My Other Blogs

2006-10-03

So Abraham never dealt with Heavenly Father?

See "One that slipped through correlation" over at By Common Consent.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who has been studying the Godhead in depth. I think its interesting how most people are so naturally predisposed to recognize Old Testament Jehovah as Heavenly Father that it takes extremely careful scrutiny to realize it is inconsistent with the DIA doctrine.

I was particularly intrigued by Mark Butler (II)'s comment, #33, where he stated:
Perhaps the more interesting question is not the identification of Jehovah as the Son in the Old Testament, but the theological or doctrinal motivation for such identification. Jehovah as Heavenly Father sure seems to make a lot more sense. Why the apparent urge to turn Heavenly Father into an absentee landlord?

Here, Mark raises a very important question. What is the actual motivation behind the bizarre doctrinal shift? I have been speaking with several people lately and have been surprised to find that nearly everyone I know always assumed Jehovah was the Father, and when presented with the doctrine to the contrary either in Seminary or Sunday School have considered it to be an aberration, a quirk, something that sounds wrong and must be a mistake. Even people who by no means even attempt to be theologians naturally react this way. So what is the motivating force behind this unnatural and radically untraditional re-interpretation of scripture?

2 comments:

BHodges said...

This is easily explained by the concept of Jehovah being a name-title. Because God and Jesus are one, it follows that we don't need to always differentiate between the two, or expect early writers to do so.

Jeff said...

That's not much of an explanation, more of a shrug, eh? If Jehovah is a name title, then what does it mean? It is closest to the Hebrew verb "to be", or "being" and yet the Torah declares "Jehovah is our God, Jehovah is One."

Jesus knew who Jehovah was, as is clear by his own usage of Old Testament scriptures, and all the Messianic prophecies are about Jehovah's ANOINTED SERVANT - The Messiah, or the Christ. The Messiah works for Jehovah.

The modern position of the LDS Curriculum simply shatters under this. If Jesus was "the great Jehovah of the Old Testament" then his Messiah has NOT YET COME. If we accept Jehovah as Father, then Jesus is a potential candidate to have fulfilled the Messianic prophecies. In light of such a plain reading of the text, the identity of Jehovah isn't nearly so fluid as people would have us think, but rather quite clear.

I expect early writers to use the divine name with great care, as they had it sealed upon their minds.

I no longer tow the party line on this one because I believe it is actually a great pride which is causing doctrinal errors to stack up and never be admitted to or given up. The Church is building itself a little pet monster out of false doctrine, and since it created it, it loves it and cares for it, and will not let it die, sadly, this seems to be true, even if it leads people to breaking the First Commandment.