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Study Questions

JESUS CLAIMED TO BE
YEHOVAH OUR CREATOR

Jesus makes an astounding statement in John 5:46-47, He states, "For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote of Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?" In this passage Jesus affirms several things: 1) that Moses is the author of the first five books of the Bible: the Torah; 2) That the Creator Moses was writing about in Genesis Chapters 1-3 was Jesus Christ; 3) that if we do not believe and take literally what Moses wrote about Creation in six literal 24 hour days and the order given, the universal flood and everything else Moses wrote about, that we will not believe anything Jesus said either. In making this statement Jesus made it plain that taking the Genesis account of Creation literally is not an option if we are to have saving faith in Him as well.

In this passage Jesus made plain that He is Yehovah-Elohim the Creator of all that is. He also said that if You do not take what Moses wrote about Him and Creation literally You will not take anything He said literally either. This is in fact what has taken place in this century: we deny Moses’ authorship of the Torah and as a result we deny who Jesus claimed to be as well: His being God the Creator in the flesh.

Different religions teach different things about Jesus. Some religions teach that Jesus was only a man, Mormonism teaches that He was a man who evolved to godhood. Jehovah Witnesses deny both Jesus Divinity and humanity, they say He was Michael the archangel. The Church Fathers, however, taught that Jesus was fully God from eternity past who in time took on a full human nature.

The Old Testament prophesied that the Messiah would be Yehovah God in the flesh. This belief started with Eve after the fall. God told Satan concerning the Messiah in Genesis 3:15 "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel." God prophesied to the serpent that the seed of the woman would bring him down. The seed always comes from the man but God tells the serpent that he will be brought down by the seed of the woman, thus indicating that the Messiah would be born of a virgin. Eve believed this seed would be Yehovah God Himself becoming flesh. Genesis 4:1 tells us about Adam and Eve’s belief about their firstborn: "And the man knew Eve his wife; and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, I have gotten a man: Yehovah." However, this was not the seed of Eve, but Adam’s seed and Cain being anything but God in the flesh was man’s first murderer of man.

The prophets understood that the Messiah would be Yehovah God from eternity past who would in time add the human nature to His divine nature as well. The prophets Isaiah and Micah prophesied concerning the Messiah:

"Therefore Yehovah Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin¹⁶⁷ will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel¹⁵⁹." (Isaiah 7:14)

"For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty-God,¹³⁴ Father-of-Eternity,¹⁵² Prince-of-Peace." (Isaiah 9:6)

"But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity." (Micah 5:2).

Isaiah tells us that the Messiah will be conceived of through a virgin and that His name will be called Immanuel.¹⁵⁹ Immanuel is a compound word lae WnM;[i:  WnM;[i meaning With-us, and lae El,¹¹⁷ God, short for !yhiloa> Elohim⁷⁴ the primary Hebrew word for the general term "God." The angel, in talking with Joseph in Matthew 1:21-23 tells us that the virgin Isaiah prophesied about was Mary who became with child by the Holy Spirit and that He would be Yehovah God of the Old Testament in the flesh who would save His people from their sins. For this reason the baby was to be named Jesus, Hebrew Yeshua,¹⁶⁰ which means Yehovah is Savior because Jesus would save His people from their sins. The angel then went on to tell Joseph that because He was Yehovah God in the flesh saving us from our sins that He would be called Immanuel.

Some cults, which deny the deity of Jesus, try to say that Immanuel was just a title, a name like Jeremiah¹⁶³ meaning Whom-Yehovah-has-appointed. However, Jesus was never called by the title Immanuel because the term was not a title given to Jesus, but a description of who He was: God with us. These same cults also try to say that His name ['Wvwhoy, Yeshua, also was not describing who He was but a title describing that God, Yehovah, would save His people through the man Jesus. Paul, however in Colossians 1:9 makes plain to us that Jesus was God in the flesh saving us from our sins. He wrote, "For in Him all the fulness of Deity dwells in bodily form." Note Paul did not say that Jesus was a man in whom God fully dwelt, but that Jesus is completely (the fulness) God in bodily form. Jesus the man is God in bodily form.

The Angel-of-Yehovah¹⁶¹ is appearances of God on the earth in the form of man known as Theophanies. God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden, but after the fall they only heard His voice (Gen 3:8) as Cain did (4:6). Yehovah appeared to Abraham by the oak of Mamre (Gen 18). Jacob saw Him in a dream (Gen 28:10-17). God usually appeared to men in dreams except with Abraham. In Genesis 18 Abraham bowed and worshiped the Angel-of-Yehovah addressing him as "Yehovah". This Angel-of-Yehovah said to Abraham that He was yD;v'-la,¹⁶⁸ El-Shaddai, God-Almighty (Genesis 17:1); thus we read in Genesis 18:17, "Yehovah said, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?" It is to this angel, Yehovah, that Abraham intercedes to for Sodom. Thus we read in Genesis 19:24, "Then Yehovah rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Yehovah out of heaven." Here we have a clear distinction made between the visible Yehovah on earth and the invisible Yehovah in heaven. Who then is the Angel-of-Yehovah? The Apostle John wrote in John 1:18 concerning Jesus, "No one has seen God at any time; the only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, that one has revealed Him." John tells us that no one has ever seen God the Father, but that the only begotten God, the Son of God, has revealed Him. Therefore, whenever the Angel-of-Yehovah appeared in the Old Testament and was referred to as Yehovah, it was Jesus manifested physically.

Exodus 3:2 tells us that the Angel-of-Yehovah appeared to Moses in the burning bush, yet when Moses turned to look at this phenomena Exodus records the following:

"When Yehovah saw that he turned aside to look, Elohim called to him from the midst of the bush, and said, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ Then He said, ‘Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.’ He said also, ‘I am the Elohim-of-your-father-the-Elohim-of-Abraham-the-Elohim-of-Isaac-and-the-Elohim-of-Jacob.’ Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at Elohim." (Exodus 3:4-6)

Moses tells us that the Angel-of-Yehovah was Yehovah and spoke to him from the bush and that because it was Yehovah speaking to him that he was afraid to look at God.

Most translations of the bible today translate Yehovah: "The Lord." They do this as an overreaction to the use of God’s names by cults like Jehovah Witnesses and because of Jewish myths about speaking God's name. This, however is a mistake, because when they do this, as you can see from the passages we have studied from in the Old Testament already, we lose the true meaning of the text which clearly reveals to us that Yehovah is Jesus. God’s Word does not need help and needs to be translated as literally as possible from the original text, especially when it comes to the names of God.

The visible Yehovah was the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ making an Old Testament appearance on earth to whom the invisible Yehovah in heaven, God the Father, committed all judgment. It was the visible Yehovah who promised Abraham and Sarah a son and that through his seed, referring to a future descendent—Jesus Christ (Gal 3:16), that all the nations of the earth would be blessed.

Moses Recorded in Exodus 14:19,

"And the Angel-of-Elohim, who had been going before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them."

!yhila>h; &a'l]m' Angel-of-Elohim¹⁶² is another expression of Angel-of-Yehovah, Elohim being the term for God in Hebrew, making Elohim and Yehovah synonymous. In this passage Moses tells us that the Angel-of-God went before them to guide them and behind them to protect them. Paul tells us that this Angel-of-Yehovah was Jesus Christ:

*Word-of-Yehovah — hwhyArbd]

Zechariah 12:1 states, "The burden of the Word-of-Yehovah concerning Israel. Thus declares Yehovah who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him."  The Apostle John tells us in John 1:1

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. This One was in the beginning with God. All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. . . . And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-3, 14)

The Apostle John tells us in John 1:1 that in the beginning of eternity past was the Word and the word was with God and the Word, he tells us, was God, qeo" hn o logo". Logos (logo"), the subject of the sentence, in the Greek is the word used here translated Word. The word God, which is theos (qeo;") in Greek, is a predicate nominative. We know it is a predicate nominative because there is no article (oJ: a, the) in front of it and it follows a verb to be —was (hn). In Greek, however, the subject always has an article in front of it as Logos does (o logo"). A predicate nominative’s job is to describe the subject. In this case it tells us who the Word, Logos, is. John tells us that the Logos is God.

The Watchtower of the Jehovah Witnesses translates the word Theos in John 1:1 in their New World Translation: "a god." The obvious implication is that the Logos is not God but a lord or ruler under God. Concerning this Walter Martin in his book, The Kingdom of the Cults, explains the following:

"Contrary to the translations of the Emphatic Diaglott and the New World Translation the Greek grammatical construction leaves no doubt whatsoever that this [the Word was God] is the only possible rendering of the text. The subject of the sentence is Word (Logos), the verb, was. There can be no direct object following was since according to grammatical usage intransitive verbs take no objects but take instead predicate nominatives which refer back to the subject, in this case, Word (Logos). (Colwell’s rule clearly states that a definite predicate nominative (Theos — God) never takes an article when it precedes the verb (was) as in John 1:1). It is therefore easy to see that no article is needed for Theos (God) and to translate it ‘a god’ is both incorrect grammar and poor Greek since Theos is the predicate nominative of was in the third sentence-clause of the verse and must refer back to the subject, Word (Logos). Christ then if He is the Word ‘made flesh’ (John 1:14) can be no one else except God unless the Greek text and consequently God"s Word be denied."^85/75

Next, John tells us that the Word God did something:

"And the logos became flesh, and dwelt among us." (John 1:14).

This Logos is the Word-of-Yehovah Zechariah tells us about in Zechariah 1:1. Zechariah also tells us that the Word-of-Yehovah created the heavens and the earth which is also what John tells us the Word of God did in John 1:3. Zechariah tells us that the burden of the Word-of-Yehovah came to him and that Yehovah then said to him. . . . Zechariah calls the Word-of-Yehovah — Yehovah; thus declaring the Word-of-Yehovah — God. A study of Zechariah Chapters 12-14 will show clearly that it is the Son of God, Jesus Christ, that is being discussed here. This confirms to us that the Word of God John talks about in John 1:1 is indeed Yehovah God, the Word-of-Yehovah Zechariah talks about in the Old Testament. Jesus Christ is Yehovah God in the flesh. Any time you see the Word-of-Yehovah mentioned in the Old Testament it is referring to Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity.

John does not tells us that God put on humanity or possessed a living human being, but that God BECAME a 100% living human being Himself. The Logos that became a 100% living breathing human being was the man Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Thus in doing so the Word-of-Yehovah did not stop being God but added a human nature to His Divine nature.

God is one composed of three persons: the Father and the Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ makes up a part of the Godhead and is equal with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Neither one of them alone completes the Godhead. The three together make the one God. Dale Moody in his book, The Word of Truth states, "God is Father, Son and Spirit in eternal relations."⁹⁶ God is one essence manifested in three individual consciously aware persons. God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit all have the same attributes of God. They have all knowledge, all power and are transcendent throughout the universe. How are they then individuals? They are individuals because their response and experience of their knowledge is individual which makes their experience of each other and the universe unique. They are one in their objective knowledge, but individually unique in their subjective response to that knowledge and the universe they created. Because God the Son became flesh, His Divine nature took on a human nature and now Jesus Christ of Nazareth is both fully God and fully man while remaining one person, and will remain this way throughout eternity.

John also tells us in John 1:3, "All things came into being by Him, and apart from him nothing came into being that has come into being." The third thing John tells us about Jesus is that there is nothing that exists that was not created by Him. Jesus is the creator of all things. The Apostle Paul tells us in Colossians 1:15-16,

"And he is the image¹⁴⁶ of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created by Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together."

Paul tells us the following about Jesus in this passage:

1. First, that Jesus is the image of the invisible God.

2. Second, that Jesus is the firstborn of all creation.

3. Third, that all things were created by Jesus.

4. Fourth, that Jesus existed before anything else existed.

5. And Fifth, that all things are held together by Jesus.

Paul tells us that Jesus is the image of the invisible God.¹⁴⁶ In Colossians 2:9 he tells us that all the fullness of Deity dwells in Jesus in bodily form. When Paul tells us that Jesus is the image of God in bodily form he is not talking about what Jesus looked like but in his essence and nature. Jesus put it to the Apostle Philip in John 14:9 this way: He said, "Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how do you say, ‘Show us the Father’?" We know Jesus is not talking about his physical form because in John 4:23-24 Jesus tells us,

"But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

Jesus tells us that God the Father is Spirit, not flesh. The Apostle John clarifies this much better for us in John 1:18 when He tells us, "No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him." Here again John tells us that Jesus is God. The writer of Hebrews further clarifies this for us in Hebrews 1:3. He states,

"And He is the reflected-brightness¹⁴⁷ of His glory and the exact-image¹⁴⁸ of His essence,¹⁴⁹ and upholds all things by the word of His power."

H.D. McDonald writes concerning this passage in his book, Jesus Human and Divine:

"The word translated ‘express image’ (AV) is character; from which we derive our English word ‘character’; and the word for ‘person’ is hypostaseos which has the idea of essence. Thus is the Son of God the very character of God’s essential being. . . . Jesus is God thrown on the screen of human life"^86/72

The writer of Hebrews tells us that Jesus is the reflected-brightness¹⁵² of the glory of God which means that He is the exact-image¹⁵³ of His essence.¹⁵⁴ In other words, Jesus is God in all His substance, nature and character. He is the exact image of the Father. The writer of Hebrews tells us that God the Father states about Jesus, "But of the Son He says, ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.’" (Heb 1:8)