Here is the link to the original PDF on the website of Beth Immanuel where Daniel Lancaster serves as the pastor: The Only Begotten Son - By D. Thomas Lancaster
This was published in 2019 and remains an active link on their website.
Beth Immanuel Messianic Synagogue
May 8, 2019 / Iyyar 3, 5779
A Messianic Jewish Introduction to Discipleship, Part
Four: The Only Begotten Son
© 2019 D. Thomas Lancaster www.bethimmanuel.org
{All commentary below from Pastor Powell will be in brackets,
bold and italics to avoid any confusion as to Lancaster’s original words. The bold section titles are original.}
THE ONLY BEGOTTEN SON
Before being immersed, a person should be instructed in
“knowledge about the unbegotten God”
and “understanding about the only begotten son.” Under this
subject, we touch on some of the
ideas in Christology—the study of Messiah. This is among the
deepest and most mysterious
subjects in the Bible, so this lesson will only introduce a
few of the topics pertaining to the
sonship of Yeshua. The material dives into some deep waters,
so don’t feel distressed if it goes
over your head at time. It’s enough to get a rough idea of
the concepts.
{The opening paragraph reveals this to be a
pre-baptism primer for those joining Beth Immanuel, as such we would expect
that the beliefs expressed here have not been arrived at in a flippant manner,
which adds weight to their deviancy from orthodoxy.}
The Son of God
Yeshua regularly referred to himself as “the Son” and to God
as “the Father.” It wasn’t
uncommon for Jews in his day to describe God as their loving
Father. Even to this day, Jewish
prayers still address God warmly as “our Father,” and
“Father in Heaven.” But there was
something unique about the way Yeshua talked. When he
addressed God, he called him “Abba,”
a term of special endearment. When he talked about himself,
he referred to himself as “the Son”
that was sent by the Father. After his death and
resurrection, his followers began to refer to him
as “the Son of God,” and the “only begotten son.”
God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten
son, so that whoever
believes in him will not perish, but will have eternal life.
(John 3:16)
What do we mean when we say that Yeshua is the Son of God
and why is he called “the only
begotten Son?” It’s not just because he was born of a
virgin. It’s blasphemous to even think that
the Almighty fathered him through
his mother Miriam.
{This is the Hebraic version of the familiar Mary}
In
Greek mythology, the gods routinely impregnate human women who subsequently
give birth to demi-gods, but those mythological and idolatrous ideas have
nothing to do with the story of Yeshua’s miraculous conception or why he is
called the Son of God. So why is he called the Son of God?
{There isn’t much of note in the preceding paragraph,
it all could be a part of a perfectly orthodox explanation of the Incarnation,
if it wasn’t connected to what comes later…}
Today I have Begotten You
Let’s start with the idea of Messiah. The word “messiah”
means “The Anointed One.” It’s
directly related to the Hebrew word Mashiach and the Greek
word Christos. That’s where we get
the English word “Christ.” In the days of the kings of
Israel, a new king was anointed with oil to
symbolize that God had chosen him and put his Spirit upon
him to lead the people. Every king of
Israel was called an anointed one.
God promised that, in the future, the descendants of king
David would beget a son who would be
anointed by God’s spirit to restore the kingdom of Israel
and conquer the whole world. The
LORD promised King David, “I will be a father to him and he
will be a son to Me” (2 Samuel
7:14). We call that promised king “the Anointed One,” i.e.
the Messiah.
Son of God is a title for the Messiah. The LORD says to the
Messiah in Psalm 2, “You are my
son, today I have begotten you” (Psalm 2:7). The word
“beget” means “to give birth to” or “to
bring forth.” In Psalm 2, God says that the Davidic Messiah
is called his “son” because he has
begotten him.
When Yeshua was immersed in the Jordan River, the voice of
God declared him to be the
fulfillment of the promise made to David. He said, “You are
my son.” With these words, the
voice at the Jordan identified Yeshua as the Messiah.
Yeshua asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?”
Simon Peter answered, “You are the
Messiah, the Son of living God!” (Matthew 16:16). The two
titles were connected in Peter’s
mind. Not long after that, Yeshua took three disciples with
him up onto a high mountain. They
heard the voice of God say, “This is my son! Listen to him.”
That revelation dispelled any
lingering doubts.
All of these instances point to the connection between
Yeshua’s identity as the Messiah and the
promise made to King David, “I will be a father to him and
he will be a son to Me” (2 Samuel
7:14). By saying to Yeshua, “You are my son,” the voice at
the Jordan River declared, “You are
the Messiah.” By saying to the disciples, “This is my son,”
the voice on the high mountain
declared, “This is the Messiah.”
{Up until the next paragraph, there isn’t anything of
concern here, and that’s the pattern with FFOZ and their Torah Clubs. They project an “ordinary Bible study” vibe
right up until they include unorthodox teaching that often slips by Torah Club
members, or leaves them thinking they can “strain out” the heretical bits and
keep the rest. Hold onto your hats for
what is coming next.}
The Logos Becomes Flesh
But what about the idea that the Messiah is God? How is that supposed to work?
Sometimes people say that Yeshua is fully God and fully man:
100% God and 100% human.
Mathematically, that doesn’t work very well. That would make
him a 200% being which, by
definition, would be two different things, not a single
person.
{And with this flippant math analogy, Lancaster has
rejected the Council of Nicaea. Given
that Jesus is the one and only Incarnation of God, the only example that there
ever was or will be of the divine and human combined in one person, why is he
so sure that Jesus can’t be fully God AND fully man at the same
time? Whatever comes next, whatever
lesser explanation of the humanity and divinity of Jesus that he is about to
offer, orthodoxy has already been abandoned by Lancaster.}
But Yeshua is not a math equation,
nor is he a recipe calling for equal parts God and equal
parts man, stirred together and baked in
an oven. The spiritual world doesn’t work according to those
rules or simple ideas.
{More mockery of the orthodox understanding of Jesus’
full humanity and divinity that the Early Church affirmed at Nicaea. If Jesus isn’t equal parts God and man,
either his divinity or his humanity must be lesser, as we will soon see. That last sentence jumps out at me, our
understanding of the spiritual realm comes from divine revelation, our
knowledge of how it works is up to God.
Thus we do not define the Incarnation, and we certainly don’t declare
what it can/can’t be based on our preferences.
What we must do, what we only can do, is accept what God has said about
himself, and the Word of God tells us that Jesus of Nazareth is both fully
human and fully divine.}
Let’s take a look at how the apostles solved the problem.
{Ok, let’s do that…Wait, when does he start quoting
the Apostles? The only two quotes to
follow, from John and Colossians, actually speak firmly against this notion
that Jesus can’t be fully God and fully man.}
In the previous chapter, we learned
that God is the first-cause and that he created the whole universe through the
agency of his Word. The “Word” of God
functions as his avatar, so to speak, expressing his being within the confines of
the created order.
{The warning signs should be shouting by now, “Danger!
Danger!” Why is “Word” in quotation
marks? It shouldn’t be given that it is
how the prologue of the Gospel of John describes the eternal 2nd
person of the Trinity, but it is to Lancaster because the Word that he’s
describing is NOT a person at all. We’re
heading toward a form of unitarian monotheism, something that would be
acceptable to modern Judaism (and Islam) but something that has been entirely
rejected by the Church since the very beginning…An avatar? Why are we using a term that has less than
full personhood associated with it? The
term Lancaster refuses to use is “person.”
The Word is not described as a person (and neither is the Holy Spirit),
and honestly neither is the Father, these are simply avatars (manifestations)
of the One, not persons.}
Through his Word he spoke and the
world came into being. His Word hovered over the waters of creation and said,
“Let there be light.” In the days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God’s Word
appeared in the form of the Angel of the LORD, and in the days of Moses, his
Word spoke from inside a burning bush. From on top of Mount Sinai, the Word
spoke the ten commandments, declaring, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you
out of the land of Egypt.” The same Word of God came to dwell in the Tabernacle
and spoke to Moses from between the wings of Cherubim over the ark of the
covenant.
{Sloppy and careless use of scripture is a hallmark
here. The Spirit of God hovered over the
waters in Genesis 1:2, nor is the Word described by Moses as the one who spoke
Creation into existence in Genesis 1:3.
So why attribute these things, contrary to the text, to the Word? There
is a purpose to Lancaster making these attributions, and saying that the voice
of God in the Burning Bush was an Avatar of the Word along with the appearances
of the Angel of the LORD, it muddies the waters and sets the stage for what he
is about to say…}
When the time came for God to fulfill his promises to the
house of David by bringing forth the
Messiah, the Word of God divested itself of glory and
clothed itself in a human body. Much as
the Word dwelt in the Tabernacle, the Word came to dwell
within the human being named
Yeshua ben Yosef of Nazareth.
{Heresy. Full
stop. The Word did NOT simply “dwell within” a
human being, He was and is a human being because Jesus retains his humanity in
his resurrected body. At the Incarnation
God became a human being when the Son was born of the virgin and took
upon himself humanity in addition to his eternal deity. It was not being “clothed” with a human body,
but having one, being one of us.
When he switches gears to the Atonement below, this lesser version of
Jesus will have dire implications that leave Lancaster (and FFOZ) with a diet
version of the Gospel, one devoid of power…According to how Lancaster explains
this, Yeshua (Jesus) the man already independently existed, and the Word simply
came to dwell within him. What we have
here is full blown Monarchianism, also known as Modalism, a heresy that was
known in the Early Church and entirely rejected by it even before the Council
of Nicaea (as early as Tertullian, 160-220 AD).
Lancaster is not inventing a new heresy, he is simply recycling an old
previously rejected one.}
The Gospel of John says, “The Word
became flesh (a human body), and dwelt among us, and we saw his
glory: the glory of the only begotten from the Father, full of
grace and truth” (John 1:14).
Make no mistake, this is about as close as the apostles ever
get to saying, “God became a human
being.” Of course, they don’t say it in those words, but the
apostle Paul says essentially the same
thing in slightly different language. He says, “In him all
the fulness of Deity dwells in bodily
form” (Colossians 2:9).
{Yes! Amen! The
Apostle Paul does indeed say that God became a human being, and not just in
Colossians 2:9 (Also see John’s prologue), so why are you denying it? I know that FFOZ wants to make the Gospel
more palatable to the “Jewish perspective” as they define it, but abandoning
the fully deity and humanity of Jesus to do it?
Never.}
A Real Human Being
Why didn’t the apostles just come right out and say, “Yeshua
is God”? Why beat around the
bush? They refer to him as the “Son of God, the “glory of
God,” the “representation” and “image
of God,” the “exact imprint” of God, and so forth? Why do
they always seem to take one step
back from just saying, “Yeshua is God”?
{Those statements are a “step back”? Only if you want to proclaim Jesus as less
than fully God and fully man combined in one person. Nobody and
nothing has the fullness of God’s glory except God. One cannot miss that John’s Gospel proclaims
Jesus as God, equal with the Father, unless what the text is actually saying is
secondary to your agenda. For example: “before
Abraham was born, I am.” In John 8:58. Did Jesus’ audience know he was claiming
to be God? Absolutely, they immediately
picked up stones to kill him.}
Well for one thing, that’s not a Jewish way of speaking
about God. They did not want to imply
that God was two different beings, nor did they want to give
people the idea that they were
teaching polytheism. Besides, that wasn’t what they meant.
The human body of Yeshua is not
God nor is it the Word of God. When God dwelt inside the
Tabernacle, the Tabernacle did not
become God.
{He said it himself.
Lancaster has made a distinction between the human Yeshua and the divine
Word of God; they’re not the same to him, he wants them to be distinct and
makes sure to say so. The Tabernacle
analogy is ridiculous. Of course a tent
didn’t become God, what does that have to do with Jesus? Don’t miss the line, “that wasn’t what they
meant.” It points back to the early
question about why the Apostles didn’t simply say that, “Yeshua is God.” Lancaster’s answer: They didn’t say it because
they didn’t believe it. A laughable
conclusion based on the text of the NT, even the apostate Bart Ehrman accepts
that the NT text proclaims Jesus to be God (Ehrman erroneously teaches that the
Church edited the text centuries after the Apostles to add this idea).}
One might say that Yeshua is God in the flesh, so long as we
remember that his flesh is not God.
{“One might say that Yeshua is God in the
flesh”?? Oh really, we are allowed to
say that the Incarnation is God in the flesh and thus accept what Holy
Scripture says and the Church has believed from the beginning! But Lancaster needs to
add a caveat, a distinction that undermines any hope that he will accept this fundamental truth of
orthodox Christology.}
The human body of Yeshua is a real human body. Unlike God,
it began at a fixed point in time,
conceived and born of a woman. Perhaps this is one reason
why he also referred to himself as
“the Son of Man.” The term “Son of Man” is an obscure title
for the Messiah, but it is also a
Hebrew idiom that simply means “human being.” Yeshua was the
human being who took up
Adam’s job of being the image of God.
{So, at least we don’t also have the heresy that the
Divine Jesus only looked human (Docetism). Lancaster is willing to concede that Jesus of
Nazareth was a real human being. The
“unlike God” segway serves as a reminder that Jesus the man and the Word of God
are not one and the same in this heretical view endorsed by one of the primary
leaders of FFOZ and creator of Torah Club materials.}
Yeshua was not a fake person that only looked human but was
actually a deity in disguise.
In Greek mythology, the gods occasionally masqueraded as men
to fool people, but that’s not what
is happening in the gospels. Yeshua was a real person who
hungered, thirsted, tired, experienced
a full range of human emotions, felt both physical and
emotional pain, and suffered temptation.
But the living God in the form of the Word
{“in the form of the Word” is the Modalist way of not
having a true Trinity with three equal persons, the Word and the Spirit are
simply “forms” of God, “avatars” God wears for specific purposes.}
dwelt within him and permeated his whole being.
{Nope. The Word
didn’t “dwell within” Jesus, Jesus is the Word.}
The glory of God shone through him.
When it says that the Word “dwelt among us,” the Gospel
alludes to how God’s presence dwelt
in the Tabernacle and the Temple so that he could “dwell” in
the midst of his people. It’s similar
with Yeshua of Nazareth. Much as God can be said to dwell in
his sanctuary in a unique way, he
chose to dwell within a single human being in a unique way.
But unlike the Tabernacle or the
Temple, Yeshua is a person with his own will, his own
inclinations, and his own consciousness.
{Once you’ve gone off the rails, there’s no telling
where you’ll end up. Now we’re about to hear Lancaster explain how the Word and
Jesus have competing wills. So, Jesus
the man has a separate will/inclination/consciousness that is NOT the same as
the Word? Jesus is some sort of multiple
personality sufferer in Lancaster’s eyes?}
For example, when praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, he
distinguished between his own will
and God’s will. He prayed, “Not my will, but let your will
be done” (Luke 22:42). Come to think
of it, just by praying to God he was making it clear that he
made a distinction between himself
and God. Otherwise he would have been praying to himself.
{Good grief, as he often enough does, Lancaster
demonstrates no real understanding of the orthodoxy he’s rejecting. There’s a reason why we can talk about the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as their own person, it’s a mystery called the
Trinity. One God, three persons. As Athanasius put it, “one ousia in three
hypostaseis”, that is, one substance/essence with three persons. Lancaster doesn’t understand this ancient
doctrine, so he thinks that Jesus praying to the Father would be Jesus praying
to himself, which is nonsense. There was
communication and fellowship within the Trinity before Creation. That this continues when Jesus walked the
Earth in the form of prayer is to be expected.}
The Apostle Paul explains that Yeshua did not “consider
equality with God a thing to be seized” (Philippians 2:6).
{And here we’re abusing Paul to advocate for
heresy. Philippians 2:6 is not saying
that Jesus wasn’t equal with God, the Kenosis (“emptying”) passage tells of
Jesus’ humility in that he didn’t cling to the prerogatives of deity but was
instead willing to set them aside. By
the way, Philippians 2:9-11 reveals the coming glory of Jesus when his divinity
is acknowledged by all of creation. As
is common with FFOZ, the passage of scripture they’re citing means the opposite
of what they’re trying to use it for.}
Divestment
How does that work? How can the Word dwell in Yeshua, yet
make room enough for him to
keep a distinct will and consciousness of his own?
{It can’t, and it doesn’t need to unless you’ve
embraced heresy, as Lancaster here, and need to somehow try to justify it.}
God’s Word dwelt within him much the way your spirit dwells
within you. Human beings are
not merely physical creatures of flesh and blood and bone.
We are more than just mudballs, and
more than just monkeys. There is a spiritual spark hidden
inside of us that existed before we
were conceived, and it will continue to live on after we
die. The body is like a suit of clothing
that the spirit within us wears.
{Now Lancaster is dabbling in Docetism by making the
spirit the real essence of us and the body merely a covering. Our body is not at all “clothing” that our
spirit wears. Afterall, the coming resurrection
of the dead is a bodily resurrection. Given
how wrong he is about the nature of humanity, his attempt to use this as
analogy to the unique Incarnation of the God/Man is useless. With each attempt to explain his heresy,
Lancaster further cements the truth that critics of FFOZ, like myself, are not
“making this up.” This is what he chose
to publish, what he is teaching at Beth Immanuel, and what, God help us, others
are accepting because of his so-called “expertise.”}
When the spirit enters the human body at conception and
birth, it conceals itself in the person.
You wouldn’t even know its there. It functions within you on
an unconscious level, beneath the
surface of your awareness. But it’s very much the real you,
deep down inside. In order to become
you, your spirit first divests itself of its heavenly
identity and any memories it had. That’s why
you don’t remember being a spirit before you were born.
{There’s no telling how far down the rabbit hole we
will go. Now Lancaster is claiming
pre-existence in heaven of the human soul, with an identity and memories that
we “lose” when we’re born. The Second
Council of Constantinople (553 AD) condemned this belief as heresy.}
It’s not exactly the same, but the Word that became flesh in
the person of Yeshua did something
similar by divesting its identity to indwell a man and live
a real human life through Yeshua of
Nazareth:
{And now we see the fruit of the poisoned heretical
vine. God isn’t really living a human
life, Jesus of Nazareth is, God is just indwelling him through an avatar. When you abandon orthodoxy, the consequences
are legion and grotesque.}
Although he existed in the form of God, he did not consider
equality with God a thing to
be seized. Instead, he emptied himself, taking the form of a
servant, being made in the
likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a human
being, he humbled himself by
becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a
cross. (Philippians 2:6-8)
Of what did the Word divest itself? He stripped himself of
glory, divesting himself of
omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence in order to
inhabit a human life.
{You were almost there, if you replace “inhabit” with
“live” you have orthodoxy. But that’s a
bridge too far for Lancaster, his Jesus isn’t a part of any Trinity.}
This explains why Yeshua would have
appeared to anyone who knew him as a normal human being. He did not glow, and
he did not have a halo floating over his head. This also explains why he didn’t
know everything all the time, and how he could have been tempted, and why he
achieved merit for his obedience. After all, it wouldn’t have been any great
accomplishment for the omnipotent and omniscient God to pass temptations and
trials, but Yeshua earned merit and God’s favor by doing so.
{And now we see what happens with a lesser
Christology, we must also have a lesser Atonement (which actually is no real
atonement at all, as we will see below. FYI,
orthodoxy acknowledges that Jesus’ suffering and temptations were real, he was
a real human being who had laid aside the fullness of divinity’s power during
his time on earth. These “explanations”
from Lancaster are as unnecessary as they are heretical…So, for Lancaster Jesus
of Nazareth also needs to be a separate man who is only indwelt by the Word
(itself only an avatar of God, not a person) in order to make his trials and
temptations “real”?}
He himself was tempted in everything he suffered, so he is
able to help those who are
tempted. (Hebrews 2:18)
He has been tempted in all things as we are, yet he was
without sin. (Hebrews 4:15)
Although he was a son, he learned obedience from the things
which He suffered. And
having been made perfect, he became to all those who obey
Him the source of eternal
salvation. (Hebrews 5:8-9)
{Nice to see Hebrews quoted, none of these are being
used in a way that the author would have recognized or accepted because he most
certainly believed that Jesus was fully God and fully man together as one, not this weird
amalgam of a human being serving as the clothing for an avatar of God.}
The Suffering of Messiah
Disciples of Yeshua believe that his death on the cross
obtained the forgiveness of sins for us.
How is that supposed to work? Doesn’t it seem strange to
believe that the death of one Jewish
man, 2000 years ago, could bring us the forgiveness of sins
today? Why would the death of
anyone bring forgiveness of sins to someone else?
{It isn’t a strange notion if you accept the teachings
of the Apostle Paul. One Jewish man’s
death couldn’t do anything for us, the death of the God/Man, the only Son of God,
is what actually matters, but Lancaster has already undermined who the Church
has always believed Jesus to be, which is who Jesus actually is, so…}
God’s Favor
To begin with, Yeshua found favor in God’s eyes. He lived a
life of complete righteousness in
perfect submission to God’s will, but he suffered unjustly.
Th apostles teach, “This finds favor
with God, if for the sake of his convictions toward God a
person bears up under sorrows when
suffering unjustly” (1 Peter 2:19).
{Over and over again.
Peter isn’t talking about the Atonement, he’s not talking about merit
that can be applied to others, this quotation is irrelevant, because it isn’t
at all about what Jesus did for us.}
That’s the same way that Yeshua
earned God’s favor. Now he is able to share that favor with all of his
disciples. When we pray to God or ask him for forgiveness for sins, we do so
not according to our own merit or righteousness, but in the merit and favor
that Yeshua earned with God. We know that we don’t deserve God’s mercy, but Yeshua
does, so we associate ourselves with him. It’s as if we say, “I know that I
don’t deserve your favor or your forgiveness, but please remember your son
Yeshua and include me along with him.”
{So, we’re missing something here. What about the punishment for sin? What about the darkness as Jesus hung on the
Cross or the symbolism of the Lamb of God at Passover? What about the deep focus in Hebrews on Jesus
as a better Priest and a better sacrifice?
The explanation that the man Jesus (remember, Lancaster already declared
that the Word and Yeshua are separate) is able to share some extra merit with
you and me is far from a sufficient explanation. This is not what the NT writers have to say
about Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection.}
The Law of Sin and Death
The Bible also speaks about a principle called “the law of
sin and death” (Romans 8:2).
According to this principle, human suffering and death come
into the world only as a
consequence for sin. If there was no sin in the world, there
would be no human suffering or
death. We would live in paradise. But this theory raises a
serious problem. How do you explain it
when innocent people suffer and die? What about when a very
righteous person suffers and dies
as a martyr? Obviously innocent people, like small children,
cannot be said to have suffered and
died to pay for their sins. They didn’t have any sins.
Neither can it be said that the righteous
suffer and die for their sins. Surely there are plenty of
worse sinners who go unpunished. Where
is the fairness?
{Lancaster is attempting to delve into Theodicy, also
known as “the problem of evil.” We do
indeed live in a world where sin is far from sufficiently punished and
righteousness often goes unrewarded. What
is lacking in this discussion is any connection to Paul’s theology in Romans. The
universality of human sin, and the inheritance of the sin nature in each
generation is not present. Also, where
is the truth that all have individually sinned and fallen short of the glory of
God? (Romans 3:23) When you leave that fundamental truth out of your
explanation of God’s response to humanity’s plight, things go awry, as the next
sentence will show.}
Judaism explains that when righteous people suffer and die,
it comes not as a consequence for
their own sins, but for the sins of others. God even uses
the suffering and death of the righteous
as a way to atone for others who otherwise would not deserve
his mercy. According to this idea,
an extremely righteous person might suffer for the sins of
his whole generation.
{“Judaism explains” is weak sauce. Where does this come from, which rabbis
taught this? Is this an idea that
predates the life of Jesus, or a modern one?
Lancaster offers no explanation.
In the end, where it comes from doesn’t really matter because it isn’t a
biblical idea. God is a just God. There are no “righteous people” who don’t
need a savior (Romans 2-3), everyone dies for their own sins, everyone needs
Jesus. How then could the acts of
righteousness done by sinners (for that is what we all are) produce extra merit
before God that could be applied to others?
This notion cannot be squared with Paul’s meticulous explanation of the
Gospel in Romans, and fails utterly to connect with Ephesians 2:8-9. If “Judaism” (Or at least Lancaster’s view of
it) believes that a human being could “suffer for the sins of his whole generation”
it is flat-out wrong. No person could
ever obtain enough merit for him/herself, let alone for others.}
The apostles applied this same reasoning to explain Yeshua’s
suffering.
{No evidence that the Apostles believed anything of
the sort is offered, none exists, because they most certainly did not.}
Since he was tempted in all things
but without sin, he accrued merit with God. When he suffered and died, it
tipped the scales of justice far out of balance. To bring the scales of justice
back into balance, his suffering must have been on behalf of the sins of
others. This is what the prophet Isaiah predicted the Messiah would do:
{The scales of justice? God has to balance the cosmic scales? The thing is, the injustice of Jesus’ death
was infinite. He had no sin, zero. This
isn’t a cosmic math problem, Jesus’ death paid for the sins of tens of billions
of people (and counting as the years lengthen) because he was fully God and
fully man with zero sin, which left death with no claim upon him.}
He bore our griefs, and he carried our sorrows. But we
considered him to be plagued,
struck by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced through for
our transgressions; he was
crushed for our iniquities. Upon him fell the discipline to
bring us peace, and by his welts
(from scourging) we are healed. (Isaiah 53:4-5)
{Yes! Isaiah
53:4-5 is very relevant. Isaiah is
talking about Substitutionary Atonement, Lancaster isn’t.}
Higher than the Angels
In the Bible, angels are also called “sons of God,” but the
Messiah occupies a station higher than
the angels. He is the Son of God on a higher level than they
can claim.
For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my
Son, today I have begotten
you”? Or again, “I will be to him a father, and he shall be
to me a son?” (Hebrews 1:5)
The Messiah is called God’s firstborn and only begotten son.
But how does that square with the
idea that he existed since the beginning of creation?
Physically, we know he was begotten
through Miriam the wife of Joseph and born in the town of
Bethlehem, but spiritually, he was
with God in the beginning. He is called “firstborn” because
he is God’s agent
{Again, the Word is an “agent” in Lancaster’s view,
not a person.}
through which all things came into
being, that is, the Word. If God is the first-cause, the Word is the action
that initiates the first effect. This is why Yeshua is called “the beginning of
God’s creation”
(Revelation 3:14) and “the image of
the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Colossians
1:15). In the days of the Bible, a
firstborn son took a double portion of his father’s inheritance. By
calling the Messiah the
“firstborn,” this implies that the Messiah was “begotten” before the
angels were created. Because he is
the firstborn over God’s household, the angels must pay
homage to him as their superior: When
he brings his firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship
him.” (Hebrews 1:6)
{As far as I can tell, this whole section is
justifying why Hebrews claims that Jesus (who is a man inhabited by God’s
avatar the Word in Lancaster’s view) is above the angels when he was born after
they were created. If Lancaster believed
that Jesus was the 2nd person of the Trinity, God from God, true God
from true God, light from light, etc. he could just agree with the author of
Hebrews without all of the odd talk about inheritance law.}
The Resurrection of Yeshua
Disciples of Yeshua believe some enormous claims about him.
How do we know that these
things are true? He claimed to be the Son of God and the
Messiah. He claimed to submit to
God’s will completely. The apostles claimed that he lived a
sinless life, and they claimed that,
thanks to the merit and favor he earned with God,
{Merit and favor are all we have here, nothing about
sin being paid for.)
his disciples can obtain the
forgiveness of sins and eternal life, i.e. the resurrection of the dead and a
share in the World to Come. They also claimed that he will come again and bring
the Messianic Era to earth. We believe
all of these things on the basis of his resurrection from the dead. If Yeshua
was a deceiver, a false prophet, a liar, or even a self-deluded madman, God
would not have endorsed his claims by resurrecting him from the dead. The
resurrection of Yeshua and the empty tomb that he left behind testify that
everything he said is true and valid, and everything his disciples
believed and taught about him are
also true.
{Somehow, some way, we’re found the truth again. The Resurrection is indeed foundational to
our belief in Jesus.}
The resurrection of Yeshua endorses all of his Messianic
claims and his teachings about the
coming kingdom. His resurrection also provides evidence for
hope in a future resurrection of the
righteous and a share in the world to come. Finally, the
resurrection of Yeshua proves that he is
the Son of God. In fact, it declares him to be God’s son:
He was physically descended from David, but he was declared
to be the Son of God in
power according to the Spirit of holiness by his
resurrection from the dead. (Romans 1:3-
4)
In summary, Yeshua is regard as the “only begotten son” of
God on the basis of three
indisputable things. He is the Messiah the son of David, and
therefore the heir to the Davidic title
“son of God” as it says in Psalm 2, “Your are my son, today
I have begotten you.”
He is the Son of God on the basis of the divine Word made
flesh. The Word was begotten of the
first-cause from the before the beginning as the firstborn
“son” over creation, and the Word
inhabits and fills him.
{The distinction between Yeshua the man, and the Word
continues, the Word didn’t become man in the Incarnation, it merely “inhabits
and fills” a man. This is not at all
sufficient, and was rejected soundly by the Early Church as heresy.}
Finally, he is declared the “Son of
God … by his resurrection from the dead.” The evidence of
the resurrection confirms his
claims. Yeshua invites his followers to join the family as sons and daughters
of God too. When we become his disciples, we join his family. He becomes the
elder brother, and we become children of his Father. We enter into the family
and enjoy the same intimate relationship that the Father and Son share
together:
For in the Messiah Yeshua you are all sons (and daughters)
of God, through faith.
(Galatians 3:26)
And because you are sons (and daughters), God has sent the
Spirit of his Son into our
hearts, praying, “Abba! Father!” Since you are no longer a
slave, but a son, now, as a son
(or daughter), you are an heir through God. (Galatians
4:6-7)
Pastor Powell’s Conclusions: As someone who has taken
on the role of teacher, and who is actively sharing his views with a global
audience, the beliefs of Daniel Lancaster are profoundly important for they
permeate what he teaches (i.e. the published materials of FFOZ and Torah
Clubs). Contrary to what his (and
FFOZ’s) defenders claim, these teachings are deeply and profoundly unorthodox
and literally heretical given that they were specifically rejected by the Early
Church and declared to be heresy by its Councils.
1. This teaching is Modalism, it is anti-Trinitarian,
a rejection of the Council of Nicaea, and wholly unacceptable, it has more in
common with the teachings of the Jehovah’s Witnesses about Jesus than it does
with anything in historic Christianity.
2. A lesser view of Jesus taints the purpose and
meaning of the Cross. Instead of
Substitutionary Atonement (or any variation of atonement thereof), we have here in its place the notion of the
balancing of the scales of justice, instead of sins that have been paid for, we
have sins that God chooses to ignore because of Jesus’ extra merit. This too falls short of what the Gospel
proclaims and the New Testament teaches.
3. Teachings like this eviscerate any “about us”
statements that are put forth by Beth Immanuel or FFOZ (see below). While it may be convenient or strategic to
allow people to assume that they haven’t rejected the Trinity, this is the
direction in which they are leading people, and it is neither a part of
historic Christianity nor Messianic Judaism, but instead a cult that like the
JW’s and LDS before them, have chosen to follow “prophets” into the wilderness.
Also from Pastor Powell -
For comparison: Below is the Statement of Faith created by
FFOZ (FFOZ Statement of
Faith)
Note that at first glance this statement does not appear to
be anti-Trinitarian. However, when read
in light of Daniel Lancaster’s stated beliefs above, phrases like “he reveals
himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” are recognizable as a form of
Modalism. Likewise, the opening phrase, “There
is one God” is seen more clearly as not simply the assertion of traditional
Christian monotheism, but rather of a Unitarian Monotheism more akin to the “Jewish
perspective” (as FFOZ defines it).
With respect to Jesus, their statement of faith doesn’t
mention that the Word is only an avatar, or that the man Jesus (Yeshua) had a separate
will and consciousness from that of the Word (as claimed by D. Lancaster in the
text above), but if the Word is only a manifestation of God, and not a true
person, this sort of lesser Christology is inevitable. Jesus cannot be fully God and fully Man (as
Christian orthodoxy proclaims) if the deity indwelling him is only a power and
not a person.
With respect to the Holy Spirit, once again we’re looking at
what is missing. In FFOZ’s statement of faith
we only find mention of what the Spirit does, nothing that speaks to who the
Spirit is.
As such, this statement of faith from FFOZ follows the pattern
that I have highlighted over and over again: publicly acceptable softer and
ambiguous versions of their beliefs combined with deeply unorthodox teachings
mixed in and/or revealed to insiders (see for example the Malchut 2022 videos
in parts 2 & 3 of my seminar). This is
the answer to the objection that has been raised over and over by true
believers as to why their local Torah Club isn’t the same as what my research
into FFOZ has revealed: The truly disturbing beliefs are mostly shielded from
public scrutiny. This pattern follows
other cult-like tendencies that have been documented (like the severing of
family/church ties), and is yet another cause for concern about this
organization and this movement.
God
There is one God: “Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the
LORD is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4). “He is God; there is no other besides Him”
(Deuteronomy 4:35), the unbegotten God, first cause, and single source. He
discloses Himself in the testimony of creation and through the Scriptures of
the Jewish people, and he reveals Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
interacting with His creation as the Father working through the Son and in the
power of the Spirit. (Genesis 1:1; Deuteronomy 6:4; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Ephesians
4:4–6)
Yeshua
Yeshua is the Son of God, the Messiah, the Eternal One in
whom all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form, and who is the Word who
became flesh and dwelt among us, and whose glory we beheld, the glory of the
uniquely begotten Son of God, full of grace and truth (John 1:1–14; Colossians
2:9).
The
Holy Spirit
The Spirit of God comforts, teaches, leads, indwells, and
empowers all whom God regenerates (Acts 9:31; 1 John 2:27; John 16:13; 1
Corinthians 3:16; 2 Timothy 1:7).
