My Christological Journey (Part 12 of 12)

November 3, 2018 By Kermit Zarley

Conclusions about the Doctrine of the Trinity and Identity Christology

So, does the Bible ever unequivocally say God is three Persons/persons? No! Does the word “Trinity/trinity” ever appear in the Bible? No! In the NT gospel sayings of Jesus, does he ever state expressly that he is God? No! In all of the more than twenty evangelistic sermons or summaries of such in the book of Acts, do those early Christians ever say God is three Persons/persons, or God came from heaven to earth to become a man (Incarnation), or Jesus is God? No! On the contrary, the NT indicates first-century Christians believed none of these things. And Jude, Jesus’ brother, had written as scripture, “contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 3). Instead, Gentile church fathers later changed this gospel (“good news”) which the early Jewish Christians had been proclaiming throughout much of the world in the first century.

The first Christians were Jews who believed in one God and that this God is “one,” not three. The Apostle Peter affirmed that only the Father is God and Jesus is “both Lord and Christ/Messiah” (Acts 2.36). The Apostle Paul defines the Christian gospel in 1 Cor. 15.3-5 by saying, “For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas [Peter], then the twelve [apostles]” (NRSV). This definition of the gospel does not say Jesus is God or God is three Persons. According to Jude and Paul, later Gentile Christians had no authority to change the gospel that had been handed down to them by the first Christians, who were monotheistic Jews.

Yet, starting in the early second century, Gentile church fathers began to depart from this simple gospel by declaring Jesus is God and eventually that God is a Trinity. There are several reasons for this departure from the NT gospel. Many church fathers were influenced by Greek philosophy largely due to living in Hellenistic lands. They did not know Hebrew and therefore could not read the Hebrew Bible. Some became somewhat anti-Semitic, which further enabled them to reject the Jews’ monotheistic belief that God is a single person. So, they departed from the clear and simple NT teaching about the Father as God and Jesus as Savior and Lord. They substituted for it their complex doctrine of the Trinity that included the Incarnation of a preexistent Jesus as God. The Catholic Church made this Trinity doctrine official at its Second Ecumenical Council held at Constantinople in 381. The Church thereafter required that people must believe in this doctrine of the Trinity to be a Christian. And over 1,000 years later, Protestant Church leaders endorsed this non-biblical teaching due to their failure to scrutinize it.

In contrast, the Apostle Peter had preached to thousands of Jews on the Day of Pentecost, saying “Jesus of Nazareth” was “a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him” (Acts 2.22), indicating Jesus’ dependence upon, and subordination to, God. Peter later declared similarly to others, saying “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power,” so that “God was with him” (Acts 10.38). If Jesus had been God, he would not have needed to depend upon God his Father for such powers. The NT declares repeatedly that Jesus is the Christ-Messiah of Israel, that he was a virgin-born, sinless man who died on the cross for our sins, that God vindicated him by raising him from the dead on the third day, that he ascended to heaven forty days later to sit down with God on God’s throne, and that in the future he will return to earth as “King of kings and Lord of lords” Rev. 19.16) to establish his God-given, worldwide kingdom of peace which will never end.

To summarize, I had been a Trinitarian Christian for twenty-two years, from eighteen years of age to age forty. Then, in 1980 I began my investigation into whether or not Jesus is God. It lasted for about the next fourteen years. It occurred in three stages as follows: (1) in 1982, I decided God is not three co-equal and co-eternal Persons and that Jesus is God, but to a lesser extent than the Father is God; (2) in about 1987, I changed to believing the Bible nowhere says Jesus is God because I now understood that the two biblical texts that previously hindered me from so believing—John 1.1c and 20.20—do not say Jesus is God; (3) in the early 1990s, I became convinced that the Bible nowhere says Jesus literally preexisted.

To conclude this account of My Christological Journey, I will now quote something from the last two chapters of the preface of my Restitution book that is very important to me as a caution to Trinitarians and non-Trinitarians who are professing Christians:

“we have inherited a tradition of anathemas pronounced by church officials upon dissident, non-traditionalist, yet professing Christians. Such adversity still continues unabated in many church communities today, bolstered by some traditionalist scholars [believing Jesus is God]. . . . in 1999 a doctrinal declaration was issued and signed by over a hundred evangelical Christian leaders, mostly Americans, which includes the following article: ‘We deny that any view of Jesus Christ which reduces or rejects his full deity is Gospel faith or will avail to salvation.’ I could react as contrarily by charging that anyone who believes in the doctrine of the Trinity worships three gods and thereby violates the First Commandment, as Sir Isaac Newton alleged and the Koran states (Quran 5:72-73), and thus cannot be a true Christian. But I reject such allegations.

“In conclusion, I contend that that the NT verifies that anyone who (1) truly believes Jesus is the Christ, who died for their sins and arose bodily from the dead, and (2) confesses Him as Lord, manifesting evidence in their life to that effect, is indeed a genuine Christian believer and should be accepted as such.”

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To see a list of titles of 130+ posts (2-3 pages) that are about Jesus not being God in the Bible, with a few about God not being a Trinity, at Kermit Zarley Blog click “Chistology” in the header bar. Most are condensations of my book, The Restitution of Jesus Christ. See my website servetustheevangelical.com, which is all about this book, with reviews, etc. Learn about my books and purchase them at kermitzarley.com. My books are: The Gospels Interwoven (1987); Palestine Is Coming: The Revival of Ancient Philistia (1990); The Third Day Bible Code (2006); The Restitution of Jesus Christ (2008); Warrior from Heaven (2009); Solving the Samaritan Riddle: Peter’s Kingdom Keys Explain Early Spirit Baptism (2015).

My Christological Journey (Part 11 of 12)

November 2, 2018 By Kermit Zarley

Writing The Restitution of Jesus Christ and Choosing a Pseudonym

I ended my full time career on the regular PGA Tour at the end of 1982. It was because I no longer was an exempt player. That means you automatically are eligible for all tournaments and thus don’t have to qualify on Monday’s. (In 1983 they started the All-Exempt Tour, as it is now.) With a family and at age 41, I wasn’t going to go to the Tour Qualifying School to try to regain my exempt status. But I wasn’t sure about what I was would do for a living. I had narrowed it down to four options: (1) start my own golf club manufacturing company since I had been sort of secretly developing hollowed-out wood and metal club heads for the past thirteen years; (2) accept my friend Karsten Solheim’s offer to work with him as his assistant in Research and Development at his PING golf club company in Phoenix, Arizona; (3) become a golf course designer developing my idea about a reversible golf course; (4) or do all of the following: work part time with Jim Hiskey in the new Golf Fellowship ministry he was creating, give instruction clinics and be the keynote banquet speaker at one-day golf outings conducted by para-church organizations such as Young Life, Youth for Christ, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, etc., and study and write theological books about half of my total work time. I was increasingly favoring the first and fourth options.

I think I could have been quite successful if I had chosen the first option. I would have gotten investors. Gary Adams of Chicago had started the golf club manufacturing company TaylorMade. In early 1982, he brought his new, hollow, metal wood driver out on Tour to test it with us pros. I was the third pro to try it, which was at the San Diego Open, and I started playing with it. I had been working on this idea for years before Gary had done so. I then told Gary that he would revolutionize the wood club industry, which became known as “metal woods,” and that’s what happened. Yet I was still thinking I could become his biggest competitor.

Well, I decided on the fourth option. So, that’s what I did from 1983 until 1991. Then I turned fifty years of age and became eligible to compete as an exempt player on the PGA Tour’s fledgling Senior Tour (later renamed the Champions Tour). And that’s what I did until I retired from competitive pro golf in 2005. But that was not by choice. I was still very much exempt. Orthopedic injuries caused by my profession had gotten the best of me, so I was forced to retire.

When I was having to make my decision in late 1982 about what kind of work I would do, I think one thing tipped the scale and thus caused me to decide on the fourth option. It was this conviction that I had that God was guiding me about researching Jesus’ identity. Yet I was only a layman, thus without important tools such as knowing Greek and Hebrew that are so essential to biblical scholars. Yet I felt that I was onto something very important that was largely unknown to almost the entire Christian community. I then thought I might be able to write a book about it. I knew it would be difficult for me, as a layman, to get a theological book published. Yet I had other ideas about writing books on theology. In the 1970s, I had started what I called “a hobby” of trying to write a book on what I was learning about end times biblical prophecy.

So, for decades I was writing this book on what I was learning about Identity Christology. I eventually titled it The Restitution of Jesus Christ. I chose this title to make it similar to the title of Michael Servetus’ last book, The Restitution of Christianity, which soon got him executed.

Two distinguished NT scholars critiqued this manuscript. In about 2002, my close friend Dr. Scot McKnight read an early draft of it. He had said that with this manuscript I was “on the cutting edge of where leading scholarship has been going on this subject,” though he was not convinced of it. He advised two things: (1) remove some material that was not really pertinent to my thesis, and (2) don’t make the book too lengthy. That was really good advice. I did as he said about the first point. I wanted to follow the second point. But the text ended up being about 500 pages. That is because I included 100 pages of history about the development of Christology throughout church history. I did this because most books on this subject rarely have any such history. As it turned out, many readers have expressed appreciation about this part of the book.

In December, 2007, my friend Dr. Dale Allison read the final draft of this book and provided many suggestions. I incorporated just about all of them in the manuscript. Dale emailed me saying, “As you may have guessed from things of mine you’ve read, I’m largely sympathetic. The argument against the tradition is convincing. As to what we should replace it with, I’m far from certain, but the God was in Christ proposal is sensible. [That’s what I call my viewpoint about Jesus’ identity, as in 2 Cor. 5.19.] There is no way to predict the response to a book in advance; but it merits discussion. You’ve done a lot of work.”

Indeed, I estimate that during the 28-year period in which I studied this subject prior to the book’s publication, I read about a thousand books on Jesus’ identity. [I cite over 400 authors in the book.] And I had to get most of these books through the inter-library loan system, which was a lot more work. Plus, I scoured hundreds of Bible commentaries, mostly in many libraries, reading what they say about the dozens of critical Bible texts that are pertinent to this discussion.

I finally completed this book, The Restitution of Jesus Christ, and self-published it in 2008. Wipf and Stock Publishers would have published it in two volumes or if I would have shortened the manuscript. I refused to do either. So, I published it under the pseudonym I thought of, “Servetus the Evangelical,” without divulging my name. Why did I do this? About eight months before its publication, my son Michael suggested I publish it under an anonymous pseudonym. He made this suggestion because, as my regular caddy on the Senior Tour, he was well aware of the rejection I was suffering from some of my Christian brothers for taking this viewpoint even though I didn’t say much about it. People usually knew about it by rumor, but didn’t ask me about it. Most surprisingly, only months after Michael suggested this, my close friend Professor Scot McKnight advised me likewise without knowing Michael had already suggested it. Prior to Michael doing so, I had never even thought of it. And I had never discussed it with Scot. So, I thought God was speaking to me through both of them.

I started thinking and praying about a pseudonym. For weeks, I had no clue. Then, one night I was walking into a sophisticated restaurant and dance club here in Scottsdale, Arizona, a favorite place of mine. Its name was Barcelona, referring to the city in Spain. It made me think of the brilliant Spaniard Michael Servetus. John Calvin, the preeminent Bible teacher of the early Protestant Reformation, had hailed the Catholic Inquisitors in Geneva to arrest Servetus due to two books he wrote against Trinity teaching. Servetus’ respected family was devoutly Catholic.

The imprisoned Servetus underwent three months of almost daily interrogation under Calvin’s direction. Then Switzerland, a church-state, tried and condemned Servetus as a blasphemer for publishing against infant baptism and the Trinity doctrine. Servetus was then burnt publicly at the stake. An outcry arose against this in Europe, and it later contributed to the formation of Unitarianism. (I don’t call myself a Unitarian because, like Trinitarian and Trinity, it isn’t in the Bible. Plus, Unitarians later became Universalists. Instead, I call myself a “One-God Christian.”)

I had written in my book about this Michael Servetus tragedy. Many have regarded him as a Christian martyr, but Trinitarians have deemed him a non-Christian heretic. Due to parallels between me and Servetus, I immediately decided with certainty that my pseudonym would be “Servetus the Evangelical.” The word “Evangelical” was intended as an assertion that I still regarded myself as an evangelical even though nearly all evangelicals would not. My contention was that evangelicals, like Protestants, have claimed to believe in “sola scriptura” as the arbiter of theological controversy, to which I was appealing, rather than church creeds, as they also did.

Soon after I decided on this pseudonym, I was surprised to learn that Michael Servetus and I were born on the same day of the year—September 29^th. And for many centuries before Servetus lived, as well as during his lifetime, the Catholic Church had celebrated Saint Michael’s Day on September 29^th. It was a commemoration of Michael the archangel who is mentioned in the Bible. Catholics added a fun and tasty tradition to this celebration by eating a cooked goose.

I was startled when I discovered that Michael Servetus was born in 1511. Thus, the 500^th anniversary of his birthday was going to be in the year 2011, which also would be my 70^th birthday. I then began to wonder if these similarities between me and Servetus was divine providence. Then I published anonymously The Restitution of Jesus Christ on September 29, 2008, under the pseudonym Servetus the Evangelical. I planned to reveal my identity in three years, thus on the 500^th anniversary of Servetus’ birthday and my 70^th birthday. The first print was 200 copies. They sold out in about a year. The second print was 500 copies. I had them made in my Triangle Book invention format. But my patent attorney said it would be costly with the USPTO to continue my anonymity as the author of this book. So, I had to reveal my identity about year earlier than planned, which I did on my website. Within 24 hours after doing so, about 200 websites announced it. That’s because I had a marketing strategy in which I had a contest to identify me as the author by giving weekly clues. It worked in generating interest. However, many were deflated when they learned I was not a real scholar as was generally supposed. My ego was bruised when some wise guy declared on the internet, “Oh, he’s just some pro golfer who no one has ever heard of.”

My Christological Journey (Part 12 of 12)

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My Christological Journey (Part 10 of 12)

November 1, 2018 By Kermit Zarley

(All of the following of this essay, thus parts 10-12, was written on 10/19-20/2018)

Overcoming the Last Two Barriers and Abandoning the Preexistence

Into the late 1980s, there were two NT texts I called “barriers” because they were the only biblical texts keeping me from believing the Bible only says Jesus was a man, thus not God. So, I continued to believe Jesus was and is divine, but not to the extent the Father is. These two texts were John 1.1c and 20.28. I knew quite well that many distinguished NT scholars who believe Jesus is God and have written extensively on whether or not Jesus is God had cited these two texts as preeminent in the Bible which identify Jesus as God. Then two things happened to me about the same time regarding these two texts. I think it was in 1987.

One time I was at DTS’s Mosher Library when I got up the nerve to ask the research librarian Marvin Hunn, whom I knew, if he was aware of any reputable Bible scholars who believe the traditional translation of John 1.1c (“and the Word was God”) is incorrect, so that its Greek text does not identify Jesus as God when compared to v. 14. Marvin said, “Yes.” Then he mentioned Philip B. Harner’s article in the 1973 issue of the preeminent theological periodical the Journal of Biblical Literature (“Qualitative Anarthrous Predicate Nouns: Mark 15:39 and John 1:1”). I asked Marvin what he thought of this article. To my surprise, he said he believed Harner was right. But he added that there are many other NT texts which affirm the deity of Christ. He also mentioned that PhD student Dickinson at DTS had come to the same conclusion in his doctoral dissertation about John 1.1c. (I stated above that Dr. Johnson was Dickinson’s dissertation supervisor.) John 1.1c presents a grammatical issue about how to treat its anarthrous (=no article) theos. In this article, Harner endorses the New English Bible translation of John 1.1c which reads, “what God was, the Word was,” which does not say Jesus was God. Today’s English Version similarly reads, “he was the same as God.” This is what the Johannine Jesus meant when he said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14.9). Jesus did not mean he was the Father, but that he was like the Father in character. So, I was now convinced that the traditional translation of John 1.1c, “the Word was God,” is incorrect as Harner claims.

Another time I was reading Rudolf Bultmann’s commentary on the Gospel of John wherein he treats John 14.10-11. This text relates that Jesus said to his disciples at the Last Supper, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” Bultmann then cited Thomas’ Confession in John 20.28 for comparison. I was shocked that he did this without saying any more about it. And of all the commentaries on the Gospel of John that I read, Bultmann was the only commentator I had read who made this comparison of scripture.

I then thought for the first time that that is exactly what Thomas meant when he said to Jesus in John 20.28, “My Lord and my God.” That is, Thomas was identifying Jesus as his Lord and the Father indwelling Jesus as his God. I thought that makes perfect sense. The Johannine Jesus had taught this Mutual Indwelling multiple times (John 10.38; 12.45; 14.9-11). So, I now believed strongly that in Thomas’ Confession, he was merely applying what Jesus had taught him days earlier about the Mutual Indwelling. Many distinguished NT scholars regard Thomas’ Confession as the strongest NT text which identifies Jesus as being God. I came to believe that my take on this is the most important part of my book.

Finally, these two barriers were removed. It was a huge relief for me. I mean that the traditional translation of John 1.1c and the traditional interpretation of John 20.28 were no longer barriers because I now believed that they were just flat out wrong. From then on, I have always believed that the Bible does not identify Jesus as being God whatsoever. And I believed that this was by far the biggest theological change in my life, thus much more important than the rapture issue.

However, I still believed that Jesus preexisted as the Logos-Son. But I did not think that necessitates that Jesus was God. Many Jews have believed that some of their heroes of the faith preexisted; but they did not think that requires that they were Gods/gods. There are several NT texts that I had always thought indicated Jesus literally preexisted, primarily his lengthy teaching in John 6. Therein he says, “I am the (living) bread that came down from heaven” (vv. 41, 51). But during the early 1990s, I gradually became convinced that Jesus did not mean this literally, just as he didn’t mean literally in this sermon, “eat my flesh and drink my blood” (v. 56).

So, from the early 1990s to the present, I have believed that the Bible nowhere identifies Jesus as being God or that he literally preexisted as a person prior to his human life here on earth. Instead, my belief is that Jesus is Lord and Savior to those who truly believe in, and follow, him, whereas only the Father is “the only true God” (John 17.3).

My Christological Journey (Part 11 of 12)

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My Christological Journey (Part 9 of 12)

October 30, 2018 By Kermit Zarley

My Second Christological Discussion with Dr. S. Lewis Johnson

About two years later, I phoned Dr. S. Lewis Johnson and asked if I could visit him again to resume our discussion on Christology. He accepted, and this time we talked for about three hours in his home. One thing I recall him saying was, “postribulationism is winning the battle against pretribulationism on the seminary level.” I learned years later that that was quite true. Lewis may have said that since he was now teaching at TEDS and being more exposed to other viewpoints. He also seemed to now favor this posttribulationism, which is called classic premillennialism as opposed to Dispensational premillennialism, which DTS advocates.

This time Lewis was firmer with me about Christology than the previous time we discussed it. The main thing I remember him saying this time was, “If you keep on believing this way, you are not a Christian!” That was a jarring pronouncement. But I really was not surprised since I knew that both the Catholic and Protestant Churches proclaimed that non-Trinitarians, especially people who do not believe in the full deity of Christ, are not Christian. And they often refer to the Nicene Creed for support. It identifies Jesus as “very God of very God” and declares several anathemas on anyone who believes otherwise.

Ever since I had gotten to know Dr. S. Lewis Johnson, he would write me a letter about once per year. I always appreciated that and would write back. But now, after we had had these two, lengthy, Christological discussions, and I was no longer believing Jesus is fully God, Lewis didn’t write me anymore or phone me. Moreover, we never saw each other again. I was very disappointed. I knew all along that I would be losing Christian friends because of my change in Christological belief. Indeed, it was many.

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Is Jesus “the Lord God … the Almighty” in Revelation 1.8?

October 29, 2018 By Kermit Zarley

The following is the beginning of my treatment of Rev 1.8 in my book, The Restitution of Jesus Christ:

Despite such strong evidence in The Revelation that Jesus Christ is not God, a bare few traditionalist expositors assert otherwise concerning Rev 1.8.[1] This passage reads as follows in the NASB: “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.’” These traditionalists assume that Jesus Christ is the speaker in v. 8 because He is the subject of the three previous verses.

In modern times, nearly all scholarly authorities on the book of Revelation have interpreted the speaker in Rev 1.8 as God the Father, not Jesus Christ.[2] And they usually don’t even deem it necessary to substantiate this interpretation. G.R. Beasley-Murray says of Jesus therein, “Older expositors sometimes thought that He is the speaker here also, but clearly the view is mistaken; it is spoken by the ‘Lord God’ (RV) … the Almighty,” which he regards as God the Father.[3] And Hans Georg Link states, “In Rev 1:8 God is the subject of the sentence,… while in Rev 1:17f. the Son of man speaks.”[4]

The following reasons affirm that God the Father is the speaker in Rev 1.8:

There is no logical reason why the author, John the Revelator, could not have changed speakers immediately following v. 7.
The same words that describe the speaker in v. 8—“who is and who was and who is to come”—also describe God the Father in both v. 4 and Rev 4.8.
The expression, “Lord God, the Almighty” (Gr. kurios ho theos ho pantokrator), occurs six times in The Revelation,[5] and “God, the Almighty” (Gr. tou theou tou pantokratoros), occurs twice therein.[6] The Greek word pantokrator means “ruler over all,” and it only occurs one other time in the Greek NT, in 2 Cor 6.18 (cf. Amos 3.13). Aside from Rev 1.8, scholars concur that in all seven other instances in The Revelation, pantokrator refers only to God the Father. The best example is Rev 21.22 because it juxtapositions God and Christ and makes God ruler over all, including over Christ. It reads as follows: “the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb.”
Due to slight MS variance in Rev 1.8, the TR has only kurios and therefore reads only “Lord” in the AV. But ms authority heavily favors kurios ho theos, as rendered in all modern Greek NTs, so that all modern English versions have “the Lord God.”
God’s self-annunciation in v. 8 designedly follows the description of the second coming of Christ, in v. 7, because it is God the Father who will orchestrate that event.

[1] E.g., Athanasius, Orations Against the Arians, 3.4; John F. Walvoord, The Revelation of Jesus Christ (Chicago: Moody, 1966), 40; Josh McDowell, More Than a Carpenter (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1977), 11.

[2] E.g., R.H. Charles, The Revelation of St. John, With Introduction, Notes and Indices, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1920), 1:20; George Eldon Ladd, A Commentary on the Revelation of John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), 29; Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 73; G.R. Beasley-Murray, “The Revelation,” in NBC (1970), 2^nd ed., 1170; idem, The Book of Revelation, 59-60; Wilfrid J. Harrington, Revelation, in SPS (1993), 16:47; G.B. Caird, New Testament Theology, 193; P.R. Carrell, Jesus and the Angels, 116; R. Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation, 25, 50; C. Tuckett, Christology and the New Testament, 183; D.E. Aune, Revelation 1-5, 58.

[3] G.R. Beasley-Murray, “The Revelation,” 1170.

[4] Hans Georg Link, “ego eimi,” in DNTT 2:282.

[5] Rev 4.8; 11.17; 15.3; 16.7; 19.6; 21.22.

[6] Rev 16.14; 19.15.

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My Christological Journey (Part 8 of 12)

October 29, 2018 By Kermit Zarley

My First Christological Discussion with Dr. S. Lewis Johnson—Section D

Here are other points Dr. S. Lewis Johnson and I discussed that day, but not in this order. I do not recall what Lewis’ response was when I mentioned that God raised Christ from the dead and that days later Christ ascended to heaven and sat down at the right hand of God on God’s throne. I then proposed that God so acting upon Christ suggests that Christ was subordinate to God. I don’t recall Lewis’ response, so I guess it didn’t make an impact on me.

I then mentioned that some Bible versions translate the last clause in Rom 9.5 as “God” being “blessed overall,” thus not calling Christ “God.” I think Lewis replied with something like this, that “only liberals, who deny the deity of Christ, translate it that way.”

When I asked Lewis what he thought about the apologists’ belief in the subordination of the Son to the Father regarding their essence, he claimed they believed in “a voluntary subordination,” thus not an essential subordination. When I responded that there have been many church leaders and theologians who have believed that Jesus was essentially subordinate to God, Lewis replied, “they were not true leaders of the church.”

We then discussed DTS’s doctrinal statement. The reason was that Lewis’s five-point Calvinism put him in conflict with the Seminary, which was four-point. The school had always overlooked this when Dr. Johnson signed his contract each year. He had told me that one day in a faculty meeting, one of the professors asked President John Walvoord if you had to adhere to every item in the school’s doctrinal statement when you sign your contract. Walvoord answered, “yes.” Lewis told me some of the faculty members then looked at him in silence. That declaration by Walvoord meant that Johnson could no longer teach at the school.

And that’s what happened—Lewis had to resign. For some time, he was without a job. But he told me he didn’t believe in trying to get a job with other schools. He believed that if was to happen, God would do so without his, viz., Lewis,’ help. Then one day TEDS near Chicago phoned Lewis and offered him a two-day per week teaching assignment in which he could commute by air if he desired. Lewis accepted. Years later, I asked Dr. Walvoord about Lewis’ resignation. He said he and Lewis met privately to discuss it, and both shed tears about it.

Near the close of our discussion that day, Lewis raised an interesting but unrelated issue. He asked me if I was still a posttribulational premillennialist. I answered, “Yes.” I had told him years earlier that I had studied this subject, even spending five whole days in DTS’s Mosher Library reading about the origins of pretribulationism, and I changed to believing in postribulationism. He then said there are certain doctrines not open for discussion in the evangelical church and that they should be. I asked him what they were. He answered: (1) the pretribulational rapture, (2) Christ’s substitutionary atonement, (3) eternal security, and (4) inerrancy of scripture. All four of these are affirmed in DTS’s doctrinal statement.

I then asked Lewis, “Don’t you mean DTS in particular and not the evangelical church?” He answered, “No.” I thought it was interesting that he listed the rapture first.

We ended this conversation amicably. Lewis kindly invited me to return and talk about it further. Even though our discussion was at times intense, Lewis still seemed to be friendly to me. That had drawn me to him originally, years ago. I drove back to my home in Houston. I had made it a one-day trip, with our discussion lasting six hours. But as soon as I drove a few blocks away from Lewis’ home, I stopped and wrote down everything I could remember about our discussion.

My Christological Journey (Part 9 of 12)

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My Christological Journey (Part 7 of 12)

October 28, 2018 By Kermit Zarley

My First Christological Discussion with Dr. S. Lewis Johnson—Section C

Dr. S. Lewis Johnson and I then discussed the Arian Controversy and the Nicene Council of 325. Church historian Eusebius had been a prominent figure at the council. He took a middle position between the teaching of Presbyter Arius and that of Bishop Alexander, thus being dubbed a “semi-Arian.” Athanasius, the bishop’s assistant, afterwards became the determined defender of the Nicene Creed for decades. Lewis said Athanasius was right about it, and Eusebius was “prejudiced.” He then added, “Eusebius did not accept the Johannine authorship of the Apocalypse” (the book of Revelation). I thought this strange and irrelevant to the discussion. I later learned it was an ad hominem argument. Lewis was grasping for straws against Eusebius.

Dr. Johnson then asserted that the “orthodox view is correct” because it “won the controversy” to become the accepted view of the church and thereby the emperor. I thought, “Wow! Might is right.” I then asked if this was his opinion of theological controversy in church history in general. I understood his answer to be positive. I thought this reflected his view of the sovereignty of God. Dr. Johnson had become a five-point Calvinist in the late 1960s after studying in Europe. I have wondered ever since if this was John Calvin’s view of theological controversy.

Over the years, Lewis had often told me he was a “Calvinist.” I once asked him if he thought calling oneself a Calvinist conflicted with what the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1—3. Therein, Paul scolded various Christians at Corinth for saying, “‘I belong to Paul,’ or ‘I belong to Apollos,’ or ‘I belong to Cephas,’ or ‘I belong to Christ.’ Has Christ been divided?” (1 Cor. 1.12-13). Paul concludes this section by saying, “So, let no one boast about human leaders” (3.21). Lewis said identifying himself as a Calvinist helps save time spent in theological conversation, to which I did not disagree.

Dr. Johnson next asserted that if Arius had won the controversy, meaning the Catholic Church would have adopted his viewpoint, “there would have been no Christianity humanly speaking.”

I then countered that the Church affirmed baptismal regeneration, which Lewis opposed. He responded, “Yes, but there were people not in the Catholic Church who did not hold that view.” I added, “Yes, but was it not the same with trinitarian belief?” I don’t recall his reply to this.

One of Lewis’ repeated arguments was that if Jesus is a divine being he logically must be God. He said a human father and his son have the same nature, and so it is with the heavenly Father and His Son, that they have the same divine nature. (Critics say this idea comes from Greek metaphysics.) I responded by saying my son, Michael, would not be described exactly the same as me, so we are not the same essence. Lewis then said I was confusing the personalities of the Godhead regarding their essence. I didn’t feel sure of myself in discussing this argument.

We did not talk about the tri-personality of the Godhead and single personality of man in light of creation, that is, that man was made in the image of God. Nor did we discuss the thousands of personal pronouns in the Bible that are applied to God, as if God is a single personality.

Instead, I mentioned Matt. 26.64 in comparison with Titus 2.13, proposing that the Father will accompany Jesus at His second coming, even orchestrating it which will further demonstrate Jesus’ subordination to him. Of everything I said that day, this was the one I had the least certainty about. (Sometime later, I abandoned this idea and resorted to believing these verses and others indicate the power and glory of the Father will accompany Jesus at his return, but not that the Father personally will do so. In years since, I have vacillated between these two opinions.)

Lewis replied, “You are proposing an unheard-of doctrine. No, the Father remains in heaven when Jesus returns, yet God is everywhere and in everything.” I replied, “You don’t mean pantheism, do you, that God is that tree out there,” as I pointed to a tree outside the window, “or in this typewriter here,” pointing to it as well? Lewis answered, “No, but God is in the tree. He is in everything because there can be no place where God is not due to his omnipresence.” I was surprised with this statement. I wanted to discuss it more but felt we had talked a long time and were into a very different area. Plus, I was getting worried that I might be wearing Lewis out.

My Christological Journey (Part 8 of 12)

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My Christological Journey (Part 6 of 12)

October 27, 2018 By Kermit Zarley

My First Christological Discussion with Dr. S. Lewis Johnson—Section B

I then asked Dr. Johnson about 1 John 4.15. It reads in the NASB, “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” He replied, “Mormons and others say they believe that Jesus is the Son of God. But you must believe in the biblical meaning of the term Son of God to be saved, and they don’t because they don’t believe Jesus is God.” I have heard other Christians say that, including former Mormons who became evangelical Christians. I have questioned several Mormons about this and find that they don’t say that. Instead, they usually have pretty much affirmed the orthodox Trinity doctrine.

For example, years earlier, in 1977, I invited Joe Collett (now Seve Ballesteros’ manager) to have dinner with me at Colonial Country Club during the PGA Tour’s Colonial Invitational in Fort Worth, Texas. We had a long talk about Jesus, mainline Christianity, and Mormonism. Joe is still the most informed Mormon with whom I have ever discussed these subjects, though Billy Casper is a close second. Later, Joe gave me the Mormon book, Jesus the Christ. It was authored by James Talmadge, one of the Twelve Apostles in the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints (Mormon Church). Joe said Mormons regard it as the best book that sets forth Mormon beliefs about Jesus.

James Talmadge makes it clear in this book what Mormons believe. He says on p. 32, “We affirm that Jesus Christ was and is Jehovah, the Eternal One. The scriptures specify thee personages in the Godhead: (1) God the Eternal Father, (2) His Son Jesus Christ, and (3) the Holy Ghost. These constitute the Holy Trinity, comprising three physically separate and distinct individuals.” Of course, Trinitarians would object to the word “physically.” Talmadge further states that Mormons believe in the eternal preexistence of Jesus as the personal Word of God and his part in Creation. Talmadge often says Jesus Christ is God or Jehovah. In his main chapter on this subject, besides the word “physically,” only once did I detect anything that Trinitarians would object to. Talmadge (p. 32) calls the three members of the Trinity “Gods.” But this is no different from some Christian apologists of the second and third centuries who said Jesus and God the Father are “Gods/gods.” Origin had called the Logos “the second god.”

I then mentioned 1 John 5.1 to Lewis. It says in the NASB, “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him.” Lewis responded, “But you must believe in a divine Messiah to be saved.” I affirmed, “I do.” I don’t recall that he explained how you must believe in a divine Messiah, except to mean that Messiah is God.

Lewis then unequivocally stated that if I continued to believe what I was saying that I would be denying the deity of Christ so that I would end up believing only in the human nature of Christ, just like Unitarians do.

I asked Lewis about Jesus’ saying, “If you believe not on me, believe my works.” I was referring to John 10.38 (cf. 14.11), so I didn’t quote it exactly right. Jesus’ point seems to have been that if his opponents believed his works, it would lead them to believe in him. I then asked Lewis, “Doesn’t this mean if I believe in Jesus’ miracles and that He is a supernatural person come from heaven that I will be saved?” Lewis answered, “No, that is not enough. Angels are that, and they can do miracles.”

I thought afterwards that my question was incomplete. But I had made it clear what I believed. Lewis added, “Besides, the Antichrist will do miracles.” I then reminded him of a past conversation we had in which he said he differed with Hal Lindsey. He had claimed that the devil and the Antichrist could do supernatural acts. Lewis had said that was incorrect, that they could only deceive people into thinking they did miracles.

Lewis then backed off, saying the devil and the Antichrist could only cause people to think they performed miracles. Only seconds later, Lewis mentioned Jesus’ healing of the paralytic and forgiving of his sins, related in Mark 2.1-12 (and parallels). Lewis said this miracle proved Jesus’ deity. At this point, with all due respect, I thought Lewis sounded confused. I had never heard him say that Jesus’ miracles proved his deity. The problem with this argument is that according to the Bible, Old Testament prophets and Jesus’ apostles did miracles.

Lewis then said, “What about Titus 2.13? How can you get around this?” I knew that most Bible versions translate the one-person view, “our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ,” which identifies Jesus as God. But some versions do not. For instance, the King James Version translates it, “the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ,” which is a two-persons view which does not identify Jesus as God. Instead, I cited Marshall’s Interlinear Greek-English NT, which renders it as the KJV, “the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ,” thus the two-persons view which doesn’t identify Jesus as God.

Lewis replied exasperatingly, “You are as wrong as you can be!” He then explained that the Greek text has one article with two nominatives and that this grammar must be understood as identifying a single person, thus Jesus being God. At this time, I didn’t know any Greek, yet I was speaking to an outstanding Greek scholar. Since Lewis was also an ardent golfer, he added this metaphor, “Like in golf, you are taking five strokes and only counting three.” Lewis then said of Marshall and such scholars who translate the two-persons view of NT texts such as Titus 2.13, “The only reason they translate that way is because of their prejudice.” (Sometime later, I visited Lewis in his home and discussed this subject again. I mentioned the famous Greek grammarian Winer, in which he says the Greek grammar of John 1.1c does not say the Logos is God.)

My Christological Journey (Part 7 of 12)

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