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The Great Dilemma

 

 

There is a dilemma which has puzzled the adherents of Judaism since Jesus arrived on the banks of the Jordan River and people began to recognize and call him the son of David. It is the same dilemma which has since passed into the halls of Christianity.

The dilemma was perpetrated by Jesus’ question(s) when “the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, 'What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is He?' They said to him, 'The son of David.' He said to them, 'How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, "The LORD said to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet'?" If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?"[1] In essence, what Jesus is asking the Pharisees is this: how could David have called his own son Lord,[2] since the expected Christ was to be David’s son?

Because of their knowledge of the scriptures and the prophets,[3] the Pharisees were correct in their judgment that Christ would come through David. As there was no doubt on their part, they understood the Christ to be the son of David.[4] But Jesus’ question was paramount, as the Pharisees clearly understood; no father grounded in Hebrew tradition and thought would call his own offspring Lord.

So how were they (and we) to reconcile this apparent dilemma? How and why did David (while in the Spirit) call his own offspring Lord? This was exactly what Jesus asked his adversaries to contemplate.[5] For the Pharisees, it was a dilemma that offered no apparent precedent in the history of Hebrew culture and tradition that they could fall back upon, and having no answer for Jesus, as the account is given, they were silenced by his question.[6]

 

Jesus’ question to the Pharisees continues to have the same weight today as when he first posed, “what does it mean David calls the seed that was to come from his own body, Lord?” But, just as the Pharisees were silenced that day, the Church has been silent. Perhaps worse than the silence is the Church’s indifference to the truth that Jesus is the son of David. The indifference and the silence can be traced back to the early fourth century, and the creation of the great ecumenical creeds of the early Church.[7]

For the Pharisees, the dilemma was rather simple. They had no answer for how or why David would call his own son Lord!

In the first couple of centuries of the early Church, this dilemma was the continuation of Jesus’ question, how does David become inferior to the son? -and was the reason for the great debates over the person of Jesus found in the gospel accounts. The debates, which became heated at times and often, resulted in bloodshed, led first to the creation of the creeds in the early Church, and then to those later confessions which denominational Christianity is founded upon and defined by today.

The Churches' dilemma, as it has remained these many centuries, was created by those creeds that have come down through the turbulence of Church history. The much fought-over and debated ecumenical creeds of the early Church, produced in the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, ascribe little relevance to Jesus being the son of David. In reality, it has become all but irrelevant in the doctrine of the Church. In other words, Jesus as the son of David, made from the seed (Greek = σπέρματος, spermma) of David,[8] as the scriptures state, has no real meaning because of those great ecumenical creeds'[9] position that Jesus was none other than God manifested in the flesh. If Jesus was God, the Almighty El Elohiym Yahweh manifested in the flesh, where, then lies the importance of David’s seed? Why would David’s seed have any relevance at all, when it was the Seed of God, as Church dogma maintains, that impregnated the young woman Mary?

The question is very relevant, however, because the Pharisees, the scribes, the lawyers of the law, along with the craftsmen, the fishermen, and the common folk in the street, at no point understood that God was going to come to them as a man born of David’s seed. Everyone looking for the messiah expected a man,[10] a King[11] who would come in the name of Lord,[12] the one who would come through the lineage of David.[13] They expected that the one whom God promised to raise up as His prophet[14] would bring salvation[15] and peace,[16] and would rule in righteousness.[17] For generations, long before Jesus arrived at the banks of the Jordan River, this was the hope and the expectation of the people who were called for the name's sake of Yahweh.[18]

 

 But if the accepted creeds of the Church are correct, and Jesus of Nazareth, the son of David, is none other than God Almighty manifested in the flesh—the Creator of all there is was and ever shall be—then this was a truth hidden from many, many generations of God-fearers. This would include those living at the time of Jesus, the apostles, and those who came after them for at least a century or more, until the creation of the ecumenical creeds firmly established Jesus’ identity in Roman Catholic doctrine.

If the dogma of the Church is correct, that God was Jesus, Jesus was God, and one must believe that Jesus is God in order to be saved,[19] what happens then to those generations of God-fearers who didn’t know? How are the people of God, such as righteous Noah, and Abraham, the friend of God, to be redeemed, since God-fearers believed different things at different times?

Are we to understand that all those listed in the hall of faith, found in the eleventh chapter of the book of Hebrews, missed the truth that God was to come and did come in the form of a man? Were the saints under the Old Covenant[20] era saved by a different confession of faith than what the Church creeds require? Consider the multitude of the faithful who never heard, nor had the opportunity to believe, that Jesus was God. Does the rule of faith change throughout redemptive history, for different people at different times?[21] What exactly does the Almighty El Elohiym expect a man to believe concerning His word, and the promises He has made?

As one thinks upon these things, in light of the people of God who lived prior to Jesus, just how important is it to Yahweh for a man to believe (according to the creeds) that Jesus of Nazareth was himself Yahweh, the God of the Hebrew people?

But even more important is to consider the corollary: Yahweh, the Almighty EL,[22] died at the hands of sinful men, became accursed for us on the tree, and then lay dead in the grave for three days. Was it really the Almighty EL Elohiym who died on the tree, who, according to the creeds, is an inseparable Trinity?

The question poses incomprehensible implications,[23] in light of the Athanasian Creed, C.E. 500AD, which claims,

   “And the catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons; nor dividing the Essence. For there is one Person of the Father; another of the Son; and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one; the Glory equal, the Majesty coeternal. Such as the Father is; such is the Son; and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father uncreated; the Son uncreated; and the Holy Ghost uncreated. The Father unlimited; the Son unlimited; and the Holy Ghost unlimited. The Father eternal; the Son eternal; and the Holy Ghost eternal. And yet they are not three eternals; but one eternal. As also there are not three uncreated; nor three infinites, but one uncreated; and one infinite. So likewise the Father is Almighty; the Son Almighty; and the Holy Ghost Almighty. And yet they are not three Almighties; but one Almighty. So the Father is God; the Son is God; and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not three Gods; but one God. So likewise the Father is Lord; the Son Lord; and the Holy Ghost Lord. And yet not three Lords; but one Lord. For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord; so are we forbidden by the catholic religion; to say, there are three Gods, or three Lords. The Father is made of none; neither created, nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone; not made, nor created; but begotten. The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son; neither made, nor created, nor begotten; but proceeding. So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts. And in this Trinity none is before, or after another; none is greater, or less than another. But the whole three Persons are coeternal, and coequal. So that in all things, as aforesaid; the Unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity, is to be worshipped. He therefore that will be saved, let him thus think of the Trinity.”[24]

 

If the Trinity cannot be divided, but always existed, co-equal and co-eternal, as the creed states above, what happened to the Trinity when Jesus of Nazareth died on the cross? To simply believe and say that when the sin of mankind was placed upon Jesus,[25] and “only the man part of Jesus died,” and there was a separation between Jesus being fully God and fully man, is a clear contradiction of or within the creed. Nobody in their right mind is going to say or confess that God, the creator of all there is, the great “I Am,” the Almighty El Elohiym of the Old Testament scriptures, died that day nearly two thousand years ago, on the cross at Calvary.

The creeds have virtually nullified the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth. When one reads the creeds of old, and even the more recent confessions of the Church, they will not be able to find the Jesus who was like us in every way, was tempted like us in every way—the same man who was approved of God, the man who learned the obedience, the man God offered up as the sacrifice for the sin of the world, and who was rewarded with the promise that God would not leave His soul in the grave, and was raised up by the resurrection power of God, exalted above the angels, became our Great High Priest who stands as a mediator between God and men, and now sits at the right hand of the Throne of God.

But there may be an even more severe, even sinister, element in the fact that the creeds of the Church have ignored, and have made irrelevant, the genealogy of Jesus, and the question he asked the Pharisees that day. It is the irrelevancy of the astounding promises God made to Abraham, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."[26] What happens to the promise of blessing to the families of the earth, if the Seed coming through Abraham and David becomes inconsequential because it is made negligible both in the creeds and in the minds and hearts of the faithful?

The fact is, God’s promises to Abraham—the promise of a land as an everlasting possession,[27] the promise that Abraham was to be the heir of the world,[28] the promise to make Abraham the source of great nations where kings would spring from his loins,[29] and especially the promise that all the families of the earth would be blessed[30]—have no relevance in the Church dogma of a triune God that in essence undermines the truth that the promised seed to Abraham and David was fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth,[31] “the man approved of by God.”[32]

The implications weigh heavy before us.

In the ecumenical creeds[33] which form the foundation of Church doctrine today, there is simply no mention of the promise of God to the fathers.[34] The promises to Abraham and David regarding God’s blessing to come through their seed are completely left out of the creeds. The disconnect between the promises of God to Abraham to bless the nations through his seed and the expectations established in the creeds and confessions of the Church is complete.

In the end, the accounts of Abraham and David have become just stories, stories for children, and history lessons for the curious that have lost their relevance in linking the promises God made to His people. All but forgotten are God's blessings to the world through the seed promise, that promise of God which has affected mankind in the profoundest of ways.

 

If the relevance of the seed promise is lost today, it is because the scriptures have all but lost their relevance. A thoughtful reader searching the Psalms of David will notice this disconnect from God’s promises, perhaps felt with a pang, a feeling that there is something missing in the doctrine of the Church. An example is David’s Psalm (song) when he cried out in dedication to his son, Solomon. David began, “Give the king Thy judgments, O God, and Thy righteousness to the king's son.”[35]

The importance of David’s Psalm (72) cannot be overestimated. The entire Psalm, as many Psalms do, speaks prophetically of the Christ. Here, David, in the spirit,[36] cries out as he looks to the Son, “He shall judge the people with righteousness, and the poor with judgment. He shall judge the poor of the people; he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor. He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth. In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endures. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him. For he shall deliver the needy when he cries; the poor also, and him that has no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in his sight. His name shall endure forever: his name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed.”[37]

The connection between David’s song and the promise to Abraham is certain. Through the seed of Abraham, through the king’s son, would come the blessing of God upon the nations. This is what the true God-fearers looked forward to with hope and anticipation. They were looking for the man, the king, who would come in the name of the LORD.[38] They were looking for the One who was seen (prophetically) to cry out, “You are my God, and I will give thanks to you; you are my God; I will extol you.”[39] When he was found, the people sang, "Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!"[40]

They were not wrong. 

The dilemma of the Church stands today, as it did before the Pharisees. The question Jesus asked has not gone away, as it continues to cry out to those with a searching heart, how does David become inferior to the Son? By ignoring Jesus’ lineage, with its promise of the seed, as the Church creeds achieve, his question has in effect become all but lost, and certainly irrelevant. The irrelevancy is founded within dogma based upon those creeds that in the end explain away Jesus’ question to the Pharisees, and thus their dilemma.

The creeds of old are not entirely the fault of the divided Church that plagues Christian denominationalism today.[41] The Church as a whole has no true theology, because it is not founded on the scriptures. If it were founded on the scriptures, then the Church would not be divided as it is today. But, if the dogma based upon the creeds, confessions, and statements of faith fail to persuade,[42] then forms of worship are invented while Church culture continues to evolve in order to attract and keep parishioners in what has become, not unlike in business, a highly competitive market.

Sadly, this state of affairs is nothing new, since the forms of worship are endless, going back before New Testament times. The different worship forms began long ago and are revealed in the myriads of synagogues which already existed at the time of Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem. Even then the Jews could not agree about what to believe and how a man could approach God. History reveals a multitude of sects and offshoots, even a copy of the temple built in Egypt by Jews who claimed the Jerusalem temple and its priesthood was far too corrupt.

Today the people of God are divided more than ever regarding what constitutes the proper form of worship, with countless denominations to choose from, each looking down on the other with suspicion…in essence, "they’ve got it wrong, and we have it right or do it better." The result has been catastrophic. With all the forms of worship that have existed in the past and continue to be created today, the result has kept and/or discouraged many from coming to the one place of true worship.

That place is to be found in the LORD our God.[43] As Jesus reminded us, the true worship of God is in spirit and truth.[44] In the worship of God, God’s people are commanded to believe and trust in the person of the Lord Jesus, the Christ of God.[45] Unlike the Church today, which is sorely divided, the Christ the apostles preached cannot be divided.[46]

 

In conclusion, the basis for the dilemma of the Pharisees is the same today: Ignorance of the scriptures. For the true worshipper of God, Christianity is a book religion. It is in the scriptures,[47] that we find the truth of God’s great salvation, and not in creeds, confessions, or statements of faith. The scriptures point us to the salvation of the people of God coming through the promised Seed, the Son of David. When David’s Son arrived, he pointed out, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me.”[48]

 

Next Chapter

 

 

[1] Matthew 22:41-45 *Jesus cites David's Psalm 110:1

[2] Psalm 110 David, "in the Spirit" (Matthew 22:43), recognizes (in the prolepsis sense) his Lord, which is his son (seed) "The LORD (Yahweh) said to my Lord (Adon)." The Son "not yet made" is seen by David in the Song. Cited by Peter, Acts 2:34-35, *this passage is one of the most quoted of the Old Testament scriptures.

[3] 2 Samuel 7:12-17 1Chronicles 17:11-14 2Chronicles 6:9, 16-17 Psalms 132:11, 89:3, 34-36

[4] Acts 2:30

[5] Luke 20:41, 44 Matthew 22:41-45 Mark 12:35-37

[6] Matthew 22:46 "And no one was able to answer him a word..."

[7] By 325AD the first of the great ecumenical Church creeds, the Nicene Creed was formulated under the eye of Constantine the Great.
 Many more were to follow in the ensuing years, establishing the essence and relationship of the Father, the Son, and Spirit,
which was to be believed among the Catholic faithful. To be noted, the early Creeds of the Church are utterly silent about Jesus being the Son of David.
The creeds were not concerned with the genealogy of Jesus, or the truth that He was, as the Christ of God, the Son of David.
 The creeds have a much different agenda that, in essence, circumvents the pivotal question Jesus asked the Pharisees.

[8] Romans 1:3 "Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;" (KJV)

[9] Beginning with the Nicene Creed 325AD; amended 381AD, Chalcedon, 451AD, Athanasian, 500 AD, just a few.

[10] John 19:5 Pilate, "Behold the man." Such is the profoundness coming from an unbeliever.
 *The prophet reveals the man Yahweh seeks, "Why, when I came, was there no man; why, when I called, was there no one to answer?" (Isaiah 50:2 ESV)
Yahweh's chosen answers: "The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary:
 he wakes morning by morning, he wakes mine ear to hear as the learned." And "The Lord GOD has opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious,
neither turned away back. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.
 For the Lord GOD will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed." Isaiah 50:4-7

[11] John 19:14 Here again, God uses Pilate, as he spoke to the Jews, "Behold your King,"
 perhaps the most ironic statement ever emerging from the lips of a pagan sovereign ruler to the nation of God's choosing.

[12] John 12:13 Psalm 2:7, 45:6-7, cited in Hebrews 1:8-9 *see also Zechariah 9:9 Isaiah 9:6-7

[13] 2Samuel 7:12-17

[14] Deuteronomy 18:15, 18

[15] Isaiah 62:11

[16] Psalm 72:7 "In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endures." *See also Ephesians 2:14

[17] Psalm 40:9, 45:7, *Psalm 72 The entire Psalm is centered around "the King's son," the one who will judge the people in Righteousness.
 "Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him." Psalm 72:11

[18] Isaiah 52:6 Ezekiel 39:7 Joel 2:26 *Zechariah 13:9 "They will call upon my name, and I will answer them.
I will say, 'They are my people'; and they will say, 'The LORD is my God."

[19] By the early sixth century, with the Athanasian Creed, the anathemas of the Roman Church were dictated
 upon those who did not hold to the Trinity, three persons in One God. One could not hope to be saved, according to Church doctrine,
without confessing the Trinity. Excommunication and death were the alternatives.

[20] Hebrews 8:6-13

[21] The answer is no! Paul explains to the believers in Galatia, "Know you therefore that they which are of faith,
the same are the children of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith,
 preached before the gospel to Abraham, saying, 'In you shall all nations be blessed.
 So then they which are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.'" (Gal 3:7-9 KJV)

[22] Deuteronomy 10:17 "For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty,
 and the awesome (EL) God." *See also Joshua 22:22 "The Mighty One, (EL) God, the LORD!"

[23] Some of the implications are, God become a curse for us? Galatians 3:13 God became sin for us? 2Corinthians 5:21
 And according to Church dogma, one third of the trinity died?

[24] Source taken from Wikipedia Article

[25] 2Corinthians 5:17 Isaiah 53:6, 9

[26] Genesis 12:3, 22:18

[27] Genesis 12:1, 17:8

[28] Romans 4:13

[29] Genesis 17:6

[30] Genesis 12:3

[31] Galatians 3:16

[32] Acts 2:22 Matthew 13:54, 56, 27:47 John 7:15, 27, 31, 35, *46 *See also John 9;33

[33] The great ecumenical creeds of the Church are the basis for the dogma which has become entrenched
 within the majority of Christendom since the early fourth century AD, beginning with the Nicene Creed in 325 AD.

[34] Acts 13:32, 26:6 Romans 4:13, 15:8 Galatians 3:16

[35] Psalm 72

[36] Psalm 51:11

[37] Psalm 72 Beginning with verse one, skips through and ending here with verse 17.

[38] Luke 19:38 "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord."

[39] Psalm 118:28 *Psalm 22:1 Matthew 27:46 Psalm 40:8 **John 20:17 Revelation 3:2, 12

[40] John 12:13 Psalm 118:26

[41] The divided Church, both in practice of worship and doctrine, is a plague.
 Some have estimated that there are over sixteen hundred denominations within Christendom worldwide.

[42] The truth, most of what is Christian denominationalism today has little interest in the old creeds and confessions.
Such as it may be, Church dogma is firmly grounded in the creeds of the past. The statements of faith and confessions
that a denomination or local Church adopts universally reveal the connection of what is to be believed, with a direct link back to the old creeds.
 The creeds and confessions of the Church, ironically, many—know little about.

[43] Matthew 4:10, cited in Deuteronomy 6:13 by Jesus. See also Acts 24:14 Psalm 99:5, 9 Hebrews 12:28 Revelation 22:9

[44] John 4:24 Philippians 3:3

[45] John 11:27, 20:31 Romans 3:22 1John 3:23

[46] 1Corinthians 1:13 "Is Christ divided?" *See also Ephesians 4:4-5

[47] Christianity is a book religion – we are people of the book. As it is written, thus says the LORD

[48] John 5:39