First, let me state that I’m perfectly happy for Jesus to be God, but to insist that He MUST be viewed in this fashion (or you’ll Burn in Hell?) just makes no sense to me. If you care to read on, I’ll try to explain my position – or lack of it as the case may be.
After my epiphany, 34 years ago, I attended a Southern Baptist church and began Bible Study of my own. But, I had several Jewish friends, one of which had an Uncle who was a Rabbi. I had occasion to ask this guy, “hey, why do Jews reject Jesus?” His answer surprised me! He said Jews didn’t “reject” Jesus for hundreds of years until the Christians started making him God and “distorting” Torah passages and canonizing the letters of that crazed and arrogant Jew, Saul/Paul of Tarsus. To most Jews, all of this was High Blasphemy and you know how SERIOUSLY the Jews take Blasphemy!
Further, early Jews didn’t even believe in an actual human Messiah. It seems that the concept developed later in Judaism. Today, Jews that believe in the Messiah say that he will be a male descendent of King David (2 Samuel 7:12-13; Jeremiah 23:5), will be observant of Jewish law (Isaiah 11:2-5), will act as a righteous judge (Jeremiah 33:15), and be a great military leader. In Jesus’ day, there had been several “messiahs” in the recent past. Many Jews were weary of their failures to deliver Israel. So the idea of a “messiah” was not unique and, in fact, the name “Jesus” was fairly common as well.
Nevertheless, Jews did not then, nor do they now, believe that the messiah will be “God in the Flesh”. Passages viewed by Christians as indicating a divine messiah (such as the suffering servant of Isaiah 53) are viewed by Jews as speaking of the people of Israel. Most Orthodox Jews accept only the following passages as messianic: Isaiah 2, 11, 42; 59:20, Jeremiah 23, 30, 33; 48:47; 49:39, Ezekiel 38:16, Hosea 3:4-3:5, Micah 4, Zephaniah 3:9, Zechariah 14:9 , Daniel 10:14.
The more I looked at the Jewish Case against Jesus’ Divinity, the more sense it made. Further, not making Jesus God solved the problem with the insufferable “logic” of the Christian redemptive process, that is , God (Jesus) was sacrificing Himself to Himself to appease Himself. Say what? If God required a human sacrifice and Jesus was God’s solution then God could easily decide to use Jesus in the grand Jewish tradition as a “scapegoat” but this time as the Ultimate Sacrifice for ALL sin. In Jewish lore, there are many examples of Prophets that did the same kinds of things as Jesus – some that didn’t even taste death. Clearly, they had the anointing of The Father but no “scriptures” or Jewish traditions claimed that they were God. I don’t see why the “personage” or nature of Jesus has to be any different.
According to my Rabbi acquaintance, the rub came when Jesus started “forgiving sins” because both Jews and Christians believe only God can forgive sins. I guess that meant Christians had to insist that Jesus was God, to which the Jews were vehemently obliged to object. What if Jesus never actually said, “your sins are forgiven” but “your sins are forgiven by the Father or will be forgiven (by the Father)”. In this case, Jesus would be honoring the “broken and contrite heart” but the Father would be doing the forgiving as promised in the OT (Psalms 51:17 and others). I also think the Christians needed another “god” to prop up the dogma of the “Trinity”.
As stated before, I’m perfectly happy for Jesus to be God, but it still makes no sense to me to insist that He MUST be. Like most Dogma, it is divisive and poses some strange theological questions. It has also helped to alienate Jesus’ own people for thousands of years and I don’t see any good that has come from it.
In His Love, John
Thanks!
