In this post I will revisit the Lord’s explicit statement that the Father is greater than him, showing how this does not conflict with the clear, explicit teaching that the Son is coequal to God in essence, nature, power, glory and honor.

Here’s the passage in question:

“You have heard Me say to you, ‘I am going away and am returning to you.’ If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, ‘I am going to the Father,’ for My Father is greater than I.” John 14:28

One of the reasons why Jesus could say that the Father is greater than he is because the Scriptures proclaim that God is greater than all humanity:

“Look, in this you are not just. I will answer you, that God is greater than man.” Job 33:12

With the foregoing in perspective, it is important to keep in mind that John describes Jesus as the uncreated Word that is God by nature, by whom all creation came into being and from whom all life and illumination flow, who then entered into the world at a specific point of time to become flesh:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were created through Him, and without Him nothing was created that was created. In Him was life, and the life was the light of mankind… The true Light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was created through Him, yet the world did not know Him… The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, the glory as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:1-4, 9-10, 14

This is why we find Jesus being described as a Man all throughout John in contexts where Christ is also identified as the unique divine Son of God who is essentially one with the Father:

“So they asked him, “Who is the Man who said to you, “Take up your bed and walk”?’… The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. So the Jews persecuted Jesus and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things on the Sabbath day. Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is working still, and I am working.’ So the Jews sought even more to kill Him, because He not only had broken the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.” John 5:12, 15-18

“… Jesus said to them, ‘If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this. You are doing the works of your father.’ Then they said to Him, ‘We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father: God.’ Jesus said to them, ‘If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I came from God and proceeded into the world. I did not come of My own authority, but He sent Me.’” John 8:39b-42

“So they said to him, ‘How were your eyes opened?’ He answered, ‘A Man called Jesus made clay, anointed my eyes, and said to me, “Go to the pool of Siloam and wash.” So I went away and washed, and I received my sight.’” John 9:10-11

“Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he received his sight. He said to them, ‘He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.’ Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath day.” John 9:14-16

“So again they called the man who was blind and said to him, ‘Give glory to God. We know that this Man is a sinner.’” John 9:24

“The man answered, ‘Well, here is an amazing thing! You do not know where He is from, and yet He opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners. But if anyone is a worshipper of God and does His will, He hears him. Since the world began, it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of someone born blind. If this Man were not from God, He could do nothing.’ They answered him, ‘You were completely born in sin. Are you teaching us?’ And they threw him out. Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when He found him, He said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of God?’ He answered, ‘Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?’ Jesus said to him, ‘You have seen Him, and it is He who speaks with you.’ Then he said, ‘Lord, I believe.’ And he worshipped Him.” John 9:30-38

“‘My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life. They shall never perish, nor shall anyone snatch them from My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them from My Father’s hand. My Father and I are one.’ Again the Jews took up stones to stone Him. Jesus answered them, ‘I have shown you many good works from My Father. For which of those works do you stone Me?’ The Jews answered Him, ‘We are not stoning You for a good work, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, claim to be God.”” John 10:27-33

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?’ She said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.’… Then the chief priests and the Pharisees assembled the Sanhedrin and said, ‘What shall we do? This Man is performing many signs. If we leave Him alone like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.’ Then one of them named Caiaphas, who was the high priest that year, said to them, ‘You know nothing at all, nor do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, that the whole nation should not perish.’ He did not say this on his own authority. But being the high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but that He might also gather together in unity the children of God who were scattered abroad. So from that day forward they planned to put Him to death.” John 11:25-27, 47-52

“Then Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, ‘Here is the Man!’ When the chief priests and officers saw Him, they cried out, ‘Crucify Him! Crucify Him!’ Pilate said to them, ‘Take Him yourselves and crucify Him, for I find no guilt in Him.’ The Jews answered him, ‘We have a law, and by our law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God!’” John 19:5-7

The Scriptures further testify that Christ is still a Man after his physical, bodily resurrection into heaven and will forever remain such:

“God overlooked the times of ignorance, but now He commands all men everywhere to repent. For He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a Man whom He has appointed, having given assurance of this to all men by raising Him from the dead.” Acts 17:30-31

“There IS one God and one mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,” 1 Timothy 2:5

Therefore, since God is greater than mankind, and since Jesus became and will forever remain a Man (albeit a glorified One), the Father became and will in some sense always remain greater than his enfleshed/incarnate Son.

Here’s a helpful breakdown of the biblical revelation concerning this issue of the Father’s relationship to the Son Incarnate:

1. God by his very nature is greater than mankind.
2. Jesus became a Man at a specific moment in time in order to fulfill the Father’s will in bringing about the salvation of the world (Cf. John 3:16-18; 6:37-44; 12:47).
3. The Father is God in nature.
4. Therefore, from the moment of Christ’s Incarnation the Father became greater than the Son.
5. The Son continues to remain a Man who shall forever exist as a glorified human being with an immortal physical body of flesh (Cf. John 20:24-29; Luke 24:36-43; Acts 2:29-32; 13:34-35).
6. Therefore, there will always be a sense in which the Father shall be greater than the Incarnate Son.

All scriptural citations taken from the Modern English Version (MEV).

FURTHER READING

Jesus says that the Father is greater than he is, proving that he is not God.

A God-Sized Nap?

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Does God Ever Get Tired?James Patrick Holding

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Is. 40:28 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?

Pretty clear, but the Skeptics have a few in reply. Let’s first note the words: “fainteth” is ya’aph, while “weary” is yaga. Now then:

Exodus 31:17 It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.

A need for rest? No — “rested” simply means “desisted from exertion”, i.e., stopped what one was doing. The Hebrew word for “rest” (shabath) is used in the context of something ceasing or lacking, or in the sense of celebration (see Lev. 2:13; 23:32; the Greek in Heb. 4:4 has similar meaning.) “Refreshed” literally means “breathed” — this word is used only 3 times in the OT, once in reference to people on the Sabbath (Ex. 23:12) and once at 2 Sam. 16:14, “And the king, and all the people that were with him, came weary, and refreshed themselves there.” Does it mean one needs a nap? Only if the context demands it, as in the latter case. The word actually suggests more of a sense of satisfaction as derived from a cooling air, as is appropos for the seventh day (Gen. 1:31, And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. — an evaluation of what was before it.) If tiredness was what was at issue, a better word would have been ravach, or “breathe freely.”

Is. 1:14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.

Even by itself, it’s hard to see how this would give any idea that God was physically tired, and the word bears it out: it is la’ah, meaning disgusted. (This word is also used in Jer. 15:6.) Harder is this one:

Is. 43:24 Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money, neither hast thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices: but thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities.

This time it is yaga, but there’s a poetic point to make, though not what skeptics might expect. This is made in counter-point to Is. 43:23, “Thou hast not brought me the small cattle of thy burnt offerings; neither hast thou honoured me with thy sacrifices. I have not caused thee to serve with an offering, nor wearied thee with incense.” 43:24 is a rhetorical hyperbole, making the point that none of God’s demands upon the people were the sort to wear them out, and God counterpointing — with heavy sarcasm — “No, you have worn me out with your sins.” This is a powerful indictment in light of that God said in 40:28 that he does not get weary.

FURTHER READING

Does God Refresh Himself?

In this post I will revisit the issue of the work of Christ in accomplishing the salvation of mankind, and its implication on his divinity.

SAVIOR OF THE WORLD

The God-breathed Scriptures proclaim that God the Father raised up a king from the physical line of David to save not just Israel, but the whole world:

“And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying: ‘Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, For He visited and accomplished redemption for His people, And raised up a horn of salvation for us In the house of David His servant—’” Luke 1:67-69

“For today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Luke 2:11

“And after He had removed him, He raised up David to be their king, about whom He also said, bearing witness, ‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My heart, who will do all My will.’ From the seed of this man, according to promise, God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus,” Acts 13:22-23

“They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of your words that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.” John 4:42

“For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” John 3:17

“If any one hears my sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.” John 12:47

“For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body.” Ephesians 5:23

“And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world.” 1 John 4:14

GOD OUR SAVIOR

What makes this teaching rather amazing is that the inspired writings affirm that God (namely the Father) is the Savior of all mankind, specifically of believers:

“And Mary said: ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,” Luke 1:46-47

“This is good, and it is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” 1 Timothy 2:3-4

“For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe.” 1 Timothy 4:10

“not pilfering, but demonstrating all good faith so that they will adorn the doctrine of God our Savior (ten tou soteros hemon Theou) in everything. For the grace of God (tou Theou) has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us that, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age,” Titus 2:10-12

YHWH ALONE SAVES

The Hebrew Bible further emphasizes that the God who alone saves is YHWH, which is why believers are exhorted to have no other savior besides him:

“Yet I have been Yahweh your God Since the land of Egypt; And you were not to know any god except Me, And there is no savior besides Me. I Myself knew you in the wilderness, In the land of drought.” Hosea 13:4-5  

“Salvation belongs to Yahweh; Your blessing be upon Your people! Selah.” Psalm 3:8

“But as for me, I will sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving. That which I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to Yahweh.” Jonah 2:9

YHWH BECOMES HUMAN

Here is where it gets truly remarkable.

The NT writers identify Jesus as the God who saves all those who believe in him:

“At the same time we wait for the blessed hope and the glorious appearance of our great God and savior Jesus Christ (tou megalou Theou kai soteros hemon ‘Iesou Christou).” Titus 2:13 Common English Bible (CEB)

“Simeon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have received the same kind of faith as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ (tou Theou hemon kai soteros ‘Iesou Christou):” 2 Peter 1:1

Peter employs the same Greek construction elsewhere in his inspired writing that he does in the aforementioned verse:

“for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (tou Kyriou hemon kai soteros ‘Iesou Christou) will be abundantly supplied to you.” 2 Peter 1:11

“For if they are overcome, having both escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (tou Kyriou hemon kai soteros ‘Iesou Christou) and having again been entangled in them, then the last state has become worse for them than the first.” 2 Peter 2:20

“that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior (tou Kyriou kai soteros) spoken by your apostles… but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (tou Kyriou hemon kai soteros ‘Iesou Christou). To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.” 2 Peter 3:2, 18

Would anyone deny that these texts all describe Jesus as our Lord and Savior, or that the blessed Apostle concludes his writing with a doxology or ascription of praise to the risen Lord? Obviously not.

Therefore, what contextual and/or exegetical grounds would there be for denying the fact that in 2 Pet. 1:1 Jesus is being identified as our God and Savior seeing that it employs the same exact Greek construction found in all these other verses?  

The following Evangelical scholars explain why the phrase employed by Paul and Peter refers to a single individual Person, namely, Jesus Christ:    

“God and Savior”

In both Titus 2:13 and 2 Peter 1:1, the titles theos (“God”) and sōtēr (“Savior”) are joined by kai (“and”) and associated together by the article in front of theos. Thus, Titus 2:13 says, tou megalou theou kai sōtēros hēmōn (lit., “the great God and Savior of us”) and 2 Peter 1:1 says, tou theou hēmōn kai sōtēros (“the God of us and Savior”). In idiomatic English, we put the personal pronoun first and do not use the article with “God,” hence these expressions are properly translated “our (great) God and Savior.”

Beyond the grammatical analysis of the two texts, the linking of the two nouns “God” and “Savior” would have been instantly familiar to both Jews and Gentiles in the broader Greco-Roman culture. “God and Savior” (theos kai sōtēr) “was a stereotyped formula common in first-century religious terminology,” used in pagan culture, for example, in reference to Julius Caesar.³⁸ In the Septuagint, the two nouns are used together for the Lord God of Israel some twenty-two times (e.g., Deut. 32:15; Isa. 45:15, 21; Mic. 7:7; Hab. 3:18). In fact, other than a handful of uses of the word in reference to the “judges” who functioned as earthly, military deliverers of Israel (Judg. 3:9, 15; 12:3; Neh. 9:27), the Old Testament used the word “Savior” only in reference to God. Jesus, of course, is not a military deliverer. He is indeed a Savior for Israel (Acts 13:23), but he is far more: he is “the Savior of the world” (John 4:42; 1 John 4:14). Jesus is our heavenly Savior (Phil. 3:20) who saves us from sin and death (Acts 5:31; 2 Tim. 1:10; Titus 2:13–14). The New Testament uses the title only in reference to God (e.g., Luke 1:47; 1 Tim. 1:1; 2:3; 4:10) and Christ (e.g., Luke 2:11; Eph. 5:23). This textual background shows that the title “Savior” in New Testament usage is a title of deity—one routinely conjoined with the title “God.” Thus, when a reader comes across a text that speaks of “God and Savior,” they naturally and rightly understand “Savior” as a descriptive title of the one called “God.”

In short, both grammatical analysis (Sharp’s rule) and the semantics of joining the two titles together (“God and Savior”) constitute strong evidence for understanding the expressions “our great God and Savior” (Titus 2:13) and “our God and Savior” (2 Peter 1:1) as each referring to one person. Arguing that in these texts “God” refers to the Father while “Savior” refers to Jesus Christ is simply not plausible. Either both refer to the Father, or both refer to Christ.

38. Harris, Jesus as God, 178–79. (Robert M. Bowman Jr. & J. Ed Komoszewski, The Incarnate Christ and His Critics: A Biblical Defense [Kregel Academic, Grand Rapids, MI, 2024], Part 3: The Name of Jesus: Jesus’ Divine Names, Chapter 24: Jesus as “God” in the Rest of the New Testament, pp. 459-460; emphasis mine)

The writers anticipate and refute a potential objection against the blessed Apostles’ identifying Christ as our (great) God and Savior:

The only hypothetical way around the conclusion that 2 Peter 1:1 calls Jesus God is to argue that “Savior Jesus Christ” functions as a compound proper name, comparable to the way many think that “Lord Jesus Christ” does in Paul’s epistles. There are two very simple and quite decisive reasons why this is just not possible.

First, the expression “Savior Jesus Christ” never appears anywhere in the New Testament except when linked to another divine title for Jesus, specifically “God” or “Lord.” The word “Savior” does occur in apposition once to “Jesus” (Acts 13:23) and once in apposition to “Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3:20). One also finds “our Savior” in apposition to “Christ Jesus,” sometimes before that name (2 Tim. 1:10; Titus 2:13) and sometimes after it (Titus 1:4; 3:6).

But “Savior” never occurs as part of a compound proper name in the New Testament. The point here is not that the New Testament authors could not call him “Savior Jesus Christ” (a claim that would be comparable to asserting that the New Testament authors could not call Jesus “God”), but that such an expression is not a compound proper name for Jesus (for which it would need to be recognizable as such through frequent usage). Thus, one not only never sees “Savior Jesus Christ” as a compound name, but one also never sees “Savior Jesus” (the only place where the words “Savior” and “Jesus” appear alone together and immediately adjacent is Acts 13:23, where everyone agrees the two nouns are in apposition, “a Savior, Jesus”). In fact, one never finds “Savior” standing alone as a designation for Jesus, whereas one does, of course, find both “Lord” and “Christ” so functioning numerous times in the New Testament. If “Savior Jesus Christ” is not a recognizable compound name with precedent anywhere else in the New Testament, it is unjustifiable to treat it as one in 2 Peter 1:1.

The second problem is even easier to understand. If we treat “Savior Jesus Christ” as a proper name in 2 Peter 1:1, then we must do so in the other texts in 2 Peter (1:11; 2:20; 3:18), which would mean that those texts are referring to two persons: someone called “our Lord,” and someone else called “Savior Jesus Christ.” Otherwise, we would be treating these texts as referring to Jesus using nonsense expressions comparable to “our Lord and Jesus.” But again, everyone agrees that the expression “our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” refers to one person, namely Jesus.

Some people argue that this text cannot call Jesus God because “God” is clearly distinguished from “Jesus our Lord” in the very next verse: “May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord” (2 Peter 1:2). This objection, though, assumes that the New Testament cannot affirm both that Jesus is God and that he is distinct from God. To the contrary, in at least five other New Testament texts we find such allegedly “contradictory” statements side by side (John 1:1; John 1:18; John 20:17, 28, 31; Heb. 1:8–9; 1 John 5:20). Rather than fudge the texts to make them seem unproblematic to our minds, we should consider the possibility that these texts are revealing a paradoxical truth about the very nature of God.

The salutation in 2 Peter 1:2 follows the standard practice in New Testament epistles of wishing “grace and peace” to the readers from God the Father and the Lord Jesus (Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:3; 2 Cor. 1:2; etc.). The opening description of the readers as “those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ” (v. 1) is unique in the New Testament, and thus does not follow a pre-set form or pattern but is composed freely.⁴⁷ It would therefore be a mistake to try to conform verse 1 to fit what one assumes theologically is the meaning of the formulaic salutation in verse 2. In any case, Christians should accept both statements: Jesus Christ is “our God and Savior,” and he is someone distinct from the person customarily called “God.” The epistle of 2 Peter, then, opens by affirming that Jesus Christ is “our God and Savior.” It closes, appropriately, with a doxology of praise to Jesus Christ: “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen” (2 Peter 3:18). The verbal parallels in those opening and closing verses between “our God and Savior Jesus Christ” and “our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” form an undeniable inclusio (literary “bookends”) and thus confirm that 2 Peter 1:1 calls Jesus God. The inclusio actually includes 2 Peter 1:2 as well, which wishes the readers “grace . . . in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord,” corresponding to Peter’s closing exhortation to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (3:18). The closing part of the inclusio with its doxology directing eternal glory to Jesus Christ adds further evidence that we should take the text to mean what it rather clearly means. Thus, 2 Peter provides stunningly clear affirmations that Jesus Christ is indeed our Lord and our God. Recognizing this is not merely an academic exercise; it is a summons to grow in our relationship with Jesus Christ and to begin living in such a way as to glorify him forever.⁴⁸

47. Richard J. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, WBC 50 (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1983), 168.

48. On 2 Peter 1:1, see further Harris, Jesus as God, 229–38; Terrance Callan, “The Christology of the Second Letter of Peter,” Bib 82 (2001): 253–63. (Ibid., pp. 464-466; emphasis mine)

Here is what the renowned Evangelical NT Greek grammarian and scholar Dr. Daniel B. Wallace stated after surveying the literature on the subject of Granville Sharp’s first rule as it relates to the Deity of Christ:

In the statement of this rule, Sharp only discussed substantives (i.e., nouns, substantival adjectives, substantival participles) of personal description, not those which referred to things, and only in the singular, not the plural.  But whether he intended the rule to apply to impersonal nouns and/or plurals can hardly be determined from this definition.  As well, he did not clearly exclude proper names from the rule’s application.  However, a perusal of his monograph reveals that he felt the rule could be applied absolutely only to personal, singular, non-proper nouns.  For example, two pages later he points out that “there is no exception or instance of the like mode of expression, that I know of, which necessarily requires a construction different from what is here laid down, EXCEPT the nouns be proper names, or in the plural number; in which case there are many exceptions . . . .”¹⁴  Later on he explicitly states that impersonal constructions are within the purview of his second, third, fifth, and sixth rules, but not the first.¹⁵  In an appendix Sharp chastises Blunt for bringing in impersonal constructions as exceptions to the rule.¹⁶

In other words, in the construction article-noun-καί-noun, Sharp delineated four requirements which he felt needed to be met if the two nouns were necessarily to be seen as having the same referent:¹⁷ both nouns must be (1) personal—i.e., they must refer to a person, not a thing; (2) common epithets—i.e., not proper names; (3) in the same case;¹⁸ and (4) singular in number.¹⁹  The significance of these requirements can hardly be overestimated, for those who have misunderstood Sharp’s rule have done so almost without exception because they were unaware of the restrictions that Sharp set forth.²⁰ (Wallace, Sharp Redivivus? – A Reexamination of the Granville Sharp Rule; emphasis mine)

Wallace notes that there are no exceptions to Sharp’s first rule, if and when it is properly articulated/delineated, a fact even admitted by Sharp’s detractors:

The monotonous pattern of personal singular substantives in the TSKS construction indicating an identical referent immediately places such substantives in a different category from proper names, impersonal nouns, or plural nouns. The statistics accentuate this difference: in this construction there are about a dozen personal proper names in the NT (none having an identical referent); close to fifty impersonal nouns (only one unambiguously having the same referent); more than seventy plural substantives (little more than a third having an identical referent); and eighty TSKS constructions fitting the structural requirements of the rule⁸⁴ (the christologically significant texts excepted), all of which apparently having an identical referent. It is evident that Sharp’s limitation to personal singular substantives does indeed have substance; he seems to have articulated a genuine principle of NT grammar.  But is his rule inviolable? C. Kuehne, in his second article of a seven-part series entitled “The Greek Article and the Doctrine of Christ’s Deity,”⁸⁵ discusses all the instances in the NT which meet the requirements for the rule.⁸⁶ He summarizes his findings by stating that “Sharp claimed that his rule applied uniformly to such passages, and I indeed could not find a single exception.”⁸⁷ Kuehne is not alone in his view of these texts. None of Sharp’s adversaries was able to produce a single exception to his rule within the pages of the NT.  Calvin Winstanley, Sharp’s most able opponent, conceded that Sharp’s “first rule has a real foundation in the idiom of the language . . .”⁸⁸ And later, he declares, “Now, Sir, if your rule and principles of criticism must be permitted to close up every other source of illustration, there is an end of all farther enquiry . . .”⁸⁹—an obvious concession that, apart from the christologically significant texts, Winstanley could produce no exceptions within the NT corpus.  Finally, he admits as much when he writes, “There are, you say, no exceptions, in the New Testament, to your rule; that is, I suppose, unless these particular texts [i.e., the ones Sharp used to adduce Christ’s deity] be such. . . . it is nothing surprising to find all these particular texts in question appearing as exceptions to your rule, and the sole exceptions . . . in the New Testament . . .”⁹⁰ We must conclude, then, that (suspending judgment on the christologically significant texts) Sharp’s rule is indeed an inviolable canon of NT syntactical usage.⁹¹ (Ibid.; emphasis mine)

And this is what Wallace wrote elsewhere after examining thousands of examples of Sharp’s first rule and three to four million Greek words:

After perusing some three to four million words of Greek text, from classical Greek through the first millennium CE, I was amazed at how consistently valid this principle is. At the outset of this investigation, I fully expected to find several exceptions to the rule, including those that did not readily yield themselves to linguistic explanation. But after observing probably thousands of TSKS constructions, my own reticence to fully accept Sharp’s rule as valid has been overturned. (Wallace, Granville Sharp’s Canon and Its Kin: Semantics and Significance (Studies in Biblical Greek) [Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers; New edition, 2008], pp. 281-282; emphasis mine)   

Wallace also confirms what Bowman & Komozweski wrote in respect to the phrase “God [and] Savior (theos [kai] soter)”, namely, that this was a fixed expression that always referred to a single individual, not two:

2. Θεὸς Σωτήρ in the Milieu of the First Century

A second confirmation (related to Titus 2:13 and 2 Pet 1:1) can be found in the juxtaposition of θεός and σωτήρ in the milieu of the first Christian century. Several scholars have pointed out the fact that θεός and σωτήρ were often predicated of one person in the ancient world. Some, in fact, have assumed that θεὸς σωτήρ was predicated of Jesus only after 70 CE and in direct opposition to the imperial cult.¹⁷¹ Although it is probable that hellenistic religious usage helped the church in how it expressed its Christology, the primary impetus for the content of that Christology more than likely came from a different source.  Moehlmann, in his dissertation on this topic,¹⁷² after canvassing the use of the two terms in Greco-Roman civilization, argues that in Jewish literature (including the OT) σωτήρ was “usually associated with and generally restricted to God.”¹⁷³ He then argues, convincingly I think, that the use of this double epithet for Jesus was due to the growing conviction of the primitive church that Christ was in fact divine. 

To put it tersely, to say soter was to say theos. When the author of the epistle to Titus says, “looking for the blessed hope and epiphany of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,” he summarizes the ordinary content of the soter-idea in the culture of his day. Theos soter is a rather fixed, inseparable combination in the civilization of the Roman empire. “No one could be a god any longer unless he was also a savior” had its complement in no one could be a savior without being a god.¹⁷⁴

But what about the precise expression θεὸς σωτήρ? Whence did it come—and was it ever used of more than one person? Within the pages of the LXX, one finds this exact construction on only one or two occasions.¹⁷⁵ It is consequently quite doubtful that the OT, or more generally, Judaism, was the primary source for such a phrase. Further confirmation of this is found in the syntax of the construction. The Hebrew OT only rarely has the personal, singular article-noun-waw-noun construction. That is to say, only rarely is this construction found in which the waw connects the two substantives.¹⁷⁶ And when it does so, the semantics are mixed. The LXX almost uniformly renders such a construction as other than a TSKS construction.¹⁷⁷ Thus, neither the general syntactic structure of TSKS nor the specific lexemes of θεός and σωτήρ in such a construction can be attributable to OT influence.

Moulton lists several instances of this expression as referring to Roman emperors, though all but one of them dates from the seventh century CE.¹⁷⁸ But there are earlier uses of the phrase circulating in hellenistic circles—and not a few which antedate the NT.¹⁷⁹ Harris, in fact, argues that “the expression ὁ θεὸς καὶ σωτήρ was a stereotyped formula common in first-century religious terminology . . . and invariably denoted one deity, not two.”¹⁸⁰ More than likely, then, the expression should be traced to non-Jewish sources, especially those relating to emperor-worship.  At the same time, “the early Christian texts which call Jesus ‘Saviour’ nowhere exhibit a view of the Soter related to the Hellenistic concept.”¹⁸¹ Cullmann is surely right that Hellenism accounts for the form, Judaism for the content of the expression,¹⁸² for the juxtaposition of θεός and σωτήρ (though almost always without a connective καί) was a well-established idiom for the early Christians already resident within the pages of their Bible.¹⁸³ Nevertheless, regardless of the source of the expression, the use in Titus 2:13 and 2 Pet 1:1 of this idiom is almost certainly a reference to one person, confirming once again Sharp’s assessment of the phrase.¹⁸⁴

In sum, Sharp’s rule outside of the NT has been very strongly confirmed both in the classical authors and in the koine. And although a few possible exceptions to his rule were found in the literature, the phrase ὁ θεὸς καὶ σωτήρ (Titus 2:13 and 2 Pet 1:1) admitted of no exceptions—either in Christian or secular writings. Ironically, then, the very passages in which Sharp sought to prove his rule have become among the least contestable in their singular referentiality. Indeed, the researches of Wendland, Moulton, Moehlmann, Cullmann, et al., are so compelling that exegetes nowadays are more apt to deny Paul and Peter than they are Christ¹⁸⁵—that is to say, precisely because of the high Christology of Titus and 2 Peter the authenticity of these letters is usually denied.¹⁸⁶ In this connection, it is noteworthy that Winer, whose theological argument against Sharp’s canon in Titus 2:13 influenced so many, held to Pauline authorship of the Pastorals. Indeed, it was “considerations from Paul’s system of doctrine” which forced him to deny the validity of the rule.¹⁸⁷ These two issues—apostolic authorship and Christology—are consequently pitted against each other in these texts, and the opinions of a scholar in one area too often cloud his judgment in the other.¹⁸⁸ Entirely apart from questions of authorship, however, we believe that the evidence adduced thus far firmly supports Sharp’s canon as it applies to Titus 2:13 and 2 Pet 1:1.  What remains to be done is an examination of the substantive arguments against, and especially the alleged exceptions to, Sharp’s principle. (Ibid.; emphasis mine)

¹⁷⁹ Cf. the references in BAGR, s.v. σωτήρ, dating back to the Ptolemaic era.  Cf. also L. R. Taylor, The Divinity of the Roman Emperor (Middletown, CN: American Philological Association, 1931), who gives a helpful list in her “Appendix III: Inscriptions recording Divine Honors,” 267-83. Frequently, and from very early on, the inscriptions honor the Roman emperors as θεός, σωτήρ, and εὐεργέτης. Almost invariably the terms are in a TSKS construction (among the earliest evidence, an inscription at Carthage, 48-47 BCE, honors Caesar as τὸν θεὸν καὶ αὐτοκράτορα καὶ σωτῆρα; one at Ephesus honors him as τὸν . . .θεὸν ἐπιφανῆ καὶ . . .σωτῆρα; Augustus is honored at Thespiae, 30-27 BCE, as το’ν σωτῆρα καὶ εὐεργέτην; and in Myra he is called θεόν, while Marcus Agrippa is honored as τὸν εὐεργέτην καὶ σωτῆρα). See also P. Wendland, “Σωτήρ: Eine religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung,” ZNW 5 (1904) 337, 339-40, 342; BAGR, s.v. σωτήρ; W. Foerster, TDNT, 7.1003-1012; Dibelius-Conzelmann, Pastoral Epistles, 74.

¹⁸⁰ M. J. Harris, “Titus 2:13 and the Deity of Christ” (in Pauline Studies: Essays presented to Professor F. F. Bruce on his 70th  Birthday, ed. D. A. Hagner and M. J. Harris [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980]) 266.  Cf. also B. S. Easton, The Pastoral Epistles (New York: Scribner’s, 1947) 94…

¹⁸⁴ We may conjecture that the use of the phrase in emperor-worship was hardly an adequate motivating factor for its use by early Christians, because such an expression butted up against their deeply ingressed monotheism. Rather, it was only after they came to recognize the divinity of Christ that such a phrase became usable. This would explain both why σωτήρ is used so infrequently of Christ in the NT, and especially why ὁ θεὸς καὶ σωτήρ occurs only twice—and in two late books…

¹⁸⁷ G. B. Winer, A Treatise on the Grammar of New Testament Greek, trans. and rev. W. F. Moulton, 3d ed., rev. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1882) 162 (italics added). He adds in a footnote: “the dogmatic conviction derived from Paul’s writings that this apostle cannot have called Christ the great God induced me . . .”

¹⁸⁸ Besides Winer, one thinks of Kelly and Alford as among those who, because they embraced apostolic authorship, denied an explicitly high Christology.

In passing, we might note that Ignatius’ christological statements involve a tighter apposition (with θεός) than do the statements in Titus and 2 Peter (cf., e.g., Smyrn. 1:1; preface to Ephesians; Eph. 18:2; Trall. 7:1; preface to Romans; Rom. 3:3; Pol. 8:3) or even direct assertion (Rom. 6:3). 

Though the statements in Titus and 2 Peter seem to be explicit affirmations of Christ’s deity, Ignatius’ statements are more blunt. If a roughly linear development of christological formulation in the early church can be assumed, this would suggest that the terminus ad quem of the Pastorals and 2 Peter could not be later than 110 CE. (Sharp Redivivus?)

Hence, the contextual and historical evidence provide a very strong case that Jesus is clearly and explicitly being described as our (great) God and Savior in Tit. 2:13 and 2 Pet. 1:1. As such, this means that the NT is identifying the risen Jesus as YHWH God Incarnate, even though it also personally distinguishes him from both the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Here’s a logical breakdown of the biblical witness:

1. YHWH alone is the God who saves.
2. Jesus is described as the great God and Savior of all who believe in him.
3. Jesus is, therefore, the physical enfleshment, the human incarnation of that very YHWH God who alone saves.
4. At the same time, Jesus is personally distinct from both the Father and the Son.
5. This means that the one true God YHWH eternally exists and is eternally instantiated as the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit (Cf. Matt. 28:19).

I will have more evidence confirming all these statements in the subsequent part of my discussion.