Then Jesus said to him, “Get behind me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’” (Matthew 4:10)

Onenessians (and Trinitarians) conclude and claim that because of this commandment Christ must be God because he was worshiped. They conclude that if Christ were a mere man, then “worshiping” him would be idolatry. But is it really so clear, or is this an example of building a doctrine on what certain verses appear to say (like snake handling), without regard to the clearer verses to the contrary?

In reality the idea that Jesus must be God because he was worshiped comes from ignoring the bulk of the Scriptures on the topic.

One of the first things we need to establish is that there was indeed a remarkable, and consistent, difference between the veneration that was given Jesus and the true worship that was reserved only for God. To explain this, we will quote the words of the eminent scholar James D. G. Dunn:

The significance of the veneration offered to the exalted Christ. The use of kyrios for Christ in itself suggests that veneration was indeed offered to the exalted Lord in earliest Christian worship. There is certainly evidence that Jesus was invoked or besought in Christian worship and prayer. 1 Cor. 1:2 and Rom. 10:13 indicate that from very early on believers identified themselves as ‘those who call upon the name of the Lord (Jesus Christ)’… At the same time an equivalent caution… must also be observed here. This is indicated in the care which Paul seems to take in his use of the normal worship terms. His thanks (eucharistein, eucharistia) are always addressed to God and never to Christ or ‘the Lord.’ This is not simply because traditional formulation is being used, for Paul modifies the formulation on several occasions by adding ‘through Jesus Christ’ or through him.’ The point, then, is that Christ is neither simply the content of the thanksgiving, nor its recipient. In his exalted state he is envisaged as somehow mediating the praise to God. It is equally notable that the normal prayer terms (deomai, deēsis) are usually addressed to God and never to Christ. So too with the term doxazō, ‘glorify.’ For Paul, properly speaking, only God is to be glorified. The same is true of latreuō, ‘serve (religiously, cultically),’ and latreia, ‘service, worship,’ and the one use of proskyneō, ‘worship, reverence’ in Paul (1 Cor. 14:25). It is equally noticeable that Christ is absent from the passage which speaks most explicitly about worship in the Pauline churches. In 1 Corinthians 14, the speaker in tongues speaks ‘to God’ (14:2, 28); thanks are given to God (14:18); the worship is to God (14:25). Such uniformity in Paul’s usage should certainly make us hesitate before asserting that Paul ‘worshiped’ Christ, since the evidence more clearly indicates otherwise… If we observe the ancient distinction between ‘worship’ and ‘veneration,’ we would have to speak of the veneration of Christ, meaning by that something short of full-scale worship.
–James D.G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 257–260.

So then, any honest discussion of the veneration or worship of Jesus has to include the acknowledgment that his veneration was not on a par with that worship given only to God.

This being the case, is it dealing with the scriptures honestly to claim that Jesus must have been God because he was worshiped as Onenessians often conclude? In reply we could say, in a sense, that this issue is to the Oneness position what the issue of Jesus plucking grain and healing on the Sabbath was to the Pharisees (see Matthew 12:1–8). The question Jesus asked back to the Pharisees was, “have you not read…?” And then he pointed out that David ate of the shew bread in the temple, and the priests profaned the Sabbath and were all guiltless. The point of Jesus’ question then, and ours here, is this: does God have the authority to define the limits of His own commandments or not?

So let’s ask Jesus’ question back to the Onenessians: “haven’t you read” that in the Bible the human Hebrew kings, patriarchs, and even some of their prophets were “worshiped,” as in venerated, honored, or paid homage to, and the people were guiltless of idolatry?

If God’s servants, the priests and David, “profaned” the Sabbath and were guiltless, then surely God Himself is in full authority to define His own commandments. And furthermore, if nothing is impossible for God, then God also has full authority to bestow His authority on His only begotten son and expect people to honor (or revere) the Son in the position to which God has exalted him, just as the Bible clearly states:

²²For the Father judges no one, but he has given all judgment to the Son, ²³that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who doesn’t honor the Son doesn’t honor the Father who sent him. (John 5:22–23)

⁷Your divine throne is everlasting; your royal scepter is a scepter of equity. ⁸You love righteousness and hate wickedness; rightly has God, your God, chosen you to anoint you with the oil of gladness over all your peers. (Psalms 45:7–8, Tanakh)

The problem with the idea that “if Jesus was worshiped, then Jesus had to be God” reveals a profound lack of understanding of the role of the Judean king, which Jesus was called and anointed by God to be. So we need to go back to the OT Schoolmaster and reestablish this apparently lost or at least neglected foundational truth. We are going to spend some time on this topic because it explains so much about Jesus’ role as our king. We will start with the OT Schoolmaster and see if it teaches that God’s people understood the first commandment the way Onenessians and Trinitarians do.

The first thing to note is that the verse Jesus quoted was Deuteronomy 6:13. The word used in that passage (Heb. yare’) was actually not “worship,” but “fear.” It was the same word that Adam used when answering God in the Garden, saying, “I was afraid, because I was naked” (Genesis 3:10). But it is also the word that was used of Joshua (who had the same name in Hebrew as Jesus) in this passage:

On that day YHWH magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel; and they feared him [Joshua], as they feared Moses, all the days of his life. (Joshua 4:14)

Now, how is it that they feared/worshiped the man (Moses) that delivered the same law that said to fear/worship the Lord God only? Onenessians like to say that Jesus should have rebuked the people for worshiping him if he was not God. By the same token, then, why didn’t Moses or Joshua rebuke the people for fearing/worshipping them, in accordance with the same reasoning that Onenessians use? The answer is in yet another written again Scripture:

YHWH said to Joshua, This day will I begin to magnify you in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. (Joshua 3:7)

This is where the fear comes from. It wasn’t because they feared “any other gods”; it was because it was the one true God who was with the leader and who had sent him. So, the key in this passage is in accepting who was doing what to or for whom!

Contrary to the Oneness jumped-to conclusion, God Himself tells us Joshua would be magnified because, “YHWH said,…’I will be with you.’” If it is the same God who sent these men, how is it serving “another” god (idolatry) to honor the one that God Himself sent? And that is the point in God’s commandment to serve Him rather than other “gods.” You see, there is a specific context in which this is stated. It is not that His servants who come in His name shouldn’t be honored; rather, it is quite pointedly that those other gods or those who come in the names of those other gods should not be so honored.

With that thought in mind, now recall Jesus’ words:

He who sent me is with me. The Father hasn’t left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him. (John 8:29)

What we are seeing in these passages is the OT foundation for Jesus’ words in the following:

¹⁹Jesus therefore answered them, “Most assuredly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father doing. For whatever things he does, these the Son also does likewise… ²²For the Father judges no one, but he has given all judgment to the Son, ²³that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who doesn’t honor the Son doesn’t honor the Father who sent him.” (John 5:19–23)

Here, Jesus renounced any claim to being “I am that I am” by clearly saying he could “do nothing of himself.” After making that clear, he then goes on to say that all should honor the Son explicitly because he was sent by the Father. Therefore, all Jesus did was explain that he was to be honored because he was sent in a fashion similar to men such as Moses and Joshua, who also were honored (though not so highly) because they too were sent by the Father.

Similar to the way that God was with Moses, so He was with Joshua, and so He was withJesus (and thus not the same as Jesus)! That’s what the Bible teaches. Why should we expect anyone to respect and honor Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God any less than people were to honor Moses and Joshua? Remember Jesus’ parable, where such prophets as Moses and Joshua were merely caretakers over God’s kingdom, but Jesus was the Son and rightful heir of all (Matthew 21:33–40; Mark 12:1–9; Luke 20:9–16). This clearly shows that the idea that “Jesus had to be God because he was worshiped” is a false argument.

Now, Jesus didn’t explain anywhere that he wasn’t alone because his deific nature was always with his human nature! Not at all, here or anywhere else in the whole Bible! But that isn’t to say he didn’t give a reason and an explanation. The point is, it is the explanation that Jesus clearly gave that Onenessianism negates and diminishes from the word of God. That reason is simply that God was with Jesus! And the reason the Father was with him was explicitly because he always did the things that are pleasing to the Father! This is something completely different and contrary to saying Jesus was an incarnation of the Father.

Did Jesus mean to tell us that God loves Himself because God always does the things that are pleasing to Himself? Of course not, God isn’t that shallow or ridiculous. But rather than hear these words of explanation, and apply them, Oneness teachers twist them in a way that makes them mean something different than what Jesus clearly and simply said.

Moving on then, let’s look now at another word often translated as worship and some of the ways it was used in the OT. This is the Hebrew word shachah, which simply means to prostrate oneself in homage to deity or royalty.

For example, it is written that Abraham, ²“Lifted up his eyes and looked, and saw that three men stood opposite him. When he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself [worshiped] to the earth, ³and said, ‘ My lords [adonai], if now I have found favor in your sight, please don’t go away from your servant.’” (Genesis 18:2–4)

Here we have Abraham seeing three men and worshiping them. This is the word for worship that is most often used for that worship that is given to God. But it isn’t reserved for God alone by God’s people. For it is written again:

⁵Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brothers, and they hated him all the more. ⁶He said to them, “Please hear this dream which I have dreamed: ⁷for behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and also stood upright; and behold, your sheaves came around, and bowed down to [worshiped] my sheaf .” ⁸His brothers said to him, “Will you indeed reign over us? Or will you indeed have dominion over us?” They hated him all the more for his dreams and for his words. (Genesis 37:5–8)

Here we see that God gave Joseph a dream wherein his brothers would bow down and worship him. Does that mean, using Oneness reasoning, that Joseph must have been God incarnate? Of course not. Rather, the OT is schooling us on Christ. Do you see why Joseph’s brothers hated him? They were jealous of him because he was going to reign and have dominion over them. That is the same reason the Pharisees rejected Jesus—they were jealous of him and didn’t want this man Jesus, who renounced their man-made traditions, reigning over them!

The same was written of Abraham, that he bowed down to [worshiped] the people of the land:

⁷“Abraham rose up, and bowed himself [worshiped] to the people of the land, even to the children of Heth… ¹²Abraham bowed himself down [worshiped] before the people of the land” (Genesis 23:7, 12).

Notice these other “it is written again” examples of worship:

The two angels came to Sodom at evening. Lot sat in the gate of Sodom. Lot saw them, and rose up to meet them. He bowed himself (worshiped) with his face to the earth. (Genesis 19:1)

Isaac blessed Jacob, saying, “Let peoples serve you, And nations bow down (worship) to you. Be lord over your brothers; Let your mother’s sons bow down (worship) to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you; Blessed be everyone who blesses you.” (Genesis 27:29)

David… cried after Saul, saying, My lord the king. When Saul looked behind him, David bowed with his face to the earth, and did obeisance [worship]. (1 Samuel 24:8)

²³When Abigail saw David, she hurried, and alighted from her donkey, and fell before David on her face, and bowed herself to the ground [worshiped]… ⁴¹She arose, and bowed herself [worshiped] with her face to the earth, and said, Behold, your handmaid is a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord. (1 Samuel 25:23, 41)

⁴When the woman of Tekoa spoke to the king, she fell on her face to the ground, and did obeisance, and said, Help, O king… ²² Joab fell to the ground on his face, and did obeisance, and blessed the king: and Joab said, Today your servant knows that I have found favor in your sight, my lord, king, in that the king has performed the request of his servant… ³³So Joab came to the king, and told him; and when he had called for Absalom, he came to the king, and bowed himself on his face to the ground before the king: and the king kissed Absalom. (2 Samuel 14:4, 22, 33)

Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David, and fell on his face, and did obeisance [worshiped]. David said, Mephibosheth. He answered, Behold, your servant!. (2 Samuel 9:6)

The sons of those who afflicted you shall come bending to you; and all those who despised you shall bow themselves down [worship] at the soles of your feet; and they shall call you The city of YHWH, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel. (Isaiah 60:14)

Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee. (Revelation 3:9)

When the sons of the prophets who were at Jericho over against him saw him, they said, The spirit of Elijah does rest on Elisha. They came to meet him, and bowed themselves [worshiped] to the ground before him. (2 Kings 2:15)

Onenessians think that if Jesus wasn’t God, he should have rebuked anyone who worshiped him. Why then didn’t Elijah rebuke the sons of the prophets for worshiping (prostrating themselves) before him?

Here’s the thing that makes the difference: the commandment of the Lord is to worship God in contrast to not worshiping other gods. “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). What is different, is this, wherein it is written again,

Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me, but in him who sent me.” (John 12:44)

By what stretch of the imagination is Jesus saying he really is the Father here? By what stretch of the imagination is he saying, “whoever believes in my human nature is really believing in my deific-nature”? No, he is saying something completely different. He is clearly saying that if you believe in him (personal pronoun), you aren’t believing on him (personal pronoun), but on another “Him” (the Sender)!

²²For the Father judges no one, but he has given all judgment to the Son, ²³that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who doesn’t honor the Son doesn’t honor the Father who sent him. ²⁴Most assuredly I tell you, he who hears my word, and believes him who sent me, has eternal life, and doesn’t come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. (John 5:22–24)

This is very much like what happened, as is written again, in the case when, “David said to all the assembly, Now bless YHWH your God. All the assembly blessed YHWH, the God of their fathers, and bowed down their heads and prostrated [worshiped] themselves before YHWH and the king” (1 Chronicles 29:20).

This is also very much like what happened when it was written again that, “… Solomon sat on the throne of YHWH as king instead of David his father, and prospered; and all Israel obeyed him” (1 Chronicles 29:23).

It is all spelled out so very clearly in the OT that it really shouldn’t need any further explanation! Solomon sat on the throne of YHWH, not as YHWH, but as His representative. And that is the sonship that Jesus inherited as David’s heir!

And it was that very same kingdom that the apostles were still anticipating when they asked the Lord Jesus, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6–7, NKJV). What kingdom were they talking about? Did they believe that God had stopped having a kingdom such that God’s eternal kingdom needed to be restored? Of course not. They were talking about the kingdom of David, which God had promised, wherein people bowed down before and obeyed the sons of David because God was with them!

As we said, in the same way that Onenessians use all the other Scriptures on baptism to refute the Trinitarian jumped-to conclusions, there are many more that can be brought against the false interpretation that Jesus must have personally been God to receive “worship.” This shows that the “Jesus must be God because he was worshiped” conclusion is a false dilemma. It makes it appear there is only one true option, theirs, and that any other option would make the Bible contradict itself; when in fact that is not true at all. The apostle Paul wrote, “We have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully” (2 Corinthians 4:2). If creating false conclusions isn’t a form of handling the word of God deceitfully, what is?

The Snake-Handler Factor: The idea that Jesus must be God because he was worshiped, ignores the context of his being heir to the throne of David. The real contrast in the Bible came with the commandment not to bow down to, or give honor or worship to any other gods or those who came representing other gods. The ironic thing is that Onenessianism is just such a false way, because it leads people to the pagan doctrine of incarnation of deities and the antichristian invention of the dual natures of Christ.

We will continue with the Scriptures on worship in the following chapter covering the same type of worship in the NT.

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