Dec 31, 2020

HuffPost's Cringeworthy Article Regarding Biblical Interpretation

 


Those who know me well, know that I utterly despise Huffington Post (especially the "Queer Voices" section; there is no place like that place for bias and just plain-old leftist propaganda). So when I saw that Peter Enns (who, as far as I know, denies the historicity of Adam; which is complete compromise), had written an article for them on the Bible, I thought I would give it a read, and the sort of "arguments" that are used in this article were truly horrific. It is titled "3 Ways Jesus Read the Bible That Evangelicals Are Told Not to Do". I will quote Enns' words in blue and then provide my responses in black.


For Evangelicals—and I’m among them—Jesus and the Bible are high on the priority list. Not just evangelicals but all Christians believe Jesus is the Savior, and that the Bible tells us about him. 


But watching how these two priorities come together—watching how Jesus read his Bible (the Christian Old Testament)—can create some awkward moments, because Jesus read his Bible in ways evangelicals are taught over and over again not to read it.


I am not familiar with everything that Peter Enns has claimed, written, or said. But I am not a big fan of what I do know about him (his denial of a real, literal Adam and Eve for example I am not fond of [as I mentioned above]). Jesus and the Bible is not "awkward" at all. Jesus clearly viewed the Old Testament as being inerrant and divinely inspired (Matthew 5:18; 15:3; 22:31; Mark 7:13; John 10:35). So Enns' idea is simply without warrant here. Now, what are the ways in which Jesus read the Bible that we are told "not to"?




1. Jesus didn’t stick to what “the Bible says,” but read it with a creative flare that had little if any connection to what the biblical writer actually meant to say. 

Evangelicals are told to respect the Bible by “sticking to the text” and not go beyond it. Jesus did the opposite.

For example, in the book of Exodus (chapter 3), God speaks to Moses from a burning bush. This being the first encounter, God introduces himself (verse 6): “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” In other words, “The one speaking to you, Moses, is none other than the God of your ancestors, and I’ve got a very big job for you: go down to Egypt and bring my people out of slavery.”

Enter Jesus. We find him in Luke’s Gospel (chapter 20) debating a religious party known as the Sadducees. One of their beliefs is that after you die, you’re worm food. Other Jews, including Jesus, were of the Pharisee party. They believed that God will one day raise the dead.

So to prove his point—that the Sadducees were wrong and God does indeed raise the dead—Jesus recites the verse from Exodus above, where God introduces himself to Moses.


There isn’t a “deeper meaning” to Exodus 3:6. God is just introducing himself to Moses. It’s not code for “I will raise the dead.”

What Jesus is doing here wouldn’t sit well with most Christians if, say, their pastor got up and preached like this. They’d ask him or her to try and stick to the text better and if not to start looking for another line of work.

But what Jesus does here in Luke’s Gospel, however strange it seems to us, was par for the course in early Judaism. Luke tells us some of the scribes were very impressed with Jesus’s ability to handle the Bible so well!

For Jesus, as for his fellow Jews, the Bible was ready and willing to be handled in creative ways to yield new and unexpected meanings that go far beyond what those words mean when they were first written.


Enns fails to quote the entirety of what the Lord Jesus actually said in Luke 20 regarding the resurrection of the dead as well as his citation of Exodus 3:6. I think Theophylact's commentary is helpful here:

"By using Moses (v. 23-28) they were intent on overturning the doctrine of the resurrection, but He, also by using Moses, convinces them quoting, "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." What Christ means is this: God is not the God of that which is not, but of that which exists and is. For God did not say, "I was," but "I am." Even though they had died, they live in hope of resurrection." (Explanation of the Gospel According to Matthew (tr. Chrysostom Press, 1992), p. 192)


As Theophylact notes, God says "I am" rather than "I was". Enns fails to see this and thus this where the error arises. Jesus' use of Ex. 3:6 does help His case that God "is not God of the dead, but of the living" (Luke 20:37), and the similar principle taught by Christ in John 11:25. 



2. Jesus felt he could “pick and choose” what parts of the Old Testament were valid and which weren’t.

Evangelicals are taught in no uncertain terms that the Bible is a package deal. Believing what the Bible says isn’t like being on a buffet line where you “pick and choose” what you like. Yet, that’s what Jesus did.

For example, we have the famous Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus on a mountain speaking to those gathered around him. Several times he quotes something from the Law of Moses and then contrasts what the Law says (“you have heard it said) with a teaching of his own (“but I say to you”).

We shouldn’t lose sight of the larger idea here: Jesus is acting like Moses. He is on a mountain declaring to the people what God commands of them. The “Sermon on the Mount” isn’t really a sermon at all. For one thing no one was bored listening to it. Jesus’s words were a public declaration that, now that he was here, there were going to be a few changes made.

At some points in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus simply expands what his Bible said—like murder being more than not just physical but also emotional (anger) and verbal (insults). But Jesus also claims that some parts of the Bible over and done and it’s time to head in a new direction.

Moses may have allowed for divorce for all sorts of reasons, but Jesus said divorce was only allowed in the case of unfaithfulness.

God told Moses that Israelites were to make solemn oaths to one another (sort of a binding contract), but Jesus said the true people of God shouldn’t make any oaths. “Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes or ‘No, no’; anything more than this comes from the evil one.”

God told Moses that crimes were punished an “eye for an eye” (to insure the punishment fit the crime) but Jesus said to turn the other cheek rather than seek restitution. In doing so, they would be truly following the will of God.

Jesus taught that some of what God said in the Old Testament was inadequate, and real obedience to God mean it was time to move on. If evangelical pastors or professors pulled moves like this, they’d be working second shift at Target before the week was out.



Regarding the Sermon on the Mount, Enns fails to provide a meaningful context of all of Jesus' words in that passage. Jesus says, right after the Beatitudes, that he was not "throwing out" the Law but rather fulfilling it (Matthew 5:17-20). Plus, Jesus wasn't saying "the OT said this, it is wrong, here is what I am saying to you now". That is a blatant misreading of the text. Again, the Sermon on the Mount must be read in light of everything Jesus said, not just mere snippets.


Enns essentially is implying that Jesus considered "certain parts" of the Old Testament to be invalid. It would be a sufficient rebuttal to quote, well, Jesus' words:

"If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35)

 "And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God:" (Matthew 22:31)


The Apostle Paul, also considered the OT to be inspired by God in its entirety:

"Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God." (Romans 3:2)


The verses above blow Enns' last statement in the above quoted section out of the water completely as well.


Regarding Jesus' views on divorce, I assume Enns probably has Matthew 19:8 in mind. Jesus is not saying that Moses was wrong or anything of the kind. R.T. France's comments are helpful here:

"8 Jesus accepts that Deut 24:1-4 does in effect permit divorce, even though it does not actually say so in so many words. How then is this permission to be squared with his absolute statement that divorce should not take place? The naming of “Moses” as the one who gave permission might suggest that a contrast is being drawn with the original principle of unbroken marriage which was explicitly attributed to the Creator himself in vv. 4-5; on that understanding what Moses permitted is downgraded to a merely human deviation from the divine purpose. But that would be a very modern inference. In first-century Judaism the laws given by Moses were understood to be the laws of God; “Moses” means the Pentateuch, the God-given body of law which is Israel’s highest authority. The name “Moses” is used in v. 8 not to contrast Moses with God, but because Jesus is responding to the question of v. 7 in which Moses has already been named as the source of the Deuteronomic provision. The contrast Jesus draws is not with regard to the authorship or authority of the two Pentateuchal texts, or even simply to the order in which they were given, 2167 but with regard to their purpose. The Deuteronomic legislation is a response to human failure, an attempt to bring order to an already unideal situation caused by human “hardness of heart.” This familiar biblical term refers not so much to people’s attitude to one another (cruelty, neglect, or the like) as to their attitude to God, whose purpose and instructions they have set aside. Its classical use is with regard to Pharaoh, whose “heart was hardened” to refuse God’s call for the liberation of Israel (Exod 7:13 and a further dozen times in the Exodus narrative); it is a term for rebellion against the God to whom obedience is due. It was the fact that divorce was taking place in defiance of God’s stated intention for marriage that made it necessary for Moses to make appropriate provision. But it should never have been so. The existence of divorce legislation is a pointer not to divine approval of divorce but to human sinfulness. Was the provision of Deut 24:1-4 then a mistake? That does not follow from Jesus’ argument. It was rather a mark of divine condescension. Even after his people had rejected his design for marriage, God gave them laws to enable them to make the best of a bad job. But the Mosaic “permission” was not a statement of the way God intended things to be. For that one needs to look in Genesis at the way God had set up his pattern for human sexuality “from the beginning,” before the Fall. So the mistake in relation to Deut 24:1-4 is not that of Moses in making legislative provision for the problems which arise in a fallen world after divorce has taken place, but that of his interpreters who have taken this regrettable but necessary provision as the starting point for their ethical discussion in preference to the original purpose of God as expressed in Genesis. But if the latter is allowed its proper status, Jesus’ pronouncement of v. 6 still stands: what God has united must not be divided." (R.T. France, The New International Commentary on the New Testament: The Gospel of Matthew)




3. Jesus read his Bible as a Jew, not an evangelical (or even a Christian). 

As much as this might not need to be said, it does. When we watch Jesus read his Bible, we are watching a Jewish man reading his Bible. His creative flare and even his “debating” with his own Bible and going in a different direction were part of what it meant to read the Bible in Jesus’s Jewish world.

That doesn’t mean Jesus didn’t revere the Bible. He did. But he revered it in Jewish ways, not evangelical ways.

And that may be the hardest lesson for evangelicals to learn, that Jesus did not agree with things about the Bible that evangelicals take for granted and consider non-negotiable—like “stick to the text” and, “God’s word is eternal and never changes.”

If evangelicals (and I am among them) pay attention to Jesus, they will learn a vital lesson: Our own Bible shows us that getting the Bible right isn’t the center of the Christian faith. Getting Jesus right is.



In the first couple or so paragraphs of this section, Peter Enns mostly just repeats the stuff he has already said in the earlier parts of his article, which I have already provided a refutation to. However, the last paragraph is interesting. I would agree that getting Jesus is right is central to Christianity, but in order to know who Jesus truly was and what he believed, we have to go to the New Testament Scriptures (in particular, the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). Getting the Bible right is extremely important to the Christian faith, and is indeed central if we want to get "Jesus right". Jesus clearly viewed the OT as the inspired Word of God. And anyone who actually does a meaningful investigation into Jesus' views of the Old Testament sees this quite clearly.

The Bible is the "more sure word of prophecy" (2 Peter 1:19) that God has given us, in order that we can get Him right, despite what Enns and other people who deny inerrancy may say. 




Dec 8, 2020

Review of The Gospel According to Jesus by John MacArthur

 


The Gospel According to Jesus by John MacArthur is a book which ultimately explores the question of what following Jesus truly means, particularly against the backdrop of the “lordship salvation” controversy. MacArthur both defends lordship-salvation and at the same time, provides a thorough critique of the other position, easy-believism. MacArthur outlines in chapter 2 of the book some of the problems with what he refers to as the ‘typical gospel presentation nowadays’: “Listen to the typical gospel presentation nowadays. You will hear sinners entreated with words like, “accept Jesus Christ as personal Savior”; “ask Jesus into your heart”; “invite Christ into your life”; or “make a decision for Christ.” You may be so accustomed to hearing those phrases that it will surprise you to learn that none of them is based on biblical terminology. They are the products of a diluted gospel. It is not the gospel according to Jesus.” MacArthur most frontly critiques and refutes the idea that “conversion to Christ requires no spiritual commitment whatsoever” (pg. 38)


MacArthur clarifies that he is not in anyway whatsoever proposing the idea that works are a precondition for salvation (pg. 48 - “Works are not necessary to earn salvation”). He is simply showing that it is wrong to assume that one is a Christian simply because he/she professes it without showing any outward evidence in their lifestyle. “Not everyone who claims to be a Christian really is”, as he says. In chapter 3, Dr. MacArthur shows how Jesus’ meeting with Nicodemus in John 3 proves this point. He especially points out that Nicodemus came to Jesus with a positive word of affirmation (what might equate to today’s idea of “accepting Jesus into your heart). We might expect Jesus “to welcome Nicodemus warmly and interpret his positive response as a profession of faith, but that was not the case”(pg. 51). In this passage, Jesus treated Nicodemus as an unbeliever. Since Jesus knew the hearts of men (John 2:24), he obviously knew whether or not Nicodemus truly was one who had saving faith. MacArthur shows how John 3 demonstrates that it is possible for one to be fanatically religious, yet “no nearer the kingdom of God than a prostitute” (pg. 53) 


In chapter 4, MacArthur deals with the next chapter from John’s gospel in which the story of the woman at the well takes place. John 4 demonstrated conclusively that Jesus, rather than appealing to his listener’s misplaced interests, confronted them with their ultimate need. This story shows that Jesus demands true worship, not an empty bogus profession of faith. MacArthur notes that it is interesting that the woman’s first action after her conversion was to go and tell others about Jesus (John 4:28-30). She had a real faith. Jesus knew the woman’s sinful past, and when he invites her to “drink”, it is not leaving an excuse for continuing to live as she used to: “Jesus never sanctioned any form of cheap grace. He was not offering eternal life as an add-on to a life cluttered with unconfessed sin. It is inconceivable that He would pour someone a drink of living water without challenging and altering that individual’s sinful lifestyle. He came to save His people from their sin (cf. Matt. 1:21), not to confer immortality on people in bondage to wickedness (cf. Gen. 3:22 – 24)” (pg. 68)


Chapter 21 seemed to enforce the point (i.e. that true believers will have a dynamic faith that evidences itself in good works not an empty profession of faith) really well. MacArthur appeals to Matthew 7 to show that many people who profess to be Christians are in fact self-deceived: “Here in Matthew 7, the Lord gives us a glimpse of the coming judgment and the tragedy of those who will stand before the throne with high expectations but only a verbal profession or mere intellectual knowledge. They will protest that they did things for the Lord, but their words and their hearts are empty. Tragically, Christ will turn them away from heaven” (pg. 212). The “many” of Matthew 7 who will be “turned away from heaven” are, according to MacArthur, “religious people who have chosen the road of human achievement. They are the same ‘many’ we met in Matthew 7:13, who took the wide gate and broad way. Their plea will be the religious deeds they have done (v. 22). Paul said people like this hold “to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power” (2 Tim. 3:5). They are much like the Pharisees, obsessed with religious activity, not necessarily apostates, heretics, antichrists, atheists, or agnostics — just people trying to earn God’s favor through external works rather than living out the righteousness that is based on faith (cf. Rom. 10:5 – 10) (pg. 212).” Note especially that these people say “Lord, Lord” (thus affirming the truth of his divinity). Their faith exists only in the spoken realm, with no evidence of itself in reality. Their lifestyle is that of one who is unrepentant and self-deceived, yet they “go through the motions”, as it is often said, and might even be highly involved in churches and other religious activities, yet Jesus will say to them “I never knew you”. Notice he says that never knew them, not that he once knew them but then lost them, or that they lost their salvation somehow. They were never real believers in the first place!


This book encourages all who profess to be Christians to “examine themselves” (2 Corinthians 13:5, 2 Peter 1:10-11) to see if they are truly Christians. Generally, those who are self-deceived have what is called a “false assurance”, usually never examining themselves.
The Gospel According to Jesus shows that the true message of Jesus was one of a call to submit to His authority and his lordship and to repent and trust in Him alone.

Dec 6, 2020

The Old Testament's Testimony to the Divinity of the Messiah

 

If Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, then by necessity, he is claiming to be God. The Holy Bible, in many places, tells us that Messiah is divine:

“Now muster your troops, O daughter of troops; siege is laid against us; with a rod they strike the judge of Israel on the cheek. But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has given birth; then the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel. And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth.” - Micah 5:1-4

“Behold, my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted. As many were astonished at you— his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind— so shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him, for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand.” - 

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭52:13-15‬ ‭ESV


The sort of language that the Prophet Isaiah uses here is extremely similar to language earlier in the book which ascribed to Yahweh himself!


“In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” -  ‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭6:1-5‬ ‭


“The Lord is exalted, for he dwells on high; he will fill Zion with justice and righteousness,” -  ‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭33:5‬ ‭ESV‬‬

The Prophet Daniel also views the Messiah, the Son of Man, as being divine:


“I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.” - ‭‭Daniel‬ ‭7:13-14‬ 


This figure whom Daniel speaks of has attributes that are identical to those of Yahweh (cloud rider, he receives worship, etc.) :


“And in the morning watch the Lord in the pillar of fire and of cloud looked down on the Egyptian forces and threw the Egyptian forces into a panic,” - ‭‭Exodus‬ ‭14:24‬ ‭


“The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.” - ‭‭Nahum‬ ‭1:3‬ ‭

“Sing to God, sing praises to his name; lift up a song to him who rides through the deserts; his name is the Lord; exult before him!” - ‭‭Psalm‬ ‭68:4‬ ‭


“An oracle concerning Egypt. Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud and comes to Egypt; and the idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence, and the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them.” - ‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭19:1‬ ‭ 


In the NT, the Lord Jesus claims to be the Messiah:

“The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” - ‭‭John‬ ‭4:25-26‬ ‭


After His resurrection, he reaffirms his identity as the Messiah:


“That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them.”“And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. - ‭‭Luke‬ ‭24:13-15‬, 25-27

Islam likewise affirms that Jesus Christ is the Messiah (Surah 3:45), thus if Muslims want to be consistent, they end up having to deny their own faith's teachings about Jesus in the Qur'an. 

Thus, due to the fact that the OT says that the Messiah is Yahweh, and that Jesus explicitly claimed to be Messiah (which Muslims also believe that Jesus is the Messiah), he is thus claiming to be God in light of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Jesus as God's "servant" in Acts 3:26 - Osama Abdallah & others Refuted

 


Many Muslim apologists, in order to deny the truth of Christ's deity, will often appeal to places in the Holy Bible where it speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ as being God's "servant". Particularly, I read an article written by dawah missionary Osama Abdallah from the Answering Christianity website. If you so choose to click on the above link, please note that the article extends only for part of the page (Osama's website is extremely disorganized and usually filled with mere verbiage rather than an actual meaningful argumentation). I won't be going through everything that Osama says but I will address the main verse which he cites (i.e. Acts 3:26)However, I ended up coming across this article and I thought I would provide a thorough analysis of Acts 3:26 in which Jesus is called God's "servant".

Here is the verse from the English Standard Version of the Holy Bible:


"God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.” (Acts 2:36 ESV

It is obviously interesting that Muslims would go to this verse, since it explicitly affirms the resurrection of Christ, something which is denied by Muslims in the first place.


Here are some comparisons between the different translations of the Holy Bible on this verse:


New International Version [NIV]: "When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways."

New American Standard Bible [NASB]: "For you first, God raised up His Servant and sent Him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways."

New King James Version [NKJV]: "To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities.”

Christian Standard Bible [CSB]: "God raised up his servant and sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your evil ways."

King James Bible [KJV]: "Unto you first God, having raised up his SON Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities."



As you can see above, the KJV is the only one that uses the word "son". In this article, I will go with the ESV and the others which use the word "servant". Does this refute the divinity of the Lord Jesus? Not in the slightest, as this article will thoroughly demonstrate. I will provide some reasons why Jesus being called God's "servant" does not refute him being God incarnate.

#1 - The word παῖς does not always refer to a mere servant. 


In Acts 3:26, the word which is translated as "servant" is the Greek word παῖς. Most Islamic polemicists will probably assume that this word refers to a mere servant and nothing else. However, that is not the way this word is meant in the New Testament. Here are some biblical examples to illustrate this:



"After the two days he departed for Galilee. (For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.) So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For they too had gone to the feast. So he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And at Capernaum there was an official whose son (ὁ υἱὸς) was ill. When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son (αὐτοῦ τὸν υἱόν), for he was at the point of death. So Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child (τὸ παιδίον μου) dies.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your son (ὁ υἱός σου) will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son (ὁ παῖς αὐτοῦ) was recovering. So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son (Ὁ υἱός σου) will live.” And he himself believed, and all his household. This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee." (John 4:43-54)


Here, in this story, we see that this official referred to his son using the word "pais" (the exact same word which is used in Acts 3:26!). This proves quite conclusively that this word pais can refer to one's son or child


#2- In Acts chapters 2-3 [in which 3:26 appears], Peter explicitly affirms the deity of Jesus Christ




Acts 2:33 - "Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing."


Acts 2:34-35 - "For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, 'The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand,  until I make your enemies your footstool.' " 


Here Peter quotes from Psalm 110:1. This same OT verse used by Jesus in Mark 12:35-37: 

"And as Jesus taught in the temple, he said, “How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David?  David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared, 'The Lord said to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.'  David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son?” And the great throng heard him gladly." (Mark 12:35-37)


John MacArthur, a well-known pastor, as well as a commentator says these words regarding Jesus' use of Psalm 110:1:

"… Verse 1 proves that the messiah could not be merely a man, since David referred to him as his Lord. Jesus' simple argument was so powerful and convincing that when it became widely known after the New Testament was written, many Jews, to avoid the obvious reality, denied the historical view that Psalm 110 was messianic. Instead, it was argued that it referred to Abraham, or Melchizedek, or the intertestamental Jewish leader Judas Maccabeus. Modern liberal scholars, who deny Christ's deity and the infallibility of Scripture, have argued that David was simply mistaken in viewing the messiah as his Lord. However, all of those arguments require rejecting the revealed truth that David himself called the messiah his Lord because of revelation from the Holy SpiritFurther, God declared to David's Lord, "Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies beneath your feet." Elevating the Messiah to His right hand, a reference to the divine position of power (cf. Ex. 15:6; Pss. 20:6; 44:3; 60:5; 89:13), symbolizes His being coequal with the Father in rank and authority, and essentially affirms His deity. Messiah's rule will be absolute, as God will put His enemies beneath His feet or, as Luke writes, "make [his] enemies a footstool for [his] feet" (Luke 20:43)… The Old Testament, then, reveals not only the Messiah Jesus' humanity as David's son but also His deity as David's Lord, exalted at the right hand of the Father. Here is the incomprehensible, infinite truth that Jesus is both fully God and man… The conclusion to this passage is anticlimactic and tragic. From the majestic heights of Jesus' profound wisdom and masterful exposition of Psalm 110 proving His deity, the reader is plunged into the depths of the hate-driven rejection by the nation's hardened leaders, as well as the amused apathy of the large crowd, who merely enjoyed listening to Him, but two days later would later cry for His execution. Some hated Him, others were entertained by Him. None, apparently, fell on their faces in the presence of almighty God incarnate to repent and confess Him as Lord and Savior." (The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Mark 9-16, pgs. 209-213, emphasis originally added by Sam Shamoun)


Now we move on to yet more verses in Acts 2-3 which testify to the Jesus being God.

Acts 2:36 - "Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”


Acts 3:13-16 - "The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. And his name—by faith in his name—has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all."


Note several things: 

1) Jesus is called the "Author of life".

2) It is "through Jesus" that this man is healed by a miracle. 

3) Jesus is called the "Holy and Righteous One".


Conclusion


We have seen that Peter explicitly affirms that Jesus is God, in the book of Acts (and he does as well in 2 Peter 1:1). We have also shown that the word pais in the Greek language can and does refer to one's son or child (and can be a servant at the same time).

The Bible is amazingly clear that Jesus Christ is God incarnate, and thus we ought to worship Him. 

Eutyches and the Double Consubstantiality of Christ

  During the Home Synod of Constantinople, Eutyches was summoned multiple times to appear before the assembly of bishops. On one such instan...