Examples of Free Will being Emphasized in Maximus the Confessor in The Ambigua

  

For there was no other way for man, being created, to become the sons of God by the grace of divinization, without first being born of the Spirit, I the exercise of his own free choice, owing to the indomitable power of self-determination which naturally dwells within him. [1348A] (Maximus the Confessor, Ambigua to John: Ambiguum 42, in On Difficulties in the Church Fathers: The Ambigua, 2 vols. [trans. Nicholas Constas; Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2014], 2:181)

 

If, then, voluntary activity makes use of the potential of nature, either according to nature or against nature, it will receive nature’s limit of either well-being or ill-being—and this is eternal being, in which the souls celebrate their Sabbath, receiving cessation from all motion. The eighth and first, or rather, the one [1392D] and perpetual day, is the unallowed, all-shining presence of God, which comes about after things in motion have come to rest; and, throughout the whole being of those who by their free choice have used the principle of being according to nature, the whole God suitably abides, bestowing on them eternal well-being by giving them a hare in Himself, because He alone, properly speaking, is, and is good, and is eternal; but to those who have willfully used the principle of their being contrary to nature, He rightly renders not well-being but eternal ill-being, since well-being is no longer accessible to those who have place themselves in opposition to it, and they have absolutely no motion after the manifestation of what was sought, by which what is sought is naturally revealed to those who seek it. [1393A] (Maximus the Confessor, Ambigua to John: Ambiguum 65, in On Difficulties in the Church Fathers: The Ambigua, 2 vols. [trans. Nicholas Constas; Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2014], 2:279, 281)

 

Exegesis of texts quoted in Micah Beaumont, "A comparison between Joseph Smith's 'King Follett Sermon' and the Bible"

The following will be a response to the proof-texting one finds in a tract by Reformed Baptist Micah Beaumont, “A comparison between Joseph Smith’s ‘King Follett Sermon’ and the Bible.” I have uploaded the scans made by a missionary who first made me aware of this particular work.

 

On July 2, 2024, I interacted on Zoom with Micah and found him to be an intellectually disingenuous individual, who has never studied “Mormonism” in any depth (nor the Bible or basic logic, for that matter). The video is available for channel members.

 

I started to ask him about the King Follett Discourse itself, and he was unaware that there was more than one account thereof (which is pitiful for someone who would write a tract on it) and other issues, such as important textual differences between the accounts. For those who wish to study the discourse, see Researching the King Follett Discourse on the Church's Website, and the different accounts on the Joseph Smith Papers website.

 

Here I will do what Micah did not do in his tract, and failed spectacularly in our interaction: exegete the relevant texts. 

Numbers 23:19

 

God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? (Num 23:19)

I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: or I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee: and I will not enter into the city. (Hos 11:9)

Fellow LDS apologist D. Charles Pyle, while addressing Hos 11:9, offered the following astute comments:

Generally, the focus will be made on the first part of the verse, but the full context shows something about the interpretation that also modifies or clarifies the actual sense of the intended meaning underlying this passage. "Man" and "son of man" in this text are in a parallelism which refers to the same thing. The Hebrew of the phrase "son of man" also literally can be rendered "son of Adam." God is not a son of Adam—if we take it at its most literal meaning. This is very true. But then there is the other side of this Hebrew parallelism to examine. . . . The word that is translated “man” in the phrase in verse 9, is the Hebrew word אִישׁ. Many scholars believe that this word is a contracted form of the word אֱנוֹשׁ, which properly means “mortal man,” and that is derived from a verb which indicates “weakness” or means “to be made weak.” Evidence substantiating this is the fact that the plural absolute form of the overwhelming majority of times (with an occurrence of 110 times in the Old Testament text) is אנָשִׁים (the logical plural for אֱנוֹשׁ), and not אישִׁים (which would be the logical plural for ‎אִישׁ, which occurs only three times in the entire Old Testament). Both the singular and true logical plural may be seen together in the Hebrew text of Isaiah 53:3. The fact that the rare plural form אישִׁים even is used at all seems to indicate that there may be two roots and/or derivative words involved, one of which simply indicates a “male individual,” and the other indicating a weak or “mortal man.” So, which one is which, when and how do we determine it? Looks like won’t any longer be so easy for the critics to force some among the Latter-day Saints into a corner over this passage, now that this fact is known.

However, in the Hosea passage now under question (and Numbers 23:19, since it also uses the same words about to be examined) the author believes it must be the contracted form of אֱנוֹשׁ. The author’s reason for believing so is the fact that the word אֵל (meaning “God” or “El”) also carries underlying this word the concept of might and strength, which is why it sometimes is translated in some passages as “mighty” in the Bible (as at Psalms 50:1 and 82:1 in the King James Version of the Bible). In this text of Hosea 11:9, as also in Numbers 23:19, this particular word here is antithetically paralleled against ‎אִישׁ (“man”). Curiously, it turns out that some occurrences of the word אֵל actually may be contractions of the Hebrew word אֵיִל and אוּל! Both of these Hebrew words express the idea of strength as opposed to weakness. But even if we were to reject this information, it still poses no problem. Since אֵל itself is a word that qualitatively expresses “power” or “might,” and the two words אֵל and ‎אִישׁ are intended to be contrasted with one another in this antithetical parallelism, the author believes that the underlying, real, intended meaning must indicate weakness as opposed to strength.

Thus here, just as at Numbers 23:19, ‎אִישׁ is rightly to be understood as an equivalent to אֱנוֹשׁ. What this passage then expresses, when so understood, is the contrast between the strength of God and the weakness of mortal man. Additional information manifesting the intent of the contrast is found in both verses 8 and 9 of Hosea 11, together. In reading verses 8-9 together we also find that God does not desire utterly to destroy Ephraim, as he did Admah and Zeboim (cities of the plain wiped out in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah [see Deuteronomy 29:23 for listing of those four cities God destroyed]), because of his promise to Israel, and further promises that he will not come in anger and completely destroy Ephraim.

Reminding hearers of his ability to keep that promise, he afterward declares, “For I am God, and not man; . . .” Thus, in these passages this strength of the LORD contrasted with the weakness of mortal man lies within the pale of his ability to make promises and also to keep them, whereas mortals, many a time treacherous, often do not. In other words, God would not break this his promise (as a moral man might do) that he would annihilate Ephraim. He was and is a God who can be counted on to keep his promises! That is the central meaning and thought underlying this passage. Therefore this scripture, rather than being a metaphysical description of Deity, is more merely a description of the perfection of this attribute of God compared to that of weak, moral man, rather than addressing what he is or is not metaphysically. If we were to ignore the underlying meaning and simply take the words as they are, the simple answer of course would be, God is no mortal man. No Latter-day Saint holds such a view that God is a mortal man or is as weak as one. Thus, both Numbers 23:19 and Hosea 11:9 neither condemn nor refute LDS doctrine. We see they don’t even address the doctrine when we look under the surface. (D. Charles Pyle, I Have Said Ye Are Gods: Concepts Conducive to the Early Christian Doctrine of Deification in Patristic Literature and the Underlying Strata of the Greek New Testament (revised and supplemented) [CreateSpace, 2018], 205, 207-9, emphasis in original)

Ken Ammi, a Trinitarian, in his interaction with Jewish objections to the Incarnation, wrote the following about Num 23:19:

 

One last issue to consider within this context is the oft raised objection that Jesus cannot be God because, after all, “God is not a man” (Numbers 23:19). There are various points to ponder in which regard including that one cannot build an entire doctrine upon five words. Also, the five words are not stated as such in the Bible, as stand alones, but are part of a complete thought which is, “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?”

 

Thus, the text is not about God’s ontology but about His character. God is not like humans in that He does not lie, etc. (Ken Ammi, Is Jesus the Messiah? A Judaism vs. Judaism Debate [No End Books, 2017], 151, emphasis in bold added)

 

Such comments about Num 23:19 and the words of the false prophet(!) Balaam is similar to those of Latter-day Saint apologists when responding to critics who raise this passage: it is not about the ontological nature of God, but instead, about His moral character in comparison to fallen man.

Possible evidence for this comes from Job 9:32:

 

For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment.

 

For Job, God is not a man (‎אִישׁ) as he is (note the Hebrew is a simile: ‎כִּי־לֹא־אִ֣ישׁ כָּמֹ֣נִי). Note the following from HALOT that stresses what is in view is the moral character of God in contrast with mortal man, not whether God is embodied, has humanoid form, etc.:

 

The second discourse of Balaam also contains the same sort of distinction: loʾ ʾish ʾel vikhazzebh, “God is not man, that he should lie” (Nu. 23:19), which, like Hos. 11:9, separates the true God from all weakness and fallibility. Thus man understands why he cannot go to law with God: ki loʾ ʾish kamoni, “for he is not a man, as I am” (Job 9:32). (N. P. Bratsiotis, “אִישׁ,”Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, 17 vols. [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1977], 1:229)

 

But there is more. According to the Bible itself, we are the same "species" as God.

For 'in him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we too are his offspring (γένος).' Since we are God's offspring (γένος), we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. (Acts 17:28-29 NRSV)

In this passage, the apostle Paul quotes the Greek poet Aratus (approx. 315-240 B.C.), Phaenomena 5.

Here is how some standard Koine Greek lexicons define the term γενος:

Louw-Nida:

10.32  γένος, ους n: a non-immediate descendant (possibly involving a gap of several generations), either male or female - 'descendant, offspring.' ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ῥίζα καὶ τὸ γένος Δαυίδ 'I am the root and descendant of David' Re 22.16. Here ῥίζα (10.33) and γένος are very similar in meaning, and it is often best to coalesce the two terms into a single expression, for example, 'I am a descendant of David' or 'I belong to the lineage of David.'

BGAD:

1629  γένος

• γένος, ους, τό (Hom.+; loanw. in rabb.) a noun expressive of relationship of various degrees and kinds.

1. ancestral stock, descendant ἐκ γένους ἀρχιερατικοῦ of high-priestly descent (s. Jos., Ant. 15, 40) Ac 4:6 (PTebt 291, 36 ἀπέδειξας σεαυτὸν γένους ὄντα ἱερατικοῦ, cp. 293, 14; 18; BGU 82, 7 al. pap). υἱοὶ γένους Ἀβραάμ 13:26 (s. Demetr.: 722 fgm. 2, 1 Jac.; Jos., Ant. 5, 113; Just., D. 23, 3 ἀπὸ γένους τοῦ ᾽Α); γ. Δαυίδ Rv 22:16; IEph 20:2; ITr 9:1; ISm 1:1. τοῦ γὰρ καὶ γένος ἐσμέν we, too, are descended from him Ac 17:28 (quoted fr. Arat., Phaenom. 5; perh. as early as Epimenides [RHarris, Exp. 8th ser. IV, 1912, 348-53; CBruston, RTQR 21, 1913, 533-35; DFrøvig, SymbOsl 15/16, ’36, 44ff; MZerwick, VD 20, ’40, 307-21; EPlaces, Ac 17:28: Biblica 43, ’62, 388-95]. Cp. also IG XIV, 641; 638 in Norden, Agn. Th. 194 n.; Cleanthes, Hymn to Zeus 4 [Stoic. I 537] ἐκ σοῦ γὰρ γένος …; Dio Chrys. 80 [30], 26 ἀπὸ τ. θεῶν τὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων γένος; Ep. 44 of Apollonius of Tyana [Philostrat. I 354, 22] γένος ὄντες θεοῦ; Hierocles 25, 474, vs. 63 of the Carmen Aur.: θεῖον γένος ἐστὶ βροτοῖσιν), cp. Ac 17:29.—Also of an individual descendant, scion (Hom.; Soph., Ant. 1117 Bacchus is Διὸς γ.). Jesus is τὸ γένος Δαυίδ Rv 22:16 (cp. Epimenides [VI BC]: 457 fgm. 3 Jac., the saying of Musaeus: ἐγὼ γένος εἰμι Σελήνης; Quint. Smyrn. 1, 191 σεῖο θεοῦ γένος ἐστί).

Moulton-Milligan, Vocabulary of the Greek New Testament:

844  γένος [pg 124]

γένος

     is common in the papyri with reference to a species or class of things. Thus P Fay 21¹⁰ (A.D. 134) εἴτ᾽ ἐν γένεσιν εἴτ᾽ ἐν ἀργυρίῳ, “whether in kind or in money,” with reference to payments, ib. 90¹¹ (A.D. 234) χ@ρῆ]σιν ἐγ γένι λαχανοσπέρμου ἀρτάβας τρ@ῖ]ς, “a loan in kind of three artabas of vegetable seed,” P Oxy VIII. 1134¹³ (A.D. 421) περὶ ἄλλου τινὸς εἴδους ἢ γένους, “of any other sort or kind.” In P Grenf II. 44¹¹ (A.D. 101) the word occurs in connexion with the transport of “goods,” and in P Oxy IV. 727²⁰ (A.D. 154) an agent is authorized γένη διαπωλήσοντα ἃ ἐὰν δέον ᾖ τῇ αὐτοῦ πίστει, “to sell off produce as may be needful on his own authority”: cf. ib. I. 54¹⁶ (A.D. 201) εἰς τειμὴν γενῶν, “for the price of materials” for the repair of public buildings, and ib. 101¹⁶ (A. D. 142) where γένεσι = “crops.” Similarly P Amh II. 91¹⁵ (A.D. 159) οἷς ἐὰν αἱρῶμαι γένεσι πλὴν κνήκου, “with any crops I choose except cnecus” (Edd.). In P Oxy IX. 1202²⁰ (A.D. 217) κατ᾽ ἀκολουθείαν τῶν ἐτῶν καὶ τοῦ γένους, the word is used = “parentage”: cf. BGU I. 140²⁶ (B.C. 119) τοῖς πρὸς @γ]ένους συνγενέσι, “to the legitimate parents.” With γένος = “offspring,” as in Ac 17²⁸, cf. IG XIV. 641 (Thurii) καὶ γὰρ ἐγὼν ὑμῶν γένος ὄλβιον εὔχομαι εἶμεν … Ὄλβιε καὶ μακαριστέ, θεὸς δ᾽εσῃ ἀντὶ βροτοῖο, and 638 γῆς παῖς εἰμὶ καὶ οὐρανοῦ ἀστερόεντος, αὐτὰρ ἐμοὶ γένος οὐράνιον (both cited by Norden Agnostos Theos, p. 194). Ac 4⁶ has a close parallel in P Tebt II. 291³⁶ (A.D. 162) ἀ]pεd@ι]ξας σεαυτὸν γένους @ὄ]ντα ἱερατικοῦ. In OGIS 470⁵ (time of Augustus) a certain Theophron describes himself as priest διὰ γένου τῆς Ἀναΐτιδος Ἀρτέμιδος, “hereditary” priest. In ib. 513¹⁰ (iii/A.D.) γένους τῶν Ἐπι(λ)αϊδῶν, and 635⁴ (Palmyra, A.D. 178–9) οἱ ἐγ γένους Ζαβδιβωλείων, it answers to gens, a tribe or clan. For the common τῷ γένει in descriptions, cf. Syll 852² (ii/B.C.) σῶμα ἀνδρεῖον ὧι ὄνομα Κύπριος τὸ γένος Κύπριον. In Vettius Valens, p. 86²⁶, εἰς γένος εἰσελθών is used of a manumitted slave: cf. p. 106^11. 

As Daniel C. Peterson in his seminal essay, Ye are Gods: Psalm 82 and John 10 as Witnesses to the Divine Nature of Humankind wrote the following on γενος via-á-vis its implications for LDS theology:

The word rendered “offspring” by the King James translators is the Greek genos, which is cognate with the Latin genus and means “family” or “race,” or “kind,” or, even, and most especially interesting for our present purpose, “descendants of a common ancestor.”²⁸⁵ Paul was saying that human beings are akin to God—the word kin is itself related to genos—or, to put it differently, that he and they are of the same genus. (The Latin Vulgate rendering of the same passage uses exactly that word, genus.) What does this mean? The great third-century philosopher Porphyry of Tyre explained in his Isagoge, one of the most important and widely read treatises on logic from the ancient world, that the primary meaning of the term genos or genus refers to

a collection of things related to one another because each is related to some one thing in a particular way. In this sense, the Heraclids are said to be a family [genos] because of the relationship of descent from one man, Heracles. The many people related to each other because of this kinship deriving from Heracles are called the family of the Heraclids since they as a family are separate from other families.²⁸⁶

Porphyry’s explanation that the nature of a genus consists at least partly in its separation from other genera seems to accord very well with the argument at Acts 17:29, where Paul contends that, because we and God are of the same genus, “we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.” Such things, such genera, he says, are separate from our genus, and, hence, are not appropriately worshiped by human beings. They are beneath us.

“The basic language of the Bible and of the Christian religion,” wrote G. Ernest Wright, albeit in another context,

is an anthropomorphic language, drawn from the categories of personality and community. Confusion with metaphors drawn from other realms should be avoided because there is a basic relatedness and kinship between God and human life which does not exist in the same sense between God and nature.²⁸⁷

Aratus’s declaration, which Paul endorsed, may perhaps represent a quite venerable position among Greek thinkers. “One is the race of men with the gods,” wrote the great fifth-century B.C. lyric poet Pindar, using the same word, genos, that appears in Acts 17.²⁸⁸ The so-called lamellai, or “Golden Plates,” found in tombs in Thessaly, Crete, and Italy are among the most intriguing documents from antiquity and provide still further evidence. These lamellai were apparently placed in the hands of the dead to remind the soul of powerful phrases that it was to use when confronting the powers of the underworld; they would thus help the soul to attain salvation. Among them is a plate from Petelia, dating to the mid-fourth century before Christ, that seems to make a point rather similar to Paul’s own. Describing the terrain and the guards that the deceased soul will encounter in the spirit world, the text advises him to declare, “I am a child of Earth and starry Heaven; but my race [genos] is of Heaven alone.”²⁸⁹In other words, the deceased person belongs there, in heaven; he is akin to heavenly things and not to the mundane objects of earth.

Notes for the Above

285.   William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 4th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), 155; see Gerhard Kittel, ed., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament,trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), 1:684–85. For the meaning of the term in classical or pagan Greek (which is identical), see any of the numerous editions of the standard Liddell and Scott lexicon. The same term, genos, is used in the modern Greek translation of the Bible (Athens: Biblike Hetairia, 1971).

286.   Porphyry the Phoenician, Isagoge, trans. Edward W. Warren (Toronto: The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1975), 28–29. Compare Plotinus, Enneads 6.1.3.

287.   Wright, “The Faith of Israel,” 359.

288.   Pindar, Nemean Odes 6.1. The phrase is admittedly ambiguous. It could also mean “one is the race of men, another the race of the gods,” and is frequently, if not generally, so rendered. However, I follow the interpretation of the passage advanced by John C. Lawson, Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion: A Study in Survivals (New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1964), 65 and 65 n. 1, and endorsed by Stylianos V. Spyridakis, “Reflections on Hellenic Theanthropism,” in TO EΛΛHNIKON: Studies in Honor of Speros Vryonis Jr., ed. John S. Langdon et al. (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Coratzas, 1993), 1:9, 16 n. 2. Dawson W. Turner, The Odes of Pindar Literally Translated into English Prose (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1852), 371, gives the passage as “Men and the Gods above one race compose.”

289.   The Greek text of the plate, in both transcription and reconstruction, is published at Günther Zuntz, Persephone: Three Essays on Religion and Thought in Magna Graecia (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971), 358–59.

Strongly mirroring such an interpretation, Joseph Fitzmyer writes the following:

‘For we too are his offspring.’ These words are quoted from the third-century astronomical poem of the Stoic, Aratus, who was born in Soli (in Cilicia) ca. 315 B.C., tou gar kai genos eimen, “of him we too are offspring” (Phaenomena 5). Luke may have changed the Ionic eimen to Attic semen, but he more likely found it so in a source, because the Attic form was current. It appears also in frg. 4 of the second-century B.C. Jewish apologist, Aristobulus, quoted in Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica 13.12.6 (GCS 8/2.194). In quoting this verse, the Lucan Paul makes a new point in part III of his address: God is not only near to human beings, but they are related to him as kin. Paul understands the Stoic idea in a biblical sense; c. Psalm 139; Luke 3:38 (Adam as God’s son). (Joseph A. Fizmyer, The Acts of the Apostles: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AB 31; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1998], 611; emphasis added)

Acts 17:28-29 provides strong evidence for Latter-day Saint theology on this particular issue.

There have been some attempts, especially by Michael Heiser, to argue the species-uniqueness of Yahweh from the Old Testament. One such text that is employed is Neh 9:6. Blake Ostler wrote the following in response to Heiser on this issue:

Nehemiah 9:6: It is you, O Lord, you are the only one; you made the heavens (עָשִׂיתָ אֶת־הַשָּׁמַיִם), the highest heavens and all their host (כָל־צְבָאָם), the earth and all that is upon it, the seas and all that is in them. To all of them you give life, and the heavenly hosts bow down before you. (New American Bible [NAB])

Nehemiah claims that the hosts of heaven have been made or organized just as the earth was organized (עשׂה, 'asah) with everything on it. However, the sense of “create” here does not entail creation out of nothing but rather organization of the armies of heaven. Further, it doesn’t entail that the armies of heaven are created in all respects. The sun, moon, and stars are not “created” in the sense that they are brought into existence from nothing. Rather, the sun, moon, and stars are “created” in the sense that they are placed in the raqia or dome that separates the waters above the heavens from those below as Genesis 1 states. In fact, the parallel in Psalm 148:1-5 suggests that the “hosts of heaven” refer to the sun, moon, and stars: “Praise the Lord from the heavens; give praise in the heights. Praise him, all you angels; give praise all you hosts. Praise him, sun and moon; give praise, all shining stars. Praise him, the highest heavens, you waters above the heavens. Let them all praise the Lord’s name; for the Lord commanded and they were created” (יְהַלְלוּ אֶת־שֵׁם יְהוָה כִּי הוּא צִוָּה וְנִבְרָאוּ) (NAB).

Based on the parallel between “hosts of heaven” and the sun, moon, and stars in Psalm 148:2-3, the assertion that the “hosts of heaven” are created refers to the creation of the sun, moon, and stars, but only in the sense that the preexisting heavenly bodies are organized by being placed in the firmament or raqia on the fourth day in Genesis 1:14-18. As physically organized things, the sun, moon, and stars are deemed to be created or organized realities in Mormon thought as well. Returning to the Hebrew cosmology, it must be kept in mind that the Hebrews regarded the sun, moon, and the stars as sentient beings that can praise Yahweh. However, the sun and the moon are not among the sons of God who reside in the highest heaven above the heaven of heavens. The creation in Nehemiah 9:6 refers to dividing the waters by fixing the dome to hold back the waters above and the separate the waters from the heaven below the firmament. The sun, moon, and stars are fixed in the firmament and that is what constitutes their being “created” . . .  The armies or hosts of heaven like the sun, moon, and stars are the lowest in the heavenly hierarchy. These heavenly hosts or bodies are fixed in the solid but transparent “firmament” or raqia that is below the waters which are located in the heavens above the firmament. The raqia holds back the waters from flooding the earth. The sun and the moon move below the raqia, and the stars are fixed in it like lights in the dome. The sons of God in the council of heaven around God’s throne, in contrast, are above the heaven of heavens in the realm of the uncreated.

Thus, the proof texts reviewed by Heiser do not establish that the “sons of God” are not the same kind as Yahweh because they are created in the sense that they are ontologically contingent and he is not. Rather, they merely establish that: (1) some of the elohim are not considered to be fully divine beings like Yahweh; (2) some of the heavenly hosts such as sun, moon, and stars were created or organized at the time that the earth was created. The sun, moon, and stars already existed to be placed in the firmament. They are created only in the sense that they are organized by taking preexisting heavenly hosts and placing them in their order in the firmament. However it is contrary to the Hebrew scripture to regard the sons of God as created in the sense that they are brought into existence at the time of creation because they were already present with Elohim at the creation of humankind. When Elohim declares in Genesis 1:26: “Let us make man in our own image” (emphasis mine), the plural refers to the council of gods who assist in the creation. When God says in Job: “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? . . . . When all the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38:4 7), Job cannot refer to the creation of the earth because the stars were placed in the raqia on the fourth day after the foundations of the earth had already been laid. (Blake T. Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought, 4 vols. [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2008], 3:283-84.)

A final death knell to the common eisegesis of Num 23:19 is the fact the Bible teaches that the Father is humanoid in shape/form.

Because of space considerations, one will discuss only Gen 1:26-27 and Heb 1:3, as they are among the most popular OT and NT texts LDS use as biblical evidence for “divine embodiment.” The texts read as follows:

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. (Gen. 1:26-27)

Who [Christ] being the brightness of his [the Father's] glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; (Heb. 1:3)

On Gen 1:26-27, John Day wrote:

[T]he Hebrew word for ‘image’ is also employed by P of Seth’s likeness to Adam (Gen 5.3), following a repetition of Genesis 1’s statement that humanity was created in the likeness of God (Gen. 5.1), which further supports the notion that a physical likeness was included in P’s concept. It is also noteworthy that the prophet Ezekiel, who was a priest as well as prophet at a time not too long before P, and whose theology has clear parallels with P’s, similarly speaks of a resemblance between God and the appearance of man. As part of his call vision in Ezek. 1.26, he declares of God, ‘and seated above the likeness of a throne was something that seemed like a human form’ (the word demut, ‘likeness’, is used, as in Gen. 1.26). Accordingly, there are those who see the image as simply a physical one. However, although the physical image may be primary, it is better to suppose that both a physical and spiritual likeness is envisaged, since the Hebrews saw humans as a psycho-physical totality.

The use of selem elsewhere in Genesis and of demut in Ezekiel certainly tells against the view of those scholars who see the divine image in humanity as purely functional in nature, referring to humanity’s domination over the natural world that is mentioned subsequently (Gen. 1.26, 28), an increasingly popular view in recent years. Although the two ideas are closely associated, it is much more likely that humanity’s rule over the world (Gen. 1.26-28) is actually a consequence of its being made in the image of God, not what the image itself meant. (John Day, From Creation to Babel Studies in Genesis 1-11 [London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013], 13-14).

Such conclusions are also supported by vv.21-25:

And God created great whales, and every living creature that moves, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind (לְמִינֵהו): and God saw that it was good. And God blessed the, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind (לְמִינָהּ), cattle, and creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind (לְמִינֵהו): and God saw that it was good. (Gen 1:21-25)

According to this pericope, each class of creation is described as having been created "after its kind (alt. species [מִין])." Subsequently, they were assigned a duty--to multiply and replenish the earth. Horses do not look like mice and fish do not look like cats. They were created after their own kind. This is important as plays an important exegetical role vis-a-vis the relationship between God and the physical nature of man in the verses that immediately follow this pericope:

And God said, Let us make man in our image (צֶלֶם), after our likeness (דְּמוּת): and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image (צֶלֶם), in the image (צֶלֶם) of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. (Gen 1:26-28)

As Presbyterian Old Testament scholar, Meredith Kline, wrote:

By setting the image-likeness formula in the context of sonship, Genesis 5:1-3 contradicts the suggestion that the image idea is a matter of representative status rather than of representational likeness or resemblance. For Seth was not Adam's representative, but as Adam's son he did resemble his father. The terminology "in his likeness" serves as the equivalent in human procreation of the phrase "after its kind" which is used for plant and animal reproduction and of course refers to resemblance. (Meredith G. Kline, “Creation in the Image of the Glory-Spirit” Westminister Theological Journal, 39 [1976/77]: note 34)

Kline, on this theme, also comments that "the traditional avoidance of the visible corporeal aspect of man in formulating the imago Dei doctrine (in deference to the noncorporeal, invisible nature of God) has not reckoned adequately with the fact of theophanic revelation and in particular has missed the theophanic referent of the image in the Genesis 1 context" and that "the theophanic Glory was present at the creation and was the specific divine model or referent in view in the creating of man in the image of God."

Interestingly, Kline (correctly) rejects the idea that Gen 1:26 is evidence of a plurality of persons within the "one God" (a later reading that desperately tries to read the Trinity back into the Old Testament). On Gen 1:26 in the same article, he wrote:

In Genesis 1:26 it is the plural form of the creative fiat that links the creation of man in the image of God to the Spirit-Glory of Genesis 1:2. The Glory-cloud curtains the heavenly enthronement of God in the midst of the judicial council of his celestial hosts. Here is the explanation of the “let us” and the “our image” in the Creator’s decree to make man. He was addressing himself to the angelic council of elders, taking them into his deliberative counsel.

This understanding of the first-person-plural fiat is supported by the fact that consistently where this usage occurs in divine speech it is in the context of the heavenly councilor at least of heavenly beings. Especially pertinent for Genesis 1:26 is the nearby instance in Genesis 3:22, a declaration concerned again with man’s image-likeness to God: “Man has become like one of us to know good and evil.” The cherubim mentioned in verse 24 were evidently being addressed. In the cases where God determines to descend and enter into judgment with a city like Babel or Sodom, and a plural form (like “Let us go down”) alternates with a singular, [30] the explanation of the plural is at hand in the angelic figures who accompany the Angel of the Lord on his judicial mission. [31] When, in Isaiah’s call experience, the Lord, enthroned in the Glory-cloud of his temple, asks, “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?” (Isa. 6:8), the plural is again readily accounted for by the seraphim attendants at the throne or (if the seraphim are to be distinguished from the heavenly elders, as are the winged creatures of the throne in Revelation 4) by the divine council, which in any case belongs to the scene. (A similar use of the first person plural is characteristic of address in the assembly of the gods as described in Canaanite texts of the Mosaic age.)

Note the following about the ANE background to "image" and "likeness" from two Old Testament scholars:

The idea fundamentally laid down in Gen 1:26f., that humans—and only humans, in contradistinction to the animals—are in the image of God must go back to Egyptian influence where especially the ruler appears as the “image of god.” The throne names and epithets of Egyptian kings perpetuate their “image of god-ness.” Tutankhamun (twt-‘nḫ-Ymn) means ‘living likeness of Amun’. New Kingdom seal amulets (scarabs) have been found in Palestine/Israel as well; on them, the name of Thutmoses III and other pharaohs are provided with the annotation tyt R’, tyt Ymn, or tyt Tmn R’ ‘image of Amun/Re’. But being in the image of God could also refer to human creatures in general. According to the Instruction of Merikare, which says of humanity that “They are his images, who came from his body” (snnw.f pw prn m ḥ’w.f), the relationship rests on the fact that humanity came from the body of the god. The connection is clear, and it is clearly suggested in the Egyptian language. The Egyptian numeral snw ‘two’ (Heb. šanah, šenim) is at the core of a broad semantic field to which among others, the following concepts belong: snwy ‘the two’ (dual); šnnw ‘second, companion, associate, colleague’; šn ‘brother’, šnt ‘sister’; šny ‘resemble, copy, imitate’, šnn ‘statue, image, icon’, šnnt ‘similarity’. “Similarity” is accordingly based on physical relationship and actually refers to a sort of “second edition” or “duplicate.”

 

Additional background for “being in the likeness of God” in Gen 1:26f. is the belief, throughout the Orient, in the potent corporealization that an image represents. The statue or stela of an Egyptian, Assyrian, or Babylonian king, set up in a distant province of the empire, represents the king’s power on the spot. The image of the god in the temple represents the presence of the god. The Hebrew word ‘image’ (ṣelem) points linguistically to the Mesopotamian cultural area. It can designate sculptures, statues, or reliefs, but primarily emphasizes their representative function. The Akkadian word ṣalmu has a similar semantic spectrum. Like the Egyptian rulers, the Assyrian kings of the ninth to seventh centuries B.C. were often designated “image” (ṣalmu) of a god: it is clear that the notion of “being in the image of God” clearly developed from the conception of a representative image and was then probably abstracted. The word “likeness/form” (demut), which supplements ṣelem in 1:26f., designates the similar connection of the copy with the model. It alludes to the content of the image, and inner similarity in nature between human and God. (Othmar Keel and Silvia Schroer, Creation: Biblical Theologies in the Context of the Ancient Near East [trans. Peter D. Daniels; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2015], 142-43)

 

In his 2022 book, From Creation to Abraham: Further Studies in Genesis 1-11, John Day has built upon his earlier work as quoted above. Addressing the "functional view" of צֶלֶם (“image”) in Gen 1:27, Day writes that

 

[Scholars have followed this view] because in Gen. 1.26-28 the reference to humanity’s ruling the animals and the earth follows shortly after the allusion to humanity’s being made in the image of God. However—and this is very important—it is more natural to suppose that humanity’s lordship over the animals and the earth is a consequence of its having been made in God’s image, rather than what the image itself denotes. This is made clear by v. 28, where God’s command to humanity to rule over animals and the earth takes place only after God’s blessing of them and commanding them to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, whereas humanity has already been made in God’s image in v. 27. This important point is often overlooked by defenders of the functional interpretation.

 

The conclusion that God’s image in humanity refers to something other than humanity’s rule over the animals and the earth is also supported by a consideration of the other Genesis passages which refer to the image of God. Thus, in Ge. 5.1-2, the statement is repeated that ‘When God crated humanity, he made them in the image of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and called their name humanity when they were created.’ Then v. 3 continues, ‘When Adam had lived 130 years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.’ Note the same language is used of Seth’s resemblance to Adam as is used of Adam’s resemblance to God. This resemblance clearly includes a physical resemblance and cannot have anything to do with ruling over animals and the earth. Again, in Gen. 9.6, we read, ‘Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall their blood be shed; for God made humanity in his own image’. These words are surely implying something about the inherent dignity over the animals and the earth. (John Day, “’So God Created Humanity In His Own Image’ (Genesis 1.27): What Does the Bible Mean and What Have People Thought it Meant?,” in From Creation to Abraham: Further Studies in Genesis 1-11 [London: T&T Clark, 2022], 25-26)

 

Against appeals to evidence from Egypt and the rest of the Ancient Near East for the “functional” view:

 

There are, however, some problems with this view. First, we have no evidence that the Israelite kings themselves were ever spoken of as being in the image of a god. The assumption has to be made that the Israelites borrowed the imagery either from Egyptian or Assyrian kingship and then democratized it to refer to humanity. But with regard to Assyria, it must be noted that the imagery is rare: only six references are known, and of those four come from a single scribe about three individuals in two letters from the time of Esar-haddon (681-669 BCE) and a fifth comes from the reign of his successor of Ashurbanipal (668-c. 627 BCE), while the other is from the time of Tukulti-Nunurta I (c. 1243-1207 BCE). It does not seem very likely, therefore, that P’s language was adopted from the Assyrians. What then of ancient Egypt? It is true that there are far more occurrences of the concept in Egypt, but although there are occasional allusions down to Ptolemaic times, they are overwhelmingly from the eighteenth dynasty (c. 1550-1290 BCE), about 800-1050 years prior to the time of the Priestly writer. Incidentally, although the Priestly writer probably wrote in the exilic or early post-exilic period, either during or not long after the Babylonian exile, no references to the king as the image of a god are attested in Babylonia at any period.

 

A popular variant of the functional view maintains that it was the custom of placing actual images of foreign kings in conquered territory as representations of their authority in absence that lies behind the alleged democratized representation of humans as images of the invisible God in Genesis. However, as noted earlier, the fundamental objection to any functional understanding of the image of God is that it does not fit any of the three passages in Genesis very well. Even in Gen. 1.26-28 humanity’s rule over the earth is more naturally a consequence of its being in the divine image, not what the image itself is.

 

Finally, those who adopt the functional view tend to argue that human beings are not said to be made in (or after) the image and likeness of God but rather as an image and likeness of God. This involves taking the preposition beth as so-called beth essentiae, ‘as’, hence ‘as the image and likeness of God’, not ‘in (i.e. after/according to) the image and likeness of God’. However, as J. Maxwell Miller (J.M. Miller, ‘In the “Image” and “Likeness” of God’, JBL 91 [1972], pp. 289-304 [296]) apply pointed out, this is improbable since the preposition beth is used here interchangeably with the preposition kaph, ‘after/according to’, but there is no kaph essentiae in biblical Hebrew. We thus have to conclude that humans are said to be made in (i.e., according to) the image of God (cf. Septuagint, kata, Vulgate ad), not merely as an image of God. (Ibid., 27-28)

 

Providing further evidence that  (“image”) in Gen 1:27 refers to physical likeness, not spiritual (at least merely), Day provides the following four arguments:

 

First, it should be noted that the word used for image, Hebrew ṣelem, is regularly employed elsewhere in the Old Testament to denote the physical representation of something, most frequently images of pagan gods (Nom. 33.52; 2 Kgs 11.18; 2 Chron. 23.17; Ezek. 7.20; 16.17; Amos 5.26). The only other examples are images of the Chaldaeans (Ezek. 23.14) and of tumours and mice (1 Sam. 6.5 [x2]; 6.11). Further, the biblical Aramaic cognate ṣ^elēm, ṣalmā’ is used eleven times in Dan. 3.1-8 of the statue of a pagan god that the people are commanded to worship by Nebuchadrezzar, and the same Aramaic word occurs several times in Dan. 2.31-35 of the statue symbolizing the four world empires in Nebichadrezzar’s dream. It may seem surprising that a word which is used overwhelmingly of pagan images should be employed in Genesis of humanity’s high dignity. However, the fact that its meaning was not confined to idols but could refer to an image generally, meant that it was acceptable.

 

The word ‘likeness’ (Hebrew d^emût) tends to be more abstract in meaning. Sometimes it means ‘appearance, form’, though on occasion it is used in the comparison of two things. Most frequently it is used in Ezekiel’s visions, where it sometimes seems to make the comparison more approximate and less definite (e.g. Ezek. 1.5, 26; 8.2; 10.1). So some think that in Genesis it is used to make humanity’s physical resemblance to God a bit more approximate and less definite. However, there are three places in the Old Testament where the word d^emût is not abstract but a physical depiction of some kind; cf. 2 Kgs 16.10, ‘a model (d^emût) of the altar,’ 2 Chron. 4.3, ‘figures (d^emût) of oxen’, and Ezek. 23.15, ‘a picture (d^emût) of Babylonians’. (Note that in Ezek. 23.14 ṣelem, ‘image’, is likewise used of the Chaldeans [Babylonians].) Interestingly, in a bilingual Aramaic-Akkadian inscription on a ninth-century statue of Hadad-yis’i, king of Gozan, discovered at Tell Fekheriyeh in Syria, the Aramac cognates ṣ^elēm and d^emûtā’ are both employed to render the Akkadian word ṣalmu, ‘image’, used of the statue. Ultimately, it is likely that there is no great difference between the ‘likeness’ and ‘image’ of God in Genesis, seeing that both terms are used interchangeably as noted earlier.

 

Second, very tellingly, in Gen. 5.3 we read that ‘Adam . . . became the father of a son in his likeness, after his image and named him Seth’. It will be noted that the identical terminology of Gen. 1.26-27 about humanity being made in the image and likeness of God is employed here. Moreover, just two verses before Gen. 5.3 in v. 1, we read that ‘When God created humanity, he made them in the likeness of God’. Since Seth’s likeness to Adam undoubtedly implies a physical resemblance, the natural conclusion is that there is similarly a physical likeness between God and human beings.

 

Thirdly, in addition to frequent references to Yahweh’s body parts, it ought to be noted that the Old Testament sometimes envisages God as appearing in human form (cf. Gen. 18.1-2; 32.24-25, 30). Perhaps the most well-known example is Isaiah’s famous vision in Isaiah 6, where the prophet ‘saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple’. But most relevant for our present purpose is Ezek. 1.26, where the prophet states that in his vision of God he ‘saw a likeness as the appearance of a human being’. It is significant that Ezekiel was priest, not so long before the Priestly account of creation in Genesis 1 was written. Moreover, the word ‘likeness’ (Hebrew d^emût), which Ezekiel uses in Ezek. 1.26 (cf. 8.2), is the same word that the Priestly sources employs in Gen. 1.26 to denote humanity’s likeness to God. Ezekiel’s statement that God had ‘a likeness as the appearance of human being/man’ and Genesis’s statement that humanity was made in the likeness of God sound like the obverse and reverse of each other.

 

Fourthly, it should be noted that God says, ‘Let us make humanity in our image . . . ‘ There is general agreement amongst Old Testament scholars that God is here addressing his heavenly court, the angels, since, as ready noted, in Hebrew the verb has no royal plural, and there is no evidence for a plural of exhortation. Accordingly a point often overlooked is that humanity is made in the image of the angels, and not merely of God. Now there is good evidence that angels were envisaged as being in human form. Compare, for example, the angel Gabriel, who is described in Dan. 8.15 and 10.18 as ‘one having the appearance of a man’ and in Dan. 10.16 as ‘one in the likeness of the sons of men’. Again, in Genesis 19, those referred to as angels in v. 1 are called men in v. 5.

 

So it seems likely that human beings were thought to have a similar physical appearance to God, and that this is at least part of what the image of God in humanity includes. To the objection that men and woman do not have an identical appearance, L. Koehler (L. Koehler, ‘Die Grundstelle der Imago-Dei-Lehre’. TZ 4 [1948], pp. 16-22) argued that we could think more generally of human beings sharing upright form as what constitutes their resemblance to God. With him we may compare Ovid’s Metamorphoses 1.83-86, where Prometheus ‘moulded them into the image of all-controlling gods’ and in contrast to the animals, ‘gave human being an upturned aspect . . . and upright’. (Ibid., 30-32)

 

In a footnote to the above, we read that

 

[Similar to Ezek 1:26] Ezek. 8.2, referring to God, the prophet says he saw ‘the likeness (d^emût) as the appearance of a man’. It is generally accepted that the LXX preserves the original reading, ‘man’, and that the last word in the Hebrew text, ēš, ‘fire’, should be emended to ‘îš, ‘man’. The parallel description in Ezek. 1.27 confines the fire to the lower part of the divine body, which supports this emendation in Ezek. 8.2, as does the personal possessive in ‘his loins’, later in the verse. The occurrence of ‘fire’ later in Ezek. 8.2 could well have given rise to the confusion. (Ibid., 31 n. 33)

 

While acknowledging there may not be only one intended meaning behind the terms "image" and "likeness," M. David Litwa argues that Gen 1:26-27 affirms that humans are "iconically" like God, sharing his 3-dimensional 'image' and 'likeness':

 

In Genesis, what the "image" (εικων) of God consists of may never (and may never have been meant to) be reduced to a single element. A range of characteristics and functions have been proposed in medieval and modern theology: sexuality, relationality, reason, etc.

 

Initially, I am less interested in pinpointing the specific divine quality possessed by humans than in stating the basic fact: human beings, according to the first chapter of the Bible, are iconically like God. The fundamental likeness provides (as we see in Gen 3, 6, and 11) the basis for the further step: mixing with and potentially entering the class of divine beings.

 

Those who were part of the class of divine beings were, as we noted, called "the sons of God" (οι υιοι του θεου) (Gen 6:2; Ps 28[29]:1; 88:7 [89:6]; 81[82]:6). Divine sonship links back to the divine image, as is indicated in Gen 5:3. Here Adam begets a son "in his likeness, according to his image" (כצלמו בדמותו; κατα την ιδεαν αυτου και κατα την εικονα αυτου). The language in Gen 1:26 is similar, except for the prepositions which appear to be interchangeable: "in our image, according to our likeness" (בצלמנו כדמותנו; κατ εικονα ημετεραν και καθ ομοιωσιν). It seems, then, that even in Gen 1:26, Yahweh want to draw humankind (אדם; ανθρωπος) into a kinship relation with himself. As an image of God, the human is a son of God. Accordingly, the author of the Gospel of Luke can write that Adam, created in God's image, is genealogically (and genetically?) speaking, "son of God" ([υιος] του θεου) (3:38; cf. 17:28b). By making mankind in the image and likeness of himself and the other divine beings (note: "Le us"), Yahweh makes humans his children and thus strikingly close to the "sons of God" who in Gen 6 and Ps 28(29):1 are part of the class of divine beings.

 

When we turn to the historical meaning of human iconicity, Hebrew Bible scholars have allowed us to see it at least in part as a morphological and thus physical similarity to Godself. In the words of Benjamin Sommer, Genesis 1:26-27 "asserts that human beings have the same form as God and other heavenly beings." The words צלם (εικων) and דמות (ομοιωσις) refer to the "physical contours" of God. To share God's image thus means to share God's corporeality. Although scholars of all stripes and times have downplayed the corporeality of God in the Jewish scriptures, the notion is unavoidable.

 

In Genesis 2.7 God blows life-giving breath into the first human—an action that might suggest that God has a mouth or some organ with which to exhale. Less ambiguously, in Genesis 3.8, Adam hears the sound of God going for a stroll in the Garden of Eden at the breezy time of the day. A being who takes a walk is a being who has a body—more specifically, a body with something closely resembling legs. As we move forward in Genesis, we are told that God comes down from heaven to earth to take a close look at the tower the humans are building (Genesis 11.5) and that God walks to Abraham's tent, where He engages in conversation. (Genesis 18) (Sommer, Bodies of God, 2).

 

Thus by making humankind iconically similar to himself, God apparently shares his bodily form. Humans become the statues (εικονες) of God ("statue" being a common meaning of εικων in Paul's day). This line of interpretation is confirmed in later Jewish literature. In Vita Adae et Evae, Adam's bodily face and likeness take on the image of God (13:3). The patriarch Isaac affirms that not preserving the body profanes the image of God (TIsaac 6:33-7:1). R. Hillel goes to the bath to take care of the image of God (his body!) (Lev. Rabb. 34.3). Likewise, when Adam shares his image with Seth, he shares his bodily form (Gen 5:3). Just as Seth is embodied in a form akin to that of Adam, so Adam in Gen 1:26-27 is embodied in a form akin to that of God. (M. David Litwa, We Are Being Transformed: Deification in Paul's Soteriology [Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche 187; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2012], 100-2)

 

Such conclusions are strongly consistent with Latter-day Saint theology.

On Heb 1:3, LDS apologist D. Charles Pyle in his FAIR Conference paper from 1999, "I have said, 'ye are gods': Concepts Conducive to the Early Christian Doctrine of Deification in Patristic Literature and the Underlying Strata of the Greek New Testament Text" offered the following exegesis of the verse:

There is also scripture that can used to potentially support the idea that God could have a physical body. One of these is Hebrews 1:3. Christ could only be the exact representation of the Father if the Father himself possessed a body of some sort. In fact, some who wish to avoid what I feel is the plain meaning of Hebrews 1:3 actually go so far as to separate the natures of Christ or declare that the passage could not possibly infer that the Father is embodied.

Those who criticize this meaning thus, however, do not take into account the fact that there is not one portion of the passage that differentiates between the divine or human nature of Jesus. Secondly, the particle ων on indicates being, i.e., the present state of existence of Jesus from the perspective of the author of Hebrews. It has absolutely nothing to do with only Jesus’ previous state or of only a portion of his supposed dual nature. It only speaks of his total existence as a person.

Further, many grammarians have severely misunderstood the Greek απαυγασμα apaugasma (English: [active] effulgence or radiance; [middle, passive] reflection) in this passage to have the active sense. The Greek kai kai (English: and) is here a coordinating conjunction which combines the first and second parts (the second part being of a passive character) of a parallel couplet. Due to this fact, as much as the Evangelicals wish doggedly to hold to their interpretation, the Greek απαυγασμα aapaugasma should be understood as having a passive sense.

Why? Because the second portion of the couplet indicates that Jesus is the exact representation of the Father’s substantial nature, not that he is synonymous with that nature. Since this passage is a couplet, with the second portion being passive in nature, the first portion must be understood as having a passive sense as well. Thus, Jesus is properly to be seen as he “who is the reflection of the glory (of God) and the exact representation of the substantial nature of him (i.e., the Father).”

In short, the glory of God reflects from Jesus rather than having Jesus as its source, according to the theology of the author of Hebrews. Thusly, Jesus exactly represents God as he exists in all aspects of Jesus’ existence. The passage does not allow differentiation of Jesus’ divine and human natures in relation to God. Quite the opposite is in view here, although I doubt that Evangelicals will wish to agree with my assessment of the passage. Nevertheless, if it is true that Jesus is the exact representation of the Father’s substantial nature in all aspects, the Father must have possession of a physical body. Otherwise, Jesus is not and could not be the exact representation of the Father, for the two would differ. This fact is further strengthened by another pertinent fact: the Father is never said to be bodiless in any place within the text of the Bible. That was for a later generation to develop.

Finally, absolutizing Num 23:19 in the way that Beaumont et al is wont to, it means that Jesus is a false teacher. Consider the following:

 

It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men (δύο ἀνθρώπων) is true. I am the one that bear witness of my myself, and the Father that hath sent me beareth witness of me. (John 8:17-18)

 

Here, Jesus predicates ἄνθρωπος upon, not just himself (which one can explain away by the "Hypostatic Union"), but also upon the Father. ἄνθρωπος has a similar semantic domain to אישׁ. The Latter-day Saint position allows for a smooth harmonization of the relevant issues; the perspective of Beaumont et al cannot.

 

Psalm 90:2

 

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed he earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting (HEB: מֵעוֹלָ֥ם עַד־ע֜וֹלָ֗ם; LXX: καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ αἰῶνος ἕως τοῦ αἰῶνος), thou art God.

 

A related Book of Mormon passage that is often quoted in conjunction with Psa 90:2 is that of Moroni 8:18:

For I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; but he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity. (Moroni 8:18)

Many Evangelical critics of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its theology point to this verse, as well other similar verses in the Book of Mormon and other unique Latter-day Saint Scriptures (e.g., Mormon 7:22; Moroni 10:28; D&C 20:28) that Latter-day Saint scripture refutes the belief that the Father experienced mortality, as did the Son, as Joseph Smith taught in the King Follett Discourse, as well as the doctrine of eternal progression. How can Latter-day Saints harmonise their theology with such texts? Note a number of things that show Evangelicals are guilty of superficial reading of these texts:

1. The attributes of deity have always existed, having no beginning and will have no end, regardless of who holds or shares these attributes.
2. The ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and Latins did not understand such terms in the same way as we do today. Our ideas on the meaning of "eternal" and its cognate terms are wholly modern ideas which were not believed as they are before the fourth century; indeed, the term we often translate as eternity (Hebrew: עוֹלָם Greek: αιων/αιωνιος) and related terms, alongside having a qualitative meaning, meant an undetermined and unspecified period of time to the ancients. They were forced to use such words in repetitive phrases to come near the concept, but even then the meaning still had inherent time constraints. If we understand such phrases in the Book of Mormon as ancients understood them, the conflict vanishes. Our concepts of eternity and time are wholly modern concepts which ancient Semites and others did not hold to; they are later, post-biblical constructions. [1]
3. The Book of Mormon (and biblical) authors cannot be speaking of metaphysical natures not being changed; if such were the case, this would contradict the claim that Jesus Christ emptied himself to become a man like us (cf. Heb 2:16-18 and Phil 2:5-11 where Jesus experiences a kenosis), notwithstanding Heb 13:8 stating that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
4. In Latter-day Saint theology, intelligences, and all the attributes inherent within intelligence (e.g., personality) have existed throughout all eternity (e.g., D&C 93:29); God the Father has existed in like-manner, according to the teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith[2]
5. Note the language of D&C 132:20: “Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting . . .”

Notes for the Above

[1] For a thorough study of the meaning of the terms αιων/αιωνιος and their ancient meanings, see Ilaria Ramelli and David Konstan, Terms for Eternity: Aionios and Aidios in Classical and Christian Texts (Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias Press, 2007). For the difference between Semitic and post-biblical Greek concepts of "time" and "eternity," see Thorleif Bornan, Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek (New York: Norton, 1970).

[2] As representative examples, taken from The Words of Joseph Smith: The Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Provo: BYU Religious Studies Centre, 1980), ed. Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook; spelling errors in original text retained: "God was a self exhisting  being, man exhists upon the same principle. God made a tabernacle & put a spirit in it and it became a Human soul, man exhisted in spirit & mind coequal with God himself . . . Intelligence is Eternal & it is self exhisting" (p. 346); "Intelligence exists upon a selfexistent principle" (p. 360); "I believe that God is eternal. That He had no beginning, and can have no end. Eternity means that which is without beginning or end. I believe that the soul is eternal; and had no beginning; it can have no end” (p. 33)

In response to the question, "How long is eternity?" we read the following from the Millennial Star in 1943:

Endless: continuing forever . . . and ever. Billions of years, repeating themselves without ceasing. Indefinite, but vast and immeasurable period of time--aeons Consider these references: "There is a God in Heaven who is infinite and eternal, from everlasting to everlasting, the same unchangeable God, the former of Heaven and earth and all things which are in them" (D. & C. 20:17), or prayer of Moses in Psalm 90: "Before the mountains were brought forth or even thou hadst formed the earth and the world from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God." (“Do You Know—Answers,” Millennial Star  105, no. 13 [April 1943]: 255)

What is interesting to me is that Psa 90:2, a common "proof-text" against LDS theology is cited.

As for Psa 90:2, the Hebrew reads:

בטרם הרים ילדו ותחולל ארץ ותבל ומעולם עד עולם אתה אל

The 1985 JPS Tanakh renders the verse thusly:

Before the mountains came into being, before You brought forth the earth and the world, from eternity to eternity You are God.

The Hebrew phrase אתה אל (“you are” and “[a] god”) appears elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible:

And she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God [NRSV: You are El [god] Roi] seest me . . .(Gen 16:13)

Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour. (Isa 45:15)

And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshiah: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. (Jonah 4:2)

The literal meaning of the Hebrew is "you are a god." Latter-day Saints can reconcile this biblical passage with our theology of God the Father having experiencing a mortality of his own under the premise that, once he was perfected/exalted (similar to how Jesus was--Phil 2:5-11; Luke 13:32; Heb 1:4; 5:9, etc) to being "[a] God," he remained "[a] God" "from everlasting to everlasting" (cf. D&C 132:20, quoted above and the discussion regarding the ancient understanding of "eternity").

With respect to Gen 16:13, in his book, Angelomorphic Christology, the Lutheran scholar Charles A. Gieschen provided the following translation of Gen 16:13:

So she called the name of YHWH who spoke to her, You are an El of seeing” [‎ ותקרא שׁם־יהוה הדבר אליה אתה אל ראי]; for she said, “Have I really seen him, and remained alive after seeing him?” (Charles A. Gieschen, Angelomorphic Christology: Antecedents and Early Evidence [Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1998; repr., Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2017], 58, emphasis in original)

Notice how Gieschen renders אתה אל as "You are an El" (note the indefinite article), the same phrase that appears in Psa 90:2. One raises this issue as some misinformed critics of LDS theology have argued that translating the Hebrew phrase אתה אל as "you are a god/El" is inappropriate when in fact they fly in the face of scholarship of the Old Testament and the Hebrew language itself.

Commenting on passages such as Moroni 8:18 in the Book of Mormon that speak of God the Father being “unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity,” LDS apologist D. Charles Pyle wrote the following which is rather insightful:

We simply could here on this point of the Nephites thinking in terms of Hebrew meanings when composing in Egyptian words and sentences, but it also is of interest to note what ancient Egyptians would have expressed if the Nephites themselves also thought similarly to the way that the Egyptian people did while writing their own religious and other texts in Egyptian. For instance, the Egyptian  word for “eternity,” ḥḥ, was expressed both by the word as well as by the ideographic symbol of the same meaning, both of which had the same range of meaning from “a great but indefinite number” to “millions” (as in the number of years, also seen in some writings) in their religious texts. A deity named Ḥḥ was in their pantheon, with the tacit understanding among the ancient Egyptians that this god thus himself also was “the god of hundreds of thousands of years.” Another way of writing the word was nḥḥ (meaning eternity). And in connection with this word’s form there also was a deity named Nḥḥ (described as “the god of eternity”).

The Egyptians, much as the Hebrews so did, sometimes also would string together word expressing long durations of time. Yet even those usages still represented long, measurable durations of time, thus demonstrating that even the Egyptians used various words (which frequently are translated as eternity, everlasting, and for ever and ever) similarly to how the Hebrews also did with respect to time. For instance, they might want to write a phrase like nḥḥ dt (or its fuller form nḥḥ ḥn^c dt) to mean something like eternity with everlastingness. Thus, Egyptian also used similar approaches to meaning in which words were attached to other words, as also seen in the use of the phrase ḥḥ nn dr, or it fuller form ḥḥnn dr^c (meaning literally millions of years without limit, or, an eternity without end). The mere existence of such constructions shows us that even Egyptian ḥḥ and nḥḥ did not mean eternity as we have tended to think of the concept. Nor did dt by itself mean everlasting as we might assume it did. Also weighty is evidence we have seen that an Egyptian word for eternity in a phrase like ḥtr šn nḥḥ (meaning a tax fixed or ever or a perpetual tax) also reveals to us that said word did not have inherent within it a meaning we might want to attach to it with our Western way of looking at philosophical constructs. (D. Charles Pyle, I Have Said Ye are Gods: Concepts Conducive to the Early Christian Doctrine of Deification in Patristic Literature and the Underlying Strata of the Greek New Testament (Revised and Supplemented) [CreateSpace, 2018], 226-28, italics in original)

Elsewhere, when commenting on passages related to Psa 90:2, Pyle wrote:

 

For example, we can see the similar usage in the Hebrew text of Psalms 103:17 and of Micah 5:2. However, in the case of Psalm 103:17 we find an interesting twist to the text that shows that this text is by no means speaking literally or eternity. That passage, when red conjointly with verse 18, clearly states the following:

 

But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children’s children. To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them.

 

Here is the rub. The created children and children’s children are not eternal, so far as to their physical existence on earth are concerned. Those who fear the LORD also are not eternal in the sense that Evangelicals and other critics say the word indicates when used to speak of the God of the Bible. So, if we have mercy needed by created beings, that mercy cannot be truly said to have existed from eternity. We know that they had beginnings as organized beings. The same kind of thing can be seen in the passage at Micah 5:2, for in that passage its text in various translations clearly states that the origins of the Messiah have been “from everlasting.” Now, it yet is true that the King James Version of the Bible (and a number of others), have rendered it as “goings forth” but the word there actually makes reference to origins or to points of origination . . . .

 

If we turn to the Hebrew text of Jeremiah 7:7, we see yet another passage that has a phrase very similar to that found in the ninetieth Psalm, only therein it refers to God causing the children of Israel, to dwell in the land that he gave to their fathers. The King James Version translates that as “for ever and ever” whereas the phrase actually represents meaning like that in Psalm 90:2. Yet we know that both the people and the land itself had beginnings! Looking over Jeremiah 25:5 we find the identical phrasing and meaning to that at Jeremiah 7:7. Again therein, Israel’s fathers and the land itself both also had beginnings, or origins, at the time of their creation.

 

At Jeremiah 28:8, we find a phrase that literally translated might be rendered “from the eternity” but the passage speaks of prophets prophesying, which we know had a beginning—at least here on earth. At Psalm 93:2 we find it speaking of God, and also of his throne, but the very same word is used in Proverbs 8:23 to speak of wisdom being set up from the same reference to time! Yet the fact that wisdom was set up shows a point of origin in time. So again, this is not that concept of eternity that we Westerners would expect to see here. (D. Charles Pyle, I Have Said Ye Are Gods, 213-14, 220-21)

In 1 Chron 16:36 we read:

 

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel forever and ever. And all the people said, Amen, and praised the Lord.

 

The Hebrew for "forever and ever" is ‎מִן־הָעוֹלָם וְעַד הָעֹלָם (literally, "from the 'olam and until the 'olam"; cf. "ἀπὸ τοῦ αἰῶνος καὶ ἕως τοῦ αἰῶνος" ["from the aionos and until the aionos" in the LXX).  The passage speaks of blessing God forever and ever, but God was not praised in such a manner by men on earth before those praising him began to praise him, showing there can be a limitation placed on the meaning of the phrase "forever and ever."

This is borne out when looking at lexicons. For instance, note that the first definition of עוֹלָם in HALOT "long time, duration" adds the qualification "but not in a philosophical sense.” The rest of this entry reads:

 

THAT 2:235f: עֶבֶד ע׳ a slave for life Dt 15₁₇ 1S 27₁₂ Jb 40₂₈  )Ug. Ábd Álm(, שִׂמְחַת ע׳ Is 35₁₀, זֵכֶר ע׳ Ps 112₆, שֵׁם ע׳ Is 56₅, הֲרַת ע׳ Jr 20₁₇, חֶרְפַּת ע׳ Is 23₄₀; ע׳ occurs thus in many phrases: with בְּרִית Gn 9₁₆ )16 times(, with בְּרִית מֶלַח Nu 18₁₉, with אֲחֻזַּת Gn 17₈, with ) חֻקַּת23 times( Ex 12₁₄.₁₇. cj. Ezk 46₁₄ see Zimmerli 1168, with ) חָק־11 times( Ex 29₂₈ 30₂₁, with כְּהֻנַּת Ex 40₁₅ Nu 25₁₃, with חֶסֶד never-failing kindness Is 54₈.

Spiros Zodhiates, himself a Trinitarian, wrote:

‘Ôwlâm or ‘ôlâm . . . It is what is hidden, concealed (i.e., to the vanishing point); time immemorial, time past, antiquity (from most ancient times, Gen. 6:4; 1 Sam 27:8; Isa. 63:16; Jer 2:20; 5:15; Ps 25:6); eternity, the distant future (terminus ad quem); duration, perpetual, without end, always, everlasting time; lifetime. In the pl. form it means ages or endless times . . . There are at least twenty instances where ‘ôwlâm clearly refers to the past, though rarely a limitless past. Deut. 32:7 and Job 22:15 point to the time of one’s elders. Prov. 22:28; 23:10; Jer. 6:16; 18:15; 28:8 seem to go back even further. Sometimes the time just prior to the exile is referred to (Isa. 58:12; 61:4; Mic. 7:14; Mal. 3:4; Ezra 4:15, 19). At other times it goes back further, to the events of the exodus from Egypt (1 Sam 27:8; Isa. 51:9; 63:9, 11). Gen. 6:4 indicates the time shortly before the flood. The basic meaning of ‘ôwlâm is “most distant times,” whether the remote past or the future depending upon the accompanying prepositions. Therefore, ‘ôwlâm is a broad range between the remotest time and perpetuity (from the viewpoint of the speaker) . . . ‘Ôwlâm, the same Heb. word can describe a short period of only three days (though it must have seemed like an eternity to Jonah as “forever,” Jon. 2:6) or it can be used in conjunction with God—the God of eternity, the everlasting God, God forever. Temporal categories are inadequate to describe the nature of God’s existence. The Creator has been “from everlasting to everlasting” (Ps. 90:2). Even then, it still expresses the idea of a continued, measurable existence, rather than a state of being independent of time considerations. (Spiros Zodhiates, Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible [Chattanooga, Tenn.: AMG Publishers, 1984, 1990], 1757)

 

John 6:46

 

Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father. (cf. 1:18; 5:37)

 

Firstly, if Micah wishes to absolutize John 6:46 to claim that God (the Father) cannot be seen, he has a Christological issue. According to Trinitarian critics of LDS theology, it was the Son who appeared in the Old Testament theophanies. That is not an issue as Latter-day Saints generally agree with this. However, to claim that God the Father cannot be seen but the premortal Jesus can be seen raises issues. Think of it this way. Consider the following three statements; one can accept two of them, but accepting the third creates a contradiction:

1. Jesus is God and is consubstantial with the Father.

2. Jesus was seen by man before the incarnation.

3. Man cannot see God.

If they take 1 and 3, they have to deny no. 2, and will argue, as did Augustine and Aquinas based on their belief in absolute divine simplicity, that the theophanies in the Old Testament were temporary, created angelic avatars, not the second person of the Godhead. If they take 2 and 3, they deny the deity of Christ and/or that he is consubstantial with the father. What Micah et al want to say is that seeing Jesus is different than seeing the father, and that is a problem if they are consubstantial, per Nicene and later creedal formulations. They would have to argue that the premortal Jesus, who was seen by man, has a lesser glory or lesser substance than the Father, but their Christology (per Nicea, as well as Reformed theology [such as the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith]) does not allow them to hold to such.

When the Johannine literature teaches that no man has seen God (the Father), it is not talking about seeing the Father per se, but having a vision of his full manifestation and glory. That is the nuance of the Greek that commentators are able to pick up on, but Micah, as he does not seem like a competent individual or too literate, is able to. Consider, for instance:

 

When Jesus says that no one can ‘see’ the kingdom, He isn’t talking about understanding or grasping what it is or having the eyes of faith to know about it; rather Jesus uses the word ‘see’ to mean ‘experience’. For example, when someone says, ‘I would love to see Europe’, they don’t mean they would love to understand or know about Europe, but rather that they would love to go there and actually experience it. In the same way, no one can ‘see’ God’s kingdom unless they are born again. A few verses later, that becomes absolutely clear when Jesus expresses the same idea in a different way, saying that those who are not born again cannot ‘enter the kingdom of God.’ (Karl Deenick, Washed by God: The Story of Baptism [Ross-Shire, Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, Inc., 2022], 43; note: “to see” [“the kingdom of God”] in John 3:3 is the same verb used in John 1:18; 5:37 and 6:46: οραω.)

 

Commenting on 1 John 4:12 (“No man hath seen [θεαομαι] God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us”), Trinitarian Spiros Zodhiates wrote:

 

to behold, view attentively, contemplate, indicating the sense of a wondering regard involving a careful and deliberate vision which interprets its object. It involves more than merely seeing (Mt. 6:1; 11:7; 22:11; 23:5; Mk. 16:11, 14; Lk. 5:27; 7:24; 23:55; Jn. 1:14, 32, 38; 4:35; 6:5; 8:10; 11:45; Acts 1:11; 8:18; 21:27; 22:9; Rom. 15:24; 1 Jn. 1:1; 4:12, 14). (Spiros Zodhiates, Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible (Chattanooga, Tenn.: AMG Publishers, 1984, 1990), 1839; cf. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Literature [3d ed] (abbrev. "BDAG"): “to have an intent look at someth., to take someth. in with one’s eyes, with implication that one is esp. impressed, see, look at, behold”)

 

The emphatic declaration, “No man hath seen God at any time” (notice that the word “God” is in an emphatic position) is in line with Exod. 33:20 where the Lord says, “man shall not see me and live” (cf. John 5:37; 6:46). Yet there are some passages like Exod. 24:9-11 which explicitly affirm that some men have seen God. What then does John mean? Surely that in His essential being God has never yet been seen of men. Men had had their visions of God, but these were all partial. The theophanies of the Old Testament did not and could not reveal God’s essential being. But Christ has now made such a revelation. As Calvin puts it, “When he says that none has seen God, it is not to be understood of the outward seeing of the physical eye. He means generally that, since God dwells in inaccessible light, He cannot be known except in Christ, His lively image.” (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John [New International Commentary on the New Testament; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1971], 113)

 

In 2022, I gave a presentation on a friend’s channel, “Can Man See God?” which went through all the relevant texts, such as 1 Tim 6:16, as well as providing biblical evidence from non-LDS scholars that yes, God can be seen, the eisegesis of Micah et al notwithstanding:

 

 

One can download the slideshow that I used here.

  

Isaiah 43:10 and 44:6, 8

 

Perhaps it would be enough to quote from Michael Heiser who argues, correctly, that Isaiah is not denying the ontological existence of other deities, but the incomparability of Yahweh (though cf. the commentary above re. Neh 9:6 where Heiser goes too far with the evidence):

  

First, all the denial statements made by Isaiah and other prophets have exact or near exact linguistic equivalents in two passages universally regarded as containing “vestiges” of other gods—Deuteronomy 4:19–20 and 32:8–9. These statements actually speak to Yahweh’s incomparability among all the other ‘ĕlōhim, not to the denial of the existence of other ‘ĕlōhim.

 

The second problem concerns Deuteronomy 32:17, a text that alludes to the failures of Israel in disobeying the warnings of Deuteronomy 4:19–20. This text quite clearly has Moses referring to the other ‘ĕlōhim as evil spiritual entities (šēdim): “They [Israel] sacrificed to demons (šēdim) who are not God (‘ĕlōah), to gods (‘ĕlōhim) they did not know; new ones that had come along recently, whom your fathers had not reverenced.” While these lesser ‘ĕlōhim are linked to the statues that represented them in the mind of their worshippers (Deuteronomy 4:28; 7:25; 28:64), these beings must be considered real spiritual entities.

 

Lastly, there is a logic problem. If one goes back and reads the denial statements in Deutero-Isaiah, it is not difficult to discern upon what basis the denial language occurs. Is the language concerned with making the point that Yahweh is the only god who exists or something else? In Isaiah 43:10–12 Yahweh claims to be unique in his preexistence, in his ability to save, and in his national deliverance. In Isaiah 44:6–8 the focus is on certain attributes of Yahweh. In the texts from Isaiah 45, there are very obvious comparisons between Yahweh’s deeds, justice, salvation, and deliverance of his children and the impotence of the other gods. All these passages are transparently concerned with comparing Yahweh to other gods—not comparing Yahweh to beings that do not exist. That would be empty praise indeed.

 

. . .

 

[Isa 43:10] does not deny that Yahweh created any ‘ĕlōhim. Rather, it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to follow. If the objects of creation were what was intended to be negated, we would expect a plural form of hyh, not the singular yihyeh, or some other negated plural construction. (Michael E. Heiser "You've Seen One Elohim, You've Seen Them All? A Critique of Mormonism's Use of Psalm 82," FARMS Review 19, no. 1 [2007]:232-33, 254)

 

Elsewhere on the language of imcomparability, Heiser wrote:

  

But what about the second half of the statements of Deut 4.35 (אין עוד מלבדו)? Must the phrasing be construed as a denial of the existence of all other gods except YHWH? There are several difficulties with this understanding.

 

First, similar constructions are used in reference to Babylon and Moab in Isa 47.8, 10 and Nineveh in Zeph 2.15. In Isa 47.8, 10, Babylon says to herself,‎ אני ואפסי עוד ("I am, and there is none else beside me"). The claim is not that she is the only city in the world but that she has no rival. Nineveh makes the identical claim in Zeph 2.15 (אני ואפסי עוד). In these instances, these constructions cannot constitute the denial of the existence of other cities and nations. The point being made is very obviously incomparability.

 

Second, מלבדו and other related forms, (לבד, לבדו) need not mean "alone" in some exclusive sense. That is, a single person in a group could be highlighted or focused upon. 1 Kgs 18.1-6 is an example. The passage deals with the end of the three-year drought and famine during the career of Elijah. After meeting with Elijah, Ahab calls Obadiah, the steward of his house, and together they set upon a course of action to find grass to save their remaining horses and mules. Verse 6a then reads:‎ אחאב הלך בדרך אחד לבדו ועבדיהו הלך בדרך־אחד לבדו ("Ahab went one way by himself [לבדו], and Obadiah went another way by himself [לבדו]"). While it may be possible to suggest that Obadiah literally went through the land completely unaccompanied in his search, it is preposterous to say that the king of Israel went completely alone to look for grass, without bodyguards or servants. The point is that לבדו (and by extension מלבדו) need not refer to complete isolation or solitary presence. Another example is Ps 51.6 [Eng., 51.4], which reads in part: לך לבדך חטאתי ("against you, you alone, I have sinned"). God was not the only person against whom David had sinned. He had sinned against his wife and certainly Uriah. This is obviously heightened rhetoric designed to highlight the One who had been primarily offended. It was God against whom David's offense was incomparable. (Michael S. Heiser, "Does Deuteronomy 32:17 Assume or Deny the Reality of Other Gods?," The Bible Translator 59, no. 3 [July 2008]: 144-45)

 

Commenting on the negation “there is none” (Hebrew: אין . . . כ), one scholar wrote the following about how it is applied to persons and objects in the Old Testament, showing that the phrase and other like-expressions does not mean one belongs to an ontologically unique category per se, but instead, denotes incomparability:

When Samuel presented Saul to the people, he asked them (I Sam. 10:24), ‘Do you see him whom Yahweh has chosen?’ and continued: כי אין כמהו בכל העם ‘Well, there is none like him among all the people’. According to 1 Sam. 10:23 Saul was taller than any of the people and in I Sam. 9:2 it is said that there was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he. The question, however, arises whether when he described him as incomparable, Samuel had in mind merely the handsome figure of the king. It is, of course, not impossible, but it is very doubtful, for he must have known that outward appearance is of relative importance, and I Sam. 16:7 cannot be used to support an argument to the contrary. Most significantly Samuel closely linked the king’s election by Yahweh to his incomparability, which can only mean that the kind had no rival among the people because of his election by Yahweh, that nobody else had a claim to the throne. We may even suppose that this particular pronouncement by Samuel became a standard formula used at the coronation ceremonies of the Israelite kings. This, however, cannot be proved, but there are definite reminiscences of the phrase in I Ki. 3:12, 13 and Neh. 13:26 (referring to Solomon), in II Ki. 18:5 (referring to Hezekiah) and in II Ki. 23:25 (referring to Josiah). As part of the coronation ritual this proclamation could have served to protect the new king from possible rivals claiming the throne for themselves. For our purpose it is of importance to note that the newly-elected king is called incomparable, because only he, to the exclusion of all others, has a claim to the throne. Incomparability, therefore, presupposes uniqueness and implies the exclusion of rivals.

The second example of a person being called incomparable is to be found in Job. 1:8 and 2:3, where Yahweh, after asking Satan whether he had considered Job, said: כי אין כמהו בארצ ‘well, there is none like him on the earth’. Job’s incomparability is characterized as ‘a man blameless and upright, who fears God and turns away from evil’. In this case particular qualities are mentioned, which cause him to be incomparable, denoting that in respect of these characteristics he has no equal.

A third example of the comparative negation used in a conversation is David’s comment on Goliath’s sword: אין כמוה תננה לי-- ‘There is none like that; give it to me’ (I Sam. 21:10). The sword of Goliath was the only one available at the time, according to Ahimelech (‘there is none but that here'). ’Apart from the fact that this particular sword belonged to Goliath and was therefore a unique weapon, David called it incomparable because it was invaluable to him, being the only one available. (C.J. Labuschagne, The Incomparability of Yahweh in the Old Testament [Pretoria Oriental Series Vol V; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1966], 9-10)

As Labuschagne noted elsewhere, the incomparability of deity was not limited to Israel; indeed, “it occurred also in the polytheistic religions of the nations surrounding Israel. While in respect of its God Israel’s faith declared that ‘there is none like Him’, the Egyptians, Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians held a similar view regarding quite a number of their gods” (ibid., 31). One example of such is that of Marduk. As Labuschagne writes:

According to the texts available to us, it was to Marduk that incomparability was by far the most frequently applied. For more than a thousand years, from Hammarubi’s time, Marduk, the god of the city of Babylon, occupied an important position and enjoyed great veneration. In several hymns he is hailed as the incomparable one. In one, praising his fighting power and his role as a storm god, it is said:

Mighty god, who has no equal among the great gods,

and in another:

Lord, thou art exalted! Who equals thee?
Marduk, among all the great gods thou art exalted!

A hymn celebrating his wisdom (as the son of Ea), also proclaims his incomparability:

Which god in heaven or on earth equals thee?

In a prayer from an incantation text it is said:

Prince of heaven and earth, who has no equal,

and in another prayer with reference to his power he is extolled as:

Lord, who as to his might has no equal.

Finally, we call a most interesting hymn addressed to Marduk and Nabu which according to EBELING ("Quellen zur Kenntnis der Babylonischen Religion," 78) was recited when Nabu travelled from Borsippa to the temple of Marduk in Babylon. In this hymn the attribute of incomparability is bestowed on both of these gods. Marduk is called ‘King of all, without peer . . . ‘, while Nabu is hailed as ‘scribe without equal . . . ‘. As far as this application of the attribute to two different gods in the same hymn is concerned we may compare this hymn with the ‘Hymn on the supremacy of the sun god’. Here, too, the attribute is not bestowed on one god at the expense of the other, or it is nothing more than an epithet expressing abounding praise to both gods.

While the incomparability of Marduk occurs in many hymns and prayers, it is conspicuously absent in personal names, at least in those containing Marduk as the theophorous element. Because this may be mere coincidence, we ought not to draw any conclusions on the strength of an argumentum e silentio. Moreover, names such as Man-kī-bēli—‘Who is like my lord?’—and Manum-šāninšu—‘Who is his equal?’ may, for all we know, refer to Marduk. We do, however, find a name expressing the incomparability of Bel, viz. Mīnū-ana-^ilBēl-dāni—‘What is strong (enough) against Bel?’. (Ibid., 40-41)

In the Thanksgiving Hymn (1QH^a XVIII) from Qumran, we see that the language of “none besides me” (cf. Isa 44:6, 8) does not deny the ontological existence of other beings in the same category (Gods/gods, etc) but instead, a statement of incomparability:

 

See, you are the prince of gods and the king of the glorious ones, lord of every spirit, ruler of every creature. Apart from you nothing happens, and nothing is known without your will. There is no-one besides you, no-one matches your strength, nothing equals your glory, there is no price on your might. And who among all your wonderful great creatures will have the strength to stand before your glory? And what, then, is someone who returns to his dust, to retain [stren]gth? Only for your glory have you done all this. (1QH^a XVIII 8-12 as found in The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, eds. Florentino García Martínez and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar [Leiden: Brill, 1997], 1:187; my thanks to my friend Christopher Davis for pointing this out to me).

 

LDS apologist, James Stutz, has a very enlightening post on the rhetoric of Isaiah 40-47 and the supremacy of Yahweh in light of Isa 47:8, 10 and the phrase, “none else beside me” written in reference to Babylon. One could add other instances, such as the following:

All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity. (Isa 40:17)

The Hebrew locution, "as nothing" translates כְּאַיִן, which is rendered correctly by the KJV (an alternative translation would be like/as nought [cf. the NASB; 1985 JPS Tanakh]). The same locution appears in Isa 41:11:

Behold, all they that were incensed against thee shall be shamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing (כְאַיִן); and they that strive with thee shall perish.

 Of course, this is a statement of the supremacy of Yahweh, not the denial of the ontological existence of nations apart from Israel.

In Isa 40:23, we read:

That bringeth the princes to nothing; he makes the judges of the earth as vanity.

Again, the term often translated as "nothing" or "nought" (Heb: אַיִן) is coupled with a pre-fixed preposition, in this instance, לְ ( לְאָיִן ). Again, the supremacy of Yahweh (and national Israel) is in view here, not the denial of the ontological existence of the princes in this verse who, obviously, have real existence, not imagined.

The term   אַיִן often means "insufficient" or impotent, even in "Deutero-Isaiah" (Isa 40-47). Note the following:

And Lebanon is not sufficient (אַיִן) to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient (אַיִן) for a burnt offering. (Isa 40:16)

Again, the impotency of Yahweh's (and Israel's) enemies are in view here; not a denial of their ontological existence.

To quote Daniel McClellan (who, in turn is paraphrasing some of the work of Michael S. Heiser):

Deutero-Isaiah is not denying the ontological existence of other deities; rather, he is denying their efficacy and legitimacy. The language used by Deutero-Isaiah and Deuteronomy (“I am and there is no other,” “there is none beside me,” etc.) is also used in reference to Babylon, Moab (Isa 47:8, 10), and Nineveh (Zeph 2:15). The vernacular is placed in the mouths of Israel’s opponents, but the point is clear: these cities are not denying the existence of other cities, but rather that they are at all relevant in comparison (see Ps 89:6 and Isa 40:25). Deuteronomy 32 provides further indication that this is the correct reading. In v. 21 YHWH states, “They made me jealous with a non-god (בלא־אל) . . . so I will make them jealous with a non-people (בלא־עם).” The nation being referenced (Assyria-Babylon) is not one that does not exist, but one that is inconsequential in the eyes of YHWH. That this is part of the same propaganda is supported by v. 39 (ואין אלהים עמדי) and by Isa 40:17: “All the nations are as nothing (כאין) before him, he considers them as less than nothing (מאפס) and deserted (ותהו).”

That the authors of this rhetoric in no way deny the existence of other deities is also made clear by the proximity of explicit mentions of other gods. Deut 32:8–9 and 43, for instance, mention the sons of El and command “all the gods” to bow before YHWH, respectively. In Deut 4:19 the gods of the nations are explicitly said to have been established by YHWH for the worship of the people of those nations. Divine council imagery is also present in Isaiah 40 and 45.

Evangelical critics of LDS theology are guilty of eisegesis when they claim texts such as Isa 44:6, 8 refute Latter-day Saint theology on the “number” of God.

In Zeph 2:11-14, we read the following oracle of divine judgment against Nineveh:

You also, O Ethiopians, shall be killed by my sword. And he will stretch out his hand against the north, and destroy Assyria; and he will make Nineveh a desolation, a dry waste like the desert. Herds shall lie down in it, every wild animal; the desert owl and the screech owl shall lodge on its capitals; the owl shall hoot at the window, the raven croak on the threshold; for its cedar work will be laid bare. (NRSV)

Then, in Zeph 2:15, the prophet writes:

It this the exultant city that lived secure, that said to itself, "I am, and there is no one else"? What a desolation it has become, a lair for wild animals! Everyone who passes by it hisses and shakes the fist. (NRSV)

Such a sentiment is paralleled by the Chaldeans who, personified in the Hebrew as a ‎‎ גְּבִירָה

 (Great Lady/Queen/Queen Mother) compared herself thusly to other nations:

Sit in silence, and go into darkness, daughter of Chaldea! For you shall no more be called the mistress of kingdoms. I was angry with my people, I profaned my heritage; I gave them into your hand, you showed them no mercy; on the aged you made your yoke exceedingly heavy. You said, "I shall be mistress forever," so that you did not lay these things to heart or remember their end. Now therefore hear this, you lover of pleasures, who sit securely, who say in your heart, "I am, and there is no one besides me; I shall not sit as a widow or know the loss of children" (Isa 45:5-8 NRSV)

Such comments further help us interpret texts such as Isa 43:10; 44:6, 8 where Yahweh says similar things. It would be impossible to argue that these cities believe that theirs were the only cities that had ontological existence and all other cities/nations did not have ontological existence; instead, such sentiments speak of their (self-professed) supremacy over all other cities/nations. Similarly, Yahweh in such texts is not speaking of the non-existence of other deities, but His supremacy over all other deities.

Here is my exegesis I presented to Desmond Ferguson, formerly of “Irish Church Missions”:

Isaiah 43:10,11; 44:6, 8 and the "Number of God"

In the Autumn 2005 issue of ICM's The Banner, in an article entitled, "Witnessing to the Mormons," Ferguson claimed that Isaiah 43:10, 11 and 44:6, 8 refuted Latter-day Saint theology, often referred to, in scholarly circles, as monolatry (e.g., Michael Heiser [an Evangelical]), or, as D. Charles Pyle once stated it to be (and I agree with him), "relational monotheism," that states that there are (true) gods in the midst of God (cf. Genesis 20:13 [Hebrew]; Psalms 29 (esp. the Hebrew); 82; Deuteronomy 32:7-9 [Dead Sea Scrolls], etc.). Notwithstanding the popularity of such pericope in literature critical of "Mormonism" and text supportive of the Trinity (e.g., The Forgotten Trinity by James White), and notwithstanding the ironic fact, lost on Ferguson, that taking an absolutist view on these passages results, not in Trinitarian theology, but either Unitarianism or a strand of Modalism, such represents proof-texting of the worst degree. What is more interesting is that, instead of engaging my exegesis of pertinent pericope (e.g,. Deuteronomy 6:4; 32:7-9; the Hebrew of Genesis 20; the Greek of 1 Corinthians 8) and on other issues (such as 2 Timothy 3, as discussed below) two years ago, Ferguson simply obfuscated and ignored all the evidence I presented that refuted his fallacious "arguments," and just obsessed over personalities, revealing that he did not have a clue about the issues at hand. That is revealing of how little he truly knows about (1) "Mormonism" and (2) the Bible.

For Isaiah, the point of his screed against the idols and gods was that of comparing Isaiah's theology with that of both popular Israelite religion (which at the time had groups worshiping Yahweh and Baal alongside an Asherah [KJV: "grove(s)" in the temple in Jerusalem) and that of the Canaanite religion in general.

In Isaiah 43:10-11, we read the following:

*You are my witnesses, declares the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe in me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me. I, even I, am the LORD, and apart from me there is no Saviour.*

Verse 10 is not a statement of monotheism, but a comparison drawn between Baal and Yahweh. Verse 11 is a comment on the Asherah. Verse 10 doesn't make a whole lot of sense if one interprets such a passage in terms of the strict monotheism expounded by errant writers on this topic.

"Before me"? "After me"? When is before God and when is after God? What about the time in between (which, in Orthodox [i.e., Traditional] Christianity is "always")? Is one willing to assert a "before God" or an "after God"? Clearly, simply suggesting that it talks about being created before God is nothing more than suggesting that something was created before God was created (which is incompatible both with Orthodox Christian and Latter-day Saint theology). But "after God" implies an end to God--not that something was created after God was created. Such a view, of course, is not well thought out. The text does not support such an interpretation. Baal assumed his position as chief among the elohim (Hebrew: Gods) after he defeated Yaam ("Sea"). Later, while he was dead, after a confrontation with Mot ("Death"), there was a succession crisis when `Athar attempted to sit in the throne of Baal (which is discussed in Isaiah 14). In this sense, for Baal, there is both a "before" and a possible "after." But for Yahweh, there is no succession. Yahweh did not overthrow another divinity to become the chief among the elohim. Nor can he be displaced from his throne. There is no denial of the host of elohim in this passage, nor is there any denial of the existence of El (Hebrew: "God") there either. Canaanite theology places Baal was king/god of the gods, but El is the God of the Cosmos. Both exist, and the existence of one does not threaten the existence of the other. Likewise, Israel's chief elohim, Yahweh, does not threaten, nor is threatened by the existence of El.

In verse 11, we get his statement: "apart from me, there is no saviour" (New International Version [NIV]). This is translated as "beside me there is no saviour" in the KJV, and "besides me there is no saviour" in the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). In fact, most translations, including the modern ones, follow the language of the NRSV and the KJV against the NIV. I bring this up as Ferguson uses the NIV, and used such in his atrocious article, and it is popular among Evangelicals outside the KJV-Only movement. The phrase, "besides me" in Isaiah 43-45 is a reference to Asherah--claimed by some as a consort for Yahweh, and claimed by others as a consort for Baal. Asherah was claimed by those who worshipped her as a Saviour--as a deliverer. This is explicitly stated in Jeremiah, when the remaining Jewish aristocracy was fleeing to Egypt following the assassination of Gedaliah. They dragged Jeremiah with them and complained to him in Jeremiah 44:17-19:

*"We will certainly do everything we said we would: We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and will pour out drink offerings to her just as we and our fathers, our kings and our officials did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At the time we had plenty of good and were well off and suffered no harm. But ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouting out drink offerings to her, we have had nothing and have been perishing by sword and famine."*

The women then added:

*"When we burned incense to the Queen of Heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, did not our husbands know that we were making cake like her image and pouring out drink offerings to her?"*

One should compare the above with 2 Kings 22-24, where the Asherah (KJV: "grove(s)") is removed from the temple and the wooden poles depicting her which were on the outside of the First Temple were destroyed by Josiah during the Deuteronomic Reformation. Essentially, Isaiah is claiming that salvation comes from Yahweh alone--not from an Asherah or from Baal.

But there are other interesting things in chapter 43. Yahweh, in verse 3, states that, "For I am Yahweh your elohim." Then, in verse 12, Isaiah explicitly discusses the fact that he is comparing Yahweh to other divinities: "I have revealed and saved and proclaimed--I, and not some foreign gods among you." It should be noted that nowhere does Isaiah ever claim that it is sinful for foreigners to worship other gods. This doesn't appear in the text until the post-exilic portions of Jeremiah (Jeremiah was pieced together by a number of individuals, thus the unusual chronology in the text, among other things) while Deuteronomy 4 seems to suggest that the foreign gods were given to the foreign nations so that they would worship them (cf. Deuteronomy 32:7-9 [the Hebrew verb here is "to inherit," nahal, which differentiates in this passage Yahweh from Elohim, the former who inherited/received, as a patrimony from the latter, Israel]). The notion here is clearly that Yahweh is superior to these foreign gods--independent of the question of whether or not they are real divinities.

This brings us to Isaiah 44. The primary alleged monotheistic proof-text of Isaiah 44 is that of verses 6 and 8:

*This is what the LORD says--Israel's King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty: I am the first and the last; apart from me there is no God . . . Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago? You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me? No, there is no other Rock [this is the underlying Hebrew word used]; I know not one.*

It should be noted that the NIV misses the chance of some consistency. In verse 6, the "apart from me" is the same as "besides me" of verse 8. This section of Isaiah is essentially a polemic against Asherah worship. I note that some time later, around 622 B.C.E., during Josiah's reform, the Asherah is removed from the temple in Jerusalem. This is described in 2 Kings 23:

*The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests next in rank and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the LORD all the articles made for Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron Valley and took the ashes to Bethel. He did away with the pagan priests appointed by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the towns of Judah and on those around Jerusalem—those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and moon, to the constellations and to all the starry hosts. He took the Asherah pole from the temple of the LORD to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powder and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people. He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes, which were in the temple of the LORD and where women did weaving for Asherah.*

This description relates to what follows verse 8 in Isaiah 44. Here is some more of that chapter:

*The carpenter stretcheth out his rule; he marketh it out with a line; he fitteth it with planes, and he marketh it out with the compass, and maketh it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man; that it may remain in the house. He heweth him down cedars, and taketh the cypress and the oak, which he strengtheneth for himself among the trees of the forest: he planteth an ash, and the rain doth nourish it. Then shall it be for a man to burn: for he will take thereof, and warm himself; yea, he kindleth it, and baketh bread; yea, he maketh a god, and worshippeth it; he maketh it a graven image, and falleth down thereto. He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied: yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire: And the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god. They have not known nor understood: for he hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand. And none considereth in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yea, also I have baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh, and eaten it: and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination? shall I fall down to the stock of a tree?*

Did you notice the similarity to Psalm 82:5 here?--

Psalm 82: They know nothing, they understand nothing. They walk about in darkness;

Isaiah 44: They have not known nor understood: for he hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand.

In any case, we have in Isaiah 44 a description of how the carpenter takes the tree, and creates an image from it. The remainder of the tree is burned as ash (it was a public burning and scattering of the ashes in the Josian destruction of the Asherah in 622 B.C.E.). Here is a description of the people mistakenly worshipping a tree. And then later the specific imagery of the forests and the trees worshipping Yahweh. A polemic against Asherah worship - the castigation of the worship of the tree.

These same issues apply to Isaiah 45. But that chapter starts off with a peculiarity. In the very first verse we read:

*This is what the LORD says to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of to subdue nations before him and to strip kings of their armour, to open doors before him so that gates will not be shut*

Here, Cyrus is called the anointed one of Yahweh - his salvific agent, his messiah. Go figure.

The question, though, ultimately is whether or not Isaiah's point of view is similar to that of Psalm 82. Psalm 82 does not deny the existence of other elohim (as noted by scholars such as Robert Alter; Frank Moore Cross jnr.; Margaret Barker; Mark S. Smith; Jeffrey Tigay, etc), nor does it claim that they are not divinities. It simply imputes to them impotence--they cannot save, they are incapable of granting salvation. If this is the case (which is seems to be), then Isaiah is not the great voice of monotheism as many errantly portray the text to be, but, instead, a voice of the supremacy of Yahweh as the only divinity who is capable of doing these things--and only for Israel. Sadly, because of his ignorance of the Bible and biblical scholarship, Ferguson's treatment of such passages reflect a poor grasp of the Bible.

The Biblical Evidence for the "Plurality of the Gods" doctrine

That the Bible affirms the ontological existence of (true) gods is affirmed in many places. Note, for instance, Deut 32:7-9.  The NRSV of this pericope reads:

Remember the days of old, consider the years long past; ask your father and he will inform you, Your elders will tell you. When the Most High gave nations their homes and set the divisions of man, he fixed the boundaries of peoples in relation to Israel's numbers. For the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob his own allotment.

One will note that this differs from the KJV; the Masoretic Text (MT) underlying the KJV OT reads "sons of Adam/Man," while the DSS has the reading "sons of god" or, as ANE scholars understand the term, "gods."

In the second edition of The Jewish Study Bible (Oxford, 2014), we read the following note on page 419:

Most High, or “Elyon,” is a formal title of El, the senior god who presided over the divine council in the Ugaritic literature of ancient Canaan. The reference thus invokes, as do other biblical texts, the Near Eastern convention of a pantheon of gods ruled by the chief deity (Pss. 82:1; 89:6-8). Israelite authors regularly applied El’s title to Israel’s God (Gen. 14:18-22; Num. 24:16; Pss. 46:5; 47:3). [with reference to the variant in the DSS “number of the gods”] makes more sense. Here, the idea is that the chief god allocates the nations to lesser deities in the pantheon. (A post-biblical notion that seventy angels are in charge of the world’s seventy nations echoes this idea.) Almost certainly, the unintelligible reading of the MT represents a “correction” of the original text (whereby God presides over other gods) to make it conform to the later standard of pure monotheism: There are no other gods! The polytheistic imagery of the divine council is also deleted in the Heb at 32:42; 33:2-3, 7.

One final example would be Gen 20:13. Firstly, a short Hebrew lesson. The term   אֱלֹהִים is irregular in that, while its form is plural, it can denote either a singular or plural Elohim (“G/god[s]”—not “human judges”) depending on the verb it is coupled with. For instance, in Gen 1:1, it is coupled with a verb in the third person singular, so Elohim is singular; however, there are many instances where it is coupled with a verb in the plural, denoting plural “G/gods” (e.g., Psa 82:6).

In Gen 20:13, the Hebrew reads (followed by my transliteration and translation of the text in red):

וַיְהִ֞י כַּאֲשֶׁ֧ר הִתְע֣וּ אֹתִ֗י אֱלֹהִים֘ מִבֵּ֣ית אָבִי֒ וָאֹמַ֣ר לָ֔הּ זֶ֣ה חַסְדֵּ֔ךְ אֲשֶׁ֥ר תַּעֲשִׂ֖י עִמָּדִ֑י אֶ֤ל כָּל־הַמָּקוֹם֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר נָב֣וֹא שָׁ֔מָּה אִמְרִי־לִ֖י אָחִ֥י הֽוּא׃

Wyhy k'sr ht'w 'ty 'lhym mbbyt 'by ...

And it came to pass when (the) Gods caused me to wander from my father's house...

Another way to render the pertinent phrase would be, "And it came to pass when (the) Gods caused me to wander from my father's house . . ."

Not only is this consistent with LDS theology, but also supports the creation story in the Book of Abraham. If it had been the singular 'God', it would have been ht'h 'lhym rather than the plural ht'w 'lhym, consistent with the creation account of the Book of Abraham (Abraham 4:1ff) and LDS theology, though it blows strict forms of monotheism (whether Unitarian or creedal Trinitarian) out of the water. If one wants to see the exegetical gymnastics Trinitarians have to engage in to play-down the theological importance of this verse, see this post discussing the NET’s comment on Gen 20:13.

 

Does God Share His Glory?

 

I am the Lord: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images. (Isa 42:8)

 

The context here, as evidenced by the Hebrew parallelism, is that Yahweh will not share his glory with an idol (‎פָּסִיל; LXX: γλυπτος).

 

That no flesh should glory in his presence. (1 Cor 1:29)

 

The Greek does not use δοξα but καυχάομαι, which means "to boast." No one can boast in the presence of God. In Latter-day Saint theology, we do not boast of ourselves, though we do boast of our wonderful God:

 

Yea, I know that I am noting; as to my strength, I am weak; therefore I will not boats of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever. . . . Now have we not reason to rejoice? Yea, I say unto you, there never were men that had so great reason to rejoice as we, since the world began; yea, and my joy is carried away, even unto boasting in my God; for he has all power, all wisdom, and all understanding; he comprehendeth all things, and he is a merciful Being, even unto salvation, to those who will repent and believe on his name.  (Alma 26:12, 35)

 

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. (Matt 6:13)

 

Notice that this is said of the Father alone, not the Son and the Holy Spirit. But even ignoring how this undercuts Micah's theology if one were to absolutize it as he is wont to do, Latter-day Saint theology holds that the Father is the source of both power (δυναμις) and glory (δοξα). It does not mean he cannot share it with others or we cannot participate in it. Again, Micah's ignorance of exegesis and Latter-day Saint theology is obvious.

 

Now let us move on and present some of the biblical evidence that we will participate in God's glory, be praised, and even in some sense, be worshipped, as well as "Christified," all of which Micah seems woefully ignorant of.

That the Bible knows of, and approves of, praise (in some limited sense) being given to mortals and non-deity is seen throughout its pages, such as the use of the Hebrew verb חוה  or the Greek verb προσκυνεω in the LXX of mortals (often translated as “worship”/”bow down [to]”). A potent example would be 1 Chron 29:20 and King Solomon being the recipient thereof (emphasis added):

And David said to all the congregation, Now bless the Lord your God. And all the congregation blessed the Lord God of their fathers, and bowed down their heads and worshipped the Lord, and the king.

Within a context of temple sacrifice and worship, the Israelites are commanded by David to “bow down” and “worship” both Yahweh and the king--the Hebrew construction of the sentence italicised above ( וַיִּשְׁתַּחֲווּ לַיהוָה וְלַמֶּלֶך) does not allow for a distinction between the veneration Yahweh receives and what is given to the king from the assembly as does the LXX rendition (καὶ κάμψαντες τὰ γόνατα προσεκύνησαν τῷ κυρίῳ καὶ τῷ βασιλεῖ).

As another example, one scholar in a recent volume dealing with the Christology of the Synoptic Gospels, noted the following about the worship of the (mortal) Davidic King and Psa 72:

In Psalm 72 wild creatures and enemies, kings and nations, all bow down and serve the king (vv. 9-11). The pairing of the roots חוה and עבד in verse 11 is precisely the pairing of words that one finds in the commandment forbidding the adoration of idols (Exod 20:5; Deut 5:9). Thus, while it is possible to separate cultic worship from courtly obeisance, we have begun to see enough of the confluence of idealized human figures and actions and ascriptions typically reserved for God to keep us from being able to rule out “worship and serve” reserved for God to keep us from being able to rule out “worship and service” of the king as a rite appropriate even for Israel’s monolatrous belief and practice. The Priestly creation story has already opened up the possibility that idealized, original humanity stands as the image of God that grounds the prohibition of images made by human hands. It is no great leap from such a creational theology of idealized human figures to such a figure playing precisely the role of God’s proxy in worship and service, such that what is forbidden to images made by human hands is allowed to the image formed by God. The idea would be that God is worshipped through this service because God stands behind this king.

In the succeeding verses, the king is deemed worthy of such adoration because he is deliverer (v. 12), savior (v. 13), and redeemer (v. 14). And so the king’s name, like God’s own glory, is celebrated as something that should last forever (v. 17). “The psalm seems to hold out the possibility that a king might be granted life to a fuller and greater extent than an ordinary human being. Here again, the Judahite conception of divine kingship is less explicit and exalted than what we find in Egypt . . . but it still has a mythical dimension that goes beyond the common human condition” (Collins and Collins, King and Messiah, 23). Even beyond this, the petition that the king’s name flourish “before the sun” (לִפְנֵי־שֶׁמֶשׁ, v. 17) became an opening for the idea that the name of the king existed before the sun. (J.R. Daniel Kirk, A Man Attested by God: The Human Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2016], 101-2)

There are many other instances of this, but let us focus on Isa 45:14 where God promises that the Gentile nations will offer supplication/prayer to Israel:

Thus saith the Lord, The labour of Egypt, and the merchandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto thee and they shall be thine; they shall come after thee; in chains they shall come over, and they shall fall down unto thee, and they shall make supplication unto thee, saying Surely God is in thee, and there is none else, there is no God.

Apart from the Masoretic Text and LXX using חוה and προσκυνεω, respectively in this verse, the LXX also uses the term προσευχομαι, which means “to pray to.” The Latter-day Saint hymn, “Praise to the Man” pales in comparison to such, as prayer is never given to Joseph Smith (in fact, I am pretty sure one would be excommunicated for such if such were given to Joseph Smith(!)

Here is a listing (not exhaustive) of some other verses that are rather a propos for this discussion where mortals or objects are the recipients of praise, not deity:

Gen 49:8 Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise (חוה/προσκυνεω): thy hand  shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father's children shall bow down
before thee. 

Deut 26:19 And to make thee high above all nations which he hath made, in  praise, and in name, and in honour; and that thou mayest be an holy people unto the LORD thy God, as he hath spoken. 

Prov 27:2 Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips. 

Prov 31:28 Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her. 

Prov 31:30 Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that
feareth the LORD, she shall be praised. 

Prov 31:31 Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her own works praise her in the gates. 

Eccl 4:2 Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive. 

Song 6:9 My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her.  The daughters saw her,  and blessed her; yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her. 

Isa 62:7 And give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth. 

Jer 13:11 For as the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave unto me the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah, saith the LORD; that they might be unto me for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory: but they would not hear. 

If Micah Beaumont and other Evangelical Protestants were consistent, they would have to (1) abandon this inane argument of Latter-day Saints implicitly worshiping the prophet Joseph Smith and/or crossing acceptable boundaries which depreciate the efficacy of Christ’s work in salvation or (2) argue that the Bible is internally inconsistent, further arguing that, according to these and other texts, one must accept David, Solomon, et al or the work of Jesus is not efficacious and other such nonsense (mirroring the verbiage of Micahg). That is an unenviable position to place oneself in. Additionally, Micah would have to, if he wishes to be consistent, argue that Jesus Christ Himself advocated idolatry, promising something only reserved to deity (in the Trinitarian view, and, as a result, in the theological view of Micah Beaumont) to glorified Christians. How so? Note one of the glorious promises to those who endure in Rev 3:9, 21 (this is Christ Himself speaking through John):

Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee . . . To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

In 3:21, believers are promised to sit down on Christ’s throne, which is the Father's very own throne! Interestingly, Christ sitting down on the throne of the Father is cited as prima facie evidence of his being numerically identical to the “one God” (see the works of Richard Bauckham on “divine identity” on this issue), and yet, believers are promised the very same thing! This is in agreement with John 17:22 in that we will all share the same glory and be one with Christ and God just as they are one. Sitting in it does not indicate, contra Robert M. Bowman, Richard Bauckham, et al, ontological identification with God (cf. Testament of Job 32:2-9, where Job is promised to sit on God’s throne, something that is common in the literature of Second Temple Judaism and other works within the Jewish pseudepigrapha and elsewhere).

As for Rev 3:9, believers are promised that they will be the future recipients of προσκυνέω. While some may try to downplay the significance of this term, in all other instances where it is used in the book of Revelation it denotes religious worship (Rev 4:10; 5:14; 7:11; 9:20; 11:1, 16; 13:4, 8, 12, 15; 14:7, 9, 11; 15:4; 16:2; 19:4, 10, 20; 20:4; 22:8, 9). Only by engaging in special pleading and question begging can one claim it does not carry religious significance in Rev 3:9 (cf. my discussion on whether Jesus receives λατρευω in the New Testament).

To add to the discussion, here is the exegesis provided by New Testament scholar, Jürgen Roloff, on these important verses:

[3:9] With the same words that are in 2:9, the claim of the Jews to be the assembly (synagōgē) of God and the people of God's is rejected as false. Because they rejected Jesus as bringer of God's salvation, in truth they subordinated themselves to the dominion of God's adversary. Israel's heritage and claim are completely transferred to the Christian community. To it, therefore, also belongs the promise, originally made to Israel, that at the end time of the Gentiles will enter the city of God and subjugate themselves to the people of God (Isa. 60:14 and elsewhere). Indeed, among those who then come will be the unbelieving Jews, who will realize that Jesus loved them and that means he chose them; (cf. Isa. 42:1) and made them into the people of God. When mention is made of "bowing down" before the feet of the church, this assumes full participation of the church in the kingdom of Christ and sitting with him on his throne (v. 21) . . . [3:21] The final word about overcoming in the series of letters has particular importance. It summarizes in conclusion the central promise of salvation, which is the promises heretofore was sounded several times with variations and modifications, by using another Synoptic expression of Jesus (Luke 22:30b; Matt 19:28 [Q?]: to those who overcome is promised here participation in Jesus' heavenly kingdom. Thus, just as Jesus sits on his throne (cf. 5:6) beside God as equal ruler on the basis of his having overcome and thereby shares his dominion, so also will those who have overcome for his sake receive a place in his messianic rule (cf. 20:6) with unlimited communion, and even equality, with him. (Jürgen Roloff, Revelation [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993], 61, 65-66)

Interestingly, Solomon in 1 Chron 29, the very same chapter he received the same worship as Yahweh, he also sit on the throne of Yahweh. On the topic of people other than Yahweh sitting on the throne of Yahweh, Patrick Navas (author of Divine Truth or Human Tradition? A Reconsideration of the Roman Catholic-Protestant Doctrine of the Trinity in light of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures) wrote the following which serves as another refutation of the “divine identity” argument based Jesus sitting on the throne of Yahweh:

Another text that helps to underscore the fallaciousness of Wallace’s reasoning is found in 1 Chronicles 29:[23] which says:

“Then Solomon sat on the throne of the Jehovah as king in place of David his father. And he prospered, and all Israel obeyed him.”

Here Solomon is portrayed as one who “sat on the throne of Jehovah as king.” Does this text imply that Solomon therefore “shares all the attributes of Jehovah,” or that Solomon is ontologically “Jehovah,” or that he is a member of the “Godhead”? No. It simply means that Solomon occupied a position of supreme/royal authority over the people of Israel as Jehovah’s agent or representative. To sit on Jehovah’s throne does not make one ontologically Jehovah (or one who has all of Jehovah’s attributes as Wallace wrongly implies), but makes one an individual whom Jehovah has invested with kingly authority as his appointed and ruling representative. Solomon sat down on Jehovah’s earthly throne in Jerusalem. Following his resurrection, the supremely exalted Messiah, Jesus, sat down “at the right hand of the majesty on high”—in heaven itself, with all things in subjection to him, with the obvious exception of God himself (Heb. 1:3; 1 Cor. 15:27). (Patrick Navas, Response to Daniel Wallace)

 

Interestingly enough, if Micah's absolutizing of these passages are true, then Jesus was a false teacher. Consider John 17:20-22 where the glory (δοξα) Jesus receives from the Father is the same as that given to his followers:

 

Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:

 

This is yet another area where Latter-day Saint theology and practice is more commensurate with “biblical Christianity” and not the theologies of our Evangelical opponents. Further, Micah's eisegesis makes Jesus into a liar and a false teacher: this only shows how Calvinism is Satanic.

 

Isaiah 44:24

 

Thus saith the LORD, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself. (Isa 44:24)

 

This verse has been used by a number of critics of Latter-day Saint theology, arguing that God, and God alone, was involved in creation, contrary to the Book of Abraham that has “the gods,” under the jurisdiction of the Father, involved in creation (see chapters 4 and 5 of the Book of Abraham). However, there are problems for our Trinitarian opponents who sometimes use this verse against Latter-day Saint theology and Scripture.

Firstly, one should compare Isa 44:24 with Heb 1:1-2:

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom he also made the world.

In this pericope, it is the singular person of the Father who is the creator, with Jesus as an intermediary (cf. 1 Cor 8:4-6). Absolutising both these passages, the Isaiah text forces us to conclude that the person of the Father alone was the creator, which, of course, is antithetical to Trinitarian sensibilities.

[God] alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea. (Job 9:8)

In this passage, it is Yahweh alone who “trampled upon the waves of the sea” (NRSV). Interestingly, however, there is a difference between the Masoretic Text and the LXX. The LXX renders this portion of the verse as καὶ περιπατῶν ὡς ἐπ᾽ ἐδάφους ἐπὶ θαλάσσης, which Brenton renders in his translation as "and walks on the sea as on firm ground." Therefore, the LXX states that Yahweh alone has the authority to walk upon the seas. One should compare the LXX rendition of Job 9:8 with Matt 14:29:

[Jesus] said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus.

Absolutising LXX Job 9:8 in the way that critics of LDS theology absolutise Isa 44:24, one must conclude that Yahweh alone can walk on the water, and taking it to its “logical” conclusion, Peter is Yahweh(!) Of course, that is eisegesis, just as it is eisegesis (not to mention anachronistic!) to claim that Isa 44:24 is a strictly “Trinitarian” text.

Ultimately, Isa 44:24 is better understood that the authority and source of creation derives from God (the Father) and all those who played a role in creation were under His jurisdiction, including the person of Jesus (see 1 Cor 8:4-6, as an example). This was the interpretation of the earliest Christian commentators, including Origen (185-254):

Thus, if all things were made, as in this passage also [John 1:3], through the Logos, then they were not made by the Logos, but by a stronger and greater than He [the Father]. (Origen, Commentary on the Gospel of John [Ante-Nicene Fathers 9:328]; comments in square brackets added for clarification)

We can further substantiate this by examining another text from the book of Isaiah:

I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no saviour. (Isa 43:11)

In this verse, God is said to be there only מושׁיע (“Saviour”). Notwithstanding, there are other figures who are referred to as being a מושׁיע:

And when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer (מושׁיע) to the children of Israel, who delivered them, Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother. (Judg 3:9)

And the Lord gave Israel a saviour (מושׁיע), so that they went out from under the hand of the Syrians: and the children of Israel dwelt in their tents, as before time. (2 Kgs 13:5)

In these verses, Isa 43:11 notwithstanding, Yahweh Himself commissions other “saviours” (מושׁיע). Absolutising Isa 43:11 in the way that our Trinitarian critics absolutise Isa 44:24, one would have to conclude that it is explicitly contradicted by the two aforementioned texts. However, if one understands that Yahweh is the ultimate source of being a saviour but can commission others to be “saviours” such as Othniel, there is no issue.

In the Psalter, we are told that God alone does wonders:

Blessed be the Lord God, God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things. (Psa 72:18 | 1985 JPS Tanakh)

Notwithstanding, this does not be absolutized as if the person of God alone does wonders. Indeed, God is said to work wonders through various agents. Note Deut 34:10-12 where we learn that Yahweh did wondrous things through the agency of Moses:

And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, In all the signs and the wonders, which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land, And in all that mighty hand, and in all the great terror which Moses shewed in the sight of all Israel.

However, if one were to absolutise Psa 72:18, this would result in a contradiction as Yahweh alone is said to do miraculous things. In one sense, it is true: Yahweh is the efficient cause, but that does not mean that he uses agents as instrumental causes of his actions. This should caution those who absolutise Isa 44:24 in a like-manner.

Ultimately, Isa 44:24 is properly understood, not speaking as the “number” of persons involved in the creation, but that the Father alone is the source of its causality and does not preclude other divinities having had a role as an intermediary in the creation, as one finds in the Book of Abraham and Latter-day Saint theology.

LDS apologist D. Charles Pyle wrote the following concerning Isa 44:24 which is also apropos:

 

(1) The text in this place, as well as other places, was heavily conditioned by scriptures sometime after circa 630 to 613 BCE, beginning at the time of the aftermath of the so-called “Deuteronomist Reforms” to modify the original theological pronouncements of the older texts (this, of course, would not necessarily account for both the major differences in style and apparent lateness of some of the vocabulary used in Isaiah chapters 40-66, as compared with Isaiah 1-39).

 

(2) This passage is one of those passages that have been interpolated into the original text of Isaiah sometime after Isaiah penned his texts, and an anthology assembled. (If so, we could just as well ignore and dismiss it now . . .

 

(3) Jesus, as Jehovah, is speaking as if he were the Father and here is giving the total credit for the whole of the creation to the Father, even though he, the Son, was the intermediary through whom the entire universe was made (the Greek New Testament states that this intermediary is also distinct in number). Incidentally, this text seem to be a favorite among some Jews who are engaged in polemics against Christians. Why? Christian doctrine also posits that a someone was with God during the creation, and that that someone was the Son by whom the creation of God was carried out. According to the New Testament, the Father was not alone in the creation. The early Christian doctrine involving this situation has as precedent a literal understanding of the situation of Wisdom with God at the creation in the Greek Septuagint text (Proverbs 8:22-31). Several early Christian writers posited that the Wisdom in that selfsame passage was none other than the Lord Jesus Christ himself—long before his own incarnation! Another passage in Proverbs also can be seen as a basis for the idea of a Son of God. This is a rhetorical question asked by the author of this passage in Proverbs (Agur the son of Jakeh), wherein he asks:

 

Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? what is his name, and what is his son’s name, if thou canst tell?

 

So, God had someone with him. It might be seen as a serious contradiction between this arrangement and the very text of Isaiah—if we were to ignore the fuller contexts and take this above Isaiah text both literally and at face value, as it currently stands. . . .

 

(4) Israel had a serious problem with worshipping other creator-gods and savior-gods of their foreign neighbors. It is possible that the LORD (in the Kethiv) attempted to prevent that very issue from happening by simply asking a rhetorical question, not mentioning anyone else involved but himself. Had the LORD then mentioned that there were others involved, Israel probably would have gone off and tried to worship the others as well! This sort of thing precisely was what the LORD also was trying to discourage throughout Isaiah chapters 40-48, assuming no changes to any one of the texts. As discussed above, the text of Isaiah 44:9-17 is the immediately preceding context that governs interpretation of Isaiah 44:24, and other passages quoted above from the same section of Isaiah.

 

(5) Alternatively, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are in this place described as a perfect unity, and therefore could use those first person, singular pronouns, etc., found in this verse, thus conflicting neither with the text of Abraham 4 (nor with any other passages from other LDS scripture texts), not with LDS doctrine. This same kind of language is used throughout the Bible (even more so in the Old Testament than in the New) to express various forms of unity. For example, the Church is spoken of as one body, using singular pronouns and verbs to describe the actions of this body (Ephesians 4:16) which is composed of separate and distinct members or individuals. (Compare also 1 Corinthians 6:17, wherein the text states that whoever “is joined to the Lord is one spirit.”)

 

Once this is fully understood and comprehended, Latter-day Saint doctrine actually and truly has little to no problems with any aspect of the idea of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost being represented as one God. Indeed, says John Taylor: “The Lord appeared unto Joseph Smith, both the Father and the Son.” (Journal of Discourses 21:65) (D. Charles Pyle, I Have Said Ye Are Gods, 138-41)

 

It should also be noted that absolutizing Isa 44:24 in the way that many are wont to ends up producing many problems for Trinitarian dogma, especially in light of Psa 110:1. To quote something I once posed to some Protestants a few years ago now:

I am asking you which divine person is speaking. It is YHWH--in your view, is this the Father? Son? Spirit? If all three, why the singular personal pronouns and singular verbs? (unless you are a Modalist who views all three as a singular person .[I know you are not]).

 If you claim YHWH and the three persons of the Trinity are one and the same (some go down this route with these passages), then what about texts where Jesus is distinct from Yahweh? For e.g., in Psa 110:1, Yahweh speaks *l'adoni* (to my lord). Per the NT, Yahweh in this passage (when 109:1, LXX is quoted/alluded to) is the person of the Father while this second lord (adoni) is the Son (e.g., Mark 12:36f; Heb 1:13; cf. Paul's midrash-like expansion in 1 Cor 15:22-28), so unless you will posit that the Father, Son, and Spirit (YHWH) spoke to a second lord who is numerically distinct from this YHWH who is the person of the Son (which is nonsense), then one cannot go down this route unless one wishes to engage in question-begging; special pleading, and rejecting the identity of indiscernibles.

 While I disagree with his Unitarian conclusions, Jaco Van Zyl, speaking of Psa 110:1 in light of texts such as Isa 45:5, was pretty spot-on in the following:

 *Trinitarians like James White argue that Yahweh (Adonai) speaks to someone else who is also Adonai. However they want to look at it, this is troublesome even to Trinitarian theology: If Yahweh is 3-in-1 God, speaking to another Adonai adds between 1 and 3 to the existing 3, leaving us with between 4 and 6 Persons in one God. If, however, you add the second Adonai to the first, then Yahweh is 2 and not 3 Persons, isn’t He (or should I say they)?* (Jaco van Zyl, "Psalm 110:1 and the Status of the Second Lord--Trinitarian Arguments Challenged," in An E-Journal from The Radical Reformation: A Testimony to Biblical Unitarianism, pp. 51-60, here, p. 60).

 

2 Nephi 25:23

 

For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do. (2 Nephi 25:23)

 

My friend, James Stutz, has a very good blog post on this passage, "'After All We Can Do' as a reference to the Law of Moses":

 

This passage stands at the beginning of a short exposition by Nephi of the relationship between the Law of Moses and Christ’s grace. It may be appropriate to consider 2 Nephi 25:23-30 as one literary unit, or a small aside by Nephi in which he struggles to explain the relationship between the Law of Moses and the grace of Christ. Verse 23 stands at the beginning of this exposition, and serves as an introductory summary of what is coming next. I want to suggest that, perhaps, “all we can do” is a reference to the Law of Moses.

 23 For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God;

(A) for we know that it is by grace that we are saved,

(B) after all we can do.

(A) 24 And, notwithstanding we believe in Christ,

(B) we keep the law of Moses, and look forward with steadfastness unto Christ, until the law shall be fulfilled.

I’m not a scholar of Book of Mormon parallelisms, but I wonder if my restructuring of the text above might be appropriate to illustrate what Nephi really means. It is quite easy to see how “all we can do” in verse 23 refers to “keep the law of Moses” in verse 24.

Nephi, speaking from the perspective of an ancient Israelite who is bound under the Law of Moses, is struggling to reconcile the need for the Law of Moses with the grace of Christ. He is wrestling with this issue long before Paul ever did. Nephi arrives at the conclusion that the Law of Moses is meant to help Israel look forward with steadfastness to the coming of Christ (vs 24).

If 2 Nephi 25:23-30 is taken as a literary unit, and if verse 23 is an introductory summary, then verses 29-30 can be read as a parallel final summary of Nephi’s point.

 29 And now behold, I say unto you that the right way is to believe in Christ, and deny him not; and Christ is the Holy One of Israel; wherefore ye must bow down before him, and worship him with all your might, mind, and strength, and your whole soul; and if ye do this ye shall in nowise be cast out.

 30 And, inasmuch as it shall be expedient, ye must keep the performances and ordinances of God until the law shall be fulfilled which was given unto Moses.

What does it mean for us? It is tempting to see the phrase “after all we can do” to be specific only to Nephi’s doctrinal dilemma, not our own. Nephi is thinking specifically about the relationship between the Law of Moses and Christ’s grace. We don’t really grapple with that specific issue in this dispensation, and so this particular passage may not be totally applicable to us in the same way it was applicable to Nephi and his people. In other words, what I am suggesting is that when someone accuses the Latter-day Saints of having a “works based” soteriology because of this passage, we may be able to point out that this is Nephi speaking from a perspective that is mindful of the Law of Moses which has since been fulfilled in Christ. Our Evangelical friends should understand this, in theory, because Evangelicals very frequently talk about New Testament teachings superseding Old Testament teachings. They don’t consider themselves bound by Old Testament commandments that have no relevance in the New Covenant, and neither do we.

That isn’t to say there is nothing of relevance in 2 Nephi 25:23 for us. As Latter-day Saints we do grapple with the relationship between modern day commandments (ie. tithing, word of wisdom, sabbath day, chastity, etc.) and Christ’s grace. Nephi’s thoughts regarding the Law of Moses can be transferred to our modern day struggles, to a point. The commandments point us toward Christ, and we perform the ordinances and keep the commandments because they are manifestations of Christ’s grace, and they lead us to him.

 

This agrees with other texts that speak of the Law of Moses, such as:

 

And after Christ shall have risen from the dead he shall show himself unto you, my children, and my beloved brethren; and the words which he shall speak unto you shall be the law which ye shall do. (2 Nephi 26:1)

 

Yea, and they did keep the law of Moses; for it was expedient that they should keep the law of Moses as yet, for it was not all fulfilled. But notwithstanding the law of Moses, they did look forward to the coming of Christ, considering that the law of Moses was a type of his coming, and believing that they must keep those outward performances until the time that he should be revealed unto them. (Alma 25:15)

 

When one looks at this construction in 19^th-century literature, it is clear it does not mean Christ’s grace “kicks in” after we have exhausted all the good works we can do; instead, it means in spite of. Note the following examples:

 

But your own wisdom and greatness must be laid in the grave—it is after all you can do, the free and unmerited gift of God. (John Hersey, The Importance of Small Things; or, A Plain Course of Self-Examination To Which is Added Signs of the Times [Georgetown: Rind’s Press, 1831], 20)

 

Every thinking man must be sensible, that after all his endeavours, and the very utmost he can do, he is still not only an unprofitable, but too often an ungrateful and disobedient servant. (Beilby Porteus, An Earnest Exhortation in the Religious Observance of Good Friday, 2nd ed. [London: J. & F. Rivington, 1777], 8)

 

Nor can it believe any Merit with finite imperfect Man, shortcoming and polluted in his most Holy Things, and owning his all to GOD, and having nothing of his own, and who, after all he can do, is still an unprofitable Servant. (Thomas Blackwell, Ratio Sacra, or An Appeal unto the Rational World, about the Reasonableness of Revealed Religion [Edinburgh: Heirs and Successors of Andrew Anderjon, 1710], 40)

 

It is certain that after all we can do, still we are unprofitable servants: we have done but that which was our duty to do, even supposing we performed a perfect and compleat obedience. (Samuel Seyer, Essays on the Important Truth Contained in the Holy Scriptures [London: A. Millar & C. Richardson, 1761], 59)

 

In the Dictionary, as I observed in paragraph 42, you will find, against every Noun, either s.m or s.f.. The former means Substantive (or Noun) masculine, and the latter Substantive (or Noun) feminine. And this, after all that Grammarians can do; after all the rules that they can give, is the only sure way of learning (from books) the Gender of the French Nouns. (William Cobbett, A French Grammar: Or Plain Instructions for the Learning of French. In a Series of Letters. A New Edition [London: William Cobbett, 1829], 68-69)

 

Alma 24:11-13 is the only other pericope where the phrase “all we can do” is used, and it refers to wall one can do to repent and be reconciled to God:

 

And now behold, my brethren, since it has been all that we could do, (as we were the most lost of all mankind) to repent of all our sins and the many murders which we have committed, and to get God to take them away from our hearts, for it was all we could do to repent sufficiently before God that he would take away our stain--Now, my best beloved brethren, since God hath taken away our stains, and our swords have become bright, then let us stain our swords no more with the blood of our brethren. Behold, I say unto you, Nay, let us retain our swords that they be not stained with the blood of our brethren; for perhaps, if we should stain our swords again they can no more be washed bright through the blood of the Son of our great God, which shall be shed for the atonement of our sins.

 

LDS scholar John W. Welch offered the following commentary to this passage:

 

. . . all of us must rely on grace—the Atonement, the Resurrection, and the sustaining influence of Jesus Christ—to be made perfect. But through our faith and faithfulness we are made alive in Christ, being willing to do what He has commanded. Keeping the commandments is part of “all we can do.”

 

The story of the Ammonites, who buried their weapons of war to have their sins remitted, bears out this understanding. They state that this was “all that we could do (as we were the most lost of all mankind) to repent of all our sins and the many murders which we have committed, to get God to take them away from our hearts, for it was all we could do to repent sufficiently before God that he would take away out stain” (Alma 24:11). Likewise, all that we can do includes turning to Christ, renouncing our sinful ways, and making a covenant, and He will be there for us. So completely did the Ammonites understand this that many of them offered to give up their lives rather than fight. (John W. Welch, Inspiration and Insights from the Book of Mormon: A Come, Follow Me Commentary [American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications, Inc., 2023], 60-61)

 

Even our works of obedience are not independent of God’s grace, but are empowered by God’s grace. This is borne out in various passages. Notice:

 

Therefore, cheer up your hearts and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves—to choose the way of everlasting death or the way of eternal life. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, reconcile yourselves to the will of God, and not to the will of the devil and the flesh; and remember, after ye are reconciled unto God, that it is only in and through the grace of God that ye are saved. Wherefore, may God raise you from death by the power of the resurrection, and also from everlasting death by the power of the atonement, that ye may be received into the eternal kingdom of God that ye may praise him through grace divine. Amen. (2 Nephi 10:23-25)

 

Commenting on Paul’s use of ἐνεργέω and his synergistic ontology, David Bradshaw (Eastern Orthodox) wrote that:

 

One [text] of particular clarity is Philippians 2:12, 13: “Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out (katergazesthe) your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you (ho energōn en humin) both to will and to do (energein) of his good pleasure.” Here the exhortation to act is coupled with a reminder that it is God who is acting. Neither negates the other; the Philippians are both free agents responsible for their own salvation, and the arena in which God works to bring about that salvation. Bearing this duality in mind, one would legitimately translate, “it is God who imparts energy in you to will and to do of his good pleasure,” where “to do” refers both to the Philippians’ action and to God’s action as it is expressed in them. This rendering helps bring out why for Paul there is no contradiction in urging the Philippians to do something that he also sees as the work of God. The peculiar nature of God’s activity is that it imparts the energy to do His will, although this energy must be freely expressed or “worked out” to be effective. (David Bradshaw, “The Concept of Divine Energies,” in Divine Essence and Divine Energies: Ecumenical Reflections on the Presence of God in Eastern Orthodoxy, ed. C. Athana Opoulos and C. Schneider [Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 2013], 37)

 

This is also borne out in Bradshaw’s work on Gal 5:6, which alone refutes Sola Fide.

 

In his otherwise excellent book, Not by Faith Alone, Robert Sungenis favors interpreting ἐνεργουμένη (from ἐνεργέω) in Gal 5:6 as a middle, not passive:

 

In what other ways does Paul describe how faith works in salvation? One of his more succinct teachings is found in Gl 5:6: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” Here Paul defines and qualifies the faith he had described earlier in the epistle. Faith and love are coupled together in what seems to be an inseparable bond. In regard to justification, love is not portrayed as a mere appendage of faith but a necessary element and addition to faith. Paul supports this notion as he develops the theme of love just eight verses later in Gl 5:14: “The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Robert A. Sungenis, Not By Faith Alone: The Biblical Evidence for the Catholic Doctrine of Justification [2d ed.; State Line, Pa.: Catholic Apologetics International Publishing, Inc., 2009], 67)

 

In the footnote to the above, Sungenis wrote that:

 

A more literal [of Gal 5:6] translation would be “but faith working through love.” Moreover, translations denoting the middle voice of ενεργουμενη (“working”) could just as well be passive since both have the same form in Greek. The passive would denote that faith is being formed or acted upon by love. The passive voice of ενεργουμενη, however, is not frequently used in the New Testament. (Ibid., 67 n. 92)

 

The following from Eastern Orthodox scholar David Bradshaw sheds important light on the use of this and related issues, including how the historical Protestant reading of Gal 5:6 is called into question:

 

It is true that the Greek-English Lexicon of Liddel and Scott and the Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature of Bauer, Gingrich, and Danker do recognize a middle sense. Upon examination, however, the evidence they offer is ambiguous. Liddell and Scott cite only “Ep. Rom. 7.5, al.”-that is, the very verses of the New Testament that are in question. Bauer offers more detail, citing four supposed examples of the middle in extra-biblical literature. The first is τα της πολιορκιας ενηργειτο from Diodorus Siculus, which Bauer translates “the siege ‘went into effect,’ ‘began.’” To take the verb as passive (“the siege was begun”) make equally good sense, so this passage is neutral as evidence. The second example is τα δε ασωματα αει ενεργειται at Corpus Hermeticum XII.11. Taken in context ενεργειται here must in fact be passive, and it is so rendered in the standard French and English translations. Finally Beuer cites two passages from the Apostolic Fathers . . . 1 Clement 60.1 and Epistle of Barnabas 1.7. The first gives us τα ενεργουμενα, translated by Bauer as “the forces at work,” but by Lightfoot and Lampe as “operations,” i.e., acts performed. The second gives τα καθ’ εκαστα βλοποντες ενεργουμενα, translated by Bauer as “we see how one thing after the other works itself out,” but by Lightfoot as “seeing each of these things severally coming to pass,” and classified by Lampe as passive. It is also worth noting that Lampe, who surely knew the patristic literature as well as anyone, gives only active and passive senses in his long entry on ενεργεω.

 

The second argument in favor of taking energeisthai as passive is the testimony of the Church Fathers. From the ante-Nicene era there are only a few hints suggesting how the verses containing energeisthai were interpreted, but they confirm that it was assumed to be passive. Clement of Alexandria, in discussing the relative merits of spoken and written discourse, asks “If, then, both proclaim the Word—the one by writing, the other by speech—are not both then to be approved, making, as they do, faith active by love (ενεργον την πιστιν δια τηνς αγαπης πεποιημενοι)?” (Stromata I.1.4) This is clearly an allusion to Galatians 5:6, with faith viewed not as acting through love but as being made active by love. Tertullian, in translating the same verse renders δι’ αγαπης ενεργουμενη as per dilectionem perfici. (Adversus Marionem V.4.11) He similarly translates δια του νομου ενηργειτο in Romans 7:5 as per legem efficiebantur. (De Monogamia 13.2)

 

Among later Fathers, the most illuminating for our purposes is St. John Chrysostom. Several passages indicate not only that he took energeisthai as passive, but that he assumed his audience would do so as well. The first is in Homily 12 on Romans. Chrysostom comments that St. Paul, in describing the “motions of sin” (Rom 7:5), “did not say’ which the members wrought,’ but ‘which were wrought in our members,’ to show that the origin of wickedness is from elsewhere, from the thoughts which act, not from the members which are acted upon.” (PG 60:498) Clearly Chrysostom here takes ενηργειτο as passive, the active agent being sinful thoughts. A similar assumption can be observed in Homily 2 on 2 Corinthians. Commenting on the phrase παρακλησεως . . . πασχομεν (1.6), Chrysostom writes:

 

Your salvation is then more specially put into action, that is displayed, increased, heightened, when it possesses endurance, when it suffers and bears all things nobly. So the activity [ενεργεια, perhaps “actuality”] of salvation does not consist in doing evil but in suffering evil. And he did not say, “which works” but “which is wrought,” to show that, along with their own readiness, grace contributed much by working with them. (PG 61:392)

 

Here again Chrysostom clearly takes as ενεργουμενης. The active agent he identifies as divine grace.

 

There is also an interesting passage where, although energeisthai is not found in the biblical text, Chrysostom comments in its absence. Discussing the statement that “all these [spiritual gifts] worketh (ενεργει) that one and the selfsame spirit” (1 Cor 12:11), Chrysostom considers how it might be interpreted by one who denies the divinity of the Holy Spirit:

 

But it will be said, “He does it actuated (ενεργειται) by God.” Nay, he nowhere says this, but you feign it. For when he says [of the Father], “who works (ενεργει) all in all” (v. 6), he says this concerning men; you will hardly say that among those men he numbers the Spirit, even if you were manifestly doting an in madness. For because he has said “through the Spirit” (v. 8), that you might not suppose this word “through” to denote inferiority or being actuated (ενεργειται), he adds that the Spirit acts (ενεργει), not is actuated (ενεργειται), and acts “as he will,” not as he is bidden.” (Homilies on 1 Corinthians 29.26 [PG 61:245-46)

 

Clearly this argument hinges on the contrast of ενεργει as active and ενεργειται as passive. If Chrysostom even suspected that his audience might suppose ενεργειται to be middle, he would have had to pose the argument in different terms. (David Bradshaw, Divine Energies and Divine Action: Exploring the Essence-Energies Distinction [St. Paul, Minn.: Iota Publications, 2023], 40-43)

 

 

. . . it can be shown that energeisthai in antiquity is never middle, but only passive, and furthermore that Paul’s use of the term was uniformly taken as passive by the Church Fathers. So understood the meaning of energeisthai falls into place as correlative to energein, meaning either (depending on the context) “to be acted upon” or “to be made effective, to be energized.” That energeisthai is passive was already recognized around the turn of the last century by two eminent New Testament scholars, Joseph B. Mayor and J. Armitage Robinson. Unfortunately, their work was ignored by most subsequent translators and lexicographers, as it is, for example, in the article on energein in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. The major cause of this oversight would seem to be the legacy of the Reformation of the major texts bearing on the question of sola fide is Galatians 5:6, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith di’ agapēs energoumenē.” If one takes energoumenē here as middle then the meaning is (as translated by the KJV) “faith which worketh by love.” If one takes it as passive then the meaning is either “faith made effective by love,” or more pointedly, “faith energized by love.” Obviously an adherent of sola fide must insist upon the first of these readings, and that is what Luther does in his commentary on Galatians. (David Bradshaw, Divine Energies and Divine Action: Exploring the Essence-Energies Distinction [St. Paul, Minn.: Iota Publications, 2023], 11)

 

[Examples of energeisthai is passive, not middle, in the NT]

 

One is Colossians 1:29, where Paul refers to himself as “striving according to Christ’s working (or energy, ενεργεια), which is being made effective (or energized, ενεργουμενην) in me” (Col 1:29, my trans.). This verse beings out well the synergistic tendency of Paul’s thought. On the one hand the divine energy is at work within Paul, transforming him, so that from this standpoint he is the object of God’s activity; on the other it finds expression in Paul’s own activity, so that Paul’s free agency and that of God coincide. Indeed, not only do the actions Paul alludes to in this passage exhibit full engagement and self-control, they do so more than did his actions prior to his conversion. As the story is told in Acts, Saul was trapped in self-deception which works in him is also his own, more truly than anything he did was his own before he ceased to “kick against the pricks” (Acts 9:5).

 

Other passages also bring out what I believe we may call, without exaggeration, Paul’s synergistic ontology. One of particular clarity is Philippians 2:12-13: “Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out (κατεργαζεσθε) your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you (ο ενεργων εν υμιν) both to will and to do (ενεργειν) of his good pleasure.” Here the exhortation to act is coupled with a reminder that it is God who is acting. Neither negates the other; the Philippians are both free agents responsible for their own salvation, and the arena in which God works to bring about that salvation. Bearing this duality in mind, one could legitimately translate, “it is God who imparts energy in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure,” where “to do” refers both to the Philippians’ action and to God’s action as it is expressed in them. This rendering helps bring out why for Paul there is no contradiction in urging the Philippians to do something that he also sees as the work of God. The peculiar nature of God’s activity is that it imparts the energy to do his will, although this energy must be freely expressed or “worked out” to be effective.

 

Finally let us note a passage which was of utmost importance for the Greek Fathers, the description of the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12.

 

Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are diversities of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operation (ενεργηματων), but it is the same God which worketh (ο ενεργων) all in all. . . . For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues; but all these worketh (ενεργει) that one and the selfsame spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. (12:3-11)

 

This passage begins by asserting that even such an ordinary and voluntary action as calling Jesus “Lord” requires the cooperation of the Spirit. It goes on to list a variety of spiritual gifts, each one an energēma (something performed) of the Spirit. They include not only extraordinary gifts like the working of miracles, but also more ordinary qualities such as faith and the “word of wisdom. “Again, there is no dividing line between the natural and the divine. Any believer is called to a life of continual cooperation with the Spirit, a cooperation which can manifest itself in any number of ways both exceptional and mundane. (David Bradshaw, Divine Energies and Divine Action: Exploring the Essence-Energies Distinction [St. Paul, Minn.: Iota Publications, 2023], 12-14)

 

Unlike superficially similar pairs such as drama/dran and poiēsis/poiein, energia and energein always referred to a kind of activity that can in the right circumstances, be entered into and shared by another. This means not simply that the two agents share the same activity, but that the activity of the agent who is the source of their common energeia vivifies and informs the recipient, while at the same time enabling the recipient to act authentically on its own behalf.

 

This sense of energeia is prominent in the New Testament, especially the Pauline writings. St. Paul speaks, for example, of the divine energeia that is being realized or made effective (ενεργουμενην) in him (Col 1:29). Here it is the divine energy realized within him that enables him to carry out his apostleship, thereby becoming most truly himself. Similarly, Paul explains to the Philippians that “it is God who works in you (ο ενεργων εν υμιν) both to will and to do (ενεργειν) of his good pleasure” (2:13). One could perhaps better translate, “it is God who imparts energy in you both to will and to go of his good pleasure,” where “to do” refers both to the Philippians’ action and to God’s action as it is expressed in them. In some passages the divine energy also takes on a more cosmic dimension. St. Paul describes the Resurrection as “the working (ενεργειαν) of his [that is, God’s] great might which he accomplished (ενηργησεν) in Christ when he raised him from the dead” (Eph 1:19-20). Elsewhere he refers to “the working (ενεργειαν) whereby he [Christ] is able to subdue all things to himself” (Phil 3:21). In these passages, the divine energy is a power that pervades all things, governing them and working miracles upon occasion according to God’s will.

 

Pauline statements such as these helped make energeia, within early Christian writing, almost a technical term for the activity of spiritual agents, whether God, Christ, or demons. This was particularly true when such energy was seen as capable of entering into, empowering, and transforming the agency of creatures. Justin Martyr, for example, says that Moses “by the inspiration and energy (ενεργειαν) of God took brass and made it into the figure of a cross.” (1 Apology 60 [PG 6:471A) Likewise, in the Apostolic Constitutions the author, speaking as one of the Apostles, states that on Pentecost, “the Lord Jesus sent us the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and we were filled with his energy (επλη σθημεν αυτου της ενεργειας) and spoke with new tongues.” (Apostolic Constitutions V.20.49 [PG 1:896C]) In such contexts, “energy” seems to be the only possible translation, for the term refers specifically to an activity that by its presence empowers and vivifies that in which it is present. (David Bradshaw, Divine Energies and Divine Action: Exploring the Essence-Energies Distinction [St. Paul, Minn.: Iota Publications, 2023], 146-47)

 

The twelve occurrences of the two terms in the Apostolic Fathers all refer to the action of God, Christ, angels, or demons. For example, in the Shepherd of Hermas purity, holiness, and contentment are energeiai of the angel of righteousness which accompanies every man, and anger, bitterness, gluttony, lust, and pride are energeiai of the angel of wickedness. (Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 6.102) The Epistle of Barnabas refers to Satan simply as ho energōn, “the active one,” and 1 Clement speaks of how God makes manifest the everlasting structures of the world by the deed he performs (των ενεργουμενων). (Epistle of Barnabas 2.1; 1 Clement 60.1) (Ibid., 9)

 

Bradshaw also wrote the following helpful notes on “synergy”:

 

To speak of synergy could be misleading if it suggested a picture of two equal agents who simply choose to work together. Plainly, since in these cases one is the Creator and the other a creature, the action of the latter depends for its realty upon the active support of the former. I take it that Paul interprets this notion in light of the common experience (which he had vividly shared) of feeing that one’s actions were not truly one’s own while one was mired in sin and self-deception. On his view, synergy, the cooperation of God and man, is neither a symmetrical relation nor one in which the divine overpowers and replaces the human. It is rather one in which the human becomes fully human by embracing the divine. To obey the divine commandments is, on this view, to fully realize one’s own identity by affirming and cooperating with God’s creative intent. This is not a radically new idea; indeed, it is a prominent theme in the Old Testament. (For example, in Psalm 1, and in the psalms of repentance, such as Psalm 51) What is new is the use of the vocabulary of energeia to express it. (Ibid., 14, emphasis in original)

 

Returning to 2 Nephi 25:23 itself, as my friend and LDS philosopher Blake Ostler wrote:

 

[R]edeeming grace is necessary prior to any act of human will precisely because there is no free will in the absence of such grace. Thus, our salvation is ultimately the result of prevenient grace--the grace that precedes every act of human will. This point is made clearly in 2 Nephi 10:23-24:

 

Therefore, cheer up your hearts, and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves--to choose the way of everlasting death or the way of eternal life.

               Wherefore . . . reconcile yourselves to the will of God, and not the will of the devil and the flesh; and remember, after ye are reconciled unto God, that it is only in and through the grace of Christ that ye are saved.

 

Thus there is no thought that salvation is earned by free will, for it is a strange notion of "earning" that suggests that willingly accepting a gift from another is an act of labor that earns the gift and thereby transforms the gift into a wage payment. Rather, the concept is that we are agents only because of the Atonement that frees us to choose at all. One of the most misinterpreted scriptures in the LDS canon expresses the same view: "For we labor diligently . . . to be reconciled to God; for we know that is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do" (2 Ne. 25:23). This scripture is frequently interpreted in LDS discourses to mean that we can be saved only after we have done everything in our power that we can do on our own. Thus, after I have done all that I can and only then, God will do the rest. However, such an interpretation is precisely the opposite of its meaning. Such a view in fact enshrines human effort as the condition of earning grace--a contradiction in terms--and makes salvation impossible for the simple but decisive reason that no merit mortal has ever done all that he or she can do. If we have to do all that we can do before we receive saving grace, then we will never receive such grace. As Emmanuel Levinas so ably argues, there is always more than we can do in serving and responding to the call of the other. However, this scripture does not teach that we earn grace by first doing everything that we can do on our own. Rather, we are saved by grace after all we can do because our very ability to choose to accept the grace offered to us in a free gift. Thus, our salvation is ultimately dependent upon grace. The relationship offered to us is also a free gift, and we did nothing to earn or merit either of them.

 

The Book of Mormon asserts that all person are free to choose among alternatives of life and death and are therefore free to accept or reject God's grace, but the choice is ultimately made possible only by God's grace. Thus, one enters the way leading to eternal life "by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly on the merits of him who is mighty to save" (2 Ne. 31:19). Nevertheless, once on the path, the burden is on human agency to persist in faith by God's grace. "Wherefore ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ . . . and a love of God and of all men" (2 Ne. 31:20). In other words, there is no preventing or preserving grace because we must endure to the end (2 Ne. 31:15-16) (Blake T. Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought, 4 vols. [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Book, 2006], 2:221-22)

 

The earliest possible allusion to 2 Nephi 25:23 outside the Book of Mormon comes from a sermon by Brigham Young, February 3, 1867:

 

It requires all the atonement of Christ, the mercy of the Father, the pity of angels and the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ to be with us always, and then to do the very best we possibly can, to get rid of this sin within us, so that we may escape from this world into the celestial kingdom. This is just as much as we can do, and there is no room for that carelessness manifested by too many among us. (JOD 11:301)

 

While a deceptive individual like Micah Beaumont might try to wrench this out of context, it is important to note that Brigham also taught our very good works are the result of God's grace and empowered thereby. As Paulsen and Walker noted:

 

It is clear from President Young’s words that the combination of doing the best we can and the grace of God is necessary in order for us to inherit the celestial kingdom and all the blessings our Heavenly Father has to bestow. It is also clear that even the best man is inexorably dependent on grace for his salvation.

 

What did Brigham Young mean by the phrase “[doing] the very best we possibly can”? He once said that “in and of ourselves we have no power to control our own minds and passions; but the grace of God is sufficient to give us perfect victory.” (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 8:226) He also said that “the grace, the power, and the wisdom of God will make me all that I ever will be, either in time or eternity.” (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 8:162) Thus, even the ability to make the very best effort we can, of ourselves, nevertheless requires grace. Without the grace of God there is no way for us to do our best: it is his mercy that makes our best even possible. Grace is thereby doubly tied to the Mormon doctrine of works and salvation for President Young. If there is still any doubt concerning President Young’s position on the necessity of grace in obtaining salvation, his following words help make the matter quite clear: “All will have to come to the Lord and be sanctified through the grace of Christ by faith in his name; without this, I am happy to say, that none can be purified, sanctified and prepared to inherit eternal glory.” (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 14:150). (David L Paulsen and Cory G. Walker, “Work, Worship, and Grace,” FARMS Review 18, no. 2 [2006]: 101-2)

 

This also helps us understand Bruce McConkie’s oft-abused words in Mormon Doctrine. In the entry "Salvation by Grace," McConkie uses "grace alone" in a specific sense, that is, something that applies to all people, regardless of their status with God, that they will receive due to the atoning sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus (i.e., universal resurrection). He is not using it in the sense of "sola gratia" of later Protestants. Only by misreading his words (which I quote below) can one claim otherwise:

 

Immortality is a free gift and comes ·without works or righteousness of any sort; all men will come forth in the resurrection because of the atoning sacrifice of Christ. (I Cor. 15:22.) In and of itself the resurrection is a form of salvation meaning that men are thereby saved from death, hell, the devil, and endless torment. (2 Ne. 9:17-27.) "O the wisdom of God, his mercy and grace! For behold, if the flesh should rise no more our spirits · must become subject to that angel who fell from before the presence of the Eternal God, and became the devil, to rise no more." (2 Ne. 9:8.) In this sense, the mere fact of resurrection is called salvation by grace alone. Works are not involved, neither the works of the Mosaic law nor the works of righteousness that go with the lulness of the gospel. Salvation in the celestial kingdom of God, however, is not salvation by grace alone. Rather, it is salvation by grace coupled with obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel. (Third Article of Faith.) Those who gain it are "raised in immortality unto eternal life." (D. & C. 29:43; 2 Ne. 9:22-24.) Immortality comes by grace alone, but those who gain it may find themselves damned in eternity. (Alma 11:37-45.) Eternal life, the kind of life enjoyed by eternal beings in the celestial kingdom, comes by grace plus obedience. And the very opportunity to follow the course of good works which will lead to that salvation sought by the saints comes also by the grace of God. (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 2, pp. 306-311.)

 

Thus Nephi wrote: "Be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do." (2 Ne. 25:23.) Again: "Reconcile yourselves to the will of God, and not to the will of the devil and the flesh; and remember, after ye are reconciled unto God, that it is only in and through the grace of God that ye are saved." (2 Ne. 10:24.) And thus Moroni recorded: "Come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God. And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shed- ding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without spot." (Moro. 10:32-33.)

 

Paul had occasion to teach the Ephesian Saints that salvation in the kingdom of God did not result from the ordinances and performances (meaning, the works) of the Mosaic dispensation, but that it came because of the grace of God coupled with faith and gospel obedience (meaning, the works inherent in gospel obedience). The passage, though not preserved for us with the same clarity as is common through most of the body of holy writ, is nevertheless plain and clear to those having an understanding of the doctrine of salvation by grace.

 

"God, who is rich in mercy," Paul explained, "for his great love where:. with he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved [meaning in the celestial kingdom]); And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus [ meaning in the celestial kingdom: That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith [meaning salvation in the celestial kingdom]; and that not of yourselves: it is the gilt of God [meaning that salvation in the kingdom of God is predicated on the atonement of Christ and that man of himself could not bring it to pass]: Not of works, lest any man should boast [meaning that salvation cannot come by the works of man, and specifically not by the works or performances of the Mosaic dispensation]. For we are his workmanship; created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath -before ordained that we should walk in them [meaning that obedience is essential to celestial salvation]." Paul then goes on to compare the performances (works) of the Mosaic day, that is, "the law of commandments contained in ordinances," with the gospel requirement that obedience is essential to salvation, explaining that only "by the blood of Christ" can man be reconciled unto God. (Eph. 2.) (Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, Inc., 1958], 604-5)

  

Ephesian 2:8-9 and Titus 3:5

 

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God, Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Eph 2:8-9)

 

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost. (Titus 3:5)

 

While Micah believes these passages support his soteriology and are a problem for Latter-day Saint theology, in reality, they end up refuting his man-made system, as they teach baptismal regeneration.

Ephesians 2:8-9 and its parallel text, Colossians 2:11-14

It perhaps should be enough to note that the "works" in Eph 2:8-9 are the Law of Moses and not ordinances of the New Covenant. Stanley K. Fowler, who himself does not hold to baptismal regeneration, noted that:

 

When Paul talks about works in Romans (and Galatians), what he has in view are works of the Mosaic Law, Paul does not include baptism in the category of works any more than he includes, say, repentance in that category. Baptism is, in fact, something that we allow to be done to us, and in what way it is a fitting way to express faith and grace. For Paul, faith and baptism are like two sides of a coin, distinct but never disconnected, both looking to Christ for the benefits of salvation—the one as attitude and the other as act. (Stanley K. Flower, Rethinking Baptism: Some Baptist Reflections [Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf and Stock, 2015], 23)

 

What is more, when one reads the Colossian parallel to Eph 2:8-9, we see that, as with Eph 5:26, Paul is teaching baptismal regeneration, not denying it.

 

Having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. (Col 2:12-14 NASB)

 

In this pericope, Paul states that those "in" (εν) Christ are circumcised with a spiritual circumcision (viz. water baptism [per v. 12]), and paralleling the language used in Rom 6:3-5, we are said to be buried together (συνθαπτομαι) with him "in baptism" (εν τω βαπτισμω), resulting in God freely forgiving (χαριζομαι) us of our trespasses. The only exegetically-sound interpretation is that this pericope teaches baptismal regeneration, not a merely symbolic understanding of water baptism. Of course, it is God, not man, who affects salvation and the forgiveness of sins through water baptism, as the Holy Spirit, through the instrumentality of baptism, cleanses us from sins and makes us into a new creature. As Simpson and Bruce note:

 

Their baptism might, secondly, be viewed as their participation in Christ’s burial. The “putting off of the body of the flesh” and its burial out of sight alike emphasized that the old life was a thing of the past. They had shared in the death of Christ; they had also shared in His burial. Similarly, in Rom. 6:3ff. Paul argues that those who have been buried with Christ “through baptism into death” can no longer go on living as slaves to sin.

 

But baptism not only proclaims that the old order is over and done with; it proclaims that a new order has been inaugurated. The convert did not remain in the baptismal water; he emerged from it to begin a new life. Baptism, therefore, implies a sharing in Christ’s resurrection as well as in His death and burial. (E.K. Simpson and F.F. Bruce, The Epistles to the Ephesians and the Colossians [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1957], 235-36)

 

Commenting on the transformative nature of being incorporated “into Christ” in this text and the surrounding (vv. 9-15) verses one scholar noted:

 

Participating in Christ’s Fullness Christ has not only delivered his people from the domain of darkness, but he has brought them into his kingdom and bestowed on them his salvation . . . What Paul says about Christ [in Col 2:9] he immediately applies to the church by declaring, “in him you are filled” (εστε εν αυτω πεπληρωμενοι). The “in him” (εν αυτω) marks a major motif of the entire theological section of 2:9-15. Paul is hereby attempting to help these believers understand the full significance of being in Christ, especially as it relates to their concern about supernatural powers and their temptation to follow the solution offered by “the philosophy.” His solution is for them to gain a fuller- appreciation for their resources in Christ and to grasp hold of their leader and supplier (2:19) and to concentrate on the things above where Christ is at the right hand of God (3:1).

 

 The fullness of God—his power and his grace—are bestowed on believers by virtue of their incorporation into Christ. As Lightfoot has said, God’s πληρωμα is “transfused” into them. The perfect periphrastic construction (εστε . . .πεπληρωμενοι) emphasises their share in the divine fullness as part of their present experience. (Clinton Arnold, The Colossian Syncretism: The Interface Between Christianity and Folk Belief at Colossae  [Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1995], 293-95)

As John Mark Hicks noted:

  

Baptism as Eschatological Initiation

 

First, through baptism God makes us alive with, raises us up with, and seats us with Christ in the heavenlies (Eph. 2:4-7; Col. 2:11-13). Paul stresses the effect of God’s gracious love and mercy with three verbs in Ephesians 2:5-6: made alive together, raised together, and seated together. This movement—coming to life, rising, and being seated—is shared with Christ. God is the subject of these verbs; they are divine acts. The movement from death to exaltation in the experience of Jesus the Messiah because our experience as well. Just as Jesus was raised from the dead and enthroned at the right hand of God, so we are made alive, raised, and seated with him.

 

We are seated with Jesus “in the heavenly places.” In other words, we are present in the heavenly throne room with Christ. Just as Jesus began the new creation through resurrection and enthronement, so we are initiated into a new creation by being raised and seated with Christ in the heavenlies. We are new creatures—“created in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:10)—seated in the new creation, inhabiting the heavenlies. It is little wonder, then, that Paul thinks that our “citizenship is in heaven” (Phil 3:21) because this is where we are already enthroned with Christ. Dead in our sins, we “followed the ruler of the power of the air” and “lived in the passions of our flesh” (Eph. 2:2-3), but now raised and seated with Christ, we live by a different power and in different passions.

 

But where is baptism in this text? Though Ephesians 2 does not specially mention baptism, “made alive” and “raised up” are baptismal phrases. Paul only uses this language in Ephesians 2:5-6 and Colossians 2:12-13 and 3:1.

 

Ephesians 2:5-6	Colossians 2:12-13
even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.	having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses . . .

 

Colossians 3:1 calls those who “have been raised with Christ” to “seek” what is “above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.” The movement of Christ from resurrection to exaltation in Colossians 2-3 is the same as Ephesians 2, and Colossians 2 locates this movement “in baptism.” Those who “have been raised with Christ” should embrace the life from “above” rather than from the “earth.” In other words, we live in the heavenlies with Christ. Consequently, baptized people—those who have been made alive and raised with Christ=-live as though heaven has come to earth.

 

Baptized people—those united with Christ in his death, resurrection and exaltation—live by the values that permeate the heavenlies, the new creation. Baptized people are new creation people. Enthroned with Christ, we are co-rulers of the new creation just as humanity was created to co-rule the original creation in Genesis 1. (John Mark Hicks, Enter the Water Come to the Table: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper in Scripture’s Story of New Creation [Abilene, Tex.: Abilene Christian University, 2014], 107-9)

 

Finally, to quote Everett Ferguson in his magisterial study of baptism:

 

Without mentioning baptism, Ephesians 2:4–6 may have baptism in mind, in view of the verbal parallels with Colossians 2:12–13; 3:1. Ephesians then declares the unity of Jew and Gentile because Christ made peace for them in one body (2:11–22). Chapter 4 then gives the exhortation to “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (4:3). There follows a listing of the items that give the basis for this unity. Baptism appears among the seven foundation unities of Christianity: “There is one body and one Spirit, even as you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism [βάπτισμα], one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all” (4:4–6) (Everett Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2009], 161)

  

The Washing of Regeneration and Titus 3:5

The term translated as "washing" is λουτρον and appears only twice in the New Testament: Eph 5:26 and Tit 3:5, so it is apropos to examine both these texts as they teach baptismal regeneration.

 

In Eph 5:26, speaking of Christ’s relationship to the Church, we read:

 

To make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word. (NIV)

 

In the Greek, this is a purpose clause, as evidenced by the use of the subordinating conjunction ινα. Christ is said to make holy (αγιαζω) and cleanse (καθαριζω) its members with the "washing of water." The term translated as "washing" is λουτρον, which is the term for a "bath" or even a baptismal font (cf. Song 4:2; 6:6; Sirach 34:25 in the LXX; G.W.H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon, s.v. λουτρον [λοετρον]). This noun, being coupled with the phrase του υδατος "of [the] water" shows that water baptism is the instrumental means through which Christ cleanses the members of His bride, the Church.

 

Everett Ferguson, perhaps the leading expert on baptism in early Christianity, noted the following concerning this passage:

 

There is very likely a reference to baptism in 5:26. Christ gave himself up for the church “in order that he might sanctify her, purifying her by the washing [τῷ λουτρῷ, bath] of water with the word [ἐν ῥήματι].” The context compares the relations of husbands and wives with the relations of Christ and the church. In view of this marriage context elements of a wedding ceremony that could be related to Christian practice are likely being drawn on. The bride took a bath before the wedding, hence the reference to a washing expressly said to be in water, which would parallel the baptism of Christ’s “bride,” the church, taking place in the conversion of each of its members. There was also a wedding contract, an exchange of vows, hence the reference to a “word.” (Everett Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2009], 161-62)

 

Protestant Nicholas Taylor noted that:

 

The 'washing of water' whereby the Church is sanctified and cleansed is clearly the rite of Baptism. Whereas Christians are baptized individually or in families, the Church as a whole is baptized corporately, as it were, in Christ's death. If all Christians are baptized into Christ's death on the cross, then it follows that all Christian baptisms are to be identified with that event. Therefore the whole Church, and not just individual Christians, is identified with Christ through Baptism. It is possible that this text is influenced by a nuptial purification rite. In this case the bath that purifies the bride from any contamination in her premarital life serves as a model for Christian Baptism, in which the Church is cleansed of impurity and corruption before the consummation of its spiritual marriage to Christ. (Nicholas Taylor, Paul on Baptism: Theology, Mission and Ministry in Context [London: SCM Press, 2016], 86)

 

Constantine Campbell, who himself rejects baptismal regeneration, demonstrates a lot of intellectual integrity when he writes that:

 

5:26 Christ gave himself for the church (Eph 5:25) “to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word.” This purpose clause indicates the goal of Christ’s self-giving—it was to make the church holy. To make people holy—or sanctified—is to include them “In the inner circle of what is holy, in both cultic and moral associations of the word.” In the Old Testament, sanctification referred to setting apart for religious use, often with reference to the sacrifice of an unblemished animal, whose blood in turn sanctified the worshipers. Of Christians specially, it can refer to being consecrated by baptism, as seen in the second part of 5:26—“cleansing her with the washing of water.” The word translated “washing” can refer to a bath or—as here—to the washing of baptism. (Constantine R. Campbell, The Letter to the Ephesians [The Pillar New Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2023], 254)

 

Commenting on καθαρτιζω and its reference to water baptism, TDNT notes that:

 

In Eph. 5:26 the symbolism of baptism is impressively used to portray the basic moral purification by Christ which binds our whole conduct (καθαρίσας τῷ λουτρῷ τοῦ ὕδατος ἐν ῥήματι, nowhere else in Pl.). In particular, the death of Christ is seen from the standpoint of an efficacious sacrifice which expiates sin and creates a new purity for those who are pledged thereto. In virtue of the sacrificial death of Christ, Christians are a new and purified people for God’s possession, able and willing to perform the corresponding works (Tt. 2:14; cf. 1 Jn. 1:7, 9). Like Hellenistic Judaism, the Past. speak of a pure heart (1 Tm. 1:5; 2 Tm. 2:22) and conscience (1 Tm. 3:9; 2 Tm. 1:3), i.e., the inward life of believers as cleansed from past sin and wholeheartedly directed to God. The word expresses the unreserved nature of the return to God and also the inner unity of a conscience which is no longer disturbed by the sense of guilt (cf. Ac. 18:6; 20:26). (TDNT 3:425)

 

Now let us discuss Titus 3:5:

 

he saved us, by the washing of regeneration (διὰ λουτροῦ παλιγγενεσίας), and renewing of the Holy Ghost

 

Robert Sungenis noted the following:

 

Paul cannot be speaking symbolically since the grammar specifies: εσωσεν ημας δια λουτρου: (“he saved us through washing”) and not: εσωσεν ημας δια συμβολον λουτρου (“he saved us through the symbol of washing”). Παλιγγενεσιας (“regeneration”) is only used 2× in the NT, the other in Mt 19:28 referring to the final regeneration of the body at the end of time, thus showing the force of the word to likewise refer to a complete spiritual regeneration. (Robert A. Sungenis, The Epistles to Timothy and Titus: Exegetical Commentary (Catholic Apologetics Study Bible X; State Line, Pa.: Catholic Apologetics International Publishing, Inc., 2020), 91-92 n. 211—notice that one must functionally reject the perspicuity of scripture if they wish to reject the “baptism”/”baptismal regeneration” reading of the pericope!)

 

That this text is teaching baptismal regeneration is the near-consensus in scholarship. Note the following representative examples:

 

What happens when we thus trustingly put our hand in the hand of God, and entrust ourselves to his saving mercy? The Holy Spirit of God comes into residence in the life of the believer, and he is then baptized. The two results are brought together in Tit. 3.5, 6. “He saved us through the water of rebirth and of renewal by the Holy Spirit.” Despite a certain ambiguity in the Greek expression it is clear that two things are in Paul’s mind, the rite of baptism and the gift of the Spirit to the believer. These two are juxtaposed equally naturally in Gal. 3.26, 27 where entry into Christ is said to be by faith and by baptism, and it identified, earlier in the chapter, with receiving the Spirit by faith (3.1-3). The New Testament saw no tension between salvation by faith and salvation by baptism; they are properly regarded as belonging together . . . (E.M.B. Green, The Meaning of Salvation [London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1965], 170)

 

“Through a washing”: The instrumental dia here is parallel in meaning to dia Iesou Christou in the next verse. For the dozen uses of dia in the Timothy correspondence, see 1 Tim 2:10, 15; 4:5, 14; 2: Tim 1:1, 6, 102, 14; 2:2; 3:15; 4:17. “Washing,” loutron, occurs otherwise in the NT only in Eph 5:26 of Christ “having cleansed [the church] by the washing (tōi loutrōi) of water with the word.” In the LXX loutron means the bath for cleansing sheep (LXX Cant 4:2; 6:6) and the Jewish ritual washing after touching the dead in Sir 34:25. The word does not appear in T. 12 Patr. Or the Ap. Frs., but Justin uses it in alluding to this passage in Titus or its source (Apology 1.61 [PG 6.420-21]; see Irenaeus, Adversus haereses 5.3 [PG 5.15.3]; Theophilus of Antioch, Ad Autolycum 2.16 [PG 6.1077]). . . . More basis for the P[astoral]E[pistles] is the verb sōizein. A baptismal paraenesis later in Titus contains the only use of this verb in the letter. It describes how “our savior, God . . . saved us, no thanks to any upright deeds that we performed ourselves but because of (kata) his own mercy, saved us through a washing of regeneration and of renewal by the Holy Spirit that he poured our lavishly on us, through (dia) Jesus Christ, our savior. God’s was the grace (tei ekeinou charity) that made us upright (Titus 3:4-7). For the PE the action of saving is ultimately an act of God as ho theos, the Father (c. 1 Tim 2:3-4 with 2 Tim 1:8-9). Precisely because of the relationship in which Jesus stands to the Father, he too can be the subject of sōizein (1 Tim 1:15; 2 Tim 4:18). (Jerome D. Quinn, The Letter to Titus: A New Translation and Commentary and An Introduction to Titus, I and II Timothy, the Pastoral Epistles [AB 35; New York: Doubleday, 1990], 194, 305)

 

Note TDNT’s entry under “ἀνακαινίζω” (to make anew/restore) as a reference to water baptism:

 

In early Christian writings ἀνακαινίζω is a common word in connection with regeneration and baptism, Barn., 6, 11: ἀνακαινίσας (sc. God) ἡμᾶς ἐν τῇ ἀφέσει τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν; Chrys. Hom. in R., 20 (MPG, 60, 598): ἀνακαίνισον αὐτὴν (sc. τὴν ψυχήν) μετανοίᾳ, Liturgia Marci (F. E. Brightman, Liturgies Eastern and Western [1896], 126, 1): ἀνεκαίνισας διὰ τοῦ φρικτοῦ καὶ ζωοποιοῦ καὶ οὐρανίου μυστηρίου τούτου, cf. O. Sol. 11:11: “The Lord renewed me by His vesture and created me by His light”; 17:4: “I received the countenance and form of a new being, I entered therein and was redeemed”; Act. Thom. 132 (baptismal hymn): σοὶ δόξα ἀνακαινισμὸς διʼ οὗ ἀνακαινίζονται οἱ βαπτιζόμενοι οἱ μετὰ διαθέσεως σοῦ ἁπτόμενοι. Of the angel of repentance in Herm. s., 8, 6, 3: τοῦ ἀνακαινίσαι τὰ πνεύματα αὐτῶν, cf. s., 9, 14, 3; v., 3, 8, 9. (TDNT 3:451-52)

 

This is how the term λουτρον and Titus 3:5 was interpreted in early Christianity. For example:

 

. . . the washing that is for the remission of sins and for rebirth (λουσαμένῳ τὸ ὑπὲρ ἀφέσεως ἁμαρτιῶν καὶ εἰς ἀναγέννησιν λουτρὸν), and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. (Justin Martyr, First Apology 66, in St. Justin Martyr: The First and Second Apologies [trans. Leslie William Barnard; New York: Paulist Press, 1997], 70)

 

Being baptized, we are illuminated; illuminated, we become sons; being made sons, we are made perfect; being made perfect, we are made immortal. "I," says He, "have said that ye are gods, and all sons of the Highest." This work is variously called grace, and illumination, and perfection, and washing (λουτρον): washing (λουτον), by which we cleanse away our sins; grace, by which the penalties accruing to transgressions are remitted; and illumination, by which that holy light of salvation is beheld, that is, by which we see God clearly. (Clement of Alexandria [c. 150-215], The Instructor [Paedagogus], Book 1, chapter 6 [ANF 2:215]; Greek from Migne, PG 8:281)

 

To quote Ferguson again:

 

The word λουτρόν was first a bath or a place of bathing and then the water used for bathing or washing. Here and in Ephesians 5:26 above the word refers to the act rather than the place of washing. The washing is not figurative (such a usage would be unprecedented) for the work of the Holy Spirit; that interpretation might have been avoided if the translation “bath” were more common. The theological ideas of the passage are elsewhere associated with baptism, which is indicated here by the “washing.” Baptism is not a human work, but is a work of God. (Everett Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2009], 163)

 

 

Conclusion

 

While this has been pretty lengthy, it does show that one has to be careful not to fall for proof-texting or quote mines from any source, whether scriptural or secular, as all texts have to be interpreted (no such thing as a self-interpreting text). Furthermore, as we have seen, Mich Beaumont, apart from lacking intellectual integrity, the ability to read texts in context, and the ability to reason meaningfully (Calvinism tends to produce people with a form of spiritual autism), is absolutely clueless about the Bible, which he would claim is the sole infallible, formally sufficient rule of faith, let alone “Mormonism,” which he is also clueless about.

At the end of the day, the Reformed Protestantism that Micah Beaumont defends (often by lying through his teeth), and people like Beaumont himself, are worse than the abortion industry and abortion doctors he protests: abortion can only destroy the body, the nonsense Micah Beaumont et al confess destroys the soul (cf. Matt 10:28).

Robert S. Boylan

July 3, 2024