#STRask - How Will Jesus Sit at the Right Hand of God if He Is God?

Episode Date: April 29, 2024

Questions about what the Bible means when it says Jesus will sit at the right hand of God if Jesus is God and why the writers of the Synoptic Gospels didn’t write about Jesus claiming to be God. If Jesus is God, what does the Bible mean when it says Jesus will sit at the right hand of God? Why didn’t the writers of the Synoptic Gospels pick up on Jesus speaking of himself as a divine deity, as God himself?

I'm Amy Hall. I'm here with Greg Kokel, and welcome to Stand to Reasons, hashtag STRASK podcast. Hey, Amy. Hi, Greg. All right, Greg, let's start with a question from Karen. The Bible says that Jesus will sit on the right-hand side of God. If Jesus is God the Lord, what exactly does this mean? Well, frequently, almost universally, I would say, that the word God, when used in Scripture, is almost always referring to the Father. when used in Scripture, is almost always referring to the Father. And we know this in part because when Jesus and God are contrasted to each other—and I just read this in a passage yesterday, I can't remember where it was—God is characterized as God the Father, so that doesn't create confusion.

Because in the progressive revelation of the Scripture, we don't have a lot of reference to Trinity, certainly, in the Hebrew Scriptures, because there was no need to reveal that at the time, and there was already enough confusion with polytheism with the Jews. And it wasn't until later that the details of salvation history entailed the revelation of more detail about the person of God, because the persons of God function in different ways in the process of accomplishing salvation through the new covenant. Father sending the Son, the Son dying for sin, the Holy Spirit regenerating in light of the new covenant. And so you have more detail there. And since when that detail is given, sometimes God is just referred to as God,

but it also is often, and praise to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. That was the phrase I read yesterday. So, you see the distinction there, so there's no confusion between the Lord Jesus Christ and God the Father. Notice that the characterization is the Lord. The earliest characterization, the most primitive characterization about Jesus, the confession about Jesus, is that Jesus is Lord. We see this everywhere throughout the text, okay? But I know Jehovah's Witnesses want to be dismissive of that. Oh, Lord doesn't mean God, Kyrios in the Latin, you know.

Oh, well, that could be like the Lord of the Manor or whatever. And certainly there are times when you see the word Lord in English being used in that way. But that is not the way that the early Christians are using it. They don't say, a Lord. They don't say, he's, oh, oh, Lord, in the sense that some might coming up to Jesus and not acknowledging the high Christology, but just saying, Lord. It's the definite article that makes this unmistakable. The Lord. Well, who's the Lord?

There's only one Lord, and that's God. But when God is used in contrast with Jesus, then we see the distinction made oftentimes in the text, God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So in both cases, you have the Father as God, but you also have Jesus as God as well, okay? And so, I think, I mean, I think this is the best way to understand that. You can see different characterizations as you go through the text, but fairly consistently, you'll see this dual characterization of God the Father and the

Lord Jesus Christ. So there's no compromise on the deity of Christ in these texts, even though sometimes God is not identified as the Father. That's the only one to be referred to, could be being referred to, when the Lord Jesus Christ is also part of the equation. It's not God and Jesus, as if God is God and Jesus is not. It's God, i.e., the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. It'd be interesting to look at the characterization all throughout the epistles and the book of Acts where this language is used to see how persistently the Lord Jesus is used to characterize Christ, particularly when God the Father is being mentioned. But it certainly is a pattern. So they're both God, but they're different persons is the bottom line here, right?

That would be the basic Trinitarian approach, correct. Yeah, and incidentally, although some people might be scratching their heads who hear this, the point that I've made in the past, and it's a very simple concept to remember, it's an aphorism, the Trinity is a solution, not a problem. And when I say it's a solution, it's if we are taking the New Testament text seriously, if we have a high view of the Scripture, okay, what we are trying to do is find a way of understanding God that is consistent with the way that God explains himself in the Word. And if you do not have the doctrine of the Trinity, that there's one God, three distinct centers of consciousness

in that one God that are each in undiminished deity, they share the divine nature even though they perform different functions. If you don't have that, then you face irreconcilable contradiction in the Scripture. And for those groups who say, well, there are three gods, that would be Mormons, or say that there's only one God and only one person, center of consciousness, that's characterized in three different ways at three different periods of history, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, those run smack dab into serious conflicts with other clear scriptures. It is only the doctrine of the Trinity, one divine nature, that is—I'm trying to think of the right words. Theologians have to be really careful—that subsists in three individual hypostases, or a simple way of referring to that is the centers of consciousness.

that is the centers of consciousness, then you have one being with three persons, and you have all of these texts then fall right into place. There is no contradiction in the text. And so, this is why we hold to the Trinity. It is weird, but biblically it is required, if you are to make sense of all the passages that refer to the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit in particular and to God in general. Of course, you add on to this that Jesus also added on a human nature to his divine nature. He has two natures now. That's right. And that's, you know, everything that's involved probably in this question here.

Yeah. Well, that's part of the Chalcedonian formula. I'm trying to remember. It's the Chalcedonian box. One person, two natures, 100% God, 100% man. And that's the way of characterizing the person of Jesus, the Chalcedonian formula, the Chalcedonian box from the Council of Chalcedon. And that's the safe way of understanding it. Now, are there mysteries involved?

Sure. Is there movement allowed within the box and different points of view or emphasis? Sure. But you can't go outside of the box and still be biblical. Then you're something else. You're a different religion. And that's, by the way, what Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Science, and LDS do. They go outside the box. So they're different religions. They're no longer Christian because of that.

Okay, let's go on to a question from Patricia. I have heard Bart Ehrman's challenge on the Gospel of John and the responding apologetics. I would like to know what our answer is for ourselves. Why didn't the Synoptics writers pick up on Jesus speaking of himself as a divine deity, as God himself, and so often? Well, that characterization is a little bit misleading because John is unique in the preponderance of I Am statements, where it seems clear that Jesus, with the Greek egoimi, is identifying himself with the God that confronted Moses at the burning bush, I Am that I Am. Tell them I Am sent you, okay? So, we don't have that characterization, So we don't have that characterization really in the synoptics, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. That word synoptic means that they have a similar view, same eye, so to speak, synoptic.

Where John seems to include a whole bunch of stuff that's unique, the synoptics overlap quite a bit. And John has a particular way of characterizing a high Christology. I almost said John has a higher Christology, and that's not what I really want to say. That's why I'm pausing for a moment. He had a particular way of expressing a high Christology, and that is the I Am statements. However, the synoptics have other ways of expressing high Christology. And in particular, Jesus referenced to himself as the Son of Man. In fact, you see this in Mark, the earliest gospel, probably, chapter 2, where he heals the paralytic that was let down through the ceiling, and he said, in order that you might know that the Son of Man has the authority to forgive sins,

I say to you, take up your pallet and go home. Now, notice there's two things going on there, the authority to forgive sins. So, you have the Pharisees objecting in their mind and mumbling to each other, which Jesus picked up on, that only God can forgive sins because he had offered forgiveness to that paralytic. And they're right, because God is the one that's offended. And so only God can forgive sins. And so here is Jesus forgiving sins. So that is an implicit claim to deity. But he also characterizes himself as the son of man. Now, he's not just saying he's a guy born of a woman. This is a term of art taken from the book of Daniel. And I'm not sure which chapter, maybe six or somewhere in there. But in any event, there is this picture of the divine figure coming out of the clouds,

and the entire characterization in Daniel is this divine figure, this God, coming out of the clouds, and he is referred to as the Son of Man. So when Jesus is using the phrase Son of Man, he's not just talking about his humanity. When Jesus is using the phrase Son of Man, he's not just talking about his humanity. He's taking a divine title from the Old Testament, and he's applying it to him. And by the way, this appears in a number of places in the synoptics. So it isn't as if, you know, one exalts the deity of Christ, John, and the synoptics do not. They all represent a divine Jesus. And I remember the Jesus seminar, you know, these are the guys who had kind of pick and choose what they thought was legitimate,

what wasn't. They tended towards a low Christology because they thought a high Christology would be something that happens over time as there's an accretion of legend. And so that must not be part of the original. But the thing is, even when they got down to their bare-bones original, you still have a high Christology because of the kinds of things that Jesus said about himself. So I actually think this is, I don't know, barter. You know, he knows this, you know, and I don't know why. I do know that in his academic work, he is much less bold in the claims that he makes because he has people who are more alert to these kinds of details than the popular audience. When he writes on popular—on a popular level, he takes more liberties, okay? But needless to say, every gospel reflects a divine Jesus, all right, but in different ways. Now, what's interesting in the book of Romans,

since every gospel also has the resurrection, in the book of Romans, Paul starts out, and Romans is early in the canon. I mean, it's a letter that's written, I don't have the date, sometime in the 50s, but it's not like way out there. Here Paul says in verse 3, referring to Jesus, he was declared with power to be the Son of God through the resurrection. So every time the resurrection is proclaimed in every gospel, this is evidence of his claim to be the Son of God. And incidentally, that claim, and I was just reading this the other day, and it was in the synoptic somewhere. It was in the Gospel of Mark, in fact. And he was casting out demons who were screaming out, this is the Son of God. And he was causing them to be silent and then casting them out.

So even the demons are bearing testimony to his divine office, because Son of God is another phrase, just like the Son of Man, that acknowledges Jesus a divinity. Now, why was he telling the demons to shut up? Because he didn't need the demons' PR. You know? And also, it seemed like he was slow to reveal everything about himself. Because people were causing a problem. These mobs and mobs and mobs of people were coming to him. Well, isn't that great for the preacher of the kingdom of God?

Yeah, but a lot of them were coming for the wrong reasons, just to get healed, just to get a free meal. John chapter 6, that's what he accuses them of. You come to see a miracle. Worse, some of you are coming just to get another free meal because he had already fed the 5,000. And so my point is, you cannot, even when you pare the Gospels down, Synoptics or the Gospel of John, to kind of a bare-bones thing, you still end up with a high Christology. That's what I was going to say, that there are parts you might be missing where it's not maybe as explicit as before Abraham was born, I am. Yet you see the forgiveness one, I think, is a great example. And even other ones like even the wind and the waves obey him. And who has ever seen a man born blind? Oh, but that's in John. Open the eyes of a man born blind. That is in John. But I wanted to point out a couple other ones. This is in Matthew, and this is explicitly

referring to the passage in Daniel that you mentioned, Greg. Oh, great. What chapter is that? I'm curious. This is in 26. No, I mean in Daniel. Oh, that I'm not sure. Okay, that's right. Yeah. So, Jesus said to him, you have said it yourself, never the—oh, let me back up a little bit. This is at the trial.

This is at the trial. The high priest said to him, I adjure you by the living God that you tell us whether you are the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus said to him, you have said it yourself. Nevertheless, I tell you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. That's the verse. Yes. So that's referring back to Daniel. And we know that's how they took it because the very next line, the high priest tore his robes and said, he has blasphemed.

What further need do we have of witnesses? Right. So he was seeing that Jesus was blaspheming by saying he was the Son of Man who would come on the clouds. It's interesting. That was a response to his—there were two aspects to the question. Keep in mind, are you the Christ, Messiah, the Son of God, divinity? Now, it's not blasphemy to claim to be the Messiah. You might be mistaken, but it's not blasphemous. They expected a Messiah. It's when Jesus said, you have said it yourself. He affirms both.

And then he, you know, adds insult to injury by citing the passage out of Daniel, identifying this divine figure known as the Son of Man. And that's when the high priest says, blasphemy. Okay. So I don't know how that can be missed. And this is also the Gospel of Matthew. Yeah, it's one of the synoptics. And I'm going to throw one more in there. This one, I'm going to give this one because, again, there are subtle places where it's not quite as open as that one or not quite as open as what's in John, but even other places where I think we can say, I think Jesus was claiming deity. And this one comes from Mark. So now we've had John, Matthew, and this is Mark. So in this one, what's interesting here, I'm going to bring two things together. In Mark 12,

he's asked, what commandment is the foremost of all? And Jesus says, the foremost is, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. Okay, so now we know those are the greatest commandments according to Jesus. But then something curious happens in Mark 10. And this is when the rich young ruler comes to Jesus and he says, what do I have to do to inherit eternal life? So then Jesus says, you know, why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. And again, here is one.

I'm sorry, he's not denying that he's good. Right, right. Just so people pick up on that, some get the wrong conclusion. He's not denying he's good. Right. So he's pointing out, you just said I was good and only God is good. Hmm. What do we think about that? And then he says, you know, the commandments do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud. Honor your father and mother. Well, that's interesting. He said, what do I have to do to inherit eternal life?

And Jesus gives the second part of the law, and it's all things having to do with human beings. He doesn't mention the two greatest. So why doesn't he mention the two greatest? Oh, well, he goes on. And here's what he says next, because he says, I've done all those things. So then Jesus says, one thing you lack, go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come follow me. Well, I think, what I think he's doing here is the two greatest commandments that he just said, loving your neighbor as yourself and loving God above all else because he says, give up everything you own and follow me.

Meaning, love me more than everything you have and give to the poor and love your neighbor as yourself. He is citing the two greatest commandments here. That's interesting. Nice observation. So I think there are probably

many places like this where we have to look for it. Yes, but you don't have to strain if you know what to look for. Right, right. Because the ways of characterizing of Jesus, characterizing his divinity, and we mentioned a few, the Lord, okay, or the Son of Man, or, you know, some of these other characterizations, being able to forgive sins, controlling the sea and the waves and all that other stuff. Who is this man? It's not just like a Spirit-filled guy like Elijah. Elijah did crazy things. This is a guy that seemed to be the commander of the natural forces. And by the way, when Jesus calmed the storm in the boat, the disciples worshipped him.

Yeah. They worshipped him. And this is another characterization that we see throughout the Gospels of falling down and worshipping of Jesus. Book of Revelation, you see the same thing. And so this worship is due God alone. When John falls down before the angel, the angel says, hey, don't do that. I'm just an angel. But when he falls down before Jesus, there's no such correction, because Jesus is due worship because of his divine nature. And all we have to do is look at the reaction of the Pharisees

who were ready to stone Jesus and kill him because of what he was claiming. It's only blasphemy if he's saying that he's God. Yeah. You being a man, make yourself out to be God. That's what they said. So I hope that helps, Patricia. I recommend you go through, read through the synoptics and see what you find there and see how Jesus was declaring his identity as God. All right. Thank you, Karen and Patricia. We appreciate hearing from you. Send us your question on X with the hashtag STRask, or you can go to our website at str.org

and look for our hashtag STRask podcast page. Thank you for listening. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kokel for Stand to Reason.