Aunty Jane
Well-Known Member
Perhaps we can add John 10:31-36 here….?John 3:2 is not poetic or figurative. Comparing very different verses for reasons unclear about a thread asking about our denominational friends.
In Greek there is the definite article and the absence of the definite article…..
“The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him. Jesus answered them, “I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?” The Jews answered Him, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God [theos].” Jesus answered them, “Has it not been written in your Law, ‘I said you are gods’? [theos] If he called them gods [theos], to whom the word of God[ho theos] came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), do you say of Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God [ho theos]’?” (NASB1995)
Interesting use of the definite article in this passage….
The Jews were not saying that Jesus claimed to be “ho theos” but only ”theos”…meaning a divine personage, sent from God.…but not Yahweh.…though to these misguided Jews who wanted an excuse to do away with this imposter, still meaning blasphemy to say one is “the son of God” in a different sense to what the Jews understood their sonship.
Jesus highlighted the fact that Yahweh itself called the human judges in Israel “gods” (theos) because they were his representatives, acting in his behalf. If God himself can call even humans “theos” then calling Jesus “theos” can mean the same thing, as Jesus then went on to say….
”do you say of Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God [ho theos]’?”
He called himself the “son of ho theos”…..Jesus clearly did not teach that he and his Father are “Yahweh” (God with a capital “G”) but that he was sent by the one he called “ho theos”.
Yahweh was the God and Father of Jesus…..