The Forgotten Trinity (31 page)

4. Daniel Wallace in Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the
New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 530-531, has commented on the
translation of this passage:

The text reads: rtptv'A(3paa.µ yeve69at eyw Eiµi ("before Abraham was, I
am"). On this text, Dennis Light wrote an article in defense of the New World
Translation in the Bible Collector (July-December, 1971). In his article he discusses Ey61 c11ti, which the New World Translation renders, "I have been." Light
defends this translation by saying, "The Greek verb eimi, literally present tense,
must be viewed as a historical present, because of being preceded by the aorist
infinitive clause referring to Abraham's past" (p. 8). This argument has several
flaws in it: (1) The fact that the present tense follows an aorist infinitive has
nothing to do with how it should be rendered. In fact, historical presents are
usually wedged in between aorist (or imperfect) indicatives, not infinitives. (2)
If this is a historical present, it is apparently the only historical present in the
NT that uses the equative verb eiµi. The burden of proof, therefore, lies with
the one who sees Elpi as ever being used as a historical present. (3) If this is a
historical present, it is apparently the only historical present in the NT that is
in other than the third person.

The translators of the New World Translation understand the implications of
eyw eiµt here, for in the footnote to this text in the NWT, they reveal their
motive for seeing this as a historical present: "It is not the same as o div (ho ohn,
meaning `The Being' or `The I Am') at Exodus 3:14, LX-X." In effect, this is a
negative admission that if eyto Ei s is not a historical present, then Jesus is here
claiming to be the one who spoke to Moses at the burning bush, the I AM, the
eternally existing One, Yahweh (cf. Exod 3:14 in the LXX, kyto E'tllt 6 (hv).

5. See the preceding discussion of the prologue of John, chapter 4.

6. Irenaeus, Against Heresies in Philip Schaff, The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers
(Grand Rapids: Eerdman's, 1983), 1:478.

7. Origen, Against Celsus in Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids: Eerdman's, 1981), 4:463.

8. A Treatise of Novatian Concerning the Trinity in Roberts and Donaldson, The AnteNicene Fathers, 5:624-625.

9. Chrysostom, Homilies on St. John in Schaff, The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,
14:199.

10. Henry Alford, in his New Testament for English Readers (Grand Rapids: Wm. B.
Eerdman's Publishing Company, 1983), 2:547, added,

As Lucke remarks, all unbiassed (sic) explanation of these words must recognize in them a declaration of the essential pre-existence of Christ. All such
interpretations as "before Abraham became Abraham" i.e., father of many
nations (Socinus and others), and as 'I was predetermined, promised by God'
(Grotius and the Socinian interpreters), are little better than dishonest quibbles.
The distinction between was made (or was born) and am is important. The present, I am, expresses essential existence (see Col. 1:17) and was often used by our
Lord to assert His divine Being. In this verse the Godhead of Christ is involved;
and this the Jews clearly understood, by their conduct to Him.

11. Hebrew: Kan-,:K. This connection is either directly made or alluded to by Leon
Morris, The New International Commentary on the New Testament: The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdman's, 1971), 447, 473; by Merrill C. Tenney,
The Expositor's Bible Commentary: John (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981), 99; and
by F. F. Bruce, The Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Eerdman's, 1983), 193, 288.

12. Morris, The Gospel According to John, 473.

13. In the LXX this is rendered thus: Iva yv )TE KUt 1tt6TE1J TITE Kal 61)VT1TE OTI
eytri eiltt (hina gnote kai pisteusete kai sunete hoti ego eimi).

14. In Greek the last phrase is'ivu 1Ct reii tite Otcty yi v112at on Eyt EIgt (hina
pisteusete hotan genetai hoti ego eimi).

15. M. James Penton, "The `I Am' of John 8:58," in The Christian Quest (Winter): 1988,
64.

16. R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of John's Gospel (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1943), 614-615.

17. Indeed, many of the denials of the rather clear usage of ego eimi in John 8:24; 8:58;
13:19; and 18:5-6 find their origin in preconceived theologies that are nearly unitarian, subordinationist, or so enamored with naturalistic rationalism as to be an-
tisupernatural. A good example is given by C. K. Barrett: "It is not however correct
to infer either for the present passage or for the others in which ego eimi occurs
that John wishes to equate Jesus with the supreme God of the Old Testament....
Note that in v. 28 it is followed by `I do nothing of myself, but as the Father taught
me I speak these things ... I always do the things that are pleasing to him', and in
13:19 by `He who receives me receives him who sent me' (13:20). Jesus is the obedient servant of the Father, and for this reason perfectly reveals him. ego eimi does not identify Jesus with God, but it does draw attention to him in the strongest
possible terms" The assumption of the unipersonality of God as well as the ontological subordination of the Son that underlies Barrett's comments and clouds
his normally clear exegesis is striking.

18. We will look more closely at the identification of Jesus as Yahweh in chapter 10.

19. Tractate XLIII in Schaff, The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series I, 7:244.

20. Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, 473. A footnote on the same page reads:

e'ytw eiµi in LXX renders the Hebrew M177-1:x which is the way God speaks
(cf. Deut. 32:39; Isa. 41:4; 43:10; 46:4, etc.). The Hebrew may carry a reference
to the meaning of the divine name hwhy (cf. Exod. 3:14). We should almost
certainly understand John's use of the term to reflect that in the LXX. It is the
style of deity, and it points to the eternity of God according to the strictest understanding of the continuous nature of the present eimi. He continually IS. Cf.
Abbott: "taken here, along with other declarations about what Jesus IS, it seems
to call upon the Pharisees to believe that the Son of man is not only the Deliverer
but also one with the Father in the unity of the Godhead" (2228).

21. B. B. Warfield, The Person and Work of Christ (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1950), 60.

22. Ryle, Expository Thoughts, 573.

23. Martin Luther, "Sermons on the Gospel of John Chapters 6-8," in Luther's Works,
Jerislav Pelikan, ed. (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959), 365.

24. A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the Greek New Testament, 5:158-159.

25. William Hendrickson, New Testament Commentary: The Gospel of John (Grand
Rapids: Baker Book House, 1953), 67.

26. Greg Stafford, Jehovah's Witnesses Defended (Huntington Beach, Calif.: Elihu
Books, 1998), 144, goes so far as to say that the falling back of the soldiers "need
mean no more than that `the men who came to make the arrest ... were so overcome by His moral ascendancy that they recoiled in fear.' " Stafford goes on to
speak of the soldiers being "taken aback by his fearless demeanor." Of course, men
had been taken aback by the Lord's pure moral stature many times in His ministry-but had never fallen over as a result.

CHAPTER SEVEN

1. That the context of the passage is vital to its proper understanding seems a given;
yet those who attempt to assert that the Son is a creature on the basis of Colossians
1:15 uniformly ignore the context of Paul's anti-gnostic polemic. For example,
Greg Stafford in Jehovah's Witnesses Defended (Huntington Beach, Calif.: 1998), 91101, completely ignores the issue of gnosticism and, in the process, ends up gutting
Paul's apologetic, leaving it utterly irrelevant to the gnostic view.

2. Greek: yvwatS. It should be noted that there is nothing "wrong" with knowledge.
The NT uses the term in highly favorable ways. It is the misuse of knowledge, and
the elevation of knowledge to a means of salvation, that is in error.

3. Greek: 1tXflpwµa. For discussions of Gnosticism, its development, and its relationship to Paul's epistle to the Colossians, see J. B. Lightfoot, Saint Paul's Epistles
to the Colossians and to Philemon (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978), 76-113, and John Rutherfurd, "Gnosticism," in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia,
James Orr, ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959), 11:1240-1248.

4. Greek: SOKELV.

5. The Textus Receptus version of the Greek New Testament repeats the phrase "come
in the flesh" in verse 3, and hence the KJV and NKJV, which are based upon the
TR, likewise repeat the phrase. For a discussion of the passage, see my comments,
The King James Only Controversy (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1995), 184-185.

6. Greek: ttpwtotoKO;.

7. In the LXX the Greek term ttpw'to'roxos regularly translated the Hebrew term
-i__. (bekhor). It is significant that bekhor is not related in its root meanings to
either "first" or "to give birth." As Michaelis says concerning prototokos in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), IV:873,
"... it was quite possible that as an equivalent of ^i:= this might become increasingly remote and even detached altogether from the idea of birth or the whole
question of origin." See also Tsevat, -i::, Theological Dictionary of the Old Testa-
tnent (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), 11:123-127, and Oswalt, Theological
Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody Press, 1980), 108-110.

8. The term prototokos appears eight times in the New Testament: Luke 2:7; Romans
8:29; Colossians 1:15, 18; Hebrews 1:6; 11:28; 12:23; and Revelation 1:5.

9. "This expression ... is also used in some instances where it is uncertain whether
the force of the element -roicos is still felt at all." Walter Bauer, A Greek English
Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 726.

10. Kenneth Wuest, "Ephesians and Colossians," Wuest's Word Studies in the Greek New
Testament (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1981), 183.

11. Lightfoot, Saint Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon, 148.

12. Hence, The Expositor's Greek Testament says of the term prototokos, "in its primary
sense expresses temporal priority, and then, on account of the privileges of the
firstborn, it gains the further sense of dominion." W. Robertson Nicoll, ed., The
Expositor's Greek Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 502. Likewise, R. M.
Clark says, "The original meaning of the word is giving birth for the first time.
Later it came to mean the first-born or first in rank. This is the N. T. meaning. In
the N. T. the "-tokos" element is clearly implied only in Luke 2:7, in other places
it tends to recede into the background." R. M. Clark, "Words Relating to the Lord
Jesus Christ," Bible Translator, 13 (April 1962) :84. The Linguistic Key to the Greek
New Testament by Fritz Reinecker and Cleon Rogers distills down the scholastic
information and says, "The word emphasizes the preexistence and uniqueness of
Christ as well as His superiority over creation. The term does not indicate that
Christ was a creation or a created being." Fritz Reinecker, Cleon Rogers, Linguistic
Key to the Greek New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House,
1982), 567.

13. Stafford is in error (Jehovah's Witnesses Defended, p. 100) when he says, "The fact
that he [Jesus] is excluded from `all things' (ta panta) does not mean he is excluded
from `all creation' (pases ktiseos)." However, it is clear that the connection between verse 15 and verses 16-17 is unmistakable, and it would again be a complete capitulation to Paul's opponents to make the distinction he makes between "all
things" and "all creation." The exhaustive way in which Paul explains what "all
things" includes shows that Stafford is forced into untenable eisegesis so as to safeguard Watchtower theology. "All creation" is exactly what Paul is describing in
verses 16-17 as "all things." Admitting that the Son is excluded from "all things"
makes the Son the Creator.

14. When man is said to be created in the "image of God," the Scriptures there speak
of man's spiritual nature and ability to have fellowship with God. Being a creature
in the image of God is not the same as being "the image of the invisible God." One
speaks to our spiritual nature, the other to the exhaustive and perfect revelation
of the Father made by the Son.

15. The phrase "For by Him were all things created" could be translated "in Him," as
the Greek, iv airuii, is often translated this way in other contexts.

16. The Greek preposition "through" is Sta. It is used in the exact same context in
another passage that teaches the creatorship of Jesus Christ, Hebrews 1:2. More
importantly, it is a term used of the Father's role in creation as well in Romans
11:36 and Hebrews 2:10. Those who deny the deity of Christ insist that Jesus is
merely the instrument of creation, but not the Creator himself. Yet the fact that the
inspired text can use the same prepositions of both the Father and the Son demonstrates that the use of Sta does not make Jesus any less the Creator than the
Father.

17. The Greek phrase used by Paul is Ta 1tctvta. I believe it is significant that Paul
does not use the more popular terms nd; (pas) or 1t&v (pan), both of which had
meanings in Greek philosophy that allowed for the creation to be part of God or
God a part of creation (as in pantheism). Instead, he uses a term that makes the
creation a concrete, separate entity with real existence.

18. I refer again to the belief of Jehovah's Witnesses that Jesus Christ, prior to the
Incarnation, was Michael the Archangel, a created being. Some Christian theologians have identified Christ with Michael, but in the process, have insisted that
Christ is eternal and uncreated, meaning that His appearance as Michael would
not imply creatureliness or limitedness. I do not accept such an identification in
light of the discussion of Michael in Jude 9.