Scripture and God in Christianity

monotheistic passage from Isa. 45:23, in which God is represented as declaring that he must have
no rivals: it is now to Kurios lesous Christos that every knee shall bow, and it is he whom every
tongue shall confess. Professor M. Black is inclined to think that the same passage is intended in
the name of the Lord Jesus even in Rom. 14:11. Certainly in Heb. 1:10ff. ( though this may, of
course, be later ), a great, monotheistic passage in Ps. 102, manifestly intended in the original to
be addressed to God the Creator, is boldly assumed to be addressed to Christ." 441
Maurice Wiles observes that "It is the regular translation of the divine name in the Old Testament,
and Phil. ii. 5-11 (another possibly liturgical passage) suggests that to call Jesus `Lord' is to
give him that divine name whose glory Yahweh had declared should not be shared with an other.
Thus it was a title given to him in worship and continually used of him in that context which
helped to give expression to some of the highest Christological affirmations in the whole of the
New Testament." 442 Hans Kung observes: "This is a Christocentrism working out to the advantage
of man, based on and culminating in a theocentrism: "God through Jesus Christ"-"through
Jesus Christ to God." As the Holy Spirit came to be inserted in such binitarian formulas-as the
one in whom God and Jesus Christ are present and active both in the individual and the community-they
were turned by Paul at this early stage into trinitarian formulas, the basis for the later
development of the doctrine of the Trinity, of the triune God who is Father, Son and Holy
Spirit." 443
Commenting upon Phil. 2:5-11, O. C. Quick argues that "St. Paul here affirms that Christ was
originally that is, before he was born on earth, "in the form of God"....The Christ therefore was
from the beginning a divine person." 444 He further argues that "we may interpret his meaning
thus: whereas before his self-humiliation Christ had the nature of Godhead, in the exaltation
which followed the humiliation he received also the name of Godhead, so that all may worship
him as they worship the Father. That St. Paul did definitely, if one may be allowed the expression,
rank Jesus with God, is abundantly clear from evidences which extends all through his epistles."
445 K. Armstrong, on the other hand, argues that "The hymn seems to reflect a belief among
the first Christians that Jesus had enjoyed some kind of prior existence "with God" before becoming
a man in the act of "self-emptying" (kenosis) by which, like a bodhisattva, he had decided
to share the suffering of the human condition. Paul was too Jewish to accept the idea of
Christ existing as a second divine being beside YHWH from all eternity. The hymn shows that
after his exaltation he is still distinct from and inferior to God, who raises him and confers the title
Kyrios upon him. He cannot assume it himself but is given this title only "to the glory of God
the Father." 446 Armstrong further argues that "Paul never called Jesus "God". He called him "the
Son of God" in its Jewish sense: he had simply possessed God's "powers" and "Spirit," which
manifested God's activity on earth and were not to be identified with the inaccessible divine essence.
Not surprisingly, in the Gentile world the new Christians did not always retain the sense of
these subtle distinctions, so that eventually a man who had stressed his weak, mortal humanity
was believed to have been divine." 447
Long before Armstrong, A. Harnack emphasized the point observing: "Under the influence of the
Messianic dogmas, and led by the impression which Christ made, Paul became the author of the
speculative idea that not only was God in Christ, but that Christ himself was possessed of a peculiar
nature a heavenly kind. With the Jews, this was not a notion that necessarily shattered the
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