OT and the Trinity

Some comments about last Sunday's lesson...

First, thanks for bearing with me in trying to cover some deeper issues fairly quickly. I wasn't really fair to the texts in the OT we were looking at to make the kinds of points I was trying to make in the short amount ot time we had. Maybe we'll take it slower this week. But hopefully it was a helpful exercise for you guys to look at the OT and discuss how it applies to the Triune (three-in-one) God revealed in the NT.

A couple of issues were brought up that I wanted to address. Thanks to Roy for bringing them up and keeping me on my toes as a teacher. I wasn't really prepared to discuss their implications given preparation time (or lack of it) and actual time in class. But I don't want to leave things hanging either so I've had a chance to think and read some about them.

1 - Does Isaiah 48 really talk about Cyrus, the Persian emperor who took over the Babylonian empire? I was not aware of this context Sunday morning but chapter 48 does refer to Cyrus, as God's agent to punish Babylon and let the Jews return to Judah and Jerusalem. Cyrus is actually mentioned by name earlier in Isaiah (chapter 44 and/or 46 I think). In chapter 48 God is encouraging the Jews through the prophet that he will use Cyrus to free them out of exile. However, for verse 16, which we focused on for our Trinitarian discussion, it is not clear who is speaking...and this is the significant issue here. Who says, "The LORD God has sent me and His Spirit"? There are three main opnions: 1) Cyrus (minority opnion), 2) the prophet Isaiah himself, or 3) the Suffering Servant which is the subject of chapter 49. The grammar and syntax is somewhat ambiguous, but most choose option 2 or 3. The Suffering Servant is a recurring figure in Isaiah and some chapters on Him are explicitly linked to Christ in the NT. This is the interpretation I was assuming (based on Wayne Grudem). You can see how significant this verse is for the Trinity if Christ the Suffering Servant is claiming to be sent by God along with the Holy Spirit. But we must stop short of being dogmatic on this point given the ambiguity in the text.

2 - Were the Hebrews of Moses' day true monotheists or polytheists? As for the Hebrews themselves, we have Biblical evidence that they believed in and worshipped other gods besides Yawheh, so I think this is a given many were polytheistic. The real question is, was the author(s) of the Pentateuch a true monotheist or a henotheist (one who believes in multiple Gods but only worships one). I think you can make the case for either. On the one hand, there are passages that seem to assume the existence of other gods who are not to be worshipped. However, there are other passages that talk about the other gods as if they were just dumb and powerless pieces of wood, stone or metal. This seems to undermine the idea that the author in any sense considered them 'real'. Additionally, the creation story seems to point back to a single Creator that would necessarily be a supreme God. I lean to the author of the Pentateuch being monotheistic for the following reasons, but again I'm not dogmatic:

1. I believe what he wrote was inspired by God, and so he had God's perspective on the truths of the existence of other gods.

2. Even though there are passages which seem to assume the existence of other gods, I don't think this means he believes they are indeed real. Today we also talk about other gods such as Allah, Molech, or even objects such as money and fame without actually believing they are actual gods. I might say, "don't make money a god" to someone but I don't actually believe in a transcendent being that is personified by money.

Anyway, I look forward to this Sunday discussing the Trinity in the NT.

-casey