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  "description": "I will be quoting from the late Dr. Robert A. Morey’s The Trinity: Evidence and Issues, published by World Bible Publishers, Inc., Iowa Falls, IA, in 1996, Part IV: The New Testament Evidence, Chapter 17. God The Son. All emphasis will be mine.\n\nThe Theophanies\n\nWe have already seen that in Old Testament times Yahweh came to earth in human form and communed with the Patriarchs and prophets of old. The link between this God-man and the Messiah was given in the name “Wonderful” (Pele) which is fou",
  "path": "/robert-a-morey-christs-deity/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-01T09:13:34.000Z",
  "site": "https://answeringislam.blog",
  "textContent": "I will be quoting from the late Dr. Robert A. Morey’s _The Trinity: Evidence and Issues_ , published by World Bible Publishers, Inc., Iowa Falls, IA, in 1996, Part IV: The New Testament Evidence, Chapter 17. God The Son. All emphasis will be mine.\n\n**The Theophanies**\n\nWe have already seen that **in Old Testament times Yahweh came to earth in human form and communed with the Patriarchs and prophets of old**. The link between this God-man and the Messiah was given in the name “Wonderful” (_Pele_) which is found in Judges 13:17-18 and Isaiah 9:6. **The New Testament then links together Jesus and the God-man seen by Isaiah in John 12** :\n\nJohn 12:36 “While you have the light, believe in the light, in order that you may become sons of light.” These things Jesus spoke, and He departed and hid Himself from them.\n\n37 But though He had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him;\n\n38 that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke, “LORD, WHO HAS BELIEVED OUR REPORT? AND TO WHOM HAS THE ARM OF THE LORD BEEN REVEALED?”\n\n39 For this cause they could not believe, for Isaiah said again,\n\n40 “HE HAS BLINDED THEIR EYES, AND HE HARDED THEIR HEART; LEST THEY SEE WITH THEIR EYES, AND PERCEIVE WITH THEIR HEART, AND BE CONVERTED, AND I HEAL THEM.”\n\n41 These things Isaiah said, because he saw His glory, and he spoke of Him.\n\n42 Nevertheless many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue;\n\nThe passage is quite straight forward:\n\n1. The person in view is Jesus. The passage begins and ends with Him.\n\n2. The fact that Jesus was rejected by the Pharisees is viewed by John as a fulfillment of Isaiah 53:1 and Isaiah 6:10.\n\n3. Since he had just quoted Isaiah John looked at the context and saw that Isaiah had seen “the Lord” (_Adonay_), in verse 1 whom he later identified as _YHWH_ “Yahweh” in 6:5. Adonai Yahweh appeared to him in human form sitting on a throne in the temple. **John explains that this God-man was none other than Jesus in His pre-existent glory**.\n\nThe grammar of the Greek text of John 12:41 is clear:\n\n_tauta eipen Isaias hoti eiden ten doxan autou, kai elalesen peri autou_\n\nAccording to the apostle John, when Isaiah said that he had seen _YHWH_ , he was speaking _peri autou_ “about Him,” i.e., Jesus. As Hengstenberg points out, “ _autou_ refers back to verse 37.”50\n\nOf this there can be “no doubt,” according to the famous Greek scholar J.B. Lightfoot in his _Commentary On The New Testament From the Talmud and Hebraica_.51 The classic French commentator Godet explains:\n\nJohn justifies in this verse the application which he has just made to Jesus Christ of the vision of Isa. vi. The Adonai whom Isaiah beheld at that moment **was the divine being who is incarnated in Jesus. Here also John and Paul meet together** ; comp. I Cor. X.4, where Paul calls the one who guided Israel from the midst of the Cloud Christ.52\n\nThe ancient Latin and Syriac versions of John’s gospel agree with this understanding. The Syriac text says:\n\nIt was of Christ, who manifested Himself to him as Adonai, that Isaiah spoke when he uttered such words.53\n\n4. There is no honest way to avoid the grammar of the text. All the pronouns “Him” refers to the proper name “Jesus” from verse 36. Even verse 42 clearly refers back to Jesus and continues to use the same pronoun “Him.” We have placed the pronouns in bold text so that the reader can see that they all refer back to Jesus.\n\n5. **John 12:36-42 establishes the link between the theophanies of the Old Testament and the Jesus of the New Testament**. Whenever Yahweh in the Old Testament came to the earth as a man, **this was probably the pre-existent Jesus**. (Pp. 307-308)\n\n**New Testament Christology**\n\nIf the authors of the New Testament believed that Jesus was God as well as man, how would they express that idea? What words would they use to indicate that He is God as well as man? **Trinitarians assume that the authors would use the same words which they used to indicate the deity of the Father**.\n\nTrinitarians begin with the assumption that once we accept the validity of the arguments used to prove the deity of the Father, **we must accept the validity of these same arguments when applied to the Son**. No amount of special pleading can overcome the simple observation that once an argument is deemed biblically and logically valid, it cannot be dismissed later on because it takes us where we do not want to go. No one should start out on the path of truth unless he is willing to accept its ultimate destination.\n\n**What We Expect to Find**\n\n1. The names of God will be applied to the Son.\n\n2. The attributes of God will be applied to the Son.\n\n3. The works of God will be applied to the Son.\n\n4. The words of God will be applied to the Son.\n\n5. The worship of God will be applied to the Son.\n\n**The Names of God**\n\nDid the authors of the New Testament ever use the Greek terms for God (_theos_ , _kyrios_ etc.) in reference to Jesus? If they believed that He was divine, then we would expect them to do so. They would also use Hebraic terms such as “I Am.” But if they did not believe that He was God, then we would not expect them to apply such terms to Jesus.\n\n**Jesus as _theos_**\n\nThe liberal attempt in the nineteenth century to deny that Jesus was referred to as _theos_ “God” in the New Testament was refuted by their own scholars such as the Unitarian Greek scholar Joseph Thayer. No one today bothers to deny that the word _theos_ is applied to Jesus in the New Testament. Such passages as John 1:1 preclude any attempt to deny this grammatical reality.\n\nWhere the disagreement comes in is the issue of the meaning and significance of the word _theos_ when it is applied to Jesus. Is He really called “God” as in the full sense of Deity or only a “god” in a metaphorical sense like the devil or some pagan deity? This means that we must understand how the word _theos_ was used in the Greek New Testament.\n\nDr. Murray Harris has done the most extensive and exhaustive analysis of the usage of the Greek word _theos_ in ancient extra-biblical and biblical literature.68 It would helpful to summarize his work at this point. (Pp. 317-318)\n\n**The New Testament’s Usage of _theos_**\n\nThe Septuagint’s usage of the word _theos_ formed the basis of its usage in the New Testament as a generic term indicating any and all deities in general, including the true God. **It was a title of deity and not a personal name of God**. Thus, it is used of Satan (II Cor. 4:4), men (Acts 14:11), pagan deities (I Cor. 8:4), and even the belly, i.e., fleshly appetites (Phil. 3:19).\n\nOne question frequently asked is “If the word _theos_ does not have a definite article, does this mean that something less than true deity is in view? Could Jesus be _theos_ but not _ho theos_?”\n\nThe word _theos_ appears 1,315 times in the New Testament. Seventy-eight percent of the time it appears with a definite article and 21.6% times without an article. Those unfamiliar with the Greek language often assume that when the true God is in view, the word _theos_ will have the article. When _theos_ appears without the article, the word _theos_ does not refer to the true God. Thus, the typical Jehovah’s Witness defends his organization’s translation of John 1:1c, “the Word was a god,” on the basis that the word _theos_ does not have the article.\n\nAfter his detailed analysis of the presence or absence Murray Harris concludes that generally speaking:\n\n**_Ho theos_ and _theos_ are often used interchangably**.69 It is therefore not possible to maintain that whenever _theos_ is anarthrous [without the article], it differs from emphasis.70\n\nThe statistical evidence bears this out. For example, **the Father is referred to as _theos_  _without the article_ in such places as John 1:6, while Jesus is referred to as _theos_  _with the article_ in such places as John 20:28**. If the presence or absence of the article indicates whether true deity is in view, **then the Father is only “a god” and Jesus is the true “God”**!\n\nBut this does not mean that the presence or absence of the article never has any meaning. There are times when it has a _grammatical_ significance. For example, in those cases where both _ho theos_ and _theos_ appear with the connecting word _kai_ in the same verse, the Granville Sharp rule may apply. We will develop this thought later on in the chapter.\n\nThere are a few other times when the absence or presence of the article before the word _theos_ does have a grammatical significance. **But these are rare exceptions to the general rule that in the vast majority of cases, the absence or presence of the article before _theos_ has no significance whatsoever**. (P. 319)\n\nWhen we turn to the New Testament, we are told the same exact thing. The Apostle John says:\n\nIn the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)\n\n_En arche een ho logos, kai ho logos een pros ton theon, kai theos een ho logos._\n\nThe Greek verb _en_ “was” is the imperfect tense of _eimi_ and indicates the Word already existed when the Beginning began. Rienecker and Rogers point out:\n\n**The imperf. expresses continuous timeless existence** (Bernard), and is contrasted with _egeneto_ of v.3 (Barrett).62\n\nMurray Harris, points out that:\n\nSince the Greek Bible begins with the expression _en arche_ (“in the beginning”), rendering _bereshith_ , it seems likely that John is alluding to Gen. 1:1. But whereas the first verse of the Torah continues “God created,” John follows with “the Word [already] existed.” In Genesis the creation of the world is contemporaneous with or marks “the beginning”; in John the existence of the Word is anterior to the “the beginning” . . . **John implies the eternal preexistence of the Word**.63\n\nJohn is clearly emphasizing that when the Beginning began, the Word was already in existence.\n\nIn John 17, we read:\n\nAnd now, glorify Thou Me together with Thyself, Father, _with the glory which I had with Thee before the world._\n\n(John 17:5)\n\nThere are three things this text clearly teaches:\n\n1. Christ pre-existed His birth on earth.\n\n2. Christ’s pre-existence goes all the way back to “ _before_ the world was” created, i.e., eternity.\n\n3. The Son shared eternal glory with the Father.\n\nOnce again, in the book of Colossians Paul states:\n\nFor _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. (Col. 1:16 -17)\n\n**Christ’s Relationship to All Things**\n\n1. “ _by_ Him all things were created”; i.e., He is the Creator\n\n2. “ _in_ Him all things hold together”; i.e., He is the Sustainer\n\n3. “He is _before_ all things”; i.e., He is eternally pre-existent\n\n4. “All things have been created . . . _for_ Him”; i.e., all things exist for His glory.\n\nChrist’s eternal pre-existence forms the context of the Trinitarian doctrine of the deity of Christ. The anti-Trinitarians have always had a rough time dealing with such passages and usually avoid any serious exegesis when confronted with such texts as examined above. (Pp. 313-314)\n\n**In the Beginning Was the Word**\n\n _En arche een ho logos_\n\nWe have already demonstrated that the first phrase, refers to the eternal pre-existence of the Word. Godet explains:\n\nThe imperfect _en_ , _was_ , must designate, according to the ordinary meaning of the tense, the simultaneousness of the act indicated by the verb with some other act. **This simultaneousness is here that of the _existence_ of the Word with the fact designated by the word _beginning_**. “When everything which has begun began, the Word _was_.” Alone then, it did not begin; the Word was already. Now that which did not begin with _things_ , that is to say, with time, the form of the development of things, belongs to the eternal order ... **The idea of this first proposition is, therefore, that of the eternity of the Logos**.73\n\nThe modern Greek scholar Randy Yeager concludes:\n\nThus the Word existed _before_ the beginning, since He has always existed. **With Him there is no beginning. He is eternal and everlasting**... **It is impossible to avoid the force of John’s grammar**.74 (Ibid., pp. 320-321)\n\nGiven the grammar of the Greek text and the verses which follow, we have to place the pre-incarnate Logos “with” the Father under the column marked “the Creator.” That this is true is seen from verse 3.\n\nAll things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come-into being. (John 1:3)\n\n_Panta di’ autou egeneto, kai choris autou egeneto oude en. ho gegonen_\n\nWith this said, let us now examine John 1:1c.\n\n... and the Word was God.\n\n... _kai theos een ho logos_\n\nSince the deity of the Logos was already set forth in the first two phrases of the hymn, the third phrase should not be that difficult to accept. Indeed, the hymn has been building to the climax “the Word was _GOD_.”\n\nIn Greek syntax, when you want to emphasize a word, you take it out of its normal word order and put it as the first word of the sentence. This is particularly true with the New Testament because it was intended to be read outloud.\n\nThis is the exact situation with John 1:1c.76 When you read John 1:1 outloud, you should emphasize the word “GOD” by raising your voice. Instead of “the **Word** was God,” the word order of the Greek text is “**God** was the Word.”\n\nJohn assumed that the reader would put the emphasis on the word “GOD” as the climax of the hymn: “the Word was **God**.” Any attempt to water down the word _theos_ “God” into something less than true deity is due to a failure to observe the syntax. It would be anti-climactic to say that the Logos was “a god.”\n\n**Why No Article Before _theos_**\n\nThe word _theos_ in John 1:1c does not have a definite article in front of it. This does not mean that we should follow the Jehovah’s Witnesses and downsize it to “a god.” We have already pointed out that the word “Father” is modified by _theos_ without the article. Do the Arians downsize Him into “a god” because of this? No. Then on what grounds do they do this to Christ?\n\nThe article was not placed in front of _theos_ for two very good reasons. First, in terms of Greek grammar and syntax, Colwell’s Rule 20 states that when a noun is taken out its normal word order and placed _before_ its verb, 97% of the time it does not have an article.77 This is what we find in John 1:1c.\n\nWhat this means is that instead of beginning with the _a priori_ assumption that _theos_ should have the article and then seeking to explain why it does not have one, we should begin the other way around and assume that it should not normally have the article. Thus, anyone who thinks that it should have the article will have to justify that assumption.\n\nThe second reason _theos_ does not have the **article is that it would lead the reader to the mistaken idea that the Word was the Father**. Murray Harris explains:\n\nHaving just distinguished the Logos (the Son) from _ho theos_ in verse lb, would he be likely immediately afterward to dissolve that personal distinction? **For him to have used _ho theos_ in the predicate of verse lc would have implied either that subject and predicate were identical or coextensive or that this predicate referred to none other than the _ho theos_ of the preceding clause**. As it is, in verse lc John maintains the distinction between the Logos and the Father that he has drawn in verse lb, **while at the same time affirming the participation of the Logos in the divine essence (_ho theos_)**.78\n\nJohn did not place the article _ho_ in front _theos_ in order to maintain the distinction between the Father and the Son. This is why he made the distinction once again in John 1:2.\n\n**He Was in the Beginning with God**\n\n _Houtos een en arche pros ton theon_\n\nThe futile attempts of nineteenth century liberals to dilute the meaning of _theos_ in John 1:1c down to something less than true deity or to reduce it to the mild adjective “divine” **were successfully refuted by the best Greek scholars of that day**. Arian cults, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Way International, The Assemblies of Yahweh, etc., are the only ones who still use old nineteenth century arguments as if they were still valid.\n\n**John 1:18**\n\nNo man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained _Him_.\n\n_ho theon oudeis heoraken popote monogenes theos ho on eis ton kolpon tou patros ekeinos exegesato._\n\nJohn 1:18 may be part of the same ancient hymn which John started quoting in verse 1. As such, it is very important to our understanding of the early Church’s doctrine of the deity of Christ. Murray Harris comments:\n\nProbably no verse has a more strategic position in the Fourth Gospel than 1:18, looking back as it does over the Prologue from its peak and also forward to the expansive plain of the Gospel narrative. Of crucial import, therefore is the interpretation of this verse and, in particular, the determination of its original text.79\n\nIn the nineteenth century, before the discovery of the multitude of manuscripts we have available today, liberal scholars fought long and hard to avoid the reading “unique God” (_monogenes theos_). They did not want or need another New Testament text which called Jesus _theos_. But as the manuscript evidence began to mount in its favor**, even Marcus Dods reluctantly admitted, “The MS authority favours the reading _theos_**.”80\n\nToday, after the manuscript evidence has overwhelmed any lingering doubts, Lenski could state:\n\nThe question of the true reading is no longer in doubt. It is _monogenes theos_ and not _ho_  _monogenes_  _hyios_ nor _monogenes_ without a substantive.81\n\nModern commentators agree with Lenski. Hendriksen comments:\n\nThe reading the only begotten God (_monogenes theos_) instead of the only begotten Son **is supported by the best and oldest manuscripts**.82\n\nWith the discovery of the Bodmer papyri which must be dated no later than 200 A.D., **it can no longer be doubted that _monogenes theos_ was the true reading of the original text**. The greatest Greek scholar of the twentieth century was without a doubt A.T. Robertson. After investigating all the manuscript evidence, he concludes:\n\n**The best old Greek manuscripts (Aleph B C L) read _monogenes theos_ (God only begotten) which is undoubtedly the true text**. Probably some scribe changed it to _ho_  _monogenes hyios_ to obviate the blunt statement of the deity of Christ and to make it like 3:16. But there is an inner harmony in the reading of the old uncials. The Logos is plainly called _theos_ in verse 1. The Incarnation is stated in verse 14, where he is also termed _monogenes_. **He was that before the Incarnation. So he is “God only begotten**.83\n\nThe only ones who do not admit that _monogenes theos_ is the true reading of the Greek text are Arian cults who still depend almost exclusively on nineteenth century anti-Trinitarian writers.\n\nIt is thought by many modern scholars that John 1:18 is a part of the ancient hymn John is quoting. Having proclaimed the Logos “God” in verse 1 and incarnate in verse 14, the hymn now proclaims Him the “unique God” in verse 18:84\n\nJohn 1:18 No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.\n\n_ho theon oudeis heoraken popote monogenes theos ho on eis ton kolpon tou patros ekeinos exegesato._\n\nJohn now states that the Logos _ho on eis ton kolpon tou patros_ “is in the bosom of the Father.” The tense of the verb and the preposition he uses to describe the intimate relationship between the Father and the Son should be noted. The verb _on_ is the present participle of _eimi_ **and clearly indicates a timeless, i.e., eternal quality to the Logos’ relationship to the Father**. As Lenski points out:\n\nThese are the assured grammatical facts regarding _ho on_ , which we should not yield when they are modified in the interest of a wrong view of the person who is truly “God Only-begotten.”85\n\nThe use of the present participle to indicate a timeless relationship between the Father and the Son has been noted by many other commentators.86 John’s choice of _eis_ instead of _en_ is also to be noted.\n\n**The Charge of Blasphemy**\n\n“For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make yourself out _to be_ God.” (John 10:33)\n\n_apekrithesan auto hoi Ioudaioi peri kalou ergou ou lithazomen se alla peri Blasphemias kai hoti su anthropos on seauton theon_\n\nOften overlooked when discussing passages where the word _theos_ is applied to Jesus, the accusation of blasphemy is quite significant.\n\nWhen Jesus said in verse 30, “I and the Father, we are One,” **the Jews rightly understood that He was saying that that He and the Father were one in nature and essence**. The Jews logically deduced from this that Jesus was claiming to be God. Lenski comments:\n\nThis, however, the sharp ears of these Jews at once caught, that by saying, “I and the Father, we are one,” Jesus was making himself God. They caught this because it was exactly what they wanted, a word on which to base the charge of blasphemy and thus full justification for the summary inflection of the death penalty. .. . This Jewish charge of blasphemy must stand against Jesus to this day if he, being nothing but a man, either by implication or by some direct statement (here or elsewhere) made himself God.87\n\nThe words in the original are quite striking. The charge was blasphemy (_Blasphemia_). This is the only time John used the word in his Gospel. The charge of blasphemy could be leveled only if Jesus was claiming to be the one true God of Israel. The contrast is, thus, not between paganism (a false god) and Judaism (the true God) **but between man and God**.\n\nThe crime of blasphemy was punishable by death according to Leviticus 24:16. In that passage the crime has to do with the misuse of the name Yahweh. Thus, it is the one true God which is in view and not pagan gods.88 Marcus Dods concludes:\n\nIt was blasphemy for a man to claim to be God. And it is noteworthy that Jesus never manifests indignation when charged with making Himself God; yet were He a mere man no one could view this sin with stronger abhorrence.89\n\nThis passage is exactly what Trinitarians expect to find in the New Testament. If Jesus claimed to be God, then the unbelieving Jews would have picked up on this. They would object and charge Him with blasphemy.\n\nOn the other hand, if Jesus never claimed to be God, then we would not expect to find the charge of blasphemy leveled against Jesus. The expectations of Trinitarians are fully satisfied while the anti-Trinitarians have to scramble to find ways to wiggle out of such passages. (Pp. 323-328)",
  "title": "Robert A. Morey & Christ’s Deity",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-01T09:13:35.192Z"
}