The objection
Kings, too, receive prostration, prophets perform miracles and disciples proclaim forgiveness. Jesus' special authority could therefore be entirely bestowed by God without Jesus himself being God.
1. Individual gestures are insufficient
Prostration can express deference to a king. A miracle can happen through a prophet. Merely observing such actions therefore does not yet prove that their recipient or performer is God. The decisive error, however, would be to derive from this limited observation a complete explanation of all statements about Jesus.
The question is: What kind of worship and what scope of authority does the particular text describe?
2. John 5 connects action with equal honor
Jesus says that the Son, like the Father, gives life to the dead and that all are to honor the Son as they honor the Father. Anyone not honoring the Son thereby dishonors the Father. This is not merely respect for a reliable messenger. The relationship to Jesus determines appropriate worship of God.
His statement that he does nothing of himself also becomes intelligible in this way: It denies action separated from the Father. It does not restrict him to a small portion of divine efficacy. What the Father does, the Son does likewise.
3. Revelation distinguishes creature from the object of worship
In Revelation 19,10 the angel rejects prostration and points to worshiping God. In chapter 5, by contrast, the Lamb together with the one seated on the throne receives the praise of all creation. The text places the Lamb not among the worshiping creatures, but on the receiving side of their comprehensive worship.[1]
A single courtly gesture could be ambiguous. Explicitly universal praise within a book that rejects worship of creatures has a different evidential value.
4. The church addresses Jesus himself
Stephen asks Jesus to receive his spirit. Paul characterizes Christians as people who call on Jesus' name. Such statements do not merely describe prayers to God in which Jesus is mentioned incidentally. Jesus himself is the addressee of the trusting invocation.[1]
The conclusion therefore rests on the connection between texts: equal honor with the Father, universal worship, life-creating action and direct invocation. Anyone pointing only to the ambiguity of an individual word has not yet answered this context. Scripture shows the Son as the one in whose worship the Father is honored because their divine glory does not compete.
5. Why does Jesus receive authority if he is God?
John 5,27 expressly names his position as Son of Man as the reason for the bestowed authority to judge. Correspondingly, Daniel 7,13–14 describes appointment to comprehensive, enduring dominion. Such sentences concern an office and its exercise in salvation history. They do not claim that the recipient previously possessed neither divine nature nor divine power.
After the resurrection, Matthew 28,18 speaks of the incarnate Messiah's authority. The same commission connects him with the Father and the Spirit and promises his abiding presence with the disciples. Received messianic kingship and eternal deity are therefore not opposites. The objection would first have to prove that every appointment to an office presupposes the appointee's prior nondivinity. This rule appears in none of the three texts.[2]
Biblical texts in context
Sources and further study
- Robert L. Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian FaithInvocation and worship of Christ: Pauline Christology and Revelation.
- Robert L. Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian FaithPp. 225–226, “The Son of the Triune Name”: received comprehensive authority in Matthew 28,18 within the context of the baptismal commission and abiding presence.