As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
Last year, under the editorial direction of Andreas Kostenberger, Zondervan began the Biblical Theology of the New Testament Series. The first installment was Kostenberger’s contribution A Theology of John’s Gospel and Letters. The BTNT series seeks to provide a biblical theology of the entire NT in eight volumes with a biblical/thematic approach.
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Reprinted with permission from As I See It. AISI is sent free to all who request it by writing to the editor at dkutilek@juno.com.
Brother Kutilek,
In your most recent edition of AISI, you recommend Thayer’s “A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament.” I have used this lexicon extensively since the day my former pastor helped me pick out my copy at a local used book store. At that time, my pastor told me to watch out for Thayer’s doctrine with regard to the Trinity or deity of Christ, or perhaps his potential unitarianism. My pastor said he hadn’t found it, but he had been made aware of the warning and was just passing it on to me. I haven’t found it either. For a while, I have been using the Thayer’s edition that is online at Blue Letter Bible. I found the same warning there. They post this disclaimer online:
Caution: According to Baker’s modern copyright edition, Thayer was apparently not doctrinally sound in all areas, particularly in the area of the trinity, and so the user must be on guard. We would be appreciative of any actual examples of doctrinal error, so they can be marked with “caution” tags.
Brother K., you seem to be a person who is typically aware of this kind of information, so I thought I would ask you if you can shed any light on this. Do you know of any specific unsoundness in Thayer’s lexicon? Do you know of any particular entries where the user might be cautioned? Do you have any biographical information on Thayer (or perhaps on Grimm) that would uphold or refute this warning?
Thank you…
When you ask people, “Who are you?” they usually answer first by giving you their name. A name, however, is only a label. It does not reveal the identity of the person to whom it is attached.
If you persist, “Yes, that is your name, but who are you,” then people invariably begin to give you answers grounded in their relationships to individuals, objects, and activities. They will identify themselves as the son or daughter of a particular person, or perhaps as the spouse of another. They will tell you about their job and their hobbies. They may identify themselves as fans of a particular sports team, followers of a particular author, or as devotees of a particular kind of music.
What all of these identifiers have in common is that they are external to the individual. People can say who they are only by pointing to things outside themselves. We know who we are only in terms of our relationships to other things, be they persons, activities, or objects.
In other words, our identity is not in ourselves. In order to know who we are, we must look outward. Our identity is formed by the persons, objects, and activities with which we bring ourselves into relationship.
God is not like that. God knows who He is, not by looking outward, but by looking inward. Nevertheless, God’s identity is still relational. He knows who He is, not by His relationship to persons, objects, and activities within the created order, but by His relationship to Himself.
We have previously reviewed the first four volumes of IVP’s Ancient Christian Doctrine series (see the reviews here). This series is a commentary on the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed drawn from the writings of the patristic period of church history (AD 95-750).
Amazon Affiliate LinkPreviously, we have reviewed volumes 1 and 2 of the Ancient Christian Doctrine series from IVP. This series of five volumes is a commentary on the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed.
“you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went until you came to this place.” (Deut. 1:31)
Richard Dawkins, the most prominent apologist of atheism in the world today has said,
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
Dawkins isn’t the first to say such things about God, just the most adamant. He is above all a propagandist, with a deep-seated antipathy to the Christian faith. For a Christian—even the most brilliant one—to reason with Dawkins on these points would be like two generals trying to parley before a battle, when one of them has dedicated his life to destroying the other.
As a former atheist recently said to me, “I read Dawkins’s God Delusion, and concluded that if arguments so weak, so circular, given by a man who obviously has a serious problem with God—if this is the best atheism has to offer, then God must really exist.” She later became a Christian. She admits though, that she still has her problems with the Old Testament. So do many Christians. At times they can be nearly as critical of God as Dawkins is.
After all, isn’t the God of the Old Testament the same one Who:
Casting Crowns popularized a song titled, “In Me.” Some of the lyrics follow:
How refreshing to know You don’t need me.
How amazing to find that You want me.
So I’ll stand on Your truth, and I’ll fight with Your strength
Until You bring the victory, by the power of Christ in me.
I was impressed at the depth of these lyrics. They serve as a jumping board for my topic: He is God and we are not. Hopefully, these thoughts will serve as a tonic to remedy a popular—but weakened—view of God.
The first principle suggested by the song is that God does not need us, but we need Him. The Scriptures are clear on this:
The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. (ESV, Acts 17:24-25)
Discussion