“I Am Not Alone”
Chapter Twenty – The Acts of the Apostles
…I fear, lest somehow… he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached… you may well put up with it! (2 Corinthians 11:2–4, NKJV)
When confronted with the fact that the apostles preached only a human Christ, Onenessians use the excuse that the apostles taught something deeper after they became disciples. This is the same excuse that Trinitarians use. Both are simply rejections of what Paul wrote. No Scriptures say that the apostles taught a different, deeper Christ later. So let’s obey the Scripture of 2 Corinthians and resolve to believe in Jesus as the apostles openly preached him to be.
The first preaching, on the Day of Pentecost, laid the foundation for the assembly (ecclesia), the body of Christ. Keep in mind that those who heard these words had been brought to a saving knowledge of Jesus Messiah if they chose to accept it.
22Men of Israel, hear these words! Jesus of Nazareth,a man approved by God to you by mighty works and wonders and signs which God did by him in the midst of you, even as you yourselves know, 23him, being delivered up by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by the hand of lawless men, crucified and killed; 24 whom God raised up, having freed him from the agony of death, because it was not possible that he should be held by it. 25For David says concerning him,
“I saw the Lord always before my face,
For He is on my right hand, that I should not be moved.
26 Therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced.
Moreover my flesh also will dwell in hope;
27Because you will not leave my soul in Hades,
Neither will you allow your Holy One to see decay.
28 You made known to me the ways of life.
You will make me full of gladness with your presence.”
29Brothers, I may tell you freely of the patriarch David , that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, 31he foreseeing this spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that neither was his soul left in Hades, nor did his flesh see decay. 32 This Jesus God raised up, to which we all are witnesses. 33Being therefore exalted by the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out this, which you now see and hear. 34For David didn’t ascend into the heavens, but he says himself, “The Lord (YHWH) said to my Lord (adoni), ‘Sit by my right hand, 35Until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’’’ 36Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. (Acts 2:22–36)
Peter describes Jesus the Messiah as a Judean king descended by a sworn oath from the seed (or, offspring) of David—no more and no less. He is a male, human descendant of King David, with a human soul. The only significant difference Peter notes between this man Jesus and any other man is that his office and position were both foreknown (v. 23) and foretold by God.
Peter’s predominant message in this passage is the truth that God raised Jesus from the dead. That message seems not to be as profound as it was in their time, but it should be.
What is profound today about this passage is what Peter didnotsay. Nowhere in this passage did Peter in any way preach that Jesus was a hybrid God-man. Nowhere did Peter say anything to the effect that this Jesus was a deific member of a Trinity of persons in the godhead. Nowhere in this passage did Peter preach Jesus to be inherently God. These doctrines were all developed after the death of the apostles and are read back into the Scriptures. Rather, while preaching the saving gospel of Jesus Christ, Peter consistently held God in clear, personal distinction from the man Jesus Christ.
This passage is not at all out of the norm in the Book of Acts. When Jesus was preached, he was consistently referred to as only human. This man is the Jesus of the gospel. This is the Jesus that the apostles preached, in whom people should believe for salvation. It is this Jesus who is not to be changed or perverted. You may disagree, but that would only be because the traditions of men that have been delivered to you have clouded your vision. What you have read in the passage above is the word of God.
In this passage, God explicitly said that it was David’s seed who would be His (God’s) son. Thus, God Himself refuted one of the first major assumptions of Trinitarianism. For early, “official” Trinitarians, God’s Son was made of no other substance than the essence of the Father. However, that is entirely unbiblical. God swore by an oath, not that His Son was going to be made of deific material, but rather that he would be made of human substance, “of the seed of David.” This couldn’t be clearer. Furthermore, this was an unconditional promise that David received from God concerning his own, personal lineage.
This passage also described “the sure mercies of David”; for example:
Turn your ear, and come to me; hear, and your soul shall live: and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. (Isaiah 55:3)
Isaiah’s prophecy clearly demonstrates to us that Jesus, as the Son of David, was in a specific covenant with God. Namely, Jesus’ covenant was an extension of David’s covenant with God, which in turn was God’s unconditional promise to David and David’s offspring. In other words, Jesus wasn’t an incarnation of God; rather, he was the fulfillment of God’s promise to David.
God called this covenant “the ‘ sure’ mercies of David” because He swore that it would come to pass. Apostle Paul considered this prophecy to have been conferred on Christ when God raised him from the dead.
34And that He raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, He has spoken thus: “I will give you the sure mercies of David.” 35Therefore he also says in another Psalm: “You will not allow Your Holy One to see corruption.” (Acts 13:34–35, NKJV)
The prophecy in Isaiah 55:3 referred only to the human offspring of David. Like Peter, Paul also assigned this prophecy to Jesus (Acts 13). Paul did not change or revise Peter’s preaching of a human Jesus. The sure mercies of David meant the unconditional promise, or covenant, spoken by God to David because of David’s wanting to build God a house for His name. All of these Scriptures, when tied together, further teach us that this human Jesus was also called God’s “Holy One” (see Acts 2:27 and 13:35 above).
The title “Holy One,” quoted at Acts 2:27, raises some questions, but that is only because of the way it is translated into English in certain versions. In Hebrew the word qadosh is used in numerous passages (such as Isaiah 10:20, 43:15; Hosea 11:9; and elsewhere) exclusively in reference to God Himself. (Here are the 41 occurrences where this word was translated into “Holy One” in English, and in not one of them is it applied to human saints: 2Ki 19:22; Job 6:10; Ps. 71:22, 78:41, 89:18; Isa. 1:4, 5:19, 24, 10:17, 20, 12:6, 17:7, 29:19, 23, 30:11, 12, 15, 31:1, 37:23, 40:25, 41:14, 16, 20, 43:3, 14, 15, 45:11, 47:4, 48:17, 49:7 (twice), 54:5, 55:5, 60:9, 14; Jere. 50:29, 51:5; Ezek. 39:7; Hosea 11:9; Hab. 1:12 and 3:3.)
However, in Psalm 16:10, which the apostles applied to Jesus in Acts, the phrase “Holy One” (Acts 2:27 and 13:35) comes from the Hebrew word chasid. This word means “kind (i.e., religiously), pious (a saint)” (from Strong’s Numbers and Concordance). It is used not for God, but for saints of God in twenty-nine out of thirty-two occurrences in the Bible. Here are those passages: 1 Sam. 2:9; 2 Sam. 22:26; 2 Chr. 6:41; Ps. 4:3, 12:1, 16:10, 18:25, 30:4, 31:23, 32:6, 37:28, 43:1, 50:5, 52:9, 79:2, 85:8, 86:2, 89:19, 97:10, 116:15, 132:9, 16, 145:10, 148:14, 149:1, 5, 9; Prov. 2:8; and Micah 7:2. It is used of YHWH in Deut. 33:8; Ps. 145:17; and Jere. 3:12.
This means that the passage in Psalms 16:10, as applied in reference to Jesus as the “Holy One,” simply means, paraphrased, “you will not allow this saint of yours to see corruption.” It is not saying, “you will not allow God the Holy One to see corruption,” as could be presumed by the English.
That Peter understood this verse as referring to the human Jesus can be seen very clearly in Acts 2:31. Here, he explicitly interprets the Psalm as referring to Christ’s flesh, which is to say, his humanity.
“Because you will not leave my soul in Hades, Neither will you allow your Holy One to see decay…”
He foreseeing this spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that neither was his soul left in Hades, nor did his flesh see decay. (Acts 2:27, 31)
Through the use of a couplet (a phrase meant to convey a synonymous thought in two ways) Peter has provided a scriptural, Holy Spirit-anointed interpretation of the meaning of “Holy One” as it was used in Psalms 16:10. Biblically, it explicitlymeans the human flesh; that is, the humanity of Jesus Christ. Thus, according to Peter’s clear interpretation, it is definitely not referring to God the Holy One (qadosh). To receive God’s word is to receive this interpretation of God’s word from Acts 2:31. Peter simply reiterated God’s vow that David’s seed would be the Savior.
In Acts 13:35–39, as we have begun to see, Paul preached from the same passage as Peter. From Psalms 16:10, Paul preached a human Jesus, without any implication whatsoever that he was a hybrid God-man.
35Therefore he says also in another psalm, “You will not allow your Holy One to see decay.” 36For David, after he had in his own generation served the counsel of God, fell asleep, and was laid with his fathers, and saw decay. 37But he whom God raised up saw no decay. 38Be it known to you therefore, brothers, that through this manis proclaimed to you remission of sins, 39and by himeveryone who believes is justified from all things, from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. (Acts 13:35–39)
Clearly Paul was preaching the same human Jesus that Peter was preaching. Paul emphatically reinforced Peter’s interpretation of Psalm 16. Both of them provided explicit interpretations regarding the “Holy One” who did not see “decay.” For Peter, the interpretation was the flesh of Jesus (Acts 2:31). For Paul, the interpretation was “he whom God raised up… this man” (Acts 13:37–38). Notably, Paul added that it is through him, this human raised by God, that justification comes. According to Paul, salvation comes through believing in a glorified and resurrected human. As with Peter’s message, Paul’s gospel indicates it isn’t a Trinitarian or a Onenessian Jesus who saves.
Another notable point of Paul’s is in agreement with what he wrote in Romans 10:6–9: “… if you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” We addressed this in Chapter Nineteen. Accordingly, faith that saves is particularly defined as believing that Jesus is Lord (as heir to the throne of David), and believing that “ through this man is proclaimed to you remission of sins, and by him everyone who believes is justified from all things.”
Onenessians are particularly fond, as we are, of quoting Acts 2:38, where Peter proclaimed that we are baptized unto Christ for the remission of sin. Now, in Acts 13:39, Paul explicitly tells us what we are to believe about this man Jesus by whom we receive remission of sins; and quite frankly, he isn’t “preaching” the modalistic Oneness version of Jesus at all!
Acts Chapter Three – A Prophet Like Moses
We already discussed Acts 3:13–26, the second recorded preaching of the gospel after the day of Pentecost, in Chapter Eight. Briefly here, Peter clearly contrasted and distinguished the God of the Jews from the man whom God calls His Servant.
13 The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up, and denied… 15whom God raised from the dead, to which we are witnesses…
18…the things which God announced by the mouth of all His prophets, that Christ should suffer, He thus fulfilled… 22 For Moses indeed said to the fathers, “The Lord God will raise up a prophet for you from among your brothers, like me. You shall listen to him in all things whatever he says to you. 23It will be, that every soul that will not listen to that prophet will be utterly destroyed from among the people.”… 26God, having raised up His servant, Jesus, sent him to you first, to bless you, in turning away everyone of you from your wickedness. (Acts 3:13–26)
Thus, Jesus was far from being preached as God incarnate. The servant (Jesus) whom God glorified was distinct from God (the God of their fathers), who glorified him.
Acts Chapters Five and Seven – Jesus at God’s Right Hand
In these two passages, Jesus is preached as being at God’s right hand. We read…
29But Peter and the apostles answered… 30The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you killed, hanging him on a tree. 31 God exalted him with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins. 32We are His witnesses of these things; and so also is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him. (Acts 5:29–32)
37This is that Moses, who said to the children of Israel, ‘The Lord our God will raise up a prophet for you from among your brothers, like me…’ 54Now when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth. 55But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, 56and said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” (Acts 7:37, 7:54–56)
As a Onenessian, I was taught that Jesus being at God’s right hand was symbolic and meant Jesus was at the “right hand of power.” This was supposed to mean that God now does everything through Jesus just as a man’s own right hand is part of his person. However, I now know that view is pure speculation created by mixing truths and half-truths. It is a half-truth because, yes Christ embodied God; but we also embody God and that doesn’t make us incarnations of the person of God any more than that was so of Jesus. The question is, does “being at the right hand” only or definitively mean we’re talking of a literal extension or part of a single personality? If we search the Scriptures, we find that being on someone’s right hand, even in the Bible, was very much the same figure of speech as it is today for a right-hand man.
For example, we find this in Psalms:
I have set YHWH always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. (Psalms 16:8)
Are we to believe that YHWH is the person of the Psalmist because He is at the Psalmist’s right hand? Of course not!
In Romans we come to a similar passage:
Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. (Romans 8:34)
Now watch how James and John ask to be seated at the right and left hand of Jesus when he comes into his kingdom. Are we to suppose they were asking to also become incarnations of God, just like Jesus supposedly was in the Oneness view? The answer is obviously not. This passage shows that being at one’s right hand means the same as it does today: being someone’s closest assistants or advisors.
35James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came near to him, saying,.. 37…”Grant to us that we may sit, one at your right hand, and one at your left hand, in your glory.” 38But Jesus said to them, “You don’t know what you are asking… 40…to sit at my right hand and at my left hand is not mine to give, but for whom it has been prepared.” (Mark 10:35–40)
Here were two of Jesus’ closest disciples. These two disciples were clearly not asking to be the same person of Jesus simply because they used the phrase “at your right hand.” Jesus showed that he was willing to hear, and likely do for them as they asked. But what they asked of him was beyond his personal authority. If Jesus was truly God, then he had just lied to and deceived his closest disciples.
Now let’s go back and look at the context of Stephen’s vision of Christ: 55“But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, 56and said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” (Acts 7:55–56).
One thing is obvious: no one speaks of someone’s own literal right hand as “standing at the right hand of” so-and-so. Therefore, the passage can only be read symbolically, with the meaning of someone being a close assistant to some other personality. Stephen did not declare that Jesus was God Himself.
The Context of Stephen’s Preaching of the Anointed One
Let’s look at some of the highlights of Stephen’s sermon in Acts 7. There is a specific theme that Stephen was trying to get across that jumps right out at us if we would just let him speak:
v.2 God raised up Abraham…
v.6 God said that (Abraham’s) seed would be aliens in a strange land…
v.9 The patriarchs sold Joseph into Egypt…
v.11–14 There came a famine… the fathers found no food… but Joseph summoned Jacob (Israel) his father with all his relatives…
v.20 Moses was born…
v. 25 God, by Moses’ hand, was giving them deliverance…
v.35 This Moses they refused, saying, “Who made you a ruler and a judge?”…
v.37 Moses said, “the Lord our God will raise up a prophet for you from among your brothers, like me”…
v.39 To whom (Moses), Stephen said, “our fathers wouldn’t be obedient”…
v.41 They made a golden calf… and sacrificed unto the idol…
v.45–47 David found favor with God… but Solomon built him a house…
v.48 However the Most High doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands…
v.51–53 You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit! As your fathers did, so you do!
v.56 “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”
The theme that Stephen preached was that God always sent a man whom He worked through. Moses even clearly described that man to come. There was no theme or hint of an incarnated deity in Stephen’s speech, or in any other preaching by a true disciple of Christ. That idea only came from those who disbelieved and bore false witness against Jesus. Therefore, those who resisted the men sent by God have become the types of those who resist receiving Jesus under the same exact conditions: a man sent by God whom they refuse to obey, but choose rather to turn and sacrifice to their man-made idols.
Paul and Moses
We go now to Paul’s conversion in the Book of Acts. As you consider Paul’s encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ, it is interesting to compare his reaction with that of Moses. Let’s read…
1But Saul, still breathing threats and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord… 3As he traveled, it happened that he got close to Damascus, and suddenly a light from the sky shone around him. 4 He fell on the earth, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” 5 He said, “Who are you, Lord?” The Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. 6But rise up, and enter into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” (Acts 9:1–6)
This is the passage that first explains how Saul received a personal visitation. Saul calls out to the voice, “who are you Lord?” And this individual responds by telling him his name, and tells Saul what he has done wrong and what he needs to do. One of the most striking parts of this event is lost on most people: it is how Jesus describes himself to Saul. He said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” But Saul hadn’t been persecuting Jesus; he’d been persecuting his disciples. Yet Jesus identified himself so closely with his disciples that he spoke of them in the first person. This is a prime example of idiomatic speech that should be easy for us to understand: the saints that Paul preached were not the literal person of Jesus Christ, but Jesus spoke of them that way because believers make up the body of Christ without negating their individual personalities. If we can understand this when Christ speaks this way in the context of his relationship with us, we shouldn’t be surprised when he seems to speak the same way in context with his relationship with God his Father.
Well before this point, Jesus had ascended to heaven, leaving behind his followers. Paul would later describe Christ’s disciples as Christ’s body. So, if we interpret this passage the way Onenessians do, we’d have to conclude that these followers of Christ, whom Saul had been persecuting, were all personal incarnations of Jesus himself. That is, after all, how Onenessians and Trinitarians apply the same type of language to Christ, that since God is his head and God indwells Christ, then by that fact, Jesus must be an incarnation of deity. But no, that’s not the case. Jesus was actually the firstborn of many brothers. The ones Saul was persecuting were those many brothers that make up Christ’s body, and being many, they are even still one body. But that is a long way from the unbiblical, nonsensical idea that they are all personal incarnations of Jesus, let alone of God.
Saul’s encounter with Jesus could have been very similar to Moses’ encounter with God. Since Onenessians believe Jesus was personally YHWH, then it would stand to reason, from their view, that Saul’s encounter would have been his first direct encounter with YHWH Himself. But is that how either Saul or Jesus described the encounter? To answer that, let’s look at Moses’ encounter with the true, Almighty God YHWH and let’s see if we can find any distinguishing similarities or differences.
2The angel of YHWH appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. 3 Moses said, “I will turn aside now, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.” (Exodus 3:2–3)
13Moses said to God, “Behold, when I come to the children of Israel, and tell them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you;” and they ask me, “What is his name?” What should I tell them? 14God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM,” and he said, “You shall tell the children of Israel this: I AM has sent me to you.” 15God said moreover to Moses, “You shall tell the children of Israel this, ‘YHWH, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations.” (Exodus 3:13–15)
Moses told Aaron all the words of YHWH with which he had sent him, and all the signs with which he had charged him. (Exodus 4:28)
Afterward Moses and Aaron came, and said to Pharaoh, This is what YHWH, the God of Israel, says, “Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.” (Exodus 5:1)
In this encounter, God was very straightforward with Moses in revealing His identity to him. When Moses was approached and called by God, he understood that he had been given a message, just as Saul understood. The message that Moses began preaching was completely straightforward: “the God of your fathers has sent me to you.” No ambiguity here.
Now imagine if you were Saul and you had a similar encounter with Almighty God YHWH. I can tell you that if you were a Trinitarian, you’d run out preaching “the second person of the Trinity has sent me to you,” and if you were a Onenessian, you’d run out preaching “YHWH the Father Himself incarnate has sent me to you to tell you that His name is now Jesus.” How do I know that? Because that’s exactly what they preach about their respective views of Christ. But our question is, what was Saul’s view? What did the person who actually had that experience with Christ think and understand and preach about who and what approached him?
Well, here’s what Saul had to say:
20Immediately in the synagogues he proclaimed the Anointed One, that he is the Son of God. 21All who heard him were amazed… 22But Saul increased more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived at Damascus, proving that this is the Anointed One. (Acts 9:20–22)
Do you see the difference between what Saul testified of and what Moses testified of? Moses had an encounter with YHWH Himself and said so. Saul had an encounter with the Messiah—Christ the Anointed One—the Son of God, and said so. But here, don’t take my word for it, let’s hear Saul (Paul) himself describe what he preached about the Anointed One. Note as you read how similar his theme is to Stephen’s regarding God anointing men. Keep in mind the contrast here with Moses’s testimony after encountering YHWH God. If you are honest with this comparison you will have to admit that Saul did not make the same claim as Moses did; in particular, Saul claimed to have witnessed and exalted man, not God Himself:
16Paul stood up, and beckoning with his hand said, “Men of Israel, and you who fear God, listen. 17The God of this people chose our fathers, and exalted the people when they stayed as aliens in the land of Egypt, and with an uplifted arm, he led them out of it… 20After these things he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. 21Afterward they asked for a king, and God gave to them Saul… 22When he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, to whom he also testified… 23From this man’s seed, God has brought salvation to Israel according to his promise… 26 Brothers… the word of this salvation is sent out to you. 27For those who dwell in Jerusalem… 28Though they found no cause for death, they still asked Pilate to have him killed… 30But God raised him from the dead, 31and he was seen for many days by those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses to the people. 32We bring you good news of the promise made to the fathers, 33that God has fulfilled the same to us, their children, in that he raised up Jesus. As it is also written in the second psalm, “You are my Son. Today I have become your father.” 34Concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he has spoken thus: ‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.’ 35Therefore he says also in another psalm, ‘You will not allow your Holy One to see decay.’ 36For David, after he had in his own generation served the counsel of God, fell asleep, and was laid with his fathers, and saw decay. 37But he whom God raised up saw no decay. 38Be it known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man is proclaimed to you remission of sins , 39and by him everyone who believes is justified from all things, from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. 40Beware therefore, lest that come on you which is spoken in the prophets: 41 “Behold, you scoffers, and wonder, and perish; For I work a work in your days, A work which you will in no way believe, if one declares it to you.” (Acts 13:16–41)
So Paul never preached that Jesus was God incarnate, or even that he had encountered YHWH as Moses had. Either Paul was ashamed of the “Oneness” gospel, or it wasn’t the “Oneness” gospel that Paul believed and preached. Paul’s theme was almost identical with both Peter’s and Stephen’s. After consistently emphasizing the OT concept that God exalted people, he preached Jesus, the man through whom everyone who believes is justified. Therefore, if you believe in a different Jesus, then you have no right to partake in this Jesus whom Peter with all the apostles, Stephen, and Paul, all in one accord consistently preached him to be.
Now let’s compare the testimony of Jesus to Saul, to the testimony that God gave of Himself to Moses:
I (Saul) answered, “Who are you, Lord?” He said to me, “I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you persecute.” (Acts 22:8)
14God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM,” and he said, “You shall tell the children of Israel this: I AM has sent me to you.” 15 God said moreover to Moses, “You shall tell the children of Israel this, ‘YHWH, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations.” (Exodus 3:13–15)
These are radically different responses from someone who is supposed to be the same individual. Jesus is not “I am that I am,” either here or anywhere else in the Bible. Remember that Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing of himself…” (John 5:19). And again Jesus said, “I can of myself do nothing” (John 5:30).
In describing himself to Saul, Jesus also gave a very important clue regarding another verse in Acts that some people use to conclude that Jesus was God incarnate. Here is that verse:
Take heed, therefore, to yourselves, and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the assembly of the Lord and God which he purchased with his own blood. (Acts 20:28)
Some people claim that since Jesus’ blood is referenced here as God’s “own blood,” that alone is proof that Jesus was God. But Paul had another explanation, quite likely based on Jesus’ identity with his people, which Paul learned about from his first encounter with Jesus:
11But the one and the same Spirit works all of these, distributing to each one separately as he desires. 12For as the body is one, and has many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ. 13For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free; and were all given to drink into one Spirit. 14For the body is not one member, but many… 24…God composed the body together, giving more abundant honor to the inferior part, 25that there should be no division in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. 26When one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. Or when one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. 27Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually. (1 Corinthians 12:11–14, 24–27)
Do you see that last sentence? “You are the body of Christ, and members individually.” Paul explained it as plain as day. We are not little incarnations of Jesus Christ, any more than Christ was an incarnation of God. Rather, Paul explains:
…you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. (1 Corinthians 3:23)
But I would have you know that the head of every human is Christ, and the head of the wife is the husband, and the head of Christ is God. (1 Corinthians 11:3)
He that has ears let him hear. In the same way a wife is one flesh with her own husband, who is her head in the marriage relationship, yet she retains her own personal individuality (1 Cor. 12:27), so is every human under Christ, while retaining his human individuality. So also is Christ under God, who (Christ) in the same manner also retains his human individuality. This is the truth that Onenessianism destroys.
Now then, if this passage is true, that the head of Christ is God, just as the head of man is Christ, then these explanations in 1 Corinthians are the ones we need to use to “interpret the Scripture by the Scripture,” wherein it is written that “the members should have the same care for one another” (1 Corinthians 12:25). And if so, “Christ is God’s,” and for that biblical reason, it could be said that God purchased the assembly of believers “with his own blood.” The Bible never says Christ is an incarnation of God, but it does explicitly explain that we are Christ’s, in the same way that Christ is God’s.
This is also to lean, not on paganism for answers, but on the OT view of God’s empathy with his people, as it is also written:
8For he said, Surely, they are my people, children who will not deal falsely: so he was their Savior. 9In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bore them, and carried them all the days of old. (Isaiah 63:8–9)
“In all their affliction He [God] was afflicted!” Well then, per the way Onenessians interpret things the Israelites must have also been God Himself just like Jesus was! Preposterous! Rather, simply, by this we see that God so intimately empathized with His people, that when they were afflicted, He felt every pain. Just as the NT describes: “When one member suffers, all the members suffer with it” (1 Corinthians 12:26). If we can understand this is so with God and his saints without them being incarnations of God, we have no excuse for not understanding and believing that it is the exact same case with Jesus in whom God dwelled as in a temple. This is what allowing the Scriptures (as opposed to pagan ideas of incarnation and the like) to explain things to us looks like.
So then it is perfectly biblical to call Jesus’ blood “His own blood,” since Christ is God’s just as we are Christ’s, and all together we are one body. Acts 20:28 does not in any way teach or imply that Jesus is God incarnate!
Christ that Paul Preached
Let us now summarize the key points of Paul’s first fully recorded preaching in Acts 13. These are the important points that this man who encountered Jesus himself felt was his duty to preach:
v.17 God chose our fathers and exalted people…
v.20 He gave judges…
v.21 God gave Saul…
v.22 removed him and raised David…
v.23 Of this man’s [David’s] seed has God raised unto Israel a Savior Jesus…
v.30 God raised him from the dead…
v.33 God has fulfilled… in that he has raised Jesus… Thou art my Son this day have I begotten you…
v.34 [God said] I will give you the sure mercies of David [the Davidic covenant]…
v.37 He whom God raised…
v.38 Through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins and by him all that believe are justified from all things.
Paul preached Christ as a man; not as God incarnate! These are the elements of the “preached” Jesus that Paul warned us not to be moved away from. In none of these is the Trinity or Oneness doctrine set forth or even implied. Thus yet again, the true, preached, Son of God doctrine that we have been pointing to is the true saving view of Jesus Christ.
Note: to this chapter could be added the topic of the resurrection from the dead, but we covered that already in Chapter Nineteen.
Notes: Following, for your reference, are all the passages in which Christ is “preached” without ever once being preached as an incarnation of the Father or as the second person in a mythological Trinity: Acts 2:14–36; 3:12–26; 4:8–12; 5:29–32; 7:2–53; 8:32–37; 10:34–43; 13:16–41; 17:22–31; 18:4–5; 26:2–23.
In the following verses of the Book of Acts, Jesus is clearly and irrefutably held in personal distinction from God the Father: Acts 1:4, 7; 2:22, 23, 24, 26–30, 32, 33, 34–35, 36, 38–39; 3:6–9, 13, 15, 18, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26; 4:10, 26, 27, 4:29–30; 5:30, 31; 7:37, 55, 56; 8:12, 37; 9:20; 10:36, 38, 40, 42; 11:17; 13:23, 30, 33, 37; 15:10–11; 16:17–18, 31–32; 17:30–31; 20:21; 26:8–9, 22–23; 28:31.
