Monday, July 8, 2024

Review of "Chapter 2: The Giver" of N. J. Morganti, Eternal Life for Latter-day Saints: A Comparison of the Bible’s eternal Life & Mormonism’s Exaltation

The following is a review of one chapter (ch. 2) of N. J. Morganti, Eternal Life for Latter-day Saints: A Comparison of the Bible’s eternal Life & Mormonism’s Exaltation (Tacoma, Wash.: True Grace Books, 2024). It is an eisegesis-ridden book, and I think this blog post will show that the author cannot exegete the Bible, has a poor grasp of Latter-day Saint theology, and is clueless about biblical scholarship and a host of other topics. His comments will be in red followed by my comments in black. 


The Giver

 

And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

--Jesus of Nazareth (10:28) (p. 5)

 

It is common for Protestants like Morganti to reference this verse to teach a formulation of eternal security. However, it is eisegesis. When one reads the Johannine corpus as a whole, a true believer (not a mere superficial believer) can lose their salvation. One critic of the various formulations of Protestant soteriologies wrote the following in response to the common eisegetical approach to this passage:


In reference to Jesus giving eternal life to the sheep in Jn 10:28-29, advocates of eternal security also commonly say that "if eternal life can be lost, then it is not eternal lost." This kind of argumentation if quite naïve. It confuses the possessor with what he possesses. One can possess eternal life at one time and lost it again at another without changing the quality or nature of eternal life. For example, one can possess a license to drive a car. If he drives recklessly, the state that issued the license can take it away. However, the revocation of the licenses does not change the quality or nature of a driver's license. Anyone else who possesses a driver's license will be able legally to drive on the road, provided of course that he, too, obeys the rules. Similarly, if one's name is included in a will, we can safely say that he "possesses" the inheritance. It is just a matter of time until he will reap the benefit of the inheritance. This does not mean, however, that it is impossible to disinherit him if the benefactor judges his behavior to warrant such action. Likewise, if God disinherits us from eternal life--a possibility, as we have seen earlier, which Paul does not hesitate to warn us if we sin and do not repent (cf. Gl 5:21; 1Co 6:9-10)--this does not change the meaning of eternal life but merely defines how one can lost it. Peter tells us in 1Pt 1:4 that the inheritance itself is incorruptible, and he also tells us in 1Pt 1:5 that our possession of it is through "faith." But the individual, Peter tells us in 2Pt 1:5-10, must cultivate this faith with good works; if he does not, he is "blind" and cannot "make his calling and election sure." According to Peter, we can possess the inheritance through faith, but then lost the inheritance through faithfulness. In 2Pt 2:20-22 he writes:

If they escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are given again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them the proverbs are true: 'A dog returns to its vomit,' and, 'a sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud.'

Since Jesus opened the context by speaking in Jn 10:1-10 of the robber who enters the sheepgate by stealth to steal away the sheep, and in Jn 10:14-16 of the hired and hand who does not protect the sheep when the wolf appears, it is obvious that Jesus is emphasizing his faithfulness to the sheep in contrast to the evil intent and carelessness of others. He is not attempting to teach that the individual sheep know absolutely that they themselves will remain in the fold . . . We must also realize that Jesus is speaking to Jews who consistently showed their stubbornness and hardness of heart. Other passages make it clear that Jesus experiencing repeated rejection of God's message to Jews, knew that God had blinded them so that they could not understand the gospel (Mt 13:11-17). Hence, they were not sheep of his "fold" and could not understand his voice. Jesus remarks about the inability of certain sheep to understand him and the ability of others to understand (Jn 10:1-5, 16, 26). Though some Jews did understand and follow Jesus (Mt 13:11), the nation as a whole had rejected Jesus, and Jesus in turn is rejecting the Jewish nation. He will turn to "other sheep that are not of this sheep pen" and "bring them also" . . .  He is not teaching that any one individual can be certain that he will be saved. The individual can be certain of God's plan of salvation, and that if he is faithful to God that God will allow no one to snatch him out of it, but he cannot be certain that he himself will remain faithful. If he could be certain, then Paul's warning in 2Tm 2:12-13 and many other passages simply have no relevant meaning. (Robert A. Sungenis, Not by Faith Alone: The Biblical Evidence for the Catholic Doctrine of Justification [2d ed.; Catholic Apologetics International Publishing, Inc., 2009], 253-54, 256-57; emphasis in original)


An important text that refutes the Protestant on this issue is John 15:6:

If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

This verse is just one of a plethora of texts from the Bible refuting the various theologies of eternal security. Christ is not speaking of superficial believers, who like those discussed in 1 John 2:19 were not true believers, but instead, those who were truly regenerated believers who lost their salvation. When one examines the various instances of the term ἐν ἐμοί ("in me") in the Gospel of John that shows that those whom this term is applied to are salvifically united with Christ or Christ being "in" the Father:

He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him (ἐν ἐμοὶ μένει κἀγὼ ἐν αὐτω). (John 6:56)

But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: they ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me (εν εμοι), and I in him. (John 10:38)

Believest though not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me (εν εμοι)? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me (εν εμοι), he doest the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me (εν εμοι): or else believe me for the very works' sake. (John 14:10-11)

At that day ye shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in me (εν εμοι), and I in you. (John 14:20)

Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and has nothing in me (εν εμοι). (John 14:30)

Every branch in me (εν εμοι) that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit . . . Abide in me (εν εμοι), and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am in the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me (εν εμοι), and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me (εν εμοι), he is cast forth as a branch and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. if ye abide in me (εν εμοι), and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. (John 15:2, 5-7)

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me (εν εμοι) ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

That they all may be one; as though, Father, art in me (εν εμοι), and I in thee; that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me . . . I in them, and thou in me (εν εμοι), that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. (John 17:21, 23)


As with many other key texts (e.g., Heb 6:4-6), the plain, exegetically-sound interpretation of John 15:6 is that true, regenerate believers can fall from salvation; in other words, the people in view are not a pseudo-branch or branch that was never truly connected to the vine; instead, Christ assumes that these people who fall away were already "in" Him and were a genuine branch of the vine, resulting in their being thrown in the fire (i.e., being lost). This is yet another refutation of many (false) theologies within Evangelical Protestantism. When one examines the biblical texts exegetically, the other theology that can be truly labelled “Biblical Christianity” is Latter-day Saint theology.

Another important Johannine text is that of Rev 3:5:

He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment, and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.


This verse is a very strong text against the various theologies of "eternal security," as it shows that the names of those contained in the book of life (i.e., those who will be saved) is not static, but that one's name can be "blotted out" (εξαλιφω [alt. "to erase"]) therefrom (i.e., the loss of one's justification). Contingent upon remaining in the book of life (read: in a saved state), one must persevere to the end (cf. Phil 2:12), or, as the Greek of this verse reads, one must be ο νικων ("the conquering one").

There have been many lame responses to this passage. For example, Robert N. Wilkin, a proponent of “Free Grace theology” offered the following comments about Rev 3:5:

 

Note that Jesus does not say that He will blot anyone’s name out of the book of life. Many regard this as litotes, a figure of speech in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite. If I say, “It is no big deal,” then I mean, “it is a little deal.” If this is litotes, then what Jesus is saying is that He will exalt the name of the overcomer. Another option, resulting in essentially the same conclusion, is that the term “name” (onoma) does not mean name here but reputation. . . . This does not mean that the believer who fails to persevere is no longer found in the book of life. It means that his “name” (i.e., his exalted reputation) has been blotted out. (Robert N. Wilkin, “Christians Will Be Judged According to their works at the Rewards Judgment, but Not at the Final Judgment,” in Four Views on the Role of Works at the Final Judgment, ed. Alan P. Stanley [Counterpoints: Bible & Theology; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2013], 45)

 

In their essays responding to Wilkin, Thomas R. Schreiner (Reformed Protestant) and James D. G. Dunn (a leading advocate for the New Perspective on Paul) responded thusly:

 

Revelation 3:5. Wilkin says that Revelation 3:5, where Jesus threatens to blot out a person’s name from the book of life, refers to their reputation but not their identity. In other words, they will experience eternal life but will not enjoy rewards and privileges granted to those who obeyed. But in Revelation 3:5 John draws on Jesus’ words, “But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven” (Matt. 10:33 NIV). Paul picks up the same saying in 2 Timothy 2:12. The one who denies Jesus will be denied by him. It is not merely the reputation of the person that is denied but the person himself. The text doesn’t say that they will not be given rewards but that Jesus himself will deny them. So too, in Revelation 3:5 being blotted out of the book of life most naturally means that those who defile their garments by pursuing a life of sin will not be in the book of life. (Thomas R. Schreiner. “Response to Robert N. Wilkin,” in Four Views on the Role of Works at the Final Judgment, ed. Alan P. Stanley [Counterpoints: Bible & Theology; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2013], 55-56)

 

What a contrived interpretation of Rev. 3:5 is offered by Wilkin: to have one’s name blotted out from the book of life “means that this ‘name’ (i.e., his exalted reputation) has been blotted out” (p. 45). But the most obvious (plain sense) reading of the Revelation references is that to have one’s “name (in) the book of life” (3:5), to have one’s “name written in the book of life” (13:8), and to be “found written in the book of life” (20:15) are all alternative ways of saying the same thing, that is, a way of affirming particularly for those suffering for their faith, that they will be vindicated in the final judgment. (James D. G. Dunn, “Response to Robert N. Wilkin,” in Four Views on the Role of Works at the Final Judgment, ed. Alan P. Stanley [Counterpoints: Bible & Theology; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2013], 59 n. 58)

 

It is common for Protestants to appeal to 1 John 2:19 as it the text teaches that only superficial/false believers ever fall away, never a truly justified person. In a facebook postDr. Robert A.J. Gagnon wrote the following against the common claim that 1 John 2:19 teaches all those who fall away were never regenerated believers:

 

First John 2:19 is the Holy Grail of both the OSAS position and the much better Calvinist POTS position. Back in college days as a new believer over four decades ago, it was also my first go-to verse that I would use to establish "eternal security," the "once-saved-always saved" position.

 

Even today I would say that it is the best verse that anyone can cite to support such a claim. But the context for the verse ultimately doesn't establish OSAS and POTS views. It cannot overturn the mountain of evidence for the view that Jesus and all the NT writers wanted their audiences to believe that even those who start as genuine believers could finish up not inheriting God's kingdom and not reaping a harvest of eternal life.

 

After careful study of this text in its context, I now believe that 1 John 2:19 not only does not prove that genuine believers can never fall away but actually provides evidence for the view that genuine believers can fall away -- the exact opposite of the interpretation given to it by proponents of a OSAS or POTS view.

In 2:18b-19 the Elder John states:

 

"Many antichrists have appeared, from which we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us but they were not from us (i.e., did not belong to us, were not part of us). For if they had been from us, they would have remained with us (till now) -- but (this happened) in order they might be exposed [or: made manifest, revealed, shown, known] (for what they are, namely) that they are all not (i.e., that none of them are) from us." (GET)

 

These "antichrists" who left John's community are further described as persons "denying that the Christ (Messiah) is Jesus" (2:22). Possibly, as with later gnostics, they viewed "the Christ" as merely inhabiting Jesus' body without any intrinsic connection, where Jesus is just the body-shell of the spirit-being Christ.

On the surface it seems as if John is saying that, had these antichrists been genuine believers, they would never have departed from the true faith: once saved, always saved. As it turns out, this is an overread of 2:19.

 

The key to a proper understanding of this remark is found five verses later:

 

"Let (i.e., see to it that) what you heard from the beginning remain (abide, stay) in you. If what you heard from the beginning remains in you, you too will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he himself promised to us, eternal life." (2:24-25; GET)

 

Had John intended in 2:19 a "once saved, always saved" or "perseverance of the saints" view, it would be strange for him to exhort his readers to see to it that the gospel message about the earthly Jesus as God's Son remain (abide, stay) in them. He even uses a conditional sentence: They will remain in the Son and receive eternal life only if the gospel that they heard from the beginning likewise remains in them.

 

For a OSAS or even POTS view, if they had begun as genuine believers, they could never be denied eternal life. No exhortation to remain or conditional clause making eternal life contingent on remaining would be necessary. The very concept of remaining (staying, abiding; Gk. meno) implies that a process had already begun. What is being required is continuance.

 

There is no question here of his audience being fake believers. Were they fake believers, they would not be exhorted to continue in this condition. Throughout 1 John we find expressions of confidence that their start in the faith was genuine, including in the immediate context:

 

"And you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know (i.e., have knowledge). I have not written to you that you do not know the truth but that you know it.... And the anointing that you received from Him remains in you, and you do not have need for anyone to teach you, but as his anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and not a lie, and just as it taught you, remain in him [or: it]. And now, little children, remain in him, so that if (i.e., when) he is made manifest (is revealed, appears), we may have boldness and not be ashamed away from (i.e., before) him at his coming" (2:20-21, 27-28; GET)

 

Clearly, then, when he exhorts them to have the gospel remain in them and makes their reception of eternal life contingent upon the same, John is indicating the possibility that they too, while having begun well, could finish badly if they do not hold firmly to the gospel that the earthly Jesus, and not just some spirit-being "Christ," is the Son of God and also "the atonement for our sins" (2:2; 4:10; see also 1:7).

 

Ch. 2 begins and ends with another way in which the believers must "remain": They must continue to keep Jesus' commandments (2:3-17, 29). Indeed, this is a major theme throughout the letter. The author of 1 John repeatedly states that if you ....

 

walk in darkness,

keep on sinning as a defining feature of your life,

are not keeping God’s commands,

love “the world” with its lusts,

as a way of life do not do what is right,

or hate your brother,

then ...

you have no partnership with Christ,

his atoning blood does not continue to cleanse your sins,

you are from the devil rather than from God,

the truth is not in you,

you do not remain in Christ and God,

you are not in the light,

the love of the Father is not in you,

you have not come to know God,

you remain in death and have not transferred to life,

you do not love God,

and you have no basis for reassuring your heart that you belong to Christ.

You are, in short, a liar.

An essential component of remaining in Christ or God is a transformed life:

"The one who says that he remains in him ought, as that one walked, also himself to walk in this way" (2:6)

"The one who does the will of God remains forever" (2:17b)

"Everyone who remains in him does not keep on sinning" (3:6a)

"The one who keeps his commandments remains in him and he (God) in him" (3:24a)

"If we love one another, God remains in us" (4:12b)

"The one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him" (4:16b)

 

The author can even say that "everyone who hates his brother ... does not have eternal life remaining in him" (3:15). This destroys the "logical" deductive reasoning that if eternal life is to remain eternal, it cannot be lost. In fact, it can be lost because eternal life is located in the Son, and if one ceases to remain in the Son, so too does eternal life depart from that one.

 

Right from the beginning of 1 John, the application of the atonement is limited to those who exhibit a transformed life:

 

“If we say that we have partnership with him and are walking in darkness, we lie and do not have the truth; but if we are walking in the light as he himself is in the light we have partnership with one another and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1:6-7; GET)

 

In other words, if we say that we are Christians who have already confessed our sins to God and that he has forgiven us, but then we lead our lives under the primary control of sin (walk in darkness), we do not have ongoing partnership with Christ and his atoning death does not continue to apply to us its cleansing effect.

The repeated warnings in 1 John destroy any view of OSAS that treats the transformed life as optional. Without the transformed life, there is no promise of eternal life. The middle term between faith and eternal life is the transformed life.

 

If it is possible, as John repeatedly indicates, that those who began in Christ or God might not remain (stay, abide) in that condition, then using 2:19 to claim a OSAS or even POTS view becomes untenable. Yet we must still make sense of 2:19 in that larger context.

 

When John states that by "going out from us" the antichrists show that they "were not from us," and that "if they had been from us, they would have remained with us," he means not that genuine believers can never cease to remain in Christ. That interpretation would contradict the rest of the letter. 

Rather, John means that believers who genuinely believe in Christ but subsequently depart from this belief and from a transformed life, show that they were never really genuine believers. In what sense? Not in the sense that they never had a genuine faith but in the sense that in John's definition "genuine (true) believers" means believers who endeavor to remain (continue, stay) in Christ until Christ returns by holding firmly to the gospel and living the transformed life of those  in whom Christ is still "walking."

 

In short, by leaving John's community and changing over to a heretical gospel and a life of sin, these antichrists show not necessarily that they never believed an orthodox gospel and lived a transformed life but rather that they couldn't "remain" (continue, stay, abide) in that condition. Only those who so "remain" in the true faith till Christ returns are truly "from us." If they had truly been "from us" (belonged to us, were part of us), they not only would have begun well; they would have finished well.

 

All this means that 1 John 2:19, far from providing conclusive proof that once-genuine believers will always "be saved," irrespective of whether they live transformed lives (OSAS), or even will necessarily by God's grace persevere till the end with righteous lives, actually provides proof that once-genuine believers can fall away from the faith and lose "eternal life" by not remaining in the state of redemption that they had "from the beginning."

 

If one moves outside the Johannine literature, we see that a truly justified believer can lose their salvation. One prime example is that of King David.


In Rom 4, Paul uses two Old Testament figures as examples of an individual justified by God--Abraham (through his use of Gen 15:6) and Kind David (through his use of Psa 32). We have discussed Abraham's justification, and how such refutes, not supports, the Reformed view of justification (cf. this discussion on Rom 4:9 and this study on λογιζομαι).

In Rom 4:5-8, we read the following:

But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness. So also David speaks of the blessedness of those to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works: "Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the one against whom the Lord will not reckon sin." (NRSV)

In the above pericope, Paul quotes from Psa 32:1 (cf. Psa 52:1); the entire psalm reads as follows:

Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah. Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord," and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah. Therefore let all who are faithful offer prayer to you at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them. You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance. Selah. I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Do not be like a horse or mule without understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not stay near you. Many are the torments of the wicked but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart. (NRSV)

In this psalm, David is proclaiming God's forgiveness of his sins of adultery with Bathsheba and murder of her husband, Uriah the Hittite (2 Sam 11-12). God sent Nathan the prophet to convict David of his heinous sins, with Nathan's parable of the little ewe lamb resulting in David being brought to his knees in repentance.

Paul in Rom 4, alongside the example of Abraham, uses this as an example of an individual who was justified by God, linking the justification of Abraham previously discussed with that of David's through the use of the conjunction καθάπερ ("even/just as") in v. 6.

The crucial question is "Was Psa 32 the first time David was forgiven of his sins and justified?" The biblical answer, which refutes Reformed soteriology, is "no."

The Bible clearly shows us that David, prior to committing those heinous sins, was a justified person. In his youth, David called on the Lord to defeat Goliath (1 Sam 17). David was so close to God that in 1 Sam 13:14 (cf. Acts 13:22) is described as a man after God's own heart, hardly something said of an unsaved person! Indeed, David was truly a justified child of God many years prior to the Bathsheba incident. If David was not justified, he was not a man of God, but a pagan idolater feigning belief in God in how he had lived his life prior to Psa 32 and had written earlier psalms before his encounter with Bathsheba in such a spiritually dead state with no true relationship with God.

As one writer put it:

We cannot escape the fact that Paul, in using the example of David in the context of justification, is saying not merely that David's sins were forgiven, but also that David was actually justified at this point. Paul, in Rm 4:5, underscores this fact both by speaking of "crediting righteousness" to David when he confessed his sin in Psalm 32, and by calling him a "wicked" person whom God must justify in order to return him to righteousness. We must understand, then, that a "crediting of righteousness" occurs at each point that one confesses his sins. Since this was not the first time David confessed sin before the Lord (which other Psalms verify, cf. Ps 25:7, 18; 51:5), he must have been "credited with righteousness" on each occasion of repentance. Since he was credited with righteousness upon repentance in Psalm 32, and since it is an established fact that he was not a man of God prior to his sin with Bathsheba, we must therefore consider all previous acts of repentance a "crediting of righteousness." (Robert A. Sungenis, Not by Faith Alone: The Biblical Evidence for the Catholic Doctrine of Justification [2d ed.; Catholic Apologetics International, 2009], 253)


Unless one wishes to accuse the apostle Paul of the grossest form of eisegesis (wrenching select passages of the psalter out of context), it is hard to escape that, based on sound exegesis, David lost his justification due to murder and adultery, and Psa 32 represents another justification (“re-justification” if you will) of David, per Paul’s soteriology. This disproves the Reformed view that justification is once-for-all, and can never be lost.

Commenting on John 1:1-3, Morganti makes a number of claims. Commenting on John 1:3, he wrote that:

 

This small introduction in John’s gospel teaches a few things about Jesus (the Word) already existed in the beginning. This beginning was before creation since John states in verse 3 that He made all things. Not only did he make all things but without Him, nothing was made that was made. (p. 7)

 

Comments like this only shows how poorly researched this book is, and that the author is clueless about exegesis and scholarship. There is a debate as to the punctuation of John 1:3. As J. N Sanders wrote,


  

3. All things came into being through him; and without him not a single thing came into being. Virtually all pre-Nicene quotations of this passage, whether made by orthodox or heretical writers (including the Valentinians Ptolemaeus and Theodotus, Tatian, Ireaneus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Tertullian) end with not a single thing came into being (εγενετο ουδε εν), and usually make this quite explicit by not quoting any further. This means that the following relative clause, which is in being, must be construed as part of the following sentence. It was appended to the previous clause so as to add a qualification to not a single thing—‘without him was not anything made that was made’—in order to prevent verse 3 being interpreted in such a way as to include the Holy Spirit among the things which came into being through the Logos.

 

John asserts as emphatically as possible the sole agency of the Logos in creation. This recalls not only what is said in the Old Testament and Apocrypha about Logos and Sophia, but, more directly, what is said elsewhere in the New Testament about the part of Christ in creation, cf. 1 Cor. viii. 6, ‘For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and through whom we exist’, Col. i. 16, ‘In him all things were created’, and Heb. i. 2, ‘Through whom also he created the world’. The Hebrews passage comes very near to calling Christ the Logos, for it beings ‘God . . .has in these last days spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.” (J. N. Sanders, A Commentary on the Gospel According to St John, ed. B. A. Mastin [London: Adam & Charles Black, 1968], 70-71)

 

My friend, Blake Ostler in his article “Out of Nothing: A History of Creation Ex Nihilo in Early Christian Thought” discusses both this text:



John 1:3.Copan and Craig also argue that John 1:3 supports the idea of creation out of nothing (here given in KJV): "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made" (πάντα δι᾽ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν ὃ γέγονεν). Copan and Craig assert of this verse: "The implication is that all things (which would include preexistent matter, if that were applicable to the creative process) exist through God's agent, who is the originator of everything" (pp. 117-18). But this verse says nothing about the creation of "preexistent matter." One must assume beforehand that the word create must mean to create ex nihilo in order to arrive at this conclusion, for this verse says only that if something was made, then it was made through the Word. It does not address anything that may not have been made. More important, it does not address how those things were made, its point being through whom the creation was made. Anything that was made was made by Christ. Since the translation one reviews is so critical to interpretation, I will provide another translation: "All things came about through him and without him not one thing came about, which came about."[27] The question in this case is whether the final phrase which came about is part of this verse or the beginning of the next verse. Hubler explains:

The punctuation of [John 1:3] becomes critical to its meaning. Proponents of creatio ex materia could easily qualify the creatures of the Word to that "which came about," excluding matter. Proponents of creatio ex nihilo could place a period after "not one thing came about" and leave "which came about" to the next sentence. The absence of a determinate tradition of punctuation in New Testament [Greek] texts leaves room for both interpretations. Neither does creation by word imply ex nihilo (contra Bultmann) as we have seen in Egypt, Philo, and Midrash Rabba, and even in 2 Peter 3:5, where the word functions to organize pre-cosmic matter.[28]

Of course, the reality of this text is that it does not consciously address the issue of creation ex nihilo at all. It states who accomplished the creation, not how it was done.[29] A person who accepts creation from chaos can easily say that no "thing" came about that is not a result of the Word's bringing it about but agree that there is a chaos in which no "things" exist prior to their creation as such. Copan and Craig hang their hat on the connotations of the word πάντα, meaning "all" in an inclusive sense. They argue that because "all" things that come about are brought about by the Word, there is no possibility of an uncreated reality that has not been brought about by God. However, the final phrase, ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν ὃ γέγονεν, translated "nothing made that was made," limits the scope of the creative power to the order of the created and implies that whatever is not made was not made by him. If it is created, he created it; if it is not, then it is not within the scope of "what is made."

Notes for the above:

[18] Hubler, "Creatio ex Nihilo," 109.
[19] Jonathan A. Goldstein, "The Origins of the Doctrine of Creation Ex Nihilo," Journal of Jewish Studies 35/2 (1984): 127.
[20] Young, "Christian Doctrine of Creation," 146.
[21] Henry Chadwick, Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984), 46-47. See Norman, "Ex Nihilo," 300-308.
[22] Edwin Hatch, The Influence of Greek Ideas on Christianity (Gloucester, MA: Smith, 1970), 178.
[23] Hatch, Influence of Greek Ideas, 194-95.
[24] Aristotle, De Generatione Animalium B5, 741 b 22f, ed. H. J. Drossaart Lulofs (Oxford: Clarendon, 1965), 74f.
[25] Quoted from James D. G. Dunn, Romans 1-8 (Dallas: Word, 1988), 237, omitting emphasis added by Copan and Craig.
[26] See "καλέω," in Thayer, Greek-English Lexicon, 321.
[27] Hubler, "Creatio ex Nihilo," 108.
[28] Hubler, "Creatio ex Nihilo," 108.
[29] There is a major punctuation problem here: Should the relative clause "that was made" go with verse 3 or verse 4? The earliest manuscripts have no punctuation (P 66, 75* A B D and others). Many of the later manuscripts that do have punctuation place it before the phrase, thus putting it with verse 4 (P 75c C D L Ws 050* and a few others). Nestlé-Aland placed the phrase in verse 3 and moved the words to the beginning of verse 4. In a detailed article, K. Aland defended the change. K. Aland, "Eine Untersuchung zu Johannes 1, 3-4: ?ber die Bedeutung eines Punktes," Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 59 (1968): 174-209. He sought to prove that the attribution of ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν ὃ γέγονεν to verse 3 began to be carried out in the fourth century in the Greek church. This came out of the Arian controversy and was intended as a safeguard for doctrine. The change was unknown in the West. Aland is probably correct in affirming that the phrase was attached to verse 4 by the Gnostics and the Eastern Church. It was only after the Arians began to use the phrase that it became attached to verse 3. But this does not rule out the possibility that, by moving the words from verse 4 to verse 3, one is restoring the original reading. Understanding the words as part of verse 3 is natural and adds to the emphasis which is built up there, while it also gives a terse, forceful statement in verse 4. On the other hand, taking the phrase ὃ γέγονεν with verse 4 gives a complicated expression. C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John, 2nd ed. (London: SPCK, 1978), 157, says that both ways of understanding verse 4 with ὃ γέγονεν included "are almost impossibly clumsy": "That which came into being—in it the Word was life; That which came into being—in the Word was its life." The following points should be noted in the solution of this problem: (1) John frequently starts sentences with ἐν as verse 4 begins; (2) he repeats frequently ("nothing was created that has been created"); (3) 5:26 and 6:53 both give a sense similar to verse 4 if it is understood without the phrase; (4) it makes far better Johannine sense to say that in the Word was life than to say that the created universe (what was made, ὃ γέγονεν) was life in him. In conclusion, the phrase is best taken with verse 3.

Something one will not know from reading Morganti's book is that early Christians affirmed creation ex materia. For example:

For instance, in his First Apology, Justin Martyr wrote the following, affirming creation ex materia:

But we have received by tradition that God does not need the material offerings which men can give, seeing, indeed, that He Himself is the provider of all things. And we have been taught, and are convinced, and do believe, that He accepts those only who imitate the excellences which reside in Him, temperance, and justice, and philanthropy, and as many virtues as are peculiar to a God who is called by no proper name. And we have been taught that He in the beginning did of His goodness, for man's sake, create all things out of unformed matter; and if men by their works show themselves worthy of this His design, they are deemed worthy, and so we have received--of reigning in company with Him, being delivered from corruption and suffering. For as in the beginning He created us when we were not, so do we consider that, in like manner, those who choose what is pleasing to Him are, on account of their choice, deemed worthy of incorruption and of fellowship with Him. For the coming into being at first was not in our own power; and in order that we may follow those things which please Him, choosing them by means of the rational faculties He has Himself endowed us with, He both persuades us and leads us to faith. And we think it for the advantage of all men that they are not restrained from learning these. (First Apology X [ANF: 1:165], emphasis added)

The underlying Greek is εξ αμορφου υλης, and refers to matter (which pre-exists the act of divine creation) without form. Justin is an early witness to the doctrine of creation being out of pre-existing material, not ex nihilo.


On John 1:1, the author wrote that:

 

Jesus was with God (the Father) in the beginning, btu in case there was any confusion as Jesus’ own deity, John makes sure to note “the Word was God.” Jesus was with God the father in the beginning, before creation, and He was Himself God. (p. 7)

 

John 1:1 reads as follows (emphasis added):

Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with the God, and the Word was Divine. (my translation)

The highlighted text, John 1:1c, has long often been disputed. Until recent decades, Trinitarian translators have translated it as “and the Word was God.” The problem with this translation is that this means that either (1) the Word (λογος; the pre-existent Jesus) is the same person as τον θεον, “the God,” who is clearly the person of the Father, resulting on Modalism, or (2) Jesus is one-to-one equivalent to the Trinitarian being. Both of which are problematic, theologically, even to Trinitarianism; furthermore, there are also grammatical issues with this common rendition of John 1:1c.

θεον is the accusative of G/god, and θεος is the nominative case; this means that θεον is a direct object, and θεος is a subject. Based merely on that supposition, the KJV and other translations are difficult to justify. θεος cannot be the direct object of the sentence, so it is a predicate, and descriptive of the subject.

A definite predicate nominative that precedes a verb does not have the definite article, as we have in John 1:1c. When a Greek writer wanted to stress the quality of a person or object that was in the predicate nominative case, he would put it before the verb rather than after it. It also is correct to say that a nominative predicate word lined to a subject usually precedes the verb, as it does in this verse (θεος ην ο λογος), but for that matter an accusative predicate word also tends to precede the verb (e.g., πικρον ποιει τον γαμον ["s/he makes marriage bitter"]). In the case of John 1:1, the phrasing is θεος ην ο λογος, where the subject is clearly the noun with the article ο λογος and θεος, which has no article, must be a predicate word. From the standpoint of normative Greek grammar, this clause might rightly be translated "The Word was a God." The REB brings out the proper sentence structure, "and what God was, the Word was," or a more literal translation being "God was the word" or "divine was the Word."

One of the best articles on this complex issue is that of Phillip Harner, "Qualitative Anarthrous Predicate Nouns: Mark 15:39 and John 1:1" in The Journal of Biblical Literature 92:1 (March 1973): 75-87.

On page 84 of this seminal article, Harner writes:

John could have worded this in five ways:

A. ο λογος ην ο θεος
B. θεος ην ο λογος
C. ο λογος θεος ην
D. ο λογος ην θεος
E. ο λογος ην θειος

Harner notes regarding clause A (ο λογος ην ο θεος), "would mean that logos and theos are equivalent and interchangeable" (ibid. 85). he noted that clause D: "would probably mean that the logos was a god or divine being of some kind, belonging to the general category of theos, but as a distinct being from ho theos" (ibid.) he later concluded "John evidently wished to say something about the logos that was other than A and more than D and E" (ibid.)


Note the following from two Trinitarian commentators:



Vs. 1c has been the subject of prolonged discussion, for it is a crucial text pertaining to Jesus’ divinity. There is no article before theos as there was in 1b. Some explain this with the simple grammatical rule that predicate nouns are generally anathrous (BDF, § 273). However, while theos is most probably the predicate, such a rule does not necessarily hold for a statement of identity as, for instance, in the “I am . . .” formulate (John xi 25, xiv6—with the article). To preserve in English the different nuance of theos with and without the article, some (Moffatt) would translate, “The Word was divine.” But this seems too weak; and, after all, there is in Greek an adjective for “divine” (theios), which the author did not choose to use. Haenchen, p. 31338, objects to this latter point because he thinks that such an adjective smacks of literary Greek not in the Johannine vocabulary. The NED paraphrases the line: “What God was, the Word was”; and this is certainly better than “divine.” Yet for a modern Christian reader whose trinitarian background has accustomed him to thinking of “God” as a larger concept than “God the Father,” the translation “The Word was God” is quite correct. The reading is reinforced when one remembers that in the Gospels as it now stands, the affirmation of I 1 is almost certainly meant to form an inclusion with xx 28, where at the end of the Gospel Thomas confesses Jesus as “My God” (ho theos mou). These statements represents the Johannine affirmative answer to the charge made against Jesus in the Gospel that he was wrongly making himself God (x 33, v 18). Nevertheless, we should recognize that between the Prologue’s “The Word was God” and the later Church’s confession that Jesus Christ was “true God of true God” (Nicaea), there was marked development in terms of philosophical thought and a different problematic. (Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John I-XII [AB 29A; Garden City, N.Y.: Double Day, 1966], 5)



. . . John says that the word was God. This is a difficult saying for us to understand, and it is difficult because Greek, in which John wrote, had a different way of saying things from the way in which English speaks. When Greek uses a noun it almost always uses the definite article with it. The Greek for God is theos and the definite article is ho. When Greek speaks about God it does not simply say theos; it says ho theos. Now when Greek does not use the definite article with a noun that noun becomes much more like an adjective. John did not say that the word was ho theos; that would have been to say that the word was identical with God. He said that the word was theos—without the definite article—which means that the word was, we might say, of the very same character and quality and essence and being as God. When John said the word was God he was not saying that Jesus was identical with God; he was saying that Jesus was so perfectly the same as God in mind, in heart, in being that in him we perfectly see what God is like. (William Barclay, The Gospel of John, volume 1: Chapters 1-7 [rev ed.; The Daily Study Bible; Edinburgh: The Saint Andrew Press, 1975], 39)


 

It might also be instructive to see how Origen (185-254) interpreted John 1:1c:


  

The difference between “the God” and “a God”

(12) But since the proposition, “In the beginning was the Word,” has been placed first, perhaps it indicates some order; in the same manner, next, “And the Word was with God,” and third, “And the Word was God.” Perhaps he says, “And the Word was with God,” then, “And the Word was God,” that we might understand that the Word has become God because he is “with God.”

 

(13) John has used the articles in one place and omitted them in another very precisely, and not as though he did not understand the precision of the Greek language. In the case of the Word, he adds the article “the,” but in the case of the noun “God,” he inserts it in one place and omits it in another.

 

(14) For he adds the article when the noun “God” stands for the uncreated cause of the universe, but he omits it when the Word is referred to as “God.” And as “the God” and “God” differ in these places, so, perhaps, “the Word” and “Word” differ.

 

(15) For as the God who is over all is “the God” and not simply “God,” so the source of reason in each rational being is “the Word.” That reason which is in each rational being would not properly have the same designation as the first reason, and be said to be “the Word.”

 

(16) Many people who wish to be pious are troubled because they are afraid that they may proclaim two Gods and, for this reason, they fall into false and impious beliefs. They either deny that the individual nature of the Son is other than that of the Father by confessing him to be God whom they refer to as “Son” in name at least, or they deny the divinity of the Son and make his individual nature and essence as an individual to be different from the Father.

 

(17) Their problem can be resolved in this way. We must say to them that at one time God, with the article, is very God, wherefore also the Savior says in his prayer to the Father, “That they may know you the only true God.” On the other hand, everything besides the very God, which is made God by participation in his divinity, would more properly not be said to be “the God,” but “God.” To be sure, his “firstborn of every creature,” inasmuch as he was the first to be with God and has drawn divinity into himself, is more honored than the other gods beside him (of whom God is God as it is said, “The God of gods, the Lord has spoken, and he has called the earth”). It was by his ministry that they became gods, for he drew from God that they might be deified, sharing ungrudgingly also with them according to his goodness.

 

(18) The God, therefore, is the true God. The others are gods formed according to him as images of the prototype. But again, the archetypal image of the many images is the Word with the God, who was “in the beginning.” By being “with the God” he always continues to be “God.” But he would not have this if he were not with God, and he would not remain God if he did not continue in unceasing contemplation of the depth of the Father. (Origen, Commentary on the Gospel According to John, Books 1-10 [The Fathers of the Church 80; trans. Ronald E. Heine; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1989]. Book 2, 98-99)


It should be noted that Latter-day Saints have no issue with the eternality of Jesus in view in John 1:1. To quote one LDS scholar:


In Johannine studies of 1:1, the linking verb ην has drawn a great deal of attention. Keener notes that “For John, the Word was not only ‘from the beginning,’ but ‘in the beginning.’ Many commentators have laid heavy stress on the verb ην: in contrast to many Wisdom texts which declare that Wisdom or Torah was created ‘in the beginning’ or before the creation of the rest of the world. John omits Jesus’ creation and merely declares that he ‘was.’ The verb (ην) may thus suggest the Word’s eternal preexistence” (Keener, The Gospel of John, 1:369). Joseph Smith's point in D&C 93 seems to be something similar. First, note the clear, if not awkward, presence of “was” in D&C 93:8, as if the author went to pains to emphasize the “was” by altering the expected word order of John 1:1, “in the beginning was the word.” If we allow the meaning of the Greek verb ην to be carried over to the “was” of D&C 93:8, it again re-enforces not only a pre-earthly but also an eternal existence for the Word. Note as well D&C 83:29, that “Man was also in the beginning with God.” This repetition of “in the beginning” takes the reader back to verses 7 and 8 and suggests that humanity shared a similar pre-earthly existence as the Word did, by implication “eternal” rather than just “pre-earthly.” (Nicholas J. Frederick, The Bible, Mormon Scripture, and the Rhetoric of Allusivity [Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2016], 125 n. 45)

Even after his resurrection and exaltation, Jesus is dependent upon the Father for his eschatological life (all biblical texts are from the NRSV):

 

The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God (ζη τω θεω). (Rom 6:10)

 

For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God (αλλα ζη εκ δυναμεως θεου). For we are weak in him, but in dealing with you we will live with him by the power of God (ἀλλὰ ζήσομεν σὺν αὐτῷ ἐκ δυνάμεως θεοῦ εἰς ὑμᾶς). (2 Cor 13:4)

 

Compare the following which speaks of Jesus still being subordinate to the Father:

 

So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God (1 Cor 3:21-23)

 

But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God (κεφαλὴ δὲ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ὁ θεός). (1 Cor 11:3)

 

Such subordination will continue after the millennium:

 

For as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For "God has put all things in subjection under his feet." But when it says, "All things are put in subjection," it is plain that this does not include the one who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all. (1 Cor 15:22-28)

 

With respect to John 5:18, as Jerome Neyrey notes, contrary to the popular misreading of this text,

 

the proper statement should be: “God makes Jesus equal to himself.” (see this post for more)

 

Also, a few verses later, we read

 

For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself.

 

This is a strong biblical refutation of Trinitarian Christologies, as it shows that Jesus does not, of himself, have life, but such is granted (εδωκεν, third person indicative aorist active of διδωμι ["to give"]) it from the Father--that is, as with his glory (cf. Heb 1:3), the life Christ has does not originate from Himself but has the Father as its origins. This is further evidence that the Christology of the New Testament is that of subordinationism, a christological theme that permeates even books that are often cited as having a "high" Christology (cf. Heb 3:1).

 

D. Charles Pyle, in his excellent book, I Have Said Ye are Gods, wrote the following about biblical texts that explicitly teach the Father being the efficient cause of Christ’s existence:

 

Latter-day revelation states the following about the Lord Jesus Christ and, also, the premortal existence of mankind:

 

And now, verily I say unto you, I was in the beginning with the Father, and am the Firstborn; And all those who are begotten through me are partakers of the glory of the same, and are the church of the Firstborn. Ye were also in the beginning with the Father; . . . (Doctrine and Covenants 93:21-23 [italics emphasis mine])

 

Evangelicals, on hearing it, will attack this scripture as invalid because of its very explicit statement that Jesus is the firstborn. They are fond of stating that Christ has been a self-existing, uncreated being from all eternity and, that he thus accordingly cannot have a beginning as an organized intelligence. But does the Bible really teach any such thing as that? It turns out that the Bible actually does not. We find Jesus informing his disciples of the following: “As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me” (John 6:57). The key phrase in this text is “and I live by the Father.” The Greek text underlying that phrase is καγω ζω δια τον πατερα. What is very significant about this phrase is its theological import. The Greek word δια is with the accusative of person and is in the accusative case. What the word in that situation indicates, in the text of the Gospel of John, is the sense of “because.” It is here essentially denotes “the efficient cause” (A Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 2nd Edition, 181b [emphasis mine]). In other words, the Father herein is stated by Jesus himself to be the efficient cause of the life of Jesus. And if Jesus had an efficient cause, he had to have had some sort of beginning as an intelligent entity. There is no other way around that, in this author’s opinion. Jesus himself taught it! A scholarly theological text averts the following about this:

 

Cause or Ground. The two principle non-local meanings of dia are “by means of”, “through”, (Lat. Per) and “on account of”, “because of” (Lat. ob and propter). The interrelation of these two senses is evident from the fact that dia with the acc[usative]. may occasionally denote the efficient cause (e.g., Jn. 6:57a, the Father is the source of the Son’s life, as in Jn. 5:26 . . .) (Colin Brown, ed., The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, four vols. [Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House 1986], 3:1183 [brackets mine; italics in original]).

 

Do the critics even realize what this scripture means for their theologies? Essentially, scholars have admitted that the Father himself is the source or efficient cause of the life that the Son possesses! Do critics of the Church even realize the import of this admission? What it means simply is this: Jesus, in this verse of scripture, plainly states that the Father is the efficient cause, or the originating source, of the Son’s life. Thus, his life’s existence as an organized being is contingent upon the Father’s giving him life. But if Jesus really were a self-existent, non-organized (and hence non-contingent) Being, the Father would not possibly have been the efficient cause of his life, as Jesus himself said the Father is. There is only one conclusion that can be reached (if a person does not maneuver about and so attempt to explain away the plain meaning of this passage), and that is that Jesus’ very life and existence as an organized being is contingent and dependent upon the Father! Thus the Latter-day Saint view of the Son as the firstborn spirit Son of God also is quite well vindicated by this verse, and thus makes clear that his life and deity also are derived from the Father. He did not possess it of himself before the Father gave it to him.

 

Yet another passage of scripture that is of a great deal of interest in this light in that famous Messianic passage from the book of Micah, which reads:

 

But thou, Beth-lehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. (Micah 5:2 [italics in original])

 

The King James Version of the Bible does not really get the meaning of the Hebrew fully across to the reader but some translations do so better than others. In this passage, the key phrase if וּמוֹצָאֹתָ֥יו מִקֶּ֖דֶם מִימֵ֥י עוֹלָֽם, a phrase that more literally may be translated like so: “And his origins are from ancient time, from the days of time immemorial.” Now the word that is translated as “origins” may also refer to birth, family, descent, and so forth. But again, there is that reference to the origin of the Messiah. Many will reject this difficult meaning of “origins” to try to put Jesus’ existence into eternity. Other translators will try hard to avoid that understanding entirely by translating the word as “doings,” and even try to use some other meaning. Anything to avoid the above meaning! But we now have three passages (Micah 5:2; John 5:26; 6:57) that refer to origins and the Father as the efficient cause of Christ’s life.

 

Another passage that needs a mention here is that found at Hebrews 3:2. A number of translations will translate the key word there as “appointed” rather than literally. Having seen the above, one might understand why that might be the case. The more literal meaning is “made.” Various editions of the King James Version admit to this meaning in a footnote but there are editions that do not. Literally understood, we could understand this passage as being yet another reference to the origin of Jesus Christ as an organized intelligence, being the one “who was faithful to him that made him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house.” (And that makes four). (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 Texts (Revised and Supplemented) [North Charleston, N.C.: CreateSpace, 2018], 355-58, emphasis in original)



Continuing, Morganti wrote:

 

Mormon leadership’s Doctrine and Covenants teaches that Jesus has not always held the deity that is ascribed to him in the Bible. Referencing these same verses in John 1, the D&C notes,

 

And I, John, saw that he received not the fullness at the first, but received grace for grace; And he received not the fulness at first, but continued from grace to grace, until he received a fulness; And thus he was called the Son of God because he received not of the fulness at the first. (Doctrine and Covenants, 93:12-14) (p. 8)

 

Firstly, in context, this pericope is about Jesus' mortality, not his pre-existence glory. Furthermore, we do know that (1) Christ emptied himself and (2) was super-exalted after his resurrection. For example, Phil 2:9 states that “God also hath highly exalted [Christ], and given him a name which is above every name.” Here, we read that the Father gave to Christ, at the moment of his exaltation of the Son, a name above every other name (Yahweh). This shows that the son did not possess this name until his exaltation, showing the ontological subordination of the Son to the Father; also, it speaks of Christ being “exalted,” which is nonsense in light of much of Trinitarian theologies that state that Jesus was not void of his deity, but instead decided to voluntary “shield” it to most people (in effect, ridding Phil 2:5-11 of the concept of kenosis, self-emptying, and instead, perverting the Christology of the text to speak of an endusasthai or a “clothing up”). Furthermore, we know that this name could not be “Jesus,” as He possessed this name prior to his exaltation.


This can also be seen in John 17:11-12:

 

And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. (NRSV)

 

In the above pericope, using prolepsis (cf. v.22), Christ speaks of how the Father “gave” him the Father’s name (Yahweh); it was not something Christ intrinsically possessed until after his exaltation.

 

Even after his exaltation, the telos of all glory and honour Christ receives are that of the further glorification of the Father:

 

That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil 2:9-10; cf. 1 Cor 15:22-28)

 

One should also point out the term, sometimes translated as “exploited” in Phil 2:6 αρπαγμος. Again, this points to something that Jesus did not have, as its predominant meaning in Koine Greek literature means “to plunder” or “to steal.” Notice how Louw-Nida define the term in their work, Greek-English Lexicon Based on Semantic Domains, 2d ed.:

 

ἁρπάζω ; ἁρπαγμός, οῦ m ; ἁρπαγή, ῆς f: to forcefully take something away from someone else, often with the implication of a sudden attack - 'to rob, to carry off, to plunder, to forcefully seize.' ἁρπάζω: πῶς δύναταί τις εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν τοῦ ἰσχυροῦ καὶ τὰ σκεύη αὐτοῦ ἁρπάσαι 'no one can break into a strong man's house and carry off his belongings' Mt 12.29 . . . ἁρπαγμός, οῦ m: that which is to be held on to forcibly - 'something to hold by force, something to be forcibly retained.'

 

Liddell-Scott, in their Greek Lexicon (abridged), offers a similar definition of this term:

ἁρπαγμός

 

ἁρπαγμός, (ἁρπάζωa seizing, booty, a prize, N.T.


Such a Christology, apart from being one that permeates the entirety of the New Testament, can also be seen in the revelations of Joseph Smith, such as D&C 93:16-17:

 

And I, John, bear record that he received a fullness of the glory of the Father; And he received all power, both in heaven and on earth, and the glory of the Father was with him, for he dwelt in him.

 

This is explicated further in Rev 1:1:

 

The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John.

 

Here, Jesus, again after his resurrection, ascension, and exaltation, does not know everything the Father does--the Greek explicitly states that the person of God gives the Revelation to the person of Jesus (Ἀποκάλυψις Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἣν ἔδωκεν αὐτῷ ὁ θεὸς – the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ which God gave to him [Jesus]).


 

Rather than being Almighty God (Isa 9:5), the Latter-da Saint Church teaches that Jesus is a completely separate entity (p. 9)

 

It might be enough to note that “Almighty God,” a phrase used of a Messianic figure in Isa 9:6, is also used of human kings. Let me quote from the NET Bible:

 

גִּבּוֹר‎‏‎ (gibbor) is probably an attributive adjective ("mighty God"), though one might translate "God is a warrior" or "God is mighty." Scholars have interpreted this title is two ways. A number of them have argued that the title portrays the king as God's representative on the battlefield, whom God empowers in a supernatural way (see J. H. Hayes and S. A. Irvine, Isaiah, 181–82). They contend that this sense seems more likely in the original context of the prophecy. They would suggest that having read the NT, we might in retrospect interpret this title as indicating the coming king's deity, but it is unlikely that Isaiah or his audience would have understood the title in such a bold way. Psa 45:6 addresses the Davidic king as "God" because he ruled and fought as God's representative on earth. Ancient Near Eastern art and literature picture gods training kings for battle, bestowing special weapons, and intervening in battle. According to Egyptian propaganda, the Hittites described Rameses II as follows: "No man is he who is among us, It is Seth great-of-strength, Baal in person; Not deeds of man are these his doings, They are of one who is unique" (See Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, 2:67). According to proponents of this view, Isa 9:6 probably envisions a similar kind of response when friends and foes alike look at the Davidic king in full battle regalia. When the king's enemies oppose him on the battlefield, they are, as it were, fighting against God himself. The other option is to regard this title as a reference to God, confronting Isaiah's readers with the divinity of this promised "child." The use of this same title that clearly refers to God in a later passage (Isa 10:21) supports this interpretation. Other passages depict Yahweh as the great God and great warrior (Deu 10:17; Jer 32:18). Although this connection of a child who is born with deity is unparalleled in any earlier biblical texts, Isaiah's use of this title to make this connection represents Isaiah's attempt (at God's behest) to advance Israel in their understanding of the ideal Davidic king for whom they long.

 

Basing his comments on Col 1:16 (p. 12), the author claims that

 

The claim that Jesus and Lucifer are brothers is demonstrably false. Jesus and Lucifer cannot be literal brothers because:

 

·       If Jesus is the eternal uncaused first cause (God), he metaphysically cannot have a brother.

·       The Bible states that Jesus created all things.

·       If the Devil was created, Jesus created him, thus making it impossible to be his brother. (p. 11)

 

In Job 1:6, we read the following:

Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.

In this text, Satan is presented as being among the “Sons of God” (בני האלהים) This can be seen in the verb יצב (to take [their] stand/position”) and that Satan is said to be in their “midst,” that is, he belongs among their ranks, clearly demonstrating that the theology of Job holds to a “Satan” who has real, ontological existence, in contradistinction to some Christadelphian interpretation of the "Satan" texts in Job. When one examines the phrase, “among them” (KJV), one finds that the Hebrew is a phrase consisting of the prefixed preposition (בְּ) meaning “in/among” and (תָּוֶךְ). When one examines the other instances of this phrase in the Hebrew Bible, it denotes someone being a member of a group, not independent thereof (e.g., Exo 28:33; Lev 17:8, 10, 13; Num 1:47; 5:3; 15:26, 29, etc.); indeed, commentators such as David J.A. Clines states that the phrase regularly denotes membership of the group in question (See Clines, Job 1-20 [Word Biblical Commentary, 1989], 19). The bare term תָּוֶךְ also denotes membership, not independence, of the group in question (cf. Gen 23:10; 40:20; 2 Kgs 4:13).

Danish biblical scholar Kirsten Nielsen offered the following comments about Satan in Job 1 and how Satan is a member of the “sons of God”:

 

The scene in heaven concerns jealousy between brothers and its consequences. The father in the Book of Job is not an earthly father but Yahweh himself. We are told that one day his sons came and stood before the patriarch in heaven, and among them came Satan also. In Job 1:6 the sons are called sons of God. But this is often not interpreted as a figurative expression representing a father-son relationship between Yahweh and sons of God; the use of the word ben is understood in the same way as that in which ben may refer to a single individual within a species in the context of other nouns . . . In his commentary on the dialogue between Yahweh and Satan, a lone scholar, Francis I. Andersen (F.I. Andersen, Job: An Introduction and Commentary [TOTC; Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1976], p. 85), has drawn attention to the very free-and-easy tone that Satan uses towards Yahweh. There are no formalities, no court etiquette using ‘my Lord!’ and ‘your servant’, but a straightforward, intimate relationship. Andersen concludes from this observation that we again have evidence that Satan does not belong to the circle of Yahweh’s respectful servants. But he is wrong here, because if it is not the heavenly council that meets in the prologue to the Book of Job but a rather and his sons, then the familiar form of speech is not offensive but a natural part of the relationship between a father and his eldest son. (Kirsten Nielsen, Satan the Prodigal Son? A Family Problem in the Bible [The Biblical Seminar 50; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998], 83, 88)


The Andersen commentary, referenced above, has this to say about Job 1:11:

 

The Satan suggests a test to prove his point. His language is abrupt; he commands God with imperative verbs: literally, ‘But now, you just extend your hand and damage all his property.’ The next clause begins with ‘im, ‘if’; literally, ‘if to your face (i.e., openly, defiantly) he will bless (i.e., curse—see commentary on 1:5) you.’ It is the consequence, not the condition. Hence the conjunction is probably interrogative, and so assertive because the question is rhetorical: ‘Won’t he curse you?’ That is, ‘He is sure to curse you.’ This conjunction is also used to state the condition of a vow with an oath, which becomes an auto-imprecation: ‘I’ll be damned if he doesn’t curse you to your face!’ The vernacular Hebrew, rendered literally in the AV, gives a flavour of mocking familiarity to the Satan’s insolent speech. Like Goethe’s Mephistopheles, he despises everything decent. With vulgar manners he refuses to use the conventional courtesies of court etiquette which avoided the personal pronouns by addressing a superior as ‘my lord’ instead of ‘you’ and using the deferential ‘your slave’ instead of ‘I’. The Satan’s ‘thou’ is thus insulting. (Francis I. Andersen, Job: An Introduction and Commentary [Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1976], 85)

 


Further support for this comes from Psa 109:6 which reads:

 

Appoint a wicked man over him, and let an accuser (Heb: שָׂטָן "Satan") stand at his right hand. (1995 NASB)

 

Commenting on this verse and theology thereof, Mitchell Dahood wrote:

 

the Evil one . . . Satan. The identification of rāšā’ and śāṭān is a long-standing puzzler, but a measure of coherence can be won if vss. 6-7 are seen as referring to judgment after death and vss. 8-19 as invoking terrestrial misfortunes upon the unprincipled judge. In three biblical texts Satan appears as a superhuman celestial figure whose role is that of prosecutor. 1 Chron xxi 1 states, wayya’amōd śāṭān ‘al yiśrā’ēl, “and let Satan stand at his right hand.” In Zech iii 1-2, the celestial being who challenges the fitness of Joshua ben Jozadeak to function as the high priest is called “the Satan,” and is described as weśāṭān ya’amōd ‘al yemīnō, “standing on his right hand to accuse him,” language similar to the psalmist’s. In the prose monologue to the Book of Job (i-ii), Satan is depicted as one of the benē ‘ēlīm, a member of the divine entourage, who impugns the integrity of Job. These descriptions warrant, then, the interpretation of the Evil One and Satan as one personage who will serve as the prosecutor at the trial of the psalmist’s adversary before the divine judge after death.

 

If this analysis proves correct, the widely held view that the designation of Satan as the Evil One is a development of the intertestamental period will need to be reexamined. (Mitchell Dahood, The Psalms 101-150 [AB 17A; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1970], 101-2, emphasis in bold added)

 

Furthermore, the "Satan" in Job 1:6, in Hebrew, is not just the bare term (שָׂטָן), meaning an "adversary," which, in and of itself, can denote anyone who opposes another, whether divine or not (e.g., the angel of the Lord is referred to as an adversary or שָׂטָן in Num 22:22), but is coupled with the definite article (השטן), “the satan,” which denotes the supernatural tempter (cf. Zech 3:2); one should compare this with similar Greek locutions in the LXX and NT such as such as ο σατανας (Sirach 21:27; Matt 12:26; Mark 3:26; 4:15; Luke 10:18; 11:18; 13:16; 22:31; John 13:27; Acts 5:3; 26:18; Rom 16:20; 1 cor 5:5; 7:5; 2 Cor 2:11; 11:14; 1 Thess 2:18; 2 Thess 2:9; 1 Tim 1:20; 5:15; Rev 2:9, 13, 24; 3:9; 12:9; 20:2, 7); ο διαβολος (Matt 4:1,5,8,11; 13:39; 25:41; Luke 4:2,3,6,13; 8:12; John 8:44; 13:2; Acts 10:38; Eph 4:27; 6:11; 1 Tim 3:6, 7; 2 Tim 2:26; Heb 2:14; James 4:7; 1 John 3:8, 10; Jude 1:9; Rev 2:10; 12:12; 20:10) and ο πειραζω (Matt 4:3; 1 Thess 3:5), all denoting the external, supernatural tempter in most of Christian theologies (some small groups denying a supernatural Satan notwithstanding).

Why is this significant? One popular charge is that Latter-day Saints believe that Jesus and Satan are “brothers.” Left on its own, it is shocking and seen as blasphemous. However, leaving this on its own, with no explanation, is “yellow journalism.”

In Latter-day Saint Christology Christ has existed for all eternity; many critics claim that LDS theology is reflective of Arianism or some other Christology, but that is a non sequitur. D&C 93:21 and other texts affirm that Christ has existed eternally. Notice the “high Christology” of the following two passages from uniquely LDS scriptural texts (more could be reproduced):

And Amulek said unto him: Yea, he [Christ] is the very Eternal Father of heaven and of earth, and all things which in them are; he is the beginning and the end, the first and the last. (Alma 11:39)

I am Alpha and Omega, Christ the Lord, yea, even I am he, the beginning and the end, the Redeemer of the world. (D&C 19:1)

In LDS theology, properly stated (and not the caricature one finds in works such as The God Makers and other presentations thereof) states we all pre-existed as the spirit sons and daughters of God. In that sense, we are all brothers/sisters of Jesus. However, Job 1:6 proves, unless one is a Christadelphian or some other similar group, that “the Satan” is one of the “sons of God,” that is, a member of the heavenly court, one of whom was Yahweh. Note Deut 32:7-9 from the NRSV, reflecting the Qumran reading (see below for more on Deut 32:709, 43):

Remember the days of old, consider the years long past; ask your father, and he will inform you; your elders, and they will tell you. When the Most High apportioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the gods; the Lord's own portion was his people, Jacob his allotted share.


While much more could be said, it should be noted that, as with so many beliefs, it is Latter-day Saint theology, not Evangelical theology, that is supported by biblical exegesis.


Some may ask about Ezek 28, which is touted as a "proof-text" against such a tenet of LDS theology. According to pp.100-101 of this anti-LDS book:


Mormon men say that Lucifer is the brother of Jesus . . . In contrast, the Bible describes Satan (Lucifer) as a created angelic being.

"You (Lucifer) were in the Eden, the garden of God . . . on the day you were created . . . you were the anointed cherub . . . you were blameless in your ways from the day you were created until righteousness was found in you . . . your heart was lifted up . . . you corrupted your wisdom." (Ezekiel 28:13, 15, 17)

Isaiah 14 presents a taunt directed to the king of Babylon; verses 12-15 derive from an early North-West Semitic tradition of a god in the divine council who attempts to usurp the throne of the high deity; see the evidence provided in Mark R. Shipp's Of Dead Kings and Dirges: Myth and Meaning in Isaiah 14:4b-21 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002). Biblical scholar Michael Heiser goes so far as to suggest that the reading can be entirely correlated with the Baal-Athtar myth from Ugarit. See Michael S. Heiser, The mythological provenance of Isa. xiv 12-15: a reconsideration of the Ugaritic material, Vetus Testamentum 51 (2001): 354-369. Further, see LDS apologist, Ben McGuire’s article on this issue, “Lucifer and Satan.”

Furthermore, the authors are assuming, when one encounters the concept of “creation,” that it means creation out of nothing (creatio ex materia); however, this is false. For the ancients, God created from pre-existing material. Representative of such scholarship, see Thomas Oord, "An Open Theology Doctrine of Creation and the Solution to the Problem of Evil," in Oord, ed. Creation Made Free: Open Theology Engaging Science (Eugene, Oreg.: Pickwick Publications, 2009), pp. 28-52; Oord, ed. Theologies of Creation: Creatio Ex Nihilo and Its New Rivals (Routledge, 2014); Gerhard May, Creatio Ex Nihilo (T&T Clark, 2004) and Blake Ostler's seminal essay, “Out of Nothing: A History of Creation ex Nihilo in Early Christian Thought.”

We even see this in the verb Ezek 28 uses for the “creation” of the king of Tyre בראNotice how it is used elsewhere:

For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. (Isa 65:17-18; emphasis added)

What is interesting to note in this particular passage is that the term does not have the subtext “out of nothing,” (ex nihilo) but instead, “from pre-existing material (ex materia), as the New Creation will come from a regeneration of this present creation, not one that is generated/created ex nihilo.


As for Col 1:15-20 (not just v. 16), The Greek reads:


ὅς ἐστιν εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ἀοράτου, πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως, ὅτι ἐν αὐτῷ ἐκτίσθη τὰ πάντα ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, τὰ ὁρατὰ καὶ τὰ ἀόρατα, εἴτε θρόνοι εἴτε κυριότητες εἴτε ἀρχαὶ εἴτε ἐξουσίαι· τὰ πάντα δι᾽ αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν ἔκτισται· καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν, καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν ἡ κεφαλὴ τοῦ σώματος τῆς ἐκκλησίας· ὅς ἐστιν ἀρχή, πρωτότοκος ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν, ἵνα γένηται ἐν πᾶσιν αὐτὸς πρωτεύων, ὅτι ἐν αὐτῷ εὐδόκησεν πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα κατοικῆσαι καὶ δι᾽ αὐτοῦ ἀποκαταλλάξαι τὰ πάντα εἰς αὐτόν, εἰρηνοποιήσας διὰ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ σταυροῦ αὐτοῦ, [δι᾽ αὐτοῦ] εἴτε τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς εἴτε τὰ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς.

The NRSV renders it as follows:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers -- all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in1 him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

There are a couple of things one has to consider to engage in any meaningful exegesis of this pericope:

1.     There is a differentiation, not just between the persons of the Father and the Son, but between “God” (ο θεος) and Jesus (vv. 15, 19), something which is inconsistent with Trinitarianism.

2.     That the “all things” that are created do not include the spirits of man can be seen in v. 21 where there is a differentiation between the things created in vv.15-20, “And you (και υμας), that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled," something said to then-believing Christians. Does Paul here include Satan and demons among this "creation" when he says Jesus has reconciled "all things" in heaven and earth to Himself? Highly unlikely. Paul could not have included unbelievers in this "reconciliation"; otherwise, he would not have qualified the prospects of reconciliation for his audience: "If ye continue in the faith" (v. 23). I mention this point as some Evangelicals (incorrectly) cite this pericope as "proof" of how allegedly anti-biblical LDS Christology is (e.g. Ron Rhodes, "Christ," in The Counterfeit Gospel of Mormonism).

3.     Relying on the faulty translation of the preposition εν in the KJV, some harp on the English preposition, "by." Most modern translations, including the NRSV quoted above, translate the preposition as "in," not "by" (it is possible this is a "causal εν," with "because of him" being a plausible translation of the construction ἐν αὐτῷ--see the discussion of this preposition in Moulton and Milligan's Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, as one example). This is further strengthened by the fact that v.16 is part of a οτι-clause in Greek (οτι meaning "for" or "because of").
4.     The text states that thrones, principalities, and powers were created “in Jesus.” These are hierarchies of angels that are in view in this pericope (cf. Rom 8:38), That this is the case can be further seen in the fact that Col 1:15ff places this creation within the realm of all those things that God the Father is reconciling to Himself (Col 1:20), clearly placing a limit to the "all things" spoken about in Col 1:16.
5.     The voice of the verbs used in v.16 when speaking of the creative role of Jesus are passives, not actives--ἐκτίσθη is the indicative aorist passive of κτίζω while ἔκτισται is an indicative perfect passive. This would be consistent with LDS theology. Note the following from Bruce R. McConkie in vol. 3 of his Doctrinal New Testament Commentary: "16-17. Christ created the universe and all things that in it are, but in doing so he acted in the power, might, and omnipotence of the Father. 'Worlds without number have I created,' is God's language, 'and by the Son I created them, which is mine Only Begotten.' (Moses 1:33.) 'By him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God.' (D. & C. 76:24; John 1:1-3; Heb. 1:2.)" Such is reflective of the function of divine passives, where the Father is the ultimate creator, but it was done through the Son (and, in LDS theology, other figures, too [cf. Abraham 4:1ff]). As N.T. Wright writes in his commentary on Colossians, part of the Tyndale Commentary series: "All that God made, he made by means of him. Paul actually says 'in him,' and though the word εν can mean 'by' as well as 'in,' it is better to retain the literal translation than to paraphrase as NIV has done. Not only is there an intended parallel with verse 19, which would otherwise be lost: the passive 'were created' indicates, in a typically Jewish fashion, the activity of God the Father, working in the Son. To say 'by,' here and at the end of verse 16, could imply, not that Christ is the Father's agent, but that he was alone responsible for creation." On the use of passive verbs, consider the following:

[T]he creation language of [Psa 32:6, LXX] maintains the passive construction found in the Hebrew. It reads: 
τῷ λόγῳ τοῦ κυρίου οἱ οὐρανοὶ ἐστερεώθησαν καὶ τῷ πνεύματι τοῦ στόματος αὐτοῦ πᾶσα ἡ δύναμις αὐτῶν. 
 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm and by the breath of his mouth all their power. (Ps 32:6 LXX)
 This passive construction is analogous to the language of the Colossian hymn where Christ’s role in creation is depicted through the use of passive verbs. Though Christ is the subject of the passage as a whole, in Col 1:16 the subject of the sentence is “everything in the heavens and on the earth.” Christ’s involvement in their creation is presented though the use of εν with the dative so that all things were created “in him.” 
ὅτι ἐν αὐτῷ ἐκτίσθη τὰ πάντα ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς . . τὰ πάντα δι᾽ αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν ἔκτισται 
 For in him everything in the heavens and upon the earth were created . . . All things were created through him and for him. (Col 1:16)
 Just as in Ps 33 (32 LXX) where the word of the Lord does not create, but is the means by which God created, so in the Colossian hymn Christ does not create, but is presented as the one in whom, through whom, and for whom God created all things. (Matthew E. Gordley, The Colossian Hymn in Context [Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2007], 61-62 [square brackets my own for clarification]).

The Greek terms translated as "were created" and "have been created" are ἐκτίσθη and ἔκτισται, the third person indicative aorist passive and perfect passive of the verb κτίζω, meaning "to create." In addition, the prepositions that are coupled with these tenses differ (εν [in] and εις [into/towards/for], respectively).

Commenting on these shifts in tenses and prepositions, Nigel Turner wrote the following:

St. Paul was pursuing the intimation of verse 15, that Christ is God’s icon and our archetype. The two tenses are thus explained by the fact that the prototokos conception necessarily involves two other conceptions, viz. (1) a past act which is punctiliar (grammatically) because one aspect of creation is past for ever, and (2) a second action which is not merely punctiliar but also perfective. Of this second action, the results are with us still, since we and all creation are not yet in actuality the icon of Christ, as he is of God. Although the process has been soundly set in motion, it will proceed while all nature continually renews itself in him until it reaches his entire perfection. Aptly using the perfect tense, St. Paul could close the verse with the words, “All these things were once created by his instrumentality (dia, “through”; not en, “in,” as at the beginning of the verse) and they continue to be created now towards (eis) him.” He meant towards his perfect image; closer to the intended pattern. St. Paul did not often confuse the prepositions eis and en, and indeed in Col. 1:16 he set both together in a context which requires that their meaning is not at all synonymous: “in (en) him were once created all things that are in heaven and upon earth the visible and the invisible, thrones, lordships, powers, authorities; all these have been created (and now exist) by his continual support (dia) and he is their goal (eis).” (Nigel Turner, Grammatical Insights into the New Testament [Edinburgh: T&T Clarke, 1965], 125).


Compare the passive voice used of the creative activity of Christ in Col 1 with that of Rev 4:11 where, speaking of the role the Father plays in creation, we read:

You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created. (NRSV)

The figure addressed is clearly the person of the Father, as Jesus is later presented as being distinguished from this figure on the throne, as seen in Rev 5:5-6. Furthermore, the terms translated as "you created" is ἔκτισας, the indicative aorist active of κτίζω.

Why is this important? The differences in voices (active vs. passive) show that there were different roles the Father and Son played, with the logical implications of such being very strongly anti-Trinitarian when one applies modus tollens:

First Premise: If Jesus is God within the Trinitarian understanding of Christology, he played an active role in the creation, just like the Father.

Second Premise: Jesus played a passive role in the creation, as opposed to the active role in creation played by the Father.

Conclusion: Jesus is not God as understood within the framework of Trinitarian Christology.


6.     Blake Ostler wrote the following about this text (and Heb 11:3, a related verse) showing it does not support creation out of nothing:

The view that the “invisible things” are not absolute nothing is also supported by Colossians 1:16–17:
For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth: everything visible and everything invisible, thrones, ruling forces, sovereignties, powers—all things were created through him and for him. He exists before all things. (NJB)

In this scripture it seems fairly evident that the “everything invisible”
includes things that already exist in heaven, such as thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers. Further, the invisible things are also created by God; yet the fact that they are invisible means only that they are not seen by mortal eyes, not that they do not exist. The reference to invisible things does not address whether they were made out of preexisting matter. However, 2 Corinthians 4:18 states that “the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (KJV). It is not difficult to see that Hebrews 11:3 neither expressly mentions creation out of nothing nor implicitly assumes it. The argument that the text must somehow implicitly assume creation out of nothing misinterprets the text and forces it with assumptions that are contrary to the meaning of “invisible things.” If anything, Hebrews 11:3 implicitly assumes creation of the earth out of a preexisting substrate not visible to us.
7.     It should be noted that LDS theology does state that Christ is the creator, and often borrows the verbiage of this Christological hymn when speaking of His role in the creation (e.g., D&C 93:10; 3 Nephi 9:15; the 1916 First Presidency statement, "The Father and the Son), and such is not limited to the "New Creation," but also to the Genesis creation, contra "Biblical Unitarians." I raise these issues, however, as many critics of LDS Christology have falsely stated that Col 1:15ff refutes "Mormon" theology which states that "biblical theology" presents Jesus as being the creator of the spirits of man as well as fallen angels (a category clearly not being reconciled to God, unless one wishes to embrace Origen's eschatology!). Note the following from the late-17th/early-18th century Universalist George Klein Nicolai in his 1705 The Everlasting Gospel:

 

This passage teaches us the extent of the reconciliation made by Christ, namely, that it extends itself over the whole creation. Therefore, the fallen angels must also necessarily have their share in it, for they do incontestably belong to the invisible things created by Christ, and consequently to all things, or the things in heaven reconciled by him. And though it is true that through sin are separated from God, nevertheless all the rest of the creatures partake of and are benefited by it. It affords for instance, matter of much joy to the holy angels, when by virtue of this reconciliation, the apostatized creatures are convened to God, and thereby anew received into the communion and friendship of these holy spirits (Luke 13:10; 1 Pet. 1:12; Heb. 12:22). It will also be by the energy of this reconciliation, that in time to come the curse which through sin was brought upon the creation, and has mixed itself with it (Gen. 3:17; Rom. 8:20-22), will be certainly removed from all the rest of the creatures. (George Klein Nicolai, The Everlasting Gospel [Apophasis, 2018], 125)

 



8. In Col 1:19, we read: "For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him." Two aorists are used in this verse (ευδοκησεν [thought/pleased] and κατοικησαι [dwell]; cf. Col 2:9). If we go along with the trinitarian view, then at what point in time was God the Son filled with God's fullness, and was he God before this happened in their view? As we have seen in our discussion of Phil 2:5-11, such is consistent with LDS theology, but at odds-end with Trinitarian theology.
9

Fellow LDS apologist D. Charles Pyle wrote the following that agrees largely with the above:


 

But another situation is the occurrence of the singular verbs that correlate with the Greek phrase τα παντα here. This is to be expected since this often is taken as a collective plural. Here we need to discuss and give further consideration not the cosmological meaning of this pertinent Greek phrase. One such definition is “the universe.” There are several passages where this phrase has such a meaning. A number of these are listed in Greek-English Lexicons. Some of such passages are as follows: Romans 11:36; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Ephesians 1:10; 3:9; Hebrews 1:3; 2:20 (the longer reading of Revelation 4:11 also is found in the same list). But this meaning parallels that sometimes in the Greek τα παντα (from which English gets its word cosmos) that is seen in Acts 17:24. In such usage it refers to the material or observable universe as a whole. So it is with the Greek phrase κοσμος. To this list, based on textual and other evidence, the author feels that the passage at Colossians 1:16-20 should be added. (The following are also reasons why I think it would be so understood in Colossians 1:15-20.)

 

For instance, in the text of verse 20 Paul was not writing that literally everything was to be reconciled to God, including all evil angels and those who refuse to know Christ. Rather, he was arguing that God was reconciling the material universe to himself. To understand τα παντα in verse 20 in any other way is to introduce considerable confusion. We must take it either to mean that literally everything will be reconciled to God through Christ, or to mean that the material universe is to be reconciled to God through the Christ (with the exception of certain other individuals, such as evil angels, reprobates, etc.). This latter meaning and understanding makes far more sense in relation to the entire teaching of the Bible, which also states that the Devil himself definitely will not be reconciled to God (compare, for instance, Revelation 20:10).

 

This further is solidified by giving consideration to how Greek readers and hearers would have understood the above Colossians passage in question, in hearing it read. The Greek dialect in which the Greek New Testament is written was the common street language of the day in most provinces of the Roman Empire. The cultural understanding underlying these words also should be resorted to if we are to understand the cosmological sense that the Greeks would see in this scripture passage. How would the ancient Greeks have understood the meaning of the phrase, or its constituent words? How would people in general have understood the meaning of the words all things in a cosmological sense? The philosophers said that “The first cause of everything is Zeus and also all things form Zeus.” (Greek: αρχη απαντων Ζευς τε και εκ Διος παντα [from Aelius Aristides]) Yet, what else do we know about Zeus, the god of the Greeks? We also know that he not only had a father, named Kronos, who also had a father named Ouranos, but he also had a number of brothers and sisters who coexisted with him. And yet Zeus was known to the Greeks as “the father of gods and men.” (“Then terribly thundered the father of gods and men form on high” [Homer, Iliad 20.56-57]) This cosmological background of the words most likely is that Greeks would have had in mind and understood upon hearing that τα παντα was created by Christ.

 

In its cosmological meaning, usage, and also background, as well as the fuller contexts of this passage (as well as of other passages) the text here refers to the material or the observable universe, as a whole, rather than speaking literally of each and every single thing including all the individual elements used in the universe’s organization. It becomes a case of missing the entire forest for the trees to accept the latter meaning. But it cannot be used to attack the LDS doctrine of creation using matter or element. If we did take this passage hyperliterally, merely at its face value, to address in its meaning each and every single thing, then the same has to be done with verse 20 of this passage. That would make little to no sense in light of the Bible, when taken as a whole. The same words occur in the same overall unit of thought, so it is extremely unlikely that Paul suddenly would thus switch the meaning on his readers in this selfsame sentence like that without some sort of clarification. An English translation that takes into consideration all of the above could be rendered similarly to what follows:

 

Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation: For by means of him the universe was created, the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth, the things visible and the things invisible, whether thrones or dominions, whether principalities or powers: the universe through him and for him was created: and he is before all else, and by him the universe is constituted, and he is the head of the body of the Church: he who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all he might be preeminent; for it seemed good to God that in him should all the fulness dwell, and through him to reconcile the universe to Himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross; through him, whether the things upon the earth or things in the heavens.

 

The translation is consistent, true to the meaning of the Greek text, and eliminates potential pitfalls in understanding. But in any case, the above passage in the Bible is not of as great utility as the critics long have thought was the situation. It does not even address the LDS doctrine of the creation! With all of the passages that have the cosmological meaning the situation is similar, so long as we all keep context and underlying meaning in mind while reading. None of those passages address the situation either. None use the Greek word that in texts more absolutely means everything, or the whole, neither απας nor any of its forms. But even that word can have its own inherently limited meaning in some passages where it is found. (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) [North Charleston, S.C.: CreateSpace, 2018], 333-37)

 

. . . in Colossians 1:16 the root word is κτιζω, and its most ancient usage means I fabricate, or, I organize, or, I colonize, or, I found a city or a colony. It is the action of a process of organization. Assuming that angels are referred to here (and that is not yet a given herein), did the writer intend to convey the thought that Jesus created all the angels from scratch, or rather that he organized the angels into ranks and orders? The actual meanings of the Greek words in Colossians 1:16 herein rendered “thrones, dominions, principalities and powers,” due to the lack of the article, are abstractive (this also is conducive to the idea of organizing orders or ranks of angels), rather than absolute (which would refer to the beings). It only is by metonymy (the substitution of the name of an attribute for the thing meant) that most everyone else (excepting some scholars and some few of the early Christian writers) assumed that these classes of beings actually were certain types of angels. But does this passage refer to angels at all? If it actually did, then why did it not specifically name angels at all? If it actually did, then why did it not specially name angels as being among the creations of Jesus? Again, let there be called to mind the distinct absence in Colossians 1:16 of the mention of angels as being created by Christ, as well as the fact that both Paul and Peter (in other places in scripture cited above) make mention of principalities and powers, with the addition of the angels as a separate class. Was this a simple oversight of a sort on the part of Paul? Or, was it deliberate? Paul himself elsewhere lists angels and those titles as separated classes. Colossians 1:16 mentions things in heaven and in earth but also does not differentiate or specify.

 

So then, are the principalities and so forth, earthly things and not heavenly, or vice versa? Or, do they dwell in both the realms of heaven and earth? Or, are thrones and dominions paralleled with visible things, and principalities and powers paralleled with invisible things? Or, are they names of offices only? Which really is the case here? It also is worth noting, in relation to the above line of questioning, that “it is disputed whether the authorities esp[ecially] in the Pauline literature, . . . are supernatural powers . . .” . (Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, 2:11) Origen casts doubt upon this as well. While discussing these terms within another context, he writes concerning them, that:

 

“Throne” is not a species of living being, nor “dominion,” nor “principality,” nor “power”; these are names of the businesses to which those clothed with the names have been appointed; the subjects themselves are nothing but men, but the subject has some to be a throne, or a dominion, or a principality, or a power. (Origen’s Commentary on John II.17)

 

Indeed, if these subjects only are men, as Origen suggested—and he would have recognized that those Greek terms actually are abstractive—then, even if we took the passage the most literal way possible, it could be set down as a correct view in the most literal of meanings, for the creation of man on earth indeed was by means of Christ Jesus. If so, it does not make any contact against the teachings of the LDS Christian faith, and critics still cannot use this as a weapon against LDS views and doctrines on the creation, or even in correlation with the critics’ ideation that this verse somehow argues against the LDS idea that Lucifer is related to all mankind, and to Christ. (Ibid., 344-46)

 

The author tries to make much out of the use of αορατος (invisible/unseen) in Col 1:16 (p. 12). Commenting on the term αορατος (“unseen”/”invisible”) as used in texts such as Col 1:15, Andrew Malone, himself a Trinitarian, wrote the following:


The meaning of ‘invisible’

Scholars may sometimes intend ‘invisible’ in a nuanced fashion. But the word is no longer adequate as a convenient shorthand. It is now too easily misunderstood and any nuance overlooked. We need to reconsider what we understand when encountering this word—and what the biblical authors themselves intended us to understand . . . As the Old Testament drew to a close, Greek thought increasingly flourished. Philosophers such as Plato (428-347 BC) and Aristotle (384-322 BC) probed the visible and invisible realms. Plato especially was fond of describing divinity negatively: God should be unlike anything in the imperfect created order. If creation is ‘visible’, by definition God must be ‘in-visible’. And so a new Greek term was birthed. The adjective for ‘visible’, oratos (itself only recent; sometimes written horatos), yielded a-oratos. It’s aoratos that occurs in key New Testament passages (Col. 1:15; 1 Tim. 1:17; Heb. 11:27) and that has cemented the notion of ‘invisible’ in Christian language.

Before considering such passages, it is instructive to consider how other Greek authors of the era understood and used the word.

Josephus’ life overlapped with Jesus’ disciples’ (AD 37-100). Josephus uses aoratos to depict things that ‘are not seen’ more than things that strictly ‘cannot be seen’. At least five of his seven uses mean this. He describes the off-limits interior of the Jewish temple, a city concealed in the mountains, a cave at the bottom of a well, and the deep valleys around the fortress mesa of Masada. Only once does he describe something intrinsically invisible, the human soul, which ‘remains invisible to human eyes, just as God himself’. This application, including mention of God, is important. But the other uses show that aoratos confirms only that something is unseen; it does not explain why the object cannot be viewed (Respectively, Josephus, Jewish War 1.7.6 §152 [Antiquities 14.4.4 §71]; 3.7.7 §160; 3.8.1. §341; 7.8.3 §280; 7.8.7 §346).

This same sense is attested by another contemporary author, Plutarch (AD 46-120). Souls and divine forces are ‘invisible’, especially when he echoes forebears such as Plato and Aristotle. Yet Plutarch also uses the word for tangible items hidden from view. He writes of captive women who have been cloistered from men, ‘incommunicado and invisible to others’. He describes war catapults and signal fires strategically stationed to be ‘invisible to the enemies’ (Respectively, Plutarch, Alexander 21.3; Marcellus 15.5; Romulus 29.5). The Greek word aoratos has the broader sense, and the English translation ‘invisible’ may be too narrow or misunderstood.

Scholars who delve into the origins and applications of the word confirm this broader sense. One wide-ranging study of theophanies summarizes it this way: ‘In Classical Greek invisibility is normally affected [sic] by materially obstructing visibility’; it is not at all a statement about (in)tangibility. A standard Greek dictionary like-wise promulgates this breadth of meaning: ‘unseen, not to be seen, invisible’ (Respectively, W. Wesley Williams, ‘Tajallī wa-Ru’ya: A Study of Anthropomorphic Theophany and Visio Dei in the Hebrew Bible, the Qur’ān and Early Sunnī Islam’ [PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2008], p. 30-34 [quote on p. 31]; Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon [Oxford: Clarendon, 1889], p. 86).

This is further affirmed by similar negated adjectives in the New Testament. Preaching in Athens, Paul mentions an altar dedicated ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD’ (Acts 17:23). Paul means ‘a god not currently known’ rather than one forever knowable. Jesus fences with the Pharisees about people eating with ‘unwashed hands’ (Matt. 15:20). He obviously means hands that ‘have not been washed’ rather than those that ‘cannot be washed’ (cf. Mark 7:2, esp. NRSV). The general consensus, backed by Paul’s own explanation, is that the ‘inexpressible words’ he heard in a heavenly vision are not cleared for publication (2 Cor. 12:4, esp. NRSV, ESV); it’s less likely he is describing concepts for which there is no adequate language. A similar phrase occurs elsewhere as Paul describes the Spirit’s interceding through ‘unspoken groanings’ (Rom. 8:26 HCSB); though less consensus exists here, most scholars again affirm that the Spirit could (but does not) articulate his intercessions.

In short, there’s every basis to take such negated adjectives as describing something that, for whatever reason, does not happen. There is no claim being made as to whether it could happen or not. This means it’s far wiser to translate aoratos as something that is currently ‘unseen’, not something that is permanently ‘invisible’. (Andrew Malone, Knowing Jesus in the Old Testament? A Fresh Look at Christophanies [Nottingham: Inter-Varsity Press, 2015], 47-50)

In other words, as LDS apologists have been arguing for a long time, αορατος is not about the ontological nature of God; instead, it just means God is “unseen” in the sense we cannot see him, not that it is impossible to see him as he has no “form” or is, ontologically, invisible.


Finally, we read the following abuse of Deut 6:4:

 

The Giver of eternal life can only be the one who has power over life and death, who made life in the first place: God. Scripture teaches that there is only One True God (Deut 6:4). (p. 14)

 

No, the Shema is not strictly monotheistic. This is refuted by the earliest strata of the text of Deuteronomy (32:7-9, 43 [see below]); further, according to biblical scholars such as Michael Coogan, this commandment, and the Shema implicitly recognises the ontological existence of other gods (cf. Gen 20:13). As in a marriage, one of the primary analogs for the covenant, Israel was to be faithful, like a wife to her husband. When the prophets condemn the Israelites for having worshiped other gods in violation of this commandment, the metaphors of marital and political fidelity are often invoked, sometimes graphically (e.g., Ezek 16:23-24; 23:2-12; Jer 2:23-25; 3:1-10). Yahweh is a jealous husband (e.g., Exo 34:14) and the worship of other gods, or making alliances with foreign powers, provokes his rage (Michael D. Coogan, The Old Testament: A historical and literary introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures [New York: Oxford University Press, 2006], 176, 116).

 

Note the following representative quotations on Deut 6:4 that support this reading:

 

The Decalogue’s wording does not deny the existence of “other gods”; it merely directs Israelites to have no relationship with them. The Shema’s language is obscure: What does it mean to say that “the LORD is one”? According to some modern scholars, this line merely asserts that the God of Israel does not subdivide into local manifestations in the way many ancient Near Eastern deities did. In Mesopotamia there was a goddess Ishtar of Nineveh, an Ishtar of Arbela, and an Ishtar of Carchemish; in Canaan, there were dozens of local Baal-Hadads; but, the Shema tells us, the LORD, the God of Israel, exists only in a single manifestation. Even if one rejects this interpretation of Deuteronomy 6:4, understanding it instead to mean “The LORD is our God, the LORD alone,” this verse may teach not that no other gods exist, but that they are not Israel’s deity. Further, in the Hebrew original the Shema, like the Decalogue, speaks not of “the LORD” but of “Yhwh,” which is the personal name of the God of Israel. The use of a name to refer to this deity suggests that there may be other deities out there; names are necessary when we talk about a particular member of a larger class. In allowing for the possibility that additional heavenly beings exist, these two verses are not alone. The Hebrew Bible often refers to heavenly creatures other than Yhwh, calling them “gods” (Genesis 6:2; Psalms 29:1, 82:6, 86:8, 89:7; Job 1:6), “angels” (Numbers 20:16; 2 Samuel 24:16; 1 Kings 13:18; Zechariah 1:11-12; Psalm 78:49; Job 33:23), and “the council of holy ones” (Psalm 89:6-8). (Benjamin D. Dommer, “Monotheism,” in The Hebrew Bible: A Critical Companion, ed. John Barton [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016], 239-40)

 

Deut 6:4 is one of the most extensively discussed lines of the Hebrew Bible. While most interpreters agree that the first line of the Shema’ Israel is not monotheistic statement, the meaning of the word אחד in Deut 6:4 remains controversial. In our opinion, Deut 6:4 should be translated as “Hear, O Israel The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.” J. Tigay describes the henotheistic intent of אחד as follows: “this is not a declaration of monotheism . . . though other peoples worship various beings and things they consider divine . . . Israel is to recognize YHVH alone” (Deuteronomy [The JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphian and Jerusalem: Jewish Publication Society, 1996], 76). While early inscriptions from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud could suggest that Deut 6:4 argued originally against multiple local version of YHWH such as יהוה תימן (“YHWH of Teman”) and יהוה שמרן (“YHWH of Samaria), it needs to be emphasized that these local forms of YHWH are attested only in relatively few early inscriptions. It seems more probable that Deut 6:4 argues in a positive way against Israelite polytheism, which is criticized by many Deuteronomistic texts. Deut 6:4 would thus be a monolatric statement that emphasizes Israel’s exclusive relationship with God while not denying the existence of other deities. (Esther Eshel, Hanan Eshel, and Armin Lange, "'Hear, O Israel' in Gold An Ancient Amulet from Halbturn in Austria," Journal of Ancient Judaism 1 [2010]: 44-45)

 

. . . in its Deuteronomic context, Deut 6:4 is not a monotheistic statement that denies the existence of other gods. Rather, it is an acknowledgment that although there may be rival claimants for Israel’s allegiance, YHWH is the King of Israel, unique, incomparable, the one and only. Although the word אחד is never again predicated of YHWH in Deuteronomy, this interpretation fits the context of the imminent crossing of the Jordan: the question at that moment is not how many gods exists but whether or not the people will remain loyal to YHWH or be seduced by the gods of the Land they are about to enter. This was also the question posed by the Deuteronomic author in the latter Israelites in exile. (Lori Ann Robinson Baron, "The Shema in John's Gospel Against its Backgrounds in Second Temple Judaism," PhD diss., Duke University, 2015, 38-39)

 

While Deut 6:4-9 was a text that affirmed loyalty to YHWH only, Jewish belief in God’s uniqueness was also able to accommodate belief in intermediary beings. (Ibid., 123)

 

In 1 Kings 8:22-53, a prayer in dedication of the Temple, Solomon reiterates some of the themes of Shema: “YHWH, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and steadfast love for your servants who walk before you with all their heart” (1 Kings 8:23/2 Chron 6:14; emphasis added; cf. 1 Kings 8:60; Deut 4:39; 5:10; 33:29). According to this speech, the Exile is the result of Israel’s sin (1 Ki 8:46; cf. 44-53), but YHWH will have mercy upon Israel “if they repent with all their heart and soul” (ובכל-נפשׁם בכל-לבבם; 8:48/2 Chron 6:38; emphasis added). This language recalls the demand for wholehearted loyalty of the Shema and summarizes the renewal of the covenant, which is at the core of Deuteronomy. Moreover, Solomon prays that the Temple will be a witness to the nations: “so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel” (1 Kings 8:43; cf. Deut 6:4-8). This theme will be central to the use of the Shema in Ezekiel’s oracles of restoration and in John 17.

 

In Solomon’s blessing of the assembly (8:54-66), he proclaims the essence of the Shema again: “YHWH is God: there is no other” (8:60) and pleads with the people to incline their hearts to YHWH and keep YHWH’s commandments (8:58, 61; cf. 11:2). The language of the heart and love is also evoked in the recounting of Solomon’s errors; his marriage to foreign wives “turned away his heart after other gods; and his heart was not true to YHWH his God” (11:4). Instead, “Solomon clung to these in love” (11:2) and “did not completely follow YHWH” (11:6). Thus in 1 Kings, the themes of Deut 6:4-5 reflect the language of the Deuteronomic covenant. An analysis of two verses of 2 Kings corroborates the influence of Deut 6:4-5 on this material.

 

2 Kings 23 describes Josiah’s reading of the book of the Law that had been found in the Temple, followed by his reform of the Judean religion. The essence of this reform is Josiah’s commitment to the covenant: “to follow YHWH, keeping his commandments, his decrees, and his statutes, with all his heart and soul” (2 Kings 23:3/2 Chron 34:32; emphasis added). The language of oneness is absent, but the passage goes on to describe Josiah’s thoroughgoing destruction of idols in the Land, implying that the uniqueness of YHWH is of utmost concern. The curses of Deuteronomy will be incurred by abandoning YHWH and worshiping other gods (2 Kings 22:16-17; 23:19). The writer eulogizes Josiah, declaring that “[b]efore him there was no king like him, who turned to YHWH with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to the law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him” (בכל־לבבו ובכל־נפשׁו ובכל־מאדו; 23:25). This is the only threefold repetition of the terms of Deut 6:5 outside of that passage, suggesting Josiah’s singular loyalty to YHWH and the covenant. This passage also makes explicit the connection between wholehearted commitment to YHWH and adherence to the Law of Moses. Finally, this encomium of Josiah’s contains an implicit critique of the rest of Israel’s kings; Deut 6:4-5 is used as a standard by which both Israel and its kings are judged. Here, the reader is warned not to hold out any hope that future kings will live up to the same standard. (Ibid., 62-65)

 

Many modern readers regard the Shema as an assertion of monotheism, a view that is anachronistic. In the context of ancient Israelite religion, it served as a public proclamation of exclusive loyalty to YHWH as the sole Lord of Israel . . . the v. makes not a quantitative argument (about the number of deities) but a qualitative one, about the nature of the relationship between God and Israel. Almost certainly, the original force of the v., as the medieval Jewish exegetes [noted], was to demand that Israel show exclusive loyalty to our God, YHWH--but not thereby to deny the existence of other gods. In this way, it assumes the same perspective as the first commandment of the Decalogue, which, by prohibiting the worship of other gods, presupposes their existence. (The Jewish Study Bible [2d ed.; New York: Oxford University Press, 2014], 361)

 

 Here is something that Morganti will not tell you (or seems unaware of), and that is the text of Deut 32:7-9, 43, from Qumran, shows that the earliest text of Deuteronomy is not strictly monotheistic. This can be seen in modern translations of the Bible, such as the NRSV renders that renders Deut 32:8 as "When the Most High apportioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the numbers of the gods"

 

The Hebrew in the DSS reads בני אלוהים instead of MT  בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל (sons of Israel) (cf. LXX: ἀγγέλων θεοῦ angels of God). V. 43 (NRSV) reads "Praise, O heavens, his people, worship him, all you gods! . . ." DSS reads כל אלהים and assumes the ontological existence of these "G/gods" in both passages (excised by later scribes).

 

The following is representative of the scholarship on this particular issue:

 

The Hebrew of the Masoretic text of Deut 32:8-9, which is paralleled by the Samarian Pentateuch, Targum, Peshitta, and Latin Vulgate, reads as follows:

 

When the Most High (El Elyon) gave the nations their inheritance and divided the sons of man, he established the boundaries of the nations, according to the number of the sons of Israel. For the portion of YHWH is his people, Jacob his inheritance. (MT Deut 32:8-9)

 

Manuscripts of the Greek translation of Deuteronomy, by contrast, are almost unanimous in reading “angels of God” in place of “sons of Israel.” This variant seemed puzzling until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls yielded Hebrew copies of Deuteronomy preserving yet another reading. The versions of Deut 32:8b in 4QDeutj and 4QDeutq read bene elohim or bene El for bene Israel, raising the possibility that “sons of God” was the earliest recoverable reading, which Hebrew tradents later changed to bene Israel and which Greek tradents rendered as angeloi theou (“angels of God”), whether in the course of translation or in an inner-Greek shift akin to that in LXX Gen 6:2.

 

What is most plausibly reconstructed as the oldest known reading of Deut 32:8 also finds some counterpart in the version of Deut 32:43 preserved in 4QDeutq—also with partial parallels in LXX Deuteronomy. Where MT Deuteronomy reads “Nations, acclaim his people, for he vindicates the blood of his servants” for the first part of the verse (32:43a), 4QDeutq has “Rejoice, O heavens, with him, and worship him, all elohim, for he vindicates the blood of his sons.” In the Greek, one finds a combination of the two. In the part corresponding to the above-quoted portions of 4QDeutq, moreover, there is an internal variation again around what is rendered here as elohim: Codex Alexandrinus and several miniscules read “all sons of God” (cf. “sons of God” in Codex Vaticanus), while a number of other manuscripts have “all angels” instead.

 

The evidence surrounding Deut 32:43, then, cautions us against assuming that the “sons of God” of Deut 32:8 were already more angel than deity. It is possible that both may have meant something more akin to what later tradents seem to fear—or at least encompassed this possible meaning in a deployment of deliberate ambiguity akin to the examples noted above. In the case of Deut 32:43, the version of 4QDeutq elevates Israel’s God by depicting Him as the one who is worshipped by other divine beings, while in the case of Deut 32:8, the appeal to other divine beings functions to underline YHWH’s exclusive fidelity to Israel. Although the tradition that culminates in the MT negates both options entirely, they were clearly still part of the textual tradition surrounding Deuteronomy well into the Second Temple period. (Annette Yoshiko Reed, i [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020], 75-76)

 

A former lecturer of mine (who helped produce the BHQ on Deuteronomy) wrote:

 

Deuteronomy 32:8

 

The Song of Moses in Deut. 32:8 contains a scribal intervention, the aim of which was to render this poetic description of Israel’s coming into being as the Lord’s special people in a more theologically acceptable way. The verse speaks of the Most High organizing the division of peoples within their various territories, fixing their boundaries “according to the number of the sons of Israel” (= M). A different form of v. 8b, “according to the number of the sons of God,” occurs in Qumran (4QDeutj). This is also the reading of a section of the Greek tradition: “sons of God.” M’s reading, “sons of Israel,” is generally accepted as a later theological correction, a textual intervention aimed at avoiding any possible hint of polytheism or suggestion that the Lord was simply one of the lesser gods in a pantheon presided over by “the Most High.” Only JPS follows M—“He fixed the boundaries of peoples in relation to Israel’s numbers”—without further comment. By contrast, the remaining three modern translations adopt the reading of 4QDeutj and G, in varying formulations. NRSV renders it as “the number of the gods,” REB has “the number of the sons of God,” and NABRE reads “the number of the divine beings.” All three include a footnote explaining the origin of their preferred reading. (Carmel McCarthy, “Textual Criticism and Biblical Translation,” in The Hebrew Bible: A Critical Companion, ed. John Barton [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016], 551-52)

 

Conclusion

 

It should be obvious that the author is clueless about exegesis, theology, and “Mormonism.” I think this review of the multitudinous problems with this one chapter shows that Evangelical Protestants remain blissfully unaware of LDS scholarship and apologetics, as well as biblical scholarship, that soundly refutes their claims. This book is not a tool to have informed discussions with Latter-day Saints; instead, it is just “boundary maintenance” aimed to dupe misinformed Protestants.

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