Why I Am an Evangelical Even Though Evangelicals Say I’m Not

October 8, 2021 By Kermit Zarley

I have been an evangelical Christian since college. I was saved in a Nazarene Church when I was thirteen. Many evangelicals would say I’m no longer an evangelical because of the my book, The Restitution of Jesus Christ. In it, as a former Trinitarian for 22 years, I make a very in-depth examination of critical biblical texts to show that the Bible does not identify Jesus as God, rather as the Messiah of Israel, Lord, and Savior.

The Christians of the first three centuries of the Christian era clearly did not believe Jesus was co-equally God with God the Father, and neither did they believe that God was a trinity of persons: the Father, Son (Jesus) and Holy Spirit. When we believers get to glory–by means of Jesus raising us from the dead at the end of the age–if we could ask the apostle Peter and the apostle Paul if they believed in the deity of Christ and that God is a trinity of persons, I believe they would say something like this, “WHAT! What are you talking about?” They wouldn’t have a clue. Then, when we would explain what these expressions mean, they would soundly answer, “No.”

Since the fourth century, churches have established creeds claiming that if a person does not believe in the doctrine of the Trinity, which includes belief that Jesus is equally God with the Father, also called “the deity of Christ,” that person is not a genuine Christian. I believed that for 22 years mostly because that is what I was taught. But when I took a very serious look at this, with an in-depth examination of the Bible over a period of 28 years, in which I read about a thousand books on the identity of Jesus and consulted many hundreds of Bible commentaries, I came to believe without any uncertainty whatsoever that the Bible does not identify Jesus as being God. Moreover, I believe that false teaching tarnishes somewhat the magnificence of Jesus in his conquering sin and thereby becoming perfectly qualified as the sinless Lamb of God to provide for our so great salvation by dying on the cross for our sins.

So, I claim to still be an evangelical mainly for the following four reasons:

(1) I have always been in the Bible church movement, which is very evangelical, and I still worship at an evangelical church;

(2) the two primary statements that define evangelicalism–the four-point definition of the Bebbington Quadrilateral and the similar statement by the National Association of Evangelicals–do not contain any statement either about Jesus being God or God being a trinity of persons, called the doctrine of the Trinity;

(3) evangelicalism has always been based primarily on the principle that the Bible is the basis for Christian belief so that the Bible supersedes church creeds. The Bible does not have the word Trinity, and it has no statement that God is a trinity of persons. Moreover, Jesus never identified himself as God. Rather, Jesus constantly distinguished himself from God and called God his Father;

(4) evangelicalism has always advocated for church reform, including doctrinal reform if it can be shown that past, common, evangelical belief is not supported by the Bible. I believe that can be convincingly shown. But the church, including evangelicals, refuses to discuss this openly. I have challenged some Christian leaders to publicly debate this with me, and they have refused. The early Protestant Church leaders accepted the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity without giving it any critical examination, and I believe that Reformation still needs to take place.

Foster Friess Died at 81

June 1, 2021 By Kermit Zarley

Foster Friess died last Thursday here in Scottsdale, Arizona, where I live. He was 81 years old. He had been undergoing treatments here at the Mayo Clinic for a blood and bone marrow cancer. The gregarious Foster Friess will be greatly missed by friends. With a name like that, how could you not like Foster Friess. His name always reminded me of when I was growing up in Seattle, my family sometimes would go have an evening treat after supper by driving to the ice cream joint called Foster’s Freeze.

I was one of Foster’s many, many friends. Since he lived in both Scottsdale and Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the always-smiling and positive-thinking Foster Friess often had his picture taken wearing a cowboy hat and perhaps riding a horse due to the founding of his organization Foster’s Outriders.

Foster Friess was well known in the financial industry for founding and operating the Brandywine Fund, the flagship of Friess Associates. Investors may be interested to know that CNBC once identified Foster Friess as one of the 20th “century’s great investors.” Forbes magazine named Foster Friess one the 1990’s top stock pickers. That decade, Brandywine Fund had average annual gains of 20% with up to $15 billion in assets managed, of which the Friess family owned 10%.

Foster was a devout Christian and a prominent Republican who once ran for governor of Wyoming. And he and his wife Lynn also were known for being philanthropists to Christian charities and donors to Republican politicians, such as Rick Santorum.

I first met Foster Friess at a private Golf Fellowship weekend retreat held at the elite Pine Valley Golf Club in southern New Jersey. During the 1980s, I worked with my two friends Jim Hiskey and Tom Flory in establishing Golf Fellowship groups throughout the U.S. It was an evangelical Christian ministry to amateur golfers. We played golf together, prayed together, studied the Bible together, and discussed our personal Christian faith together.

Golf Digest has always rated Pine Valley Golf Club as the #1 golf course in the U.S. It is surprising that no major, professional golf championship has ever been held at this venue. It is truly a remarkable golf course design. I have to say that Golf Digest got it right about this place. And that is the only time I ever played Pine Valley.

One day during this Golf Fellowship retreat at Pine Valley, Foster Friess and I were paired together playing the great Pine Valley Golf Club. You’d think that we would have our minds totally engrossed in playing such a world-famous track as Pine Valley. But somehow, we got into a slightly-tense discussion about whether or not Jesus is God. Of course, just about all Christians since the fourth century have been taught, just as I had been, that the Bible says Jesus is both God and man. This teaching was later included in the theological construct called “the doctrine of the Trinity.”

Christians who read my blog much know that I was a Trinitarian Christian for twenty-two years until one day a Bible verse caught my attention while I was studying the Bible in my home office. It is in Jesus’ so-called Olivet Discourse which he delivered privately to his apostles only a few days before his crucifixion on Good Friday, his resurrection the following Sunday morning, and his ascension to heaven forty days later. Jesus then said concerning his yet future return which he had predicted, “But about/of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of/in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Matthew 24.32/Mark 13.32 NRSV).

Along with this teaching that Jesus is God and its corollary, the doctrine of the Trinity, I also had been taught “the hypostatic union” of Jesus Christ. The Catholic Church had established that Jesus was God during its first ecumenical council, in 325, and it further established its doctrine of the Trinity in its second ecumenical council, in 381. After that, the Church established its doctrine of the hypostatic union to explain how Jesus could be both man and God. The hypostatic union means that Jesus had two natures: a human nature and a divine nature. This teaching was applied to the deeds and sayings of Jesus as recorded in the four gospels of the New Testament. Thus, according to the hypostatic union, church leaders often explained that Jesus said his statement in Matthew 24.36/Mark 13.32 solely according to his human nature. That is, in his human nature he did not know the time of his return, but in his divine nature he did know because, being God, with a divine nature, God knows everything.

All of sudden, when I was reading that saying of Jesus in the winter of 1979-1980, I believe a light went on inside of me. Contemplating that Jesus did not know in his human nature the time of his return, yet he did know it in his divine nature, I then blurted out loud to myself, “That makes Jesus look like a liar. He said didn’t know, but he really did know.” I then decided that I must have a serious look at this issue.

Wow, did I ever. I estimate that for the next thirty years, I read about 1,000 books on the identity of Jesus. And I scoured hundreds of Bible commentaries regarding what they said of the critical Bible texts on this subject, which are several. The result of this immense study was that I wrote a 600-page book on my findings entitled The Restitution of Jesus Christ which I self-published in 2008. I believe this book presents the most thorough and biblical challenge to the teaching that Jesus is God that has ever been published from the viewpoint that Jesus is all that the church has agreed to about him–such as his virgin birth, miracles, sinless perfection, died for our sins as Savior and Lord, and literally arose from dead–except that he is not God.

So, Foster and I did not come to agreement about this. But that is the way it usually has been for me in discussing this subject with my Christian brethren. For the church generally says I am a heretic, and thus not a real Christian, because of I now believe the Bible does not say Jesus is God. Thus, I believe church fathers got this wrong. Nevertheless, Foster was such a loving friend to people that he and I did not let this ruin our Christian fellowship. And in my opinion, that’s the way it should be.

Justin Rose Still Leads the Masters

April 9, 2021 By Kermit Zarley

Justin Rose–a Brit with a perfect golf swing who the 2013 U.S. Open champion–still leads the Masters today after two rounds with an even par 72 today. It goes with his blistering 7-under par round of 65 yesterday in which he led the field on a tough day by four strokes. He had started poorly, two over par after seven holes, and then went nine under par his last eleven holes, which may be some kind of record at the Masters. Rose is one stroke ahead of left-hander Brain Harman and a new, young guy on the PGA Tour who looks like Thomas Jefferson.

He is 24-year old, 6’2″, 165 pound Will Zalatoris, possibly a rising new star on the best pro golf circuit in the world. He quit school at Duke and missed Q-school his first try. Last year he did well on the PGA Tour’s Korn Ferry Tour and won one tournament. He gets a lot of club head speed and therefore hits the ball long off the tee with a fairly short backswing and hardly any wrist cock. If he wanted to, by adding wrist cock to his backswing, he could hit the ball a country mile. Will also looks like a great putter. He putts with a long putter with the grip hugging his left arm, which stabilizes the club head and I think is a terrific method.

Zalatoris was born in San Francisco and lives in Plano, Texas. He attended Trinity Christian Academy in high school, which is a conservative, non-denominational Christian school. Will won the U.S. Juniors in 2014. He attended Wake Forest University, a Baptist school, and quit in his senior year to turn pro. He tied for 6th last year in the U.S. Open, indicating he may have quite a future in pro golf.

Superstar Jordan Spieth–a three-time major winner who got back in the winners circle last week after a long drought–is lurching close behind at 5-under par. Spieth is definitely a favorite on these fast and firm greens at Augusta National. They look like they are starved for water being brown looking. Cross-handed putter Spieth is one of the best, if not the best, putters to come along in recent years on the pro circuit.

Evangelicals Being Radicalized with Violence

February 4, 2021 By Kermit Zarley

I just read such a good article on how some Christians, especially Evangelicals, have been radicalized to support violence as a means to make the USA a Christian nation. This growing movement was evident in the assault on members of Congress gathered at the Capitol Building on January 6th to certify the election of Joe Biden as president. And then a riot erupted in which five people died, but it could have been much worse.

The Senate will begin the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump next week. It will be centered on the question of whether or not Trump incited the crowd gathered to hear him speak near the Capitol, and whether or not he caused the crowd to storm the Capitol minutes later. If he did, that would be incitement to insurrection, which the impeachment claims. It’s hard to think of anything worse that a president of the USA could do if that is indeed what happened.

Some of the members of that riot at the Capitol claimed to be Christians. Some of the fringe groups that were represented in that assault espoused Christian beliefs. Many of those people believed in a religious nationalism in which it was their goal to restore the USA to its former status as a supposed Christian nation. A recent movement called QAnon is one of those fringe groups. It has had some influence in certain segments of American Christianity, such as evangelicalism.

Politico magazine’s editor Zack Stanton has written an article about it, just published seven hours ago, that is an interview he did with Elizabeth Neumann, who has a strong evangelical background. She was the senior advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff of the Homeland Security from 2017 to 2020. She then resigned last spring in protest to President Donald Trump’s policies.

Elizabeth Neumann grew up in Dallas, Texas, attended Trinity Christian Academy nearby, and earned her Bachelors degree in Government Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, which is where both of my daughters graduated. My family was evangelical in metro-Houston just like Ms. Neumann was in Dallas-Austin.

In this interview of Ms. Neumann, she demonstrates a profound understanding of conspiracy theory groups such as QAnon and their influence on evangelicalism. The article is entitled “It’s Time to Talk About Violent Christian Extremism,” and it can be accessed here.

200th Anniversary of The Jefferson Bible

October 22, 2020 By Kermit Zarley

This year is the 200th anniversary of “The Jefferson Bible” as it is popularly called. But it really is entitled The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. It was compiled, thus not actually authored, by the third U.S. president, Thomas Jefferson, in 1820. Jefferson did something similar to what I did in compiling my first book, The Gospel (237 pp., softcover, but no longer in print). This book was published in about May of 1987. But I also made it a part of my two-part book, The Gospels Interwoven (415 pp., hardcover) published one month later and endorsed by my friend Evangelist Billy Graham.

My book, The Gospel, is a single-narrative harmony of the four New Testament (NT) gospels in the New International Version of the Bible. Thus, I joined all four gospels together in one reading, leaving nothing out while deleting repetition since two or more of these gospels often report the same acts and sayings in Jesus’ ministry. You could say that Jefferson and I did the same thing in taking a Bible, cutting up its four gospels, and pasting portions together. But there is one huge difference between our compilations.

Thomas Jefferson had a high regard for Jesus except that Jefferson–a very learned man and widely read–was a typical rationalist and Deist of his time and therefore a product of Enlightenment. So, Jefferson did not believe Jesus did any of those miracles that are said of him in all four NT gospels, nor did he believe those gospels were right in narrating that Jesus literally arose from the dead. Thus, that’s where Jefferson’s scissors and paste came in even more handy that they did for me. That is, Thomas meticulously cut out all of that material in the gospels and tossed it in his trash can, but he pasted just about everything else into his Jefferson Bible.

John Adams was Vice President to our first president, George Washington, in 1789-1797, and then became our second president in 1797-1801. Thomas Jefferson was our third president, in 1801-1809. Jefferson compiled his Jefferson Bible in his old age. In 1814, Jefferson wrote to his friend, former President John Adams, who was a Unitarian who also had high regard for Jesus but did not believe in his miracles or resurrection. Jefferson wrote to Adams, saying of those portions in the four NT gospels, “It is as easy to separate those parts as to pick out diamonds from dunghill.” Now, I have a certain respect for Thomas Jefferson, but him using the metaphor “dunghill” to refer to Jesus’ alleged miracles and resurrection in the NT gospels makes me aghast.

I have written in books, “If Jesus did not arise from the dead, there never would have been any Christianity.” Actually, I have a subhead on “Deism” in my book, The Restitution of Jesus Christ (pp. 91-92, written with the pseudonym “Servetus the Evangelical”), that tells about Thomas Jefferson and his Jefferson Bible as follows:

Deism began in England in the mid-17th century. It spread throughout Europe and North America, flourishing there for about a century. Deism grew out of Enlightenment, partly in reaction to the religious intolerance of the Reformation. Deism consisted of an intellectual rationalism that was based solely on reason and natural law. Thus, Deism was anti-supernaturalistic, generally skeptical of divine revelation and therefore the Bible, and generally opposed to orthodox Christianity.

“Pure Deists believed in a personal, transcendent Supreme Being who created a “clockwork universe,” meaning that He did not afterwards intervene in human affairs. Moderate Deists, however, postulated that God was immanent in the individual human conscience, if not active in human affairs. Regarding theological dogma, all Deists were known most for rejecting the Christian doctrines of the incarnation and the Trinity. Some of them were a bit hazy on whether the one God was a personal being. They frequently employed the words “Providence,” “God of Nature,” or “the Deity” rather than “God.”

Deism remained an ideological movement that never formed into a particular school of thought or cultus. Actually, classical Deists were opposed to organized, institutional religion. Yet many of those who declared themselves as Deists were not without influence in society. Several founding forefathers of the USA were Deists. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), the author of the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the third U.S. president, was a thorough-going Deist. (Some authorities, however, claim that it is more accurate to classify him as “a Freethinker.”) Moderate Deists included George Washington (1732-1799), the first U.S. president, and Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), the great inventor, publisher, politician, and Renaissance man.

Thomas Jefferson opposed much of organized Christian religion when he helped get “the establishment clause” into the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Jefferson was most opposed to Presbyterianism. In his writings, he frequently denounces John Calvin, calling him an “Atheist.” Jefferson later wrote the following harshly rhetorical attack on Presbyterianism, citing the Servetus episode:

The Presbyterian clergy are the loudest, the most intolerant of all sects; the most tyrannical and ambitious, ready at the word of the law-giver, if such a word could now be obtained, to put their torch to the pile, and to rekindle in this virgin hemisphere the flame in which their oracle, Calvin, consumed the poor Servetus, because he could not subscribe to the proposition of Calvin, that magistrates have a right to exterminate all heretics to the Calvinistic creed! They pant to re-establish by law that holy inquisition which they can now only infuse into public opinion.

Later, in Germany, Deism helped stir the emergence of both biblical criticism and the History of Religions School. In the U.S., Thomas Jefferson became one of the first biblical critics among American Deists when, in the winter of 1819-1820, he produced a composite harmony of the four NT gospels. Entitled The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, it was published posthumously, in 1904. It emphasizes the ethical teachings of Jesus. But as a purely rationalistic work, it excludes all gospel narrative that depicts Jesus as a healer and miracle-worker, and it excises his resurrection and post- resurrection appearances as well.

Was Tertullian the First to Claim the Holy Spirit Is a Person?

April 22, 2020 By Kermit Zarley

The traditional church teaching about God is that God is a Trinity of three co-equal and co-eternal Persons: the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit. Anyone who reads my blog much knows that I was a Trinitarian for twenty-two years, and then I changed to believing that the Bible presents God as a single person, whom Jesus regularly called “Father,” and the Bible does not say Jesus is God. Yet I also believe everything else the post-apostolic church has proclaimed about Jesus, especially that he died for our sins on the cross as Savior, was resurrected from the dead, ascended to heaven, sat down at the right hand of God on God’s throne, and he will return in the future with his worldwide kingdom given to him by God.

I then wrote a 500-page book about the Bible not saying Jesus is God entitled The Restitution of Jesus Christ (2008) in which I cite the writings of over 400 scholars and interact with them. (To see a list of 130+ posts of 2-3 pages each which represent condensations of this book, go to Kermit Zarley Blog and click on “Christology” in the header bar.)

Over the past few years, I increasingly have come to suspect that the baptismal formula in Mt 28.19b is not original, so that it is an interpolation inserted from a later time.

Matthew 28.19-20 is represented as a saying of the risen Jesus to his disciples. It reads as follows in the NRSV: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” See my similar blog post on this text entitled “Is the Trinitarian Formula in Matthew 28:19 an Interpolation?”

The threefold baptismal formula of Mt 28.19 also appears in the early, non-canonical literature of The Didache (2x) and Tertullian’s On Baptism. Scholars used to believe the The Didache was written at the end of the 2^nd c. But most now believe it was written at the end of the 1^st c., though some still hold to late date.

Tertullian (c. 155-c. 240) was a Berber who is believed to have become a lawyer before his Christian conversion. I have been to the Berber mountains in North Africa. Those native Berbers are interesting and seemingly industrious people who dress colorfully.

Tertullian lived and ministered in Carthage in Tunisia, North Africa, which was located on the Mediterranean Sea. He wrote in the early 2^nd c., starting in about in 204, though perhaps some of his works were earlier.

Tertullian became a prolific, Christian, apologist author who had an enormous, later influence upon Christianity despite the fact that he was never canonized by either the Western or Eastern branches of Christendom. That is because some of his teachings were questionable. Yet he is regarded as “the father of Latin Christianity” and “the father of Western Theology.”

Tertullian is most known for being the first to apply the Latin word trinitas (trinity) to God (actually, he was not the first as I state in my book), which became the basis for the late fourth century church formulation of the official doctrine of the Trinity. In some of Tertullian’s writings, he calls the Father and the Son “two gods.” (See Dale and Zalta Tuggy, History of Trinitarian Doctrines.)

Tertullian became a Montanist. I think eventually there was a significant Montanist community in Carthage, Tunisia. This Christian sect was first established by Montanus in Phrygia, Asia Minor, and then it spread elsewhere. Montanists emphasized the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, and miracles, much like Pentecostalists do today.

Since Montanists so emphasized the Holy Spirit in comparison to other Christians, I think Tertullian could have been an important person who first claimed the Holy Spirit was a person, or Tertullian could have been one of the first Christians who popularized this belief. Since I am no longer Trinitarian, I believe this teaching, that the Holy Spirit is an actual Person, is incorrect. Rather, according to the Bible, the (Holy) Spirit of God is to God what the spirit of man is to man because man was made in the image of God.

The following last paragraph in the wikipedia article on “Didache” is instructive:

“Significant similarities between the Didache and the Gospel of Matthew have been found^[5] as these writings share words, phrases, and motifs. There is also an increasing reluctance of modern scholars to support the thesis that the Didache used Matthew. This close relationship between these two writings might suggest that both documents were created in the same historical and geographical setting. One argument that suggests a common environment is that the community of both the Didache and the gospel of Matthew was probably composed of Jewish Christians from the beginning.^[5] Also, the Two Ways teaching (Did. 1–6) may have served as a pre-baptismal instruction within the community of the Didache and Matthew. Furthermore, the correspondence of the Trinitarian baptismal formula in the Didache and Matthew (Did. 7 and Matt 28:19) as well as the similar shape of the Lord’s Prayer (Did. 8 and Matt 6:5–13) appear to reflect the use of similar oral traditions. Finally, both the community of the Didache (Did. 11–13) and Matthew (Matt 7:15–23; 10:5–15, 40–42; 24:11,24) were visited by itinerant apostles and prophets, some of whom were heterodox.”

Historicity in the Gospel of John

April 11, 2020 By Kermit Zarley

The Gospel of John in the New Testament has always been my favorite book or letter in the Bible ever since my late teens. And my favorite verse of scripture is in this book. Thus, when I used to compete on the PGA Tour, I often gave autographs by including under my name “John 3.16.” This verse is part of a lengthy saying of Jesus in response to an inquirer named Nicodemus. Incidentally, he was one of the two guys who took Jesus’ deceased body off of the cross right about as I am writing this post (4:00 PM in Arizona on Good Friday), wrapped with grave cloths and spices, and laid it in Joseph’s tomb near Golgotha. Jesus had said to Nicodemus, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal.” (See my comparable and recent post, “What Does It Mean to Believe in the Name of Jesus?“)

I have been a so-called “born again Christian” since my early teens. I believed Jesus is God and God is a Trinity of Persons mostly because that was what I was taught, as almost all Christians are. But twenty years later, I began to question this teaching because Jesus saying of himself and his second coming, “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Matthew 24.36 NRSV; cf. Mark 13.32). I eventually looked into this matter very deeply and changed to no longer believing the Bible says Jesus is God or that God is a Trinity. I then wrote a book about it that was published 28 years later entitled The Restitution of Jesus Christ (2008) which is available at my website kermitzarley.com. In this book, I examine very carefully the primary biblical texts which are believed to say Jesus is God.

Leading New Testament scholars who assert that Jesus is God generally agree that most of the biblical support for their position is in The Gospel of John. Those scholars who have disputed that Jesus is God generally have dismissed The Gospel of John, claiming it is a church document that has little relevance to the actual Jesus. They claim that only the three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) are useful for determining Jesus identity, mostly because they do not say Jesus is God. These latter scholars further support their hypothesis by claiming that The Gospel of John has little historical value as well. They mean its content about historicity is without foundation.

Contemporary, leading Johannine scholars who believe the Fourth Gospel says Jesus is God include Paul Anderson, Richard Bauckham, Tom Thatcher, Felix Just, and now Jorg Frey. Older Johannine scholars who believed likewise included C. H. Dodd, J. Louis Martyn, Raymond E. Brown, and Culpepper.

In 1968, esteemed Johannine scholar J. Louis Martyn published his groundbreaking classic History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel. In it, he posits, as Rudolf Bultmann did, that the Gospel of John (=Fourth Gospel) had at least five authors. Thus, the Apostle John was not the sole author as was believed throughout church history. And Martyn says this gospel likely was written in the late 80s or 90s. Martyn also proposes that these authors were members of a Johannine community, probably located in Ephesus in Asia Minor. This is a point that soon won the day with other Johannine scholars, such as Raymond E. Brown. Martyn also claims The Fourth Gospel reveals more about the beliefs of that Johannine community, and their conflicts with the synagogue, than it does about Jesus. Thus, J. Louis Martyn dismisses The Gospel of John as having little historical value about Jesus of Nazareth. However, just about all of these Johannine scholars, whether they believe Jesus is God or not, believe The Gospel of John says clearly that Jesus is God. One of their main issues for discussion is that the Fourth Gospel supposedly has a tension between actual history and Theology/Christology.

Leading, contemporary, European, Johannine scholar Jorg Frey has published an important book entitled Theology and History in the Fourth Gospel: Tradition and Narration (Baylor Press, 2018). He obviously plays on Martyn’s title by reversing the two subjects both books address. Frey accepts that The Gospel of John says Jesus is God, which scholars call “a high Christology.” Frey’s main hypothesis, which is contrary to that of Martyn in his comparable book, is that the theological content of The Fourth Gospel is indeed historical and therefore truly represents the person of Jesus.

I think both Martyn and Frey are wrong, as are the large majority of Johannine scholars, in assuming that The Gospel of John identifies Jesus as God and thereby is contrary to the synoptics. I set this forth in my book, The Restitution of Jesus Christ (2008). In this book of 500 pages of text, in which I cite over 400 scholars and their works, I thoroughly examine critical Johannine texts and argue that The Gospel of John is both historically reliable in presenting the real Jesus and is compatible with the synoptics because it does not say Jesus is God.

As for date of authorship of John, I agree with John A. T. Robinson (Redating the New Testament and The Priority of John) that The Gospel of John and all other New Testament documents were written and published prior to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE. As for this gospel’s authorship, I lean toward the Apostle John, as does Robinson, as being the primary source for this gospel’s content. As for the actual hands that wrote the text, perhaps it was one or more associates of John (cf. John 21.24). For, we must remember that the actual titles penned to all four New Testament gospels likely were added sometime after they became public documents. And for this gospel to be titled “The Gospel According to John” only signifies that “John” was the source, or the main source, of its contents.

Thus, in MHO, Martyn and Frey go astray from the very beginning in examining the Fourth Gospel by assuming that it says Jesus is God. Yet I believe the New Testament affirms everything else the church has said about Jesus identity, such as, the unique Son of God, the Son of Man (cf. Daniel 7.13), Savior, and Lord.

For more reading about this subject, at my Kermit Zarley Blog click on Christology (in the menu bar) to see a list of over 130 (2-3 page) posts that are mostly condensations of my book, The Restitution of Jesus Christ. See especially the posts about John 1.1c (“and the Word was God”) and John 20.28 (“my Lord and my God”).

When Did Jesus “Come into the World”?

December 4, 2019 By Kermit Zarley

Christianity teaches the doctrine of the Trinity. It was gradually developed by post-apostolic church fathers over a period of about 250 years and made official at the Second Ecumenical Council, in 381. It means that God is three co-equal and co-eternal persons: the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit. In nearly the next two centuries, church fathers developed this teaching further about how Jesus could be both man and God. It is called “the hypostatic union.” It means Jesus had two natures: a human nature and a divine nature. This teaching also includes the Incarnation. It means that Jesus, as the Logos-Son of God, eternally preexisted in heaven and came into the world to be born a God-man. The church ever since has asserted that the Incarnation is taught in the Bible and that it is mostly in the Gospel of John. Yet, the words Trinity, two natures, hypostatic union, and Incarnation are not in the Bible.

I was taught all of this and believed it for twenty-two years. Then one day, while I was alone in my office studying the Bible, I had a eureka moment about this subject that changed my life forever. I was reading in Jesus’ Olivet Discourse wherein he said of his yet future return, “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mt 24.36 NRSV; cf. Mk 13.32). I had been taught—in accordance with the doctrine of the hypostatic union of the two natures—Jesus said that from the sole perspective of his human nature, since being God he certainly knew in his divine nature the time of his yet future return. I then exclaimed out loud to myself, “That makes Jesus look like a liar. He said he didn’t know, but he really did know.” I then decided that I must seriously look into this. I did, and I wrote a 600-page book about it entitled The Restitution of Jesus Christ. In it, I show that the Bible does not identify Jesus as God. I do so by thoroughly examining all of the critical, biblical texts on this subject while referencing the writings of over 400 scholars. It is my magnum opus.

So, let’s have a brief look at the Gospel of John to see if it teaches the Incarnation. As we do, we will focus primarily on the idea of Jesus “coming into the world” or him being “sent” into the world by God. This subject about his “coming” or being “sent” into the world occurs about forty times in this gospel. We first read therein of Jesus in this way, “in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (Jn 1.4-5). After that we soon read of him, “The true light was coming into the world” (v. 9). Does this refer to an Incarnation or Jesus’ public ministry, which he began at about age thirty (Mk 3.23). The next text suggests that it refers to his public ministry. For it says, “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him” (Jn 1.10-11).

Two chapters later we read in this gospel, “Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God” (Jn 3.1-2). So, Nicodemus, a great Torah teacher and not yet a disciple of Jesus, recognized that Jesus had “come from God.” But what did he mean? He surely did not believe that Jesus preexisted as God and came into this world by means of an Incarnation. Rather, Nicodemus meant that Jesus spiritually had come from God.

It was the same with John the Baptist. For we read in this gospel, back in its chapter one, “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light,” referring to Jesus (Jn 1.6). Just as Nicodemus did not mean that Jesus preexisted and then came from God, so the Johannine author does not mean here that John the Baptist preexisted and therefore was literally sent from heaven to earth by God. No, it means God spiritually sent him.

Not long into Jesus’ ministry, only the Gospel of John reports that Jesus healed a man who had been lame for thirty-eight years (Jn 5.5-9). Since it was on the Sabbath day, “the Jews started persecuting Jesus because he was doing such things on the sabbath. But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is still working, and I also am working.’ For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God” (vv. 16-18). Traditionalists (who believe Jesus is God) wrongly interpret this as being true, whereas the author only represents it as what those Jews believed. They were obviously mistaken because Jesus then gave a lengthy rebuttal in vv. 19-47. Therein, he says twice of himself, “the Son can do nothing on his own” and “I can do nothing on my own” (vv. 19, 30). No one who thought himself equal to God could say that. Jesus further explained in this context of his healing the lame man, “The works that the Father has given me to complete, the very works that I am doing, testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me. And the Father who has sent me has himself testified on my behalf” (vv. 36-37). So, Jesus said he was, like John the Baptist, sent by God, and that is how he could do miracles.

Now let us fast-forward to the end of Jesus’ ministry, where this concept of Jesus coming into the world becomes most prominent. Right after the Last Supper, and therefore shortly before Jesus was arrested and crucified, Jesus told his disciples that he was about to leave this world (Jn 16.16-20). He then consoled them by saying, “the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father” (v. 28 ESV). Did Jesus’ disciples believe that he meant an Incarnation, that he had preexisted and came into the world at his birth? No! For they replied, “we believe that you came from God” (v. 30b ESV). Furthermore, he concluded these remarks by predicting, “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (v. 33b ESV).

“The world” (Gr. ton kosmon) in these above texts therefore means the cosmos system that is opposed to the things of God. Jesus came into that world, this cosmos, at the time of his public ministry to be a light unto it because it was enveloped in spiritual darkness. That is what the Gospel of John means when it repeatedly says that Jesus came into the world.