Sunday 2nd March
Read 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13
“Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you. 12 May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. 13 May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.” (NIVUK)
The early church very rapidly came to the conclusion that Jesus was more than human. We see the expression of this belief here in one of the earliest New Testament documents. The ease with which Paul writes a prayer requesting support from God the Father and the Lord Jesus (v11), equating them in a natural way as worthy recipients of petition.
It is also unconsciously clear at the end of the prayer. Paul is reflecting on Zechariah when speaking of the coming of the Lord at the final judgement. “Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him.” (Zechariah 14:5c) (NIVUK). In doing so Paul has substituted Yahweh and Jesus.
Within twenty years of Jesus’ death and resurrection deity has been ascribed and spoken of so unconsciously that it must reflect a conclusion drawn within years of the church’s establishment. The deity of Jesus is not a late invention of the church but an incontrovertible conclusion of the earliest believers.
