The Second Yahweh: Why It Wasn’t Heresy Until the 2nd Century | Michael Heiser

Are we on? Okay.

Yeah. All you really need to know is I

love biblical studies and I like pugs.

So,

honestly,

I'm a I'm a big pug. We have two pugs. I

could talk about my pugs for the whole

hour.

It's kind of pathetic, I know. But uh

what I want to talk about today, as you

can see on the screen, is God as man in

the Old Testament.

And the title might throw you off

because we're used to thinking of God as

man in the New Testament with Jesus. But

believe it or not, there is this thing

called the Old Testament. It's

threequarters of your Bible. It actually

leads to the New Testament. and the

notion of a god head.

Okay, we would use a term like trinity.

I would say not I want to say you know

that it has seeds in the old testament

but I would go further. I think it's

actually deeply rooted in the old

testament and I want to go through a few

passages today to talk about that theme

and since this is an apologetics month

I'm going to frontload the payoff here.

Uh

there are lots of groups that deny a

godhead. Okay, you're familiar with some

of these. I have Judaism, of course,

Unitarians, Jehovah's Witnesses,

uh you know, oneness Pentecostals within

the Christian tradition. We could add

here.

It's important to note that

many of these groups, these are just,

you know, some representative ones,

they are not aware at all of the kinds

of things I'm going to show you today.

Even Judaism,

if I remember, I I'll tell you a couple

of stories along the way, but Judaism

used to teach that there was a Godhead.

Yes, you heard me correctly. Okay?

there. And there are a few Jews today in

scholarship that remember

remember this that are tuned into it and

again are familiar. You know, I can

pretty well pretty well count them on

one hand

that are familiar and conversing with

what I'm going to show you today. But

most Jews have no idea of their own

history here because the notion of a

godhead and for them it started out as

two two Yahweh figures. Okay? Not one

good and one evil. This is not dualism.

But two that were Yahweh. They were the

same but yet different.

This used to be known as the two powers

in heaven teaching. And it was part of

Jewish theology until the 2 century AD.

Then it was declared a heresy.

Probably not coincidentally because that

coincides with the rise of the early

church with Christologology.

But all these groups are going to sort

of base their denials on certain

assumptions that things in the New

Testament just sort of come out of

nowhere

and that is not the case. So that's one

thing we want to talk about.

There are others who say that the New

Testament doctrine is contrived

completely. And how many times have you

This is an old Newsweek, by the way. I

apologies to Mark Maguire fans. Uh he's

in the corner of this but this is an old

one but I like it because it has when

you know how Jesus became Christ

scholarship and it has worked its way

into the popular discourse okay on the

internet different TV specials they like

to talk about the Jesus of history and

the Christ of faith like they're two

different guys and for them they are

because their position is that all of

this notion of christologology that

Jesus being God that was invented by the

Christian church centuries after

the New Testament period, centuries

after the New Testament was written.

Again, you you have somebody like

Bartman, okay, who's a very famous New

Testament, you know, scholar

will

say things like this. This is mainstream

scholarship to to to create this

dichotomy. But if you can see in the Old

Testament where the idea of a godhead

lives, you will realize that this notion

that this idea was invented centuries

later is just ridiculous.

It is something that runs contrary to

the data that we have. So that's the

angle for today. I as far as the

apologetic payoff. You need to be aware

that your belief in a trinity and

specifically the idea of of you know

Christ being God and and and yet God

being God, the father and the son, this

is not a new thing. It wasn't invented

in the New Testament and it wasn't

invented later. It has deep roots in the

Old Testament. So let's start off with

Deuteronomy 6:4. We all know this verse

even if we're not Jewish. Here, O

Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is

want. This is the creedle statement of

Judaism. Basically, nothing is more

important to Jewish thought than this

verse.

However,

you had a Jew write this and you had

many Jews believe it. In the beginning

was the word. The word was with God and

the word was God.

Okay, very familiar verse.

You go down in that same chapter, the

word became flesh and dwelt among us.

You keep reading and you hit John 1:18.

Let's go back. No one has ever seen God.

Not just look at the wording of this. No

one has ever seen God. The only God who

is at the father's side. Well, wait a

minute. How can the only God be at the

father's side? Isn't the only God the

father?

Okay. Again, John is a Jew. He's writing

this.

The only God who's at the father's side,

he has made him. He's the one who makes

the father known.

How in the world,

here's the question. How is it that a

first century Jew

so committed to monotheism, again the

shama, the Lord our God is one, they're

so committed to this idea that they are

willing to be put to death rather than

offer sacrifice

to the emperor who claimed to be a god

or some other god. I mean they they're

serious about this. They are serious

about Deuteronomy 6, the Lord our God is

one. But at the same time,

multitudes of Jews

can worship Jesus

while worshiping the father. Like, how

how does that work? Why was that not

conceived of as a violation

of Deuteronomy 6? That's what we're

going to talk about.

Now, I mentioned that this used to be

Jewish theology.

If you have a Jewish friend and you get

into into conversations about what we're

going to talk about today,

if they are serious people and actually

want to learn about their own heritage,

I recommend this book. It was written in

1977. Allan Seagull. Seagull passed away

a few years ago.

The two powers in heaven. He was a Jew.

Didn't convert to Christianity. He was a

Jew. Taught rabbitics at Brandeise

University for many years.

knows the rabbitic material really,

really well. Writes this book and

basically he has one question.

He knew the rabbitic material so well

that he knew that in ancient times this

idea of a godhead was part of their

theology. And so what he wanted to know

is when did we lose that?

When did that go away? Why don't we say

this now?

And this again was the book that grew

out of that question. And he was very,

you know, very capably determined the

idea of a co-year, a second Yahweh

figure in the Old Testament

was not considered heretical until the 2

century CE, the common era AD. This is a

Jew saying that. I could show you other

books. Benjamin Summer, The Bodies of

God. He's a Jewish biblical scholar,

teaches at Jewish theological seminary,

like he's a Jew, okay? And he'll say

things in that book like the idea of a

trinity, a Christian trinity is

completely compatible with the Hebrew

Bible.

Just not even batting an eye.

Where do they get this? Here's Genesis

19:24. Take a good look at it. The

translation is from the Tanakh Holy

Scriptures, the English translation of

the Hebrew Bible put out by the Jewish

Publication Society. So, I'm not

cheating with an evangelical translation

like there is one.

Take a good look at the verse. What's

odd about it?

Just look at it and read it to yourself.

Maybe this will help.

How can you have Yahweh

raining upon Sodom and Gomorrah?

Sulurous fire from Yahweh.

It just sounds weird.

It sounds like there's two. Like one is

kind of referred to in the third person.

Like what? It's just odd.

There are number of passages like this

where God

is brought up in a passage and then

referred to again in the third person to

distinguish that one from the other one.

I'm going to try I'm going to take you

through some some simpler passages

though in the Old Testament to show

where this idea was from. And again, for

our purposes, the next time you hear

somebody say that an idea like the deity

of Christ that's so central to our faith

was invented by the church in some grand

conspiracy or whatever, you're going to

know that that they're just

they're undertaught. [laughter]

Okay? They're just undertaught. They're

underexposed to the data. So here's

Exodus 3. A lot of these passages are

going to be really familiar.

Moses tending the flock of his

father-in-law Jethro the priest of

Midian drove the flock into the

wilderness comes to Horeb the mountain

of God

an angel of Yahweh appeared to him in a

blazing fire out of a bush so who's in

the bush burning bush you know Charlton

H okay just like you know put get him in

your head again who's in the bush

an angel the angel of the Lord is in the

bush but when Yahweh He saw that he had

turned aside to look. God called to him

out of the bush.

Who's in the bush? Is it the angel or

God? The answer is yeah,

there's two. There's two in the there's

there's a joke in there about birds and

bushes, but I'm not going to go there.

Exodus 23, I'm sending an angel before

you to guard you on the way and to bring

you to the place that I have made ready.

Pay heed to him and obey him. Do not

defy him, for he will not pardon your

offenses.

Okay, which is odd because like only God

can pardon offenses. But now here we

have this angel doing it. But this

angel, God tells Moses, "Look, on your

way to the promised land, I'm going to

send this angel ahead of you and you

better listen to him because my name is

in him."

Now, that is a a phrase that doesn't

really mean much to us,

but it meant a lot to a Jew and to

someone who is very familiar with the

the Hebrew Bible. Now, when I was in

grad school,

I went to the University of Wisconsin

for my PhD, and we had uh not everybody

on the faculty was a Jew, but we we had,

you know, certain Jewish professors, and

one of them was sort of serious about

the divine name. So we we got into class

the first day and he says, "Now look,

when we're reading text in class,

I don't want to hear the divine name. I

don't want to hear you pronounce it."

You have two choices when you come to

the divine name in class. One is you can

say Adonai, which means Lord. And the

other one you can say is Hashem,

which means the name

The name even among Jews today, that

phrase the name is a way of referring to

God himself.

And it is in the Hebrew Bible too.

Deuteronomy 12, do not worship the Lord

your God in like manner. Again, Moses

instructing the Israelites, don't do

things like you know the pagans did or

the way we used to.

look only to the site that the Lord your

God will choose amidst your tribes as

his habitation to establish his name

there. Now, we know that, you know,

Deuteronomy again, we're we're heading

out of, you know, it's the second law

and all that. We're heading out of, you

know, this part of Israel's history.

They're going to go to the promised

land. And eventually in the promised

land, the plan is to have a temple,

okay? A place where we worship God. And

so this is going to be the place where

God establishes his name. So when you

when you go to worship there, you're to

go, you must bring everything I command

you to the site where the Lord your God

will choose to establish his name. Now,

does that mean that when we build the

temple, God's going to like show up with

a crayon or something and write YHW

on the building or on the door? Well,

I've established my name there. I just

wrote it. No, it has nothing to do with

the pictorial depiction of the divine

name.

Establishing my name there means

I am going to choose to dwell there.

Okay, it it's the place that's my house

that I own it. Psalm 20 verse1, look at

the parallelism. May the Lord answer you

in the day of trouble. May the name of

the God of Jacob protect you.

Okay, I can guarantee that when it when

you have a bunch of Israelite soldiers

and there they are arrayed for battle

and here come the Philistines or whoever

the the the enemy of the month is. Okay,

they're not going to stand there and

start shouting the name

or shouting four consonants. They're not

going to be thinking, I hope the four

consonants like did I remember to write

them on my uniform here?

They're not hoping to be protected by

four consonants.

They're hoping to be protected by God.

And so the name is a way to refer to God

himself.

The Lord answer you. May the name of the

of the God of Jacob protect you. Some

trust in chariots and some in horses,

but we trust in the name of the Lord our

God. Again, it doesn't mean that we

trust in four consonants

or something we can verbalize. We trust

in God. So, Hashem, this is where Jews

today get the idea of referring to God

himself with Hashem, the name. It means

the same thing as God.

Here we have the name depicted as a

person. Behold, the name of the Lord

comes from afar in blazing wrath with a

heavy burden, his lips full of fury, his

tongue like devouring fire. So, the name

is personified here. This is a depiction

of the deity of of God himself.

If you could take all that and go back

to Exodus 23, why is this angel special?

God says, listen to this one. He won't

pardon your transgressions, your

offenses,

because my name is in him. What God is

telling Moses is that, you know, this

angel I'm going to send ahead of you,

you're going to see him, you know, like

a lot.

That's me.

I am in that angel. That is me in

visible form.

Deuteronomy 4:35-37.

Before I get into this

verse, if I asked you the question, who

was it that delivered the Israelites

from Egypt and brought them into the

promised land? You'd all say, well, God

did that, the God of Israel. You're

right. But if you actually looked it up

in a concordance, what you're going to

find is some passages say God did it.

Some passages say the divine name did

it. Some passages say the presence of

the Lord did it. Brought them out of

Egypt with his own presence. And other

passages will say this. The angel of

Yahweh came up from Gilgal to Bohem and

said, "I brought you up from Egypt and

took you into the land which I

promised." Wait a minute.

I thought God did that.

I thought God brought them up from Egypt

and brought them to the land. But here

it's the angel.

So who brought the Israelites out of

Egypt

and into the promised land? Was it God,

Elohim, Yahweh, divine name, the

presence, or the angel? The answer is

yep.

There are four ways of referring to the

same thing.

Genesis 31, this is the Jacob and Laban

story.

You know, it's got this weird sheep

mating kind of thing. Like, what's going

on there? In the breeding season of the

flock, you know, Jacob's having a

problem with Laban and they're competing

and Jacob's getting more births, you

know, than than Laban is. And we get

this little explanation. And so I I I

saw in a dream that the goats that mated

with the flock were stripes, spotted and

modeled. Then the angel of God said to

me in the dream, Jacob, and I said,

"Here I am." He said, "Lift up your eyes

and see all the goats that mate with a

flock or stripes spotted and modeled.

For I have seen all that Laban is doing

to you. I am the God of Bethl."

The angel says, "I am the God of Bethl."

What's Bethl?

Remember Jacob's story when he runs away

from home? Bethl is the first place he

encounters Yahweh

and he builds an altar there.

This angel saying, "I am Yahweh.

I am the God of Bethl.

This is my favorite passage.

This is one what? The last time I had a

Jehovah's Witness come to my door.

Look, I know what you're I know what

you're thinking. It's time to beat up on

the Jehovah's W. No, just just trust me.

It it there's no payoff to that. You

should be kind and and try to have a

conversation, a real conversation with

them. But I was in a hurry. And so,

and so I thought, okay, I'm gonna give

you something that's not on the script

because they follow a script. I mean,

honestly, they do. This is how they're

they're trained and discipled. So, I I

said to them, "Now, you want me to

believe that that Jesus isn't God, that

Jesus is a created being, kind of like

the top angel or something, right? You

know, like a lesser being?" Yeah. Are

you sure that Jehovah is not an angel?

Oh, no. No. I mean, he can't be an

angel. You know, uncreated and all this.

It's Jehovah. Are you sure? Yeah. Are

you po I mean, I did this like four

times.

Probably thinking I'm trying to irritate

them. I just wanted to know because I I

want to show you something in the Torah.

And we're not going to worry about the

New Testament here. This is Jacob

blessing Joseph's children, which we all

know the story, the cross, hands, and

you know, the confusion. We teach this

in Sunday school, but we never actually

teach anybody what he says. You know, we

just sort of teach the scene. Israel,

Jacob stretched out his right hand and

laid it on Ephraim's head, though he was

the younger, and his left hand on

Manass's head, thus crossing his hands,

although Manasseh was the firstborn. And

he blessed Joseph again through his sons

saying now catch this the prayer has

three stanzas

the God and it's ha Elohim the God who

in whose ways my fathers Abraham and

Isaac walked

the God ha Elohim who has been my

shepherd from my birth to this day. What

do you expect to see in the third

stanza?

H Elohim something else.

That's not what you get.

The angel

ha malak who has redeemed me from all

harm.

May he bless these lads.

Now if you know anything about Hebrew,

you will know that this verb form is

singular. In other words, you can't

translate it. May they bless the boys.

May he?

Well, who's he? Is it Is it God or the

angel? The answer is, "Yep."

So, I said to the Jehovah's Witness,

"See that."

Got my little my inner linear out, you

know? I said, "Now either Jehovah is an

angel

or this angel just happens to be

Jehovah."

And now we can have a really interesting

conversation. Oh, it's time to leave.

I'll send somebody back to the house.

You know,

this is not on the script. I can

guarantee it. And let me say something

else, too. Some of these angel passages

in in in scholarship,

the push back I or somebody else would

would get going through these is that,

well, Mike, you have to understand that

that you know, angels were messengers.

And when a when a king like in the

ancient near east sent a messenger out,

the king gave them the authority to like

pretend they were the king. And so they

would use first person and say, "I this

and I that." But everybody knew they

weren't the king. They were just a

messenger. So you can't equate these

things. Oh, really? Oh, okay. Can you

show me where the angel speaks in this

passage?

He doesn't.

So the messenger argument flies out the

window.

What you have is you have Jacob's

assessment under inspiration

of the relationship of Elohim to Hamal.

And he says, "May he bless the boys."

There is no distinction.

perfect opportunity to use a plural verb

and make sure that your Jews, your

fellow Israelites reading their own

scriptures don't get confused.

But the scripture doesn't say that.

It uses the singular.

Here's another one. So that's the angel

in the name. Here's the word.

Now, this is a phrase we're very well

familiar with.

After these things, the word of the Lord

came to Abram in a vision. Don't be

afraid, Abram. You know, I'm your shield

and your great reward. See, we we tend

to think that the word of the Lord is a

voice inside somebody's head. And you

know, in many passages, it is, but there

are some passages like this. After these

things, the word of the Lord came to

Abram in a vision. Now, if you're taking

notes, I'm going to say something really

profound here, but I don't want you to

miss it. You ready?

Visions are things that you see.

Got it? Do I need to repeat that?

Visions are things that you see.

This is a visual experience. Okay. He

sees the word of the Lord.

First Samuel 3. We know this story, too.

You're already thinking word of the

Lord. John chapter 1.

Okay. 1st Samuel 3. This is the Samuel

story. You know, Samuel was raised, you

know, by Eli after his mother, you know,

gave him to fulfill her vow.

And it's time to go to bed and they're

trying to, you get some sleep and Samuel

hears this voice, you know, calling out

to him and he thinks it's Eli. So he

goes, "What do you want?" And Eli's

like, "It's not me." And it happens a

few times. And so, you know, Eli gets a

little a little inspiration, you know,

when it starts to repeat. But we it's

the the whole episode starts out this

way. Verse one. Now, the young man

Samuel was ministering to the Lord to

Yahweh under Eli, and the word of the

Lord was rare in those days. There was

no frequent vision.

It doesn't say words didn't pop into

people's head very often.

No, it says there was no frequent

vision.

The word of the Lord is showing up in

visible form.

Now Samuel, skip to verse 7, had not yet

experienced the Lord. The word of the

Lord had not yet been revealed to him.

Okay? And then you go on and and this

happens the third time because Eli said,

"Well, look, it's not me and it ain't

you. So like if it happens again say

speak Lord for your servant is here your

servant's listening. And so this is what

Samuel's going to do. So the third time

now look at the wording.

The Lord and again it's it's the divine

name Yahweh came and stood.

If he was invisible

you can't use words like standing.

Okay. If I if I introduced the invisible

man right here next to me,

okay, you you can't see anything. You

don't know if he's sitting, standing,

sprawling, jumping up and down.

He's not invisible.

The Lord comes the third time. He was

that that's that's who was behind the

other ones and he's standing.

And in the earlier verse, the Lord was

referred to as the word of the Lord.

It's a visual experience. You go to the

end of the chapter, Samuel grew and the

Lord Yahweh was with him and let none of

his words fall to the ground. And all of

Israel from Dan to Bees Shabbah knew

that Samuel was established as a prophet

to the Lord. And the Lord appeared.

There it is again, visual language. The

Lord appeared again at Shiloh where this

incident happened. The Lord revealed

himself to Samuel at Shiloh by or as the

word of the Lord.

Jeremiah 1. This is the call of

Jeremiah. Again, probably you're

familiar with this. It's it's a good

preaching passage.

The word of the Lord came to me saying,

right there you think, oh, he has a

voice in his head. Well, before I formed

you in the womb, I knew you. Verse six,

then I said, you know, he responds, ah,

Lord God. So he he refers to the word of

the Lord as Lord God, truly I did not

know how to speak, for I am only a boy.

But the Lord said, don't, you know,

don't tell me you're only a boy.

For you shall go to all whom I send you.

Verse nine, then the Lord, you know the

word of the Lord, Lord put out his hand

and touched my mouth.

This is not only a visual experience.

It's tactile.

Okay, this is God embodied in the form

of a man in the Old Testament.

Another one, the cloud rider. This is a

little more obscure. And this is

probably the only time here in church

you're ever going to see a passage from

the Baal cycle. [laughter]

What a treat. I'm showing you this

passage from the ba cycle to make a

specific point. When you get into this

this discussion,

especially if you're talking with a

unitarian or, you know, Jehovah's

Witness or somebody else who wants to

deny a trinity,

they'll talk about Jesus being less than

God. like a little less than God, but

he's still less than God. You know, he's

like not this and not that and God.

Okay? All right.

Hold that in your head because I'm going

to tell you something about Baal. You

see this this Baal phrase here

underlined, he's referred to as the

charioteer of the clouds in Canaanite

literature.

It's also worded as the one who rides

the clouds, the one who comes with the

clouds because Baal was a storm deity.

Baal was considered wonderful because he

made it rain.

If you're living in Canaan, you know

that's in Syria. That's important

because we like to eat.

Okay,

things have to grow. Our cattle like,

you know, they they like to eat, too.

So, you know, without rain, we're all

dead. So, Bale's just this wonderful

guy. He's the one that traverses the

heavens in his chariot and gives us

rain. Okay? No one in antiquity would

have thought Baal was less than a full

deity.

In fact, Baal is a big deal. All over

the ancient world, even into the Roman

period, nobody questions Baal's status

as full deity. Okay, here's why I

mention it.

Five times in the Old Testament, the

biblical writers will take this

description

that everybody in the area, everybody in

the Mediterranean knows is a description

of Baal, and they will assign it to the

God of Israel.

And they do that

for to do theology. They don't sell

theology books back in ancient Israel.

What they do is they take some an idea

that people are familiar with and then

they'll take it and say, 'N no, Baal

isn't the one who controls the reign.

It's Yahweh of Israel.

They'll take descriptions and epithets

and titles and strip them from Baal or

some other deity and assign them to the

God of Israel to teach them correct

theology.

So here are the here I said five times

this happens. There's none like God, O

Jeshan, who rides through the heavens.

Okay, there's the description. Psalm 68.

Oh kingdoms of the earth, sing to God.

Sing praises to the Lord. Silah to him

who rides in the heavens. Again, that's

Yahweh. It's not Baal. It's Yahweh.

Okay. Psalm 104. Bless the Lord, oh my

soul. Oh Lord, Yahweh, my God, you are

very great. Down at the end of the line

here, he makes the clouds his chariot.

Baal doesn't do that. Baal's just a

flunky. Okay.

Psalm 19, an oracle concerning Egypt.

Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift

cloud and comes to Egypt

four times. There's one left

and we're going to skip that for a few

minutes. Just want you to know there's

one left and it's important.

So God does appear in human form in the

Old Testament. And this Yahweh figure is

referred to as the angel, the word, the

name, the one who came or you know rode

upon the clouds. And he's

anthropomorphized

in several scenes.

The invisible Yahweh is not diminished

in these scenes. Now, what what I want

to get what I want to get into your mind

is when a Jew read these passages,

let's go back to Exodus 3. There's two

in the bush.

There's the angel and there's God.

So, they know from the Torah, a lot of

these passages were from the Torah, that

this angel is God. But yet, when we read

back in Exodus 3, which is a really

important event, the burning bush,

both the angel, the the Yahweh angel guy

is in the bush and God's in the bush.

All right. Now, how do we how do we deal

with that? So, the the idea, the

approach they took was that there are

two Yahwehs.

One is invisible and transcendent.

The other one is visible and comes to

humans as a man to communicate with

them. Now God can come in other forms.

Pillar of fire, cloud, whatnot. But most

of the time he actually shows up as this

the angel or the word anthropomorphized.

Okay, the name

in human form.

So Jews had no problem teaching the idea

that there were two Yahwehs. They were

they were the same, but yet they were

different. This is how we talk about

Jesus, is it not? Well, Jesus is God,

but he's not the father. But that

doesn't mean he isn't God. He is God,

but he's not the you have to, you know,

go through this and try to understand,

you know, how how you're going to

articulate this because you have two

distinct persons. Jesus, God the Father,

but they're both God.

This Old Testament stuff

gives them the conceptual framework as

Jews to understand the whole Christian

thing going on about Jesus. Now, they

have to choose whether they're going to

believe it or not because of course the

problem is they they put Jesus on the

cross. That's like a big boo boo. Okay?

you know, like if this is real.

But it it gives them the conceptual

categories. And the invisible Yahweh,

the transcendent Yahweh is not

diminished. He's still God. But you have

these two figures that intellectually,

mentally, theologically prepare the way

for Jesus to come along and say what he

says or New Testament writers to come

along and say certain things about Jesus

that use some of these Old Testament

passages.

For instance,

the most obvious one in the beginning

was the word.

The word was with God. The word was God.

Now, you know, if you take a religion

101 class, what you're going to get is

you're going to get some statement about

how,

you know, well, John gets his idea of

the word of the Lord from Platonic

philosophy. No, he he's reading his Old

Testament.

The word of the Lord is God.

And then the word of the Lord becomes

flesh and dwelt dwells among us. Jude 5.

Now I want to remind you although that

that you once fully knew it that Jesus

who saved a people out of the land of

Egypt. Wait a minute.

God Yahweh

presence angel. Now we got Jesus.

Who delivered them from Egypt?

The answer is yes.

He's the angel who led them out of Egypt

to the promised land. He is God in human

form. This is why Jude's doing it. Now

there's a textual problem here but again

just this is just here for effect. The

angel reading is demonstrabably the best

reading. And lastly here the name or not

not lastly got one other

when when Jesus prays the high priestly

prayer. I have manifested your name to

the people whom you gave me out of the

world. Yours they were. You gave them to

me. While I was with them I kept them in

your name. I made known to them your

name. Here's what Jesus is not saying.

You know, I I came to earth here so that

you would all gather around. I got

something important to say. The name of

of of your God is Yahweh. Got it?

Well, they can read that a few thousand

times in their own Bible. He's not there

to tell them what God's name is. He's

there to be the name. Remember what John

says? He that has seen me,

Jesus tells, you know, doubting Thomas,

he that has seen me has seen the father.

Okay? I have kept them in your name. You

gave me the name. I made known to them

your your name because I'm here. Okay?

I'm you

rider in the clouds. Here's the fifth

passage. Daniel,

one like a son of man comes to the

ancient of days. Daniel 7. probably are

very familiar with the passage, the

ancient of days is seated on a throne.

One like a son of man, a human one comes

to him riding on the clouds. This is the

fifth passage where they use the Baal

title, except this time they don't use

it of the God of Israel. The God of

Israel is the ancient of days.

There's a second character that gets the

title. It's the human one. And Jesus

when he's on trial in front of Caiaphas

and Caiaphas they're bringing all these

accusations against him.

Caiaphas gets says you know you know why

aren't you saying anything? I adjure you

by the living God. Tell us if you're the

Christ the son of God. And Jesus said to

him you have said so but I tell you from

now on you'll see the son of man seated

at the right hand of power and coming on

the clouds of heaven. Now we think

that's a clever maybe cryptic

diversionary answer. But what it is is

it's both barrels right in his face. You

want to know who I am, Caiaphas? Pay

attention.

And he quotes the cloud rider passage

from Daniel 7. I'm the one who comes on

the clouds.

I'm the second Yahweh. Got it? And

Caiaphas gets it. Then the high priest

tore his robes and said, "He has uttered

blasphemy.

What further witnesses do we need?"

It's a death sentence. So to wrap up

here,

denial of a godhead,

contrived New Testament doctrine. No,

your belief in the in Jesus as God as a

in a godhead. We we we don't have time

to go loop in where the spirit, you

know, factors into this in the Old

Testament, but your belief in a Godhead

is not made up by church councils.

This is biblical theology and it crosses

both testaments. So the next time you

know you're you're channel surfing or on

the internet or doing something on

Facebook and you get challenged by this,

you know that the person challenging you

has a quite deficient knowledge of

threearters of the Bible

because that's where it comes from.

Right? I want to thank everybody. And I

did remember, let's have the worship

team come up. [laughter]

It's the one thing I needed to remember

today.