Christ – The Alpha and the Omega by Dee Dee Warren

[Dee Dee Warren]

Ahh, the spin goes on. It appears that my article has attracted some Unitarian attention but that they do not wish to come here, to where the author is and where the article appears, to address it. That is fine, there are various reasons for that, a great many of them having nothing to do with poultry.

But that being said, as I see comments (Evangelion's and Fort's can be found here), I will make my observations here and not scatter them across the Net.

The first comment that I noted was the typical response that Jesus is simply bearing a title of God like an angel or man from the OT. Well that is certainly convenient and gets the Unitarian out of any pickle. What is ironic is that it was said by Fortigun who is the person that my article was originally written to counter, and his position then was that the Alpha and Omega was never used of Christ. Apparently now he has moved the goalposts and is arguing out of both sides of his mouth. If it doesn’t matter if it was ever really applied to Christ, then why argue it wasn’t in the first place. Very interesting.

The next comment was by Evangelion himself who stated in sum that this is all well and good but that “God of gods” is never applied to Christ. This is simply convenience, because you know what? If it were, the Unitarian would simply say that it was applied to Christ in the same way that an angel or man from the OT bore a title of God. Do you see the stacked here folks? I do.

[AVmetro]

Today @ 10:32 AM post located here
Dee Dee Warren:

Ahh, the spin goes on. It appears that my article has attracted some Unitarian attention but that they do not wish to come here, to where the author is and where the article appears, to address it. That is fine, there are various reasons for that, a great many of them having nothing to do with poultry.

I think we know why.

But that being said, as I see comments (Evangelion's and Fort's can be found here), I will make my observations here and not scatter them across the Net.

The first comment that I noted was the typical response that Jesus is simply bearing a title of God like an angel or man from the OT. Well that is certainly convenient and gets the Unitarian out of any pickle.

That just means you made your point....

What is ironic is that it was said by Fortigun who is the person that my article was originally written to counter, and his position then was that the Alpha and Omega was never used of Christ. Apparently now he has moved the goalposts and is arguing out of both sides of his mouth. If it doesn’t matter if it was ever really applied to Christ, then why argue it wasn’t in the first place. Very interesting.

The next comment was by Evangelion himself who stated in sum that this is all well and good but that “God of gods” is never applied to Christ.

Hahaha So NOW it's "God of gods." Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe the title "God of gods" appears *anywhere* in the NT.

If Christ is the Almighty God (as you have demonstrated) then this necessitates that He be "God of gods." Let me guess, he takes the "All" in "Almighty' to be hyperbolic? :brow:

This is simply convenience, because you know what? If it were, the Unitarian would simply say that it was applied to Christ in the same way that an angel or man from the OT bore a title of God. Do you see the stacked here folks? I do.

Exactly.

[Piebald]

This is simply convenience, because you know what? If it were, the Unitarian would simply say that it was applied to Christ in the same way that an angel or man from the OT bore a title of God. Do you see the stacked here folks? I do.

Precisely. Hypothetically Jesus could be quoted as saying "I am God, the beginning and the end, I am the Divine Lord who led Israel from captivity in Egypt. I am your God."

and it could be explained away with

"Duh! He's just speaking as a divinely appointed representative of God!"

It's unfalsifiable and worthless.

[Dee Dee Warren]

As is any arguments that says.. but He wasn't called (insert whatever is the Christadephian title de jeur) - for even if He was, that wouldn't convince them, so it is a less than forthright argument from them IMHO. The same thing with the "worship" argument too ironically..... it doesn't matter what is proven by the Trinitarian in that regard for at the end of the day, the Christadelphian Agency Eraser takes care of it all.

But here is the best part of the response so far, Ev's reason why he has not produced a comprehensive response can be summed up like this... "You are obviously wrong so there is no need for me to respond." He makes it sounds a whole lot better, but there it is.

[Piebald]

So NOW it's "God of gods." Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe the title "God of gods" appears *anywhere* in the NT

No, but it can certainly be connected with Christ:

Deuteronomy 10:17
For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes.

Revelation 17:14
They will make war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will overcome them because he is Lord of lords and King of kings–and with him will be his called, chosen and faithful followers."

1 Timothy 6:15
which God will bring about in his own time–God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords,

Note that he is the Lord of Lords, not "he is a divine representative of the Lord of Lords."

So Jesus is a Lord and God is a Lord, therefore Jesus is the Lord of Lords which makes him God's Lord but God is Jesus' Lord since God is the Lord of Lords too. I promise this is not double-speak. It all makes sense if you throw in divine representation somehow.

<Insert smiley face with shades to make this seem coherent>

[Dee Dee Warren]

*snip*

[Piebald]

Have I just been neutered?

Oh, I get it

[Dee Dee Warren]

[AVmetro]

I'm banned from his board and can't view it, so tell me.

After he said this:

""You are obviously wrong so there is no need for me to respond.""

Did he put a "" after it? If I were into gambling...

[Piebald]

<Smiley with Shades> = "Please believe that I am saying this with a straight face"

<ROTFL!> = "Please allow me to give the impression that I find this statement absurd"

<"and you know it"> = I humbly request that you uncritically embrace my strawman

[Dee Dee Warren]

Now remember that is a paraphrase lest I be accused of lying.. but I will check and see. I was called a praeterist though so it was like old times sake.

[AVmetro]

Today @ 12:06 AM post located here
Hamster:

&lt;Smiley with Shades&gt; = &quot;Please believe that I am saying this with a straight face&quot;

&lt;ROTFL!&gt; = &quot;Please allow me to give the impression that I find this statement absurd&quot;

&lt;&quot;and you know it&quot;&gt; = I humbly request that you uncritically embrace my strawman

<*snip*> = "I can't answer that"

[Sher]

BTW, we also have Heb 12:2 "Author and Perfecter (Finisher) of faith" ... i.e., the first and the last

That OL was a funny read, if not a bit sad.

[Dee Dee Warren]

Okay now to deal with some more of the comments made.

First the Lesser Ev:

It's a very weak argument. And she's changed it since I last saw it. In fact, she's made it even weaker. She's only claiming that 'Alpha and Omega' is applied once to Christ.

The original version of the article is located here in the Christology forum of TWeb. I changed it very little, and the only points removed were those that did not deal directly with this issue but were side comments and ones about an alleged Trinitarian conspiracy. All the Lesser Ev has shown is that he has not been paying attention from the beginning since all I ever stated is that the “Alpha and Omega” is applied once to Christ. So how keeping that point exactly the same is making an argument “weaker” is beyond me, but rather I suspect that the Lesser Ev simply needed something cocky to say and that was as good as anything.

So at the end of the day (when you've stripped her argument of all the padding), she's trying to claim that if Christ bears one of the titles of God, he must be God (note the classic fallacy of equivocation used by Trinitarians here). On this basis, any man or angel who bore a title of God in the Scriptures, is God.

The funny thing is that my article was in response to an article by the Lesser Ev in which he strenuously argued that the Alpha and Omega were never applied to Christ and very unbelievably argued that “First and Last” meant something completely different when applied to Christ. This Christadelphian smokescreen gets them out of every jam. They first argue that divine titles are not given to Christ but even if they are it doesn’t matter because then they are simply representative titles. I dealt with all of this in my article, and dealt with the issue of why the theory of representation simply will not do here which has never been dealt with in full. Additionally, the only construct that makes sense in a redemptive representation construct is an incarnational theology. And who is to say that these titles ultimately belong to God? Perhaps He is simply a representative of an even greater god in a Mormonesque infinite regression?

Ev states:

For the record, it's worth noting that Jesus never bears the title "God of gods" (which is clearly and unequivocally ascribed to the Father.)

Of course, if it was also applied to the Son, this would certainly provide considerable support to a Bible-based defense of the Trinitarian Jesus. But for some strange reason, God's inspired writers (who are supposed to be "Trinitarians", let's remember) never managed to use it in this way. (Hmmm, I wonder why?)

And why do I suspect that if it were that Ev would argue that it proves nothing (the Americans are not in Baghdad) and that it was only applied to Christ representatively? And why do I suspect if Jesus were called that but not the “Alpha and Omega” that all of the sudden that would be magic title?

And now what qualifies for the Dumb Statement of the Thread Award:

The really odd thing is that Trinitarians seem to miss the fact that in both Revelation 1 and Revelation 21, the title 'Alpha and Omega' is used of the Father.
If that's Christ using it in Revelation 22, that makes him the Father. That's fine if you're a Oneness believer, but not so good for Trinitarians.

Wow, does he really think that anyone missed that and that we needed the incredible insight of the Lesser Ev to figure that out? The Alpha and Omega argument in Revelation is amenable to both a Trinitarian and Sabellian construct. Other passages are brought in to resolve that issue, and this statement by the Lesser Ev is either evidence of woeful lack of knowledge of what Trinitarianism teaches or a purposeful misdirect… neither of which are particularly flattering to the speaker. Since my goal was to confront Arian Unitarianism, I did not deal with the issues surrounding Sabellian Unitarianism.

But I see that they are now shifting the goalposts anyway… the original argument that I was making was that the Alpha and Omega was applied to Christ, and that the terms “First and Last” do not mean anything differently when uttered by Christ than when uttered by the Father.
Theoretically that point can be argued without even yet bringing the Trinity into the equation. Now it appears they want to concede that these divine terms are applied to Christ but want to argue that they are merely used representatively.

Ev tries to claim that it is a solely a Trinitarian presupposition and hermeneutic that is driving my analysis. Well that falls flat for several reasons, since I can still prove that the “Alpha and Omega” is applied to Christ without yet making any ultimate conclusions as to what that means. The whole original impetus to this discussion was Evangelion’s denial that the term was ever applied to Christ. Now he appears ready to concede that it is or can be (there is an always an “out” isn’t there?).

The weakness of the Trinitarian argument from "Alpha and Omega" has been recognized by Trinitarians themselves. This is proved by the fact that Trinitarian copyists later found it necessary to add a reference to Christ as "Alpha and Omega" in Revelation 1:11. (See http://www.thechristadelphians.org/f...st=0#entry4797)

Breaking news!! Evangelion has been able to transport himself back into time and obtain signed confessions from these alleged rogue copyists. What a buck-naked case of importing ones suppositions into textual criticism.

No such interpolation would have been included unless they recognized that this title is not unambiguously ascribed to Christ.

Really? And why does this alleged interpolation also use the title “First and Last”? Was that unclear too? Oh, I see, he only alleged these grand conspiracies for the phrases that he doesn’t like. If we were going to be consistent we would have to say that these nastily deceitful copyists added “First and Last” because it is not unambiguously applied to Christ elsewhere. Of course this all begs the question of why it would be so darned important to have any of these titles if they can all be hand-waved away by representation? Why didn’t these sneaky copyists insert “God of gods” in there to make the case nearly fool-proof as Evangelion earlier said would be great proof of the Trinity. Not only were these renegade copyists dishonest, they were incredibly stupid.

Also here is a part from my original article that I did edit out, but now bears repeating in light of this nonsense.

From the Lesser Ev’s original article:

I said before that Trinitarians will translate the text with a bias because it doesn't say what they need it to say. Now it's time to prove my assertion. Let's see how some of the 'Words of Christ in Red' Bibles treat this verse.

Well I made my entire argument without those verses (speaking of the disputed ones – and I argued my case from both angles – either assuming Christ was speaking or the angel was speaking), so there is not over-riding need to have them. All that is then proven is that some versions attribute the words to Christ. Motive is not proven. It does not prove any bias or dishonesty or conspiracy, that is something that the accuser is choosing to read into the text to libelously impugn the reputations of the editors and translators and is just plain dumb.

This sort of bad tactic comes up frequently with Jewish anti-missionaries I have debated. For example, anti-missionaries will point to certain claimed Messianic passages in Christian Bibles, and then in Jewish Bibles, and note that they are translated differently. They then jump to the unwarranted conclusion that the Christian Bibles are purposely mistranslated in order to give credence to the Messiahship of Jesus. No, all the anti-missionary has proven is that the translations are different. Much more needs to be done to prove deliberate deceit. And “Thou shalt not bear false witness” still holds, even when you don’t like the other’s theology.

Another common tactic of the Jewish anti-missionary is to quote certain alleged evangelical authorities (sound familiar??) who deny that certain Messianic passages are really Messianic, and make the same sort of spurious leap as is done here that these men speak for “Christianity,” and thus “proving” that certain passages are not Messianic at all (because a few fallible men were grievously wrong) and must have been made up as Messianic out of whole cloth by the rest of us. Ambush by alleged authority. All that is proven is that Christianity is not necessarily monolithic on every point by every one. Some great men have been greatly wrong. The anti-missionaries also get into bed in a whorish alliance with atheists and use the atheistic arguments against Christianity even though the very same men would use the very same sort of arguments against Judaism as well. But they don’t care. The ends justify the means. The same sort of thing happens here. I almost choked when I saw Hugh Schonfield quoted authoritatively. Hugh’s logic and “scholarship” led him to propose a theory in which Jesus was a “conniving, cunning, and deceptive messianic pretender.” (Geisler)

But back to the alleged Trinitarian plot to falsely make Jesus out to be the Alpha and the Omega with the insinuation that this is some sort of invention that made its way into manuscripts dating from around the 5th century or so since earlier manuscripts (the Alexandrian text family) does not contain certain verses in Revelation 1 identifying Jesus as the Alpha and Omega (though said manuscripts do contain 22:13). Of course, the Unitarian assumption is then that those disputed verses are necessary to identify Jesus in that manner since they think that they have explained away verse 22:13 which I have already dealt with. However, as the preface to the NKJV states, (without specifically mentioning those particular disputed verses), many verses which do not appear in the Alexandrian family are attested to or can be adduced by writing from the Fathers. Not everyone accepts the prima facie superiority of the Alexandrian texts (and I am not referring to the wacky KJV-Only crowd). Are all of those scholars Trinitarians Conspirators as well?? The Illuminati better look out, they may be dethroned by this dastardly group.

Do the ante-Nicene (to push back the testimony to the dates of the Alexandrian family of texts and before) Fathers refer to Jesus as the “Alpha and the Omega” and use it as a title of Divinity? Yes. That means either 22:13 was understood by them in that manner (and that appears to be the case) or the disputed verses in Revelation 1 were there which also make that identification, or a combination of both. Even if this does not prove that the disputed verses were there, it shows that this identification was made, even without them!! (or they were there… either way) thus eliminating the need for any alleged Trinitarian editorial conspiracy.

Tertullian in speaking out against the heretics Marcus and Colarbasus makes mention that Jesus said that He was the Alpha and Omega and proceeds to describe a novel heresy that these two men made out of that statement utilizing supposed mystical meanings of the Greek alphabet. He does not deny the validity of the words to Christ, just the heresy spawned by these two. (Against All Heresies) In fact he affirms that ascription of that title to Christ, as well as “First and Last” and “Beginning and End” to Christ in another treatise dealing with monogamy. (On Monogamy)

Clement refers to Christ with “Alpha and Omega” and “Beginning and End” several times and in allusion to His role in creation and identity as the “Word”. (Book IV and VI)

This is echoed by Cyprian who mentions the phrases “Alpha and Omega” and “Beginning and End” in reference to Christ and in the same passage speaks of the Incarnation. (Treatise XII – Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews)

Thus to say that this is some modern Trinitarian conspiracy is plain reckless and libelous.

Now back to Ev…..

An additional interpolation is found in Revelation 1:8, where the words "the beginning and the end" have been added by (equally dishonest) Trinitarian copyists.

Yeah sure thing there Ev. Now let me ask the honest reader something. There is a dispute today over whether or not 1:8 refers to the Father or Christ. If it refers to Christ, and these early copyists believed it did, why in the world would have they have to deceitfully plot to add “the beginning and the end” when “alpha and omega” is already indisputably in that text, and why then would they allegedly have to add “alpha and omega” in 1:11 if it were already in 1:8? This is beyond any common sense whatsoever. Now if it refers to the Father, and the early copyists believe that it did, why does Ev care if anything was added at least as far as this dastardly Trinitarian conspiracy is concerned? None of this makes any sense but rather appears to be paranoid ramblings born by theological prejudice. Also, interestingly, the texts that supposedly were “altered” by these corrupt copying have dropped the word “God” from 1:8. Now if they were on this conspiratorial mission to prove the deity of Christ, why on God’s green earth would they drop that? Or why didn’t they add the word “Jesus” or add something to make it clear that Jesus was speaking? For guys on a mission to deceive they really stunk at it.

And my argument depended on none of the disputed verses. They simply were not needed.

To digress one second….

The second time was in response to Dee Dee herself, who pointed out that I had misread her argument in a couple of places.

Well I will give Ev credit for acknowledging his mistake and not foolishly repeating it as his brother has done with his eschatology gaffe….

At the end of the day though Ev begs off a comprehensive response stating:

Well, I later realized that there was no need to come back to it at all, since the argument itself is fundamentally flawed.

Translation: You are wrong so there is no need for me to prove it comprehensively.

[Tsmith]

06-21-2003 @ 10:48 PM post located here
Dee Dee Warren:

Since we have some new members, I draw attention once again to my Alpha and Omega article here:

http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/sho...2520#post62520

A powerful testament to the unqualified deity of Christ.

A couple of errors in your reasoning:

1) Ignoring Revelation's use of personal pronoun-proper name construction to indicate a speaker change.

2) Ignoring contextual indicators on a title's meaning (specifically 1:17 as expanded by 1:18).

3) Ignoring context (specifically Rev 1:4,5 with regards to Rev 1:8).

4) The application of the same title to multiple persons in scripture (a few called king of kings).

These factors combined disprove anything that might be attempted by this article.

-Tony