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In the fourth encounter between Yeshua and the Temple leaders before His death on Passover then resurrection, Yeshua became the questioner (Luke 20:41-44). Quoting Psalm 110:1, Yeshua asked how the Messiah could be David’s son if David called Him “Lord” (Luke 20:41-44). In this study, we explore what Scripture has to say about the identity of Yeshua and YHWH (“the LORD”).
Yeshua was being presented with some great questions when He was in the Temple and he turns the question back on His questioners when he asks “Who is David’s son?” How can the Messiah be the Son of David yet be the one who David describes in Ps. 110 (or Ps. 109 in the Septuiagant) as “The LORD says to my Lord… You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” (Ps. 110:1-4)
We will see that there are several titles that are equally applied to Yeshua and YHVH including the I AM, the First and the Last, the King of kings and Lord of lords, the Rock, Savior, .
The book of Hebrews delves into Yeshua holding the Priesthood of Melchizedek more fully. This is the quandary that the scribes were facing. How do the scribes say that Messiah is the son of David. It’s a chicken or egg question, who is greater than the other?
It’s a challenging picture to understand the nature of God. One of the assertions in the Tanak we see is God as “I AM.” We find this for the first time in Ex. 3:13-14 when God introduces Himself to Moses. “Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ Now they may say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
When you look at this same verse in the Septuagint, the “I” is the Greek word ego. Eimi is “to be.” This title is in the present tense in the Greek. Yeshua called Himself the “I Am” a lot in the Gospel of John.
The first instance I want to look at is in John 8:28, “So Jesus said, ‘When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me.'” Most translations add the “he” but in the Greek, it’s literally “I am.” I am what? Greek, like English, you need the direct object to show us the point of the verb, to make this comment more clear but there’s no direct object here.
There’s an even more startling use of this phrase “I Am” by Yeshua later on in John 8:58, “Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.'” That’s a pretty jarring statement because in Greek, like English, the subject and the verb have to be in the same tense, either present, past or future to be grammatically correct and understood. This was not a grammatical flub by a scribe because in verse 59, we see the people responded by trying to stone Him.
John 13: 19 says, ““From now on I am telling you before it comes to pass, so that when it does occur, you may believe that I am He.” The word “he” is not in the original Greek, so this text should read “you may believe that I am.”
In John 18:5-6, “They answered Him, ‘Jesus the Nazarene.’ He said to them, ‘I am.’ And Judas also, who was betraying Him, was standing with them. So when He said to them, ‘I am,’ they drew back and fell to the ground.” Yeshua’s I AM statement was a powerful enough statement to cause the people coming to arrest Him to fall to the ground.
John has a lot of “I am” statements, such as “I am the door,” “I am the good shepherd.” but these “I am” statements are not clarified.
Another “I am” statement we see frequently in scripture is “I am the first and the last.” This is frequently applied to YHVH but it is also applied to Yeshua.
Isaiah 44:6, “Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: ‘I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God besides Me.'”
We also see it in the book of Revelation in reference to YHVH in Rev. 1:8, “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
The Father is again referred to in his manner in Rev. 21:5-6, “And He who sits on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’ And He said, ‘Write, for these words are faithful and true.’ Then He said to me, ‘It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end…'”
Yeshua uses the same phrase for Himself in Rev. 1:17-18, “When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, ‘Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.'”
Yeshua uses the same phrase for Himself at the end of in Rev. 22:12-16. “Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the immoral persons and the murderers and the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices lying. I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.”
In Rev. 22, it’s tag-team match of both Yeshua the Lamb and YHVH, the one on the throne, using this phrase in referring to themselves. So, how can we sort it out? The phrase “I am coming quickly” is a reference of the Lamb or the Son.
Rev. 3:3, Yeshua is speaking to the church in Sardis and says, “‘So remember what you have received and heard; and keep it, and repent. Therefore if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you.
He also tells the church in Philadelphia in Rev. 3:11-13, “I am coming quickly; hold fast what you have, so that no one will take your crown. He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will not go out from it anymore; and I will write on him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
Many have interpreted the the references to “my God” in Rev. 3:12-13 as meaning that Yeshua is not God because this is the Lamb referring to “My God.” Well, is there a confused writer here? When you read Rev. 22:20, it makes it more clear when it says, “He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming quickly.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.”
So lets go back to our discussion of Isaiah 44:6 would seem to have a problem because we have two claiming to be the first and the last. But we’ll also see that both God the Father and Yeshua also both claim the title “King of Kings” too.
Let’s look at the Apostle Paul 1 Tim. 6:13-16 where the Apostle Paul speaks about the Father YHVH, “I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which He will bring about at the proper time — He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen.” This is one of the earliest “creeds” of the early believers, a synopsis of faith.
We see this in Rev. 17:14 that Yeshua is also Lord of Lord and King of Kings, “These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, because He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful.”
Isaiah 44:8 says, “Do not tremble and do not be afraid; have I not long since announced it to you and declared it? And you are My witnesses. Is there any God besides Me, or is there any other Rock? I know of none.”
This text harkens back to a very huge and important point in Israel’s history, during the Exodus when they were at Massah and Meribah as recorded in Ex. 17. It is referenced frequently in in the Tanak and also discussed in the New Testament in Heb. 3-4. Let’s look at Ex. 17:6-7, “‘Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.’ And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. He named the place Massah and Meribah because of the quarrel of the sons of Israel, and because they tested the LORD, saying, ‘Is the LORD among us, or not?'” We also see the incident referenced in Numbers 20:9-13.
The next passage we’ll look at that touches on this event is Ps. 78:13-16. “He divided the sea and caused them to pass through, and He made the waters stand up like a heap. Then He led them with the cloud by day and all the night with a light of fire. He split the rocks in the wilderness and gave them abundant drink like the ocean depths. He brought forth streams also from the rock and caused waters to run down like rivers.” The events at Massah and Meribah were a profound time of testing and trusting in God.
1 Cor. 10:1-5 also references the Exodus and Massah and Meribah and explicitly links Yeshua to the rock that Moses struck there to provide water to the people.
The titles that identify YHVH also identify the Messiah. People have really struggled over how Yeshua could be the son of David and yet be older than Abraham and more eternal. It’s because in the first 3 centuries after Christ, a lot of Greek thought from Aristotle and other pagan philosophers crept into the body of Messiah. The common Greek belief was that the things of heaven could not mix with things from earth. So the Messiah could not be from heaven because things from heaven could not mix with things from earth. John 1 is an absurdity to the pagan world. What God’s word shows us is this picture of Father and Son are distinct and different yet have the same titles. The Son listens to, obeys and is sent by the Father.
The reason that Yeshua was frequently threatened with stoning because He said He was equal with God.
A fundamental element of God Himself is the role of savior. God saved the people of Israel from calamity through the sea. We see this in Is. 43:3, 11, 21, Is. 49:26, Is. 60:16, Is. 45:21, and Hosea. The Father is clearly shown here as Israel’s Savior.
It’s a cloudy picture but it becomes clearer in Hebrews. The testimony comes through the Prophets but becomes clear in Messiah Yeshua. The Son is the perfect representation of the Father.
Paul picks up the theme of Is. 45:21 in Phil. 2:1-11 and applies this to Yeshua. We’ll focus in on Phil 2:6 which states, “who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped.” That word that is translated in the NASB as “grasped” or in the KJV as “robbery” is the Greek word harpagmos (Strong’s G725) which literally means “the act of seizing” or “to be seized.” Robbed is a better way to translate this word because it has the implication of taking with force like in battle. This is the only place in the entire bible where this word appears. It’s not even in the Septuagint. This shows us the humility of the Son. It’s quite different than in other belief systems.
Whether in marriage or in the community of believers, we are to work towards the same Echad as God has with the Son. This is was part of Yeshua’s prayer in John 17.
Our High Priest not only understands us and walked in our shoes but He was a part of the YHVH. That’s a fantastic picture in scripture. Realizing who Yeshua is, when we see the crucifixion and the shame and horror of it, that YHVH would submit to that for us is profound.
God is doing what He promised to do. Is. 42:8 says that YHVH will not submit His glory to another, yet Yeshua has the glory of YHVH. This phrase “I am and there is no other” shows up so many times in Isaiah in regards to God’s uniqueness and this same uniqueness is applied to the Messiah Yeshua. When we read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, we see the perfect love of God.
People have come up with all kinds of constructs but we can only know what God has revealed in Scripture. God isn’t revealing everything to us right now because we can’t handle it right now. God will share some of His glory in his time, in a later time, at the culmination of the last days. God calls us heirs of His kingdom but the transformation He is performing in us. We should be less like the people we were before and more like Him.
Speaker: Jeff. Summary: Tammy.