Chapters 8 to 9 - Christ’s Teachings and Today’s Christianity

- 19 - of the Greek text from which that translation was made, and in some cases in a combination of both. You will find such an instance in Paul’s letter to the Philippians, in the passage that, according to your current translation, reads: Philippians 2: 5-7: ‘Let all be of a mind as was Jesus Christ, who, although he had a godly form, counted it not as deprivation to be equal with God, but relinquished himself, taking on the form of a servant.’ The correct text reads: ‘Let all be of a mind as was Jesus Christ, who, although in his outward appearance he looked like a god, counted it not as self-deprivation to humble himself before God, but relinquished himself, taking on the outward form of a bond servant.’ It is true that the celestial body of Christ as a spirit resembled a god, and that all spirits on seeing him for the first time think they are seeing God – so gloriously has God endowed His firstborn. The original text has been crudely falsified by substituting the words: ‘to be equal with God’, for the words: ‘to humble himself before God’. Inasmuch as I have just had occasion to use the words 'looked like a god’, I shall make mention of the opening passage of the Gospel of John, also cited as proof of the Divinity of Christ. ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’. First and foremost, the text should read: ‘... the Word was a god’; and not: ‘the Word was God’. In this passage John uses the term ‘a god’ as it was applied in his day to all who were God’s special instruments and who, as His envoys, stood in special communication with Him, the one true God. The same usage was employed by God when He spoke to Moses, the great messenger of God and Christ’s model, to whom He said: Exodus 4: 16: ‘And Aaron shall be thy spokesman unto the people; and he shall be thy mouth, and thou shalt be his “god”.’ Christ, also, when reproached by the Jews with making himself the equal of God by calling himself the ‘Son of God’, retorted with the question: ‘Is it not written in your law: I said, ye are gods? If the Scriptures called them “gods”, to whom God assigned a task, how can ye accuse me, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, of blasphemy because I said, I am the Son of God?’ What Christ says in these words is: ‘How can you accuse me of making myself God’s equal by calling myself His Son? Even if I had called myself “a god”, I would not have committed blasphemy, for those who have heretofore appeared as God’s envoys were called “gods”, because they came to carry out tasks assigned by God. How much more right have I, then, to call myself “a god”, since to me has been entrusted the greatest task ever assigned to an emissary of God’s! But I purposely refrain from calling myself “god”, in order to prevent any misinterpretation of the word, and call myself what I truly am, the Son of God.’

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