Month: April 2024

Andrew Perry on 1 Cor. 8:6 Part 5

Does Jesus just represent the Father? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this section, Perry claims that the best way to speak of Jesus is as one who has the name of YHWH not because He is YHWH, but because He is representing YHWH.

The best sense for ‘included within the divine identity’ is representative identity – i.e. where someone
represents (acts for) someone else.
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things
under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is kyrios, to the glory of God
the Father. Phil 2:9-11 (KJV revised); cf. Rom 14:1

First off, it’s noteworthy that in this passage, everything bows down to Jesus and to God, meaning that there is a differentiation going on between Jesus and everything else save the Father. Some of you astute readers will be thinking that Paul is quoting Isaiah here. We are about to get to that.

The name given to Jesus that is above every name is not the common Jewish name of ‘Jesus’ but that of
‘Yhwh’. As we have noted above, the type for this is the giving of the name to the Angel of the Lord.
This framework of name-bearing is indicative of representation (acting/speaking50 in someone’s name).
This is clear from the example of the Angel of the Lord where God instructs that the people were to obey
his voice because “my name is in/with him” (Exod 23:21). The identity here is representative, one in
which someone represents the authority and the will of another. As such, it does not confuse the persons
of God and the Angel of the Lord. We can, if we want, gloss this kind of identity as an ‘inclusive’ identity:
the representative is part of the identity of the one represented.

Nothing is said of what if someone does think the Angel of the Lord is the preincarnate Christ and actually an appearance of YHWH? There are numerous occasions in the Old Testament where someone talks to the Angel of the Lord and it is as if they are speaking to God. There are also times the Angel speaks as if He is God, notably in Exodus 3. Perry in a footnote says the prophets represented God, which is true, but no one ever confused Isaiah for YHWH.

Paul quotes Isa 45:23 in Phil 2:9-11 which, while ‘anthropomorphic’, is quite specific in its personal
language: ‘my mouth’ and ‘unto me’ – this singular language doesn’t seem to offer much room for others
to receive obeisance.
I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return,
that unto me (yl yk) every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. (Isa 45:23 KJV)
Commentators assume that bowing ‘at the name of Jesus’ is equivalent to bowing before Jesus alone. It is
as if their exegesis drops ‘the name’ from their consideration of what Paul is saying. However, if you bow
‘at the name’ and that name is ‘Yhwh’, then Yahweh is involved as an indirect recipient of the obeisance
when the one being bowed to is a representative.

Absent is any mention of “I will not share my glory with another” from Isaiah 42:8. However, if Philippians says everyone bows at the name of Jesus and everyone is to bow to YHWH, it’s easy to make that parallel. It’s practically hard to avoid it.

In general, insofar as Christ does the same thing his Father does, the same action predicates are applied to
them both. For example,
To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints. 1 Thess 3:13 (KJV)
…and kyrios my God shall come, and all the saints with thee. Zech 14:5 (KJV)

Yet this is not saying Jesus is doing the same action of YHWH. YHWH never comes to the Earth except at the end of Revelation and then it is the marriage of Heaven and Earth. It is Jesus that is coming to the Earth. Again, Paul is making a one-to-one parallel.

This allusion is an example of Yhwh texts that describe God acting on behalf of his people in the land.
The language of Yahweh coming in the person of another is seen, for example, in the case of the Arm of
the Lord (Isa 40:3; 10; 51:9; 53:1; John 12:38). This is God being manifest in the flesh (1 Tim 3:16) and
fulfilling his own declaration, ‘I will be who I will be’ (Exod 3:1460). That God is manifest in someone on
the ground is indicated by the prediction that ‘his feet’ would stand on the Mount of Olives. As Adey
observes, “A Biblical criterion of being the true God is that God’s identity can be depicted by another”.
The predicates of action are equally applicable to Yahweh as they are to the person on the ground.
There are criteria of application for these predicates which are satisfied by Yahweh and the person on
the ground. The point here is not that the person bears the name ‘Yhwh’, nor that they necessarily
represent Yahweh (pace foreign potentates brought against Israel), though this may be true: the point is
that God is manifesting himself in someone through the Spirit – their actions are the actions of God. In
this sense, that person is included in an identity with God (and vice-versa) but without any confusion of
persons.

The fact that some people can possibly have a confusion of persons shows why Paul wrote the way he did, regularly saying theos for the Father and kurios for the Lord Jesus. Of course, it would be difficult to describe in many ways, but the solution is not to change the doctrine, but to change the language the best we can. Yet what happens if someone says contrary to what Perry thinks about this?

Fletcher-Louis states, “Time and again we find divine action or functions ascribed to Christ in a way that
now makes sense if Christ belongs within the divine identity and if he fully participates in the divine
nature.” What we need to question here is the ‘fully participates in the divine nature’. This sounds like
theologically motivated eisegesis designed to support later church doctrine.

Unfortunately, Perry doesn’t question it. It is fine to question what it means and that would be a great discussion to have, but his response is “It sounds like theologically motivated eisegesis designed to support later church doctrine.” Obviously, Perry is free from any theological motivations whatsoever. Suppose I said “Perry’s writing sounds like theologically motivated eisegesis in order to avoid a doctrine he disagrees with.” Could I be right? Sure. Is that an argument to reject Perry? Not at all. The motivations don’t matter. The data does.

The framework for understanding the same divine action being attributed to God and to Christ is
representative. This is clear from the use of ‘parentheses’ in Paul,
Now God himself and our Father, (even our Lord Jesus Christ), direct our way unto you. 1 Thess
3:11 (KJV revised); cf. 2 Thess 3:5
The singular verb ‘to direct’ is attached to the subject ‘God’ as shown by the emphasis ‘himself’, but the
guidance is through the Lord Jesus, as shown by the ‘even’ sense of the conjunction. Paul uses the same
construction for emphasis in 1 Thess 5:23, “May the God of peace himself (Auvto.j de. o` qeo.j) sanctify you
wholly”, and 1 Cor 8:6 makes the relationship clear: spiritual things are of the Father but through the Son
(see below).

When I look at 2 Thess. 3:5, it’s hard to find a translation besides the KJV that translates it this way. The majority don’t have a problem. Looking at the other translations, it looks that Paul is asking that the audience be directed to qualities of the Father and of the Son, but it would not be as if these were mutually exclusive to one or the other. Consider this for an example:

May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance.

Are we to think that if you want love, you go to the Father, but if you want perseverance, you go to the Son? Now granted, the Son is the only one who has been incarnate and persevered in suffering, but we are also told that God is patient with us. I doubt Perry would also question that the Son has love for us.

As for from the Father and through the Son, I agree with this. This is because I see Jesus as God’s Wisdom. This does not remove Jesus from the divine nature.

The singular verb attaches to the emphasized subject, God the Father, but the parenthesis provides a
substitution for the reader, a device which therefore does not contravene the normal grammar of noun-verb agreement.66 Fletcher-Louis’ grammatical analysis is therefore wrong “two persons grammatically
expressed as one acting subject”. It is rather, two grammatical subjects (one primary, one secondary)
available for one action verb.

And Perry can win this battle and lose the war. I don’t have a problem with this in my view of Jesus. It’s also something that really makes sense to me seeing as I don’t hold to unipersonalism.

Next time, we will discuss typological identity.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

 

 

 

Gaming Doesn’t Need Sweet Babies

What happens when woke comes to gaming? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

When I was out sick last week and recovering, I spent a lot of time watching YouTube videos while resting. I am quite interested in politics and of course, in gaming. I have noticed that a lot of popular franchises have gone woke. I know it sounds heretical, but I never really got into Star Wars, and unfortunately now, the series is dead. Woke has destroyed it. What you grew up with is not what is being produced today.

All of this is done in the name of what the Critical Drinker calls

“THE MESSAGE!”

Now it has come to gaming with a company called Sweet Baby Inc. This is all about the whole sensitivity movement and equity and everything else. This is resulting in games where women are not allowed to look feminine lest they bring about “the male gaze” and men are turned into highly emotional creatures.

News flash. The male gaze as it is put is not going away. Men tend universally to like to look at beautiful women. That’s not a bug. It’s a feature. Not only that, but there are plenty of female gamers out there and they would prefer to play as an attractive woman.

The problem with the Woke movement is not that they want to have characters, movies, video games, TV shows, etc. that include characters that are LGBTQ. For me, that’s the thing with freedom. They are allowed to do things that I don’t delight in, but that’s the way the market works.

My problem is that generally, instead of doing the hard work of making their own characters and series and establishing them, they instead co-opt characters that have a history already and try to force them into the LGBTQ group. The woke crowd doesn’t just want to make material that they want made. They want others to not make material they deem offensive and they want to force others to make games according to their standards.

These people are not doing this also because they really care about making good games. Instead, they hate people like myself who are gamers. They want a purge from the community to remove all the people that they deem to be unfit for the community. Naturally, this will be all the people they deem to be homophobic, sexist, racist, transphobic, etc.

In reality, the gaming community is really one of the most open communities there is. We have had female heroes from the beginning, such a Samus Aran of Metroid. It was a major shock for many when at the end of the game, provided you played it well finishing it in x time, that you found out the character who you were playing all along was a woman.

Another video I saw made a claim about Barrett from Final Fantasy VII being a typical stereotypical black guy. Most people were saying “Thanks for telling us you never played the game.” Barrett is a rough and tough guy, but he’s also deeply sensitive taking care of his late friend’s daughter who he took in as his own and with a deep love for the planet in his missions.

Something amusing I like to point out with this is that group like Sweet Baby Inc, is that they want to go after a group of people that spend hours playing games where they took on hostile forces and evil empires and face impossible odds and think everything will work out fine.

It won’t.

Gamers are a dedicated group and we don’t just sit back and roll over when it comes to the games that we love. Gamers all over the world have teamed up to reach goals before. We’re prepared to do it again.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

The Reality of Beauty

Does it matter that we picture women as beautiful? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I was glad Tifa wasn’t flattened.

I know many of you aren’t gamers, but the Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. What is happening here is happening everywhere else. When evil declares war, it leaves nothing untouched. Even if you never pick up a controller in your life, you should care about this because your friends and family do pick them up.

So Tifa Lockhart is a character in the game Final Fantasy VII. A bunch of guys (And girls) noticed when the game came out on the original Playstation 1 that Tifa was quite well-endowed. This could be because of the way the polygonal graphics looked on the system. Either way, it was something she got known for.

So a few years ago when the remake came out, I got concerned. Would they change this? Why was I concerned? Because I’m just a guy and I just care about women looking hot? No. I was concerned because if they did this, it would mean they were caving in to political pressure, a goal to masculinize women and make them less attractive. Why? To avoid the male gaze.

As I said yesterday, men like looking at beautiful women. Heck. Women like looking at beautiful women. The problem is our society treats this like it’s a problem.

You all do realize that if men weren’t interested in beautiful women the human race would have died out a long time ago. Right?

You can say that’s shallow, but in reality, beauty is the draw. Beauty is something that leads men to love. They see a beauty and they want to treasure that beauty and pursue it.

Women. You sell yourself short when you shortcut that pursuit of men. Men will often do enough to get the beauty, and then when they have the beauty, well that’s the peak. I am not saying all men do this, but many do.

So what happens if you go to dinner and a movie with a guy and you wind up sleeping with him? You have taught him that’s all it takes. You put your price on what your beauty is worth.

On the other hand also, if you say “You need to make a lifetime commitment to me” then if that man really wants you, he will make that commitment. If he doesn’t, then he told you what he thinks you’re worth and you dodged a bullet. By the way ladies, when he makes that commitment, honor it. Let him treasure your beauty and you will have a happy man indeed. A man who will keep wanting to please you as well.

For men, this also means that engagement with pornography doesn’t just speak lowly of women, but it speaks lowly of men. A man engaging in pornography is taking a coward’s way out that will keep him from having to engage with a real woman. The woman on the screen can’t say no after all. She requires nothing of him. He doesn’t have to do anything that is a risk. He just shows up.

Of course, she also doesn’t really care about him and doesn’t think he’s sexy. She doesn’t want to be the mother of his children. She won’t be there to grow old with him years down the road.

The man will not grow in love and also, when a real woman comes along, he very well could be unable to perform because he’s trained his mind to work on fake women. What man wants that when it’s time to perform? Why even risk it?

This is also why Christians should never say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Beauty is a reality. It is as real as truth and goodness. If beauty is relative, then there is nothing truly beautiful, but thinking makes it so. Do you think you live in a world where nothing is truly beautiful or even truly ugly?

One can say beautiful women can intimidate some women, but they can also be an inspiration. We know some portrayals, such as in anime, are unrealistic, but not all are. There is debate going on saying the main character of a game called Stellar Blade has an unrealistic image of a woman.

The image is based on a 3D model of an actual woman.

We should not try to remove beauty from women because women are meant to be beautiful. We should not try to remove masculinity from men because men are meant to be men. Our culture is in a war against reality. It is a new Gnosticism and it must be won.

Celebrate beauty today and honor beauty properly.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

How Not To Handle Doubters

What do you not do with a doubter in your congregation? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Last week, I came down with a virus and was experiencing extreme fatigue. I’m fine for the most part, but I do have a lasting cough that will probably stick with me for awhile. There have been a few nights I have got up in the middle of the night and just sucked on a cough drop until it was done and then I returned to sleep.

So during the week, I also saw someone share this on their post that a pastor shared. Granted, we don’t know all that went on before. The pastor claims there were several cordial DMs that he had with this person, and then decided to share this as something that you just have to do some time. Again, I don’t know all the context, but I am going on what the pastor shared, not the person he was dialoguing with.

Pastors. Please please please don’t do this.

I can see myself easily as the young man in this picture. If someone you trust sees a message and doesn’t say anything, it’s hard to know what’s going on on the other end. He feels ignored. Now is that a potshot possibly taken at the end? Perhaps, but hurt people hurt people, and I do suspect this man has been deeply hurt.

You all know I don’t think God speaking today is normative, but if you do and God seems to be silent and you look to the person you think best represents him and that person lets you down, what else is to be thought? God has totally abandoned you. It’s an easy conclusion to make.

So let’s look at this unnamed pastor for now. I know who he is and where he pastors, but I’m not going to share it. I want to note one thing he says.

He has a church with 400+ people in it.

Could you not find a man among one of them who can help you out? Is there not someone who understands enough apologetics to help this person? If there is not, then pastor, your biggest problem is not this person coming and taking “your time.” Your problem is that you haven’t prepared your flock. If you are teaching the flock the truths of the gospel, finding one person who can do this should be simple.

By the way, I also say a man because I think a man experiencing doubt like this who is going to be spoken to on a personal level needs it to be another man. Forming an emotional connection like that with a woman could easily lead to forming other connections. It is not to say women aren’t needed in apologetics. They definitely are.

This pastor has instead told me more about himself. I know more about what this pastor does, but I don’t know what is going on with the person who is asking for help. I know more about how important what this person does is.

Or rather, how important he thinks it is.

Instead, all I see given back are a bunch of cliches. These sound good, but they don’t work with a doubter. Could some of the claims be true? Possibly. Could it be that this person thinks the world revolves around them? Possibly. Still, the pastor shared this photo and shared it as an example of what to do.

It is exactly the opposite. It is a failure of leadership. It is someone who didn’t delegate and let someone else answer the questions. I hope this young man isn’t a casualty of what you did.

And if the young man who was in dialogue sees this, reach out to me. I’ll answer your questions the best I can and if I can’t answer a question, well, I don’t have a problem reaching out to people I trust to be experts in those fields to answer such questions.

It’s not about me and my time after all.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)