

But the portion of the Psalm quoted in Hebrews 1 corresponds to the moment Jesus chose the way of the cross, making it a powerful testimony to his obedient faith.¹⁴ The quotation acknowledges the Father as creator and judge, recognizing that the creation is fallen and therefore destined for judgment according to the sentence of the law. By implication, the angels’ role is to carry out this judgement, and the Son knows that obedience requires him to experience a dreadful foretaste.

He therefore puts his faith in the eternality of God, which assures him that God’s promises regarding Zion, her King, and her people will inevitably be fulfilled.¹⁵ This enables him to do what the angels never could: make permanent purification for sin by paying the penalty of the law with his innocent life.

Hebrews 1:13-14 completes the contrast, pointing out that his obedient sacrifice has resulted in his elevation to the Father’s right hand, while the angels who previously had authority over Jesus in his mortal state have now been placed under his command to subjugate his enemies and secure the salvation of his people.

This final contrast is especially fitting because it concludes the author’s cumulative case in Hebrews 1 by reasserting the original thesis. He began in Hebrews 1:3-4 by telling us that Jesus a) made purification for sin, and b) sat down above the angels at the right hand of God. So also at his conclusion, Hebrew 1:10-12 represents the moment Jesus chose to make purification for sin, and Hebrews 1:13-14 reminds us that he subsequently sat down at God’s right hand with the angels sent out under his authority.

CONCLUSION

An accurate interpretation of Hebrews 1:10-12 must correctly determine whether or not the author of Hebrews uses Psalm 102 in context. The precedent set by the New Testament for all other Messianic Psalms is to place Christ – and not the Father – in the role of the Psalmist. And when we examine other passages in Hebrews that have bearing on Hebrews 1:10-12, we find the author views the Psalm in exactly this way.

Our assessment of Hebrews 1 confirms this conclusion. Despite superficial appearances, a careful reading shows that Hebrews 1:10-12 is not connected to the previous quote about the Son. This allows us to recognize the Psalm for what it is: a beautiful and deeply significant depiction of the Messiah’s obedient faith as the ultimate reason he was elevated above the angels.

E.g. Matt. 27:46, Lk. 23:46. ↵
See http://www.dianoigo.com/publications/You_Lord_in_the_beginning.pdf , p. 14 ↵
The “changing” (Heb. 1:12) or “shaking” (Heb. 12:26) of the heavens and earth refers to the final judgment. It involves the violent alteration of the inanimate creation and its inhabitants, with the final result that the wicked are removed while the righteous are preserved (e.g. Isaiah 51:6, Haggai 2:6-7). Although Christ is presented as the one who will judge on God’s behalf elsewhere in the New Testament, the book of Hebrews highlights Christ’s role as mediator and God’s role as the ultimate judge before whom Christ intercedes. This can be traced throughout the book in places like Heb. 4:11-14, 7:23-25, and 10:21, 29-31. ↵
Psalm 102 in the Masoretic Text is Psalm 101 in the LXX. Hebrews 1:10-12 specifically quotes the Septuagint translation of Psalm 102, since the word “Lord” is not present in the Hebrew text. ↵
Ps. 102:11-17 ↵
The Greek word thyella carries the sense of blowing wind in a storm ↵
This is further confirmed in Hebrews 2:10 and 3:3-4, where the Father is expressly distinguished from the Son as the creator. ↵
Hebrews 1:2 is often claimed to support the popular reading of Hebrews 1:10-12. In this verse, most translations say that God created the “world” through the Son. This is unfortunately misleading. The word usually rendered “world” is aion, which actually means “ages” rather than planet earth. The idea that God created the ages through the Son is likely a Hebraic way of saying that God has shaped human history with the Messiah in view. In other words, it refers to God’s activity across Israel’s history in order to prepare the nation for the Messiah and to bring him about from a particular lineage at a particular time (e.g. Eph. 3:8-12). It may also refer to God’s salvific activity with the Gentiles in the ages following the Messiah’s death and resurrection (e.g. Eph. 2:4-7). But regardless, the creator of these “ages” is identified as the Father in Heb. 1:2, which actually supports reading Heb. 1:10-12 in its original context. ↵
For more on the kai/de structure, see: https://www.angelfire.com/space/thegospeltruth/TTD/verses/hebrews1_10.html ↵
These kai–de contrasts are not readily apparent to the casual reader because the words kai (most commonly rendered “and”) and de (most commonly rendered “but”) can be translated several different ways, and translations vary in how they render these words at key points in the chapter. ↵
See our previous discussion on Heb. 1:7. ↵
God judged Israel and her enemies by the hand of angels in the OT (e.g. 1 Chr. 21:16, 2 Chr. 32:21), and the final judgment is expected to be carried out by angels in the NT (e.g. 2 Thess. 1:6-10, Rev. 15:7-8). ↵
Heb. 2:6–9. ↵
See our previous discussion on Heb. 5:7. ↵
That Hebrews 1:10-12 quotes an expression of faith in God’s promises is confirmed by Psalm 102:28, the verse that immediately follows the quoted portion: “The children of your servants shall dwell secure; their offspring shall be established before you.” Psalm 102:23-28 is also paralleled by Psalm 102:11-22, which similarly displays the Psalmist’s faith despite facing death at the hand of his enemies. ↵

My Lord and My God in John 20:28: Two Distinct Individuals

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In John 20:28, Thomas beheld the resurrected Christ and famously exclaimed: “My Lord and my God!” One way to interpret this statement is to assume that Thomas was applying both titles to Jesus. Trinitarian apologists naturally choose this option, and further claim that Thomas was therefore identifying Jesus as YHWH God himself.

Tagged Deity of Christ, Doubting Thomas, Gospel of John, Is Jesus God, John 20:28

The Seven Spirits of God: Holy Spirit, Angels, or Both? (Part 2)

Holy Spirit

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In this article, we’ll dig into two key texts identified by scholars as the basis for John’s portrayal of the Seven Spirits of God. Zechariah 4:2-10 is generally seen as the primary source of the “seven eyes” and “seven torches of fire” metaphors that describe the seven spirits, while Isaiah 11:1-3 (LXX) is thought to shed additional light on the discussion. We’ll examine each of these passages in turn.

Tagged Holy Spirit, Isaiah 11, Revelation 1:4, Revelation 3:1, Revelation 4:5

The Seven Spirits of God: Holy Spirit, Angels, or Both? (Pt 2)

In our previous article, we discovered what the chain of custody in the book of Revelation reveals about the Seven Spirits of God. In this article, we will dig into two key texts identified by most scholars as the basis for John’s portrayal of these mysterious figures. Zechariah 4:2-10 is generally seen as the primary source of the “seven eyes” and “seven torches of fire” metaphors that John used, while Isaiah 11:1-3 (LXX) is thought to shed additional light on how the Holy Spirit relates to the discussion. We’ll examine each of these passages in turn.

Zechariah

Interpreters naturally turn to Zechariah 4 when assessing John’s imagery, since this mentions seven “eyes of YHWH” (Zech. 4:10) and seven “lamps” (Zech. 4:2). But this is not the only time the prophet mentions YHWH’s “eyes.” We will briefly examine each occurrence to gain a complete picture of what these “eyes” are and how they function. In particular, we’ll look at passages in Zechariah 3, 4, and 12.

Zechariah 3

Zechariah 3:8-9 — Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, you and your friends who sit before you, for they are men who are a sign: behold, I will bring my servant the Branch. For behold, on the stone that I have set before Joshua, on a single stone with seven eyes, I will engrave its inscription, declares the LORD of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day.

Zechariah first mentions the notion of “seven eyes” in his vision about the high priest Joshua ben Jehozadak. In this vision, Joshua has been admitted into the heavenly temple to participate in a divine council meeting of angels regarding the fate of Jerusalem now that the Babylonian Exile has ended.¹ The setting is especially significant because Psalm 11:4 states that the heavenly temple is the location of YHWH’s “eyes.”

Joshua is purified of his sin and recommissioned to serve in the earthly temple about to be rebuilt (3:4-7). But the vision also looks beyond Joshua’s era to a future day. We are told that he represents the “Branch,” a title for the Messianic Davidic ruler to come. He is given a stone with “seven eyes” and YHWH promises to remove the iniquity of the land (3:8-9).

We gain further insight into the meaning of this scene by considering a related scenario in Isaiah.² In Isa. 1:15-16, God’s “eyes” observe the sin taking place in Jerusalem. In Isaiah 4:2-5, Jerusalem is purified of that sin so that the “Branch” may dwell there:

Isa 1:15-16 — 15 When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. 16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil.

Isaiah 4:2, 4-5 — 2 In that day the branch of the LORD shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be the pride and honor of the survivors of Israel. 3 And he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy…4 when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgment and by a spirit of burning. 5 Then the LORD will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, and smoke and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory there will be a canopy.

The sequence here is striking: 1) YHWH’s “eyes” observe the iniquity of his people, 2) he judges the rebels, and 3) his presence returns via cloud and flame. This recalls the activity of the angels who functioned as YHWH’s “eyes” during Israel’s wilderness wanderings and throughout her history (see our previous article for more on this). We may therefore summarize the parallels between Zechariah 3 and Isaiah 1-4 as follows:

Zechariah 3

Isaiah 1-4

Joshua is identified as a brand “plucked from the fire” and his iniquity is removed by a group of angels in same the heavenly temple where YHWH’s “eyes” are located. (3:2-5).

A stone with seven “eyes” is presented to Joshua, who symbolizes the Messianic Branch. Iniquity is removed from the land and peace ensues (3:8-10)

YHWH’s “eyes” observe iniquity in Jerusalem (1:15-16) and we are told iniquity will be removed from Jerusalem by a “spirit of burning” (3:16-4:4)

The Messianic Branch dwells in the land, which is protected by pillar of cloud by day and flame by night, recalling the activity of the angels who oversaw the exodus (4:2,5)

These connections suggest the possibility that the stone in Zechariah 3 represents Jerusalem, which is cleansed of sin by YHWH’s seven “eyes” and presented to the Messiah. We might reasonably conclude that the “seven eyes” in Zech. 3:9 represent the group of angels who removed Joshua’s sin in Zech. 3:4-5, since the vision occurred in the heavenly temple where YHWH’s “eyes” are located.

The sequence in Isaiah appears to support this identification, since it recalls the activity of the seven angels who protected Israel but also judged her sin during the exodus in their capacity as YHWH’s “eyes.” These exodus angels functioned similarly to the purifying “spirit of judgment” and “spirit of burning” in Isaiah 4:4 that many interpreters take to be the Holy Spirit.³

Zechariah 4

Zechariah 4:2, 10 — 2 And he said to me, “What do you see?” I said, “I see, and behold, a lampstand all of gold, with a bowl on the top of it, and seven lamps on it. . .” 10 “. . .These seven are the eyes of the LORD, which range through the whole earth.”

In this vision, Zechariah sees a menorah with seven lamps flanked on either side by an olive tree. The fact that there are seven lamps implies a connection with the seven eyes of YHWH mentioned a few verses later. Revelation 4-5 similarly connects the seven torches of fire (Rev. 4:5) with the seven eyes (Rev. 5:6). Many scholars therefore think John’s vision alludes to the “eyes” and “fire” images from this passage in Zechariah.

Lamps and Eyes: The Precedent

The Zechariah 4 connection between “lamps” and “eyes” may actually have an earlier OT precedent. A generation before Zechariah, the prophet Zephaniah delivered a warning about the imminent destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. His prophecy specifically features “lamps”:

Zephaniah 1:12, 3:11-12 — At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men who are complacent, those who say in their hearts, ‘The LORD will not do good, nor will he do ill.’. . .3:11 “On that day you shall not be put to shame because of the deeds by which you have rebelled against me; for then I will remove from your midst your proudly exultant ones, and you shall no longer be haughty in my holy mountain. But I will leave in your midst a people humble and lowly. They shall seek refuge in the name of the LORD. . .

Commenters generally regard the “lamps” as a reference to the Babylonians who would soon invade Jerusalem. Yet, the prophecy stipulates that the prideful would be punished while the humble would be protected. This was well outside the capability and agenda of Nebuchadnezzar’s army. Therefore these “lamps” are most likely symbolic of the spiritual realm, which could discern who deserved punishment and influence the Babylonians to act accordingly.⁴

The prophet Ezekiel, a contemporary of Zephaniah, gives us further insight into the spiritual realm at the time of the Babylonian invasion. He similarly prophesied the imminent fall of Jerusalem, but instead of lamps, Ezekiel listed seven angels who would search Jerusalem in their capacity as YHWH’s “eyes”:

Ezekiel 7:9 — And my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity. I will punish you according to your ways, while your abominations are in your midst. Then you will know that I am the LORD, who strikes.

Ezekiel 9:4-6 — 4 And the LORD said to [the man clothed in linen], “Pass through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it.” 5 And to the others he said in my hearing, “Pass through the city after him, and strike. Your eye shall not spare, and you shall show no pity. 6 Kill old men outright, young men and maidens, little children and women, but touch no one on whom is the mark. . .

By comparing Ezekiel 7:9 with Ezekiel 9:4-6, we see that the seven angels in Ezekiel 9 function as YHWH’s eyes. The latter scene clearly describes events that would occur in the spiritual realm at the time of the Babylonian invasion. Taken together with Zephaniah’s prophecy, we are given a picture of YHWH’s “lamps” or “eyes” – depicted by Ezekiel as angelic beings – judging the city of Jerusalem by the hand of the Babylonians.

YHWH’s Eyes and the Holy Spirit

Zechariah 4 also connects the menorah vision with a figure named Zerubabbel, who was Judah’s governor at that time. After a mountain is leveled before him, he brings forward a stone to complete the temple building project. This sequence is depicted as an act of grace accomplished by the Holy Spirit (Zech. 4:5-6). Scholars widely recognize the implication that the seven lamps or eyes are a symbol for the Holy Spirit:

Zechariah 4:5-6 — 5 Then the angel who talked with me answered and said to me, “Do you not know what these are?” I said, “No, my lord.” 6 Then he said to me, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts.

We find precedent for this as well in earlier Biblical texts. Jewish tradition identifies the unnamed figure in Ezekiel 9 who marked the righteous for protection as the angel Gabriel.⁵ Perhaps this tradition arose due to the biblical account of Gabriel’s interaction with Daniel in Babylon, since Daniel was a righteous inhabitant of Jerusalem who was protected from harm throughout the Babylonian captivity.

Gabriel was sent in response to Daniel’s prayer of repentance at the end of the exile. In this prayer, Daniel asked YHWH to favorably direct his “eyes” toward Jerusalem:

Daniel 9:17 — Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face [Heb=paniym] to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy.

Daniel connects YHWH’s “eyes” and “ears” with YHWH’s paniym, which is rendered “face” or “presence” in English translations of the OT. We find the very same parallelism in Psalm 34:15-17:

Psalm 34:15-17 — The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry. The face [Heb=paniym] of the LORD is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.

Here again we see that the “eyes” and “ears” of the Lord are equivalent to his paniym. This passage is focused upon YHWH’s deliverance of the righteous, and it builds upon vss. 6-8, where we are given another crucial piece of information:

Psalm 34:6-8 — This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them. Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!

The deliverance achieved by YHWH’s “eyes” and “ears” – his paniym – in vss. 15-17 is accomplished by the angel of the Lord in vss. 6-8. This indicates that in Psalm 34, YHWH’s “eyes” and “ears” are figuratively describing an “angel of his paniym” (cp. Is. 63:9), who was sent in response to David’s cry for deliverance. In similar fashion, Daniel cried out for deliverance by seeking favor from YHWH’s “eyes” and “ears,” and Gabriel was sent in response.

But this is not the only way YHWH’s paniym is used. It also refers to his Holy Spirit:

Psalm 51:11 — Cast me not away from your presence [Heb=paniym], and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

Psalm 139:7, 16 — 7 Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence [Heb=paniym]? . . . 16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

Synthesizing all of this data, it appears that YHWH’s “eyes” – also called “lamps” in Zeph. 1:12 and Zech 4:2 – are a group of angels who represent his presence and therefore in some sense constitute the Holy Spirit.

Zechariah 12

Zechariah 12 describes the final eschatological battle involving the city of Jerusalem. Here we discover that the city will be made a “stone” that is protected by YHWH’s “eyes” (12:2-4), recalling the vision in Zech. 3:8-9. This is our first signal that the “seven eyes” of YHWH are participants in the scene.

Zechariah tells us that the remnant of Judah and Jerusalem will face an invading army of Gentile nations, but YHWH will come to their rescue by fighting against their enemies and granting them supernatural strength:

Zechariah 12:4-5 — 4 On that day, declares the LORD, I will strike every horse with panic, and its rider with madness. But for the sake of the house of Judah I will keep my eyes open, when I strike every horse of the peoples with blindness. 5 Then the clans of Judah shall say to themselves, ‘The inhabitants of Jerusalem have strength through the LORD of hosts, their God.’

Later in the chapter we are given two vivid comparisons that describe the nature of this strength:

Zechariah 12:6, 8 — 6 “On that day I will make the clans of Judah like a blazing pot in the midst of wood, like a flaming torch [LXX=lampas pur] among sheaves. And they shall devour to the right and to the left all the surrounding peoples, while Jerusalem shall again be inhabited in its place, in Jerusalem. . . 8 On that day the LORD will protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them on that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the angel of the LORD, going before them.

In these two passages, we learn that YHWH’s “eyes” are involved in supplying his people with a strength that is compared to a “flaming torch” (12:6) and “the angel of the LORD” (12:8).⁶ In the Greek LXX, “flaming torch” is lampas pur. This same Greek phrase is used to describe the eyes of the angel who visited Daniel in Dan. 10:6 LXX.

It appears, then, that Zechariah 12 presents “flaming torch” and “angel of the LORD” as synonymous terms that are both related to YHWH’s “eyes.” This is further confirmed by the fact that YHWH’s “eyes” are represented by angels in Ezekiel 7-9 and by seven “lamps” (implicitly lit with flames of fire) in Zech. 4.

It is surely no coincidence that Zechariah 12 mentions both “eyes” and “flaming torch” in the same context – the two metaphors John used to describe the seven spirits in Rev. 5:6 and Rev. 4:5. This indicates that Zechariah is depicting an eschatological scene in which the people of God are supernaturally empowered to defeat their enemies by a particular group of angels that John later identified as the seven spirits of God.

But such supernatural strength has also been given to humans by the Holy Spirit. For example, David performed mighty exploits after his anointing because the Holy Spirit “rushed upon David from that day forward.” (1 Sa. 16:13). David’s supernatural empowerment likely stands in the background when Zechariah compares the strength of the people to that of David in Zech. 12:8.

The Holy Spirit anointing of David is also echoed by the “spirit of grace” that anoints the house of David in Zech. 12:10. Mark Boda identifies this “spirit of grace” as the Holy Spirit:

The pouring out (sapak) of a spirit (ruah) is an expression that appears in two other contexts of the Old Testament, both in prophetic literature (Ezek. 39:29; Joel 2:28–29). In these other instances this spirit is referred to as “my Spirit,” thus indicating more than just “a persuasion or conviction from YHWH that prompts a course of action.”13 God’s pouring out his Spirit is a declaration of his placing his unique and manifest presence upon his people.⁷

Thus the eschatological scene in Zechariah 12 describes the house of David being anointed with the same Holy Spirit power and grace that was given to their ancestor David in his day. Strikingly, a passage in Revelation 1 may also associate the grace bestowed in Zechariah 12 with the grace bestowed by the seven spirits of God:

Revelation 1:4-5, 7 — 4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth… 7 Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.

Zechariah 12:10 — 10 “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.

Zechariah 12 therefore provides further evidence suggesting that YHWH’s seven “eyes,” also known as seven “torches of fire” or seven “spirits,” describe a group of angels who collectively constitute the Holy Spirit.

Isaiah

Isaiah 11:1-3 LXX is a second passage often cited by scholars as a possible backdrop for the seven spirits of God. Beale notes that Rev. 5:5 refers to Jesus as the “root of David” just prior to mentioning the seven spirits of God. This could be an allusion to Isaiah 11:1 LXX, where we find seven characteristics of the Holy Spirit listed:⁸

Revelation 5:5-6 — 5 And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.” 6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.

Isaiah 11:1-3 (LXX) — 1 And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a blossom shall come up from his root: 2 and the Spirit of God shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom (1) and understanding (2), the spirit of counsel (3) and strength (4), the spirit of knowledge (5) and godliness (6) shall fill him; 3 the spirit of the fear of God (7). . .

Beale concludes that the seven spirits of God in Revelation correspond to the seven characteristics of the Holy Spirit listed in Is. 11:1-3 LXX. But the idea that we should infer a parallel between the seven spirits and these seven traits is tenuous, since the Masoretic Text (used by most English translations) only lists six traits.

The LXX also doesn’t organize the seven traits such that each trait corresponds to one spirit. Instead, they are laid out as three pairs of traits with one spirit assigned to each pair, followed by one spirit assigned to the final trait. That’s a total of only four spirits.

But we will assume for the moment that the parallel is legitimate and John did have this passage in mind. It turns out that most of the Holy Spirit characteristics listed in Is. 11:1-3 are explicitly attributed to angels elsewhere in scripture:

Holy Spirit (Isaiah 11:2-3 LXX)	Angels
And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom *[LXX=sophia]* and understanding. . . (Isa 11:2)	…But my lord has wisdom like *the wisdom [LXX=sophia] of the angel of God to know all things* that are on the earth.” (2 Sa. 14:20)
And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and *understanding [LXX=sunesis]*. . . (Isa 11:2)	And I heard the voice of a man in the midst of the Ulai. And he called, and said, *Gabriel, bring understanding [LXX=sunesis]* for that one [of] the vision! (Dan. 8:16)
And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel [*LXX=boule]* and strength. . . (Isa 11:2)	God is being glorified in *the counsel [LXX=boule] of holy ones*; great and fearful he is over all the ones surrounding him. (Ps. 89:7)
And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and *strength [LXX=ischus]*. . . (Isa 11:2)	Bless the LORD all you his angels, *mighty in strength [LXX=ischus]*, executing his word, to hearken to the sound of his words! (Ps. 103:20)

Since angels possess and impart the characteristics mentioned in this passage, there is no reason Isaiah 11:1-3 would prevent the seven spirits of God from being seven angels who collectively constitute the Holy Spirit.

The event anticipated by Isaiah 11:1-3 is, of course, the baptism of Jesus. At that event, the Spirit rested upon Jesus in the form of a dove and indwelled him for the duration of his ministry. It is noteworthy that the Spirit is signified by a bird, for angelic spirits are also compared to birds in the Old Testament:

Exodus 19:4 — ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore [Heb=nasa] you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.

Isaiah 63:9-10 — 9 In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried [Heb=nasa] them all the days of old. 10 But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit; therefore he turned to be their enemy, and himself fought against them.

Taken together, these two passages compare the angel who delivered Israel at the exodus to eagles transporting their young. The latter passage also sets this angel in parallel to the Holy Spirit. We find another comparison between angels and birds when God later delivered Jerusalem from the Assyrians by the hand of an angel:

Isaiah 31:5 — Like birds hovering, so the LORD of hosts will protect Jerusalem; he will protect and deliver it; he will spare and rescue it.”

Isaiah 37:33, 35-36 — 33 “Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it. … 35 For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.” 36 And the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.

It is interesting to note that in both examples above, a single angel is mentioned, but the comparison is made to multiple birds. This suggests that the angel mentioned may represent a group of angels who were active in the situation, as we would expect if these seven spirits of God indeed watched over Israel throughout her history.

A striking parallel in John’s gospel underscores this connection between angels and birds:

John 1:32 — And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend [Grk=katabaino] from heaven [Grk=ouranos] like a dove, and it remained on him.

John 1:51 — And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven [Grk=ouranos] opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending [Grk=katabaino] on the Son of Man.”

The only other instance when the Holy Spirit rested upon someone in visible form occurred at Pentecost. At that time it rested upon a group of people in the form of tongues of fire. There is a striking parallel between the account of this event and an OT description of angels:

Ps. 104:4 (LXX) — the one who makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire.

Acts 2:2-3 — 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.

In sum, both Isaiah 11:1-3 LXX and the historical event that it predicted find strong parallels in the angelic realm. This adds support to the mounting Biblical evidence that the seven spirits of God are not only angelic in nature but may also constitute the Holy Spirit.

Conclusion

This two-part study sought to identify the seven spirits of God, based upon the context of Revelation and the Bible as a whole. In part one, we examined the chain of custody for the visions in Revelation, and found that the seven spirits are seven angels who actively functioned as YHWH’s “eyes” throughout Israel’s history. We further discovered that these seven angels occupied the same slot in the chain of custody as the Holy Spirit.

In part two, we studied the two primary OT texts standing behind the “seven spirits” references in Revelation. Investigating Zechariah 3-12, we discovered that YHWH’s “eyes” are indeed best understood as angels, yet are also associated with the Holy Spirit. And looking carefully at Isaiah 11, we found numerous parallels between the Holy Spirit and angels, adding further support for our conclusions.

This investigation is not intended to definitively prove that the Holy Spirit is angelic in nature, but it does seek to present compelling evidence that has long been overlooked. This evidence contradicts the Trinitarian assertion that the Holy Spirit is the second member of a Triune God; instead it indicates that the Holy Spirit is associated with a body of YHWH’s angelic agents who interact with humans on his behalf.

While the heavenly temple is not explicitly mentioned, this scene bears the hallmarks of a “divine council” setting. A similar scene in Isaiah 6 features the commissioning of Isaiah in YHWH’s temple (see especially Is. 6:6-7, cp. Zech 3:3-4). For more on this “divine council” aspect of the scene, see Haggai, Zechariah (The Anchor Bible), Carol and Eric Myers, pp. 190-197. See also Haggai, Zechariah (NIVAC), Mark Boda, p. 251 ↵
Mark Boda points out that the vision in Zech. 3 almost certainly has Isa. 3:16-4:6 in view, since the latter passage similarly mentions the Messianic Branch, the fate of Jerusalem, and the removal of iniquity from the land. See Boda, p. 253-254. ↵
For example, Hebrew scholars Keil & Delitzsch write of Is. 4:4: “The ‘spirit’ is in both instances the Spirit of God which pervades the world, not only generating and sustaining life, but also at times destroying and sifting (Isa_30:27-28), as it does in the case before us, in which the imperishable glory described in Isa 3:5 is so prepared.” See https://biblehub.com/commentaries/kad/isaiah/4.htm. The Benson Commentary states: “The Holy Spirit may well be called a spirit of judgment, because he executes judgment in the church, and in the consciences of men, convincing sinners of sin, leading them to judge and condemn themselves, and humbling them before God. And the same Spirit may be properly called a spirit of burning, because he burns up and consumes the dross which is in the church, and in the hearts of sinners, operates like refiners’ fire, purges believers as gold and silver are purged, (Malachi 3:3,) inflames their souls with love to God and zeal for his glory, and transforms them into his holy nature and image. This was effectually done with respect to those Jews that embraced the gospel in the early days of Christianity.” See https://biblehub.com/commentaries/benson/isaiah/4.htm. ↵
The specific function of these lamps is to “search” (Heb=hapas) Jerusalem by identifying who is to be punished and who is to be protected. It is therefore instructive that YHWH’s “eyes” are similarly said to “search” out (Heb=hapas) and the wicked among his people for punishment in Amos 9:3-4: “3 If they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, from there I will search (Heb=hapas) them out and take them; and if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them. 4 And if they go into captivity before their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them; and I will fix my eyes upon them for evil and not for good.” ↵
This is stated in the Babylonian Talmud (b. Sabb. 55a). See https://www.sefaria.org/Shabbat.55a?lang=bi. ↵
While the passages assign one metaphor to the people of Judah and the other to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, it is clear that the same supernatural strength is being described; the timing and location are different, but salvation through supernatural strength is the end result in both cases. ↵
Boda, p. 485. ↵
The Book of Revelation (TNIGC), Greg Beale, p. 355. ↵

The Seven Spirits of God: Angels, Holy Spirit, or both? (Part 1)

Holy Spirit

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The enigmatic “seven spirits of God” mentioned in Revelation 1:4, 3:1, 4:5, and 5:6 have long been a mystery to theologians. Are they angels? The Holy Spirit? Could they even be both? We aren’t told explicitly, but a careful investigation into the full canon of scripture can guide us toward a solid conclusion.

Tagged Angels, Holy Spirit, Revelation 1:4, Revelation 3:1, Revelation 4:5

The Seven Spirits of God: Angels, Holy Spirit, or Both? (Pt 1)

The enigmatic “seven spirits of God” mentioned in Revelation 1:4, 3:1, 4:5, and 5:6 have long been a mystery to theologians. Are they angels? The Holy Spirit? Could they even be both? We aren’t told explicitly, but a careful investigation into the full canon of scripture can guide us toward a solid conclusion.

Our study will seek to avoid any preconceived ideas about the seven spirits as we evaluate the scriptural evidence on its own merit. In this article, we’ll begin by summarizing the competing scholarly arguments for the identity of the seven spirits of God. Then we’ll dig into the chain of custody given for the book of Revelation and discover valuable yet rarely considered evidence pointing toward a surprising conclusion.

What the Scholars Say

There is no scholarly consensus on the identity of the seven spirits of God. Nevertheless, Bible scholars generally land in one of two main camps: they identify the seven spirits as angels, or as the Holy Spirit. The table below briefly summarizes the best arguments for each position:

Seven Spirits = Angels

Seven Spirits = Holy Spirit

1. The fact that they are called “spirits” implies they are created spiritual beings. Angels & demons are both called “spirits” in scripture (Heb. 1:14, Rev. 16:14), and the Dead Sea Scrolls also use “angels” and “spirits” as parallel terms (4Q405 23 I, 8-10).

2. The fact that they are “before the throne of God” (Rev. 4:6) implies they are in service to God and have special access to him. Similar statements appear in the NT and LXX, suggesting that a select group of angels is in view:

Luke 1:19 — I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God…¹
Tobit 13:15 (LXX) — I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels, which present the prayers of the saints, and which go in and out before the glory of the Holy One.

3. The seven spirits (Rev. 1:4, 3:1, 4:5, 5:6) and the seven angels (8:2) are both said to be before God’s throne and thus appear to be the same group.²

4. Some scholars think Rev. 3:1 implies that the seven spirits are the seven angelic stars.³ It all depends on how one interprets the Greek word kai, which most commonly means “and” but occasionally means “even” or “indeed”:

Rev. 3:1 — And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and (Grk=kai) the seven stars…’

5. Just as the seven “spirits” are torches of “fire” in Rev. 4:5, so angels are both “spirits” and “fire” in Ps. 104:4 [103:4 LXX]:

Psalm 104:4 — [God] makes his angels spirits [LXX=pneuma] and his servants flames of fire.

1. When pneuma is used “as part of an apparent formula with God and Christ” as seen in Rev. 1:4, it characteristically refers to the Holy Spirit.⁴

2. The Rev. 1:4 greeting of grace and peace is fitting for the Holy Spirit, which is called “the spirit of grace” in Heb. 10:29 and which produces the fruit of “peace” in Gal. 5:22. A similar formulaic greeting of grace and peace appears in 1 Peter:

Rev. 1:4 — John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness. . .
1 Pe. 1:1-2 — Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles. . . according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

3. In Rev. 4:5 and 5:6, the seven spirits are identified as seven “torches of fire” and seven “eyes.” Most scholars think John draws this imagery from Zech. 4, where it is directly connected to the Holy Spirit.⁵

4. There is a possible parallel between the seven spirits mentioned in Rev 5:5-6 and the seven attributes of the Holy Spirit listed in Is. 11:1-3 LXX:

Isaiah 11:1-3 LXX – And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse and a blossom shall come up from his root: and the Spirit of God shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom (1) and understanding (2), the spirit of counsel (3) and strength (4), the spirit of knowledge (5) and godliness (6) shall fill him; the spirit of the fear of God (7).

Investigating the Chain of Custody

Chain of Custody

Both sets of arguments are compelling. But are they mutually exclusive? The chain of custody gives us some insight into this question. John opens Revelation by explaining the precise chain of custody for the visions contained in the book:

God Jesus Angel John “Servants” = the Seven Churches (1:1-2)

This list contains a total of five entities. The message originates with God and is channeled through Jesus, an angel, and John before it is finally made known to God’s “servants,” which clearly refers to the seven churches. Strikingly, just a few verses later we encounter another list of five entities in John’s greeting to the churches:

{God, Jesus, the Seven Spirits} John The Seven Churches (1:4-5)

Four of the five entities in each list (God, Jesus, John and the seven churches) are unquestionably the same. This suggests that the angel and the seven spirits are somehow related. Yet it also leaves us wondering where the Holy Spirit figures into the picture. What can we learn from John’s initial revelatory encounter that might tell us more?

John is met by a dramatic figure who tells him to write down his visions and send them to the seven churches. This figure has a voice like a trumpet (Rev. 1:10), the instrument blown by angels in Rev. 8-9. He also wears a golden sash (Rev. 1:13), the garb worn by angels in Rev. 15. Moreover, many of his features are identical to those of the angel who visited the prophet Daniel. The golden sash, eyes like fire, feet like burnished bronze, and roaring voice in Rev. 1:13-15 are all directly parallel to Dan. 10:5-6.⁶

The eyes “like a flame of fire” (Rev. 1:14) are especially noteworthy. This imagery is drawn from Dan. 10:6, where Daniel saw an angel with “eyes” (LXX=ophthalmos) like “flaming torches” (LXX= lampas pur). The seven spirits of God are likewise described as “eyes” (ophthalmos) in Rev. 5:6 and “torches of fire” (lampas pur) in Rev. 4:5.

However, the figure who appears to John speaks the words of Jesus in the first person. Many interpreters therefore assume this is a direct appearance by the glorified Christ. The problem with this assumption is the chain of custody. The same figure tells John, “I will show you what must take place after this” (Rev. 4:1), recalling the custodial statement in Rev. 1:1:

Revelation 1:1 — The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John.

Indeed, why would John report that Jesus communicated with him through an angel, but then go on to describe an encounter with Jesus himself, rather than the angel that Jesus sent? And why attribute to Jesus the physical characteristics we’d expect to see in the angel we were just told about?

The chain of custody and the angelic features confirm that this figure is indeed an angel. He speaks the words of Jesus in real time, placing John in the presence of Jesus right there on the island of Patmos. This sort of representation by an intermediary figure was common in the ancient world, as John Walton and Craig Keener observe:

In the ancient world direct communication between important parties was a rarity. Diplomatic and political exchange normally required the use of an intermediary, whose function was similar to that of ambassadors today. The messenger who served as the intermediary was a fully vested representative of the party he represented. He spoke for that party and with the authority of that party. He was accorded the same treatment as that party would enjoy were he there in person. While this was standard protocol, there was no confusion about the person’s identity. This explains how the angel in [Genesis 16] can comfortably use the first person to convey what God will do.⁷

The fact that an angel speaks on behalf of Jesus in such a way effectively illustrates the authority given to Jesus over heaven’s angels, who can now be sent to earth as his representatives while he remains seated at God’s right hand.

In Rev. 2-3, this angel – speaking the words of Jesus – goes on to give John a set of instructions for the seven churches. Each letter opens by telling us that the words originate from Jesus, yet each letter closes by revealing that “the Spirit” actually says these words: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

The Holy Spirit is thus speaking on behalf of Jesus and channeling the message through John to the churches. This means the Spirit occupies the same slot in the chain of custody as the angel. We may therefore modify our diagram as follows:

God Jesus Angel (1:1) / Holy Spirit (2:7, etc) John The Seven Churches

Before we draw any conclusions about what this might mean, we will examine the chain of custody as given in the closing chapters of Revelation.

The Chain of Custody in Rev. 21-22

At the end of the book, John records his exchange with a revelatory angel who repeats the chain of custody stated in Rev. 1:1. Here it is spread across two verses, with the angel presumably speaking the words of Jesus on his behalf in the latter verse:

Revelation 22:6 — And [the angel] said to me, “These words are trustworthy and true. And the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place.”

Revelation 22:16 — “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. . .”

In Rev. 22:6, God sent the angel to John. But in Rev. 22:16, Jesus did. Some interpreters think this implies that Jesus is God. But we already know God and Jesus occupy distinct slots in the Rev. 1:1 chain of custody. God, as the original source of the revelation, is the primary sender of the angel. Jesus, having received right-hand authority from God, is the secondary sender of the angel. The end result is that Rev. 22:6-16 repeats the original chain of custody:

God (22:6) Jesus (22:16) Angel (22:6, 16) John (22:16) The Seven Churches (22:16)

What can we learn about this angel who occupies a slot in the chain of custody and addresses John at the close of the book? The previous chapter gives us an important clue:

Revelation 21:9 — Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me. . .

In Rev. 21, we find that this angel is a member of a group of seven particular angels. We are not told, however, if he is the same angel as the one John encountered at the beginning of the book. It’s true that Jesus sent “his angel” in Rev. 1:1 and similarly sent “my angel” in Rev. 22:16. But Grant Osbourne notes that “angel” may be a collective singular term representing a group of angels who interacted with John.⁸

What we know for sure is that the angel in Rev. 1:13 and the seven plague angels in Rev. 15:6 all wear golden sashes across their chests – and they are the only angels in Revelation who do. Perhaps the angel in 1:13 is the captain of the seven plague angels, or perhaps he is simply one of the seven. But it seems clear that he and the seven plague angels are associated with each other in a distinct way.

Indeed, these golden-sashed angels are the only ones who specifically tell John “I will show you” (4:1, 17:1, 21:9), conforming to the custodial formula of Rev. 1:1. Therefore, whether the “angel” mentioned in the chain of custody is a single angel or a group of angels, it almost certainly refers to one or more of these particular angels who poured out God’s wrath.

The OT Background of the Seven Plague Angels

The seven plague angels first appear to John as a sign in heaven in 15:1. They are implicitly located in the throne room, which is described as “a sea of glass mingled with fire” in 15:2. Upon exiting the heavenly temple that encloses the throne room, they are given seven bowls of God’s wrath.

Grant Osbourne notes that the plagues poured out by these angels “are linked closely with the Egyptian plagues of the exodus.”⁹ He also points out that these angels emerge from the “tent of testimony” (15:5), which “links the heavenly temple with the tabernacle or ‘tent’ in the wilderness.” ¹⁰

In other words, Revelation’s seven plague angels are linked with the entire exodus story, from Israel’s flight out of Egypt to her wilderness wanderings. This gives us an OT background that can be mined for additional clues about their identity.

The Destroyer

Death of Firstborn

In the last horrific plague upon Egypt, we are told of a “destroyer” who would liberate Israel by passing through Egypt to kill all the first-born:

Exodus 12:23 — For the LORD will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the LORD will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you .

Notably, the destroyer is not YHWH himself but rather an agent who acts on YHWH’s behalf. The apostle Paul later tells us that this mysterious figure continued with Israel into the wilderness:

1 Cor. 10:1-10 (NASB) — . . .[our fathers were all] baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness. . .[Let us not] try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents. Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer.

Numbers 14 records one instance of the grumbling described by Paul. When the Israelites threaten to stone Joshua and Caleb, we are told that “the glory of the LORD appeared at the tent of meeting to all the people” (Num. 14:10). Then God threatens to “strike” (Heb=nakah) them with pestilence. The same word appears in Ex. 12:12, where God said he would “strike” (nakah) the first-born of Egypt by means of the destroyer.

A similar incident occurs in Num. 16:41-48. The people grumble against Moses, and in response, the presence of the LORD appears in the tent of meeting. Then a plague strikes the people and we are told that “wrath has gone out from the LORD” (vs. 46).

These incidents reveal that the destroyer who liberated Israel from Egypt also traveled into the wilderness and evidently came out of the “tent of meeting” to execute God’s wrath – the same tent whose heavenly counterpart housed the seven plague angels in Rev. 15.¹¹

Yet there is more to the story. The Psalmist gives us another key insight into the destroyer:

Psalm 78:49-51 — [God] let loose on [the Egyptians] his burning anger, wrath, indignation, and distress, a company of destroying angels. He made a path for his anger; he did not spare them from death, but gave their lives over to the plague. He struck down every firstborn in Egypt, the firstfruits of their strength in the tents of Ham.

Here we find the activity of the destroyer associated with a group of angels. Geoffrey Grogan writes that “Egypt. . .felt the force of God’s anger, executed by ‘a band of destroying angels’ (v. 49), suggesting that the ‘destroyer’ of Exod 12:23 was an angel and that all the plagues were executed through angels.” ¹² Hebrew scholars Keil and Deiltzsch similarly point out that the Psalmist evidently understood the “destroyer” as a collective singular term that envisions a company of angels.¹³

These angels simultaneously accomplished destruction for Egypt and salvation for Israel. But later in the wilderness, they also unleashed destruction upon Israel’s rebels. The prophet Isaiah summarized it this way:

Isaiah 63:9-10 — In all [Israel’s] affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old. But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit; therefore he turned to be their enemy, and himself fought against them.

Does Isaiah set this angel in parallel to the Holy Spirit? It would seem so, for the angel is said to function as God’s presence, which is precisely the role of the Holy Spirit (cp. Ps. 51:11, 139:7).¹⁴

Though we are only told here of a single angel, he may be a chief angel whose mention implicitly includes the group of angels he oversees (cp. Jos. 5:14). Alternatively, since the definite article (“the”) in the phrase “the angel of his presence” is the translator’s choice and does not appear in the original Hebrew, it may be that this actually refers to “an angel of his presence.”¹⁵

Indeed, Jewish tradition refers to multiple “angels of the presence.” The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs – an ancient Jewish work that scholars believe influenced several New Testament authors¹⁶ – provides one example in which these angels are said to minister in the same heavenly temple that is mentioned in Rev. 15-16:

Testament of Levi (sec. III) — . . .In the heaven next to [the holy of holies] are the angels of the presence of the Lord, who minister and make propitiation to the Lord for all the ignorances of the righteous; and they offer to the Lord a reasonable sweet-smelling savour, and a bloodless offering. . .¹⁷

Synthesizing all of this data, it appears that a select company of angels associated with YHWH’s presence liberated Israel from Egypt and guided her to Canaan. One or more of these angels executed YHWH’s wrath when necessary, and in this role were occasionally called “the destroyer.”

The Eyes of YHWH

Eyes of Yahweh

Moses alluded to the activity of these exodus angels in a speech given shortly before Israel entered Canaan. He warned the people to heed what God did to Egypt and to Israel’s rebels in the wilderness (Deut. 11:2-5). Then he told them that the “eyes of the LORD” were upon the land of Canaan (vs. 12).

Many other Biblical authors confirm that the “eyes of the LORD” were involved in the exodus. The Psalmist recalls the Red Sea crossing this way:

Psalm 66:6 — He turned the sea into dry land; they passed through the river on foot. There did we rejoice in him, who rules by his might forever, whose eyes keep watch on the nations— let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Selah

In Habakkuk’s prayer, the judgments upon Israel’s enemies during the exodus are associated with YHWH “looking” upon the nations:

Habbakuk 3:5-6 — Before him went pestilence, and plague followed at his heels. He stood and measured the earth; he looked and shook the nations. . .

Ezekiel is even more specific in his reference to God’s “eyes” during Israel’s wilderness wanderings:

Ezekiel 20:17 — Nevertheless, my eye spared them, and I did not destroy them or make a full end of them in the wilderness.

Here God specifically associates his “eye” with the activity of the destroyer, which in turn identifies his “eye” with the band of angels we’ve been investigating.

In Ezekiel’s own day, God tells the prophet that his “eye” will destroy rebellious Jerusalem. This “eye” is then associated with a group of figures widely recognized by interpreters as angels:

Ezekiel 7:9 — And my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity. I will punish you according to your ways, while your abominations are in your midst. Then you will know that I am the LORD, who strikes (Heb=nakah).

Ezekiel 9:4-5 — . . .And the LORD said to [the man clothed in linen], “Pass through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it.”. . .And to the [six] others he said in my hearing, “Pass through the city after him, and strike (Heb=nakah). Your eye shall not spare, and you shall show no pity.

God says that his eye will not spare or have pity (Eze. 7:9), but he accomplishes this by sending out six angels whose eyes will not spare or have pity (Eze. 9:4-5). In other words, these angels function as God’s eyes. They “strike” (nakah) on God’s behalf, just as the destroyer did in Egypt (Ex. 12:12) and in the wilderness (Num. 14:12).

Furthermore, each of the six angels has an “instrument of destruction” (9:1). Daniel Block writes that the Hebrew word rendered “destruction” in this verse invites comparison with Exodus 12, where “the noun mashit is used of the destruction that Yahweh inflicted on Egypt (v. 13), and the participle hammashit of the Destroyer himself.”¹⁸

However, there is also a seventh figure present who is dressed in linen and has a writing kit instead of a weapon. He is not identified, but Jewish tradition holds that it was the angel Gabriel.¹⁹ This figure is ordered to mark all of the repentant for protection before the six destroyers do their job.

God’s “eye” is thus explicitly associated with the six destroying angels and implicitly associated with the seventh angel, who functions as his “eye” by seeking out those who are to be marked for salvation. 2 Chronicles 16:9 attests to this latter function of God’s “eyes”:

2 Chron. 16:9 — For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. . .

Ezekiel is therefore the first prophet to hint at the idea that YHWH has seven eyes. He also connects the activity of YHWH’s eyes with the exodus destroyer, and indicates that these “eyes” are angels.

Zechariah later confirms that there are indeed seven eyes of YHWH (4:2-10). In part two of this series we’ll look more closely at his account. For now, we will return to the seven plague angels of Rev. 15-16 and draw some conclusions based on what we’ve found.

The Seven Eyes, the Seven Plague Angels, and the Holy Spirit

Our investigation has revealed that the Exodus plagues were in all likelihood carried out by a group of seven angels who functioned as the “eyes of YHWH” across Israel’s history. John’s vision in Rev. 15-16 is carefully constructed to recall these particular angels. Furthermore, the seven plague angels of Rev. 15-16 are placed in the heavenly temple, which is precisely where the seven eyes are located in Rev. 5:6.

We may therefore conclude with reasonable confidence that the seven plague angels of Rev. 15-16 are the seven eyes of YHWH depicted in the Old Testament. In Rev. 5:6, these eyes are identified as the seven spirits of God. Consequently, the seven spirits of God are angels, and one or more of them was sent to John to deliver the contents of Revelation. We can now modify the chain of custody given in Revelation 21-22 as follows:

God Jesus Angel (one or more of the seven spirits) John The Seven Churches

This harmonizes nicely with the Rev. 1:4 greeting that is sent by God, Jesus, and the seven spirits. But it turns out that the angel(s) who interact with John at the close of the book also carry him away “in the Spirit,” as Grant Osbourne observes:

Twice John is ἀπήνεγκεν…ἐν πνεύματι (carried away…in the Spirit; 17:3; 21:10), and twice he is “in the Spirit” (1:10; 4:2). The first is the means, the second the result, and all refer to the visionary experience by which God has revealed these things to John (building on the empowering by the Spirit of Yahweh in Ezek. 2:2; 3:12; 8:3; 11:1; 37:1; 43:5).²⁰

Notably, in both cases the angel involved is one of the seven plague angels we have identified as the seven spirits of God:

Revelation 17:1 — Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters. . .And he carried me away (Grk=apophero) in the Spirit into a wilderness. . .

Revelation 21:9-10 — Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And he carried me away (Grk=apophero) in the Spirit to a great, high mountain. . .

This recalls Peter’s remark about how prophecy is conveyed to man:

2 Peter 1:21 — For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along (Grk=phero) by the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is thus equally involved in delivering these prophecies to John for the churches, occupying the same slot as the revelatory angel. Consequently, we arrive at a final chain of custody as revealed in Revelation 21-22 that looks like this:

God Jesus Angel (one or more of the seven spirits) / Holy Spirit John The Seven Churches

Our investigation has therefore found that the chain of custody given at the beginning and end of the book Revelation is consistent. This final chain of custody raises some important questions.

If the angel(s) who delivered the contents of Revelation are not the Holy Spirit, why do they share the same slot in the chain of custody with the Holy Spirit? Could it be that Revelation treats “the Spirit” as a collective singular term for these seven angelic spirits? Is it coincidence that the seven spirits are sent out in connection with the same right-hand authority that sent the Holy Spirit (Rev. 5:6-7, cp. Acts 2:33)?

Moreover, these golden-sashed angels function no differently from the Holy Spirit in the Johannine corpus: both are sent by the Father in the name of Jesus (Rev. 1:1, cp. Jn. 14:16, 16:7); both show God’s servants what is to come (Rev. 1:1, cp. Jn. 16:13); both speak truth to believers (Rev. 19:9, cp. Jn. 16:13); both glorify Jesus (Rev. 19:10, cp. Jn. 16:14); and both execute God’s judgment for sin (Rev. 16:5-6, cp. Jn. 16:8).

Conclusion

By investigating the chain of custody, we have found that the seven spirits of God are angels, and that one or more of them delivered the contents of Revelation to John. But these seven angels also share their slot in the chain of custody with the Holy Spirit.

The angel who speaks the words of Jesus in Rev. 2-3 tells us that the Spirit speaks the words of Jesus, and the angel who carries John away in Rev. 17-21 does so in the Spirit. This strongly implies a synonymous relationship between the Holy Spirit and these seven angelic spirits. It also gives us reason to think that the scholarly arguments we reviewed earlier may not be mutually exclusive but rather equally true.

Moreover, the seven angelic spirits of God are by definition both holy and spirit. It is not surprising, then, that Revelation’s chain of custody treats the Holy Spirit as synonymous with this council of priestly angels who keep watch over God’s people.

But what about Zechariah 4 and Isaiah 11:1-2, the two passages identified by scholars as the primary Old Testament background for the seven spirits of God? In the second part of our series, we will dive into these passages and discover more evidence in support of this intriguing portrait painted by Revelation’s chain of custody.

All scripture quotations taken from the ESV translation unless otherwise noted. ↵
Craig Koester, Revelation (The Anchor Yale Bible), p. 216. ↵
E.g. Michael Heiser, see https://nakedbiblepodcast.com/podcast/naked-bible-354-revelation-14-6/ ↵
G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (The New International Greek Testament Commentary), p. 189. ↵
E.g. Beale, p. 355. ↵
The angel in Dan. 10 seems most likely to be Gabriel – cp. Dan 8:15, 9:21. The hair that is white like wool is taken from the description of the Ancient of Days in Dan. 7:9, but it should be noted that angels are also described with white hair in Jewish tradition (Apocalypse of Abraham vs. 8. See http://web.archive.org/web/20110721203147/http://www.oxleigh.freeserve.co.uk/pt01c.htm) ↵
Craig Keener and John Walton, NRSV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, ebook. ↵
Grant Osbourne, Revelation (ECNT), under “Jesus Sends Revelation to Churches (22:16a).” ↵
Osbourne, under “Seven Angels Emerge from Heavenly Temple, 15:5-8.” ↵
Ibid. ↵
The Septuagint adds further confirmation that the activity of the destroyer began in Egypt and continued into the wilderness. The book of Wisdom reports that in Egypt, Israel simultaneously experienced “the salvation of the righteous and the destruction of the enemies” through this figure (18:7). But later we are told that “the tasting of death touched the righteous also, and there was a destruction of the multitude in the wilderness” (18:20). The destroyer is mentioned by name in 18:22 and 18:25. ↵
Geoffrey Grogan, Psalms (Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary), p. 141. ↵
See https://biblehub.com/commentaries/kad/psalms/78.htm. A more literal translation of Ps. 78:49 is given by the ASV: “He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble, a band of angels of evil.” Scholars note that these are not fallen angels, but rather holy angels who bring calamity at the behest of God. A minority view suggests that these “angels” (also legitimately rendered “messengers”) refer to Moses and Aaron, who announced the plagues to Pharaoh. But this is very unlikely, since the context includes the death of the firstborn (vs. 51), and the Exodus account clearly implies that this plague was inflicted by an angelic being. Further, the word “destroy” (Heb=sahat) appears in Ps. 78:45, which describes the plague of the frogs. The same word appears in Ex. 12:23 in reference to “the destroyer” of the firstborn. This confirms that the Psalmist understood the activity of the destroyer to span all ten plagues and to involve multiple angels. The destruction simply began small and increased in magnitude until it culminated with the death of the firstborn. ↵
Old Testament scholar John Levison argues that “the author shifts imperceptibly from the angel of God’s presence to the holy spirit, suggesting that the angel and the spirit are one and the same.” See https://www.duq.edu/assets/Documents/spiritans/Holy%20Spirit%20Resources/Lectures/2017%20Levison%20lecture.pdf ↵
See https://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/OTpdf/isa63.pdf ↵
See https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/hdn/t/testaments-of-the-twelve-patriarchs.html. ↵
See http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/patriarchs.html. Jubliees 2:2 is another example. See http://wesley.nnu.edu/sermons-essays-books/noncanonical-literature/noncanonical-literature-ot-pseudepigrapha/the-book-of-jubilees/ ↵
Ezekiel 1-24 (NICOT), Daniel Block, p. 304. ↵
This is stated in the Babylonian Talmud (b. Sabb. 55a). See https://www.sefaria.org/Shabbat.55a?lang=bi. ↵
Osbourne, under “The Great Prostitute and the Scarlet Beast (17:1-18)” ↵

5 Reasons the Gospel of John is Not Trinitarian

Prooftexts

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The Gospel of John is thought to contain the strongest evidence for the traditional view that Jesus Christ is the second member of a Triune God. From John’s famous prologue to the declaration of doubting Thomas, there appears to be a trove of prooftexts available to the Trinitarian.

Tagged Deity of Christ, Doctrine of the Trinity, Gospel of John, Is Jesus God, John 17:3

The Word Made Flesh: Reading John 1:1-14 in Light of the OT

Gospel of John

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The traditional reading of John 1:1-14 has been traced back to the works of the fiery second century apologist Justin Martyr (150 AD). According to Justin, this passage indicates that Jesus pre-existed his birth as the creator of the heavens and earth and later became a human being in the womb of Mary. But the average Christian is likely unaware that Justin’s interpretation was heavily influenced by his training in Greek philosophy.

Tagged Deity of Christ, Gospel of John, Jesus the Word, John 1:1-14, John 1:14

The Word Made Flesh: Reading Jn. 1:1-14 in Light of the OT

Justin claimed that a “physiological discussion concerning the Son of God” can be found in Plato’s Timaeus (428 BC).¹ This work describes the Platonic concept of the logos, a second and lesser god created by the supreme God to function as the creator of the material world. Dr. Richard Bauckham confirms that Justin attempted “to assimilate the Christian view of the divine world as closely as possible with the Platonic hierarchy of divininty: first God, second God, and a multitude of lesser divinities.” ²

Bible scholars today, however, widely agree that “the word” in John 1:1-14 is not to be understood against the background of Greek philosophy; rather, it finds its origin in the Hebrew OT and the Septuagint (LXX).³ In what follows, we will consider how this Hebraic background, together with the rest of the Johannine writings, might affect our understanding of John’s Prologue.

John 1:1-5: In the Beginning

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (ESV)

John’s prologue opens with the theologically charged phrase en arche, or “in the beginning.” Is this allusion to Genesis 1:1 implying that a pre-existent Jesus known as “the word” created the heavens and earth? If so, we would expect the Old Testament creation account to harmonize with such a claim. Yet, strikingly, we are told nothing about a pre-existent Jesus who functions as the creator in Genesis 1.⁴ Instead, the creative word of God is closely associated with the Holy Spirit – a fact that is also attested by later OT and LXX authors:

Gen. 1:1-3a — In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the spirit [ruach] of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said…

Psalm 33:6 — By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and by the breath [ruach] of his mouth all their host.⁵

Judith 16:14 (LXX) — Let all creatures serve thee: for thou spakest, and they were made, thou didst send forth thy spirit [ruach], and it created them, and there is none that can resist thy voice.

The connection between God’s word and his Spirit, or ruach, was fundamental to Jewish thought.⁶ The word ruach is most often translated “spirit” in the Old Testament. But it is also translated “breath” some 30 times. Words are formed by one’s breath, and thus God communicates by the breath, or spirit, that figuratively proceeds out of his mouth to express his word. God’s word, in turn, is defined by the OT as his testimonies, commandments, precepts, statutes, rules, or law (e.g. Psalm 118).

This is why prophets like Ezekiel often referred to the Spirit of God and the word of God interchangeably: “And the Spirit of the LORD fell upon me, and he said to me, ‘Say, Thus says the LORD'” (Eze. 11:5) / “And the word of the LORD came to me…Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD'” (Eze. 11:14-16). Dr. David Ewert rightly concludes that “there is no substantial difference between the coming of the Spirit of God upon the prophets and the coming of the Word of God to them.”⁷

If the OT does not identify “the word” with a pre-existent Jesus, what about John’s gospel and epistles? As we might expect, the term “the word” (ho logos) appears frequently throughout these works.⁸ But nowhere do we find it applied to Jesus as a title; instead, it is defined as scripture, (Jn. 10:35) the law (Jn. 15:25), a message (1 Jn. 1:5), or a commandment (Jn. 12:48-49, 1 Jn. 2:7). Jesus stresses that this word is not his own but rather is given to him by God through the Holy Spirit. The table below gives a few examples:

Gospel of John (ESV)

1 John (ESV)

12:48-50 The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day…the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment–what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me.”

14:24-25…the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me. These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

18:32 This was to fulfill the word that Jesus had spoken to show by what kind of death he was going to die.

1:1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life — 2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us.

2:7,13 Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard...13 I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, children, because you know the Father.

John’s first epistle gives us insight into “the word” of John’s prologue. In 1 John 1:1, “the word of life” is carefully distinguished from Jesus, for we are told it was a “message” (vs. 5) that was “with the Father” (vs. 2) “from the beginning” (vs. 1) before being “made manifest” in Jesus (vs. 2).⁹ In other words, the “word of life” is an entity distinct from Jesus that originated with the Father and was later manifested by Jesus.

This is confirmed by comparing “the word of life” from 1 John 1:1 with the same concept as found in John’s gospel. In John 12:48-50, Jesus says that “the word” is a commandment from God that constitutes “eternal life.” In John 13:34, we learn that this same commandment is for the disciples to love one another.

1 John 2 drives home the point. The same “word” is again explicitly identified as the commandment to love God and one’s brother (vss. 3-17).¹⁰ We are told that this “word” about loving one’s brother isn’t merely a new commandment but also an old commandment, because it has been around “from the beginning” (vss. 7-8). Cain is then cited as an example of one who violated this old commandment by killing his brother (1 Jn. 3:11-12).

According to the Genesis account, a generation after Adam violated God’s word by eating the forbidden fruit, Cain murders Abel and later asks God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Cain failed to love his brother, but God announced the coming of a future Messiah who would perfectly keep this commandment by sacrificing his life for the sake of his brothers, despite their murderous enmity toward him (Gen. 3:15, cp. Jn. 8:44).¹¹

This talk in 1 John of God’s “word” as a commandment violated by Cain suggests that the activity of “the word” in John 1:1-5 is particularly focused upon the creation of man. Indeed, while most translations render John 1:3 as “all things were made through him,” the word “things” is not in the original Greek. Further, the word rendered “made” (ginomai) more often describes something that “came to be” (cp. John 1:12).

When we omit the translator-supplied word “things,” the NASB translation gives the clearest sense of John 1:3: “All came into being through Him, and apart from Him none came into being (who) has come into being.”¹² This flows naturally into verse 4, where we are specifically told that the word produces life in men.

We may therefore summarize “the word” as defined by John as an entity distinct from Jesus which is both old and new. It is old in that it was with the Father at the beginning of man’s creation, investing Adam with life and the light of the knowledge of God by means of the Spirit. But it is also new in that Jesus, as a second Adam (1 Cor. 15:45), perfectly obeyed it while the first Adam and his progeny failed to do so.

Yet one question remains: if “the word” is not a who but a what in John 1:1-5, how do we account for the use of personal pronouns? The Greek pronouns houtos and autos are typically rendered he and him in this passage. However, they are just as legitimately rendered the same and it, which is exactly what we find in many older Bible translations such as the Tyndale Bible.¹³

But even if we go with he and him, these pronouns are right at home in John’s highly poetic prologue, recalling the personification of God’s word and wisdom found in the OT and LXX.¹⁴ As NT Scholar Craig Keener aptly points out, “personification occurs frequently enough in Jewish texts to provide a context for interpreting John’s use of Logos in his prologue.” ¹⁵

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. 9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

We are next introduced to John the Baptist, whose role was to “bear witness about the light” (vs. 8). A crucial element of this witness is found in John 1:32-33: “And John bore witness: ‘I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him…he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.'”

The Baptist identified “the light” not as Jesus alone, but as Jesus indwelled by the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament era, the Holy Spirit delivered the light of God’s word to the prophets, who in turn delivered it to the people (2 Pe. 1:19-21). At Jesus’ baptism, the Spirit commissioned God’s Son as the supreme human conduit for that light – and Jesus obediently began delivering it to the people.

The background for this imagery of the Messiah as “the light” is found in the book of Isaiah.¹⁶ John 1:23 and 1:29 both cite Isaiah’s messianic oracles, indicating the significance of this OT book in interpreting John’s prologue. In Isaiah 42, we find the likely source for the Baptist’s identification of “the light” as the spirit-indwelled Messiah:¹⁷

Isaiah 42:1, 6 — 1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations…6 “I am the LORD; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you [Messiah] as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations…”

The prologue therefore anticipates the light “coming into the world” (Jn. 1:9) at Jesus’ baptism, when the Holy Spirit publicly commissioned him to shine the light of God’s word upon the people. This is confirmed by John the Baptist’s announcement that Jesus is the one who “comes” after him (Jn. 1:15, 27, 30), explicitly placing the “coming” of Jesus at his baptism.

In parallel, Jesus sent his disciples “into the world” (Jn. 17:18) for their own public ministry by means of the Holy Spirit: “‘As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (Jn 20:21-22). This tells us that being “sent into the world” and other similar expressions found throughout John’s gospel¹⁸ are not suggesting a transition from pre-existence to humanity, but a transition from private life to public ministry.

10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

John continues by telling us that “the world” was made through the light and yet it did not know him. Here “the world” is narrowly defined as “his own people,” reflecting John’s consistent use of “the world” as a synonym for human beings.¹⁹ The contrast between the law of Moses and the grace of Christ in John 1:17 further indicates that John has in mind the Mosaic world of the Jews under the Old Covenant.

Thus John 1:10 is not describing the creation of inanimate objects such as rocks and trees; he is describing the creation of a nation. This verse parallels John 1:3 in that it is focused upon human beings, but here the spotlight is upon national Israel in particular, for John’s gospel is primarily interested in Israel’s response to “the light.”

How then was Israel made through “the light,” which we previously identified as the Spirit-indwelled Messiah? By virtue of the Messianic typology through which Israel was formed into a nation.²⁰ This typology is described in the Torah, which is mentioned in John 1:45: “we have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote.”

In the Exodus story, the Holy Spirit rested upon Moses (Num. 11:24-25) and empowered him to act as God’s shepherd (Is. 63:11). Moses delivered the people out of slavery through the blood of a Passover lamb (Ex. 12:21-32) and they were then “baptized” in the Red Sea (1 Cor. 10:2). The Spirit sustained them with manna in the wilderness (Ex. 16:14-15) and led them into the Promised Land by the hand of Joshua (the Hebrew name for Jesus), where they were made into a great nation.

In other words, the Mosaic world of the Jews was made through types and symbols that all pointed to Israel’s future Spirit-indwelled Messiah. He now stood before them as the true Shepherd (Jn. 10:11), the true Passover Lamb (Jn. 1:29) and the true Manna from heaven (Jn. 6:41), but most of the Jews did not recognize him as the fulfillment of these things (Jn. 1:10-11).

Nevertheless, John 1:12-13 points out that the world of the Jews, first made through the prototypical Messiah Moses under the Old Covenant, was now being remade through the supreme Messiah Jesus under the New Covenant. His sacrifice as the true Passover lamb gave those who did receive him the right to be born again of the Spirit. This entailed being saved out of the slavery of sin and assured a place in Christ’s kingdom, which would be centered in the Promised Land.

And the Word Became Flesh

The magnificent announcement in John 1:14 reminds us that the flesh of man has long been at odds with the word of God. When Adam disobeyed God’s word, his flesh became corrupt and humanity was consigned to death. The consequence of this disobedience upon the Genesis world was dire: “My Spirit shall certainly not remain among these men for ever, because they are flesh. . .” (Gen. 6:4 Brenton).

The Spirit of God will not permanently reside in a vessel of disobedience. As a result, man’s flesh has been held captive to the judgment of death from the beginning of creation. Thus the prophet Isaiah later wrote: “All flesh is grass. . . the grass withers, and the flower fades: but the word of our God abides for ever” (Is. 40:6,8 LXX).

Isaiah’s message hints at the coming of a Messiah who would perfectly obey God’s eternal word and so defeat death.²¹ The irony is that he would achieve this victory by submitting his own flesh to death – which is why the NT most often applies the term “flesh” to Jesus to denote his mortality in connection with his sacrificial mission.²² He prophesied this beforehand in John 6:51-54, 63:

John 6:51-54, 63 — [T]he bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you… It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

The significance of this cryptic saying lay in Jesus’ unflagging obedience to the word of God, which instructed him to minister to Israel as a suffering servant. The call for his disciples to “feed upon his flesh” was a call to mirror his obedience and likewise be willing to surrender their own flesh unto death.²³ In so doing, they demonstrated their faith that the Spirit of God would raise them back to life again.

Yet most Jews balked at the idea of following a crucified Messiah; for them it was nothing short of “a stumbling block” (1 Cor. 1:23). This is seen in John 6, where they took offense at his comments regarding his flesh. They expected an immortal Messiah who would never succumb to death, much less death by crucifixion (Jn. 12:34). Donald Juel has insightfully noted:

What lies at the heart of Christian tradition and christological exegesis is the confession of Jesus as the crucified and risen Messiah, a confession that involves considerable tension between Jesus the Christ and the traditional Messianic figure that was part of Jewish eschatological scriptural exegesis… the lack of a pre-Christian Jewish concept of a suffering Messiah provides one of the first agenda items for the small circle of believers.²⁴

John’s gospel combats this rejection of a suffering Messiah from the very outset. The highly poetic prologue uses figurative language to stress that the word of God concerning eternal life was indeed fulfilled by a mortal Messiah whose mission culminated in his death: “the word became flesh.” That is, the same word Adam and his progeny failed to obey in the garden was finally fulfilled by mortal flesh of Jesus, who then empowered his spiritual progeny to do the same.

This concept is also stated in 1 John 4:2 using more straightforward language: “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.” The “coming” of Jesus, as noted earlier, occurred at his baptism.²⁵ He came to Israel as a mortal Messiah whose mission was not to defeat the Romans but to surrender his very life out of love for his people and his God.

Jesus’ radical obedience was the end result of a process that began when the Holy Spirit caused the conception of an innocent Son, a second Adam, in the womb of a virgin (Lk. 1:35). The Spirit then empowered Jesus to live a sinless life, ensuring that his flesh remained like an “unblemished lamb” until the appointed time when he offered that flesh to God on behalf of all humanity:

Hebrews 9:14 — How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

And Dwelled Among Us

John next uses an unusual term to describe the presence of the embodied word of God. The word skenoo, usually rendered “dwelled,” is better translated “tabernacled.” This is an intentional pointer to Israel’s wilderness wanderings at the Exodus. Craig Keener writes:

Just as God “tabernacled” with his people in the wilderness, God’s Word tabernacled among the witnesses of the new exodus accomplished in Jesus. Some suggest that the LXX translators may have favored this particular Greek term for “tabernacle” because its consonants corresond to the Hebrew consonants for the Shekinah, God’s presence.²⁶

The Jewish Encylopedia further notes that “the Shekinah is often referred to instead of the Holy Spirit. It is said of the former, as of the Holy Spirit, that it rests upon a person.” ²⁷ At the Exodus, the Spirit of God – which delivered the word of God to the people through Moses – accompanied the Israelites through the wilderness in a temporary tent known as a tabernacle. That tabernacle pointed to the innocent mortal body of Jesus, in whom the Spirit now dwelled and through whom the Spirit now spoke the word of God (cp. Heb. 9).

Jesus willingly sacrificed his innocent tabernacle of flesh upon the cross. Three days later, he was vindicated from the curse of death and his body was made into the permanent temple of the Holy Spirit that God originally intended for all mankind: “The Jews then said [to Jesus], ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking about the temple of his body.” (John 2:19-21)

And We Have Seen His Glory

The glory of Jesus receives considerable attention in John. We are told repeatedly that this glory is not inherent to Jesus, but rather is given to him by God (5:44, 7:18, 16:14, 17:24). What then is the nature of this glory? In the Old Testament, the “glory of the LORD” is the Shekinah glory of God’s presence, otherwise known as the Holy Spirit.

This Shekinah glory traveled with Moses and the Israelites in a tent through the wilderness into Canaan (Ex. 40:35) and later dwelled in the temple in Jerusalem (2 Chron. 7:1). However, when Jerusalem’s sins reached their limit, the “glory of God” visibly departed from the temple and the city was handed over to the Babylonians, effectively ending the Davidic dynasty (Eze. 10) .

But Isaiah prophesied the return of the Spirit’s glorious presence to Jerusalem (Is. 40:5). It would rest upon a particular man from the line of David who would finally revive the Davidic royal line (Is. 11:1, 16:5, 22:22). Yet this one would not reign as Israel’s king in his mortal life, and so would not receive glory from men during that time (Is. 52:14 LXX). Instead, he would live a life of humility and sacrifice in preparation for a glory that was yet to come (Is. 52:13 LXX).

In John’s gospel, we are told that the disciples previewed this Messianic glory when they beheld Jesus’ miracles, which were performed by the power of the Holy Spirit (Jn. 2:11, 11:4; cp. Acts 10:31). Significantly, the healing of a blind man in John 9 recalls Isaiah’s prophecy that the Spirit-empowered Messiah would proclaim the “recovery of sight to the blind” (Is. 61:1 LXX). ²⁸

But the fullness of his predestined glory awaited the completion of his mission. By virtue of his faithfulness to the word of God while in his mortal body, Jesus was resurrected and given the titular name “Word of God” (Rev. 19:13). He was now permanently indwelled by the Holy Spirit, which proceeds from his mouth like a sharp sword to enforce God’s word regarding the Messianic kingdom (Rev. 19:15, cp. Is. 11:1-4).

Glory as of the Only Son from the Father, full of Grace and Truth

The glory of Jesus is the glory of a Son conceived, taught, and empowered by the Father through the Holy Spirit. Our Messiah was indeed full of the Spirit of grace (cp. Heb. 10:29) and the Spirit of truth (cp. Jn. 14:17, 15:26). And because of his obedience to his Father’s word, Jesus is now the permanent temple of that Spirit, providing life and light to all mankind in this age and the age to come: “And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.” (Rev. 21:23)

First Apology, Chapter LX ↵
Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel, p. 148. ↵
E.g. John Ashton, Understanding The Fourth Gospel, pp. 366-386; Craig Keener, The Gospel of John, pp. 350-360; James Dunn, Christology in the Making, p. 215. ↵
While there are a few times in Genesis where God says “Let us,” both the NIV and NET study Bibles recognize these as God addressing his heavenly court of angels. ↵
Irenaeus of Lyons (170 AD), a self-admitted follower of Justin Martyr, claimed that this passage indicates the presence of both Jesus and the Holy Spirit, where Jesus is the word and the Holy Spirit is the breath (see this work). However, the Hebrew Psalmist is here using a technique prevalent throughout the OT scriptures known as parallelism, in which the same thing is stated two different ways. Thus the “word” and the “breath/spirit” are actually equivalent concepts and do not suggest the presence of two distinct individuals. ↵
See also Prov. 1:23, Is. 59:21, Zech. 7:12. ↵
The Holy Spirit in the New Testament, David Ewert, p. 33. ↵
See John 2:22, 4:50, 10:35, 12:48, 14:24, 15:3, 15:20, 15:25, 18:9, 18:32; 1 John 1:1, 2:7, 2:15. ↵
Peter expresses a similar line of thought, pointing out that Jesus was “foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times” (1 Pe. 1:20). God’s foreknowledge of Jesus refers in this case specifically to the predestined sacrificial death of the Messiah, which is described in God’s “prophetic word” (2 Pe. 1:19). This word was with the Father from the foundation of the world and was only “made manifest” in the person of Jesus “in the last times.” ↵
See also 3:10-17, 4:20-21 ↵
Significantly, the author of Hebrews writes that the sprinkled blood of Jesus “speaks a better word than Abel” (Heb. 12:24). ↵
The pronoun hos is rendered “who” some 87 times in the NT, including John 1:15, 26, 26, 30, 33, 45, and 47. ↵
In addition, virtually every Bible translation past and present identifies “the light” in John 1:5 as an it. ↵
In the OT, God’s “word” is implicitly personified in the figure of Lady Wisdom (e.g. Prov. 8), and thus the LXX later treats God’s “word” and “wisdom” as equivalent concepts. E.g., A personified Lady wisdom is equated with the Law (i.e. the word) in Sirach 24:23. Significantly, wisdom is equated with the Holy Spirit in places such as Wisdom 9:17 LXX. ↵
Craig Keener, The Gospel of John, p. 351 ↵
Isaiah is mentioned by name four times in John’s gospel (1:23, 12:38, 12:39, 12:41). ↵
Westermann points out that in Mark’s account of Jesus’ baptism, he alludes to Isaiah 42:2 in combination with Psalm 2:7. See Isaiah 40-66: A Commentary, Claus Westermann, p. 94. ↵
E.g. Jesus has “come into the world” (Jn. 6:14, 16:28, 18:37), Jesus “came from God/the Father”, (Jn. 8:42, 16:27-28, 16:30, 17:8) and Jesus was “sent into the world.” (Jn. 10:36, 17:18) ↵
See 3:16-17, 3:19, 7:4, 7:7, et al. ↵
See Andrew Perry’s article John 1: Jesus, Creator of an Old Creation, or a New One? While we would disagree with some aspects of this commentary, his observations on John 1:10 are particularly insightful. ↵
Peter explicitly applied Isaiah 40:6-8 to the salvation accomplished by Christ, and defined “the word” as “the good news” (1 Pe. 1:24-25). It is also part of the Isaianic prologue alluded to by John the Baptist in John 1:23. ↵
E.g. Acts 2:26, 31; 2 Cor. 5:14-16; Col. 1:22; Heb. 5:7, 10:20; 1 Pe. 3:18, 4:1 ↵
See John 12:24-26, 15:19-20, 16:2, 21:19 ↵
Donald Juel, Messianic Exegesis, p. 26. ↵
That 1 John 4:2 places his “coming” at his baptism is confirmed by the use of the title “Christ,” which means “anointed” and refers to the anointing of the Holy Spirit at his baptism. See also 2 John 1:7. ↵
Craig Keener, The Gospel of John, pp. 408. ↵
See http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/7833-holy-spirit ↵
Acts 10:31 confirms that Jesus performed his miracles by the power of the Spirit: “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.” ↵

The Messiah and His God

Unitarian Prooftexts

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In Deuteronomy 6:4, the passage that famously established Judaism as a monotheistic religion, Israel’s God Yahweh (YHWH) identifies himself as “One God.” In Malachi 2:10, this “One God” Yahweh is specifically identified as the Father. But what about the relationship of the “One God” to the prophesied Messiah?

Tagged Deuteronomy 6:4, Is Jesus God, Malachi 2:10, Monotheism, Shema

Is Jesus Called YHWH in Romans 10:13?

Prooftexts

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In Romans 10:13, the apostle Paul reached the summit of a brilliant discourse on salvation by citing Joel 2:32 in the Greek Septuagint: “For, ‘everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.’” The Septuagint substitutes the title “Lord” for God’s personal name, but Paul was surely aware that the original Hebrew instructs people to “call upon the name of YHWH” for salvation.

Tagged David Capes, Deity of Christ, Is Jesus God, Is Jesus YHWH, kyrios

Is Jesus Called YHWH in Romans 10:13?

In Romans 10:13, the apostle Paul reached the summit of a brilliant discourse on salvation by citing Joel 2:32 in the Greek Septuagint: “For, ‘everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.’” Although the Septuagint substitutes the title “Lord” for God’s personal name, Paul was doubtless aware that the original Hebrew instructs people to “call upon the name of YHWH” for salvation.

Nevertheless, he embedded this quotation in a discourse about salvation through Jesus. Was he therefore applying Joel 2:32 directly to Jesus? And if so, does it mean he thought Jesus was YHWH? Dr. David Capes argues that verses like Romans 10:13 in fact provide “the raw materials” for the Trinitarian doctrinal developments of later church councils.¹

In The Divine Christ: Paul, Jesus, and the Scriptures of Israel, Capes offers four reasons to think Paul not only applies Joel 2:32 to Jesus, but is therefore identifying Jesus with YHWH in a “proto-Trinitarian” way.² But just how well do these reasons hold up under scrutiny? We will evaluate each of them below.

Reason #1: Paul Shifts From Theocentric to Christocentric

Focus on Jesus

Capes highlights two OT passages that are originally about YHWH yet are applied to Jesus in the verses leading up to Romans 10:13. In his opinion, this is our first indication that Paul is identifying Jesus with YHWH in an unusual way.

a. Romans 9:33 (citing Is. 8:14 & Is. 28:16)

Romans 9:33 (ESV) — As it is written, ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.’

Here Paul combines Is. 8:14 and Is. 28:16 into one midrashic statement, indicating that the “stone of stumbling and rock of offense” (8:14) and the cornerstone “laid in Zion” (28:16) are both the same stone. In Is. 8:13-14 this stone is identified as YHWH, but Paul appears to identify it as Jesus. Capes therefore contends:

Paul takes Isaiah’s oracle describing YHWH as the stumbling stone for both houses of Israel and transfers the words to Christ. He apparently has concluded that prophetic statements about Israel’s God can appropriately be used to described the crucified and risen Messiah.³

Allegedly, Paul has transferred the stumbling stone metaphor from YHWH to Christ. This assumed shift in focus is taken by Capes as a hint that Jesus is YHWH. However, such a hint would be at odds with the consistent distinction Paul makes between Jesus and God throughout his letter.⁴

Is Paul really making the innovative theological move that Capes suggests? Not according to the full context of the OT passage in view. The remainder of Isaiah’s oracle goes on to describe Israel’s stumbling, and here we learn that Israel will actually stumble over two individuals – YHWH and his appointed Messianic King (cp. Heb. 2:13):

Isaiah 8:18-21 (ESV) — Behold, I (Messiah) and the children whom the LORD [YHWH] has given me are signs and portents in Israel from the LORD [YHWH] of hosts…20 If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn. 21 They will pass through the land, greatly distressed and hungry. And when they are hungry, they will be enraged and will speak contemptuously against their king and their God.

In this portion of Isaiah’s stumbling stone oracle, YHWH is depicted as someone other than the Messianic King; in fact, he is portrayed as the Messiah’s God. This precludes the idea that YHWH and his Messiah have somehow merged identities via the stumbling stone.

Israel stumbles over YHWH and his appointed Messianic king not because they are both the same individual, but for the simple reason that YHWH is working through the Messiah. To stumble over the Messiah is also by necessity to stumble over the Messiah’s God, YHWH, who sent him.

Moreover, Paul’s application of Isaiah 8:14 to Jesus is a prime example of the well-established Jewish principle of agency whereby something done to one’s duly appointed agent (i.e. the Messiah) is regarded as if it had been done to the one who sent him (i.e. God).⁵

b. Romans 10:6-8 (citing Deut. 30:11-14)

Romans 10:6-8 (ESV) — But the righteousness based on faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?'” (that is, to bring Christ down) “or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?'” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim)…

In this allusion to Deut. 30:11-14, Capes urges that “to bring Christ down” in Rom. 10:6 is “a likely reference to what is later called the incarnation.” ⁶ His theory depends on the order of the two actions mentioned – first Paul warns against bringing Christ down from heaven, and then he warns against bringing Christ up from the dead.

Capes appears to assume that Paul’s warning corresponds to two sequential events, such that the first warning refers to a pre-existent Jesus residing in heaven. The problem with such an assumption is that the entire passage is actually focused upon the ascended Jesus residing in heaven.

We even find an implicit parallel between the ascending/descending motif in vss. 6-8 and the confession of faith in vs. 9: No one should try to ascend to heaven (vss. 6-8) but should believe in faith that Jesus ascended to heaven as exalted Lord (vs. 9), and no one should attempt to descend to the grave (vss. 6-8) but should believe in faith that Jesus descended to the grave and was raised again by God (vs. 9).

Furthermore, the declaration of faith in vs. 9 reverses the actual sequence of events. Paul first describes the exaltation of Jesus as Lord followed by his crucifixion and resurrection, rather than the actual sequence of crucifixion followed by resurrection and exaltation. Similarly, we are called to confess with our mouth and then believe with our heart, rather than the normal sequence of first believing and then confessing. Leon Morris explains the probable reason:

Paul proceeds to speak of confessing and believing. We would have expected the reverse order, but we should probably not make too much of this. The two are in the order of “mouth” and “heart” in the passage Paul has just quoted [Deut. 30:11-14], and he goes on to put them in the order we would expect (v. 10).⁷

The sequence in Rom. 10:9 is most likely reversed in order to mirror the ascending/descending motif mentioned in Rom. 10:6-8. This, in turn, indicates that Paul is talking about bringing down the ascended Christ.

Romans 10:6-8 (ESV)	Romans 10:9 (ESV)
6 But the righteousness based on faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?'” (that is, to bring Christ down) 7 “or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?'” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim);	9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord [because he ascended into heaven] and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead [after he descended to the grave], you will be saved.

Paul’s warning in vss. 6-8 highlights the need for a faith in the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus that is based upon verbal testimony rather than visual proof.⁸ Though most Jews had not personally observed Christ’s ascension or resurrection, they had the eyewitness accounts of the apostles, who brought them the word of God regarding salvation through Christ (Rom. 10:8). The Jews were therefore to believe in faith that God had accomplished what David prophesied in Ps. 110:

Acts 2:34-36 (ESV) — For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, “‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”‘ Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

Reason #2: Paul Focuses Upon the Resurrection

The Empty Tomb

Capes highlights Paul’s emphasis on the resurrection in Romans 10 as evidence that Joel 2:32 is being applied to Christ. This is because the title “Lord” was officially given to Jesus at his resurrection, and the same title is also used in Joel 2:32 (LXX):

Paul thinks that the title kyrios [Lord] now belongs to Jesus on the basis of the resurrection (Rom. 1:3-4; Phil. 2:9-11), and resurrection is frequently associated with the title. Therefore, the resurrection emphasis in this passage also makes it likely Paul applies this YHWH text [Joel 2:32] to Jesus.⁹

Capes correctly points out that Paul has applied the title “Lord” (kyrios) to Jesus in places like Rom. 10:9. However, the “Lord” in Joel 2:32 LXX – which Paul cites in Rom. 10:13 – has an added layer of meaning in that it is a substitution for the proper name YHWH that appears in the original Hebrew.

Capes appears to presume that the title “Lord” as applied to Jesus also represents the proper name YHWH. But common sense tells us that even if two individuals share the same title they still do not share the same identity. This becomes apparent when we examine the background of a key citation found just a few chapters earlier in Rom. 8:34:

“Jesus is the one who died – more than that, who was raised – who is at the right hand of God.” This is a direct allusion to Ps. 110:1, which says: “The LORD says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’”

Here we find two distinct “Lords” — the Lord God seats a second Lord at his right hand. The first LORD is actually “YHWH” in the Hebrew, while the second Lord is “adoni,” a word used exclusively of non-divine Lords throughout the Hebrew scriptures. Dr. Claude Mariottini confirms that “[t]he word translated ‘lord’ is ‘adoni’ and should be translated ‘my lord.’ The word is not ‘Adonai’ which, if it had been used, would be a reference to God.” ¹⁰ Moreover, the NET Bible commentary says of this verse:

In the psalm’s original context the speaker is an unidentified prophetic voice in the royal court. In the course of time the psalm is applied to each successive king in the dynasty and ultimately to the ideal Davidic king. NT references to the psalm understand David to be speaking about his “lord,” the Messiah. (See Matt 22:43-45; Mark 12:36-37; Luke 20:42-44; Acts 2:34-35).¹¹

Capes’ assessment conflates the two Lords of Psalm 110, even though passages like Rom. 8:34 and Rom. 15:6 confirm that only one of these two Lords is YHWH. Romans 8:34 states that Jesus is at the right hand of God. Romans 15:6 tells us that this same God is “the God…of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Thus Paul recognizes the first LORD (YHWH) in Ps. 110:1 as the God of the second Lord (Jesus) in Ps. 110:1. By this it is clear that he does not think YHWH and the resurrected Jesus are the same Lord.

Reason #3: Paul Focuses Upon the Eschatological Aspect of Salvation

Return of Christ

Capes points out that Paul tends to apply the title “Lord” to Jesus when discussing eschatological matters like those found in Rom. 10:13. And we agree that this could suggest Rom. 10:13 refers at least in part to Jesus. But Capes problematically attempts to draw support from Joel 2:31, which refers to the eschatological “day of the LORD [YHWH]”

Paul appears to have Joel 2:31 in view when he describes the return of Christ in 1 Cor. 1:8, leading Capes to observe that “for the apostle [Paul], Joel’s ‘day of the Lord’ has become the ‘day of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (1 Cor. 1:8).”¹² Once again, Capes implies that Paul has switched the focus from YHWH to Jesus, this time by applying Joel 2:31 to Jesus in 1 Cor. 1:8. It seems he would like us to assume that two individuals who share the same day must also share the same identity. But this is simply a non sequitur.

We have noted previously that Paul was operating within the Christological framework laid out Psalm 110. This Psalm mentions two “Lords” involved in the eschatological day of wrath, but only one of them is YHWH. The other “Lord” is YHWH’s chosen Messiah, the one through whom he will execute that wrath:

Psalm 110:2-5 (ESV) — 2 The LORD [YHWH] sends forth from Zion your (Messiah’s) mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies! 3 Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your (Messiah’s) power, in holy garments; from the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours…5 The Lord (YHWH) is at your (Messiah’s) right hand; he (YHWH) will shatter kings on the day of his (YHWH’s) wrath.

The day of YHWH’s wrath is also the day of the Messiah’s power, not because the Messiah is YHWH but because YHWH will empower the Messiah to execute his wrath (see also Rev. 6:16-17). There is no confusion of identities in this passage; the Messiah is clearly depicted as the human agent of his God YHWH.

This dispels any notion that Paul has somehow collapsed the two figures into one. To the contrary, the “day of our Lord Jesus Christ” in 1 Cor. 1:8 identifies Jesus as the prophesied Messianic agent through whom YHWH would mete out justice on the day of judgment.

Reason #4: Paul States that “Jesus is Lord” in Romans 10:9

Jesus is Lord

Here we arrive at the real meat of Capes’ four-part argument. He considers the Christological confession in Romans 10:9 to be the deal-clincher that should convince the reader of his claims, even if his previous three points failed to do so:

[In Romans 10:9] the apostle characterizes his gospel and believers’ appropriate response to its proclamation by the confession “Jesus is Lord.” [In Romans 10:13] he proceeds to quote Joel 2:32: “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord [kyrios] shall be saved.” The internal logic of the passage requires that the one who is confessed as Lord is the same Lord called upon by everyone to be saved. ¹³

This parallel carries weight and should be considered carefully. Romans 10:9 and 10:13 both mention a confession that involves the word “Lord” and results in salvation. Further, 1 Cor. 1:2 mentions believers who “call on the name” (epikaleo ho onoma) of Jesus – the same Greek phrase that is used in Joel 2:32 LXX and Rom. 10:13.

It seems clear, then, that Paul’s use of Joel 2:32 in Rom. 10:13 has Jesus in view. But does it have Jesus alone in view? This is Capes’ premise. He argues that “Paul apparently had no qualms about shifting his focus from God to Christ. . . when quoting texts containing the divine name.” ¹⁴

Yet Paul’s letter to the Romans consistently makes the case that there are two distinct figures involved in the salvation he preached: God and his Messiah.¹⁵ The interaction of these two figures in the drama of salvation is nowhere more evident than in Rom. 10:9, which Capes rightly places in parallel to Rom. 10:13:

Romans 10:9 (ESV)	Romans 10:13 (ESV)
because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised [Jesus] from the dead, you will be saved.	For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

To “call upon the name of the Lord” for salvation is not merely to speak the name of an individual, as one might suppose if Rom. 10:13 is taken in isolation. Romans 10:9 makes it clear that eschatological salvation is obtained by confessing and believing that God raised Jesus from the dead and made him Lord. In other words, Rom. 10:9 is the full expression of Paul’s point, while Rom. 10:13 is an abbreviated version.

This argues against the popular supposition that Paul has shifted the focus from God to Christ in Rom. 10:13 via the word “Lord.” Both figures are actually in view, and they are assuredly not the same “Lord”: one raised the other from the dead (Rom. 10:9), and the one who did the raising is God over the one who was raised (Rom. 15:6).

In other words, the Lord God permanently bestowed a representative Lordship upon his human Messianic Son at the resurrection, such that the Lord Jesus represents the Lord God and functions on his behalf. This position expressed by Paul in Romans 8:34 and 10:9 allows him to later cite Joel 2:32 without concern that his reader might imagine a subtle attempt to identify Jesus as a second YHWH. Such an attempt would indeed be nonsensical to a first century hearer and certainly require further explanation that is nowhere to be found.

Moreover, the resurrected Lordship of Jesus mentioned in Rom. 10:9, as noted earlier, is rooted in Psalm 110:1. There we find two Lords mentioned such that the first Lord (YHWH) is the God of the second Lord (Jesus). Significantly, Peter made a connection between Psalm 110 and Joel 2 at Pentecost.

In Acts 2, Peter quotes Joel 2:28-32 verbatim and tells us that the outpouring of the spirit was triggered by Jesus’ exaltation to the right hand of God (Ps. 110:1). We may be baptized in Jesus’ name for salvation, he explains, expressly because “God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” (Acts 2:36) Thus Peter’s interpretation of Joel 2:32 distinguishes Jesus from God and identifies Jesus’ lordship as something bestowed upon him by God.

Paul likewise instructs us to call upon YHWH for salvation by confessing Jesus as the one whom YHWH has resurrected and exalted as Lord in Rom. 10:9-13. One cannot acknowledge Jesus as Lord without also acknowledging his God YHWH, who put him in that position to begin with. This is explained in Rom. 10:9 and therefore need not be repeated in Rom. 10:13.

The theology behind Paul’s use of Joel 2:32 is rooted in a key principle regarding God’s salvation that is evident throughout the OT: one can simultaneously attribute salvation to YHWH and to an intermediary figure appointed by YHWH, without nonsensically implying that the second figure must be YHWH. This is because YHWH is simply working through the second figure. A good example is found in 1 Samuel:

1 Samuel 7:8 (ESV)	1 Samuel 9:16 (ESV)
And the people of Israel said to Samuel, “Do not cease to cry out to the LORD [YHWH] our God for us, that he may save us from the hand of the Philistines.“	“Tomorrow about this time I [YHWH] will send to you a man from the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him to be prince over my people Israel. He shall save my people from the hand of the Philistines. For I have seen my people, because their cry has come to me.”

Just as 1 Samuel attributes salvation both to YHWH and to the man from the land of Benjamin whom YHWH had sent, so also salvation can be attributed to Jesus and God in Romans 10 without conflating the two. Indeed, this is precisely the point in Rev. 7:10: “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

This principle brings Romans 10:13 into harmony with the wider Biblical narrative about the salvation of YHWH – a narrative whose central premise is that God would first extend his salvation to the Messiah and then establish him as agent of that salvation for the rest of mankind.¹⁶

Moreover, Jesus was the first to experience the salvation described in Joel 2:32 when he called upon the name of YHWH (someone other than himself) and was subsequently saved at his resurrection. This is powerfully depicted in the Psalm Jesus quoted while hanging on the cross:

Psalm 31:7, 16-17 LXX (Brenton)	Joel 2:32 LXX (Brenton)
Into thine hands I will commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth. . . . Make thy face to shine upon thy servant: save [sodezo] me in thy mercy. O Lord [Heb=YHWH], let me not be ashamed, for I have called upon [epikaleomai] thee: let the ungodly be ashamed, and brought down to Hades.	And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on [epikaleomai] the name of the Lord [Heb=YHWH] shall be saved [sodezo]: for in mount Sion and in Jerusalem shall the saved one be as the Lord has said, and they that have glad tidings preached to them, whom the Lord has called.

In sum, while the confession in Rom. 10:9 does suggest that Paul is applying Joel 2:32 to Christ, it also confirms that Christ is not the only one in view. YHWH is the additional and superior figure in the picture, portrayed as the one who saved Christ before establishing him as the agent of our salvation. Paul’s theology in Rom. 10:9-13 is thus at odds with Capes’ speculative interpretation of Romans 10:13.

Conclusion

In this article we have reviewed all four elements of David Capes’ argument and discovered a few solid points that were unfortunately outnumbered by a host of unconvincing ones. On the positive side, the claim that Rom. 10:13 applies Joel 2:32 to Jesus was particularly well supported by the fourth element of his case. We can therefore agree with Capes on this much.

However, the idea that such an application identifies Jesus with YHWH in a proto-Trinitarian sense utterly fails to convince. Our investigation has shown that Paul’s view of salvation in Rom. 10:9-13 – in harmony with the wider Biblical narrative – involves two figures, only one of whom is YHWH.

Indeed, each text Capes attempts to leverage in favor of his premise is better understood within the theological framework established by Psalm 110, which depicts YHWH seating a human being at his right hand to act as his agent in accomplishing the salvation of mankind.

David Capes, The Divine Christ: Paul, Jesus, and the Scriptures of Israel, p. 186. ↵
Capes shies away from actually stating that Paul is identifying Jesus as YHWH, presumably because he is aware of the logical pitfall of conflating Jesus and YHWH as numerically identical. Thus he prefers to ambiguously frame it as Paul identifying Jesus with YHWH in an unexpected, “proto-Trinitarian” sort of way. ↵
Divine Christ, p. 112. ↵
E.g. Rom. 1:7-8, 3:24-25, 5:10-11, 8:17, 10:9, 15:5-7. Although Capes cites Romans 9:5 several times in his book as evidence that Jesus is called “God” in Romans, he fails to acknowledge the well-known grammatical ambiguity of this verse in the Greek. While some translations render it like the ESV (“To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen”), other translations render it similar to the KJV (“Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen”). For a thorough analysis of the textual and theological considerations, see here and here. ↵
For more on the principle of agency, see Shaliach: An Introduction to the Law of Agency. ↵
Divine Christ, p. 114. Brackets mine. ↵
See Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans (Pillar New Testment Commentary), under Romans 10. ↵
It also may well anticipate the activity of the wicked human ruler depicted in Isaiah 14:13: “You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high. . .” While some early church fathers took this as the fall of Satan, many later theologians have pointed out that the context doesn’t support such a conclusion, since the passage is clearly about human pride. (See, e.g., John Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah Chapters 1-39, p. 320.) ↵
Divine Christ, p. 115. Brackets mine. ↵
See https://claudemariottini.com/2012/08/21/the-lord-said-to-my-lord/ ↵
See http://classic.net.bible.org/verse.php?book=Psa&chapter=110&verse=1 ↵
Divine Christ, p. 115 ↵
p. 116. ↵
p. 117 ↵
Rom. 1:9, 16-17; 5:1-2, 8-10; 6:4, 11-14, 22-23; 7:25; 8:3-4, 11; 9:33; 10:1-9 ↵
See, e.g., Is. 49:7-8, Heb. 5:7-10. ↵