Replies

In case you have not already seen it, I’m posting a copy of excepts from chapter 12 of Blake Ostler’s just-published second volume of “Exploring Mormon Thought”, on “God the Eternal Father”. He is the philosopher who came for the workshop of BYU and Talbot Philosophy students at Biola last year, and is of course one of the three LDS thinkers (along with Steve Robinson and Robert Millet) that the editors of “New Mormon Challenge” suggested are emphasizing the right things at this point in time. Blake takes an unusual but perfectly valid approach to the King the Follett Discourse and the Sermon in the Grove toward the end of Joseph Smith’s life, and combines it with scriptural studies to give a very different picture of the Godhead/Trinity, God’s and Christ’s eternal divinity, and no need for an infinite regress of Gods.

To my knowledge, the first time Dr. Ostler published these very interesting ideas was in his review of Craig Blomberg and Stephen Robinson's groundbreaking book "How Wide the Divide? A Mormon and an Evangelical in Conversation". It was an article in the FARMS Review of Books, Volume 11 Number 2 in 1999. I have copied the relevant paragraphs in that article below.

This idea is under discussion among philosophers in the Church, especially in numerous blog debates and discussions on the issue. In a recent article containing many of the arguments and discussions on a blog to which Blake contributes frequently, New Cool Thang, a scholar defending the previous usual interpretation of the discourse uses these words:

I believe that a different analogy would be more appropriate though. I would compare the KFD to something like the twist at the end of the movie The Sixth Sense. In other words, the KFD reveals startling new information that shifts the lens through which we view everything that came before it. It gives Christian theology a major paradigm shift and an entirely new set of lenses through which to see reality. Rather than forcing the new revelation to fit in with the former views of reality, I think we must rethink our interpretation of all previous revelations based on the KFD. (Sort of like what you had to do with the entire movie when we had our paradigms shifted with the revelation about the Bruce Willis character.)

So when I think of the life of Joseph being lived in crescendo, I think of it concluding with his providing us a massive theological paradigm shift - one that further proved that he was a prophet in the same class as the great prophets of old.

Blake Ostler uses these words to express his increased appreciation of Joseph Smith's life after re-formulating his understanding of the King Follett Discourse and the Sermon in the Grove:

The reading that I give the King Follett Discourse is the view that is consistent with the idea of Joseph Smith’s life as a crescendo. It seems to me that y’all (those disagreeing with his new understanding) see Joseph simply playing a different tune altogether and with a different musical era rather than a symphony that crescendos. Indeed, what we get if y’all are correct is a dissonance on which Joseph Smith ends his life instead of a beautiful symphonic masterpiece that crescendos into the King Follett Discourse as the exclamation point of his life. What y’all give us is a sour note at the end of a beautiful multi-media presentation that ruins the whole thing and says that what went before must just be seen as so much fluff and dressing for the real refrain that starts a new piece. It is kind of like a heavy metal refrain at the end of the moonlight sonata!

I (Steve St. Clair) have discussed this information with Evangelicals, with a very learned elder at the Vineyard Christian Fellowship in Anaheim, and with a very learned member of Mariners Church in Irvine, whom I met at a a recent excellent meeting there to discuss doctrinal differences between Evangelicals and Latter-day Saints. The gentleman at Mariners stayed afterwords for an hour discussing this, and expressed at the end that he thought that the Latter-day Saints moving in this direction would be the resolution of the largest issue between us

Thanks for letting me know what you think.

Love & Thanks,

Steve St. Clair

=====================================

Blake Ostler: Robinson on God and Deification of Humans

FARMS REVIEW OF BOOKS, 1999

I believe that Robinson has elucidated a profound and insightful view of deity and grace. Moreover, his views of the Godhead, human deification, and grace form a complex of interrelated and consistent assertions, i.e., a theology. Here I will summarize his theology of the Godhead and human deification:
The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three separate divine persons who are one Godhead in virtue of "oneness of mind, purpose, power, and intent" (see pp. 128–30).

The Son and the Holy Ghost are subordinate to the Father and dependent on their relationship of indwelling unity with the Father for their divinity—that is, the Father is the source or fount of divinity of the Son and Holy Ghost (see p. 132).

If the oneness of the Son or Holy Ghost with the Father should cease, so would their divinity (see p. 132).

Human beings may become gods through grace by becoming one with the individual divine persons in the same sense as the divine persons are one with each other (see p. 82).

Humans are eternally subordinate to and dependent on their relationship of loving unity with the divine persons for their status as "gods" (p. 86).

By acting as one with the Godhead, divinized humans will share fully in the knowledge, power, and glory of God, but they will never be separately worthy of worship nor will they be a source of divinity of others (see p. 86).

I want to emphasize that Robinson has done an outstanding job in describing how humans become "gods" that is consistent both with Mormon scriptures and the Bible. I believe that the foregoing propositions are supported by the biblical passages quoted by Robinson together with Doctrine and Covenants 93 and the Lectures on Faith. However, his discussion regarding how and when God the Father became "God" leaves a bit to be desired. Let me explain why.

I believe that Latter-day Saints commonly believe that God the Father became God through a process of moral development and eternal progression to godhood. The corollary of this view is that there was a time before God the Father was a god or divine. Robinson correctly points out that no Mormon scripture supports this view; rather, it is an inference from noncanonical statements made by Joseph Smith in the King Follett Discourse and by President Lorenzo Snow, who coined the couplet: "As man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may become" (see p. 87). However, his assertion is questionable that "what God did before the beginning . . . [is] unfortunately not the [subject] of biblical information" (p. 86). Robinson tries to argue that when the scriptures say that God is "eternal," they are usually translating the Hebrew olam or the Greek aion, both of which can mean an indefinite period of time. Robinson is clearly correct that these words decidedly do not mean that God is timeless in the sense that he experiences no temporal succession. However, Robinson's interpretation that they cannot mean without beginning or end as the English word eternal connotes is extremely strained.

Moreover, the problem arises not so much from the Bible, but from Mormon scripture. The Latter-day Saint scriptures say that "there is a God in heaven, who is infinite and eternal, from everlasting to everlasting the same unchangeable God" (D&C 20:17). "[The] Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one God, infinite and eternal, without end" (D&C 20:28). When the term eternal is conjoined with infinite and from everlasting to everlasting, it is pretty clear that it means without beginning or end. The notion of infinity usually means unlimited, without bounds—directly contrary to Robinson's assertion that eternal in the Bible means an age that has a bounded beginning and a bounded end.

Other Mormon scriptures are even clearer: "Behold, I am the Lord God Almighty, and Endless is my name; for I am without beginning of days or end of years; and is not this endless?" (Moses 1:3). "For I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; but he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity" (Moroni 8:18). Further, Joseph Smith declared in 1840 that: "I believe that God is eternal. That He had no beginning, and can have no end. Eternity means that which is without beginning or end." Given this clarification, it seems pretty clear to me that these scriptures mean that God has always been God in the same unchanging sense without beginning. Are the King Follett Discourse and President Snow's couplet simply inconsistent with scripture? It seems to me that several possibilities can be explored here.

For purposes of clarity in this discussion, I will need to make a few distinctions. The word God is equivocal in Mormon thought, and in Christian thought in general, because it can have many different references. For example, the Father, the Son, or the Holy Ghost can each be referred to individually as "God." I suspect that most references to God in the New Testament refer solely to God the Father. However, when I speak of the divine persons individually, I will use the locutions Father, Son, or Holy Ghost. I will use the biblical term Godhead to refer to these three individual divine persons as one God united in indwelling glory, power, dominion, and love. I will use the term God as an equivocal reference where it is unclear whether the reference is to one of the individual divine persons or to the Godhead. I will use the term god(s) to refer to humans who become divine through atoning grace. Finally, I will use the nonscriptural term divine beings to refer to the nonscriptural "gods" who supposedly existed as "gods" before the Father became a divine person. Now for my best crack at responding to this difficult question.

One could understand the scriptural references to an "eternal God" to refer solely to God the Father as an individual divine person. One could take the position that when "God" says he is eternal and without beginning, he is referring merely to the personal existence of the Father as a beginningless spirit or intelligence and not to his status as a divine person. Thus the Father has always existed as an individual without beginning, but he has not always been "God." There was a time when the Father was not divine in this view. However, it need not imply that there were no divine beings before the Father became divine because, as I understand the implications drawn by Latter-day Saints such as Orson Pratt and B. H. Roberts, supposedly an infinite chain of divine beings existed before the Father. It was obedience to these divine beings and their commandments by which the Father became divine in this view, as I understand it. The problem with this view is that it seems to contradict the scriptures that say that "the Lord God Almighty" is without beginning of days. It is also hard to square with the scriptures that assert that God is the same unchanging God from all eternity.

Moreover, this position seems to contradict Robinson's view that it is a divine relationship of loving unity with God the Father that constitutes the source of divinity of the Son, the Holy Ghost, and god(s) (see pp. 86, 130–32). I believe that Doctrine and Covenants 93 teaches that the Son is divine in virtue of his indwelling unity with the Father and that mortals become god(s) by becoming one, just as the Father and the Son are one. In this scripture, the Father is the source or fount of divinity of all other divine beings. If the Father is the source of divinity, then it certainly seems inconsistent to assert that the Father became divine in dependence on some other divine beings, for then the Father is not the ultimate source of divinity. Thus the view that the Father became divine in dependence on other divine beings and was not divine from all eternity is not scriptural—and it seems to contradict both the uniquely Mormon scriptures and the Bible.

On the other hand, one could understand "God from all eternity to all eternity" to refer to the Godhead rather than to any of the individual divine persons separately. It is not true that if there has always been a Godhead that all the divine persons constituting the Godhead have always been divine. Thus, when the Word was made flesh and became mortal by leaving aside the divine unity of complete oneness with the Father and Holy Ghost, the Son "emptied himself" of his divinity and became mortal while the Father and Holy Ghost remained divine as members of the Godhead. What is true of the individual divine persons separately is not necessarily true of the divine persons united as one in the Godhead. For example, atoms of hydrogen and oxygen considered separately have very different properties than two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen joined in one entity in a molecular unity to form water. Analogously, the individual divine persons could have very different properties considered individually than when the Godhead acts, thinks, and wills as one God. Thus, when the scriptures say that "God is from everlasting to everlasting the same unchangeable God," it means that the Godhead has always manifested all the essential properties of godhood (whatever they may be), but the individual divine persons may not always have possessed all the properties of godhood individually. In other words, there was a time when the Father took on himself mortality just as there was a time when the Son became mortal, but there was a Godhead before, during, and after that time.

This latter view seems to be more consistent with the scriptures to me. Moreover, it need not entail that the Father became God after an eternity of not having ever been divine, or that there was a time before which the Father was not divine. Rather, when we say that "as man now is, God once was," it seems more consistent to say that just as the Son was divine before becoming mortal (and was in fact very God as Yahweh of the Old Testament), so also the Father was divine from all eternity without beginning before he became mortal. The scriptures seem to assert that the Godhead is the same unchangeable and everlasting God from all eternity without beginning. References to "the same unchangeable God" in Mormon scripture often explicitly refer in context to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as one God. They also seem to say that although the Son was made flesh, he was an individual divine person before mortality from all eternity. It is often not certain whether scriptures or sermons refer to God the Father or the Son as individual divine persons or to the Godhead. However, if the Son only does what he has seen the Father do before him, as Joseph Smith asserted in the King Follett discourse, then the Father was also divine before becoming mortal just as the Son was before being made flesh. Robinson endorses the idea that we should view the Father's having once been mortal as analogous to the Son's incarnation: "To those who are offended by Joseph Smith's suggestion that God the Father was once, before the beginning, a man, I point out that God the Son was undoubtedly once a man, and that did not compromise his divinity" (p. 91). Of course, this argument is less compelling if the Father was not divine before his incarnation or condescension, for then the parallel with the Son's experience of mortality would be somewhat compromised.

LDS "Gods" as Monarchic Monotheism
Blake Oster's writings explain that what some theologians take for multiple "Gods" in LDS thought are Monotheistic, in a form which he calls "Monarchic Monotheism". It is made up of a "council of the gods", all of whom are clearly completely subordinate to the Most-High God.

He began teaching this in Volume one of his "Exploring Mormon Thought", which has been used in graduate philosophy courses at BYU for some years.

Love and Thanks,
Steve St. Clair

Here is the section on this subject:

=====================================

Subordinate "Gods"
The very term "God" has seemed to include in it the notions of supremacy and perfection. Nevertheless, "God" or "Gods" is found in the Hebrew scriptures referring to beings that are not supreme. For example, there are divinities who are inferior or subordinate or divinities only by permission of the head God. Such divinities were felt to have religious power and authority, but only by participation or permission from the higher God. In the Hebrew scripture, a member of El's court, angels and possibly gods of foreign nations are called gods in this sense. The various mediating principles and half-personified divine attributes found in the Hebrew writings such as debar or the divine word or Wisdom, would belong to this class. In the New Testament, "the Word," and "the Mediator,'' are also used in this sense in the Epistles of Paul and the Gospel of John. In such passages, Christ is viewed as a subordinate being even though he is considered as divine and meriting worship.However, Mormons refer to subordinate "gods" in two senses primarily. First, Mormons speak of the gods in the "council of the gods before the world was." Thus, the Father is referred to as ruling in "the council of Eternal God of all other gods" (D&C 121:32); and the book of Abraham states that "the gods organized and formed the heaven and the earth" (Abraham 4:1). This use of the word "gods" is essentially equivalent to the Old Testament usage that refers to Yahweh or to Yahweh Elohim planning with and ruling over a council of gods who are subordinate to him. As Hans-Joachim Kraus observed:

In the heavenly world Yahweh, enthroned as God and king, is sur- rounded by powers who honor, praise and serve him. Israel borrowed from the Canaanite-Syrian world the well-attested concept of a pan- theon of gods and godlike beings who surround the supreme God, the ruler and monarch. In Psalm 29:1-2 the bene elohim ("sons of God") give honor to Yahweh. They are subordinate heavenly beings stripped of theirpower, who are totally dependent on Yahweh and no longer possess any independent divine nature. In Job and the Psalter, powers of this sort are called bene elohim, elim, or qedushim ("sons of God," "gods," and "holy •ones," Job I:6ff; Ps. 58:1; • 8:5; 86:8). But Yahweh alone is the highest God CElyon) and king. . . . In Psalm 82 we have a clear example of the idea of a "council of gods.". . . "God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holdsjudgment:' The "high- est god" is the judge. The gods (elohim) are his attendants. They are wit- nesses in the forum which Yahweh rules alone, and in which he possesses judicial authority. We might term the cheduth-el "Yahweh's heavenly court." All of the gods and powers of the people are in his service.

In later volumes of his multi-volume work, Blake Ostler will demonstrate conclusively that the beliefs of First-Temple Judaism (the Old Testament period), Second-Temple Judaism, the New Testament period, and early Christianity continue to clearly describe God or the Godhead in identical terms.

Here is an excerpt from his chapter on Second Temple Judaism:

============================

Monotheism and the Hierarchy of Divine Beings in Second Temple Judaism
The view that there was a hierarchy of divine beings, with the one God as the Most High accompanied by a principal divine agent second only in authority to God surrounded by a court of divine beings who serve in the Holy of Holies in the highest heaven was universal in Second Temple Judaism – the Judaism that gave rise to Christianity. The council of gods continued in this form throughout the period that gave rise to Christianity. Monotheism was not threatened by the view that there are numerous divine beings and even those who are called “gods” because it was understood that the Most High was the one God. Moreover, it was commonly believed that the divine glory could be shared by exalted humans. Indeed, it was a very common belief that humans could ascend to the throne of God and be transformed glory for glory into the same divine status as the heavenly beings by participating in the rites of washing, anointing and investiture preparatory to officiating as a priest and king in the heavenly Temple where God resides.

15.1 Jewish Views of the Hierarchy of Divine Beings. Was Second Temple Judaism characterized by the same view of God that was prominent in pre-exilic texts of a head God presiding in the council of the sons of God? On the one hand, there are those who maintain that Second Temple Judaism is characterized by the same view of God(s) that prevailed in the pre-exilic Israel and that I have argued continued even in Second Isaiah and the exile. Notwithstanding language that poetically exaggerates the difference between the gods and Yahweh by asserting that they are nothing and that Yahweh will not even recognize their existence, the notion of the council of Yahweh continued throughout this period. The point at which we leave Israelite monarchical monotheism is thus the very place where we can start to elucidate the beliefs of Second Temple Jews. Larry Hurtado summarizes the evidence regarding Second Temple “Jewish monotheism” as follows:

I propose that Jewish monotheism can be taken as constituting a distinctive version of the commonly-attested belief structure described by Nilsson as involving a "high god" who presides over other deities. The God of Israel presides over a court of heavenly beings who are likened to him (as is reflected in, e.g., the OT term for them "sons of God"). In pagan versions, too, the high god can be described as father and source of the other divine beings, and as utterly superior to them. In this sense, Jewish (and Christian) monotheism, whatever its distinctives, shows its historical links with the larger religious environment of the ancient world. There are distinctives of the Jewish version, however, both in beliefs and, even more emphatically in religious practice. As Nilsson has shown, in pagan versions often the high god is posited but not really known. Indeed, in some cases (particularly in Greek philosophical traditions), it is emphasized that the high god cannot be known. Accordingly, often one does not expect to relate directly to the high god or address this deity directly in worship or petition. In Greco-Roman Jewish belief, however, the high god is known as the God of Israel, whose ways and nature are revealed in the Scriptures of Israel.

John Collins observed: “By nearly all accounts, at the end of the first century C.E. strict monotheism had long been one of the pillars of Judaism.” However, he quickly corrects this mis-perception: “Jewish monotheism, which gave birth to the Christian movement, was not as clear-cut and simple as is generally believed. Several kinds of quasi-divine figures appear in Jewish texts from the Hellenistic period that seem to call for some qualifications of the idea of monotheism.”2 Peter Hayman reached a similar conclusion: “It is hardly ever appropriate to use the term monotheism to describe the Jewish idea of God. From the book of Daniel on, nearly every variety of Judaism maintained the pattern of the supreme God plus his viceregent/vizier.... Needless to say, this situation left many Jews confused, especially about the identity of the number two in the hierarchy.” A similar view, which I propose to defend here, is elucidated by Adela Yarbro Collins. Collins maintains that there may have been some who in fact had a “strict” view of monotheism in Second Temple Judaism, but there was a good deal of diversity in thought. The view that there was only one God who had a fulness of divinity, but that there were also other beings who possessed divinity on a continuum of divinity, with some divine beings have a greater fulness of divinity and others less, was prominent in Second Temple Judaism. Adela Collins stated:

An abstract and strictly monotheistic theology was not, however, shared by all Jewish groups in the first century C.E.. Philo and the Wisdom of Solomon solved the philosophical problem, raised by Greek philosophy, of how a transcendent god could create and interact with the material world by positing an intermediary being, Wisdom or the Logos, whom Philo could describe as “a second god.” The Community of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a Palestinian Jewish ultra-observant group which favored the Hebrew language, could speak of a plurality of ‘gods’ (V X - ’elim). Not only that, but the biblical divine name ‘Elohim’, which is equivalent to the generic Hebrew word for ‘god’ ('th - El), is attributed to an angel in the fragmentary Melchizedek scroll. The evidence implies that the strict monotheism of the Deuteronomic literature had already been ‘stretched’ or even ignored in much of the literature of Second Temple Judaism. Many Jews of that period evidently did not conceive of God as absolutely unique in a metaphysical sense. Instead, they seem to have placed the deity at the top of a pyramid, so to speak, of divine beings who were the agents of God in creating, sustaining and interacting with all things.
==========================
Here is an excerpt his chapter on the New Testament, in which he demonstrates that the relationship between the Father and the Son were seen as a continuation of the "Monarchic Monotheistic" approach:

============================
The Relation of Father and the Son:Christological Monarchic Monotheism in the New Testament
The titles and roles attributed to Christ are given content and function within the culture of honor and shame. Although Christ is divine he is not identical to the one God, the Father. He is given a status of honor by God as the sole mediator through whom all must approach God as patron and king because he completed his mission of redemption that had been assigned to him by the Father. Jesus Christ is thus honored with the highest honor that God as patron and king of the universe can bestow upon him – status at his own right hand as God’s Son and heir to all that God has and is, including receiving the Name that is above all other names. He is recognized as God’s chief agent whose will is one with God’s will and Christ’s acts are honored as the acts of God Himself. God shares his glory and honor with Christ so that Christ is the sole means of salvation as the mediator/broker of relationship with God. Because Christ is the heir to the throne, God actually honors Christ by sharing the kingship and rule of the universe with Christ. Because Christ is the mediator/broker of the covenant relationship that Israel had been elected to in prior times, the only way to approach God is through Christ. Thus, early Christians honored the Father by honoring Christ. Such honor is shown by worshiping the Father through adoration of Christ, and praying to the Father and performing saving rituals such as baptism in the name of Christ. Because Christ is the only mediator/broker of the covenant relationship with the Father, it is necessary to recognize Christ as “the Lord” acclaimed by the one God.

Perhaps the most prominent feature of Christian scriptural interpretation of the relation of the Father to the Son is the practice of identifying Old Testament scriptures that refer to two divine beings – and even two distinct heavenly figures who are both referred to as “God” in Hebrews and the gospel of John. It is a practice that is present throughout the New Testament and became prominent even in later Christian scriptural arguments as demonstrated by Justin Martyr.

16.1 Acts 2:30-36: Christ as Lord at God’s Right Hand. The imagery and language of monarchy and enthronement were the focus of the earliest Christian declarations of Christ’s relation to the one God. We see this intense belief in the exaltation and enthronement of Jesus in the Christian reliance on the declaration of Psalm 110:1-2 that Christ had been exalted and honored to sit enthroned at the right hand of God as “Lord”:

30.But since [King David] was a prophet, and knew that God had sworn an oath to him, that he would set one of his descendants upon his throne;
31. He foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that neither was he abandoned to the netherworld, nor did his flesh see corruption.
32. God raised this Jesus; of this we are all witnesses.
33. Exalted at the right hand of God, he received the promise of the holy Spirit from the Father and poured it forth, as you [both] see and hear.
34. For David did not go up into heaven: but he himself said:
Ps. 110 ‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
35. until I make your enemies your footstool.”’
36. Therefore let the whole house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus Christ whom you crucified.. (Acts. 2:30-36 NAB)

In this remarkable passage we have an echo of the belief of the earliest Christians stated and summarized publicly for the first time after the resurrection. Jesus is the Messiah as the descendant of David. God the Father has vindicated Jesus’s claim to be king through the resurrection which culminated in the Father’s exalting him and placing him on a throne at His own right hand. It is of the utmost importance to note that in exalting Christ as his co-regent and newly coronated king of Israel, the Father has also given Jesus Christ an honorific title that alluded to God’s own name – the name “Lord.” Whenever the word YHWH appeared in the Old Testament Hebrew texts, the text was read aloud by substituting “Adonai,” the Hebrew honorific title meaning “Lord.” The Greek translation known as the Septuagint or LXX translated both YHWH and Adonai as Kyrios (Aramaic Merah), meaning “Lord.” For those in the audience listening to this claim, they could only have understood that Jesus was coronated at his resurrection with the greatest honor that can be bestowed on a person – the honor of being made an heir and given the name of the benefactor and king. “Lord” functions in the dual capacity having connotations both as a title of honor and also as sharing the divine name because Christ has been declared to be God’s heir and son. In the context of the covenant with David, those present heard a claim that Jesus is the heir to the throne of David and can be called “Lord” because of this inheritance. However, they also would have heard more – Christ shares the divine glory because he shares the divine name behind the title “Lord,” Adonai (Aramaic merah). Christ is recognized as a king and “Lord” second only to God because he is enthroned on his right hand – the place of the co-regent or vizier to the king.1 To be placed at the right hand of the patron king was the highest honor that could be bestowed upon a member of the kingdom. However, Christ is not merely the vizier or co-regent; he is the heir to the throne and recipient of the divine name “Lord” – the one who now reigns with God. The Father is not abdicating the throne of heaven to his son as a successor heir; rather, he is sharing the co-rule of heavens and earth with Jesus Christ.

This allusion to Psalm 110 is all the more remarkable because its use appears to be utterly unique in the literature of Second Temple Judaism. However, Psalm 110 is the Old Testament text most often cited throughout the New Testament and which was used by virtually all early Christian writers in the first 100 years to explain the status of Jesus and his relation to the Father.3 The interest that Psalm 110 held for the earliest disciples of Christ was that it declared Christ at once to be an heir to the throne of David and also raises him to the right hand of the throne of God. However, it also served the Christian message because it referred to two “Lords” whereby the Lord God honored another as “Lord” by bestowing on Christ the very honorific title by which God referred to himself. The notion suggested by Bauckham that allusions to Psalm 110 envision Christ on the very throne of God misrepresents Christ’s status. Christ is not seated on the throne of God; rather, Christ is divine vizier exalted by God to sit at his right hand.4 Bauckham misses the fact that Psalm 110 was used by Christians precisely because Yahweh, “the Lord,” exalts another as “my Lord.” It is the very fact that two distinct figures are referred to that made it amenable to Christian exegesis.