Mark's thoughts: Yahweh and Jesus - doing the unthinkable

 

On the Day of Pentecost Peter addressed the crowd and explained what they had been experiencing as they heard the disciples declare the mighty works of God in their own languages.  He said that it was a fulfillment of what the prophet Joel had written:

But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.’ (Acts 2:16-18).

Peter announced that the outpouring of the Spirit was part of God’s end time action. He went on to quote from Joel: “And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Acts 2:21). Peter was quoting Joel 2:32 in which the Hebrew text has “Yahweh.”  “Lord” was the standard translation in Greek for “Yahweh,” and was understood to mean “Yahweh.”

In the rest of his sermon, Peter went on to talk about how Jesus had been crucified, but had been raised from the dead in fulfillment of King David’s words in Psalm 16 (Acts 2:22-32).  Peter then said, “Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing” (Acts 2:33).  He went on to say, “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36).

The apostle quotes a verse from the Old Testament that says, “everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”  Then he says that Jesus is Lord and calls people to faith in Jesus.  In doing so, Peter identifies Jesus with Yahweh.  In addition, he says that Jesus is seated at the right hand of God and has poured out the Holy Spirit.  These are things that only Yahweh can do.

We find the same use of Joel 2:32 in Paul. In Romans 10:9 he says, “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”  Then Paul goes on to quote Joel 2:32 as he writes, “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved’” (Romans 10:12-13).  This use of “call on the name of the Lord” is significant, since in the Old Testament it was used to refer to prayer and sacrifice offered to Yahweh (Genesis 12:8).  We see here that Jesus is being designated as the object of worship and devotion.

 

Because we are so used to confessing that Jesus Christ is true God, we easily miss what a radical and unprecedented action this was.  The Jews who lived at the time of Jesus were absolutely committed to worshipping only Yahweh, the God of Israel.  Richard Bauckham comments:

There is every reason to suppose that observant Jews of the late Second Temple period were highly self-conscious monotheists in this sense: they saw their worship and obedience to the one and only God, the God of Israel, as defining their distinctive religious way in the pluralistic religious environment of their time. In a world where people freely worshipped different gods side by side, Jews were committed to worshipping only Yahweh (Jesus and the God of Israel, 5; emphasis original)

 And yet in the New Testament we find that Jews are applying Old Testament texts that speak about Yahweh to a man.  They are offering worship and devotion to a man.  This action was unprecedented and incredible.  Larry Hurtado comments:

That is, we are dealing here with an innovation precisely in the area of religious behavior that was most sensitive in Roman-era Jewish tradition about protecting the uniqueness of the one God … In the historical context of this strongly held religious concern, therefore, the readiness of Christian Jews in the very first years of the Christian movement to extend cultic reverence to Jesus is astonishing (Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity, 199).

They did not do this with some ancient and revered figure.  Instead, they did so for someone who had lived in their own time. What is more, they did so for an individual who had been executed by the government and religious authorities in the humiliating death of crucifixion.

What caused these Jewish Christians to begin doing the unthinkable?  They did so because they had experienced the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Peter said on Pentecost, “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses” (Acts 2:32).  Jesus was vindicated by the resurrection, and the Church recognized that in Jesus the resurrection of the Last Day had begun (1 Corinthians 15:20-23).  Through the work of the Spirit the Church learned that this man (1 Timothy 2:5) is more than just a man.  He is God (John 1:1, 14; Colossians 2:9). And the Church learned that the one God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19; 2 Corinthians 13:14). Through his saving action in Jesus Christ, God has revealed Himself to us.